The Seer - eARC (65 page)

That, too, had been drilled into her in that windowless room. Overcome, slammed to the ground, an adult sitting on her child’s torso so heavy she could barely breathe, while another slapped her face and head until she could not think. The first time, she had wrapped her arms around her head and shouted: “You win, you win, stop, stop!”

A sharp command from her father, and all at once she was free again, adults standing back from her. She sat up from the stone floor. The expression on her father’s face made her stomach feel leaden.

He stood. “You give up?”

“Yes. They are too big, ser—” she began.

“No excuses,” he said forcefully. “You do not surrender, Cern. It is not permitted to you. Not now, not ever.”

His disappointment was worse than the hunger.

And now, overcome by the best of her guards and three strangers, a tangled scramble to grab her tight, she still hit, kicked, squirmed, bit. Large hands struggled to gain a hold of her and finally succeeded.

She’d bought a little time. Not enough.

A knife, gripped tight, toward her. Not a threat. Held and positioned to kill.

Distant shouts. Feet pounding.

Too late.

What would her father say now? Cern, the weak two-year queen. He’d be right. No excuses.

Suddenly a streak of black and tan flashed by her legs. One of the men holding her cried out and let go. The hand with the knife opened. The blade went down with the man.

Snarling. Shouting. A scream.

The traitors turned their attention away from her to the ground.

Now she understood: Chula and Tashu had somehow gotten loose. No one would have let them out, so, impossible as it seemed, they must have smashed through the bars of their cage and crashed out of their kennels to come to her.

On the ground, one of her former guards was trying in vain to fend off Tashu while Chula grabbed him by the neck and shook powerfully. He went limp. Now two other men were down, flailing, screaming, the dogs flashing across them, leaving them unmoving and bloody.

The stall door opened.

“Your Majesty! Are you all right?”

Her guard captain stepped in, followed by another tencount of guards and Srel. The stall was suddenly very crowded.

She drew herself upright.

“See to Sachare,” she said, struggling to suppress the waver in her voice. “And—no!” Cern swung her fist into the arm of a man who held a small crossbow, had raised it to aim at Tashu, mistaking the dog for her attacker.

Tashu looked up at her from the man whose neck the dog had broken. Her muzzle was covered in blood.

“Those men are traitors,” Cern said, pointing to the men lying broken on the ground. “The dogs have enacted my judgment and are not to be touched.”

She held out her hands to them, her rescuers, and Chula and Tashu left the bloody bodies to come to her. They sat, one on each side, heads tilted to look up at her. Mouths bloodied, they seemed to be smiling.

A memory of her father flashed into her mind, but it must be a false memory, because she was sure she had never seen him look at her with anything like pride. Yet she could see him now in her mind’s eye, also smiling.

“Your Majesty,” the captain said. “You are bleeding.”

Chula and Tashu refused to go back into their broken, shattered stall, growling at everyone who came close except Cern. They did not want to leave her side. She did not want them to.

“Yes,” she told them, and everyone around her. “You both come with me.”

“Your Majesty,” someone said with concern. “You are hurt. We should carry you. You are—”

“No. I will walk.”

The news would be all over the palace that there had been an attempt on her life. She must be seen. And walking. Truly, nothing could be more important.

At every step, the dogs stayed tight by her side, the warmth of their bodies reassuring against her trembling legs. Where she had been cut, she pressed her arm tightly against her side.

“Get the doctor,” she said urgently to the seneschal as she walked painfully forward. “And the mage.”

He left, threading through the mass of guards that now surrounded her as she slowly made her way out of the kennels, one slow step at a time, then along the walkway and up the stairs into the palace proper.

She was not only limping, she realized, she was shaking violently. Not acceptable. She stopped a moment, took deep breaths, finding herself looking for Sachare to lean on, pushing away the dread and fear that threatened her at the thought of losing Sacha.

Drawing herself as straight as she could, head high, she refused to look anything like as shaken and beaten as she felt. Another thing her father had taught her.

* * *

The dark-skinned, black-clad mage sat unmoving next to Sachare’s body, his hands on her stomach and chest. Cern sat nearby, a cloth squeezed between her arm and side, the dogs at her feet.

She had ordered everyone else out.

“Well?” she asked, when she could bear it no longer. If she lost Sachare—

“I may be able to save her,” the mage said.

“You
may
be able to? What does that mean? Do we not pay you, and exorbitantly well?”

At that Keyretura took his hands off Sachare and slowly turned in his chair. He met Cern’s gaze evenly. For a very long moment neither of them spoke.

