Sehn is my nom de plume, and this is my novel-in-progress blog for Excised, a novel of politics, magic and love. Concrit, questions, comments, and thoughts are welcomed and adored.
The first sticky warmth of spring drifted up from below and in through the window until the heat and the smoke and green scent of Kiengrod suffocated him awake. He was tangled in last nights clothes, muddy and sweat stiffened, with his hair stuck to his cheek, and enough stubble to itch.
Zenaida tapped her toe steadily, her other leg curled under her where she sat in his armchair and leafed through a worn book of Khromova’s poetry. There was a tray with tea and salted bread on it, a little jar of jam, and sliced cheese. It might have been a cozy domestic scene. She took a sip of her tea, and a bite of bread. She was in yellow today, a deep yellow with enough green in it not to fight with the copper in her hair, thick silk artfully creased from the cupboard, it draped stiff around her hips and over the folds of her voluminous chiffon trousers. She snapped her fingernail against the page.
“Listen to this: a solitary pine, wind-twisted against the billowed sky, and spider threads like the warp and weft of time, and I.” She closed the book, but marked her place with her finger, and looked up at him. She had none of the feverish brightness in her eyes that marked a bad day.
“You look worn.” She said lightly, and poured him a cup of tea, leaned forward elegantly, and slid the tray across the cowhide rug to the edge of the bed.
He pulled the hair off his face and cleared his throat, took a swig of the tea. “Being near you does that.”
“I’d rather us not be at each other’s throats, Bryusha.” She said, and continued to tap her toe on the floor. He stood up, peeled off his dirty tunic and let it fall, fiddled with the cuff on his wrist. “Wouldn’t you?” He asked with his lip curled at her. “Or did you forget the circumstances of our agreement?”
“Did you?” She asked lightly, the corner of her mouth turned up. Her eyes stayed fixed and innocent.
“I suppose you have a point?” He asked, and undid the buttons on his undershirt, dropped it with his coat, and went to the washbasin. He turned this way and that, and poked at the berry colored bruises that had spread across his chest and up to his shoulder.
“Only a sort of peace offering.” She said, and watched him intently. “You can have your fun with the Irillemeiri woman; she’s,” Zenaida drew her breath in through her teeth and sighed, “your sort, after all. But with discretion. Someone might get the wrong idea.”
He laughed and braced himself against the washbasin, watched her in the mirror. “If they do?” He asked, and rubbed the back of his hand against the dry skin on his lips.
She smiled faintly, the glass distorted it into a show a teeth. She held up the Khromova, and it crumbled through her fingers, drifted down like ash onto the floor to mingle with the dust. “You may not grasp the situation at hand, as it barely concerns you, but it’s all for the best.” She stooped to blow on the mound of dust and scatter it across the floor, rose and paused in the doorway. “I’m sure you’ll be relieved to know that I’m going home for some time. Selya will have to stand in my stead.” She said, turned on her heel gracefully, and shut his door softly, but with decision.
He didn’t hear her footfalls down the hall, he never did. She walked a hairsbreadth above the floor.
He slid out of his kilt , and smoothed away the scabs on his knees, let the bruises alone. She’d left the window open, and he stood naked in the sun, and looked out to the blue filament of sea that flashed through the trees. It was too far away to gauge the tide. His hand shook when he held it up, trembled from wrist to shoulder. He pulled out his jar and measured his dose into a handkerchief, spilled it onto his tongue and held it against the roof of his mouth until the shakes went. It left an orange-pith taste in the back of his throat.
The breeze ruffled his papers and rolled the dust along the floor, tugged at the clothes there. He wrapped himself in a robe and picked them up, buried his face in them, inhaled every scent from last night that he could pick out, smoke and her and the fetid sweetness of the alkonost. He took it with his other laundry, left it soaking in the communal washtub, and took a long bath. His fingers jumped on the surface of the water, lightly, like the wings of a housefly, and he smiled and floated, washed his hair and let it fall. The third bell had rung by the time he hung his wash out.
Taika looked a little ragged, her dark skin had ash in it, but she was warm when she gestured for him to sit down and offered him a plate of sweetmeats and pickled fruit.
“Your things arrived on today’s post train. I’d like you to open an apothecary in the city.” She said, and watched his face intently.
“Pardon,” he cleared his throat and picked his words one by one in the pregnant silence, “I don’t have the resources for that sort of thing.” He said, and looked away.
“Of course, Kienviory would sponsor you. With these outbreaks, the kind of work you need to do really cannot happen on temple grounds. But it needs to happen somewhere.” She said, and and the clink of her cup against it’s saucer was sharp in the silence.
“Thats very generous, Veduny.” He ducked his head and paused. “Thank you. I’m at a loss for words.”
She tilted her head. “How long have you been using?” She asked, finally. Her directness startled him, and he fought to stop tapping his fingers, to stop his own magic from making the room cold.
“Since the outbreak at Don. A few years, now.” He answered.
“I see.” She said, and sighed through her nose, lips pressed into a thin, flat line. “Does she know?”
“Yes. I don’t take pains to hide anything.” He answered.
“Has she tried to stop you?”
“I think she likes it. It keeps me doubtworthy.”
“I’d caution you, but you know very well what you’re on the edge of. You may feel as if it’s deepening your magic, but it’s borrowed, and like all borrowed things, the owner will eventually want it back.” She said, and he tried not to slouch into the cushions, not to let the muscle in his cheek twitch.
“Particularly since you have divine attribute magic, which could cause a great deal of damage to yourself and others, should you burn it out.”
“I’m careful.” He answered, but his breath showed in the air.
“I hope so. I’d rather not intercede in this.”
He crossed his leg, rested his ankle on his knee and let his body go slack. “Is there something you would intercede in?”
“That is entirely up to you, Trevoved.” She answered, and ran her thumb around the rim of her cup.
“If I told you that Zenaida Vlastaovna had coerced me into this engagement?” He asked, emptily.
“I would wonder how that happened, and why. I would wonder a lot of things about her.” Taika answered.
“If I could answer all of that, would you consider me credible?”
“Not in your current state, no. Almost, but not quite.”
“If I fall back?”
“That, and if you find something solid for me, letters, objects, something I can present to the Troika.”
“I will.”
“I’m giving you as much freedom to do so as I have authority to grant.” She said. “I’ve heard rumors, but I need more than rumors. You’ll open an atelier in the foundry district, and you’ll come to me for lessons as usual. The rest is at your discretion.”
“Do you trust me because there’s nobody else, or because you believe in me?”
“I trust you because you don’t trust her.”
He was occupied with furnishing his atelier in the weeks before Zenaida departed. It was situated far below the walls of Kienviory, on Kovat alley, which ran off the main road of the foundry district in a crooked fashion, and ended at a large ramshackle stone and timber building that butted up against the side of the fjord surrounded by low hanging trees and bushes. It was spacious, with a low loft above that was just big enough to sleep in, a spring fed tap and a good stove, although the scent of the leather works it had once housed lingered.
The bath was an unexpected luxury in a workshop. He’d only seen the Irillemeiri boy in passing, once as he ducked out of Zenaida’s rooms, slow and loose jointed. Dvrov was out in the fields with the spring planting, and took pains to avoid him, except for the exchange of a few hard glances. He hadn’t seen Tura, except a glimpse of her back as she left the main gate. Ice broke on the river and calved out on the bay, and the boom of it woke him in the dark, sweat soaked and tangled in his sheets with the taste of lilies and ash on the edge of his tongue.
She rapped on the door, and wrenched it open with a cheerful ‘Hallo’ just after he’d laid out his supper. She wore plain clothes, loose trousers tucked into tall scuffed boots, a simple but very fine cotton waist, which clung to her in the damp, and a heavy leather belt. She balanced a basket on her hip, and the drizzle plastered stray hairs on her temple.
“Invite me in before I change my mind.” She said, as he looked her over.
“Of course.” He said. He waved her in and hastily cleared a stack of papers and jars off the little red lacquered table that served for a desk and kitchen in one.
“When are you going to finish this-- place?” She asked, and set her basket down precariously close to a jumbled bin of glassware, beeswax and ink sticks. She caught it neatly when it tipped.
“I’m--” He cleared his throat and tucked his thumbs in his belt, “I already have.”
She raised her brow and turned to survey the untidy work benches, the shelves with unlabeled jars of various substances, cultures and brews. She wandered among the piled books and stopped to sniff at an open vessel, wrinkled her nose and turned back to him with a smile. “Been keeping well?”
“Fairly.” He answered, and cleared off a stool for her. She sat, one foot perched on the rail, leg drawn up against her chest, and rested her chin on her knee.
“How do you take your tea?” He asked, and poured himself a fresh cup.
“Strong, and preferably dirty.” She answered, and riffled idly through a sheaf of papers. Her scent cut through the west dust of the place, and he paused to breathe it in for a moment before pouring a shot of liquor into her cup. She undid her braid and combed her fingers through her hair rhythmically. It looked like spilled ink against the dim window.
“Have you eaten?” He asked, and swept crumbs into his cupped palm, rubbed a cracked plate clean.
“I thought you’d never ask,” she said, and sipped her tea appreciatively as he laid out the meal, all foods from Melnismitsya, foods to quell homesickness. He had bought grape leaf and cabbage wrapped Sarma with smoked lamb inside, brined ewe’s milk cheese, smoked ground mutton, flaky pastry stuffed with chard and cheese, and smoked sprats from the inland sea.
“Ah,” she said, and gestured at the Sarma, “These were my favorite from Myesetsmir, and that thing with apple and the honey and walnuts and pastry.”
She grinned broadly. Her teeth were clean and even, except for the double eye teeth that were new. That made her at least twenty-three. They were only crooked on the right, someone had to have loosened those when they were coming in. It suited her.
“I’m surprised you never had that fixed.” He said, and ducked his head at her smile.
“I had my face handed to me on a tray one night at Tamar’s. My mother, gods keep her, had to come and collect the remains and was angry enough to let me lay in bed with a busted up nose and mouth as an object lesson. I’d have had it all fixed but the men like it.” She answered, and rubbed the pad of her thumb thoughtfully over the crooked tooth.
“I like it too.” He said from behind the rim of his cup.
“I’ll get the the others busted up too, then.” She said and laughed.
“Pardon my directness, but I’m surprised you don’t carry a house seal, or even a guild marker.” He continued, through bites. She chewed quietly for a moment, and drank.
“You and me both.” She answered, and paused to drink. “But I had planned, well, I still plan on taking the road. Maybe I’ll set my restlessness down after I set foot in the sanctum, or maybe I’ll just keep going until I’ve made the pilgrims circle.” She sounded distant-- she’d already been gone a long time, following rivers and crossing roads to write an ecstatic devotional of the senses, an offering for the last of all gods.
“Oh.”
“Did you not think I had faith?” She asked, and laughed softly.
“Not exactly. I mean, not the kind that would send you on a lifelong pilgrimage.” He answered. He cleared their dishes and refreshed their tea, felt her eyes on his back and a flicker of heat that settled between his shoulderblades. He turned to catch her eye.
“Nothing but surprises” she said and cleared her throat while she laid a map out as he returned to his seat, “I did have a reason for my visit beyond my appreciation for your face.”
“You can come up and appreciate me anytime.” He said, and held on to the heat in her eyes like a talisman. He didn’t look at the map.
“If you were anyone else, I’d be inclined to take that as an invitation.” She said, and tapped her fingers against her cheek.
“If I were anyone else, it would be.” He said, but his hand shook slightly on the table.
She clicked her tongue. “Let’s not dwell in possibility.”
He glanced down and held himself stiff. It was a map of Kammena, a very good map for a surveyor or navigator. He flushed when the shakes took him, tried to hold himself still against the lip of the table until his knuckles stood out white through his skin.
She started, rolled the map up and tucked it away. “I ought to have said something first. I’m sorry.” She murmured. She wandered away from him and poked amongst the stacks and detritus of his benches.
“Yes. Yes you should have.” He said, and slumped forward to rest his forehead against the cool of the table.
“Are these dvoynik of your family?” She asked, gently. He rose and wiped his palms on his tunic, and went to her, still unsteady.
“Some of them, that one,” he picked up the stone, so black it reflected no light, and held it up, “is an original of Narjoska. Not a copy, no information lost.”
“Not really, though--” She said, skeptically.
He cupped it in his hand and felt the spark of it prickle like a sleeping limb. The image rose and coalesced slowly, but with clear color and detail. The likeness of the empress was perfect, she was tall and stately in her black coat and golden armor. Her expression was serene, she looked at something in the far distance, and the image was so perfect that even the faint, long dead light was reflected in her eyes. She had her hands folded into the priest’s repose, palms pressed together, fingers interlaced. Even then, there was power in their elegance. She was classically beautiful, very dark, her neck long and slender, her cheekbones high and pronounced, nose broad and slightly upturned, lips full, eyes very nearly black enough to hide their pupils.
Tura exhaled sharply and studied to the projected image closely. She walked around it, leaned in to look at her armor, and shook her head with admiration. “How did you even get hold of one of these?” She asked, hushed as though in the presence of the actual Empress.
He let the image fade and break apart, set the crystal back in it’s place. “I found it, is the short answer.” He said, and rested his hips against the workbench, ankles crossed.
“I wonder what you’re made of.” She said, and tipped her chin at him. “I wouldn’t look at you and think, ‘now, here’s a man who makes off with precious objects from temple repositories in the dark of night, and yet,” She said, and gestured at him flippantly.
“I didn’t steal it--” he protested.
“I may have rescued it from what may or may not be an abandoned fasthold. But it’s a treasure of the people, not something meant to rot in obscurity.”
“I bet it’s a hit at parties.” She answered and leaned into him and past him until they were nearly pressed against each other, so that she could examine the crystal, or him or both.
“What makes you think I throw parties?” He asked, and inhaled her scent, smokier today, redolent of the forge.
“The way you pour a drink, maybe.” She leaned back slightly, braced her hands next to his on the edge of the workbench, and stayed close, close enough for him to see the smudges of yesterday’s kohl around her eyes, and the rise and fall of her breast. They stood like that while a cloud shadow scudded by, and then she sauntered back to the table, perched herself back on the stool, and brushed her fingers through her hair.
“I’m told your jailer is away west over the Chaerokiy sea.” She said, and rested her forearm on the table, hair hung over her face in a sweep that curved neatly into her waist.
“She is.” He answered, and shifted his weight, ran the tip of his tongue over his dry lip.
“It’s Belayagora’s night, there’ll be weddings all up and down the quays.” She said, and tapped her toe on the rail of the stool rhythmically.
“Told by whom?” He asked while he fiddled with a culturing glass, opened and closed the lid reflexively.
“Selya. Who else? We’re like this,” Tura held up two fingers pressed together, “she and I.”
It slipped from his hand, rang loudly on the floor and rolled. “Should I ask why or just assume you’re playing the odds?” He said, and crouched to pick it up, looked at her from the floor.
“Don’t be theatrical. She came to me with work.” She answered, and shifted to rest one ankle on her knee.
“Oh?”
“She wants that woman all to herself. She’s turned coat to be rid of you. Apparently your absence is worth my brother. Anyhow,” she watched him levelly, “three friends of mine are marrying tonight. I thought you might like the distraction. Meet me at the house of divination on Sudov street at the fifth bell, if you like. I need to get back to work, damn such luck.” She said, and rose. She had gathered up her things and was almost out the door when she turned to look at him, leaned against the door jamb.
“You really ought to come out tonight, Sevka. Take a turn in the bright lights.”
“I’ll be there.” He said, and watched the particular sharpness of the sunlight as it fell through a crack in the boards, cut cleanly across her face, bisected it at an angle that left her mouth illuminated and her eyes shaded.
“I’ll look for you at the mouth of the street.” She said. She held herself still for a moment, and made a vague gesture. “Can I ask you something?”
“Why not?” He said, and her teeth were white and sharp in the light.
“You must see a lot of people die, in your line of work.”
“I have, yes.”
“Why was it different, there? Why does it have you by the throat?” She asked, and the question was soft and urgent, the light cut it in half too, vivisected it until each syllable was another small, distinct question of its own, all the way down as far as they’d ever worked out how to see, to where observation bent the truth.
“It was the way they looked.” He answered, fixated on the curve of light across her nose. “Like they’d--” he closed his eyes and pressed his fingertips against his eyelids. “As if I weren’t supposed to see them at all. Not to know. Not to remember.”
She closed the door noiselessly behind her. The room was dirty in the empty air-- he paced and fiddled with some cultures and crystallized viral patterns. There was nothing in it-- he just shuffled things from one counter to another until the sweat stopped.
Days were already long, but the sunlight was weak through the dust and muck on the windows and showed up the dust and clutter where it fell. He stopped and changed into a coat he hadn’t worn since before the trouble began, a grey coat with red needlework across the chest. He rolled his sleeves up, and let his hair fall around his face. His needles were strapped to his forearm and his boots were dirty. He left them dirty and went out into the street.
Musk and animal scents drifted up through the air off the warm pavers on the roads and walks. Moss, always knee deep in the North, grew everywhere in spring, up the houses and buildings, the lampposts and gutters, and up the trees. The afternoon was green and humid and the scent of rain was lost in a fug of vegetation that stifled him and plastered his hair against his temples and the back of his neck. But it was clean sweat.
Taciturn women watched him, their eyes flickered and rested on the band around his wrist and then drifted away. The bells rang four as he wandered up a notched path cut into one of the cliffs and sat on a bench that looked over a neighborhood of old wooden houses covered almost entirely in moss and vines. Even the fjord water looked green as it broke against the quay far below, little things had begun to bloom in the sunlight, and they said you could hear the creak of growth when the sun stopped setting in summer.
“You look like shit.”
Sevka jerked up and saw Gennady with his pipe in his mouth and a bundle tucked under his arm. The clothes should’ve caught his eye before, flashy orange and gold. Good for a silk dyer, bright against the violet black of his throat and arm. He drew on his pipe and exhaled, and turned to spit into the moss.
“I’ll be damned.” He answered.
Gennady sauntered over and slumped into the bench with his thin legs stretched out and his feet resting on the heels of his red boots. “I chased you all the way up here and that’s what I get?”
“It’s been awhile, Dya.” Sevka said, and smiled at him. He had an angular face, and eyes so brown that you could only see his pupils when they were lit from the right angle. He kept his hair cut close and had the shadow of a beard coming in across his cheek.
“A couple of years. Not since you were at Rodnikovaysk” He said, and tapped his long fingers on the hem of his coat.
“A long time ago.”
“Ten-thousand leagues and a husband ago?” Gennady watched him distantly from under his curly lashes. “Like the song.”
“We weren’t anything for a song.”
“Not anything like that no. But it was fun.”
“Yeah,” Sevka leaned forward and tucked his hair behind his ear. “It was fun.” Rodnikovaysk had been music out over the lake and the fish eagles making noise just before dawn outside their room, tangled legs and feet and palm wine headaches in the crucible of noon.
“I only recognized the hem of the coat where you fucked up the stitch.” Gennady said quietly.
“It’s been some time.”
“What happened?” Gennady flicked his bracelet with the tip of his finger and rested his palm on
it.
“A few things.” He blinked hard and followed the wheel of a lone gull as it dipped down below the cliff. “What brings you North?”
“I’m taking the pack ice East for a season, and following the People with their herds. Silk for hides and pigment. I’ve gotten in the habit of chasing Summer. I never did like the rain after you left.”
“You didn’t like it before we met.”
“I liked it while you were around.” Gennady said, and pulled his hand away. “And you?”
“I go where they send me.”
They sat quietly while he tapped out the bowl of his pipe and smudged the ash into the patch of tramped down grass, and repacked it. He held it out for a light, and Sevka obliged.
