The ring lay shining in a pile of kindling shards, expended. I had six left.
“You’re making a mistake.” I couldn’t keep my voice even. My blood raced in my veins like the tide rushing in through a ship’s cracked hull. “If you kill me, there will be consequences.”
The Lady of Thorns sneered dismissively. “I’ll owe the Crow Lord another grievance. It’s worth it to see a Lochaver dead. Your Empire cannot reach here, little fool, and nothing else protects you.”
Zaira stepped forward. “Excuse me, Lady Itchweed. Your mind’s gone soft as the free porridge at the Temple of Bounty if you think there’s no one standing right here who can stop you.”
“You?” Genuine surprise widened the Lady of Thorns’ eyes. “You would defend this common insect who dares to chain your power? I’d expect you to thank me for killing her.”
“It so happens,” Zaira said, “she’s my friend.”
The words kindled a warmth and light in me bright as balefire. I would have battled all the chimeras in Vaskandar for her with my bare hands in that moment.
“Thanks,” I murmured.
Zaira shot me a sideways glance. “Ugh. Don’t let it go to your head.”
The Lady of Thorns grimaced with revulsion. “Please, spare me the sentiment. The powerless can be pets at best. Very well; I’ll pay you a grievance, too.”
She touched another tree. This time, a shower of dry leaves flew off it at me, edges gleaming razor-sharp. I flinched away, raising my arms to protect my face.
Heat blasted me as the whole cloud of leaves burst into blue flame in midair. Sparks of balefire rained down to the ground mixed with ash. I caught myself before stepping away; the edge was at my back, with nothing but a long tumble down to the pile of bones below.
Tiny lightning-pale flames leaped up from where the sparks had fallen. Zaira grinned. Blue fire flickered deep within her eyes.
“I killed the Wolf Lord in his own domain,” she said. “Last I checked, this isn’t Sevaeth. Want to try me?”
“You wouldn’t dare.” But she took a step away from Zaira. “You killed the Wolf Lord because he underestimated you. Since then, every Witch Lord in Vaskandar has been planning how to thwart your balefire if necessary. I’m no arrogant fool who will insist I could defeat you easily—but I assure you, it would be trivial to kill your so-called friend before you could destroy me.”
I took her point all too well. I’d nearly wound up a casualty in Zaira’s battle with the Wolf Lord, and neither of them had been trying to hurt me. I loosened another ring, fingers fumbling with desperation; this one Istrella had told me I should throw at an enemy when I needed to get away from them.
“Threatening each other solves nothing,” I said, trying not to let fear crack the foundations of my voice. “We all have goals to accomplish at the Conclave, and all of us cast away our chance to accomplish those goals if we start a fight now. Do you really want to risk your daughter’s future over a petty grudge, Lady of Sevaeth?”
The Lady of Thorns gave me an assessing stare. The full force of her presence hit me, all wasp venom and the too-strong scent of violets, and my knees wavered.
“Yes,” she said slowly. “We do have a great deal at stake, and much to accomplish. And what, precisely, were you trying to do, out here in the forest while everyone else was at the Reckoning?”
Hells. Ruven had included the Lady of Thorns in his volcano scheme; she might be well aware of where this path led. I couldn’t let her know we knew about the control circle. Then they could find a way to stop us from destroying it—and worse, they might realize we’d freed the captured Falcons from Ruven’s dominion.
“To uncover Ruven’s treachery.” I flung an arm dramatically at the boneyard below us. “Now we know his true measure. The other Witch Lords may not be so eager to ally with him when they know he’s a murderer.”
The Lady of Thorns laughed. “Is that all? Oh, you silly child. Everyone knows he’s a murderer. No one cares. He may do what he likes in his own domain.” She shook her head. “Run back under the wings of your Crow Lord, little Lochaver. Everything you do here is a waste of time. And when the Conclave is complete, and I have what I want, I will wring the life from you and bend your bones into a crown for my daughter.”
She gestured down the path toward the castle, dismissal in the contemptuous line of her arm. I couldn’t help but notice that she angled her body to block the path onward toward the control circle.
