Authors: Carol Berg
Juli nattered on about putting fat on my bones as we hurried up the ramp and into a yard that smelled of beasts and ash. The bronze gate crashed shut behind us. Two ponderous thumps told me the defensive beams had been lowered.
Juli quieted and grasped my hand. The pale, unmasked half of her face was all I could see of her in the sudden dark. I longed to enfold her in my arms and promise that I could keep her safe. But I would not lie to her. The bleak truth had settled in my gut like lead.
More than anything I wished to return to the necropolis. I’d given Bastien my word, and I desperately needed his aid. He knew so much more of the ordinary world where we would need to live. And surely his incisive wit could help me discover the Path of the White Hand. But he would never abandon his dead-city, and I dared not enter Caton. The Registry would be waiting. One glimpse of me inside, and my people would kill them all. Juli and I were on our own.
“Stay close,” I yelled in her ear. Now we were outside the thick walls of the temple, the jangling timbre of the bells made it near impossible to hear. “This way.”
Before choosing our escape route, I needed to see if the attack had begun, if there were riots or fires.
The beast yard was but a part of the mundane workings that stretched
behind the arc of temples facing the Temple District square. On an ordinary day, servants would be pounding laundry or tending the priests’ horses. The bells must have chased them all away.
We hurried past deserted stables, kitchens, and washhouses, and cut through an abandoned aviary whose wire cages gaped empty. The cloying stink of rotted fruit welcomed us to an ancient orchard that should have been sweet with cherry blossoms. We halted only when I glimpsed the torches of Temple Square blazing through the last rows of trees.
I pulled Juli close. Her heart raced and she was breathing hard. “From the Elder Wall we can spot the best route to the city gates,” I said. “I’d leave you hidden here, but—”
She shook her head vigorously and clung to my arm.
No pureblood search parties were in evidence, yet neither was the square deserted. Servants missing from their usual haunts mingled with priests, initiates, and guards to gossip, pack carts, or simply mill about the stair to the Elder Wall. Silos must have been wrong about the hour; a pale glow in the sky insisted dawn was near.
Juli and I passed through the babbling crowd like ghosts; temple servants and the Guard Royale were not ones to forget pureblood prerogatives. Unhindered, we climbed the stair to the walk atop the ancient wall. Six months previous, I had walked this very stretch of wall to spy out where Ysabel de Tremayne’s body had rolled down into the hirudo. Below us, Demetreo’s demesne filled the seam between inner and outer walls like a moat of tar.
“Oh, Luka, is this the world’s end?”
It was not sunrise that lightened the sky. Dotted over the dark landscape to east and west, at least three villages burned—the dwellings of those who planted, tended, and harvested food for Palinur and much of central Ardra. Worse for us, ribbons of flame marked the merchant camps, the inns and stables and sop-houses that served the east and west gates. Outside the main gates, it was difficult to distinguish the fires of destruction from those of the enemy encampment that sprawled southward like a second city.
“Certainly not,” I said.
She touched my arm, drawing my gaze, her face intent on reading what I was not saying. “We can’t stay with your master . . . or Egan’s mam, can we?”
“No. We have to leave the city before the siege takes hold,” I said. But how?
The three principal gates were already blocked. The small postern sported no merchant stalls, for the rugged rocks and defiles that led northward were impassible for wagons or carts—and entirely choked with ice and mud in winter and spring. The only other gate I knew was the slot gate at the end of the hirudo. If we could slip through the slot gate without being seen, we could hug the wall and follow it northward to the far side of the necropolis plateau. Instead of entering the necropolis, as Bastien and I had done on the day we returned to find Pleury dead, Juli and I could circle around Caton to the cart road that would take us east, well away from the fires and growing siege lines. It seemed the only way. A good way, except that we would have to traverse the hirudo. Therein lay the greatest danger. . . .
