Mage's Blood

23

Relearning the Heart

Corinea

At times, my wife the Empress Lucia says to me, ‘Are not the fairer sex as well equipped both intellectually and morally to participate in the discourse of the high table?’ To which there is one easy response that banishes all argument: Corinea.

EMPEROR HILTIUS, 870

Who was the real Corinea? Selene, the murderess who slew Corineus? A whorish harpy who benighted Corineus’ flock, ensuring that so many of the Thousand were found unworthy of Ascension? Or is she just the excuse the Kore uses to oppress women everywhere?

SARA DE BOINEUX, GRADUATION THESIS, BRES ARCANUM 878

Brochena, Javon, on the continent of Antiopia

Martrois and Aprafor 928

4-3 months until the Moontide

Elena’s Necromancy-wracked body was in turmoil. She failed to bleed at the start of Martrois, and for the first time in years did not accompany Cera to the blood-tower in the week of the new moon. Instead she went into her own tower and exercised to the point of exhaustion. Bastido could now defeat her on even the most basic setting, so she added bruises and welts from the fighting machine to her catalogue of pain – on top of the all-consuming task of re-establishing security inside the palace. Everyone, guard or servant, had to be mentally scanned prior to hire – though it was probably a waste of energy, for it would not uncover anyone trained in thought-concealment. Those permitted access to Cera and Timori were cut to the bare minimum, and the family areas of the palace were segregated from the rest of the building. Fear of failure and desperation to regain her former athleticism drove her on. Every night as she collapsed into bed Tarita and Borsa nagged her to get more rest. She ignored them.

She had not thought herself vain, but she was more than upset at her inability to regain her youthful looks and lithe body. Her hair was slowly regrowing, a blonde-silver hue that was not too unflattering, but she had black circles beneath her eyes. Her joints creaked painfully; her tendons burned at every movement. She had no energy to spare for rebuilding herself: Gurvon Gyle was out there and she could not afford to relax.

The re-establishment of the Nesti proceeded apace. Cera had summoned her nobles to council, but before that there were hundreds of crises to deal with. The treasury, stables and granaries had been ransacked, and the Gorgio had been weakened, not destroyed: should the Nesti pursue when they themselves had been so denuded of men by Gurvon’s initial strike?

Brochena buzzed like a hive, filled with frenetic energy. The Jhafi returned cautiously to the palace, first seeking news of missing relatives, and then seeking work. Cera herself attended the mass funeral for the murdered on the first Sabbadai of Martrois. She was visibly moved by the occasion, and Emir Tamadhi left her in no doubt about the feelings of the people: shihad was demanded, against both the Gorgio and the Rondians. Cera understood; she gave repeated assurances on both counts.

There was a lot of goodwill flowing from the liberation of the city, but one issue was still tearing Cera in two: what to do with Solinde. The people, especial the Jhafi, wanted her put on trial, for Solinde had fraternised with the Gorgio and publicly proclaimed her love for Fernando Tolidi. To protect her sister would be wrong; to not protect her would be weak and a betrayal of family.

It did not help that Solinde remained antagonistically unrepentant. The Jhafi claimed she had egged on the Gorgio, and she denied nothing, until at last Cera had no choice but to condemn her own sister to the dungeons in Krak di Conditiori, far to the south, where political prisoners were housed, guarded by Javonesi knights and Ordo Costruo magi under an ancient treaty with Antonin Meiros’ magi. It was a delaying tactic and it pleased no one.

Mystery still shrouded the death of Fernando Tolidi. Elena could not work out how he had died, or why his body had not been taken north. There were no witnesses, and Solinde denied any knowledge. She showed no sorrow at all, which Elena found disturbing.

Before Solinde was sent south, Elena went to her cell. The princessa sat alone, staring into space, moving only to eat or to use the privy. She looked and acted traumatised, yet when she spoke, she was viciously sarcastic, and simmered with more hostility than fear, even alone with a mage. Elena contemplated her in puzzlement, unable to understand where the vivacious Solinde they all had loved had gone. Had Sordell done something to her, or was this a reaction to Fernando’s death? It would take weeks of patient work to probe her mind and heal her of her terrors, but she would have one last try.

‘Solinde, what did they do to you?’ she whispered.

Slowly the princessa turned her head. Her eyes were flat, empty. ‘What do you want, you old hag?’

Elena winced. ‘I hoped to find some way we could restore you to the girl you were.’

Solinde lifted her chin and laughed bitterly. ‘Why would I want to go back to being that gormless empty-headed bint and let Cera have everything? Don’t think I haven’t seen this, you and Cera, safian bitches plotting together. You disgust me.’

She had to stop herself slapping the girl – but someone, or something, had got to her. Gurvon, what have you done? She almost went back to Cera to ask for permission to attempt some kind of mind-healing, but she was exhausted. Maybe I can do something in a few months. ‘This won’t be pleasant, Solinde,’ she said calmly, ‘but I have to place a binding upon you to prevent any mage from contacting you. If you are still linked to Gurvon, I must sever that link.’ She reached out a hand.

Quick as a cat, Solinde leapt backwards, pressing herself against the walls of the cell as she cried, ‘Don’t touch me, witch, there is nothing wrong with me – keep away!’

Elena sighed and pinned the girl against the wall with Air-gnosis, feeling queasily like a torturer. ‘This is a Chain-rune,’ she told Solinde. ‘It will hurt.’ She placed a hand on the girl’s brow, gnostic light flared and Solinde shrieked and writhed in pain for twenty long seconds before going limp. Elena checked her pulse, then lowered her to the bed. She hated doing this, but the Chain-rune, normally used to turn off a captive mage’s abilities so they had no access to the gnosis, also cut off the mind from any gnosis-contact. If a mage was communicating with Solinde, the Chain-rune would break that link. What she really needs is psychic healing, but she resists so violently. Damn this: why is there never enough time to do things properly?

