She brought her hands to both edges of his jaw before he could protest further. Delving into his flesh, she wove threads of power into the very cells of his body, finding the broken pieces and coaxing them into new life, into wholeness. It took all of two beats. She stepped back and looked up into a pair of green eyes set deep in a face as pure and healthy as sunlight. The touch of a smile crept into the corner of his lips.
“Thank you, mistress,” he said.
“It’s Jasside,” she said, consciously omitting her last name. “And you are?”
“Feralt. Feralt K—”
“Just Feralt is fine,” she interrupted. “It would be better if you forgot anything else. Better if all your kind did.”
He furrowed his brow at this. Over the course of half a dozen beats, the expression reversed. “Oh,” Feralt said. “I see.”
“New beginnings,” Jasside said, tearing her gaze away from eyes that seemed all too familiar. “That’s what this is all about, after all. No use dredging up old memories. Old, painful memories.”
Feralt nodded. “I understand. I will let the others know.” He turned, clearing his throat. “But there’s still the issue of the wagon . . . ?”
Jasside smirked. “Oh, that.” She raised an arm, directing the power she still held. The wagon lifted on a cushion of air, and the wheel came up from the muck with a sucking sound. She reshaped the cursed thing, hardening every layer and joint to prevent another such occurrence. She whipped the hindquarters of all eight horses with a minute strand of energy, and they jostled forward, pulling the wagon free of the rut. “Better?”
“Much.” Feralt smiled fully now, brushing strands of black hair away from his face. “It is good to know you, Jasside. Perhaps, in the days to come, we can get to know each other better?”
A tremor rattled up from the base of her spine. She pinched her lips together. “Perhaps.”
The sound of approaching hoofbeats from the front of the column drew his attention, and he turned his head away.
Jasside exhaled as she closed her eyes, thankful for the reprieve. She had not been ready for that. For his gaze and his smile. For the reminder of all that she had lost. Of whom she had lost. If only I’d gotten there sooner, Mevon might still be alive. She had grieved, in her own way, and moved on, throwing herself wholly into her apprenticeship under Vashodia and soaking up oceans of knowledge. Drowning in it. She had been too busy to notice any other man.
I don’t know if I’m ready. She took another breath, but it didn’t quite help.
I don’t know if I’ll ever be ready.
The horse drew to a halt. The rider was no daeloth but one of the Weskaran border soldiers sent as their escort. The man lifted the visor on his cage-like metal helmet and eyed Jasside. “The captain wants to know what the holdup is and if you need any assistance?”
“It’s nothing,” Jasside said. “It’s taken care of.”
“Very well,” the soldier said. “The captain would like me to also remind you that we’ll be traveling in tighter formation from here on out.”
“And why might that be?”
The man gestured to the fetid swamps that began less than a pace from the road’s edge. Gnarled trees drooping with wet leaves and vines rose out of the mist like ghosts. A sour film covered the knee-high water, which writhed with the motion of countless creatures unseen. “Because,” the soldier said, “this is where the reports say the attacks begin.”
Jasside nodded once, then raised her chin and her voice. “Full wards in all directions, a third of you at a time. Switch every toll so no one grows tired.” Each of the twenty-three daeloth who made up their personal guard shouted out their acknowledgment of the order.
Satisfied, the Weskaran soldier turned his mount and rode back up the narrow road. Jasside stalked towards the wagon. From the corner of her eye, she caught a glimpse of Feralt and turned her head to see him staring at her. He turned away sheepishly under her scrutiny but brought his sly gaze back just as quickly. Jasside didn’t know, yet, if she welcomed such attention, and not knowing fanned the coals of anger within her.
As such, she burst into the interior, perhaps a tad too violently.
“My, my,” Vashodia said, lounging on her bed compartment. She swirled a glass of blood-red wine and took a sip. “Feeling testy this morning, are we?”
“That,” Jasside said, daring to glare, “was entirely uncalled for.”
“Was it?”
The mierothi said no more, hiding behind another intake of wine. Humor sparkled in her gaze. Humor . . . and contempt.
Jasside gritted her teeth, stumbling slightly as the wagon jerked into motion beneath her. “There is no reason to treat your subordinates the way you do.”
“On the contrary, my dear apprentice. There is no reason not to.”
“How can you even say that?”
“It is no less than they have come to expect. The weak must never forget how easily the strong can crush them, like ants underfoot. And if they ever do? Oh, a-stomping we will go!” Vashodia giggled. “Reminders like this keep them safe from the dangers of their own fickle pride.” She gave Jasside a long look, one that said without words, “It might not hurt to remember you’re my subordinate, too.”
Jasside shook her head as images filled her mind of all those she had seen receive such reminders. Rarely had it turned out well. Her mistress’s unsubtle prods only ever succeeded in filling their recipients with poison, a plague that spread to everyone around them, to everything they touched. Perhaps it achieved Vashodia’s desired outcome, in its own way, but the side effects—all that pain and fear and hate rippling outwards like waves on the surface of a pond—did far more harm than good.
“There has to be a better way,” Jasside said.
