Liolesa had come to cherish the small ways God and Goddess allowed her to be surprised. A normal member of a long-lived species was already likely to have seen too many patterns repeat; in someone with her gifts, novelty was so rare that she’d taught herself to appreciate it in even its smallest manifestations. Waking before dawn, she tasted the future like a sugar cube melting on her tongue: brief, sweet, startling. A gift; the events of the day had been planned already, but apparently the Divine wanted her to know that they would be special.
She’d lost the fight to keep the wolves off the bed, so she rested her cheek on Bran’s mountainous shoulder and looked out the window. Still dark… a good time for a walk. She wanted, suddenly, to see the sun rise. With malice aforethought, she flung the heavy covers aside… onto her impertinent puppies.
/Hey!/ Bran protested. /Noooo, I was happy ON that, not under it!/
“Get up,” Liolesa said. “We’re going for a walk!”
/It’s too early for a walk!/
“Nonsense,” she said. “I have it on good authority that it is never a bad time for walks. From, in fact, a pair of curs who have shed all over my comforters again despite my request that they not heave their enormous weights onto my bed.”
Bleddyn lifted his head, yawned. /This bed can handle two Guardkin and one weedy Eldritch. It’s big enough to swallow a fighter craft carrier./
“And yet,” Liolesa said, “somehow I always wake up with those two Guardkin on top of me, as if they do not have the entirety of that carrier-sized bed to spread out on.”
/We do spread out on it!/ Bran said. /It’s just that we’re so big, you see. When we spread out, we’re long enough to use up the whole bed and stay close enough to smother you!/
She laughed and threw a pillow at them. “Get up. I want to see the sun rise today. We have imperial guests, and I anticipate the remainder of the day will be taken up with tiresome and necessary political ritual.”
/Ugh, don’t remind me,/ Bran said. /What’s it going to be this time? Do we do stern and scary? Or cheerfully menacing?/
“Both of those involve intimidation.”
/We can’t help being this magnificent./
Liolesa went into her wardrobe for the simplest walking gown she could don herself. She didn’t have many. “The Queen Ransomed is a friend and is escorting the Emperor’s eldest children here for fostering. There is no need for menace other than, I suppose, the natural intimidation made inevitable by your overfed carcasses.”
/If anything, we’re underfed,/ Bleddyn said. /Our dam always said if we were properly nourished we’d grow to the size of a house and we don’t appear to have reached that point yet./
“Goddess above, save me from house-sized pets. Up, you mongrels!”
/You can tell she loves us by how much work she puts into creative names for us,/ Bran told Bleddyn.
/If creative naming is a measure of love, then she loves us above every other creature on this planet./
Liolesa grinned.
There was no going anywhere without guards. She supposed some high profile individuals managed by pretending their security didn’t exist, but she had gone the opposite route, and now considered them part of her. As it was natural to go abroad with her limbs attached, so it was natural to bring with her some number of attendants. She greeted them and went about her business, which was to set aside business for half an hour, if half an hour she could spare. With the Guardkin frisking alongside, she rode off the palace grounds and along the cliffs until she tired of riding. Then she led the mare and walked, the dew wetting her boots and wrapping her damp hems to her ankles.
How fortunate a site, Ontine… that the sun could rise over the ocean, setting it afire with orange light. The world in her periphery darkened in contrast and left her with the eye-watering sight of the shining water. The wild scent of spring rose from the grasses as they warmed. The perfume reminded her of the sugar cube taste she’d woken with: sweet and brief and dizzyingly alive.
So much of her life spent in grim purpose and rigid routine. These moments of unstructured beauty and wonder were needful. It was why she’d learned to seek them, no matter how fleeting, and how small. Small, sometimes, was better. It made them easier to fit around the work.
Bleddyn leaned against her hip and she petted him absently. She allowed herself a few more moments of glory, then returned to her mare, mounted, and headed back to the palace, and the day. A good day, at least, with friends in it. And perhaps, if the God and Goddess were right, a surprise. And they were always right.
