“It is a part of it,” he said. “And in return you will help me. What I told Valanir Ocune still holds—I am deeply uneasy in the Zahra. Something there evades me. But first I must earn your trust. So I propose an exchange. To begin anew.”
Her eyebrows arched. “What sort of exchange?”
“A secret.” He spoke low; she had to lean close to hear him. “For a secret.” In the face of her silence, he went on. “If I don’t understand the shadow that surrounds you, it will block any work we attempt together. But to cement our trust I will tell you … a thing no one knows about me. Not even Valanir Ocune, or Eldakar.”
“And it will be something true,” she said. “On your honor?”
“On mine and my family’s honor, yes.” His voice low, almost a growl, on the word family.
It was truth that she was hearing, Lin was almost sure. But there was another factor more decisive. It was due to Zahir Alcavar that Eivar had reacquired its enchantments at all. He was, in a real way, the reason she was here. Without his help she, Valanir, Darien—they would have been powerless to stop the thing that had possessed Nickon Gerrard.
“I will tell you,” she said. And as the sky dimmed and stars emerged she told Zahir Alcavar what so far only the Seer who’d made her knew: about her dream, and the spell, and the wizard’s words to her. The silver amulet on its chain. When she was done she discovered, with bewilderment, that Zahir held her hand. She was too surprised to pull away.
“This hurts to hear,” he said. “Lady, a light shines from you. Even when you tell of this … thing that is happening to you. Do you know that?”
She shook her head. Disengaged her hand, finally, and crossed both in her lap. “Words,” she said with narrowed eyes. “Words like that. Save them for the girls in night gardens.” Not her words, her images. Night gardens. So much she knew of men from Edrien—how they thought, what they did—that was interesting, but also, in some ways, distressing to know. She shook her head again. “That was ill-spoken,” she said. “You were being kind, and I…”
“I was not being kind,” he said, in the low growling voice of before. Quickly he rose, as from an urgent need to stand. Going to a cabinet, he removed a jeweled and enameled box. From the box he drew a taper, which he lit, and with this kindled one of the brass lamps set in the wall. And then another, until all five were dancing. As he returned, Lin thought she saw a glistening in his eyes, and he turned from her a moment with a tightened jaw. When he looked at her again, however, he had mastered emotion. “Does Valanir know?”
“Only he,” she said. “And now you.”
“It is … unbearable,” he said. Quietly, as if to himself. “How can Valanir bear it.”
“Please,” she said. “It does no good to talk about it. Let’s proceed with our agreement. Your secret, now.”
Zahir looked rueful. “It’s not … has not the magnitude of yours,” he said. “Though my life hangs on it. Here it is, then: it is true I am Ramadian. But not from the capital, as people believe. Some know I was the son of a lute-carver and singer. It is true that my father made instruments for the court of Ramadus, and in girlhood my mother sang there. It is said … was said … that I have her eyes. But in later years they moved away, to a smaller city, where lands were available and a lute-carver might also have a garden, some horses. We lived … I am from Vesperia.”
“Vesperia.” She leaned forward. “The city that vanished?” She stared at him. “The tale has it that none survived.”
“There was one,” he said. Slowly, as if testing each word. She watched as he hesitated. A long hesitation before he spoke. He is afraid, she realized, and wondered if this secret was true, indeed. “There was one,” he said again, and this time it was clear he had made the decision to tell her—or knew it was too late to do otherwise. “One boy, out in the hills that night. Fleeing punishment for disobedience … which I regret to say was not unusual.” He was trying to smile, but it faded.
Lin felt her heart constrict. “Just now, you swore … on your family’s honor.”
He nodded. “They are gone.”
“I am sorry,” she said. Vesperia was a mystery from before she was born, but she recalled visitors from Kahishi speaking of it to her family. The destruction had all the appearances of an earthquake, but the Ramadus court Magicians judged magic as the cause. For years it was dangerous to be known as a Magician within the borders, or in any land allied with Ramadus. Some Magicians, on suspicion alone, had met ugly deaths. All this consigned by now to history. But a poisoned magic was said to linger in the ruins. The city was not rebuilt, and looters, if caught, were executed. Anything taken from the place was thought cursed. And of course, that would have included people, if any survivors had been found.
