Empire

by John Connolly

  That’s when Tanit stalked in, looking livid.

  “Sarea! Nemein! Dessa!” she spat. Instantly the rabbit-creature flopped back down and fell still as her three friends spun around and stared at their leader, slack-jawed. “I told you to wait for me outside the dining hall. Where were you?”

  “But . . . but . . . Tanit?” Sarea turned around slowly and stared at Ani, sitting on the chair behind her, exactly where she’d seen Tanit only a split second before, her legs crossed neatly at the ankle, her hands folded meekly in her lap, just as Tanit’s had been. She and Nemein looked between Tanit and Ani again, clearly baffled, but now Dessa started to laugh.

  “Oh dear. Oh goodness, I can’t believe I fell for that.”

  Tanit strode toward the chuckling Dessa and grabbed her face between her fingers.

  “You laugh at me, Uludess? You? At me?”

  “No! Not at you, Tanit—never! I was laughing because of what Ani just did. She clouded! She became you. She was so convincing . . .”

  Thona materialized next to them then, and immediately Tanit let go of Dessa’s face, but there were telltale pink fingerprints on her cheeks: in her rage she had scorched Dessa’s flesh.

  “What is the meaning of this?” said Thona.

  “It’s Ani,” said Tanit, turning and staring at the younger girl. “Apparently she pretended to be me.”

  “You did what, Ani Cienda?” Thona asked, her voice thick with incredulity.

  “I clouded, Sister Thona. I made them think I was Tanit.”

  “Why? You know that it is against the rules to practice unsanctioned on one another. Explain yourself.”

  Ani looked mortified. “Well, it’s just that if the others are expecting me to cloud, I can never fool them. I wanted to see if I could do it when they weren’t expecting me to.”

  “You little lowlife,” said Sarea. “Who do you think you are?”

  “How dare you impersonate Tanit?” interrupted Nemein, elbowing Sarea aside. “You! A mere first year, pretending to be Tanit. I’ll deal with you.”

  “Step down, Nemein,” said Thona loudly. “I am in charge here. I shall take the necessary action, thank you.”

  She turned to Ani, who was shrinking into herself on the chair, pale but defiant. “Ani, come. We must report this incident to Grandmage Oriel immediately. She will be most interested to hear of it.”

  “But it’s not fair,” said Ani, her voice catching. “How can I improve when you’re always all blocking me? How can I demonstrate what I’m capable of when you won’t let me? It’s not like I did any harm. In the real world, out of this classroom, no one’s going to be blocking me. They won’t even know I’m doing anything.”

  “Ani, come!” said Thona.

  “No,” said Tanit. “Wait, Ani’s right. Of course she is. We’ve had so much practice blocking clouders, thanks to Dessa. And we’re always primed to block Ani before she begins. It’s not fair on her—she barely gets a chance.”

  “But she pretended to be you, Tanit,” said Sarea.

  “Of all people,” added Nemein unnecessarily.

  Quietly, Thona stepped to one side and folded her arms, watching her students curiously to see how this would pan out.

  “I’m aware of that, thank you very much,” said Tanit. “It was audacious of her, granted, and I’m a little affronted by her cheek”—she looked at Ani sternly as she said this, and Ani turned away, her ears reddening—“yet I also think it was a stroke of genius. After all, she made those I am closest to believe she was me. Does that not show remarkable skill, which has only been revealed now that she allowed herself to spread her wings? Wings we’d clipped, I might add. I’m rather proud of her actually. And I suspect this skill could be put to very good use. I, for one, will find it most helpful.”

  “How so?” said Sarea, pouting.

  “Well, I’ve always wished I could be in two places at once. Now I can be, or at least I can appear to be. How can that not be a blessing? Think about it, my beloved bone crusher. Just imagine what you could get up to in private if everyone thought you were elsewhere.”

