The carriage came to a stop outside the mansion, and he walked her up the cobblestone drive and inside, helped her up the stairs and to their rooms.
He dismissed the maids and undressed her himself, unpinned her hair, helped her wash her face. She watched him in the mirror, sitting uneasily like a caged animal, her gaze uncertain as if she expected him to rebuke her.
Never.
He took her in his arms, and she rested her cheek against his chest, nuzzled it with a slow stroke, as if she savored every second. And then the salty scent of her tears renewed.
He cradled her head to his heart.
I’m here, and he isn’t. I’ll never abandon you, betray you, or let you suffer. I will love you with all my heart, whether you love me with all of yours or not.
These were the vows he made to her tonight, and would make to her when they wed. Vows he would keep, for all of time.
And once they’d wed, their bond would be sealed. He’d spend his life arduously working all trace of anyone else from her heart, with all he could give her—love, devotion, a family. He’d fill her up, fill her heart, until she did become utterly, completely his.
He smoothed her hair away from her face and lifted her chin, met her teary gaze as she searched his. Even when she cried, she was beautiful.
He pressed a kiss to her forehead, and a quavering breath left her mouth. When she raised her head, he pressed another soft kiss to her lips, stroked a delicate line down her tear-streaked cheek, down her smooth neck. She leaned into him, whimpering low in her throat, and his arms could do nothing but envelop her, hold her, keep her close as she gave herself over to him completely.
They bared each other to the dim candlelit luminance of the night, and tonight, there would be no restraints, no commands, no words, none of the things he needed. No, tonight there would only be the one thing she needed above all others: love.
Silently, he lifted her and took her to bed.
* * *
Samara knelt in the lush grass, still within sight of the copious olive trees just off the coast. Here, prairial wort was in full bloom, bunches of bright yellow five-petaled flowers with their conspicuous black dots crowning the soft grasses with sunlight. Past the horizon of flowers and grass were cypress trees, and the walled city in the shadow of misty black mountains.
She plucked the yellow flowers and carefully packaged handfuls of them in paper.
“So many?” Zahib practiced with his blade as he did every day, patterns of movements and lunges.
“These flowers make a red oil called prairial liniment,” she said, folding another package, “and you can use it to treat severe burns, along with bruises and other skin conditions. Just this flower can help a lot of people.” When they’d docked, she’d fully expected for him to take her directly to university and leave as soon as he could. “You didn’t have to do this.”
He finished a pattern and sheathed his blade. “I wanted to.”
With a slow breath, she plucked some nearby salvia. An ingredient in four thieves vinegar, it would be good to have on hand in case of the return of plague.
He knelt next to her and plucked some prairial wort to add to her pile. “You think I look down on what you do, Samara. Nothing could be further from the truth. I am very proud of you.”
Pausing, she averted her gaze. Proud. He didn’t have the right to be proud of her. He hadn’t earned it.
“How many lives would you save over a lifetime of being an apothecary?” he asked, his voice gentler than she’d ever heard it.
Even saving one life was worth everything. Most people came with simple—not life-threatening—matters, but even so, many went to an apothecary instead of a physician or a healer because of the cost. For little more than the price of her herbs, an apothecary could give them a remedy. “Hundreds, perhaps.”
“And that is important to you?”
“Of course it is,” she snapped. All her life she’d done it, first with Umi and then on her own for anyone in House Hazael, and sometimes for friends of friends of slaves who had no one else to turn to.
“If one of my other children takes over our House when I die,” he said, “there is no doubt it will return to the old ways. Grandfather’s influence, and their mothers’, was strong. Too strong for me to sway.”
Was it any wonder? He’d been complacent for so long that his actions would have betrayed any such words.
“By being my heir, you will save 813 lives, Samara. You will keep them free.”
813. The number of slaves House Hazael had kept. She crumpled.
“I know it is a lot I ask of you, and when I die, you’ll have the power to do what you wish,” he said, pushing off from the ground. “But I’ve watched you help others all my life, doing what I only wished to do, and there is no one who can do this but you.”
