The Princeps grinned, showing Fidelias his teeth. “We have eyes outside the mist—Varg’s Hunters and the Knights Flora of both Legions.”
“You’re still creating an information delay. They’ll have to come running in here to tell you anything. If a large force arrives unexpectedly, that could be fatal.”
The Princeps shrugged. “There won’t be any such force,” he said with a confidence so perfectly familiar that Fidelias was almost violently reminded of Sextus.
Fidelias lowered his voice. “You can be sure of that?”
The Princeps looked at him for a moment, pensive, and nodded. “Yes.”
“Then why not bypass Riva completely?”
“First, because we need to be tested in an actual battle,” he replied. “We’ve never coordinated in offensive operations before, at least not on this scale. It’s important that we know what we can do against these particular vord forms.”
“And second?”
The Princeps gave Fidelias a bland look that had something granite-hard lurking under the surface. “It’s not their city. Is it.” He looked out at the mist, as though focusing on whatever was beyond. “Besides, Riva could conceal legions of vord behind her walls. Better to find out now and deal with them rather than waiting for them to come marching up our spines when we reach Calderon.”
There was the sound of approaching hoofbeats, and Kitai appeared out of the mist. She pulled in on the Princeps’ right side and matched her mount’s pace to his, her green eyes intent. “The gates were not destroyed when the city was taken,” she said. “They are currently closed and guarded. There are vord on the battlements and in the sky above the city.”
“There’s a problem,” Fidelias said. “We don’t have siege equipment.”
The Princeps shook his head. “We won’t need it.” He drew a deep breath, as if bracing himself for something unpleasant, and said, “I’m going to take them down.”
Fidelias found himself lifting both eyebrows. The siege gates of the great cities of Alera were more than simple steel and stone. They were wound through and through with furycraftings of every kind imaginable, and more craftings were laid upon them every year, so that they built one upon another like layers of paint. It was done that way for the specific purpose of making the gates almost entirely resistant to the influence of hostile furycraft. A High Lord of the Realm would be daunted by such an obstacle.
“You think you’re strong enough to manage that, sir?”
The Princeps nodded once. “Yes, I do.”
Fidelias studied Octavian’s confident profile. “Be wary of hubris, Your Highness.”
“It’s only hubris if I can’t do it,” he replied. “Besides, I need to be tested, too. If I’m to step into my grandfather’s shoes, I can’t keep on concealing my abilities forever. I need to prove myself.”
Kitai snorted quietly. “About bloody time,” she said. “Does this mean I’m free to be more obvious as well, Aleran?”
“I don’t see why not,” said the Princeps.
Fidelias lifted his eyebrows. “Your Highness? I knew she could manage minor furycraftings, lights and such, but…”
“But?” He smiled faintly.
“But she’s a Marat, sir. Marat don’t use furies.”
The Princeps feigned an astonished expression. “She is? Are you sure?”
Fidelias gave him a sour look.
The Princeps let out a warm laugh. “You may have noted that our dear Ambassador has very little regard for the proprieties.”
“Not when they’re ridiculous,” Kitai sniffed.
The two sentences came out one after the other, so close together that they might have been uttered by actors following a script or spoken by the same person. Fidelias peered at their identically colored eyes as if for the first time, feeling somewhat stupid. “The way Marat operate in tandem with their clan animals. It’s more than just their custom, isn’t it?”
“There’s a bond,” the Princeps said, nodding. “I scarcely understand it myself—and she honestly gives me no help whatsoever when I try.”
“That is because knowledge given freely to another is not really knowledge at all, Aleran,” Kitai replied. “It is rumor. One must learn for oneself.”
“And this bond… it allows her to furycraft as you do,” Fidelias said.
“Apparently,” the Princeps said.
Kitai rode for a moment, frowning. Then she said, “He’s stronger. Better focused. But I can manage more things simultaneously.”
The Princeps lifted his eyebrows. “You think so?”
Kitai shrugged her shoulders.
Fidelias frowned. “Ambassador… did you just ride up to the city gates under a veil and try to craft them down?”
Kitai shot Fidelias an annoyed scowl—and said nothing.
The Princeps looked back and forth between the pair of them, his expression unreadable. Then he said, “That was thoughtful of you, Kitai.”
“We want the gates down,” she said. “What matter who brings them down or when?”
Octavian nodded. “Most considerate,” the Princeps said.
Kitai’s scowl darkened. “Do not say it.”
“Say what? It’s the thought that counts?”
She slapped his leg lightly with the ends of her reins.
A Marat with furycraft in the same general vicinity as the Princeps of the Realm. A Princeps who had never demonstrated his skills beyond the most basic, rudimentary uses of the craft—except when he had apparently executed furycraftings so large that they could hardly be recognized as such. Fidelias himself, a proven and confessed traitor to the Crown, an assassin for the Princeps’ enemies, riding openly at the Princeps’ left hand, under an assumed face and a sentence of death, willingly staying where he was. Meanwhile, in the host behind them, following the Princeps’ banner were thousands of the finest troops of Alera’s oldest enemies—never mind another enemy, Ambassador Kitai, who quite clearly shared a great deal more than affection with Octavian. And all of them were about to assault an Aleran city overrun by a foe no one had even heard of ten years ago.
The world had become a very strange place.
Fidelias smiled to himself.
Strange, yes. But for some reason, he no longer felt like a man too old to face it.
It was not long before horns began to blow, and Aleran scouts appeared in the mists ahead, woodcrafted veils unraveling around them as they approached the column. The Princeps pointed at one of the men, and said, “Scout, report!”
“They’re coming, sir!” the man reported. “Skirmish line, maybe a cohort’s worth, coming at us hard, sir! And they’re ugly, big as they were in Canea, not those swamp-lizard things. Looks like they’ve got a hell of a reach on them, too.”
Octavian grunted. “Looks like the Queen changed them to better handle a shieldwall.”
Fidelias nodded. “Like you said she might. I’m impressed.”
The Princeps coughed. “It was a guess. I wasn’t certain about it. Just seemed reasonable.”
Fidelias frowned, and said quietly, “Piece of advice, sir?”
“Hmm?”
“Next time, just nod. People like it better when the Princeps seems to know something they don’t.”
The Princeps made a quiet, snorting sound and raised a hand, signaling the trumpeter waiting nearby. “Sound advance to the Canim. Let’s see what these vord think about meeting a few thousand Narashan warriors instead of a Legion shieldwall.”
“And see if the Canim will be willing to take your orders, eh?” Fidelias murmured, beneath the clear notes of the signal trumpet.
Octavian grinned, and responded, quietly, “Nonsense. I have no doubts whatsoever in the solidity of our alliance.”