Chapter Fifteen

That night, as I got ready for bed, a ruddy light came flickering through the curtains of my bedchamber. I peered out the window and saw the shadow-strewn courtyard below illuminated by the red light of some great fire, but a jutting tower blocked my view of the source. The smell of smoke tickled my nose. Raised voices came from the same direction, but there was no alarm in them.

I hesitated, then slipped out into the hallway to see if I could get a better view from the balcony at the end of the corridor. I paced in stocking feet down the tapestried stone hall, between luminaries glowing a warm gold in their sconces. The mellow light gave way to a bloody glow that streamed in from the balcony doors, which stood wide open to the chill night air.

A figure already stood at the stone railing, gazing down at the courtyard below. The firelight flattened her to a black silhouette, but I’d know that stick-thin frame and copious mane of curls anywhere; it was Zaira.

I stepped out beside her and gazed down at a scene straight out of Movari’s paintings of the Nine Hells. Figures moved around a blazing bonfire, the unsteady light causing their shadows to leap and dance. Scarves muffled their faces, making their shapes bulky and inhuman. They hurled in armload after armload of what looked at first like human bones mixed with the claws and tentacles of some terrible beast.

But the scent that filled the air was the pitchy smoke of green wood, not burning meat. As I peered down at the sharp-edged jumble of dark tinder in the bonfire, I resolved the image to not bones, but branches. They were burning the remains of the monster thorn tree.

“It’s such a tame fire,” Zaira sighed. “Like a well-trained dog. There’s no wolf in it.”

A reflected orange spark lit her eyes. I repressed a shiver. “I’m not sure how effective it is, with the wood so green. You could probably get the job done much faster.”

“They’re having fun. If it’s not ashes by morning, I’ll offer to show them what real fire looks like.”

We stood in silence for a time, side by side, watching the never-ending dance of the flames. Even with the wind taking the smoke mostly away from us, my eyes stung with it, but Zaira seemed unaffected.

“You ruin everything,” she said at last.

I blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

“You’ve got me thinking about the future.” She leaned her elbows on the railing. “I know better, damn it. But you keep asking these poxy questions, and now I’m fumbling around after answers like some idiot who knows there’s nothing but mouse turds in the cupboard but can’t stop themself from checking.”

“It doesn’t have to be mouse droppings,” I said. Lightly as I could, so she wouldn’t see how much it twisted my heart that she thought that was all life had to offer.

“It would be so easy to run,” she muttered. “So long as I didn’t loose my fire, no one would find me.”

“You could do that.” I tried to keep my voice carefully neutral, to hide the empty dropping feeling at the thought of Zaira leaving. Never mind what Lord Caulin or the doge would think of this conversation. “If that’s what you truly want.”

“I’m not one of those poor cosseted birds raised in the Mews, who keeps coming back to the glove because the meat is good.” Zaira shook her head. “It’s not that hard to shake one Falconer when you’re out on the road. Most of them could fly away any time. But they won’t, and those bastards who hold their jesses know it.”

Zaira’s own jess caught sparks of light from the fire below, its crystal beads gleaming bloodred on her wrist.

“The Empire counts on it,” I admitted heavily. “They learned centuries ago that the Mews had to be a luxurious palace, not a prison. They need to be able to trust the Falcons’ magic once they unleash it; an unwilling Falcon is no use to them. It’s why I think I can get them to change the law, honestly. If they gave the mage-marked a choice, I’d wager nine out of ten would choose the Mews. Who wouldn’t want to be rich and pampered and safe?”

“Me,” Zaira said. “It’s like a new Hell of Boredom. I can’t stay there forever, and you know it.”

Couldn’t you? I wanted to ask. Graces forgive me, but somewhere in the back of my mind, I’d built an imaginary future where we traveled Eruvia together, doing astonishing things. Where she was the one friend no political necessity could take from me, since we were bound together by law and magic.

