The Fire Mages' Daughter (22 page)

“May I present to you my son, Hal Ghat. I regret that he has no command of your language.”

The son bowed with commendable precision. To my relief, he was indeed handsome, in the thin-faced Icthari way, his hair falling in tight curls beyond his shoulders, his face a little softer than the others. There was an intelligence in his eye that was promising. And when I was introduced, he looked at me with smiling interest.

It was an encouraging start.

~~~~~

That evening there was an informal reception for the Icthari, hastily put together by the Keep’s stewards. It was held in the pavilion in the gardens, the air heavy with the scent of summer blossoms. Moths fizzed into the many lanterns, and in the distance a storm grumbled.

Prince Ghat sought me out very early, and steered me to a blossom-draped arbour. It was not in the least romantic, however, for his father sat beside me to interpret, and Arran stood not ten paces away, trying very hard to keep his expression neutral. As always, my bodyguard was close by, too.

“Tell her I am very happy to meet her at last,” Ghat said, and his expression confirmed the truth of it. There was real pleasure in his eyes.

“My son is very pleased to meet you,” Torghesh said.

I smiled at them both. “I am pleased to meet him, too. But I should like to be assured that he enters into these negotiations willingly – that he has not been pressured. For it is a big step to take, for both of us.”

“Indeed,” Torghesh said. “You need not be concerned about that, Highness.”

“Thank you, but I should like to hear the Prince’s answer.”

A single raised eyebrow, but he turned to Ghat without comment. “She wants to know that you have not been forced into this against your will.”

“Tell her absolutely not! Tell her – tell her it delights me to have this opportunity. I hope very much that our two countries can reach agreement on the details. I cannot wait to make her my wife. She is quite charming, beyond my expectations. Tell her all that, Father. Leave nothing out.”

His father translated it very faithfully. So useful to be able to understand all that was said. The slightest change in a word, a single omission, would have put me on the alert for some trickery. But they were quite sincere, that much was clear.

And even had I not known the words, I would have understood the meaning from the glow in Ghat’s eyes. There could be no mistaking his admiration.

But Arran’s face was taut with dismay.

“He likes you,” Mother said flatly, after the Icthari had been led away to their chambers.

We were drifting back towards the Keep after the reception. Arran held my hand very tightly, and Mother was on my other side, while Cal strode in front, his long legs swifter than the rest of us. Cryalla walked behind me, her gear clunking and chinking, and off to one side, with the casualness common to mage guards, Millan and Tisha chatted together.

“Of course he likes her,” Cal said, spinning round. “He’d be a fool not to. The question is whether
she
likes
him
.”

“Well, it hardly matters,” Mother said with a lift of one shoulder. “It’s a political marriage, they don’t need to like each other.”

Cal exhaled sharply, half laugh and half exasperation. “Of course it matters! Would you want to share a bed with someone you don’t like?”

Another shrug. “I’ve done it before.” To my surprise, Cal flushed and lowered his eyes. Mother went on in softer tones, “But then, it was not actual dislike, I suppose. He was just… not a man I would have chosen.”

“Oh.” Cal’s face lightened. “You mean…? Oh, I suppose…”

I wondered who they were talking about. Not Cal, obviously. Could they mean my father? Surely not.

“Drina’s always been practical about such matters,” Mother went on, oblivious of Cal’s discomfiture. “Look how well she’s coped with this boy from the Blood Clans. That can’t have been pleasant. Thank the Moon God she has Arran.”

“Yes, but…” Cal sighed, and gave it up. Mother was nothing if not logical. “But that reminds me. Drina, do you want to tell us more about this Ly-haam fellow? We’ve hardly seen you since your return, and I think there is much more to it than the official version. But only if you want to talk about it,” he added hastily.

For a moment I hesitated. I had always tried to keep discussion of Ly-haam to the political issues, steering away from the personal. Partly because I didn’t know what to make of it myself. I’d kept a great many secrets, and perhaps that was a mistake.

But now everyone knew that I had been kidnapped because I had the habit of flying around at night aback a giant eagle. Perhaps it was time to be open, at least with my own family.

“Come back to the apartment, then,” I said.

“Do you have some decent wine?” Cal said. “For I would dearly like to get rid of the taste of that nasty green stuff.”

“But it is an Icthari delicacy,” I murmured.

“It’s nasty,” he said firmly.

~~~~~

We sat on the wide balcony off the main sitting room. Arran and Cal dragged out a couple of sofas and a small table, I found some decent purple wine and Mother unearthed some boxes of cakes and sweetmeats from one of the pantries. Down below us, late evening revellers laughed and clinked beakers as they drank. Someone played a crincheon in the distance. Inside the apartment, the murmur of voices as Cryalla, Millan and Tisha traded guard stories.