“How are things at home?” He asked, from behind a ribbon of smoke.
“I wouldn’t know. I haven’t been back in a year.”
“The trains aren’t running into Kammena.”
“Uh huh.” Sevka answered and blew the smoke out of his eyes.
Gennady blew a smoke ring over his head and looked out over the fjord and the cliffs. “Can you imagine a fight in this overgrown mess? Knee deep in moss and mud. No wonder it was a shambles.”
“I don’t like to think about that.”
“Mm. I paid my respects to the god tree this afternoon. I thought we’d have our fateful reunion there,” He held up his parcel, wrapped in ink washed paper, “under the lime blossoms. But that place--” He spat again and paused. “You know when they let the hounds out for the wild hunt?”
“Yeah.”
“Just before, when they’re straining against the harness, and there’s killing in their faces, that’s what it’s like. I’d never been before. I don’t think I’ll go back.”
“Brigd is bound in that tree. I wouldn’t be pleased either, after a thousand odd years.” Sevka answered and shrugged.
“God is everywhere.” Gennady said lightly.
“Unfounded mysticism.”
“When did you get so hard-nosed?” He asked, and laughed irritably.
“Somewhere, I suppose.” Sevka shifted, rested his ankle on his knee and sat back to rest his arm across the back of the bench, almost touching, but not quite. “What did you want to give me?”
“A remembrance.” Gennady said and pursed his lips. “Not,” he gestured at the band, “that it matters now. I’m surprised I hadn’t heard any fanfare. Who gets the wreckage?”
“Igaveni.”
“Who?”
“Zenaida Igaveni. Out of Kamenna.”
“What has she got you by?”
“It could be that I’m in love.” Sevka answered with more exasperation than he intended.
“I see.” He handed the package over and stood to stretch. He was tall and thin and handsome in the dusk light. “Open it later. I have to head to the river.”
“I’m going that way myself.”
They walked together through the bustle, and kissed briefly when they parted at Sudov street. Gennady waved as he vanished into a tunnel. The taste of tobacco lingered on the back of his hand when he wiped it across his mouth.
Shuttered freight houses and atelier’s nearly hid the house of divination, which was built back into the cliffside above the street proper, and lit with swimming lanterns in the shape of pike that scudded around its small sign. It was surrounded by thickets of berry bushes that clung to the patches of soil along the granite face of the mountain, and had a mossy stair that led to a yellow curtained door that billowed in the breeze. The stairs were slippery, they’d be hard on the drunks trying to crawl home after a long evening.
The scent of orris incense mobbed him as he ducked through the curtained door into a warm, cavernous room with smooth ashwood pillars that rose to an arched ceiling where more fish meandered in loops and cast a glitter on the low tables below. Ten tables, all without chairs, surrounded by cushions strewn across furs. It was full and smoky, buzzed with low conversation as betters focused on blindfolded augurs who sat cross-legged in the middle of the tables and tossed notched limewood sticks. He had never been a gambler since he’d never decided whether it was fate or probability that decided things. Both ideas frightened him. It took him a few moments to find her, she was shoulder to shoulder with two other women, drink in hand, hair loose around the collar of her coat, green this time, warm green velvet that made her look darker. He went to the bar and watched her from over the rim of his cup. Win, win, loss, win. People drifted out and he watched her streak, and clicked his tongue. The long sight wasn’t much use for prophecy, but it couldn’t be anything else. She was intent.
He brought her a fresh drink and she waved him back and made a high bet. One of the women, a wild eyed blonde with a dainty face and wide fish eyes winked at him and murmured something to Tura that got the flash of a sardonic smile from her. She won, stood and linked arms with him as they elbowed their way to the door.
“You’re early.” She said, low and close enough for the warmth of her breath to tickle his ear.
“I wanted to see if I was good luck.” He answered, and rubbed the pad of his thumb across her wristbone.
“You’re the worst kind of luck. I had to end my hot streak because you distracted everyone.”
They slid through the curtains. “They could tell you were cheating.” He said.
“I would never--” she was cut off by the sound of breaking glass. The lights of Kiengrod had gone out.
It was the first warm day since he’d come to Kienviory, and the heat in the room suffocated him awake. He was still dressed in last nights clothes, muddy and sweat stiffened, with his hair stuck to his cheek, and enough stubble to itch.
Zenaida tapped her foot steadily, her other leg was curled under her where she sat in his armchair and leafed through a worn book of Khromova’s poetry. There was a tray with tea and salted bread on it, a little jar of jam, and sliced cheese. It might have been a cozy domestic scene. She took a sip of her tea, and a bite of bread. She was in yellow today, a deep yellow with enough green in it not to fight with her hair, thick silk, artfully creased from the cupboard, it draped stiff around her hips and over the folds of her voluminous chiffon trousers. She tapped the page.
“Listen to this: a solitary pine, wind-twisted against the billowed sky, and spider threads like the warp and weft of time, and I.” She closed the book, but marked her place with her finger, and looked up at him. She had none of the feverish brightness in her eyes that marked a bad day.
“You look worn.” She said lightly, and poured him a cup of tea, leaned forward elegantly, and slid the tray across the cowhide to the edge of the bed.
He pulled the hair off his face and cleared his throat, took a swig of the tea. “Being near you does that.”
“I’d rather us not be at each other’s throats, Bryusha, we were friends once.” She said, and continued to tap her toe on the floor. He drew himself up, peeled off his dirty tunic and let it fall, fiddled with the cuff on his wrist. “You’re cruel even when you’re kind.” He said, and curled his lip at her. “Or did you forget the circumstances of our engagement?”
“Did you?” She asked lightly, and the corner of her mouth turned up. Her eyes stayed wide and innocent.
“I suppose you have a point?” He asked, and undid the buttons on his undershirt, dropped it with his coat, and went to the washbasin. He turned this way and that, and poked at the berry colored bruises that had spread across his chest and up to his shoulder.
“Only a sort of peace offering.” She said, and watched him intently. “You can have your fun with the Irillemeiri woman; she’s,” Zenaida drew her breath in through her teeth and sighed it out with disdain, “your sort, after all. But with discretion. Someone might get the wrong idea.”
He laughed shortly, and braced himself against the washbasin, watched her in the mirror. “If I step out of line?” He asked, and rubbed the back of his hand against the dry skin on his lips.
She smiled faintly, distorted in the glass. She held up the Khromova, and it crumbled through her fingers, drifted down like ash onto the floor and became a pile of dust. “You may not grasp the situation at hand, as it barely concerns you, but it’s all for the best.. Trusting me is easier than the alternative.” She stooped to blow on the mound of dust and scatter it across the floor, rose and paused in the doorway. “I’m sure you’ll be relieved to know that I’m leaving for several weeks. Selya will have to stand in my stead.” She said, turned on her heel gracefully, and shut his door softly, but with decision. He didn’t hear her footfalls down the hall, he never did. She walked a hairsbreadth above the floor.
He slid out of his kilt , and smoothed away the scabs on his knees, let the bruises alone. She’d left the window open, and he stood naked in the sun, and looked out to the blue filament of sea that flashed through the trees. It was too far away to gauge the tide. His hand shook when he held it up, and the trembling went from wrist to shoulder. He pulled out his jar and measured his dose into a handkerchief, spilled it onto his tongue and held it against the roof of his mouth until the shakes went. It left an orange-pith taste in the back of his throat.
The breeze ruffled his papers and rolled the dust along the floor, tugged at the clothes there. He wrapped himself in a robe and picked them up, buried his face in them, inhaled every scent from last night that he could pick out, smoke and her and the alkonost, fetid and rotten. He took it with his other laundry, left it soaking in the communal washtub, and took a long bath. It was working now, the tips of his fingers were numb, and he thrummed with life in every cell, with the water and the air and the earth around him, with the sun. He smiled and floated, washed his hair and let it fall. The third bell had rung by the time he hung his wash out.
Taika looked a little ragged, her dark skin had a blue tinge in the shadows, but she was warm when she gestured for him to sit down and offered him a plate of sweetmeats and pickled fruit.
“Your things arrived on today’s post train. I’d like you to open an atelier in the city.” She said, and watched his face intently.
“Pardon,” he cleared his throat and picked his words one by one in the pregnant silence, “I don’t have the resources for that sort of thing.” He said, and watched her through his lowered lashes.
“Of course, Kienviory would sponsor you. With these outbreaks, the kind of work you need to do really cannot happen on temple grounds. But it needs to happen somewhere.” She said, and and the clink o her cup hitting it’s saucer was sharp in the silence.
“Thats very generous, Veduny.” He ducked his head respectfully, “Thank you. I’m at a loss for words.”
She watched him, and tilted her head. “How long have you been using?” She asked, finally. Her directness startled him, and he fought to stop tapping his fingers, to stop his own magic from making the room cold.
“Since the outbreak at *. A few years, now.” There was no reason to lie.
“I see.” She said, and sighed through her nose, lips pressed into a thin, flat line. “Does she know?”
“Yes. I don’t take pains to hide anything.” He answered.
“Has she tried to stop you?”
“I think she likes it. It keeps me doubtworthy.”
“I’d caution you, but you know, probably better than I do, what you’re on the edge of. There are certain things I can’t risk teaching you unless you’re working at only your natural capacity.” She said.
“Particularly since you have divine attribute magic, which could cause a great deal of damage to yourself and others, should you burn it out.”
“I’m careful with my dosage.” He answered, but his breath showed in the air.
“I hope so. I’d rather not intercede in this.”
He crossed his leg, rested his ankle on his knee and let his body go slack. “Is there something you would intercede in?”
“That is entirely up to you, Trevoved.” She answered, and ran her thumb around the rim of her cup.
“If I told you that Zenaida Vlastaovna had coerced me into this enagagement?” He asked, emptily.
“I would wonder how that happened, and why. I would wonder a lot of things about her.” Taika answered softly.
“If I could answer all of that, would you consider me credible?”
“Not in your current state, no. Almost, but not quite.”
“If I fall back?”
“That, and if you find something solid for me, letters, objects, something I can present to the Troika.”
“I will.”
“I’m giving you as much freedom to do so as I have authority to grant.” She said. “I’ve heard rumors, but I need more than rumors. You’ll find ain the foundry district, and you’ll come to me for lessons as usual. The rest is at your discretion.”
“Do you trust me because there’s nobody else, or because you believe in me?”
“I trust you because you don’t trust her.”
He was still setting up his practice in the weeks before Zenaida departed, had finally started to feel at home in his atelier. It was situated far below the walls of Kienviory, on Kovat alley, which branched crookedly off the main road of the foundry district and was a ramshackle stone and timber building that butted up against the side of the fjord surrounded by low hanging trees and bushes. It was small but open inside, with a low loft above that was just big enough to sleep in, and most importantly a spring fed tap and a good stove. The private washroom and bath were an unexpected luxury.
Things seemed to have found their equilibrium, and he’d only seen the Irillemeiri boy in passing, once when he ducked out of Zenaida’s rooms, ragged and loose jointed as a scarecrow. Dvrov was out in the fields, working on the planting. He’d seen Tura once, in prayer on a bench under the god tree. Ice broke on the river and calved out on the bay, and the boom of it woke him in the dark, sweat soaked and tangled in his sheets, the taste of lily perfume on the edge of his tongue, fragments of desire pounded in his head. Spring came in sheets of rain, but the buds of the leaves and the bright green needles on the Tamaracks were cheerfully persistent.
He had laid out his supper when she rapped on the door, waited and wrenched it open with a cheerful Hallo. She wore work clothes, loose trousers tucked into tall scarred and scuffed boots, a plain but very fine cotton waist, which clung to her in the damp, and a leather belt. She balanced a basket on her hip, and the drizzle plastered the strands of hair that had slipped loose of her braid against her temples.
“Invite me in before I change my mind.” She said, good naturedly.
“Come in, just, let me clear a spot” he said, and waved her in, hastily cleared a stack of papers and jars off the little red lacquered table that served for a desk and kitchen in one.
“When are you going to finish unpacking?” She asked, and set her basket down precariously close to a jumbled bin of glassware, beeswax and ink sticks. She caught it neatly when it tipped.
“I’m,” He cleared his throat and tucked his thumbs in his belt, “I already have.”
She raised her brow and turned to survey the untidy work benches, the shelves with unlabeled jars of various substances, cultures and brews. She wandered among the piled books and stopped to sniff at an open vessel, wrinkled her nose and turned back to him with a smile. “How’ve you been keeping, beautiful?”
“Good.” He said, and cleared off a stool for her. She sat, one foot perched on the rail, and rested her chin on her knee.
“How do you take your tea?” He asked, and poured himself a fresh cup.
“Strong, and preferably dirty.” She answered, and riffled idly through a sheaf of papers. Her perfume cut through the dusty apothecary scent of the place, and he paused to breathe it in for a moment before pouring a shot of honey liquor into her cup. She undid her braid, combed her fingers through her wet hair rhythmically. It looked like spilled ink in the diffuse light that filtered through the high windows.
“Have you eaten?” He asked, and swept crumbs into his cupped palm, rubbed a cracked plate clean.
“I thought you’d never ask,” she said, and sipped her tea appreciatively as he laid out the meal, all foods from Melnismitsya and the surrounding region, foods to quell homesickness. He had bought grape leaf and cabbage wrapped Sarma with smoked lamb inside, brined ewe’s milk cheese, smoked ground mutton, flaky pastry stuffed with chard and cheese, and smoked sprat from the inland sea.
“Ah,” she said, and gestured at the Sarma, “These were my favorite from Melnismitsya. Well and that thing with apple and the honey and walnuts and pastry.”
She grinned broadly. Her teeth were clean and white, even in front, except for the double eye teeth that were a mark of adulthood for women. They were only crooked on the right, someone had to have loosened it when it was coming in. It suited her.
Armas buckled into him in cold puff of air that door pushed in behind them. Their room was dark, except for the faint light of the city reflected on low clouds high up on the pane. It was bright enough to trick the eye into the perception of patterns where there were none, faces that peeked out from the bedstead, eyes in the wall, owls in the rafters. It was dark enough to give these things substance and life. Dvrov bit the inside of his cheek, a childhood trick, but the sensation remained, that the room had distended into a populous forest, that they were anchored by their knitted fingers and matched breath.
He blew a flame into life over Armas shoulder, and their houses feel obdiently back into its usual shape. He had been glad to see them all together, the Irillemeiri, had been glad to drink with them, as if things were the way they had always been. The air was thick with unspoken suspicion, with veiled aggression, but it was good to playact happiness. He’d been taken by likeness between Sorya and his own mother, Morowa in the red shrine. Even having seen them together in past years, it had escaped him. But she had teeth, and the click of them drummed the specter of Morowa, of his sisters in around him.
“I am so tired.” Armas’ said. He sounded detached, he mostly sounded that way, except in the safety of their bed. He was a papers width from ruin, his magic pulled too taut, his fears played up too high.
“Close your eyes and rest. You were so--” Dvrov whispered, his fingers twisted into the fabric of Armas’ tunic, at a loss, for the first time he could recall, to choose the right word.
Someone rapped on the door politely, and Armas shuddered against him, a silent sob, held back by clenched teeth, of frustration, or fear, he didn’t know. It shouldn’t have been as good as it was to see some flicker of his heart in the fog. Orlaveta waited in the hall, her hands folded, benevolent smile that didn’t reach her eyes.
“Taika would like to meet you both privately.” She said, and turned with no pause for a reply.
Dvrov held Armas’ hand, and they followed her back as the still temple watched, a gambler waiting on the dice to fall, on the flip of the coin. The scale of the problem, he understood, was bigger than the two of them, or even the central actors in their little drama.. The scale of them problem, which he could neither name, nor map the precise dimensions of, prowled around them with a hyena’s chatter laugh.
Veduny Taika waited with wine in her hand, still in red, and he saw her teeth now too, saw the smoothness of strength held in check when she gestured at her couch, and poured for them.
Orlaveta drifted out and slid the door closed softly enough to set a barb of fear between his shoulder blades. Armas sagged in his seat, rested his elbows on his thighs and pitched forward..
“I congratulate you, Valomir.” She said, and raised her glass. It was red wine, and it sent red light onto the walls where the light passed through it in a splatter from the cut of the crystal. Dark red, leather, violets,cherries, and dust. A good vintage.
“Thank you, Veduny.” Armas answered mechanically.
She leaned forward, mirrored him, and tilted her head. “You’re something-- your abilities startle and unnerve me.. I’ve tried to instruct you without collaring you, to remember that it is the person whose happiness must count before their magic. This is why I’ve kept you here, rather than sending you to someone who could draw out the highest potential in you.” She said.
“What does that mean?” Dvrov asked, to fill the weighty silence left by Armas, who stared into his wine.
Taika turned to him, pursed her lips and let her shoulders down. “Let’s get down to the gold in in the sand, here. You, Koldan, of all people, must realize what he,” she gestured to Armas, “has, what it means.”
Dvrov shook his head in irritation. “He’s not unusual for the Emeiri, I think..” He said, his throat thick. The flames on the wicks shifted ad Armas exhaled, made the lights jerk across the wall.
“Svyatoy.”
Holy.
“Holy ability. I had hoped not to see it in my lifetime. Not once, certainly not in a troika.” She continued, and Armas set his glass down hard enough to ring a clear note against the metal.
“I’m not--” Armas said, and strangled his own voice as it moved the banners on the walls and the lights in their sconces, “It isn’t.”
“Tonight was a confirmation, a revelation. Vocal spellwork isn’t outstanding, particularly given your family. But you could sing the lights out of the skies.”
Dvrov rubbed the back of his neck, tried to soothe away the needles there.
“You said as a troika. Who else?” He asked.
“Who do you think? Igaveni, Veidrodis.” She answered.
“How can you know?” Armas asked.
“I hadn’t seen the three of you in one place until tonight. It’s unmistakable. I’ve got to know what Zenaida wants with you.” She said, leaned into Armas, and let her own power fill the room, press them down. He had never been on the receiving end of her ability to alter the gravity of a place, had never felt his bones give, his lungs, the sinews of his throat. The chairs and joists squeaked in protest.
“Enough.” Armas said, and it was enough to break her magic. She had made a show of her point. The sudden drop in pressure left him clammy and nauseated.
“I’m not doing anything harmful. I wouldn’t. She has me resonate with things. Rock, Metal, harmless things.” Armas said, fast and thick.
“Why?” Taika asked..
“I don’t know. I don’t understand.” Armas said, and pulled his hair back from his face with a savage twist. “I just do what she wants me to do, and don’t ask. I saw what she did to Tura.” He ground the heel of his hand into his forehead and dropped his eyes. ‘What shall I do, then? Cut my voice out with a dagger? Or should Veidrodis do it for me, or you?” The volume of his voice rose until he almost shouted, and the room hummed with the sound.
Dvrov reached out, silenced him with with his pressed against his chest.
“Don’t be dramatic.” Taika hushed him, and sat back, crossed her arms and studied them from across the table. She drew a letter out of her sleeve and tossed it to Drvov. He pulled it toward them with his fingertips. It was one of his letters of inquiry.
“This was brought to me courtesy of a Charodetsya at Milastivy, who owed a favor to Kienviory. But you can be certain that Zenaida is well aware of your efforts to investigate her. I’ll tell you what I know.” She said.
Armas rose abruptly, and stepped toward the door. He paused and turned to look at them, his lips in a sardonic grin, eyes heavy-lidded. He looked like Tura.. “You tell him. I don’t want to know. I don’t want to know a fucking thing. He can speak and listen for me.” He said. “You know where I’ll be.” He added over his shoulder as he went out.
