S Farrell - A Magic of Nightfall

Sinjon muttered a nearly inaudible apology; Tujan followed a moment later. “Nico?” his matarh said, and Nico grimaced.

“Sorry,” he told his cousins.

“All right then,” Onczio Bayard grunted. “We’ll have no more of this. Getting us all out of bed when we’d just gone to sleep. Sinjon, get a rag and clean up your face. And I don’t expect to hear anything else out of the three of you tonight.” Still grumbling, he left the room.

Nico thought he could fall asleep in a moment; now that the cold fire had left him, he was so tired. His matarh crouched down to hug Nico. “You can sleep with me tonight if you want,” she whispered to him. He hugged her back tightly, wanting more than anything to do exactly that and knowing that he couldn’t, that if he did, Tujan and Sinjon would tease him unmercifully the next day.

“I’ll be fine,” he told her. She kissed his forehead. Tantzia Alisa handed her a cloth, and she dabbed at Nico’s nose. He pulled back. “Matarh, it’s already stopped.”

“All right,” she told him. She rose to her feet. “All of you-to sleep. No more talking, no more fighting. Do you hear?”

They all mumbled assent as the girls whispered and laughed and Matarh and Tantzia Alisa exchanged indulgent sighs. The door closed. Nico waited. “You’ll pay for this, Nico Bastardo,” Tujan muttered, his voice low and quiet and sinister in the new dark. “You’ll pay…”

He slept that night in the corner of the room nearest the door, wrapped in a blanket, and he thought of Nessantico and of Talis, and he knew he could not stay here, no matter how dangerous Nessantico might be.

“A ’Hirzg! A moment!”

Semini called out to her as she left Brezno Temple after the Cenzidi service. Her foot was already on the carriage step, but she turned to him. Jan had already left-accompanied by Elissa ca’Karina and Fynn-while Pauli had said that he would attend the service given by the palais’ o’teni in the Hirzg’s Chapel. Allesandra suspected that he’d instead spent the time between the sweating thighs of one of the ladies of the court.

“Archigos,” she said, giving him the sign of Cenzi. “A particularly strong Admonition today, I thought.” Around them, the worshipers streaming out from the temple looked toward them, but stayed carefully distant: whatever the A’Hirzg and the Archigos discussed, it was not for common ears. The carriage attendant moved away to check the harnesses of the horses and converse with the driver; the minor tenis who always followed the Archigos had remained at the doors to the temple in a huddle, talking. Semini gave her the dark, somber smile of a bear.

“Thank you,” he told her. He glanced around to see that no one was within earshot. “You’ve heard the news?”

“News?” Allesandra cocked her head quizzically, and Semini’s mouth tightened under the grizzled beard.

“It just came to me through one of the Faith’s contacts,” he told her. “I thought perhaps the news hadn’t quite reached the palais yet. The Regent ca’Rudka has been removed by the Council of Ca’ and is currently imprisoned in the Bastida.”

“Oh, by Cenzi…” Allesandra breathed, genuinely shocked by what he’d just said. What does this mean? What’s happened there? If the Archigos was offended by Allesandra’s curse, he showed nothing. He nodded into her flustered silence.

“Yes. I was rather amazed myself.” His voice dropped low and he leaned in toward her, turning his head so that his lips were very near her ear. The sound of his low growl made her shiver. “I worry that this changes… everything for us, Allesandra.”

Then he stepped back again and her neck was cold, even in the early summer warmth. “Archigos…” she began. What have I done? How can I stop the White Stone now? With the Regent gone, it’s all for nothing. Nothing. What have I done? She glanced up at the pigeons circling the golden domes of the temple. There were dozens of them, diving and rising and intertwining like the possibilities whirling in her head. “You trust the source of this news?”

“I do,” he rumbled. “Gairdi has never been wrong before. No doubt the Hirzg will hear the same from his own sources soon. News like this

…” His head swiveled side to side above the green robes, the beard moving on the cloth. “It will travel like wildfire in a drought. Has the Council gone mad? From all I’ve heard, Audric’s not capable of being Kraljiki. And with ca’Rudka in the Bastida…”

“ ‘Those swallowed by the Bastida a’Drago rarely emerge whole.’ ” Allesandra finished the thought for him-an old saying in Nessantico, usually muttered with a scowl and a gesture meant to ward off curses directed toward the dark stones and impassive towers of the Bastida. “I feel sorry for ca’Rudka. I liked the man, despite what he did to my vatarh.” She took a long breath, glancing again at the pigeons, settling in the courtyard again now that most of the worshipers had departed for their homes. Now that she’d had time to absorb the news, the shock had passed, but the question still whirled in her mind. What have I done?

“This changes nothing,” she told Semini firmly, wishing she were as certain as she made her voice sound. “The Regent has simply been replaced by the Council, some of whom undoubtedly intend to be the next Kralji. Audric is still Audric, and when he falls… well, then we will be in a position to do what we must. Don’t worry, Archigos.”

He nodded and bowed to her. Carefully, looking around once more, he put his hands around hers, pressing them between his own for a moment. “I will pray that you’re right, A’Hirzg,” he said quietly. “Perhaps… perhaps we could talk more of this-privately-later this morning.” His eyebrows arched above piercing, unblinking eyes.

“All right,” she told him, wondering if this was what she really wanted. She would have to think further, to be certain. “In two turns of the glass, perhaps. In my chambers at the palais?”

“I will make sure my schedule is cleared,” he told her. He smiled. He took a step back from her and gave her the sign of Cenzi, bowing as he did so. “I look forward to it,” he said. “Greatly.”

“A’Hirzg…” As soon as the hall servant had closed the door behind him, as soon as he realized that they were alone, Semini had come to her and taken her hand. She let him hold it for a few breaths, then stepped back from him. She gestured at the table set in the middle of the room.

“I had my staff prepare us a luncheon.”

He looked at it, and she saw the disappointment in his face.

She had been considering what she wanted to do ever since she’d left him. She needed Semini, yes, but in all likelihood she could have that help without being his lover. Yet… she had to admit that he was attractive, that she found herself leaning toward him. She remembered the few times she’d allowed herself to have lovers, remembering the heat and long, lingering kisses, the gasping sliding of intertwined bodies, the moments when all rational thought was lost in swirling, blind ecstasy.

She would have enjoyed having a husband who was also a lover and a partner, with whom she could have true intimacy. She could feel the void in her soul: she had no true friends, no family she loved and who loved her in return. Archigos Ana might have been her captor, but she’d also been more of a matarh to her than her own, and Vatarh had taken that from her when he’d finally ransomed her. And when she’d finally returned to the vatarh whom she’d once loved so deeply, it was to find that his affection no longer shone down on her like the very sun, but now was concentrated entirely on Fynn. Vatarh had instead married her off-a political prize to seal the agreement bringing West Magyaria into the Coalition. She loved the son that came from her spousal duty and he had loved her also as a child, but his age and Fynn were pulling him away from her.