Chapter Eight

Silence fell over the table. The officers exchanged worried glances. I wanted to deny Jerith’s conclusion, but no matter how I turned the pieces, it was the only way the puzzle fit.

“Who would have had access to the records of planned leave and traveling assignments?” I asked.

“Any Falcon or Falconer can access those records,” Marcello said, shaking his head. “They get referenced all the time—to schedule leave, check who’s available for assignments and training, or even just to see who’ll be around next week for dinner in the city. They’re not circulated outside the Mews, but they’re not secret, either.”

“Perhaps they should be,” Lord Caulin suggested.

“The point is,” Colonel Vasante said, without sparing him a glance, “someone inside the Mews provided those records to Vaskandar. Either one of our clerks, which I find unlikely given how closely we vet them, or some Falcon or Falconer.”

“That’s impossible,” Marcello objected.

“And yet,” the colonel said dryly, “it happened.”

“I know our Falcons and Falconers. They’re good people.” Marcello’s jaw set stubbornly. “They wouldn’t set up their fellows to get killed.”

Oh, Marcello. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to shake him in frustration until he accepted the inevitable disappointments of reality, or shelter him from them so he could stay unspoiled forever.

“I can understand what a shock this must be.” Lord Caulin laced his fingers on the table, his voice calm and soothing. “It’s unpleasant to contemplate a traitor in our midst. Yet it can’t be a complete surprise; there are those among the Falcons who have made their disdain for the Serene Empire clear.”

He turned unperturbed eyes upon Jerith as he said it. Half the table stared at the storm warlock.

Jerith shrugged. “I’ve been known to compose the occasional satiric verse. Call it disdain if you like.”

I’d pay a purse full of ducats to read those. Though I supposed some might pertain to my mother; I couldn’t decide if that made me want to read them more or less.

“Hardly appropriate for an officer of the empire,” Lord Caulin chided.

“There are reasons I haven’t advanced to a higher rank in the Falcons.” Jerith grinned, but there was an edge to it. I expected Balos to come to his defense, but then remembered his husband wasn’t an officer, and thus wasn’t present. “If you think making fun of the personal vices of our leaders is in the same league of offense as betraying my friends to Vaskandar, you have a rather poor understanding of human nature.”

Lord Caulin’s smile remained fixed. “I did not personally assemble the list of potentially rebellious Falcons I was given. I am merely here as an agent of the doge, to pass on his recommendations for how to handle suspects in this serious matter of high treason until such time as we catch the culprit.”

I didn’t like the sound of that at all. Especially given that expedient murder was high among Lord Caulin’s favored ways of handling problems. I pressed my lips tight against the objection I wanted to voice.

Jerith’s eyes narrowed, and his fellow officers stirred uneasily. One clasped his shoulder, a touch that Jerith shook off.

“Recommendations?” the colonel grated.

Lord Caulin unfolded a list of names and smoothed it on the table. Two columns of small, precise writing covered the page. I glimpsed Zaira’s name near the top. “These are all new recruits within the past year, plus those who have expressed, ah, disgruntlement against the empire. A reasonable list of starting suspects, no?”

“No,” Jerith said, crossing his arms.

Caulin ignored him. “We recommend simple precautions. Investigating their activities over the past month, and watching them closely until the traitor is caught. Reading their mail, both incoming and outgoing, and forbidding courier lamp use. Confinement to the Mews—”

Marcello stood, his chair scraping the floor. “Absolutely not.”

“You are out of order, Captain Verdi,” Lord Caulin said pleasantly.

Colonel Vasante leaned an elbow on the table. “Verdi is my second at the Mews, and responsible for much of its daily operation. Carry on, Captain. But respectfully.”

“Thank you, Colonel.” Marcello bowed stiffly. “Respectfully, then, Lord Caulin. Even setting aside that these are good soldiers who’ve done nothing wrong, they have jobs to do. They can’t perform their duty to the Empire while they’re locked up in the Mews.”

