The Defiant Heir

by Melissa Caruso

  “But I have to,” I protested. The artifice circle I’d been sent here to investigate was on the Kazerath border, but near its intersection with Sevaeth.

  “The roads might still be safe. At least, they’re guaranteed safe for travelers by our own agreements, so no one can cut off the inner domains from trade.” Kathe seemed to consider the matter. “I’m not certain you’d want to bet your life on it, though. So if you come visit me in Let, I’d take the long way around.”

  “How did she get in?” my grandmother demanded of her guard captain. “We attuned the wards against her. Did someone let her in through the front door?”

  “Oh, about that.” Istrella waved a hand, as though trying to get the queen’s attention from far away, though she stood at the edge of the dais with Marcello. “I was just telling Lienne, before everything got so noisy, about your wards. Whoever designed them clearly missed the Master Artificer’s class on closing gaps in your designs with auxiliary patterns or filler runes.” Istrella’s expression could hardly have conveyed more distaste if the nameless artificer had left dirty socks hanging on bushes in the garden.

  Everyone else stared at her with varying degrees of incomprehension. But my heart sank. “Someone tampered with the wards,” I translated. “Added runes to change the meaning, or altered the design.”

  The queen turned to her guards. “Check the wards on every window and door in the castle. Find where they’ve been altered.”

  “Istrella, can you help them?” Marcello asked.

  “I’d better.” Her thin brows lowered in determination. “Otherwise they’ll never notice anything. Come on.”

  She grasped her brother by the hand and pulled him off, a group of guards in tow. More had already divided to secure the entrances to the hall, and I could hear commotion echoing through the castle.

  Bree and Roland drew protectively close around our grandmother. Bree kicked at the withered remains of a thorn branch.

  “What do we do now?” Roland asked, eyeing the massive sprawl of tangled branches. “We can’t let this keep us from fighting back.”

  “Roland.” My grandmother’s voice took on a hard edge of command. “Take the royal guard and ensure that the castle is secure.”

  Roland nodded sharply. “Yes, Your Majesty!”

  “Brisintain.” The queen turned to Bree. “Reassure the people. Quash any wild rumors and make sure the truth is known. Show them that we have nothing but scorn for this petty attack.”

  “I can do better than scorn.” Bree grinned fiercely. “I’ll get them ready to fight.”

  “Good.” My grandmother turned to me, and for a moment my heart jumped, ready for any task she might give me. But she only offered a stiff nod to Kathe, Zaira, and me. “If you’ll excuse me. I have much to attend to.”

  A great bustle ensued, with each of the three of them heading off to take command of different groups of people. I watched with an odd loneliness unfolding in my chest.

  “Well!” Kathe dusted his hands together. “It looks like you’ve got this under control. I should get back to Let before my Heartguard drains my beer cellars.”

  “Wait.” I wasn’t going to let him slip away so easily. He’d helped us, and I was grateful, but he was holding back far too much knowledge behind that charming smirk. “You knew she was coming, didn’t you?”

  “Of course. You met her on the road yesterday, yourself.” He backed half a step, as if he might turn and leave, but I angled to put myself between him and the edge of the dais.

  “Did you come here to stop her?” I asked. “Is that why you invited yourself to this ball?”

  He shrugged. “Who can say why I do anything?”

  “You can!” I took a step toward him, propelled by my own frustration; we stood a hand’s length apart, and I glared up at him from close enough to feel his breath stirring my hair. “Why does the Lady of Thorns want my family dead?” I demanded. “And what does all this have to do with her daughter?”

  “Excellent questions.” He held my gaze, and his voice dropped, going soft and serious. “Find the answer I asked you for earlier today, and you’ll find those as well. But I’ll tell you this much: the Lady of Thorns’ daughter is dying.”

  “Dying?” I could almost see the truth in his yellow-ringed eyes. “Of what?”

  “The same thing that kills everyone, eventually,” Kathe said with a grin.

  “Are you capable of simply answering a question?” I demanded.