Taika sighed, and poured the last of the wine out into their glasses. The conversation carried on for the better part of the night, and filled him with an empty buzz of anxiety. The last bell rang as he pulled his collar up against the chill and made his way along the path between fallow fields toward the grainary. He felt the flash before he saw it. Ripples from the distant road, and a sickness in the pit of his stomach, loose knees. He pushed through an unlocked window and found Armas asleep in a mound of hay, tense even then, curled around himself arms tucked around his head. The long low building held bales of wheat, barley and corn, and it was dry and warm, with the pleasant yeasty scent of fermentation and dried grass in the air. The windows let in faint blue light, and the cats wove in and out of his feet by way of hello.
He sat down next to Armas, listened to the night noises and something faint and nasty that rolled past from above. Armas woke, his eyes had the glint of fever as he rolled onto his back. He took Dvrov’s hand in his own, and it was dry and hot.
Tura’s footsteps were heavier than they should have been, and she was clumsy when she crawled through the window, landed on her hands and knees and laughed thickly.
“Where the fuck have you been?” Dvrov asked, and curled his lip at her as she stood.
She was muddy, her clothes torn, and she was lit on more than whisky. Frost flaked off of her, frost on the tip of her hair and her fingers, frost that crackled and fell from the dirty folds of her coat but did not melt. She grinned and sat down heavily, rested her head against a bag of wheat.
“Here and there. Don’t get on your hind legs, I have things to say, and you’ll want to listen.” She said, with a slur.
Armas shook his head at her, curled his lip. “What have you done? You smell like death.”
“Some kind of Alkonost-- demon --thing.” She rooted in her pocket for a flask and took a swig. “It found us on the road. I’m going to feel like a skinned lamb in the morning, probably.”
“You feel like it now, only you can’t tell because you’re spell drunk, and love drunk and every other kind of damned drunk there is.” Armas said, and sat up.
“Less of it. Look at this,” she held up her arm to show a scrape that had torn her sleeve from elbow to wrist, into her skin. She picked grit out of it and sneered. “I liked this coat. I won this coat from an Ejderhani sailor. She left a pustule hex in the lining that took me three days to find.”
“If you have a point, now would be a good time to hunt for it.” Dvrov rejoined. The comfortable smell of the place was undercut with ozone and rot.
“He’s riding the white horse. He had a wild story about a mass grave up in Kammenna, about Zenaida’s mother.” She fished for something in her pocket, pulled out a pipe and packed it, held it out for him to light. She was sobering up.
“Mass graves?” Armas said, and spat out a half laugh. “Isn’t that just about right. Just about perfect for tonight.”
“Well it can’t be true. He said the changeling plague, you know from when we were kids, had something to do with it. That’s why they’re together.”
“The Igaveni have been-- what, just disappearing people? That’s divine magic, not something one person could--” Dvrov said, and threw up his hands.
“I could.” Armas said flatly. “Couldn’t I?”
“What?” Tura asked, and sat forward with a searching look.
They fell silent, and the joists creaked, punctuated the question while Kiengrod began to wake up across the field.
“I’m one of these aberrations you hear about in history lessons. Not that you ever paid much attention to history lessons.” Armas rolled a stalk of hay angrily, crumpled it against his leg. “Divine attribute magic. I’m a card in the big game.” He had drawn every word word out, steady as razor against a strop, deliberate and hard.
“No--you’re not--” Dvrov tried to break in, and was cut off by Tura’s
“Bullshit.” Tura snarled, and sat back with a thump.
“It’s not just him. Serebryany and Zenaida too.” Dvrov said, and looked away from both of them, out the window into the foggy dawn. Swallows darted here and there among last years bracken, and a hound wandered idly against the far wall, barely distinguishable from the fog, a white smudge that flickered into and then out of existence at random.
“Serebryany may be engineering this little drama to give her an excuse to get me under her thumb.” Armas said. He held himself up on his crossed arms and watched her through the hair that fell around his face.
“No, I don’t think he’s lying. Or if he is, he doesn’t know it.” She said, and chewed the corner of her mouth pensively. “It doesn’t always mean anything, anyhow, Svyatoy. That’s just superstition.”
“It’s happened before.” Dvrov said, and reached for Armas’ hand.
“That’s a flimsy reason for all this. He could’ve just left well enough alone, and you’d still be sitting in the same thorny chair.” Tura rejoined. Dark circles spread under her eyes and in the hollows of her cheeks, her face and body sagged.
“No. I’d have said no to her, if he hadn’t played me.” Armas said bitterly. “Us.” He added.
“What is she doing with you?” She asked wearily
“Nothing. Using my voice.”
“Taika has thoughts.” Dvrov cut in, rose to stretch and began to pace while he spoke. The skitter of mice bothered him, the rattle of her tired breath, and the crinkle of anger under Armas’ resignation had crawled up and sat on his chest until the only thing left was to move.
“This is all--” Tura coughed into her ruined coat sleeve, “Priests.” She said, and shook her head, gestured for him to continue.
“Zenaida was married before, very young, and her wife just,” he snapped his fingers “disappeared one day. She was somebody too, not a priest, part of the Semyonova house of thaumaturges. Her body was never found.”
“How did she end up married to a big name thaumaturge?” Tura asked, and rocked forward on her toes, the ragged hem of her skirt pooled in front of her on the glume flecked stone.
“She had no real craft, at all. Never made it any further up the ranks than novitiate.Then Vlasta dies, drops like a stone a week after they find the Semyonova woman’s body in a dry wash on the border between Kammenna and Ziemia. After that, Zenaida is everywhere, and she’s on fire, literally and metaphorically. There’s no test she can fail.” Dvrov tucked his hands behind his back and continued to pace, measured out his words by the footfall.
“She goes South, all the way to Milovany, and makes Charodetsya there. That’s also where Selya comes in, they’ve been a matched set since. She never travels by train, either. Ships, carts and caravans, horseback, but no trains. She has the Resivyu in her hip pocket, and then she pulls Serebryany. Those are two of the most important houses in the priesthood, and one of the most important thaumaturge houses in the world. Why get her hooks into actual family members? Any ranked partisan of those houses would have as much clout as the a member of the family themselves.”
“So what?” Tura asked, voice thick and rough. “Sevka may be carrying the Veidrodis name, but he’s no more a direct line down from Zuyeva Alya than I am. She knows as well as we do that Irill built the house system to resist family privilege.”
“But look at the names. There’s something there.” Dvrov answered stubbornly. “Resviyu. Veidrodis. Semyonova, Iriyill, Eimeri. And two of them with divine attribute magic, if you believe Taika. That makes it a bad game, in itself.” He counted off on his fingers.
“You’re forgetting yourself. Koldan. It’s a two for one package, and she knows it.” Tura added.
“Let’s assume Serebryany is a sick man, for a moment.” Armas said, and cleared his throat. His voice echoed in the rafters and hummed along the walls. “Maybe he believes what he said, but lets assume it isn’t true. I’d rather it weren’t. Maybe Zenaida is trying to build her own house, nothing more.”
“He wasn’t lying.” She answered and gave Armas a long searching look.
“Sure he wasn’t. But between belief and truth a chasm lay, as the woman said.” Armas shot back.
“Why would Selya want to get rid of him?” She asked with a flippant gesture.
“What the hell are you doing with Selya?” Dvrov interjected.
“She came to me, wants a sword made, offered me Sevka as payment, and you.” She gestured at Armas with a jerk of her thumb, then stuck the end of it between her teeth and worried at it.
“That’s absurd. Why would she betray Zenaida?” Dvrov said, and threw up his hands.
“Love.” Armas answered, quiet and flat. “Anyone can see that it’s a political marriage, the kind that could be undone by any council for racketeering. That could lose Igaveni her mantle, and her magic. Selya has the flame for her, wants to protect her.”
Tura let her hand fall loose and rest on her knee, eased herself down with her other, until she was curled up on the floor with the scraped up toes of her boots peaked out from under the circle of her skirt. “That woman wants Sevka, wants you. I’m having none of it. Not after last night. I’ll see what I can fish out of Selya--” she yawned, and coughed into her sleeve again, and the rattle in her lungs was audible from where he stood. “Tomorrow.” she finished, and rested her head against the bundle of wheat. She was asleep already.
Dvrov gestured for Armas, and they dragged her up and over to the hay, pushed her into it, and stood over her with folded arms. “Too many different stories. None of them from the one person who would know.” Armas said and shook his head.
“Let’s go in. I’m done.” Dvrov said, and held out his hand. The stumbled down the frost reamed path, and ducked their heads in answer to the startled hallo of the novices and seniors who were headed to breakfast.
Kienviory had never felt so small or stifled him so much as it did now. Taika had asked him to dig, to observe, to confirm her suspicions. He caught himself grinding his teeth hard while he sat in their half lit room in front of a low fire, stirred it with the poker absently. Armas was stretched out shirtless on top of the coverlet, his breath white in the chill.
“He’s lost for her.” He said, to the ceiling.
Dvrov shifted irritably. “From when?”
“From the second she hit his sightline. I heard it.”
“And Tura?”
“Too.”
“Nothing makes any fucking sense.” Dvrov said, and rubbed his hands together.
“Zenaida Vlastovena carries chaos in her pocket like a worry stone, the still center tilts and tilts and it all turns around her.” He answered, from a dream. His breath slowed and steadied to the regular rhythm of the sleeper.
Dvrov rested his head against the back of the chair, tried to sleep. The room brightened. He poured himself a drink, sat on the edge of their bed, smoothed Armas’ hair back from his face. Too many useless questions wound and snapped together, tangled like an unwound skein. People were not themselves. He picked at his stubble. Or he hadn’t been watching as closely as he’d assumed, hadn’t been as a good a student of amarai nature as he proudly assumed. Put back to back, it was natural to think of Tura and Zenaida as opposites each with their own cards, natural enemies. He walked aimlessly, wound his way down without speaking to anyone he passed. He slipped into the archives without a retrieval thread, and went down, until there was only coolness, quietude and dust. If things hadn’t gone just so, they’d have been friends. Tura had little ambition for herself, she was a creature of the moment, lived the essence of the faith that the use of life was to live it whole and leave the world no worse than you found it. But she respected ambition, respected a woman like Zenaida. They’d have been friends but for the men around their ankles. It seemed a shame.
He roused from his sleepwalk to find himself deeper in than he’d ever been, in a corner that was lit by a slanted, geometrically precise shaft of light that filtered down from a large lamp that sputtered high above him. A dry scent, a scent that was entirely out of place, a desert scent, with none of the green wet of the forests of Kiengrod in it took hold of him, and he closed his eyes, gripped the shelf as a wave of longing swamped him, to be home, to be quit of the cold, of the fear, of the sea fog and the endless sigh of wind through the evergreens. The dark had passed. It would come again the next winter, and the winter after, it was so cold in this country, he could never get warm, and nobody on the street smiled, all the colors were cold too, made drab by the grey light.
A firefly described lazy arcs in the shaft of light, up and down, but never beyond. He watched it dumbly, it blinked, bright and white, not green, and its light left ghosts in his eyes. He squinted them shut and rubbed at them, and felt the faint brush of a hot hand across his brow. It sat cross legged on the crown of the shelf, and grinned. It was white as the inside of a taro, a slick white. It was a little smaller than a man, dressed in stiff green barkcloth, with red bead cuffs around each bare arm. It had a cat face, a sand cat, with the same long teeth and umber eyes. It laughed dryly, and when it laughed, the beads tinkled merrily. Its feet were bare and six toed. He braced his back against the opposite shelf, and edged out of the square of light. The desert scent wafted down.
It examined its hand, long and elegant and clawed, and blew on its fingers, rubbed them idly against its kilt. “You called.” It said, raspy and amused.
“Why would I--I didn’t call you.” He answered, and immediately regretted speaking.
It looked up and fixed him in its hard gaze. “You came down here. You’re just bursting with fear,” it licked a claw delicately and rubbed its lower jaw, “and pride. Nobody comes down here.” It sighed theatrically, “Not for a long time. It’s been,” it exaggerated its shudder, “so dark. And cold. I agree with you, it’s unbearably cold. You lit the lamp for me. A favor for a favor, its only right.”
“I didn’t come here for you.” Dvrov said and swallowed hard.
“What did you come here for then? I can definitely, absolutely help.” It smiled at him, showed its perfect white teeth, white as its skin.
“I was just--I don’t know why.” He admitted, unable to look away.
“You don’t know that you didn’t come here to see me, then.” It tilted its head and the barkcloth complained.
“You’ve been waiting to meet me.” It said solemnly. “You need me.”
“For what?” He asked and ran his tongue tip over his dry lips.
“Let me just,” it slid off the shelf in one fluid motion, and reached out, its fingers stopped at the edge of the light, “show you. It will be so much easier. You people, talking talking talking, it’s so tiring.”
He caught himself reaching his hand out, and sapped it back, gripped the leather of his belt tightly. He inched away with some difficulty.
“Tch.” It said, sadly. “Don’t you want to show them? Show them all who you are, how clever, how talented. They should be frightened of you.” It said, and beckoned him.
“I want--” he choked on his own voice, lost his train of thought.
“Your man. Oh yes.You want to know, all the things you want to know, If you’d just let me help you.”
He bit the tip of his tongue until it bled, and covered his mouth with his hand.
It shrugged, but there was deep rage in its eyes. “I know you now. When you understand, call for me.” It stood still until he blinked and then fluttered up, a firefly, up into the light, and vanished.
He slid to the floor and hugged his knees, afraid to cross through the light for a long time. He finally crept through, and ran, the sound of his footfalls like an accusation behind him.
Armas buckled into him as the door shut and pushed cold air in from the hall. Their room was dark, except for the faint light of the cloud hidden sky, which lent an uncertain, unreal outline to every familair shape, and undid the dimensions of the walls and floor. They were anchored by their knitted fingers and matched breath.
He blew a flame into life over Armas shoulder, and dismissed the sensation of an unraveled world. He had been glad to see them all together, the Irillemeiri, had been glad to drink with them, as if things were the way they had always been. The air was thick with unspoken suspicion, with veiled aggression, but it was small comfort to act out normalcy. The likeness between Sorya and his own mother, Morowa. Even having seen them together in past years, it had escaped him. But he saw the lionness now, saw an echo of his own family in the scene. He had flatly denied his mother’s accusation that he’d traded one family for another just like it, except that the new one expected nothing of him, of themselves.
“I am so tired.” Armas’ said. His voice came from somewhere far away, withdrawn into the fearful detachment that consumed a greater part of him every day. Fear would have been better than detached exhaustion. He was on the knife edge of burn out, of his magic pushed too fast, too far, too hard.
“Close your eyes and rest. You were so--” Dvrov whispered, his fingers twisted into the fabric of Armas’ tunic, at a loss, for the first time he could recall, to choose the right word.
Someone rapped on the door politely, and Armas shuddered against him, a silent sob, held back by clenched teeth, of frustration, or fear, he didn’t know. It shouldn’t have been as good as it was to see some flicker of his heart in the fog. Orlaveta waited in the hall, her hands folded, her expression benevolent.
“Taika would like to meet you both privately.” She said, and turned with no pause for a reply.
Dvrov held Armas’ hand, and they followed her back, and the hall was acutely still and silent, and the stillness was watchful, a gambler waiting on the dice to fall, on the flip of the coin. The scale of the problem, he understood, was bigger than the two of them, or even the four of them, if Serebryany were accounted for. The scale of them problem, which he could neither name, nor map the precise dimensions of, prowled around them with a hyena laugh.
Veduny taika waited with wine in her hand, still in red, and he saw the lionness in her too, saw the smoothness of strength held in check when she gestured for them to sit, and poured for them.
Orlaveta drifted out and slid the door closed softly enough to send a barb of fear between his shoulder blades. Armas sagged in his seat, rested his elbows on his thighs and pitched forward drawn and tense.
“I congratulate you, Valomir.” She said, and raised her glass. It was red wine, and it sent red light onto the walls where the light passed through it, a splatter from the cut of the crystal. Dark and red, leather and cherries, and dust. A good vintage.
“Thank you, Veduny.” Armas answered mechanically.
She leaned forward, mirrored him, and tilted her head. “You have an extraordinary magic. I’ve tried to nurture it without molding it, I’ve tried to remember that it is the person whose happiness must count before their magic. This is why I’ve kept you here, rather than sending you to someone who could draw out the highest potential in you.” She said, earnest, with an edge of persuasion in her voice.
“What does that mean?” Dvrov asked, to fill the weighty silence left by Armas, who stared into his wine glass.
Taika turned to him, pursed her lips and finally sighed. “Let’s speak plainly. I’m your ally, in this as in everything. You, of all people, must realize what he,” she gestured to Armas, “has, what it means.”
Dvrov shook his head in irritation. “Speak plainly, if you say you will.” He said, his throat thick. The flames on the wicks shifted ad Armas exhaled, made the lights jerk across the wall.
“Svyatoy.”
Holy.
“Holy attribute magic. I hadn’t expected to see it in my lifetime. Not once, certainly not in a troika.” She continued, and Armas set his glass down hard enough for it to ring a clear note against the metal.
“I’m not--” Armas said, and strangled on his own voice as it moved the banners on the walls and the lights in their sconces, “It isn’t.”
“Tonight was a confirmation, a revelation. Vocal spellwork isn’t unusual, particularly given your family. But you could sing the stars out of our universe.”
Dvrov rubbed the back of his neck, tried to soothe away the needles there.
“You said as a troika. Who else?” He asked.
“Who do you think? Igaveni, Veidrodis.” She answered, low and quick.
“How can you know?” Armas said, fear in his voice.
“I hadn’t seen the three of you in one place until tonight. It’s unmistakable. For the sake of yourselves, for the people, I need to know what it is that Zenaida wants with you.” She said, leaned into Armas, and let her own power fill the room, press them down. He had never been on the receiving end of her ability to alter the gravity of a place, had never felt the sickness of extra pressure bearing down on him before.
“Enough.” Armas said, his voice pushed back, and it was enough to break her magic. She had made a show for him, Dvrov realized, to prove the truth to him. The sudden drop in pressure left him nauseous, sweaty and unsteady.
“I’m not doing anything harmful. I wouldn’t. She has me resonate with things. Rock, Metal, harmless things.” Armas said, fast and thick.
“Why?” Taika asked, watched them both.
“I don’t know. I don’t understand.” Armas said, and pulled his hair back from his face in a savage gesture. “I just do what she wants me to do, and I don’t ask questions. I’ve seen what she’s able to do, what she did to Tura. How frightened everyone is of her. What shall I do, then? Cut my voice out with a dagger? Or should Veidrodis do it for me, or you?” The volume of his voice rose until it was near a shout.
Dvrov reached out, silenced him with his arm across Armas’ chest.
“Don’t be dramatic.” Taika hushed him, and sat back, crossed her arms and studied them from across the table. She drew a letter out of her sleeve and tossed it to Drvov. He pulled it toward them with his fingertips. It was one of his letters of inquiry.
“This was brought to me courtesy of a Charodetsya at Milastivy, who owed a favor to Kienviory. But you can be certain that Zenaida is well aware of your efforts to investigate her. I’ll tell you what I know.” She said.
Armas rose abruptly, and stepped toward the door. He paused and turned to look at them, his mouth twisted, sardonic, frightened. “You tell him. I don’t want to know. I don’t want to know anything. It’s not safe. He can speak and listen for me.” He said. “You know where I’ll be.” He added over his shoulder as he went out.
Taika sighed, and poured the last of the wine out into their glasses. The conversation carried on for the better part of the night, and filled him with an empty buzz of anxiety. The last bell rang as he pulled his collar up against the chill and made his way along the path between fallow fields toward the grainary. He felt the flash before he saw it. Magic on the distant road, and a sickness in the pit of his stomach, weakness in his knees. He pushed through an unlocked window and found Armas asleep in a mound of hay, tense even in sleep, curled around himself, arms around his head. The long low building held bales of wheat, barley and corn, and it was dry and warm, with the pleasant yeasty scent of fermentation and dried grass in the air. The windows let in faint blue light, and the cats wove in and out of his feet by way of hello.
