Valeria lacked training. Kerrec lacked worse. He lacked strength, focus, and full control over his magic. The voice inside him was whispering its poison even in daylight. Sometimes he could not see the sun for the cloud of hatefulness around him.
Petra would protect him, just as Oda was clearly meant to protect Valeria. This was not supposed to be a Great Dance, in which the fabric of time itself could be unraveled and then rewoven. It was a Dance of foreseeing. It opened the future, but not to alter it. It was meant to read the patterns only, then chart a course through them.
The emperor’s Augurs would be there, looking for signs of hope or warning for the war. That was all they would expect and all they would see.
Kerrec turned his back on the voices inside—both the one that laughed and mocked and egged him on to death and worse, and the one that told him he was wrong to do this. He was not strong enough.
With Petra he would be. He had to be. He mounted, took up the reins and began the day’s exercises.
Until the Dance was over, Valeria had no duties except to look after Sabata and Oda and learn from the old one everything that he would teach. She had more time to herself than she had ever had. She could not spend all of it meditating on the great working she was about to be a part of.
If there was anything she had learned from the stallions and their Ladies, it was that, when it came to the Dance, thinking was not a virtue. It was better to slip into the pattern and simply be.
She had to be careful of that, too. The patterns were seductive. They could lure her away from the necessities of life, from eating and sleeping and even breathing. She had to walk the middle ground, and that was hard—as hard as anything she had ever done.
People left her alone. All the riders for the Dance were caught in the same sacred half trance as she was. The others were together, she supposed, in one of the more secluded houses, with their own riding court.
She was not invited to that, but she had not expected to be. She was only a rider-candidate, and a terribly troublesome one at that. She went her own way as usual, dimly aware that there was food when she was hungry and drink when she needed it, and her bed was always ready for her when it was time to fall into it. The pattern that ran through it all bore a striking resemblance to Briana’s.
Briana was a rider here. Maybe no one would call her that, but there was no denying it. The Lady had made sure of it.
The night before the Dance, Valeria should have been asleep soon after sundown. But she could not find sleep anywhere.
It was not the Dance that kept her awake—she was as ready for that as she would ever be. She was missing Kerrec. He still had not come back from his room in the rider-candidates’ dormitory.
What if he never came back?
She wanted him so keenly that her body ached with it. The redheaded lover was waiting on the other side of a dream, but dreams, tonight, were not enough. She wanted—she needed—the solidity of a living body in her arms, the feel and smell and taste of him, the weight of him on her and the fullness of him in her most secret places. His absence was a physical pain.
Kerrec was cold. Nights were cool even in summer, here on the Mountain’s knees. Even under a blanket he shivered. Warmth slipped in behind him. A familiar body fit itself to his. He breathed the scent of her, horses and herbs and clean night air.
He was weak and off guard. He let himself turn in her arms. He should not—he should avoid—if she discovered—
Her lips tasted of honey and ginger—sweet and fiery. Her skin was as smooth as cream. So quick, so strong that he gasped, she took him inside her.
Some dim part of him was jabbering at him to stop this, save himself, drive her away. It was very dim and fading fast.
They made love quickly, but it felt luxuriously slow. Neither of them said a word. When it was over, she kissed him softly and slipped away.
He reached for her, but she was gone. Maybe it had been a dream. If it was, it had left her scent in his bed and the memory of her all through his body.
His mind and magic were quieter. The broken edges seemed a little less sharp.
He sighed. As the breath left him again, he slipped into sleep—blessedly peaceful and free of insidious voices.
Fifteen
Valeria woke with her heart pounding. For a long while, measured in the gallop of her pulse, she could not remember where she was.
Kerrec was not there. She had come back to her own room—their room—last night. Then she had slept. She had dreamed—
It was gone, except for the sense that the sky was collapsing under its own weight. She made herself remember that it was dawn and she had to get up and get ready for the Dance. Then after the Dance, the young stallions would come in from the Mountain, and their choosing and taming would begin.
It was a joyous day. She was trapped in old memories, that was all.
There was a bath waiting for her, with Briana still finding it amusing to play the servant. The uniform that was laid out was one Valeria had not worn before. The breeches were doeskin and the boots black leather as always, but the coat was crimson edged with gold. Each of its buttons was a golden sun. She had to stand stroking it for a little while, because it was so beautiful.
There were no marks of rank on it, since she had none. But she was riding the Dance. The gods had decreed and the Master, reluctantly, agreed.
When she was clean and dressed, Briana pulled her into a quick embrace. “We’ll be there,” Briana said.
She and the Lady, she meant. Valeria found that immensely comforting.
The eight stallions were waiting in the inner court behind the hall of the Dance. Valeria was not the first to arrive, but not the last, either. Master Nikos and the First Riders Andres and Gunnar were already mounted, circling the court on a long rein.
Whoever had brought the rest of the stallions, saddled and bridled, was gone. Valeria found Oda at the end of the line beside Petra. She would not have been surprised at all to find Sabata there, too, ready to do battle for his mortal property.