  He laughed. “Where’s the fun in that? But you touch on deep mysteries and ancient secrets, old as stone and red with blood. I’m certain your Empire has its own hoarded truths that you wouldn’t pass out like spare handkerchiefs, even to friends who ask you nicely.” He swept into a bow. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I should go check to make sure the Lady of Thorns has truly left. I doubt she’d attack any of you in a hall full of guards, but a dark corridor is another matter.”

  He lifted my hand and placed a feather-light kiss upon the back of it, his warm lips barely brushing my skin. Every nerve in my hand kindled like luminaries at dusk. I swallowed and managed a quick dip of a curtsy.

  And he was gone. My heart still raced from the tingling whisper of his lips, and my thoughts tumbled together like windblown leaves.

  Chapter Fifteen

  That night, as I got ready for bed, a ruddy light came flickering through the curtains of my bedchamber. I peered out the window and saw the shadow-strewn courtyard below illuminated by the red light of some great fire, but a jutting tower blocked my view of the source. The smell of smoke tickled my nose. Raised voices came from the same direction, but there was no alarm in them.

  I hesitated, then slipped out into the hallway to see if I could get a better view from the balcony at the end of the corridor. I paced in stocking feet down the tapestried stone hall, between luminaries glowing a warm gold in their sconces. The mellow light gave way to a bloody glow that streamed in from the balcony doors, which stood wide open to the chill night air.

  A figure already stood at the stone railing, gazing down at the courtyard below. The firelight flattened her to a black silhouette, but I’d know that stick-thin frame and copious mane of curls anywhere; it was Zaira.

  I stepped out beside her and gazed down at a scene straight out of Movari’s paintings of the Nine Hells. Figures moved around a blazing bonfire, the unsteady light causing their shadows to leap and dance. Scarves muffled their faces, making their shapes bulky and inhuman. They hurled in armload after armload of what looked at first like human bones mixed with the claws and tentacles of some terrible beast.

  But the scent that filled the air was the pitchy smoke of green wood, not burning meat. As I peered down at the sharp-edged jumble of dark tinder in the bonfire, I resolved the image to not bones, but branches. They were burning the remains of the monster thorn tree.

  “It’s such a tame fire,” Zaira sighed. “Like a well-trained dog. There’s no wolf in it.”

  A reflected orange spark lit her eyes. I repressed a shiver. “I’m not sure how effective it is, with the wood so green. You could probably get the job done much faster.”

  “They’re having fun. If it’s not ashes by morning, I’ll offer to show them what real fire looks like.”

  We stood in silence for a time, side by side, watching the never-ending dance of the flames. Even with the wind taking the smoke mostly away from us, my eyes stung with it, but Zaira seemed unaffected.

  “You ruin everything,” she said at last.

  I blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

  “You’ve got me thinking about the future.” She leaned her elbows on the railing. “I know better, damn it. But you keep asking these poxy questions, and now I’m fumbling around after answers like some idiot who knows there’s nothing but mouse turds in the cupboard but can’t stop themself from checking.”

  “It doesn’t have to be mouse droppings,” I said. Lightly as I could, so she wouldn’t see how much it twisted my heart that she thought
that was all life had to offer.

  “It would be so easy to run,” she muttered. “So long as I didn’t loose my fire, no one would find me.”

  “You could do that.” I tried to keep my voice carefully neutral, to hide the empty dropping feeling at the thought of Zaira leaving. Never mind what Lord Caulin or the doge would think of this conversation. “If that’s what you truly want.”

  “I’m not one of those poor cosseted birds raised in the Mews, who keeps coming back to the glove because the meat is good.” Zaira shook her head. “It’s not that hard to shake one Falconer when you’re out on the road. Most of them could fly away any time. But they won’t, and those bastards who hold their jesses know it.”

  Zaira’s own jess caught sparks of light from the fire below, its crystal beads gleaming bloodred on her wrist.