He sat down next to Armas, listened to his unsteady breath, watched it stir his hair where it hung over his face. Armas woke, his eyes had the glint of fever as he rolled onto his back. He took Dvrov’s hand in his own, and it was dry and hot.
Tura’s footsteps were heavier than they should have been, and she was clumsy when she bounced through the window, landed on her hands and knees and laughed thickly.
“Where the fuck have you been?” Dvrov asked, and curled his lip at her as she stood.
She was muddy, her clothes torn, and she was lit on more than whisky. Magic flaked off of her, frost on the tip of her hair and her fingers, frost that crackled and fell from the dirty folds of her coat. She grinned and waved his question aside, sat down heavily and rest her head against a bag of wheat.
“Here and there. Don’t get on your hind legs, I have things to say, and you’ll want to listen.” She said, slurred and excited.
Armas shook his head at her, curled his lip. “What have you done? You smell like death.”
“Some kind of Alkonost-- demon --thing.” She rooted in her pocket for a flask and took a swig. “It found us on the road. I’m going to feel like a skinned lamb in the morning, probably.”
“You feel like it now, only you can’t tell because you’re spell drunk, and love drunk and every other kind of damned drunk there is.” Armas said, and hung his head.
He slept like a stringless fiddle, still, quietly, but with tension on his face, a song that waited to be played. His spirit hounds prowled at the edges of the sacred square among the dryads that had come to preen and bask in the firelight. She slid up until his cheek rested on her lap and stretched out her numb foot and arm, stroked his forehead softly, where he frowned.
She eyed Tiertu where he stood and pawed at the young grass that had just begun to stir under the snow. There was another bottle in the saddlebag, and she was too sober by half. But Serebryany had his fingers twisted into the cloth of her skirt, and something unquiet moved in the trees, now before them, now behind. She sighed and relaxed, let herself slump into a reverie. She caught the flash of firelight on a great black bird’s wing, and felt a bitter cold breeze lift the hair at the back of her neck. For the first time in her twenty four years, she nearly wished to have chosen the priesthood, that she had more than her father’s stories to tell her what waited beyond the sacred square, what waited in Kienviory, what slept with his head on her thigh.
He had neither the scent nor pulse of a liar, in her arms, but it was an impossible story, a clear fabrication. There were things that could be, and things that could not be, not here, not now. Before Iriyll, in the dark old days when the floodgates of other worlds were opened and speaking beasts destroyed the ancient Amarai, when cities warred against each other, and loosed plague and fire across the world, perhaps. Then bodies might have been piled in shallow graves on the steppe of Kammena. There was no reason, no sense in something like that in the thousandth year of Narjoska’s peace-- in the six thousandth year since Sionnach had put the heretics to the fire when they tried to open one of the old roads. She ran a strand of his fine hair between thumb and finger, and turned the facts over in her mind. She had never thought deeply of the gods, but it seemed certain that a crime of that shame could not go unanswered. The scent of fresh cut pine-- larch--wafted from the darkness, like a premonition, and she held Serebryany closer despite herself. Her jaw ached from where she’d bitten through her words and swallowed them in front of Zenaida. She laughed under her breath, laughed at the absurdity of all these things that could not be. Her knees had creaked like wood, and they should have shattered before ever she bowed.
Except for slow reel of the stars as they moved inexorably toward dawn, she felt they might have rested there like a coin that spun on edge forever.
She’d sent out feelers, had whispered fruitless requests for information about any of them. So far as anyone outside of the priesthood knew, they were all what they seemed. The thaumaturges gave no answer, stolid and silent as armor.
Serebryany stirred, rolled onto his back, and woke, but didn’t rise. She rested her hand on his forehead.
“How long did I sleep?”
“As long as you needed to.”
“Thank you.”
“For what?” She asked, and shifted her weight.
“Dvrov gave me a message for you.”
“Dvrov is a keen scholar and a complete ass.”
“He, well, that is your brother told me to tell you to meet them at the old place, after the last night bell. Dvrov told me to tell you to quit fucking around.” Serebryany said glibly.
“Oh, if only.” She answered with a snort.
He sat up and combed his fingers through his hair, and she studied his profile in the soft light that presaged dawn. He looked as nice with a black wash of stubble across his jaw as he did clean shorn. He would always look nice, she decided. He yawned and adjusted his clothes, and whatever weakness had drawn him to her was gone.
“Let’s go and meet them then.” She stretched as he sat up, and added, “I had hoped you were Zduhac, and could scare that shade in the forest away.”
He leaned forward, reached up to tie his hair back and laughed. “I’m pretty good, but not that good. I can’t kill anything in my sleep.”
“You’ll have to show me how good you are, one of these nights.” She shot back, and grinned at his noncommittal snort. “If we’re fast, we can make it to the barrier at Kienviory without any trouble, I think.” She said with more confidence than she felt.
“I’m on foot.” He answered, and rubbed the pad of his thumb thoughtfully along the hilt of his dagger. “besides, you shouldn’t run from something like that. Only attracts its attention.”
“Tiertu can carry two astride.” She answered and gathered herself, stepped beyond the sacred square.
Serebryany searched the shadows while she adjusted her tunic and coat, and he frowned, gestured with his chin and spoke softly. “It’s-- I don’t recall the name in common, it’s hala. The three mouthed bird. She might be why spring won’t break.”
Tura fiddled nonchalantly with Tiertu’s tracings, and paused. “Could it be because of the larch that Armas destroyed? Could the leshii of that tree be--” she faltered, and listened for the flutter of wings.
“She may have eaten its sorrow.” Serebryany stood close behind her, but not close enough to warm the bitter cold that hung in the air.
“Let’s go.” She mounted, and pulled him up behind her, and kept Tiertu to a steady walk. The forest was natural enough, except for the dry shush and drift of wings that followed some paces behind them without breaking. Serebryany put his hand on her hip and hunched forward as they dipped into the relative darkness of the valley. As it closed the gap, the sudden silence was oppressive, alive and covetous.
“She’s coming soon. Before we reach the light.” He murmured into her neck, and the low roll of his voice sent a jolt down into her hips, set her taut in the saddle. Teirtu was flighty now, pulled against the bridle, threatened to rush headlong off the path. She smiled, felt the unaccountable urge to laugh. Things that couldn’t be, and were-- a priest and a blacksmith on the brim of dawn, a madman and a jackal on a deer’s back, and the scent of bitter green pinewood.
“Can we outrun it?” She rumbled over her shoulder, and held the reins steady against the panic she could feel in Teirtu’s shoulders and neck.
“Not a chance. The only way is to stand and face her. If he bolts, she’ll pull our lungs out from our backs before we can cry out.”
She reined Tiertu to a half stop, and sucked in a deep breath that closed her throat with cold. It might have been the sunless depths of deadwinter, where they were. “You know how to fight her?”
He shifted against her, sighed. “Theoretically.”
“You’re Taika’s pet, and all you’ve got is ‘theoretically’?” She asked and pulled Teirtu to an unsteady halt.
“I don’t think that levitation or liturgical dance will save our hides here, speaking personally.” Serebryany snapped, and slid to the ground.
She forced a tinny laugh against the heavy silence, and dismounted.
“What, then?”
He fiddled with his sleeve and looked furtively over his shoulder. The corridor of trees on either side of them was distorted by the aura of the hala as she winged up into the open sky; a smudge that rose high enough to offer false hope of reprieve. The moon waned low toward the west, and the chill grew with the dark.
“I can manifest a barrier, but only for a little while, and only if she’s still.” He muttered, and pulled five long, thick needles from his belt. “I need some of your hair, just in case.”
He reached for a long, loose strand and she nodded, and blinked at the sharp pain when he pulled it out. He wound it around his first finger, and she wished for a few extra moments to ask for an explanation.
“I’ll keep her still. And then?” She demanded, and rubbed the sweaty heel of her palm against the sore spot.
“This isn’t something you can beat to death, not that I don’t respect your courage.” He muttered darkly. “If, by some miracle of divine providence that works, then you ride hard for Kienviory.” He planted his feet wide apart in the frozen road, and pressed the backs of his little fingers together, palms facing outward, a gesture she had only seen in illustrations. The scene was flat and unreal, like a woodblock print hung in some faraway alcove.
“I won’t leave you to die. Something else.” She took his dagger and gripped it tightly against the sweat on her palm. She inhaled, and the scent of him was clear, and distilled into each of its parts, and each seemed quite familiar to her, although nameless. The hala dove with a dissonant shriek, and she was crushed between two pressures, Serebryany’s magic and the demon’s. She pitched forward, skinned her knees on the road, and sank the dagger into the ground to keep from being flattened. The two magics tore at each other as the hala swung toward them.
It was a massive owl with three beaks and six eyes, beaks distended grotesquely, and in each gullet an eyeless face, serene as the face of a doll. She had seen demons, from a distance-- always near the destroyed and the dead. But never one manifested into solid magic. It stopped short of the treetops and wheeled in a lazy circle. It spun its owls head to look at her with each of the faces in succession-- and she was certain it was the faces, not its eyes.
She felt searched, felt a cold dry hand brush up her spine and dance across her shoulder blades. But she had lost its attention.
It made for Serebryany, talons extended, for all the world like a great owl on the hunt. She wrenched the dagger free and rolled to face them. He had written his magic into a holy circle of ice, and he held it above him, braced on his forearms like a great shield. The hala swooped and her claws tore at it and struck sparks as she flapped her wings to push him down. He buckled but didn’t give as the hala threw herself against the circle and tore at it with her beaks, slammed the faces against it with vicious intensity. Her magic was an acrid, formless fug that left a deathly taste in Tura’s mouth. She pushed herself up as he put his strength, perhaps the last of it, into a burst that knocked the demon back.
He wasn’t going to have time to manifest a barrier.
She shook the lead off her feet, and took a running leap into the fetid wings with her hips and shoulders in it. She put her hips and shoulders into it with a silent prayer, choked as she smacked into its leg, and clutched its pinion to weigh it down. A wave of nausea wracked her when her fingers sank into the tangle of soft, rotted flesh and sharp, bony feathers. She stabbed blindly, hoped to keep it down long enough for a reprieve.
It was no good.
It hopped angrily, shook its foot indignantly and pinned her when she hit the ground. The hala pressed down on her sternum, her shoulders squeezed between two of its toes, the third between her knees. She gulped for air, got none and tried a yowl that came out a croak.
Faint lights that might have been needles flashed, and she squeezed her eyes shut as another wave of pressure drove her further into the mud. Wild sparks flew as the hala tried to rise against the falling barrier, too late. It hurled itself against it, and forgot about Tura for long enough to lift up its foot.
Serebryany was as immobile as the demon, and he was an unhealthy shade of white. Tura dragged herself just beyond the barrier and tried to stand, before she gave it up and braced herself on one knee.
It was a five point prison, each needle suspended in midair, spun on its own axis, and then spun again on a swift orbit, stars that made a star.
The hala settled into a crouch, wings askew, and twisted its head this way and that, and rattled its feathers against each each with the scrape of bone on bone. It laughed.
“Give me your liver--” each voice said, not quite in unison, and each at a different, dissonant pitch, “give me your poison, and one can go alive.”
“You’re a kick. You’ll be lucky to get away with so much as a claw intact.” Tura barked, and ground her back teeth together to stop their chatter.
“The boy then.” It twisted its head upside down and each face licked its lips delicately.
Serebryany was colorless with exhaustion, his hands a frostbitten shade of purple, the thews in his neck tight as bowstrings.
“The boy. How pretty.” The hala preened itself, each face smiled. “He’s already hollow. Give him to me.”
Tura felt his magic as close as a garment against her skin, clean, alive, and desperate. It was blue. Not any particular blue, or perhaps all of them. She tasted it, and it was sweet water. The feeling wasn’t unfamiliar, she had made sport in the beds of enough priests to know it, to know that she could reel their power out, could become a lightning rod for it. She’d nearly done in a lanky, freckled thaumaturge before she’d known the danger of her carelessness with the untrained.
“The moon sets.” The hala added, balefully. It was indeed, the last fingernail of it slipped inexorably beneath the horizon. “It’s too late now.”
“I need you to--” Serebryany ground out, agony in his voice. “The hour of the fallen-- I can’t--” he was disoriented, his magic could no longer be drawn from the divine, and he sustained it with his soul, only, she could see, by sheer will. Her hair was wrapped around his finger. “I’m trusting you.” He closed his eyes, and exhaled, braced himself.
“I’m as likely to kill you as that thing is,” Tura snarled, heaved herself up.
“You won’t. I’m trusting you. Just a little more, enough to crush it.”
“Too late, too late.” The hala chirped happily.
“I don’t even know--” she snapped and staggered toward him.
“You only have to know when to stop.” He pulled his ashen lips into the ghost of a smile. “I know you know how to do it, I’ve heard the gossip.”
“If this is how I die, I will absolutely crawl out of my grave and eat your entire family, Veidrodis.” She wrenched open his coat and tunic, pressed her fingers into his ribs. His muscles twitched under her fingers and he shuddered.
“I am the left eyetooth of the great goddess, I am the mirror and the road. Vei and Drojd. I am a way between the roots of sorrow, I am a mirror to dispell the corrupt, I surrender, I endure. ” He intoned, head tipped back, most of his weight on her sore arms. She pressed her fingertips to his skin and fell off the edge of the world.
Her heart was in her throat, and she clinched her teeth against a giddy laugh. She’d made sport, but this was something else again. He rose, suspended, held by the magic that she pulled through him. The hala began to bash furiously against the barrier, as Tura turned toward it, and tried to find her will somewhere in the wild current that lifted her braid off her shoulders and sent a deep pleasure into the pit of her belly. Not the time for that.
Hope rose in her soul as the barrier began to squeeze closer around the demon, forced it to the earth. Not enough though. She could feel his body begin to undo itself, his soul and magic threatened to break free entirely. Useless. He fell with a thump, and the spell was undone. She fell to her knees, lungs full of needles, sweat slicked and choked as the putrid magic of the hala engulfed them. It came toward them, and she scrambled to get in front of Serebryany, held his dagger underhand and forced herself to keep her eyes open. She could see it now, see that it was a writhing mass of spirits under the feathers, each in agony, each trying to devour the next. And under that, three corpses with their hands bound before them, eyes hidden in their clenched fists.
“I am old.” The hala sighed. “I sang mercy once. Mercy did not come.” It stopped short of her, loomed with its wings spread wide. There was a flatness in its owl eyes as they stared at each other.
“Alkanost.” Tura said, and searched its eyes for some recognition.
“You cannot purify me.” It answered noncommittally, and flexed the foot that had held her down gingerly. “I am old. So much sorrow to eat on this wheat and rye plain.”
“But you can’t eat me.” Tura said, grateful for her hitherto useless status as inviolable.
“I could.” It blink its owl eyes rapidly now, and turned its head upside down again. “But I don’t need to. You’ll leave me so many things to eat.”
“Bullshit.” She shot back, and tottered on her feet.
“I can wait. I’ve already eaten a sorrow from your root.” It said flatly. The face of the larch dryad that her brother had dispossessed pushed out from between the breast feathers of the hala, contorted into a mask of dread and rage, no longer green wood, but splinters and sap. It sank into the morass again and was lost.
“That was--” Tura growled, but the hala held the sharp tip of its pinion to her lips.
“Your root. You’ve won my favor. And him,” the faces smiled, showing ghastly white teeth, perfect teeth. “He is already tangled in your roots. When you cut him free, I’ll eat his poison.” It cackled, and held its wing up to its mouth, tore out its own pinion and dropped it at her feet. She opened her mouth to speak, but it had already gone. Dawn had begun to stretch her limbs into the dark sky.
The malevolence in that single feather had its own taste, when she reached for it. It was light, like the shed skin of a spider, but without any fragility. She curled her fingers around it defiantly, silenced its thrum, and tucked it into her belt. Serebryany coughed behind her, and cursed in the back of his throat, low and thick as drunk in his cups. She could see his spirits twine and rise, vivid in the half light, lit from within like fox fire, and turned dizzily, still on her knees.
He was prone, swayed on his forearms, with a flat glitter in his eyes, pupils contracted to inkdrops. He looked at her without any recognition, charnel house eyes in a limestone face, the faint lines of his veins showed under the tight skin across his cheekbones. They tottered toward each other, he heaved himself to his knees, tried to stand and pitched forward. He slung his arms around her neck and rested his forehead against the collar of her coat, his jaw clenched hard enough to work the muscles convulsively.
“Why--” her throat stuck, and she coughed, and slumped down, let him rest his cheek on her shoulder. His breath was fast and faint against her neck. “Why would you make me your murderer?”
His shoulders trembled, and he buried his laughter, bitter, frantic laughter, in the wool of her coat. She felt the tug where it bunched up when he bit it, stifled and choked himself until the chatter of his teeth stilled.
“Because I knew it would feel good.” He said, and his voice was as flat as his eyes, with a howl underneath. “I’ve got no courage-- I want--” he curled closer to her, and his stubble scraped her neck, the cold of his cheek made her jump, “I’m afraid of pain-- I’m afraid to live.” He began to shiver hard, and lost his voice in the clink of his teeth.
“Come on.” She panted as she wriggled free of her coat and draped it over him. She whistled for Tiertu, squeaky and broken, but enough to bring him back through the brush. It was a trick, getting the two of them into the saddle, Serebryany was loose and heavy against her back, and she pulled her blouse free of her skirts and sucked air in through her teeth at the coldness of his hands against her belly. He rested his face in the crook of her neck, and she kept Tiertu to a slow amble. There wouldn’t be any hope of getting them up again if they fell.
“Warm.” He crooned into her hair, his stiff fingers splayed against her skin.
“Who are you, even?” She answered sharply, her throat raw.
“I’m tired.” he yawned theatrically, and she nudged him with a hard shrug. He was too cold to fall asleep.
“Wake up, beautiful.”
“I’m a very--” he laughed again, and wrapped his arms more closely around her waist, “very serious person. Studious person.”
“Mmm.”
“You may not believe this but it’s very, very true-- I’m the third youngest in the whole--” he tried to make a gesture and got tangled in her shirttails. “In the long and storied history of my family, to have...” he lost his thought when he felt the sharp end of the hala’s pinion where it poked up through her belt.
“You’re not real.” He said solemnly.
“Possibly.”
Kienviory lay below them now, and he had pulled his hands away, braced himself against her shoulders. She reached up to tuck them back down the front of her shirt.
“What’s wrong with you?” She asked, when he curled his hands into loose fists.
“Jabuchilo.”
She snorted, and shook her head. “That kills people, you know.”
“I need more magic. I can’t face her with my own strength. I never could.”
“They say you pay with year of your life for every dram you drink.”
“Why would I care?”
She twisted to look over her shoulder, but her ribs were on fire.
“Why wouldn’t you?”
He uncurled his fingers, let them drift idly across her chest with the sway of the ride. “Why did I just tell you that?” He mumbled.
“Because you’re drunk on your own magic, and maybe feeling a little guilty for using me to stage your own very neat suicide-- and I have to say, it would have been all sewn up; I’m untrained, I panicked, it was a desperate scene, send the body home, snuff the light out, the play is over.” She rambled, angry, thirsty, and profoundly tired.
“Fire for a heart. All hunger, no fear, no regret. Not even courage, just ignorance and instinct. You could’ve run.” He answered, bitterly.
“Oh, you can be charmless, too? I liked you more when you were desperately trying to convince me that the Igaveni were singlehandedly perpetrating mass murder completely unnoticed.”
