by M. J. Scott
Sophie sat beside her, leaving a little space. She folded her hands in her lap. The small cut left by the offering blade still stung, a welcome reminder of where she was and who she was speaking to. And also a reminder not to let her guard down.
“Before we begin, perhaps it will simplify matters if I tell you that I know who you are, Lady Mackenzie. Or who I think you are. I will confess, your Illvyan is better than I expected.”
She could keep up her pretense but it seemed a lot of effort for little gain. “News travels fast, it seems,” Sophie said, sidestepping the issue of her language skills.
“Yes. His Imperial Majesty saw fit to inform Domina Francis when the Anglion delegation arrived. Which required that he also inform her of your presence here in the city. A fact he had neglected to mention until that point. Not all news travels fast when the emperor wishes otherwise. But we were told to watch for you.”
Sophie stiffened. “Watch for me?” The ley light around the domina hadn’t changed.
“In case you came to the temple. Domina Francis thought you may have questions. Or need assistance.”
“Domina Francis is domina of the temple near the palace?” Sophie hazarded. Illvya’s Domina Skey in other words. Who wanted to offer her . . . assistance? Interesting.
Domina Gerrard nodded. “Yes. She has been for quite some time now.”
“And are she and the emperor . . . close?”
“She makes her views on things known.” Domina Gerrard smiled. “Sometimes His Imperial Majesty listens.”
Some of the tension in her spine drained away. That didn’t sound like the same kind of disturbing influence that Domina Skey had gained over Eloisa. Not that that necessarily meant Domina Francis was to be trusted, but it was not a point against her, at least.
“From what I have seen of the emperor, that would seem to be all that one can hope for,” Sophie said.
Domina Gerrard’s smile widened. “Yes. I had not had the honor very often. Which suits me. But you did not come here to talk about the emperor.” She cocked her head. “Unless you did?”
“No. Not the emperor.”
“Then ask. I cannot promise to answer everything, but I will answer what I can.”
Answer and perhaps obtain some answers of her own? Answers to questions on the mind of Domina Francis perhaps. But Sophie hadn’t expected not to have to pay some sort of price, and she doubted she could tell Domina Gerrard anything about the Anglion temple that Aristides de Lucien did not already know.
“I wanted to ask why the temple here accepts water magic. At home, we are taught the sanctii are anathema to the goddess. But here that is not so.”
“You didn’t want to start with a simpler question? Let me warm up a little?” Domina Gerrard said, shaking her head gently. “But no, I expect not. Let me start with a question of my own, then. What were you taught about why the goddess forbids water magic?”
Not enough. She tried to recall what exactly she had been told. Her lessons had included so little about Illvya or water magic. But there had been only a basic outlining of the history. Other than that, the temples services and teaching reinforced the message that water magic was evil. The tale of why it was had been couched in a lot of flowery temple-ese from what she could remember.
“To paraphrase a little,” she began, “mostly that, a long time ago, water mages tried to suborn the temple. That the goddess blessed those who stood against them to protect her. And, when they were successful, the water mages were driven from our shores. And the kings and queens of Anglion since have kept us free by ensuring they do not return.”
One of the Domina’s eyebrows lifted. Something in her eyes told Sophie that this recounting was both unexpected and perhaps a little amusing.
“Well, that is part of the tale, I suppose,” Domina Gerrard said.
“What’s the other part?”
“Ah. That part is a little more prosaic and a little less mystical.” Domina Gerrard’s fingers strayed to the quartered circle on her collar. “I am no particular scholar of temple history, it has never been a passion of mine, but I will tell you what we are taught. You would have to go to the main temple to look at the records themselves. I believe it was four, maybe five hundred years ago now, but our archivists are somewhat fanatical about maintaining such things.”
“So old,” Sophie murmured. She couldn’t imagine it. Yes, there were buildings in Anglion older than that—after all, the country had been settled for a thousand years or more, if what she had been taught was true—but books were rarer there than here in Illvya. And more tightly controlled. She had no idea how far back the temple records in Anglion might go but she did know that no one outside the temple would be likely to be allowed to look at them.
“Yes, they have ways of making paper last longer than it should. Don’t ever ask one how though. It will lead to a long and boring lecture about various chemicals and the proper manner of storage. But that is off our topic. So. History. Let us say five hundred years ago. Illvya was an empire, but only a small one. We controlled three, maybe four of the other countries on the continent. And Anglion was free, as it is now. But back then, the emperor at the time decided that the de Luciens needed more toys to play with. He began pushing to expand the empire. Which made many countries, including your own, unhappy. I don’t know if Anglion was within the emperor’s sights at the time. In fact, it’s difficult to imagine it was when it was well-defended and the sanctii couldn’t travel there over the sea. Trade between the two countries was more open than now, but neither country welcomed water mages from the other.
“At the same time, your king—his name escapes me just now—was . . . well, shall we say, not an exemplar of men. And he had the lack of sense to fall in love with two women. And while perhaps no one expects complete fidelity from a king, in this case, neither of the women he loved was his queen. One was his brother’s wife. The other, I am sorry to say, was a temple domina. A high-ranking one.
