Caelwen stepped toward the Matriarch of House Prosin, invading her space, and allowed his hand to settle on the pommel of his blade. “No doubt. I’ll rest well knowing my father will put the lot of you snakes to the sword in response. It would be a fine trade.” Then, to Kariana’s surprise, Caelwen actually smiled. It was a thin, humorless smile, and brief, less than a second, but it was a smile nonetheless. Truly, it was a time for miracles.
Maralena’s cold demeanor cracked, and she stepped back quickly. That, too, lasted only a moment before she recovered, but it was all Kariana needed. She’s not as tough as she’d like us to think. Or as brave.
“Call off your dog, Kariana. I’m here to talk, nothing more.”
Caelwen rolled his eyes. “Oh, come now. Didn’t you bring a drink for our empress, or a muffin? You’d have to have something to hide the poison.”
Maralena flushed in anger but kept her tone cool. “That’s quite enough.”
Kariana smiled. “You may leave us, Caelwen.”
Caelwen turned to her, the expression on his face as close to a wounded look as stone features could allow. “Empress? I think that unwise.”
Kariana laughed, a tinkling, innocent sound she had spent years perfecting. It had a peculiar effect on men. Of course, Caelwen was not a man and was therefore at least partially immune, but it served well enough. “Oh, Caelwen, what are you worried about?” She turned to Maralena and let her little girl mask fall, staring at the Matriarch with raw hatred. “If she kills me, you’ll kill her and be rid of us both.”
Maralena’s eyes darted nervously back and forth between the other two. She licked her lips. “Just so.”
Caelwen was unconvinced but obliged to obey. “Just so, indeed.” He gave Maralena a final stare, then stepped into the hallway and closed the door.
Kariana gestured toward the most uncomfortable chair in the room, a high backed wooden affair that was simply unbearable to sit in overlong. “Have a seat.”
Maralena raised a hand “I’ll stand.”
I’m Empress. I’ll keep sitting. “Fine. What brings the Matriarch of House Prosin to my humble abode?”
Maralena clenched her jaw so hard that Kariana half expected to hear the sharp report of bone cracking. The elder took a slow, deep breath. “There is no point in games. You murdered my grand-niece and accused her of being an assassin. Obviously, I know she was no such thing.” She clasped her hands behind her back and cleared her throat. “We have a problem. I’m here to sort it before it gets out of hand.”
Kariana laughed again, not the tinkling laugh this time, but a mocking, cruel, hateful sound that she’d never once practiced. What gall this woman had! Kariana ran a hand across her bosom, heartened by the feel of Sadrik’s knife, and considered. I could stab this bitch now, and who would do a thing about it? It was a dark, tempting idea, but a bad one. It would make things considerably worse for her at the trial, whatever lie she might tell to cover it up.
But, then, perhaps Maralena could be useful to her there, if they could come to terms. Not from weakness!
Kariana let all emotion drain from her face. She stared at Maralena, and the Elder woman held her gaze with feigned disinterest, but a twitch beneath her eye betrayed her nervousness.
Kariana said, “You murdered my brother, and you slipped in to spy on me. You drugged me for years, doing Mei knows what.” Kariana wanted very much to continue in a cold, collected manner, but it was all like knives stabbing into her brain. She gripped the edge of her desk, physically restraining herself from leaping upon the old woman and letting consequence be damned. Her voice rose to a shriek. “You murdered nearly a hundred men in my name! What the fuck do you imagine entitles you to come in here, indignant, and ask me for anything?”
“Calm yourself, fool! Neither of us wants this business to be public!”
Kariana struggled a moment, grinding her teeth, the urge to use her knife almost unbearable. At last, she nodded. “Go on.”
“We had nothing to do with your brother’s death, but it was no accident. The killer was of House Tasinal.”
“Who?”
“One I would not care to anger. That information comes at a price higher than you can pay. Perhaps someday, you’ll have something to trade.”
Kariana shook her head in disgust. “Fine. But the rest stands.”
“We did what we did for the good of Nihlos. What you lacked the intelligence or stomach to do.”
“I have the stomach for a lot, as you found out!”
