“Chosen?” said the third general, Baruch of the Sixth Gregoria. “What choice did he have? She’s all that’s left of the line, except a traitor and a—” He broke off.
Kerrec looked him in the eye. “Say it,” he said.
Baruch shook his head. He was older than the others, tough and wiry, with a ruined eye and a distinct hitch in his gait. He had won his laurels in the deserts of Gebu.
He had the harshness of the desert about him, and a darkness that Kerrec would investigate when he could. There was a rumor that two of his sons had been found among the barbarian dead.
For now, Kerrec would let that be—but not the rest of it. “A traitorous bastard and a prince who died rather than accept his destiny,” he said for Baruch, since he would not. “Did I say it was his choice? The gods chose for him.”
“Maybe,” said Master Pretorius. “It’s always perilous to second-guess divinity. Even Augurs acknowledge that their interpretations can be wrong.”
“So,” Kerrec said with a distinct chill in his tone. “Is this mutiny? Are you refusing his choice?”
“We are considering the empire’s needs,” Viragus said. “Women have ruled before, some well, some badly—but in these times, will a woman’s touch be enough? She can’t credibly lead the legions.”
“Are you sure of that?” Kerrec asked. “My sister has been trained to fight. She’s studied tactics with the best the empire has to offer.”
“My lord,” said Master Pretorius, “your loyalty to your sister is admirable. But think. What you did yesterday—and the ease with which you did it—made clear to us how badly we need a true heir of his late majesty.”
“No,” Kerrec said flatly. “Don’t say it. Don’t even think it.”
“My lord, we must,” said Master Pretorius. “Your art, your training, your discipline—no one else has what you have. And he gave you his magic. I see it in you, so strong it nearly blinds me. He meant for you to take the throne.”
“He did not,” said Kerrec. “The law forbids, and I will not break it—which he well knew.”
“The law can be changed,” Viragus said.
“Not for me,” said Kerrec. He rose. “If you have nothing useful to say, then this meeting is ended. You, Tibullus, are commander here by his will. I trust you will do as he would wish. The rest of you are free to choose. Stay and accept Sophia Briana as your empress—or tender your resignation. Any other choice will constitute high treason.”
Viragus’s nostrils flared. “My lord! You cannot—”
“I cannot,” Kerrec agreed, “but the law can. And will.”
He left them sputtering among themselves. He should have stayed and talked them around, but he could not stand it. Their proposition was inevitable, all things considered. It made him ill.
Master Pretorius found him on the horselines, brushing Petra until he shone. Kerrec felt him coming, but he had no desire to be polite. He kept his back turned and his mind on what he was doing.
After a while, Master Pretorius said, “Please accept our apology. We realize that this is difficult and your grief is fresh, but our need is so great and our fears so overwhelming—surely you can forgive us.”
“Do not,” said Kerrec, “attempt to manipulate me. You want an emperor who is indebted to you, whom you think you can control. Do you know what my art is? Do you understand what it does?”
“I thought I did,” said Master Pretorius, “but suppose you enlighten me.”
Kerrec turned to face him. Pretorius was at ease, smiling, but his eyes were wary. He was not as confident as he pretended.
“You don’t want me as emperor,” Kerrec said. “Believe me. If my father was intractable and my sister threatens to be—I would be worse. How much worse, you would do well to reflect.”
“You have a poor opinion of yourself, my lord,” Master Pretorius said. “The troops can’t get enough of you. They love you.”
“If they love me, it’s because I look like my father,” Kerrec said.
“And because you won the battle and set them in order and proved that not only can you command armies, you can win their hearts.”
“I train horses,” Kerrec said. “It’s no more complicated than that. It doesn’t make me fit to rule an empire.”
“With all due respect, my lord,” Master Pretorius said, “I don’t believe you are qualified to make that judgment.”
“And you are?” Kerrec turned back to Petra, bending to pick a stone out of his foot.
“I think you know that I am more than the usual run of mages.”
“I made inquiries,” Kerrec said. “Your talents were equally coveted by Augurs, Dreamweavers, and Astrologers—so you took mastery in each. You’re a prodigy.” He moved on to the next foot. “Read the omens, Master Mage. My throne is my stallion’s saddle.”
“That’s a choice you may regret, my lord.”
“I think not,” said Kerrec.
Fifty-Two
The full work of the embalmers’ art needed eighty days, but four days were enough to prepare the emperor’s body for its journey home. Valeria spent most of that time keeping Kerrec from throttling the army’s commanders. They were after him to push Briana aside and take her place—and no amount of refusal on his part seemed to sway them.
No one was gladder than Kerrec, on the fourth morning, to see the cortège take shape on the field by the river. One legion, the Gregoria, would stay in this place, to turn the camp into a permanent fort and keep watch over the border. The Corinia would ride with them for a while, then turn toward its usual posting in the south of Elladis. The Valeria would escort the emperor to his funeral in Aurelia.
The legion’s namesake was more than ready to go. As beautiful as the Lady’s magic had made the battlefield, the memory of blood and slaughter was strong.