“I apologize,” Cern said at last. “This woman—” She exhaled. “She is my friend. That is a rare and precious thing and I cannot afford to lose it. You must save her.” At his continued stare, she added: “I ask your help, High One.”

For another moment he met her look. Then, wordlessly, he turned back and put his hands again on Sachare.

The assassins who had killed her loyal guards, who had cut Sachare so grievously, were all dead, every single one of them. Somehow in the violent moments following the nearly successful attempt on Cern’s life, each of them had been taken into the Beyond.

This was clearly far beyond bad luck; everyone should know better than to kill those who might know about a plot against the queen. Someone had been ready for this failure and keen to be sure no one survived to reveal details.

Hardly surprising, she supposed, that whoever organized this nearly successful treason still remained at large. They would be more cautious now, at least, having failed at what must have been an impressively expensive and risky attempt on her life. They would be unlikely to try again anytime soon.

Nearly every one of her ancestors who had sat on the throne had survived such an attempt. In a way, it was a compliment: she was seen as powerful enough to be worth taking down instead of disregarding. And having survived it, she would be seen as stronger.

Could it even be one of the Houses? Would they go so far?

“The Houses love to make contracts,” her father had told her. “Then twist them into strange shapes.” He laughed, his voice filling the room, then went abruptly sober. “Don’t confuse their obedience with loyalty.”

Cern remembered thinking she would be hard pressed to confuse the two; loyalty was just a word. Looking at the unconscious Sachare, near death from having put herself between Cern and a spear, she felt an ache in her own chest.

“If you can possibly save her—” she began.

“You’ll pay me exorbitantly well,” he said wryly. “Yes, I heard you before.”

She exhaled in a long stream and considered the influence and futility of words. Hers in particular. “More than that, High One,” she said. “If you can save her, you will have the gratitude of the Arunkel crown and queen. I would like to think that is worth something beyond mere coin.”

He looked at her thoughtfully a moment then nodded, his attention again on Sachare.

Chapter Thirty-five

How dare he?

Maris rode the Great Road north, stopping only for food and, occasionally, to let the horse rest. When it proved too frequent, she swapped the beast out for another, hardier animal and resumed her northward press.

It was almost refreshing, this level of fury, banishing uncertainty and extraneous thought along with the sharp concern she felt for Dirina and Pas. She rode hard, dawn to dusk and beyond when the moon or starlight allowed.

Despite the unrest, the Great Road was most direct. Those who stood in her way, thinking to thieve or threaten, she put to the ground in as expedient a manner as she could, not bothering with painless unconsciousness or even life. Some screamed as they collapsed. Others twitched and frothed at the mouth. Perhaps they lived. Perhaps not. She did not have time to care.

She came to the familiar multicolored inn where she had last left Enlon and Amarta. She stared at the building long minutes, then down at her hands, realizing they were still wrapped tightly in the horse’s pale mane. The horse huffed, his breath labored. As Maris assessed the animal’s body, she felt shame at the hard use to which she’d put him.

Dismounting, she banked the coals of her anger, cleared fury’s residue from her body, and sought grounding in the land beneath.

Anger was power, but only when it neither blocked nor turned the channel from its destination.

She thought again of the horse. Many years of her apprenticeship had been spent studying the human body and its workings, but after she was created she spent time in hovels, treehouses, boats, grubhouses—or under sky—trying to bring out a baby, to heal a bone-break, to understand an illness—only to find that a dog or bird or a goat—in one case a stunted horse—nestled or huddled or hid nearby, more important to the person under her hands than their own suffering. Many times the fierce demand to heal a non-human companion before themselves had stalled her work. But she had learned to heal animals.

Now she dipped her focus into the horse’s body, examining the heart and blood and lungs, breath and brain. She cleared out his fatigue, soothed his nerves, and touched on the places where his reserves were slim. He calmed, and so did she.

Calmed enough to think.

What in the lifeless dark was she doing? Was she really intending to ride into the palace, find Keyretura, and demand Dirina and Pas?

If she was lucky, he would laugh and mock her and tell her to go away.

If she were not, well.

For a long moment she stood, considering.

She would, she decided, leading her horse to the stables and brushing and food, sleep on her fury. In the morning she would consider again.

Dawn found her watching through the window as the town’s buildings and roads went from gray to color.

What would she do if she did not go forward? Go home to an empty house?

No.

She began to dress, then instead put on the black robes she had brought with her in the half-thought that perhaps Keyretura would respect her more if she dressed the part.