Maralena snorted. “Please. You murdered a fat, unsuspecting child. It’s hardly a statement of resolve. It was a tantrum.”
Kariana felt rage rise within her again. “I might have another, you wrinkled hag!”
“Ah, and killing an old woman will surely be a step up for you as a force to be reckoned with, eh?” Maralena waved the death threat aside with a dismissive hand.
Kariana drummed her fingers on the desk. I can still stab her if I want to. “What is it you want, old woman?”
Maralena sighed, a sour look on her face, as if she were contemplating eating something foul. “Peace. What will it cost?”
Kariana considered this unexpected wrinkle. “I have a real assassin to deal with in just a few moments. If I screw it up, I am likely dead, and House Tasinal and Nihlos are both wounded. Narelki will be my biggest enemy. You know things. I need to know them, too.”
Maralena rewarded her with a grim smile. “You are wrong about your greatest enemy, but there is little you can do about that. I can help with the political issues, and I can tell you much about Narelki. In fact, hearing what I have to say about her is your cost for my peace.”
Kariana cocked her head in confusion.
Maralena’s smile grew hard, and Kariana’s confidence wavered. The old woman seemed terribly tough now, frightening. “They gave us Marissa’s body for burial. I examined it myself.” As quickly as it had come, Maralena’s resolve seemed to melt, and she looked away, staring past Kariana, eyes unfocused. “You put her through as much pain as possible. You twisted the knife. You let her suffer long before she died, didn’t you?”
Kariana felt a pang of remorse to hear it put in such terms but steeled herself against it. Marissa was a traitor, a monster. “She started all of this! She ruined my life! I’d kill her again if I could!”
Maralena turned her gaze back to Kariana. A single tear ran down her cheek and splattered on the marble floor, a small bomb, a precursor to a larger one. “It was Narelki who tried to have Lara killed.” She swallowed hard, her gaze pinning Kariana like a dagger. “Poor Marissa had nothing to do with it. She didn’t even know why she was dying.”
Kariana felt her eyes begin blinking of their own accord. “You lie!” she gasped.
“Do I lie about your visiting Narelki? Or about Aiul finding a piece of his shirt in her trash, a piece you tore from it? Or perhaps the lie is in Narelki letting you take the fall for her crime because she feared Aiul’s wrath? Which do you think?”
“How can you know this?” Kariana choked out.
“The same way we knew what you were doing. We have eyes and ears everywhere.”
She didn’t even know why she was dying. Kariana felt a tremor run down her arm and slapped at it as if it were a fly. The pain seemed a good thing; it pushed back the darkness welling in her just a bit. But it was not enough. She sat for several moments as the trembling took hold of her entire body and her vision tinted red.
Kariana leaped from her chair, lifted it overhead, and hurled it against the door. Her hands seemed to have a will of their own, taking up any fragile object she could find and smashing it on the floor: a dish from the desk, a lamp on the table beside her.
Caelwen burst in, sword in hand. Kariana hurled an ink blotter at him, barely missing his head. “Get out!” she screamed. “Get out! Get out! Get out!”
Caelwen flashed Maralena a questioning look. She nodded, still in tears. Caelwen shrugged and left, closing the door behind him.
Maralena cleared her throat. “Are you quite done?”
“Now is the wrong time to take that tone with me, bitch!” Kariana tore a curtain loose from its rod and wiped her face with it. She rose slowly, looking about for her chair, then remembered that it was in pieces against the wall. With a grunt, she swept her arm across her desk, knocking the rest of its contents to the floor, then lay down on it, staring up at the stippling on the ceiling. It almost seemed to make words, perhaps in a foreign language. After several moments, she stopped trying to decipher it and heaved a great sigh. “Do go on.”
Maralena sniffed hard, then continued. “I will tell you all you need to know to bring Narelki to ruin. You were but a weapon. It was Narelki who wielded you. She killed my grandniece.” She raised a clenched fist and shook it in the air. “We shall take her son in payment.”
“Just that easy?” I doubt your fist is going to intimidate Narelki. She’ll rip your head off and hang it on her wall.
“Easy? No. We’ll have to deal with the Meites.” She grimaced at this. “We have a chance to beat them politically. Let us hope they are sane enough to let our victory stand.”