Fire marked the protective ring of Caedmon’s Wall, as well as the enemy’s approach. Atop the great outer wall torches and cauldrons burst into flame, one and then another, like gems being added to a sparkling necklace. Only the span that bounded the hirudo remained entirely dark. Palinur had been immune from siege so long that the Cicerons’ dank settlement had blocked the stairs that would take soldiers to the walk atop the outer wall.
The city’s defenders would not allow it to remain dark. It was only Cicerons in the way. And Oldmeg had foreseen disaster falling on the hirudo at dawn. We had to hurry.
“Come,” I said, urging Juli down the stair and across the square. “As soon as we’re out of this crowd, we’re going to run. Can you do it?”
“Faster than you if I hitch up my skirt.”
Lamps flitted like fireflies in the dark side streets. People clustered in front of their houses, questioning their neighbors, exchanging news and rumor. I tugged Juli into a deep doorway. “Fix it,” I said.
With a deft twist she gathered the muddy hem of her gown and left it a knot dangling loose at her knees. “Now.”
We gripped hands and ran, our pureblood masks and colors forging a path through growing crowds. Some citizens were armed and ready to defend their homes. Some were armored and riding out to honor debts of fealty to their duc. The lower streets would be dangerous as panic grew, so I diverted us through the
pocardon
. The market would be less confining.
No one had time to delay us. Tradesmen were packing up their wares in hopes of salvaging something if worse came. Gangs of soldiers dragged men and boys from shops and stalls, pressing pikes or staves into their hands and marching them off to the walls. Bread women passed a loaf or a bun to each of the defenders, until their barrows were empty. Chaos was coming . . . an age of darkness, so the high priestess had Seen . . .
Juli and I slowed to a more dignified pace when a troop of men-at-arms quick-marched past us, heading down toward the main gates. We swept along in their wake, as if to add our magic to their defense, until I spied the familiar lane of deserted alehouses.
“This way.” I dragged her into the dark lane redolent of yeast and mold. At the far end we’d find the broken arch that began the steep path down to the hirudo. Half an hour more and we should be at the slot gate and our path to freedom.
The high walls of the empty alehouses muted the clangor of the bells. Halfway down the lane, all but one of them fell silent. It tolled a double peal and paused. Over and over. Perhaps it was just the echo in my ears and not a bell at all.
“Stop . . . stop.” Juli dragged on my hand, gulping air.
I stroked her hair and glanced at the sky, perceptibly paler behind the sheen of smoky orange. “We can’t stop,
serena
,” I said, tugging her forward. “Someone extraordinary warned me that this way will become impassable when dawn comes. Her name is Oldmeg, an intelligent, generous, ferocious, powerful woman—quite like you.”
She glanced up and smiled, flushed and panting—a sight that would someday ravage the heart of a besotted man. “Wondered when you’d notice. Come on, then!”
Laughing, we jogged onward. I felt whole again, my family together, as was right.
Ten steps from the arch, two Registry servitors stepped from behind the broken bricks. I grabbed Juli and backed away. But an implement sharp enough to pierce my layered garments pricked my back, and two more servitors appeared on our flanks.
“Be very still, Lucian,” came a voice from behind me. “We’ve no wish to harm you. And who is—? Lord of Light be thanked; the dead now walk!”
Master Pluvius.
P
luvius pulled off his mask when he stepped out from behind me. Magelight gleamed bright on his white hair and beard, and his visage revealed naught but kindness and concern. A genial old man nearing the end of his days. But he had restrained the much younger Constable Skefil with physical strength as well as magic, and it was
his
magic that had locked my feet to the gallery floor at Gramphier’s command. I had underestimated him. Everyone did.
As if privy to my thoughts, he chuckled and waved off his guards. “Lucian is not dangerous. Not in combat at the least, eh, boy? Though put a pen in your hand and matters are entirely different.”
“Has everyone in the Registry gone mad,
ancieno
?” Juli did not temper her tone in the least. “Isn’t this Curator Pluvius?”
