Well, he could have provided his arm, at least. An acid thought. She swayed, nearly collapsed into a pillar. Could have let me die with some support.
It almost made her laugh, that thought. As if it mattered, in death, whether she was clutching at the arm of her man or sprawled on the mosaic tile.
I didn’t get to say goodbye, she thought, as a new, even more frigid wave cut off the air from her chest. But that was inane, really. This she thought as she took slow, labored breaths. She knew herself, didn’t she? She hated saying goodbye.
She also hated the idea of being found crumpled in a sad heap on the mosaic tile, in a dress she didn’t like, in a palace far from home. She’d brought it on herself. Valanir had urged her not to come. Had foreseen this sort of thing, probably.
It was when Lin was gripping a pillar for support, wrapping herself around its glassy solidity, that she began to notice a new sensation. A burning around her eye. It went from strange to agonizing in a matter of moments. The Seer’s mark was like flame, hotter and hotter, even as chill waves ran through her. She bit her lip, hard, until she tasted blood.
She stayed there. Lin stayed draped around the pillar for what seemed a long time, limp as a fish, before she realized that no new waves had come. The burning around her eye had subsided. Her breath still came in gasps but this might have been the aftereffects; she wasn’t sure. She was afraid to let go of the pillar and be knocked to her knees.
More time passed. In the distance she heard the sounds of the meal down the hall: the hum of conversation, the clatter of the kitchens. A door opened, and the smell of saffron and rosemary along with the noise of the banquet table drifted, briefly, out into the hall. The door closed again. It was all returning to her awareness, drawing nearer, when before it had seemed to fall away. She heard people talking. The clinking of tableware. A patter of footsteps, probably a servant. In time her breathing slowed. She put a hand to her chest; the frantic pounding was less. When at last Lin disengaged herself from the pillar and stood, unsupported, the attack—whatever it was—seemed to have ended.
She smoothed the folds of the green dress with hands that still spasmed, as if she was chilled. She could think of only one reason for what had happened. A penumbra of the fate she’d glimpsed in dreams.
Even so, a voice within muttered uneasy dissent. The Seer’s mark … like fire. What had the mark to do with Darien’s spell … or for that matter, with Edrien?
Without having necessarily made a decision Lin found herself making her way to the courtyard of the night-blooming flowers. She met no one on the way. She was still shaking, subtly, like a branch stirred in a breeze. The mark of the Seer. Given her by Valanir Ocune. They were linked, weren’t they? She had known the day he’d arrived in Tamryllin.
The First Magician was already in the courtyard, as if she’d summoned him. All life drained from his face. There was a world of meaning in that face.
“No.” She was dizzy again. Of a different kind.
“Valanir Ocune, and Almyria,” he said. “In one night.” He held his head in his hands, as if the entirety of it hurt. “It can’t be coincidence. Can it?”
To Lin his voice had grown distant. There was a roaring in her ears. She dropped to her knees in the courtyard.
* * *
EARLIER that morning as the Feast of Nitzan was underway, Ned Alterra walked down the mountain and into Majdara. At first having in mind one intent: to find the queen, and stop her.
The gardens were deserted. Most palace residents had departed already for the city. In the journey down, Ned had an opportunity to think, but found he could not grasp a thought for more than an instant. Everything was falling away faster than he’d even imagined it would. From the moment he had set events in motion, it had all moved very fast. Now he saw it. The herbalist would talk. And Rihab … was that even her name?
In her way, she had warned him. With subtleties, as she did everything. You could even say it was fair warning. She’d given him clues when she taught him the game. But Ned hadn’t seen it, had imagined she was only referring to her own life. Nothing to do with him.
There was a good chance he was exactly like the people he most disdained—those who saw what they wanted to see.
By the time Ned reached the city he encountered crowds, was immediately enveloped. It was useless to try to stop Rihab from doing whatever she planned to do. The only way to expose her would be to confess what he’d done. And much as he believed in justice, Ned didn’t for a moment invite the prospect of being executed—in whatever manner was customary—in the Plaza of Justice in Majdara. He valued his life in a way he hadn’t years ago … and more, the lives tied to his.
