The Element of Fire

by Martha Wells

  Kade's fair skin made her helpless against a sudden blush.

  Ravenna looked up and said, "How lovely to see you again, dear child."

  Kade curtsied in what had to be an intentionally graceless fashion. "I'm sure it's just as lovely for you as it is for me, stepmother."

  "I'm not your stepmother, dear," Ravenna reminded her calmly. "Your mother did not bother with the travesty of marriage with your father, and it would hardly have served the purpose if she had, because he was already my husband at the time. You know this, but it seems to please you to hear me repeat it."

  In a whisper plainly audible to the rest of the room, Denzil said to Roland, "Cousin, this is all too dull."

  Ravenna snapped, "Roland, send him away. This is private."

  Roland glared. "I could ask you to send your paramour away too, mother."

  In the ensuing moment of silence, Kade snickered.

  Thomas glanced briefly heavenward. Denzil looked at Roland in irritation as the implication in the unfortunate phrasing of the King's retort sunk in.

  Realizing what he had said and reddening faintly, Roland continued defiantly, "This is a family matter and he is the only one of my family who is truly fond of me."

  "What a sad thought," Kade added helpfully. "Sad, but true."

  Roland stared at her, meeting her eyes for the first time since she had entered the room. "What do you want here?"

  Kade ignored the question. She looked to Ravenna, who had gone back to her embroidery. After a moment the Dowager Queen said, "And how is your dear mother, child?" as if her prepared greeting had never been interrupted.

  Ravenna's expression was as polite as a judge passing sentence; Kade looked ironic and amused. "She's in Hell," she said.

  Ravenna's brows lifted. "Wishful thinking, certainly."

  "Oh no, she really is," Kade assured her. "We saw her go. She lost a wager."

  "My condolences," Ravenna said dryly, as the rest of the room digested that. Kade had just reminded them all of her strangeness, and Ravenna had taken the point. "Now tell us why you've come here in this unseemly fashion, as an actress of all things, bringing an enemy with you and disturbing our peace."

  "What are you more worried about, that I brought you a battle or that I was with an acting troupe? Never mind." Kade shrugged, playing with the frayed threads on the edge of her sleeve. "I have quite a few enemies; I can't help it if they follow me about. As to why I'm here..." She paced a few steps, not looking at them, hands clasped behind her back and the dingy lace of her petticoats swirling around her feet. "I just wanted to see my family, and my dear younger brother."

  The slight emphasis on the word "younger" made Roland sit up and flush.

  Kade looked from Ravenna to Roland, her gray eyes passing over the quietly watching Falaise.

  This isn't turning out right at all, she had said outside, Thomas remembered.

  Ravenna just watched her, until Kade said, "I want to make an agreement with you."

  "Was it agreement you wanted when you sent my court those cursed gifts?" Roland demanded. "How many of us have you tried to kill?"

  "Then there's the death of King Fulstan," Denzil added helpfully, before Kade could answer. "His illness was very sudden, was it not?"

  "I see no point in resurrecting either the dead, or the rumors of years past." The gaze Ravenna turned on Roland's cousin should have transformed him into stone. He only nodded politely at her. "Kade, what agreement are you--"

  Unable to contain himself, Roland interrupted, "Why would we want to deal with you, sister?" Contempt twisted his voice. "You've threatened us, ridiculed us--"

  "Threatened? Oh, what a King you are, Roland." Kade clasped her hands dramatically and said mockingly in falsetto, "Oh, help, my sister is threatening me!" She looked down at her brother, lip curled in disgust. "If I wanted to kill you, you would be dead."

  Roland was on his feet. "You think so?" he said. "When you cursed the name of our family--"

  "You mewling idiot, so did you," Kade shouted, her sarcasm abruptly giving way to rage.

  "You're lying; I never did. It was you who--"

  "Silence, both of you," Ravenna said, but something in her tone told Thomas she had rather enjoyed the argument.

  Brother and sister stared at each other a long moment. Kade's hands were at her sides, curling into fists, uncurling.

  Damn it, he's too close to her, Thomas thought. The Albon knight nearest Roland had eased forward, ready to snatch him out of his sister's reach.

