"Over_9780307446138_oeb_c19_r1" - читать интересную книгу автора (Jeffrey Overstreet - Cynderes Midnight)
19
A SEER COMES
TO TILIANPURTH
Ryllion woke to the sound of the ocean and the smell of salt.
A deep ache throbbed in his right arm, and he remembered the bat fastened there, the bite in his wrist. He wondered if he had been rushed to House Bel Amica for attention from special healers. If it gets me home, it will be worth it. He tried lifting his arm, but the cast was heavy. He opened his eyes.
“Do you hear it, Officer?”
Emeriene sat at a table before the window of his chamber in Tilianpurth’s tower. He was not home. The scent of the sea and the roar breathed from a large, spiral seashell propped next to his head.
Emeriene laughed, stirring something steamy in a clay bowl. Broth—he could smell it now—most likely a foul green brine, some weedy soup without a scrap of meat. She would swear it was healthy for him. He wanted a prowlfish steak.
“Kramm,” he muttered. “I was having such a lovely dream. You drowned in a shipwreck.”
She applauded. “I thought the bat might have bitten off your tongue, but there it is. Moon-spirits be praised. Come and eat, child. The ordeal has sapped your strength.”
Her dark disheveled hair, her voice scratched and deepened by pipe smoke, the ties of her robe loosened just enough to tease him—so she wanted his attention, did she? If this conversation continued in such a congenial tone, the injury might prove useful after all.
“Since you asked so nicely,” she said, “I’ll tell you.”
“I didn’t ask.”
“The sisterlies pumped a powerful antidote into your veins. But apparently your heartbeat runs stronger than most. From head to toe, the bat’s venom discolored you. You’ll be in bed awhile, and your arm will be slow in healing. But you’re lucky the damage stops there.”
His gambling cubes lay scattered across the floor. As he counted them, he noticed her slippers by the door next to a heap of rumpled cushions. She had slept here, watching over him. He was about to pry this admission from her when she volunteered that very truth, describing how he had required attention to his seizures during the night.
He asked who had caught and killed the beastman. “That privilege is still available,” she replied. “Our prisoners seem to have slipped away. Both of them.”
“That bratty little Abascar spy?” he growled. “No matter. We’ll catch him again. But that beastman—we needed him. The ceremony is coming fast.”
“It’s tomorrow.”
“I’ve slept a day, a night, and another day?” He began shouting questions, which Emeriene answered calmly.
She had doubled Cyndere’s guard, yes, and the heiress’s chamber had been thoroughly searched. While no one had seen the beastman run for the open gate, the search had produced no clues. They had buried the slain guards in the yard. Everyone else was accounted for.
“But not everything is in its proper place,” he mused, eyes fixed on her face. “There’s trouble in those pretty eyes.”
“You always trouble me.”
“But I am a jealous tormentor. And something—or someone—else has put a wrinkle in your voice.”
She stirred the broth.
“You want to go back, don’t you? To Bel Amica. To your sons.”
“I need to see my boys. They’ll have caused all kinds of trouble by now. Out here I forget who I am. I start treating other people like they’re my children.”
“Is that what you’re doing? Mothering me? I hear I’m incorrigible. So please, don’t stop.”
“You’re beyond help, child.”
“Har, har.” He picked up the seashell and raised it as if he would throw it. She folded her arms defiantly, and he put it back down. “Let me give you some advice.”
Her eyes narrowed.
“Tilianpurth is a different world. Quieter. Simpler. It gives us opportunities to catch new visions from the spirits.”
“Don’t get religious on me.”
“I’m serious. Since the queen ordered me to do some good around here, I’ve had new adventures. You could too. You might indulge yourself a little. You might become something more than a sisterly and a mother. What desires have dusted you during the night, Em? What has your spirit whispered in your ear?”
“I am something more than a mother.” She let go of the spoon and tapped the tattoo on the back of her hand.
“Ah yes. How could I forget?” Her glare pleased him. He pressed harder. “Tell me, if Cesylle cares so much about his wife, why has he not come out here to be with her?”
“The Seers need him in Bel Amica.”
“You’ve got it backward. Cesylle needs the Seers.”
“They’re training him to use skyscopes and farglasses, to interpret the moon colors and read the moods of the spirits. He says he’ll show me wonders someday.” As she poured water from a pitcher into a clay cup, her casual tone began to sour into resentment. “He used to say that I was a wonder.”
Ryllion scratched around the edge of his cast. Her voice was edged with a new, reckless sense of trust in him as a listener. Something had knocked her off balance. “Cesylle’s forgotten the treasure he has.”
She dared to meet his gaze, but only for a moment.
“We noticed you on the same day, Cesylle and I. Did you know that?” He laughed. “Don’t ever tell your husband I told you this.”
“Told me what?”
He rose from the blankets, and she turned to the window with a noise between a laugh and a cry, for he was naked. He casually wrapped himself in a sheet and sat down at the table. She pressed her lips together and stared intently at some unremarkable place in the grey sky, red rising up her neck and tinting her cheeks, while he seized the bowl and gulped the broth.
“Ambitious youngsters, we were,” he said as if they spoke like this every morning. “We had a round of cubes.” He nodded to the game pieces on the floor. “Cesylle won. He got to invite you to the king’s feast.”
“You had a round of cubes.” She shook her head and laughed bitterly. “Before the king’s burial feast? Oh, that is just pristine. It explains so much—that I was Cesylle’s prize in a game. And then he moved on to play other sorts of games.” She tapped the windowsill. “You couldn’t even grow a beard yet. Do you think I would have accepted your invitation to the burial feast if you’d won?”
“Let’s call it by its proper name—it was the Feast of the Reward. A celebration. King Helpryn heard that coveted call, the blessing that the moon-spirits grant their most faithful servants. He was carried from the deck of his ship to the moon. He never died. He was taken straight to his reward.”
“And thus, King Helpryn’s people were blessed. Is that what you think?”
“He impressed the spirits, and he continues to petition them for favor. Thus, his family is blessed. House Bel Amica is richer than ever. We should learn from his example and risk everything—everything, Em—to pursue the desires that seize us.”
“Where are Cyndere’s blessings?”
“Deuneroi wasn’t a blessing?”
“You call their short-lived marriage a blessing?” Her laughter lacked any note of humor. “That kind of loss is a wound that doesn’t heal. Believe me. I know.”
“You’re talking about Partayn, aren’t you? You think Cyndere’s brother was your only chance for happiness. So you settled for Cesylle.”
“It’s none of your concern,” she snapped. “And, no, he wasn’t. There were other chances. But why trust my desires when they’re always spoiled?”
Perhaps there was more to Emeriene’s pain than Cesylle’s neglect. “Let me tell you what the Seers tell me.” After an awkward pause, he cleared his throat. “Sometimes what I desire is lost. That’s not my fault. The world is a tangle of many hearts, many desires, and not everybody gets what they want. But the desires are still sacred. They’re a compass. If we don’t indulge them, we’ll never find the one that brings us happiness. I hear it in your voice, Em—the longing. You haven’t given up. I think I can help you.”