Elena left the cell with deep misgivings and watched the prison-wagon depart half an hour later with a sense of missed opportunity – but there was no time to dwell on it. Cera was in open court, hearing grievances from the commoners, and she needed to be warded.

After that day’s session Elena accompanied Cera back to their private quarters. All day Cera had listened to complaints, giving well-considered answers. Elena was proud of her young charge, but she was distracted by hot flushes and attacks of the shakes. She wore a deep hooded mantle, under which she was dripping.

‘Ella, you look terrible,’ Cera said with concern, reaching out and flicking back her hood.

Do I? Elena looked at her dazedly as the whole world wobbled, fell sideways and went blank.

She came to in her bed, clad in a nightdress, with Tarita and Borsa fussing over her while Cera pressed a cold cloth to her face. Borsa placed a bowl of chicken broth into her hands.

‘Do you think you’re any use to me if you’re dead?’ Cera demanded.

‘I’m sorry – I thought was recovering.’

Cera snorted. ‘Recovering? You’re killing yourself!’ Elena hung her head as Cera began pacing the tiny room. ‘It’s my fault. I’ve demanded too much of you. My knights can guard me – nothing major is happening until the provincial lords arrive: that’s in three weeks, so you’ve got eighteen days, during which you are commanded to recover properly.’ She took Elena’s hands. ‘I need you to stop scaring me, amica. Please?’

Elena had no choice but to agree, and for the next week she found herself sleeping not just at night but for part of each afternoon. She was forbidden exercise, and the fainting episode had scared her enough not to protest. She even let Tarita and Bursa pamper her with moisturising oils and creams. Some nights Cera read her poetry, and Tarita played tabula, but other than that, she had plenty of time to think. It wasn’t a pleasurable pastime.

With new eyes she examined her life. It was obvious to her now that what she’d believed was love had been nothing more than intense loyalty to Gurvon, as she’d tried so desperately to find a person or cause to tie her colours to; she’d needed to belong to something. Religion and greed had let her down: there was no creed or philosophy that she felt anything but amused scorn for. Wealth meant little, especially now she knew there was nowhere she would ever be safe again. She and Gurvon had been too successful. The Imperial Court would not want people like them around once they had outlived their usefulness. She had no loyalty to that Court, or its goals, and all those missions she’d told herself were necessary now felt like acts of evil. She’d abdicated her own moral responsibility by blindly doing whatever Gurvon told her. She had been an empty vessel which he had filled with poison. There was nothing she could think back on with pride since the Revolt, until she had thrown in her lot with the Nesti and foiled Samir Taguine.

She was so used to dealing with her own problems – or having Gurvon deal with them – that it never occurred to her to talk to anyone else. But Borsa came in one morning and after the usual pleasantries sat down beside her bed, began knitting and surprised her by asking, ‘Who are you, Ella?’

Not how; who. Elena looked at the old woman in surprise and almost corrected her before she realised the question had been deliberately worded. She suppressed the impulse to tell Borsa to mind her own business, but she had never confided in anyone before, not even Gurvon – especially not Gurvon, in fact, for she dreaded appearing weak. She was tempted not to answer at all, but to her shock words came pouring out almost of their own accord. So she just let them come. Giving voice to her subconscious was strangely liberating.

So who am I now? she wondered. I have a cause: Cera and the Nesti, because I believe in the conciliation and compromise that lies at the heart of their worldview. Because I respect and love Cera for her courage and convictions. I am proud of the way she confronts the daily challenges of leadership. I am proud that Cera is showing these men just how strong and capable a woman can be. I would be happy to die in the knowledge that I had died saving her.

‘But surely you must want more than just death, my dear?’ Borsa answered when she fell silent, her needles clicking.

‘Everything ends in death,’ she replied. The assassin’s answer.

‘But don’t you also want to live?’

‘Of course – and I will stay alive as long as I can, for Cera.’ She sat up a little, hugged her knees. ‘She’s building something good here. If I can keep her alive and in power, it might just take root. That would be enough. My legacy.’

‘You speak like a man: death and duty and legacies.’ She patted her arm. ‘You’re a woman, Ella.’

Elena looked down. ‘I am what my role demands, Borsa. Cera relies on me for her security. If Gurvon kills her, Javon will be torn apart. Keeping her safe must be enough, for now.’

Borsa looked at her sadly. ‘There is always more, my dear. You cannot go on as you have been. You drive yourself impossibly hard, and you let no one reach you. You let no one touch you, here inside.’ She touched her heart. ‘All the stress and fear build up inside you like pus, and you have to lance it with joy, or you will just keep on collapsing, more and more frequently, and then you will be no protection whatever to Cera or anyone else.’

She opened her mouth to do the usual Elena-thing and argue, but she stopped and considered what she was being told. She’s right, she found herself admitting: I’m destroying myself faster than Gurvon could. I’m exhausted all the time. Sleep doesn’t refresh me any more, for even in sleep my mind worries and festers. I have to acknowledge it: I’ve about as much humanity as Bastido at the moment.

She met Borsa’s eyes. ‘The most precious thing about Javon is that I feel I belong – I’ve not felt that since the Noros Revolt. After years of working with people I wouldn’t trust as far as I could spit, it’s wonderful to live with people I care for. I do understand what you’re saying, that I could function better if I had some way to let the fear and anxiety go. But I can’t see a future beyond this situation, Borsa. There are wolves all round us, and right now I can’t see how we can survive, I really can’t. I’m just one person – no other mage would be crazy enough to join us, not when they know what we’re up against. Gurvon can just keep on hiring new people until he takes me down.’ By the Kore, it is hard not to cry right now … ‘I could deal with it when I cared only about myself. But now I’m afraid for everyone! I’m scared for Cera, for you, for Tarita, for Solinde, for Timi, for all of you. I’m frightened of failing and losing you all.’