“Sssh.” I gathered her into my arms, her back to my chest, as Pluvius’s men retired a short distance away. I remained wary. It had been no pen that pricked my spine.
My lack of mannerly greeting didn’t seem to bother Pluvius. “
Doma
Juliana, it gladdens my heart to see you alive,” he said, touching fingertips to forehead. “’Tis a bit presumptuous, but I take your survival as the gods’ affirmation of my attempts to preserve your family.”
Juli’s spine stiffened against my chest. “You must not be very skilled at preserving,” she said. “I saw the ashes at Pontia. And those who died in our town house were my friends and good servants. I hear their cries in my
dreams. And was it not the Registry curators who treated my brother so despicably?”
“Discipline,
serena
.” I tightened my hold on her. “Master Pluvius kept me—and you—in the city on the day the Harrowers attacked Pontia. We do owe him our lives.”
Pluvius drew his clasped hands to his heart. “Truly,
Doma
Juliana, I had no idea of the horror that was planned at Pontia. I heard whispers that Albin wanted your brother dead for some inexplicable reason, and that he bragged that such would be accomplished within two days. Lucian had told me that the two of you were traveling to Pontia for a sealing feast. To thwart Albin, all I had to do was to change that plan—so I imagined. As to the second fire, I had no idea of it. Old fool that I was, I feared the reports of Lucian’s . . . derangement . . . must be true. Regrets accomplish nothing,
doma
; I understand that. But we must turn our minds to the future.”
So smooth his explanations. He’d thought me deranged, yet had repeatedly offered me help.
“What possible future awaits me after this night, master?”
“What was difficult has become more so, it’s true.” He shifted into a conspiratorial quiet. “That detestable harridan! It violates every protocol to speak ill of my fellow curators, but I don’t blame you in the least for avenging five years of her vitriol. When heads are clearer they’ll see you had good reason to take her down. Even Damon rebuked his precious protégé over her spite.”
“Pons is Damon’s
protégé
?” I’d never heard that . . . never imagined . . .
“He mentored her, supported her elevation to curator. They are kin as surely as arrogance and ice in their veins can make them.”
Pons and Damon. That could explain a great deal. Pons’s acts could not have been better crafted to force me to run. Perhaps she intended for me to run straight to Damon’s mysterious
house of healing
. Such murderous manipulation. Why not just capture me and throw me into the cage they wanted?
“As for Gilles, he was very much his uncle’s tool. Though I’m sure we can clear your name of his demise, as well, it will take some care and some time. The Albins are very powerful and very angry. They won’t understand how Guilian’s crimes were uncovered, or why he would ever consort with Harrowers or conspire in your family’s murder.”
“Murder! And
Gilles
dead? Harrowers! What is he—?”
I squeezed Juli quiet again, lest Pluvius be diverted. He had locked onto my gaze.
“
No one
is going to reveal those reasons,” he said. “Be sure of that. The Albin family will remain your enemies, and therefore your sister’s enemies, until the day you’re both dead. But if
Gramphier
could be made to understand that you are no threat to the Registry and those it represents—that you might even be a help to us—he will force the Albins into line. So we must convince him that
you
are ignorant of those reasons as well.”
I choked a laugh. “Most unlikely. Gramphier saw the paintings—including the symbols of all he fears.” My dual bents. Xancheira’s tree. “He consented to Albin’s crimes. And not four hours since, you—or someone—barely prevented his strangling me.”
“Gramphier views you as an ignorant, impudent boy who plays with matters he does not understand,” said Pluvius. “You were careful tonight. You mentioned nothing of the . . . um . . . far-reaching implications of your talent. Or of your
dual talents
, should I say?”
For five years I’d considered Pluvius a kind and doddering fool of weak talents, an opinion skewed by his self-deprecating manner and my own pride. I had thought him my grandsire’s friend, my protector, and fond of me in his way. Yet he believed me deranged or vile enough to fire my own house? He believed I had wounded Pons and killed Gilles, yet blithely dismissed both crimes? His scruples were no better than Albin’s. He didn’t know me at all.
