The Exile's Curse

by M. J. Scott

  He hoped.

  Damn it. Maybe a new case from Aristides was a distraction he needed after all.

  He flipped open the envelope and tugged the heavy white paper free. The note was short. He was to attend his emperor. No explanation. Another sign that the matter could be nothing good.

  And, Goddess, he felt like ten levels of hell. His head pounded, and his eyes had looked like he'd boiled them when he’d shaved earlier. The shave itself hadn't been his best attempt. His uniform was clean, and he'd drunk equal gallons of coffee and minted tea to attempt to clear his head and freshen his breath, but neither had helped overly much. They certainly hadn't dealt with the self-disgust.

  He had a tiny skill for earth magic, but not enough to magic away a headache of this proportion. At the Academe, they'd told him his talent for illusion was so strong and his Truth Seeking so rare that his other magics were never going to amount to much. At the time, before he'd truly understood what being a Truth Seeker meant, he'd been proud. But there were days now—more of them each year—where he'd happily trade his power for some middling talent for blood or water that no one particularly cared about and settle down to running his estate.

  He hadn’t yet asked Aristides for a reduction of his caseload, but he could tell he was stretching things too far since his father died, even without the commentary from his staff. He owed the Castaigne holdings and their people more attention than he was currently giving them. He had no desire to be an absent, neglectful lord. It was just that he hadn't yet worked out how to avoid that and also avoid neglecting his duty to the empire and the truth.

  Frustrated, he yanked open the top drawer in his desk. He kept tinctures his mother made him there for days like these. She was an earth witch to be reckoned with, and one of her remedies would ease his head. It would also taste dire and chase away sleep for a night. He was short on that, too, but he would take tired over feeling like someone was running a dull blade through his temples.

  The cork in the vial yielded easily, and he downed the contents in one fast gulp. His mother told him she made the taste unpleasant so no one would be tempted to use them too often. Unpleasant was underselling it. The stuff tasted like socks that had been worn for a month by someone with a dire foot disease and then perhaps pissed on by an angry cat. He chased it down with water and the now cold half mug of mint tea on his desk, which made his mouth somewhat happier.

  Then he opened the door and told Kristof to call for a carriage, as he had to go to the palace and see what fate awaited him there.

  The emperor was in one of the open, grassed parts of the palace grounds near the stables, studying a very expensive-looking chestnut filly when Lucien was ushered into his presence thirty minutes later. The horse's finely drawn lines and dished nose suggested Kharenian stock. Expensive indeed. She watched Aristides with big curious eyes, ears flicking back and forth as he stroked her neck. The saddle on her back and Aristides's breeches and relatively subdued jacket suggested the emperor had been putting her through her paces. He looked up as Lucien approached.

  Lucien bowed as Aristides nodded at him. "You wished to see me, Your Imperial Majesty?"

  "That is a very formal tone for such a sunny day." The emperor squinted at him with assessing eyes. "You look tired, my lord Truth Seeker."

  "I am fine, Your Imperial Majesty." He resisted squinting. Sunlight sometimes pained his eyes, and the lingering edges of his headache definitely didn't appreciate it. But while smoked-glass spectacles had become fashionable in Lumia a few years ago, he'd never been convinced that they didn't look somewhat ridiculous. And definitely weren't acceptable to wear at court.

  Aristides handed the mare off to a waiting groom. "A present for my daughter. Cecilie," he added, which was helpful. The man had a flock of daughters, after all.

  "Is it her birthday soon?" Lucien tried to remember the court calendar. He didn't always have time for every social event the palace held, but as marq now, he had to attend more of them. And Imperial anniversaries and birthdays and such celebrations were more important than most. Or so his father had told him. Lucien was still making his own assessment of priorities, but it was true that it was hard to avoid being missed at such events when the majority of the court turned out in force.

  "She will be sixteen," Aristides said. "Goddess protect us all."

  Cecilie had a reputation for being strong-willed. His mother kept telling him she was going to be a beauty. He'd made it plain that he had no intention of marrying someone less than half his age, even if the emperor defied all reason and decided to waste an Imperial princess on a mere marq. He grinned at Aristides. "At least it's another five years until you find out if she has any magic."

  Aristides winced. "Perhaps I can arrange for an extended tour of the empire around that time. I could leave straight after her Ascension, should it come to pass." He nodded at the groom. "Take her back to the stable. She will do nicely."

  "I think the empress would hunt you down and drag you back," Lucien said with a grin.

  "You are possibly correct," Aristides said, smiling ruefully. "Well, five years is a long time. No need to borrow trouble."

  Not when the empire produced enough of it for the man to deal with now.

  "Ah," Lucien said. "Which brings us to business. How may I be of service?"

  "Walk with me, Lucien,” Aristides said. He led them through the grounds to a section of his private gardens that Lucien knew. Its main feature was an outdoor dining pavilion, shaped in finely carved wood to echo the lines of the palace. The emperor seemed to enjoy spending time outside the palace when the weather was fine and often discussed business there. Given the man's schedule and obligations were more suffocating than Lucien's—he wouldn't trade places with Aristides for the world—Lucien couldn't blame him for wanting to escape the palace walls as often as possible.