‘This is why you’ve been driving yourself so hard,’ Borsa observed.

‘Yes – yes, exactly. After what Sordell did to me—’

Borsa frowned. ‘Sordell? What did he do?’

‘He used a necromancy spell that drains life-energy: it debilitates and then disintegrates the victim, while proving energy for the caster. It was like being aged decades in the space of seconds. If my shielding hadn’t been so effective, I would have died, like poor Artaq. Regaining what is lost is very hard. It would take months of inactivity and healing-gnosis to recover fully, but I must focus most of my energies on Cera.’

Borsa studied her thoughtfully. ‘How can we help you?’

‘I need a healer-mage, and I’m the only one in this kingdom!’ She bit her lip, galled at admitting weakness.

‘There is us, my dear: Tarita and Cera and me, all those who love you.’

‘You’re not magi – you can’t help me!’ She found she was shrieking like a harridan and clapped her hand over her mouth. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to shout—’

Borsa said patiently, ‘I am glad to hear you shout. Perhaps we’re not magicians like you, but of course we can help you, my dear: we can ensure you rest; we can make you eat and drink properly, even pamper you. I have no magic, but I’ve been a mother and a grandmother and I’ve helped people recover from illness for sixty years. You need to heal your body and your spirit. You’re afraid this weakness is terminal. My old husband got the same way as he got older: he lost all confidence.’

‘I’m trying, Borsa—’

‘Yes, you are trying – too hard. You need to be gentler on yourself.’

Maybe she really is right. She nodded slowly.

‘And you need a lover,’ Borsa added with a smirk.

Elena sat up. ‘No, absolutely not – that would make things worse—’

‘Ha! What would you know? Four years here and always alone in your bed? You need some love, girl. Love is a great healer. People who love want to heal; they have energy and ambition. And I don’t mean chaste poetry-reciting love, I mean sweaty animal love.’ She cackled warmly. ‘You need to get your juices going, girl.’

Elena squirmed. Part of her agreed: healer-magi knew those in love gained something in gnostic strength and resilience, but quite apart from the lack of candidates, the thought of letting her guard down, now of all times, made her afraid on more levels than she could name. She glanced at her hands, still wrinkled from Sordell’s spell months ago. And who could love me when I’m like this? She took shelter behind duty. ‘I am here to protect the queen, Borsa; everything else is secondary.’

Borsa saw through her in a second. She reached out and lifted her chin. ‘You are capable of love and being loved. Don’t forget that, child.’

Elena looked down. ‘I am not very lovable. Especially at the moment. And I can’t afford entanglements.’

‘We are all entangled, Ella, whether we want it or not. And if you open your eyes, you’ll see that others wish to be entangled with you,’ she added archly.

‘If you’re talking about Lori, forget it – after what he went through he wants nothing to do with me.’

‘I rather think he is softening on that stance,’ Borsa replied with a knowing look.

‘What have you said to him?’ she demanded hotly.

‘I just pointed out a few things,’ Borsa replied loftily. ‘And what would be so wrong about it, after all? He admires you. He is courageous and handsome and well-liked. Just what is it you don’t want?’

Elena closed her eyes and recalled Lorenzo’s face, caught in the aftermath of Vedya’s spells, filled with gnosis-induced hatred, and then she thought how emancipating it had felt to kiss him, to be wanted by another – to shake free of the shackles Gurvon had placed about her soul.

Whatever her face betrayed, Borsa saw. ‘I think he is intending to come and see you, and in the meantime, rest. You might need your strength!’ she added with a wink.

Elena’s face burned. ‘Get out, you dreadful woman! You are incorrigible!’ she exclaimed, though she heard something she hadn’t heard in her own voice in weeks, perhaps months: laughter.

Tarita frowned and moved a pawn forward, trapping Elena’s last knight. ‘You’re not very good at tabula, are you?’

Elena scowled at her. ‘Strategy games were always Gurvon’s thing, not mine.’ It was hard to focus; she was still so tired – but improving. Despite the humiliation of needing aid, Borsa and Tarita’s babying was definitely helping. The only exercise they permitted her was gentle Indranian yoga, which was restoring her suppleness. She even treated herself to a glass or two of red wine a day, and it felt good. She had regained some of her colour, and thanks to the unguents Borsa and Tarita lavished on her, her skin was softening. Her hair, though still mannishly short, was returning to her natural honey-blonde. She was regaining a sense of well-being.

‘Do you want another game?’ Tarita asked, in that way she had of subtly crowing.

Elena shook her head irritably. ‘I can’t get interested today,’ she conceded.

Tarita smirked, put the game-board aside and was ostentatiously scratching the wall with her fingernail – she was now winning, fourteen-two – when there was a knock at the door. She lifted her eyebrows and went to open it.

She didn’t reappear, but Lorenzo di Kestria entered. He looked very subdued.

Elena clutched at the front of her nightdress. ‘Lori – this is my bedchamber!’

‘So it is,’ he said softly. ‘May I sit?’

‘Modesty forbids—’

He looked about the room with a trace of his normal humour. ‘Where is this Modesty person? I can’t see her anywhere.’ Then the levity vanished. ‘Please. I need to talk to you.’

Elena swallowed and nodded.

The Rimoni knight sat in the chair Tarita had vacated, studied his hands, then met her eyes. He looked as she felt: tired and troubled. ‘You told me not to come with you on that mission.’

‘I shouldn’t have let you.’

‘No, you needed me – but you should have talked to me more first. If I’d known more about what a mage can do, I would not have been so shocked, and perhaps Vedya would not have been able to use me so against you.’