The apartment was several storeys up, the highest trees from the gardens far below just visible, dry leaves rattling. Across the Keep interior, lights twinkled at windows as the sky darkened, storm clouds hastening the dusk.

We sat, drank wine and nibbled cakes, and I told them everything. It poured out of me, all the strange events which had overtaken me, so many of them connected with Ly-haam: his attraction to me and my response, the changes in me afterwards, so that I was aware of animal minds, learning to fly on the eagle’s back, and communicating with Ly-haam through the bird. I confessed my weakness in returning to the Imperial City over and over, greedy for the infusion of magic.

As I talked, tears trickled down my cheeks. I hadn’t realised until that moment just how overwhelmed I was by it all. I’d thought I was coping quite well, but there had been too many traumatic events in too short a time. Less than a year ago, I had been happily settled at the scribery, learning to be a law scribe and ultimately a mage. My life then was placid, my future assured. I had my escape route away from Yannassia and the prospect of becoming her heir had receded. In a very short time, I would be free.

Yet here I was, just three seasons later, and my life had been turned inside out. Everything had changed, I was more tied than ever and I had the turmoil of Ly-haam to deal with. I couldn’t deal with it, that was the problem. I didn’t understand what I was faced with. Hours and hours trawling the library had produced nothing, not the slightest clue to what was happening to me, or why.

But somehow I felt better telling them about it. With Arran holding my hand tightly and stroking my back, Mother listening wide-eyed, hands covering her mouth, and Cal serious, thoughtful, I felt more at ease than I had in an age. I knew they would believe me. All mages have some ability to distinguish truth from lies, but Mother could detect even the smallest untruth.

Cal was most interested in my new ability to detect magic elsewhere, and how I’d learned to withdraw it.

“You can just take magic?” Cal said, startled. I nodded. “Without touching? Show me. Take some of mine.”

I hadn’t been to the Imperial City since my return, so the power was weakened, but even so, I could detect the six vessels in the belt he wore beneath his clothes. I stretched out my mind and removed a little of the magic from one of them.

“Can you tell?” I said.

“You’ve done it? No, it feels exactly the same… Can you take some more? Ah! I can feel that. You took a lot that time. But then you must be able to use it. Can you make fire?” He held out his hand and filled it with rippling flames. “Can you do that?”

“No. I was tested when I first came here. I have no magical ability at all. I can suck in magic, and it enhances my other abilities, but I can’t do anything with it. Believe me, I’ve tried.”

“Maybe it just needs more magic, eh? Take some more.”

“Do you think this is wise?” Mother said. “Filling her with magic like this – we shouldn’t encourage her.”

“It’s the way she is,” Cal said gently. “She’s always had this need for magic, to fill the void inside her. This is surely a better way than by draining it from you.”

“I never let her drain me,” she retorted. “I couldn’t stop it from seeping into her when she touched me, but I could make sure it was never more than a tiny trickle.”

“You denied me the magic I needed?” I whispered. My strongest memory of my childhood was my desperate need for my mother, and her constantly pushing me away. And that was intentional, it seemed. I wasn’t even shocked, knowing the way she’d given me away as a baby. My mother was not the maternal type.

“I thought it would encourage you to manage without,” she said, with a wry grimace. “I always believed you would outgrow the need, in time. I still think— Well, no matter. Everything I did, Drina, was for your benefit, or so I thought at the time.”

“We argued about it a great deal,” Cal said sadly.

“You argued? About me?”

He nodded. “I didn’t like you being ill all the time. I thought… but I’m not your father. I had no right to interfere.”

I was too astonished to speak. All those years, Cal had been my champion, and I’d never known.

But he went on as if nothing untoward had happened. “So take some more of my magic. A lot, this time.”

Now that I already had a little extra magic in me, it was easier to withdraw more. I emptied one vessel completely.

His eyes were wide, his vivid blue eyes alight with excitement. “Oh! I can feel that! Amazing, quite amazing. And that is just the power of your mind. How far away does it work? Where would I need to go to be out of reach?”

He jumped up and rushed away to the far side of the apartment, several rooms away, and I obligingly took some more of his magic. He shrieked with delight, and shot back into the room.

“I’ll go down a couple of floors—” he began.

Mother stopped him with a lift of one hand. “Another time.”

“Besides,” I said sheepishly, “I’ve already tested it. I even took magic from Ly-haam’s mother, using her bond with the eagle. And I can detect and take magic from anywhere within the Keep, if it’s strong enough. I’ve already tried.”