Lord Caulin sighed sympathetically. “I see the difficulty, Captain. But I am merely a messenger. My orders—”

“Yes,” I interrupted, affecting a tone of curiosity to cover the anger churning in my gut. “It does seem a little odd for the doge to convey orders to the commander of the Falcons through his legal adviser. Isn’t the Marquise of Palova the usual point of contact between the Council of Nine and the military?”

Appreciation flashed in Colonel Vasante’s eyes. She adopted the same contemplative tone and turned to Lord Caulin. “She has a point, Caulin. Perhaps we should get on the courier lamps to the good marquise, and bring her into this conversation?”

“I’m not here as an emissary of the Council of Nine, of course.” Lord Caulin lifted his hands. “The doge has placed me in charge of his investigation into these murders and the security response to it.”

“Ah.” I nodded, as if this cleared matters up. “Then certainly you can be part of the discussion. But any actual orders for Colonel Vasante from the doge should come through the proper military chain of command, should they not?”

Lord Caulin smiled a broad, fixed smile. “Of course. Forgive me; I am but a mere civilian and ignorant of military protocol.”

“Right.” Colonel Vasante nodded. “Then unless I receive orders directly from the Marquise of Palova or the doge himself, we’re going to focus on protecting the Falcons and finding the traitor, not on punishing good soldiers who’ve griped about the Empire a few times when they’re off duty.”

Lord Caulin’s smile thinned. He remained silent for the rest of the meeting but watched with shrewd, calculating eyes.

As my oarsman rowed me home along the Imperial Canal, between the looming façades of palaces with their spun-sugar stonework and gilded frescoes, I fumed silently over Lord Caulin’s interference. Clouds had gathered overhead, gray and sullen, draining color even from the bright hues of the flower garlands and festive bunting that still decked the palaces in celebration of the Festival of Beauty. By the time my own palace came into sight, dominating the final curve of the Imperial Canal with its broad rows of graceful arches and the courier lamp spire rising from the roof, rain had begun to patter against the silk canopy my oarsman extended over my head.

Rain. Good Graces. I’d nearly forgotten my picnic with the Crow Lord.

“You have a very different notion of picnics in Raverra than we do in Vaskandar,” Kathe observed.

I glanced around the glass garden. Muted light gleamed on the delicate, hand-blown curves of orchid petals, the bright explosions of shining daisies on translucent stems, the undulating waves of emerald-green seaweed standing frozen in a moment of imagined time. Rain pattered against the wall of windows that overlooked the busy Canal of Two Maidens, bathing the room in a gentle music to match the soft gray light. The Glass House was a shop, technically, but its private solarium was a popular neutral meeting ground for delicate conversations, and with the help of Cornaro gold, it was even available on decidedly short notice.

After I’d given Kathe the spyglass pendant, which seemed to please him enormously, a servant spread our picnic on a little wrought-iron table ringed by glass flowers, laying out an assortment of pastries, cold meats and cheeses, and crostini on a fine cloth. The bottle of white wine between us had come from my mother’s vault. The Crow Lord looked strikingly out of place with his gray tunic and black-tipped hair, monochromatic and wild in this sea of crafted color. I might as well sit down opposite a real crow, or a piece of the silver-bellied sky itself.

“To be fair, we do usually have them outdoors, when the weather is more cooperative.” I tried a charming smile, but my nerves twisted it into something more like a grimace.

Kathe peered out at the canal below, where a richly dressed merchant and her wife whispered to each other and pointed up at us from their sleek-prowed boat. “We do seem to be stirring up gossip. They’re probably wondering what we’re talking about.” He turned a grin on me. “Shall we live up to their expectations?”

My shoulders tensed. I was determined not to let him run away with the conversation this time. I had to hold my own. “I’m all in favor of skipping the pleasantries,” I said lightly. “It’s the substance of words that matters, not how prettily they’re dressed.”

“What shall we talk about, then?” He rubbed his hands. “The rise and fall of empires? Vengeance and betrayal?” A thought seemed to strike him. “Or is that insufficiently romantic? I could pay you empty compliments, I suppose, or cobble together an improper proposal.”

