The Pyramid Waltz

by Barbara Ann Wright

  Countess Nadia laughed, and Starbride knew she’d scored a point. They shared a passion. Countess Nadia lifted the large diamond resting on its chain just above her cleavage. “I do love my baubles. I’ve many more, if you’d like to see them sometime. Not by Métrande, of course, but I’ve a few pieces from his contemporaries and quite a few more from craftsmen of only slightly less caliber.” She leaned closer. “Including a string of Lanaster pearls.”

  “I’d love to see your collection.” That was a social gathering she could get behind. “My father used to speak longingly of Lanaster pearls. If you don’t mind my asking, Countess, how did you come by an entire strand?”

  She winked. “A naughty story for another time.” Viscount Lenvis rejoined them then, and Countess Nadia turned her attention fully on him.

  Starbride couldn’t help but like her. Countess Nadia didn’t dig for details on Katya; her invitation seemed unmotivated by anything but mutual interest, and she’d even alluded to naughty stories. With an impish surety, Starbride knew just how to cement their friendship. The countess loved pretty baubles, and the viscount was the prettiest around.

  “What have you two been talking about?” he asked.

  “Countess Nadia’s exquisite jewelry,” Starbride replied, “especially the diamond around her neck.”

  Viscount Lenvis was obligated to bend forward and investigate the necklace, giving Countess Nadia the opportunity to lean forward and present her cleavage from the best angle.

  His eyes lit up as his glance wandered to the diamond and then below. “Very…very nice.”

  “Thank you, Viscount,” Countess Nadia said. When he sat back in his saddle, she gave Starbride another wink.

  “How did it go?” Dawnmother asked after Starbride returned to their room.

  “Much better than yesterday. What else do I have today?”

  Dawnmother scanned a list beside her. “That’s it. The rest of these are just courtier parties.”

  “Ha! You’ve changed your tune. I thought you’d have me going to all of them.”

  “After you’ve been out with nobles, you can’t settle for courtier functions.”

  “Library, then.”

  “Well, there is one invitation, but it’s for tonight.” She handed over a note.

  An early evening? it said. If I go any longer without seeing you, I’ll lose my mind. K.

  Starbride grinned and bit her lip. “Well, that still leaves time for a bit of study and a quick note to my friend in Newhope. I’ve got some interesting new laws for him.”

  “And a letter for your mother?”

  “Oh, I don’t think there’s that much time.”

  “Star, you have to tell her.”

  “You could write to her maid instead.”

  “Oh yes, one always wants such news as ‘your daughter has become the princess’s lover’ to come from one’s maid.”

  “Later, later.” Starbride grabbed her scroll and pencil. “I’m off to the library.”

  “I’d better come with you. Once you start studying, you forget to keep one eye on the candle. I wouldn’t want you to miss your…early evening.”

  Much later that night, as Starbride rested in Katya’s arms, she spoke about her day, and Katya succumbed to a fit of laughter when Starbride recounted the tale of Countess Nadia’s necklace. “If the viscount’s not in her bed right now, he’s dreaming of her breasts.”

  “I hope so.”

  “So, you made some friends?”

  “One, I think.”

  “Besides me, of course.”

  Starbride tilted her head up to snatch a kiss. “Two, then, and no, I didn’t mention you. I know you’re dying of curiosity.”

  “Just a little.”

  “You’re none of their business.”

  “Quite.”

  “Did you learn anything from the captives?”

  Katya paused before she said, “Crowe says their minds are blocked. They’re either pyradistés, or they’ve been heavily warded by a very good one.”

  “What can you do?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Starbride focused on Katya’s face in the near darkness. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  Katya bent slightly and kissed her. “It’s not you. I’ve just been thinking that, well, if you know everything that’s going on with the Order, I can’t…pretend that it doesn’t exist when I’m with you.”

  “The people you have to pretend with are those who don’t know you at all, the courtiers and all the rest who only want what you can give them.” She propped herself up on her elbows. “If you have someone else to share your problems with, they’ll be easier to bear.”

