by Jim Butcher
Three years since she married you, my lord, Amara thought. But aloud, she said only, “Yes, Your Majesty.”
The First Lord inhaled, then nodded, the expression brusque. He had shaved his beard since Amara had seen him last, and the lines of age, faint on the mostly youthful features, showed as dark shadows at the corners of his eyes and mouth. Gaius appeared to be a hale forty years of age — in fact, Amara knew that he was twice that. And that no silver had been showing in his hair when she arrived at the Royal Academy, five years before.
“Your report,” Gaius said. “Let’s hear it.”
“Yes, milord. As you instructed, Fidelias and I attempted to infiltrate the suspected revolutionary camp. We were successful in getting inside.” She felt her mouth go dry, and she swallowed. “But . . . But he . . .”
Gaius nodded, his expression grave. “But he betrayed you. He proved to be more interested in serving the cause of the insurrectionists than in remaining loyal to his lord.”
Amara blinked up at him, startled. “Yes, milord. But how did you —”
Gaius shrugged. “I didn’t. But I suspected. When you reach my age, Amara, people show themselves to you very clearly. They write their intentions and beliefs through their actions, their lies.” He shook his head. “I saw the signs in Fidelias when he was only a little older than you. But that seed has picked a particularly vicious moment to bloom.”
“You suspected?” Amara asked. “But you told me nothing?”
“Could you have kept it from him? Could you have played that kind of charade with him, who taught you, for the duration of the mission?”
Amara clenched her teeth rather than speak in anger. Gaius was right. She never would have been able to keep such knowledge from Fidelias. “Why did you send me?” Her words came out clipped, precise.
Gaius gave her a weary smile. “Because you are the fastest Cursor I have ever seen. Because you were a brilliant student at the Academy, resourceful, stubborn, and able to think on your feet. Because Fidelias liked you. And because I was sure of your loyalty.”
“Bait,” Amara said, her words still with hard edges, points. “You used me as bait. You knew he wouldn’t be able to resist trying to bring me with him. Recruit me.”
“Essentially correct.”
“You would have sacrificed me.”
“If you hadn’t come back, I would know that you had failed in your mission, probably because of Fidelias. Either that, or you would have cast your lot with the insurgents. Either way, I would be sure of the color of Fidelias’s cloak.”
“Which was the point of the exercise.”
“Hardly. I needed the intelligence, as well.”
“So you risked my life to get it?”
Gaius nodded. “Yes, Cursor. You swore your life to the service of the Crown, did you not?”
Amara looked down, her face coloring, anger and confusion and disappointment piling up in her belly. “Yes, milord.”
“Then report. I do have to be at dinner shortly.”
Amara took a breath, and without looking up, she recounted the events of the day — what she and Fidelias had seen, what she knew about the insurgent Legion, and especially of the strength and estimated numbers of the Knights accompanying it.
She looked up at the end of her report. Gaius’s face looked older, the lines deeper, somehow, as though her words to him had drained out a little more of his life, his youth, his strength.
“The note. The one you were allowed to read,” Gaius began.
“A diversion, milord. I know. An attempt to cast suspicion elsewhere. I do not believe Lord Atticus to have a hand in this.”
“Perhaps. But remember that the note was addressed to the commander of the second Legion.” Gaius shook his head. “That would seem to indicate that more than one of the High Lords is conspiring against me. This may be the effort of one to ensure that the blame for the entire matter falls on the other.”
“Assuming there are only two, milord.”
Gaius’s eyes wrinkled further, at the corners. “Yes. Assuming all of them aren’t in it together, eh?” The brief smile faded. “And that they wished details of my inner chambers from you seems to indicate that they believe they could accomplish an assassination, and so take power directly.”
“Surely not, milord. They could not kill you.”
Gaius shrugged. “Not if I saw it coming. But the power to shake mountains does little good if the knife is already buried in one’s throat.” He grimaced. “One of the younger High Lords. It must be. Anyone of any age would simply use Time as his assassin. I am an old man.”