  Then Roland turned away from her and threw himself down in his chair. Kade turned her back on him and walked stiffly to the other side of the room, her hands shaking.

  Into the silence Ravenna said, "You haven't said what agreement you want to make, dear."

  In a voice almost a whisper, Kade said, "You make me wish I never..." She stopped, shook her head. "Landlaw and courtlaw, stepmother. Landlaw favors the first-blooded child of the female line. That's Roland. But courtlaw favors the first-blooded child of the male ruler. That's me." Kade stopped to watch them a moment, their silence, their concentration.

  She shrugged. "Roland's little ass is planted firmly on the throne. That gives him the advantage. And you base your power on landlaw, stepmother. You founded your regency on the rights it gave you. You keep your guard by its traditions." She met Thomas's eyes a moment. He returned her gaze imperturbably. She went on, "But there are still those who think I should have been the heir."

  Without looking up from her embroidery, Ravenna said, "Do you want to be Queen, dear? When you were fifteen you said you didn't. You spat on the throne and said it was a foul thing and you wouldn't have it as a gift. And yes, there are still those who would put you on it, or at least long enough to secure the succession for a more manageable candidate."

  Kade shrugged. "It's caused you no more trouble than it has me."

  "Then what is your solution, dear?"

  "I'll sign an agreement formally giving up my claim on the throne and any Fontainon family properties. Have your counselors draw it up." She gestured eloquently at the King. "And I'll even stop 'threatening' Roland."

  Ravenna frowned. "And what do you want in return?"

  Kade was deliberately silent until Ravenna looked up at her. "The freedom of my old home," the sorceress said softly.

  "That's impossible," Roland said, his voice low and harsh.

  "Oh, it's hardly that," Kade told him.

  Ravenna still looked thoughtful. "And what has brought this change of heart about?"

  "I have my own reasons." Kade smiled thinly. "You don't have anything I want enough to make me tell you what they are."

  "But why, dear?"

  "Because I want it."

  Ravenna lifted her brows. "That isn't much of a reason."

  Kade made her a half-bow. "It's always been enough for you."

  Have to give her that one, Thomas thought. Good shot.

  Ravenna's hands paused on the fabric and she stared at Kade. Her voice hardened. "You don't know enough to judge me, Katherine."

  Kade tilted her head. "Don't I? You've always thought yourself fit to judge me. It's only fair."

  "You are young, you know nothing, and life is not fair."

  "I know enough, and life is what you make it."

  There was a pause.

  Ravenna said quietly, "If you are to stay here, there are proprieties that must be observed..."

  "No conditions. I haven't made any." Kade smiled. "It's only fair."

  The whole idea was so unlikely it took Thomas a few moments to realize that Ravenna was seriously considering it. In a low voice, he said to her, "It isn't worth it, my lady. It's too dangerous."

  "Very likely," Kade agreed, idly twisting a lock of her pale hair.

  Thomas knelt beside Ravenna's chair so he could see her face. "Don't do it."

  Ravenna looked at him, then regarded Kade for a long moment. Her opaque blue eyes betrayed no emotion. She said, "I accept your proposition, dear
."

  "No," Roland said, his voice unsteady. "I forbid it."

  Ravenna turned a basilisk gaze on her son. He trembled, whether from anger or fear it was difficult to tell, but said, "I won't have her here."

  For a long moment the outcome was in doubt. Thomas realized he was holding his breath. The room was silent in suspense, as if they observed someone poised on the brink of a chasm. Even Denzil had lost his expression of detached amusement and watched the struggle in fascination.

  Then Roland's nerve broke. He pounded his fist on the chair arm and shouted, "I don't want her here! Damn you, can't you listen to me?"

  It was a retreat. A shadow crossed Denzil's face that might almost have been disappointment. Ravenna started to speak but Kade interrupted her. "Oh, come now, Roland." The sorceress smiled. "You have more to worry about than my presence here."

  He looked at her uncertainly. "What do you mean?"

  She said, "The palace wards are still in place. I felt them when I came in." She frowned thoughtfully and laid a hand flat on the marble veneer of the fireplace. She curled her fingers, drawing something out of the stone that was gray and wriggled.

