Yes.
“And? You mean to tell me the enemy of the Gods himself is speaking to Reyne d’Agarre?”
Not speaking. The corruption interferes with my kind.
“Interferes?”
We do not share the same motivations.
Frustration seethed through her, and she sensed the same emotion in Zi. They’d tread over similar ground more than once since the salon, and neither seemed to be able to make clear their meaning to the other.
“Zi, I need to know what d’Agarre is planning. Did the passage you read give any hint of what he might do next?”
It was only stories.
She pressed her fingers to her temples. There must be some way to get a clear answer.
“Something troubling you this morning?”
Lord Revellion stood in the entryway, up and dressed for the day despite the early hour. He wore his military uniform, a blue just shy of black, with a double row of golden buttons left hanging open on his coat. A painful reminder that all of this was temporary; little enough chance their affair would continue after he rode south with the army. He held a letter, unsealed and opened in his hand.
“Zi is trying to help me make sense of the night of the salon,” she said. “With little success.” She swallowed, eyeing the letter. It had been a shock that Zi had been willing to show himself to Lord Revellion, and no less for him, she was sure. Zi had never given permission to reveal his existence to her uncle. The more she learned of her companion, the less she understood him.
Lord Revellion nodded absently as he read, striding forward to sit on one of the long benches.
“News from the army?” she asked. Word had come some weeks past of a great victory at the Great Barrier, soured by the flow of refugees into the city, men, women, and families displaced by battles in the south. Neither would absolve Donatien of his duty to serve. She’d been expecting a summons, and seeing him in full uniform suggested the time had finally come.
Instead he shook his head. “No. From my father.”
Silence descended on the library as he read. Finally he laughed, crumpling the paper and tossing it onto the floor.
“My lord?” she asked.
“It’s nonsense. Word has reached my father, word that I’ve been seen with you. He admonishes me to remember my place as a scion of a great house, to remember my duty to uphold the noble legacy of my blood.”
She glanced down at the remains of the letter, feeling a stinging rebuke.
“Sarine, you need not concern yourself with what my father thinks. He’s a fool, mired in tradition and more concerned with appearances than sense. There’s no law against our seeing each other; how could there be, when half the noble families in the kingdom are marrying rich merchants to restock their coffers? No, if he’s concerned about you, it’s for your lack of a dowry, not your blood. And I don’t give a damn about either.”
She nodded, but couldn’t escape the weight of Revellion’s father’s words. Whatever assurances he gave, Donatien Revellion was still the son of a marquis. It was one thing to shrug off the stares and whispers of gossip from afar, but this was closer, more immediate. She had no illusions of belonging in Lord Revellion’s world any more than he would fit in on the streets of the Maw. Before d’Agarre’s salon it seemed as though they were on the cusp of breaching that divide. Now he wore the midnight blue of the Sarresant army, their stolen weeks feeling more and more like a fleeting dream of summer.
And d’Agarre. A shiver ran up her spine remembering the sight of him exulting in the murder of the Comtesse de Rillefort. Whatever passed between her and the son of the Marquis Revellion, there was still a madman sowing dissent and violence at the heart of the city.
“Are you all right?” Revellion asked. “Truly, Sarine, my father is a thousand leagues away. You have no need to trouble yourself over his ridiculous notions of propriety. I meant it when I said—”
“I’m fine, Donatien,” she said. “Only concerned. I trust your sense of how to deal with … all of this.” She gestured to the décor and finery around them. “But d’Agarre is out there, planning. And whatever your father thinks, there’s still the matter of your deployment.”
She meant it kindly, but he took it with a wince. “My deployment. Yes, it will come soon. Today it’s a ceremony at the academy, to honor my new commander for her role in the latest victory over the Gandsmen. But with the rest of the army being recalled to the city for resupply …”
“You’ll make a fine commander,” she said.
He sighed.
