S. Farrell - A Magic of Twilight

“I did once, too,” he told her, his breath warm on her ear. “And I found a new one. A better one.”

“I glad you could,” she told him. “I can’t.”

He stepped back from her then, though he would not let go of her hands. Iron clinked unmusically in response. “You have to have faith in yourself first,” he told her, and she made a scoffing noise as she turned her head. The yellow light of the Kraljica’s funeral prowled the stones of the tower. She released his hands and went to the opening to the balcony. Vertigo swept over her momentarily as

she looked at the shelf of stone and the long fall below. She clung to the side of the balcony, staring out rather than down. The Avi was a circlet of glowing pearls around the city, and the waters of the A’Sele glittered and reflected the teni-lights. The Kraljica’s-no, the Kraljiki’s-palais on the Isle was brilliant, all the windows alive with teni-lights or candelabras, and the gilded roofs of the temples shimmered in their own radiance. Between the Old Temple and the Palais, the embers of the Kraljica’s pyre still threw tongues of flame and whirling sparks at the stars.

Out there, the teni worked: keeping Nessantico alive and vital.

Nessantico held back the night, refusing to allow it dominion. Like your faith once did for you, she thought.

“It’s pretty, isn’t it?” Karl said behind her. She nodded.

“My vatarh. .” She started to tell him about how he’d said he could see the city at night from afar, and stopped herself. She didn’t want to talk about her vatarh. He was dead, as far as she was concerned. “Tell me about you,” she told him. “Tell me more about the Numetodo. Please. Let’s sit here, where we can look out at the city. .”

She asked him because she didn’t want to think, didn’t want to talk.

She only wanted to sit next to him, to feel his warmth on her side, and listen to his voice. The words didn’t matter, only his presence.

She wondered if he realized that.

They sat, and he talked, and she half-listened, her own thoughts

crashing against themselves in her head so loudly that they nearly drowned out his voice.

Jan ca’Vorl

From the wooded crown of the rise, the army spread out along the valley like a horde of black ants on the march. Dust enveloped them in a tan, hazy cloak as they trudged along the rutted, boot-stamped dirt of the Avi a’Firenzcia. The western horizon promised rain, and their banners hung limp in a breezeless air, stained with the same tan that caked the boots of the foot soldiers and packed the hooves of the cheverittai’s horses. Faintly, Jan could hear the sound of the drummers beating cadence.

Jan watched as a single rider broke off from the main force and galloped toward the ridge where he, Starkkapitan ca’Staunton, Allesandra, and Markell were watching. Markell gestured to one of the starkkapitan’s offiziers, standing with their own horses judiciously downhill from the group above. An offizier saluted and mounted, intercepting the rider; they exchanged words and a packet. The offizier gestured back up the hill. “Your pardon, my Hirzg,” Markell said. Nudging the side of his horse with his bootheels, he rode down and spoke for a few minutes with the rider before returning to the ridge.

“Word has come from Nessantico, my Hirzg,” Markell said as he came abreast of Jan. Markell frowned as he handed Jan a leather courier’s pouch. “There’s a letter from A’Teni ca’Cellibrecca inside.”

“And?” Jan asked.

The frown deepened. “The rider tells me that the Kraljica is dead,”

Markell answered. “Assassinated. Justi ca’Mazzak has been installed as the new Kraljiki.”

Jan felt himself sitting up in his saddle at the words. That’s not possible, he wanted to rail at Markell. It must be a mistake. Jan stared out at his army, the army used so often by the Kralji when they wanted a rebellion crushed or a territory conquered, the army that the Garde Civile believed they rather than the Hirzg commanded. The army that was intended to force the Kraljica’s hand, a hand that was now dead and still.

“Vatarh? What’s the matter?” Allesandra asked him. He ignored her.

“Assassinated by whom?” he growled at Markell.

“The gossip is that it was a Numetodo, according to the rider,”

Markell said. “Kraljiki Justi has ordered the arrest of all Numetodo in the city.”

Jan clenched his jaw, staring at the pouch in his gloved hand. He opened it, glanced at the letter with A’Teni ca’Cellibrecca’s seal on it, still intact. A suspicion began to form. All I did for him, all the planning. . “Starkkapitan,” he told ca’Staunton, waiting patient and silent with his face carefully arranged to show nothing, “we will make camp here for the day. Have your men prepare my tent. Find that rider; if he hasn’t spread word yet about the Kraljica, make certain that it stays that way. This is news I need to contemplate, and I don’t need rumors spreading though the ranks.”

Ca’Staunton saluted and rode off, calling to his offiziers. He barked orders to them and they scattered, dust rising in a line from their horses’ hooves as they galloped toward the main force of the army.

Two turns of the glass later, Jan called Markell to his tent. When the man entered, he went to Allesandra, playing with her soldiers, and hugged her quickly. “Go outside for awhile,” he told her. “Find your Georgi or get some food.”

“I want to stay, Vatarh. I want to listen.”

“No.” The single, firm word made her close her lips tightly. She gave Jan an ironic bow like a common offizier and left the tent. Watching the tent flap close behind her, Jan picked up the sheaf of parchments from his travel desk and tossed it toward Markell. “Ca’Cellibrecca is going to get his balls squeezed in a vise of his own making if he isn’t careful. When he does, I am going to enjoy hearing him squeal like the pig he is.”

“Hirzg?”

Jan waved a hand. “The man plays both sides, Markell. He had us get rid of his daughter’s inconvenient husband so she’d be free for marriage, and we went along with him. Now the woman’s free, yes, but she’s also free to marry the Kraljiki.”

Markell blinked. “To have the Kraljiki married to. .” He stopped.

Jan nodded. “Yes, my friend,” he said dryly. “You see it, too. A Kraljiki married to the Archigos’ daughter would be a perfect marriage of secular and religious power. And there just happens to be an un-married Kraljiki.” He pointed to the paper in Markell’s hands. “With her husband dead, ca’Cellibrecca’s daughter is now conveniently available for Justi. And the new Kraljiki will certainly be looking to marry soon to consolidate his position. Serendipitous, don’t you think?” Jan leaned back in his chair. “Kraljiki Justi ca’Cellibrecca. I’m sure A’Teni ca’Cellibrecca thinks that would be an excellent name. In fact, it makes me suspect that our Orlandi was the one behind the murder of the Kraljica, though of course he talks about nothing but the Numetodo in his letter, and how they must be exterminated. It’s wonderful to have such a convenient, politically-expedient excuse as the Numetodo. He also tells us that ‘it’s urgent that we abandon our present course for the time being.’ He says our plans must now wait ‘until we have a chance to fully examine the implications of the current situation.’ Though, of course, he’s now stuck in Nessantico for the duration and doesn’t know when he’ll return to Brezno. The cunning bastard. .”

Rising from his chair, Jan snatched the letter back from Markell’s hand and scanned it again, his nostrils flaring. He tossed the parchment into the small warming stove in the center of the tent and watched the edges curl, darken, and finally burst into flame. “I begin to believe that A’Teni ca’Cellibrecca always considered us a secondary strategy, something to use if his plot to kill the Kraljica failed and he couldn’t manipulate Marguerite’s poor excuse for a son. Now everything’s fallen in place for him. All that remains is for our army to stand down and he has everything he wants. The next news from Nessantico will tell us how that dwarf ca’Millac has died and ca’Cellibrecca has been installed as the new Archigos, and that the Kraljiki has married Francesca. As Archigos, he would hold the threat of withdrawing the Faith’s support from Firenzcia if I don’t submit-and U’Teni cu’Kohnle, who served with ca’Cellibrecca, just happens to be our chief war-teni.”