Ned let the crowds carry him like driftwood in a tide. Pretended he was another faceless visitor to the city, here to enjoy Nitzan for the day.
Instinct took him away from the Plaza of Falcons, where the court ceremonies would take place. He headed to the Way of Water, letting crowds guide him to a cleared space on the pier. Smells of grilled meat and tabak fumes were strong here. There was a game underway, Ned saw—boat racing. The winner would take home silver pieces, the name of champion. The onlookers were mostly men, the rough types one associated with the waterfront. At one time, such men had been Ned’s companions—not a few of them Kahishian. He could fall back into their dialect if need be, he thought, without much effort. Interspersed with these were men more finely clad—at a guess, people who had placed bets on the contest results. The mixed crowd cheered and jeered as their favorites reached the markers ahead of the rest, or didn’t. Ned stayed and watched for a time. It was something to do while he thought, or didn’t think.
Later, the onset of dusk saw an end to the games. The air grew brisk and cool. Flasks of wine and beer were tossed about, in celebration or defeat. The crowds began to thin as some—perhaps the more pious—departed to watch the final ceremonies in the Plaza of Falcons. It was rumored that the queen’s dress was a sight to behold, that she outshone any queen Majdara had seen before. The last time anyone in the city might have glimpsed her, from a distance, was at her coronation. Curiosity, especially of the salacious sort, was a feature of the exchanges Ned overheard. Rumors that combed the Zahra of the treacherous, sensual queen had not remained within its walls, nor stayed perched on the mountain, but trickled down into the streets.
As the sun sank and paper lanterns of many colors bloomed on the harbor, Ned sensed disquiet amid the crowds. Something had gone wrong in the rite. Ned listened, but could not discern any details. At last he asked a man nearby, with a prosperous belly and trimmed beard, “What’s the news?”
“They’re saying the queen is dead,” said the man. Then he laughed, a well-fed sound, accompanied with a wobbling extra chin. “I don’t believe it. That witch has the lives of a cat.”
“Then what happened?”
He shrugged. “That fool of a king put us in a fix, that’s what I know. Marrying that whore.”
Ned stayed by the riverfront. He bought grilled lamb wrapped in warm bread from a vendor. The mood of the crowds had changed, become increasingly uneasy. The chill of evening more pronounced. Further news arrived from the Plaza of Falcons: the queen wasn’t dead. She was missing. And not kidnapped, either. She had engineered her own departure, though none knew how.
“The witch had her way with Eldakar, then left him,” Ned heard one old woman say. “On the eve of Nitzan! A heresy.”
The witch.
Ned wished he could blame witchcraft for his idiocy. Despite that she was a Fire Dancer, Rihab’s skill—at least, what she’d used with him—wasn’t magic. She’d manipulated weaknesses he already possessed. Any attempt to place blame on her would just rebound to him, like those clever curved blades that, when thrown, spun back at you.
The knight’s sacrifice. For it to succeed, the knight had to act of his own will. And he had. He could not ever deny that he had.
It grew dark on the pier. In the warmth of lantern light Ned saw that the crowds h
ad not abated. He soon found out the reason: now, as people continued to eat festive foods under a blanketing of stars, fireworks were released from great barges that crept on the river. Against the night they were brilliant torrents.
The drinking continued. Now there was music, spaces cleared for dancing. Women joined the scene at the riverfront to flourish their voluminous skirts in mimicry of dancers they had seen that day. Holiday finery—rings on fingers, ears, toes—winked in time with their dancing. Men clapped and cheered.
Ned was coming to realize that without quite thinking about it, he had made a decision—if it could in fact be called that. He could decide to be killed, or not. Decide to serve Lin Amaristoth, still, or vanish.
It was unbearable that the people he loved would hate him. More unbearable, Ned thought, that they’d be right.
