And if bein’ fratched on that means I be bloody petulant, then fine. I can live with bein’ petulant, Gar. But I ain’t sure I can live with not bein’ able to fix what’s gone wrong with Lur
.
And on that bleak thought, he doused the glimfire and headed back to the Tower.
Dathne woke to the cold kiss of snow on her face.
“Asher,” she whispered, rolling towards him. “Asher, wake up.”
He didn’t stir. The moonlight shafting through the partly curtained window glittered silver on the flakes of ice falling gently from the grey cloud he’d created, dreaming, beneath their bedchamber’s frescoed ceiling.
“Asher,” she said again, as the delicate snowflakes danced and drifted and tangled, melting in her hair.
“Asher.”
The first time this happened, in her bedroom above the bookshop, it had changed her life in a heartbeat. Since then the power in his blood had stirred to life many times in his sleep. In dreams he had no defences against it… and Weather Magic was the most powerful of all. Waking he could deny it, and did, no matter how hard that was.
But it would not—could not—be denied forever.
She rested her hand on his tense shoulder. “Asher. It’s snowing. You need to wake up.”
He flinched at her touch, his head restless on the pillow. Glinting beneath his tight-closed eyelids, a hint of fresh blood. She had to be careful. She couldn’t wrench him awake. Once, she’d done that, and had hurt him so badly he’d stayed painwracked and bedridden for two long, dreadful days.
“Asher… can you hear me?” she whispered, and stroked her fingertips down his cheek. “Come back now. Come back to me. Let it go. Come back.”
Her voice always roused him. He always came back, hearing it. At least he always had before. But he wasn’t hearing her this time. Even as she watched, she saw his moonlit face twist. Heard his breathing harshen, and deepen, and saw his fingers clutch at their blankets.
“Asher,”
she said, concern sliding towards fright. “Please, my love. Please.
Wake up
.”
A gust of cold air swirled round the chamber. The falling snow swirled with it, stinging as it struck her face and lashed her eyes.
And then she nearly screamed, because around their comfortable bed the air was starting to shiver. Something dark and terrible was sliding over her skin. She’d felt this before… she’d seen it… ten years ago…
“Asher!”
she cried, and thumped him with both fists, desperate. “Asher, you’re calling warbeasts!
Asher, wake up!
”
Cruelly wrenched from magic, Asher came clawing awake. No mere hint now, the blood dripped freely from both eyes and his nose, too, splattering the white sheets and fouling his face.
“What? What?” he said, flailing. “I can’t see! What’s amiss?”
As the air curdled around them, thick with snow and fire, crowded with monstrous shapes taking slow, writhing form, she clapped sharply, twice, and brought thought to life. Flooded their chamber with glimfire, then seized his face between her hands.
“Look, Asher!
Look!
” she said, and forced his gaze where she needed it. “Stop this. You’re awake now.
Stop dreaming
.”
On a choked cry of pain he jerked free of her tight grasp and sat up. Stared in horror at the warbeasts he’d unwittingly summoned.
“Luk rana!
Rana!
” he commanded hoarsely, waving one arm.
“Rana!”
The warbeasts vanished, taking the wild snow with them.
Groaning, he fell back to the pillows. Pressed both hands flat to his bloodied face, shaking, each shuddering breath hurting him like knives.
Just as shaken, Dathne slumped beside him, one hand on his shoulder, the other pressed to her heart. Pound any harder and it would pound right through her thin chest.
“You all right, Dath?” said Asher, muffled, still hiding behind his hands. “Those things didn’t hurt you?”
“No,” she whispered, and was shamed to hear weeping in the word. “Asher… what happened? You’ve never done that before.”
“That bloody diary,” he said, and let his hands slide. Beneath the smeared blood his face was chalk-white. “Reading it stirred me up good and proper, I reckon.”
Threading her fingers through his sweaty, disordered hair she bent down and kissed him. Tasted iron and salt, his blood on her tongue. “It wasn’t your fault.”
