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The guards along the wall were also good-looking young men, with the hard look of professional soldiers. The Traders had said gossip claimed the guard was the source of those of the empress’s lovers who were not noblemen.

Daja also saw that everyone, however intense their private conversations, kept one eye on Berenene. The empress had made herself the focus of the room. She draped herself elegantly, supporting her upper body so that it curved like a swan’s neck, drawing the eye from her shoulders to her tiny waist. Today she wore a dusty-rose-colored open robe over a cream undergown. A veil of sheer, cream-tinted silk caressed her coiled and pinned hair. Dangling locks hung down around her face, hinting that she may have just come from bed.

The air is saturated with longing here, thought Daja, watching the glances of the men, the empress’s smiles, and the movement of the noblewomen’s hands. It’s not just the men—the women want to be her, or have her power over men. It’s all for Berenene, and she wills it to be that way.

They came to a halt before the sofa. Sandry sank into a low curtsy. Tris, with a few wobbles, followed suit. Briar and Daja bowed as deeply as they had when they first met Berenene, in respect for her power and her position.

“Oh, please, let’s have none of that formal business here!” said the empress gaily. “Sandrilene, you look simply lovely. May I steal your seamstress?”

Offered the empress’s hand, Sandry took it with an impish smile. “I am my own seamstress, Imperial Majesty,” she said, her blue eyes dancing. “Otherwise I just fuss over other people’s work and redo their seams. So much better doing it myself and having it done right.”

Daja heard the quiet murmur behind them. Sandry heard it as well, because she went on to say, her voice slightly raised, “I am a stitch witch, after all.”

“The reports of your skills hardly describe a humble stitch witch.” The sixty-year-old woman who stood behind the empress wore a medallion of her own. Daja and the others didn’t need it to mark the woman out as a mage: Power blazed from her in their magical vision, power as great as that shown by any of their main teachers at Winding Circle. Despite her power as a mage and her obvious position of trust, she was dressed simply in a white undergown and a black sleeveless overgown. Apart from jet earrings and her medallion, her only ornaments were the black embroideries on the white linen of her gown.

Viymese Ishabal, forgive me,” said Berenene, though her eyes were on the four, watching their reactions. “Cousin, Viymeses, Viynain, may I present to you the chief of my court mages, Viymese Ishabal Ladyhammer. Ishabal, my dear, my cousin Clehame Sandrilene fa Toren and her foster family, Viymese Daja Kisubo of Kugiskan fame—” Daja looked down, embarrassed. She had done a few very noisy, messy things in Kugisko. Berenene’s chief mage would surely know exactly what they had been, and how foolishly Daja had behaved for things to get so messy. Berenene continued: “Viymese Trisana Chandler.” Tris bobbed another curtsy without taking her eyes from Ishabal. The empress smiled and added, “And Viynain Briar Moss.” Her eyes caressed Briar as he bowed.

For a moment Daja considered sending the thought Now he’s going to be insufferable for weeks to the other two girls, but she stopped herself. If I start, they’ll want to stay in contact all the time, until they stop wanting to, and they shut me out, she told herself. No contact is better.

“It’s an honor to meet you, Viymese Ladyhammer,” replied Sandry with courtesy. “Your fame extends well beyond Emelan. I remember Mother talking about you.”

“I told her not to go snooping in my workroom,” the mage said graciously. “Your mother was always one to learn the hard way.” Ishabal Ladyhammer was silver-haired, with deep-set dark eyes and a straight nose. Her mouth was elegantly curved and unpainted: In fact, she wore no makeup at all, unlike other women at court. “Your fame, too, has come to us,” she said, looking at each of the four. “It will be interesting to speak with you. I know of no other mages who received their credential so young.”

“It was as much to keep a leash on us as to say we could practice magic, Viymese,” Briar said casually. “We’re just kids still, at heart.”

“That would be frightening,” Ishabal replied, her voice and eyes calm. “A ‘kid’ such as you claim to be would not have been able to destroy the home of a noble Chammuran family in the course of a few hours’ time, and without wrecking the city around it.”

Briar shrugged. “I had help. And the place was old.”

“Are you all so modest?” inquired Berenene.

Daja had watched the empress as the others had spoken. Those large brown eyes were busy, checking each face for a reaction. I bet she doesn’t miss much, thought Daja. No more than I would, in her shoes.

To be a woman on the throne of the largest empire north of the Pebbled Sea and east of Yanjing was no easy task. Keeping control over famously hotheaded nobles seemed too much like work to Daja. Namornese nobles were notorious for their love of fighting—if not for the empire, then among themselves. Since taking the throne at the age of sixteen, Berenene had kept her nobles busy with wars and grand progresses of the empire that wrung out the purses of her subjects. Now that the empire was stalled at the Yanjing empire’s Sea of Grass in the east, and the Endless Sea in the west, Berenene was probably worried about how else to keep her people occupied.

Send them to the new lands, across the Endless, Daja thought with a mental shrug. That ought to keep them busy. Let them conquer the savages over there, if they can. The explorers who report to Winding Circle have said the native peoples in the new places have their own powerful magics, rooted in their soil. Let the Namornese try to beat them, if they need something to do.

While Daja had mused, Sandry had been explaining that the four of them weren’t modest, just aware of how little they actually knew. “Having a credential just means you realize how much you have yet to learn,” she explained gracefully. “Really, the Initiate Council at Winding Circle gave us the medallion as much to make sure we would have to answer to them as to acknowledge we had achieved a certain amount of control over our power.”

Daja’s attention was caught by movement at a side door. A woman in her early twenties entered the room, bearing a large, silk-wrapped package that shimmered with magical silver cobwebs. The woman’s green silk overdress and amber linen underdress were stitched to outline the ripe curves of her body. Her mouth was as richly full as her figure, her dark eyes large and long-lashed. She wore her curling brown hair loose around her shoulders, covering it with an amber gauze veil held in place with jeweled pins. When she saw that Daja was looking at her, she smiled. Her eyes were filled with so much merriment that Daja simply had to smile back. Who is she? the girl wondered. She has to be the most beautiful woman of the empress’s court.

“Ah, Rizuka,” said the empress, smiling brightly at the new arrival. “Is that the Yanjing emperor’s gift?”

The woman came over to the sofa and curtsied elegantly, despite the package in her arms. “Imperial Majesty, it is,” Rizuka answered. Her voice was light and musical. “Forgive me for taking so long to bring it, but I knew you would not need me earlier, and I had the mending to finish.”