Elena sighed heavily. True. Maybe. ‘Foreknowledge might have made you hate me from the outset.’

‘I cannot hate you – I don’t hate you now. It was only the suddenness of realising what you could do. Using fire is frightening enough, but the things you and Dolman and Sordell did – I was not prepared, and I should have been. You should have readied us, told us what to expect.’

Elena looked away.

‘You don’t trust easily,’ Lorenzo went on, ‘but I understand you better now.’

Elena glowered at him. ‘You know nothing. I’ve blackmailed and murdered and betrayed good people and bad, all for gold; I’ve committed every sin you can imagine and nothing will absolve me.’

‘But you told Borsa that life is behind you. It is who you used to be, Ella, not who you are now. The only absolution you need is your own.’

The sanctimony made her temper flare. ‘Oh yes? Tell that to the widows and mothers I’ve left behind. These were not victimless crimes – I did not just kill other killers!’

He gnawed his lower lip. ‘Maybe when this is done you can find a way to make amends – but you never will if you don’t make it through this. Cera needs you. We all need you.’

‘And I’m doing my best for you all!’ she shouted back. Her words echoed about the tiny chamber.

Lorenzo flinched and filled his lungs as if about to shout back, but whatever he would have said, he swallowed the words unspoken and instead stood and strode away.

She stared after him with trembling belly and a bitter taste in her mouth. Brilliant, Elena. Maybe if Cera comes in you can scream at her too.

Elena recovered her strength in time for the council during the week of the Dark-moon. The court was packed with the retinues of the provincial lords. Massimo di Kestria, Lorenzo’s elder brother, arrived with a swarm of golden-skinned Rimoni knights kitted out in Jhafi robes – the di Kestria family were one of the better-integrated of the Rimoni noble houses. The di Aranio family also arrived, with their many womenfolk. Lord Stefan di Aranio was a big, smooth-faced man with the manner of a merchant on a horse-trading mission; advantageous marriages were his stock-in-trade. His sons paid court assiduously to Cera, while clashing in private with their chief rivals, the local Brochena noblemen and the Gordini family of Lybis. Elena watched with amusement as the pieces on this particular tabula board moved, but Cera gave no signs of favour. There were rumours that Lorenzo had been ordered to renew his courtship too, and Elena discovered she had mixed feelings about that: though Lorenzo had not spoken to her since she had driven him from her bedroom, there was an unresolved tension between them that was fraught with complexity.

It was the full moon of Martrois and the skies were brilliant blue. Early summer heat was rolling across the plazas and festering in the alleys; mosquitoes were proliferating in the open sewers and down by the lake, though the Jhafi servants had an ancient recipe for candles that drove the insects away, so the palace was largely unaffected by them. Brochena was filling up with people, trade tentatively returning as the merchants felt out the new lay of the land. Many goods were still scarce and the people remained wary, the purges first by Alfredo Gorgio then by Cera still fresh in their mind.

It was odd to watch Lorenzo courting Cera. The queen-regent’s young mind was too full of law and politics to care about small talk and dance-steps. At least she enjoyed his company, as they perambulated about the gardens while the court looked on and rival suitors simmered. Elena, always close by, found herself admiring his face and manner more and more, and witnessed Cera’s polite indifference with puzzlement. Hel, I’ve never been forward with men, but I’d take him on if I were in her shoes.

‘So, what do you think?’ she asked one evening as she set the wards.

Cera, her skin gleaming bronze in the candlelight, pulled a nightdress on and shook out her hair. ‘About Lori? I can’t take it seriously.’

Elena snorted. ‘I think he senses that.’

‘Is he offended?’ Cera asked, looking concerned. ‘I can’t afford to lose the friendship of the Kestrians.’ She scowled. ‘Though they’re neutral on the shihad – they’re supposed to be my allies.’

‘They think that after the bloodshed, neutrality is best for our people. But they remain loyal.’

Cera sniffed and observed, ‘If Timori was dead, they’d hold enough votes to gain the throne.’

Elena was shocked. ‘Cera, these are the Kestrians – they are the truest of the true.’ She was a little worried; her protégée was increasingly seeing plots everywhere.

Cera harrumphed irritably. ‘Anyway, I don’t wish to marry him, but his courtship prevents me from dealing with all the others sniffing around.’ Her voice was tinged with disgust.

Elena sighed. ‘Lorenzo understands that.’

Cera frowned. ‘Am I that obvious?’

Elena laughed. ‘To me, perhaps.’

Cera giggled. ‘Poor Lori. I do like him – I had a crush on him once.’

‘Once – but not now?’

Cera lifted her head a trifle pompously. ‘No, I think I’m well past that part of my life.’

‘Listen to you!’ Elena laughed. ‘Just like an eighteen-year-old, to think you’re all grown up.’

‘I have to be grown up,’ Cera insisted. ‘I meant what I said: I won’t marry until Timi is king.’

Elena frowned. ‘But some kind of alliance with the Kestrians—?’

‘Ella, I’ve had all that from Pita and Piero and the others, I don’t expect it from you. The Kestrians are with us anyway, so why make concessions when we already have what we want from them?’

Elena looked at her, a little surprised at her maturity and dispassion. ‘Someone should warn poor Lorenzo so you don’t break his heart.’

‘Oh, I doubt he’ll be so affected as all that,’ Cera said dismissively. She looked at Elena with amusement. ‘I see you’re wearing makeup tonight, Ella. Maybe you hope to catch someone’s eye?’

Elena threw up a hand. ‘Just making sure no rumours reach Gurvon that I look unwell. I’m already worried enough that my absence from your side these past weeks will have been noted.’

