The Fire Mages (44 page)

“Most of them ran away,” Millan said. “A couple fell, but he was more concerned with you two. I think they’ll be fine.”

“You were there? Of course you were.” I began to laugh. “I wish I’d known I had a secret protector.”

“Better you knew nothing about it,” Cal said. “Safer that way. Let’s find the mages, and then, I suppose, we’ll have to tell the Lady Yannassia that we’ve killed her husband.”

My daughter was born on a sun of grey, relentless rain, slanting against the windows in a chill warning of impending winter. The birthing nurse silently placed the tiny bundle in my arms. I peered down at her, this little stranger thrust upon me, and she gazed back at me with great dark eyes. Wisps of black hair peeped out from the swaddling cloth.

“She’s just like her father.”

“That’s not her fault,” the birthing nurse said stoutly. “We none of us get to choose our parents.”

“She’s beautiful,” I said. And she was.

“Are you disappointed?” I asked Cal when he came to visit.

He hesitated just a fraction too long before he remembered that he couldn’t lie to me. “Yes, a bit. I would have liked her to be mine, so that you could have put
him
behind you. Now you’ll always have that connection to him.”

“At least no one will ask awkward questions when they see her.”

Yannassia was an early visitor too, her own pregnancy just beginning to show. “May I hold her? You have no objection? Oh, so tiny! She is gorgeous, Kyra, so pretty. Does she sleep well?” Then after a pause, “She is almost as dark as he was. I had imagined... something in between.”

“There’s no knowing how these things will turn out.” There was more truth to that than she realised.

“What will you call her?”

“Drei wanted to name her Axandrina.”

“Have you decided yet what you will do? Now that Drei is gone, your contract no longer applies, is it not so?”

“You’re very well informed, Highness.”

“It is my business to be informed about such matters. I want you to know that I would be happy to take her, if you wish. She would be a sister to my own daughter, you know, and I would never make a distinction between them, be assured of that.”

There was no blue flare, so I couldn’t doubt her sincerity, but even if she herself treated the two girls the same, the servants wouldn’t. One was the grand-daughter of the Drashon, the other the drusse-born child of a village girl and a political consort. I knew enough of Drei’s childhood to understand just how miserable such a situation could be. I would have trusted Drei with her at one time, but not so much Yannassia.

Part of me still yearned to have my daughter brought up in the Drashon’s family, to have all the opportunities I’d lacked: the best education, the chance of a good career, mixing with the brightest and most interesting people from all over the sun-blessed lands. When I’d signed my drusse contract, though, I’d known far less of the complexities of political life, and now that I did, I wasn’t so sure I wanted that for her. The endless social functions, the mindless chatter, the insincerity, the constant striving to be noticed, the competition with other factions; none of that appealed. Besides, I was a mage now, and had status in my own right, and a career profitable enough to support as many children as I might want.

So it was a purely logical decision to keep my daughter and raise her myself, and nothing at all to do with those great dark eyes, her soft skin and tiny fingers, or the way her lips made little sucking movements while she slept. A moon after her birth, therefore, I took the legal steps to ensure her future with me. She would always be Drei’s daughter, in law as well as in fact, and therefore a potential heir for Yannassia, but with luck she would escape notice and enjoy a quiet life.

Cal and I were rarely together at this time. I’d moved back to my rooms in the mages’ house, so we met at board, and he was still my mentor, so from time to time we would meet in the library to study a treaty or a particularly tricky legal ruling. Sometimes he would reach across the table for my hand and press my palm to his lips, gazing at me wanly. It was the only physical contact we had.

Poor Cal had taken the brunt of the nobles’ displeasure after Drei’s death. We’d known that Millan’s role couldn’t be revealed; hiding out in the Imperial City with a crossbow and then shooting the man who’d killed both his brothers would be too difficult to explain, so we’d let him slip away into the shadows, leaving a crossbow so that Cal could take responsibility. As a mage, Cal would only be dealt with by the other mages, and there was no risk of execution.