Kariana sat bolt upright on the desk and stared at Maralena. “Meites?”
“I told you, there is nothing you can do,” Maralena answered as if educating a child. “I will manipulate the others, but the Meites are largely impossible to handle in such a manner.”
“Who are they? How many?”
Maralena sighed, tired and seeming a bit frightened, but still angry. “That wasn’t part of your price, Child Empress. If all goes well, perhaps we can negotiate for that information later.”
“And if not?”
Maralena shrugged. “Why, then you’ll get the information for free, for all the good it will do you. They’re more than capable of killing us all if they choose to do so.”
Kariana lay back down on her desk and stared up at the ceiling again. “I see.”
Kariana arrived early to the courtroom, memories of her conversation with Maralena still painfully fresh in her mind. The session would start at noon, and she needed at least a little time to mentally prepare herself for the coming battle. The elders would surely be difficult, if not outright hostile. She took her place at the far end of the room, behind an enormous, mahogany and marble judge’s desk, and sat in silence. Claiming the room is the only advantage I have.
The great courtroom of Nihlos was regarded as a magnificent work, and Kariana supposed it was so, in a cold, impersonal way. Soaring arches lined the left and right walls of the enormous chamber, and below each lay a great, stained glass window depicting legendary exploits of the founders. Here, one showed Tasinal at the very desk Kariana now occupied, smiling down on the rebel Aswan and granting him mercy. There, Amrath, his right arm raised overhead, hand clenched into a fist, delivered some rousing speech or another. She should know what he was saying, she supposed, but really, she was having enough trouble keeping everything Maralena had crammed into her head. It was neither the time or the place to try remembering her history. It’s not as if I ever really even knew much of it. That lack was dangerous, now. History was the realm of sorcerers.
We could practically fit the entire population in here. Everyone that matters, anyway. Most of the room was given over for a standing audience, but eleven seats sat on a raised platform facing the judge’s position, places for the Elder of each House other than Tasinal. Why do they sit higher than me?
Meites! The very word was enough to chill her deep in her bones. Try as she might, it was impossible to separate childhood tales and likely reality. What did she actually even know about Meites, other than they were wicked sorcerers who slay unruly children? If she had paid more attention to her history lessons, and less to drink and dick, she would be in a much better position. She made a resolution to remember that bit of wisdom for later. Assuming I survive.
The founders had all been Meites. It was their religion. They were, by all accounts, demigods. Now the name of their god was a vile curse, and practicing their faith was a crime punishable by death. Her own father had made it so, but why? Did it even matter? Unless Maralena was lying, there were dark sorcerers amongst the elders. But who, and how many?
I’m so screwed. I should make out my will while I wait for them. I’ll name Sadrik my successor and stab myself. With any luck, they’ll notice it’s his dagger and blame him, and he can hate the world just like I do.
She turned and looked up at the larger than life statue of Tasinal that stood behind the desk, literally watching over the current rulers of Nihlos as they conducted official business. His aquiline face seemed to glower at her in disapproval, and she suppressed a shudder. They called him the Great Tyrant, the Undying Emperor, or sometimes, outside of the earshot of his heirs, the Lich Emperor. But he was also the father of her house, the well from which her blood sprang.
In theory, he was still wandering about somewhere, doing whatever wicked, undead sorcerers do. It was possible he could show up and make everything right again. She felt anger rise in her once again as she stared at the statue. Help me, you bastard! Come and fix this mess I’ve made!
She sighed, knowing it was a lovely but hopeless fantasy. Alive, dead, or undead, Tasinal had left Nihlos long ago, walked away without explanation, and for the first time in her life, Kariana understood why. It was a thankless job only a fool would want, a tar pit that trapped anyone stupid enough to set foot inside. Once you had the power and made enemies, you needed the power to survive. Unless, of course, you were a wicked sorcerer who could just blast anyone who troubled you. Then you could just walk away. Kariana did not have that luxury.
The thought of sorcerers blasting their enemies brought her quickly back to her unpleasant reality: who were the Meites?
