S. Farrell - A Magic of Twilight

She tried to refuse to see him. She’d feigned sickness that morning so she wouldn’t have to attend the opening of the Archigos’

Temple at First Call, and so she wouldn’t need to chant with the others and light the temple’s lamps. When the Archigos had come to her apartment, she’d sent Watha out to tell him that she could not see him now, but she’d returned with a pleased, grim smile. “The Archigos waits for you in the outer reception room, O’Teni,” she’d said. “He said that you will dress and meet him for breakfast. Beida is already serving him tea.”

She’d dressed, and gone to him. There had been no choice. Now, after the formal, empty greetings, after sitting there watching the Archigos drink his tea and eat his biscuits, the smell of them making her own stomach grumble in protest, the Archigos had pushed away the tray with his breakfast and leaned forward with his elbows on the table.

“I am going to suggest to our new Kraljiki that you would make an excellent wife for him.”

It was a statement that had shocked Ana to her core, and now he stared at her as the discomfort colored her face. She could not breathe for a moment; her hands pressed against her heart as she sat back in her chair across from him. Underneath her robes she could feel the stone shell Karl had given her. It gave her no comfort.

“That is not what I want, Archigos,” she said. “You have no right to use me that way, no matter what you paid my parents.” A sullen, liquid fire burned high in her throat and her temples pulsed with the beat of her heart. She could feel her hands trembling as she placed them on the table. “Even if the A’Kralj would agree to it, I will not.”

The Archigos nodded, as if her response was what he had expected.

“I understand your reluctance, Ana. I do. But you will learn, sooner than I did, perhaps, that the higher you ascend in life, the higher are the pay-ments expected of you. Certainly the Kraljica expected such of her nieces and nephews, and of the A’Kralj himself. She knew what a weapon the right marriage could be. She had already broached this possibility to me, the day after she first met you-when, you should know, my own niece Safina had been considered for the same position. So I don’t suggest this lightly; this alliance could be more important now that the Kraljica is gone. The A’Kralj will be the Kraljiki, and he is unduly influenced by A’Teni ca’Cellibrecca. Without some countering influence, Justi’s ascension to the Sun Throne could cause changes in Concenzia-changes that would undo all that I and Kraljica Marguerite tried to accomplish.”

He sighed, lifting a hand and letting it fall again. The tea shivered in his cup; the biscuits jumped on their plate. “There’s another matter also. The army of Firenzcia is gathering too near the border for anyone’s comfort. I think now is indeed the time for action, or it may be too late.

Justi is not who I would want as Kraljiki, but he is still a better option than Jan ca’Vorl. Would it be so bad, Ana, to be the Kraljiki’s wife? Do you have other and better prospects? Your Numetodo from the Gschnas, perhaps?

I know you went to see Envoy ci’Vliomani the other day, Ana-” he raised his hand against Ana’s burgeoning protest, “-and I want you to know that I don’t care-as long as your curiosity doesn’t get in the way of your faith or your duty.”

It has already become an obstacle to my faith. It killed the Kraljica. .

But she would not say that. The Archigos seemed to take her silence as consent, and continued to speak. “Cenzi has given you an extraor-dinary Gift, Ana. Cenzi would expect you to use that Gift as well, Ana, and all that Gift has given you. Surely you see that.”

He said it without the question mark, as if it were an obvious conclusion, and at the same moment, a realization came to Ana. “You intended all along to connect me to the A’Kralj,” she said. The accusation made the Archigos smile.

“Yes,” he said simply. “Very nearly.”

“The Kraljica. .?”

“She agreed, once she’d met you and once I’d told her about you.

We had hoped to introduce the two of you formally at the Gschnas, but. .” The Archigos’ mouth twisted. “It is still what she would want,” he continued. “Even more so now. With the Kraljica gone, we must tie together the new Kraljiki and the Concenzia Faith-not with ca’Cellibrecca and his movement, but with our own faction.”

Our own faction. . The Archigos said it casually, and Ana shook her head mutely. Not ours. Not now. .

After the Kraljica’s death, she had been unable find the Ilmodo again. Cenzi had abandoned her for her lack of faith, for her betrayal of Him with the Numetodo. She had tried. She had attempted the simplest spells, the ones she had been able to do since she’d been a child, and they crumbled in her hands. She wouldn’t be able to keep her failures secret for long: how she avoided using the Ilmodo, how weak her spells were, how she could barely manage to conjure up light or heat from the energy with which Cenzi filled the air. She couldn’t hide the decay of her skills for long; no teni could, not when the rituals and ceremonies of the Faith required their daily use. Someone would mention their suspicions to the Archigos, and he would come to her and demand that she show him whether the rumors were true.

“That’s all I was for you from the beginning, Archigos?” she demanded, trying to disguise her fear with bluster. “A way to bring the A’Kralj closer to you? You’re no different than Vatarh; you’d use me in the same way, only with another man.”

The Archigos managed to look hurt. “My intention, and the Kralji-

ca’s, was to keep the Faith strong in a changing world. We need to look forward, Ana. Ca’Cellibrecca would return us to the dark. The world changes, Ana, whether we like it or not, and the Faith must learn to change with it-that’s not something ca’Cellibrecca is willing to do.

Our ships go ever farther out into the world. One day, perhaps even in your lifetime, they will have touched the shores of every land. As the Holdings reaches out into new territory and finds new peoples, we also find the rich beauty of Vucta and Cenzi’s creation, a richness we never suspected before.”

“The Numetodo, Archigos? Are they part of this richness?”

He cocked his head to one side as he stared at her. “They could be, if they would only acknowledge that their Scath Cumhacht is actually the Ilmodo and that it derives from Cenzi. There are other ways of bringing people to the truth than through violence, torture, and imprisonment-certainly that’s what the Kraljica believed, and why she was able to rule so well for so long. The more Nessantico draws from the knowledge of those she rules, the stronger she becomes. I don’t look to exclude the Numetodo or to ignore what they might have to teach us, as long as they can be brought to understand the truth of the Toustour.

I thought, Ana, that we might share that outlook in the same way that we share a deep faith in Cenzi.”

“I do share that,” Ana answered. Then why did you doubt Him? She shook her head. Her fears and confusion roiled in her head, boiling, and she could not snatch at them long enough to examine them. “It’s just. . Archigos, I can’t. .”

“You can. You will. If it’s what Cenzi decrees.” He waved a diminutive hand at her. When it dropped again to the table, china and silver clattered once more. “It may be, Ana, that the new Kraljiki is already too well snared by ca’Cellibrecca-I may have made a horrible mistake, allowing them to become close. I saw all this over the last several years and I did nothing. The rumors I’ve heard of ca’Cellibrecca’s daughter. .” He shrugged. “If that is the case, then we will have to find a new tactic. But if Justi is willing to listen, if he will look to how his matarh governed the Holdings so well, then he’ll realize how well served he would be aligning himself with us. Marriage can tie together even two enemies, who then discover they must work together. And we are not the Kraljiki’s enemy, Ana; ultimately, we are on the same side.