“Oh, the girls, the boys, they all like me.” He sounded tired and small. “But not you. It would be easier if you did.”
“You’d be dead on the road and I’d be left holding the bag, if all I did was like your beautiful face.”
He let his fingers rest between her breasts, and sighed against her ear. His blood was back, at least.
“Do that to me again, sometime.”
“I like my pleasures without mortal peril.” She answered glibly, and pulled Tiertu up at the inconspicuous fork off the road that was a cut into the temple granary.
“Go sleep. Or eat more poison. Don’t even think of pitching into the next world. You dragged my brothers into this mess, whatever it is, and I’m telling you, you’re going with us to the other side of it.”
He was still and stiff for a long moment, and then he relaxed held her tightly again, face buried in her tangled hair. He slid to the ground and staggered off toward the north gate, took the faint gleam of his spirits with him. She almost believed she could trace his path through the stone walls.
I don't usually put a blurb up front of these, but hey y'all:
Check out the original fantasy story that is my current struggle project in progress. If you dig unique settings, intrigue, slacker anti-heroines, actual main characters who are not white, magic, Slavic folklore and many many double entendres, you might enjoy Troika. Or you might not, in which case you should totally tell my why it's terrible.
He slept like a silent fiddle, still, and quite quietly, but there was tension on his face, a song that waited to be played. His spirits, white hounds and faint grey winter birds, prowled and flickered around them with tireless agitation, as forest spirits of moss ad flowers burnished and preened themselves in the warmth of the shrine fire. She slid up until his cheek rested on her lap and stretched out her numb foot and arm, stroked his hair thoughtlessly. She eyed Tiertu where he stood and pawed at the young grass that had just begun to stir under the snow. There was another bottle in the saddlebag, and she was too sober already. But Serebryany had his fingers twisted into the cloth of her skirt, and something unquiet moved in the trees, now before them, now behind.
She sighed and relaxed, let herself go still and drift into a reverie. She caught the flash of firelight on a great black wing, and felt a bitter cold breeze lift the hair at the back of her neck. She wished, for the first time in her twenty four years, that she had chosen to join the priesthood, that she had more than her father’s stories to tell her what waited beyond the sacred square, what waited in Kienviory, what slept with its head on her thigh.
He had neither the scent nor pulse of a liar, in her arms, but it was an impossible story, a clear fabrication. There were things that could be, and things that could not be, not here, not now. Before Iriyll, in the dark old days when the floodgates of other worlds were opened and speaking beasts walked with Amarai, when cities warred against each other, and loosed plague and fire across the world. Then bodies might have been piled in shallow graves on the steppe of Kammena. There was no reason, no sense in something like that in the thousandth year of Narjoska’s peace-- in the six thousandth year since Sionnach had put the heretics to the fire when they tried to open one of the old roads. She ran a strand of his fine hair between thumb and finger, and turned the facts over in her mind. She had never thought deeply of the gods, but it seemed certain that a crime of that shame could not go unanswered. The scent of fresh cut pine-- larch, wafted over her from the darkness, like a premonition, and she held Serebryany closer despite herself. Her jaw ached from where she’d bitten through her words and swallowed them in front of Zenaida. Things that could not be. Her knees had creaked like wood, and they should have shattered before ever she bowed.
Except for slow reel of the stars as they moved inexorably toward dawn, she felt they might have rested there balanced like a coin that spun on edge forever.
She’d sent out feelers, had whispered fruitless requests for information about any of them. So far as anyone outside of the priesthood knew, they were all what they seemed. The thaumaturges gave no answer, stolid and silent as armor.
Serebryany stirred, flipped onto his back, and woke, but didn’t rise. She rested her hand on his forehead.
“How long did I sleep?”
“As long as you needed to.”
“Thank you.”
“For what?” She asked, and rolled her tired shoulders.
“Dvrov gave me a message for you.”
“Dvrov is a keen scholar and a complete ass.”
“He, well, that is your brother told me to tell you to meet them at the old place, after the last night bell. Dvrov told me to tell you to quit fucking around.” Serebryany said glibly.
“Oh, if only.” She answered with a snort.
He sat up and combed his fingers through his hair, and she studied his profile in the soft light that presaged dawn. He looked as nice with a black wash of stubble across his jaw as he did clean faced. He would always look nice, she decided. He yawned and adjusted his clothes, and whatever weakness had drawn him to her was gone.
“Let’s go and meet them then. I had hoped you were Zduhac, and could scare that shade in the forest away.”
He leaned forward, reached up to tie his hair back and laughed. “I’m pretty good, but not that good. I can’t kill anything in my sleep.”
“You’ll have to show me how good you are, one of these nights.” She shot back, and grinned at his feigned frown. “If we’re fast, we can make it to the barrier at Kienviory without any trouble, I think.”
“I’m on foot.” He answered, and rubbed the pad of his thumb thoughtfully along the hilt of his dagger. “besides, you shouldn’t run from something like that. It attracts its attention.”
“Tiertu can carry two astride.” She answered and gathered herself, stepped beyond the sacred square.
Serebryany searched the gray shadows while she adjusted her tunic and coat, and he frowned, gestured with his chin and spoke softly. “It’s-- I don’t recall the name in common, it’s hala. The three mouthed raven. She might be why spring won’t break.”
Tura fiddled nonchalantly with Tiertu’s tracings, and paused. “Could it be because of the larch that Armas destroyed? Could the leshii of that tree be--” she faltered, and listened for the flutter of wings.
“She may have eaten its sorrow.” Serebryany stood close behind her, but not close enough to warm the bitter cold that hung in the air.
“Let’s go.” She mounted, and pulled him up behind her, and kept Tiertu to a steady walk. The forest was uncannily silent, except for the dry shush and drift of wings that followed thirty paces behind them without breaking. Serebryany put his hand on her hip and hunched forward as they dipped into the relative darkness of the valley. The silence was oppressive, alive and covetous.
“She’s coming soon. Before we reach the light.” He murmured into her neck, and the low roll of his voice sent a jolt down into her belly, set her taut in the saddle. Teirtu was flighty now, pulled against the bridle, threatened to rush headlong off the path. She smiled, felt the unaccountable urge to laugh. Things that couldn’t be, and were-- a priest and a blacksmith on the brim of dawn, a madman and a jackal on a deer’s back, and the scent of bitter green pinewood.
“Can we outrun it?” She rumbled over her shoulder, and held herself against the restless yank of the reins.
“Not a chance. The only way is to stand and face her on foot. If he bolts, she’ll pull our lungs out from our backs before we can cry out.”
She reined Tiertu to a half stop, and sucked in a deep breath that closed her throat with cold. It might have been the sunless depths of deadwinter, where they were. “You know how to fight her?”
He shifted against her, sighed. “In theory. Just not alone.”
An elan gripped Serebryany when he entered the inner shrine. It was a long tall room, warm with polished wood, and long red silks that hung from the rafters so that the warm yellow light was dimmed and softened.
Elation crept into him as the song began, and it prickled along his nerves while the Irillemeiri’s boy’s voice danced in the fragrant cedar beams of the inner shrine. He had an extraordinarily clear timbre and bell perfect pitch, so true and pure that it ought to have been visible. It wound like unspooled silk among the white antlers that were arranged to hold Brigd’s spirit house and the sacred relics:
Brigd’s undying flame in its great golden bowl, reflected in a white copper mirror, the jeweled scale armor of the last empress Narjoska, and boughs of golden larch in an opaline vase, their needles in perpetual autumn color.
The scent of sweet flags filled the room as the Veduny crushed them under her feet with every dance step. He had the dreamlike sensation of clear vision, and heavy limbs, and a throat so thick he checked his face for tears. The red silk of her robes floated around her, and the firelight flashed on her dark arms, her transfigured face. Her linen skirt billowed out around her, spun like a downy seed in a breeze, and she floated between steps, levitated in the perfumed air. The steps were different than the ones at his ascension, and Taika danced like a graceful little bird, flitted from place to place so precisely and quickly that it dizzied him.
It rose and rose, glory to the uncreated ever created world, and everything buzzed and resonated with the song, Armas Irillemei was consumed by it himself, had become a conduit for the sound of pure magic. The presence of the Goddess was intense, and reminded him of sitting in a kiln oven, as though his magic were glaze on an earthen vessel, fired into something more.
The women each gleamed, Zenaida in her peacock blue, with her red hair that drew light around her face and showed it smooth as an etching, unreal, a mask of beneficence. Sorya Irillemeiri’s expression was poignant, fixed on her son. Even Selya’s face was soft and almost gentle. Orlaveta was aflame with the divine light, her eyes strained open in a rictus of vision. But it was Tura that drew his eye, with red light hung on her hair, and iron in her eyes. She was substantial, tangible and sharp in her shadows and light; he felt her as the only thing clearly visible in a thick fog.
Zenaida’s voice, when she asked Tura to bow, was a faint vibration in the reverential silence that followed the song. He wanted to cry out as she lowered herself, but his throat was too thick for sound, and their eyes met as she rose and turned, and held. There was a fell hunger in her look, and the skin around her mouth and eyelids was taut and pale under the kohl she wore. She laid him bare, assessed him, and he saw some snap of choice, and a flash of desire. He felt a flush creep up his chest and throat, and burn across his face. The noose went slack when she turned away, and he stifled a suffocated gasp.
The moment passed, and they made toasts and offered congratulations to Armas. Serebryany stumbled through them like a puppet, and caught Orlaveta and Zenaida eyeing him as he spilled akavit onto his cuff. He was transfixed by Tura’s closed face, it seemed like a stage on which the curtains had closed over something important, glimpsed and now hidden.
“Trevoved Veidrodis, are you well?” Orlaveta asked gently, and took his empty cup.
He cleared his throat and pushed his hair back from his face with an unsteady hand, and mustered up what he hoped was a convincing smile. “I’m deeply moved by the service, Charodetsya. I don’t believe I’ve ever heard anyone perform the litany with so much power.”
She smiled conspiratorially at him and sipped her liquor. “I have to say, this was that child’s finest hour. I had no idea he was capable of such grace. As a rule, I would call him anxious and unfocused. Your Zenaida is clearly a fine influence.”
He nodded absently, and drifted towards the Irillemeiri, tried to pick out the threads of their low conversation as he poured himself another drink.
“Sobachka, you wound me.” Zenaida muttered in his ear, caught Tura’s sharp eye, and smiled a feral smile in her direction.
“That’s enough. You’ve had your fun for tonight.” He answered, and turned to watch Dvrov grip Tura by her upper arm and lean into speak urgently to her, by the set of his face. She looked sullen, and said nothing, went to her brother and threw her arms around him roughly, and kissed him on the forehead. She rested her cheek there for a moment, and then loosed him so that his mother could do the same. Selya stood by herself apart from the rest and glowered until Zenaida,went to her to begin a murmured conversation.
He felt overwhelmed by the tangle and movement in the small room, and his temples pounded, whether from drink, incense or tension or the exhaustion of lies, he couldn’t say. He reached up to rub them and mustered another smile as the Irillemeiri husband walked to him, and bowed slightly.
“You must belong to the Charodetsya-- let’s see. Veidrodis, if my eyes don’t lie.”
Serebryany raised his brows in surprise and nodded. “I-- yes. Serebryany. An honor to meet you, bedza.”
“Koit, once Emeiri, of house Slavopoyi. But please, don’t call me uncle, it makes me feel like an old man. I met your Doma at Velikogo, you favor them.” Koit smiled broadly and raised his cup kindly.
“So I’ve heard. Emeiri? That explains Valomir’s voice.”
Serebryany took him in, a tall dark man, inclined towards thinness, with a mop of dark curly hair and impish brown eyes. He had friendly, refined features, and the mellifluous voice one would expect from one of the family of great musicians.
“He’s been going by Armas for years. But thank you; perhaps he’ll redeem my name in the eyes of my family,” Koit flashed a toothy grin, and Serebryany saw some of him in Tura then, “I was a wretched singer-- no memory for the litanies.” He laughed, and there was music in his laughter too. They both drank at that same time, and the muted buzz of other conversations drifted around them.
“Is that why--” Serebryany caught himself, and coughed behind his curled hand to cover his misstep. “Excuse me. It’s just unusual--”
“To see someone like me out of the service?” Koit finished his question with a smile. He glanced deliberately at Tura, and sipped his drink. “She reminds me so much of her mother. They’d both have my hide for saying it, but it’s true. When I met Soraya, she was like a sudden storm in summer.” He smiled into his drink and continued without looking at Serebryany. “She was-- free. Free but so certain, and so completely herself.” He looked at Zenaida and the corner of his mouth turned up slightly. “Not as constrained as the men and women I’d loved before. Not as calculated.” He murmured.
“A toast to your happiness then.” Serebryany said, and they clinked the rims of their cups together.
“Be a friend to my son. It looks like you could both use one.” Koit said, and tossed back the rest of his drink. “Come up and see me sometime. You have a harpists hands, and I can fit you an instrument that can’t be bought or bargained for anywhere else.” He nodded and abruptly turned to rejoin his wife.
People drifted out in pairs and threes, and he caught the coattails of Dvrov and Armas as they went.
“My commendations, Irillemeiri.” He said as he trotted to walk abreast with them.
“Thank you, Trevoved.” Armas answered flatly. His freckles stood out across the bridge of his nose, and there were deep shadows in the hollows of his cheeks, more apparent in the lanternlit hall than in the half light of the inner shrine. Dvrov looked at him inquiringly, but kept silent.
“I don’t believe I’ll ever hear a more extraordinary rendition of the litany, I know I certainly haven’t before.” Serebryany continued amiably as they walked in step.
“Repay me by way of bringing my sister to me tonight, to the old place. She’ll know where it is. After the last night bell.” Armas said softly, and looked ahead.
“Find her and tell her to quit fucking around.” Dvrov muttered, and they linked arms and turned the corner. He rubbed his thumb over the pommel of his dagger thoughtfully, and went to his rooms.
It was dark and still, and he tamped down the thought of sleep, the fatigue that dragged at him in tandem with anxious restlessness. He rummaged for his coat by the light of a tipsy half moon, and sat heavily on the bed, with his ankles crossed and the heels of his hands hard on his knees. The drink had turned into a headache, and the ghost of Zenaida’s breath and touch clung to him everywhere, left a veneer of dirtiness on him that wouldn’t wash out.
Selya saw him go down the hall, but remained silent. He walked through the cold city, and found his way back to Radosti street. The tavern was relatively quiet, and Tamar was deep into a conversation with a slender dark Thaumaturge in gaudy robes, beaded with gold and copper. She nodded her recognition at him, and he took a seat out of the way at the end of the bar, and waited. She drifted casually to him, poured him a drink and for herself, and rested her crossed forearms on the bartop.
“She’s not here. She was, but she’s not now.” Tamar grumbled, and studied his face. “I’m not her messenger service or yours, either.”
“Maybe I just wanted a drink.” Serebryany rejoined peevishly.
“Sure you did. Like I want seven kids and work at the leech fields.”
He couldn’t stifle his laughter, and Tamar’s expression softened, showed the questions and the fears under the irritation. “Armas and Dvrov sent me.”
Tamar stayed silent for a long moment, and searched his face. “I’ll tell you where to find her. for them. But--” she broke off and looked him in the eye. “She was the first one that knew I was born with the wrong body. I suppose she could just see it, and she never asked a thing. Just waited for me to need to talk, and when I did, she listened. And when I needed someone to hold my hand, when I went to the healer for the change, it wasn’t my mother I wanted to hold my hand, it was Tura. And she did. So I’ll tell you where to find her. But if you betray her, if you betray her family, I’ll take it out of your teeth.”
“Alright.”
“That’s it?” She pursed her lips at him, and shook her head. “Alright?”
“Alright. I understand. You want to make sure I’m not a threat. And if I protest, that makes me look guilty. So Alright.”
“You’re not drinking.” Tamar gestured at his full glass.
He fished a silver out of his purse and flipped it. It landed dog’s head up on the bar, and he pushed it toward her. “I’ve already had too much tonight. You drink it. On me.”
She grinned at him, and her brown eyes turned warm again. “Tura has all the luck. Follow the road up past Kienviory, towards Imperial Woman. You’ll see the fork to Vesna’s shrine. She only goes there when she’s got a grouch on, and she was seeing blood tonight. That’s where she’ll be.”
He slapped the bar lightly, and nodded to her as he rose. “Thank you.”
“Oh and Veidrodis. Watch out for yourself in those woods. I’d hate to see a pretty face like yours wasted like that.” She grinned at him and finished her drink in a single swallow.
“I’ll stay on my feet.” He returned her smile, patted the sheath of his dagger and turned toward the door.
The road went up and rose out of Kiengrod, and further up, beyond where it forked toward Kienviory. The lanterns stopped where the older houses tapered off into the forest proper, and left him to navigate the frozen slush by moonlight. It was still except for the occasional cold sigh through the treetops, and the sea boomed far below, and faded into the rustle of the live wood as he pressed further from the city. A few windows shone faintly through the trees here and there, floated like foxfire in the clear dark. The view from rise in the road where the trees broke above a slope into the last valley at the foot of Imperial Woman mountain stopped him.
He had seen it before, under clouded skies in the daylight, but the full force of it struck him now, jagged and soft under a veil of thousand year snow, unbreachable, and serene--a soldier surrounded by her fallen, a priestess and her acolytes, a mother and her children. Polar lights moved in the sky above the peak, white and thin, like a curtain lifted by a soft wind; the frozen road was a mirror under the moonlight, a broad river that flowed both ways, a paradox created by the eyes of the traveler. That friendly thought drew him down towards the distant rooftop of the forest shrine, and the solitude deepened with the shadows of the trees, indifferent shadows of a forest busy about its own lives, which were many and careless of his woes or desires.
The pines and larches towered into a colonnade that hid everything but a cord of sky and the very white tip of the mountain, and he smelt the clean, cold scent of frosted trees, with life that waited wick and green in them. The track to Vesna’s shrine was marked, and wound away from the main highway and between thickets of juniper and the dried stalks of grass. It was well worn but not smooth, and he stumbled his way forward over roots and frosty rivulets, encouraged by the scent of smoke and finally the faint glow of a bonfire.
It was a beautiful shrine, a small building of cedar that was weathered silver, every lintel carved with flowers, the windows honeycombed quartz crystals. There were no doors here, only curtains of fine green wool, embroidered and jeweled with spring flowers. This was a place of rest for weary travelers, a place for weddings and, he reflected wryly, lovers to vow and consummate vows. Tura sat on a stone bench close to the fire, with her back to him. She held a bottle high when she heard him, but said nothing.
He sat down heavily on the bench beside her and held out his chilled hands without looking at her.
“Hail winter; for in a luminous robe her beloved has covered the mortal wounds of the earth, both north and south, hail spring;” she intoned the prayer solemnly but with a very slight slur, “her sister has cloaked her in flowers and draws out the sap of creation undying. Hail summer, the all mother has gilt the mantle of grain upon her breast. Hail autumn; her twinborn children, both death and time have wrapped her funerary red.” She held up her bottle again, and took a long drink, and then passed it to him. He took a swallow, and the taste of honey lingered on his tongue while the whiskey started a fire of its own in his stomach.
“I--” he started and then stopped to look sidelong at her. She had bound up her hair loosely, and wore a thick collar of sheepskin high around her neck.
“If you apologize, I think I’ll feed myself to a bear.” She cleared her throat and cocked her head at him, “or a leopard. Tamar tell you where to find me?”
He nodded and looked away from her, watched the flames rise. “It was ugly, tonight.”