“Now the domina knew the king could never marry her. But she favored the brother’s wife, an earth witch, over the current queen, a water mage. The king’s brother was also a water mage. The king, however, was a blood mage. So a brother who could command a sanctii was, conceivably, a threat.”
Sophie wasn’t sure she liked where this story was going. “And was his brother a threat?”
“He wasn’t given a chance to be. The king and the domina formed a plan to perform an augmentier. I assume you know what that is?”
“A binding.”
“Yes. Such things are supposed to be voluntary. Somehow they convinced the brother’s wife to agree to a binding as well.”
“Three people can be bound?”
“Not usually. I have heard that sometimes a water mage who shares a bond with a sanctii may also bond with a husband or wife, but such things are discouraged. When it is tried between people, the usual outcome seems to be that while two of the three are strengthened, the third is more often weakened. Not something most mages would wish to endure, however fleetingly.”
But royal witches were bound three ways, Sophie thought. To their husbands and to the temple. She clamped her jaw shut against the question that sprang to mind. She’d hear the story out first. Then decide what more was safe to ask. “And what happened after the binding was performed?”
Domina Gerrard shook her head. “Nothing good. The king managed to kill his wife and his brother. Claimed they were plotting against him. Plotting with Illvya to bring Illvyan mages to Anglion so they could summon sanctii and invade. He started hunting down water mages and their families with the help of other blood mages within the nobility. Many of whom had earth witch wives. Who were suborned into also being bound for the good of the country. Eventually the water mages were dead, along with whole chunks of families who showed talent for such things or fled to the empire. The king married his brother’s widow, and since then Anglion has forbidden water magic and bound its royal witches to strengthen their husbands.”
Even those wi
thout magic. Sophie wasn’t sure she could feel her fingers anymore, she was clenching her hands so tightly. The temple had felt warm a few minutes before, the flames from four fires and the sunny day outside making the air pleasant. But now she wanted to shiver.
How much of what the domina had told her could she believe? Probably not the entirety. Illvyans had their biases just as Anglions did. But something had happened. And as much as it would be pleasant to believe that the goddess had forbidden water magic to her followers, the more mundane explanation offered by the domina seemed far more realistic.
Somewhere outside the temple, she was vaguely aware of a bell tolling. Which meant time was passing. If she stayed much longer, the mages outside would come looking for her. She rose. “Thank you for your time, Domina Gerrard. And for the history lesson.” She bobbed a curtsy, the obeisance to the temple engrained in her. It was honor to the goddess, not the woman herself, she reminded herself as a small surge of rebellion flared within her at the movement. Though if the goddess allowed Anglion witches to be weakened to prop up their husbands, then perhaps that respect was unearned. But was it the goddess or those who purported to represent her? “I hope I can come and speak with you again.”
Her head throbbed suddenly, reminding her that only yesterday, she had let a demon teach her Illvyan. Things were moving far too quickly. She needed time to think. To untangle lie from truth.
And the most urgent truth she needed was what the Anglion delegation knew about what would happen to her if she returned to Kingswell.
* * *
“What are you reading?”
Sophie looked up as Cameron came into their room late on fourth day. He’d been to bathe after his last class as he often did. The sight of him in his shirt and trousers, hair damp as he rubbed at it with a towel, made her smile. She closed the book, putting it back on the table in front of her. “It’s that book on bindings that we found in the library.” They had little spare time left over from their studies, but they were still determined to fill in the gaps in their knowledge where they could.
Cameron came over and picked up the book. “On the Art of Augmentiers,” he said, reading the title. “Anything useful?”
“Hard going,” she said, eyeing the book. It was, as the majority of the books here were, in Illvyan. The reveilé had helped greatly with her understanding, but it still took concentration to understand the ideas being set out in the book. “But promising, I think. Maybe you can help me after dinner?”
He shook his head. “No studying tonight.”
“What?” she said, alarmed. “Has something happened? Did Henri say something to you?”
“No. Nothing’s wrong,” he said. “I just thought maybe we could take tonight for ourselves. It’s been nothing but study and . . . .”
Discussions about what they should say to the Anglions when they returned to the palace. They had spoken of little else in the moments they’d had alone. And the best approach they could come up with was to try and keep the relationship as cordial as possible, while trying to find out if further reassurances as to their safety should they return to Anglion could be obtained. There seemed to be little else they could do.
If that were so, maybe Cameron was right. Maybe they should take some time to just be. Or pretend to just be, at least. While they could.
“What did you have in mind?” she asked. Almost as soon as the words had left her mouth, the door chimes sounded. “Goddess, no. Now what?”
Cameron smiled. “I think that will be our dinner.”
“Dinner?” She blinked, startled. They’d eaten every meal in the dining room so far.
“I asked Willem and he arranged it,” Cameron said, crossing to the door.
Sure enough, when he opened it, one of the servant girls wheeled a wooden trolley into the room. Sophie couldn’t see what was on it because the various plates were hidden under neat china covers, but it smelled wonderful.
“Thank you,” she said to the girl as Cameron showed her out and then came back over to Sophie.
“Hungry?” he asked.
