Of the Divine

by Amelia Atwater-Rhodes

  She pushed open the front door of the Hall, bracing herself. Clay’s hand caught a dangling strand of her hair in a viselike grip, and since it distracted him momentarily from his misery, she let him keep it despite her discomfort.

  The first step she took onto the square’s cobbled stones rocked her in the way that particularly powerful visions sometimes did.

  She took another step forward, and had to close her eyes. Wrapping one arm protectively around Clay, Henna knelt and touched her fingertips to the cobbles, trying to read them like she would her rune stones.

  Images washed over her from all the lives and destinies of those standing and sitting on the cobbled plaza. These cobbles were old, and had seen a lot of strife. Kavet had first been settled as a stronghold for pirates and escaped criminals. The Order of Napthol had been the first hint of civilization, and then finally the Terre had taken control.

  And then the Quinacridone had come. And next—

  “Dear Numen,” she whispered.

  So much fear. And blood and ice and fire. And the brand searing its sigils into skin. Mice in the kitchen, but they weren’t really mice. Ink on paper that was really steel in flesh—

  “Henna!” Someone pulled her to her feet, but for a few moments, she couldn’t see anything around her. “Henna, are you all right?”

  She couldn’t answer right away. She needed to see—

  “Mumum!”

  “Clay . . . c’mere, honey. Henna, Henna, talk to me.”

  Against her will, she focused on Maddy’s worried face. The older woman had Clay in her arms, but all her concern was directed at Henna.

  “I’m okay,” she managed to say. “I—” She squeezed her eyes shut. Why did these visions torment her if they wouldn’t let her see enough to use them?

  “Abibi,” Clay said, softly now. “Abibi. Cay gimme. Go nini bibi.”

  “He’s been crying all night,” Henna said as Maddy turned her attention to her son. “I couldn’t get him to calm down. I came outside to find you.”

  And then that vision. It had to do with . . . What? She thought there was something about the Quin in there. Maybe Dahlia, too. Was this why she was so important?

  “Where are the Quin?” Henna asked, as she realized Celadon and his group weren’t in the market.

  “You didn’t hear?” Maddy asked. “There was a scuffle earlier. Verte had the whole lot of them arrested.”

  Henna breathed a sigh of relief. She would talk to Verte tomorrow and tell him what she had seen. Maybe she would be able to make more sense of the visions by then.

  Maddy, meanwhile, had already turned her attention to her son. “Honey, are you not feeling well? Henna, did he eat?”

  “I couldn’t get him to. He just kept crying.”

  “Maybe another tooth coming in,” Maddy theorized. She started inside, and Henna followed. “I’ll see if I can get him to nurse. Once he’s hungry, there’s no way to know if he’s just grumpy because his tummy’s grumbly.”

  “I’m sorry to pull you away from Festival . . .”

  “No, no trouble,” Maddy said. “He’s my son.”

  Clay was still sniffling, and occasionally saying something in a tragic, serious tone, but being in his mother’s arms seemed to help. By the time they reached the kitchen, he was calm enough that Maddy was able to sit with him and latch him on to nurse while Henna heated water for tea.

  “Did you see the Osei?” Henna asked hesitatingly.

  Without looking up, Maddy answered, “I saw them, briefly. They didn’t spend much time out in the market. Knowing the little I do about them from you, it was all I could do not to spit at them, and I’m sure I’m not the only person in that market who had that idea.”

  “Do you really think the Terre will be able to make a deal with them?”

  “A deal, or maybe something more. There’s magic thick all around the palace, more so than usual.” She frowned. “One of the soldiers told me to keep my distance, and that it would be bad if the Osei saw Jaune’s other woman—oh, he didn’t use those words of course. It was kind of cute, watching him try to find a politic way to put it.”

  Until the Osei were gone from the city, Henna had promised not to discuss the Terre’s true plans for them, so she responded to the other part of Maddy’s statement.