But that wasn’t a future she wanted to give me. It wasn’t mine, to ask for or to take. And my own future lay in the inner chambers of the Imperial Palace, cloistered in gilded rooms with the cynical old souls who ruled the Serene Empire. All other dreams must wither before the power of that fate.

“I suppose you can’t,” I sighed. “So where will you go?”

Zaira slouched over the railing, resting her chin on her arms, and stared into the bonfire. Another armload of mage-twisted wood went in, and a hissing cloud of sparks flew up toward the velvety darkness above.

“I don’t know,” she said. “In the Tallows, you always had to think of how you would scrape by into the next minute. Now I can see further, to a whole bucket of possible futures, and they’re all bilge.”

“And what will you do about that?” It was the question my mother always asked me, her tone without mercy, anytime I started to complain.

“Stop thinking about the future, of course.” Zaira stretched, and turned her back to the night. “Your cousin Bree invited me and Terika out drinking when we get back from looking at this cursed rune circle of yours. You have to come with me and get drunk, too. You’re my Falconer.”

“I prefer to avoid getting drunk,” I said, alarmed. “And I’m not certain it would be appropriate for me to visit some of Bree’s, ah, preferred establishments.”

Zaira grinned wickedly. “You’re a scholar. It’ll be a learning experience.”

She clapped me on the shoulder and headed back into the warm golden light of the castle.

The next morning, we departed for Mount Whitecrown. Our full party from Raverra accompanied us, along with a hundred Callamornish soldiers. The latter would dwindle in number each day, as they were mostly reinforcements for fortresses along the way; but I still felt a bit ridiculous at first, traveling surrounded by a small army, with all the fuss and noise of a hundred horses rumbling around us, blowing steam in the chill autumn air like a host of dragons. The feeling faded, however, as we soon passed columns of infantry and chains of supply wagons on the road. This was daily business in a country preparing for war.

Bree had talked the queen into letting her accompany us as far as Highpass, the last fortress before the border. When Roland came to see us off, I’d caught him watching enviously as a cluster of castle children gathered around Bree on her dapple gray mare, handing her posies of flowers with admiration shining in their eyes.

“Ask Grandmother if you can go next time,” I urged him. “She only sent Bree with us because she pushed for it. If you never ask, she’ll never send you anywhere.”

Roland sighed. “I can’t help but feel childish for wanting to go to the border in the first place. I know I have important duties here. But I’d like to at least see with my own eyes what we’re facing.”

“If you put it that way, she won’t say no,” I said. “Especially if you’re not asking to go into combat, or cross the border, but just to tour the defenses.”

“Maybe I will.” Some of the tension in his face eased. “Thank you, Amalia. And Grace of Luck go with you on your journey.”

Now, with Bree and Marcello riding outside the carriage, Istrella absorbed in a project, and the others trading gossip too salacious for my taste, I delved into my books in pursuit of a matter I’d almost forgotten in the drama of the Lady of Thorns’ visit: Kathe’s challenge. I needed that invitation to the Conclave—the Serene Empire needed it—and it was a fascinating question in its own right. Why was the vivomancy of the Witch Lords so much more powerful?

Vivomancers normally needed to be in touching range to use their power, though with animals sometimes eye contact would suffice. But my books mentioned countless instances of Witch Lords controlling plants and animals from miles away in the Three Years’ War. Every source agreed that only Witch Lords could break this rule of distance, at least on plants and creatures native to their own domain—but none had a credible suggestion for why.

I thought of the children’s rhyme Kathe had given me. Ten spires made of bone / One realm circles round … My books on Vaskandar sometimes referred to boundary markers defining the borders of Witch Lord domains. Perhaps they formed some kind of vivomantic circle, using the same principles of patterned magical energy at work in artifice to amplify their power. I should try to get a look at one while I was near the border.

We traveled up through the steepening foothills on roads that wound through stately pines. A taste of snow came on the wind from the mountains looming in the distance. I wore my warmest fur-lined velvet jacket and soft leather gloves but still shivered in the carriage, my nose freezing, until Bree gave me a thick shawl of homespun wool to wrap around my head and shoulders. Zaira laughed at me, saying I looked like a country grandmother, but it kept me warm.