Valeria had slept for a night and a day and most of another night after the battle, but she had barely closed her eyes since. When she did, she saw horrors. The only relief she had was Kerrec’s warm and solid body in her arms and his beautiful new magic all around her. In that, she could rest.
The cortège formed ranks in the grey light of dawn. The legions had built the bier out of shields and legionary cloaks, so that it glittered in bronze and scarlet. The wagon it rode on was newly made of oak, and the coffin was oak and cedar. White oxen drew it. A white canopy protected it from rain and sun—white for mourning. The emperor’s banner rode in front of it and the banners of the legions behind.
The Gregoria and its commander saw them off, beating drums and blowing trumpets until they were long out of sight.
There was an honor guard in front of the bier. The rest of the legions marched behind. Kerrec rode beside it, with Valeria just behind him.
They marched or rode in silence. Later the legions would relax into their usual marching songs, but that first morning, the weight of their sorrow was too great. The only sound was the tramping of feet and the rumble of the cart.
Kerrec was shut inside himself, but for once he had not closed Valeria out. His grief washed over her. It felt cleansing somehow, as if she bathed in cool fire.
His heart was mending slowly. He had so many regrets and so much old anger—it would be a long time before he worked through it all. Still, the healing had begun. This long ride in the heavy heat of late summer was teaching him the beginnings of acceptance.
The news had gone ahead of them. Each village and town they passed was hung with white banners. People in white followed the cortège, weeping and singing hymns of sorrow. That for Valeria would be her clearest memory of that long march, voices swelling as they drew nearer to a town, then fading as they made their slow way past.
At night they made camp outside the walls of towns or in open fields beside the road. People came far into the night to pay their respects, or appeared in the early morning, pausing by the bier and offering a prayer or a candle or a garland of flowers. After the cortège left each camp, candles and flowers remained as a remembrance.
She tried to stop, but the harder she tried, the worse it was. She sat up, groping for the jar of water by the cot. Her hands shook so much she could barely lift the jar to her lips.
The water was cool and sweet. It steadied her a little. As she lowered the jar, the tent’s flap opened. Kerrec slipped through.
She almost burst into tears. She thought she caught herself in time—but his face changed.
She did not see him move. One moment he was at the flap. The next, he knelt beside her cot.
Half of her wanted to drive him off with harsh words—lashing out at him for her own weakness. The other half pulled his head down and kissed him, then froze, waiting for him to drive her off.
He did no such thing. He returned the kiss so freely and with such eager passion that she caught her breath. That made her hiccup, which made her laugh, which set him back on his heels, affronted. And that made her laugh even harder.
He scowled, but his lips were twitching. It was not true he had no humor—he only wanted people to think so. She abandoned the cot, which was too narrow in any case, and bore him backward on the worn carpet.
This time the kiss did not veer off into silliness. It went on for a long, delicious while. Somehow or another, their shirts got lost, and then their breeches.
Valeria’s body was afire, and yet she was in no hurry. She wanted every moment to last as long as it possibly could. His hands on her skin, the taste of his lips, were blissfully sweet.
She tangled fingers in his hair, then ran them down his back past the familiar knots and interruptions of scars. He shivered lightly under her touch. The world’s patterns took new shape around and within them. Where they had been two fiercely, sometimes painfully separate beings, now they were flowing into one.
It had been a long while since they had done that. There were dark places, thoughts and secrets that they would not share, but it did not matter.
She lifted herself above him. His eyes were dark in the lamplight, thinly rimmed with silver. “I missed you,” he said.
“Whose fault is that?” But she did not say it with anger. She dipped down for another kiss. “Never shut yourself away from me again. Promise.”
“By my heart,” he said.
He was smiling. That was so rare she almost did not recognize him. He looked years younger with all the stern lines gone.
There was such sweetness in his smile that it made her heart melt. “Gods, I love you,” she said. “I don’t know why. I can’t help it.”
“Some things are beyond reason,” he said.
She kissed him again, and then again. Reason had nothing to do with it. It was not his pretty face, either, though that was a distinct advantage. It was everything about him.
She took him inside her, just as he rose to take her. The dart of pleasure was so strong it was almost pain. She cried out softly.
He paused, alarmed. She locked ankles around his hips and held him tight, driving him deeper. He gasped in shock and piercing pleasure.
Kerrec kissed her awake. His face was somber as usual, but his eyes were smiling. As she sat up blinking, he set a steaming cup in her hand. The scent of herbs wafted from it.
He was dressed, all but his boots. He sat cross-legged on the floor beside her and set a laden tray between them. There was more tea and bread and early apples and sharp cheese. “Hardly elegant,” he said, “but it’s filling.”
“It’s perfect,” said Valeria. “You’re perfect.”
It was hard to tell in the dimness of the tent, but she thought she saw a flush on his cheeks. “Not as perfect as you,” he said.
She grinned. “Well, no. But you’ll do.”