  “The Osei would find your existence as intolerable as the Terra does.”

  “I know better than to draw attention to myself,” Maddy said. “I wanted to examine the workings of the spell. If it’s intended for the Osei, it probably needs to be as strong as it is, but I’m not the only magic user in the market who found it unsettling. While I was snooping about, I heard a rumor about a bird that appeared and caused chaos during the reception. I heard one of the servants say it looked like something from another realm.”

  The comment made Henna think of the royal gardens, with their charming otherworldly flora, whose existence meant there was a space between the realms somewhere big enough for their tendrils. Could the Terre spell to capture the Osei have further opened that rift? If so, what might be the consequences?

  “Did the servant have any magical background?” she asked. “Or did you ask Naples?” If a sorcerer of the Napthol Order had said something looked like it came from another realm, Henna would have believed it without question, but most of the regular palace staff knew nothing of magic.

  “No and no.” Her frown was more fierce than her tone, which was soft in deference to the child that was finally starting to doze. Maddy gently unlatched Clay from her breast, then rocked him until his whimpering protests silenced and he settled in to full sleep at last. Once he was quiet, she added, “Naples warned me he might be working all night, and had been offered a place to sleep at the palace. I suspect he’s involved in the spell and needs to stay near.”

  Henna wanted to continue the conversation, but couldn’t fight the yawn that stole her breath at that moment. Maddy tsk’d. “Go to bed, honey,” she said. “I’ll put Clay down. You meditate, clear your head of whatever visions are putting that haunted look in your eyes, and then try to get some sleep.”

  Maddy never pried, and unlike Helio, she could manage a conversation without making it obvious she was reading someone’s soul, but she always saw when Henna’s power was disturbing her.

  Henna tried to follow her advice, but no matter what she did, she couldn’t keep the dreams away.

  Storm clouds boiling in the sky. Waves cresting high, crashing on the planks.

  Shadow of wings.

  Splash of blood.

  It was barely past dawn when Henna fought her way free of nightmares and staggered downstairs. She dressed in a hurry and half stumbled to the market, less concerned now about the possibility of seeing Osei than she was about the possibility of not seeing what she needed to see. She needed to do . . . Something. What?

  “What, damn you?” she asked her fickle power.

  Few merchants were out this early, except for those who were in the middle of packing up after being awake throughout the long overnight festivities. Henna found one who would sell her a spiced apple tart, then paced the cobblestones, daring them to tell her their secrets. It was too early to tell fortunes, but she sat next to the fountain with her rune stones anyway, drawing curious glances as she trailed her fingers through them.

  No use.

  When Dahlia Indathrone stepped out through one of the palace’s side doors and set her foot on the market’s cobbles, it was like a cool breath down Henna’s spine. The girl looked exhausted, as she should be; she couldn’t have managed more than two or three hours’ sleep between when the revelries at the palace ended and now. Nevertheless, she crossed the market with determined strides.

  “Good morning!” she said when she spotted Henna. “This is early for you to be out, isn’t it?”

  “I could say the same of you,” Henna replied.

  The girl shrugged, and gave a sleepy smile. “I have an appointment about a possible job with the stationer.”

>   “Good luck,” Henna bid her, sincerely.

  The girl continued on her way.

  The next familiar face Henna saw was Naples’. He didn’t seem to notice her. His steps were light and airy with good spirits; she suspected he hadn’t slept at all. How could he? He was shimmering with power, glutted with it. He would never be able to lie down to sleep until he found a way to dissipate it.

  Shadow of wings.

  Several minutes after Naples left, she finally found the vision again—or thought she did. When she chased it, she realized it wasn’t a vision at all. This time, it was real. She lifted her gaze with dread and saw an image from her nightmares: five Osei flying in formation. The one in the center had wide wings with shimmering white undersides—a queen. The other four must be her princes.

  Maybe they are just flying over, Henna thought desperately.