Now, atop her rested horse, traveling the road north and then through the gates of Yarpin, she felt the stares. Everyone—shopkeepers, scribes, messengers, beggars—stopped where they stood, heads swiveling to watch her pass.

Let them stare. Today there were only two Iliban whose fate concerned her.

At the palace gates, those waiting in the long line for entrance flattened to the side to get out of her way. She met the wide-eyed stares of the guards who neither waved her through nor moved to stop her. At the palace’s main door, she dismounted to more gaping looks. Someone, she was sure, would take excellent care of her horse and belongings.

By now he would know she was here.

As she climbed the wide stone steps, guards backed out of her way.

She could not quite remember why she had denied herself the robes for so long.

Then a particularly large guard stepped in front of her. “You can’t—” he managed before she took his consciousness. He stumbled to a wall and slipped to the floor. After that no one else attempted to stop her.

She felt him then—suddenly, keenly. Ignoring the trembling in her stomach, she followed his trail, the conduit between them, the umbilical cord that she had never found a way to cut.

A flight of stairs up, a hallway east. Searching for the taste of the man who had taught her to taste.

Then his door. She hesitated, her anger tinged with uncertainty.

He had taken her people, she reminded herself, sparking to flame the embers of wrath, those that guarded her from fear, even while she knew that fury was a weak protection.

He was there on the other side of the door. She was as good as in his presence already. To stand here and consider—to waver—knowing he would know and be amused—was surely as absurd as having come here in the first place.

She depressed the latch. It clicked open. She pushed.

Keyretura sat at a low table on cushions, a writing tablet before him. So very Perripin, so unlike Arunkel, that he must have insisted on it. A cylinder of tea at his hand. Dark and bitter; she could smell it from here.

Stacks of books in the corner and too many of them. Bought on the road, she was sure. He traveled with his books. They had that in common.

Seeing him there at the far end of the room brought the blood to pounding in her ears.

“Uslata,” he said in the old language.

Summoning a certainty she did not feel, she stepped inside, shut the door behind her. “Aetur.”

His gaze ran quickly up and down her, taking in the black robes. He had not, she was certain, ever seen her wear them before. She had left his side the moment she had been made a mage.

He switched to Perripin, gestured with his hand to the table. “The tea is cooling, but I can have more sent for, Marisel. Arunkin tea, but with enough honey it is almost palatable.”

Of all the things he could have said, this she had expected least. What was he doing?

Trying to take her off her guard, of course.

How dare he?

“No,” she said adamantly. “I—”

“A long time since we’ve talked.”

“I—Talked? We never talked,” she snapped. “You talked. I listened. I had to, because you—” Sense caught up with her tongue. She fell silent. So many years spent learning not to argue with him.

“Not long enough, perhaps, Marisel dua Mage?”

Fury restored her focus. “You know why I’m here.”

“You have business with me.” He put down his tablet and stood. “Your need is urgent and there is no time for useless chat. Sit with me.”

“I need obey you no longer,
Aetur.
”

A snort. “Then state your business so you can leave.”

“How dare you,” she exhaled, at last giving her anger voice. “You broke into my home. You violated my land.”

“You thought it secure? From me?” He seemed amused, but his tone was mild.

For him to suddenly rage, or become bitterly unyielding—neither would have surprised her. But this?

Uncertainty trickled through her, followed by a thin stream of cold dread.

“I thought you would respect my lands, Aetur. My doors. My wards.”

“Why did you think this?”

She struggled to emulate his calm, but it would mean setting aside the anger. And then what would protect her from sense? She wiped sweat from her face. “It is . . .” She struggled for the right words. “Not done.” She gritted her teeth at her own words.

“The evidence is not in your favor, Maris.”

She sputtered. “Did you not teach me such trespass would be beyond unacceptable, tantamount to seeking a fight, to cross another mage’s lines?”

“Ah, so you do remember that I was your teacher. You’ve avoided me so long, I had begun to wonder.”

“Some things are best left in the past, forgotten. They are not yours.”

He tilted his head. “I have them, and you do not. Whose do you say they are?”

“They belong to no one,” she shouted at him, taking two steps toward him, then recoiling, stepping back again. She shook her hands open, struggling to find ground through them, down the stories and through the many basements below. Too far. Instead she groped for the corners of the room where stone might lie behind wood.

“Again, the evidence does not support your assertion, louder though it may be.”

“You have no right to them. They are not some pieces to be moved about on a gameboard to serve monarchical whims.”

“That is exactly what they are. You want them for similar reasons: to serve your own desires.”

“No! I want them free.”

“Free to scurry and hide from monarchical whims as a consequence of being the seer’s blood kin? Exactly what kind of freedom do you have in mind for them?”