As we climbed higher in the foothills, the trees grew smaller, and the pines surrounding us occasionally gave way to broad meadows, lying open and waiting for the inevitable snow. We began to catch faraway glimpses of Mount Whitecrown. It towered above the other mountains, its glacier-mantled crest seeming to float against the distance-hazed sky, like some palace the Grace of Beauty had built out of clouds. It was hard to believe that this serene vision of snowy majesty could harbor a terrible fire deep within it, ready to rain destruction and death upon us all.

Late in the morning of the second day, we came to a crossroads where our way temporarily parted from Marcello and Istrella’s. Istrella was to make a stop at a border fortress overlooking a major river valley pass to bolster their magical defenses, and she seemed disconcertingly excited at the prospect.

“I have the most lovely idea for a catapult.” She clutched a pair of pliers dreamily to her chest as we said our good-byes. Her artifice glasses were already down, magnifying her eyes into great rune-ringed circles. “I think I can build one that will fling buckets of magical fog down into the valley below that will spread and ruin everyone’s gunpowder.”

“Perhaps wards first, then weapons,” Marcello suggested, looking worried. “Besides, you might throw it on our troops as well.”

But Istrella only let out a blissful sigh.

“Good luck with your endeavors, either way,” I laughed.

“You, too! Don’t get eaten by wolves!” Istrella waved cheerily, then turned to Bree. “And don’t forget to fix those wards on your castle! Have a Falcon from the Durantain garrison take a look. They’ll see what I told you about.”

I pulled Marcello aside by the crossroads to say good-bye. On the ridge behind him, leafless gray branches wrote upon the sky in some arboreal language. The breeze sweeping across the meadow grass held a trace of ice as it teased locks of black hair into his warm green eyes. A crow cawed overhead, balancing gingerly on the wind.

What could I say to him? I had no words for the complicated territory that lay between us; I couldn’t navigate it even to frame a simple good-bye. Seconds slipped by, and there I stood, staring at him like an idiot.

Marcello at first had the apprehensive look of a student called by the teacher to stay after class for a word. But then his shoulders relaxed, and his mouth twitched with suppressed mirth.

“Stop smiling!” I demanded. But my own lips had started to curve upward, too.

“What’s wrong with parting with a smile?” he asked. His hand stirred at his side, as if it might lift to my face, but then he tucked it into his pocket.

“Nothing, I suppose. But I’ll miss you. I’ll miss talking to you about all of our terrible problems, and coming up with clever solutions together.”

He glanced toward the waiting carriage and its escort of mounted soldiers. “Well, we have a few minutes. That seems like enough to cover a pending invasion, a traitor, a volcano, and a murderous Witch Lord. How are you going to fix everything this time?”

“The same way as last time,” I said. “By relying on the efforts of my excellent friends.”

“I’ll have to meet them someday. They sound very capable.” Marcello’s smile faded, then, and his face fell into grave lines. “I won’t ask you to be careful, because I know you won’t listen. But here. Take this.” Fumbling with sudden inspiration, he snapped a golden button off his uniform. He held it out to me, gleaming in his palm, a falcon in flight engraved on its face.

“Why are you mangling your uniform?” A loose thread dangled from his sleeve, and I itched to snip it off.

“I can sew another button on. Take this with you, and when you’re thinking of doing something dangerous, I want you to hold this button and think what I would say to you.” His mouth pulled to the side. “Then you can tell the button to be quiet and go and do it anyway, but at least you’ll be thinking of me.”

I laughed, and took it from him. The metal was still warm from his hand. “We’ll see each other in a couple of days, you know, when you catch up to us. I’m not going on an expedition to the Winter Ocean.”

“I’ll still miss you.”

The moment came when if I weren’t the Cornaro heir, we might have kissed. I felt it settling around us, a brief lull in the wind like the blessing of the Graces, with the sun gilding our skin and a deep quiet between us.