  “Are you sure you’re not Marla, paragon of wisdom?”

  “I’ll never tell.”

  Katya kissed her for a long moment, long enough for Starbride to hope the conversation might be over, but then Katya pulled back. “Do you want to be in the Order of Vestra? If you’re going to be so close to…everything going on, I think it’s best you learn how to defend yourself. You can train to be a pyradisté.”

  Starbride blinked, left without words while she tried to think. “Me? In the Order?” The shop and the table sprang to mind, but there was also her second adventure, the manor house, when exhilaration had overcome her terror. If she had the tools to protect herself, she could put her fear to rest.

  Aiding her people through the study of the law and protecting the crown of Farraday, protecting Katya and her family? Doors opened inside her mind, and Dawnmother’s sensible voice seemed to whisper in her ear, “Opened doors for your people as well.”

  “What do you think?” Katya asked, and Starbride heard the fear there. She wanted Starbride to accept, perhaps so badly she didn’t know how to best express it.

  “My poor princess. Everything in the world for the asking, but not much you can actually ask for.”

  “Rascal, torture me no longer.”

  “I’ll be a pyradisté and join your Order, both to help you and for the ability to take over courtiers’ minds and make them walk into the pond.”

  Katya grabbed her and rolled them both over until Starbride couldn’t stop laughing. “I wouldn’t say that last part to Crowe if I were you.”

  “I’m sure he’s thought of it.”

  “Yes, but he can be a stickler for the rules at times.”

  “Well, maybe I’ll just pry information from their heads, then. I have a croquet match tomorrow, and I have no idea how to play.”

  “None?”

  “Whatsoever.”

  “Want some backup?”

  “You hate courtiers! And probably croquet!”

  “I wouldn’t be going for the courtiers or the croquet. I’d be going because I love you.”

  Starbride’s heart thudded as her stomach warmed. She took Katya’s face and kissed her and didn’t think about sleep for quite some time.

  Chapter Twenty-one: Katya

  “Your brother arrives in under a week,” Ma said. Her tone was quiet, and that spoke more to her fear than if she’d trembled.

  Katya nodded and fought her frustration. “I know.”

  Da paced about the sitting room. “Crowe can get nothing from these swine?”

  “Their minds are completely warded.”

  “We should move them,” Ma said. “Get them out of the palace for Brom and Reinholt’s safety.”

  “Move them where?” Katya asked.

  Ma’s eyes flashed. “If we can’t move them, kill them.”

  Da moved behind the settee and rubbed her shoulders. Katya closed her mouth on her reply. Crowe had told them both about Maia’s learning the truth of Roland’s death and how Darren and Cassius might’ve been involved. Now that Katya knew how much her mother had loved Roland, she wasn’t surprised at her mother’s reaction.

  “We shouldn’t kill them,” Katya said, “until we know what they were up to at that manor house.”

  “But you think they wanted to be captured?” Ma a
sked.

  “I can’t see another reason for how easily we captured them, but what good does it do them to be locked in a cell?”

  “Deuce if I know, my girl,” Da said. He moved around the settee and took Ma’s hand.

  Smiling at the two of them, Katya thought of Starbride. In the light of day, she’d begun to regret inviting Starbride into the Order. No, it was too late for such thoughts. Her mother’s stare was far away, but her father grinned at her.

  “Thinking of your Allusian friend?” he asked. Ma’s eyes refocused on Katya with lightning quickness.

  “I was, actually.”

  “Starbride, yes?”

  “You do have your sources, Da.”

  “She’s become the guest to have at various court dos.”

  “And all before she’s met your parents,” Ma said.

  “I didn’t want to present her to you at court, Ma. How about I bring her to the family dinner after Reinholt arrives?”

  Ma blinked. “To the—?”

  Da interrupted her with a clap. “Sounds perfect!”