“How old were you?”
“I was eight,” he said. “It’s a miracle I wasn’t killed or kidnapped in the hills. I ran. An old farm couple took me in, eventually. Somehow I knew even then not to reveal my origins. They were grateful for a strong boy to help with chores. I still think of them—they were kind to me. The woman, especially, was kind. Of course, they are long gone.”
She bowed her head. They sat quietly. Seagulls called from the riverbank. Lin found she was sitting gripping her upper arms, as if for comfort. She had no words of comfort. I am the last, too, she wanted to say, but knew it was different. A different kind of sadness.
“My life is in your hands,” said Zahir at last. His eyes were fringed with dark lashes, she saw now; a trace of the boy who had been. She recalled the melody he was singing the night they met. From my childhood. Is it sad?
“If anyone were to discover my history, I would be run out of the Zahra,” he said. “In truth, I think Vesperia did affect me. My—affinity—for magic began after that. Through the years I hid where I was from. It became easier once I educated myself, made a name in the capital as a lutenist and then, later, a Magician. Once I became someone else. It became easier, with time, to tell no one.”
“No one,” she murmured. So long, to carry a secret like that. It felt unreal, to speak of cataclysm, and her own death, as they drifted on a royal barge in the silence of evening.
“No one,” he said. “And now you.”
* * *
WITH time until they were to disembark and with his orders in mind, Ned Alterra sought the queen. The barge rocked with his tread on the boards, reminding him he was not on firm ground. As if he needed reminding. The Court Poet might be mad, their lives were at risk, and now he’d been assigned to discover more about a woman of whom the rumors were not encouraging. In the guard’s tent when they were not making vulgar jokes about Rihab Bet-Sorr—coded, of course, and dared only over too many mugs of beer—they hinted at her lurid reputation. She was insatiable, they murmured, clearly regretting this quality did not extend to themselves. Ned was sober enough to realize such talk amounted to treason, could mean death to the queen if it was true. And if she was capable of such betrayal, he reflected, what else might she do? In which case Lin was right to set him to discover what he could.
The breeze wafting toward the barge brought the scent of orange trees. From the reeds along the shore, the guttural scream of a heron. Ned found his mind drifting back to his travels, and back. He remembered sadness. It was strange to look back on a distant self. Those feelings could still arise in him, though without the quicksand pull they’d once had.
He was shocked to find her alone, on a balcony below deck. The queen was usually surrounded by her women. But not now. Her back was to him as she gazed towards the mountain. Like her husband, she was attired in robes of state, thick and heavy and so beaded with gems he wondered how she could move. Her hair elaborately braided. In a cold voice and in his tongue she said, without turning, “What is it, Lord Alterra?”
The hairs on the back of his neck prickled, as before an attack.
“I hope my odor is not displeasing, your excellence,” he said, trying for humor to cover his confusion. “I know not else how you guessed
it was me.”
She turned her head, chin high, her expression unmoved. Her lips stained the color of blood. “Do you customarily come upon women in this way?”
“Not customarily,” he said. “I was looking for … quiet. There are a great many people above deck. Sometimes I find myself inclined to get away.” As he said it, he realized it bore a ring of truth because in part, it was true. He had been looking for her. He also longed for solitude, away from the invisible, tensed strings that seemed to pull him in all directions above deck. The scrutiny, meaningful gestures, veiled manipulations among which, by contrast, Lin Amaristoth seemed to thrive. “May I join you?”
“I wish to be alone,” she said. “But we might meet later, if you wish. Tonight.” She was looking him full in the eye. Her eyes were an unusual color, so dark a blue they were almost black. Her neckline dipped low, what it revealed like dented cream. “You are so pale, Lord Alterra,” she purred, with no trace of a smile. “I trust you are well?”
