For a brief moment the world went black again, only this time she saw the starfield, etched behind the looming figure of the creature of shadow. The strands hadn’t been blocked, they were only obscured by the creature they’d confronted in the Divide, the same creature she’d seen approaching when Tigai had shifted them to travel through the void.
The tether snapped, cut by some outside force.
NO, the voice rumbled. THE DRAGON’S GIFT IS MINE. TAKE IT, AND THERE WILL BE WAR.
She tried to shift her sight again, and this time she saw the starfield and the strands behind the leylines, both worlds overlapped in ribbons of color and light. The creature of shadow—the Regnant—loomed in front of her, but she could sense the presence of more.
Life energy bored a hole through the shadow.
The blue sparks flew around her, enveloping the stars she somehow knew belonged to her companions. Acherre and Ka’Inari, warm and bright. Tigai, dim but there, flickering with a need to protect a cluster of three more stars around him, fighting to pull them all through the darkness. Yuli, wounded but alive, fierce and full of pride. Lin Qishan, hovering behind, encased in glass.
Safety beckoned along the strand Tigai had tried to tether, a cold place far to the north. The Veil’s emotions roiled, full of confidence and determination in place of rage. A drive to follow the path to safety, stronger than any emotion she’d yet felt from the Goddess trapped in her gut. She followed it, and felt the darkness melt, a grip of iron trying to hold to flakes of dust and sand. She wrenched them all free, shifting every star to a place of ice and wind, overlooking a river crossing frozen over beneath a wall of twisting shadows.
She’d done it. They were safe.
“It worked,” Tigai said. “Wind spirits, but I didn’t … Sarine?”
“Did we all make it?” she asked.
“What the bloody fuck,” Tigai said. “I didn’t tether us here; I couldn’t get through that shadow. That was you. Sarine. How did you use the starfield?” Tigai asked.
Acherre and Ka’Inari turned to count the rest, giving assurances each was accounted for as they propped her up, keeping her on her feet.
“Where are we?” she asked.
“This is the place where the Divide is breached,” Tigai said. “The way to Isaru Mattai’s camp, if we follow it through to the other side.”
Relief flooded through her, as much from the Veil as her own emotions.
“The Veil led me here,” she said. “We have to go through.”
“What?” Tigai said. “We’ve just been through the hells, and you want us to dive back in?”
“He’s coming,” she said. “The Regnant. We have to find a way beyond his reach.”
Tigai gave her a doubtful look as his brother rose behind him, helped to his feet by the larger man, who had to be Remarin, from Tigai’s descriptions. Mei would be the woman at his side, who stepped forward before she spoke.
“You’re the magi who helped Tigai find us?” Mei asked. “And you’re how we got away from that … thing in the tower?”
“Yes,” she said.
“Then we’ll trust you,” Mei said. “So long as you pledge to get us as far from the Great and Noble Houses as it is possible to go.”
ELSEWHERE
INTERLUDE
DONATIEN
Festival of Masks
Dadenchon Estate, Old Sarresant
Their coach rolled to a stop, a rattling halt mirrored by ten more carriages he could see through a gap in the curtains. Tonight the line would extend a league or more toward the city, every écuyer, chevalier, and noble lord and lady extended an invitation, every absent face as significant as every mask and choice of costume. His attire tonight was blue and gold—royal colors—with elaborately painted designs on an otherwise simple papier-mâché mask. A deliberate simplicity, to allow his partner’s attire to outshine his, and an acknowledgment that, for the time being, his status in society depended on others’ charity.
“You look troubled,” his partner said, seated opposite him atop the velvet cushions inside their coach. “Not reconsidering your attendance tonight, I hope?”
The Lady Daphène Malmont’s usually brown hair had been dyed fire-red, a complement to her dress of red silk and her mask, made to represent the Oracle in her fury, a full domino carved to mimic a bird of prey.
