“And yet,” Caulin said silkily, “such a concentration of power in the hands of one family—”
“I assure you, neither Lady Amalia nor I asked for the positions of power we currently hold,” my mother said tartly. The Marquise of Palova chuckled, leaning back in her chair with great apparent satisfaction; it broke the tension, and the more established members of the Council exchanged knowing smiles. “Now, the Empire faces a crisis the like of which it has never seen, and we cannot afford to be distracted by political squabbles. Shall we move past the niceties and take care of the business at hand?”
Nods and murmurs of assent traveled around the table. Lord Caulin let the matter drop. It seemed impossible that this same group of people who had met behind our drawing room door when I was a tiny child, parceling out the future of the Empire over clinking glasses of wine late into the night when I was supposed to be asleep, had now accepted me as one of them. But the moment of challenge had passed, and I was still here at the table.
“Let’s get straight to the point,” my mother said. “Our first priority must be to preserve the Empire. Marquise, what is our latest military intelligence on the invasion?”
The Marquise of Palova shook her head. “I just got an update on the way in here. It’s not good. We thwarted attacks in a few locations, but Ruven has taken one of the smaller border fortresses. The pass it guards was ten feet deep in snow and too rough for wagons even in summer; he must have used vivomancy to either clear the snow or march his army over it. Our scouts haven’t been able to get close enough to determine how.”
Lord Caulin frowned. “If it’s too steep for wagons, how is he bringing supplies?”
“He’s not,” the marquise said bluntly. “Or not nearly what an army needs. He’s got some pack mules and what his soldiers can carry. Either he has some way to feed them and keep them warm with magic, or he doesn’t care if they die.”
My mother glanced inquiringly at me.
“With Ruven, it could be either,” I said.
“He’s crossed the border with several thousand troops,” the marquise continued. “I don’t have a reliable count yet, because he’s been shattering courier lamp relay mirrors along the way, but it’s not his main army. Still, it was enough to overcome the forces we had defending that remote section of the Witchwall Mountains. Since his soldiers don’t have baggage slowing them down, they’re moving quickly out of the mountains toward Ardence.”
My heart lurched unpleasantly. Ardence. I had friends in the path of Ruven’s army. And since most of our forces were at the border, it lay virtually undefended in the soft interior of the Empire.
My mother frowned at the map spread out on the table. “This seems like a rash move. Ardence is well fortified; even if we can’t get significant reinforcements there before Ruven’s army arrives, we can cut him off from the border, surround him, and destroy his forces before he can take the city. What am I missing?”
Silence fell. I stared at the little drawing of Ardence on the map, with its stone walls and the River Arden running through it, trying to think what Ruven could be up to. And then it struck me, with a chill like mountain snow.
“He’s going to lay his claim upon the city,” I said, certain of it. He’d tipped his hand in Lady Hortensia’s garden, with his talk of using circles and stones and enchantments to steal land from his enemies. Only in the Empire, he wouldn’t need my blood to do it, since there was no competing Witch Lord’s claim to overpower. “We can’t think of this like our wars with other Witch Lords. He only needs to hold the city long enough to magically claim it as part of his domain.” Ardence’s walls would make that easier, providing a ready-made boundary for Ruven to mark with his blood. “Once he’s done that, the entire population of Ardence—sixty thousand people—will be his.”
The Marquise of Palova swore. “How long will it take him to claim it? And how does he do it, exactly? Does he need to control the city, or just surround it?”
I shook my head. “Normally, it takes a couple of months to become a part of a Witch Lord’s domain through drinking the water and eating the food. But Ruven has already used enchantments to establish a weak, temporary claim at once, when he set up his circles around Mount Whitecrown. That might well be enough for him to exercise control over the people living in the city, and all he’d have to do is carve symbols into the walls and blood them.”
“So we can’t let him surround Ardence for any length of time.” The Marquise of Palova let out a frustrated puff of breath.