And he knew it. A warm spark kindled in his eyes, and it was as if the space separating us meant nothing. Understanding connected us, sure and sweet as an embrace.

“I have to go,” I said, and tucked his button in a secure pocket of my satchel, next to my elixir bottles and my artifice tools and everything else I wanted to keep close to me in case of trouble.

“I know. I’ll see you soon.”

I walked away, but the feeling of connection lingered, as if I’d left a piece of myself there with him in the cold, sun-drenched meadow grass.

The going became slow and precarious as we climbed up into the mountains, heading for Highpass, a remote fort that guarded a footpath through the Witchwall Mountains, and our last overnight stop before heading out to the suspicious artifice circle. I wasn’t certain the coach would make it up the switchbacks and swerves, but Bree assured me she’d seen carriages complete the trip before; still, my bones seemed fit to rattle to pieces on the rocky track.

Terika, in fine spirits, spent most of the afternoon telling Zaira stories about her grandmother, who lived in a village we’d pass through on the road to Highpass.

“I can’t wait for you to meet her.” Terika grinned at Zaira, who looked alarmed at the prospect. “Baba likes people who speak their minds. She’ll love you. Just don’t get her started on the time she knocked out a Vaskandran musketeer with a post hammer.”

Zaira glanced at me. “I don’t know if Her Highness here can fit a stop into her busy schedule.”

“I’d be glad to,” I said.

Zaira gave me a Why are you doing this to me glare, and I responded with my sweetest smile. I wasn’t quite interfering enough to push her and Terika together, but neither was I going to help her run away from what might well prove to be the best thing that ever happened to her.

Terika laid a finger on her lips, donning a thoughtful expression that failed to hide the mischief beneath it. “My baba might not appreciate it if I spring surprise royalty on her. I suppose Lady Amalia could wait outside, so it’ll be only the two of us.”

“I don’t want to meet your grandmother,” Zaira grumbled. A brief pause before grandmother suggested she’d barely swallowed some unflattering modifier.

“Why not?” Terika’s sweet voice had taken on a dangerous edge.

“Because if you make a big show about introducing us, she’ll get moon-mad ideas that we’re thinking about getting married.”

Terika grinned impishly. “Shall I tell her you’re taking advantage of my maidenly virtue instead?”

Zaira snorted. “I can’t win against you, can I?”

“No. No, you cannot.” Terika ruffled Zaira’s hair, which she tolerated with a mock scowl.

Lienne caught my eye, her cheeks round and bright with amusement. I smiled back, with an inner twinge of guilt that I’d thought she might be the traitor. How could she be, when she beamed with such affection at two of the Falcons whose names were on the Lady of Thorns’ list?

“Oh, speaking of certain doom.” Zaira dug in her skirt pocket and pulled out the irregular, obsidian-studded flare locket Istrella had given her. “Since we’re going into danger and all that, take this. You need a way to protect yourself.” She dropped it without ceremony into Terika’s lap.

Terika took it up with great delight and clasped it around her neck. “Why, thank you, Zaira. Now I want to get you something, too.”

“It’s not a present. It’s a weapon,” Zaira said, with some exasperation.

“Weapons make the best presents,” Lienne said, tapping the gleaming hilt of her rapier fondly. “This one was a gift from my sister. She knows what I like.”

“It’s all right, Zaira.” Terika patted her knee. “I know you don’t have a romantic bone in your body. I won’t get the wrong idea. And neither will my grandmother.”

The village nestled by a lake in a hanging valley, a picturesque scattering of slate roofs and red-painted barns, complete with a tiny temple to the Graces in the center of town. A scattering of goats surrounded the village, grazing among lichen-crusted rocks, with forested peaks looming above them. In spring, when the meadows blazed with wildflowers, it must have been idyllic.

But Terika, gazing out the coach window, frowned. “There’s no smoke coming from the chimneys.”

“Guess we’ll have to skip it,” Zaira said. “No grandmother meeting for me.”

Terika ignored her, pressing her hand to the glass. “I don’t see Old Arghad on her porch. And Lorran never leaves his goats untended. Something’s wrong.”