“Not at all,” he replied. “The King’s allowance has been more than generous, but there are limits to what gold can buy, even for de l’Arraignons.”
“Well said,” Daphène said. “But you forget I can read your thoughts.”
She smiled, putting mystery in it, and earning only a rueful smile from him in response.
“Not my thoughts,” he said. “Only my emotions.”
Daphène inclined her head in a gesture of submission. “One day you will have to introduce me to your Sarine. The woman who ruined all of my secrets.”
“Better if I know what I’m getting into, wouldn’t you agree?” he said, deflecting her away from a topic that still cut too close to his heart. “Else you’d never know whether my pursuits were genuine.”
“I can make them genuine enough,” she replied, and suddenly he felt his breath quicken, his blood run hot, not least in a sudden swelling between his legs.
“Not … here,” he managed, though he said it through gritted teeth, fighting down the desire to pull her down on her back, slip her dress above her hips, tear her smallclothes aside, and—
She laughed.
“Compose yourself, Donatien Revellion,” she said. “It’s our turn to make our entrance.”
The coach jerked to another stop, and this time Daphène rose as the footmen swung the door, attending her on either side of the carriage steps. He followed a pace behind, adjusting his breeches to cover for her kaas’s influence, the blood flow having yet to cease with the emotions.
They emerged into a pavilion of masks and paints, where the line of would-be revelers gathered to be admitted onto the Duc de Dadenchon’s estate. Canvas tents hung over the receiving grounds, with servants clearly chosen for beauty weaving among them, administering trays of fruits and cheeses to those waiting to enter the manor. He saw a dozen faces attired as he was—a conscious choice, among the sons and daughters who had escaped the revolution in New Sarresant, and one coordinated between them—while the flowers of Old Sarresant nobility bloomed in richer hues. Yellows, blues, silvers, and golds, though few radiated as bright as Daphène Malmont, and no few eyes stole glances laden with envy in her direction. Daphène deserved it. She was all he’d ever wanted, yet in spite of her fire, he couldn’t help wondering what Sarine would have done at this gathering, what she would have thought about him rekindling paths he had meant for them to tread together, what already felt like a lifetime ago.
Small talk and pleasantries carried them across the threshold, where the courtyard’s opulence dimmed to nothing against the décor of the main foyer, and beyond. Here the servants had been attired in scandalously thin mesh, men and women alike, revealing nothing but leaving little to the imagination. A bold, even subversive, choice, and their host himself seemed to relish it, standing at the base of his grand staircase, welcoming each pair in turn before they entered the depths of the masquerade. The Duc de Dadenchon was fat, well beyond plumpness, but with full dress tailored to emphasize the softness in his form, all silk and velvet. Daphène guided them forward to make their obeisance, offering the Duc a curtsey when their turn arrived.
“A delightful party, Your Grace,” Daphène said.
“All the more so, with your arrival, my dear,” the Duc replied, showing her a red-faced smile beneath his mustaches, cut to trace a line unbroken between his ears, though his chin was bare. “And Lord Revellion.”
His greeting was more stark, as befit the difference in their rank, to say nothing of his questionable standing in light of the colonial revolt. He took it in stride, bending a deep bow and holding it longer than propriety required.
“Our since
rest thanks to Your Grace for the invitation,” he said. “We hope to avail ourselves of all your considerable hospitality, before the night is through.”
“He’s with you?” the Duc said gruffly, though his outward demeanor held constant, full of mirth.
“He is,” Daphène replied.
“Upstairs, then,” the Duc said. “But don’t use the grand staircase. The others are already waiting.”
With that, Daphène curtseyed again, prompting a second bow from him, though the Duc had already turned to welcome the next pair.