I exchanged a look with Zaira. She shrugged minutely, the blue spark extinguished in her eyes. There was no point pushing this now; we could try to destroy the circle again later.
“Very well,” I said. “We’ll see, when the Kindling is done and the candles counted, whether what I do here is worthless.”
Zaira closed her hand into a fist, and the balefire licking and spreading up from where the sparks had fallen winked out. She made it look effortless, but I saw how the skin next to her eyes tightened. She’d been struggling to keep it under control all this time.
“Glad you decided not to open the gates of the Hell of Death today,” she said. “But if you change your mind, I’m standing right here with the key.”
We started back down the path toward the castle together. My back itched and crawled with the knowledge that the Lady of Thorns had a clear shot at it, long after we left her out of sight.
When we emerged onto the manicured lawn, with the castle’s dark claws looming above us, we found Kathe waiting for us. He’d been lounging against a slim ornamental tree, watching the path, but straightened when we stepped out of the forest.
“You seem to have survived,” he observed.
Zaira glared at him. “You knew the Lady of Thorns went in there after us.”
Kathe shrugged. “I assumed she hadn’t just taken a fancy to go for a walk in the woods.”
“Weren’t you worried she’d kill your sweetheart?”
Kathe spread his hands. “Here I am, waiting to make sure all turned out well! But you didn’t need me. I’m not surprised. You are far more dangerous than I am, Lady Zaira.”
Zaira gave him a long look. “I’m not so sure about that.”
“I’m honored.” Kathe bowed. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I don’t want the Lady of Thorns to see that I was waiting here for you. And I recommend you not place yourselves in her path again, either.”
He winked at me, then strolled back toward more populated areas of the gardens, whistling.
Zaira grabbed my arm and tugged. “Come on. He has a point.”
“I feel a bit better knowing he was watching for us,” I said as we walked.
“Are you stupid?” Zaira stared at me, incredulous. “How do you think the Lady of Thorns knew where we were?”
“I assume she saw us go into the woods.”
Zaira shook her head. “No one saw us. I was careful.”
“Then perhaps she saw our footprints. How should I know?”
Zaira jabbed a finger into my chest, rattling the claws at my throat. “Your crow friend always knows where you are, because of this little trinket. Remember? He told her.”
“Or Ruven did,” I pointed out. “This is his domain. Perhaps I was wrong, and he could feel us moving around in it after all.”
“If Ruven knew you were heading for his precious control circle, he’d have showed up himself. Why are you defending that feathery scoundrel?”
I sighed. “I like him,” I admitted.
“You can like someone and still recognize they’d knife you and throw you in a ditch to make a smoother path for their carriage.” Zaira shook my shoulder. “We’re in a right pit of snakes, here. You can’t afford to have a blind spot.”
“All right. I’ll try to be more wary.”
Zaira snorted. “No, you won’t. But I’ll keep doing it for you.”
It was hard to get back to politics when my heart still raced from our encounter with the Lady of Thorns, especially when she returned to the gardens herself a few minu
tes later. She paid me no mind as she glided among the other Witch Lords, talking and occasionally exchanging colored stones, her train running along the grass behind her like a snake’s belly; every now and then her eyes raked across mine, hatred flaring in them even as the rest of her face didn’t so much as twitch.
It was unsettling, too, to glimpse Ruven up on the terrace with Emmand, exclaiming delightedly over the boy’s painting and patting his head. Emmand stood proudly, gazing up at Ruven with worship in the tilt of his chin, gesturing with his brush at the mountains he’d been painting and talking with obvious excitement. Could he truly not know that all the other children Ruven had “rescued” lay in a charnel pit so close by, nothing but cracked and scattered bones?
I did my best to convince various Witch Lords of the benefits of keeping cordial relations with the Serene Empire and the perils of siding with Ruven. Zaira worked the gathering separately, in her own way, flirting and joking with the Fox Lord and the Lady of Otters and anyone else who seemed willing to be charmed. They accorded her a certain respect, as a mage-marked warlock; many of the Witch Lords seemed willing to engage with her as an equal in a way they wouldn’t with me.