She opened the coach window and leaned half out of it, Lienne seizing her belt to make sure she didn’t tip out onto the road, and yelled to the coachman to hurry. I glanced out the window, startled; the village did look eerily still.

“Maybe they all died, and I don’t have to meet the withered old hag at all,” Zaira muttered to me, her voice pitched low.

But Terika ducked back into the coach just as she said it. Her face went pale as paper, freckles standing out like flecks of blood.

“What did you say?” she demanded.

Zaira grimaced. I nudged her toe with mine across the coach, willing her to apologize. But she crossed her arms and said, “You heard me.”

Terika pressed her lips together. Then she leaned out the window again and called, “Stop the coach! I’m getting out.”

“Don’t be daft,” Zaira snapped.

Terika whirled and jabbed a finger into Zaira’s chest. Her mage mark stood out boldly in eyes that shone with emotion, but her voice stayed calm. “I put up with a lot from you,” she said. “But you do not disrespect my grandmother.”

The carriage wheels squealed and rattled to a halt. Terika pushed past Zaira and clambered out the door without waiting for the driver to unfold the steps. Lienne shot Zaira a stern look and followed.

In a moment, they were up and mounted on horses, and the coach rumbled into motion again. Now it was just me on one bench, Zaira opposite, and the silence between us.

I didn’t chew on it for long. “Go after her and apologize,” I hissed.

“She should know I talk like that, and it doesn’t mean anything,” Zaira said sourly. “If she’s got a wasp up her arse about it, that’s on her.”

“Why are you being so cruel to Terika, of all people? I thought she was the only person you—” I broke off. Zaira stared at the jess on her wrist, avoiding my eyes. “You did this on purpose,” I realized. “You’re trying to drive her away.”

“So what?” Zaira looked up now, her eyes sparking with anger. “There’s only two ways things can end between us. I get her killed, or I break her heart. I’d rather pick the latter and get it over with.”

“You’re right that there are two ways it can end,” I snapped. “But one is that you find happiness with a wonderful girl, and the other is that you act like a fool and make both of you miserable for no reason.”

“Believe what you want.” Zaira leaned back, crossing her arms. “But I told you, I’ve been looking down the road ahead. And what do you think happens to Terika when Raverra’s enemies figure out she’s the fire warlock’s weak spot? Or when that withered old bastard of a doge does, for that matter?”

She had a point. But that was the price for power in the Serene City.

“We protect her!” I threw my arms up in frustration. “I’ve been my mother’s weak spot for my entire life, and it’s been fine!”

Zaira stared at me in apparent disbelief. “You’ve been nearly killed or kidnapped half a dozen times in the few months I’ve known you, and you’re only kept alive by a potion. You call that fine?”

Before I could form a reply, the coach lurched to a sudden stop. Zaira had to grab the edge of the window to keep from being thrown into my lap. I banged an elbow as the bench heaved beneath me and then was still.

We exchanged a frozen instance of a glance, then both stuck our heads out opposite windows to see what was happening. My heart thumped as if it still rattled around the inside of the coach.

The road ran through Terika’s village, drawing a dusty line between a few houses and a small store that clustered along it. The rest of the farmhouses scattered across the valley like fallen gray stones, streaked with soot and weather. A thick silence lay across the road, somehow deepened rather than shattered by the blowing and stamping of half a hundred horses and the rattle of harness and coach wheels.

A deep cold settled in my belly. Terika was right. This large a party arriving in such a small village should draw attention. Curious children should be running out to greet us, and even the crankiest old codger should at least twitch back a window curtain to look. But the stone houses lay deathly still.

Except for the front door of the second house down the road, which swung loose and free, banging against the wall once, then again more softly, as if someone had just pushed it open.

The moment stretched longer than it had any right to. Lienne’s hand fell to the hilt of her sword. A few soldiers slid nervous palms up the musket barrels on their shoulders.

Then a man staggered out of the house, lurched a few steps toward us, and fell face-first in the dirt of the road.