“We have little of the materials left to make more black sand,” Niente told the Tecuhtli. “I have lost a third of my nahualli in the fighting; you have lost as many of the warriors. We have come a long way without the resources to hold the land behind us. We are in a foreign country surrounded by enemies, with the only supplies those we can forage and plunder. If we take to our ships and leave now, we will leave behind a legend that will strike fear in the Easterners for decades. The name of Tecuhtli Zolin will be a whisper in the night to scare generations of Easterner children.”
“Bah!” Zolin spat again, the expectoration close to Niente’s feet, marring the polished floor of the estate house he’d taken in Villembouchure. Looking down, Niente saw that the tiles all bore the glazed image of the same mountain as the mosaic on the wall. Zolin’s spittle formed a lake on the mountain’s flank. “You’re a frightened child yourself, Nahual. I’m not afraid of what you see in your bowl. I’m not afraid of these futures you say Axat sends you. They’re not the future, only possibilities.” His finger prodded Niente’s chest. “I tell you now, Nahual, you must make your choice.” Each of the last three words was another prod. The Tecuhtli’s dark eyes, wrapped in the swirl of the great eagle’s wings, glared at him like those of the great cats that prowled the forests of home. “No more words from you. No more prophecy, no more warnings. I want only your obedience and your magic. If you can’t give me that, then I am done with you. I will go on, whether you are Nahual or not. Decide now, Niente. As we stand here.”
Niente’s hand trembled near the haft of his spell-stick, dangling from his belt. He could pluck it up, touch Zolin with it before the warrior could fully draw his sword. The released spell would char the Tecuhtli’s body, send him flying across the room until he crumpled against the wall under the mosaic in a smoking heap. Niente could see that result, as clearly as a vision in the scrying bowl.
That would also end this. He ached to do it.
But he could not. That was not a vision that Axat had granted him. That path would lead to one of the blind futures, one he couldn’t guess-a future that might be far worse for the Tehuantin than those he had glimpsed in the bowl. He realized that knowing the possible futures was a trap as much as a benefit; he wondered whether that was something Mahri, too, had discovered. In a blind future, Citlali or Mazatl might continue to follow the steps of Zolin and fare worse. They might all die here, and no one from home would know their fate. In a blind future, certainly Niente would never see his family again.
He felt the smooth, polished wood of the spell-stick, but his fingertips only grazed it. They would not close around it.
“I will obey you, Tecuhtli,” Niente said, the words slow and quiet. “And I will follow you to the future you bring us.”
Varina ci’Pallo
Karl was sitting in the dark on the rear stoop of Serafina’s house in Oldtown, staring across the small garden planted there toward the rear of the houses a street over. His gaze seemed to be penetrating all the way to South Bank, far away. Above him, the moon was snagged in a lacework of thin, silver clouds through which the stars peered. A cup of tea steamed forgotten at his left side.
He was rubbing a small, flat, and pale stone between his forefinger and thumb.
Varina came up and sat beside him on the right-not quite close enough to touch, not far enough away that she couldn’t feel the warmth of his body in the night chill. Neither of them said anything. He rubbed the stone. She could hear faint, muffled music from the tavern down the street.
When the silence between them had stretched for more breaths than she wanted to count, she started to rise again, feeling angry with herself for having come out here, and angry with him for not acknowledging her. But Karl reached out and touched her knee. “Stay,” he said. “Please?”
She sat again. “Why?” she asked.
“We haven’t… Lately… Well, you know.”
“No, I don’t know,” she said to him. “Tell me.”
“You’re trying to make this hard for me?” He flipped the stone over in his fingers.
“No,” she told him. “I’m trying to make it easier for me. Karl, being with you or being without you-those are both situations I can deal with, one way or another. What I can’t handle is not knowing which it’s supposed to be.” She waited. He said nothing. “So which is it?” she asked.
“It’s not that simple.”
“Actually, it is.” She hugged herself as she sat, leaning slightly away from him. “I thought when I finally took you to my bed that I might have everything I’d wanted for years. But I discovered I still only had a part of you. I want all of you, Karl, or I don’t want anything. Maybe I’m asking too much of you, or maybe I’m too possessive, or maybe you think I’m pushing you into something you don’t want.” Tears were threatening, and she sniffed them away angrily. “Maybe it’s my fault that this won’t work, and if that’s the case, then fine. I just need to know.”
“It’s not you.”
She wanted to believe that. Varina bit her lower lip, forcing back the tears, her breath shaking in her throat. “Then what is it?” she asked. “You go after this Uly on your own and nearly get yourself killed, you meet with Kenne without telling me, you’re even making plans with Talis. But you’re not talking to me.”
“I don’t want you to worry.”
She wanted to scoff at that. “I worry more because I don’t know the situation. I don’t know what you’re planning, don’t know what you’re trying to do, don’t know what the real dangers might be.” She stopped. Took a breath. “I won’t be your mistress, to be there whenever you want that kind of comfort but conveniently forgotten otherwise. If that’s all you want from me, then I made a mistake. I’m also not Ana, only wanting you as a friend. Again, if that’s all you want from me, well, you can’t have that either. Not anymore. So if that’s the case, then tell me and as soon as this is over, one way or the other, I’ll go my own way. I’ve wanted you to open the door between us for a long time, Karl. Now you have, but you can’t stand there with one foot in and one outside. I need to either close that door and lock it forever, or you need to enter all the way in.”
“How do I do that?” His voice sounded plaintive in the darkness. He pressed the stone between his fingers. How can you not know? she wanted to rail at him. Can’t you see it as plainly as I do?
“ Talk to me,” she said. “Share what you’re thinking. Let me accept the dangers you’re willing to accept. Let me be with you.”
She thought that he wasn’t going to answer-which would have been answer enough. He sat there, still toying with the stone and staring outward. She started to rise again, and this time he took her hand. She could feel the stone as he pressed it into her palm.
“Wait,” he said. “Let me tell you what I’m thinking…”
And he began to talk.
Kenne ca’Fionta
Aubri cu’Ulcai looked like a whipped dog as he knelt on one knee, head lowered, before the Kraljica. His armor was scratched and battered, his face was streaked with grime and smoke, his hair was dark and matted, and he stank. In the Hall of the Sun Throne, he was like a horsefly paddling in a golden mug of clear, cold water.
Not that the hall itself didn’t still show scars. No one could miss the marks of the hasty repair where the Sun Throne had been damaged by the assassin’s magic-no, not magic if Karl ca’Vliomani was correct, Kenne remembered, but something more sinister-something any apothecary could make with the right ingredients. What had the Ambassador ca’Vliomani called it? The end of magic? Kenne wondered if the man was right.