“What do you want of me, master?”
“Only to protect you. Your grandsire’s painted chest holds everything he learned of Xancheira. You will never be safe while it exists. If you’ve looked inside it, then you know why. The time is not right for that kind of upheaval. And we must hurry. Damon could be here at anytime.”
So Pluvius, Damon, and Pons were not working in concert. Pluvius, like my grandsire, wanted the evidence destroyed.
Cowards
. I’d never thought to ascribe that word to Vincente de Remeni. And yet if Serena Fortuna offered to let me change all that had happened . . . bury the evidence . . . return my family to life . . . start again . . . would I not?
A wave of homesick longing flooded through me in that moment, filling me with memory of laughter and music, good wine and summer, strong arms, running children, endless study and hard work—
good
work for both body and mind . . .
“Luka, stop. You’re hurting me.” Juli squirmed in my arms. “Let go!”
I eased the crush of my embrace yet kept her close.
Let go.
Indeed I had to let go of such mad notions. There was no going back. Nothing would ever be the same. And even if every Elder God and Goddess stepped forth with the very offer I yearned for, I would not accept it. For the price would be this strange, rare magic grown up in me and every worthy deed that it had done and might ever do: justice for Perryn’s murdered bastards, sanctuary for the Cicerons, exposure of Registry corruption . . . and whatever duty or destiny might lie beyond the Path of the White Hand.
Juli craned her neck to look up at me, her face pale in the night, her dark eyes throwing off sparks of curiosity. “Much as I would relish your explaining what all this is about—chests and
dual
talents, murder and paintings, Capatronn, and
Xancheira
, of all things, shouldn’t we be leaving? I thought we were in a hurry.”
“Yes . . .”
Another illumination. Pluvius had no intention of giving us a choice, any more than Pons or Damon did. He would never have let Juli hear about Xancheira or the chest or that there were
far-reaching implications
of a pureblood with two bents, if he intended to let her walk free.
“I cannot deny we are in need of help, master,” I said, scrabbling for some idea of a plan. “I just didn’t know where to go other than the necropolis. My duty . . .”
“Come, now, Lucian. None but you ever took that contract seriously. Certainly the worthy coroner cannot protect you. You’ll be far safer in my house tonight—and then I’ll get you out of the city. We should go now.”
How were we to deny him? What power I had was depleted, and he evidenced more determination and more dangerous skills than I’d ever imagined.
If Oldmeg was right, dawn would bring disaster directly to the hirudo—an attack over the walls or within them. The confusion might give Juli and me cover to get away, if we could make the time work out. Dawn was perhaps half an hour away.
I squeezed Juli’s hand. “Master, does Gramphier know the chest exists?”
“He suspects something of the sort.”
“Why?”
Foot tapping against the cobbles, he bit the words hard. “Had your grandsire been contracted to anyone but the king of Navronne, Gramphier would have outright forbidden a new search for Xancheira. He claimed it a waste of magic. And when Vincente’s reports from the north stopped coming, Gramphier threw fits. He questioned me, of course, because of the history connection, but I knew nothing at the time. Only when Vincente contracted you to the Archives did he confide in me about his findings and how he was determined to bury them in order to protect his family. Now we must—”
“If I were to agree to your plan, how could we possibly convince Gramphier that the evidence he fears doesn’t exist or that I know nothing? A Registry inquisition will reveal all.”
“If I were to take Gramphier the chest and claim Vincente gave it to me—which, in a way, he did—Gramphier could destroy it himself.”
“And me along with it?”
“Certainly not!” The old man clucked and dithered, even as his sharp gaze raked the shadowed alley. “You will be safely tucked away at a fortified house near Casitille, a fine house left me by one of my own mentors. These men, loyal to my family, will get you and your sister to Casitille safely, and the two of you can make a new life far from the Registry’s dominion—work, practice your magic, study, whatever you like. I promised your grandsire I would keep you safe. And so I will.”
