“There’s no book learning one can do to be a leader, Hirzg,” Sergei told Jan. “You learn by doing, and you hope you don’t make too many mistakes in the process. As to revenge: well, as I’ve grown older, I’ve learned that the pleasure one gets from actually achieving the act never matches that of the anticipation. I’ve also learned that sometimes one must forgo revenge entirely for the sake of a larger goal. Kraljica Marguerite knew that better than anyone; that’s why she was such a good ruler.” He smiled. “Even if your great-vatarh would disagree strongly.”
“You knew them both.”
Sergei couldn’t quite tell if that were statement or question, but he nodded. “I did, and I had great respect for both of them, the old Hirzg Jan included.”
“Matarh hated him, I think.”
“She had good reason, if she did,” Sergei answered. “But he was her vatarh, and I think she loved him also.”
“Is that possible?”
“We’re strange beasts, Hirzg. We’re capable of holding two conflicting feelings in our heads at the same time. Water and fire, both together.”
“Matarh says you used to torture people.”
He waited a long time to answer that. Jan said nothing, continuing to ride alongside him. “It was my duty at one time, when I was in command of the Bastida.”
“She says the rumors were that you enjoyed it. Is that part of what you were talking about-the ability to hold two conflicting feelings in your head?”
Sergei pursed his lips. He rubbed again at his nose. He looked ahead of them, not at the young man. “Yes,” he answered finally, the single word bringing back all the memories of the Bastida: the darkness, the pain, the blood. The pleasure.
“Matarh is, or was, anyway, Archigos Semini’s lover. Did you know that, Regent?”
“I suspected it, yes.”
“Even though she loves him, she was willing to sacrifice him and hand him over for judgment as U’Teni Petros asked. She’d made that decision; she told me so herself when she came back from the parley. ‘Let his sins be paid back in lives saved,’ she told me. There wasn’t a tear in her eye or a trace of regret in her voice. The Archigos.. . he doesn’t know that. He doesn’t know how close he was to being a prisoner. For all I know, the two of them may even still…” He stopped. Shrugged.
“Water and fire, Hirzg,” Sergei said.
Jan nodded. “Matarh said that you love Nessantico above us all. Yet you ride with us, you saved Matarh and me in Passe a’Fiume, and you would put Matarh on the Sun Throne.”
“I would, because I’m convinced that would be best for Nessantico. I want to see the Holdings restored, with Firenzcia once again its strong right arm.” Sergei paused. They could see the first outliers of Carrefour before them in the road, the tops of the buildings rising beyond the trees. “Is that also what you want, Hirzg?”
Sergei watched the young man. He was looking away, over the long line of the army stretched along the road. “I love my matarh,” he answered.
“That’s not what I asked, Hirzg.”
Jan nodded, still gazing at the armored snake of his army. “No, it’s not, is it?” he answered.
The Battle Begun: Karl Vliomani
“ You can still leave via some of the streets to the east of the Nortegate,” Karl told Serafina. “You’ll have to be careful and you’ll have to go quickly, but if you have Varina with you, you and Nico would have protection.”
Karl saw Serafina and Varina already shaking their heads before he finished. “I’m not leaving without Talis,” Serafina said. Nico was sitting on her lap as they sat around the table in the main room of Serafina’s apartment. They had finished a dinner of bread, cheese, and water, though the bread had been stale, the cheese moldy, and the water clouded. They’d eaten it all, though, not knowing when there might be more food.
With the army of the Tehuantin at the western edges of the city and their ships holding the A’Sele, with the army of Firenzcia threatening from the east, Nessantico was panicked. Wild, fantastic rumors about the sack of Karnor and Villembouchure ran through the city, growing darker, grimmer, and more violent with each retelling. The Westlanders, if the stories could be believed, were nothing less than demons spawned by the Moitidi themselves, devoted to rape, torture, and mutilation. The shelves of the stores were nearly bare; the mills had no flour for the bakeries, and there were no carts coming into the markets from the fields outside the city. Even the Avi a’Parete was dark tonight-the light-teni hadn’t made their usual rounds; worse, a fog had crawled over the city from the west, thick and cold. The city trembled in darkness, waiting for the inevitable strike to come. “I thought I’d lost both Talis and Nico once; I’m not doing that again,” Serafina continued.
“He can’t leave,” Karl persisted. “He’s male and young enough to be pressed into service with the Garde Civile. They’d snatch him before you got halfway to the Avi. And with the Archigos in the Bastida… well, the Garde Kralji almost certainly have our descriptions and are already out looking for us. Two women with a young boy-you’d be safe enough, I think. But with Talis and me…”
“I’m not leaving without him,” Serafina persisted. Her voice shook and the hand around Nico’s waist trembled, but her lips pressed firmly together.
“Half the city’s already left-those who can. The rumors about Karnor and Villembouchure… all that could happen here.”
A shrug.
Varina was smiling grimly. Her hand touched his knee under the table. “You’ve lost this argument, Karl,” she said. “With both of us. We’re here. We’re staying, whatever that means.”
Karl looked at Talis, who had been sitting silently on his side of the table. He’d been strangely quiet for the last day and more, since the news had come of the Archigos’ imprisonment, and he spent much time with the scrying bowl. Karl wondered what the man was thinking behind that solemn face. Talis shrugged. “I agree with Karl,” he said to Serafina. “I would rather have you and Nico safe.”
Varina took Karl’s hand, standing. “Come with me,” she told him. “Let Sera and Talis talk this out on their own. We will, too.”
Karl followed Varina into the other room. She closed the door behind them, so that they could only hear the low murmur of voices in conversation. “She loves him,” Varina said. She was still leaning against the door, looking at Karl.
“Yes,” he protested, “and that’s exactly the reason he wants her to leave: because he doesn’t want to lose the people he loves.”
“And that’s exactly the reason she won’t go, because she couldn’t bear not knowing what happened to him.” She crossed her arms under her breasts. “It’s exactly the reason I won’t go either.”
“Varina…”
“Karl, shut up,” she told him. She pushed away from the wall, going to him. Her arms went around him, her lips sought his. There was a desperation in her embrace, in the violence of her kiss. He could hear the sob in her throat, and his hand went to her face to find her cheeks wet. He tried to pull away from her, to ask what was wrong, but she wouldn’t let him. She brought his head back down to hers. Her weight bore him down to the straw-filled mattress on the floor. Then, for a time, he forgot everything.
Afterward, he kissed her, holding her tightly, relishing her warmth. “I love you, Karl,” she whispered into his ear. “I’ve given up pretending anything else.”
He didn’t answer. He wanted to. He wanted to say the words back to her. They filled his throat but stuck there. He felt that if he said them, he’d be betraying Ana and everything she’d meant to him. “Find someone else, she’d told him, long ago. “Go back to your wife, if you like. Or if you fall in love with someone new, that would be fine with me, too. I’d be happy for you because I can’t be what you want me to be, Karl.”
“I…” he began, then stopped. They both heard it at the same time, a whistling shriek and a low growl like thunder, followed almost immediately by others, and the wind-horns on the temples beginning to sound an alarm. Karl rolled away from her. “What is that?” Karl asked, but he suspected that he knew already. They both dressed quickly and rushed into the other room.