She shook her head. “Not just yet. Come and sit with me.” The light was beginning to fade outside the windows and she reached toward the earth stone on the table, intending to light it. Then stopped and reached out her hand to Cameron instead. “You do it,” she said, nodding toward the stone.
“I’ll try,” he said, wrapping his fingers around hers. They had been experimenting a little with this, her trying to teach him some of the basic earth magic skills she knew and vice versa. Madame Simsa had taught them how to ward the bond, and it had seemed a logical step to progress from that to this. Just small things, things that could be useful. Nothing too noticeable. She felt the pull on the bond between them, felt the steadying weight of Cameron’s power meeting hers. Felt it flare stronger as he drew some of that power to him. The earth light began to shine and he grinned at her.
“There!”
“Success,” she agreed happily. Their previous experiments hadn’t always been successful. She leaned forward to kiss him quickly, felt the quick flare of desire through the bond. Then the echoes of it in her own blood. Which only intensified what she felt from Cameron.
Dinner could wait. She pulled back, glanced over at the bed, then drew on the bond, aiming the power at the quilts, sending them slithering to the floor in a satisfying heap.
“Sophie?” Cameron said.
“I think we should work up an appetite,” she said, standing. She tugged at his hand.
He rose quickly. “I think I like that idea.” He pulled her to him, bent to kiss her. She gave herself over to the kiss, wanting to stop thinking.
Cameron kissed her slowly, each touch of his lips on hers considered, as though he was intent on memorizing the shape of her mouth. The warmth of him flowed over her, through her, making her feel half-drunk with it. She started to tug at the buttons of his shirt, breathing in the scent of soap and clean skin. Of Cameron. She slid her hand across his chest as the shirt came apart, sliding it over his nipple. He groaned softly against her mouth, his kiss turning hungry as he lifted her, carrying her over to the bed to place her on her back against the mattress.
She waited to feel the comforting weight of him sinking down on top of her but instead she felt his hands at her skirts, pushing them up and then drawing off her underthings. She widened her legs, unable to stop the movement as his hands slid back up her thighs.
“Wider, love,” he said, and his hands pushed against her. Then his head came down and she felt the first stroke of his tongue against her, like a streak of quiet lightning. She arched up against him but his hands held her still, held her open to him so all she could do was lie back and let him do what he wanted. It wasn’t that difficult to submit, not when each new touch made her head spin and her heart pound as the pleasure built within her.
He added fingers to tongue, making her moan. So good. But she wanted more.
“I want you,” she gasped, hands tugging in his hair.
“You have me,” he said, lifting his head but not stilling the movement of those clever, clever fingers.
“More,” she said. “All of it. All of you.”
He laughed, and for a moment she thought he was going to draw things out, resist her urgings. But then he stood, shucking his clothes as she watched. She was too hungry for him, too focused on just him to worry about her own clothes. He was glorious in the last fading edge of light through the window and the paler golden glow of the earth light on the table behind him. The perfect statue of a man, muscles carved down his body in lines a sculptor couldn’t have bettered.
“Come back here,” she said, and his lips curved upward.
“Whatever milady wants,” he said, crawling onto the bed.
“Milady wants you,” she said as he lifted her farther up the bed, working at her dress with the fingers that had been torturing her not long before. She wriggled and lifted cooperatively, eager to have those hands back on her as soon as possible.<
br />
When she was naked, he smiled down at her. “That’s better.” He ran a hand over her right breast, fingers catching her nipple. She sucked in a breath. But she wanted him too much to let him delay. Her hand closed over his cock. Stroked it once, tightened as she heard the gratifying groan that escaped him.
“We were talking about what I want,” she said, stroking again. “I want this. You. Now.”
He didn’t argue. Merely swung himself over her, his mouth finding hers again as he slid home. She wrapped her legs around his hips, pulled him closer as he moved inside her, feeling each retreat and return of him like her heartbeat. Let him fill her. Fill the world and chase everything else away so there was only pleasure and Cameron and the rhythm between them, the pulse of heat that seemed to spiral through the bond and through her and back to him. Always back to him, even as the pleasure and the pressure built and she knew she was about to tumble over into that place where there was only sensation. Even then, as she fell, she held onto him, the one who could take her there, unwilling to let him go. Wanting him to follow her, which he did with a moan that might have been her name.
When she surfaced from the pleasure-washed fog of it, she was lying curled around him, holding him tight. “Only you,” she said fiercely. No matter what happened, the two of them would face it together.
Chapter 16
She was going to have to start wearing cooler gowns. Sophie lifted her water glass and sipped, schooling herself not to gulp the icy liquid down. Instead she held the glass curled inward a little so that some of its cool surface pressed against her wrist. Across the table, Barron Deepholt watched her and she forced a smile.
Why the emperor had thought that sharing a meal might make things easier between the Mackenzies and the Anglion delegation escaped her. Perhaps it may have done if things had been more informal. But here, in what was probably a small room for this palace but one that was still large by other standards, seated around a table laid with silver plates, gilded china, glittering crystal, flowers, and candles, with the emperor himself seated at its head, the mood was anything but informal.