“No, Your Majesty. You are —”
“An old man. An old man married to a willful and politically convenient child. An old man who rarely sleeps at night and who needs to be on time to dinner.” He eyed Amara up and down and said, “Night is falling. Are you in condition to travel?”
“I believe so, milord.”
Gaius nodded. “Events are stirring all over Alera. I can feel it in my bones, girl. The march of feet, the restless migration of beasts. Already the behemoths sing in the darkness off the western coast, and the wild furies of the north country are preparing a cold winter this year. A cold winter . . .” The First Lord drew in a breath and closed his eyes. “And voices speak loudly. Tension gathers in one place. The furies of earth and air and wood whisper everywhere that something dangerous is abroad and that the peace our land has enjoyed these past fifteen years nears its end. Metal furies hone the edges of swords and startle smiths at the forge. The rivers and the rains wait for when they shall run red with blood. And fire itself burns green of a night, or blue, rather than in scarlet and gold. Change is coming.”
Amara swallowed. “Perhaps they are only coincidences, milord. They may not be—”
Gaius smiled again, but the expression was skeletal, wasted. “I’m not that old, Amara. Not yet. And I have work for you. Attend.”
Amara nodded and focused on the image.
“Are you familiar with the significance of the Calderon Valley?”
Amara nodded once. “It lies just over the isthmus between Alera and the plains beyond. There is only one pass through the mountains, and it runs through the valley. If anyone wants to come into our lands afoot, they must come through Calderon Valley.”
“Anyone meaning the Marat, of course,” Gaius said. “What else do you know of the place?”
“What they taught at the Academy, milord. Very fertile land. Profitable. And it was where the Marat killed your son, milord.”
“Yes. The Marat hordemaster. He killed the Princeps and set a chain of events into motion that will clutter the lecture halls and plague the students for a century to come. The House of Gaius has led Alera for nearly a thousand years, but when I am gone, that will be done. All that is left to me is to see to it that the power falls into responsible hands. And it would seem that someone seeks to make that choice in my stead.”
“Do you know who, milord?”
“Suspicions,” Gaius said. “But I dare not voice more than that, lest I accuse an innocent man and lose the support of the High Lords altogether, loyal and insurgent alike. You will go to the Calderon Valley, Amara. The Marat are on the move. I know it. I feel it.”
“What do you wish me to do there, milord?”
“You will observe the movements of any Marat in the area,” Gaius said. “And speak to the Steadholders there, to learn what passes.”
Amara tilted her head to one side. “You suspect that the Marat and the recent insurgent activity are related, milord?”
“The Marat are easily made into tools, Amara. And I suspect that someone has forged a dagger of them to thrust at my heart.” His eyes flashed, and the river rippled around the feet of the water image, in reaction to the emotion. “I may pass on my power to someone of worth, but while I live and breathe they will not take it from me.”
“Yes, milord.”
Gaius gave her a grim smile. “If you should stumble over some con
nection between the two, Amara, bring it to me. If I had a scrap of proof to lay before the High Lords, I could settle this without needless bloodshed.”
“As you wish, milord. I will go there as swiftly as I am able.”
“Tonight,” Gaius said.
Amara shook her head. “I’m not sure I can do that, Majesty. I’m exhausted.”
Gaius nodded. “I will speak to the south wind. It will help you get there more quickly.”
Amara swallowed. “What am I to look for, milord? Do you have any suspicions? If I know what to be on watch for . . .”
Gaius said, “No. I need your eyes open and unprejudiced. Get to the Valley. It is where events are centering. I want you representing my interests in them.”
“Am I likely to face near-certain death again, milord?” Amara let just a hint of barb slide into the words.
Gaius tilted his head. “Almost certainly, Cursor. Do you wish me to send another in your place?”
Amara shook her head. “I wish for you to answer a question.”
Gaius lifted his eyebrows. “What is your question?”
