S Farrell - A Magic of Nightfall

“Neither will you, if you persist in this nonsense,” cu’Gorin snarled, and Karl nearly laughed.

“That hardly matters to me at this point,” he told the man. Varina’s back pressed against his. He felt her arms lift, preparing a spell.

The Ambassador waved a hand to the people behind Karl. He heard a sword being sheathed and felt Varina’s arms drop again. “I tell you again, Ambassador,” cu’Gorin said, “you are mistaken if you think that Firenzcia was involved in the Archigos’ death. Kill me, don’t kill me; that won’t change that fact.”

“I don’t believe you.”

Cu’Gorin sniffed. “Lack of belief is the core of the problem with the Numetodo, isn’t it? Do you want me to mourn for your Archigos, Ambassador? I won’t. She brought this fate on herself by coddling the Numetodo and by her refusal to acknowledge the Archigos of Brezno as the true leader of the Faith. Violence was an inevitable result of her actions, but to my knowledge, it wasn’t Firenzcia that did this. That’s the truth, and if you can’t believe me…” He shrugged. “Then do what you must. You’ll only be demonstrating that the Numetodo are indeed the dangerous fools that every true believer knows them to be. Look at me, Ambassador. Look at me,” he said more sharply, and Karl glared back at him. “Do you see a lie on my face? I tell you-the one who killed the Archigos wasn’t anyone known to me or hired by me. That is the truth.”

Karl could feel the Scath Cumhacht vibrating madly inside him. He wanted nothing more than to lash out at this pompous fool, to watch the man’s arrogance crumble into a scream, to have him cry out in agony as he died. But he could also hear Ana. He knew what she would tell him, and he let his hand drop to his side. He heard Varina sigh with relief.

Cu’Gorin’s words gave him no comfort. But he was beginning to wonder whether cu’Gorin might not have told him the truth as he knew it, and Karl was also remembering a time many years ago and another person who could harness the Scath Cumhacht-though he didn’t call it that, nor did he call it the Ilmodo.

“If I find that you’re lying, Ambassador,” Karl said, “I won’t give you the opportunity to give me your excuses or to draw your sword. I’ll kill you wherever I find you. That is also the truth.”

With that, he turned and Varina moved to his side. There were three guards blocking the doorway, but Karl shoved past them and strode out into the cool air and sunshine.

“What in the Eternal Six Pits was that?” Varina raged at him when they were outside on the Avi a’Parete again. She grabbed at his sleeve and pulled him to a stop. “Karl! I mean it. What did you think you were doing?”

“What I needed to do,” he spat back at her, more sharply than he intended, still flushed with anger at cu’Gorin and the man’s attitude and his own gnawing doubts. They were all contained in his retort. “If you didn’t want to be there, you didn’t need to come.”

“Ana’s dead, Karl. You can’t bring her back. Accusing people without evidence is just going to get you dead, too.”

“Ana deserves justice.”

“Yes, she does,” Varina shot back. “Let those whose job it is give her that. She wasn’t your wife, Karl. You weren’t lovers. She wasn’t the matarh of your children.”

The fury boiled inside him. He lifted his hand, the cold heat of the Scath Cumhacht rising, and Varina spread her hands. “Do it!” she spat at him. “Go on! Will that make you feel better? Will that change anything?”

He blinked; around them, people on the street were staring. He dropped his hands. “I’m… I’m sorry, Varina.”

She glared at him, her lips pressed tightly together. “She was your friend, and I understand that,” Varina told him. “She was my friend, too. But she also blinded you, Karl. You’ve never been able to see what’s right in front of you.”

With that, she turned and left him, half-running along the Avi. “Varina,” he called, but she pushed her way into the crowds, vanishing as if she’d never been there. Karl stood there, the throngs parting around him. He heard the wind-horns of the Archigos’ Temple-Ana’s temple-start to wail, proclaiming Second Call, and it sounded to him like mocking laughter.

“ You don’t trust me, Karl?”

Sergei watched the emotions washing over Karl’s face. The man had a remarkably open face for a diplomat, a defect he’d possessed for as long as Sergei had known the man. Everything Karl thought revealed itself to an observer schooled in reading faces. Maybe that was just the Paeti way of things; Sergei had known a few people from the Isle over the decades, and most of them tended not only to speak their mind too openly, but also made little attempt to hide their genuine feelings or emotions. Perhaps that was what made the Isle renowned for its great poets and bards, for its songs and the fierce passion and temper of its people, but it also made them vulnerable, in Sergei’s estimation.

Theirs was not Sergei’s way.

Karl blinked at the assault of the question, which Sergei had fired at him before the servant had even closed the door. Karl stood at the door to Sergei’s office, uncertain, as the door clicked softly behind him. “Of course I do, Sergei,” he half-stammered, the words thick with the lilting Paeti accent. “I don’t know what you’re…” Then: “Oh.”

“Yes. Oh.” Sergei took a breath, rubbing at his nose. “I just had a rather unpleasant visit from Ambassador cu’Gorin-though frankly any visit from him tends to be unpleasant. Still, he seems to think you’re a dangerous man who should be residing in the Bastida rather than walking the streets. Actually, he said: ‘In Brezno, that man would be gutted and hung in a gibbet for his impertinence, let alone his embrace of heresy.’ I really don’t think he likes you.” Sergei rose and went to Karl, slapping him once on the back.

Cu’Gorin had indeed complained about Karl, but the Firenzcian Ambassador had come at Sergei’s request, and gone away with a sealed message that Sergei hoped was already in the pouch of a rider tearing down the Avi a’Firenzcia toward Brezno. But none of that was anything he was going to tell ca’Vliomani. “Come. Sit with me, old friend. I’ll have Rodger bring us some tea. I haven’t had my breakfast yet.”

A short time later, they were seated on a balcony overlooking the grounds. Groundkeepers prowled the gardens below them, pulling any weed daring to show its common head among the royalty of the flowers. The tea and biscuits sat untouched by either of them.

“Karl, you have to leave this to me.”

“I can’t.”

“You must. My people are aggressively looking for the person or persons who did this to Ana. I am riding Commandant cu’Falla on this as if he were a horse. I won’t let it drop, I won’t let it rest. I promise you that. I want justice for Ana as much as you do. But you have to let me do it. Not you. You need to stay out of the investigation.”

Karl looked at Sergei then, and Sergei saw despair pulling at the pouches below the man’s eyes, dragging down the corners of his mouth. “Sergei, I’m convinced it had to be a Firenzcian plot. With Hirzg Jan dead and Fynn on the throne, it just makes sense that he, and maybe Archigos Semini of Brezno-” Karl licked at his lips. “They all have a reason to hate Ana.”

Sergei stopped Karl with a lifted hand. “Reasons, yes, but you’ve no proof. Neither do I. Not yet.”

“Who else would want Ana dead? Tell me. Is there someone in the Holdings, maybe a jealous a’teni who wanted to be Archigos? Or someone from one of the provinces? Do you suspect someone else?”

“No,” Sergei admitted. “Firenzcia is who I suspect myself. But we need to know before we act, Karl.” The lie, as it always did, came easily to his mouth. Sergei was used to lies. One would not be heard in his voice, or seen in the twitch of a muscle.