“Somehow I imagined all of this turning out differently,” he said as he stood, walking to the large window overlooking the streets below. “Not us. I mean the city, the people. D’Agarre made it sound as if real change could be possible. I thought we’d drive for reform, make peace with Gand …”
“Donatien, I’m frightened of whatever he is planning. D’Agarre holds a seat on the Council-General, attends salons with the nobles and factory owners, and half the urchins in the city seem to be under his thumb. He has influence at every level of this city.”
“You truly think he means to seize power?”
“I do.”
Donatien turned his gaze through the clear glass window that dominated the library, looking out over the city as it stirred, the sun only just cresting the horizon.
“You know I agree with damn near every precept of his philosophy,” he said. “And if the kaas give him the power to challenge the binders that support the regime … will there be another, better chance to effect change, real change?”
“I saw the madness behind his eyes.” She shivered, remembering. “He murdered an ally to his cause, for no more reason than his book told him it was needful. What would stop him torching a village, or putting half a district to the guillotine, if it were written there for him to follow? Whatever his support for égalité or liberty, we do not want that man for a leader.”
“You’re right, of course,” he said, with a lingering look out the window. “And now duty bids me take up arms to support the very state I would see reformed. I feel like a coward, swept along by fate when I would stand and fight.”
She rose and stood beside him, looking out over the city. It wasn’t easy to feel sympathy for him, in spite of their time together. He was a man of ideals, a product of the life of privilege he claimed to abhor. He’d spent his youth mastering courtly games and moonlighting with subversive texts while she and Zi dodged street gangs in the Maw. For her, equality of birth and rule by merit alone was a fact of life on the street: The strongest got their share, and the rest lined up to carve what they could from the scraps. In a way, the nobility only played out the same scene on a grander scale. At least if Lord Revellion was caught up in it, he had the sense to see the need for freedom from a life preoccupied with survival. That was no cowardice.
Reyne d’Agarre, though … he was a monster, a monster that claimed to hold the same beliefs, but she had seen the truth of it in the blood on the edge of his knife. Whatever madness drove him, he’d acted no different from the worst of the street toughs when it became clear she’d challenged his power, by cleansing the evil from the kaas of the Comtesse de Rillefort.
“We have to stop him,” she said.
Her words brought Lord Revellion out of a reverie beside her. “Stop him?” He turned to look at her. “Ah, you mean d’Agarre.”
She nodded. “You call it cowardice not to fight for what you believe. What does that make me, sitting idle here behind your walls? I’ve seen the evil that drives him, and I cannot stand by and watch his madness loosed on this city. We have to stop him.”
“Sarine, you said yourself Reyne d’Agarre has influence throughout the city. And he attacked you at his manse. He may well want you killed.”
“Well, and what of it? Why has he not sought me out since? I will tell you, Donatien: because I am not powerless.”
“I know it.” He gestured to the leg he still favored, even after months of recovery. �
�Remember how we met?”
She nodded, smiling. The beast at the masquerade.
He’d never asked after her gifts. It was strange to think she experienced the world from a different vantage than he did; but too, when they were together they refrained from speaking in depth about his upbringing as a noble, or the courtesies he’d learned among others of his standing. It felt as though acknowledging their differences shone a light on the unlikeliness of their pairing. Besides, it was simple enough, most of the time, to focus on the perspectives they shared.
Yet now, here it was.
“You can ask, Donatien,” she said, keeping her voice calm. “I have nothing to hide from you.”
“Very well. Understand, my knowledge of the leylines is limited, an academic study at best. And I know nothing of your Zi. Still, you revealed to me already you can bind Body, and Life.”
She nodded.
“Well, is that the extent of your bindings? Can you sense another type of energy?”
“I can bind everything,” she said. “My uncle claimed it was a rare thing, though he knew precious little beyond the most rudimentary training. He had only enough talent with Life to be taken and trained as a priest when he was a boy.”
“Everything?” Revellion frowned. “Everything you can sense, yes? How many is that?”
“All of them. Body, Shelter, Life, Death, Mind, Entropy, and Faith.”
A silence settled over the library.