Ned felt heavy and light at the same time. I can’t do this. But found himself saying, “Of course I will meet you. I await your instructions, my lady.” Good, he imagined from Lin, her fevered eyes approving, and felt a returning surge of sadness. Anything he did to imperil his life with Rianna Gelvan could plunge him right back, he realized. That distant self was, it turned out, only as far as the next disaster.
A disaster that might be approaching now, with the ring the queen pressed into his hand. She did so without touching his skin. Ned stared at the inside of his palm. The ring was gold and set with pearls that took the shape of a swan, with a single amber eye. It seemed large for her small hand. “Show this at the seventh arch in the fifth corridor, three bells from moonrise,” she said. “I think I might like you, Ned Alterra. Time and your performance will tell. Now go. I would be alone with my thoughts.”
As Ned stumbled back the way he’d come, he felt as if he pushed through the mire of his own self-loathing. The ring clutched in his hand coated with sweat from his palm.
He had a choice. Who was to say what his desires were, his true motives? These were buried beyond consciousness, even for Ned who thought he knew his own darkness. I have a duty, Ned tried to tell Rianna Gelvan in his mind. But knew he would never tell her. The unsaid would consume him, perhaps forever. Yet to lose her would be worse.
As he surfaced above deck a wind swept over Ned and he tipped back his head to receive it, to be cleansed. But such ideas were illusory. They were nearly ashore now. The walls that soared in great curves around the mountain were painted crimson with the descending sun. The Tower of Glass like a bloodied sword. So Ned saw it when first they approached, and would afterward remember.
CHAPTER
6
THE servant kept refilling her cup; Lin didn’t stop him. She even allowed his hand, muscled and smooth, to linger against her own. It was good wine. The servants appeared to have been selected for their beauty. Most servants and soldiers who served the Zahra had been captured, and traded, from lands far away. Among these lands was Sandinia, where a man could ride for weeks and see nothing but oceans of grass, overrun with wild horses. These men and women tended to be fair-skinned, strong. The servant who filled Lin’s cup was one such, his hair drawn back with a jeweled clip, his jaw of impressive prominence. She registered serene approval, and drank some more.
An extensive ceremony had followed their arrival at the Zahra. Each courtier was presented, beginning with the Seven Magicians, in order of rank. The five beneath Zahir and Tarik, who had remained behind at the palace, were disconcertingly young; at least one seemed to regard Lin with a certain trepidation. That was the youngest, who looked to be no older than nineteen, with eyes like a doe. And then the rest of the court—hangers-on, mostly, in Lin’s perfunctory estimation. People who gravitated to where the power was, made a trade of gifts and flattering words. She had seen enough of that herself, in Tamryllin.
The difference—or one of them—was that Eldakar commanded a significant army, swelled in ranks through the years by slaves. Added to this were the forces of the viziers in the provinces and the proud lords of the north, in Almyria. Tamryllin had nothing like such a force.
Eldakar himself presented Lin with a gift of welcome, a bracelet of gold links set with emeralds. “This belonged to my mother, Seiran Evrayad,” he said. “Here bestowed as a token of our friendship with King Harald.”
She allowed Garon Senn to fasten the heavy chain to her wrist. As he did, she kept her eyes on Eldakar, her countenance impassive. Not troubling to look at the extravagant thing as Garon fastened it. It would be beneath her, and the dignity of her office, to appear dazzled. Eivar had its pride. As the ceremony resumed, she saw Zahir Alcavar watching her and wondered if he guessed her thoughts; there was an understanding in his eyes, sharp, yet almost—was the word tender? She thought of Valanir Ocune, wistful as he watched her across the room from bed. Knowing she was changed, not yet knowing why.
She was what she needed to be. Wasn’t that true?