  Ma glared at him, but he gave her a level stare, and she eventually nodded. Katya avoiding gaping and wondered how many vetoes her father got after all their years together. She closed her mouth on the news that she was bringing Starbride into the Order. She’d save that for later.

  “How is Maia?” Da asked, his change of subject as tactful as a hammer.

  “Angry. Last time I visited, she’d dampened to a simmer, but the anger’s still there. We can’t keep her and Crowe apart forever.”

  “Take them out together. Didn’t you say you needed to investigate the Pyradisté Academy? You could distract the heads and the master while Crowe and Maia do a little snooping.”

  “I don’t think they should be left alone together.”

  “Then have them snoop in different directions,” Ma said, “but your father’s right. They have to be able to get along if they’re going to remain in the Order.”

  “Well.” Katya’s stomach sank at the thought of taking Crowe and Maia out together. “That’s going to be lots of fun.”

  Crowe and Maia agreed to go only reluctantly, but Katya didn’t give them a chance to argue. She made her desires into commands that even her family couldn’t ignore. They could all be surly together.

  The Pyradisté Academy was a ten-minute walk from the palace, but Katya saw it long before she reached it. The three-story stone pyramid at its center was a sight to rival the palace’s towers. The morning sun glinted off the pyramid’s crystal capstone and threw rays of light onto the nearby buildings.

  Katya and her party entered the large courtyard that divided the academy from the Halls of Law, the lawyer’s and magistrate’s college. The open space bustled with activity as men and women hurried through the campuses. The Pyradisté Academy boasted three other buildings, but Katya strode past them, uninterested in classrooms and dormitories.

  Near the door to the massive pyramid, two cassocked young men stood talking, occasionally sipping from mugs, and leaning against the pyramid’s side. As one, they glanced up, and Katya didn’t know if it was the sight of her or of Crowe in his black cassock with purple piping, but one thrust his mug at the other and then dashed through the doors. The other glanced back and forth between his two mugs and gave Crowe a worried, sickly smile. His cassock had no special piping. Not a head, then, probably a teacher, and the other had undoubtedly gone to inform the master. It saved them the bother of looking for him.

  Inside the pyramid, Katya fell into step with Maia. Rooms lined the pyramid walls, but the middle had been left hollow in a shaft that ran from the capstone to the floor. Light filtering down the shaft caught the sides of other pyramids as it descended, sending light blazing throughout the entire first floor. It made her recall festival times when the master and heads lit the capstone itself, making it a beacon in the sky.

  Katya glanced at Maia. The muscles of her jaw stuck out like bands, and her eyes were dry but hard. She stared at a point over Crowe’s head. Katya nudged her and then pointed ahead to the middle of the first floor beneath the shaft, to a columned area alive with an indoor garden. A water-filled basin sat in the center, and a crystal pyramid as large as Katya rotated above it. The pyramid sparkled and shone in the light from above, almost too brilliantly to look at. Maia blinked, and some of the anger left her face as she stared.

  Two staircases descended on either side of the small pool, and as their party approached, a group of men and women hustled from the floor above, most with the white piping of a head of the academy and one with the red piping of the master.

  “Crowe!” Master Bernard called as if they’d just met on the street. “How good of you to visit!” He bowed, and those around him did the same half a second later.

  Master Bernard was a big man, nearly as large as Brutal, with a shock of wild red hair and an almost equally wild red beard. The skin of his nose and cheeks was rosy, as if he’d spent far too much time in the sun. Katya had to wonder if the light of the capstone had burned him at some point. “Highness,” he said, “please, forgive this, ahem, lukewarm reception. We had no idea you were coming.”

  Katya put on her best royal leniency smile. “Not at all, Master Bernard. Pyradisté Crowe told me he had business here, and as I take every chance to come inside this magnificent structure, I decided to accompany him.”

  “Welcome, welcome. Please, let me introduce my staff.” He went over the heads behind him.

  “Well, you all know Pyradisté Crowe,” Katya said. She waved toward him as they chuckled and nodded. “This is my cousin Maia.” Another round of bows. Maia’s nod was gracious if a little stiff.