Or so we thought. It turned out that the nobility took a dim view of anyone killing the Bai-Drashonor’s husband. Even though we explained what he’d done and what he planned to do, enough memory of Drei’s magically enhanced charm remained that they still considered him a pleasant, sensible man, an asset to Bennamore, who must have had good reason for everything he did. So much of what we told them was tenuous, too. The plan to kill the Drashonor, the poison used against the Drashon and me, the murder of Lakkan, my kidnap – none of these could be proved; there were other plausible explanations. Cal spent several uncomfortable ten-suns incarcerated in the bowels of the mages’ house, while the nobles argued vehemently for his execution and the mages tried to dissuade them.

I was regarded as a victim rather than a murderer, a woman seduced by Cal into a misguided affair. We’d had to explain why Drei had been so hostile to the two of us, and there was no point in trying to conceal the truth. No matter how many times I explained that I had never broken the terms of my drusse contract, that I was free to sleep with whomever I liked, I was still seen as a wanton woman.

“It was very foolish, Kyra,” Krayfon said to me sorrowfully. “I would have thought you to have better sense, especially given the sort of man Axandrei was.”

“I know that
now
,” I said sourly.

In the end, the Drashon and Yannassia intervened to rescue Cal, insisting that the mages must deal with their own. Since the mages weren’t in thrall to Drei, there was no punishment beyond a certain wariness of the two of us. The Drashon had always had a fondness for me, I think, and Drei’s magic hadn’t entirely overcome that. And Yannassia – I’ll be honest, she surprised me. I thought she’d hate us both for killing the man she loved, but she was surprisingly philosophical about it.

“I was very much in love with him, naturally,” she told me, “but I married him as much for my own ambitions as for sentiment. We were a good match in that respect, and it was a useful political alliance, too. It was all very pragmatic, even though I was thrilled with him. But the speed of events began to concern me – the rush to war, in particular. I could see his reasons for that and I was not at all comfortable with it.”

“That’s surprising. No one else seemed concerned.”

“Ah, but they were all under his spell. He took care to enchant them to his way of thinking. With me, however, he assumed I was already secure and that he had no need to exert himself. Besides, it is difficult to live so intimately with a man and not know his true nature. Once or twice—” She stopped, and looked almost ashamed. “There were times when he did or said things that made me a little frightened of him. I remembered what he did to you – locking you in a cellar to get what he wanted. Such ruthlessness! Almost I came to talk to you about him, but I was too proud. If I had…”

“It wouldn’t have made any difference,” I said. “Even if you’d known everything, you couldn’t have stopped him. Only mages can deal with another mage.”

“At least it is over,” she said with a deep sigh. “He will not be forgotten, though. He leaves behind three children, and the port holdings are secured to our advantage, with little bloodshed, thanks to Axandrei’s foresight. We will have stable supplies now, without the onerous taxation, and the coastal people will have the benefits of our greater civilisation. And magic. We are to send mages there, did you know? High Mage Krayfon has found a new way to use vessels, one that will work more reliably than at present, so he is to recruit many more mages to supply to the coast.”

That made me smile. Cal had confessed rather sheepishly to Krayfon that his jade belt was not the only one, that there were, in fact, scores of them scattered around the Imperial City. Krayfon had seen the possibilities very quickly. They could be supplied fully powered to any mage, without the need for a renewal, and they could be varied in strength – only one or two jade vessels would replicate the power of a normal vessel, but more could be added as needed. They would make it easy to train new mages, and although there was resistance to giving up the rituals of the initiation and renewal, it was also a relief that there would not be so many failures. In truth, it wouldn’t be possible to provide mages for the port holdings without them. But that was all mage business, and I said nothing to Yannassia.

“Perhaps such a position would suit you, Kyra?” she said. “The coastal towns are quite different from Kingswell, far less formal.”

It was a subtle hint that I wasn’t welcome at Kingswell anymore. No one would be so discourteous as to snub me openly, not when I was a mage, and had the favour of the Drashon, but they didn’t know quite how to deal with me. I was inextricably linked with the whole sorry affair of Drei’s death, and it would be a relief to many people to have me gone, no longer a painful reminder of a difficult time.