“You’re very good at sitting still, looking wonderful, and not saying anything that isn’t wretchedly obvious, aren’t you?” She said, and held up a finger to silence him. “I was nursing what’s left of my dignity and sharing a nice solitary bottle with the goddess, which I like to do when I’ve been pushed around, but here you are again, like a cat that lives in two houses.” She stared at him, her lips parted slightly, with the ghost of a smile at the corners.
“I feel as though I can tell you everything.” He smiled ruefully at her curled lip and shrugged. “Maybe it’s because you’re so much yourself in all the ways I’m not. Perhaps I just can’t stand to look at all my troubles all alone, and I want someone like you to see them and tell me they’re small and stupid and easy to fix after all.”
She rolled her eyes and licked her upper lip with the tip of her tongue, rested the back of her head on the benchtop, and sighed at the stars. “Because our troubles are loosely related,” she poured the last of her whiskey into her open mouth and gulped noisily, “you want me to share whatever it is that has the black all beat out of your steel, and my brother’s, and I’m angry enough, just fucking angry enough to say go on ahead.”
“I need to ask you something, because I need to know that I’m not seeing things, that I’m not that far gone.”
“This is the fourth time we’ve met, and you want me to confirm your faculties?” She waved her empty bottle and shook her head. “But why not. Nothing else makes any damn sense. I had to bow to get my brother into a position he didn’t really want, because you said so. I haven’t got much left to lose, but the night is young.” She finished, bitterly.
He turned to rest his ribs against the back of the bench, and drew in a deep breath. “When you looked at me. Earlier I mean, after the-- when you looked at me, what were you thinking?”
She sat up, and drew closer to him, hunched over to rest her elbows on the tops of her thighs, and her chin on her knitted fingers. “You want the truth, or whatever will make you feel best?” She asked him, and her eyes were keen and dark behind the whiskey glaze.
“The truth.”
“I was thinking about how much I wanted to break your Igaveni’s face. First her nose, and then her jaw, and then the socket of her eye, and then her teeth. And then I looked at you.” She paused and sucked in a deep breath, sighed it out slowly.
“And I decided that I was going to take you away from her. One way or another. You’re important to her, and so she can’t keep you.” She smiled with the tip of her tongue stuck out between her teeth, and he cursed the heat in his face.
“So I’m just a thing, a way to score one off on her?” He asked quietly.
“You’ve got it all wrong beautiful. It’s clear as a hundred bells that you don’t want to be with her. You turn all green when she gets near you. Not in a way most can see, but you get sick in your soul when she’s around.”
“And you’re going to save me? Sweep me up behind you and run away like in an old fashioned love song?”
“I don’t think you were listening. I said I was going to take you away from her. I never said anything about running off across the furthest sea together.” She sat back, nestled into the crook of the bench, and crossed her arms loosely over her breast.
“I have good reason to be where I am. With who I’m with.” He rubbed the back of his hand across his mouth.
“Of course you do. At least a quarter of all my acquaintances agree that I’m delightful company.” She said and leered at him.
“So you were just-- it’s just about revenge.”
“What do you want me to say? That I’d ride you like a war horse if that’s what you wanted, or that I wouldn’t no matter what, because you’re all broken up and lonely and maybe you want that so much that you shouldn’t want it at all?”
“I don’t-- damnit. Don’t make me sound so tragic.” He muttered, and wiped the sweat of his palms off on the hem of his coat.
“Don’t act so damn tragic.” She shot back.
“So what if I’m lonely. Doing what needs must gets lonely.” He mumbled.
“Oh for the god’s sake. We’re going in circles, because we’re both acting clever trying to play it like cards and bluff, and it’s all so stupid I could just spit.”
She sat forward, and held out her hand. “Come here and put your head on my shoulder and tell me all your troubles.”
Her hand was hot and dry, and she laced her fingers through his, and he let himself fall, lat himself curl up against the warmth and solidity of her that radiated even through their clothes. It was more than a casual embrace between strangers, but nothing beyond what might be shared by close friends, he told himself as a loose strand of her hair tickled his forehead, and the scent of her perfume incised itself into his memory and senses. He was glad to have worn a heavy tunic and heavier cloak.
She threw her arm over his shoulders and rested her hand softly on his coat collar, his head tucked between her neck and shoulder, and he couldn’t see her face, so he watched the pulse in her wrist instead, steady and slow. He squeezed his eyes shut against the sudden hunger to see what it would take to make it faster, against the image of her thighs wrapped around him-- ‘ride you like a war horse’-- she’d said. But she’d never said if it were true. He cleared his throat and put the thought away.
“Do you remember the changeling plague?”
She stirred and settled again, and tapped her fingers thoughtfully on his chest. “Sure. Inexplicable children without parents. Nobody remembered them, we used to tell each other scary stories about it when I was kid.”
“It wasn’t just children appearing from nowhere, though,” he continued quietly. “There were also people who had signs of giving birth, but couldn’t remember anything. Thaumaturges, mainly, and a few priests. There was no logic, no pattern of infection to it, even though everyone assumed that an ancient war cache had been opened.”
“Unnaming?” She asked, her voice edged.
“They thought of that too. But that’s-- it’s serious magic. And it’s not written anywhere. If a crime that severe happens, the gods send a Gamayun with the spell, she sings when it’s done, and the spell is lost again.”
“Couldn’t a demon pass it along to someone?”
“It’s meant to be absolutely foolproof-- Gamayun speak in fire, too pure to be heard by lesser things. And besides, it shouldn’t be possible to work on a newborn. They haven’t been given a name at all.”
“You said shouldn’t, not wouldn’t, which implies that you believe, or at least suspect that that’s exactly what did happen.”
“I do now. I was fascinated with the phenomenon, in a macabre way, and I looked for a pattern. I never found one, until after Vlasta Igaveni died. I went to Raudkvi in Kamenna for her funeral, and it was--” he trailed off, and wound her arm around her waist.
“It’s not the way it was when I was young. There’s a cloud of dust that smells like corpses that hang over everything, even the city, and nobody speaks. The silence and the fear are suffocating. I followed Zenaida, the night after, out onto the steppe.”
“I’d heard about a labor shortage there, fallow fields and a need for food from other nations, but--” Tura trailed off.
“I know it sounds fantastic. I know. That even Zenaida would be leave her mother’s house, her mother’s spirit the day after her funeral. But she did. So I followed her. She was-- she is different too. We knew each other when we were small, we were friends, like children are.”
“I didn’t realize.”
“She used to be-- different.” he sighed. “I followed her and it was so dark. It was dry, and still and so dark. But I know;” he swallowed hard, “I know what I saw. I know what I caught scent of. And Zenaida knows it too. There were so many.” He pushed down a retch and held her more tightly, held her like a half drowned man with the only piece of driftwood in the sea. Tura reached down to cover his hand with hers, and let the silence stretch out, waited patiently.
“There were bodies out there. Just piled up like tailings. There were old people, and children. I-- there were hundreds. And some of them were-- they had been there a long time.”
“What was Zenaida doing?” Tura asked softly.
“She was burning them. It must have been something Vlasta had done-- but there was no pattern. No way to have known.”
“So you what, proposed to her on the spot?”
He shuddered and she squeezed his hand apologetically. “I’m sorry. I just don’t follow how you got from there to here.”
“I ran. And I went home. And I was ill. There was no-one to corroborate my story, no evidence left, even though I told my Doma, my cousin, anyone who I thought I could trust. There was nothing to be done, and I thought-- hoped that it was over. But new changelings kept appearing and then she asked for me and I had to...” he curled into her, into himself.
“I couldn’t just let it happen. I had to try to find out, to stop her, to do something. Someone had to do something. But I can’t be close to her. She has some use for me,” he spoke in an unsteady rush now, the truth like an icy river that had thawed, “and I’m afraid of what it will be, and I’m afraid for your brother, and I still don’t know the truth.
An elan gripped Serebryany, slowly, when he entered the inner shrine. It was a long, tall room, warm with red wood, and long red silks hung from the rafters and the ceilings, so that the warm yellow light was dimmed and softened. It crept into him, as the song began, and danced in the fragrant cedar beams of the inner shrine, wound among the white antlers that were arranged to hold Brigd’s spirit house, and the sacred relics; Brigd’s undying flame in its great golden bowl, reflected in a white copper mirror, the dragon scale armor of the last empress Narjoska, and boughs of golden larch in an opaline vase, their needles in perpetual autumn color.
The scent of sweet flags filled the room as the Veduny crushed them under her feet, nimble and lithe in her dance. He had the dreamlike sensation of clear vision, and heavy limbs, and a throat so thick he checked his face for tears. The red silk of her robes floated around her, and the firelight flashed on her dark arms, her tranfigured face. Her linen skirt was billowed out around her, spun like a feather in the wind, so that she seemed lifted between heaven and earth.
The song rose and rose, glory to the uncreated ever created world, and everything seemed to buzz and resonate with it, and Armas Irillemeiri seemed to fold into it himself, and become a conduit for the sound of pure magic. His voice was clear and pure and sweet, without weakness, unwavering as a bell, and the Goddess seemed present in the warmth of the room, seemed to echo back her praises. Serebryany felt the hair on his body stand on end, and had the dreamlike sensation of physical paralysis coupled with an intense clarity of sense. The women each gleamed, Zenaida in her peacock blue, with her red hair that drew light around her face and showed it smooth as an etching, unreal, a mask of beneficence. Sorya Irillemeiri’s face was poignant, fixed on her son. Even Selya’s face was soft and almost gentle. Orlaveta was aflame with the divine light, her eyes strained open in a rictus of vision. But it was Tura that drew his eye, with red reflecting off her hair, and iron in her eyes. She was solid, substantial, tangible and sharp in her shadows and light; he felt her as the only real person in a dream.
Zenaida’s voice, when she asked Tura to bow, seemed faint in the silence after the song. He tried to cry out as she lowered herself, but his throat was too thick for sound, and their eyes met as she rose and turned, and held. He felt the noose go slack then, and stifled a gasp for air.
But the moment passed, and they made toasts and offered congratulations to Armas. Serebryany stumbled through them like a puppet, and caught Orlaveta and Zenaida eyeing him as he spilled akavit onto his cuff. He was transfixed by Tura’s closed face, it seemed like a stage on which the curtains had closed over something important, glimpsed and now hidden.
“Trevoved Veidrodis, are you well?” Orlaveta asked gently, and took his empty cup.
He cleared his throat and pushed his hair back from his face with an unsteady hand, and mustered up what he hoped was a charming smile. “I’m deeply moved by the service, Charodetsya. I don’t believe I’ve ever heard anyone perform the litany with so much power.”
She smiled conspiratorially at him and sipped her liquor. “I have to say, this was that child’s finest hour. I had no idea he was capable of such grace. As a rule, I would call him anxious and unfocused. Your Zenaida is clearly a fine influence.”
He nodded agreeably at her and drifted towards the Irillemeiri, tried to pick out the threads of their low conversation as he poured himself another drink.
“Sobachka, you wound me.” Zenaida muttered in his ear, caught Tura’s sharp eye, and smiled a feral smile in her direction.
“That’s enough. You’ve had your fun for tonight.” He answered, and turned to watch Dvrov grip Tura by her upper arm and whisper something urgent. She looked sullen, and said nothing, went to her brother and threw her arms around him roughly, and kissed him on the forehead. She rested her cheek there for a moment, and then loosed him so that his mother could do the same. Selya stood by herself and glowered. Zenaida left him and went to her to begin a murmured conversation.
He felt overwhelmed by the tangle and movement in the small room, and his temples pounded, whether from drink, incense or tension. He reached up to rub them and mustered another smile as the Irillemeiri husband walked to him, and bowed slightly.
“You must belong to the Charodetsya-- let’s see. Veidrodis, if my eyes don’t lie.”
Serebryany raised his brows in surprise and nodded. “I-- yes. An honor to meet you, bedza...”
“Koit, once Emeiri, of house Slavopoyi. But please, don’t call me uncle, it makes me feel like an old man.” Koit smiled broadly and raised his cup kindly.
“Emeiri? That explains Valomir’s voice.” Serebryany took him in, a tall man, inclined towards thinness, with a mop of dark wavy hair, tied back loosely. He had friendly, refined features, and the mellifluous voice one would expect from one of the family of great temple singers.
“Perhaps he’ll redeem my name in the eyes of the family,” Koit flashed a toothy grin, and Serebryany saw some of him in Tura then, “I was a wretched singer-- no memory for the litanies. So I took off my vestments, went haring off after Sorya, and they haven’t so much as warbled at me since.” He laughed, and there was music in his laughter too.
The library vault was unusually chilly, and a draft moved through the labyrinth at random, pushed this and way and that by the movement of doors in the corridors above. Dvrov shivered and wrapped himself more tightly in his woolen overcoat. He flexed his long toes and cracked them in his boots, and tucked his hands into his underarms to warm them. The snow had continued, fitfully, for weeks, and was moving inland, where it threatened the budding fruit trees and farms below Kiengrod.
The city was caught in a miserable twilight of frost and sea fog and winds that cut through furs and scarves. He blew on his hands and rubbed them together in the yellow, heatless glow of the lanterns. He had always waited for the brief spring and summer in the North, restless to feel the sun and smell life and movement on the air. It was worse now that he was doubly confined. Armas saw the endless cold as a proof of the impurity he had created, and that, in concert with his near constant contact with Zenaida, had made him fragile and sharp as the frost that snaked across the windows of their rooms.
Someone shuffled papers and coughed in the distance. He refocused on the task at hand, and tapped the dry end of his quill on the phrase that had eluded him. He was, if he admitted it to himself, vain about his ability to focus, to push away the concerns of the present and give himself over completely to whatever task occupied him. But the old words twisted like ink dropped into water, slippery and infuriatingly lyrical. The old people had taken pride on communicating allusively, on layering connotation and denotation like clothes to express realities that were nearly ineffable, and certainly difficult to piece together with any certainty so long after the fact. He closed his eyes and let his thoughts drift to more pleasant things. So much history had been lost in the wars that had forged Perandorai out of a far flung collection of territorial city states, the long history of the lives of those nations as they had been before Iriyill was almost entirely speculative, except in cases where spirit possession had yielded information of note, and someone happened to be there who recognized the language and cared to listen.
There were pieces in the archives of temples and shrines, scraps and bits that waited to be pieced together, to be remembered. That had, until the current crisis, been his quiet ambition; one so concurrently useless and grandiose that he hadn’t revealed it, even to Armas. He had concealed his goal, afraid that scrutiny might find him more kin to his family name than he found comfortable. The heart of his longing was the shining city of Cerecslava, the ancient center of the Amarai world, lost to war and then to the curse of the gods themselves somewhere deep inside the borders of the vast desert that had been given over to dragons and other unfriendly things.
A blast of cold, damp air brushed across his face, and he rubbed the whiskers on his chin and sniffed irritably. As it stood now, he’d probably end up a prize pet in the house if Igaveni, employed in the creation of spurious claims to ancient and powerful lineage. He had sent Tura a note with Serebryany a weeks ago, and had heard nothing. Serebryany was careful to treat him and Armas with a bland pleasantness, when they chanced to meet, which was always in public, and by accident. For all his urgency, he was playing his cards right up to his chest. Tura had sent no response to his summons. He had hoped to use her as a courier, to send out requests for more information on the Igaveni, Kammena, and Zenaida in particular, but in her absence he had sent out a bundle of letters with Agalaya, and had hoped that fortune would favor him, and leave his investigation discreet.
The seventh bell rang, muffled and deep, above him. He intended to make sure Tura understood his disappointment when he saw her at the official passage of Armas’ ascension, which drew closer than he was happy with. They had spoken of flight, seeking sanctuary in his Mother’s house, but what seemed like a desperate, almost romantic adventure at midnight was madness in the hard light of morning. If they gave up their robes, the house of Koldan would have no use for them. The empire never let a soul go hungry, but it couldn’t be said that those who willfully abandoned their calling were much cared for. He wrinkled his nose at the thought of surviving on charity, of nosing around for petty jobs here and there. Flight wasn’t to be thought of, not when other, more political solutions were in the offing. He organized his papers neatly, covered his ink and tucked away his quill. He would use his own wits to get them out of this mess, and back on the path to happiness. He was, after all, a son of the Koldan, a child of lionnesses. Footfalls kept him in his seat, and a familiar scent. Serebryany looked freshly laundered and pressed, composed in the artful sense of the word, in a black undershirt and a grey tunic with red feathers embroidered along the hem and cuffs. Dvrov folded his arms and tilted back in his chair to eye him for a long moment.
“May I?” Serebryany asked politely and gestured at the chair across the desk from Dvrov.
“Of course. Make yourself cozy.” Dvrov answered sardonically. Serebryany sat gracefully, and shuffled the parchments out of the way carefully, so that he could rest his forearms and clasped hands on the burled wood of the desk.
“How deep does the library go?”
“Well into the side of the mountain, and another five floors down past here.”
Serebryany cocked his head and looked around at the arched columns and the shadowed ceiling, and back into the dim stacks. “This was part of the old fasthold, then?” He asked idly.
“It was intended to provide shelter for the entire city, or a quarantine area. But there have always been records kept here, since the first settlement was built. It stays cool and dry deeper in, preserves things well.” Dvrov was willing to entertain his overtures of friendship or politeness, if it led to plain talk.
“Have you been to the lowest levels? There must be some incredible relics there.” Serebryany remarked, and gestured at the pile of parchment.
“I have and I haven’t. There’s so many enchanted and sealed bits and bobs that things move around frequently.Other shrines and temples have been sending troublesome documents here for thousands of years. It’s hard to say where you’ve been and where you are, which is why nobody is allowed down here without a tracking thread,” Dvrov held up his wrist, where a twisted braid of golden spider silk hung and gleamed softly, “which is curiously absent from your otherwise impeccable trappings.” He crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow at Serebryany’s apologetic half smile.
“I’d rather our meeting not be noticed.” He shrugged and knitted his long fingers together loosely.
“Politics are temporary,” Dvrov said sardonically, “starvation or possession in the depths of the vault is eternal. I’m certain i could find a nasty and very arcane curse to cast on you, if I were inclined.”
“But you’re not, and I have a fair sense of direction.” Serebryany answered lightly.
“You must have a pressing reason to meet me here.”
“I wonder if something’s going to break loose tonight?” Serebryany looked blank and evasive, tapped his fingertips lightly on the knuckles of his other hand. Drvov snorted and shook his head, and gave him a long look, studied the faint lines of tension around his eyes.
“Let’s speak plainly. I’m your equal in family, if not in rank, and I know the courtesies, and they tire me.”
“You’ve been in the North a long time. It suits you well.” Serebryany smiled at him, a genuine smile, slightly sardonic but real.
“I’ve been in the company of blessedly plain spoken people for the better part of my life, and I’m luckier for it. I think you’ve got the wrong end of the stick about the Irillemeiri-- Tura in particular.”
Serebryany shrugged. “I like her.” Dvrov snorted again, and shook his head.
“Wouldn’t it just suit you fine if she shanked your little russet headed problem and took exile or execution for it?” Drov shot back snidely. “You’ve met her twice, it’s a little early to assume she’ll dance to any tune you play.”
Serebryany leaned toward him and knit his brows together. “I’m not as ruthless and conniving as all that. Almost, but not quite.”
“Tura isn’t stupid. Venal, lazy,” Dvrov counted off her flaws finger by finger, “calculating, hot tempered, and chronically uncommitted, certainly.”
Serebryany pursed his lips in amusement, and shot him a questioning look. Dvrov held up a finger to silence him, and continued. “She’s as loyal as a temple hound. She won’t do anything that would hurt Armas.”
Serebryany stood, and nodded as if something had been resolved. “Good. I’d like to count you all among my friends.”
“Start by telling the truth.” Dvrov shot back, with a hard look.