  Aristides took a seat at one end of the long table that sat square in the center of the pavilion, beneath a replica of the Imperial seal picked out in gold and enamel on the wooden ceiling. “Sit.” He pointed to the chair on his left.

  Lucien sat. Aristides called for tea, then made maddening small talk until the servants arrived with it.

  The tea was at least hot and strong and, in combination with his mother's tincture, made progress in chasing away the last edges of his hangover. Which was almost worse, in a way. Without the pounding head to distract him, the memories of the ball and Chloe were far too clear.

  "How are your cases progressing?" Aristides asked eventually after he, too, had drained his cup and devoured some of the small works of art masquerading as cakes that the servants had brought with the tea. Lucien left those alone, not quite trusting his stomach yet.

  "They are in order, Your Imperial Majesty. You have all the latest information in the Anglion matter."

  In fact, Aristides might know more than Lucien. The emperor had, like Chloe, recently returned from Anglion. He'd sent Lucien a briefing, as it was pertinent to his investigation into the attempts against Sophie and Cameron in Illvya, but a report wasn't the same as a firsthand account.

  "Yes, well. We will see how that progresses. Queen Sophia has work to do, and it will not help her if we go hunting for problems too soon. But Domina Skey must have had contact with someone here to have access to scriptii."

  "Or else they have a water mage in Anglion who no one knows about," Lucien countered.

  Aristides shook his head. "I do not think so. Their fear of water magic is real. I cannot see Domina Skey sanctioning such a thing. Too much risk to her power. I think part of the reason that she viewed Queen Sophia as a threat is that she may have sensed the potential in her. And without her being bound to the temple in the usual way, she was a risk." He considered Lucien a moment. "Speak to Edouard. He will tell you what impressions he gained from the court there."

  "I will, Your Imperial Majesty." Edouard had been a Truth Seeker longer than Lucien, and his skill was subtle and impressive.

  "Do so,” Aristides sai
d. "But as Anglion must be left a while to find their feet, allow me to present you with another matter." His face twisted a little, which was probably about as close to an apology as Lucien would get for whatever mess was about to be dumped in his lap. "I know you have a lot on your hands, Lucien. And I would not add to that if I could avoid it."

  "But?" Lucien said. The emperor was clearly not going to avoid it. He might respect his tools and give them leeway when he could, but he would never hesitate to deploy a tool when he needed it.

  "But we will be sending a delegation to Andalyssia. It requires a Truth Seeker."

  "Andalyssia?" Lucien was too startled to be polite. Truth Seekers did travel sometimes for cases in other parts of the empire, and he'd been to Andalyssia once before, briefly, in the wake of an assassination attempt on the empress. Located in the northernmost part of the empire, it was freezing cold most of the year, and the people were strange. And unforgiving. They'd shown no love for Illvya. Not that he could blame them when the Illvyans at the particular time had been upending one of their noble houses with proof of treachery. He had no desire to go back. Such a trip would take—he tried to recall the geography and distances—at least two months. He could scarcely afford to be away from his estates for so long. "Your Imperial Majesty, my estates need—"

  "I understand the ramifications," Aristides said, cutting him off.

  Lucien's stomach dropped. He wasn't going get out of this.

  "I know it is inconvenient. I will provide you with adequate compensation. You can hire as many land stewards as you require."

  He had an excellent land steward already. But he couldn't expect Fidel to run the estate for months in any other way than what his father had already set in motion. Lucien had ideas of his own. Things he wanted to change. Not to mention it was early autumn. Most of the hard work of summer harvest was done, and the tenants were planning the coming seasons. They needed access to their lord. As would his staff. Traditionally this was the time of year when he would be at home, to meet with his people. Local problems and requests were dealt with by the lord if they didn't need to be dealt with by the judiciary. He was depriving them of that. His younger brother was married and living half the country away on his wife's family lands. His sisters were married, too. He could hardly expect them to step in for several months.

  But the emperor was unlikely to be swayed by those arguments.

  "Has there been an incident that requires a Truth Seeker in Andalyssia, Your Imperial Majesty?" he asked, carefully controlling his voice to remove any hint of frustration.

  "Not an incident as such," Aristides said. "But the king is about to marry. He has made a petition for us to consider restoring House Elannon early."

  "What?" Lucien wasn't sure he'd heard correctly. House Elannon had been behind the attempt on the empress.

  Aristides grimaced. "It is a matter of their bloody balance," he said. "The priests are claiming it would be inauspicious for the king to begin his wedded life without a full council. Or, rather, they have said it would be inauspicious for the queen-to-be to be crowned in such circumstances."

  "They didn't argue that when the king was crowned."

  "Less time. They crown a new king within days of the old one dying. There was no time to ask, though I am sure it crossed the council's mind. But the queen's coronation will not happen until the month of marriage rites is up."