They walked together down a long hall, already full of guests and conversation. Life-sized portraits of men and women traced the height of fashion back five hundred years as they traversed the room, pausing to exchange wit and ensure they’d been seen. He fell into familiar routine, relying on skills honed at Rasailles and the Gardens district of New Sarresant that served just as well here, across the sea. Inwardly he marveled at his partner, the way the daughter of a barely elevated chevalier had risen to be as notable as any Marquis’s heir, welcomed in each circle and fawned over when she excused them to join the next. For his part he was content to watch her work; acclaim in society had its own appeal, but their business here was deeper, for all they hid in plain sight among the revelry.
In time they’d pushed through into the depths of the Dadenchon manse and made their way up a side staircase, doubtless more commonly used by servants, but empty and silent as he followed behind her silks.
“Forgiveness, my lord, my lady,” a rough voice greeted them at the top of the steps, “but I believe you’ve wandered away from the party. If you will please—”
Daphène pushed past, leaving the Duc’s servant gaping, hovering near the top of the stairs. No small-statured man in livery; the servant was thick, half muscle and half fat, the sort that might have once been a soldier and now sought work doing violence for those wealthy and unscrupulous enough to employ him.
She stole a knowing look over her shoulder as he followed behind.
“Was that …?” he asked, then began again. “Was that Green?”
“Of course,” she replied. “Why use pass-phrases when our gifts serve just as well, without risk of being overheard?”
She removed her mask as they approached a double door at the end of the hallway, and he followed her lead, waiting as she rapped on the door. It swung inward, revealing a room of unmasked partygoers, dressed in mirrors of the finery they wore, yet instead of reclining in their chaises and cushions, they’d gathered around a table, standing as a group over a book laid open at its center.
“Lady Malmont,” a well-dressed man who’d opened the door said, leaning in to offer her swift kisses on either cheek. “I’d hoped the Duc had excused himself early.”
“Master Arron,” she said, returning the kisses. “I’m afraid the Duc is occupied with his reception.”
“No matter,” Arron said. “You must come. We need your reading of this passage at once.”
Daphène took Arron’s hand, and he all but pulled her toward the table where the rest stood, a half-dozen men and women all seeming to be reading together, leaving him standing alone in the entryway, unintroduced and unannounced.
None of them seemed to notice him, so he entered with cautious steps, watching as Daphène took a place at the center of the group, poring over the book. She’d assured him non-kaas-mages were common at these gatherings, that he wouldn’t feel out of place once the wine was flowing and the talk turned to politics, philosophy, economics, and religion. A great surprise, to learn that the Dauphin’s uncle, the Duc de Dadenchon, harbored sentiments of égalité, and greater still to learn he shared the gift of the kaas with Daphène and Sarine. But then, that power had stirred the colonies to revolution; it could do the same here in the Old World, only this time guided by men and women with more sense than Reyne d’Agarre. Another chance at the dream of enlightenment—that had been the promise that drew him to Daphène Malmont, and drew them both here tonight.
Yet now he stood alone, watching a room full of courtiers reading together in silence.
“It’s changed,” Daphène said finally. “I’m certain of it. I read these passages two nights ago: a necessary step, spread by power for the freedom of all, they rise together, making common cause with the lowest born and lowest estate.”
Murmurs from around the table.
“I read the same,” Arron said. “Yet now, those verses are nowhere to be found.”
“Nowhere?” Daphène said. “Surely they must have moved.”
Arron shook his head, and Daphène once again leaned over the table, pushing the others back as she turned the book’s pages.
“They’re gone,” one of the others said. “All our work, wasted. For nothing. We must have misinterpreted.”
“Impossible,” a woman said. “The verses were clear. And now the Codex would have us warring like barbarians, a betrayal sure to ruin our houses, if we obey the letter of its new instruction.”
“What?” Daphène said. “What new instruction?”
Arron answered by way of taking the book from her hands, leafing through until he found the page.
By now some few of Daphène’s companions had taken notice of him, though if he merited their attention, it wasn’t enough to break through whatever had them enraptured by the book. Easy enough to wilt, or even retreat from the room; instead he steeled himself with military discipline. Since his first encounter with Sarine, waiting on the attentions of those more magically gifted was the least of life’s changes. It was still right to be here, right to leverage whatever power was on offer to spread the principles of égalité.
