“Who?” Allesandra asked. Her hand had gone to her throat. She was afraid she knew the answer.
Francesca took a stumbling step forward, nearly falling and clutching at Allesandra’s tashta. “Ask him,” the woman grated out, her breath filling Allesandra’s nostrils. “Make him tell you, and then see how you feel about him.”
Her laugh erupted in another fluttering of starling wings, and she pushed away from Allesandra. She stumbled toward the archway leading to the north wing without looking back. “Ask him,” Allesandra heard the woman say again, the words echoing around the courtyard.
She watched Francesca wrench open the doors, heard them shut again behind her. She stood there for several moments, as the starlings settled in the fruit trees once again and the moon lifted over the domes of the temple.
In the end, Allesandra turned and walked away from the temple, back toward her rooms and her own thoughts.
Nico Morel
In the distance, Nico could hear the wailing cornets and zinkes as Kraljiki Audric’s funeral procession proceeded along the Avi a’Parete a few blocks away. He wondered what the procesthe Avi a’Parete a few blocks away. He wondered what the procession might look like-all the ca’-and-cu’ parading behind the funeral coach, the teni using their magic to turn the wheels, the new Kraljica Signourney following behind in her own special coach. It would be splendid, that procession. A wonder. Audric hadn’t been much older than he was, and Nico wondered what it would be like to be so young and also Kraljiki. He wondered how someone could have hated Audric so much that he would kill him. Nico couldn’t imagine hating anyone that much.
No one else in the room seemed to notice the sounds of the funeral-or perhaps they chose to ignore it.
“I didn’t kill Archigos Ana.”
Nico sat in his matarh’s lap. She hardly let him go since she’d seen him. Not that he minded; he was quite content to sit encircled by her arms, protected. The feeling made him realize just how much he had missed her, just how scared he had been for so long. He and his matarh were sitting on the hearth, the fire warming his side. Talis was sitting at the table in the center of the room; Karl and Varina were on the other side. Nico could almost see the tension arcing between them, a fire nearly as hot as the one at his back. His matarh felt it, too; he could feel the shivering in her muscles and how tightly she held him, and he knew she was afraid that something was going to happen.
“I didn’t kill her,” Talis said again. “It’s the truth.”
“Right,” Karl answered. “And we’re just supposed to simply believe that. Because you say it’s so.”
Talis shrugged, leaning back in his chair. “You don’t want to believe me, fine. It’s still the truth. But…” Talis licked his lips. “I know how she was killed, and I know who must have been at least partially responsible.”
“Go on,” Karl said.
“It was this…” Talis reached into the pouch on his belt. Nico saw both Varina and Karl stiffen at that, and his matarh sucked in her breath. Karl’s hands were suddenly up, as if ready to cast a spell. Talis froze. “No magic,” he said. “I wouldn’t, not with Sera and Nico here. I wouldn’t.”
After a moment, Karl let his hands rest on the tabletop again, and Talis opened the pouch. He brought out a small cloth bag and untied the string holding it together. He spilled out a small mound of dark powder on the table. Karl stared at it. “There was black dust all around the High Lectern and on Ana’s clothes,” he said. “That… that’s the same thing?”
Talis nodded. “Yes.” He scooped up all but a pinch of the powder and put it back in the bag. “We call it bosh luum in our language. Black sand, in yours. Here…” From the pouch, he took a low, wide brass bowl, marked with strange figures around the rim. He brushed the remnants of the powder into the bowl and set it in the center of the table. “I’ll leave this to you-put a small fire spell in the bowl, just the tiniest spark.” He smiled, a brief flicker. “And don’t put your face too near it if you want to keep that beard.”
Karl glanced at Varina, obviously uncertain. Varina looked at Nico’s matarh. “Sera?” she asked. “We can trust him?”
Nico felt rather than saw his matarh nod, but her hands tightened even more around him at the same time. Varina made a quick motion with her hand, and spoke a word in another language. The word sounded like “tihn-eh” to him, and as soon as Varina spoke it, a spark appeared between her fingers and she flicked her hand in the direction of the bowl, the spark flying away.
As soon as the spark entered the bowl, there was a simultaneous flash and boom, as if a thunderstorm had broken inside the bowl. The bowl itself jumped and rang, and white smoke erupted. Someone shouted; Nico couldn’t tell who. His matarh had turned with the noise, her body shielding Nico. She turned slowly back, and Nico could see again. Karl was reaching across the table to the bowl, which still had smoke rising from it. There was a strange smell in the air, like Nico imagined that the underworld of the Moitidi might smell like.
“That was just a sprinkle of it,” Talis was saying. “I would say you could imagine what a large amount of black sand could do, but I don’t really think you can.”
“ I can,” Karl said. He’d been examining the bowl; the way it was tilted, Nico could see that the bottom of the bowl was blackened as if it had been scorched. Karl’s face was grim as he set the bowl down. “I was there when Ana died.”
Talis pressed his lips together.
Varina pushed the bowl away. She lifted her head, seeeming to hear the fading sound of Audric’s funeral procession for the first time. “The Kraljiki.” Her eyes widened. “The rumors…”
“… are quite possibly true, from what I’ve heard,” Talis finished for her. “But that also wasn’t my doing.” He gestured at Nico. “The boy can tell you that. I was with him when it happened. We heard the wind-horns calling. Didn’t we, Nico?”
Nico nodded.
“Westlander magic…” Karl breathed. He’d picked up the bowl again, staring at the sooty interior as if answers were written there. “We’re just starting to understand it, and I can tell you, Talis, that it doesn’t come from your gods any more than teni magic comes from Cenzi.”
“Then you still don’t understand,” Talis said. “This isn’t magic. At least not the black sand itself. It’s no more magic than making bread, if you know the recipe for making it.”
“You said you know who’s responsible,” Karl said. “Give me a name.”
Talis took a long breath. “His name is Uly. He has a stall at the River Market. He’s a Westlander, sent here at the same time I was. He’s a warrior. His job was to report back to the Tecuhtli-the Tecuhtli is what your Kraljiki might be if he were also the Commandant of the Garde Civile. I was here for the Nahual, the head of my order, to help Uly and also to find out what happened to Mahri. And…” Talis took another breath. “I made a mistake. It was we nahualli-the spellcasters-who discovered how to create black sand; it’s a secret we’ve kept-and yes, if others thought it was magic, we didn’t correct their misconception. But Uly… we were here so long and he was the only person I knew who spoke my language, and until I met Sera-” he glanced at Nico’s matarh and smiled, “-he was the only person who seemed to care about me. I did what I shouldn’t have done. I had him help me make black sand. I tried to keep the details from him, but.. .” Talis took the bowl from the table and placed it back in his pouch. “Uly wasn’t stupid. He could have easily seen enough to reproduce the process. His job was to provide me the ingredients, after all.”