Cheers broke out as Fahren approached Borgordusmae, climbing the steps to the seat of power from which his old friend had presided for so long. Naphur would not object, surely – he’d had no love for his cousin and always kept him at arm’s length. Still, as Fahren eased himself onto the throne amidst the crescendo of cheers, his doubts did not abate. Nothing would ever change the fact that he had risen to power through a falsehood.
Small sacrifices , he told himself. For the greater good.
Fahren stalked up the stairwell of the Open Tower, two blades closely dogging his heels. Already he found it irksome being shadowed everywhere he went, and realised now why Naphur had always resented it. The gerent had even spoken of adding mages to his guards, citing the ease with which ‘the previous Throne’ had been assassinated by Losara. Ridiculous! Had Brahl forgotten what a powerful mage Fahren was in his own right?
He reached his quarters and shut the door on the guards behind him. A petty gesture, he supposed, but he had never asked for them and was more capable than they would be at fending off an attack. As he glanced around his quarters, Fahren wondered when he would move to the Throne’s rooms in the Open Castle. He could stay here, maybe – as the Throne, he could pretty much do anything he liked. But since he was no longer High Mage, another would shortly be appointed to the role, and it was only fair that they reside in these traditional quarters. Varta was his first choice, although if he promoted her then High Overseer would simply become another role that needed filling. Already he felt resentful of the mantle of rule, felt his freedom disappearing and his responsibilities building.
No wonder Bel had avoided it.
For the moment he simply wanted to rest and collect his thoughts in familiar surrounds, before the feast that evening in celebration of his ascension. He entered his study on the way to the bedroom, and paused as an unexpected sight met his eyes.
A golden bird chirped softly and scratched at the tabletop, a tiny message tied to its leg.
‘Hello, my dear,’ said Fahren. ‘How long have you been waiting?’
The sundart chirped again and hopped towards him. Not one of his, he realised – probably it carried a message of congratulations from someone or other who had not been able to attend the ceremony. He reached out and the sundart allowed itself to be stroked as he unclasped the message from its leg. Uncurling the small roll of parchment, he discovered it was no mere obsequious nicety, nor did the sender even know that he was now Throne. Of course not, he chastised himself. No one had known what Bel, he and Brahl had planned, and there had been little time for news to spread. Woolly thinking in his old age. This was a message to the High Mage from one of his subordinates, and it made for interesting reading indeed.
Fahren went back to the door and opened it. ‘Fetch Bel Corinas,’ he ordered. One of his guards nodded and quickly departed.
Maybe they had their uses after all.
From the other side of the court, Jaya watched Bel. He had not extricated himself from the proceedings as swiftly as Fahren had, nor did he seem inclined to. Nobles were lining up to speak with him, keen to curry favour with the man of power – some more zealously than others. Meanwhile she was left alone, apparently forgotten, though she didn’t really mind. She had other things to occupy her – such as nimbly relieving a noble or two of their valuables. It was the perfect hunting ground, actually, for none of these colourful courtiers expected a common thief to be moving amongst them. She supposed she should try to restrain herself, but the risk, she estimated, was minuscule. Everyone was jostling to get closer to Bel so they didn’t notice her brushing by, agile fingers darting in and out of pockets, or quickly untying purse strings from belts. These idiots had so much money, they probably wouldn’t even notice that they’d been robbed.
Soon, Jaya realised she had secreted more booty about herself than was easy to hide, and with some regret she slipped a bundle of coins back into the coat of the man she had taken them from . Wondering what on earth life had come to, she moved nearer to the dais, to get a better view of her odd lover.
It had been a strange thing when he’d told her who he really was. He’d done it after he’d come to fetch her from Kadass jail, where she’d been imprisoned for vandalising the property of the fat noble Assicon Cydus. Throne Naphur had promised Bel that the charges against Jaya would be dismissed, and even in the uproarious aftermath of Baygis’s murder, Bel had gone to the jail to make sure the promise was kept. In truth, the Throne probably had not cared one way or the other by that stage.
The two of them had gone immediately to The Wayward Dog where, in the afterglow of lovemaking, he had told her that he was the blue-haired man. Surprisingly, she’d believed him. The closeness of their connection made it hard to doubt him, for she felt she would easily spot any lie, and the story he told was too wild not to be true. There had been the possibility, of course, that Bel believed what he was telling her simply because he was insane, but then he had taken her to Fahren, who had confirmed the tale. And if any doubt had lingered, visiting the mage Tomeo the previous morning had certainly erased it.
Believing it, however, did not mean she wasn’t also dumbfounded by the news. What were the chances that she would end up sharing the bed of the blue-haired man? For Arkus’s sake, she hadn’t even known there was a blue-haired man in Kainordas. Well , she had thought, what are the chances of anything, really? What are the chances that a particular bird would be singing in a tree at a particular moment on a particular day? Yet if I saw a bird singing in a tree, I would not disbelieve it.
‘What are you smiling about?’ Bel sounded amused. She hadn’t noticed him approach, but now that he was by her side the rest of the court was staring at her – no doubt wondering who she was. She ignored the attention – it too was something she was going to have to get used to, she supposed.
‘Oh nothing, little bird,’ she replied. ‘Nothing that need concern you, anyway. What has torn you away from your sandal-licking new friends?’
Bel grinned. ‘I am sent for by the Throne.’
‘Ah,’ she said. ‘Well, you had better be on your way.’
She realised he was giving her a funny look.
‘What?’
‘Are you coming?’
‘ Oh ,’ she said, suddenly very happy. ‘Yes, of course.’
As they made their way down the many stairs to the bottom of the Open Castle, Jaya’s happiness at being included suddenly galled her.
‘So,’ she said, half to herself, ‘this is how it will be? I’ll follow you around dutifully?’
‘What?’ He turned, surprised.
‘Well, I seem to have become attached, somehow, to this great fate of yours. Not really the future I had planned out for myself.’
‘I didn’t think you had a future planned out for yourself.’
‘That was the plan,’ she muttered.
Bel frowned. ‘What’s brought this up all of a sudden?’
‘Not sure.’ She shrugged. ‘Maybe seeing you up there, in the court …it made it all very real.’
‘It is real, Jaya,’ he sighed. ‘Look, I don’t want you to feel trapped by this. By …me.’