  “The Empire counts on it,” I admitted heavily. “They learned centuries ago that the Mews had to be a luxurious palace, not a prison. They need to be able to trust the Falcons’ magic once they unleash it; an unwilling Falcon is no use to them. It’s why I think I can get them to change the law, honestly. If they gave the mage-marked a choice, I’d wager nine out of ten would choose the Mews. Who wouldn’t want to be rich and pampered and safe?”

  “Me,” Zaira said. “It’s like a new Hell of Boredom. I can’t stay there forever, and you know it.”

  Couldn’t you? I wanted to ask. Graces forgive me, but somewhere in the back of my mind, I’d built an imaginary future where we traveled Eruvia together, doing astonishing things. Where she was the one friend no political necessity could take from me, since we were bound together by law and magic.

  But that wasn’t a future she wanted to give me. It wasn’t mine, to ask for or to take. And my own future lay in the inner chambers of the Imperial Palace, cloistered in gilded rooms with the cynical old souls who ruled the Serene Empire. All other dreams must wither before the power of that fate.

  “I suppose you can’t,” I sighed. “So where will you go?”

  Zaira slouched over the railing, resting her chin on her arms, and stared into the bonfire. Another armload of mage-twisted wood went in, and a hissing cloud of sparks flew up toward the velvety darkness above.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “In the Tallows, you always had to think of how you would scrape by into the next minute. Now I can see further, to a whole bucket of possible futures, and they’re all bilge.”

  “And what will you do about that?” It was the question my mother always asked me, her tone without mercy, anytime I started to complain.

  “Stop thinking about the future, of course.” Zaira stretched, and turned her back to the night. “Your cousin Bree invited me and Terika out drinking when we get back from looking at this cursed rune circle of yours. You have to come with me and get drunk, too. You’re my Falconer.”

  “I prefer to avoid getting drunk,” I said, alarmed. “And I’m not certain it would be appropriate for me to visit some of Bree’s, ah, preferred establishments.”

  Zaira grinned wickedly. “You’re a scholar. It’ll be a learning experience.”

  She clapped me on the shoulder and headed back into the warm golden light of the castle.

  The next morning, we departed for Mount Whitecrown. Our full party from Raverra accompanied us, along with a hundred Callamornish soldiers. The latter would dwindle in number each day, as they were mostly reinforcements for fortresses along the way; but I still felt a bit ridiculous at first, traveling surrounded by a small army, with all the fuss and noise of a hundred horses rumbling around us, blowing steam in the chill autumn air like a host of dragons. The feeling faded, however, as we soon passed columns of infantry and chains of supply wagons on the road. This was daily business in a country preparing for war.

  Bree had talked the queen into letting her accompany us as far as Highpass, the last fortress before the border. When Roland came to see us off, I’d caught him watching enviously as a cluster of castle children gathered around Bree on her dapple gray mare, handing her posies of flowers with admiration shining in their eyes.

  “Ask Grandmother if you can go next time,” I urged him. “She only sent Bree with us because she pushed for it. If you never ask, she’ll never send you anywhere.”

  Roland sighed. “I can’t help but feel childish for wanting to go to the border in the first place. I know I have important duties here. But I’d like to at least see with my own eyes what we’re facing.”

  “If you put it that way, she won’t say no,” I said. “Especially if you’re not asking to go into combat, or cross the border, but just to tour the defenses.”

  “Maybe I will.” Some of the tension in his face eased. “Thank you, Amalia. And Grace of Luck go with you on your journey.”

  Now, with Bree and Marcello riding outside the carriage, Istrella absorbed in a project, and the others trading gossip too salacious for my taste, I delved into my books in pursuit of a matter I’d almost forgotten in the drama of the Lady of Thorns’ visit: Kathe’s challenge. I needed that invitation to the Conclave—the Serene Empire needed it—and it was a fascinating question in its own right. Why was the vivomancy of the Witch Lords so much more powerful?

  Vivomancers normally needed to be in touching range to use their power, though with animals sometimes eye contact would suffice. But my books mentioned countless instances of Witch Lords controlling plants and animals from miles away in the Three Years’ War. Every source agreed that only Witch Lords could break this rule of distance, at least on plants and creatures native to their own domain—but none had a credible suggestion for why.