He stood and drew his blade once more, returning to his training.
There had been a time when she was very young, four perhaps, when she’d seen Zahib and called him Ab. All the other children had called their fathers that, and she’d heard Zahib’s own children call him that.
Umi had snatched her away, her grip unrelenting, to a far, empty room, and taken her over her knee. Zahib, Umi had said, and with tears in her eyes, hit her bottom. Zahib, she repeated, and hit her again. And hit her and hit her and hit her. Samara had cried, but it hadn’t been until she, too, had repeated Zahib that Umi had stopped, taken her shoulders, and forced eye contact. You have no ab, she’d said. Zahib. To you, Samara, there will only ever be Zahib. Remember this, for your life and for mine.
After that, it had been some time before she could sit. The lesson had lingered, and so had Umi’s words.
She’d seen other girls with their fathers, and when she’d had Umi, seeing that didn’t matter. Most of the time. But every once in a while, she imagined what it would be like to be held by an ab, to smile with him, to tell him what she’d learned and feel the rush of his pride, to confess her problems to him and feel the reassuring stroke of his hand on her head and firm commitment to help her. To know that no matter what threatened her or Umi, her ab would keep them both safe.
Grabbing a stem, she broke off another salvia.
She didn’t mourn the loss of Zahib as her ab. But sometimes, she did mourn never having one.
Zahib had opened himself up to her more, shared his thoughts and his hopes, and he was right about saving 813 lives. She would need to know many things to manage the House competently—things she didn’t know. University wasn’t the only place to learn them, but he wasn’t wrong about this.
She packed up her ingredients and stood. “I’m ready.”
Zahib eyed her as he finished his pattern. “Good. We will find lodging, I will set up your accounts here, and purchase everything you need. In a few days, I will see you settled, then take my leave of you.”
She nodded.
He wasn’t wrong, and he had opened up to her.
But he was still Zahib opening up, and only ever Zahib.
For her life and for Umi’s.
* * *
The city guards at the gates to Bournand already knew Leigh and admitted him on sight. On the wall, there weren't only the yellow tabards of the guard, but also stern-faced people in plain clothes. Witches.
“Things have changed since my last visit here,” he said to the graying guard escorting them in.
“The world has changed,” the guard replied gruffly and bowed to Katia before returning to his post. Katia waved at a few of the witches posted on the wall, and they nodded their acknowledgment, eyeing him and Ambriel.
If Joel Forgeron had formally taken a role in the city’s defense, the Divinity’s influence was already waning here. But so were the Coven’s resources.
At the center of the city, the domed roof of the Temple of the Divine loomed like a mountain over everything else. The world hadn’t changed that much.
With a bounce in her step, Katia led the way uptown, past the market stalls closing up
at twilight. Ambriel eyed the various offerings and slowed every so often to inspect a bolt of cloth, cookies, spices, clothing.
“You know, last time I was here, I made certain to purposefully ignore the wonders of this market,” Leigh said to Ambriel.
“Why?” Ambriel held up a pair of specs, looking through one side of them.
“Showing off a bit, back when the king didn’t have two argents to rub together.” Leigh grinned. Jon had followed him wide-eyed, eyeing silk and saffron, and now he had more gold to his name than the Grand bloody Divinus.
Forgeron’s shingle came into view, a fist clenched around a hammer. Archons were prickly as a bunch, but Joel Forgeron especially required a certain amount of mettle to face, even in the comparatively less bloody battlefield of conversation.
The last time he’d seen Joel, he’d come through Bournand during Ignis, and a roll in the hay with Blaise had ended with massive, brawny Joel demanding he keep himself and his troubles far from Blaise. Although he generally laughed in the face of such demands, something about the protruding vein in Joel’s forehead—and the Coven ready to do their Archon’s bidding—persuaded him to comply.
They could hardly be called friends, but—he shrugged—no one had died.