“If it’s strong enough?” Mother said sharply. “Can you take mine, then?”

“Yes. I tried it just now, although it’s more difficult than with Cal’s vessel. Your magic resists me, somehow, as if it doesn’t want to leave you. But…”

“But…?” Cal prompted.

“This will sound strange, but Mother’s magic is pure, somehow. I can’t quite describe it, but it feels clear and… and
good
. Whereas Ly-haam’s magic feels evil. It takes control of him and makes him do bad things. It takes control of me, too, when I touch him. And it’s not bright and shiny, like Mother’s, it flows through his blood, all muddy and dark.”

“Magic can’t be good or evil, Drina,” Mother said. “Magic just
is
. It’s a force of nature, like sunshine or rain. It’s what people do with it that’s good or evil. That’s why it’s so tightly controlled.”

That seemed very logical, but it didn’t quite fit with what I’d seen. “Maybe so, but Ly-haam’s magic is not like yours. It’s as if it’s corrupted in some way. As if his blood is corrupted.”

“Does he frighten you, this Ly-haam?” Cal said quietly.

“When the magic rages in him, yes. The power of it frightens me. It frightens him, too. He hates what it makes him do. But when it’s gone, when he’s just himself – he’s quite different then, not frightening at all.”

“And sex drains his magic? Completely? How strange. But you used that to escape from him. Clever girl.”

“Of course she is!” Mother said. “But she’s only seventeen. She shouldn’t be dealing with this sort of problem at her age. She should be reading her books and giving herself time to grow up slowly, not learning the power of sexual manipulation. And now there’s this marriage. It’s too much for her, far too much. I trusted Yannassia with my daughter, and look how she’s pushing her into these complex situations. It’s not right.”

I had to smile at her indignation. “The marriage will take years to come to fruition. There’s the treaty to negotiate, then it has to go through the Nobles’ Council, and even then there will be a long betrothal period.”

“Yes, but—” Mother began, but Arran raised a hand.

“Maybe this marriage will happen or maybe it will not. The Icthari do not yet know the terms the Drashona will set – that she insists on Drina living here, for instance. So the whole affair may yet come to nothing.” Mother nodded, accepting the point. Arran went on, “For myself, I should like to know more about Drina’s eagle. I saw it once, but I should dearly like another look.”

I blessed his calm tones, diverting Mother from one of her maternal outbreaks. As a child, I’d often felt resentful of her perceived neglect of me, but when roused she could be formidably protective. But the awkward moment had passed.

“I’d like to see this bird too,” Cal said quickly.

I laughed with delight. The eagle was no secret any more. I could go to her whenever I wished, instead of creeping round in the dark. And I could show her to my family. “Would you like to see her now? Because she’s on the roof directly above us.”

But as we made our way up to the roof, the eagle’s excitement at seeing us filling my mind, I thought of Ly-haam and those tranquil suns on his island, and wondered where he was.

~~~~~

The Icthari agreed to everything Yannassia proposed, without demur. The trade agreements would be increased to include goods not presently covered. Some troublesome taxes on exports would be abolished. Limits on Bennamorian scholars pursuing research in Icthari land would be lifted. Exact details to be determined but the principles were agreed. And, of more interest to me, Ghat would be delighted to make his home in Kingswell, and had no objection to Arran. The whole discussion took less than an hour.

“Well, that is very agreeable of them,” Mother said, when we met at the mages’ house afterwards. “It must mean that they really want this marriage to take place.”

Cal smiled at her with affection. “Kyra, you have no political instincts at all. It means the exact opposite.”

“What! How do you work that out? Oh, they agreed too easily, you mean?”

“Precisely. They have no intention of allowing this marriage to take place. Drina, did they ask for anything at all?”

“Yes. They want me to return with Ghat and his father to be shown off to various Icthari factions. Groups. Clans. I am not sure quite what they call themselves.” When I’d heard the word, it had translated in my mind as ‘families’ but with some deeper connotation that I couldn’t quite decipher.

“Ha! You will not go, I hope.”

I sighed. “It’s hard to think of a reason to refuse. I agree there is something going on, but I have no idea what it is. And I will be quite safe. I will be permitted a full honour escort of Elite Guards, plus Cryalla. Even Arran can come with me. And Ghat himself seems quite keen on the whole marriage idea.”

“He certainly likes you,” Mother said. “You don’t need political instincts to see that. But be careful what you eat. They are very knowledgeable about poisons, the Icthari.” She and Cal exchanged glances, which made me wonder what prompted that particular warning.