She took the dull cheese knife and pretended to threaten him. “Notice my weapon of choice in resisting you.”
“You feel too bound to the old ways, the contracts. They get in the way of your sacred—”
“You think it’s my faithfulness to Cesylle that makes me unhappy.”
“There’s something you think you can’t have. I understand that.” He dropped both hands onto the table, his cast thudding down hard, causing the bowl and the bread plate to jump. “But I won’t let the expectations of others get in my way. I don’t even tell the Seers the full nature of my desires. If I did, they’d meddle and make my quest more difficult.”
“Oh, you think we don’t see it. But everybody knows your quest, Ryllion.” Taking her cheese knife by the blade, she whacked his cast with its handle. “Is this what happens to people who reach for what they really want? You want to be a captain. You want Cyndere. And then you’ll get to be king someday.”
“That’s the Seers’ understanding,” he sighed. He lifted the bowl and drank it dry.
She handed him a piece of bread but put the lid on the dipping bowl. “No syrup for your bread. Not until you start speaking plainly. What quest are you talking about?”
“I’ll give you a hint if you’ll give me the syrup.”
She watched him for a moment, then lifted the lid.
“Deuneroi wanted to tame the beastmen.” He lowered his voice, dipping the bread. “And to make it up to him, I’m pursuing that dream. But I’ll need help. So tomorrow, at the Ceremony of the Sacrifice, I will make an offering that will dazzle the spirits.”
“How is killing a beastman honoring Deuneroi’s desire to save them?”
“Under that watchful green moon, I’ll gain the spirits’ favor. They’ll see that we are united in our desire to rid the world of the Cent Regus scourge. And they’ll lend us power. But my plan is to conquer the beastmen by luring them into a choice—either obedience to Bel Amica or destruction. If we can compel them to follow orders, to fight for us instead of against us, we can tame them.”
“And how long have you been planning this?”
“I’ve had a lot of time to think during my stay. And one of the Seers has been learning to manipulate the beastmen.”
“The Honorable Pretor Xa.”
His smiled vanished. “How did you know?” He leaned forward. “Did Cyndere tell you? He’s on his way to join us here?”
“He’s here,” she said sharply.
Ryllion’s knees bumped the table as he rose, and the syrup jar skidded to the edge. Emeriene caught it, pushed it back onto the table, and put the lid on it, a smug smile on her face. “Now, now, child. Don’t make a mess.”
“Why didn’t somebody wake me?”
“I told Pretor Xa that you’d been bitten by a rodent and weren’t in any condition to take visitors.”
“You enjoyed that, didn’t you? Humiliating me before one of the Seers. You’ve embarrassed me three times now. When Cyndere arrived, you let me go on speaking like a musker’s backside when you knew she was listening. And now I wake up to find myself wearing nothing but the bed blankets. I suspect it was you who wrapped this bandage too tight.” He picked at the edge of his cast.
“We had to get you out of those clothes.” She absently poured more water into her cup, forgetting that she had already filled it, and it splashed onto the table.
“We?” He wrapped the sheet tighter around him. “How many sisterlies were part of this wicked endeavor?”
“There wasn’t time to waste.” She stifled a smile. “The last thing you need is flattery. But the so-called privilege went to… Well, there was this game of cubes, you see.”
She leaned forward to cast a cloth napkin across the spill. He caught a glimpse of the fiery purple moon-tattoo that showed at the base of her throat, and he wanted, just for a minute, to give up his perilous plans. To abandon the ceremony he had arranged for the evening. He wanted to take her away and flee back to Bel Amica, to the familiar games of wit and flirtation. “You with your leg in a cast. Me with my arm. We’re quite a pair, you and I.”
“We are not a pair,” she scoffed.
“Let me tell you what caused this injury, Emeriene.” He knocked on his cast. “My father and grandfather labored in those shipyards for Bel Amica. They trained me to seek advantage. They told me that I should take one small step every day toward a greater opportunity. That’s why I’m within reach of Cyndere’s hand. The Seers encourage my ambition. They want me to be king. But, Emeriene, my moon-spirit knows my heart better than anyone. She knows something even the Seers don’t know.”
“And what’s that?”
“Something has complicated my ambition.”
“Cyndere’s refusals.”
“No,” he declared, bringing his fist down on the table. “It’s true, I approached the heiress. I made a scandalous suggestion—that she allow me to fill the void left by Deuneroi’s death. But that’s what the Seers want. It’s not really what I want. I see that now. My moon-spirit punished me; she made the bat attack me. I was straying from my true desire.”
“Your true desire.” Emeriene put the cup on the table, tracing its rim with her fingertips.
“Cyndere’s heart belongs to Deuneroi. But you knew, even before we arrived at Tilianpurth, Emeriene, what my heart now understands.”
He reached for her hand, but she jerked it away. “Don’t say those things out loud! This is an open window.”
“You see?” he said. “No bat jumped out of the shadows. I’m speaking the truth. You haven’t thrown the cup at me. You haven’t mentioned Cesylle’s name.”
“You haven’t asked about my desires!” she shrieked, flustered.
“You’re sad and lonely. You sat in my chamber to watch over me. What does that tell you?”
She rose, red as sunburn, and walked past him toward the door. “You presumptuous fool. I haven’t told you why I’m here.”
“Then what?”
“I’m here because I needed to speak with you before that meddling Seer starts hovering over you. I need your help, Ryllion.” Anger flared in her voice. “And I don’t know where…” The anger broke into something more unstable, something like grief. “I don’t know where to turn.”
“It’s Cyndere, isn’t it, Em?”
“Don’t,” she whispered, “call me Em.”
“She’s hurt you.”
“We used to share everything. When she had secrets with Deuneroi, I could trust her. Because I trusted him. But now she has new secrets. Dangerous secrets. Something else is taking her away. She’s shutting me out. And it’s only going to get worse. I’m afraid she’ll run away. Away into her secret.”
“She can’t run away.” Ryllion moved toward her. His arm pulsed like a violent alarm, and he caught the bedpost to keep from falling. “There’s nowhere she can go. She’d need a soldier’s help, and no one here would risk spoiling other officers’ trust to help her. Not while I’m nearby. I see everything.” But I had better look again, he thought.
Emeriene walked to the bed and sat down on the edge, her shoulders shaking. “She’s lost so much. She’s so lonely. But she’s not the only one. Can’t she understand that?”
He sat down next to her, watched their reflections in the mirror that faced them. “You don’t have to be lonely,” he said softly.
“You want to help me?” she said, wiping her eyes on her sleeve. “Post a guard in the kitchen. All night.”
He took her hand gently and squeezed it. “Done. I’ll post guards in the kitchen, at the lift, at the stairwell, if you’re so sure.”
“Just be watchful.”