He shook his head, squinting in the bright glimlight. Seeing that, she dimmed it. Ashamed of herself because less light brought relief. Meant his pain and fright were shadowed. Hidden. She couldn’t bear to see him hurting and scared. She’d been so fierce and strong, once… but love had made her soft. Sometimes she thought the old Dathne, who’d had the visions, who’d planned to poison Timon Spake, who’d sacrificed everything and everyone in the service of prophecy… sometimes she thought that Dathne was a dream.
“Course it be my fault,” Asher said, always so unforgiving. “I called the bloody things, didn’t I?” Then he grunted, a small sharp sound of pain. “Feels like my head’s goin’ to blow right apart.”
“Oh, Asher…” She kissed him again. “I’m sorry. I tried to wake you gently but—”
“You did right. What were needful.” He looked at her, and broke her heart. “Always feared I might do that some day. Call them warbeasts out of the past. They’re in me, Dath. They’re in me and I can’t rip ’em out. What if I call ’em again? What if I can’t stop ’em next time?”
“Don’t,”
she said, and pressed her fingers to his blood-smeared lips. “You’re tormenting yourself for
nowt
. You’re strong enough to keep the magic under control. You are. This was one time.
One time
. There won’t be another.”
Groaning, he sat up. Wrapped his arms tight around her and buried his face against her neck. Tremors ran through him, born not just of pain, but fear as well. She held him with all the strength in her body, poured all her love into him.
“It’s all right… it’s all right…” she murmured. “Asher, it’s all right.”
The chamber door flew open, and Rafe barrelled in. “You gotta come!” he panted. “Quick! Deenie’s having a conniption!”
“Really,” said Lady Marnagh, frowning at her neatly interlaced fingers, “I don’t have any objection to the proposal, in principle. In principle it seems sensible, and practical, and would certainly ease the workload on the Justice Hall staff. And it does seem to be in keeping with the other changes we’ve made these past years.” She turned a little in her chair. “Do you see any spiritual obstacles to the General Council’s suggestion, Barlsman Jaffee?”
Pellen, comfortably sprawled in his own council chair, kept part of his attention on the elderly Barlsman, who never answered a question quickly when slowly was a choice, and kept the rest of it on Asher. Instead of taking his own place at the table he was slouched at a window, brooding into the palace gardens beyond. Had hardly spoken a word through this entire Mage Council meeting, even when their talk had turned to the Bibford fleet’sover-fishing of the waters between Lur’s west coast and Dragonteeth Reef.
Something was wrong. Something new? From the look an Asher’s face, he thought so. Just what they needed… another crisis to be dealt with.
Jaffee’s wheezing, worse now than it had been a few months ago, sounded loud in the hushed meeting chamber. The Barlsman fingered his long, thin braid of devotion, the gold holyring on his thumb catching fire in the sunlight. Thady and Eylin, seated side by side at the wide Council table, exchanged resigned looks and dropped their chins to their chests. Two years each they’d been Olken representatives on the Mage Council. They knew there was no point trying to hurry Jaffee along.
Rodyn Garrick drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair. Of middle height for a Doranen, and less lightly fleshed than most, his pale blue eyes rarely showed warmth. Not a City-born Doranen, he’d been elected to the Council from his country estate near Fiddler’s Green, where his family grew grapes for icewine.
“This is a temporal matter,” he said, in his typically clipped way, clearly tired of waiting for Jaffee. “The guidelines laid down six centuries ago
clearly
mandate that any dispute between a Doranen and an Olken must be satisfied in Justice Hall. I see no reason to alter the arrangement.”
“Can’t say I be surprised to hear that, Rodyn,” said Asher, not turning from the window. “But think on this, why don’t you? For six hundred years, justice for Olken folk fratchin’ with the Doranen has been decided in a place the Doranen built. Crammed floor to ceilin’ with statues and paintins and whatnot of Barl. Now, there’s folk as think it be past time we let go of habits as seem to favour the Doranen over the Olken—and I reckon they might be right.”
“Given that you ruled in favor of that Olken farmer and against Ain Freidin,” said Garrick, “I find
that
comment laughable.”
Pellen swallowed a groan.
