Authors: Carol Berg
My breath pumped hard and fast. I could not swallow. The vile bit in my mouth had me drooling and gagging. If I retched, I would drown.
“Calm yourself. ’Tis just precaution. The judgment will tell all.”
But if I was not allowed to speak, any
judgment
was a farce. Like my contract negotiation.
Nelek shoved me up the narrow, twisting column of iron—a laborious ascent, hobbled as I was. The chains clanked on the iron steps. “All the way up,
plebeiu
.”
Plebeiu.
Nelek believed I was already fallen to the lowest of pureblood ranks.
Discipline, Lucian.
The Registry had been the foundation of pureblood life for centuries. My sire, my grandsire, all my kin had taught me that our way was worthy and honorable. Purebloods didn’t vanish into cellars. Purebloods didn’t get declared mad because their family died or their house burned. This was wartime, for the gods’ sake. The Harrowers despised purebloods as much as they despised the Sinduri or the Karish monks and hierarchs, as much as they despised nobles and magistrates.
Like a kick to the head, the implication struck me. Was that it? Were the Harrowers finishing what they had begun at Pontia? The man who had pulled me back from the fire and accused me of setting it myself—the
first
man, before the pureblood—had worn an orange scarf, the Harrowers’ token. Here in the heart of Palinur . . . a Harrower raid? Someone should know that!
I halted and pressed the old man to the rail. “Harrowers! Harrowers set the fire!” But it came out gibberish. The younger man hauled me off him and pushed me up the next step.
At the top of the steps, Nelek unlocked a heavy door.
“Move along, boy.” All pretense of respect fell away as the elder shoved me staggering through the door and the guardroom, and around a corner to the servants’ stair. Surprisingly, he directed me down. All the way back to the ground level. By the time we reached the bottom, I was near exhaustion.
Sunbeams—afternoon sunbeams—stretched long across the patterned floor of the Tower rotunda, dizzying me with brightness and a confusion of lost time. I’d come from the temple before midnight.
“Now we go up.” Up the grand stair I had tried to breach all those hours ago.
The guards who had blocked my passage stood aside, unable to hide their appalled curiosity. I dared not look up to see how many gawkers stared from the gallery. My skin was ablaze.
Every step was more awkward than the last. My legs ached from the unaccustomed weight of the shackles. Worse, with one eye blocked by the mask, I could not judge depth or distance. Stumbling like a drunkard through the Tower rotunda in shirt, slops, chains, and a madman’s mask, I might as well have been naked. Not a pureblood in Navronne would fail to hear of it. The ascent seemed endless; the shame, boundless.
T
he Curators’ Chamber was the
topmost in the tower. Only twice before had I been admitted there. All pureblood children were brought before the curators at the age of seven to be acknowledged as pureblood sorcerers of proven bloodlines, ready to begin their formal schooling in magic. And all pureblood young people were brought there to declare their bent—most at sixteen, I at one-and-twenty, after my grandsire had stripped me of one bent and left me the other.
Elegant and austere, the chamber overlooked the city from a height that had seemed close on divine Idrium itself. After such a climb in shackles and the mask I’d already come to regard as Magrog’s foulest torment, it was all I could do to breathe and keep upright before the six who held my future—my life—in their hands.
The six curators, unmasked in their private domain, were seated at their horseshoe table, conversing quietly among themselves. It jangled my nerves that they took no notice, yet I was grateful to have a chance to gather my wits.
First Curator Gramphier, a spare, flat-faced, inexpressive man, held the center chair. Cold-eyed Gramphier could have sat under the table and any stranger would have picked him as the master of this room. When I had expressed surprise that my grandsire had considered him as a brother, Capatronn had told me, “Gramphier is a man of great intellect and the deepest passions. His actions reflect what his features do not.” My hope might rest in that, because the others . . .
First Registrar Damon sat at Gramphier’s right hand, second only to Gramphier in rank. Short, tidy, black haired, with a long nose and complexion the hue of olives, Damon could have stepped straight off any centuries-old pot or fresco from the Aurellian Empire. My uncle Eurus, who had shared Damon’s bent for languages, named him ruthless in the practice of personal discipline—his own and everyone else’s—and said his favor was hard won. Rumor named Damon forever loyal to those who earned it, yet no gossip addressed what
earning
it entailed. I did not anticipate his favor.