After opening the gate, Katia led the way around back, and Leigh followed, slowly down the narrow walk between the smithy and the stable to a small, twilit courtyard, quaint, like the tall-but-cramped house the Forgerons lived in.
Their modesty belied their power, and anyone who believed them as common as their circumstances would leave an altercation with an overly enchanted sword shoved where the sun doesn’t shine, probably shooting rainbows and singing “The Maid in the Hay” until his eardrums exploded. Leigh frowned. Or just dead. Leaving the altercation just dead was also fairly likely.
A stout older man, with a full gray beard and long matching hair tied back, sat by a table with a book under a crabapple tree. He sat with an unmistakable patriarchal air about him and hadn’t moved a muscle at their entrance.
Katia’s steps lightened. “Papa—”
Joel held up a thick index finger. He seemed to finish a page in the book before slamming it shut and placing it on the table. “In the house.”
She frowned. “But Papa—”
“In. The. House. Katia.”
Heaving an exaggerated sigh, she stomped a foot and stormed off into the townhouse next to the smithy. She slammed the door, and a crabapple fell from the bough above Forgeron.
With a gesture like a snap, it poofed into glittering dust that feathered softly onto the tabletop and, with a gentle breeze, blew away, shimmering. Diamond dust.
Leisurely, Joel lifted his gaze. “Galvan,” he said, his brown eyes narrowing.
“Forgeron,” he greeted, with the widest, brightest smile he could muster. Hopefully, the man’s memory was as short as his hair was long. “This is Ambriel Sunheart of Vervewood.”
Ambriel inclined his head, his long, fair hair slipping forward in strands that reflected the sunset.
Joel nodded to the chairs across from him. With a polite nod, Leigh seated himself, leaning back into the wrought-iron chair and finding it strangely comfortable. Much like himself, it brimmed with magic. “You were expecting us?”
“Made it myself,” Joel said in Old Emaurrian and watched his expression. Indeed, the work of a master transmutor was impressive.
With an appreciative nod, Leigh ran his finger along the edge of the seat. “How have you been, old man?”
Huffing a laugh, Joel shot him a critical look. “Better since you’ve been away.”
So he was going to let the seduction of his heir slide. Leigh chirped a laugh. Eyeing the map case, he lifted his head and asked, “So, I would love to know: how did you foresee our arrival?”
Joel looked out at the courtyard’s sparse vegetable garden. “You know,” he began slowly, “when my youngest daughter was born, I was happy to meet her.”
Leigh rolled his eyes. Great. A story.
Joel turned to him with a glower. “Just listen, Galvan.”
Leigh flashed a brief but huge grin until Joel sighed and looked away—the man was too powerful to insult a second time, after all. “Katia was trouble, even in her infancy, but the girl had fire. She would be a smith among smiths. A virtuoso. She practiced every day, never left my side, or Marie’s, or Helene’s when we were at the smithy. She prepared and prepared and prepared for her magic.” Joel grinned nostalgically. “When she had her éveil, imagine her surprise when she discovered she wasn’t a transmutor but a geomancer.”
The transmutor line was usually dominant, so the fact that Forgeron’s transmutor wife had given birth to a geomancer was unusual.
Forgeron nodded without looking at him. “A blessing. Fresh magic in the family, magic that could bend the world to our purpose. But she didn’t see it that way.” The old blacksmith bowed his head. “She had to find herself. Run away to Courdeval and start running with a local gang of troublemakers that called themselves a ‘Coven.’” He scoffed. “Gustave would have to find an outside solution or risk stepping on old, established lines between Covens, even though Katia stepped first. When I heard that ‘Coven’ had been wiped out—but no word of my dear Katia’s death—there was only one answer. A man who could survive what wiped out an entire Coven, and saved my Katia? And not one of Gustave’s, or he’d have written.”
Leigh grinned brightly. “You’re welcome.”
Ambriel gave him a slight shake of his head as Joel blew out a breath.