  “I just need to speak with someone upstairs, Highness, if you’ll excuse me?” Crowe said.

  Master Bernard opened his mouth as if he might protest, no doubt because he wanted to keep an eye on all of his esteemed guests at once, but Katya waved Crowe away before Master Bernard could utter a word. She turned to Maia. “Explore, coz, do. I’ll be perfectly happy here with the master and his staff.”

  Maia wandered away, and no one could argue. Nor could they leave. She’d all but ordered them to entertain her, and they did their best. They led her on a tour around the base of the pyramid and then across the grounds. She made certain it was as slow as could be. She asked many questions and kept track of all her hosts by speaking to each one personally so that they knew they’d be missed if they tried to wander away.

  With their education in pyramids came lessons in logic and science. These weren’t stupid people. The looks they cast at the central pyramid said they wanted to know what Crowe was up to, but even if she let them go, all they could have done was trail in Crowe’s wake. As the king’s pyradisté, he trumped even the master, but it would have been awkward for him to force his way into one of their offices with them watching.

  Crowe found them soon enough. “All done, Crowe?” Katya asked.

  “Just a trifle, after all, Highness. More of a social call.”

  “Splendid. Well, thank you, Master, ladies and gentlemen, for a lovely tour.”

  They bowed, some pleased, some confused, one or two with slightly put-out faces for having wasted an entire morning. As she and Crowe started back through the main pyramid, she said, “Anything?”

  “Several graduates from the past twenty years with the skill we’re attributing to the bearded man. I discounted all the women, but we can’t be sure of any of the men.”

  “How many?”

  “Ten.”

  Katya ground her teeth. It was better than nothing, she supposed, but she’d been hoping for one name. “Nice work.”

  Maia loitered near the gates. When she turned to look at Crowe, intensity flared in her eyes, as if the time between when he’d disappeared and that moment had fanned her anger into fire again. “There’s no buzz about anyone powerful leaving the academy suddenly. At least, none that the students or teachers let me hear.”

  “What’s got you so—
?”

  “They couldn’t stop talking about him once they found out who I am.”

  Katya didn’t have to ask who she meant, but Crowe foolishly asked, “Roland?”

  “Don’t say his name!” Maia said. Crowe took a step back.

  “Maia,” Katya said.

  Maia spat, “Stay out of this, coz,” just as Crowe said, “Let her speak if she needs to.”

  Katya glared at both of them. “This is not the time or the place.” She hustled them through the courtyard and into an abandoned side street, hoping to sneak them back to the palace quickly.

  Maia didn’t stop staring at Crowe as she walked. “If not now, when?”

  “Later.” Katya glanced at Crowe and expected to see a sullen, ashamed silence, but his brow darkened.

  He pulled up short, and Katya knew by his face that he was either tired of feeling guilty—she couldn’t imagine that—or he needed an outlet for his frustration and decided the best way was to get beaten by a young girl. “Come on then, if that’s the way you want it.”

  Katya gaped at him just as Maia did.

  “What?” Crowe asked. “I can’t function with this nonsense. Say what you have to say, little girl.”

  Maia leapt on him. She led with a bestial snarl that didn’t fade as his arm smacked against her head. She tackled him to the street, kicking and punching, her teeth snapping like some feral thing.

  Katya grabbed her around the middle and heaved upward, but Maia turned and pushed with unexpected strength, and Katya stumbled backward. She skidded in something slick, and her feet shot out from under her. Her shoulder slammed into the corner of a wall, and the rest of her body tried to fall into an alleyway without it. A sudden pop filled her head just as a sickening wave of pain flooded her shoulder socket. Coughing, she tried to draw breath to scream just as she crashed to the ground, and the shock of hitting the pavement forced a cry from her lips. Someone had filled her shoulder with molten lead. When she opened her eyes, someone was touching her, and Maia’s and Crowe’s anxious faces hovered in front of her.