The pyre was three people high, and the smell of oil was strong in the courtyard between the scaffold-latticed wings of the palais. At the top of the pyramidal stack of timbers, a closed wooden coffin had been set-no longer the body draped in the flag of Paeti. Varina’s lips tightened at the sight and her stomach overturned, sending acid burning in the back of her throat. She swallowed hard, once. “Let’s do this,” she said. “We’ll have more pyres to light for the rest of our fallen soon enough.”
With Sergei on her left, the Kraljica on her right, and the Numetodo closing ranks behind her, she advanced to the base of the pyre. She looked up at the coffin and for a moment had to pause, overwhelmed by memories of Karl. Her stomach churned anew, and she closed her eyes briefly.
She opened them again, finding in her mind the spell she’d prepared last night. It sat in her head like an egg on the edge of bursting, and she caressed it with her thoughts. This was the way of the Numetodo: like the teni, they used a pattern of words and hand movements to shape the spell-a formula that must be followed. Like the teni, the effort of spell-casting cost them in exhaustion and weakness. Unlike the teni, they did not call on Cenzi or attribute the power to any deity at all; unlike the teni, they did not have to cast their spell immediately upon finishing the incantation. The Numetodo knew how to hold the spell in their minds, to be released with a word and a single gesture much later. The Numetodo could thus “pay in advance” the weakness that came with spell-casting and not be affected later. They could cast a prepared spell in the moment it took to speak and gesture.
She did that now. Standing before the pyre, she opened the spell. “Tine,” she said in the language of Paeti, Karl’s homeland. Fire. She made a motion as if casting a stone at the base of the pyre. A sun erupted within the center of the pyramid, yellow-white and so hot that the wavering shimmer of it struck the onlookers like a hurricane wind. The oiled timbers caught with an audible k-WHOOMP, and flames leaped toward the sky, twirling tornadoes of sparks ahead of them. A fume of smoke followed, drifting toward the distant rooftops of the palais where a wind tore at the column and smeared it westward toward the Old Temple and the River A’Sele.
Already, the furious blaze was licking at the coffin that held Karl’s remains. As Varina watched, the flames slid upward along the sides until the wooden box was obscured by flame and veiled in smoke. “Good-bye, my love,” Varina whispered. “I will always miss you.”
The tears were streaming unashamedly down her face, the fierce heat of the pyre drying them quickly. Someone was hugging her, and she didn’t know if it was Sergei or the Kraljica or Mason.
It didn’t matter. She watched Karl’s remains spiraling upward into eternity.
She stood there until the pyre collapsed, several minutes later, into a heap of ash and coal as dead and as charred as her own self.
Allesandra ca’Vorl
Allesandra watched Sergei pace in front of the portrait of Kraljica Marguerite. The portrait’s stern eyes seemed, to Allesandra, to track the Ambassador’s limping progress from side to side. Commandant cu’Ingres didn’t watch at all; his gaze was fixed determinedly on the small fire in the hearth, intended to take the evening chill from the room. A’Teni ca’Paim sat near the table of pastries, with a full plate on her ample lap.
Allesandra had no appetite herself. The carnage she’d seen during the funerary parade had stolen that. Her hands still trembled, remembering. So cowardly, the use of the black sand. Such an awful death… There was still a faint ringing in her ears from the blast.
“We can’t permit another incident like this, Kraljica,” Sergei declared as he passed beneath the portrait yet again. “The message this sends to the populace; the message this sends to the Faithful.. . We can’t allow it.”
“There was no teni-magic involved in this,” A’Teni ca’Paim declared sternly. “Morel understands the consequences if he would use the Ilmodo. That’s why he used black sand-though one of his followers probably set off the black sand with a spell as the bier passed over it.”
“That’s exactly the point,” Sergei answered. “He was able to disrupt a solemn ritual of the Holdings without the Ilmodo. Without magic. The use of black sand was a message: that the Faith is useless and weak, that the Holdings can be held hostage by anyone who can create black sand, that the Numetodo are more dangerous than any teni. That’s worse than if he had used the Ilmodo.”
Ca’Paim’s face wrinkled in a moue of disgust. “The Faith is not weak,” she responded primly. “The Faith is stronger than it has been in decades. Archigos Karrol has seen to that.”
Allesandra noticed that ca’Paim pretended not to hear Sergei’s audible sniff of disdain at that statement. “You think that Morel isn’t intelligent enough to understand the symbolism of his actions?” Allesandra asked her. “It seemed clear enough to me. That blasphemous puppet of Cenzi was staring directly at the bier when the black sand exploded. I think Morel would have used the Ilmodo to the same effect-except that he was obeying the laws of Faith. Apologies to you, A’Teni ca’Paim, but the man believes he follows the tenets of the Toustour and the Divolonte far more closely than any of the a’teni and Archigos Karrol.”
“His message may be read differently by different people, Kraljica,” Sergei persisted, “and that’s even more of an issue. Yes, to the Faith he is saying ‘Look, I obeyed your rules even though I find them supremely foolish.’ To the Numetodo, he says ‘I find your beliefs vile and heretical.’ But I think the general populace-who is neither teni nor Numetodo-takes away an entirely different statement. I think some of them might look at what happened and think ‘I can do that. Why, anyone could do that.’ That’s dangerous. That’s not what we want the people to believe, especially those who might have reason to oppose us.”
Ca’Paim bit savagely into a pastry, chewing furiously. Cu’Ingres watched the dance of the flames. “So what would you have me do, Sergei?” Allesandra asked.
“We must find Morel. We must execute him savagely and publicly,” Sergei answered. “Then your answer to his message is: ‘If you try this, you die.’”
“Is that what Varina would tell me to do?” Allesandra asked.
“No,” Sergei admitted. “It’s not. But I’m your adviser, not the A’Morce Numetodo. My loyalty is to you, Kraljica: to Nessantico, and to the Holdings-as it always has been. I tell you what will best serve those loyalties. We need to deal harshly with Nico Morel and his followers.”
“I agree with the Ambassdor entirely,” ca’Paim said. She rose, still holding the plate of pastries. “My people will aid you in that in any way we can. I can begin by questioning those suspected of having Morelli sympathies…” She gave the sign of Cenzi, one-handed, to Allesandra and the others. “Do you think Talbot could have someone wrap these up for me, Kraljica?” she asked, holding up the plate. “I hate to see them go to waste…”
A’Teni ca’Paim made her exit with a parcel of sweets, and Commandant cu’Ingres accompanied her from the room. Talbot-who had insisted on returning to work despite the cuts and scratches he’d sustained-sent in a trio of servants to clear the tables and take the trays back to the kitchens.
Sergei had made no motion to leave. Allesandra watched him, his attention seemingly on the servants as they went about their tasks, one hand behind his back, the other leaning on a silver-knobbed cane that nearly matched his nose. A stripe of the candle later, the last servant bowed and left the room, closing the door behind her. “What, Sergei?” Allesandra asked then. “I have Erik ca’Vikej arriving for lunch in a half-turn. He wants to discuss how the exiled West Magyarian government might respond to the Morelli issue.”
Sergei turned to her. She saw his eyes close briefly and his lips press together, as if the movement pained him-or as if the mention of ca’Vikej bothered him. “You’re toying with black sand and fire there, Kraljica,” he said. “As Ambassador to the Coalition, I have to caution you against appearing to openly support the man.”