Serebryany turned and went among the shadows of the stacks until he was lost to view. And Dvrov sighed unhappily, and rose to leave the usual way, ticking off unanswered questions as he made his way up the stairs.
He found Armas in their rooms, his hair still damp from the bath, his skirt low around his hips, skin a mass of gooseflesh in the cold as he fumbled at a half-cocked plait and pulled it out with a low curse.
“Sit.” Dvrov said gently, and draped his warm overcoat across Armas’ shoulders. He stoked the fire and bent to kiss the top of Armas’ head, to inhale the clean scent of him.
“Thank you.” Armas said and relaxed as Dvrov plaited his hair back, and draped his arms over his shoulders. “She wears me thin.”
“The same today?” Dvrov asked and took down a soft white undershirt and severely cut charcoal tunic for Armas. He sat crosslegged by the fire and watched him dress. He looked thinner, the thews of his muscles showed hard under his skin, and his eyes were dampened, resigned.
“The same, she had me try to resonate with the same things. Empty things. I’m not sure what the point of it is, except to drain the life out of me.” Armas answered absently, and rubbed kohl around his eyes.
Dvrov motioned for him to sit down, and took his feet, rubbed the arches of them rolled his thumbs across his narrow ankles, careful of the hairs on his legs, and handed him his stockings and boots. “I suppose time will tell. At least it isn’t worse.” He said cheerfully.
“I’m so tired and hoarse I could sleep for a week.” Armas rejoined darkly. He took a deep draught of tea for his throat, and studied Dvrov somberly. “You need to shave. And wash the inkstains off your fingers. Find anything interesting in the boneyard today?” He asked, and bent down to kiss Dvrov.
He wrinkled his nose at the smell of dust and Dvrov grinned up at him.
“Not yet, but I will.” Dvrov answered, and heaved himself off the floor. “Yes, alright, don’t shoo me, I’m going to bathe now.” He answered Armas’ gesture toward the door flippantly. He was almost through the door when he turned, and studied Armas, straight and tall, hands linked behind his back, in the fall of grey afternoon light. He turned, and his eyes were bright in the shadows that fell hard on his face.
“We could go. We could walk out that door, arm in arm, and not stop.” He said, and his voice was hoarse with more than strain.
“Go where? Do what?” Dvrov asked him, taken aback.
“Anywhere. Everywhere. Be together.” Armas said, and there was an edge of desperation in his voice that Dvrov felt to his bones. He went to him, wrapped him in his arms.
“I promise you, you will be ok. I’m with you, and I won’t let anything hurt you. Don’t let her take away your hopes.” He murmured, with a kiss.
“I--” Armas paused and cradled Dvrov’s cheek with his palm. “I won’t.”
“Lie down and sleep awhile. I’ll come and get you before it’s time.” Dvrov said, and kissed his palm before he turned and left.
The Veduny greeted them in her quarters, and led them to her own inner shrine room, her eyes bright and thoughtful on Armas. She greeted Orlaveta, Zenaida, Selya, and Serebryany formally as they filed in and chatted with them, as Orlaveta poured hot akavit. Finally, Sorya and Koit came in, arms linked, dressed in very fine, simple red tunics, followed by Tura, in black. She looked unusually somber with her hair plaited and tied off her neck, lacquer black in the dim light. To his surprise, it was Sorya who looked daggers at Zenaida, without any pretense of politeness.
He was startled at the knowingness with which Selya greeted Tura, and saw, with satisfaction, that Zenaida was surprised too. Serebryany was careful to give everyone an equal piece of his time and charm as they made idle talk over their drinks, but there was no warmth in him, except for bthe part of his lips and the spark of life in his eyes when they met Tura’s.
They took their places, knelt before the shrine and made their offerings. Armas and the Veduny rose, and she took the stage, her bare feet elegant on the smooth linden wood. Armas’ voice rose, softly at first, and then with more strength, in harmony with the magic of the place.
He sang a paean, sang of their mother, who had stood guard at the fire of Brigd in the high plain of heaven, who had endured a thousand thousand wounds while heaven was despoiled, and while Myesets was tricked into drawing the first sword and inflicting the first death against Mara the earth, he sang of how the first and strong earthly gods, death and time were born from that wound, and of Brigd’s tenderness when she carried their ancestress down, and was given gifts from every god, to allow her to continue to exist. The Veduny danced the litany, her small frame expressive and incredibly powerful in the dance. Dvrov shivered involuntarily when Armas’ voice rose in lament, for the first children, born from heaven and earth, who were given the gift that no god in heaven had, to know time and dance to her changes, and to know death. The amaranthine silk of the Veduny’s robes flashed and swirled in the dimness, and then was still. The silence was oppressive until she rose, placed her palm on Armas’ forehead.
“Wait.” Orlaveta gave an audible gasp as Zenaida broke protocol, and rose. “There is one small matter that I must raise, in this case.”
“Do you object to the ascension which you recommended, Charodeysta Igaveni?” The Veduny inquired dryly.
“The test was interrupted, and an impurity created which must therefore be corrected in this sacred place.” Zenadia answered, her voice light and flat.
“Let the one responsible be named.” the Veduny answered good naturedly. Armas face was pale and ashen, and his knuckles stood out white from the strain of his hands twisted in the sleeves of his tunic.
“The daughter of the Irillemeiri.” Zenaida said pointedly. That she did not use Tura’s name was a calculated degradation. Tura’s face was composed, a gamblers half-smile fixed as she rose and made her way to the edge of the stage. “Bow, and seek forgiveness.” Zenaida said to her, and she simply smiled, and knelt, first before Armas, and touched her forehead to the floor, murmured a request for forgiveness, and repeated herself in front of the Veduny. Dvrov saw how deeply her fingertips dug into her palms, but her face, even her eyes, lost none of their composure. She rose, and turned to make her way back to her place, when Zenaida reached out and gripped her by the wrist.
“As you know, your brother has taken my patronage. We, too, are family.”
A slow change traveled across Tura’s face, without a change in her expression. Her eyes glinted viciously, and her skin was taut over her cheekbones. The tendons of stood out in her throat as she turned back to face Zenaida.
“There is nothing I would not do in the service of my family.” She spoke, and there was a guttural sound in her voice, the warning growl of a dog. She stood a moment, loomed over Zenaida, and then knelt slowly, first one knee and then the other, and finally bowed her entire body, and touched her head to ground by Zenaida’s feet. She growled out a request for forgiveness, and he saw Zenaida smile, saw the pleasure in her eyes, saw that she believed she had beaten Tura.
“That stung like venom, but I’m still half-blind.”
“I’ve dealt with the physical damage,” he drew his hand away with deliberate slowness, “but the impurity isn’t something I can heal.” He sat back on his heels and tilted his head to study her curiously. “You should be a priestess-- you’re inviolable and you’ve got the long sight. So how did you slip through the cracks? Here, of all places?”
She snorted and rested her head against the lip of the tub, arms dangling loosely over either side. “I didn’t slip through anything. Just because you can do something, doesn’t mean you must.” She looked out the high window at the half-lit dusk sky and blinked at the pieces of spirits that swam around in broken pieces. “Did you come here to question my choices, or shall we have a drink?”
He stood gracefully and laughed. “Perhaps I’m just envious. I’ll meet you in the tavern.” He left quietly, and she stood knee deep in the whey, raised her arms and rotated them, satisfied that she’d be back in form by the morning. She dressed in clean underclothes, breeches that sat on her hips, a black shirt that was unbuttoned at the throat, and a simple black tunic with a silver stripe across the breast. She left it open against the heat of expelling his magic, and rubbed oil through her undone hair before she combed the snarls out.
His scent lingered in the air, and that was probably deliberate too. She’d had her run of the priests of Kienviory, had met and conquered that delicately crafted artifice, with all its layers. She smiled to herself and let her hair fall loose down her back. The tavern hummed with noise and commotion. Winning punters clapped her on the shoulder she passed, and music poured down from the upper gallery, among the flecks and drops of spirits that almost filled the gaps.. It wasn’t enough, but it was something. He sat at a table across from Tamar, on the quiet gallery close to her rooms, bottle and glasses in hand. He was suffused with soft light from a distance, and held himself erect and wary. Tamar stared her down like a lioness as she weaved her way to them, and took the stairs in double steps.
“Tura, dear.” She rose abruptly and gestured for her to take the vacant seat. “I expect you to pay for your drinks tonight. Your charming friend here gets them on the house.” She leaned down and pressed her cheek against Tura’s, and Serebryany watched them with a half smile. “I like him.. He raises the tone of the place.” She punched Tura in the shoulder hard enough to make her reel forward and nearly upset the table, and turned on her heel.
“I gather I’m not particularly welcome?” Serebryany asked dryly as he poured her a bowl of wine.
“Of course you are.” Tura waved a hand airily. “Free wine, after all.” She cupped the smooth wood of her bowl in her palms and inhaled deeply. It was red and rich, autumn ripe, fallen leaves and hearthsmoke, and she watched him over the rim as they drank together. His tongue darted out to catch a stray drop, and the shadows deepened as twilight turned to full dark outside. He had a fine face for shadows, enough angles to catch the light on the slightly crooked bridge of his nose, and the high planes of his cheekbones. His quicksilver eyes showed a strain in the corners, the tension of uncertainty.
“You’ve done me a favor, Trevoved.” She turned formal and cool, and saw him lean toward her slightly. “I expect that means you want a favor in return.” His artifice cracked for a moment, and she saw calculation, desire, and fear flicker across his features in equal parts. The gambler’s face, just before a heavy bet.
“It couldn’t be that I wanted to see you?” He asked lightly.
“Sure it could. It might even be mostly true. But not completely.” She answered flatly.
“I had hoped to get the truth about last night.” He said and finished his wine.
“Whose truth? Mine? Hers? My brother’s?” She shot back, and folded her elbows across the table. The music welled up and faded, and dancers moved below them between the bright lights of the bar and the dimness in between. The distance between them softened and closed in the intimacy of the dimness.
“Yours, I suppose.” He answered, fingers interlocked, the heels of his hands on the table.
“She asked my brother to destroy a larch tree. Before Kienviory was built, before it was the seal of Brigd, these forests belonged to Vesna. They still do. You ask before cutting down a tree, especially in spring.” She answered bluntly.
“And he did it. And no-one said anything but you.” Serebryany murmured back thoughtfully.
She gave him a sharp look, and snorted. “I don’t like being ordered around, and I really don’t like other people being ordered around, and I like people using their power to order people around even less than that.”
“That’s an interesting take on the great precepts.” He replied with a raised eyebrow.
“I’m a layabout, not a monster. I have plenty of faith, I just keep it simple.” She answered and gulped down her drink. She shook the empty bottle with a sigh. “What about you?”
“I’m just what I was brought up to be. I don’t think it’s simple, keeping the balance in this world. People are well-intentioned, but--”
“If you’re going to make some kind of disgusting argument for the institution of an all priest Troika, or gods-know what else, you should stop now.” Tura cut him off and curled her lip.
“What? No.” He put his hands up and laughed. “Is that what the revolutionary thinkers are bloviating about now?”
“You’d be surprised what you hear out of drunken young idiots sprawling in the afterglow.” She said and smiled at him.
“No, I was just saying, I believe in the system. People are safe. Fed, housed, free. But I fear that we’re not good at moving against new threats. We’re complacent.”
“Aren’t you cagey?” She rested her chin on her hands and studied him. “You’re untrustworthy, but likeable. Which is interesting.”
“I’m very trustworthy.” He answered soberly.
“Said the fox to the chickens.” She responded and smiled at him again.
“What did you see, when she asked your Brother to destroy that larch?” He asked, smoothly.
“Nothing.” She said, glib and flat.
“Fair enough.” He cut back, and leaned back in his chair. “What do you intend to do?”
“Tonight? Get drunk and sleep without dreaming. Tomorrow? Go and make an offering to Vesna, and an offering to propitiate the soul of that tree. After that, who can say? I’m capricious.” She curled the corner of her mouth up at him.
“I have a great deal of difficulty accepting that you intend to let the insult go.” He gestured as if brushing her words away. She looked lazily across the room and saw Selya leaning against the bar below, among the throng and rush of dancers, women leading men away into the shadows, men draped over each other behind bottles, and the scent of clean bodies and perfume hung over it all.
“That’s a hasty character assessment. I’m not a priest after all. I’m Irillemeir, not a great house. There are no political implications. I don’t mind a beating.”
He smiled dreamily and lowered his lashes to watch her from under them. “Did you know that your eyelid twitches slightly when you lie?”
“It does that when I’m looking at any beautiful man. Don’t take it personally.”
“I think you know how dangerous Zenaida is.”
“That’s no way to talk about your bride-will-take.”
He took a folded paper out of one of his pockets and slid it to her. “Maybe we’re going to need each other.”
She took it and their fingertips touched, long enough for him to feel the heat on her skin, to show it in the twitch of his wrist as it traveled up to his shoulders and ended as a knot in his throat that he cleared.
“Need is too much. I’d much rather be wanted. Come down and see me, beautiful, when you want a friend."
Tura woke up in the washed out light of a grey morning with a pounding head, a cotton tongue and skin so hot and dry it felt likely to tear like paper if she moved. The house was asleep, shuttered and tired. The fire was out, and her breath showed in the air with wisps of water coming off of the heat of her skin. The city moved outside, the muffled thump of hooves and cartwheels on the stones drifted in between the slap of waves against the pilings of the pier. She rubbed her eyes with the heel of her good hand, and winced at the pain that tore down her from shoulder to ankle. She lay still and tried to focus on the square of weak light that moved across the ceiling. The plaster was clean and white and sharp, and it made her eyes ache. The room and the house and the world seemed quite empty, devoid of the little continuous movements that she hadn’t realized she'd miss until now.
That woke her completely and wrenched her eyes wide. She sat up and swallowed a panicked curse. There was something wrong with her eyes. Her hand was curled into an immobile claw around the splints and bandage. She forced herself up, and wriggled out of the nightshirt with slow painful movements, like a cicada hatching. She stood in her breeks for awhile and fumbled at the rough nap of the rug with her toes. It was discomfitting, the emptiness of a spiritless world, all unbroken lines and hard surfaces. The floors creaked when she went to the table for whiskey to rinse out her mouth, and someone stirred in the back room. She rinsed out her mouth and spat in the sick bucket from last night, and made her way down the hall to the toilet. It was enough of a trick just to do that and scrounge a clean undershirt and pair of loose silk breeches out of Adra’s clean laundry pile.
The emptiness of place was grotesque, impossible and dizzying with its unbroken lines and unbearably sharp angles. She had to lean against the wall and pant for some time before she could summon up the will to dress and rinse her face. Her hair stuck out at odd angles, flat on one side, braid half undone, the kohl around her eyes smeared until they looked as bruised as her side.
Lyuba sat at the table when she came back out, and held a cup of tea. She looked drained, still half-asleep. “Going to return those clothes?”
“I might.” Tura croaked sardonically.
“You look a little bit dead, sister.” Lyuba said, and shook her head.
“I feel worse than that. There’s something wrong with my eyes.”
“Looks like you can see me fine.” Lyuba answered, and searched her face.
“I can. It’s nothing. Thank you.” Tura rooted around in her bundle of clothes and found her purse. She dropped a piece of gold on the table. “Something for your trouble.”
“Save it, Jackal.” Lyuba pushed the coin back at her. “Maybe sometime I’ll need you to break somebody’s arm for me.”
“Anytime.” Tura grinned ruefully at her.
Lyuba blinked sleepily, and rubbed the rim of her mug thoughtfully. “Where will you be?”
“Tamar’s. My usual room.”
“Watch yourself. You’re really in it now. And don’t hit anyone with that hand, it’ll crumble like stale bread.”
“Thanks, Lyuba.”
“Go on, and take that bucket out and clean it. My house smells like shit.”
Tura did as she asked, and found the day heavy and cold, with wet snow on the eaves and roofs, and a sluggish breeze. Lyuba had gone back to bed when she came back in for her things, and she slipped out quietly.
Radosti street was on the other side of the fjord, past the immigrants quart, through a busy tunnel. It was sinister in its emptiness as she passed through it, with her bundle of clothes tucked awkwardly under her good arm. The absences were disorienting, the sharp delineations between people and surfaces raised an edge and roil in her gut and filled her mouth with a sour taste. Her hand was still frozen in its talon curl.
Tamar’s gambling house was a graceful old stone and timber building that had started its life as a granary, and still had the soaring open beams and catwalks up to the loft that now housed travelers and layabouts in place of hay. The smell of wheat and straw still permeated the walls and floor, along with the scent of bodies and drink and incense. The massive front doors were still closed, so she stumbled through the side yard and kicked at the kitchen door fitfully.
Danilov, a lanky redhead with a ruddy complexion and narrow serpentine features poked his head out, and arched a well groomed brow at her.
“The fights weren’t supposed to start until noon.” He muttered and ushered her into the warmth and dimness of the kitchen. The big room looked off-kilter too, emptied out of the domovoi that she was accustomed to watching scuttle to and fro, and the lucky roosters with their brilliant copper plumage that hung about the doorways.
“This I have to hear.” Danilov threw over his shoulder, his voice husky and soft.
“Priest.” She said flippantly.
“Bad sex, or a good fight?” Danilov asked, and pulled out a chair for her. She didn’t so much sit as collapse, and he rattled around among the cups and bottles on the counter. “Neither. It was the new priestess. The one none of the Thaumaturgy wants to talk about.”
He grunted in response and pushed a clay cup toward her. It burnt going down, but it numbed the worst of her aches. A hangover cure was better than no cure at all.
“So it’s bad then.” He sat across from her, elbows on the table edge, and propped his head in his hands, so that his chin looked even more pointed than usual. His brown eyes were bright.
“Bad.” She agreed.
“Interesting.” He folded his hands neatly in front of him, and leaned back. “Staying here?”
“If I can.”
“Good. If you can fight it will be even better.”
“I mean to, but--” She knit her brows at him. “I won’t tell you not to talk about it, but I’m not telling you anything more either.”
“I’ll just hear it from Tamar. My sister will be pleased to know someone stood up to that thing and lived.” He cocked his head at her and smiled wolfishly.
“Just what does that mean?” She shot back, and narrowed her eyes at him.
“You’re not talking, I’m not talking. Drink some more medicine, go to sleep.”
She curled her lip at him, but downed the potion he poured into her empty cup. It was more than likely he didn’t know anything, he was a dealer in information, and she wasn’t ready to sell.
Her rooms were at the back of the loft, under the peak of the roof, whitewashed wood and black silk on the walls. She hung her clothes and curled up naked on the top of the blankets, and held her head, the heels of her hands pressed into her eyes, against the hard nothingness of the place. She had taken her long sight as a given, and made a promise with her father not to speak of it. It wasn’t a special gift, or rare, but when an inviolable had it, the priesthood expected them to be offered up for the sake of the empire, and Koit couldn’t bear to part with both of his children. Armas had been too young to remember, and Sorya was content to show her love through silence. By the time Dvrov had arrived, she had already become ingrained to silence. She wasn’t inclined to secrecy, nor to envy, but as a girl it had been her delight to show her brother and friends up by finding lost objects, predicting the weather, and other minor acts of mystery, without the ability to work magic. She focused on the drift of spots that floated in the dark of her closed eyes, and fell asleep.
There was a din a buzz below, punctuated by the clink of glasses and the creak of floorboards in the hall outside, when she woke up to a hard rap on the door.
“Tamar?” She slid under the top blanket and sat up with her bare back against the cool of the bedpost.
“I’m coming in.” Tamar said, muffled against the door. She cracked the door and slipped through like a cat, her wide face and almond eyes softer than usual. She should have had her spirits too, maned golden sea-birds with long green tails, and beetles that glittered like glass in the sun and moved their wings without a sound. Tura blinked at her and looked away. It was like seeing her naked, stripped of something more important than clothes. Tamar stared fixedly at her shoulder and hand, and sat down on the end of the bed with a heavy sigh.
