by Matthew Ward
“You should have come to bed.”
“I wouldn’t have slept, and I didn’t want to keep you awake. One of us should greet the business of the day rested. Especially as you’re petitioning the Grand Council on behalf of Saint Tremare’s Convent this morning.”
“As if they’ll listen. They hear my name, not my words.” Measured, graceful steps drew her closer. “How much of the business of the day is the business of the night before?”
“Not much and too much. Josiri helped with the other guests. I had a free hand elsewhere.”
Lily’s left eye twitched beneath the veil. “You’re fortunate to have him as a friend.”
You, not we. “He’s practical. He sees every insurmountable problem as a throng of trivial obstacles to overcome, one by one. I needed a little of that. I sent a herald to Sabelle’s brother, though I’ll offer condolences in person before the day is out. I haven’t done so for Dathna yet. I understand her mother lives in Sothvane. We’ll pay for the interment, of course.”
“We’ll pay for more than that. She leaves two children. The father died in last year’s… unpleasantness.”
He winced. Consequence rippling ever outward. “Of course. We’ll see their needs are met.”
She laid her hands on his lapels. “A strange councillor you are, Lord Reveque, to worry over a maid’s orphans. A strange councillor, and a good man.”
“It’s my fault she’s dead.”
The words should have occasioned guilt, or grief… maybe even fear. But he was too worn away by a sleepless night and the promise of a long day.
Lily’s eyes narrowed. “Explain.”
“The vranakin asked me to ensure Konor Zarn rose to the Council. I refused. This was their response.”
“Removing Sabelle from this world, and thus the running?” She gave an unladylike snort. “It’s clever.”
Lily had never warmed to Sabelle Mezar, claiming that the other woman was too self-assured with too little reason. In another person, Malachi might have thought it jealousy, and perhaps it was. After all, Lily could’ve been councillor in his place – should have been, but for her father’s old-fashioned notion that she be a mother first and a woman second. Truth told, Malachi hadn’t much cared for Sabelle. But she’d been an honest soul, and a necessary piece in the puzzle.
He scowled, disgusted by the callousness of his own thoughts. “They’ve always stopped at threats before.”
“Before, you always gave them what they wanted.” Fearless blue eyes met his. “Why not on this occasion?”
“Because this isn’t just slackening patrols around Dregmeet or shifting tariffs to favour their enterprises. This is the Council. It’s the Republic’s future. That’s what we agreed, you and I – that the vranakin wouldn’t have the Council, and they wouldn’t take our children.” He stared off into the dawn. “I just need a little longer. Then the bargain can die with me, if it must.”
It shouldn’t have been necessary at all. When he’d convinced the Parliament of Crows to abandon Ebigail Kiradin, he’d offered himself up as the prize. No easy trade, even with Lily’s reluctant support, but one Malachi had been prepared to live with. But then he’d been one councillor among many – one voice alone that could benefit the Crowmarket little – and his push to create the position of First Councillor would have diminished his own influence further.
If only Viktor had taken the position. If only circumstance hadn’t forced Malachi to step up in his stead. If. If. If. Cleverness counted little when fate was laughing.
“Viktor’s not coming back.” As ever, Lily read his thoughts with accustomed ease. “You need to let him go.”
Malachi braced his palms on the balustrade and hung his head. “I know.”
“Then who would you have take your place?”
“Josiri.”
“Josiri.” She spoke flatly. “You’ve promised him this?”
“No. He’d refuse. I have to choose my moment.”
And shape a council that would back such a decision. Setting a southwealder in the First Councillor’s chair might prove the work of years. But it would be worth the effort. For all his faults – impetuousness high among them – Josiri had adapted to his role better than Malachi had expected. On a Privy Council too long obsessed with marking the passing years, Josiri got things done. He understood the necessity of change. Which was, Malachi supposed, precisely why Lamirov disliked him. But it had to be Josiri. No other would build on the hoped-for peace with the Hadari.
“Perhaps you shouldn’t choose it at all,” said Lily. “Josiri’s no less compromised than us.”
“Josiri has nothing to do with the vranakin. You should have seen him yesterday. He and Izack would have ridden into Dregmeet and toppled it back into the mists if I hadn’t put a stop to it.”