“How long will it take us to get a force to Ardence sizable enough to defend it?” my mother asked.
The marquise frowned at the map spread out on the table. “Normally, we’d reinforce them with Falcons from the Mews, since that’s the quickest way to get the most power there. That’s always been the imperial strategy for responding to surprise attacks. But that’s not an option now. We can pull forces from the border, but that weakens our defense against his main army. The sabotage to our courier lamp relay lines means that only troops deployed on intact lines can respond quickly enough, too, which limits our options—we’ve lost contact with the major fortress closest to his army.”
“We can figure out exactly where we’re pulling the troops from later in this discussion. Just answer me this: can we get a force of sufficient size to Ardence before him?”
“No,” the marquise said quietly. “Not one big enough to stop his forces without heavy Falcon support from the Mews, especially given that they’ve got a Witch Lord with them. He’ll beat us there by two to three days. Any force we could field before then will just get slaughtered.”
Silence fell over the table. I gripped the edges of my chair, thinking of Domenic and Venasha and all my other friends in Ardence. The notion of leaving them to Ruven’s mercy for a few days was intolerable.
My mother let out a long breath, heavy with consequences. “With Ruven supporting them, that’s more than enough time to take the city. We can’t let that happen.” She lifted her eyes to me. “Amalia, I would vastly prefer to keep you here fulfilling your duties on the Council, but with the entire Mews in quarantine, I can think of only one way to get Ardence the power it needs to defend itself before Ruven’s army arrives.”
I nodded, my belly clenching. “Zaira can likely handle a small army. If Ruven is with them, however, I can only guess at what he can do.”
My mother’s eyes narrowed. “This ability of his to control people is a problem. He nearly crippled us in one night. We’re still catching people in Raverra and across the Empire who seem to be acting under his command. I have reports coming in of farmers damaging bridges and breaking courier lamp relay mirrors, trusted servants murdering leaders, and soldiers caught in the act of trying to open border fortresses to Ruven’s chimeras.”
“If we’re going to stop him, we have to do it soon,” the Marquise of Palova said. “He’s targeting the sources of Raverran power: the Falcons, the courier lamp network, infrastructure like roads and the chain of command. And his control potion has the potential to expand exponentially; there was an alchemist stationed at that border fortress he took, so he can definitely make more of it now, if he couldn’t before. We need to strike back and hurt him badly enough that he can’t keep chipping away at our ability to fight him.”
“That man needs to die,” my mother said bluntly. “I’m normally all for diplomatic solutions, but Lord Ruven is too dangerous and unprincipled to live.”
“I can send assassins after him,” Lord Caulin offered, “but my understanding is that they would likely prove ineffective.”
Every eye around the table turned to me. I shifted uncomfortably, but it was only fair; I was the only imperial citizen alive who’d been directly involved in the deaths of two Witch Lords. “I’ve been researching the matter. It won’t be easy. He can draw on all the lives in his domain to sustain his own.” I opened my mouth to explain the particular challenges and my thoughts on how they might be overcome, but then realized that
in the unlikely event anyone here cared about those details, there was little chance they’d understand the magical theory involved. “I’ll keep working on it,” I said instead. “Lord Kathe may be able to help.”
“Good. Talk to him. Make this effort your top priority,” my mother said. “Use whatever resources you need. No matter what it takes, we need to find a way to kill him. You know Ruven, you’ve faced him before, and you understand the magic involved; you are the person I most trust to handle this.”
I nodded, trying to appear competent and confident and not at all as if the crushing pressure of responsibility had just tumbled down on me like a mountain.
“What about justice for my brother?” Scipio da Morante asked sharply. “That is my top priority. After the safety of the Empire, of course.”
My back locked as tight as if someone had stuck a fork into my muscles and twisted them like spaghetti. I sealed my lips, knowing full well that leaping to Marcello’s defense when no one had even mentioned him by name yet could doom him.