  “You mean like this?” said Sarea, her voice harsh, and the rabbit-creature behind her was instantly torn in two. Dessa, who was closest, squealed as a smattering of yellow gore splashed across her robes.

  Tanit smiled. “Oh, Sarea, don’t feel bad. I suspect I also would have been fooled had she pretended to be you. She’ll just have to promise never to impersonate any of us again without our permission. All right, Ani?”

  Ani looked up eagerly.

  “Because if she does, then we may decide to use our skills on her without her knowledge too.”

  Tanit stepped past Nemein and looked down at Ani, her face a benign mask, but Ani felt a burning heat rising from the base of her spine.

  “You do understand, don’t you, my dearest Ani? Please say you do. After all, I have grown so very fond of you.”

  “Yes, I do, Tanit. I’m truly sorry.”

  The burning faded away, and Ani wondered if she’d imagined it as Tanit bent down and embraced her, folding her soft and warm against her body.

  “It’s okay, darling,” Tanit whispered. “I couldn’t stay angry with you, because you know I just love you to bits. And I certainly want you on my side—that was some mind trick!”

  And this time the warmth Ani felt rising inside her was definitely not pain, but pure pleasure.

  “Okay. Everyone, back to work,” said Thona, moving forward again, nodding in satisfaction. “You sorted it out among yourselves, which is just the sort of teamwork we like to see. Thank you, Tanit—you proved yourself to be a wise mediator, yet again. Ani, you can stay here. I shall of course report everything that has transpired to Grandmage Oriel immediately, but I suspect she will feel as I do on the matter: that valuable lessons have been learned. While I am gone, continue to practice among yourselves, please.”

  The rest of the class passed in a blur of shaky pleasure for Ani. Sarea and Nemein seemed willing to forgive her at Tanit’s command, and Dessa kept grinning at her and squeezing her elbow conspiratorially.

  “Wait till you tell Syl—she’ll be so pleased,” she whispered under her breath.

  Ani wondered aloud if she dared.

  “Of course you must,” said Dessa. “It’s important that she feels included.”

  • • •

  Later that day Ani felt the warm glow fading as she faced her oldest friend in their quarters, and she found herself growing angry and wishing she hadn’t taken Dessa’s advice.

  “But I have genuine talent,” she protested as Syl stared at her balefully.

  “And they know that now—and they know what to expect from you too,” said Syl. “Don’t you see? You show them all your cards and there’s no way you can win the game.”

  “Really, Syl? Is it necessary to be quite so trite and annoying?”

  “I’m just saying that maybe you should be more careful, Ani. We don’t know what we’re up against yet.”

  “I think what you mean is that you don’t know what you’re up against. I know precisely what I’m doing.”

  “Do you really?” snarled Syl.

  “Yes. They’re my friends. They support me and encourage me. But you—you just want to flatten me.”

  “It’s not like that. I just don’t want you to be used by them.”

  “What? Any more than I was used by your precious Meia? If she hadn’t taken advantage of me like she did, forcing me to cloud the minds of guards, none of this would ever have happened.”

  “But she was using you for good! She was saving Paul and Steven from execution.”

  “No, saving them was merely incidental to her. She was playing her games, and we were just pawns. I can’t see how you don’t see that?”

  “Her aims were pure, Ani, whatever her methods. But we know the
aims of the Sisterhood to be much darker than that.”

  “Do we really? I thought we wanted to find out what was going on, but it seems to me that you made up your mind long before we even got here.”

  “Oh, Ani, have you really forgotten?”

  Ani was enraged now. “I’ve forgotten nothing, Syl. I remember every moment of it. I dream about it at night. But by day I want to move on—to make the most of myself and my talents—and you don’t. And you won’t.”

  Her voice assumed a self-righteous tone. “Sometimes I think you’re just jealous of my abilities, because here I’m seen as the special one. Not you.”

  “Oh, really?” exploded Syl. “Is that what you think of me, Ani Cienda? Here, then—”

  She tore into the kitchen and took a plate from the cupboard. Ani watched, mystified, as Syl slammed the plate down in front of her and put her hand on it.