“And I’m sure there is,” Vashodia said. “But I’d thought you’d learned by now that my greater concern is with efficiency. With . . . causality. Fear is a far more predictable motivator than love.”
“Predictable, maybe. But not kind.”
“Your point being?”
Jasside slumped onto a cushioned bench fixed to the inside of the wagon and rolled her head back. I don’t know why I even bother trying to argue with you anymore. . .
She closed her eyes, letting the rhythm of their passage lull her into senselessness. Memories floated up of better times, before she ever met Vashodia. Memories of war, of companionship, of the death of her insecurity.
Memories of Mevon.
She clung to this last, rolling it over and over again until she saw clearly what it was they had shared. It seemed a pitiful thing from the outside, but still she cherished it. Something had awoken in her, back then. Something that refused to die. She could no more ignore it than she could channel it in another direction. The best thing for it—perhaps the only thing—was distraction.
But even that seemed to have its limits.
“Would you like to know what it is we’re doing here?”
Jasside’s eyes popped open. She sat up quickly, heart pounding in sudden excitement. “You mean you’ll actually tell me?”
Vashodia had never been liberal about sharing information if she suspected even the slightest advantage in keeping it hidden, and so the reason behind this trip—the real reason, not the story about placating the Weskarans, which Jasside knew to be false—remained as tight-lipped a secret as any the mierothi had. Jasside had given up begging for information days ago.
“I suppose it’s time you knew what we were dealing with,” Vashodia said. “After all, it will be you and you alone who will take care of this nasty business.”
“Me alone? I don’t understand.”
“You didn’t think we came all the way out here just to appease those weaklings to our west, now did you?”
“Of course not.”
“Then tell me, cle
ver girl that you are, why else would we bother?”
Jasside gazed at the ceiling, concentrating. I and I alone. . .
“This is a test,” she said.
“And you’ve passed the first question, so it seems.” Vashodia raised her glass as if in a toast. “Ready for the next?”
Despite everything, Jasside couldn’t help but feel excited. Finally, some action. Vashodia’s tests were always a challenge, but she looked forward to them all the same. Only by pushing herself, by struggling through these gruesome trials, could she expect herself to grow. All the power in the world was useless if one did not have the experience required to utilize it. “Always,” she said.
“Then answer me this. What do the Weskarans fear?”
Jasside shrugged. “Sorcery.”
“And why is that?”
“Because it puts some men and women above others, by no virtue other than the luck of their birth.”
“Wrong. Children are born into privilege all the time. Princes and princesses, heirs to fortunes, scions of the famous and powerful—they all start out life at the top, a horde of the weak and powerless forming the mountain on which they stand. You don’t see the Weskarans levying laws against them, do you? Try again.”
Jasside took a deep breath. “They fear sorcery because they don’t understand it.”
“Wrong. They understand it perfectly.”
“Do they? Yes, they must.” She paused, thinking about it, scratching beneath her surface knowledge to the heart of things. “Then it can only be because of that very knowledge. They know that magic is chaos incarnate. That its lure, its inescapable pull, will drive the weak-minded to depths of depravity that border on inhumanity. To view those without it as . . . ants.”
Vashodia sat up, gulping down the last swallow of wine and setting the glass aside. “At last. I was beginning to think you might fail.”
Jasside shook her head. “Failure only comes to those who cease trying. Now, tell me, what is it we’re after?”
“We’re after the truest realization of the Weskarans’ greatest fear. We’re after the consequence of when fools gain access to power such as ours. When they decide to make themselves into gods. When they lose control.” Vashodia smiled.
“We are—rather, you are—going to hunt us some monsters.”
Arivana sat stiffly on her throne, trying desperately to keep her eyes open.
The council meeting had been dragging on for the last three tolls. She knew because the great clocks of the city chimed eleven times just as she came in and were now ringing fourteen. She usually enjoyed the sound, a symphony of rising melodies plucked from the chaos of a thousand bells, but now they only reminded her of how long she’d been sitting there, in silence, being ignored by everyone else in the room.
Why do adults have to be so boring?
It would have been fine if she had something to do, a distraction or something to munch on or anything. She’d had Flumere bring a bag of candies, thinking she might share them, but one look at all the ministers and their aides told her how bad an idea it was. They all wore stiff, formal robes, made of spidersilk, bedecked with hundreds of gems woven into patterns matching the sigil of each house. Dour faces, painted to mask their age, sat beneath elaborate headdresses. No—no one seemed in the mood for candies, so Arivana kept the bag hidden.
She’d seen the way most of them looked at her. All smiles and politeness and deference to her position. But when they thought she wasn’t looking, the number of eye rolls and sneers and wrists flipped in casual dismissal ate away at her confidence like the tide hitting a castle built of sand. She couldn’t afford to lose any more respect.
She felt a pinch on her back and shot her eyes open. She hadn’t even realized they’d been dangerously near to closing. Fighting off a yawn, she turned her head slowly. Flumere’s worried face came into view, along with her retreating hand. Arivana gave her another nod of thanks. It hadn’t been the first time she’d needed help staying alert.
She bit the inside of her cheek. The rush of pain drove some of the haze from her vision. For what seemed the hundredth time that day, she made an inspection of the chamber.
