by Martha Wells
For a long moment he didn’t think Nicholas would reply. Tremaine tended to be reticent about her feelings, but next to her father she was positively fulsome. Then Nicholas grimaced, and said, “Especially since this is the first time I’ve ever had the slightest clue what she wanted.”
Gerard nodded, resigned. “I think this is the first time Tremaine has ever had the slightest clue what she wanted.”
Cineth, the Syrnai
Giliead woke at dawn, his head aching a little from too much strong wine, with the feeling that the god wanted to talk to him.
They had sat up for a long time, Giliead talking to Karima, Halian, Gyan and Kias and the others. Ilias had mostly just sat there. Because of the late night, Giliead hadn’t done anything in their new set of rooms except unroll one of the mattresses and unpack a couple of blankets.
Ilias had also tossed and turned in his sleep, finally settling onto Giliead’s arm. Now Giliead managed to ease him off without waking him and climb out of bed. He dressed quietly in the dark room, finding a shirt in the clothes chest to replace the one that was muddy and bloodstained and shabby from their long journey.
Out in the atrium no one was stirring except a few sleepy Aelin whose names he didn’t know, preparing to go down to the harbor for cargo work. He let himself out the gate and walked down the quiet tree-shaded street, following the ground mist to where the path wound down the hill to the beach. At the top was a large tree, leaning at an odd angle to accommodate the rocks around its roots. He sat on the damp grass, with his back to the trunk, and waited.
After a short time, the god climbed down out of the leaves, wound its way down the trunk and settled into the grass beside him.
Ilias woke when Giliead did, though he pretended he hadn’t. He got up after Giliead left, dug out clean clothes and proceeded to wander around the house trying to avoid the other inhabitants. He managed to sit still through breakfast but ended up pacing the atrium afterward, waiting impatiently for Giliead to get back.
There had to be something they could do to get news. It seemed like insult added to injury that Ile-Rien itself wasn’t that many days’ sail away, yet separated from them by the world’s breadth and the lack of a curse gate.
Karima and Halian had come to the house the night before to greet them and it had turned into something of a party. Ilias had spent most of it avoiding people and trying to nod and smile at all the right times. He suspected the word had passed not to ask him questions because no one did.
It was nearly as bad as the first few days after he had gotten the curse mark.
He was standing beside the atrium pool when he heard a soft step on the stone walk and looked up to see Cletia.
She nodded to him, coming forward to stand on the grass nearby. She wore blue and green, with a wrap around her shoulders against the morning mist. “It’s good that you’re back.” She hesitated a moment. “I heard what happened.”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Ilias warned her. He realized he was going to be saying that a lot from now on.
“I understand. I just wanted to ask you…” She took a deep breath, seemed to steel her resolve. “If you would consider marrying again. With me.”
Ilias stared blankly at her. He had forgotten that as he was a married man, Cletia could ask him directly without having to negotiate with Karima first. He shook his head, not sure if she meant what she said. “I’m still married to Tremaine, Cletia.”
“Giliead told Gyan that it sounded as if the Rienish could never come back here, that killing the Gardier wizard leader killed the thing that made the curse gates work.” Cletia shook her head, her mouth twisted. “Would she want you to wait forever for nothing?”
Ilias felt his whole body go tense, but she didn’t say that Tremaine was most likely dead. He realized that perhaps Gyan and the others hadn’t passed that part of the story along. If they did, if Tremaine was known to be dead, Karima would have to take possession of the house. They probably thought it was just easier to keep quiet on that point for now. He looked away across the court, where Calit and two other Aelin children were digging industriously in a flower bed, wishing it was that easy. That you could make people live again just by skipping the part of the story where they died. He said only, “I’m not giving up yet.”
Cletia watched him a moment, frowning. “When will you give up?”
He swore under his breath, then faced her. “I don’t want to give up at all. I don’t want to look back on the time I knew her, any more than I want to look back on the time I knew Giliead. I want her to be with me when I look back.” He didn’t think he had fully realized that himself until the words came out. And if Cletia wanted plain speaking, so be it. “It’s not just that. When I got the curse mark, you listened to your family and treated me as if I was dead. Or ruined, as Pasima says. Now you’ve changed your mind, you’re sorry for it. But how am I supposed to trust that? This year you want me, what if next year you want Pasima’s approval more?” She looked stung, and he said, “I’m sorry,” before he walked away.
He went past the kitchen where Gyan and Davret and several of the Aelin were cleaning up after breakfast, then back through the portico and the storeroom and into the back court. It was small, with a spare cistern squatting under a ragged plum tree and a few slop jars. The wall here was only chest height, and looked into the neighbor’s goat pen. He leaned on it, fingering the ring that still hung around his neck, not noticing the brown-and-white goats crowding up to see if he brought food.
At least now he knew what was wrong, why this homecoming seemed so off-kilter. Because they’re treating me like a man with a dead wife. And if that was true, at least he could grieve and learn to live with it and go on. But he didn’t think of himself that way. Because in his gut he believed she had found a way out, whether she had intended to when she sent them away or not.
Ilias buried his face in his hands. Great. How are you going to live with not knowing? He would be crazy within the year.
