“I know,” Varina told him. “I saw…” she began, then dropped her gaze to the table. “A few times, on the street, I saw the grandes horizontales you hired to…” Her gaze came back up. “To me, they all looked like her: the same coloring, the same build.”
He dropped his gaze, guiltily. “Varina-”
“No,” she told him, interrupting. “I understood. I did. But it still hurt, because you didn’t see me, when that’s…” She closed her mouth, pressed her lips tightly together. She wouldn’t say the rest. She wouldn’t.
Karl lifted his hands, let them drop back to the table. “Serafina’s right. Because of my obsession, I missed what was right in front of my nose. I was stupid. Worse, I was cruel, and that’s something I never wanted to be. Not to you, Varina. Never to you. You’ve always been someone I admired and trusted. I always thought of you as a friend. And now… I don’t know if…”
“I don’t know either,” she told him. Go on, she heard a voice inside her say. Go on. Say it. “Karl, we can both continue to wonder. Or-”
She let the word hang there, as bright in his mind as spell-fire.
He held out his hand to her.
She took it.
Eneas cu’Kinnear
Second Cenzidi. The day he was to meet with the Kraljiki.
This is your time, your moment. This day, I will take you up into Me and hold you, and you will be forever happy and at ease. Today.. .
“Thank you, Cenzi,” Eneas whispered gratefully. “Thank you. I am your servant, your vessel.”
He had taken the ground niter, charcoal, and sulfur; mixing them carefully together with stale urine as Cenzi had directed him to do, until he had created the black sand of the Westlanders. He placed the cakes of black sand into a leather satchel, which he draped over his uniform. He had rehearsed in his mind the spell of fire Cenzi had given him until he knew the gestures and the chant and could do the simple spell in the space of a few breaths. Yes, this would demonstrate to the Kraljiki what the Westlanders could do. It would make Nessantico realize how important and how dangerous this war had become.
Then, finally, he tidied the room, so that it would look neat for those who would come to look at it afterward.
As he walked to the Kraljiki’s palais for his audience, he let himself take in the sights of Nessantico, absorbing everything the city he loved so much had to offer. He strolled along the North Bank of the Isle a’Kralji from his rooms, gazing fondly at the gated towers of the Pontica Mordei and watching a flatboat piled high with crates slide under its stonework span. The A’Sele gleamed in sunlight, wavelets sparking and dancing. Couples sat with linked arms on the grassy bank, lost in the presence of each other. A quartet of e’teni hurried past him on their way to some task, their green robes swaying around their ankles and the faint smell of incense trailing after them. Eneas could hear the chaotic, eternal voice of the city, the sound of thousands of voices speaking at once.
He passed the Old Temple, gazing upward at the impossible dome the artisan Brunelli was constructing, the largest in the world-if it didn’t collapse under the terrible weight of the masonry. He frowned once, at the sight of a street performer who was juggling balls that he had set aglow with a spell-that was Numetodo work, not done with the prayers of a teni, and it bothered Eneas to see such a thing done publicly, without any of the onlookers being upset by it.
Archigos Ana allowed the people to lose sight of truth and faith. She coddled the Numetodo and allowed their heresy to spread-and that’s why the Holdings and the Faith are now split in two and broken. I have sent the Westlanders as a sign and a warning. Today, you will bring them a final warning for Me.
The voice spoke low and sinister in his head. Karl made the sign of Cenzi, scowling at the juggler and the audience around him before walking on.
The Kraljiki’s Palais was white and gold against a sky that looked painted. Eneas had been to the palais once before, as an e’offizier aide accompanying his a’offizier to a meeting with the Council of Ca’, but this would be the first time that he would actually be before the Sun Throne. He gave his Lettre a’Approche to the garda at the side gates, who scanned it, ran a finger across the embossed seal, and saluted Eneas. “You are expected, O’Offizier cu’Kinnear,” he said, gesturing. A servant boy came running, in the gold-and-blue livery of the Kraljiki’s staff. Eneas followed the boy across sculpted, polished grounds set with topiaries and flower gardens, with several ca’-and-cu’ courtiers strolling the white-pebbled walkways. Eneas’ guide took him through a side door and into the palais itself, and down a corridor of pale pink marble, the floor burnished to a high sheen and teni-lamps set every few strides, though there was enough light coming through the windows at either end that the lamps were unlit. “Wait here, O’Offizier,” the boy said, pausing at a door where two gardai were standing at attention. “The public reception is nearly over. I’ll see if the Kraljiki is ready to meet with you.” The gardai opened the door and the boy slipped inside. Eneas glimpsed the crowd of supplicants and heard the quiet hush of whispered conversations; faintly, someone was talking more loudly: a boy’s voice, hoarse and broken with coughs. He thought he saw the Sun Throne, bright against the shuttered half-twilight of the hall beyond. The door closed again before he could see more.
“How goes the war, O’Offizier?” one of the door gardai asked. “Everyone’s been waiting for a fast-ship from the Hellins, but it hasn’t come.”
“It won’t come,” Eneas told him.
The two gardai glanced at each other. “O’Offizier?”
“It won’t come,” Eneas repeated. “Cenzi has already told me that.”
Another glance. Eneas saw a quick roll of eyes. “Oh, Cenzi told you. I see.”
“You don’t talk to Cenzi, E’Offizier?” Eneas asked the man. “Then I pity you.”
The door opened again and cut off any rejoinder the man might have made. It wasn’t the boy, but an older man, his livery marked with the Kraljiki’s insignia. “I’m Marlon,” he said. “The Kraljiki’s ready for you. Follow me.”
The gardai held the doors open for Eneas to pass through. The hall was still crowded, clustered with ca’-and-cu’ and those lucky enough to have their names placed on the Second Cenzidi list of supplicants. They watched Eneas enter behind Marlon, their faces reflecting mingled curiosity and resentment as it became apparent that he was being taken directly to the Sun Throne.
The windows of the hall had been partially shuttered, so that the room was both dim and sweltering. At the far end of the hall, the Sun Throne shimmered with a sun-yellow glow, outlining the form of a young man. Eneas had known that Kraljiki Audric was young, but still his appearance startled him. He seemed small for his years, barrel-chested but otherwise thin, his cheeks sunken and the hollows of his eyes dark. Sweat beaded on his forehead, but the boy looked more feverish than warm.
One of the Council of Ca’ stood at his left hand: an older woman with obviously-dyed black hair who stared at him with the predatory eyes of a hawk, though Eneas didn’t recognize her. A portrait of Kraljica Marguerite was set at Audric’s right hand. The impact of the painting was stunning: Eneas had never seen anything so lifelike and solid-more of a presence than the woman on the other side of the throne. Eneas could imagine the Kraljica staring at him as he came near, and the feeling was not a pleasant one. It made him want to cradle the pouch he carried; it made him want to turn and flee.
You cannot. I will not let you. Cenzi roared in his head, and Eneas shook his head like a dog trying to rid himself of fleas.
The Kraljiki cleared his throat as Eneas approached, a liquid sound. He coughed once, and Eneas heard phlegm rattling in the boy’s lungs. His mouth hung half-open, and he clutched a lace cloth spotted with blood in his right hand. “O’Offizier cu’Kinnear,” the Kraljiki said as Eneas came to the dais and bowed. “I understand from Archigos Kenne that you have come from the war in the Hellins with news for us.” The Kraljiki spoke haltingly and slowly, pausing often for breath and occasionally stifling a cough with the handkerchief. “We have heard of your fine record in the Garde Civile, and we salute you for your service to the throne. And I am happy to tell you that I have signed your Lettre a’Chevaritt, effective immediately.”