He stayed by the water, arms draped on the rail of the pier. He was still there when news came that halted all music and dancing on the streets of Majdara even on a night of Nitzan. Yet this turned out to be only a pause—a temporary lapse. Days to come would bring more revelry than before, on every street, amid intoxicating scents of the spring. When people knew their end was in sight, some retreated from the world; others, in heartbreak or defiance, kept dancing.
* * *
SHE went to the Tower in the hours before dawn. Followed the hall again, the sparks to guide her way. Again it led her to that door. This time, before she turned the handle, she looked more closely at the door. Noted that its handle and fittings were gilded. Hanging at eye level was a metal plaque in the shape of a face, mouth strained in a scream. It was like a human, though also in some way not. It had red jewels for eyes.
She opened the door.
The room was lit with red candles in brass sconces. A muted, warming light.
Zahir was there this time. She didn’t see the Ifreet—the bed was empty. But the First Magician was bared to the waist, his flesh irradiated with green fire. His eyes were shut. He looked to be in pain. There were markings on his arms, long and sinuous as snakes. As his fists clenched, the snakes seemed to writhe on his skin. She stared. They were moving, crawling, up and down his arms, as if with a life of their own. They were black, edged with a gold that flashed against the green.
Lin was rooted to the spot. She remembered the hiss of Edrien Letrell, years ago, when Darien summoned him from death. First, you must lose everything.
Zahir’s eyes opened. He saw her. She stayed in place, still.
He said, “You found me.” He looked tired. The green glow faded from him. So did the snakes, which changed from black to gold and finally, to the dark copper of his skin. His eyes seemed more green now than blue, reminiscent of that fire that was gone. He said, “Now we can talk.”
CHAPTER
19
LIN had allowed Zahir Alcavar to seat her on a couch that overlooked the courtyard of jacarandas. Its fountain audible from here, a whisper. Otherwise it was still, and dark. She sat staring out.
There was a hollowness in her that she had not felt even when Darien died. Perhaps that was the nature of the Seer’s mark. Her maker was gone, a loss carved out of her. It meant that she could hardly bring herself to care about what she’d learned, and witnessed, here in this room. It seemed of so little consequence.
That first night Valanir had lifted her carefully and with ease, as if she were a bird. A memory that had nothing to do with the Seer’s mark.
“I am tired,” she said aloud. Outside, a breeze swayed the boughs of the jacaranda trees.
You must first lose everything, Edrien had said. She was, surely, the most adept pupil he’d ever had.
Zahir sat on a couch across from her. He’d donned a robe. She’d noted, before he did so, that his arms and shoulders were corded with muscle. Not what one might expect of a Magician. Between that detail, and the particular calluses on his hands, it was likely that he had seen battle. He was strange to her now; but this fact of his hardened body and trained reflexes was a thing they had in common.
“You want to die young,” she said. “I suppose you’ll tell me why?”
“I want no such thing, Lin,” he said, and she startled a little; he rarely called her by name. “I love this life.” He sounded hard, even cold. “But sometimes we are called upon to put ourselves aside. And so I have been. On the night on that hillside when I was the only one to survive the destruction of my city … I was chosen for this.”
She curled in on herself, repelled by his coldness. The night had been hard enough. She wished she were away, back in her room, to mourn Valanir alone.
His tone softened. “I’m sorry,” he said. “He was … he was my friend, too. And don’t forget—you’ve had a loss, but here—what happened to Almyria is unspeakable. We will be forced into war now, against some horror we don’t know. The kind that can obliterate cities.”
“Again,” she said softly.
He shook his head. “You’re right, it does feel that way, but … it’s not the same at all. When I told you of Vesperia, I left something out. I had to. There are rules that govern the binding of an Ifreet, if the bond is to hold; one is that I can’t speak of it unless asked. I wasn’t sure if giving you the key to the Tower of the Winds would lead you here. I admit, I hoped it would. And I hope you’ll forgive me for that. It’s been hard, through the years, never talking to someone.” He was silent for some moments. The fountain and breeze made soft music below. “Here is what happened. The night Vesperia was destroyed, I returned to the ruins.” He swallowed as if a lump had come into his throat. Went on. “For days I searched the stones. Risked getting crushed by falling masonry, but I didn’t care at the time if I died. Well, I did care a little. But mostly I was focused on finding my parents. I don’t remember how long it was that I was there, searching the rubble of our house. It was exceedingly important. If a body is exposed to the elements, the soul … the soul is subject to torture. The texts speak of a demon the color of black tar, with a whip made of nettles and thorns. It arrives at sundown to administer lashes to whatever wretched soul is left unprotected. It’s because of this that Alfinian funerals are held within hours of a death. I had to find them, or their souls would never find peace. I kept thinking of … the whips.”
