A Magic of Nightfall

Kenne ca’Fionta

Guilt gnawed at his stomach and made him push his plate away.

“Kenne, you need to eat.” His longtime companion and lover, Petros cu’Magnaoi, u’teni in the Faith, reached out across the white linen of the table for Kenne’s hand, cupping it in his own. “You were only a pawn in Cenzi’s plan. You couldn’t have known.”

Kenne shook his head. It’s not your fault… You couldn’t have known… That was what everyone had said to him over the last few days. Sometimes the words were spoken with a heartfelt sincerity; at other times-as when he’d gone to visit Sigourney ca’Ludovici in her bed as she recovered from her wounds-he’d thought he’d heard only a veneer of politeness draped over deep resentment.

“I sent that man to the Kraljiki, Petros. I did. No one else, and-”

“Kenne,” Petros interrupted. He was shaking his hawk-thin head, the jaw-long hair that Kenne loved so much, long ago gone white but as thick on the man’s head as his own hair was scarce, swaying with the motion. Pale blue eyes, still sharp and wise, held Kenne’s gaze and refused to let him look away. “Stop this. You can keep repeating the same words over and over again, but none of them will change what’s happened. You did what any of us might have done. This Eneas cu’Kinnear’s reputation was solid, and he said he had news from the Hellins, which the Kraljiki desperately needed. If I’d been in your place, I’d have done the same.”

“But you didn’t. He came to me.”

“He did, and you had no way to know what he was or what he would do, just as his superior offiziers didn’t know. What we must do now is make certain that the populace’s anger doesn’t spill over into a bloodbath. There are already voices at the Old Temple calling for a renewed purge of the Numetodo, and the same is coming from the Council of Ca’, too. Your voice is needed as the head of the Faith, Kenne. The voice of sanity.”

Kenne felt Petros’ fingers tighten around his own when he didn’t answer. “Kenne, my love, Cenzi gives you a test now. You know that Archigos Ana wasn’t killed by Numetodo, not the way Karl felt about her. This Eneas, and what he did to the Kraljiki… It sounds like the same thing that was done to Ana. The black dust that we found in the temple afterward; I hear that it was found all over the pieces of the Sun Throne as well…”

“I killed Audric,” Kenne muttered. “I killed his chamber servants, the supplicants who were closest. And as for poor Sigourney…” Sigourney’s face swam before him, torn and flayed by shards of the Sun Throne, her right eye bandaged (and gone, according to the healer who whispered to Kenne afterward), her right hand wrapped with the missing fingers far too visible, the covers falling ominously flat to the bed at her right knee.

This was his fault, no matter what Sigourney might have whispered to him with that ruined voice. This was more terrible than Ana’s assassination, though that had been horrible enough.

His fault.

He started to speak to Petros and could not, his voice choking. Petros’ hands tightened on his hand, lifting it and pressing it to his lips.

Someone knocked on the door. “Archigos?” The call was faint through the carved, varnished planks. Petros let his hand fall quickly and sat back in his chair.

“Enter,” Kenne said.

It was one of his o’teni staff who peered in: Sala ce’Fallin, his aide. She glanced at Petros, nodding to him and giving Kenne the sign of Cenzi. “I’m sorry to disturb your dinner, Archigos, U’Teni, but.. .”

She bit her lower lip, shaking her head. “What?” Kenne asked her gently.

“There is news,” she said. “A messenger has come from the Council of Ca’; you are to go to the palais immediately.”

“What is it?” he asked. “Firenzcia?”

She shook her head. “No,” she told him. “The messenger said nothing other than it was about Karnmor…”

He expected to be told that the long-slumbering volcano that overshadowed Karnor City had awakened again. But the news was far worse.

Kenne could barely believe the words of the rider who stood before the Council in their palais chambers, but the exhaustion, the dirt and soot on his face, the horror in his eyes and in his voice… Those he could not deny.

The city of Karnor was a smoking ruin, according to this man, with thousands dead, especially from the assault of the Westlander war-teni. Worse, the Westlander army was now on the mainland and advancing slowly up the A’Sele. The city of Villembouchure was next in their path.

“Many of the ships they came on,” the rider said, “were our own. I recognized the lines of the Marguerite from when she left Karnor Harbor to go to the Hellins a year ago, but now she flies the eagle banner of the Westlanders and they’ve painted her in garish colors. That’s why there have been no fast-ships from the Hellins; the Westlanders must have destroyed our forces there.”

“There’s no evidence of that,” Aleron ca’Gerodi snapped, glaring at the man as if daring him to contradict the statement. “None at all.”

The rider shrugged. “I saw what I saw, Councillor,” he said. “I was one of those who fled Karnor, as the city was taken and burning. I found a boat on the eastern shore of the island; I saw the sails of the Westlander fleet driving up the mouth of the A’Sele, and I saw fires on the northern shore.”

“He doesn’t lie,” a voice said as the doors to the chambers were thrown open. Kenne turned to see Sigourney being carried into the chamber on a litter. She sat propped up with pillows, her face a red-lined horror, the black dye washed from her hair so that the thick strands were now silver-gray. Her single eye glared at them; her right eye was covered with a quilted patch. “There are other riders coming into the city even as we speak here,” she said. “I have spoken to one: a man from the headlands of the coast. He says the same: the Westlander army is here in the Holdings, and they are marching up the northern shore of the A’Sele.”

“Councillor ca’Ludovici,” Kenne said, concerned. “You shouldn’t be here. Your injuries-”

“My injuries are not important,” she answered, waving a bandaged, few-fingered hand. “The herbalist has given me extract of cuore della volpe; that has taken away the worst of the pain. We have lost our Kraljiki, the traitor Regent is conspiring with Firenzcia, and the Westlanders have dared to come here. My injuries?” She spat. Kenne and the others watched the arc of the expectoration to where it landed on the stone flags. “They are nothing, ” she barked in her ragged, hoarse voice. “We can’t wait and dither here. We must act.” She paused for breath. “And the first thing we must do is name a Kralji, since Audric had not named his successor.”

Kenne knew then what had managed to cause Sigourney to ignore her injuries and leave her sickbed.

It was obvious, looking around the chamber at the other members of the Council, that the same thought had occurred to them. It was also obvious to Kenne who they would choose. Aleron was nodding, as was Odil ca’Mazzak; others were looking intently at the table, as if something had been scribbled there. It was Odil who finally spoke.

“You are Tete of the Council of Ca’, Councillor ca’Ludovici, and it was you who was closest in Kraljiki Audric’s confidence. I agree-a new Kralji must be named immediately… and I believe it should be a Kraljica.” He looked around the room. “I propose that Vajica Sigourney ca’Ludovici be named Kraljica Sigourney. She has the name, she is the closest relative here, and she has amply demonstrated that she possesses the qualities of leadership we need.”

“I agree,” Aleron said immediately, rising to his feet, and then they were all rising, and Sigourney was smiling through her pain and healing wounds and raising her hands to them in mock humility, and it was done-before Kenne could say anything. Not that they would have listened to him, he thought ruefully.

His voice was not one to which they paid attention.

Sigourney’s single-eyed gaze traveled the room and when it found Kenne, she frowned momentarily. He could see the accusation and the blame in her face, and he knew one thing more.

He would not be Archigos for long. The new Kraljica would find a way to bring him down.