Not a strict house like Damon’s refuge, then, requiring submission to some unknown masters. What I would not give for a spell to parse his thoughts! Truly I needed to learn more magic.
Pons had also claimed she promised Capatronn to keep me safe. But she wanted the chest to survive and me to run. No matter how mad her actions seemed, she had spoken of a wound in the fabric of the world, an eerie echo of the Danae’s words. Pons had not lied about Juli, whom I had found unharmed exactly where she’d said. And Damon, who valued loyalty and had offered me a place to hide, who had supported me in the Tower gallery, and who had not caught me tonight in four hours chasing, was Pons’s mentor. They had spoken of hopes and a future.
Pluvius didn’t care what I knew. He’d not even asked whether I had examined the chest’s contents.
“This is a great kindness, master, to risk yourself for us. But distance will not slow the Registry in this case. My art can reveal things people
want to remain secret, and to hold back or destroy those nuances is to compromise the truth the gods build in me.”
Holding so firmly to this belief was likely foolish, considering all I’d learned of the Registry and its corruption. But Juli, magic, and the discipline required to serve that gift were all that remained of my life . . . and I refused to turn my back on any of them.
Pluvius did not drop his gaze, but a shadow altered it, as if his steady magelight flickered.
“Only a small compromise,” he said. “I had to compromise when they imprisoned you. Others wanted you dead and the paintings destroyed. I convinced them you could be more useful alive. Having you alter the paintings was wiser than destroying artworks everyone in the Tower knew of.”
“Earning my thanks yet again, master.”
I deliberately did not ask him how they had forced me to it. Let him think me a fool. But someone had destroyed my memory of those events, and all of them had let me believe I was going mad.
None
of the curators had freed me from the cellar. Only Bastien.
Pluvius chuckled. “I didn’t think you would make a show of their unveiling so soon. I’d hoped I’d get a chance to warn you! But for now . . . if we’re to get you two away safely, it must be tonight, before Bayard the Smith starves out the city or burns it. Where is the chest?”
Behind the orange smoke the sky was gray. I had to choose now—for Juli as well as for myself. I rested my forehead on her hair. She was quivering. Cold? Afraid? Angry? Or just bursting with curiosity? What had I done, dragging her into this madness? The most powerful sorcerers in the world believed I could destroy their way of life. Every pureblood in Navronne would soon be convinced I was a murderer. The largest, wealthiest pureblood family in Navronne bore a mortal grudge and would expend their every resource to hunt me down, and the would-be king of Navronne would cheer them on.
Pons was right. I had to run . . . fast and far, without experience, without worldly skills, and without the help of magic. How could I protect a young girl—I, who had survived this long only because of the kindness, sacrifice, or callous self-interest of others? My grandsire, Fallon de Tremayne, Demetreo, Bastien, Garen, Constance . . . and, yes, Pons and Pluvius . . . so many. Pons had kept Juli safe, but she could be preparing to sacrifice my sister for her ends, as she had sacrificed Gilles and herself.
Weariness weighed heavy as I glanced at the graying sky, on the brink of a terrible dawn . . .
. . . and there I found my answer. So obvious, and it must surely rip my heart asunder.
“I’ll give you the chest, master,” I said, “and then my sister and I would be grateful to accept your offer.”
Pluvius spread his arms and beamed brighter than his magelight. “Holy Deunor be praised! We shall see the right of all this together and make a fine future. Where is the damnable chest?”
“I’ll guide you.”
I spun Juli around to face me. “Will you accept what I choose,
serena
? I’ve mucked up things terribly and the last thing I want is to take you into unknown dangers. But I’m not skilled enough to protect you, so your part will be very hard. Uncertain. More so than ever before. But you are strong and intelligent and you’ve proven yourself resourceful, everything good and worthy of our bloodlines.”