City of Night (45 page)

Lord Cordufar’s smile was a work of art. It was genuine and it implied a softness or an amusement that, while it transformed his face, somehow failed to touch anything beyond it. “But perhaps it is true. Unkind words often are.

“The same, however, was said of me, in my youth, and I have, I think, disappointed my detractors.”

Rath wondered, silently, how many of those detractors were now alive to regret their opinion. “Responsibility often transforms those who accept it,” he said, instead.

“Oh, indeed. It transforms those who reject it as well.” He turned to the portrait, standing in front of it as if it were a mirror. “Which of those, I wonder, are you, Ararath Handernesse?”

“Don’t you know?” Rath replied.

“Based on your personal history, I would have assumed the latter.” He glanced at Rath, and if the gesture itself was casual, the sudden sharpening of his eyes, the shift in expression, was not.

“It would be the safe assumption.”

“No doubt,” Lord Cordufar said. “And yet, here you are. I find it curious.”

“Oh? What man would not wish to see Cordufar in all its glory? House Cordufar is not known for the frequency with which it opens its doors to society.”

“Perhaps. Perhaps not. Times change, and people will change with them. Do you intend to return to your house?”

Rath, prepared for this, smiled. It was the practiced smile of the habitual liar, and it fit his face far more easily than Cordufar’s attempt. “There are advantages,” he said, “to be found in Handernesse at this time.”

“There were advantages, surely, to be had in remaining with Handernesse, that you did not fully consider at the time.”

“Perhaps. But Handernesse had not yet produced The Terafin. My sister and I,” he added softly, allowing—forcing—truth to seep into his words, and losing, in the process, some of the finer control of his expression, “did not always see eye-to-eye, but we were close in our youth, and the estrangement, I regret to say, was, and has been, largely one-sided.”

“Indeed? I regret that your sister did not see fit to accept our invitation.”

“She is The Terafin. House Terafin is, as you are no doubt aware, the foremost of The Ten. Her duties seldom permit her the luxury of an evening such as this.”

Lord Cordufar nodded. All pretense of the merely social had eroded; he was staring at Rath, as if by so doing, he could memorize every detail, every nuance. “And yet, you are here.”

“I am not The Terafin, nor will I ever be. I have always been second to my sister in ambition, and I was content to live in her shadow.”

“A long shadow.”

“Indeed. Long and powerful. Even when she resided in Handernesse, and it was assumed she would take the reins of the House. But Handernesse is not Terafin, and its resources, not Terafin’s.”

“And you have approached your famed sister?”

“No.”

“Ah.” Lord Cordufar’s smile was sharp edged and composed of teeth that were too white. “Perhaps you fear the estrangement is not as one-sided as you hope.”

Rath frowned. It was a very slight frown, but it, too, was perfect. “Perhaps, in the upcoming months, you will discover the truth for yourself.”

Lord Cordufar lifted a hand. “I mean no offense,” he said, the smile still curving his lips. “And hope that you will, when you visit your sister, remember the hospitality of this House.”

 

“I am certain he will, my lord.”

And there, at last, Lord Cordufar’s mistress, a vision of blue, with streaks of red, black, and gold to lend color to the majesty of her skin. She walked like a conqueror, and she walked without fear.

Lord Cordufar’s face lost the traces of smile, and he turned to look at the woman who had caused such a stir in the great room.

“Your pardon, my lord,” she said, and she offered him a curtsy. It was not necessary, and might have been considered old- fashioned had it not been so deliberately provocative. “But you have spent much time in conversation, and your niece is waiting your announcement before your worthy guests can be seated for dinner.”

“Indeed, I have been selfish,” Lord Cordufar replied, “in my attempts to further the interests of this House.”

“By talking?”

“Indeed.” He turned to Rath. “Ararath Handernesse, may I introduce you to Sorna Shannen?”

She held out her hand, and Rath stared at it for a long moment. Then, reluctantly, he took it, and bent his head. He did not kiss the hand that was offered for just that purpose; the bow would have been considered enough, in most circles.