  It came out with a shower of stone chips, but without leaving a hole in the mantel. Kade held it between thumb and forefinger like a boy with a rat, a spidery, boneless thing that struggled frantically. It was hard for the eyes to fix on it. "This is a frid. It's harmless. It lives in stone and eats crumbs spilled on the floor. But it shouldn't be here."

  She dropped it. It hit the hardwood floor with a splat, hopped once to reach the hearthstone, and disappeared beneath the pitted gray rock like a duck diving under water.

  "I'd say the wards aren't proof against the fay anymore. You have a problem, stepmother." Kade bowed to the room in general and was out the door before anyone could react.

  Roland leapt up and moved to stand over Ravenna's chair. "You have overreached yourself this time, mother," he said. The protest convinced no one. His face was red with thwarted anger, but he had lost his chance to defy her.

  "Have I? What would you have done, Roland?" she asked, as if not terribly concerned with his answer.

  "Arrested her!"

  "And if she didn't want to go with the guards? Power is relative, my lord." Ravenna let heat creep into her voice. "I thought I'd taught you that if nothing else. Tell me you understand."

  She looked up at him, waiting, while Roland stared at her.

  Lounging back in his chair, Denzil said, smiling, "Really, cousin, it's beneath your notice."

  Roland looked back at him. After a moment he nodded. "Perhaps you're right." He turned back to Ravenna, lips twisted with contempt. "Do what you like, mother; it doesn't concern me."

  Then Roland turned and stalked toward the door, his page scrambling to open it for him and his knights smoothly surrounding him.

  Denzil stood and bowed to Ravenna with an ironic smile. "Congratulations, my lady. Very well played."

  Ravenna looked up at him, her eyes opaque. "How old are you, Denzil?"

  "I am twenty-six, my lady."

  "And do you intend to be twenty-seven?"

  Denzil's smile widened. "I depend upon it, my lady." He bowed again and followed Roland's departing retainers.

  "What a good idea," Ravenna said to the room at large. "Why doesn't everyone go?"

  When Ravenna phrased an order as a question it was a good indication that her temper had reached the boiling point. Falaise started to speak, reconsidered, and stood up to let Gideon conduct her out. Ravenna's guards and attendants all moved hurriedly to wait for her outside.

  Thomas had started for the door when Ravenna said, "Stay here, Captain."

  Unwillingly he stopped, his back to her, waiting until the others had filed out before turning around.

  Ravenna had shoved her sewing aside and was resting her face in her hands. The flicker of light from the hearth played about the red highlights in her hair and the metallic threads in the embroidery of her gown. Without moving, she said, "Don't look at me like that."

  He folded his arms. "I am not looking at you in any particular way."

  "The hell you're not." She lifted her head and rubbed her temples. "If she had been my daughter I'd have married her off to the God-King of Parscia. Civil war would have been the least of his worries."

  Thomas gave up pretense and let her see how angry he was. He leaned on one of the flimsy rosewood tables that looked so out of place next to the blood-splashed hunting scenes that dominated the room and said, "Civil war may be the least of your worries now that you've let her in here. Before this she was taking out her revenge in small pieces, which was a damn sight better than what she could've chosen to do. Now she wants something more."

  Ravenna sat back and looked up at him. "She may well get it, whatever it is," she said seriously. "Did you see the way she dealt with me? And I think there was a moment when Roland actually forgot Denzil was in the room. She makes a fine enemy."

  "She could be a deadly enemy. She's grown now and she doesn't want a child's revenge anymore," Thomas told her. Ravenna was single-minded and ruthless in a way that would have been devastating had it not been for the lack of any sadism. She had been born to be an absolute ruler as some men were born to paint or write music. She wanted to bring Kade back into the fold, to direct the sorceress's powers and talents to her own ends. He didn't think Ravenna would understand the bitterness of wounds that had never healed.

  "A child's revenge," Ravenna said, looking into the fire. "I wish I had a child's revenge. Fulstan wore away at them, both of them. When I discovered all he had done... And I didn't realize it until he'd made my son a coward."