Once she had set the wards, Elena retired. She slid between the sheets and closed her eyes as she conjured a handsome face before her, one that smiled intently as it looked into her eyes. The small illusion wasn’t taxing and it gave her something to focus upon as her hands slid down her body. She took her time as her sighs became gasps and it felt like a small dam burst inside her as she climaxed.

She woke next morning feeling better than she had for weeks.

Lorenzo’s courtship continued to fascinate and puzzle the court, which had thought to witness a blossoming romance and instead saw distant politeness and a young queen-regent whose eyes remained firmly on the issues of the day. ‘What’s wrong with the girl?’ they wondered. ‘Has she no juices?’

‘Some people blame you,’ Tarita told Elena boldly one morning.

Elena smiled at the young maid’s frankness. ‘Why?’

‘Well, some say you are overly protective, and using spells to shield Cera’s heart.’

Elena grunted. ‘Is that all they say?’

‘Oh, others think you have seduced her yourself!’ Tarita giggled.

Elena snorted in disgust. Have these people no originality in their filthy minds?

Tarita grinned. ‘Everyone is scandalised by you! They think your short hair is barbaric, and proves you’re safian. Others say you want Lorenzo for yourself.’

Elena raised her eyebrows and fought to keep the blush from her cheeks. ‘They do?’

‘I started that one myself.’ Tarita snickered proudly. ‘I tell them you’re randy as a goat for him.’

‘Tarita!’

‘You are – your sheets sweaty as a brothel. I have to change them every day. And people see you watching him. They think it’s funny.’

She felt a flash of anger. ‘Why funny?’

‘Oh, only that you’ve shown so little interest in men until now.’

‘Men have hardly shown any interest in me either.’

‘That’s not true – everyone says half the knights tried to bed you when you arrived. There was a barracks wager among them, who’d be first to seduce you.’ She laughed aloud. ‘The men boast a lot amongst themselves, mistress. They don’t mean all that they say; it’s just expected, that’s all. It’s normal for them to compete with each other.’

Elena flexed her fists. ‘Well, if that’s all they think of me, they can all go to Hel.’

‘It was just men’s talk, mistress – you should take Lorenzo as you find him, not on hearsay.’

‘I’m not planning to “take him” at all,’ Elena replied crossly, and stomped off to the queen’s morning session with the Regency Council.

Being in the same room as Lorenzo and seeing the way that he too was growing into his role didn’t help her much. He spoke well, displayed awareness of the strategic situation, displayed wit and gravity as appropriate. At times his eyes would meet hers, and she could tell that he’d forgiven her. He jested about claiming the kiss she’d promised him that deadly night, and teenage insecurities and flutters of the heart plagued her, she who had thought herself beyond such emotions.

You are ridiculous, Elena. Don’t make a fool of yourself. He’s two decades younger than you and you’re hardly the prettiest woman at court. But she couldn’t help herself.

Massimo di Kestria was still in his brother’s ear though, and he was determined Lorenzo would uphold family honour – so Elena found herself walking through the ornamental gardens on Massimo’s arm yet again, their eyes on Lorenzo and Cera while the baron bored on about his many children and the sun slowly fell toward the horizon, turning into a discus of pinky-orange light as it descended.

Massimo was about to launch into another diatribe when he froze, his mouth hanging open. Elena followed his gaze to see Lorenzo suddenly down on one knee before Cera in a pretty little rose bower.

His voice carried clearly: ‘Queen-Regent, Cera, will you do me the honour of becoming my wife?’

Cera’s face remained composed. ‘Alas, Lorenzo, I cannot accept,’ she replied in a measured voice. ‘Though your company pleases me and your family are very dear friends to the Nesti, I have vowed to remain an unwed virgin until my brother attains his majority. Please respect this promise, and know that you have my utmost respect.’

Good Kore, she sounds closer to forty than twenty, Cera thought, her heart pounding with some kind of relief that she daren’t examine.

Massimo’s face had turned purple and he looked flummoxed. Elena whispered in his ear, ‘Massimo, please give us some privacy,’ and the baron backed off uncertainly.

Cera turned to Elena. ‘Elena, I must rejoin our guests. Could you please ensure that Milord di Kestria is comforted and vouch for the veracity of my oath and of my feelings?’ She bowed lightly, looked down steadily at Lorenzo for a second and then turned and walked away.

Elena stepped into the bower, conscious suddenly that she was alone with Lorenzo. ‘Er … are you all right, Lori?’

Lorenzo climbed apologetically to his feet. ‘I am sorry, Elena, that you have witnessed my discomfort.’ He gave a cautious smile. ‘I have never suffered rejection before.’

‘Have you proposed marriage often then?’ Elena asked drily.

Lorenzo gave her a crooked grin. ‘In truth, my previous proposals have not been of marriage.’

Elena plucked a rose from the bower and pinned it to a buttonhole on his doublet. ‘From what I have observed, there are many women about court who will not provide you much of a challenge when you get over your disappointment.’

‘But it could be that I prefer a challenge,’ he returned, looking her full in the face. ‘When I get over my disappointment, of course.’

‘You don’t look that disappointed to me,’ she remarked severely.

He suddenly looked uncertain again. ‘Donna Ella, are we friends again?’ He cocked his head as music started up. ‘Shall we dance?’ he asked, bowing in invitation. ‘That is, if Rondian magi dance?’

She felt a dangerous heat in her breast. ‘Not today – but we do apologise occasionally. I’m sorry for yelling at you. I know you meant well.’

He bowed again. ‘Apology accepted. May we talk then?’ He indicated a seat among the roses.

Elena smiled. ‘All right, but not here. It’s too public, and if one of Gurvon’s agents is out there and notes us talking, you will be a target.’