  The pride of Osei abruptly turned and dove. Serpentine bodies large enough to lift ships from the sea plummeted. They changed shape so close to the ground that the wind from their wings smacked the plaza like a hand, rattling or knocking over the light carts and tables the early morning merchants set up to display their wares. Henna squinted her eyes against the grit that smacked her face as the Osei landed with enough force to shatter their bodies had they been human.

  People in the plaza scattered, scrambling away to hide in the shelter of surrounding buildings, but Henna couldn’t make her muscles move as the Osei queen looked around speculatively.

  The creature had skin like liquid silver and eyes like barbed steel. As she crossed the plaza directly toward Henna’s frozen form, Henna recognized her. She was the only Osei queen who ever left her own territory to visit another Osei House.

  The Queen of the First House, the Royal House of the Osei, was standing in the Kavet marketplace.

  Henna felt all the blood drain from her face. Maybe farther. Was she bleeding onto the cobbles? Into the core of the earth?

  “You know us,” the queen said. “That is convenient.” Her voice reminded Henna of the bellflowers in the Terre’s garden: beautiful, cold, and nowhere near human. Only, unlike the bellflowers, it was not soothing. Henna knew this creature well enough to recognize its moods, even though its features and tone did not shift the same way as a human’s. The emotion she was seeing now was pure fury. “You will inform the rulers of this land that we require their immediate presence.”

  Henna struggled to talk, or to run, or do anything. She doubted her finding the Terre and Terra to deliver the Osei’s message was necessary. Someone from the palace would have seen the wings in the sky. They were probably already on their way to demand an explanation.

  The queen tossed her head and stated, “We have no treaties with human nations.” She had read Henna’s mind, and replied unapologetically to her thoughts. “As far as I’m concerned, your kind lost that privilege the moment a Silmari ballista shot down a prince of the Tenth Royal House.”

  “They . . . did . . . what?”

  “Fetch your queen for me,” the Osei queen demanded. “First I will confirm that the leaders of this nation were not involved in this treachery. Then we will decide what reparations must be made.”

  Chapter 17

  Verte

  Despite the long night and his resulting fatigue, Verte woke early. It was unnerving to have the Osei of the Third House sleeping as guests in the palace; strange, quasi-magical dreams seeped from their minds to disturb his rest.

  Waking early was for the best. He wanted to further research the strange bird that had appeared and disappeared so suddenly before dinner. To quell any anxious talk, he and his mother had allowed a few of the servants to overhear an “idle” conversation they had had about the exotic pet one of the Tamari nobles had brought as a gift. But as a sorcerer, one glimpse at the creature had been enough for Verte to know it wasn’t from this world. It resonated with the same cold power that Verte and his father wielded, and the bird’s glistening, crystalline form had reminded him of the way scholars spoke of the Numen, the realm in which souls were created and in which the blessed were received after death.

  What if they could actually prove that cold magic came from the divine realm? What would that mean for the study and practice of sorcery?

  On the other hand, cold magic wasn’t the only power active last night. If a beautiful bird from the Numen could break through to the mortal realm, what more dangerous creatures might appear from the Abyss?

  Dahlia would point out that is exactly what the Quin are afraid of.

  The Quin were the other reason he was up early, and the only reason he had chosen studying the bird for his second task. Verte knew better than to let them wait for him too long; it would only feed their resentment. He took a handful of guards with him to help ensure the Quin went home peacefully, including Tealyn, who was irritated that she hadn’t been allowed to stand guard during the ball and wouldn’t be allowed to accompany him later when they took the Osei on a tour of the city.

  Kavet in general, and Mars in particular, was not famous for its jails. Crime in the city was relatively low, with the majority of the cells’ visitors being short-term occupants there as much for their own protections as for others’. Drunk and disorderly conduct—caused by alcohol or magic—was the most common reason for a person to see the inside of such a cell, and the stays usually ended with nothing more serious than fines to cover any damage caused. The lower-city and docks spawned more troublesome behavior, of course, but the Order of A’hknet controlled most of that area and rarely required—or accepted—support from official law enforcement to keep their own members in line, and sailors’ transgressions were dealt with by a separate system involving the captains currently in port.