Now he was trying to make me blush. “The purpose of courtship is to get to know one another, is it not?” I spread fig jam on a slice of cheese to keep my hands steady. “Why don’t we go straight to the essential questions: who are you, and what do you want?”

Kathe placed a hand on his chest in pretended shock. “My lady! We can’t give ourselves away so easily. I thought you Raverrans were supposed to be masters of subtlety.”

“My mother would tell you I don’t always measure up in that regard,” I said. “But I find the direct approach can sometimes prove refreshing.” And it was worth a try. I could hardly talk to a Witch Lord about the weather for half an hour.

“I have an idea.” Kathe grinned. “Instead of telling you about myself, I’ll tell you about you. Stop me when I go wrong, and we’ll switch. We’ll see whose guesses are more on the mark.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Getting a straight answer out of you is like getting a ribbon back from a cat, isn’t it?”

“Let’s see.” Kathe leaned back in his chair, contemplating me across the table. “Your mother, the great and terrible La Contessa Lissandra Cornaro, married your father, Prince Embran Lochaver, as part of an agreement to bring the country of Callamorne into the Serene Empire. You visit your grandmother the queen at least once a year, ostensibly for political purposes, but it’s dreadfully boring and you’ve spent most of your time there sneaking off with your cousins.”

“Have you been talking to my family?” I demanded. He knew far too much about me for my comfort.

“No, but I’ve been to Callamornish court functions. But surely I can do better than that.” He tapped his chin thoughtfully. “Your father passed away when you were quite small, on a visit to his home country. You have no idea how he died.”

I lifted a finger. “Wrong. His horse bucked him off, and he broke his neck. My mother was never one to skip details to spare my feelings.”

Kathe inclined his head graciously. “Your turn, then.”

By the smile lingering on his lips, he’d gotten something from that exchange. He seemed awfully interested in my Callamornish family; did he know something about them I didn’t?

I had to turn this game to my advantage. I slid my chair an inch closer. “The brothers you mentioned yesterday, dead but unmourned—you don’t love them because you don’t remember them.” It was a guess, but if I was wrong, it would tell me something vital about his character.

Kathe nodded. “They died before I was born. I know very little about them.” His voice softened. “I might have liked a brother. Most people give the mage-marked a wide berth, in Vaskandar, and it can be lonely.”

Unexpected sympathy caught in my throat, sharp as a fish bone. A memory surfaced from some forgotten vault in my mind, blurred and faded with years: the crushing mortification when I had summoned the courage, at last, to ask my parents to get me a little sister at the market, and they burst into gales of laughter at the question.

“But,” Kathe continued with a sigh, “the wisdom among Witch Lords is to have only one heir at a time.”

I wanted to ask why, but I might be able to find that answer through research, while books seemed unlikely to hold the secrets of the Crow Lord’s intentions. I needed to ferret out information for the good of the Empire, not to satisfy my personal curiosity.

It was hard, however, not to be curious about Kathe. Everything from the mischief in his yellow-ringed eyes to the black-dyed tips of his hair invited questions—and promised enticingly unsatisfying answers in return.

“You have a grudge against the Lady of Thorns,” I said at last. “That’s part of why you’re willing to entertain an alliance with the Serene Empire. But it’s not the only reason.”

“Go on,” Kathe said, his face still and watchful.

I licked my lips. “You’re trying to seem like you agreed to this courtship on a whim, but it’s all part of your plan. This gambit is far more important to you than you’re letting on, and you’d give more than you’re willing to admit to see it succeed.”

Kathe fingered the spyglass pendant I’d given him, which now hung around his neck. “You are perceptive, my lady. I should know better than to try to deceive a Cornaro. Please, continue.”

Time to take a risk. I leaned forward, the table’s edge pressing against my jacket buttons. “In fact, you are sufficiently eager for my cooperation that you might give me information about the murders of Falcons by Vaskandran agents in return.”

Kathe’s eyebrows flew up. “I had no idea your Falcons were being murdered. I’m sorry to hear it.”

That was good to know, I supposed, though I couldn’t help a twist of disappointment. “Go ahead, then. Your turn.”