  “Go on,” she said, “make me burn.”

  “Syl?”

  “Just do it. Please.”

  Ani shuffled in her seat, her lips set in a stubborn line.

  “Now, Ani. I’m begging you. Please. Make the plate hot. Or can’t you?”

  “Fine!” said Ani finally. She sat up straight and glared at Syl, her eyes steely. “But remember, you asked.”

  Syl felt the plate beneath her hand grow warm. She stared back at Ani, her features blank. The plate turned cold. She watched her oldest friend squinting with concentration, and the veins in her temples stood out, but still the plate was cold. Finally, a trickle of blood spilled from Ani’s nostril.

  “No!” she said, distressed, trying to cover her nose, and her eyes filled with horror as blood flowed faster onto her robes, becoming a dramatic spurt that had her grabbing for a discarded towel and holding it over her face.

  “Maybe,” said Syl softly, “just maybe, Ani, other people have skills too.”

  Ani looked at her over the towel, her eyes wide with hurt. After some time she pulled it away, smearing blood across her cheeks.

  “You have skills, Syl? And you didn’t tell me?”

  Now Syl felt angry with herself. This was her secret, her trump card, and in her anger and pride she’d behaved rashly. At least Ani had only seen the surface, and not what lay beneath. Not the horror that lay beneath.

  “Well, not really skills,” she said, looking down so that her hair covered her face, fumbling for words, finding the right lie. “But I can sort of block people a bit, you know. Just a bit.”

  Ani sniffed loudly once more, and then she found her smile, and she reached for her friend’s hand.

  “But that’s wonderful, Syl! You have skills! I always hoped you might if you just opened yourself up to them. What else can you do?”

  “Nothing much. That’s it, really.”

  “Oh, Syl, why don’t we tell them? You may have hidden gifts too! I’m sure with practice and the right teaching you could enhance your skills. You may find that you’re capable of much more than you think. I mean, look how far I’ve come. Look what I did today! Imagine what we could do together.”

  In her peripheral vision Syl could see the cold plate spotted with Ani’s blood, and she felt wretched. This was so like Ani, to be delighted that Syl might be able to join her in her rarefied world, eager to include her and build her up. If Ani only knew the half of it . . .

  “No, Ani, I can’t do that. Please don’t say anything. I’m here to investigate the Sisterhood, remember, not to help them. And I could never be on the same side as Syrene, or Tanit and Sarea. They’re something else. They’re not like me, and I don’t believe that they’re like you either. And we still don’t know what the Sisterhood plans to do with you all, do we?”

  Ani snatched her hand away. “I guess it’s too much for you to believe they’re just making us into the best we can possibly be?”

  “Ani, I think that’s too much for anyone to believe. If Elda was still among us, I know she’d back me up. But please, as my best friend—as my only friend in this wretched place—keep this to yourself, okay? You have to hide this from them. You have to conceal it behind a cloud.”

  Ani tutted.

  “Oh, if you insist. But I’m really not convinced they were involved in whatever happened to Elda. It doesn’t make sense, and if you only saw how kind Tanit can be . . .”

  She remembered again how Tanit had embraced her and said that she loved her, and she gave a pleasurable shiver at the memory—and yet it was so very complicated loving two people who seemed bent on destroying each other. Syl and Tanit were like different sides of the same coin: so close, yet never really seeing each other. It drove Ani demented with distress.

  “But Dessa is your friend too, isn’t she?” Ani continued, casting around for positives. “She was so excited for me today, and for you to hear about it.”

  “Yeah, well, Dessa doesn’t seem that bad.”

  “None of them are, really. Sarea and Nemein are a bit difficult, but once they like you they’ll do anything for you. Maybe you’ll get to know them all better at the ball.”

  Syl looked at her friend and nodded, but inside she felt terribly sad.