But her fingers tightened as he rose, and he felt the edge of nails press into his wrist before she released his hand. His hand was shaking at the contact, and if he could have ascribed the unsteadiness to something as simple as fear, he would have been comforted. It wasn’t fear. He experienced, firsthand, what he had watched at a distance: the intoxication of her simple proximity.

“You are Ararath Handernesse?” she asked. Lord Cordufar came to stand by her side, but he did not touch her; he merely waited, watchful.

Rath nodded. After a moment—when he trusted his voice to convey words in a manner that did not reduce him in all eyes to a simpering boy—he spoke. “I am, and it is a pleasure to make your acquaintance.” The words were as smooth and polished as Lord Cordufar’s.

Sorna Shannen raised a soft brow. “You are gracious.” Her voice was cool. But the smile that she allowed to change the shape of her mouth transformed her expression slowly. “And perhaps I see so little grace that I am unaccustomed to it. We can remedy this.”

He bowed again, in part to force his eyes to leave her face. When he rose, he said, “I am not, unfortunately, as graceful as I should be. May I introduce my companions?”

Again her brow rippled. Lord Cordufar offered her his arm; she ignored it. “Please,” she said coolly.

“This is Sigurne Mellifas. You may have heard of her.”

“I don’t believe I have.”

“She is the titular head of the Order of Knowledge.”

“I see.” She did not look away from Rath. Rath, however, looked away from her. Sweat beaded his forehead, and he was afraid, for a moment, that the protections he wore against otherwise undetected use of magic would suddenly throw off both light and sound. They did not, and he took a steadying breath. “This is her aide, Matteos ACorvel. He is also a member in good standing of the Order.”

He turned back to her, as if everything were entirely ordinary, or would be again. “It is very seldom that a mage of Sigurne’s stature graces a purely social event; your lord is a very fortunate, and very influential . . . patron.”

“Oh, indeed.” She smiled, and the smile was at once ice and fire.

“You are perhaps needed,” Sigurne told Lord Cordufar. “I am an old woman, and I do not walk quickly, but we will of course return to the great room for your niece’s presentation.” She took the arm Rath offered. “Your niece, as your companion has pointed out, is waiting, as are your guests.”

Sorna Shannen stood for a moment in the gallery, the man to her side inconsequential. If Lord Cordufar had seemed forbidding—and he had, and dangerous as well—it was forgotten; she drew herself up to her full height, and her hair rippled down her thighs in a cascade that seemed to absorb both vision and light. Her skin was the white of a woman who has never known any labor not of her own choosing, but it was a white, as well, that suggested rage.

Rath thought she would speak, and she opened her mouth to do just that, but her jaws snapped shut. The sound was audible. She turned instead, her train swirling at the speed of the movement, and she stalked down the hall.

Even in the startling absence of grace or manners, Rath could not take his eyes off her until she had turned the corner and disappeared entirely from view.

Lord Cordufar’s lips curled up in a smile that was, in its own fashion, as exquisite as Sorna Shannen’s. He watched her leave, and then, turning to the Magi, bowed once, exactly. “I will, as you so gracefully remind me, return to my duties. Ararath,” he added, “you are indeed an interesting man. I hope to see more of you in the near future.”

Ararath bowed. It was not as smooth or precise a bow as he would have liked, for his gaze was still drawn to the now empty hall through which Sorna Shannen had walked. Lord Cordufar moved away, down the same hall.

Sigurne touched Rath’s arm, then. “Ararath.”

He shook himself and looked down at her.

“Be wary of her. It is as you surmised, I fear: she holds the reins here, even though Lord Cordufar is not human.”

“What does that make her?”

“Among her kind? Powerful, if she can bind a demon who can assume and maintain the illusion of mortality. She is dangerous, and she is now aware—as is Lord Cordufar—of the opportunity you might afford them.” She hesitated and then added, “I thought it was clumsily done, on your part.”

He inclined his head in agreement.

“They are capable of subtlety, Ararath.”

“They are. But they are capable of greed, as well. I do not think that I have harmed my cause, this eve; I think that I have furthered it.”