  I thought of the children’s rhyme Kathe had given me. Ten spires made of bone / One realm circles round … My books on Vaskandar sometimes referred to boundary markers defining the borders of Witch Lord domains. Perhaps they formed some kind of vivomantic circle, using the same principles of patterned magical energy at work in artifice to amplify their power. I should try to get a look at one while I was near the border.

  We traveled up through the steepening foothills on roads that wound through stately pines. A taste of snow came on the wind from the mountains looming in the distance. I wore my warmest fur-lined velvet jacket and soft leather gloves but still shivered in the carriage, my nose freezing, until Bree gave me a thick shawl of homespun wool to wrap around my head and shoulders. Zaira laughed at me, saying I looked like a country grandmother, but it kept me warm.

  As we climbed higher in the foothills, the trees grew smaller, and the pines surrounding us occasionally gave way to broad meadows, lying open and waiting for the inevitable snow. We began to catch faraway glimpses of Mount Whitecrown. It towered above the other mountains, its glacier-mantled crest seeming to float against the distance-hazed sky, like some palace the Grace of Beauty had built out of clouds. It was hard to believe that this serene vision of snowy majesty could harbor a terrible fire deep within it, ready to rain destruction and death upon us all.

  Late in the morning of the second day, we came to a crossroads where our way temporarily parted from Marcello and Istrella’s. Istrella was to make a stop at a border fortress overlooking a major river valley pass to bolster their magical defenses, and she seemed disconcertingly excited at the prospect.

  “I have the most lovely idea for a catapult.” She clutched a pair of pliers dreamily to her chest as we said our good-byes. Her artifice glasses were already down, magnifying her eyes into great rune-ringed circles. “I think I can build one that will fling buckets of magical fog down into the valley below that will spread and ruin everyone’s gunpowder.”

  “Perhaps wards first, then weapons,” Marcello suggested, looking worried. “Besides, you might throw it on our troops as well.”

  But Istrella only let out a blissful sigh.

  “Good luck with your endeavors, either way,” I laughed.

  “You, too! Don’t get eaten by wolves!” Istrella waved cheerily, then turned to Bree. “And don’t forget to fix those wards on your castle! Have a Falco
n from the Durantain garrison take a look. They’ll see what I told you about.”

  I pulled Marcello aside by the crossroads to say good-bye. On the ridge behind him, leafless gray branches wrote upon the sky in some arboreal language. The breeze sweeping across the meadow grass held a trace of ice as it teased locks of black hair into his warm green eyes. A crow cawed overhead, balancing gingerly on the wind.

  What could I say to him? I had no words for the complicated territory that lay between us; I couldn’t navigate it even to frame a simple good-bye. Seconds slipped by, and there I stood, staring at him like an idiot.

  Marcello at first had the apprehensive look of a student called by the teacher to stay after class for a word. But then his shoulders relaxed, and his mouth twitched with suppressed mirth.

  “Stop smiling!” I demanded. But my own lips had started to curve upward, too.

  “What’s wrong with parting with a smile?” he asked. His hand stirred at his side, as if it might lift to my face, but then he tucked it into his pocket.

  “Nothing, I suppose. But I’ll miss you. I’ll miss talking to you about all of our terrible problems, and coming up with clever solutions together.”

  He glanced toward the waiting carriage and its escort of mounted soldiers. “Well, we have a few minutes. That seems like enough to cover a pending invasion, a traitor, a volcano, and a murderous Witch Lord. How are you going to fix everything this time?”

  “The same way as last time,” I said. “By relying on the efforts of my excellent friends.”

  “I’ll have to meet them someday. They sound very capable.” Marcello’s smile faded, then, and his face fell into grave lines. “I won’t ask you to be careful, because I know you won’t listen. But here. Take this.” Fumbling with sudden inspiration, he snapped a golden button off his uniform. He held it out to me, gleaming in his palm, a falcon in flight engraved on its face.