Lightborn (27 page)

He moved on to speak to the couple between Merivan and Sylvide. Telmaine leaned over and murmured, “Courage, he doesn’t bite,” to Sylvide.

“That’s all very well for you to say,” Sylvide whispered, but she acquitted herself with poise, even warmth, as the archduke commented on the hunting in her home area of the near Borders. Sylvide was, as Telmaine had said, a good shot. Many women who lived in and around the Borders were.

And there was Vladimer, returning along the far side of the table, unnoticed by most, his aspect grim. Something must have befallen Casamir Blondell; that seemed the only plausible reason for his amulet to have come into Vladimer’s hand in such a way. . . . Then Sejanus Plantageter turned to her. “Lady Telmaine,” he said, taking her hand as she curtsied. “How is little Florilinde?”

“Quite well,” she mustered in response. “Thank you.”

“I gather from this evening’s broadsheets that I ought to find something to divert your husband’s talents.”

She managed not to wince at his turn of humor, not so unlike his brother’s. He patted her hand lightly and said, distinctly enough to carry, “I am well aware of the reasons he undertook this errand and am satisfied of his good intentions.”

That might not be the most he could have said in Bal’s defense, perhaps, but it was not the least, either. She sustained her grateful smile as the archduke moved on. Sylvide caught and squeezed her hand in return.

She had just drawn breath when she felt a sudden flush of heat across her skin, like a wind up a hot summer street, like the sheet of flame from her bumbling effort at Shadowborn magic. Frightened, she swept out with her magical senses, and felt, closing around her, a smothering net of Lightborn magic.

She gasped. The net burst with her frantic counterstroke; she felt the wielder’s surprise at the force, and knew her assailant was the Lightborn mage who had spoken silently to her moments before, the one whose power she had measured. <
What are you doing?
> In response, he swept his power around her again, no hotter, no harder, and she deflected it again, clumsily. <
Who
are
you?
>

No answer came, no acknowledgment, no mockery. Momentarily, there was calm. Momentarily, she was able to realize that she was still in the ducal ballroom, in the presence of her betters and peers, before whom she had just done—what? What of the magical assault had manifested, besides her gasp? Sonn outlined Merivan just starting around the table, righteous purpose but no horror on her face. Sylvide, at her side, steadied her, saying in innocent dismay, “Telmaine, what is it? Are you feeling faint?” At her other side, the archduke’s voice—oh, sweet Lady Imogene, no—the archduke himself was saying, “Lady Telmaine?”

“I have—,” she managed, amazed that smoke did not stream from her mouth with her words. “I have—”

And the burning net fell on her again. “No! Leave me alone!” She was back in the warehouse, where flame roared and beams ruptured and Florilinde screamed, thin and high as a trapped kitten. Beside her, the archduke shouted unintelligible words that turned into a cry of agony. Shrieks and crashing followed. Cries of,
The archduke! Dani! Water! I’m burning!
The voice in her mind said, no
,> and she staggered back with arms thrown over her head, thrusting him away. <
Stop it. I’m trying to—
>

“Sejanus!” A raw shout from Vladimer, and a scream from Sylvide, “Lord Vladimer,
no
!” Out of the surging echoes one threw itself against her, arms around her; as they reeled together she felt Sylvide’s panic, her friend understanding nothing except some horrific, inexplicable threat to Telmaine. The explosion of a revolver, like that heard as she lay across the threshold of Vladimer’s room. She knew what must happen now, but still screamed rejection of the blunt rupture of a bullet into a flesh, the violation, the unimaginable pain, the sudden, liquid surge of mortal blood up her throat.

Sylvide did not scream. She clutched briefly at Telmaine, her cheek pressed against Telmaine’s collarbone, her ornately decorated hair scratching Telmaine’s cheek, her hat tilted askew and about to tumble away. The impact of the bullet had driven her last breath out of her and she made no effort to draw another. Without a sound, her arms loosened, and she began to slip toward the floor. Telmaine tried to hold her, but her arms had lost their strength; they fell together. She felt the scour of the Lightborn’s power across her mind, hot and harsh and lacerating as sand, and waited to be burned out, destroyed, killed. The gem-hard mind behind the magic brushed up against that seed of Shadowborn and suddenly she sensed realization, shock, and remorse. <
Why?
> she whispered, and in a rustle of dry grains, the other magic swept outward, effortlessly quenching flames. She was aware of a last receding, <
Forgive me. It wasn’t you.
>

Vladimer’s voice shouted, “Get your
hands off me
! Sejanus!
Janus
, answer me! Let me go—leave my arm—”

Someone said, bewildered, “He
shot
Sylvide. But why?”