“You can’t help but be dubious about this courtship.” Kathe set his elbows on the table; I was still leaning in, and the shift brought his face close to mine. His voice dropped, confidingly. “You don’t know if you can trust me. There are all those terrible stories about the madness of Witch Lords, after all.”

The yellow rings in his eyes gleamed. Too short a distance separated us now. I could feel the silent hum of his power in the air around him. But I didn’t draw back.

“So far, so good,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper.

“But you need allies for Raverra. You need a way to influence the Conclave, to ensure that as few Witch Lords lend their might to the war as possible.” A clean, wild scent clung about him, like the air after a lightning strike. “You’d give a great deal for the chance to attend the Conclave as my guest.”

I swallowed. “You have my undivided attention.”

“The prospect might well be enough for you to continue this courtship despite your understandable lack of attraction to a strange bird like me.”

“I have to stop you there.” I sat back in my chair, willing myself not to flush.

Kathe blinked. “Because you wouldn’t continue, or because you’ve fallen prey to my questionable charms?”

“That’s an interesting question. It’s a shame we Raverrans are so subtle and despise giving direct answers easily.” I folded my napkin in my lap.

Kathe’s mouth opened, then closed. But I had barely a second to relish catching him speechless before some shift of pressure or deepening of silence warned me to look up, and I found Ciardha standing beside me, my best coat draped over her arm.

My heart dipped in my chest. If my mother had sent her here now, disrupting my picnic with Kathe, the news couldn’t be good.

“Ciardha? What is it?”

She inclined her head in a short bow. “Lady Amalia. My profound apologies for this interruption, but the Council of Nine requires your presence at the Imperial Palace. La Contessa sent me to escort you there at once.”

The Map Room at the Imperial Palace had hosted innumerable councils of war. Vast, detailed maps of Raverra and the Serene Empire adorned the walls, and the floor inlay spread out all the continent of Eruvia beneath the Council’s feet. Every time I crossed its threshold, I could feel the scope of the Empire’s history pressing down on me. I’d sat in on strategy sessions before, where the Council crowded around the table with generals and admirals; this meeting had a more spare and urgent feel, with only the Council of Nine and the doge himself gathered to peer down at the marker-covered map before them.

I paused inside the door after Ciardha gestured me through, held back by the sense that my summons must be a mistake. I had no place in this room right now. But Ciardha didn’t make mistakes.

“It could still be a feint,” the Marquise of Palova was saying. Her white hair had partially escaped its knot, straggling around her face. But she was a veteran of the Three Years’ War and one of the best military strategists in Eruvia, so everyone listened with grave respect. “We know Vaskandar wants Loreice, after they failed to get it twice in the last century. If we focus too much of our strength on Callamorne, at the other side of the Empire, we won’t be in a position to defend if they come across the Loreician hills in number.”

“So we use the minimum force we’re certain will hold the border, and keep much of our power in reserve but ready.” The doge glanced up as he reached for a marker on the map. His glittering, deep-set eyes caught mine. “Ah, Lady Amalia. Join us.”

I approached the table, my boots tapping across Osta and the southern coast as I crossed to my mother’s side. Dozens of markers covered the map: blue for imperial forces, and green for Vaskandar. There were far fewer of the latter, but I suspected that had more to do with our limited intelligence resources across the border than it did with the forces at Vaskandar’s disposal.

“I hear you secured us an alliance with the Crow Lord of Let,” the Marquise of Palova said approvingly. “Best news I’ve had all day.”

I touched the claws hanging on my chest and dipped my head in a bow of acknowledgment. “I’m glad I could help.”

“But that is not why we’ve called you here.” Niro da Morante, the doge of Raverra, was not a man to waste time tossing around compliments. He gave me a narrow, assessing look, as if estimating the heft of a weapon he might take to hand. “We have two tasks for you. The first is a matter of diplomacy.”

I shifted uneasily. There was too much tension in the air. My mission to Ardence had been a matter of diplomacy, too, but with the city’s survival at stake if we failed. “I am always pleased to serve the Serene Empire.”

“Good,” my mother said. “It’s time for you to pay a family visit.”