“I trust your gratitude extends to helping the Crown break with the Divinity?” he asked hopefully. “Swear fealty to the new king, and he will break with the Divinity and bring the Covens into the light.”
Ambriel gaped at him. Too much?
Folding his hands together and resting them on the table, Joel turned in his chair. “Tell me, Galvan, are you a man of tradition?”
It was exactly what he’d hoped to hear. The Dark Age of Magic. The Archons. The Covens. No Divinity. No Grand Divinus. His eyes locking onto Joel’s, he replied, “Yes.”
“Then we have much to discuss.”
Much indeed. Leigh cracked a smile. “Before all that, how’s Blaise?”
Chapter 20
Olivia directed their carriage to Il Serpente, Magehold’s poorer bazaar district, full of narrow, winding roads and the entrance to Il Mercato Sotterraneo. Verib had said anything could be found at the Mercato, and she needed answers—if this black market had any forbidden books about dragons and other Immortals, she’d buy them.
Dragons were drawn to him. After the coronation and the Aurora, it was too strange to be coincidence. He was sigiled against nearly all magic, so it had to be something else… something forbidden.
Sangremancy.
Rielle had written to her from Stroppiata about Shadow and Khar’shil, and the possibility of sangremancy. Had Shadow somehow commanded dragons to hunt him? But then, if that was so, why weren’t more coming? Why hadn’t they come immediately?
And then there was the other problem: extending his life.
If there were any solutions to harnessing the Immortals’ longevity, they would be for sale at Il Mercato Sotterraneo.
Verib had said to look for the black arch after the masquerade.
“Where are we going?” Jon asked.
“If I tell you, you won’t want to go.”
He scowled at her. “I already don’t want to go.”
After the evening he’d had, she couldn’t blame him, but… “See?” She smiled at him. “I’d better not push my luck.”
“All right. Let’s see this surprise.” He shook his head and glanced away, out the sliver between the drapes where evening revelry spilled out onto the streets.
Tonight hadn’t gone well, not nearly as well as they’d hoped. The Grand Divinus surely did not intend to grant aid—which meant she didn’t intend for Rielle to win the trials.
The Grand Divinus wouldn’t leave things
to chance. With some of the world’s most capable mages in the Divine Guard and the Hensarin, she’d ensure the result she wanted.
She took a slow breath. That couldn’t happen. If only Leigh were here… He’d keep a close eye on how the trials unfolded, and if there were something amiss, the upheaval he’d stir in the magical community would shake the Divinity to its core. He was well known, powerful, had once been a magister. Other mages would trust his perspective, and—
That’s it.
A trustworthy mage, someone with good standing in the Divinity but not unconditionally servile. Someone important who knew Rielle.
Magister Daturian Trey.
He was the world’s most famous conjurer, and a wild mage. Even the Grand Divinus would think twice before giving him reason to protest. Despite his power and undeniable charm, the Grand Divinus hadn’t invited him to the court of Magehold, nor to the trials, it seemed.
But I can.
Last she’d heard, he’d been in Bellanzole, visiting with Crown Prince Lorenzo, one of his best friends and Princess Alessandra’s older brother. Perhaps he was still there—she’d write to him, invite him to come witness the Magister Trials. His presence would keep the Grand Divinus in line, and if it didn’t, Daturian would shake the magical community to its core.
If he arrived.
With fairer conditions, Rielle would be fine. She hadn’t come so far without being strong, capable, and choosing well when it counted. And she had friends—herself, Jon, Brennan—to turn to if she needed help in preparing for the trials.
Jon had made progress away from Rielle, had slowly begun to accept severing the withered limb that was his past with her. But then the minute he’d seen her again, that flash of vivid red, blood had flowed through it anew. And his devastation in that hallway had been—
She shifted the Queen’s Blade on her lap. They’d need to schedule a private audience with the Grand Divinus to even give it to her, and the symbolism would be lost publicly. She stroked the hilt, eyeing him as he caught glimpses of the streets.
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