“Listen, Em. Emeriene. I want you to have a seat on the balcony tomorrow night during the Feast of the Sacrifice. It will do you good. Watch what happens. I’ll give the people a picture of what is to come.” She looked up and started to protest, but he touched her cheek with his fingertips and said, “Shh. Trust me. I’m ready for this. I’ll slay a beastman in the Ceremony of Sacrifice. That should release the anger that has built up within Cyndere since Deuneroi’s death. It should release the anger in all of us. The spirits will be pleased. And then…imagine it. We’ll go out and strike fear into their hearts. And tame them.”
“Before an audience?” She pulled her hand away. “You’ll kill a beastman in front of Cyndere? You know how she feels—”
“I also know how she feels about losing Deuneroi. A beastman killed him; a beastman must die. The ceremony will do so much more to encourage the people than those few token beastman skulls I’ve sent home. Those who watch will have a sense of participation. It will move all of us toward healing.”
She cast a doubtful glance at his reflection.
“Listen, Emeriene. The Seers have shown me that if people unite in a desire, moon-spirits overcome their differences and strive to bless us all. Together we can begin to break the scourge of the Expanse.”
She closed her eyes and squeezed his hand with both of hers. “I should go,” she said. “I shouldn’t be here. The other sisterlies will talk. I’ll call for the Seer to help prepare you for the ceremony.” She moved to the door, paused, and looked at him in the mirror hanging there. “I’ll be there on the balcony to watch you tomorrow. And, Ryllion…strike true.”
“If I know you’ll be waiting for me when it’s over, I will strike the truest blow Bel Amica’s ever seen.”
The white sun hung in the white sky the next day, and the stone whistle that Cyndere had found inside the oceandragon’s skull gleamed like a jewel in her hand.
She thought of the stonemaster who had sculpted it. She did not trust Scharr ben Fray, but she was drawn to the idea of someone out there wandering and pursuing the mysteries of the Expanse. Oh to be so free.
“I’ve met a mystery for you, old man,” she said, turning to look at the likeness she was detailing on the wall. “He’s a beastman. And he’s healing.” She put the whistle down and took up a lump of burnt firewood. Clearing a patch of wallstones, she began to sketch the ale boy’s face. “And there’s someone else. A young firewalker. Out there in the snow. I hope they’ve found each other.”
Emeriene crept in as if wanting to remain unnoticed and dutifully gathered up the woodscloak that Cyndere had brought in from the wild the night before. The sisterly had stopped asking questions. Cyndere knew that her friend was angry and that she resented these solitary excursions by night. She also knew that Emeriene would sound an alarm if she guessed what was happening in the glen.
“Emeriene,” Cyndere called to her friend, who was heading for the door. “It is…it is helping. Walking in the woods at night. I can’t explain yet. But I will someday. You don’t have to worry. You won’t lose me. I—”
“If I cannot be a part of your new life, I’m losing you already.” Emeriene pulled the door shut hard behind her.
The sound was like a slap, and Cyndere felt the sting. She went back to the incense bowl by her bedside, sat down, cupped her hands and drew the aroma of those crushed blue flowers to her face. Drawing it in deep, she felt the calm come over her. She looked about the room. She was tired of this space. She wanted to emerge from hiding. Conversation with Jordam had invigorated her. She would go back to the glen every night until he returned.
“An honest beastman, Deun. I’ve found him. I’ll speak with him just as we practiced. I’ll teach him. He has so much to learn.” She stepped to the window and lifted an empty cup, pretending to raise a toast. “I wish you were here. We could celebrate.” She glanced about, but the sisterlies would not bring wine until evening. “It’s too early for wine. Let’s go find something special.”
She took the stairs and strolled a leisurely circle around each level in the tower and the towerhouse below. The soldiers—those resting from their night patrols—were a cacophonous concert of snores. One man, creeping in his bedblankets from the bunkroom of the women’s chamber, turned white with fear and then red with embarrassment as the heiress smirked.
Then it was down to the main level, where she wandered to the open doors and gazed out at the snow path that ran to the gates. A warmer wind had set the icicles to dripping from windowsills above her. Fog rose from the snow. Wilus Caroon was slumped in the guard chair, snoring. Spittle drooled from his bulging lower lip, and when he choked on a dream, his eyes opened, rolled, and fixed on her. “It’s up to no good,” he rasped. “You watch for it. Up to no good, I tell you.”
“Indeed,” she laughed. “What’s up to no good? The beastman?”
“It’s after us,” he said, still deep within delirium. “All of us. Wings, fire. A big black thing, flying straight for my face. But I shooed it away, and it was gone.”
“Are you dreaming about the Keeper?” she whispered. “Lapsing back to childhood in your old age, are you?”
The sound of a plate breaking drew her back into the corridor, then to the bar in the kitchen, where she surveyed the bustling crew. “So is anyone going to offer me a bottle of berry juice?”
They all changed direction in midstep, scrambling to answer her request, and in the process, two more dishes broke.
“Such attentive helpers,” said a deep, resonant voice.
The Seer swept into the kitchen, his robes a whirlwind about him. He came to the bar to share Cyndere’s view.
Cyndere took a step away from him. Pretor Xa had departed House Bel Amica long before she had come to Tilianpurth. By way of explanation, the Seers had announced that the philosophers and historians of House Jenta in the south had summoned him to aid them in revising their histories of the Expanse. Whenever the Seers offered elaborate explanations, Cyndere immediately sought for clues to the truth.
Speaking as if from a throne to an assembly—an annoying habit of the Seers—Pretor Xa explained that his stay in Tilianpurth would be brief. He was late, for beastmen had slain the merchants he had hired to bring him home and stolen their horses and wagons. Two days he had walked in the storm. But he knew that they needed him to lead the Ceremony of Sacrifice, and he would stay to share the feast before his return to Bel Amica.
“It is good to see the heiress up and about,” said the Seer to the air. “I hope that her moon-spirit has granted her the healing that she sought here after such terrible losses.” His perpetual smile sickened her, and he seemed especially pleased with himself.
“Why would moon-spirits bother to heal a wound that they allowed me to suffer in the first place?”
“Softly, Heiress.” The Seer’s voice took on a patronizing tone that made her teeth hurt. “You would do well not to offend the moon-spirits.”
“It must be too late for that. I pursued my heart’s desire, and they let him die.”
“You’re distraught over your loss, but lift your eyes. Look about. We’re all wounded by what the beastmen have done. Tonight we will assemble to ask the spirits to put aside their differences and bless us.”
“Please, Pretor Xa. What you would do in response to Deuneroi’s death only shows how little you knew him.”
The kitchen staff was scattering.
“When you perpetuate this false hope of redeeming the beastmen, you prolong your suffering, Heiress. Let go of Deuneroi’s dreams. You’ll find it easier to let go of Deuneroi himself. The world will be a safer place with one less savage in the wild.”
“You spit upon all he strove to achieve. And didn’t you hear? The beastman Ryllion planned to kill—he escaped.”