* * *
The meeting took place in late afternoon, after the vessel made orbit, and Liolesa wondered if that was the surprise—the Queen Ransomed had not arrived on one of the Chatcaava’s military vessels, englobed in their escort, but on the same FIA ship that had been instrumental in the war. When she heard that news she instructed the Chancellor to prepare a separate welcome for those stalwarts, for surely they deserved it for their aid, particularly of Lisinthir. With that handled, she could pay full attention to the political meeting, and to appreciate anew how satisfying it was to have such a counterpart on the other side of settled space, and to know that the Eldritch had played a part in her rise.
She received them in the larger throne room, less because of any desire to be intimidating—telepathic wolves notwithstanding—but because it adjoined the gardens where the reception would be held for the children. They were between courts, but that had begun to matter less now that Pads made it trivial for nobles to maintain a presence in the capital. Many of her partisans were present, and some number of her opponents as well. Which was well, for the matter wanted spectacle. Let them grow accustomed to the concept of dragons as not only allies, but as blameless children.
The fosterlings in question were so clotted with fascinating potentials that she had to work to see their physical representations, but they were likely looking youngsters. Nor had they come alone; she’d been expecting the two boys, given the Chatcaavan culture, but there were also two girls. How immense their jewel-like eyes were in immature heads. They had all the coltish angularity of stripling Eldritch and all the charm of the draconic faces, and the juxtaposition made her smile. Standing behind them were their escorts, Kirthander Ran Imthereli and the Guardkin Madoc, and Jusinel Catha Galare, who had arrived with hair streaked with space-dark Galare blue. Jeasa Seni and Theresa had brought several of their settlements’ youths, and as planned, they repaired to the lawn behind Ontine after the formal presentation.
It was while this exodus was in progress that the Queen Ransomed drew nigh. “Empress. There is a private matter that must be discussed with a visitor aboard the Silhouette. When would be a good time?”
“Who do you require at this meeting?”
“Only you, for now, and any people necessary to your position and security.”
Which might balloon the total to something less intimate than her counterpart perhaps wanted. “Not many, then, and if now will do, I shall leave this event to our subordinates to manage. I believe they have it well in hand.”
Sediryl was happy to take over: “It’s nice to do something without the obvious potential to blow up for a change.” But Theresa said, “If you don’t mind, I’ll go with you, my lady. If Hirianthial wasn’t upstairs dealing with the military contractors, he’d make sure you weren’t alone.”
“And you would not, for your own part?”
“For my own part, I’m sure you can take care of yourself. But if you need moral support, you should have someone there.” Bran bumped the human, staggering her. “Oof, other than the giant dogs.”
Liolesa laughed. “Come then. Is my office sufficient, Queen Ransomed, or does the occasion merit more pomp?”
She wouldn’t have asked the question had she not suspected she might need an answer, and yet she was surprised when the Queen said, “I would suggest a shrine or something similar, if you have one near.”
Reese’s brows went up, but Liolesa said only, “Of course. This way.”
* * *
To host a political meeting in a chapel violated Liolesa’s sense of fitness; she took her responsibilities as high priestess as seriously—or more so—than she did those of being empress. But she remembered a time when the Astronomer’s Chamber had been used for solemn and gladsome occasions: receptions, conferments, first readings of epic poems. It saw little use in these days, which was a shame, given its beauty. She loved it for its emphasis on the stars… had come here more than once as a maiden to dream of the universe that would open to her people when her work was done.
She and the Queen Ransomed left their respective guards at the door and advanced into the chamber, and Liolesa shortened her stride to accommodate the much shorter woman.
“Yes,” the Queen Ransomed said, glancing around herself solemnly. “This is good. May I send for the others?”
“How many others are we talking about?” Reese said.
“My friend Laniis,” the Queen said. “And my former Knife. And—” She halted, smiled. “You knew.”
Framed in the doorway was Sediryl’s Faulfenzair companion, Qora. “One of us should be here. Another of us, I should say. And I have been waiting for Daqan.”
Interested, Liolesa said, “Your guest is another Faulfenzair?”
“Yes,” the Queen said. “He has done great things among us, but he says none of it will compare to what he will do here, now.”
Liolesa allowed herself the luxury of intrigue. “If I can help at all, I will be glad to.”