  Celadon’s group fit right in at the city lockup, both in terms of their attitudes and the sheen of power still left on them from whatever enchantment someone had used to goad them the day before. When Verte spoke to them, they were cool, not outright apologetic, but shocked at their own actions.

  Though it had been mentioned in their presence the day before, no one asked to be checked for manipulative magic. Had they requested an investigation, Verte would have pursued one honestly, but Followers of the Quinacridone were not swift to ask a Terre for justice, especially if it would have required his magically searching them to try to identify the exact enchantment used.

  The group’s members were individually released and escorted home by guards, who had been instructed to ensure that each made it to his or her destination without further interference.

  Finally, only Celadon was left.

  Without his followers to back him, Celadon should have looked harmless. He was soft-featured, and though not small, he had the build of a merchant, not a sailor or a soldier. Still, Verte found the other man strangely unsettling. Raised in power and magic, any Terre knew not to lightly disregard his instincts, but unfortunately, he had no legal reason to hold Celadon.

  Yet.

  He had a strong suspicion that sooner or later—probably sooner—he would have to deal with Celadon Cremnitz again.

  The preacher looked like he hadn’t slept all night, which wasn’t surprising given the hard, narrow mattress in his cell, and the buzz of magic still whipping around him.

  In fact . . .

  A slight shift in perception, and Verte realized what he was seeing—something he hadn’t been able to distinguish in the magic-saturated market, and had never observed in his previous interactions with the preacher. He drew in a sharp breath as the realization sank in.

  Celadon had power. Natural, high-magic sorcery. There had been no drug or prank; Celadon had raised energy, probably without realizing it, and pushed it at his followers.

  How was it possible that Verte had missed any signs of magic before this? It wasn’t unheard-of for a sorcerer’s power to suddenly emerge well into adulthood, but Verte had never heard of anyone suddenly going from no magic at all to this level of strength. The only possible explanation he could think of was that Celad
on’s hatred of sorcery might have caused him to instinctively suppress his own power until now, when it had become too strong for him to control without training.

  “Do you realize you’re putting off power?” Verte asked, taking a seat outside Celadon’s cell. While he generally preferred to avoid provoking the Quin, as Terre he had a responsibility to deal with problems like this.

  Celadon stood, back rigid. “Excuse me?”

  “You’re putting off waves of magic,” Verte said. The anger—and touch of fear—in Celadon’s eyes confirmed that he still didn’t understand. “It explains why your followers were willing to start a fight with professional soldiers for you. In fact, it explains why people find you so charismatic in the first place. You’ve been enchanting them.”

  While this might have been the first time Celadon’s power manifested, sorcery would do much to explain the man’s meteoric rise to popularity.

  “My followers find me charismatic,” Celadon said, “because I speak the truth, something that resonates with right-hearted—”

  “You’re a walking persuasion charm, Celadon.”

  “If I have been tainted,” the preacher said, “then it is only because of your family’s meddling with the other planes.”

  “Regardless the cause,” Verte said between clenched teeth, “you have power. You can choose to study it, or you can choose to get rid of it, but you cannot choose to ignore it.”

  Celadon stepped up to the bars, fury in every line of his body. “Study it?” he hissed. “Let some Napthol witch put her spells on me, twist me? What kind of fool do you take me for? As for the other option you offer, I’ll be damned before I let you brand me like some criminal.”

  He couldn’t help thinking of Wenge, who had refused every offer to help him control his power until it had left him magically addicted, burned-out, and desperate. He was now recovering from the brand. Had he shared this same fear, that the Napthol sorcerers would somehow change and pervert him if he allowed them to help?

  Celadon didn’t have Wenge’s freedom. His form of power was far more dangerous.