“Ah.” I glanced at the map; a great many of the green markers clustered along the western end of the Witchwall Mountains, at Vaskandar’s border with Callamorne. “You mean my grandmother.”

La Contessa nodded. “For several reasons. The most straightforward being the diplomatic one: to show our commitment to defending Callamorne and stopping Vaskandar at the border.”

“I still think we should dispense with diplomacy and strike across the border first, while they’re fussing about waiting for this Conclave.” That was Lord Errardi, an elderly council member notorious for dozing off during Assembly meetings. “Why give them time to make their infernal preparations, when we can crush them with overwhelming force before they’re ready to invade?”

“Because it would be stupid,” the Marquise of Palova replied bluntly. “Setting aside the fact that the snow could come down and close the passes anytime in the next six weeks, trapping our forces across the border—we’ve never won a battle on Vaskandran soil.”

That got my attention. “What, never?” Military history wasn’t one of my primary areas of study, but as I mentally reviewed what I knew of the Three Years’ War, it did seem all our key victories had been defending our own lands, not pressing into theirs.

“That’s what makes the Witch Lords so dangerous.” The marquise’s voice went deep and hollow as an old grave. “Every living thing in their domains bends to their will. In the Three Years’ War, we tried making attacks across the border at first. But you might as well mount a sortie into the Hell of Carnage. An entire platoon of soldiers with their eyes pecked out by birds. A forest of men hanging impaled on branches, sometimes six to a tree, stretching as far as you could see. And you’ve never watched someone die badly until you’ve seen them swarmed by a hundred furious rats.” She shook her head. “I could keep going, but I won’t.”

“I see,” old Lord Errardi muttered weakly, looking ill. I had some sympathy; my stomach fluttered uneasily at the scenes she’d conjured.

“If they take territory and hold it for more than a few weeks, it starts to become theirs.” The Marquise of Palova planted her fists on the table. “We don’t dare cede them an inch. No one has ever taken back land from a Witch Lord once they’ve put their claim on it.”

“So you can see why Callamorne is nervous,” La Contessa interjected, pulling my focus back from wild images of corpses dangling from trees like hideous fruit and rivers of furry backs heaving over picked-clean bones.

I eyed the map. There were a lot of green tokens on Callamorne’s northern border, more than anywhere else. “I’d certainly be worried if I were them.”

“And they’ve only been part of the Serene Empire for twenty years.” My mother said it casually, as if she hadn’t been the one to bring them into the Empire by marrying my father, but I caught the faintest lift of pride in her voice. “Callamorne suffered near-constant raids from Vaskandar when they were an independent country, even with the mountains acting as a natural defense. Protection from their northern neighbor was one of the primary enticements that persuaded them to join the Empire.” The same had been true of Loreice; one could argue that Vaskandran expansion had gained the Serene Empire more client states than any other force in history. “They need reassurance that we can and will keep them safe, if we want them to remain our staunch ally and loyal subject.”

“I can do that.” It made sense. And I liked my grandmother and cousins, even if the Callamornish court was overly fond of ceremony for my taste.

I took a closer look at the map. The two domains bordering Callamorne across the Witchwall Mountains were Sevaeth and Kazerath. I knew the latter was Ruven’s father’s domain, so the former must belong to the infamous Lady of Thorns. Green markers clustered in the major passes through the mountains, ending at the western flank of Mount Whitecrown.

I recalled another gathering of forces on that same mountain last month, and frowned. “Mount Whitecrown again,” I murmured.

“Which brings us to the other and more urgent reason we called you here.” The doge’s voice sharpened. “I am told you have some familiarity with Prince Ruven’s research into volcanoes.”

A chill struck me like a sudden icy rain. I caught my mother’s eyes.

She nodded gravely. “We’ve just received a report from the Witchwall Mountains. Our scouts have found a newly graven artifice circle near the base of Mount Whitecrown, barely on our side of the border. The artificer at the local garrison says he’s never seen anything like it.”

No. I gripped the table edge. We’d stopped Ruven’s plot to trigger a volcanic eruption. Hadn’t we?