He startled her by grinning back. He saluted her with his cup, and bowed as princes did. His happiness bubbled over.
There was sorrow in it for his father and for his brother who was still alive somewhere beyond the river. Those in his mind were failures, and he would not easily or quickly forgive himself for them. But as long as he was with her, he could let the dark things fade from his mind.
By the time they were done with breakfast, ranks were forming outside and the legions were preparing to march. Kerrec went out while Valeria dressed. When she emerged into the early-morning mist, he was saddling Petra. He wore the same face as always, but as she passed him on her way to Sabata, he warmed her with a smile.
During the day, nothing was different. At night, everything was. Valeria felt as if her heart had been buried deep in cold earth, but now it had sprouted and bloomed.
She felt a pang of guilt that she was so happy and this was the emperor’s funeral march. She still grieved for him. He had ruled well, as far as she was qualified to judge. She had liked him—loved him, maybe, as so many of his people did.
It occurred to her that he would not mind. He had struck her as a man who knew how to love. Maybe he would even approve of the lover his son had chosen.
On the fourth day of the slow march, Baruch took the Corinia off to the south. The Valeria stayed to escort the emperor home.
Baruch made a point of saying goodbye to Kerrec. “Sir,” he said, “you may want to forget what you are, but the blood remembers. If you need me, send a message. I’ll come.”
Kerrec thanked him, but Valeria could tell he had no intention of securing himself a legion. Baruch left, riding at the head of his troops. They were chanting a death chant of the desert, a slow rolling dirge shot through with sudden, piercing cries of grief.
It was a deeply disturbing song. The memory of it stayed with Valeria for hours after.
Later that day, she rode up beside Tibullus. He was riding with the honor guard, mounted on a sturdy brown cob. He greeted Valeria with an inclination of the head. “Rider,” he said.
“General,” she said in return. “I have a favor to ask of you.”
“Ask,” he said. “I’ll grant it if I can.”
“I hope so,” she said. “You remember my brother who rode with us across the river. He had to break the emperor’s ban to do it.”
Tibullus’s face darkened. “Yes. I remember.”
“He died,” Valeria said, “in the battle.” That was harder to say than she had thought it would be. “What happened to the field, happened because of him. He rode in the Dance. He was the rider on the Lady, the bay mare. Without him, we would have lost the battle.”
“So I’ve been told,” Tibullus said.
Valeria raised her brows. “Then you’ll agree that he’s suffered the utmost penalty for his desertion?”
“He sacrificed his life for the legions,” Tibullus said.
“Then,” said Valeria, “he’s not dishonored, is he? His name won’t be struck from the rolls. He’s honored dead.”
“He is honored dead,” Tibullus said. His face softened ever so slightly. “Yes, rider, we’ll send his shield home.”
“That’s what I was going to ask, sir,” Valeria said. “Can I be the one who takes it?”
Tibullus’s brows went up. “That’s not traditional.”
“I know,” said Valeria. “It’s just that he died because of me. I was there and I couldn’t stop it. I have to be the one who tells our mother what happened. It can’t be anyone else.”
Tibullus studied her for some time before he said, “It’s a worthy honor for his shield to go home with one of the white gods’ servants—especially since he died one of them.”
“He wasn’t a horse mage,” Valeria said. “That’s why he could do what he did. His magic was earth magic—mortal magic.”
“I’m sure,” said Tibullus, “there are niceties of the magical arts that I’m not aware of. He was serving the gods when he died. The least they can do is send his shield home with one of their own.”
His eyes warned her not to argue any further. She had what she wanted—what she dreaded, but she had
told him the truth. She had thought long and hard, in between the nightmares, and there was no choice. She had to do it.
Fifty-Three
From the battlefield at Oxos Ford to the gates of Aurelia was forty days at the pace of eight white oxen. They marched from summer into autumn, from the season of sudden, explosive storms to golden days and nights that hinted ever so subtly of winter’s cold.
As the days went on, Kerrec began teaching Valeria her lessons again. He had all the books in his head, and all the patterns back again, every one. He recited each lesson, then asked her to recite it after him, teaching her the art of memory. In a way he was learning it all over again for himself, bringing it to the front of his mind and making it more solidly a part of him.
She was a quick study, but he had always known that. What he had not expected was to find his own power and knowledge growing as he taught her the arts and skills that would, once she passed the testing, make her a Fourth Rider.
That was his father’s magic putting down roots and spreading branches through his mind and body. It was intricately ordered and breathtakingly strong. Now that it had finished healing him, it was transforming him in ways that he could not yet fully understand.
He supposed he should have been afraid. But there was no more danger in what was happening to him than there ever was with magic of that level and intensity. That was a great deal—but it was danger he understood.
No doubt he was being arrogant. Arrogance was his besetting flaw. And yet when he felt the magic growing in him, he felt a kind of singing excitement. He wanted it. He had no desire to refuse it.
Artorius had known his son better than Kerrec knew himself. Maybe it was part of the magic that Kerrec did not hate him for it.
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