Twelve houses, twelve elders. She knew she herself wasn’t a Meite, and unless Maralena was playing a very odd game, which seemed very unlikely, neither was she. People with great personal strength rarely resorted to subterfuge. They would simply hit someone very hard and take what they wanted by force. And what a joy that would be! No, Maralena was no Meite. So, ten possibilities, then, and all of them would be arriving in short order. Could she work out which they were, just by observing? She resolved to give it a try. Shut up and observe!
They filtered in slowly as noon approached. The first to arrive was Ariano of House Talus, clad in pink flowing silks. She was an aged crone with a sickeningly sweet disposition. Ariano smiled warmly at Kariana and took a seat at the front of the courtroom. Kariana returned the smile, though she had her doubts as to how convincing it was. She was simply glad the old woman didn’t try to strike up a conversation. Surely not a Meite.
Next came Davron Noril, and with him Polus Luvox, Caelwen’s father. Davron was openly armed with a heavy sword, and both wore that odd, spiky armor they liked so much. Really, it just seems bad form. You’re not going to be fighting anyone in here, not that you know of, anyway. I’d rather have something comfortable. Once, Polus had been blond, like his son, and Davron black-haired, but now they were both gray. Even at their ages, they were powerfully built men, warriors, still dangerous and handsome. They looked her way briefly, acknowledging her existence and nothing more, then took seats and waited in silence. Meites? It seemed unlikely. Why bother with swords if one could blast enemies to bits with a thought?
Narelki came next, the wretched whore, dressed in pure white. Prandil Idlic, the equally wretched gadfly writer, accompanied her, waving his hands dramatically as he regaled her with some idiotic tale. Narelki’s glance toward Kariana was as cold as a corpse in a blizzard. Kariana shivered at the sight. She could be one of them. But Maralena hadn’t seemed to think so.
Prandil, ever the provocateur, winked at Kariana and grinned like a wolf, his hatchet face lit with humor and playfulness. Kariana was simultaneously outraged and titil
lated. The old letch actually thought to flirt with her! He’d written so many horrid things about her in his editorials, and yet she had to admit, she found his barbs hilarious when they were directed at others. He’s not so old. Neither of them were, for that matter. Aside from Kariana, they were the youngest of the elders, and it was well known that they were at least on occasion lovers. Kariana smiled back, thinking that it would be delicious to fuck Narelki’s man and rub it in her face. No, he’s not so old at all.
But was he a Meite? Perhaps, but it seemed unlikely. She’d never thought of sorcerers as being inclined to biting wit and sarcasm, and certainly not as dirty old men flirting with women half their age. A proper sorcerer would be reading musty books and making pacts with demons or some such.
Maralena was next to arrive. Her jewels were gone now, as was her other finery. She had chosen a simple brown tunic and pants with no adornment at all. That’s supposed to make you look unassuming, eh? Are they that stupid? Maralena was accompanied by Olemus Freth, who was as rich as an old dragon and twice as fat. Mei, is he wearing a tent? Sadrina Veril, the socialite, chattered at them from behind, festooned in rubies and red silks, and sporting a ridiculous hat with pink feathers that rose a foot above her head, her fiery red tresses peeking out from the edges. Kariana tittered to herself, remembering that Prandil had once written about Sadrina: “She might easily be replaced by a mannequin. It would serve just as well for displaying clothes and jewelry, and would be better company by far.” They ignored her completely as they took their seats as far away from the others as possible. Meites? Not a chance.
Lucreta Strall and Maklin Yorn arrived shortly thereafter. House Strall was chiefly concerned with education in Nihlos, and Lucreta, a teacher, of course, was the archetypal blue-haired frump. She carried a blue-sequined, fish-shaped handbag, probably filled with nothing more than a few pencils and tissues to wipe children’s faces. She waved at Kariana, and Kariana felt compelled to return the ridiculous gesture. Maklin, dressed in a black tunic and pants, moved slowly, a combination of his age and his intent focus on his ever-present sketchbook. His pace was a simple cycle: every few steps, he stopped, looked confused, then enlightened, and scribbled something, then started moving again. He didn’t even look in Kariana’s direction. She might have taken offense to it as a snub, save for the fact that it would be dishonest to accuse him of ignoring her. It was more the case that he was not even aware of her existence. Meites? Impossible.
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