“I’ll be ready.” Will smiled at her, but beyond her Linchmere stiffened. The thief turned to follow the prince’s gaze, then began to snarl as he saw a familiar figure framed in the doorway.
King Scrainwood stood there smiling. “Ah, there you are, Princess Sayce. You shall be forgiven the affront of not visiting me first, since I understand you were under the impression the Norrington was to be found here.”
Sayce’s eyes tightened. “Forgive me, Highness, I meant no disrespect. The Norrington is here, so I have accomplished my purpose.”
“Alas, you have not. I would not have you or my sister nation to the north labor under the impression that this fraud is the Norrington.”
Will’s jaw shot open. “What?”
Scrainwood smiled. “Bosleigh Norrington did not go away without issue. Legitimate issue. His son shall arrive here in Meredo in a day or two. As it should be, an Oriosan noble, loyal and true, shall lead the world against Chytrine.”
29
Isaura breathed deeply of the crisp, clean air of her homeland. She drew it in as best she could, feeling it cool her head and throat and lungs, then exhaled slowly. She let the outgoing breath carry away as much of the taint of the Southlands as possible, though she secretly feared she would never be fully free of the stink of Meredo.
Slowly she wandered through the rime garden behind the citadel in which she lived. No walls separated it from the white tundra that stretched to the north. No vermin would wander in to nibble delicacies, for the treasures of the garden, while they did grow, sustained naught but the spirit of those who wandered amid its splendors.
Several times a year Neskartu’s students used magick to form a pellet of ice into which they worked a spell. The magick itself was something Isaura found fascinating because it used the imagery of an illusion and combined it with constructive elements to create wonderful things. Many young students, for example, might imbue their creation with the form of a creature—either realistic or an imagined beast. Once that ice seed was planted in the garden, it would mature and grow up into the image the magicker had envisioned.
The more advanced students could do much more, and often competed for the most complex creations. As she walked through the garden she smiled and reached a hand out to caress the glassy petals of a rose. Made of ice, they had none of the softness of real flowers, but still they had the same delicate construction. A light flick of her finger would shatter the blossom, but Isaura refrained from doing the damage.
She turned from the bush that produced those flowers to another creation, which took on the form of a tree with outswept branches. It differed greatly from the bush, for that rosebush had been shaped by one of the students who had spent much of his life in the Southlands. He had seen rosebushes and was able to recall their details from life, which he then worked into his creation.
The tree, on the other hand, had been created by Corde, a woman barely older than Isaura herself. She’d been brought up as a babe from the south and had no memories of anything other than the Conservatory—at which her parents had studied until their deaths. Corde’s creation reflected her intelligence, as it had a tree’s shape but was formed from a lacey lattice of snowflakes. Each one of the snowflakes, which ranged in size from the palm of Isaura’s hand to something as large as a warrior’s shield, appeared to be unique. Moreover, if one peered closely at any one, it would be made up of smaller flakes, and they made up of smaller and smaller until Isaura could not detect them without the aid of magick.
Corde was one of Neskartu’s few students who began to get a glimmer of the true nature of magick. Her creation constantly shifted itself, as if the branches were swaying in an unfelt breeze. As Isaura drew closer to it, blossoms slowly opened, and in the flat blades of ice, Isaura’s image was magickally graven.
As wondrous as that tree was, it could have been so much more if Corde truly understood that magick was a river. The sorceress had been able to imbue her creation with a lot of energy, and energy from a very pure source, but there would be a point where that would be all used up. The tree would become nothing more than ice. Sunlight would evaporate branches and the winds would tear it apart.
Isaura turned away so as not to invite more displays of imagery from it and hasten its death, but not quickly enough. The image in the petals shifted from her to the face of the youth she had saved in Meredo. It showed him resting and no longer in pain, for which she rejoiced, and she hoped the image was not drawn from her memory but somehow reflective of him at the current time.
That confused her, her hope. She did not know who the youth was or why she had saved him. Yes, she had wanted to undo what Spyr’skara had done. She had not liked the way the Azure Spider looked at her, so frustrating him had given her pleasure. Even after her return to the inn and reunion with Vionna and Nefrai-kesh, when she learned that the new sullanciri had been slain, she did not regret having undone his work.
It was only after Nefrai-kesh had taken her and the pirate back home that she began to think more deeply about what she had done. The possibility that her action might have been the very betrayal her mother hinted at did not escape her. She should have felt horrified about that possibility, and she was—at first. But something had shielded her from regret.
She felt as if, somehow, she had been compelled to heal the youth. She had cast herself onto the river of magick and had allowed it to carry her wherever she was meant to go. It had sped her to him and, once there, helping him was imperative.
Isaura shook her head. She did not like at all the idea that she was not responsible for her actions. At the very least, she had been the one to abandon herself to magick, so everything that flowed from that decision was her fault. If she angered her mother by her actions, she had no one to blame but herself.
The problem was that she felt no shame. She could rationalize it through her knowledge that her mother never would have wanted to see a young innocent in such pain. But ultimately, her mother’s concerns were not her own. Isaura felt that what she had done was right. The other presence in the room had confirmed this. She was some part of a grander scheme, but she had chosen to act. That she had acted as she did felt right, but for the life of her she could not figure out why.
A hissing sound came to her ears and she looked up. A whirling cylinder of ice and snow drifted to and fro as it slowly wended its way into the garden. It dodged around the larger creations, then drifted past smaller, pausing as if to caress the harmless little animals. Once it had worked its way to the heart of the garden, it swirled over her and around her, and she spun, laughing, in its midst.
It drew away, then tightened and congealed into the form of an older man, with a beard and flowing hair, wearing simple garb complete with a furred cloak. His flesh remained translucent and flowed into a smile as his head came up. His hands worked through a series of gestures and punctuated them with a raised eyebrow.
Isaura bowed to him. “Yes, Drolda, I have been away, but no more. I am here again, my friend, and wish never to leave.”
He signed through the secret language they shared.
“The Southlands are strange, Drolda, as well you know.” She sighed. “There was much there I still do not understand.”
Drolda frowned as his finger wove through a question.
Isaura hesitated. “It is not so much that I am bothered. I am puzzled. Yes, puzzled.” She much preferred the idea of being puzzled rather than worried, because a puzzle could be solved.
His head spun around on his shoulders, so he seemed to be peering behind him at the snowflake tree. His head came all the way around, then he exhaled into a cloud that solidified into the youth’s image.