“We’ve found the individual responsible for the breached ward in the Imperial Palace,” Caulin reported. “She appears to be a Vaskandran agent who came somehow into the possession of the face of an officer of the imperial guard who we now believe to be missing. I’ve turned her over to some of my best people for questioning.”
I couldn’t help a twinge of sympathy for the woman. If Ruven didn’t want her to talk, she would be incapable of talking, no matter how much Caulin’s best people made her want to.
Scipio gave a grim nod. “And the man who killed my brother?”
I struggled to keep my face impassive, silently willing my mother to find some way to redirect him.
But it was the Marquise of Palova who answered. “Yes, the control potion should wear off in a few days, and then I’m sure he’ll be happy to tell us everything he knows with no additional persuasion required. I know the man; he’s a good officer.”
“I will do everything I can to find a means to destroy Lord Ruven, so we can bring your brother’s true murderer to justice,” I added, buoyed by a rush of gratitude to the marquise.
Scipio nodded with reluctant acceptance. To my relief, the discussion shifted to moving troops to defend Ardence. The Marquise of Palova argued with Lord Errardi over how many troops we could afford to shift off Ruven’s border, and when the Falcons at the Mews would be ready to return to active duty. Ciardha brought my mother a report of a servant caught attempting to smuggle a vial of Ruven’s potion into the palace kitchens, and of a mountain town in the path of Ruven’s army presumed destroyed.
Graces help us. This was the Empire crumbling at the edges, and now it was my job to fix it.
I straightened in my chair, bending every scrap of focus and spark of imagination I possessed to each problem as it came under discussion. I offered to ask Kathe to send crows to spy on Ruven’s army. I suggested putting our quarantined artificers to work making alchemy detection rings and distributing them to the kitchens of key military outposts and civilian command centers. But I knew none of it was going to be enough.
Finally, my mother called a break to get food and attend to other business. As the others left, talking to each other in pairs or striding off to accomplish pressing tasks, she asked me to wait with a flick of her eyes.
“You and Zaira should go at first light,” my mother said, once the others were gone. Now that we were alone, she let pain and exhaustion roughen her voice at last. “I’ll arrange a military escort, and Ciardha has found you an aide to help you conduct at least some Council business from the road. If you use the imperial post stations and every moment of daylight, you can get to Ardence in less than two days, which should allow you to beat Ruven there.”
I nodded, trying not to show the dread churning in my stomach. I couldn’t quite make myself speak. War. We were going to war at last.
My mother’s eyes softened, and she reached out to smooth hair back from my face. “I know this isn’t easy for you,” she said quietly. “Nothing will be easy for a long time. How are you holding up?”
I remembered someone asking La Contessa that same question at our palace, not long after my father died. Well enough to serve the Empire, she had replied.
My mother never asked me questions like that. She expected me to do what needed to be done, no matter how I felt. We had come to a dark time indeed, if she seemed genuinely concerned for my feelings.
But that was unfair. She had always cared how I felt. She’d just never needed to ask.
“Oh, I’m just fantastic,” I said, letting irony fill my voice, and holding her eyes. “How about you?”
She laughed. “Also fantastic.” And she pulled me into an embrace, still chuckling. I returned it carefully, mindful of the wound in her side. “Everything is simply lovely. Oh, Amalia, how did we get here?”
I breathed in the familiar, comforting scent of her perfume. “I don’t know, Mamma. But here we are.”
She held me out at arm’s length, scanning my face. “Indeed. And never doubt that we’re equal to this challenge, Amalia. We are Cornaros. We do not hold ourselves satisfied with merely doing what we can; we do what must be done.”
My spine straightened. “You’re right. And I’ll have Zaira with me. She’s an unstoppable force, even with her balefire sealed.”
“That she is.” My mother squeezed my shoulders. “Now, go home and get some sleep. You’ll need to get up before dawn.”