As Second Registrar, Pons sat at Damon’s right hand. Her broad shoulders and heavy presence cast a blight on the room. If hate could burn flesh, the flames would burst the Tower roof above us and be seen as far as Syanar. These rumors of madness were surely her doing.
Dapper Curator Scrutari-Consil, wearing his sunburst pendant of the Karish god, sat next to Pons, already sneering. A petulant man with a large family, Scrutari gave Gilles and me endless trouble every time he brought one of his annoying brood in for anniversary portraits.
Gilles’s uncle Albin, the Overseer of Contracts, sat on Gramphier’s left, his squat, thick body that of a blacksmith and his garb that of a prince. The Albins owned such an expanse of vineyards, pastures, woodland ranges, and manors as to comprise their own kingdom. I had been surprised to find an Albin in so humble a contract as a Registry portraitist. But then, Gilles expressed surprise that a Remeni was contracted to work alongside him. Reportedly Albin, not Damon, was favored to succeed Gramphier when the First Curator’s term was done. Adamantly devoted to tradition, Albin would offer no leniency.
White-bearded Pluvius, the lowest ranked of the curators, sat at the far left, elbows propped on the polished table, mouth resting on his folded hands, staring at the floor. Disheveled and loose, his robes looked as if they belonged to an even larger brother. His demeanor left a void in my belly. He, of all the six, failed to look up when my shepherd shoved me into the center of the horseshoe and snapped, “Manners,
plebeiu
.”
I hated that any of them heard the command, as if I were too stupid or rebellious or crazed to recall proper protocol. Indeed my spirit churned in a most rebellious fashion. But I touched my bound hands to my forehead and bowed to each curator as deeply and gracefully as my restraints allowed.
Only then did I notice three others standing off to my blind side—two men, an elder and a younger, their features so mirrored as to name them father and son, dressed in such elegance of gold jewelry and scarlet brocade as to make me feel a floor mop. A third man stood behind them, indistinguishable in the shadowed corner.
“Thank you, Nelek,” said Gramphier. Young Virit had remained outside the chamber. “You are efficient as always. Perhaps you would escort these witnesses back to the rotunda.”
Wait!
I wanted to scream it. Was I not even to hear them? This was a Registry hearing, not some Evanori warlord’s mockery of judgment. The Registry was founded on respect and reason. Even at Pons’s inquiry in Montesard, I had been allowed to speak. And I needed to warn them about the Harrowers.
The well-dressed pair paused and bowed to each of the curators. Were these my neighbors, the purebloods who’d summoned the Registry?
Their delay slowed the third man, tall and spider limbed, dressed in a sober, common black wool cloak that scarce reached his knees. Pale, long-fingered hands and wrists dangled from sleeves cut too short. My frantic breath caught and chills shivered my spine. This was the acid-tongued rescuer who had yanked me from the fire. No orange scarf today. But the daylight revealed his face, exceptionally long, with huge protruding bones in cheeks and brow, and eyes so deep one could not spy the color.
His un-Aurellian features and his common, ill-fitting attire named him an ordinary, yet the curators remained unmasked in his presence. Who was he? Surely they didn’t know of his Harrower sympathies.
As he turned to go, he smiled at me, a grimace shocking in its malice. No curator could see it.
I pointed my bound hands at him and bobbed my head, trying to signal he should stay. Gramphier averted his eyes, as if shamed at my antics. Pompous little Scrutari blew a disgusted exhale. Pons and Albin leaned forward and whispered to each other. Damon, the curator I knew least, stared with such cold, unblinking interest, I stepped backward.
The heavy door closed solidly behind the strangers. I breathed deep and forced calm.
Gramphier struck the table with a gavel that seemed to add cannonball weights to my chains. “Lucian de Remeni-Masson, it is with utmost sorrow that I gather this council and certain witnesses to examine your behavior. Your grandsire and I lived in mutual respect from our youth until his dreadful end, and to see the future of his bloodline in such peril adds a solemnity to this proceeding that words cannot convey. Despite the insistence of some amongst us, we are not here to address your notable failure in discipline of five years past, but only your erratic behavior since the tragedy of three months ago. Moved to indulge your natural grief and inexperience, we chose—wrongly, I fear—to let those incidents pass without mention, ignoring history that warns of aberrant tendencies in certain of our kind. When it was decided that your skills and temperament no longer fit the requirements of the Registry Archives, we debated amongst ourselves: Would you fare better under some kind of benign confinement or in an undemanding contract away from the exigencies of the Registry? To our everlasting guilt, it appears we made the wrong decision.”
