The Cedna (Tales of Blood & Light Book 2) (26 page)

But this new presence was no sayantaq mage.

A small figure, glowing blue, swiped at my ulio. I dropped the blade. Before I could even react, the blue-limned girl snatched my knife and severed the bloodcord connecting Ghilene to Malvyna. The girl knew what to do with an ulio.

Ghilene’s bloodlight flew away from my grip. I lost track of her, I lost my hold on Malvyna’s last bloodlight thread, and then I fell straight down into a beckoning black abyss.

I
opened my eyes
. My lids felt so dry and stiff that they might crack with the movement. Yellow ripples swam in front of me.

I sat up, gasping. Sterling leaned forward, concern creasing her forehead. “Serafina! Serafina!”

I blinked, blearily surveying the ballroom. The mages clustered around the Galatien family seemed to have no idea that I had played a role in the magic—yet. A few of the white-clad men had begun to patrol the room. But the girl, the one who had known to use the ulio, whoever she was, she must know—

Ijiq reality slammed into me, unsubtle as a block of stone. I came back to myself; I’d just done terrible, traitorous magic in the most public forum anyone could conceive. I’d made a woman vanish into thin air. I had to move. I had to get out of the hall before they connected me to the magic.

“Serafina? What happened? Are you hurt?” Sterling’s questions echoed inside my skull as I forced myself to my feet.

“Quickly,” I said, taking her arm. “We must go back to our rooms. We’re not safe here.”

“We should find Papa.” Sterling’s voice wavered.

“No.” My body screamed rebellion as I pulled Sterling out of the ballroom. “He will find us.”

Sterling shuffled along with me. “Your arm,” she said. “I saw—”

“It was an accident,” I snapped as we hurried up the east wing stairs. “I drew my knife to protect us, and I cut myself.” With a sucking, tortured breath of relief, I slammed the door to Sterling’s chamber behind us.

“I fear you might have
accidentally
cut Ghilene Entila, too,” Sterling said in an odd voice. “She was bleeding quite a lot. She might have needed our help…”

The magic had exhausted me. My head spiked with needles of pain that sank deep behind my eyes, so deep they pricked nerves that made my gorge rise. I swayed on my feet. “I’m sure someone else will help her,” I said faintly. “I must lie down.” I lurched next door to my own chamber.

There I rested in bed, certain that if I moved, I’d vomit. My vision faded in and out, and my mind went completely blank, but it was not sleep that cradled me.

You wielded my knife,
Skeleton Woman’s rasping voice whispered in my head as I tried to rest.
It always cuts both ways.

Too weak to sit up, I rolled to my side and heaved burning bile. I had no energy to care what mess I made. Moonlight sliced through the bedchamber’s window. My shoulder blades scraped over my ribs. Shivers wracked me, but I forced my eyes to remain open.

Onatos, Onatos, Onatos.

I’d done this for him.

M
y hands wavered
as I rose with the sun to remove my evening dress. Would I ever feel well again? Yet beneath the malaise, a new hope blossomed. Malvyna had fallen in my waters, swept off to the Hinge. I had managed to “ease her bloodlight” to the Hinge and untangle Onatos from the spell that bound him. My only concern came from the girl who had cut the bloodcord that connected Ghilene and her mother. What if she had severed the magic too soon, and Onatos had not been freed? What if, on account of that girl, he remained trapped in Queenstown? I had no way of knowing.

“Serafina?” Sterling called from her neighboring chamber. I clenched my jaw and forced myself to stand. My head spun, but I made my legs shuffle to her room.

Sterling sat at a table spread with a meal. “I sent for breakfast and let you sleep,” she said. “You seemed tired.” She cast me a furtive look. Did she suspect me? Did she know I had done the magic? A wretched wave of distress forced me to sit quickly in the nearest chair.

“My moon bloods have arrived early,” I lied.

“Oh,” said Sterling. “Perhaps you should have some tea.”

Immediate relief arrived when the hot beverage hit my empty stomach. I gave Sterling a weak smile. “Have you had news from your father? What happened?”

“Papa’s sending us home to Shankar today. He’s worried. No one knows who attacked, or why.”

“I’ll be glad to leave,” I murmured. The farther I was from the Galatien mages as they investigated the night’s events, the better. Only I did not wish to return to Shankar; I wanted to find Onatos.

A brisk knocking sounded on Sterling’s door. We sat looking at each other until I remembered the door was my duty. I stood, but it seemed an impossible distance to cross to it.

“Sterling!” came Xander Ricknagel’s shout from the hall.

“I’m coming,” I called, steeling myself. My stomach surged, but I managed to walk to the door and open it. I leaned on the door to stay upright as Ricknagel tore into Sterling’s room.

“Ah, good, you’re eating,” Ricknagel said to his daughter. “I’ve arranged for you and Serafina to depart by private riverboat this afternoon.”