It took less time than she expected for these newest arrivals to be processed through the security at the Ontine Pad, and led here. When the guest arrived, she felt she would never have enough time to contemplate him, to be stunned by him, because he did not branch futures like clouds of potentials. He simply was. The irrevocability of his existence was beautiful, like proof of God and Goddess manifested in flesh. She was so fascinated by it that she did not immediately perceive that he was not alone. The Seersa must be the friend the Queen Ransomed spoke of, and the Chatcaavan beside her, the Queen Ransomed’s former Knife. But the stranger had also drawn Paudii from wherever she’d been waiting, because she had surely been waiting.
He set down a case—a lute case?—and approached her, and every footstep made reality around her cleaner and brighter. The light through the stained glass windows vibrated, the faint echoes from the shuffle of the watchers’ feet sang, all of it, all of it was joy. When he held out his hand she took it without hesitation, and when the pain sheeted through her as if she had walked through a wall of flame, she thought—had she?—that she cried out.
“Liolesa!” Reese was at her elbow, steadying her, and the touch… the touch didn’t matter, save for what it meant to any person. At her other side, the Queen Ransomed had a hand on her back. She felt encompassed by the fierceness of their protection. She could have told them she didn’t need it. The pain had passed and left wonder in its wake.
“What… what have you done?” she asked him.
“I have cleansed your gift of its disease,” he said. “That is one of the purposes of fire.”
“You’re talking about seeing the future?” Reese asked.
“No.” The stranger was holding her gaze without blinking. “The gift she has feared to misuse. The one she was never sure of, and that worked poorly or whimsically, but never predictably.”
Dare she believe—
“It will be predictable now.” He shocked her by smiling, and it was sympathetic, and merry. “You should test it. I suggest one of the little girls. The Chatcaavan ones.”
With those words, he confused her again. “I thought… you meant the gift of bringing forth talents.”
“Yes.”
The searing, soaring hope he woke with that word, and its implications… “No,” she whispered, and as usual she was the only one who understood what was going on… no, that was wrong. For once, there were two of them who knew. She could savor that too, the knowledge that for this brief moment in time, she was not the only one seeing futures unclear to everyone else. Briskly, Liolesa said to the Queen Ransomed, “The two Chatcaavan fosterlings, the females. Have them sent for.”
“I don’t understand any of this,” Reese said, but she sounded resigned rather than querulous. “You Eldritch were bad enough without adding Faulfenzair ineffability to the pot.”
The fosterlings arrived together, the two males with the two females, and behind them came Sediryl with the air of a woman determined not to allow important personages to be left unattended. And since the Chatcaavan fosterlings were the honored guests of the gather, the Imthereli and Catha Galare striplings straggled after, and at least one of the Glaseahn youths, hoping not to be noticed and sent away. And none of it mattered if what the stranger suggested was true, because if it was, there would be irrefutable evidence of change, and no point in denial.
Liolesa’s skirts did not make crouching easy, but she refused to tower over the two girls. She seated herself on one of the padded benches and studied them. In Chatcaavan, she said, “You are Maazi and Vu. Do I have that aright?”
They glanced at one another. One of them, the yellow-eyed one, said, “You-our-better do.” Glancing at the Queen Ransomed, she added, “I think it’s right to use the polite speech for her, yes? She is a female emperor?”
“That’s right,” the Queen Ransomed said.
To warn them, and disappoint them if it didn’t work? But it would. Only she and the Faulfenzair stranger knew it, but it would. “The Touch is important to Chatcaava,” Liolesa said. “It is to Eldritch as well. May I touch you?”
“The Touch isn’t important to us,” said the taller one, folding both sets of arms. “We’re not winged.” When the smaller one nudged her, she sighed. “I’m sorry, my-better, that was not polite. We would be honored to be asked if we want to do something that we would normally be told we had to do.”
“Maazi!” Vu hissed.
Liolesa laughed and held out her hand. If this should work—oh, let it work!
The girl rested her warm palm on Liolesa’s and looked up at her, puzzled.
Her gift… the gift she hadn’t been sure she’d had. The one she’d lived her life gloved to prevent the accidental use of, because what if she was wrong? Or what if she chose poorly? The gift passed down to her with the crown, perhaps, or by fate, or by the Divine powers, not just to see the intersection of choices and futures… but to raise from the murk of those potentials the hidden gifts inside every person. Sometimes she’d imagined she had power over mundane ones, like Theresa’s ability with people and commerce…
…and sometimes, she was sure only of her power to provoke psychic ones.