  “Well, you never know what may happen at the ball, Ani. You just never know.”

  CHAPTER 60

  Three red shuttles were waiting to take the debutantes to the ball, each bearing the great red eye of the Sisterhood. The first one would hold Oriel, muted and sullen in classical dress robes, loath to leave her rock, and with her a few more senior Sisters whom Syl did not know. Alongside them would travel a brace of younger full Sisters clearly destined for marriage, if the Sisterhood had its way. They were dressed in every manner of sumptuous finery, in shades of a deep and glorious sunset—red but also gold, bronze, orange, purple, magenta, soft pink, and luminous black—uniformly trimmed with the signature scarlet of the Nairenes. All had glossy hair worn short and studded with gems, feathers, and sharp stars of cold metal. Each also wore a ring featuring a solitary outsized ruby, a gift from the Order that had just been presented to them, and they were admiring them happily, all bright eyes, flashing nails, and brittle, sparkling smiles. Together they were exquisite, and terrifying.

  The second ship would take the Half-Sisters, ebbing and flowing like a tropical sea in their water-colored gowns, with their own flotsam of jade dragonfly wings, emerald crystals, and blown glass beads of lightest green. The Gifted Half-Sisters were recognizable in the throng by the sapphires strung through their hair and the royal-blue silk that wove patterns on their lagoon-green hemlines.

  The last ship, the smallest of the three, was reserved for the Gifted Novices, resplendent in rich blue, who were to be chaperoned by Thona and Cale, as well as a handful of seamstresses, jewelers, and hairstylists, all in red work robes, brought along just in case their expertise was required.

  And then there was Syl, the lone figure in yellow. She stood by herself at the back of the third group, watching guardedly as Ani shimmied and bobbed ahead of her, giggling with the other Gifted, hopping delicately from one foot to the other with excitement. She was clutching hands with Tanit to her left and Iria on her right, but it was Tanit to whom she cleaved closest.

  It wasn’t Ani’s fault that Syl stood alone, for she had been steered to Tanit’s side by Thona—“The Gifted always stand together,” Thona said—while Cale sent Syl to the rear of the party, vaguely apologetic yet firm.

  One of the stylists had arranged rows of crystals under Ani’s eyes, curling them upward and twisting them into her hairline, and they caught the light, throwing sparkling shards across her cheeks and brow, only adding to her radiance. From her hair tumbled ribbons of blue. In contrast, Syl felt dull and wrong, and she knew Cale was right to move her out of the way, for she stood out like a smear of cheap yellow mustard plopped onto the tablecloth at a grand banquet. Perhaps it was the flowing cape that had arrived with her gown, which had seemed so ele
gant as she dressed in her room, but out here, amid all this splendor, made her feel like an entrant in a sack race. Even her treasured leather-and-amber belt now seemed coarse and crude, as if she’d dressed for another function entirely. Her only other adornment was a tortoiseshell clasp in her hair, a dated trinket that a stylist had clipped in place almost as an afterthought. For Syl there were no jewels, no gems, no family heirlooms set aside. However, around her neck she wore Elda’s locket, hidden on its long cord. Absently, she now took it out and fiddled with it for want of something better to do with her hands.

  No, it wasn’t Ani’s fault that they were separated. Syl knew that. Still, yet again she felt Ani didn’t need to look quite as happy as she did.

  • • •

  Because of where she stood in line Syl was last to board the final craft, so she was seated right at the back again on a single chair, far from the windows, pressed up against various boxes and packing cases loaded on by the stylists. She was only grateful that she’d brought a book, but she didn’t have much chance to read because, soon after takeoff, Dessa slid over and plopped herself down on the floor at Syl’s feet.

  “Hey, pretty,” she said.

  “Oh, please,” replied Syl, looking down at the older girl, whose purple eyes were made even more striking by the amethyst shimmer of her elegantly cut gown. “You look beautiful, Dessa.”