He was still standing there, leaning on the wall, when Giliead found him. “Ilias.”
“What?” Ilias looked around, startled by the tone of his voice.
Giliead looked as if he had just seen something that had both shocked him senseless and given him hope. “I talked to the god. It told me… I knew it talked to Arisilde, that it shared knowledge with him the way it did with me. But I didn’t realize— It knows the curse, the gate curse.”
Ilias just stared at him. “But they said—Orelis said the circles wouldn’t work once she was dead. And we don’t have a god-sphere.”
Giliead took a deep breath. “I asked the god if it could take us through the gate the Rienish left and bring us back. It said yes. Or at least it showed me pictures that looked like it meant yes.”
Hope made Ilias’s chest ache. “I don’t understand. How can that work?”
Giliead gestured helplessly. “Castines said Orelis was a god of wizards, a failed god. What if that wasn’t a lie? What if the gods came from the ancient people too? Orelis was just something that, I don’t know, went wrong, like our wizards went wrong, while the gods went right.” He shrugged impatiently. “I don’t know, but the god thinks it can do it.” Giliead put his hands on Ilias’s shoulders, saying urgently, “It’s worth a try.”
You really think we can do this?” Ilias said for perhaps the third time. They were in the forest clearing where so many days ago Gerard and the other Rienish wizards had made the circle Arisilde had given them to reach Ile-Rien. The rock ridge and the pines sheltered the area of flat ground, but the wind was strong and cool, tossing the high tree limbs and bringing sprinkles of rain. Despite this, Ilias was sweating as if they were crossing the Barrens under a noonday sun.
Pacing the perimeter of the circle, Giliead just glared at him. Bythia was following along with him, a blue wrap pulled up over her head to shield her from the rain, reading from the tablet she had made. Her brows drawn together in concentration, she said, “I’m not a Vessel,
but it looks as if it’s all still here, just the way they drew it.” Grass had grown between the stones and in the center, but the painted symbols hadn’t faded.
Gyan and Dyani were sitting on the fallen blocks of the ruined house, watching worriedly. “You know what Herias would make of this,” Gyan pointed out.
Giliead grimaced at the mention of the name. “Herias can argue about it with the god,” he said.
“If you can get there, how do you know Tremaine will want to come back with you?” Dyani asked.
Ilias stared at the sky, gritting his teeth. Gyan shook his head at her, and Bythia paused to throw her an admonishing look, saying dryly, “Don’t edge up to it, girl, just speak your mind.”
“Sorry, I didn’t mean—” Dyani shrugged in confusion. “Well, you know what I mean. We saw how beautiful the Ravenna was. Why should she leave a place with things like that for here?”
Ilias saw Giliead glance at him in sympathy, and he managed to take a breath before replying. If he could find out Tremaine was alive, that the Rienish were safe, or at least safer than they had been, he thought he would be able to live with that. The other part he wasn’t counting on. He said, “I have to ask her and find out.”
Giliead came to the place with the missing symbol, where Gyan had broken the circle on Gerard’s instructions, to keep the Gardier from finding and using it. He sat on his heels, contemplating the empty space. It looked as if Gyan had used another rock to rub the paint away, leaving only fragments of the original.
Ilias heard rustling and stepped away hastily as the god crept out, its sparkle of light bright against the dull yellow grass. It must really want to help us, he thought, startled. He knew it usually avoided open ground, preferring rocks, trees, eaves of houses, wells, any dark quiet spot or perch. It made its way toward Giliead as Bythia backed away. It passed him, climbing atop the flat rock with the missing symbol. It sat there a moment, a hazy glitter of light, then it crept off toward the center of the circle.
They knew only wizards could draw the circles, that it didn’t matter how well you knew the marks that it was made of, that they had to be knitted together with curses. But it appeared, even to Ilias’s untutored eyes, that the god had just done something to make the spot ready for the symbol. His eyes intent, Giliead motioned urgently to Bythia. She knelt beside him, holding out the little clay bowl of ink and the tablet so he could see her copy of the missing symbol. Giliead put his fingers in the ink and with sure strokes drew it in.
Ilias realized he had stopped breathing at some point. He took a sharp breath, refusing to ask.
Giliead pushed slowly to his feet. “It worked.” He sounded shocked. He held out a hand, as if he didn’t quite believe his senses. “The curse is here again. The god made it …wake up.”
The god had taken a position in the center of the circle, as if ready to go. Giliead looked at Ilias, his face set and serious. “Well?”
Ilias nodded, his stomach tight with tension. “It’s worth a try.”
Vienne, Ile-Rien
Tremaine walked along the promenade of the Street of Flowers as dusk settled over the city. The broad street had once been lined with fashionable shops, with even more fashionable flats in the upper floors of the old stone buildings. The electricity was still out now and no lights blossomed in the windows. Some of the trees had been cut down, and the ornamental iron railings were twisted and broken, but all the debris and wrecked vehicles had been carted away.