“Didn’t you hear?” the Seer replied. “They’ve caught another.”
Cyndere pressed a hand to her breast.
“Oh. They didn’t tell you? Yes, before the sun rose, they caught one. Clearly, Ryllion’s moon-spirit heard his plea. And this beastman? He boasts of Deuneroi’s murder.”
She began backing toward the door, suddenly terrified by the Seer’s painted face and his lipless grin. “Whatever he boasts, I do not want a beastman killed here. In a battle to defend ourselves, yes. To save a life, yes. But to settle a score, no. I came here to find peace.”
How she hated their faces. Their elaborate tattoos and paint obscured any hint of expression, save for that mad smile.
“Heiress of Bel Amica,” he said in his singsong fashion, “you may not need this closure, but your people do.”
“This beastman.” Cyndere put a hand out to steady herself against the bar. “What does he look like?”
The Seer’s white eyes rattled in their sockets. “Why?”
Cyndere turned and fled back up the corridor. “Deuneroi,” she whispered, “help me.” She thought of the woods. If she disrupted the Ceremony of Sacrifice or found some way to escape it, her mother would punish her for offending the spirits.
This time it would be different. If she ran away, she would have to keep running.
“Honorable Pretor Xa,” Ryllion murmured in his empty chamber, “forgive me. I have been false with you.”
As he stood chest-deep in a steaming soaktub, his reflection in the full-length mirror stared back at him. He posed several expressions of humble resolve. “You assumed that my desire was for the heiress. I did not contradict you. It seemed the obvious path. But while I am called to lead the people of Bel Amica someday, I cannot sustain this notion any longer. I have wounded Cyndere too deeply already, and my true desire is for someone else. My spirit tells me that Emeriene will stand beside me as I take the risks that lie ahead.”
He raised his hands as if his listener might interrupt. “Yes, yes, I know that her husband is your faithful student. But Cesylle neglects her. And he is not a descendant of Tammos Raak. I am. And when I make my move for the throne of House Bel Amica, as you have prepared me to do…”
He heard footsteps, and he bent his knees, sinking into the hot water of his soaktub. The water closed over him, sealing off all sound but his strangely accelerating heartbeat. Here, submerged, he could safely trace the lines of his plan without any fear of spies.
Tonight Pretor Xa would tell him how many beastmen were willing to trust them, willing to take orders. The people of Bel Amica would protest if they learned that the trap involved conspiring with the Cent Regus. But these maneuvers were necessary in order to bait enough beastmen into their plot and to find a way to penetrate their lair and tear down their chieftain. By slaying a beastman in a sacred ceremony, he would convince influential Bel Amicans of his resolve against the Cent Regus and gain momentum in his mission to win the allegiance of the people back home.
He exhaled the deep breath he had held beneath the water, emerging into the air and blinking in the light of early afternoon. A pitcher of water and a cup had been placed on his windowsill. The blankets of his bed had been smoothed. Servants had done their work and left, all the while unaware that he was holding his breath beneath the water.
He laughed, then paused to admire the beastman tusk he had strung over the knife-sharp pinnacle of his shard-shaped mirror. He submerged himself again.
One thing was certain. He was tired of waiting.
He would have to be careful. Best to focus first on the fight, to ensure a quick and thrilling victory. He pictured the beastman. Pictured it charging at him. Pictured the dodge, the lunge.
He burst up from the water, gulped air, and shouted in challenge. A wave drenched the Seer, who staggered away from the tub with a curse, robes darkening and dripping.
“What are you—”
“It is good to see you, Captain Ryllion,” said Pretor Xa through his teeth.
“Captain? I’m not there yet, and you know it.” Ryllion sank down to his shoulders in the water, alarmed that one of his meddling overseers had been watching, had caught him unprepared. “Why are you in my chamber unannounced?”
“You didn’t expect me? The Ceremony of the Sacrifice. So little time to prepare. And you are injured.”
“I expected you. You just…startled me. I am ready. As we discussed.”
“Rumors are spreading. Everyone believes our new captive was carrying Deuneroi’s emblem.”
“Clever. They will be ecstatic when I cut him in half under the green moon. Trust me. Now, if I you’ll grant me a few moments alone to dress…”
“First, I’ll apply a potion.” The Seer drew out a small clay vessel, lifted the lid, and stirred the steaming oil with a finger. “You must dazzle your observers. You must shine against the night sky like a moon-spirit embodied. News of what happens here tonight will run like a chill through the beastmen of House Cent Regus. They will whisper about Ryllion, the fearsome beastman slayer.”
Ryllion leaned on the edge of the tub. “If you say it is so. But every day it becomes clearer that this will not impress the heiress.”
He might be ready to face a beastman, but, no, he was not strong enough yet to tell Pretor Xa the truth about Cyndere and Emeriene. Not here. Not now. The Seers had taken great pains to improve his chances of winning the most powerful woman in Bel Amica. They would not understand a man with his potential having such affection for a sisterly. He could not risk losing their favor, not after giving up so much. He would have to keep his secret until a better time.
“Tonight when you come out to make the sacrifice, Cyndere and the rest will see the two extremes of being—the accursed and the ideal,” said Pretor Xa. “Your spirit is pleased. And our desires align with yours. So do not hesitate to tell us anything you might sense your spirit saying to you. We will help you.”
Ryllion scowled at his reflection. “My arm hurts. I want it to stop.”
“We have what you need. You’ll feel no pain tonight. Anything else?”
“I’m young, but my hair already recedes. And it’s yellow, unremarkable. Deuneroi’s hair was black and shiny as crow feathers. Perhaps if I looked more like Deuneroi…”
“Your hair can be as dark and bold as blacklode,” said the Seer, leaning over the water again. There was something beyond admiration in Pretor Xa’s wild eyes.
The Seer tipped the oil out of the bowl and let a thread run down into the water. When it touched the surface, Ryllion felt a faint charge spread through him, and the ache in his shoulder faded.
“What…was that?”
“A little something to make you strong. When you fight tonight,” said the Seer, “you will find resources you did not know you had. You’ll destroy that beastman. And you won’t feel anything at all.”
“Good.”
“I’ve learned a great deal in my travels. You and your patrols have become famous among the beastmen. With a little encouragement from me, I think we’ll have an obedient army, Ryllion. They’re disgruntled. Their chieftain is stingy with his resources, the essence of their power. They’re ready to follow someone who can give them what they want. Can you imagine? They’re playing right into our hands.”
“Deuneroi,” Ryllion insisted. “Deuneroi would be impressed. Beastmen ready to talk with Bel Amicans.”
“Of course he would, Ryllion,” Pretor Xa laughed. “Of course.”
“Now let me ask you something. Seers don’t sleep. Isn’t that right?”
“Seers never sleep.”
“Then perhaps you can help me. I’ve been asked to post a guard in the kitchen at night. Someone’s been making mischief there and needs to be…discouraged.”