Zahir rose and strode to the window, then away again. “I will spare you the details of that night. And the days. I scarely remember them now myself. I can tell you this, though. And it was later confirmed by others who searched the ruins, before the king banned all contact with the ruins of Vesperia, on pain of death.” He halted before her. “There were no bodies in the ruin of Vesperia.”
Lin sat upright. “No bodies.”
“Not then, not later. No trace of its people ever found. All the people of my city … vanished. From that time, my life was decided.” He stood limned in candlelight. There was a young cast to his face, whether because the light was kind, or because as he reached back to his early years they somehow returned to him. “Until then, you know, I’d dreamed of becoming a singer. You may well laugh, but … I had a voice that could bring the people of our street to gather around, in evenings. I stood on a box and sang the ballads that were popular, and some that were not.” For the first time, he smiled. “My parents were hardly overjoyed, but they didn’t stop me. They knew it was hopeless—I was my mother’s son. They knew when I came of age I would leave for the capital and try my luck there, in the wineshops and khave houses. It was not exactly a respectable ambition, but it was clear I was born to it. And after all, they loved me.” He cleared his throat, glanced at the floor. “So. That was the plan. It never would have occurred to me to study magic. That was for old men, I’d have thought, if I’d bothered to think of it at all. But after Vesperia—Lin, what could I do? What is more important than family?”
Lin had no answer for this, not right away. He didn’t know what she came from. She had never shared that. She recalled, as she had in the garden, the presence of Darien and Hassen and their hands in hers, that brief time in the
hills above Tamryllin. “Nothing,” she said. “So you became a Magician.”
“It was not that difficult.” He sat down on the couch across from her, heavily. “I won’t go into how I got myself accepted to the University of Magical Arts in Ramadus … it is a tale. I was young and would let nothing stop me. And no one. I was not always good. I did things that were questionable … reprehensible, even. I … got into a relationship with an aristocrat in the city, a handsome fellow with a kind heart. I was not forthright with him. He thought I loved him, and I didn’t. Or rather, I thought I did for a time. Later I would realize it was one of those instances when we delude ourselves, so as not to despise ourselves. I still have regrets about it. Telling myself it was love, I used him to advance my standing in the University. For a penniless orphan to achieve status, there was only one way—connections. I was invited to parties. I learned to beguile those around me with wit and verse. And in time, I began to delve in that which was off-limits. Forbidden.”
She sighed out a pent-up breath. “The Ifreet.”
The candle threw shadows across his face, but his eyes were bright. “I captured the djinn. It almost destroyed me to do it, and I knew … even then I knew the cost. I’ll never live to be old, Lin. Well. If I can free the souls of a city, what is my life?
“What I didn’t know was how tortuous was the path ahead. Time moves differently for Ifreet—they are eternal. To them, a year passes with a cough. I have spent years using my djinn to pierce the cloud around Vesperia. And I am still not at my goal, though I can see it ahead. I can see it.” He shrugged. “At any rate, when I was younger I didn’t know any of that. I was confident and moved among the ruling class of Ramadus. I thought I could do anything.”
“But you came here.”
He nodded. “I came here. I was twenty-three. The court of Yusuf Evrayad posed an opportunity for an upstart like me. His dynasty was young, his First Magician an old man. There was much that could be done here by someone who grasped the reins. It was not like Ramadus, where the old order of Magicians is entrenched, an institution hundreds of years old. The Tower of Glass was new. There was need of new blood.”
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