And the Change was an esper power.
She grasped the buried gem in little Maazi and pulled it to the surface, and the girl squeaked. Before anyone could express alarm, the girl swayed back and jumped, arms stretched toward the ceiling… arms that became wings, translucent wings that commenced flapping excitedly. Maazi danced in a circle, shrieking. “I’M GOING TO FLY! I’M GOING TO FLY!”
The Queen Ransomed choked on her gasp. Before anyone else could react, Vu threw herself at Liolesa. “Me next, me next, oh please!”
The chaos that erupted when both girls had their wings was entirely expected, and Liolesa existed outside it, was grateful for the distance so she could sit with the wholeness of it, the gratitude… and so she could look into the future with the feeling of a work well begun.
The stranger stood beside her, outside time. “You will purify the gifts that are hidden and diseased so they can be used in the fight to come.”
“Yes,” Liolesa said.
“The dragons. Your people. Anyone who can help.”
There were so many, though.
“As many as you can manage,” the stranger said, “will probably be the right amount. If your gods work the way mine does.”
She laughed then. “If they did not, how then would they be allied?” Watching the girls dart from one side of the room to the other, her eyes beaded with tears. “You are well come. And you should stay, as long as you like. Though you won’t, will you.”
“I have other work to do, yes. I have one more errand on this world, however. For that, I need a relative of Seledor Jesa Galare. Preferably a musician.”
“Ah,” Liolesa said, gently. “Yes. I know who you should go to next.”
After he’d departed, the Queen Ransomed fluttered to a seat beside her. “I… I don’t know what to say. When he suggested I come with the fosterlings, rather than my consort… I agreed because it was politically expedient as well as logical. I was the one who was free, and most involved with the nursery. I didn’t think I would be witness to… to this. To a Change this monumental.” She turned wide eyes on Liolesa. “You can free the females of my race.”
“You will have to bring them, as many as you wish.”
“So many! You will have a stream of dragons coming to your world!”
“How fortunate that you’ve established a naval base in our system, then.”
The Queen Ransomed paused, then let out a peal of laughter.
Liolesa reached for the other woman’s hands, paused because… what experience did she have, really, with even casual gestures of affection? But she chanced it, and took the Queen’s hands in hers, and through them felt that the dragoness’s gifts were already in bloom, were perfect and in need of no attention. The Queen had already passed through her personal fire of purification. “My friend… do you question that our peoples were meant to draw closer?”
“No,” the Chatcaavan answered. “No… I don’t.”
* * *
Val showed up to the meeting later without being summoned, as she expected. The others came afterwards, until in her office she had arrayed such luminaries as would give any power satisfaction. Hirianthial sitting with Theresa by the fireplace; Sediryl and her husband; Haladir, the head of her nascent military, and Jeasa Seni, head of one of the two burgeoning settlements on-world; her indefatigable chancellor, Delerenenard; the high priest, Valthial Trena; and Maia.
These all she had taken into her confidence regarding the slides, and each in his or her turn had used that information as she’d expected, to renew their dedication to preparing their people for the day the planet killers appeared. Now she would bring them into a new piece of that puzzle, one she had—Lord and Lady, such a gift!—not even known herself this morning.
“Allow me to explain the events of the day,” Liolesa said. “As they have bearing on all our efforts from this point on.” She paused, tried to decide where to begin… and couldn’t. How extraordinary, to be speechless! To have witnessed such miracles, and to have been privileged to be the instrument through which they’d reached their recipients!
“My lady?” Theresa said. “Would you like me to summarize?”
“Please do.”
“You’ve had a busy day,” Theresa said, smiling a little. “I think you’ve earned a half-second of rest.”
Theresa’s report was succinct, and though it was scant on explanation of anything other than the facts that could be witnessed with mortal eye, yet they left her auditors stunned.
“Cousin?” Hirianthial said. “Do you now have some ability to give wings to wingless dragons?”
As she hoped, and by now expected, her heir had made the connection. “That’s not it,” Sediryl said. “It’s the thing you told me about at Corel’s tomb. You thought that maybe you’d inherited an ability to make people mind-mages. This is somehow associated with that, isn’t it.”