Sterling nodded and set down her fork.

My knuckles grew white gripping the door. If I didn’t sit soon, I’d fall over. I closed the door with a snap and collapsed back into my seat at the table.

“Are you all right, Serafina?” Ricknagel asked.

“My lord,” I said, my voice weak. “I beg your permission to leave your service.”

“What? Why?” Ricknagel looked shocked.

“I—I—” I had no valid explanation to offer him. I feared mentioning Queenstown would somehow incriminate me, and my mind was such a mess that I could come up with no ready lies.

“What’s wrong with you?” Ricknagel barked.

I flinched.

“It’s a female complaint, Papa,” Sterling offered. “Don’t yell. She barely knows what she’s saying. She’s been unwell all morning. Of course Serafina isn’t leaving our service.” She glared at me.

“The boat departs at the hour of Amarite.” Ricknagel chose to ignore both me and his daughter. “You must be at the docks by then. I’m sending an escort of six men with you. Jenesis and I must remain here to arrange Stesichore’s wedding to the prince.”

A
fter Ricknagel departed
, I drank several more cups of scalding tea to bolster myself.

Sterling sat across from me, drumming her fingers on the tabletop. “Why would you ask to leave our service?” she finally demanded.

“It has nothing to do with you,” I said. The girl was insecure and self-absorbed enough to think I wanted to leave because of her.

Sterling frowned and yanked both hands from the table. “I saw you,” she said dully. “I saw what you did, Serafina.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You magicked Malvyna Entila. It had to be you. And you cut Ghilene on purpose. That was no accident.”

A shiver of dismay ran down my spine, but I could handle timid Sterling Ricknagel. She was the least of my worries.

“What if I did? It still has nothing to do with you.”

“I should tell Papa,” she said. “Papa would tell King Mydon. He’d have to.”

“Would you really turn me in? Me? Your only friend? I don’t believe it.”

“My only friend who wants to abandon me.”

I rolled my eyes.

“Don’t think I won’t do it, Serafina!” A tear tracked her cheek. “By all rights I ought to do it, shouldn’t I? I won’t, though, I won’t, as long as you stay with me. I don’t want to go home all by myself. It’s bad enough I’m not permitted to stay for Stesi’s wedding. I’m not going back to Shankar without you!”

Had I any strength, I would have thrown something at the brat. But it was all I could do to lift the teapot and pour another cup. My hands would not stop trembling.

I let Sterling pull me down the Palace stairs, her hand clasped tightly around my wrist. Our trunks were sent ahead of us with two of Ricknagel’s men.

We were not the only Brokering guests departing. The attack remained unexplained, and many fled the city in fear of further mayhem.

The magic had drained me to my marrow. I had to lean on Sterling’s arm to hold myself upright. Traveling to Queenstown on my own seemed a foolhardy plan, due to my own health as much as a child’s blackmail.

Onatos would feel his freedom. He knew that I was serving in the Ricknagel household. He could come to me as easily as I could go to him. For the moment, I would have to resign myself to that hope.

I beckoned one of Ricknagel’s men to my side. “Would it be possible to hire a sedan chair to carry Lady Sterling and me to the river docks?”

“Of course. I’ll see to it myself.”

I breathed a sigh of relief as the guard departed. I didn’t have to face a dizzying walk.

Our return trip to Shankar was uneventful and slow. Our riverboat took us south to the port of Powdin City, where we boarded a Ricknagel vessel that sailed us east across the Parting Sea and back to Shankar. I had no energy to help either ship through the waters, so Sterling and I had to settle for the natural pace of travel.

I chafed under my own lassitude. Sterling remained silent, still angry with me for attempting to leave. Or perhaps she puzzled at the magic she had seen. She had the skills of keeping scarce and keeping quiet, even—or perhaps especially—when her mind was turning in circles.

Thoughts of Onatos turned in
my
head. Was he, even now, setting out from Queenstown to find me? How long would it take for him to arrive in Shankar? Would he travel by land or sea?

Not a single Galatien mage had uncovered my identity or even suspected Sterling Ricknagel’s handmaiden of the attack. No word came from the High City during our travels.

I had gotten away with it.

Back in Shankar, Sterling did not resume her archery practice with me, but even though my arms shook, I went out to shoot. I needed the practice to sooth my mind. When I returned to the house, it was to find Sterling in her father’s study, pouring over a letter.

“Papa wrote with the latest news from Galantia,” she said. “King Mydon is obsessed with a witchhunt for the sorceress who attacked the Brokering—he believes she bewitched his son along with cursing and killing Lady Malvyna Entila.”

B
ewitched
his son
?” I echoed, truly flummoxed. “What does that even mean?”

“It means they do not suspect you,” Sterling said. “They believe the sorceress was the girl Costas fell in love with—you remember, we saw them dancing together? Everyone could tell there was something between them.”