It had been a warm day for this time of year but the air had turned brisk as the sun set, and Tremaine was wearing broadcloth pants, a lighter blouse and a blue jacket. Not exactly appropriate attire for the event she was going to, but she couldn’t really care less. She didn’t feel as if she belonged here anymore, and didn’t feel like making the effort to pretend that she did.
She wasn’t the only one having that problem. Florian’s mother had returned to town a few days ago, but they still had no idea how many of Florian’s brothers had survived. “I’m having trouble talking to her about it,” Florian had explained, as they were sitting over two very bad cups of coffee in the hotel’s downstairs parlor earlier that afternoon. “I killed a lot of men. Men that were only there because they had been lied to and tricked. And maybe there were even some who had realized the truth, but they had a little crystal stuck inside them that took away their choices.” She had shaken her head, looking weary and drawn and older than her years. Tremaine knew from some things Gerard had said that death spells established a connection between sorcerer and victim. The stronger the sorcerer, the stronger the connection. It was probably the reason Arisilde had always tried to avoid them. Florian shrugged helplessly. “Mother thinks I’m a hero. I don’t want to be a hero if this is what it means. Killing deluded men who were driven into battle like cattle.”
Tremaine nodded, turning her cup around in the saucer. “There are people who will come back here and it will be like nothing ever happened.” Her mouth twisted bitterly. “I hate those people.”
Florian had nodded glumly.
Later, Tremaine had fled the hotel. Now she had been aimlessly wandering the city for the past few hours. She felt the need to get it out of her system, so she wouldn’t simply walk out in the middle of the memorial service tonight.
Some of the city had fallen victim to looting, but on this street the broken glass from the shop windows had been swept up. A small theater had been turned into a station for distributing food and clothing. A large crowd still gathered around it, waiting for supplies to be handed out. They were entertaining themselves with card games. There was even a group of musicians, a horn quartet, playing on the corner.
As Tremaine moved out into the street to bypass the crowd waiting under the theater marquee, the wrought-iron streetlamps flickered and blazed to life. The crowd broke into cheers and applause.
Tremaine reached the corner, heading down the side street to the Aviler Great House. There were soldiers in Rienish uniform posted along here, and a couple of motorcars puttered past her. The streetlamps were only on about halfway down the block, but when she took the turn into the circular drive in front of the massive house, she saw that the windows on the second and third floors were bright with light. Aviler House had been functioning as a sort of auxiliary government building, as the palace was still uninhabitable, so it probably had diesel generators. None of the other expensive town houses and blocks of flats along the street seemed to be lit with anything but candlelight.
Aviler House was one of the oldest remaining Great Houses in the city, and actually predated the Queen the Ravenna had been named for. The white façade of the front wing, with the classical figures carved above the large windows and in the pediment under the peaked slate roof, was only fifty years old and was the youngest thing about the house. The other wings were built of heavy gray stone like the oldest city walls, and the windows were small and forbidding and meant for defense. Even in this newer section meant to present an attractive face to the street, there were no windows on the ground floor. It was fitting for a family house that had been attacked by private troops and fay of the Unseelie Court and nearly burned several times throughout its long history.
There were more motorcars parked in the drive, men in suits or dress uniforms and women in evening dresses stood talking on the terrace. The broad steps led up to wide-open double doors, though there were soldiers posted there too.
Tremaine had made her way up to the terrace when she noticed a soldier walking along beside her. He began, “Madam—”
“I’m invited,” she told him, though she felt she might get some bitter satisfaction out of being mistakenly turned away. “I’m Tremaine Valiarde.”
But he said, “Yes, Madam Valiarde. Captain Morane sent me to look for you,” and walked her up the stairs past the others waiting to have their identities checked, past the guards at the door and into the brightly lit foyer.
The marble floor and the columns were pristine, but as Tremaine headed for the gran
d stairs, she saw empty wall niches where sculpture or vases had once stood. There were two large blank sections of wall above the wainscoting, where faint scuff marks suggested large paintings had once hung. It didn’t surprise her that the place had been looted or just simply vandalized.
She went up the stairs behind some Rienish officers and a couple of men and women in the elegant robes and little round caps that Parscians wore to formal occasions. The stairway opened into a large hall, with three archways giving onto a ballroom on the left, and three interconnected formal salons on the right. The light was lower here, to spare the generator. The wooden paneling was polished and the gold silk panels pristine, but again, the furniture and artwork were sparse, and the pieces that were left had a mismatched look, as if they had been scavenged from different parts of the house. Chairs had been assembled in the ballroom, and there was a speaker’s rostrum on the dais normally reserved for the orchestra.
Officers and more people in evening dress congregated here. Lady Aviler stood to one side of the hall, formally greeting guests, her son beside her. They were both dressed in black, and the son wore an eye patch. Tremaine knew he had been injured in the attack on the Queen’s train, the attack that had killed his father. The Gardier had gained nothing else out of it, however. The Queen had left the train somewhere in Bisra with several retainers and reached Parscia by a combination of farm carts and borrowed motorcars. The Crown Prince had gone a separate route, mostly on foot, with only one Queen’s Guard as escort. They were both back in Ile-Rien now with Princess Olympe, who had returned last week from Capidara, and were staying in Fontainon House.