‘I’m Captain of Cera’s guard, so I’m a target anyway, but I take your point.’ He looked about the bower and she did too, suddenly enjoying the delicate scents and vivid colours. The city was blossoming, with frangipani and marigolds coating the green spaces in white and orange splashes of colour, filling the air with lovely scents.

‘So,’ he said, ‘my courtship is over.’ He smiled and admitted, ‘I am relieved. She had no interest and if my brother wasn’t being such an ass over it we could have spared everyone the fuss.’

‘You should probably grieve publicly for a while,’ Elena suggested awkwardly.

Lorenzo laughed. ‘Truly there is no one like you, Elena Anborn. In this whole world I’ve heard of no one like you. Even your fellow magi women do not fight like you, with weapons as well as gnosis.’

‘I know this – I’ve heard it from many men. What point do you wish to make?’

‘Just that it does not repel me – and neither do your past sins, or your strange skills. Nor the scars on your body or your soul. I believe I see past them to the woman beneath.’

‘I am twice your age, and I am a foreigner.’

‘Yet you risk your life to remain here.’ He looked back at her, the setting sun catching his face, painting it bronze, like the statue of some hero. ‘My family despair of my ever settling down, but I have several brothers, and my brothers have many sons. I’m not needed at home.’

There was a restlessness in his voice she could empathise with. ‘Is “settling down” what you want?’

‘No: when this danger has passed, I wish to travel again,’ he told her. ‘I love to see new places.’

‘I thought what I wanted was a manor beside a lake in Bricia.’ With Gurvon beside me. ‘But now I’m a traitor to my people and outlawed throughout the continent of my homeland. I have no home at all.’

‘Then perhaps you too will find solace in the open road, Donna Elena?’

Her mind’s eye showed her an image of herself, dressed in strange robes, standing in an exotic temple, with Lorenzo at her side. It wasn’t an unpleasant thought. She swallowed slightly. ‘Lori, if we live through this, who knows?’

He smiled softly at that. He had a nice mouth and she could remember the way it tasted. But …

She clenched her jaw. ‘Lori, I need to tell you something.’

His face tightened. ‘I sense it is something I won’t like.’

‘You won’t. After the Noros Revolt, the Church commissioned Gurvon to destroy an enclave of magi who’d gone into hiding and were fighting on. It was a test – the Inquisitors could have done it themselves, but they wanted to see if Gurvon could be trusted to go after his former allies. They’d fled to a castle town in Schlessen. The population was sympathetic, they sealed off part of the keep and held it secure – with gnosis, defence is often stronger than attack, so they couldn’t easily be taken.

‘They thought themselves safe, but first Gurvon struck those he could reach, human outsiders, and used them to lure the magi out of the keep, singly or in small groups. Any we took were broken and sent back, barely alive, needing the gnosis to keep them living. The city folk began to fear interacting with the rebels. The magi had to pour increasing energies into keeping the injured alive and it quickly broke them down. They split up and we picked them off one by one.’

‘And you think he will do the same here?’

‘I know he will. Those closest to Cera and me will be the first targets.’

There was no fear on his face, only quiet determination. ‘Where did you launch your attacks from?’

‘We were hidden within the town. No one knew we were there.’

‘And your role?’ he asked bleakly.

‘Gurvon likes to have someone inside. My role was to subtly sow discord and misinformation.’ She sighed. ‘These were old comrades; it wasn’t hard. They believed I was one of them right till the end.’

He looked thoughtful. ‘So you think he will attack this way: isolate us and pick us off.’ He exhaled heavily, and she could see the fear now, the disquiet of a commander afraid for those in his charge. ‘Is there an insider already among us?’

‘There will be people at court he has already got his claws into. Wherever he goes, Gurvon finds out people’s dirty secrets; he will be blackmailing courtiers and servants over their thefts, their adulteries and indiscretions.’

Lorenzo’s eyes met hers. ‘How may we best counter this, Donna Elena?’

‘By sealing off part of the keep for our own protection. By restricting access to the safe area and constantly rotating who may enter. By being vigilant. We can make it hard for him, but that won’t be enough. We must also counterattack where and when we can. We must use the eyes of the community. We will need Mustaq al’Madhi.’

‘Mustaq is not to be trusted. He is the head of the largest Jhafi crime syndicate in Javon.’

‘Then he is ideal. He will have eyes in places we cannot reach. Gurvon is probably already here, with the rest of his gang. Most of those I worked with are dead. I won’t know most of the new ones. He may have found a new body for Sordell too.’ All at once the shadows, even in the sunlit bower, were stirring like waking panthers. ‘Let us go in.’

Lorenzo gripped her shoulder as she went to pass him. His hands were big and strong: a swordsman’s hands, and they were warm through the cloth. ‘Ella – what about us?’

They were the same height. She met his eyes, trying to read him. ‘Is there an “us”?’

He didn’t answer, at least, not with words. His other hand cupped the back of her head and he pressed his lips to hers. Her gasp of surprise became an open mouth that tasted his. Heat and wine and sweetness and a tongue that invaded her mouth, tasted hers then withdrew. She stiffened against him, and found she had no will to move away.

‘So,’ he breathed, ‘you tell me, Ella-amora.’

Amora: lover … Her heart thudded. She felt horribly exposed before his soft brown eyes. She wanted to flee, to hide, to not deal with this. ‘Didn’t you just propose marriage to someone else, Lori?’

He sighed. ‘It was pretence and you know it. What I feel for you is not.’

She swallowed awkwardly. ‘Lori, for you to court me so soon after Cera would invite scandal, and it would invite Gurvon like a corpse invites the jackal. We cannot be seen together.’

He stroked her cheek. ‘Then we will not be seen.’

The thought made her blood thunder.

‘Must I woo you like a knight-errant?’ he breathed in her ear. His arms stroked her shoulders, firmly, invitingly.