She felt her throat tighten. “Return them to me. I claim them as mine.”

He laughed, a rasping sound. “Then it is not freedom you want for them at all, these living things you claim as yours. Are they servants? Are they your slaves?”

“You twist my words.”

“Your reasoning is disordered, Marisel,” he said. “I taught you better than this.”

It all came flooding back: the unending failures, never-ending challenges, the many and harsh consequences.

Keyretura lifted his cup to his lips and drank, his dark eyes on hers.

“I thought you might be above theft and kidnapping, Aetur.”

He grimaced. “You think to shame me into remorse? You would be better off to try my pity instead. Beg me for them.”

“No.”

“Then what will you do to find these Iliban you are so outraged to have misplaced, daughter?”

“I am not your daughter.”

His mocking amusement was entirely gone. “You most certainly are. That is what
uslata
means. I am your mother and father both; I made you as surely as your parents of blood and flesh ever did, in at least as much pain as your mother’s mere days of tearing her body asunder to bestow upon you your first breath.”

And that fast, Maris’s balance was gone, her grounding in shreds.

“Well, Uslata? Will you fight me for them?”

She had learned much in the decades since her creation. About babies who must be coaxed to breathe air. How to repair the ill and injured. The tedious brutality of power. The foul stink of poverty. But she knew nothing about mage-fighting beyond what Keyretura had taught her.

Anger finally vanished in the full cold realization of this folly.

“No, Aetur, I will not fight you,” she whispered in answer, subdued. Defeat at his hands was a familiar bitterness on her tongue. It was the taste of ash. She found herself standing at the door, hand on the wood, poised to leave.

“Shall I dispose of them as my fancy takes me, Marisel? I have a number of experiments I have been meaning to try with a woman and child of her womb. Do you leave them in my hands?”

She turned to look at him, outrage overcoming her again.

What are you missing, Marisel?

Then it was obvious what anger and fear had blinded her to: he was provoking her. Deliberately.

“What do you do here?” she asked him.

He smiled his cold smile and spread his hands wide. A clear invitation.

“Teacher,” she said, voice low. “You’ll kill me.”

“That is certainly a possibility. But if you go, you will never see them again. Consider your actions with care.”

Wordlessly she shook her head and left.

Her body trembled as she walked the hallway. Guilt ate at her, but it did Dirina and Pas no good for her to die trying to save them. Better to survive. Then, if they did as well—

Maybe he was only threatening.

Do you leave them in my hands?

They were only Iliban.

Pas held a frog with an orange stripe
.

She stopped, hand against the painted walls, head down in nausea. When she looked up, green-clad servants and courtiers stared back, frozen where they stood, like terrified prey. She pushed away from the wall, took the stairs down. One flight then another and she was at the great doors leading outside.

Suddenly the line between her and her aetur came alive like a long thick rope sharply snapped at one end. As the wave found her, she felt Keyretura’s grasp deep inside her.

He was not, she realized with sinking certainty, going to let her go.

Once she had stood atop a high cliff and taken a step into empty air. He been there, yanking her back, setting all her nerves aflame with agony. Another time he had pulled her from a lake, forcing the water from her body until she threw up, then had held her under until she drowned again, pulled her out, repeating the process again and again until she lost count.

The surround. The tighten. The pull.

The pain.

She waited for the pull, but it did not come. Was he giving her time? Time to what? To ready herself?

Too late. Any decision, too late. She walked back to the stairs and climbed, thinking of Dirina and Pas, and hoping that whatever he was going to do to them would not come close to what he had done to her.

The door was locked. He would not let her go, but he would not let her in?

So many times she had knocked on his door to be tested, to be found wanting.

That anger she put into her hands, set her fingertips on the lock and wormed her attention through the labyrinth of mechanics and magics that secured the door. First this way, then that. Back again.

It clicked open.

She stepped inside, drawing on fraying outrage. “I owe you no obedience, Aetur, yet you force me here. State your business so I can leave, damn you.”

At this he smiled a little. “Show me what you’ve learned in the many years since you left my side.”

Show me what you have learned.
Words she heard so often during her apprenticeship.

The hot rush was a direct press, easily enough deflected, except that it was not only hot, but also sticky, like molten glass; she grabbed the lines from herself to the corners of the room that she had anchored earlier, bleeding into them the heat that stuck to her.

The stickiness remained. A clinging almost-wet. A heavy fog. So familiar, this.

He had not moved from his chair. “So much anger, my uslata. An impressively large reserve of it.”