“There is nothing I’d enjoy more,” said the Seer. “Let’s bring order to Tilianpurth.”
19
A SEER COMES
TO TILIANPURTH
Ryllion woke to the sound of the ocean and the smell of salt.
A deep ache throbbed in his right arm, and he remembered the bat fastened there, the bite in his wrist. He wondered if he had been rushed to House Bel Amica for attention from special healers. If it gets me home, it will be worth it. He tried lifting his arm, but the cast was heavy. He opened his eyes.
“Do you hear it, Officer?”
Emeriene sat at a table before the window of his chamber in Tilianpurth’s tower. He was not home. The scent of the sea and the roar breathed from a large, spiral seashell propped next to his head.
Emeriene laughed, stirring something steamy in a clay bowl. Broth—he could smell it now—most likely a foul green brine, some weedy soup without a scrap of meat. She would swear it was healthy for him. He wanted a prowlfish steak.
“Kramm,” he muttered. “I was having such a lovely dream. You drowned in a shipwreck.”
She applauded. “I thought the bat might have bitten off your tongue, but there it is. Moon-spirits be praised. Come and eat, child. The ordeal has sapped your strength.”
Her dark disheveled hair, her voice scratched and deepened by pipe smoke, the ties of her robe loosened just enough to tease him—so she wanted his attention, did she? If this conversation continued in such a congenial tone, the injury might prove useful after all.
“Since you asked so nicely,” she said, “I’ll tell you.”
“I didn’t ask.”
“The sisterlies pumped a powerful antidote into your veins. But apparently your heartbeat runs stronger than most. From head to toe, the bat’s venom discolored you. You’ll be in bed awhile, and your arm will be slow in healing. But you’re lucky the damage stops there.”
His gambling cubes lay scattered across the floor. As he counted them, he noticed her slippers by the door next to a heap of rumpled cushions. She had slept here, watching over him. He was about to pry this admission from her when she volunteered that very truth, describing how he had required attention to his seizures during the night.
He asked who had caught and killed the beastman. “That privilege is still available,” she replied. “Our prisoners seem to have slipped away. Both of them.”
“That bratty little Abascar spy?” he growled. “No matter. We’ll catch him again. But that beastman—we needed him. The ceremony is coming fast.”
“It’s tomorrow.”
“I’ve slept a day, a night, and another day?” He began shouting questions, which Emeriene answered calmly.
She had doubled Cyndere’s guard, yes, and the heiress’s chamber had been thoroughly searched. While no one had seen the beastman run for the open gate, the search had produced no clues. They had buried the slain guards in the yard. Everyone else was accounted for.
“But not everything is in its proper place,” he mused, eyes fixed on her face. “There’s trouble in those pretty eyes.”
“You always trouble me.”
“But I am a jealous tormentor. And something—or someone—else has put a wrinkle in your voice.”
She stirred the broth.
“You want to go back, don’t you? To Bel Amica. To your sons.”
“I need to see my boys. They’ll have caused all kinds of trouble by now. Out here I forget who I am. I start treating other people like they’re my children.”
“Is that what you’re doing? Mothering me? I hear I’m incorrigible. So please, don’t stop.”
“You’re beyond help, child.”
“Har, har.” He picked up the seashell and raised it as if he would throw it. She folded her arms defiantly, and he put it back down. “Let me give you some advice.”
Her eyes narrowed.
“Tilianpurth is a different world. Quieter. Simpler. It gives us opportunities to catch new visions from the spirits.”
“Don’t get religious on me.”
“I’m serious. Since the queen ordered me to do some good around here, I’ve had new adventures. You could too. You might indulge yourself a little. You might become something more than a sisterly and a mother. What desires have dusted you during the night, Em? What has your spirit whispered in your ear?”
“I am something more than a mother.” She let go of the spoon and tapped the tattoo on the back of her hand.
“Ah yes. How could I forget?” Her glare pleased him. He pressed harder. “Tell me, if Cesylle cares so much about his wife, why has he not come out here to be with her?”
“The Seers need him in Bel Amica.”
“You’ve got it backward. Cesylle needs the Seers.”
“They’re training him to use skyscopes and farglasses, to interpret the moon colors and read the moods of the spirits. He says he’ll show me wonders someday.” As she poured water from a pitcher into a clay cup, her casual tone began to sour into resentment. “He used to say that I was a wonder.”
Ryllion scratched around the edge of his cast. Her voice was edged with a new, reckless sense of trust in him as a listener. Something had knocked her off balance. “Cesylle’s forgotten the treasure he has.”
She dared to meet his gaze, but only for a moment.
“We noticed you on the same day, Cesylle and I. Did you know that?” He laughed. “Don’t ever tell your husband I told you this.”
“Told me what?”
He rose from the blankets, and she turned to the window with a noise between a laugh and a cry, for he was naked. He casually wrapped himself in a sheet and sat down at the table. She pressed her lips together and stared intently at some unremarkable place in the grey sky, red rising up her neck and tinting her cheeks, while he seized the bowl and gulped the broth.
“Ambitious youngsters, we were,” he said as if they spoke like this every morning. “We had a round of cubes.” He nodded to the game pieces on the floor. “Cesylle won. He got to invite you to the king’s feast.”
“You had a round of cubes.” She shook her head and laughed bitterly. “Before the king’s burial feast? Oh, that is just pristine. It explains so much—that I was Cesylle’s prize in a game. And then he moved on to play other sorts of games.” She tapped the windowsill. “You couldn’t even grow a beard yet. Do you think I would have accepted your invitation to the burial feast if you’d won?”
“Let’s call it by its proper name—it was the Feast of the Reward. A celebration. King Helpryn heard that coveted call, the blessing that the moon-spirits grant their most faithful servants. He was carried from the deck of his ship to the moon. He never died. He was taken straight to his reward.”
“And thus, King Helpryn’s people were blessed. Is that what you think?”
“He impressed the spirits, and he continues to petition them for favor. Thus, his family is blessed. House Bel Amica is richer than ever. We should learn from his example and risk everything—everything, Em—to pursue the desires that seize us.”
“Where are Cyndere’s blessings?”
“Deuneroi wasn’t a blessing?”
“You call their short-lived marriage a blessing?” Her laughter lacked any note of humor. “That kind of loss is a wound that doesn’t heal. Believe me. I know.”
“You’re talking about Partayn, aren’t you? You think Cyndere’s brother was your only chance for happiness. So you settled for Cesylle.”
“It’s none of your concern,” she snapped. “And, no, he wasn’t. There were other chances. But why trust my desires when they’re always spoiled?”
Perhaps there was more to Emeriene’s pain than Cesylle’s neglect. “Let me tell you what the Seers tell me.” After an awkward pause, he cleared his throat. “Sometimes what I desire is lost. That’s not my fault. The world is a tangle of many hearts, many desires, and not everybody gets what they want. But the desires are still sacred. They’re a compass. If we don’t indulge them, we’ll never find the one that brings us happiness. I hear it in your voice, Em—the longing. You haven’t given up. I think I can help you.”