“I don’t mean the vranakin,” Lily said sourly, “but the demon he flaunts as his consort.”
So that was it? “Anastacia has done nothing to deserve your accusations, Lily.”
“She claims to be a serathi,” she snapped. “What is that, if not the highest blasphemy?”
There was no arguing with Lily on matters of the divine. Though duty to family had waylaid her from a serene’s chaste and reverent path, pious lessons of girlhood were burned into her being. Admirable, on most occasions, for it underpinned generosity of spirit unusual in a woman of her rank. Confronting it head-on only brought woe.
And then there was the problem of Anastacia’s inhuman nature. Even at her friendliest – an increasingly rare state of affairs – she made for an unsettling presence. Too often, Malachi felt as though he were the butt of a joke only Anastacia understood. He suspected Lily did also, which only fed her imaginings of idolatry. A strange thing to yearn for proof of the divine, and then reject it because it poorly matched your ideal.
“We’ve been over this, Lily. Anastacia has Josiri’s trust, and Josiri has mine.”
She joined him at the balcony’s edge. “And if you’re both of you wrong?”
He offered a smile. “Then if she wends seductive wiles about me, I can rely on you to put matters right.”
“You shouldn’t joke about such things, Malachi.” She shook her head, but the fight had gone from her voice. “Very well. Have Josiri as your heir. You trust him, and for all your myriad flaws, I trust you. The Council and our children. I will tolerate Anastacia’s proximity to one, but not the other. Am I understood?”
“Always, my love.”
“Good.” She rested her head against his shoulder. “Then we should discuss our exposure.”
Malachi nodded. Even a hint of skulduggery invited scandal. “Captain Darrow ruled it all an accident. A restraining hasp pulled clear of the wall. No suggestion of anything suspicious.”
“She’s convinced? You’re sure?”
“With Hawkin almost among the dead? Our good captain isn’t one to hide her feelings.”
“True, but that isn’t what I meant by exposure. The vranakin came to our home, Malachi. Our home. They could’ve murdered Sabelle in the street, or in her bed, but they did it here. This was a warning.”
Further proof that his relationship with the Crowmarket was shifting, and not for the better. “I know.”
Malachi ran the tally in his head. He’d been the last of the Satanra line even before marriage to Lily. There were none left alive for the Parliament of Crows to threaten. On the Reveque side of the union? Lily’s parents had passed away some months earlier – her mother to illness, and her father to a broken heart. That left an array of cousins distant in both proximity and fondness. No leverage to be had there.
It came down to immediate family. Perhaps a few friends beyond. Josiri, Rosa and Viktor. Try as he might, Malachi couldn’t conjure a circumstance where the Parliament of Crows would pursue any of them. Josiri had lived a life of secrets, and was far from complacent. And besides, he had Anastacia – serathi, demon or something else entirely, Malachi understood her to be formidable in every sense. Rosa had
already proven herself more than a match for the Crowmarket’s kernclaws. And Viktor? Malachi almost wished the vranakin would try, and thus learn a pointed lesson of their own.
No. It would be Constans or Sidara.
Now the fear came.
“Sidara should go to the convent,” he said. “She’ll be safer in Lumestra’s sight than in this house.”
Lily straightened. “You know that’s impossible. Her eyes too often shine with the light in her blood. For all she claims to keep the rest locked away, I don’t know that I believe her. She’s too much like her mother. Clever and defiant.” She shook her head. “She’ll not keep her secret cloistered among serenes, and then the church will have her for the foundry.”
Malachi scowled, but allowed that she was correct. Magic was too rare a gift, and the constructs it granted life too valuable. It was selfish to keep Sidara from the foundry, but if a father couldn’t be selfish with his daughter, when could he?
“Then she must at least learn to defend herself,” he said. “And she must learn to keep her light hidden. Perhaps High Proctor Ilnarov would be prepared to tutor—”
Lily rounded on him. “You’d reveal Sidara to the head of the foundry? After all I’ve said?”
“The man is not the position he holds, Lily. He kept Viktor’s secret for years. Why would Sidara be any different?” He sighed. “And what would you suggest otherwise?”