She went on. “Faith I named myself—my uncle couldn’t find mention of it in any of the holy books. It felt right, though. White clouds that gather where people have hope, hope in dark places.”
“Sarine …”
“What?” she asked, feeling a creeping unease, the old worry of revealing what she had spent a lifetime keeping hidden. She’d sensed even as a child that it had been wrong for her uncle to train her. The one time she’d asked why, he’d demurred, promising to tell her when she was older. And now, even in the company of a man from whom she desired to keep no secrets, the sinking feeling returned.
Revellion swallowed and began again. “There are stories. Old stories of fullbinders, true fullbinders who could do what you are describing. Now there are not more than a company’s worth of binders in all of Sarresant, Old World and New, who can handle three types of leyline energies. And none in living memory who could handle more.”
She flushed. “Well, I can.”
“All six—seven!—types of energy. Do you know what this means? You’re a true fullbinder, right out of the stories. Gods, but this is incredible. If the priests, or the …” He trailed off.
She said nothing, watching him.
He reached a hand around her shoulders, bringing her tight toward him. “Thank you,” he said. “Thank you for sharing this with me.”
Tears stung her eyes. Even now, after weeks in his company, it felt good to be accepted. It felt good to trust.
Telling of Zi’s gifts was more difficult, owing to Revellion’s lack of familiarity and her own limited knowledge of what Zi could do. She related what she knew: the bursts of speed and strength, the influencing of weakly held emotions and beliefs in others, the protective shield he conjured when she was at risk of physical harm. Almost she forgot the blessing she’d received from the Great Cat, but she related that as well, the strange encounter with the mareh’et spirit while her body had been comatose and moved to the Citadel the night of the masquerade.
When the telling was finished, she laughed weakly. “So you see, Reyne d’Agarre has good cause to fear me.”
“I believe it,” Revellion said with a grin, fading into seriousness as he continued. “Sarine, could you truly strike at him?”
The question sobered her as well. “I don’t know. But I mean what I said: Whatever he claims for his motives, he must be stopped. Perhaps there is a way to gather evidence, something we could use to undermine him, or expose him to the Duc-Governor, or the Lords’ Council.”
“We know he holds subversive meetings among the moneyed classes from his manse, though I suspect neither of us will be receiving another invitation to one of those.”
“No, likely not,” she said with a wry smile. “We’ll never produce proof of the comtesse’s murder, and d’Agarre has too much wealth to receive more than a reprimand for seditious talk at his salons. But we know he treats with the commonfolk as well. I saw him in the Harbor, and the Maw. He’s been behind the rash of thefts and riots in the city.”
“Yes.” Revellion nodded along with her reasoning. “That would get the Duc-Governor’s attention. But how could we prove it? He’s not like to exchange direct correspondence with street gangs and ruffians in the Maw.”
“We’ll find something. And unless I miss my guess, he’ll have subverted high-ranking commanders within the army as well; he’d not risk instigating a coup d’état without some surety of military backing.”
Revellion whistled. “I suspect you’re right. By the Gods themselves, Sarine, you’d pit the two of us against a conspiracy that might extend halfway to the Old World.”
“Start with your new posting? See what you can uncover, and I’ll do the same among the city’s rougher quarters.”
“All right. Though for the life of me, even after hearing the sum of your gifts, I still mislike the thought of you going into danger alone.” He held up his hands to ward off her objections. “I know, I know, you’ve lived in the Maw since you were a child. Still, you’ve survived by avoiding the worst elements there, not by courting them.”
“I know how to remain hidden, Donatien. In fact …”
She slid her eyes shut for a moment. There: a thin strand of Faith in this very room. A sign from the Gods if ever there was one. She tethered it, and allowed herself a smile at the startled gasp from Lord Revellion when she faded from view.
“You see?” she said as she released the binding. “I will be safe.”
He barked a laugh after he’d settled himself. “Oh, Sarine. Reyne d’Agarre chose poorly when he made you his enemy.”
“Yes,” she said. “Yes, he did.”