Not again
. “Rodyn, please. Ain Freidin was in the wrong and she admitted as much. Let’s not sidetrack ourselves into pointless dispute. If we could perhaps—”
“I’m sorry, but I must protest too,” said Lady Marnagh. “As Justice Hall’s administrator I am responsible for its conduct of business. To suggest there has been
any
unfair dealing is to question my integrity.”
Asher flicked her a glance over his shoulder. “I ain’t sayin’ that, Sarnia.”
“Then what are you saying?”
“I’m sayin’ a lot of things were a bloody sight easier when we had a royal family. Borne, or Gar, they made their rulin’ in Justice Hall and nobody said boo about it ’ cause—well—we was all used to ’em layin’ down the law. Life ain’t so tidy now. That’s what I’m sayin’.”
“It will only get untidy if we
allow
it to get untidy,” said Garrick. “My objection stands. I see no good reason for any change.”
Turning away from the window, Asher fixed the Doranen lord with an incredulous stare. “Rodyn, be you blind? There’s been nowt but change since the Wall came down. And like it or not, change ain’t done with us yet. Not by a long shot.”
Garrick’s thin lips pinched. “What are you suggesting? That we discard every last tradition? Abandon centuries of established legal precedent and turn Lur into a judicial free-for-all?”
“Course not,” Asher snapped. “But we got to face facts, Rodyn. Your good ole days be dead and gone. We got
these
days to think on now. And I reckon if one of yours and one of mine get ’emselves in a brangle, whether magic be involved or not, there ain’t no harm in ’em tryin’ to sort it out first and foremost on their own doorsteps, like good neighbours. If they can’t I’ll sort the problem for ’em in Justice Hall, same as always. But we ought to give ’em first crack, I reckon.”
Before Garrick could voice an opinion, Jaffee stirred and cleared his throat. “Yes, that seems fair,” he pronounced, his voice weak and wavering. “Blessed Barl never desired to ride roughshod over the Olken people.”
Pellen looked at Thady and Eylin. “Your thoughts?”
They exchanged glances, then Eylin shrugged. “I suppose it depends on what you mean, Asher, by sorting it out on their own doorsteps. How certain are we that the Doranen will accept any ruling from an Olken district court?”
“A ruling agin them, you mean,” said Thady dryly. “Can’t see them complaining about a judgement in their favour.”
“And you think that’s likely, do you?” Garrick retorted. “An Olken court ruling for a Doranen against one of its own?”
Dismayed, Pellen slapped his hand flat to the table. “For shame! In this chamber we are sworn to uphold justice for
everyone
.”
“True, Pellen, that’s our aim,” said Eylin. “And in this chamber we might, for the most part, be able to forget which of us has dark hair and which of us is blond. But beyond these palace walls, well… it isn’t always so cut-and-dried.”
“She’s right,” Thady added. “I know a mort of folk who believe us Olken won’t never stand toe-to-toe with the Doranen until the Doranen yield a time or two.”
Folk like Fernel Pintte. Churned with disquiet, Pellen stared at the table.
What has been festering in our towns and villages, that I’ve not seen? That neither of Lur’s Councils have seen? Just how many Fernel Pinttes are out there?
He tried to catch Asher’s eye, but Asher had turned back to the window. It was clear, at least to him, that the Innocent Mage did not want to be here.
Rodyn Garrick was staring at Thady as though the City’s most prosperous innkeeper, and one of its best mages, had grown another head. “Are you serious?” he said at last. “How have the Doranen not yielded to you, man? Barl save us, we’ve given back land, we’ve changed certain laws, we let you do magic, we—”
“
Let
us?” echoed Eylin. “You
let
us? When the magic was always ours? When without Olken earth-singing Barl
never
would’ve been able to—”
“Now, now,” said Jaffee, raising both hands. “I see little advantage in raking over the past. Can we not simply agree that—”
“Yes, Barlsman Jaffee, we certainly can agree,” said Eylin. A farmer from the Hawshore district, used to wrangling bulls, she had no fear of Barlsmen or any other lofty Doranen. “We can agree that while it’s doubtless difficult for your people to see yourselves knocked off your lofty perches, you’d best accept it. As we accepted losing our sovereignty when first you came upon us.”