“We will pray together, she and I. Lumestra will guide us.”
Malachi touched his eyes closed. “All right. But I hope for Sidara’s sake that Lumestra is forthcoming. You’ll permit me to arrange tuition in more… practical arts? For her and Constans both?”
Lily’s glare didn’t waver, but here Malachi found himself on firmer ground. Lily handled a sword rather better than he did – the dividend of girlhood lessons – and would be unlikely to oppose tuition for her own children.
“I won’t have Sidara be a knight any more than I will a foundry drab,” she said. “She’s a Reveque. She’s meant for better than war and filth.”
“Only if she lives.” Malachi bit back a frisson of dismay. “Vranakin or not, it’s a dangerous world. You can’t keep her at Abbeyfields for ever, and Sidara needs to know how to defend herself when her mother’s not there to protect her.”
Lily looked away. “You’ll assign one of our hearthguard?”
He took a deep breath. “I don’t trust the hearthguard. Not with this. That trick with the chandelier? That took preparation, which means we’ve vranakin among the household.” He’d borne that realisation some hours. Time had only soured it further. “If someone’s to spar with our children, I need to be sure of them.”
“Then who?”
“I’ll think on the matter.” He ran a palm across stubble and scowled. “But first, the business of the day. The Council beckons.”
Lily leaned in, lifted her veil, and kissed him. “Go. I’ll attend to things here. But carry one thought with you. Last night was not your fault.”
Malachi held his wife close, and wished he believed her.
Fourteen
Apara jerked upright, breath frosting and blankets clutched to her chest. Dust motes danced in a shaft of light cast through drapes improperly closed. Green eyes shrouded by grey robes regarded her coldly from the foot of the four-poster bed.
“Crowfather Krastin requires your presence.”
Apara swallowed. She never felt entirely at ease around elder cousins. It wasn’t just the cold, but something… else. Something harder to define. Still, some asperity was required, if only for appearances’ sake. She wasn’t any longer a rassophore, to be commanded and bidden. She’d duties of her own – duties the elder cousin’s presence jeopardised.
“You shouldn’t be here.”
Her tone fell short of intended reprimand, but remained steady. A victory of sorts. Her fingers closed about the pendant – the Parliament’s gift, and their charge. It hummed under her hand.
Though she’d decreed her bedchamber off-limits to staff, Apara never slept without the pendant. She never removed it while within the house’s bounds, even in the most intimate of company. Such moments were few and far between, for whatever joy lay in the deception was insufficient to douse the loss of not truly being the object of desire. Or perhaps that too was the work of the shadow in her soul, draining the joy even from such trysts?
Thus every gilded mirror held the face of a stranger – the councilwoman whose likeness granted Apara fine living, and a seat at the highest table. The pendant’s spark of enchantment ensured that servants and guests saw what she wished. What they expected. What did her cousin behold?
If only she were permitted to indulge old skills practised as the Silver Owl. By day, the face she wore was a passport into so many highblood households, their secrets and defences laid bare. The woman she’d once been would have revelled in that knowledge, and cleaned them out of all that was valuable by night. But that was before the kernclaw’s mantle had been forced upon her.
“You remain uncompromised.” The elder cousin’s pronouncement was bereft of uncertainty.
Would her cousin have spoken differently had he been seen, and maintained secrecy by disposing of the witness? That had consequences, if not so immediate.
“I’m to attend the ceremony at the Hayadra Grove,” she said. “And the council meeting thereafter. My position—”
“Is for the Parliament to grant, or to take away.” He drew close to the foot of the bed. “Have you grown too comfortable, cousin? Are you so used to playing a lady of sunlight that you’ve forgotten your loyalties in the mist?”
The room grew colder. Dust prickled the back of Apara’s throat. “No. Of course not. I will do as they ask.”
“Well,” said Sergeant Brass. “This has turned into a shadowthorn wedding, hasn’t it?”
“Never you mind what it is or it ain’t,” Kurkas replied. “Eyes on the crowd. Or are you fixing to have another lord vanish under your watch?”
Brass stiffened and again gave his attention to the seething masses in the Hayadra Grove.