31
ERRIS
Academy Grounds
Gardens District, New Sarresant
The reflection in the standing mirror bore only token resemblance to Erris d’Arrent. At Duc-General Cherrain’s insistence she’d allowed a pair of groomers free rein over her appearance this morning. If they’d tried it with anything less than a direct order from the Duc, she’d have tossed them both into the nearest sewage canal. As it was, she bore it with as much grace as a child raised first by a trapper and then by the army could muster.
She took a step back, regarding the groomers’ work. Her shoulder-length hair had been pulled into a knot at the nape of her neck, tight enough to make her scalp itch. A layer of cosmetics covering her face made her look more like a porcelain doll than an actual woman, let alone a soldier. They’d even replaced her dress uniform with a freshly tailored version cut to her exact measurements, fixing a pair of gold epaulets to her shoulders, the dangling tassels making her feel more than a touch ridiculous. The twin knots of rank, one on either collar and the forearm of each sleeve, completed the picture.
Her lead groomer nodded with satisfaction, pronouncing her attire complete. She pitied the man, poor fool that he was. What an utterly pointless vocation.
The officers’ arrival in the northern colonies was the purpose for the day’s affair, of course. Let them claim it was to celebrate her victory over the Gandsmen, to recognize her courage or whatever other horseshit justified the occasion in their minds. She’d been around nobles and gentlemen since she first made brigade-colonel five years ago, after the Thellan campaigns. She knew how they thought. A medal ceremony was an easy excuse to throw one of their lavish parties, but without her they would have found another reason, sure as sunrise.
“This way if you please, General d’Arrent.” A servant in the Duc’s livery beckoned. “The ceremony is due to begin.”
Praise the Exar
ch for that; best to get it over with as quick as she could. She said nothing, following the man through a hallway and into a large chamber where the procession was already forming up. A faux military march, styled like the commencement ceremonies here at the academy. She’d graduated here, ten lifetimes ago. Even then she’d felt like a wolf given a seat at the dinner table, having to work twice as hard as her blue-blooded fellows for half the accolades. Trappers’ daughters, especially trappers’ daughters bearing binder’s scars that marked them property of the King, did not graduate first in their class from any school, let alone the New Sarresant Academy. That she hadn’t actually been granted the honor had mattered not at all. She knew she’d had the best marks in her year, and she’d made damn sure every pig-tit-suckling nobleman in her class knew it, too.
“The Exarch’s blessings on you, Chevalier-General.” Sister Elise bowed from behind her, near the head of the line.
“Sister. You’ll have to tell me how you managed to escape the Duc’s groomers.”
“Privileges of the faith.” The sister smiled.
She returned the gesture, but couldn’t manage much in the way of warmth. A day like today only reminded her that knighthood had come along with her promotion to command of the 1st Division. Ceremonies like this would be the rule now, where before they’d been avoidable more often than not.
“General,” another woman beside her said in a quiet voice, inclining her head.
“Marie,” she said, this time with genuine affection. “Has the city treated you well?”
“I will land on my feet, General, thank you.”
Erris nodded, turning her attention back to the academy steward as he gave instructions to the entire procession. The horrors Marie d’Oreste had endured these past months were beyond imagining, even for a soldier and a veteran of two wars. It had been at Erris’s urging—no, at her insistence—that Marie be given a place of honor equal to her own today. The woman had earned it. It had been through Marie’s eyes she witnessed the devastation wrought on the Gandsmen, when she forced the woman against every ounce of good sense to go back to their camp. The massive pools of Death that had swollen nigh to bursting had had her whipping the priests into a frenzy, steeling them for an attack that never came. Instead the inky clouds congealed into sickly pits of tar clinging to the leylines, as deep and thick as she had ever seen. And then Marie had given her the truth of it: a slaughter, men torn limb from limb, with pools of gore so deep the grass flooded beneath the trees, and only the bodies of dogs mixed in with men to give the cause. Beasts of some sort, the very creatures against which the Great Barrier had been built so long ago, that had threatened the colonies upon their founding here in the New World.
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