S. Farrell - A Magic of Twilight

Ana was still shaking her head, but Justi continued speaking into her disbelief. “I offer you two choices, Ana. If you wish, you can remain here in the Bastida and you can watch from the balcony and see whether Nessantico falls to the Hirzg and his pet Archigos; I would remind you that ca’Cellibrecca has already displayed his attitude toward you and the Numetodo. I daresay that he’d be pleased to find you and ci’Vliomani conveniently jailed so he can do what he loves to do with Numetodo. And if I should prevail, well, I will need to show the Holdings what I do to those who betray me. Even those who were once my lovers.”

Ana felt nothing but loathing for the man. “Or?” she asked.

Justi gave a high bark of a laugh. “Or you may take my second choice: you can become Archigos and ca’ rather than cu’, and help me bury the man who would bury you. You can bring justice to the man

who murdered Archigos Dhosti.”

He was so smug, so certain. Ana rubbed at her wrists, chafed by the manacles. She wanted to spit at him, to refuse for the momentary satisfaction it would give her. But she didn’t. Couldn’t. “You plotted with ca’Cellibrecca against the Archigos, you and Francesca. You used me, Kraljiki, and now you want to use me again.”

He waved a careless hand. “All true. Just as you tried to use me for ci’Vliomani’s sake, and for Archigos Dhosti’s as well. Well, neither of us got what we wanted, did we? So let us use each other again, Ana, this time to better effect. Do you still want a marriage to the Kraljiki? If you do, I will call an a’teni here immediately and have it done. I will become Justi ca’Seranta. Whatever you want. But I need an Archigos and I need one swiftly, and you’re the best choice I have.”

Ana scoffed. “Marry you? I’d sooner cut off my hands myself and tear out my own tongue than do that. I know what you do when those around you are no longer convenient. I watched the Kraljica die. I watched your matarh draw her last breath. Marry you?” She gave a single bark of harsh laughter. “I think not.”

If he was offended, it didn’t show on his handsome face. “I’ve come to believe that it’s better to choose our own times than to wait, Ana.

I chafed under my matarh’s thumb for decades, waiting and waiting

for mine, and I finally realized that I might wait forever, that I might die before it came. I understood that Cenzi wanted me to choose. So I did and I don’t regret that. This is your moment to choose, Ana.

You don’t like everything power brings you? Too bad. Cenzi has seen fit to offer you, through me, the chance to take the globe of the Archigos and use it. You can take what He offers, or you can refuse and pray to Him as Nessantico falls around us. What would Cenzi prefer you to do? What would Archigos Dhosti tell you? What would Envoy ci’Vliomani say?”

She knew. She already knew, but she shook her head. “I won’t marry you, Kraljiki, and I won’t necessarily do what you ask. Understand that if I am Archigos, I will be Archigos . Fully. Completely. You must realize that. Concenzia will interpret the Divolonte as I would interpret it, as Archigos Dhosti would have interpreted it. I will be your ally today, Kraljiki, but I won’t consent to be your pawn. I will be your ally today, but perhaps not tomorrow. I will speak with my voice, not yours.”

Justi inhaled. He nodded. “I would expect nothing different from you. I accept those conditions.”

Ana nodded. The fear in her was subsiding, but it was replaced by a newer, darker one. Let this be the right choice, Cenzi. Let me not fail You.

“Then we will go down and we will release Karl ci’Vliomani, Kraljiki.

Now. Any other Numetodo in the Bastida will also be immediately released. When I see that has been done, we can talk further.”

Another breath. Another nod. Justi waved in the direction of the cell door. “After you, Archigos Ana ca’Seranta,” he said. “I took the liberty of ordering the Concord A’Teni to meet, and they are anxiously waiting for us.”

Jan ca’Vorl

“Where is Georgi, Vatarh? I want him to show me how you besiege a city.”

Her voice echoed in the expanse of the Comte’s Palais of Passe a’Fiume. The open lobby under the broken, charred roof was littered with pallets of the wounded and dead, and what remained of the structure stank of blood and smoke. Jan regarded his daughter and sighed.

He’d allowed her to enter Passe a’Fiume from the rear encampment this morning. It was safe enough now: U’Teni cu’Bachiga, A’Offizier cu’Garret, and those injured Chevarittai of Nessantico who had been unable to flee were incarcerated in the temple, which was one of the less-damaged buildings in the city. The executed bodies of some of the lesser offiziers of the Garde Civile-those whose families were unlikely to have enough wealth to make ransom likely or worthwhile-were gibbeted along the walls of the town. The war-teni, under ca’Cellibrecca’s guidance, had briefly become fire-teni, putting out the flames their spells had caused. Despite their efforts, the town smoldered: the buildings were grave-shrouded in ribbons of gray, thin smoke; the walls were cracked and tumbling near the main gates. Crows feasted on the bodies left strewn in the streets or half-buried in rubble or sprawled on the fields outside, while soldiers monitored the citizens dragooned into removing the dead, stacking the corpses on flat-bedded carts, and taking them to the pyre built on the far side of the Clario. The dead-wagons fought against the constant influx of Firenzcian soldiers crossing into and through Passe a’Fiume. Except for the laughter and howls from the Firenzcian soldiers carousing in Passe a’Fiume’s still-open taverns and brothels, the city went about its sad duties silently, in massive grief and shock.

Jan had hoped that this would be the worst Allesandra would need to see, but hope-as the Toustour said-was a fickle mistress. Jan had studied the reports that Markell had given him regarding their own losses. He looked at his aide now, standing behind Allesandra with his head bowed.

“That’s why I asked Markell to bring you here,” he told her. “Come with me, love. I must show you something.” He held out his hand to her. She took it, and he marveled again at how smooth her hand was in his, and how it was no longer quite so small in his grasp. They walked down the main aisle between the pallets, with Jan stopping occasionally to comfort one of the wounded Firenzcian soldiers. Jan could see Allesandra’s eyes widening, seeing the blood and the decaying flesh, the missing limbs and terrible, open wounds. Her breathing was shallow and fast, and she clung hard to him.

They stopped, finally, before a pallet in the middle of the room.

“No. .” Jan heard Allesandra breathe, then a sob cracked in her voice and she tore her hand away from Jan, kneeling down beside the pallet and the still, bloodied body laying there. She looked up at Jan with eyes brimming. “This can’t be,” she said. “I won’t let it be.”

“I wish it were that easy, my little bird,” he answered. He crouched alongside her. “Allesandra, your Georgi was a soldier. An o’offizier. He asked to participate in the siege and he performed valiantly, but when the Nessantican chevarittai fled yesterday it was his encampment they went through. He fought to hold them back. But he fell.”

Jan reached for the blanket and started to pull it over Georgi’s head; Allesandra reached out and touched his hand. “No,” she said. “Let me, Vatarh. He was my friend.”

Jan let her take the blanket, and Allesandra gently pulled the folds over Georgi’s face. She touched her hand to the o’offizer’s hidden face.