Although she could feel him in her heart where he always was, his presence was quiet. He was not jealous of the old one. Oda was too far above that.
It was a little disconcerting, as always, to know the truth of what the stallions were, and find herself taking the rein of a thickset grey cob with a distinct arch to his nose and a distinct expression of irony in his eye. Oda wore mortal flesh because he chose to—and whether he had died in this body and then chosen to come back, or simply retired to the high pastures after his time in the school was done, he was very much here and solidly present now.
He looked like a horse, smelled like a horse. As far as her body needed to know, he was a horse. The rest of him was too large for her little human mind to comprehend.
She settled in the saddle. He did not give her the deep sense of coming home that Sabata did, but he was willing to carry her and his back fit her well. He was neither too wide nor too narrow. His barrel took up her leg in comfort, with room to spare.
She stroked his neck, smoothing his mane. He pawed lightly, which made her smile. Like all his kind, he was not particularly patient.
She sat a fraction deeper in the saddle. He moved out obligingly to join the rest in the court. Two more riders had come in while Valeria settled herself, the First Rider Curtius and the Second Rider Farraj. Two more had yet to come. One of them was Kerrec.
Valeria could not let herself think about him. She had to focus on the Dance—even though, when she thought about Kerrec and the Dance together, the sense of dread came crashing down.
Surely he would not try the Dance if he was not fit for it. Even Kerrec had sense enough for that.
Focus, she warned herself. She was here for a reason. She had to be ready for whatever it was. Oda was solid under her, rocking her hips with his big catlike walk. As she had when he tested her, she let herself flow into it.
The rest of the riders had come in and mounted. She felt them as she felt the hors
e under her. Their patterns were random still but beginning to come together.
One was more random than the others. She reached without thinking, not knowing exactly how she did it, and smoothed that one as much as she could. It was not much, but it was better than nothing.
Master Nikos spoke in her ear. He had ridden up beside her. “Just follow,” he said. “Let the old one go as he will. Don’t worry about controlling him. The rest of us will be looking out for you.”
Valeria opened her mouth to point out that it was she and not the Master who had, in the Great Dance, taken control of all the stallions. On second thought, she nodded without saying anything. If the Master needed to tell himself that she was a simple rider-candidate whom the gods had forced on the Dance, let him enjoy the illusion.
“Time,” the Master said quietly. Riders picked up reins and straightened in their saddles, taking position two by two. Valeria was last. Kerrec rode beside her.
He was not looking at her. His eyes were fixed straight ahead. His face was still and somewhat pale.
Focus! she admonished herself. She faced forward with soft eyes as First Rider Gunnar liked to say, looking ahead through the stallion’s ears. They focused on nothing in particular but were aware of everything within their reach.
Stallions ahead. Courtyard behind. Stone passage echoing as they rode through it, the sound of hooves resonating in her skull. There was a pattern in it, as there was in everything. This was like a drumbeat, a prelude to the Dance.
Sunlight blazed in front of her. The Hall of the Dance was roofed and walled, but its many tall windows let in the light. Shafts of it fell on the sand of the arena.
There were people everywhere, crowds of them ascending the walls from floor to ceiling. She was only distantly aware of them. The Mountain gleamed through glass above the royal box—which was empty. Briana was somewhere that involved the Lady.
The shape of this Dance was ordained, at least in the beginning. Entrance in stately, cadenced walk. Division into two skeins of four, flowing into slow and floating trot, curving in circles and serpentines.
So they blessed the earth and raised the gates of time. The Dance proper was not yet begun, but the powers were rising.
So was the panic in Valeria. The last time she rode the Dance, it had nearly ended in destruction. The spell of Unmaking was still in her, could still rise and devour her and all the rest of the world with her. All it needed was an instant’s weakness.
This was a simple Dance, a pure Dance. No one was trying to disrupt it. No one could come near it to try. The Mountain was here, with the gods’ full power. She was safe.
Oda went on calmly, carrying her through the increasing complexity of movements. They were all one, all of them—Valeria, too, once she had herself under control. The patterns were shifting as they should. Master Nikos was shaping them, discarding some, strengthening others, weaving them into a strong and coherent whole.
It was beautiful, how he did it. He made it look easy. He was drawing on them all, weaving their magic with his and binding it with the power of the stallions.
He could have done more. Some threads were not as well woven as they might be.
Valeria resisted the temptation to interfere. She was here for her raw strength, not for her skill. The Master did not need her meddling with his magic.
It was hard to simply be, to ride and follow and not try to shape the Dance. It was a test of discipline and obedience. Valeria gritted her teeth and endured.
At first, when the pattern started to fray, she thought it might be intentional. Then she was sure the flaws in the design were getting out of hand. Only last and most unwillingly did she realize what was happening.
One of the riders was losing his grip. He had given all he had to give, but the Master kept drawing from him, looking for strength where there was none. The Dance bound both of them. Valeria could feel the bonds of it on herself, but they were light, barely noticeable. They were a choice rather than a compulsion.