‘I don’t do poetry and dances,’ she replied, trying and failing to make her voice light.

‘What do you do?’

She made herself meet his eyes, summoned all her will and hardened her heart. ‘I don’t do anything at all.’

He sighed softly, not in the least put off. ‘You still owe me a kiss, Elena.’

‘You just had one.’ And it was delicious, she admitted to herself.

‘But I didn’t need to ask for it,’ he replied. He flashed a smile, bowed and walked away.

Cera had retired to her rooms after rejecting Lorenzo’s proposal. Elena joined her there. Cera was looking wan. ‘Ella, where have you been?’ she asked. ‘I don’t like it when you’re not with me.’

‘Are you all right?’

‘I’m fine. It’s Massimo who’s put out, not me.’ Cera shrugged. ‘He’ll get over it.’ Her face was shadowed with suspicion. ‘They have always been honourable,’ she whispered as if to reassure herself. She looked up at Elena with a sour expression. ‘So tomorrow all the young men will be vying for my attention again. How tiresome!’

Elena studied her. ‘What’s wrong, Cera?’

Cera slumped onto her bed, plucking absently at her gown. ‘Me – I’m what’s wrong!’

Elena sat beside her and put an arm about her. ‘My darling, what could you possibly imagine is wrong with you?’

Cera rubbed furiously at her eyes, pulled herself from Elena’s grip and sat facing her. ‘It was what Massimo said to me after I’d rejected Lorenzo – he took it back immediately, but I knew he meant it!’

Elena pursed her lips. ‘What did he say?’

She hung her head. ‘He asked if my father knew the kind of safian bitch he’d bred.’

Elena stared, speechless. Why the arrogant, hidebound prick – I’ll rukking geld him—

‘I don’t dance, or make silly conversation with their young knights like the other women do, so they make crude jokes about me.’ Cera’s face tightened. ‘They think any woman who is not some vacuous broodmare is unnatural. Why can’t they see I’m just trying to protect the kingdom?’

Oh Cera, welcome to my life, darling girl. Men are never slow to scorn women who insist on wearing swords. ‘I have heard such things all my adult life, Cera,’ she said softly. ‘People – men particularly – feel threatened by those who do not conform to the norms.’

‘Politics and trade interest me, fashion and poetry and dance-steps do not,’ Cera said.

‘I know – but Cera, we’ve both heard that sort of rubbish before. What’s really the matter?’

Cera hung her head. ‘I need the people to love me, Ella. If they turn against me, we Nesti are lost. I won’t give up my independence so the Aranios or Kestrians can stage a bloodless coup-by-marriage. The barons don’t want a woman as regent. They want Timi as their puppet, and I won’t have it.’

Elena squirmed uncomfortably. Being the kindly confessor was not a role she excelled at, but she was pretty sure Cera still hadn’t revealed what had really upset her. ‘You know what they’re like; they won’t change. But their aims are aligned with yours: they want Javon strong and united, so they will support you. And there are other concerns, Cera.’

She explained Gurvon’s likely tactics, and they took supper together in Cera’s parlour while planning how to seal off the royal towers and minimise the security threat. It wasn’t until the bells tolled six times that Elena realised that it was midnight already. They both yawned.

Cera gripped Elena’s arm as she rose to leave. ‘Grazie, Ella-amica.’ She pulled her close and hugged her. ‘Being with you always makes me calmer.’

‘My pleasure, Cera. Do you need help getting out of that gown?’

Cera stood and stretched, yawning again. ‘Please. Poor Tarita will be fast asleep.’

As Elena helped her into her nightclothes, she stroked the dark curtain of hair. ‘You are very beautiful, Cera,’ she said softly. ‘When you find the right man, he will be a lucky fellow indeed.’

Her words upset Cera again and she seized Elena’s hand. ‘I’m frightened, Ella – what if they’re right about me?’ she whispered. ‘What if I do have that sickness in me?’

Elena frowned. ‘It’s not a sickness, Cera, it’s something people are born with. The Rimoni Empress Claudia was one of their greatest rulers, and she kept a whole harem of girls for herself.’ She braced herself to ask the question. ‘Do you believe yourself to be safian?’

Cera hung her head. ‘I don’t know,’ she said in a small voice. ‘Why don’t I want the boys they throw at me? They’re all handsome and well-built and charming. What’s wrong with me?’

‘Cera, you’re tasting authority and power, and you’re enjoying it. You’re seeing these suitors as a threat to that, that’s all. I doubt you even see them as men; they’re just pawns in the tabula of politics.’

‘But I don’t find them even a little bit attractive.’

‘Cera, you’re – what, eighteen? You’re not yet grown-up. Many people don’t develop any interest in the opposite sex until they’re in their twenties. You’re going through more than any young girl should, and you’re holding up magnificently. You’ve got far more important things to worry about than whether your heart goes thump when a boy smiles at you. Frankly, I’m glad it doesn’t.’

Cera ducked her head and nodded apologetically. ‘I’m sorry. I’ll sleep now. Thank you.’

‘Goodnight, Cera,’ Elena told her, feeling emotionally drained as she sought her own bed. The memory of Lorenzo’s face swam before her as she slid between the sheets. In her dreams she watched him on his knees again, proposing alternately to Cera and herself, before turning into a knife-wielding Gurvon Gyle. He slashed and whirled and in a trice Cera was dead and Elena was staring in disbelieving horror at the dagger in her own breast. She woke unsure if it were nightmare or omen.

Gurvon Gyle sat entirely still, like a lizard on a wall afraid to move in case it is seen by a predator. And the man in the chair opposite was assuredly a predator. The decrepit room they shared had no other furnishings. The stone was crumbling, bugs crawled in the corners and it stank of rot and decay.

