S Farrell - A Magic of Nightfall

Pretense… She had to keep up the proper face. She had to make the ca’-and-cu’ believe that she grieved. She had to make them believe what she would ask of them.

Soon. Even if there was little hope now.

Security was visible everywhere around the palais, with gardai seemingly at every corner. Allesandra stood on the high balcony of the palais now, staring down to the tops of the fir trees below her on the steep flanks of the mountains, and to the gray-white strands of mist that wound between them, lifting as the sun set. She rubbed a pale-colored, flat pebble between her fingers.

She heard the door to the balcony open, followed by the murmuring of male voices. She turned to see Semini approaching her like a green-clad and sober-faced bear. He said nothing, padding softly toward her and stopping an arm’s length away-there were gardai to either side of them, a careful several strides away. He put his arms on the railing of the balcony and stared off into the mist coiling like sinewed arms around the trees, as if ghosts were tending a garden, reaching down to pull the weeds from between the wanted plants. Occasionally, a wisp would reach the level of the balcony, and cold, damp air would slide around Allesandra’s ankles as if trying to pull her down into the gathering dark.

“So…” The word sounded like a low wind through the pine needles. “Will the White Stone be coming for me, now?” She saw his gaze flick down to the stone she held in her fingers.

“I didn’t hire him, Semini,” Allesandra said. Him… She wondered about that now. Elissa had seemingly vanished the same day Fynn had died, devastating Jan with another emotional hammer blow atop the death of his Onczio Fynn. Two days later, a frantic message came from Jablunkov saying that Elissa, daughter of Elissa and Josef (nee ca’Evelii) ca’Karina had died six years ago and could the A’Hirzg possibly have made some mistake.

Allesandra wondered. It was possible that ‘Elissa’ had fled only because she knew that Allesandra had sent a letter to the ca’Karina family. It was possible that she’d run only because she knew her deception would be exposed. It was possible there was no connection between her disappearance and Fynn’s death. Still, being close to Jan meant that Elissa had also had access to Fynn, and in Allesandra’s experience it was dangerous to believe in coincidence. It was safer to see instead the knife-edge of conspiracy under coincidence’s veil.

The White Stone’s voice… Could it have been a woman’s, pitched low?

Semini was nodding as he glanced at the pebble in her hand. “Is that…?”

She lifted the stone so he could see it. “Yes,” she said. “This was what the White Stone left behind. It… reminds me of Fynn, and it reminds me that I will find who hired the White Stone and punish them.”

Another nod. Semini was staring down again into the trees. “The Council of Ca’ will be unanimous in naming you Hirzgin. Congratulations.” His voice was flat. “But you could have had that weeks ago, if you hadn’t sent Jan to save Fynn.”

“I’m glad someone remembers that. But… I have no intention of being Hirzgin, Semini.”

That brought his face around to her again. A hand rubbed the silver-flecked beard as his dark eyes searched hers. “You’re serious.”

“I am.”

“I thought-”

“You think entirely too much, Semini,” she told him, then softened her rebuke with a smile. The garda behind was looking the other way, and her body shielded the one behind her. She reached out to stroke his arm, once. “I intend to renounce my title of A’Hirzg. After all, too many people will be thinking just as you’re thinking right now. There would always be whispers that I had Fynn killed so that I might take the throne in Brezno. If I step down, that gossip will die with my abdication. I will leave it to the Council of Ca’ to name a new Hirzg for Firenzcia.”

One thick eyebrow curved high on Semini’s forehead. “Have you spoken to Pauli?”

The mention of his name threw a cold barrier between them, or perhaps it was the fog. She withdrew her hand. “It’s not my husband’s decision to make,” Allesandra told him sharply, then smiled again. “But it will be interesting to watch his face when I stand up in front of the Council and say this-and I expect it to be entirely a surprise to him, Semini. I also expect that he’ll be rushing back to West Magyaria in a rage the next day, complaining to Gyula Karvella how the wife that he and Hirzg Jan handpicked for him has ruined him.”

“You’d truly leave the decision to the Council?”

“Oh, I’ve already spoken to some of them. Enough of them for my purposes, anyway. I’ve suggested that-after due deliberation-the Council might come to believe that my brother’s recent actions have shown them whom he currently favored as successor: someone who had amply demonstrated his loyalty and skill. Why, Jan would grow into a fine Hirzg, don’t you think?-one who would rule strongly and well for many years to come.”

Semini chuckled, softly at first, then more enthusiastically. “So that’s your intention.”

The stone felt like ice in her hand. “Not entirely. I’m thinking of the future, Semini. Perhaps when the Holdings and the Coalition are united again and a competent ruler sits on the Sun Throne, and there is a righteous Archigos in the Temple of Cenzi who has also reunited the severed halves of the Faith, then Jan would be that Kralji’s perfect strong right arm.”

His face was split with a wide smile now. “Allesandra, you surprise me.”

“I shouldn’t,” she told him. “You and I, Semini, are on the same side in this.” She rubbed the stone between her fingers and tucked it into a pocket of her tashta. She would have it mounted in gold on a fine chain. She would wear it under her tashta when she spoke to the Council, wear it alongside the broken globe of Cenzi that Archigos Ana had given her. It would be a reminder of guilt, a reminder that she had acted in haste and done worse to her brother than her vatarh and he had ever done to her. I’m sorry, Fynn. I’m sorry that we never really knew each other. I’m sorry…

She placed her hand on the railing, close to Semini’s hand, as she looked down again into the mists. A few breaths later, she felt the warmth of Semini’s hand carefully covering hers.

They stood that way until darkness came and the first stars pricked the dark blue of the sky.

The mouth of the A’Sele was its widest here. The city of Fossano sat on the southern bank, the hills to the north tiny and hazed with blue on the far side, fading into invisibility as they curved away across the yawning gulf of A’Sele Bay. Dozens of trade ships plied the silt-brown water, traveling upriver to Nessantico or downriver toward Karnmor or other countries to the north or south, or even across the Strettosei itself. The water of A’Sele Bay was colored by the soil the A’Sele carried from its tributaries, with its sweet freshness coiling and fading eventually into the cobalt salt depths of the Nostrosei.

Eneas was at last back in Nessantico proper. Back in the Holdings. Back on the mainland. The scent of salt was faint here, and he stayed well away from it. From here, he would travel the main road east to Vouziers, then north to Nessantico herself at last.

Home. He was nearly home. He could taste it.

In Fossano, everything felt familiar and comfortable. The architecture echoed the solid, ornamented buildings of the capital city just as the temples were smaller replicas of the great cathedrals on the South Bank and the Isle of the Kralji, thirty-some leagues up the rushing waters of the A’Sele. There was nothing of the square, flat buildings of the Westlanders, or of the odd spires and whitewashed flanks of Karnor.