“It is,” Liolesa said. “I appear to be able to wake latent psychic talent.”
Another long pause.
“Let’s see how it works!” Val said, and strode to the door. Opening it, he said, “You. Yes, you. The Empress needs you.”
“Valthial!” Hirianthial said sharply.
“No, this is good,” Theresa said. “He’s right. If this means what we think it means… why not start with one of the Swords?”
How Liolesa felt for the man they chivvied into this room full of powers, and for no reason he understood save that the high priest himself had issued the summons. “Ferel Bet Jesa, be at ease. We have need of a volunteer, someone who would not be distressed to come into greater mind-talents. Would you be averse to this? There are instructors now who stand ready to assist you if those powers should outstrip your knowledge.”
“You speak of becoming potentially a mind-mage?” the Sword said.
“Or,” Val said, “a more capable Eldritch, with powers easier to direct.”
Ferel looked neither right nor left, though he must have felt the pressure of the stares fixed on him. “My liege, anything that gives me a tool to use in your defense, and my people’s, must be an asset to any Sword. If volunteer you seek, I gladly rest my life in your hands.”
God and Lady, such people she had. So fractious, so ungovernable, and so valorous. She would choose them over more manageable and meeker sorts any day. “Give me your hand, Ferel Bet.”
He pulled his glove off, the movements measured and without haste, and almost she missed the tremor in them. He feared, perhaps. She couldn’t blame him. But he set his hand in hers, and she could choose, now, whether to see his manifold futures and where to set him in the pattern, or whether to seek and uplift his gifts. She chose to reach into him for the talent that lay dormant, expressed only in a vague instinct for motivation and danger. He would be no mind-mage… not on par with Hirianthial or Jahir… but compared to his peers, he would shine like a polished gem among untumbled rocks. Not a mage in the room missed the change, either, because she sensed their surprise. It was Sediryl, mind-blind save for her immense and singular power, who said, “Did it work?”
“Oh,” Ferel whispered. “My lady…!”
“A new Shield!” Valthial said. “Delightful! We shall send you for training forthwith. Unless you object, Sword Ferel?”
“No, Most Beloved of the God.” The awe in Ferel’s voice, and the gladness, shone in every word. “No, I… am not accustomed to sensing people with such fidelity. Training would be welcome.”
Valthial had made himself at home with her desk and was now jotting a note. “Call a replacement for yourself, then, and go to the Cathedral. Give them this and tell them I sent you. But don’t speak of what happened here.”
“Yes, High Priest.” Ferel bowed deeply to her. “My liege. For this gift, no thanks is sufficient. You already have my life. Anything else that is mine to give is yours.”
“You are enough,” Liolesa said. “Go now.”
After he left, Sediryl said, “The implications of this… all of us mind-mages… really?”
“All of us won’t be you,” Valthial said. “But all of us can be capable of fighting the enemy that’s coming, and for that, we need mastery.”
“And some of us might be more,” Jahir said. “As some of us might have latent talents of great power, waiting only for a catalyzing event.”
“And then the dragons…” Jeasa murmured. “We must save the dragons as well. Their females deserve wings.”
“But who will you raise?” Theresa said. “Is it crass to ask? But there are people I’d rather not give great power to.”
“Now that,” Valthial said, “is a road I cannot advise we take. The Lord and Lady’s gift isn’t ours to withhold. Whoever crosses your path, high priestess, is meant to have this.”
“Yes,” Liolesa said. “Even my enemies. Because, Theresa, they are not my enemies. They are my opponents. When an external foe arrives, we shall see how much we need one another. And we must be prepared for that day before it arrives.”
“I will talk with the Twelveworld Lord, with your permission, my lady,” Haladir said. “The Chatcaava will want to decide who to send and how, and unless they have some other idea, they’ll be arranging for those progresses with him.”
“An excellent notion. I leave that in your hands, Courser Lord, if you,” she looked at Jeasa, “will help your daughter-in-law with the arrangements for any visiting Chatcaava. Someone will have to, and I have other work for Theresa.”
“Since I was about to volunteer for dragon hosting… let me guess. This has something to do with Surela.”