Six pillars decorated the corners of the hexagonal room, each a sculptured depiction of two split figures, male and female, spiraling around one another in twin hues of red and gold. White marble made up the walls and floor, enchanted to emit a glow halfway between starlight and sunlight. With no visible lightglobes, it made the whole room seem lit as if from everywhere at once. The ministers sat between each pillar in circular compartments, with a trio of younger family members behind them. The Faer family pod floated in the center of the chamber, having left its berth along the wall when Jorun Faer, Minister of Forms, began his oration.
He’d been speaking for nearly half a toll. Something about taxing the lesser houses to increase manufacturing on trinkets and vanity sculptures. Not for money but for labor. From what she had gathered, the great houses mainly concerned themselves with design and export, leaving the bulk of production and materials acquisitions, and a dozen other things she had no notion of, to their subordinate families.
So . . . very . . . dull.
She busied herself by running her fingers over the lacy seams of her dress, a House Merune original. She had whole closets full of the like, each a masterpiece of high fashion. Supposedly. Arivana thought it was dreadfully uncomfortable.
At long last, silence descended on the chamber. Minister Faer had finished his speech. She turned to her left, blinking herself awake as Tior sat forward and cleared his throat.
“A reasonable proposal, Minister Faer,” Tior Pashams said. “We all must give a little extra in times of war. I move that we vote.”
“And I second,” said Yuna Vandulisar, Minister of Art.
With no more ceremony than that—thank goodness!—the ministers all activated their private voting spheres. Less than ten beats later, they began sending them forward, each coppery ball floating on a small cushion of sorcery, which appeared to Arivana’s eyes as nothing more than a blur, a thickening of the air. With a metallic clink, the spheres all touched and began spinning. They picked up speed, going faster and faster until she could not tell one from another. Then, with no warning, they stopped instantly and burst into a glow. Four were green, indicating an affirmative vote. The last was red.
Tior sighed. “Would the dissenter like to make himself or herself known and present the arguments against this proposal?”
For whatever reason, the chamber remained silent. Though all of this was new to her, Arivana thought she knew why. The dissenter wasn’t likely to sway enough of the others to change the vote, so there was no point in identifying oneself. Even adults—even these adults—didn’t like being the odd one out.
“Very well,” Tior said. “The vote stands.”
Jorun Faer bowed as the voting spheres all returned to their owners. “I thank you, fellow ministers, for your clarity and unity on this matter. Copies of the document I just described will be delivered to each of you by tomorrow.” He activated some mechanism in his pod, and it floated up towards the empty space along the wall.
“Now,” Tior said, “since there are no other proposals scheduled for today, we shall move on to routine matters. Minister Trelent?”
Across the room, Parvon Trelent, the greying Minister of Song coughed, straightening with some effort. Arivana could see his younger sisters, Mariun and Leruna, behind him.
She still couldn’t tell them apart.
“Ah, yes,” the man began in a halting, raspy voice, “there is some small matter that concerns us all.” He paused, seeming to eye Arivana with a confused cast to his gaze before continuing. She swallowed the lump that formed in her throat beneath his odd scrutiny. “Yes, anyway, the last of the daughters of light have, erm, fulfilled the terms of their service. The valynkar consulate is
in need of new . . . pledges.”
“Chattel, you mean.”
Every set of eyes in the room turned towards the speaker. Arivana nearly dropped her jaw as she angled her head to the right and saw Claris sneering at them all.
“Something to say, Minister Baudone?” Tior said.
Claris glared at him. “Nothing that I haven’t already said a thousand times.” She turned to Parvon. “Get on with it, then.”
The old man shrank back from her, smoothing his white whiskers nervously. “Yes, well then. As I was saying, it has come time to poll your houses for fresh and willing participants though I’m sure you all have selections prepared already. I need not remind you what an honor and opportunity this is for the young women of your families.”
Arivana scrunched her face in thought. Daughters of light . . . where have I heard that before? It had something to do with the consulate, as Parvon had said, but she couldn’t remember what. Did they go there to study?
“You have our thanks for bringing this to our attention, Minister Trelent,” Tior said. Parvon nodded, and Tior shifted his gaze once more to Claris. “Minister Baudone, would you care to give us all an update on the coalition’s efforts in Sceptre?”
“You mean the punishment we are delivering?” Claris sniffed sharply. “If we’re trying to even out the body count, we’ve outdone ourselves a thousandfold.”
Minister Pashams stood, gritting his teeth. “Need I remind you, that as Minister of Dance, matters of armed conflict fall under your purview. It is your duty—”
“Don’t talk to me of duty!”
Arivana sucked in a breath, holding it. She knew she wasn’t alone in the reflex. No one else in the chamber but her adopted aunt kept breathing.
Tior was the first to let his out. He sat, exhaling slowly. Everyone else in the room, after a short pause, took that as permission to follow suit. Arivana did the same.
Through all of this, she never took her eyes off Claris. And now she was able to catch the woman’s glance at her, with a look in her eyes that Arivana could only describe as sorrowful rage. She fought back a wave of tears that seemed eager to push their way out of her skull.
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