Ca’Egan’s eyebrows clambered high on his bare, wrinkled skull and his mouth opened soundlessly. Francesca, in shock, reared back in her seat, stunned by the announcement, but most did not. They only nodded, their gazes more on Jan than on Allesandra.
“Cenzi’s balls!” Pauli shouted alongside her, the obscenity almost seeming to draw lightning in the dark air of the chamber. “Woman, are you insane? Do you know what you’re doing? You’ve just-”
“Shut up,” she said to Pauli, who glared, though his jaw snapped closed. Allesandra raised her hands to the councillors. “I’ve said all I need to say. My decision is irrevocable. I leave it to the Council of Ca’ to decide who is best suited take the throne of Brezno. However, it won’t be me. I trust your judgment, Councillors. I know you will do what is best for Brezno.”
With that, she gave the sign of Cenzi to the Council and turned, pushing the doors open so abruptly that the hall servants on station outside were nearly knocked aside. Pauli and Jan, surprised by the suddenness of her retreat, followed belatedly. Allesandra could hear Pauli charging after her. His hand caught her arm and spun her around. His handsome face was flushed and distorted, made ugly with anger. Behind him, she saw Jan standing at the open door of the chamber watching their confrontation, his own features puzzled and uncertain.
“What in the seven hells is this?” Pauli raged. “We had everything we ever wanted in our hands, and you just throw it away? Are you mad, Allesandra?” His hand tightened on her bicep, the tashta bunching under his fingers. She would be bruised there tomorrow, she knew. “You are going back in there now and you’re telling them that it was a mistake. A joke. Tell them any damn thing you want. But you’re not going to do this to me.”
“To you?” Allesandra answered mockingly, calmly. “How does this have anything to do with you, Pauli? I was the A’Hirzg, not you. You are just a pitiful, useless excuse for a husband, a mistake I hope to rectify as soon as I can, and you’ll take your hand from me. Now.”
He didn’t. He drew his other hand back as if to strike her, his fingers curling into a fist. “No!” The shout was from Jan, running toward them. “Don’t, Vatarh.”
Allesandra smiled grimly at Pauli, at his still-upraised hand. “Go ahead,” she told him. “Do it if you’d like. I tell you now that it will be the last time you ever touch me.”
Pauli let the fisted hand drop. His fingers loosened on her sleeve and she shook herself away from him.
“I’m done with you, Pauli,” she told him. “You gave me all I ever needed from you long ago.”
Eneas cu’Kinnear
Vouziers: a landlocked city, the largest in South Nessantico, the crossroads to Namarro and the sun-crazed southlands of Daritria beyond. Vouziers sat at the northern edge of the flatlands of South Nessantico, a farming country with vast fields of swaying grain. Vouziers’ people were like the land: solid, unpretentious, serious, and uncomplicated.
The coach took several days to reach Vouziers from Fossano. In a village along the way, he purchased all the sulfur the local alchemist had in his shop; the next night, he did the same in another. At each of their nightly stops, Eneas would take a private room at the inn. He would take out a few chunks of the charcoal and begin, slowly, to grind it into a black powder-he could hear Cenzi’s satisfaction when the charcoal had reached the required fineness. Then, with Cenzi’s voice warning him to be gentle and careful, he mixed the charcoal powder, the sulfur, and the niter together into the black sand of the Westlanders, tamping it softly into paper packages. Cenzi whispered the instructions into his head as he worked, and kept him safe.
The night before they reached Vouziers, he took a few of the packs out into the field after everyone was asleep. There, he poured the contents into a small, shallow hole he dug in the ground-the result reminded him uneasily of the black sands on the battlefields of the Hellins and his own defeat. As Cenzi’s Voice instructed him, he took a length of cotton cord impregnated with wax and particles of the black sand, buried one end in the black sand and uncoiled the rest on the ground as he stepped away from the hole. Later, he heard Cenzi say in his head, I will show you how to make fire as the teni do. You should have been a teni, Eneas. That was My desire for you, but your parents didn’t listen to Me. But now I will make you all you should have been. You have My blessing…
Taking the shielded lantern he’d brought with him, Eneas lit the end of the cord. It hissed and fumed and sputtered, sparks gleaming in the darkness, and Eneas walked quickly away from it. He’d reached the inn and stepped into the common room when the eruption came: a sharp report louder than thunder that rattled the walls of the inn and fluttered the thick, translucent oiled paper in the windows, accompanied by a flash of momentary daylight. Everyone in the room jumped and craned their heads. “Cenzi’s balls!” the innkeeper growled. “The night is as clear as well water.”
The innkeeper went stomping outside, with the others trailing along behind. They first looked up to the cloudless sky and saw nothing. Out in the field, however, a small fire smoldered. As they approached, Eneas saw that the small hole he’d dug was now deep enough for a man to stand in up to his knees, and nearly an arm’s reach across. Stones and dirt had been flung out in all directions. It was as if Cenzi Himself had punched the earth angrily.
The innkeeper looked up to the sky where stars twinkled and crowded in empty blackness. “Lightning striking without a storm,” he said, shaking his head. “It’s a portent, I tell you. The Moitidi are telling us that we’ve lost our way.”
A portent. Eneas found himself smiling at the man’s words, unaware of how prophetic they were. This was indeed a portent, a portent of Cenzi’s desire for him.
The next day, he was in Vouziers. During the long ride, he’d prayed harder than he ever had, and Cenzi had answered him. He knew what he must do here, and though it bothered him, he was a soldier and soldiers always performed their duty, however onerous it might be.
On reaching Vouziers and obtaining lodgings for the night, he put on his uniform and slung a heavy leather pouch around his shoulder. He’d filled a long leather sack with pebbles; that he put into the inner pocket of his bashta. As the wind-horns blew Third Call, he entered the temple for the evening service, which was performed by the A’Teni of Vouziers herself. After the Admonition and the Blessing, Eneas followed the procession of teni from the temple and out onto the temple’s plaza, alight with teni-lamps against the darkening sky. The a’teni was in conversation with the ca’-and-cu’ of the city, and Eneas went instead to one of her o’teni assistants, a sallow man whose mouth seemed to struggle with the smile he gave Eneas.
“Good evening, O’Offizier,” the teni said, giving Eneas the sign of Cenzi. “I’m sorry, should I know you?”
Eneas shook his head as he returned the gesture. “No, O’Teni. I’m passing through town on my way to Nessantico. I’ve just returned from the Hellins and the war there.”
The o’teni’s eyes widened slightly, and his thick lips pursed. “Ah. Then I must bless you for your service to the Holdings. How goes the war against the heathen Westlanders?”
“Not well, I’m afraid,” Eneas answered. He glanced around the temple square. “I wish I could tell you differently. And here…” He shook his head dolefully, watching the o’teni carefully. “I’ve been nearly fifteen years away, and I come back to find much changed. Numetodo walking the street openly, mocking Cenzi with their words and their spells…” Yes, he had judged the man correctly: the teni’s eyes narrowed and the lips pressed together even more tightly. He leaned forward conspiratorially and half-whispered to Eneas.