“This can’t be right,” Daphène said. “The Codex is never this clear, never so transparent in its meaning.”
“It is right, I assure you, my dears,” a voice said from behind them. Donatien turned with the rest to find the Duc de Dadenchon, freshly excused from his role as greeter for his guests, standing in the doorway. “I’ve studied it since this morning. If your readings are in similar agreement, then our path is clear.”
Daphène gave him a pained look, the first she’d noticed him since their entry into the room. He was out of place in their world—and never more so than watching Daphène and the rest of them poring over their tome. He tried to edge toward the side of the room, to let whatever passed between them go unhindered by—
A green light flashed at the edge of his vision.
“Why did you do that?” Daphène said, rounding on the Duc as though he were her peer. “Donatien can be trusted; I told you already, he’s under my protection.”
“A necessary precaution, my dear,” the Duc said. The words seemed to flow through Donatien’s skull like water through a bale of cotton. He heard them speak, but found a softness to it, a warmth that mattered more than any other emotion. He retreated into it, letting happiness drown away his fears.
“Don’t hurt him,” Daphène said.
“He’s the least of our worries,” Arron said. “I find it difficult to believe the Codex truly means for us to abandon our positions here, to abandon the foundation we’ve laid for revolution. And yet …”
“And yet the passage is clear,” the Duc said. “This is a test of our faith, make no mistake. A sign from the Gods themselves, and one I intend to follow.”
“Your Grace,” Daphène said. “There must be another meaning.”
“No,” the Duc replied. “And each of you knows it for the truth. If we have the strength of our convictions, then we ride tomorrow for Thellan. All of us. Everywhere. The Codex calls for an army, with kaas at its head, and I intend to obey.”
INTERLUDE
ISARU
Oasis
The Dead Waste
He wiped his forehead, expecting sweat, and found only dry, flaking skin. His tongue felt heavy in his mouth. The bandages on his left forearm had long since been replaced by strips of clothing harvested from the dead, but it left patches exposed, where even Esuko had taken to giv
ing him looks of worry and concern.
“Two more passed, in the night,” Esuko said. She still wore the face of Yanjin Tigai’s brother’s wife. A decision to conserve her energy—Fox’s gift was hard, even for a master of Esuko’s skill—and at first he’d seen it as a reminder, fit to fuel his hate. Now the face had become a thing to hate on its own. A reminder of nothing more than weakness, loss, and death.
“Not Dimi …?” he said, leaving the rest unasked.
“No,” she said. “But he will die soon.”
He tried to nod, and instead found himself staring ahead, his body betraying any command save sitting, resting, and storing energy. The heat scorched his skin even in the makeshift tent they’d built from palms and ferns. They had water, drawn from the muddy pool at the center, and potatoes, made with the boy Dimi’s manifestation of Ox’s gift, to transmute earth to food. But they had no answer to the murderous heat, nor to the isolation of being stranded without provisions in the depths of the desert waste. They would have died on the second day if not for discovering the oasis, but in the weeks since they’d found no sign of caravans, no markers for new oases they could reach in a single night’s journey. Any who had tried to brave a longer trek across the sand had not returned, and now the rest of them were too weakened to attempt it.
“Master,” Esuko said. “You will need to take Dimi’s gift, before he dies.”
“Why?” he asked. It was as much defiance as he could muster. They were condemned to death, and it was his fault. He should have killed Tigai and taken his gift at once. But he’d been sure there was some greater price for the Dragons’ ability to manipulate space and time, some deeper exchange than even their scions were aware. He’d waited to see the gift used before he took it, and instead Tigai had sent them here to die.
“There’s still hope,” Esuko said. “Master Isaru, so long as you draw breath, we can—”
“There is no hope.”
Esuko bowed her head, kneeling across from him on his mat of palm fronds.
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