None of it seemed to be enough. The tide was coming for the Serene Empire, and I was trying to shift it by moving pebbles.
Near the end of the Reckoning, as the sun slipped behind the mountains and cast the gardens into gray and violet shadows, Kathe came and slipped his arm through mine. A grin pulled at his lips. His warmth along my side felt entirely too enjoyable; I entertained the notion of pulling him closer.
“How goes it?” he asked. “Are you making progress?”
“I can’t tell,” I said reluctantly. “No one will commit to anything. I’ve dangled all sorts of bait that should be enticing, like preferential trade deals and custom artifice devices, but all anyone will say is that they’ll consider it.” I couldn’t help but feel the Council had been wrong to place its faith in me; my mother would have had half of them sworn allies of Raverra by now.
“When you’re a hundred years old with the weight of mountains and forests behind you, I suppose you don’t like to be rushed.” Kathe scooped a few blue stones out of a bowl as we passed. “I find it gives an advantage to those of us willing to be more nimble.”
“What about you? Have you accomplished what you hoped?” Perhaps I could lead him into divulging a little more about his plans.
Kathe stopped and faced me. We stood beneath a slender tree with spreading branches heavy with unseasonable flowers; the breeze shook petals down like intermittent flurries of snow. In the dusky light, Kathe’s mage mark gleamed yellow like a cat’s eyes.
“I have an idea,” he said. “I’ll tell you what I’m trying to accomplish here if you tell me the same. One goal at a time, in even trade.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Another game?”
“Of course.” He tossed and caught his handful of blue stones. “Society is so full of rules. We may as well make it a game whenever we can.”
“All right, then,” I agreed.
“I’ll go first, since I’m a generous fellow.” He inclined his head modestly. I laughed, and he returned a wicked grin. “I’m here to collect favors and show everyone how useful I can be, to build my power base for the future.”
I’d seen my mother do the same, many times. “That’s the tactic of someone who either has few resources and needs to gather them, or is already in a position of advantage and is consolidating to make themself unassailable,” I noted.
“How perceptive!” He widened his eyes. “I wonder which it could be?”
I had my suspicions. “You love it when the others underestimate you, don’t you?”
“My lady, you see far too clearly.” He sighed. “I must practice longer before I dance with a Raverran. But it’s your turn.”
“Very well,” I said. “One of my main goals is to attempt to strip backing from Ruven and the Lady of Thorns so they go into this war with as few allies and as many enemies as possible, of course.”
“And a goal of mine is to support you, naturally—mostly because I like the idea of the Lady of Thorns being without allies,” he confessed. “I’m collecting favors from her and piling up grievances against her, both for myself and for others. She has very little influence with the other Witch Lords at the moment, and a great deal of debt. Partly due to her own reckless desperation to protect her daughter from the ravages of time, and partly due to my efforts.”
“Well, thank you,” I said.
“I didn’t do it for you.” Kathe pocketed his blue stones and spread his empty hand. “I should let you think I did, so you’d owe me a favor. But honesty is the basis of any successful courtship, is it not?”
“Of course.” I put irony in my voice to match his.
“Your turn, my lady. I’m sure you have more than one objective at the Conclave.” He grinned at me. A falling petal caught in his black-tipped hair.
My other major goal was to rescue the captured Falcons. If I told Kathe, he could be instrumental in helping us; having a Witch Lord for an ally would make it much easier to sneak them out of the castle and safely to the border. But he’d made it clear that information was the currency with which he intended to make his fortune, and his quarrel was with the Lady of Thorns, not Ruven. If he betrayed us, Terika and the others might join the pile of bones in the forest.
He’d told us himself not to trust him.
Hells take it. I was already trusting him by coming here as his guest. All he had to do was withdraw his protection to leave Zaira and me in a terrible spot.