Kurkas drummed fingers against thigh, and conceded that Brass had a point. It was a touch extravagant. Thousands had flocked to the space beneath the alabaster trees – enough that the grassy mound and the ruins of the old temple were all but hidden. Young and old, rich and poor. The rough garb of farmers and labourers mingling with the silks and velvets of the middling classes. Knots of hearthguard marked the positions of the lesser nobles. All held at bay from the podium at the grove’s centre by a double line of constables.
Barely a tenth the number had come for Lord Lamirov’s ascension. Lady Tarev’s had drawn even less. Only Erashel Beral’s confirmation had come close to challenging the size, and that by dint of her reputation having drawn southwealders from far afield. But that had been an austere and weighty occasion.
This ascension had the feel of the Reaptithe carnival whose wagons and bands had thronged the streets just weeks before. The crowd had drawn a swarm of hawkers, their candies and sweetmeats competing for spare pennies. Priests preached to inattentive listeners. Masked jesters capered hither and yon, bells ringing from their curled cloth horns. Swazzlemen had erected ramshackle booths about the grove’s perimeter, eliciting childish shrieks of delight with every clack and scream as wooden puppets battered out brutal morality plays.
At the highest point, hearthguards formed a second line of defence against celebrants with more than entertainment in mind. The sky-blue tabards and lion badges of the Lamirov family dominated, with the stylised arch and wine-dark uniforms of Reveque a close second. The Trelan phoenix was pitiful by comparison, numbering a mere eight – Kurkas and Brass included.
Beyond the hearthguard, a garlanded podium had been raised beside a great tree – the last survivor of the central grove, her shimmering green crown turning umber with oncoming Fade. Shaddra, she was called in the old tongue, named like her sisters for a queenly serathiel – a keeper of dreams beneath whose bou
ghs the pious often slumbered, and whose sprawling roots enfolded the gate to Tressia’s burial catacombs. Those sisters were all gone, fuel for Ebigail Kiradin’s pyres a year before, and now the venerable Shaddra ruled over her court of trees alone, granting Lumestra’s blessing to the councillors upon the podium.
The absences among the Privy Council were striking. No Izack. No Messela Akadra. No Rika Tarev. The Lords Lamirov and Marest bore impassive expressions little removed from scowls. Lady Beral’s folded arms suggested defiance. And Kurkas knew for a fact that Lord Trelan attended out of duty alone. Only Lord Reveque smiled as he spoke, head bowed, with Lord Trelan and soon-to-be Lord Zarn.
“I guess Konor Zarn’s not a popular fellow with the highbloods,” said Kurkas.
Brass offered no reply. Kurkas, never one for unnecessary contemplation, nevertheless regretted his earlier harsh words. Like him, Brass had served in the Akadra hearthguard. Difference was, where Kurkas had been recommended – and even courted – to transfer allegiance, Brass had found himself adrift following the disappearance of Lord Hadon Akadra. Though Kurkas had no real regrets about accepting the Trelan phoenix, he still felt a pang with the sable surcoats and silver swan of the Akadra hearthguard so close. Brass undoubtedly felt the loss keener.
“Look,” murmured Kurkas. “I spoke out of turn. Nearly lost Lord Trelan when that chandelier came down. It’s making me jumpy.”
Brass grunted. “I heard that was an accident.”
“Yeah, I heard that too. But we do have so many accidents in this city, don’t we?”
“True.” Brass paused, the ebb and flow of his features speaking to weighty consideration. “He’s a good ’un. When that fever came for my Kandrinne last Wintertide? He paid for a physician. Probably saved her life.”
“Then we’d better keep him out of the Raven’s grasp, hadn’t we?”
A blare of buccinas drowned Brass’ reply and silenced the crowd. Lord Reveque approached the podium’s edge.
“Citizens of the Republic. Today is another milestone as we rebuild that which had fallen into decay.” Lord Reveque spread his arms. A supplicant speaking to a master, rather than a ruler speaking to subjects. “The Council has too long been dominated by those who have put their own advancement over that of this city, and this Republic. When I accepted the position of First Councillor, I swore I’d fill empty seats with worthy souls. That our nation would be guided by honest debate and shrewd minds, rather than selfishness and petty interest. Today, I fulfil that promise.”