Her attention was riveted by the touch of skin, the last sinking spark of vitality in the woman lying beneath her. She plunged after that spark into the lake of blood spilled by the bullet’s passage through Sylvide’s heart. The destruction was almost beyond her comprehension. Painfully, she began to draw together the burst and shredded valves and muscle, reaching deep into her own reserves of bodily health and vitality. But those were already nearly spent, drained by her struggle against the Lightborn, and Sylvide had already gone beyond consciousness and almost life itself. Ishmael’s experience whispered within her that it was already too late. Then she felt hands on her, lifting her away from Sylvide, tearing skin from skin, severing the flow of magic. Her reach fell short, even at this small distance. She could no longer sense the spark within Sylvide. Someone breathed, “
Sweet Imogene—
”

“Sylvide,” someone said, and she recognized the voice, that of Dani, Sylvide’s husband. “Someone get a doctor,” he said, his voice shrill with panic. “A doctor, quickly.”

A hot, dusty wind blew out of the Shadowlands, out of Ishmael’s memories; Telmaine shrieked, fought briefly—real Darkborn or dream-born Shadowborn, how could she know?—and fainted.

T
he sound of the door opening on the other side of the paper wall woke Floria from a light sleep. Her right hand brushed her revolver, then her rapier; her eyes sought her lights, noting their true color. On the other side of the wall she could hear the creaks and rustling of heavy Darkborn clothing, the soft chink of metal kissing metal. Three, maybe four individuals, spreading out.

She scooped up the nearest light and slid noiselessly from the bed into the corner adjacent to the paper wall. Here, she was sheltered by stone from all but the most oblique shots, within reach of the
passe-muraille
. The paper was heavily reinforced, with a grille over it that limited any damage to it. If these were assassins, they would be counting on being able to survive the light spill from a few bullet holes, and on her not being able to slash open the mesh before she died—one man might choose a suicide attack, but numbers suggested they intended to survive, even if they needed their numbers for bravado or collusion. But they had neglected the
passe-muraille
. She had spent several awkward minutes earlier jimmying the catch so she could open both hatches from this side. A light, pushed inside, would be deadly.

“Mistress Floria White Hand,” said a man’s voice from the other side. He had come up close to the paper wall. Posturing for his audience, which might or might not include her. “Lightborn, I know you are in there. I am Sachever, Duke of Mycene.”

Patriarch of the most prominent and ambitious of the dukedoms, whose lineage had held the archducal seat for hundreds of years before losing it to the Plantageters when Mycene policies led to Borders rebellion and civil war. Under the Mycene archdukes, Darkborn and Lightborn had held themselves strictly apart; Minhorne had come to be the city it was under the Plantageters.

“You sought sanctuary here because Prince Fejelis had ordered your arrest in connection with the murder of his father. Vladimer Plantageter did not have the authority to grant you sanctuary, and did so without his brother’s knowledge.”

This did not sound good, Floria thought.

“By my authority as a member of the regency council convened during the incapacity of Archduke Sejanus Plantageter, I am here to review your position.”

That sounded even worse.

She left her light and her rapier ready beside the
passe-muraille
and moved noiselessly back to the head of the bed. “How has the archduke become incapacitated?” Even as she spoke, she was moving off-line.

“Magic,” came back the one word.

Whose?
And how incapacitated was he? “I wish him a quick recovery,” she murmured, and moved again.

“His physicians do not hold out much hope for his survival.”

She checked her glide, involuntarily. That was unwelcome knowledge—aside from the implications for her of candor from her jailers. The archduke and his consort had had three daughters and one son. Because the absurd Darkborn convention insisted on male inheritance, Plantageter’s death would leave Darkborn power in the hands of a child and his regency council—as it had been left nearly forty years ago. And the Duke of Imbré, the moderating force on that earlier council, was old now.