Amara looked steadily at Gaius’s image. “How did you know, milord? How did you know I would remain true to the Crown?”
Gaius frowned, more lines appearing on his face. He remained silent for a long moment, before he said, “There are some people who will never understand what loyalty means. They could tell you what it was, of course, but they will never know. They will never see it from the inside. They couldn’t imagine a world where something like that was real.”
“Like Fidelias.”
“Like Fidelias,” Gaius agreed. “You’re a rare person, though, Amara. You’re just the opposite.”
She frowned. “You mean, I know what loyalty is?”
“More than that. You live within it. You couldn’t imagine a world in which you didn’t. You could no more betray what you held dear than you could will your heart to stop beating. I am old, Amara. And people reveal themselves to me.” He was quiet for a moment more, and said, “I never doubted your loyalty. Only your ability to survive the mission. And it appears that I may owe you an apology, on that count, Cursor Amara. Consider your graduation exercise a success.”
Amara felt pride stir in her, an absurd feeling of pleasure that Gaius would praise her so. She felt her back straighten and her chin lift a little higher. “I am your eyes and ears to command, milord.”
Gaius nodded, once, and behind Amara the wind began to rise, rustling over the trees like surf over sand, making them whisper and sigh in a vast, quiet chorus. “Go with the furies then, Cursor. For Alera.”
“I will find what you need, Your Majesty. For Alera.”
CHAPTER 7
Fidelias hated flying.
He sat on the litter, facing ahead, so that the wind sliced into his eyes and blew his hair straight back from his high forehead. On the seat facing him sat Aldrick the Sword, huge and relaxed as a newly fed lion. Odiana had curled up on Aldrick’s lap to doze off hours before, and the water witch’s dark hair danced and played in the wind, veiling the beauty of her features. Neither one evinced any signs of discomfort at the flight, physical or otherwise.
“I hate flying,” Fidelias muttered. He lifted a hand to shield his eyes from the wind, and leaned over the edge of the litter. A brilliant moon, looming large among a sea of stars, painted the landscape below in silver and black. Wooded hills rolled slowly beneath them, a solid darkness, broken here and there by silver-kissed clearings and winding, half-luminescent rivers.
Four of the Knights Aeris from the camp bore them through the air, one at each pole of the litter. They wore harnesses that fitted them to the litter, supporting the weight of the three people inside, while the Knights’ weight, in turn, was borne by the powerful furies at their command. Another half dozen Knights Aeris flew in a loose ring around the litter,and moonlight glittered on the steel of their arms and armor.
“Captain,” Fidelias called to the lead Knight. The man glanced back over his shoulder, murmured something, and drifted back through the air toward the litter.
“Sir?”
“Will it be much longer before we arrive in Aquitaine?”
“No, sir. We should be there before the hour is out.”
Fidelias blinked. “That soon? I thought you said it would take us until dawn.”
The Knight shook his head, eyes cooly scanning the sky ahead. “Fortune favors us, sir. The furies of the south are stirring and have brought us a strong wind to speed our way.”
The former Cursor frowned. “That’s highly unusual at this season, is it not, Captain?”
The man shrugged. “It’s saved us hours of flight time and made it easier on everyone. We haven’t even had to spell the men bearing the litter. Relax, sir. I’ll have you in the High Lord’s palace before the witching hour.” And with that, the soldier accelerated, moving to take position ahead of the litter again.
Fidelias frowned and resettled on his seat. He glanced over the side of the litter again, and his stomach jumped and fluttered with an irrational sensation of fear. He knew that he was as safe flying in the litter, escorted by Knights Aeris, as anywhere in the realm, but some part of his mind simply would not casually accept the vast distance between himself and the ground below. Here, he was far from wood and earth, far from the furies he could call to his service, and that disturbed him. He had to rely upon the strength of the Knights with him rather than his own. And everyone other than himself had, in time, inevitably disappointed him.