“Ruven is using a combination of alchemy and vivomancy to control a handful of captured Falcons against their will,” I said. “I’m here to free them.”
Kathe raised an eyebrow. “To free them, or to take them back into the Empire’s captivity?”
I winced at the question. Lord Caulin’s order gave me no room for interpretation, and neither did the Serene Accords. My duty to the Empire was clear. To allow a Falcon to fall into the hands of an enemy nation went against the very heart of the order the Serene Empire had built, undermining the strength by which it protected the peace of Eruvia. I knew what the doge would command me, even without Lord Caulin’s poison weighing down my conscience: to do everything I could to bring back the missing Falcons. And I suspected my mother would advise the same. After all, if I cared about their welfare, the best course would be to pass my Falcon reform act, and my chances of success were higher if I was politically impeccable.
But if I disagreed with my mother on one thing, it was this: there was a time to be wise, and there was a time to stand on principle. And when people’s lives and happiness depended directly on my actions in this moment, it was definitely the latter.
“To free them,” I said, my voice rough with the weight of the words. “In fact, I wanted to talk to you about that. If any of them want to stay in Vaskandar rather than return to the Mews, would you let them settle in your domain?”
“Of course.” He rubbed his hands. “Alchemists and artificers are quite rare in Vaskandar. I’d make them very welcome.”
“And would you give them complete freedom?” I asked sharply.
Kathe’s expression softened, his brows coming together. “Freedom is an elusive thing, my lady. I’m not sure anyone in Vaskandar, or the Serene Empire for that matter, can be truly free.”
“You’re evading the question,” I accused.
“No, I’m trying to give you an honest answer.” He plucked a falling petal out of the air and turned it in his fingers. “Anyone with the mage mark is effectively a noble in Vaskandar. They have status above mages without the mark, who in turn are above those with no magic at all. So your Falcons would be at the highest levels of Vaskandran society. But.” He let the petal go, and it fluttered to the ground. “After a few years living in Let, eating the food and drinking the water, they would become a part of my domain. I can’t prevent that. I’m not a Skinwitch, so I couldn’t co
ntrol or twist them the way Ruven could, but at a fundamental, magical level, they would be mine. And in Vaskandran law and tradition, they would also be mine, to do with as I please.” He shrugged. “Is that freedom?”
“I don’t know whether it’s any more freedom than the Mews offers,” I admitted. “But I can at least explain, and give them the choice.”
Kathe nodded. “I’ll send a message to one of my Heartguard who’s stationed nearby, and tell him to be ready to escort your Falcon friends safely to Let under my protection if any choose to remain in Vaskandar.”
This went directly counter to the doge’s order as Lord Caulin had relayed it, and probably violated the Serene Accords as well. The knowledge of treason settled in my gut like a stone. I could feel my mother’s stern gaze on me all the way from Raverra. “Thank you, Kathe.”
“Oh, it’s my pleasure. As you may have noticed, many Witch Lords would do a great deal to gain a mage-marked alchemist or artificer.” He tilted his head. “Which means Ruven will do anything he can to keep them. Do you have a plan for getting them out of the castle?”
“Ah … We’re hoping to sneak them out unnoticed,” I said, waving a vague hand. No need to let him know about Marcello waiting in position at the border.
Kathe shook his head. “My lady, hope is a terrible basis for such a key move. You are too skilled a player to make such a mistake.”
“I hadn’t planned out that part yet,” I admitted.
“You’ll need a plan, and a good one,” Kathe said. “Ruven may be new to this, but once you get them away from the background noise of all the Witch Lords at the castle, he’ll feel them traveling across his domain. He might not notice right away, but I wouldn’t personally want to bet on him not noticing at all. They’re important enough that he’s bound to be watching them.”
“What would you suggest, then?”
Kathe grinned. “Do it during the Kindling.”
“The final phase of the Conclave.”
“Yes. Even if he knows they’re moving, he can’t leave then, or he forfeits the question of war. He’ll be tied up in ceremony and politics, and any response he can manage from afar will be highly distracted.”
The Defiant Heir Page 40
