She sensed his confusion, aware that he had missed something and yet unable to conceive of what it was. Was he not the War Master, after all?
Esmail struck.
Through him, she saw the blade of his bare hand shear through preserved flesh that had become as hard as wood, so that a withered, blasted thing hunched in an overlarge throne was abruptly lacking a head.
It went. All of it went. The mind-forest became like mist, evaporating and gone in an instant. The dark heart of the wood stopped beating.
All those hundreds, all the trapped dead — from Argastos’s original guard all the way up to those she and Seda had brought with them — were gone as though they had never been, like knots unravelling when the string is tugged. And she knew that Amnon was now free — destined for oblivion or for another life, however the universe might order such things.
And she was standing in a dome-ceilinged chamber beneath the earth, where a broken dead thing had fallen from its mouldering throne.
Che looked up from it, and she locked eyes with Seda.
That was a tense moment, the two of them, each waiting to see what the other would do. Wasp Empress;War Master’s kin. Only now that she had met Argastos did Seda appreciate that the two of them composed their own legend: the two rival sisters who would fight until one of them was destroyed.
But if there was one thing she was not, it was a slave — not to Argastos and not to some Moth idea of fate, either.
The others, the survivors, were cautiously standing up around the chamber. Seda saw Maker’s Spider Weaponsmaster retreat to her side, eyes on Tisamon, who was already at his accustomed position between her and danger. The tatty little halfbreed magician Maker had picked up from somewhere was taking a more sensible position behind her mistress.
There was another man there, the man who had done for Argastos in the end. After a moment’s concentration, she understood who he must be: the assassin, the man who had fooled her, and who had worn Ostrec’s face. The killer of her beloved Gjegevey. For a moment the flame of anger burned hot within her, but she conquered it — she was no slave to that either. If he could be kept on a leash then surely even he might prove a useful tool. Now she realized what he must be — no Spider as he had shown himself to her, but a kinden — and with a profession — out of the myths.
He flinched when she set eyes on him. That was a good start.
And over there was Thalric, hunched off to one side as though trying to avoid her notice. It was almost endearing.
‘Cheerwell Maker,’ she began, returning her attention to her rival. ‘Here we are.’
The Beetle girl was waiting for her to strike, as well she might, although obviously not prepared to attack first. Seda forced herself to relax, and the slight smile that came to her face had a touch of the genuine to it.
‘Cheerwell Maker,’ she repeated. ‘Look how far we’ve come, two Inapt girls. Is there a Moth Skryre in the world who would not tremble at our approach, either of us? The great terror that dwelt here is undone by us. His power is ours for the taking.’
Che was regarding her suspiciously, which Seda conceded to be a sensible stance.
‘Ours, is it?’ the Beetle replied.
Seda shrugged. ‘I won’t deny we’ve been enemies, and we have every right to be so. The very world seems to have gone to great lengths to cast us as eternal adversaries. And yet together we defeated Argastos, and neither one of us could have done it without the other. Does that not suggest something to you?’
Che’s eyes flicked about the dim chamber, seeking out the faces of her friends. There was still a fading fire there, a guttering corpse light left over from Argastos’s tenure.
‘What do you want, Seda?’ she said at last.
‘I want to live without threat and fear,’ the Empress told her. ‘And that’s no more than any other woman in this world wants. But, being who I am, I had to plot the death of my brother, engineer the destruction of a great magician, and have a Rekef general murdered before I could even begin to breathe easily. And since then I have set out to conquer the known world because, while it remains free, my body will be at risk from the machines of the Apt, and my mind from the magics of the Inapt. And both from you.’
‘Me?’ But Che could not quite make her surprise sound sincere. ‘Yes, well, I won’t say I don’t understand you.’
‘But what might I do if I could know you as something other than a threat to me?’ Seda pressed. ‘I had an adviser, until recently, an old man who knew much of the world, and who tried to steer me as best he could. Your creature there killed him.’ And she could not keep her voice level, the bitterness forcing its way into those few words. ‘Who do I turn to for counsel, now?’
The Beetle was looking at her, and Seda had the impression that she wanted to find a reason to trust her opposite. They led odd, privileged lives in Collegium, after all.
And surely that was her hidden weapon, to bring out into the open now. ‘Che, General Tynan’s Second Army has taken your home city.’
The Maker girl went completely still.
‘I do not know how matters stand there. A great deal will depend on what your people do. Tynan is a rational, cautious man. Furthermore, he has one with him to whom I can speak, after a fashion. Cheerwell. . you could be governor of Collegium. My very word could make it so.’
‘And a subject of your Empire?’
‘Would it not be our Empire? For all that I am Empress, you are my sister. If you spoke to me about Collegiate ways, would I not listen?’
And Che was backed into that corner, with the fate of her people in the palm of her hand, offered a future wherein she might temper Seda’s Wasp steel and find power for herself. She might deny it in her own mind, but Seda had felt Che Maker’s ambition. It was an indivisible part of becoming a powerful magician to want more.
‘Good,’ the Empress said softly. ‘This is it, Cheerwell. If all of this was for anything, then this is what it was for: to bring us together, to show us that hand in hand we are more than we could ever be while at war with one another.’
And even as Che was nodding, she beckoned archly. ‘Thalric, to me.’
There was a fraught moment: the Wasp man had taken a single step, but no more, and he was now looking at the Maker girl.
‘Thalric,’ Seda repeated. ‘You are my consort, have you forgotten? You were saved a traitor’s death for no other reason than that. You are mine.’
She extended her power — the lightest touch should have sufficed against his Apt mind — but found an opposing push of equal strength: Cheerwell Maker.
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ the Empress stated, cold and regal. ‘He is mine. He has always been mine. How could it be otherwise?’ The contest was not for the man himself, that perennial renegade she hardly knew. For the principle of it, though, she must fight. Here was something they had both laid claim to, and if she was to have a sister working by her side, she must still be the wiser, the stronger. Thalric was the man both had claimed. He was their battlefield.
But, step by faltering step, Thalric was retreating from her, until he stood beside the Maker girl.
Something began to fray, inside her, and Seda called out, ‘Her, Thalric? I understand why you went to her once you were out of my sight. She has power, of course, and it is akin to mine, but I am here now.’ But he would not move, and so she turned her narrowing eyes upon Cheerwell. ‘Stop this,’ she demanded. ‘Release him.’
Che shook her head slightly. ‘I don’t believe in using chains to hold anyone.’
‘Then withdraw your power from him, and I will take him. He doesn’t know what he’s doing.’
Che’s chin jutted stubbornly. ‘No.’
‘Cheerwell, if we are to work together-’
‘No,’ for a second time. Three would be final.