“Ana. .” Karl began, and she shook her head at him.
“No one here will stop you,” she repeated to both Karl and the war-teni. “The Divolonte is clear on this: Rip out the tongues and crush the hands of those who falsely claim they speak with Cenzi’s voice, for you risk your own soul if you listen. I make that claim, U’Teni cu’Vlanti. I say that Cenzi is speaking through me, as He does through each Archigos.
I say that the false Archigos is out there with the Hirzg. But if you believe otherwise, then the Divolonte demands that you strike me. Do it, U’Teni. Do it if you think that Cenzi will fail to protect me. Do it if you believe that ca’Cellibrecca should wear the shattered globe around his neck and that Jan ca’Vorl of Firenzcia should sit on the Sun Throne and end the long rule of the ca’Ludovici lineage.”
The man was standing silent, glaring at her with his hands at his sides. “Do it!” Ana barked, and he nearly jumped.
His hands began to move; he began to chant. A searing light flared between his hands. Ana did nothing, waiting, and the murmuring of the other war-teni rose. Cu’Vlanti finished the spell rapidly and spread his hands as Ana spoke a word and gestured-too late. Fire erupted on the stage, a raging, quick conflagration that submerged all gathered there in flame so that they couldn’t be seen from the stands where the war-teni stood. They knew the damage a full war-spell would inflict, and there were shouts of alarm and surprise and horror from the teni in their seats.
War-fire left behind only the blackened husks of charred bodies.
The flames vanished, their fury expended. The planks of the stage smoldered with great blisters of black ash; the hangings above dripped sparks as charred fabric fell away. But where the Numetodo ci’Vliomani and the Archigos stood, the wood was untouched. Archigos Ana was standing with her hands extended in a shielding spell-cast with impossible speed.
Karl Ci’Vliomani suddenly broke the tableau as he jumped with a curse and started beating at the folds of his bashta on his left side.
Smoke and tiny flames curled from where his hands struck. He looked reproachfully at Ana as he smothered the fire. “You were a little slow there, Archigos,” he said. “And a little too sparing of your shield.”
Someone out in the stands chuckled, and the laughter spread slowly, as Ana smiled herself. U’Teni cu’Vlanti had collapsed, exhausted, in his seat, but Ana stood as if the spell had cost her nothing.
“Cenzi has allowed me to do this,” Ana said to the war-teni. “And the Numetodo have helped show me how. In this time, we can’t afford to cast out those who offer to be our allies. I ask you to let the Numetodo stand with us. I ask you, like me, to learn from them what they can teach us.”
There were no cheers. There was no audible response to her plea at all. But Ana glimpsed a few grudging nods among the faces of the war-teni.
It would have to be enough.
Sergei ca’Rudka
The world flickered in and out, as if illuminated by lethargic, erratic strokes of lightning.
. . someone (he thought it might be ca’Montmorte) helping him down from his horse with a hiss of concern. “Fetch a healer. .” he heard ca’Montmorte say, and there were hands around him, and he screamed as they lifted him.
. . waking to pain and firelight. A face passed through his field of vision. He tried to speak through cracked and dry lips. “Where. .?”
“On the Avi,” he heard someone answer. “Maybe two days from Nessantico. Please don’t try to move, Commandant.”
He started to laugh at the thought of moving, but the laugh turned to a cough, and the cough took his breath from him and he left the world again.
. . the insistent saltiness of meat broth on his tongue. The taste was so wonderful that his hands grabbed the hands holding the mug to his lips as he gulped at the soup. “Gently, Commandant,” a voice said. “There’s plenty for you. Take your time.”
He tried to sit up, and found that he could do so only with great difficulty. It seemed to be night. His body was bound tightly, and his skin pulled all along his back. His vision was blurry and he couldn’t focus, but he could see the shifting light of a campfire close by and bodies sitting around it.
Horses nickered quietly somewhere close. He felt chilled, his body shivering uncontrollably. “Careful,” the voice said. “You’re been hurt.”
“So cold. .”
“You’re feverish, Commandant. Here, drink some more of the broth. .”
He did, and he slept again.
. . they were talking about him, as if he couldn’t hear them. “. . going to die?”
“That’s in Cenzi’s hands. I can’t do any more for him. The infection has him.”
“How long does he have?”
“Another day. Maybe two.”
“We’ll reach Nessantico in the morning. Perhaps someone there? The Kraljiki’s healer?”
“He’s beyond the skills of any healer, A’Offizier ca’Montmorte.
There is only Cenzi’s Will now.”
Wait, Sergei wanted to shout. There’s something I have to tell the Kraljiki, something he must know. . but he couldn’t open his eyes or force his mouth to open and even the effort of thinking about it sent him reeling into darkness.
. . someone was chanting and he could feel hands touching his chest, his neck. The hands were cold, and the heat that burned him from the inside flowed toward his heart and those hands, rushing away from him.
He took in a long, shuddering breath. Along his spine, needles stabbed at his skin, pulling as he arched his back shouting with the agony of it, but even the pain was rushing away toward those hands and the voice speaking in words he could not understand. His eyelids flew open, and he stared into Ana cu’Seranta’s face. Her own eyes were closed, and it was her voice that he heard and her hands on his bare chest. Her presence was the only refuge in a world that was on fire, and she was taking in the fire. Sergei gasped with the wonder of it, and he sighed when she pulled her hands away from him.
“Welcome back, Commandant,” she said before her eyes rolled back and her knees collapsed under her. A man-Envoy ci’Vliomani, he realized-rushed forward to help her, placing her in a chair beside the bed. Sergei pushed himself up with his elbows: he could move, though his joints were stiff and protesting, and the skin of his back still pulled strangely, though no longer painfully. His wounded leg was splinted and wrapped as well. Another person-Renard-came forward to place a pillow behind him, so that he could sit comfortably. He had time to take in his surroundings: a large bedroom, the walls painted with frescoes of the Moitidi, above the large windows, stained glass shattering the light with the insignia of the Kraljiki.
“The Grande Palais. .” he said.
“You’re in one of the guest bedrooms,” Renard said. “And if you’ll excuse me, Commandant, the Kraljiki asked to be informed when you woke.”
As Renard hurried off, Sergei turned to Ana. He saw the broken globe on the wide chain around her neck; it pleased him that the Kraljiki had followed at least one piece of his advice. “You’re not worried that it might have been Cenzi’s Will that I die, Archigos?” he asked.
Ana took a long breath, her eyes closed as Karl stroked her unbound, sweat-darkened hair. Slowly, the eyes opened and found him. “If Cenzi wanted you dead, Commandant,” she told him, “He would have killed you before you came to me.”
“Your predecessor would have you in the Bastida for exactly those sentiments.”
“Where you would have tortured me to gain my full confession.
Where you would have eventually executed me.”
Sergei shrugged. He held her gaze, not flinching from it at all. “Yes,” he told her. “That would have been my duty, and I would have performed it.”