The throne room was lit for evening with spheres that hung from gilded ropes. The chair itself was of gold and surrounded with a forest of pillars: these alternating onyx black, crystal white. The east wall opened out to a view of the gardens. Lin could imagine how sunlight, bent and concentrated by the crystal, would transform the room by day. She had heard the pillars were deliberately placed to bend sunlight towards the throne. Late afternoon, the radiance would be overwhelming.
The floor was a great mosaic of red and gold tile, the falcon again. Clustered around it the sigils of the houses that served under House Evrayad, those of the provinces and northern marches. A gazelle, a leopard, a wolf, a steed—east, west, north, south. And another, beneath these: a gryphon rampant. That one, she did not recognize.
Following these ceremonies came the banquet, where she was seated with the highest officials. By this time Lin felt strangely off-balance, as if she veered close to losing herself. It was not the wine. That was to make her forget. If she could forget, she could continue pretending, for the good of the court of Tamryllin.
Or that was the theory, Lin thought with a crooked smile, and drank. She didn’t think she had mistaken the touch of the servant, though he would almost certainly have to be a castrate. What, then, was it—had he been sent to service her, spy on her? A thought that could have been depressing, but was not. Can you vanish my dreams? she thought idly as she smiled into the blue eyes of the young man. A smile with teeth.
Lin turned to Ned Alterra beside her after the servant had gone. “They are extraordinarily considerate of our—needs, here, aren’t they?” He looked distracted, said, “Sorry? What do you mean?” and she realized he was unaware of the little byplay going on with the discreet touches, the constant refilling of her cup. There was none more observant than Ned when it came to such details, and he was by now as finely attuned to her moods and behaviors as if they were lovers, so Lin was surprised by this.
“Ned,” she said, tugging his sleeve.
He turned from his plate, which he’d barely touched. He was tearing a haunch of bread to pieces without eating it; he stopped, as if he hadn’t known he was doing it until she said his name. “Yes? My lady.”
“Is there something you ought to tell me?”
It was a long table and the clamor of conversation and tableware allowed them to speak without being overheard. Across from them, Tarik Ibn-Mor was eyeing them with more than passing interest. She wondered if, by some magic, he could hear what they said.
Ned stole a glance at the royal table where sat the king and queen. He looked miserable. “I will report my progress,” he said flatly. “For now, all you need know is I am carrying out your instructions.”
It took her a moment to put it together. Then she understood, and the blanketing comfort of wine was abruptly gone. “Ned, I said ‘befriend,’ not—”
He was cold as he cut her off. “I know what you said. So do you. I will have to live with what I do. Will you then
disavow it—what I do for you?”
It wounded her, more than she would have expected. She knew they both had the same thought: Rianna. She closed her eyes. He was right. She had been trying to deny what she herself had bid him, make him shoulder the responsibility alone. He deserved better of her. “I will do no such thing,” she said. “You know you are of great value to me, Ned.” There is little I would not do for you, she thought, but did not say. It would have embarrassed him.
But perhaps he saw it in her face. He nodded, turned away. Seized a chunk of bread, dipped it in the fig sauce on his plate, took a bite. All the while looking as if he took poison.
She thought of Valanir and how angry she’d been with him years ago—for the strings he’d pulled, the decisions he’d made. I understand, she wanted to tell him now. I think.
The blue-eyed servant was back, this time presenting her with a rolled parchment. Its red wax seal was stamped with a gryphon: Ah, she thought, so that is it. After she read it she looked up, saw Zahir Alcavar was watching.
* * *
“THANK you,” he said, “for agreeing to meet me at this hour.” They stood in a courtyard at the foot of a winding stair.
Lin shrugged. The wine sang in her blood. “I don’t sleep.” She had passed several courtyards since arriving. The one near her bedchamber was lined with orange trees in bloom, overpowering in their scent, their dropped petals like a white satin carpet. This courtyard had a fountain at the center, around which coiled vines of white, starlike flowers that just hours earlier had been buds. They had since opened to the moon.
“These flowers, then, are like you,” said Zahir as he guided her to the stair.
She said, “You must be popular in the night gardens, my lord,” and he laughed.
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