She took the dull cheese knife and pretended to threaten him. “Notice my weapon of choice in resisting you.”
“You feel too bound to the old ways, the contracts. They get in the way of your sacred—”
“You think it’s my faithfulness to Cesylle that makes me unhappy.”
“There’s something you think you can’t have. I understand that.” He dropped both hands onto the table, his cast thudding down hard, causing the bowl and the bread plate to jump. “But I won’t let the expectations of others get in my way. I don’t even tell the Seers the full nature of my desires. If I did, they’d meddle and make my quest more difficult.”
“Oh, you think we don’t see it. But everybody knows your quest, Ryllion.” Taking her cheese knife by the blade, she whacked his cast with its handle. “Is this what happens to people who reach for what they really want? You want to be a captain. You want Cyndere. And then you’ll get to be king someday.”
“That’s the Seers’ understanding,” he sighed. He lifted the bowl and drank it dry.
She handed him a piece of bread but put the lid on the dipping bowl. “No syrup for your bread. Not until you start speaking plainly. What quest are you talking about?”
“I’ll give you a hint if you’ll give me the syrup.”
She watched him for a moment, then lifted the lid.
“Deuneroi wanted to tame the beastmen.” He lowered his voice, dipping the bread. “And to make it up to him, I’m pursuing that dream. But I’ll need help. So tomorrow, at the Ceremony of the Sacrifice, I will make an offering that will dazzle the spirits.”
“How is killing a beastman honoring Deuneroi’s desire to save them?”
“Under that watchful green moon, I’ll gain the spirits’ favor. They’ll see that we are united in our desire to rid the world of the Cent Regus scourge. And they’ll lend us power. But my plan is to conquer the beastmen by luring them into a choice—either obedience to Bel Amica or destruction. If we can compel them to follow orders, to fight for us instead of against us, we can tame them.”
“And how long have you been planning this?”
“I’ve had a lot of time to think during my stay. And one of the Seers has been learning to manipulate the beastmen.”
“The Honorable Pretor Xa.”
His smiled vanished. “How did you know?” He leaned forward. “Did Cyndere tell you? He’s on his way to join us here?”
“He’s here,” she said sharply.
Ryllion’s knees bumped the table as he rose, and the syrup jar skidded to the edge. Emeriene caught it, pushed it back onto the table, and put the lid on it, a smug smile on her face. “Now, now, child. Don’t make a mess.”
“Why didn’t somebody wake me?”
“I told Pretor Xa that you’d been bitten by a rodent and weren’t in any condition to take visitors.”
“You enjoyed that, didn’t you? Humiliating me before one of the Seers. You’ve embarrassed me three times now. When Cyndere arrived, you let me go on speaking like a musker’s backside when you knew she was listening. And now I wake up to find myself wearing nothing but the bed blankets. I suspect it was you who wrapped this bandage too tight.” He picked at the edge of his cast.
“We had to get you out of those clothes.” She absently poured more water into her cup, forgetting that she had already filled it, and it splashed onto the table.
“We?” He wrapped the sheet tighter around him. “How many sisterlies were part of this wicked endeavor?”
“There wasn’t time to waste.” She stifled a smile. “The last thing you need is flattery. But the so-called privilege went to… Well, there was this game of cubes, you see.”
She leaned forward to cast a cloth napkin across the spill. He caught a glimpse of the fiery purple moon-tattoo that showed at the base of her throat, and he wanted, just for a minute, to give up his perilous plans. To abandon the ceremony he had arranged for the evening. He wanted to take her away and flee back to Bel Amica, to the familiar games of wit and flirtation. “You with your leg in a cast. Me with my arm. We’re quite a pair, you and I.”
“We are not a pair,” she scoffed.
“Let me tell you what caused this injury, Emeriene.” He knocked on his cast. “My father and grandfather labored in those shipyards for Bel Amica. They trained me to seek advantage. They told me that I should take one small step every day toward a greater opportunity. That’s why I’m within reach of Cyndere’s hand. The Seers encourage my ambition. They want me to be king. But, Emeriene, my moon-spirit knows my heart better than anyone. She knows something even the Seers don’t know.”
“And what’s that?”
“Something has complicated my ambition.”
“Cyndere’s refusals.”
“No,” he declared, bringing his fist down on the table. “It’s true, I approached the heiress. I made a scandalous suggestion—that she allow me to fill the void left by Deuneroi’s death. But that’s what the Seers want. It’s not really what I want. I see that now. My moon-spirit punished me; she made the bat attack me. I was straying from my true desire.”
“Your true desire.” Emeriene put the cup on the table, tracing its rim with her fingertips.
“Cyndere’s heart belongs to Deuneroi. But you knew, even before we arrived at Tilianpurth, Emeriene, what my heart now understands.”
He reached for her hand, but she jerked it away. “Don’t say those things out loud! This is an open window.”
“You see?” he said. “No bat jumped out of the shadows. I’m speaking the truth. You haven’t thrown the cup at me. You haven’t mentioned Cesylle’s name.”
“You haven’t asked about my desires!” she shrieked, flustered.
“You’re sad and lonely. You sat in my chamber to watch over me. What does that tell you?”
She rose, red as sunburn, and walked past him toward the door. “You presumptuous fool. I haven’t told you why I’m here.”
“Then what?”
“I’m here because I needed to speak with you before that meddling Seer starts hovering over you. I need your help, Ryllion.” Anger flared in her voice. “And I don’t know where…” The anger broke into something more unstable, something like grief. “I don’t know where to turn.”
“It’s Cyndere, isn’t it, Em?”
“Don’t,” she whispered, “call me Em.”
“She’s hurt you.”
“We used to share everything. When she had secrets with Deuneroi, I could trust her. Because I trusted him. But now she has new secrets. Dangerous secrets. Something else is taking her away. She’s shutting me out. And it’s only going to get worse. I’m afraid she’ll run away. Away into her secret.”
“She can’t run away.” Ryllion moved toward her. His arm pulsed like a violent alarm, and he caught the bedpost to keep from falling. “There’s nowhere she can go. She’d need a soldier’s help, and no one here would risk spoiling other officers’ trust to help her. Not while I’m nearby. I see everything.” But I had better look again, he thought.
Emeriene walked to the bed and sat down on the edge, her shoulders shaking. “She’s lost so much. She’s so lonely. But she’s not the only one. Can’t she understand that?”
He sat down next to her, watched their reflections in the mirror that faced them. “You don’t have to be lonely,” he said softly.
“You want to help me?” she said, wiping her eyes on her sleeve. “Post a guard in the kitchen. All night.”
He took her hand gently and squeezed it. “Done. I’ll post guards in the kitchen, at the lift, at the stairwell, if you’re so sure.”
“Just be watchful.”