“That could be Ruven’s doing,” I said slowly. “If he studied the book he tried to steal long enough to replicate the design.”

“Do you think it has a chance of working?” the Marquise of Palova asked, her dark eyes bright and piercing.

“Perhaps. I don’t know.” I shook my head. “It was highly experimental, combining vivomancy and artifice.” Vivomancy was nature magic, wild and raw and personal, originating in the shadowy forests of Vaskandar; artifice was a precise magical science, working through patterns and rules, developed by the scholars of ancient Osta at the other end of Eruvia. “There’s been very little research done into combining the two types of magic, since they’re so different. But the theory in the book seemed sound enough. Like taming a wild river through irrigation canals.” I heard the mounting excitement in my own voice and forced my mouth shut before I could launch into a dissertation that no one here cared about but me.

“We can’t take the chance that it might work,” the marquise said grimly. “An eruption would wipe out our defenses in some of the key mountain passes. Even a moderate one could destroy major fortresses, artifice weapons, and wards, and slaughter the thousands of troops we have stationed there. It would be a catastrophic loss and would open the border wide to their invading forces.”

“That’s not even including the civilian losses,” my mother added grimly. “There are towns and villages all along the border that might be wiped out entirely. The land for miles could be buried in ash, the rivers choked with it. Countless homes destroyed, people killed, families displaced and starving. A large enough eruption could endanger nearby cities with populations in the tens of thousands, like Ardence.”

“And then Vaskandar would sweep in behind,” the Marquise of Palova concluded, “like an army of demons from the gates of the Nine Hells. We’d stand no chance of holding them back. The whole north of the Empire would fall, giving them a clear route down the River Arden to the Serene City itself.”

I swallowed. “So we need to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

“I want you to examine the circle during your visit to Callamorne,” the doge said. “You’ve studied this book, you’re a scholar of magical theory, and you know Prince Ruven. You’re the best chance we have to unravel this design. I want to know whether it’s truly the volcano enchantment, how likely it is to work, how immediate the threat is, how we can stop it—anything and everything you can tell us.”

I nodded, feeling vaguely queasy at the thought of a man as unscrupulous and impulsive as Prince Ruven with access to that kind of power. “Can I bring an artificer, to help me counteract whatever I find?” I asked.

“Naturally.” The doge waved his assent. “We need to send artificers to the border to reinforce our magical defenses anyway. Take whoever you need.”

The Council was giving me more backing than I would have expected. And they were taking me seriously, as well. When I had faced the Council of Nine in this room last year, I’d been glared at for speaking; whether it was what I’d accomplished in Ardence, my increasing involvement in my mother’s duties since, or my coup of sorts with Kathe, they seemed to accept my voice as one worth listening to.

Unease mingled with my surge of pride. If no one listened to you, no one remembered when you were wrong. The more power you had, the more terrible the consequences of your mistakes.

The doge leaned across the table, fixing me with his gleaming eyes. “We have one more purpose in sending you to Callamorne. A military purpose.” He tapped the Callamornish capital, which lay near the foot of the Witchwall Mountains, not far from the Serene Empire’s northern border. “Your Falcon will accompany you. You will remain in reserve in Durantain until we have a better idea where Vaskandar will strike first and hardest. Then you’ll move to defend the most critical pass with balefire.”

I’d known this was coming. It was a good plan, and the best way we could help in the war. But I couldn’t look forward to unleashing Zaira’s fire on hundreds or thousands of people—even enemy soldiers—with anything but dread.

“Very well,” I said, trying to sound businesslike and confident instead of afraid.

“This mission may prove dangerous. The attacks on Falcons have occurred when they were traveling.” The doge’s tone grew stern. “Neither you nor your Falcon are expendable. We will be sending a full military escort with you. You must take no chances with your safety or your warlock’s. Do you understand?”

“Of course.” My cheeks heated. One adventure in Ardence and my reputation seemed to have changed from retiring bookworm to reckless thrill-seeker.

The doge gave me a slow, assessing nod. “Good. I see no reason to delay, then. You’ll leave tomorrow. And may all the Nine Graces go with you.”