“I’ve got to check on Marcello first.” Profound disquiet at the thought of leaving him behind in Raverra in his current condition settled over me like a damp cloak. “Mamma, can you promise to look after him for me? To make certain he’s comfortable while he’s in quarantine, and that no one tries to blame him for the doge’s death?”
“I’m certain we can—” She broke off as Ciardha slipped in through the Map Room door, face grave, and murmured something in her ear. My mother’s face went still. My gut tightened with apprehension.
“About that, Amalia,” my mother said, her voice slow and grave. “There’s some news.”
Terrible possibilities rolled down into my stomach as if I’d swallowed a cup of lead shot. “What is it?” I whispered.
“Captain Verdi is missing,” she said. “He took down his guards and escaped.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Missing?” I breathed. “I’ve got to—”
“You will do nothing.” My mother’s voice cracked like a whip. “We don’t know what orders Ruven has given him; you could well be his target. Ciardha, is he still in the palace?”
“No, Contessa. He apparently escaped about an hour ago.”
“He could be anywhere by now, then.” I pressed a hand to my temple. “Hidden in the city, on the mainland and heading toward Vaskandar, or trying to break into the Mews.”
“I’ll send a messenger over to warn them he’s escaped, and set people looking for him,” Ciardha said. “Do you wish me to keep this discreet, Serenity?”
“Yes,” my mother said. “And find a courier lamp pair from some less important location that we can swap to the Mews. Sending people back and forth in boats takes too much time.”
“It shall be done, Serenity.”
She left. I stared at the Map Room door as it closed behind her. All I could think of was Marcello begging me not to leave him. And Marcello, out somewhere in the winter evening under the cold moon, doing Ruven’s work, with Raverran soldiers hunting for him.
I hadn’t visited him all day, swept up in the election and its aftermath. And now my friend, a man I loved, was in dire trouble, knowing I’d abandoned him.
“Amalia.” My mother touched my hair, briefly; she had moved up behind me, and I hadn’t even noticed. “I know Captain Verdi is your friend. Hopefully, they’ll capture him soon.”
I swallowed. “Mamma, are they going to… Will they have orders to…”
“To capture him alive.” My mother paused. “Unless, of course,” she added slowly, “you would r
ecommend otherwise. You know better than I how much damage he could cause.”
Hell of Nightmares. Marcello knew everything about the Falcons, from their combat tactics to the personal weaknesses of every resident of the Mews. The idea of that knowledge in Ruven’s hands was chilling.
My stomach twisted in rebellion at the idea of essentially sending assassins to murder him. By all the Graces, he was my friend, a man I loved; we’d both risked our lives for each other more than once. I couldn’t let that happen to him. Surely this was one line I couldn’t cross.
But I had killed my cousin to spare innocent lives. I’d already crossed that line months ago. Hadn’t I?
“I…” I drew in a shaky breath. “We should try to capture him alive if at all possible.”
My words fell into the silence like rocks into a deep well: heavy and hard and plummeting into a dark place. My whole body burned with shame at that if at all possible. If someone had asked Marcello the same question about me, I knew it would have been at any cost. What kind of demon had I become?
The kind who sat on the Council of Nine. Like my mother.
She squeezed my shoulder. “I understand,” she said softly.
I stepped out of the Map Room half-blind with unshed tears. I had to believe Marcello would be captured unharmed, that was all. Or at least alive. We would find him, and bring him back, and the alchemists and vivomancers at the Mews would figure out what was wrong with him and fix it. The thought of not having his warm, honest, dependable presence in my life was too terrible to contemplate.
I had to focus on finding a way to defeat Ruven. He was the source of all the problems besetting the Empire and the people I loved, Marcello included, and my mother had made him my responsibility. I needed to unravel the problem of his immortality as if it were simply another complex magical theory challenge put before me by the professors at the University of Ardence.
Please don’t go.
“Hells take it,” I muttered, wiping at my eyes.
The Unbound Empire Page 22
