S Farrell - A Magic of Dawn

“We are, Kraljica,” ca’Sibelli answered, but his was the only voice. The others said nothing; if they felt otherwise, they weren’t going to say it here, then, in front of her.

“Good,” Allesandra snapped-if they were too unsure to voice their discontent, then let them be discontented. She rose from the Sun Throne, and the glow from within the crystal died. The room seemed suddenly dim. “We’re done here. Commandants, Councillors, thank you for your time.” The Commandants bowed themselves quickly out, their boot heels clacking loudly on the tiles of the Sun Throne’s hall; the councillors glanced at each other, uncertain, then finally rose from their chairs with various groans and mutterings. They bowed to Allesandra, then-hesitating-bowed also to Erik before, more slowly than the two soldiers, beginning to make their way from the room. “Varina,” Allesandra called out, “a moment, if you would…”

When the last of the councillors had made their way from the hall and the hall servants had closed the doors behind them, Allesandra went to Varina. She took the woman’s hands. “How are you?” she asked. “I worry about you. You said nothing today at all.”

“I’m sorry, Kraljica.”

“You’re recovered from your injuries?”

“My injuries?” she asked, as if uncertain what Allesandra meant. Then: “Oh, my injuries. Yes, entirely. Thank you for your concern.”

Her voice was dull, and she appeared more tired and worn even than usual. The left side of her face seemed to sag slightly, and the eye on that side was clouded. Allesandra was reminded of other longtime couples she’d known, and how after one spouse died, the other often followed into Cenzi’s arms soon after. She wondered if that would be the case here. “I’m going to send my healer over to you this evening,” she said to Varina, and waved off the beginning of the woman’s protest. “No, I won’t hear any excuses from you, my dear. I insist. I know you have the Numetodo to look after you, but Talbot tells me that you’re burying yourself in work, keeping yourself locked up in your laboratory. That’s not healthy, Varina. You should be out in the air, enjoying yourself and your friends.”

“I’m afraid that I’m feeling my mortality, Kraljica. I don’t have much time left, and there’s so much to do, so much to understand.”

“You will be here for years and decades yet,” Allesandra told the woman. It was a polite lie, and they both knew it. “You missed the Gschnas tending to poor Karl, and that’s a shame. I will have another party soon; you’ll be invited, and I will insist you come. I won’t hear of any excuse.”

“The Kraljica is too kind,” Allesandra said. “Of course I’ll come. But I do need to return to the Numetodo House. An experiment I’m conducting…” She gave Allesandra the ghost of a curtsy and began to turn, then stopped. “Kraljica?”

“Yes?”

“I always told Karl that Nico could be reclaimed, that if we only had the chance to talk to him…” She licked dry, cracked lips webbed with wrinkles. “I was wrong.”

“You’ve actually spoken to him?” Allesandra asked. Varina nodded. “Nico is convinced that he is right and the rest of us are wrong. And he’s more dangerous than any of us thought.”

With that, she gave her abbreviated curtsy again and shuffled away toward the doors, moving like a woman two decades older than she was.

“She’s right, you know.”

The voice startled her; she’d forgotten that Erik was still there with her. She felt his hand on her shoulder and she trapped it with her cheek.

“I know,” she told him. “And that frightens me.”

“ That Bastardo Ci’Lawli took me off the list for chevaritt,” cu’Kella said, swearing under his breath. As Rochelle had instructed the man, he didn’t turn around to look into the shadows where she stood. “He sent my daughter away, who was carrying the Hirzg’s child, and they’re offering me almost nothing, nothing, in return. Why, I’d have been ca’Kella when the Hirzg made the announcement if it hadn’t been for ci’Lawli’s interference. I may even have become a councillor in time. Now ci’Lawli has to pay-for me, for my daughter, for my family’s fortune.”

It was an old tale, a variation on one she’d already heard a hand of times in her short career as the White Stone, one that her matarh had no doubt listened to innumerable times. “If that’s what you wish, Vajiki,” Rochelle said to the man, casting her voice in a low and ominous tone, “then leave the solas and the stone I told you to bring as a sign, and go home. Within the month, the man will be dead. I promise you that.”

He’d left the bag of gold coins and the pale, flat stone. Rochelle had taken it.

Rance ca’Lawli. Killing him would mean being close to her vatarh. She could feel the thrill inside her at the thought.

She manufactured an identity for herself. Matarh had shown her how the White Stone did that. She already had four or five false identities ready for use, a few she’d used in the past: girls who had been born within a few years of herself, but who had died in infancy. They were everything from common, unranked people to those of ca’ status. For the latter, she knew their genealogy, knew their parents, their towns and their titles, and who they knew. Matarh had warned her how careful one had to be with false identities, especially as one climbed the social scale to the ca’and-cu’. She’d given Rochelle the cautionary tale of how she’d nearly been exposed, here in Brezno, when Matarh had called herself Elissa ca’Karina, when “Elissa” and the A’Hirzg Jan had been lovers.

When Rochelle herself had been conceived.

“The elite know each other,” Matarh had said to Rochelle, after Rochelle’s second or third kill as the White Stone, not long before Matarh died. “Oh, shut up-you don’t know what you’re talking about.” That last had been an aside to one of the voices in her matarh’s head; Rochelle had learned to filter out such comments. “They’re a closed group, many of them related to one another, and family relationships are important to them-and because of that, they know them. You must be careful what you say, because the slightest misstatement can reveal you. Yes, I know that, you idiot. Why do you keep tormenting me this way? Shut up! Just shut up!” She clasped her hands to her ears as if she could stop the interior dialogue, rocking back and forth in her chair as if in pain.

Two days later, Matarh was dead. Killed by her own hand.

Rochelle didn’t need that caution here. She presented herself to Rance ci’Lawli as Rhianna Berkell, an unranked young woman of Sesemora who had come to Brezno seeking her fortune, and who looked to make her start on the palais staff. She had in hand recommendations on the stationery of three chevarittai of Sesemora, with whom she’d supposedly worked. The stationery and the names on them were genuine, the paper stolen when she’d been in Sesemora with her matarh years ago; the recommendations were, of course, entirely false. But Rochelle was an accomplished actress: she knew what to say, how to present herself, and what skills would put her in the best situation on the palais staff. She also knew how to flirt without being obvious, and ci’Lawli was susceptible to the attentions of a young, handsome woman. Three days later, the summons came to the inn where she was staying: she was to be hired. Aide ci’Lawli placed her on the royal staff, who cared for the Hirzg’s wing of the palais and who worked directly with ci’Lawli. Over the next several days, she made certain that her work was superior, and she watched. She watched ci’Lawli so that she could learn his habits and routines.