She tried to slip enough of herself free to feed power into the failing rider. Even before she touched him with her magic, she knew who it had to be. When she did touch him and saw the truth, she nearly broke the Dance herself.
Kerrec had been healing. She was sure he had. But what she saw now was nothing like the beautiful structure of ordered arts and powers that had been Kerrec when she first met him. This was a ruin. Walls were fallen, timbers broken. Whole expanses were nothing but flotsam and shards.
Deep down in it somewhere was the man she had known. She had set healing in him—she remembered.
It was not a false memory. He had been healing. But somehow, since he came back to the school, the spell had undone itself. There was very little of it left.
The Dance was crumbling. The patterns were losing their solidity. The gates of time, which should have shown the future as in a window—to study but not to touch—were beginning to open.
This could not be a Great Dance. None of the riders was ready for it.
The stallions were calm as always, but their movements were less easy now. The air seemed thick. They waded through it as if through water.
Valeria had no skill and precious little finesse. Master Nikos was doing nothing to close the gates and restore the patterns. It was all he could do to keep the remaining riders from falling apart.
Oda’s back coiled. It was a warning and an instruction. He could Dance the pattern into submission, but the gates needed her to shut them. She could not do that if she was also keeping Kerrec from destroying them all.
Kerrec knew what was happening. He wanted that end, no matter what the cost.
His despair sucked Valeria down. She struck back ruthlessly. She locked him in wards, eased him out of the pattern, then as an afterthought, eased the rest of the riders out, as well. Most were too startled to fight back.
Oda danced for them all. One by one the patterns steadied. The gates opened no further.
The formlessness beyond was reaching through. It had no will or purpose. It simply was—like the Unmaking in the heart of Valeria’s magic. They were the same. They called to one another.
She must not panic. She could keep the Unmaking and the Unmade apart. She could set her magic against the gates and will them to shut.
It was not as hard as controlling all the stallions at once. It was nowhere near as easy as following the Dance and letting the Master draw her power. She was tired already, overextended with saving Kerrec from himself and the rest of the riders from what he had done.
The gates resisted. She knew better than to fight. As with riding the stallions, fighting only made it worse.
She softened instead. She molded herself so that when the gates tried to open further, they could not move.
Slowly, too slowly maybe, they drew away from that resistance. The Unmade was howling, waking agony in the center of her.
She thrust with all the strength she had left. The gates of time closed. The Unmaking went silent. Oda stood still, with the sun shining in and the dust settling slowly.
Valeria’s right arm was throbbing where she had broken it in the emperor’s Dance. It had been healed, she thought, but the memory of its breaking had come back with full force.
The Unmaking was quiet. That was all, for the moment, that mattered.
Sixteen
This time there was a tribunal. The First Riders sat at the half-moon table in the Master’s hall, surrounded by paintings and statues of old Masters and Great Ones who had left the body long ago.
The living riders had a bruised look. It might have been better for them to rest and face this confrontation tomorrow, but it was too urgent to put aside.
There had been no gathering and choosing of the young stallions today. There would be none tomorrow, either. That would have to wait until this confusion was settled.
Kerrec was there, as the cause of it. So were the Second Riders who had ridden the Dance, and Valeria. Briana had not been summoned, but she had come regard
less. In Valeria’s mind, she had as much right to be here as any of the rest.
There were no gods in the room, male or female, but they were watching. Valeria could feel them.
Kerrec was alive and conscious. The healers had examined him. Master Martti of that order was beside him now, looking as if he would have preferred that his charge be strapped down in bed rather than standing in front of the tribunal.
Kerrec looked much as he always did, with his windows shuttered and his doors barred. His face was somewhat paler than usual, but he was steady on his feet.
Valeria stood as far away from him as she could manage. It was not nearly far enough. All that kept her from killing him was the fact that he might die too quickly, and not suffer.
She did not need Briana’s hand on her arm to keep her silent, though it helped. From the look of the riders’ faces, she was not the only one who wanted Kerrec’s hide on a pole. Some of them wanted hers, too, on general principles, but she was used to that.
“Well, sir,” Master Nikos said after a while. He sounded exhausted in body and soul. “What do you have to say for yourself?”
“Nothing,” Kerrec said stiffly. “Sir.”
“You do understand what you did?”
Kerrec’s face did not change, but Valeria could feel the spark of anger. “Yes, sir.”
Nikos glanced at the healer—feeding Kerrec’s anger. Valeria wondered if Nikos cared, or if he was too far gone.
Master Martti spread his hands. “There’s nothing wrong with his body. His mind I’m not so sure of, but I reckon him sane, as riders go. His magic…”
“Sane?” one of the First Riders burst out. It was Curtius, the youngest except for Kerrec. “He nearly destroyed us all!”
“I overestimated my capacity,” Kerrec said. His voice was brittle. “It was an error. I will pay whatever penalty the riders may exact.”
“Even if that is expulsion?”
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