“Say rather it has to do with our relationship with the Alliance, and our need for technology and trade. We have little time to prepare our world for a fresh war. What we can do to accelerate our timelines there would be good. Sediryl, take note—this applies also to Chalice.”
“Don’t worry about Chalice,” Sediryl said. “My problem there is reining Lesandurel in, not spurring him on.”
“Very good. Then we have our tasks.”
Murmurs of agreement. It was Delerenenard who said, “It is a relief at last to be nearing the culminating effort. You have been preparing for this for as long as I’ve known you.”
“We all have,” Liolesa said. “And it is together that we will win our way to the end.”
“Except,” Val said, “that there’s no ending.”
“Maybe not, but I hope we’ll earn a nice epilogue with a happily-ever-after,” Theresa said.
As Liolesa expected, Sediryl and her husband tarried as the others processed out. Her heir offered a hand, and Liolesa took it, knowing what she would find. They exchanged rueful smiles, she and Sediryl Galare.
“So no mind-reading for me, ever,” Sediryl said.
“You are already a more powerful mage than most Eldritch will be when I awaken them,” Liolesa said. “Is your lot so bad, then?”
“Goddess, no! I’m actually a little relieved. But it would have been nice to be able to talk to people across the planet without a telegem.” Sediryl grinned, let the grin fade. “You realize what this is going to do to the Chatcaavan Empire.”
“Perhaps,” Liolesa said. “Fortunately, that is for them to manage. I have my own empire to attend to.”
“How many years do we have now? Eight? Less?” Sediryl rolled her shoulders. “I’m ready for the races. But anyway, the more important thing is… you can control your abilities now, can’t you?”
Liolesa sighed a little. “You are about to embrace me again.”
Sediryl laughed and did, and this time, when Liolesa wrapped her arms around the younger woman, she felt nothing except the exuberant energy of her, as if a fire burned in her already. Bran, slumped behind her desk, wagged his tail until it thumped against the floor. /More hugs for you!/
/And they don’t even involve dog hair./ Liolesa leaned back. “Thank you, niece. I don’t need it, but it is….”
“Just say it,” Sediryl said. “It’s nice.”
“It is diverting.”
“Close enough.” She headed for the door, walking past her husband, and stopped when he didn’t turn to join her.
“And now, witch king?” Liolesa said, quiet.
“You have always given wings to the flightless,” Jahir said. “Before you gave them literally to dragons, you gave them to us. To all of us who yearned for the sky. You set us free.”
Tears sprang unbidden to her eyes. The day’s surprises yawed before her again, bright and euphoric and beautiful. She took the handkerchief that appeared in her hand and dabbed delicately at her eyes.
“It is Fitting,” Jahir finished in Chatcaavan before switching to their tongue and shading it white, “And fitting, that it should be you. You’ve earned the happiness you are about to inspire in others. Remember that.”
“I shall. Thank you.” She sighed. “For you, Jahir, a final errand—the visiting Faulfenzair wants to speak to someone, and I judge you are that person. Will you see to that?”
“Gladly.”
And then she was alone… or as alone as she ever was. She sank into the chair behind her desk and allowed herself that moment. Outside the window, a soft purple dusk was settling in the courtyard, and the first visible stars glowed over the roofs of Nobles’ Row. She rested a hand on Bran’s head.
Maia’s voice was tentative. “You know you’ve got a loose end dangling about these slides, my lady.”
“I do, yes.”
“What are you thinking about it?”
“It is not yet time,” Liolesa said. “But soon. She is doing useful work, and it has earned us significant goodwill with the Alliance. I will need that goodwill soon.”
“I know. But you don’t want her stumbling into one of these things, do you?”
To give away their hand too early to their enemy? Bad enough that they had used these wormholes at least once to reach Escutcheon. “They have had the taste of us, Maia. If I could, I’d take even that taste away.”
Maia was silent. Then: “Looks like she’d be coming in for resupply in a few years. You think that’s too long?”
“She has until the end of our fallowtide. If it becomes necessary, I’ll send someone for her early.” Liolesa inhaled, felt renewed energy flow into her. She thought of the Chatcaavan girls leaping for joy, arms lifted to the sky. “Let’s see what we can make of what’s left of the day, shall we?”