S. Farrell - A Magic of Twilight

Whoever it was, Edouard didn’t know how they’d arranged to have him paint the Kraljica. He knew very little beyond the fact that his purse was far heavier when the green-eyed man had left, and that it would be much heavier again today.

That was enough to know.

“You have my final payment?” he asked the man.

“The Kraljica’s not dead,” the man answered.

Edouard shook his head. “That’s not possible. I finished the painting. I tied her spirit to it.”

“She’s been stricken, but she lingers,” the man said. “That’s not what you promised, Vajiki. It’s not what was wanted by my employer.”

Edouard was still shaking his head. There was no explanation for it, and he was frightened. Panic surged through him as he tried to fashion an excuse. “Sometimes. . sometimes it takes a few days, Vajiki. Perhaps a week, even. But she will die; they always die.” He licked his lips, staring at the man’s eyes of spring grass and hoping he saw belief there.

It wouldn’t matter once he was paid. He could disappear forever then, and even if the Kraljica somehow lived. . He forced his voice to sound angry. “You still owe me the solas you promised. Where are they?”

“I have them,” the man said. “You’re certain she’ll die?”

Edouard poked the body of the bird with the toe of his boot. “Yes.

I’m certain.”

The man nodded, staring down at the bird and the sketch. “Then let’s give you your reward. I have a horse right over here.” He waved a hand toward a path leading to a stand of trees farther up the bank, and Edouard stooped to pick up his sketchbook. The man gestured again, and Edouard stepped in front of him.

Edouard heard the sound, but failed to understand its significance until it was too late. He had a moment to contemplate the strange feeling as the blade entered his body from behind and thrust entirely through him. Strangely, there was very little pain. He stood there, im-paled, staring at the blood marbling the steel of the long blade that emerged from just under his rib cage. He tried to breathe, and coughed instead, and blood sprayed from his mouth. The blade was withdrawn in a sudden, ripping movement and he fell to his knees.

The world seemed to move as if underwater. He could see the fluttering pages of his sketchbook as it fell from his hands. He could hear the birds in the trees and the crystalline water and even the hush of the clouds sliding across the sky. The colors were impossibly bright and unreal, as if painted with pigments mixed by Cenzi Himself.

The weapon sliced at him again, a blow to the side of the neck this time, and he toppled. He fell to the ground, eyes open, and the grass was an emerald like the man’s eyes and a ruby river flowed between the blades. He could see the dove’s body, only a stride away, and he reached out his hand to touch it, but his arm refused to move.

Something golden-a shell? — flashed in front of him, and he felt his head lifted and a cold chain placed around his ruined neck.

“Here’s your reward, painter,” the man’s voice said, and there was laughter in the gathering darkness, the laughter of all those he’d painted, and their faces came to him and carried him far away as he tried in vain to scream.

Ana cu’Seranta

The Kraljica was a husk wrapped in white linen. For a moment, Ana wasn’t certain she was breathing at all, but then her breath stuttered and the folds of the linen lifted with a breath. A sour odor hung in the air despite perfumed candles that provided the only light in the draped and shuttered room. Renard ushered them into the room, obviously weary from having stood vigil over the Kraljica during the night. A healer was there with his assortment of medicines and instruments, and a trio of servants were emptying bedpans, keeping the fire lit in the hearth, or changing the leeches placed on the Kraljica’s body under the direction of the healer.

The Archigos ordered them all out of the room except Renard.

As the servants slid away with low bows and the healer packed up his implements with obvious irritation, the Archigos placed a comforting hand on Renard’s arm. “You’ve been up all night?” Renard nodded.

“How is she?”

“No better,” Renard said. “After you and O’Teni cu’Seranta visited her-” this with a swift, appreciative glance at Ana; she smiled in return despite her own weariness, “-she seemed to rally, but then slowly slipped back. I fear. .” His lower lip trembled and he closed his mouth.

He wiped at an eye with his sleeve. “I’ve served the Kraljica for nearly thirty years, since I was a young man myself.”

“And you’ve served her well,” the Archigos said. “You have been

her crutch and her support, Renard. Don’t give up hope yet. Cenzi may still hear our prayers.”

Renard nodded, but Ana could see the despair etched in the lines of his face. “Leave us with her again,” the Archigos said to him, “so that we might pray with her. In the meantime, get a bit of sleep. You’ll be no good to her if you’re exhausted.”

“I will try,” Renard said. He looked back at the bed and gave a long sigh before moving toward the door. As he came near Ana, he stopped for a moment. “Thank you for your efforts, O’Teni,” he said quietly.

“May Cenzi bless you.”

He bowed and clasped his hands to his forehead. He left the room, leaving them alone with the Kraljica’s erratic breath.

“He knows,” Ana said.

“He’s hardly a stupid man. And he loves the Kraljica.” He was standing beside her and his fingers brushed her hand. She jerked her hand away. His eyes regarded her with what she thought might be pity, but he didn’t touch her again. “He suspects, but he doesn’t know, Ana,”

he said. “And he’ll say nothing to anyone, no matter what the Divolonte states. Nor will I.”

She wasn’t certain that she believed this. She wasn’t certain she trusted any of them. Ana could imagine the Archigos betraying her to save himself, and she rubbed her hands. They would cut them off, and take your tongue as well. . She shuddered.

“Ana. .? Are you all right?”

Ana blinked. The Archigos was staring at her. “I know you’re tired, but this may be our last chance to save her,” he said. His voice was rushed and quiet, and she realized that the Archigos was frightened himself-afraid of what might happen to him if the Kraljica died and the A’Kralj became Kraljiki. In that moment, she glimpsed how fragile was the Archigos’ hold on his position in the church, and thus how precarious her own situation, tied to his standing, was in turn. The realization made her stomach turn uneasily.

She nodded to the Archigos and went to the side of the bed, looking down at the white, drawn face of the Kraljica: her cheeks sunken, her skin draped loosely over her skull. She looked half a corpse already.

She doesn’t deserve this. If Cenzi gave you this ability, then He didn’t intend for you to ignore it.

Ana clasped hands to forehead for a moment, taking deep breaths.

Then she opened her hands wide and let them move in the pattern she felt in her head, and she spoke the words that Cenzi sent her.

Eyes still closed, she shaped the power of the Ilmodo and let it rush into the Kraljica. Faintly, she heard a gasp from the old woman on the bed. “Ana. .” she heard the woman say aloud, and the word echoed in her mind as well. Ana. . The painting calls me and I can’t resist. The stream of the Ilmodo cascaded from Ana into the Kraljica and back out through that terrible rent in the Kraljica’s very being, the awful wound nearly as wide now as it was last night. Ana found herself in the Kraljica and in the painting at the same time-the painting where most of the Kraljica’s awareness seemed to reside now. The body on the bed was largely an empty shell.