Cal asked me the same question, more than once. One sun when we were wrestling with the intricacies of the Icthari treaty, he sighed and rubbed his eyes. He looked tired, as if he wasn’t sleeping properly, and I ached to take him to my bed and let him lie in my arms.

“Have you thought any more about what you will do?” he said. “Where you will go? Because if you want a place on the coast, you’d better speak up soon. Krayfon is about to make his dispositions.”

My gaze drifted to the window of the little room we’d hidden ourselves away in. It was warm in the library – the whole Keep was always warm – but outside the snow fell steadily. “The port holdings are a long way south, aren’t they? So the winters will be worse.”

“It doesn’t quite work that way. The holdings we deal with are sheltered from the wildest storms, and the sea makes it less cold in winter, and less warm in summer.”

“Does it? How does that work?”

He laughed, and I was pleased to have given him some amusement. He was always subdued at that time. “Trust me, it does. Further west, there are ports where the sea freezes in winter, and further east are some that never get snow but ten moons in the year have incessant rain. We have similar oddities in Bennamore. Ardamurkan is further south than Kingswell, but gets less snow because it’s sheltered by hills to the east. Would you like to move back to Ardamurkan?”

There were attractions in that. Deyria was there, for a start, and amidst the frequent messages she’d sent telling me excitedly about the progress of her pregnancy, she’d more than once said wistfully that she wished I were closer. I had friends there, too, and happy memories. There were difficulties, though, the main one being the Kellon, whose anger at his son’s death had driven him all the way to Kingswell to find out for himself exactly what had happened. I wasn’t sure that he would forgive me.

“There are plenty of other towns to choose from,” Cal said. “You could go anywhere you want.”

“Will you come with me?” I blurted out. “Wherever I go, will you come too?”

“If you’d like me to,” he said evenly, but I thought he looked a little brighter. Then, hesitantly, “I’m still your mentor, after all, and you still have a lot to learn, I think. About climate, if nothing else. So if you want me, I’ll come.”

“But what do
you
want?”

“What I’ve always wanted, for you to be happy. And to be near you.”

I caught my breath. We’d rarely been open with each other. There’d always been some reason for dancing round the truth, but no longer.

“Will you sleep with me?” I asked. Another abrupt question. Oh, for a little subtlety.

“Of course, if that’s what you want.” No hesitation there.

“I want to know what
you
want.”

“Do you? Really?” He caught up my hand, and pressed the palm to his cheek, eyes closed. When he opened them again there was an intensity I’d not seen in him before. “Darling girl, what I want is for you to want me the way I want you. I want you to
love
me as much as I love you. I want to marry you. Or be your drusse, maybe. Be bound to you in some public way. Be together, raise a family. That’s what I want. But I’ll settle for whatever you choose to give me.”

I couldn’t breathe. I didn’t know what to say. The truth was best, I suppose. “I’m not sure if I’m capable of that, of really loving someone...
forever
. I don’t think it’s in me. How can anyone be so sure?”

“It’s a matter of faith, I suppose,” he said, kissing my hand. “A feeling that everything’s perfect and you just want to preserve it exactly as it is, for ever. Nothing’s really perfect, and nothing lasts for ever, but a commitment makes you believe it will.”

He set my hand down on the table again, playing with my fingers with fierce concentration. “What about Bonnor?” he said, not looking at me.

The change of direction stunned me. “What? What about Bonnor?”

“He’s fond of you, I think. Do you want him?”

“I will never go back to Durmaston to live!”

He smiled at that. “No, I can see that. You’ve outgrown your village. But he could come to you. He can manage an inn anywhere, you know.”

“I don’t want Bonnor! I want you!”

“Oh.” Surprised.

I’d thought it was plain enough. I’d asked him to come with me, I’d asked him to sleep with me, what could be clearer? To my astonishment, great tears rolled down my cheeks. “I don’t care about Bonnor, I don’t know why you ask about him. He’s nothing to me! I don’t want anyone but you! I’ve
never
wanted anyone but you!”