“Listen, Em. Emeriene. I want you to have a seat on the balcony tomorrow night during the Feast of the Sacrifice. It will do you good. Watch what happens. I’ll give the people a picture of what is to come.” She looked up and started to protest, but he touched her cheek with his fingertips and said, “Shh. Trust me. I’m ready for this. I’ll slay a beastman in the Ceremony of Sacrifice. That should release the anger that has built up within Cyndere since Deuneroi’s death. It should release the anger in all of us. The spirits will be pleased. And then…imagine it. We’ll go out and strike fear into their hearts. And tame them.”
“Before an audience?” She pulled her hand away. “You’ll kill a beastman in front of Cyndere? You know how she feels—”
“I also know how she feels about losing Deuneroi. A beastman killed him; a beastman must die. The ceremony will do so much more to encourage the people than those few token beastman skulls I’ve sent home. Those who watch will have a sense of participation. It will move all of us toward healing.”
She cast a doubtful glance at his reflection.
“Listen, Emeriene. The Seers have shown me that if people unite in a desire, moon-spirits overcome their differences and strive to bless us all. Together we can begin to break the scourge of the Expanse.”
She closed her eyes and squeezed his hand with both of hers. “I should go,” she said. “I shouldn’t be here. The other sisterlies will talk. I’ll call for the Seer to help prepare you for the ceremony.” She moved to the door, paused, and looked at him in the mirror hanging there. “I’ll be there on the balcony to watch you tomorrow. And, Ryllion…strike true.”
“If I know you’ll be waiting for me when it’s over, I will strike the truest blow Bel Amica’s ever seen.”
The white sun hung in the white sky the next day, and the stone whistle that Cyndere had found inside the oceandragon’s skull gleamed like a jewel in her hand.
She thought of the stonemaster who had sculpted it. She did not trust Scharr ben Fray, but she was drawn to the idea of someone out there wandering and pursuing the mysteries of the Expanse. Oh to be so free.
“I’ve met a mystery for you, old man,” she said, turning to look at the likeness she was detailing on the wall. “He’s a beastman. And he’s healing.” She put the whistle down and took up a lump of burnt firewood. Clearing a patch of wallstones, she began to sketch the ale boy’s face. “And there’s someone else. A young firewalker. Out there in the snow. I hope they’ve found each other.”
Emeriene crept in as if wanting to remain unnoticed and dutifully gathered up the woodscloak that Cyndere had brought in from the wild the night before. The sisterly had stopped asking questions. Cyndere knew that her friend was angry and that she resented these solitary excursions by night. She also knew that Emeriene would sound an alarm if she guessed what was happening in the glen.
“Emeriene,” Cyndere called to her friend, who was heading for the door. “It is…it is helping. Walking in the woods at night. I can’t explain yet. But I will someday. You don’t have to worry. You won’t lose me. I—”
“If I cannot be a part of your new life, I’m losing you already.” Emeriene pulled the door shut hard behind her.
The sound was like a slap, and Cyndere felt the sting. She went back to the incense bowl by her bedside, sat down, cupped her hands and drew the aroma of those crushed blue flowers to her face. Drawing it in deep, she felt the calm come over her. She looked about the room. She was tired of this space. She wanted to emerge from hiding. Conversation with Jordam had invigorated her. She would go back to the glen every night until he returned.
“An honest beastman, Deun. I’ve found him. I’ll speak with him just as we practiced. I’ll teach him. He has so much to learn.” She stepped to the window and lifted an empty cup, pretending to raise a toast. “I wish you were here. We could celebrate.” She glanced about, but the sisterlies would not bring wine until evening. “It’s too early for wine. Let’s go find something special.”
She took the stairs and strolled a leisurely circle around each level in the tower and the towerhouse below. The soldiers—those resting from their night patrols—were a cacophonous concert of snores. One man, creeping in his bedblankets from the bunkroom of the women’s chamber, turned white with fear and then red with embarrassment as the heiress smirked.
Then it was down to the main level, where she wandered to the open doors and gazed out at the snow path that ran to the gates. A warmer wind had set the icicles to dripping from windowsills above her. Fog rose from the snow. Wilus Caroon was slumped in the guard chair, snoring. Spittle drooled from his bulging lower lip, and when he choked on a dream, his eyes opened, rolled, and fixed on her. “It’s up to no good,” he rasped. “You watch for it. Up to no good, I tell you.”
“Indeed,” she laughed. “What’s up to no good? The beastman?”
“It’s after us,” he said, still deep within delirium. “All of us. Wings, fire. A big black thing, flying straight for my face. But I shooed it away, and it was gone.”
“Are you dreaming about the Keeper?” she whispered. “Lapsing back to childhood in your old age, are you?”
The sound of a plate breaking drew her back into the corridor, then to the bar in the kitchen, where she surveyed the bustling crew. “So is anyone going to offer me a bottle of berry juice?”
They all changed direction in midstep, scrambling to answer her request, and in the process, two more dishes broke.
“Such attentive helpers,” said a deep, resonant voice.
The Seer swept into the kitchen, his robes a whirlwind about him. He came to the bar to share Cyndere’s view.
Cyndere took a step away from him. Pretor Xa had departed House Bel Amica long before she had come to Tilianpurth. By way of explanation, the Seers had announced that the philosophers and historians of House Jenta in the south had summoned him to aid them in revising their histories of the Expanse. Whenever the Seers offered elaborate explanations, Cyndere immediately sought for clues to the truth.
Speaking as if from a throne to an assembly—an annoying habit of the Seers—Pretor Xa explained that his stay in Tilianpurth would be brief. He was late, for beastmen had slain the merchants he had hired to bring him home and stolen their horses and wagons. Two days he had walked in the storm. But he knew that they needed him to lead the Ceremony of Sacrifice, and he would stay to share the feast before his return to Bel Amica.
“It is good to see the heiress up and about,” said the Seer to the air. “I hope that her moon-spirit has granted her the healing that she sought here after such terrible losses.” His perpetual smile sickened her, and he seemed especially pleased with himself.
“Why would moon-spirits bother to heal a wound that they allowed me to suffer in the first place?”
“Softly, Heiress.” The Seer’s voice took on a patronizing tone that made her teeth hurt. “You would do well not to offend the moon-spirits.”
“It must be too late for that. I pursued my heart’s desire, and they let him die.”
“You’re distraught over your loss, but lift your eyes. Look about. We’re all wounded by what the beastmen have done. Tonight we will assemble to ask the spirits to put aside their differences and bless us.”
“Please, Pretor Xa. What you would do in response to Deuneroi’s death only shows how little you knew him.”
The kitchen staff was scattering.
“When you perpetuate this false hope of redeeming the beastmen, you prolong your suffering, Heiress. Let go of Deuneroi’s dreams. You’ll find it easier to let go of Deuneroi himself. The world will be a safer place with one less savage in the wild.”
“You spit upon all he strove to achieve. And didn’t you hear? The beastman Ryllion planned to kill—he escaped.”
“Didn’t you hear?” the Seer replied. “They’ve caught another.”