“I think you have placed your life, and possibly the life of your godfather, in grave danger.”

“There are,” he replied, as he began to move, “worse ways to die, surely.” His smile was slight and sardonic.

Hers was entirely absent.

 

Even before they had reached the great room, they became some part of it; the sound of speech, laughter, and the occasional unfortunate shout, carried into the gallery, surrounding them before they could see the crowd to which it belonged. Softening that noise was the sound of violins, or perhaps just one; the piece was difficult enough that it was hard, at first, to tell. It was, however, a modern piece; Rath did not recognize it. Was chagrined at the lack of recognition, and then at his reaction to his own ignorance.

“I admit,” Sigurne said, in a louder voice than she would normally be forced to in quieter circumstances, “that I do not miss the crowds when I absent myself from such gatherings—but I regret the lack of music. The music,” she added, “was one of the first things I discovered when I came to Averalaan. Meralonne invited me to attend Senniel’s annual recital. I was not certain what to expect, and perhaps that was for the best.

“When I first began to study in the Order, I had enough time to frequent concerts, but I was not exposed to society in Averalaan until I rose in the ranks of the Magi. I was deemed suitably inoffensive, however, and when I had proven my worth—if such a proof can ever be accepted without constant testing by other members of the Order—I began to attend debuts such as this.

“They were like theater to me, then. Or perhaps spectacle. All of these men and women, dressed so very strangely, and at such obvious expense. We had nothing of this kind in my childhood, and looked for nothing of this kind when we were deemed adult.

“But in my early years as a mage, there were always stories, if one knew how to listen. There are stories here, tonight. There is no magic in them, but sometimes, faint and attenuated, the type of beauty which magic can never emulate.” She smiled. “I feel my age.”

Rath looked at the crowd that now surrounded them on all sides. He failed to see the beauty of which Sigurne spoke, but he had always failed to see it; even as a young boy, crouched between the banister rails at the side of his sister, Amarais, and stealing a glimpse of the glittering adult world, he had seen only the type of beauty that could be bought and put on display.

“Do you find her beautiful, Ararath?”

He glanced at Sigurne.

“Who?”

“Lord Cordufar’s mistress.”

He considered the question with far more care than he might have if the questioner had been any other woman. “I will answer,” he said at last, “if you will also offer your opinion on the same matter.”

She laughed then, and the sound of her laughter was so unexpected, it invoked an unfettered and entirely genuine smile in response. “My apologies, Ararath. I am not in my element in this particular arena, but I feel, given everything, that I
should
be. It makes me somewhat nervous, and in a First Circle mage, this is not considered a desirable state of mind.

“But I will answer. She is beautiful to my eye.”

This surprised him.

“But, so, too, was the companion of the Ice Mage. It was not glamour and it was not enchantment; he was beautiful, and compelling. I remember him well.” She listened as the strains of the violin song grew sharper and faster. “But in the North, at that time, beauty and deadliness were often wed. The white bears that hunted in the Northern snows were, in their fashion, beautiful. The economy with which they could kill, the speed at which they could move—we respected these things. We made warnings of our stories, and the unaccompanied songs we sang, but there was always some quiet admiration for the deadliest of things that nature had created in both.

“She is like that, to me. Compelling not in spite of the fact that she is
Kialli
, but in part because of it.”

“She is
Kialli
?”

Sigurne glanced at his face, and then away. “I would say so. I cannot be certain without more of a confrontation than this crowd would survive.”

And you?
Rath thought.
Would you survive?
He did not ask.

Instead, he inclined his head slightly. “Yes, Sigurne, I find her beautiful. But it is, as you say, the sinuous beauty of the coiled snake, the delicate beauty of the poisonous spider’s web; it is entirely what it is. There is no pity in her, and were I to be entirely smitten with her, I would expect to find none; there is no kindness, nothing that is not, in the end, about her own power. Love, if it were professed, would change nothing, acquire nothing.

“But in one guise or another, we are often attracted to power, and we are also often attracted to those who do not
fear
it.”