That fragile girl who’d looked so heartbroken when the marriage to Stesichore was announced! I snorted. How they thought a delicate flower like that could have made my earth-shaking magic, I couldn’t fathom. Sayantaq fools!

“Was there no other letter that came today?” I asked after the post every day, hoping to hear from Onatos. So far, he’d sent nothing.

Sterling ignored my question. “You should be happy, Serafina. You’ve escaped unscathed. No one except me knows it was you.” Her words held just a taint of threat, as if to say, if I tried to leave Shankar—or even the premises of the Ricknagel mansion—she’d tell her father everything.

“So it seems,” I bit out.

“Why did you do it?” she whispered. “What did Malvyna Entila ever do to you?”

I collapsed onto the divan beneath the velvet-draped window and shaded my eyes with my hand. “I’m Gantean, Sterling. Do you really have to ask?”

That quieted her questions.

D
uring the next sennights
, Sterling became obsessed with the task of finding a husband. Nothing, not even archery, could distract her.

“I must marry,” she told me as we sat in her father’s study sorting through correspondence. “I must marry and have a child who can serve as the Ricknagel heir after me. Stesi’s children will be the Galatien heirs, so I must produce an heir for us.” Anxiety tainted her voice.

“How are you going to do that without your moon-blood?” I snapped.

Sterling flushed. “It will come, eventually, won’t it? In the meantime, I need a plan.”

“How does a young woman like yourself meet young men apart from a Brokering?” I played along, hoping to keep her happy.

“I haven’t any idea.” Sterling flicked a fat letter onto the low table between the two divans where we sat. “Look at that one, Serafina. It’s Mama’s account of Stesi’s wedding. Including a full-page description of her dress. I suppose that to find a husband I must throw parties and invite possible suitors.”

The envelope fell beside a spherical green stone cradled in a carved stand sitting in the middle of the tea table. My gaze stuck on the stone and would not let go. Incipient magic rubbed my senses. “What is that?” I blurted, pointing at the stone.

“Oh, it’s Papa’s Ophira. I like to play with it when—well, I just like it. Usually he keeps it locked away. You won’t tell him that I took it out, will you?”

“Can I hold it?”

Sterling hesitated. I pretended not to notice and snatched the stone from its holder. Shivers of power rippled up my arm.

“There are six Ophirae,” Sterling lectured. “Three are lost. My aunt Siomar, who lives in Fosillen, has another one, and her friend, a Galatien mage named Alessio Rarmont, has another. Father holds this one to keep it safe.”

“Why does it need to be kept safe?”

“Why, the Ophirae make the magic of the world possible! They cast the power of magic throughout Lethemia, not just near the Palace’s crystal pillars as it used to be long ago.”

I frowned. Gante’s Hinge was what created magic. Feeding a Cedna’s blood to the Hinge kept magic alive. That was why I slit my wrists every sennight and sprinkled blood over any patch of earth I could find.
Wasn’t it?
What did these stones have to do with anything?

The stone, such a small thing, sat heavily in my hand and heavily in my mind. It was powerful, and I did not like it. I set it back down on the stand and took up the letter from Lady Ricknagel, feigning that I could read the news of Stesichore’s wedding.

X
ander and Jenesis
finally returned from Galantia. I stood beside Sterling on the front steps while she hopped from one foot to another as the carriage pulled up.

Sterling threw herself into her mother’s arms on sight, and though Jenesis embraced her younger daughter, the woman was exhausted, almost as if her whole purpose in life had been to see Stesichore married well, and, job completed, she had wilted like a flower at the burning end of summer.

“Your mother is tired, Starry,” Ricknagel said as Jenesis sagged. “She has not been well. Help her up to her rooms so she can go to bed.”

Ricknagel watched his wife and daughter head up the stairs with concern on his face.

His gaze then fell on me. “Thank you for looking after Sterling, Serafina. I trust she has been no trouble?”

“No trouble. But she is ... a little sad, I think.”

“She took the Brokering hard, didn’t she?”

“She continues to worry over securing a marriage,” I said.

Ricknagel’s already creased face furrowed still more as he disappeared into the house.

Sennights passed while I waited for Onatos to come to me. As the sennights turned into moons, I grew concerned. Had the magic not worked? Or worse, had Onatos, once free, decided to go back to Amar instead of coming to me? What about the promises we had made to each other? Doubts niggled at my mind, but I told myself to be patient. Perhaps with Sterling distracted by her family, she would not reveal my secrets if I left?

But Lady Ricknagel’s health did not improve. Both Sterling and Xander grew drawn with worry for her. The meals we ate together were grim, quiet affairs, our silences betraying private fears.