  Fulstan's treatment of Roland and Kade had been at its worst when Kade was fourteen and Roland twelve, at the time when Ravenna was away on the borders during the last Bisran War. Thomas had been a lieutenant then, traveling with Ravenna and the rest of the Guard. There had been no one at the palace with the courage to inform the Queen that while she was managing supply lines and browbeating her generals into cooperation, Fulstan was destroying Ile-Rien's future through its heir. Thomas had long wondered if Fulstan hadn't known exactly what he was doing. If he wasn't striking back at Ravenna in the only way open to him. God knew she had been indifferent to anything else he'd ever done.

  At this time it had also been an open secret that Thomas was Ravenna's lover. Most of his conversations with the late king had been limited to details of the execution Fulstan had planned for Thomas the day Ravenna died, or grew tired of him. He did have a gift for words. Perhaps he would have been happier as a poet than a king.

  Ravenna was saying, "Had my children been bastards I think all of us would be the happier for it."

  Thomas let his breath out, suddenly weary. "Very eloquent. Now what are you going to do about it?"

  She stood up and flung her sewing to the floor. "Sixteen years ago when I approved your appointment into my guard, I knew I was making a mistake," she shouted.

  "Probably," Thomas agreed. "And I suppose that bit of misdirection, while admirable, though not quite up to your usual standards, is the only answer I'm going to get."

  She stared at him a moment, then shook her head, her expression turning wry. "If I had an answer, I wouldn't need misdirection." After a moment of thought, she asked, "Can we trust Galen Dubell?"

  And that was that, even if he stood there and argued until he fell down dead of old age. Thomas rubbed the bridge of his nose. It wasn't the first time Ravenna had given him a headache. He said, "I think so."

  "Really?"

  "I don't think he knew she was coming here." Thomas shrugged. "But he's genuinely fond of the girl, and there are people who are going to mistake that for collusion. It would be against your best interests to be one of them."

  "Yes, we need him. Braun and his little apprentices are no good for serious work like this. The sorcerers we sent for from the Granges and Lodun haven't even reached the city yet. That's suspicious in itself. I'll tell Renier to send
more messengers." Ravenna paused, her back to him, her slender form silhouetted against the light of the fire. "I want you to watch her, Thomas."

  "I gathered that," he said dryly. "I've already arranged for it."

  There was a discreet tap on the door, and Ravenna irritably called, "Enter."

  It was the steward who had made his escape from the solar earlier. He said nervously, "My lord High Minister Aviler is requesting an audience, my lady."

  "Oh, he is? Well, I'm in the mood for him, as a matter of fact. Tell him he may enter, and don't think I didn't notice when you disappeared earlier, Saisan. Let's not make a habit of that, hmm?"

  The steward bowed. "No, my lady."

  As the servant withdrew, Thomas said, "Fond as I am of Aviler, I have some things to attend to."

  "Thomas?" she said quietly.

  "Yes?" He stopped halfway to the door.

  "You're the only man I know who doesn't hate, dislike, or fear me, and it is a blessed relief simply to speak to you; did you know that?"

  Because the High Minister was already coming through the door behind him, Thomas swept off his hat in his best formal court bow and said, "My lady, it is my very great pleasure."

  * * *

  On his way back to the Guard House, Thomas took the immense circular stairwell that led up from what had been the main hall of the Old Palace two centuries earlier and now linked the wing that held the Grand Gallery with the older defensive bastions. The gray age-old stone of the banisters and the central supporting column were carved into flowing ribbons and bands that ended in the heads of gryphons, lions, and unrecognizable animals from the artisan's imagination. The lamplit twilight of the stairwell was cool, and echoed faintly with the humming activity of the rest of the palace.

  Thomas wondered what Kade Carrion the fay sorceress was doing now.

  The first time Kade had used her power against the court had been on a Saints' Day ten years ago. It was held on Midsummer Eve because combining the Church's holy days with the Old Faith's festivals made it easier for the priests to get a respectable turnout for the services, especially in the country where most of the population still considered themselves pagan. Outside, the city streets had been packed with costumed entertainers, traveling merchants, and celebrating crowds, while in the High Cathedral the bishop was saying the Saints' Day Mass before the royal court. At the culmination of the service, pandemonium had erupted. Objects levitated and smashed into walls. Candlelamps, altar vessels, and stained glass windows shattered. It had been a display of raw uncontrolled sorcerous power.