He could feel the X’in Ka swirling about him, and he let down the barriers of his mind to bring it in. He spoke softly so that the teni would not hear him; his hands swayed and turned and cupped the air. This spell was long and complicated, and it would utterly exhaust him later.
It would also cost him a few years of his life. But again it was necessary, as it had been necessary in the past.
He knew the sacrifices that were demanded of him. He’d agreed to them long, long ago.
The world shifted around him. The very air hushed. The sound of the e’ and o’teni’s voices became low and almost unheard. He moved, and it was as if he were pushing his body through sand. Each step was a labor, and it seemed to take him days to reach the vestry doors a dozen strides away and slide past the living statues of the teni. It took nearly all his strength to push one of the doors open and shut it again.
Around him, Ana and the a’teni were frozen, caught in the midst of removing their gilded outer vestments from the service. The crown of the Archigos lay on the seat of the chair next to Ana; she was still leaning over, her hands open as if she had just laid down the golden band.
He went up to her and put his finger along the side of her neck. He took her presence in his mind, holding it. He felt her lurch into motion, heard her gasp.
“It’s just my finger,” Mahri said in his broken, raspy voice. “It might as easily have been a knife.”
Ana straightened, taking a stumbling step back from him. She glanced quickly around the vestry, seeing the others snared in midmotion. Her eyes narrowed, her lips pressed together. “You betrayed me, Mahri. You gave me to the Kraljiki.”
“Yes,” he answered calmly. “I gave you to the Kraljiki. And look at where you are now.”
“You didn’t know that would happen.”
“It was by far the most likely scenario. Tell me, Ana, if I had advised you and Karl to surrender yourselves to the Kraljiki, would you have done it? You don’t have to answer; I already know. And so do you.”
She started to protest, but he spoke over her. The X’in Ka burned inside him as he held them both in the spell, searing him from the inside; he wanted to scream with the pain. He could almost feel the new scars rippling his already-savaged face. He had to release her, quickly, or the fire would begin to consume her as well. “Not much time,” he said. “I came to give you this.” He untied the pouch from his belt and handed it to her. It seemed heavier than before as he placed it in her palm. “Inside the ball is this very spell,” he told her, gesturing at the unmoving people around them. “It takes you outside the constraints of time. Say my name when you hold the ball in your hand, and the spell will release.”
“Why?” The single word hung there as she looked at the pouch, as she glanced at the glittering orb inside, shimmering with soft orange light.
“You will need it. Think, Ana: it could have been a knife at your throat and not my finger. I give you the same power-to hold time still and do whatever it is you need to do. I’ll tell you this, also, a saying we have in the Westlands: a snake without its head cannot strike you.”
She shook her head, but Mahri closed his eyes and released her from the spell. She froze in mid-protest, and he walked laboriously to the door, as rapidly as he could in the gelid air. As soon as he was out of the temple, he released the spell entirely, almost falling to the stone flags of the court as the X’in Ka flowed out from him and the world surged into motion again.
He hurried away toward Oldtown, toward the bed into which he would collapse for the next few days.
Ana ca’Seranta
“…a snake without its head cannot strike,” Mahri said.
Ana shook her head. “I don’t know what you mean,” she started to say, but a sudden disorientation came over her in that moment, and Mahri vanished while the teni in the vestry with her lurched back to sudden life.
The disorientation felt oddly familiar. She couldn’t quite decide why.
She was holding the pouch in her hand. The leather was supple and worn; the weight inside was heavy and she remembered the glow of it, the color of a dying sun behind clouds. She tucked it quickly into a pocket of her green robes. None of the a’teni noticed; none of them were looking at her. None of them had looked at her since she’d left the High Lectern. Colin ca’Cille, Alain ca’Fountaine, Joca ca’Sevini, all the others: they were old men, all of them. At least a few of them had har-bored aspirations to be Archigos themselves, and they would all rather have been in their own cities than trapped here in Nessantico with the Hirzg’s army approaching. She could feel their resentment, palpable.
“You’re all blind,” she told them. They glanced at her now, startled.
“You’re so folded into yourselves that you can’t see,” she told them. Her hands were trembling, as if from the exhaustion of a spell. “I need all of you to leave me now. Send Kenne in to me as you go.”
“Archigos,” one of them said: ca’Sevini of Chivasso. From his expression, her title seemed to taste like fish oil. “You’ve already made a terrific mistake today with the Admonition you gave the ca’-and-cu’.
You’re making another now. The Kraljiki may have been able to force your ascension on us in this terrible time, but if you have any hope of ever being more than just Archigos in title, then you need our cooperation. Showing arrogance isn’t the way to gain it-not when someone else still claims the title of Archigos. You can’t dismiss us as if we were inconvenient e’teni.”
Ana had no answer for him, or, rather, she had too many. People like you have been telling me what I must do all my life, from my vatarh to the Kraljiki. She wanted to spit the bile back at him. But past the anger, she knew he was at least partially right, no matter how much she wanted to deny it. She could not be Archigos without their support. She would not survive the coming battle without them; she especially could not risk their defecting to ca’Cellibrecca.
There will be a time to assert yourself. This isn’t it. She could almost imagine Dhosti’s voice saying the words.
She managed, if not to smile, to at least not frown. “You’re right, and I apologize, A’Teni ca’Sevini. Cenzi knows, I deserved your rebuke, and I thank you for having the courage to speak bluntly. Please, I ask all of you for forgiveness: I know we must work together, especially now.”
She didn’t know if it mollified them. A few nodded; ca’Sevini actually showed his few remaining teeth in a brief smile. She put away the service vestments and left the vestry as quickly as she could, calling Kenne-newly returned to the city-to her. “You saw no one outside, Kenne?” she asked. “Mahri?”
Kenne shook his head, a bit wide-eyed. “No, Archigos. There was no one in the hall but us. Why?”
She shook her head. “Never mind. I need you to do something for me. . ”
Karl hugged her as soon as Kenne closed the door behind him. “Are you sure it’s a good thing for a Numetodo to be seen coming to the Archigos’ office?” he asked. “People might talk, especially after your Admonition today.”
“At this point I’m beyond caring,” she told him.
He laughed, throatily, and pulled her to him. She allowed herself to sink into the embrace. Karl’s arms tightened around her, and she closed her eyes so that there was only that hug, that comfort, that moment.
Karl finally pulled away, and she opened her eyes again to see him looking around the room: the huge desk behind which Dhosti had sat for many years, that ca’Cellibrecca had desecrated with his presence most recently; the throne-chair at one end of the large room where Dhosti had sat for formal receptions of visitors; the gilded images of the Moitidi carved into the cornices; the massive broken globe, gilded and ornate and held in puffs of wooden clouds, looming over the main doors.
“Impressive,” he said. “Have you tried out the throne yet?”
She shook her head. “This isn’t the time for jests, Karl,” she told him. “Right now, I need you to be the Envoy for the Numetodo.” She took his hands. “Mahri came to me, after the service.”