The First Curator’s chilly words froze my bones, as if the gods themselves spoke my doom.
What incidents? What erratic behavior?
My protests died unspoken. Animal grunting would get me nowhere.
“The terrible events of yestereve have forced us to confront our failure. We’ve a witness to the time you left your current master’s place of business. Not long after nightfall, you were seen walking the perimeter of Vintner Tessati’s town house—your residence. Both purebloods and ordinaries saw you raising magefire in the center courtyard. It was assumed you were honoring divine Deunor, as was your family’s practice. But then you vanished, only to reappear when the blaze was on the verge of consuming the residence. Not a single spark traveled beyond the perimeters of Tessati’s property—a sure sign of deliberation. Did you truly not recall that you had kindled those first sparks and set a boundary for their reach? Or was your frenzy at your return a murderous pretense?”
I shook my head, attempting to make some noise that expressed dismay and negation, not brutish fury. It was all lies! I’d been at Arrosa’s Temple just after nightfall. But then, no one knew that, not even Bastien. Would the coroner admit he’d sent a pureblood to spy on Arrosa’s high priestess? And if they’d not let me speak . . .
No one heeded my display, save Damon. His gaze had not wavered since my arrival.
“In the end, I fear, it does not matter which,” said Gramphier. “Either answer signifies a deviant mind. We have confirmed that your young sister, a gods-gifted sorceress not yet come into her full power, was found dead in the ruins of the house. Five ordinaries in your service likewise. We cannot let this pass.”
The words, spoken aloud, arrested breath and heart and pulsing blood. Juli dead. Like the dull-eyed shells piled one upon the other at Necropolis Caton. A frenzy of denial stormed behind the mask. My teeth near severed the sodden, choking leather, wanting more than anything in the world to scream it so all could hear.
Discipline, Lucian. You must hear what’s said.
Gramphier struck his gavel again and rose from his chair to his imposing height. “Curators of the Pureblood Registry, we are charged with administering the gods’ holiest gift to humankind. We have heard damning testimony. We have heard the advocacy of Curator Pluvius and the
recommendations of Curator Pons, who has observed him even longer. The time has come to render judgment. I determine that the man before us is responsible for the death of one of the gods’ chosen and five ordinaries, this crime explained, though not excused, by reason of a broken mind. Say, each of you,
yea
if you agree,
nay
if you dissent.”
“Yea.” Pons settled back in her chair, arms crossed, after pronouncing her resounding verdict. Was she satisfied at last?
Damon looked inscrutable. And voted yea.
Master Pluvius looked aggrieved. And voted yea. I glared at him, horrified. My advocate.
Yea. Yea.
Each cold-eyed affirmation drove a nail into my coffin lid, and I could do naught but stand and hear it.
Gramphier struck his gavel again. “It is our unanimous judgment that Lucian de Remeni-Masson is broken and must be held in close confinement so that his magic cannot be used to serve his madness. Until we find a suitable house and a guardian who will enforce the strictures of close confinement in more comfortable and dignified circumstances, he will be kept here in the Tower in conditions to ensure his health, his personal safety, and the safety of all. He is hereby forbidden to speak to any person without my personal consent, to marry, to sire children, to teach, to walk free, or to show his face to any person, pureblood or ordinary, unmasked, save those we set in custody over him. He shall pursue no activity, magical or other, save with my consent. . . .”
I did not faint. Did not rage. Did not die, save inside where all was ash and ruin anyway. As one dire stricture after another fell from Gramphier’s thin lips, this tableau came to feel like an ancient play put on in a crumbling theater, where everyone knew the outcome before the first
scena
had even begun. There was no justice or right judgment here, not when the condemned was given no right to speak. Instinct . . . the study of history . . . years of observing faces and extracting their truth with my ink and my bent suggested that everyone here was an actor, and that no word of mine could have changed the course laid out for me since three days ago. Or was it five years past? Had my grandsire, too, believed me deviant? Mad? Was that why he had contracted me to the Registry, where I could be watched every moment of every day?