The man was weaving strands of light with his fingers. He didn’t look like a torturer, but his reputation hung heavily about him. Inquisition Grandmaster Fraxis Targon was neat and clean, so fastidious that he shaved twice daily. He wore hair cream despite the crippling midday heat, slicking his thin blond hair and thin moustache. He looked like a shopkeeper. Only his eyes, so pale as to be almost white, betrayed the cold distance that he maintained from life. His stare was utterly dispassionate, utterly uncaring. He might rip a man’s heart out with the gnosis as blandly as he crushed a cockroach. Rutt Sordell clearly thought so – the scarab housing Sordell’s soul was hiding in Gyle’s pocket, and had not stirred for hours.

The pattern of light frayed as the Inquisitor lowered his hands and scowled. Another blocked scrying. Targon could blast through Elena’s wards, but that would alert her instantly, so for now they had to probe, and to rely on information from Gyle’s small network of spies within the palace. None were highly placed, nor capable of taking aggressive action, but at least they were inside.

‘Have a care you aren’t detected,’ Gurvon told the Inquisitor sourly. His agents had reported that Elena had formed a friendship with the commander of Cera Nesti’s guard, Lorenzo di Kestria. They insisted it was just friendship, but the thought made his stomach tighten.

It is not jealousy. It is just a matter of honour that I castrate and disembowel the man.

‘Her skill is insufficient to detect my probing,’ the Inquisitor rumbled. ‘I grow impatient at your caution, Gyle.’

‘We need to get Coin into position first,’ he argued.

‘With the Anborn woman dead, no one could stop us.’

‘No, but the whole of Javon would erupt into war against all things Rondian. It is only the continued reign of the Nesti Regency that is keeping that in check.’ Surely Mater-Imperia told you this, he thought angrily.

‘Mater-Imperia did tell me that,’ Targon said, answering what Gyle had believed a private thought. He felt himself go cold. ‘You play your little games of king-making and think yourself subtle and perceptive, Gurvon Gyle, but I was raised to the Ascendancy by Magnus Sacrecour and I will act as I see fit. When I choose to strike, I will strike, and you had best pray that you are well out of my way.’ The Inquisitor leaned back in his chair. ‘In the meantime, spymaster, I believe it is time to go on the offensive. The local criminals are hunting for you house-to-house. It is time to give them pause.’

Gyle redoubled the shields about his mind as he bowed his head. ‘You will begin it?’

Targon nodded. ‘And then you will start upon the princessa.’ The man’s smile never reached his eyes. ‘Leave me and send in the serving girl.’ His eyes were hooded. ‘I must continue her instruction.’

Cera Nesti sat on the window seat, the perfumed night wafting through the open casement. Elena had set the wards – she had seen the grille of light as her protector lit them – and nothing else could get inside. She looked up as something landed on the sill just beyond the unseen wards. A crow?

‘Shoo,’ she called, ‘get away—’

But the bird turned a beady eye towards her, and then changed.

There was nothing gradual about it: one moment it was a big black bird and the next a grey-clad man. She opened her mouth to scream, but he put his fingers to his lips and whispered, ‘Shhh – wait.’ He put a hand up as if reaching for her and the wards lit up, a mesh of blue-skeined light. ‘See, I cannot reach you. This illusory form cannot penetrate Elena’s wards. You are quite safe.’

She knew him. ‘You are Gurvon Gyle.’

The man inclined his head. ‘I am.’

Cera stared at the man, trembling slightly. I should get Ella …

Gyle raised a placating hand. ‘I am only here to talk.’

She swallowed. Her enemy, so close – what do I do? ‘Why should I talk to you?’

‘Why shouldn’t you? I cannot hurt you, so please, hear me out. I will be brief.’ His face radiated sincerity. ‘I do not wish to see you harmed, Cera, nor do I wish to harm your little brother.’

Elena was probably doing her evening exercises, Cera remembered. Sol et Lune, this is my enemy, talking to me. Maybe I can learn something from this …

She looked around, checking that she was alone, feeling guilty, as if she were betraying herself, then said, ‘You killed my family. How could I trust you?’

Gyle looked sad, almost apologetic. ‘I was commanded to remove Javon from the shihad. I had no choice. If you soften your policy towards the shihad, I will guarantee the safety of you and Timori.’

She felt her temper flare. ‘My people would never let me – nor will my conscience.’

‘When all of your house are ash and all those who have pinned their futures on you are dead, how will your conscience feel then?’

She sucked in her breath. In one sentence he had cut to the bones of her greatest fear. ‘Ella?’ she called, her voice quavering.

‘Elena is in the Jade Tower exercising – unless she’s busy somewhere with Lorenzo di Kestria,’ he added archly.

He’s testing me and I will not respond. But the queasy sense of fear his words aroused became a flash of temper. ‘Ella slew your Sydian whore!’ she fired back.

Gyle smiled blandly. ‘Elena Anborn leaves a trail of destruction wherever she goes, girl. She has neither pity nor remorse. Do you think she’s on your side? She’s on her own side and none other.’ His voice sounded pained, even regretful. ‘I could tell you all about her, girl.’

His words awakened all her fears and she batted them away. ‘Liar!’

‘Calm yourself, girl.’

‘Rukka-tu, Neferi!’

‘Such language, Princessa!’ His voice was condescending. He stood, effortlessly floating on the air. ‘Cera, you have a choice: align Javon with the Crusade and you and your family will live and prosper. Choose the shihad and you will lose everything.’

She opened her mouth, but he was already gone.

She stumbled backwards to her chair and huddled in it like a child.

When Elena came soon after, freshly washed and glowing, she just knew that Gyle had spoken truly about her and Lorenzo. She couldn’t articulate why the thought of her protector and her first knight together made her ill, but it did. So she didn’t mention Gyle’s visitation at all.