Many nights I crawled from my bed, sleepless, and came down to Ricknagel’s library, staring at the pen and the paper that Sterling used so easily. I did not write—I’d never been taught how—and I couldn’t trust my secret concerns to anyone else. But I badly wanted to send a message to the Entila Estate to learn if Onatos was well and free—and when he would be coming to me.

I remained drained from the massive work of my Brokering magic. It had been too costly, and even five moons later, I’d yet to recover my energy and equilibrium. I felt as the Ricknagels looked: wan and lifeless, barely able to keep up with the day-to-day burden of living. My brewing anxieties about Onatos did not help.

I went to Ricknagel’s study one day to discuss a trivial matter of Sterling’s wardrobe. I probably didn’t need to bother him with it, but I worried about both him and Sterling. With Jenesis Ricknagel confined to her bed, the ambiance in the house remained dreary and oppressive, pulling me down more every day.

“My lord?” I asked, pushing open the door when no one answered after my knock. Xander sat at his desk, pulling furiously at his short hair with one hand.

“Insufferable beast!” he hissed, “I could kill him. I could just kill him!”

“Lord Ricknagel?”

“Serafina!”

“Is everything all right?”

His hair was mussed, and he looked a little unkempt—unusual for stern Xander Ricknagel.

I stepped into the study and shut the door.

“I’ve had a letter from Stesichore,” he said. His hand reached to his hair again, pulling, pulling. I gripped it and removed it from his hair.

“Does she send bad news?”

Ricknagel’s face hardened; he snapped his hand free of my grip. “Costas seems to be repudiating her, though not openly. Oh, I could strangle the blackguard!”

“What do you mean?” I took a seat on the bench beside his desk.

“He refuses to consummate the marriage. No explanation. He simply will not. He’s been staying away from Galantia, Stesi says, so that he can stay away from her.” He gestured at the parchment on the desk. “She wants to come home. Amassis, what am I to do? She cannot leave him. A wife must not return to her family home in the first year of marriage, else there are grounds for annulment, which is surely what he hopes for, to drive her away and make it look like her choice. And yet he insults her with impunity! Jenesis is in no shape for such tidings.”

He stood and paced.

I smoothed down my skirts. “Perhaps you can visit Stesichore in Galantia and set her mind to rest?” I suggested. “It takes time for an attraction to develop between two people forced together by circumstance rather than desire.” I was being optimistic. Costas Galatien would never learn to love Stesichore Ricknagel.

I’d seen the look Prince Costas had given that other black-haired girl when they’d danced. I knew what those two had felt. It was the same as what pulled between me and my Onatos. He’d had a word for it—
the aetherlumo di fieri.
No one could feel that kind of attraction for one person and even consider loving another.

Ricknagel nearly shouted, “Why shouldn’t he want her? She’s a beautiful lady, born and raised to be a queen! This marriage brings together the two most powerful houses in Lethemia. It’s a perfect match!”

The black-haired girl who had danced with Costas had been beautiful, too, but in a manner completely different from Stesichore Ricknagel. Where Stesichore’s beauty demanded all eyes, Costas’s black-haired girl had a private splendor, a beauty reserved for the night, reserved for a jealous lover’s solitary perusal. Xander must have seen them dance together—who hadn’t? Did he not understand? Had he never known a clawing, strangling, all-consuming love himself? Costas had looked at his black-haired girl as though she were the reason for his breath, the vital force that kept his heart beating.

“He likely needs time,” I said to calm Ricknagel.

“Time!” He snorted. “It’s not time he needs. He needs a father willing to put him in line. He needs to be told he hasn’t any choice! The deed is done, and he must live by it. Mydon gives him too much freedom. I’d send for Stesi now, against tradition, but Mydon already distrusts me—”

He broke off. I lifted my brows, but Ricknagel barreled on, “The Galatien mages are too powerful. I cannot stand against their magic; their army, yes, their mages, no. Besides, it would break this country in two at vulnerable time. The Vhimsantese slaver at our border like starving dogs.”

“Is there a neutral place where you could meet Stesichore? Perhaps somewhere—”

“That’s it!” exclaimed Ricknagel. “Why, Serafina, you’re brilliant! That’s it! I’ll go to Lake Tashriga with Jenesis to convalesce from her illness. Stesi can visit us at the lake. Costas owns a property up there bordering ours. She can stay in Costas’s home, and it will not insult the Galatiens. We’ll leave in two days. I’ll send word to Stesi.” He flew behind his desk and grabbed a fresh sheet of parchment. “You’ll come, won’t you? To keep Sterling company?”

I hesitated. He was pleased with me, and I might parlay that pleasure into a favor. Might I again request leaving his service? Two thoughts stymied me: first, it was likely Onatos had already left Queenstown, and we might miss each other in transit. Second, Sterling’s taut, hurt face flickered across the back side of my eyelids.
I saw what you did
, her voice whispered in my head.

“Of course I’ll go with you,” I said.