  Which left time for negotiations. And an opportunity to force a matter that was a wedge between the two countries. He put down his tea. He couldn't immediately recall the particulars of Andalyssian wedding traditions, but he'd butted heads with their concept of balance when he'd been there to oversee the Ashmeister Elannon's trial. Andalyssians believed the goddess wanted the land to be in balance in order for it to thrive. And that idea permeated their lives. It affected how they used magic and how they structured their society. The king ruled, but he had the council—the sixteen largest noble houses each appointed an Ashmeister to advise the king—the priests, and the seers to advise him. Each year one of the Ashmeisters was appointed to rule the council, and that role rotated through the cycle of houses until it began again.

  When the Ashmeister Elannon had been found guilty, part of the punishment—part of the agreement which had saved the house from being annihilated—had been the removal of House Elannon for one full cycle of the council. Sixteen years. Long enough for the older generation to lose their grip on power and the younger members of the house to reflect on the consequences of treason. Long enough for the whole country to reflect.

  It had only been thirteen. They were asking for the emperor to forgive them early. Which sat uneasily in Lucien’s gut.

  Balance or not, this was politics.

  "What happens if you refuse?" he asked.

  "That is difficult to predict," Aristides said. "I like Mikvel. He is young, but he is forward-thinking and shows signs of being a good king. But he needs the council's support."

  Which he could well lose if he couldn't at least get Illvya to agree to discuss an early end to House Elannon's disgrace. That might mean a wedding turned to a coup. And if the royal house lost power, then the Ashmeisters would fight. Some of them were still very traditional. Possibly some of them shared the views of the Ashmeister Elannon about breaking up the empire to restore balance. Andalyssia was cold and grim, but it also controlled the mountain ranges where a lot of the empire's iron and gold—not to mention other precious stones and metals—were mined. Illvya needed it to be ruled by a man they could work with, not an enemy.

  "So you want me to go and what—see if Elannon has learned their lesson?" And if they had, tell Aristides to back King Mikvel and allow a house that committed treason to step back into power? Or, if they hadn't, face potential chaos in one of the richest countries in the empire. He was glad he wouldn’t be making the decision.

  No, just finding the evidence to help Aristides make it. Goddess damn it.

  "Something like that. But not just you. We were sending a delegation to the wedding anyway. Both to attend the ceremonies and to discuss the mining treaties."

  There were always discussions of the mining treaties.

  "You don't want to attend to this yourself?"

  "No. At this point, if I go, it can only be interpreted as Andalyssia being back in favor or me being there to tighten my fist. Neither would be useful to the matter at hand. Better to see if we can resolve this quietly. You have a high enough rank that you can represent us at all the wedding festivities as well as determining whether Elannon can be trusted to rejoin the Ashmeisters."

  The Ashmeisters. His memories of them were of a group of seriously grim and ruthless men. The passing of the old king had been unexpected, and his son was young. In Andalyssian history, there was more than one instance where that set of circumstances had led to one of the Ashmeisters taking the throne.

  He could understand why Aristides was keen for them to not stir up trouble again, but he had to ask, "Are you sure I'm the right person? After all, I was there for the Ashmeister Elannon's trial."

  Aristides smiled, the expression fierce. "If they protest, I will claim it would be balance for you to be there. They are unlikely to be able to argue with that."

  Maybe not, but they would want to. There had never been an Andalyssian Truth Seeker. Favoring one magic over the rest so strongly was against balance. They did, however, have seers who exercised quite some influence in the court, with their odd mix of ritual keeping and foretelling and other things he'd never entirely gotten straight. He'd been able to tell that the seers spoke what they believed to be true when they made their pronouncements of the future, but given the Andalyssians professed not to use straight water magic and it was usually water magic that leaned itself to prophecy, he'd been unsure whether their pronouncements often came true. He hadn't stayed long enough to find out.

  "Is there any point in me trying to convince you to send someone else?"

  "No. You solve my problem neatly. Your cases are all in
a position where they can do without you for a few months, or so the clerk of your division informs me. The advocate general agrees."

  Dammit. If Maxim had agreed, then this was already a done deal.

  "How long?" Maybe it would only be a week or so actually in Andalyssia, which would make the whole thing more bearable.

  Aristides grimaced. "The wedding rites begin a week before the wedding itself. And continue until the queen's coronation."

  "Five weeks?" Lucien sputtered. Goddess damn it. Factor in travel time and that would be more like three and a half months away freezing his bloody ass off at the top of the world. He resisted the urge to bang his head on the table. Marqs did not bang their heads on tables. Not in public, at least.

  "How soon will the delegation be leaving?" he asked.

  "In a few weeks. The wedding rites begin at the end of the month. They need them to be completed before winter sets in and no one can travel back from the mountains. I am putting a navire at the disposal of the mission. That will cut down the travel time to something like a week each way, I believe."

  Well, that was something. He'd only lose two months, not closer to three and a half. He made himself nod, though he couldn't summon any further expression of enthusiasm.

  "So you have some time to prepare and put whatever you need in place to assist you in the management of your estate while you are away. Send the bills to me if you have costs."

  "I am not destitute, Your Imperial Majesty. My father left the estate in good standing."

  "I know. But more money is always useful. And I am inconveniencing you."

  "I am a member of your judiciary. It's my job to go where you send me."