Cyndere pressed a hand to her breast.
“Oh. They didn’t tell you? Yes, before the sun rose, they caught one. Clearly, Ryllion’s moon-spirit heard his plea. And this beastman? He boasts of Deuneroi’s murder.”
She began backing toward the door, suddenly terrified by the Seer’s painted face and his lipless grin. “Whatever he boasts, I do not want a beastman killed here. In a battle to defend ourselves, yes. To save a life, yes. But to settle a score, no. I came here to find peace.”
How she hated their faces. Their elaborate tattoos and paint obscured any hint of expression, save for that mad smile.
“Heiress of Bel Amica,” he said in his singsong fashion, “you may not need this closure, but your people do.”
“This beastman.” Cyndere put a hand out to steady herself against the bar. “What does he look like?”
The Seer’s white eyes rattled in their sockets. “Why?”
Cyndere turned and fled back up the corridor. “Deuneroi,” she whispered, “help me.” She thought of the woods. If she disrupted the Ceremony of Sacrifice or found some way to escape it, her mother would punish her for offending the spirits.
This time it would be different. If she ran away, she would have to keep running.
“Honorable Pretor Xa,” Ryllion murmured in his empty chamber, “forgive me. I have been false with you.”
As he stood chest-deep in a steaming soaktub, his reflection in the full-length mirror stared back at him. He posed several expressions of humble resolve. “You assumed that my desire was for the heiress. I did not contradict you. It seemed the obvious path. But while I am called to lead the people of Bel Amica someday, I cannot sustain this notion any longer. I have wounded Cyndere too deeply already, and my true desire is for someone else. My spirit tells me that Emeriene will stand beside me as I take the risks that lie ahead.”
He raised his hands as if his listener might interrupt. “Yes, yes, I know that her husband is your faithful student. But Cesylle neglects her. And he is not a descendant of Tammos Raak. I am. And when I make my move for the throne of House Bel Amica, as you have prepared me to do…”
He heard footsteps, and he bent his knees, sinking into the hot water of his soaktub. The water closed over him, sealing off all sound but his strangely accelerating heartbeat. Here, submerged, he could safely trace the lines of his plan without any fear of spies.
Tonight Pretor Xa would tell him how many beastmen were willing to trust them, willing to take orders. The people of Bel Amica would protest if they learned that the trap involved conspiring with the Cent Regus. But these maneuvers were necessary in order to bait enough beastmen into their plot and to find a way to penetrate their lair and tear down their chieftain. By slaying a beastman in a sacred ceremony, he would convince influential Bel Amicans of his resolve against the Cent Regus and gain momentum in his mission to win the allegiance of the people back home.
He exhaled the deep breath he had held beneath the water, emerging into the air and blinking in the light of early afternoon. A pitcher of water and a cup had been placed on his windowsill. The blankets of his bed had been smoothed. Servants had done their work and left, all the while unaware that he was holding his breath beneath the water.
He laughed, then paused to admire the beastman tusk he had strung over the knife-sharp pinnacle of his shard-shaped mirror. He submerged himself again.
One thing was certain. He was tired of waiting.
He would have to be careful. Best to focus first on the fight, to ensure a quick and thrilling victory. He pictured the beastman. Pictured it charging at him. Pictured the dodge, the lunge.
He burst up from the water, gulped air, and shouted in challenge. A wave drenched the Seer, who staggered away from the tub with a curse, robes darkening and dripping.
“What are you—”
“It is good to see you, Captain Ryllion,” said Pretor Xa through his teeth.
“Captain? I’m not there yet, and you know it.” Ryllion sank down to his shoulders in the water, alarmed that one of his meddling overseers had been watching, had caught him unprepared. “Why are you in my chamber unannounced?”
“You didn’t expect me? The Ceremony of the Sacrifice. So little time to prepare. And you are injured.”
“I expected you. You just…startled me. I am ready. As we discussed.”
“Rumors are spreading. Everyone believes our new captive was carrying Deuneroi’s emblem.”
“Clever. They will be ecstatic when I cut him in half under the green moon. Trust me. Now, if I you’ll grant me a few moments alone to dress…”
“First, I’ll apply a potion.” The Seer drew out a small clay vessel, lifted the lid, and stirred the steaming oil with a finger. “You must dazzle your observers. You must shine against the night sky like a moon-spirit embodied. News of what happens here tonight will run like a chill through the beastmen of House Cent Regus. They will whisper about Ryllion, the fearsome beastman slayer.”
Ryllion leaned on the edge of the tub. “If you say it is so. But every day it becomes clearer that this will not impress the heiress.”
He might be ready to face a beastman, but, no, he was not strong enough yet to tell Pretor Xa the truth about Cyndere and Emeriene. Not here. Not now. The Seers had taken great pains to improve his chances of winning the most powerful woman in Bel Amica. They would not understand a man with his potential having such affection for a sisterly. He could not risk losing their favor, not after giving up so much. He would have to keep his secret until a better time.
“Tonight when you come out to make the sacrifice, Cyndere and the rest will see the two extremes of being—the accursed and the ideal,” said Pretor Xa. “Your spirit is pleased. And our desires align with yours. So do not hesitate to tell us anything you might sense your spirit saying to you. We will help you.”
Ryllion scowled at his reflection. “My arm hurts. I want it to stop.”
“We have what you need. You’ll feel no pain tonight. Anything else?”
“I’m young, but my hair already recedes. And it’s yellow, unremarkable. Deuneroi’s hair was black and shiny as crow feathers. Perhaps if I looked more like Deuneroi…”
“Your hair can be as dark and bold as blacklode,” said the Seer, leaning over the water again. There was something beyond admiration in Pretor Xa’s wild eyes.
The Seer tipped the oil out of the bowl and let a thread run down into the water. When it touched the surface, Ryllion felt a faint charge spread through him, and the ache in his shoulder faded.
“What…was that?”
“A little something to make you strong. When you fight tonight,” said the Seer, “you will find resources you did not know you had. You’ll destroy that beastman. And you won’t feel anything at all.”
“Good.”
“I’ve learned a great deal in my travels. You and your patrols have become famous among the beastmen. With a little encouragement from me, I think we’ll have an obedient army, Ryllion. They’re disgruntled. Their chieftain is stingy with his resources, the essence of their power. They’re ready to follow someone who can give them what they want. Can you imagine? They’re playing right into our hands.”
“Deuneroi,” Ryllion insisted. “Deuneroi would be impressed. Beastmen ready to talk with Bel Amicans.”
“Of course he would, Ryllion,” Pretor Xa laughed. “Of course.”
“Now let me ask you something. Seers don’t sleep. Isn’t that right?”
“Seers never sleep.”
“Then perhaps you can help me. I’ve been asked to post a guard in the kitchen at night. Someone’s been making mischief there and needs to be…discouraged.”
“There is nothing I’d enjoy more,” said the Seer. “Let’s bring order to Tilianpurth.”
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