He folded his arms and bowed his head against the wind, brooding. Gaius had used him from the very beginning. Used him with a purpose, to be sure, and never carelessly. He had been far too valuable a tool to waste through misuse or neglect. Indeed, at times, the precarious peace of the entirerealm had occasionally hinged upon his ability to accomplish on behalf of the Crown.
Fidelias felt his frown deepen. Gaius was old — the old wolf that led the pack — and it was nothing more than a matter of time before he was hauled down to his death. But despite that brutal, simple truth, Gaius continued to fight against the inevitable. He could have turned over power to a nominal heir a decade ago, but instead, he had held on, wily and desperate, and delayed matters for a decade by pitting the High Lords against one another in bids to see who could position his daughter or niece to marry the First Lord and give birth to the new Princeps. Gaius (with Fidelias’s aid, of course) had played the lords off of one another with merciless precision, until every High Lord of Alera spent years convinced that his candidate would surely be the one to wed Gaius. His eventual choice had pleased no one, not even High Lord Parcius, Caria’s father, and even the most dense of the High Lords had realized, in time, that they had been played for fools.
The game had been well played, but in the end it had all been for nothing. The House of Gaius had never been a fertile one, and even if he had proved physically capable of producing an Heir (which Fidelias remained unsure about), the First Lady had not, as yet, shown herself to be with child, and palace rumor held that the First Lord seldom went to the same bed in which his wife slept.
Gaius was old. He was dying. The star of his House was falling from the heavens, and anyone who blindly clung to the hem of his robes would fall with him.
Like Amara.
Fidelias frowned, while something nagged at him, distracted him, burned in his belly. It was a pity, to be sure, that Amara had chosen a fool’s crusade rather than making an intelligent decision. Surely, if he’d had more time, it may have proved possible to encourage her to see a more rational point of view. Now, instead, he would have to act directly against her, if she interfered again.
And he did not want to do that.
Fidelias shook his head. The girl had been his most promising student, and he had let her come to mean too much to him. He had destroyed some three score men and women in his years as a Cursor—some of them as powerful and idealistic as Amara. He had never hesitated to perform his duty, never let himse
lf be distracted by anything so trivial as personal attachment. His love was for Alera.
And that was really the issue at hand. Fidelias served the realm, not the First Lord. Gaius was doomed. Delay of the transfer of power from Gaius’s hands to another could only cause strife and bloodshed among the High Lords who would wish to assume Gaius’s station. It might even come to a war of succession, something unheard of since the dawn of Aleran civilization, but which was rumored to have been commonplace in the distant past. And should that happen, not only would the sons and daughters of Alera die pointlessly, fighting one another, but the division itself would be a signal fire to the enemies of the Realm—the savage Icemen, the bestial Marat, the ruthless Canim, and who knew what else in the unexplored wilds of the world. Above all else, such weakening of the Realm’s unity had to be circumvented.
And that meant establishing a strong ruler, and swiftly. Already, the High Lords quietly defied the First Lord’s authority. It would only be a matter of time before the High Lords and their cities disbanded the realm into a cluster of city-nations. And if that happened, it would be simple for the enemies of mankind to quietly nibble away at those realms until nothing was left.
Fidelias grimaced, his belly burning more sharply. It had to be done, like a battlefield surgeon forced to remove a mangled limb. There was nothing that would make it less gruesome. The best one could hope for was to get it done as swiftly and cleanly as possible.
Which led to Aquitainus. He was the most ruthless, the most able, and perhaps the strongest of the High Lords.
Fidelias’s stomach roiled.
He had betrayed Gaius, the Codex, the Cursors. Betrayed his student, Amara. He had turned his back on them, to support a man who might become the most ruthless and bloodthirsty dictator Alera had ever known. The furies knew, he had tried everything in his power to convince Gaius to take another path.
Fidelias had been forced to this.
It was necessary.
It had to be done.
His stomach burned as the glowing furylights of Aquitaine appeared on the horizon.
“Wake up,” he murmured. “We’re almost there.”