Mycene would not be telling her this—a mere vigilant of the Lightborn court—without some purpose. Magic—did he mean to imply they suspected the Lightborn?

“Your Grace,” she said, “have you had a report from Lord Vladimer?”

“Lord Vladimer has suffered a complete mental collapse and been confined for his own safety.”

“Lord Vladimer believes that many recent events can be attributed to the actions of Shadowborn agents.”

The unseen duke scoffed. “Infidelity, mendacity, venality, corruption, arson, and murder—we hardly need postulate a type of magic that no one has ever heard of, from a race that has bred nothing but beasts, to explain ordinary vice. No, my lady”—and the Darkborn courtesy was, from his mouth, definitely an insult—“our enemies are closer to home.”

“I . . . do not like the sound of that, Your Grace,” she said, quietly, circling the room in a slow arc. “Are you accusing the Lightborn?”

There was a silence. Mother of All, did Fejelis know yet that, instead of the stable and established regimen of Sejanus Plantageter, he had to contend with a regency council ruthless in its seizure of legitimacy—Vladimer Plantageter had shown no signs of imminent mental collapse when he questioned her—and that had condemned the Lightborn unquestioned and unseen?

If the prince did not know, he needed to.

How to persuade them to release her? She said, in tones of quiet resignation, “Then if you do not accept the existence of Shadowborn, I expect you will be surrendering me to the Prince’s Vigilance.”

“That need not be so. Why, after all, should you suffer for actions undertaken under ensorcellment?”

If her actions had led to Isidore’s death, ensorcelled or not, she would live with that knowledge for the rest of her life. And if this duke did not understand that, then he had never served, truly served, anything other than his own base self-interest.

“Tell me about Isidore’s son,” the duke said, “this boy Fejelis.”

Cheap, Your Grace
, Floria thought. “Prince Fejelis is nineteen, which I believe is considered of age amongst Darkborn.” She well knew it was; Balthasar had told her about the bitter debates around the raising of the age of legal marriage to sixteen, to protect young heirs and heiresses against coercion, and girls against too-early pregnancy.

“Just. And inexperienced.”

“Inexperienced, perhaps, but he has years of his father’s tutelage.” Which could not be said for the archduke’s own heir, who was being raised in the Plantageter country properties, sheltered by a father whose own responsibilities had fallen on him cruelly young.

“I’m told he has ties to a mage who is not well regarded by the Temple.”

Tammorn?
“I am not certain I know who you mean.”

“One Magister Tammorn, peasant-born, and associated with the artisans’ republican movements.”

Having had Balthasar’s perspective on the Darkborn republicans to match up against the Vigilance’s impression of the Lightborn revolutionaries, she thought something had been lost in translation. But how had the Darkborn duke come to know about Tammorn? Was he accusing
Tammorn
of having injured the archduke? On Fejelis’s behest . . .
Mother of All
.

“I know Magister Tammorn, as it happens,” Floria said, carefully. “Any difficulties between himself and the Temple are long resolved.”

Mycene questioned her for some minutes longer, regarding Fejelis: his relationship to the mages, his acceptance by their brightnesses of the court, his adherence to southern alliances and values. And regarding Tammorn: his power, his politics and affiliations. She stepped carefully through the answers, paying close attention to a man who was—or thought he was—Fejelis’s peer. He had little regard for Fejelis’s youth, though that should not have surprised her; his reputation on the other side of sunrise was of one who kept his own son down.

At last, he seemed satisfied. She had moved back toward the corner where the lamp sat, and now glanced down at it at her feet. She detested the thought of exposing her vulnerability, but it was as foolish to put her life at risk through paranoia as through recklessness—“Your Grace,” she said. “Would you be able to arrange it so that the skylight in this room could be opened when morning comes? I have lights with me, but they need daylight to recharge.”

She heard the soft creak of leather and chime of metal as he moved to square himself before the paper wall. “I will consider it.” But there was neither concern nor promise in his voice. She slipped down to a sitting position, back against the stone, rapier held balanced between her hands, and, listening as they withdrew, stared at her light.