“Danya told me you were hurt but--” she paused and chewed nervously at the nail on her ring finger. “You worry me. This-- this worries me.” She finished, and tucked one of her legs under the other.
“It’s not as bad as it looks.” Tura muttered with a frown, unable to meet Tamar’s eyes.
“No? Is it worse? Because you don’t look even half yourself.”
“I just need a bath and some fresh clothes.”
“I’m going to call for a temple healer.”
Tura reached out and grasped her hand to stop her from standing. “You can’t. I need you to take my word, and trust me. It was the new Charodetsya, and I don’t want her to get the scent of my injuries.”
Tamar hung her head and shook it, her short hair a fawn curtain around her face. “Will you tell me what you’re in?” She asked and looked up again.
“I don’t know myself. But that woman is strong, and its a bad kind of strong. She took hold of my wrist and I think if she’d touched me twice I wouldn’t have lived.” Tura chattered out in a rush, and swallowed at the agitation that pressed in on her.
“Nemain,” Tamar swore the name of her favorite ancestress and pressed her her hand to her lips. “I’ve never seen this kind of fear in you, not for yourself.”
“Armas. It’s him she wants. I’m--” Tura’s voice rose with fear, “nothing. And I don’t want to talk about it, I just want to fight.” She regained her composure and hardened her voice.
Tamar drew her brow and wrinkled her nose. “You’re in no shape to fight.”
“Just get me a cold akavit and help me put up my hair and wrap all of this.” Tura turned to show her the long blue black lines that ran down her ribs to her hip. “She’ll be sending someone to watch me, and I’m not giving her the satisfaction of falling.”
“So you’d rather eat sawdust? Or break a few bones? Tamar asked and threw up her hands.
“I’m not in a losing mood.” Tura answered with an edge. “If my right hand is useless, I’ll use my left. Both my knees and feet still work. So it’ll be a show-- they like a show. They like an underdog.”
Tamar bit her nails again and said nothing. She fetched some drink and undid the wraps around Tura’s hand and arm. She muttered a string of curses in her native tongue, and gasped when she caught sight of Tura’s hand. “This is--” she paused, and swallowed. “Fuck.”
Her fingers were swollen, crooked and every shade of bruised they could be. The splints held them only in the most cursory way. She couldn’t move them, they didn’t answer her, except to hurt. She looked away and held her good arm about her waist while Tamar redid her bindings. She slid into her breeks and paints and held up her arms for wraps around her ribs and over her shoulder and arm. She didn’t bother with a shirt.
“There’s no way I can stop you, is there?”
“You could throw me out.” Tura shrugged and didn’t allow herself the register the pain in her shoulder.
“But you know I won’t. I don’t have the sense to send you home to your mother, god’s forgive me.”
“You sound like an old man. It’s my slop bucket, darling, let me heaver into it.”
Tamar shook her head and was silent.
Tura walked very stiffly around the lower room, from one bar to another, and forced herself to look at the crowd until the nothingness around them and between them no longer startled her. She repeated every childhood prayer she knew in singsong under her breath, until her legs steadied under her. It was a mix of sailors, immigrants and land-workers in the city for trade. Some faces she knew, most she didn’t. That was better. The buzz of conversation cleared here and there and she heard the bets shift until the odds were against her. She put a high bet on herself with Danilov for all three fights. Her inability to see magic prickled against the back of her neck like wet wool. She ate some bread and oil with fresh doe’s milk, and sat with her back to the corner with forced ease.
The noonday bell rang, and she let herself lean into the familiar thump of her blood, the edge and aggression and tension of the fight. There was safety there. The lightning twang of keyed up nerves pushed the pain below. She swaggered to the ring that lay sunken in had been the grain mill, now sawdust and lit lanterns and standing room for the crowd. The ring of conversation grew louder, and she slid out of her boots and left them neatly by the ring. The faces were ghostly in the half light, and whoever watched now, she meant to give them a show. A thick, squat blonde woman with leather for skin and small white marks across her nose stepped up to her. They nodded to each other. The woman smirked at her wraps.
“You all know the rules. Anything goes, but if your hands hit the floor, you’ve lost.” Tamar yelled over the din.
“Sure you want to do this?” The blonde woman said throatily.
“Sure you do? Your professional reputation might suffer.” Tura baited her, and dodged a heavy blow. They circled each and Tura danced and bobbed, and gave as good as she got without any hits to her bad side. She took a hard fist to the face and landed a punch and then a knee in the woman’s midsection, took another blow across her nose that was meant for her jaw, and drove her knee hard up and into the woman’s rib, satisfied with the crunch of bone. It was done quickly after that. She took a glancing hit and used to the chance to get close to drive her elbow hard down on the woman’s collarbone. That finished it.
The next was willowy boy, younger than her, dark and slender and doe eyed. She was sweaty and panted like a dog when they stepped up to nod to each other.
“I’m not going to enjoy this.” He said apologetically, with a thick desert accent.
“No,” she sneered back, “You aren’t.”
“I don’t like to fight the wounded.” He answered politely, his hands clasped in front of him.
“I don’t like to fight the babbling, but we have to take what fortune hands us.” She barked at him. “Begin.” She lashed out with the flat of her forearm and barely saw the flash of him as he danced out of the way. He was fast, light and flexible, and he dodged her, didn’t let her crowd him against the wall. He laid a sharp blow on her right shoulder and she snarled. He danced and twisted out of the way, and poked her here and there, opened up a gash above her brow and split her lip, but lacked the weight to do much more than sting her bruises. He swung out of the way of her fist, but caught the full force of her leg against his gut and reeled back. She pushed at him, used her height and legs to keep him pinned down until she could box his ear hard enough to feel him. It was a cheap move, but she was tired already, staggered and half blind with the drip of blood in her eye. She smeared it away, and stopped to take a deep draught of water. Her head pounded, and the empty light of the lanterns hung like a net over her.
The third was a lanky, rawboned dark woman, with plenty of ropy muscle and cunning in her eyes. She had dark ink in loops and whorls like clouds up and down the length of her lean arms, and Tura’s heart sunk to her gut when she recognized them. Thamaturge. They nodded to each other, and the woman was silent, with a glint of something in her eyes. She wasted no time. The magic came without any warning, and pushed like a lodestone. It was a whorl of gold, but there was no visual point of origin to dodge, no way to save herself from the weight of it or stop the yowl that left her throat when it fell on her right hand and arm. She fell into a crouch and reached her hands up and out to catch herself. She pushed herself into a spring for the Thaumaturge’s legs, but it was too late. Another push of magic that seared her skin, and she fell. She lay there with her eyes closed, the blood beat in her ears enough to drown out the crowd. The Thaumaturge reached for her and helped her up gently, wordlessly. It was an honorable gesture. She limped to where her boots stood and slid down with her knees tucked up to her chest. The crowd cleared.
Danilov handed her her purse. “Two out of three. You made good, at that.” He sauntered away, and Tamar bustled in, half-dragged, half-pushed her to the bathhouse, and closed the door behind her. She undid her bindings and clothes slowly, painfully, and sniffed the air. It smelt of thyme and lavender, and milk. Tamar had filled the bath with milkwater, bless her. She slid into the warmth of it and shuddered. There were windows high on the wall, and the grey afternoon sun made dappled patterns on through them onto the still surface of the bath. Her feet hung over the end and she lay up to her neck, and stared absently. The door creaked slightly and she caught the faint scent of almonds, of summer herbs and harvest apples.
“I wish it weren’t you.” She murmured dreamily. “It’s a shame, beautiful.”
Serebryany stood in the doorway for a moment, backlit by the winter sky. “May I come in?” He sounded more tired than the day before. She closed her eyes.
“You’re half-way in already.”
He closed the door softly and came to crouch by the head of the tub. “I don’t mean to intrude.”
She opened an eye and saw the dull steel of the needles in his cuff, the silver band around his wrist with Igaveni chased into it. “Of course,” she murmured, and rested her chin against her chest. “Just make it look like I drowned or something stupid. I don’t want my mother to stay angry at me for dying in a fight.” She finished lightly. She saw the lines of his face now, clean and hard and pure, and he looked like unreal and ridiculously solemn. He wore a crisp white tunic over a black shirt with a high collar, and his hair hung dark and lovely around his face. He opened his mouth and shut it, and then opened it again. “If I were going to play assassin, it wouldn’t be in the bathhouse.” He furrowed his brow and pressed his lips into a tight line, and looked so offended that she rolled her head back let out a peal of laughter, and he laughed too, at her or the absurdity or both, she didn’t know, and didn’t care. It hurt enough to make her wince and then they looked at each other in the sudden silence.
“What do you want, then? I wouldn’t have taken her for the bribing type.”
“She’s not. She didn’t send me.” He rested his chin on his crossed arms and cocked his head slightly at her.
“Ahuh.” Tura said sardonically, and waited.
“Your brother’s alright, for now.” Serebryany said softly.
“I imagine he is.” She answered.
“You don’t trust me.” He picked at his cuff and looked down. “I wouldn’t trust me, but--” he looked up from under his long dark lashes at her, and she snorted before he could finish his sentence.
“I don’t. You can come sit by my bath whenever you like. It soothes me. I enjoy it, but I’m still not sure why you’d want to kill an afternoon at it.”
“I was going to offer my services, but we can flirt instead, as you like.” He smiled genuinely, openly.
“I’ll take both. I’m not really an instead kind of woman.” She smiled back idly. “So you clean up after her?” She asked pointedly as he rolled his cuff up, carefully tucking his needles away roll by roll.
“I’m her--” he stopped himself and started again, “I minimize the damage. If that’s what you mean.”
“That must be quite the labor.”
He hung his hand over the rim of the tub, fingers curled just above the water. “We all do what we must.”
“No,” she answered, “we all do what we choose.” He flinched slightly at that. “So why do you cheapen that band, if you must?”
He looked at her cooly and levelly. “I have my reasons, good reasons.” He pulled a needle from somewhere, and held it delicately. “This will hurt very badly, but I can blunt the worst of it.”
“With poison?”
“Sometimes a little poison helps the body heal.” She didn’t feel the needle, only the cessation of pain.
“I wonder if the Charodetsya would agree with you?” She asked as he went to work on her hand.
“I very much doubt she would care. She doesn’t know anything about healing.” He tucked his hair behind his ears and bent in concentration. She felt only a dull heat and pressure, but heard the pop and crack of bones. She was grateful for the numbness.
“Tura’s not your given name, is it?” He asked without looking up from his work.
“No.”
“What is it?”
“The least of your worries.”
He lifted a brow at that. “You don’t remind me of a jackal at all.”
“You’re right, my ears are too small.”
He licked his lip and smiled at that, and moved his hand gently up her wrist and forearm. She peeked at her hand. It was almost normal, except for a red blotches across her skin. “You’re good at this.”
“The very best.” He grinned lopsidedly. He reached her shoulder and paused. “I’m afraid the rest you’ll feel. Unless you’re interested in suffocation.”
“Not terribly, but that would be new.” She rested the back of her head on the lip of the tub and braced herself. “Do what you have to do.”
Sensation came back to her, but she floated weightlessly in a cool winding sheet of magic. He was suddenly quiet as his hand dipped below the surface of the bath, and his fingertips brushed across her ribs. She closed her eyes, and waited for the light, but it was still absent. His fingers wrote a hieratic word on her flesh and bones, an old word that she knew but couldn’t speak. His eyes were closed, his expression unreadable.
“There’s something wrong with my eyes.” She said quietly. He looked at her, and trailed his fingertips up her ribs and across her shoulder and the hollow of her throat. He passed his thumb over her split lip, the bruises on her cheek and finally drew his fingers very softly across her eyelids. It was a cold, quick burn, and the sudden flood of light like sparks from the forge. He cradled her face like that for a moment before he took his hand away. He sighed faintly and expectantly.
She opened her eyes and blinked at the faint light that undulated around him. The white hounds she’d seen yesterday were barely tangible, as if they were formed of exhaled breath in cold air. But she’d seen them, white and slender, pure as glacier ice as they shifted and fell around him, a storm of light and coldness in attendance. She’d seen his magic, with that sheen of molten metal that surfaced across his skin and vanished unpredictably. His hand lingered on her jawline, a moment longer than was strictly necessary.
Dvrov sat on the edge of the bed, hunched and heavy in the silence. The scent of bitter almonds lingered in the air with a bitter taste like the metallic tang of cold rain. He knew that Armas was awake, still as a watchful bird under his blankets. He felt that their little rooms had become the pivot point of their lives, upon which this hour hung and wobbled restlessly, pulled and tipped by what waited outside. They hadn’t spoken of it, even when their voices returned. It would have to be spoken of, what was done, and said and not said. Not now, when it still prowled and ticked its tail so close.
He crawled under the blankets and the scent of sour sweat was wrong too. That wasn’t what their bed smelt of in the darkest hours of the night. Armas was curled on his side with his knees up to his chest, pressed against the wall. Dvrov rested his forehead between his shoulders, pressed his thighs against the cold dry feet of his beloved and combed his fingers gently through Armas’ tangled sweat-damp hair until with a steady rhythm. Armas’ relaxed in slight movements until his back was pressed against Dvrov’s chest. His breath was soft and fast, and Dvrov kissed his shoulders very softly. If this was their pivot, if they lay now on the fulcrum and tipped by inches, he wanted to transcribe the language that was theirs, to write it on his bones, clear of all the words to come, truer than them.
The familiar was askew tonight, so let it hang tilted at an angle, let the language they knew so well in touch and tongue and ragged breath and the press of knees and shoulders be tilted too. Armas’ gave a low growl and turned in sudden motion that flung the bedclothes onto the floor. He scraped his teeth along the place where Dvrov’s stubble softened into his neck and then up to his ear, and dug his fingertips into Dvrov’s thighs. They made enough heat to drive out the cold, to expand the room like a sail pulled taut and push away the hungry morning.
The salt and ambergris and life of their sweat, the sweat of an ouroboros of pleasure, of knowing and surprising each other filled the air, rank and sweet and defiant. They were habitually silent for politeness sake, but not tonight. Armas’ growled low against his skin and he felt the stir of magic, the twine and pressure of power circle around them, from them, to stir the papers and the drapes where they hung, to drag its fingers through the fire with a sigh and return to play upon him from nerve to nerve.
The thrum of their hipbones against each other sounded out the revolt of love, and Dvrov cried out as Armas bit his shoulder and gripped the bed stead hard enough to make the sinews of his wrist stand white under his skin. He was drowned in the scent of his lover’s sweat damp hair, fingertips dug into the smooth skin and hard muscle of his spine, and was dragged below fear, to somewhere older and deeper and purer than that. They draped and entwined themselves comfortably and he slept without any recollection of falling to sleep, and without any dreams.
It was still dark when the first morning bell, the fifth of the day, sounded. It was familiar, throaty and bronze, softer than the evening bells. He jerked and blinked at the first cold light of dawn that showed faintly through the top of the window. Armas slept in a tangle of freckled limbs, his hair in knots and damp strands that stuck to his face. Dvrov resettled himself and considered their midnight visit, and what had come before it. In the stillness and quicksilver shadows of the dawn it seemed unreal, as if he’d fallen asleep in the library and walked into an ominous record of bloody history. Her rank threw a shadow on the infallible authority of the Veduny and the council of priests, if she’d gained it by thrall. It was too fantastic to consider. She was powerful, but that was an invitation to open war. Armas stirred as he tapped his fingers lightly and mechanically on the edge of the bed. They lay in thick silence for some time, long enough for the room to brighten from violet shadow into the stark cold brightness of a snowy morning.
“How do you feel?” Dvrov murmured softly.
“Like it was--” Armas cleared his throat, “like I was sitting in audience somewhere outside myself, and I saw it all happen, but none of it was real.”
Armas sniffed and rolled over to rest his cheek against Dvrov’s shoulder. “Have you ever heard of that magic?” He muttered hoarsely.
“Not here. Not now.” Dvrov paused and continued to tap his fingers. “In the great times of dying”
“Omacek?” Armas asked, and stiffened.
Dvrov paused and stretched. “There’s no despair in her. It could be demon’s thrall, but it wasn’t corrupted magic.”
“No. That was pure. But there was no heart in it. No heart at all.” Armas said quietly.
“If it were Omacek, somehow, that would explain why that Veidrodis is so piss-scared of her.” Dvrov reached up to dig his fingers into his scalp thoughtfully. “There’s no way. All the pieces of him are sealed with Brigd.”
“As far as the council of priests knows.” Armas stretched his arm up and dropped it again, on top of the blanket. “He’s a god, Keniya.”
Dvrov bit the inside of his cheek and puffed out a long sigh. “Not exactly-- Omacek was mortal, born in Svetbashni, when it was a city state.”
“Beg Pardon, Theosophy isn’t my area of study. Nor is history.” Armas interjected dryly.
“Let me refresh you.” Dvrov answered, with a pedants voice. “Iriyll, Omacek, and Szinnan fought a great war of unification, right to the gates of the last city state, Cerescslava, and laid seige to it for seven years. Szinnan, desperate for an end, made a bargain with the fallen god Vrava and--”
Armas sat up abruptly, and yawned. “A hideous army of corpses and berserkers and other nasties was held under her sway and she became a demon and slaughter and fire but lo Omacek was offered ascension by Brigd for his great compassion and then he exiled Szinnan and her armies but Omacek was so pained by the aforemention fire and slaughter that--” he ran out of breath and gasped comically.
“Poor marks, Irillemeiri, but passing” Dvrov imitated their old teacher.”Yes, Omacek’s despair spread like a plague, and everyone it touched became possessed of a need to destroy the sources of their suffering, existence itself. Which is why Brigd never returned the the high plain of heaven, but stayed to help Iriyll, eventually shattering Omacek and dispersing his power.”
Armas frowned and rummaged for his robe. “None of that guarantees that the Igaveni hasn’t got hold of one of the pieces.”
“After Iriyll, an Empress rose every time that a piece of Omacek posed a threat. No Empress, no threat.” Dvrov tossed back, with more lightness than he felt.
“Could Brigd be weak after all this time in that tree?” Armas aked, and shook out his robe to slide into it.
“Now we’re out of my area of study.” Dvrov caught the under robe that Armas tossed him and gathered their tunics. “Speculating is useless, but if any of this is on the same map as the truth, I’m content to play along with the Igaveni.”
“That’s all good and well for us, but Tura will be whetting her claws.” Armas said with an edge. “I hope that Veidrodis is a persuasive tease.”
They went out of their quarters and padded to the baths, without further mention of the subject. Dvrov studied every familiar face he saw with new suspicion, as if he could see some external evidence of thrall. It was childish and useless and he knew it, just a comfort against the sudden sense that this familiar place was irrevocably altered, suddenly unsafe and perilous.
They were at the breakfast table when she found them. She was unusually subdued, and wore a simple salmon tunic, with her hair drawn back into a long plait. Her face had a taut, set look about it, like scrubbed marble. Selya shadowed her, the same as ever, except perhaps a touch more tired around her eyes.
“May I join you?” Her voice was as cool and even as the day before.
“Of course, Charodeytsa.” Armas answered without hesitation. Dvrov pressed his foot under the table. But he knew the lines of his mouth. He’d decided, and there was no way to dissuade him from whatever it was he’d chosen.
Zenaida cleared her throat and took a sip of tea. “I want to tell you, informally, of course, that I’m recommending you for ascension to the rank of Sheptun.” She paused and tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear, and studied Armas with the intensity of a hunter. “With certain conditions, of course.”
Armas smiled broadly, without even a hint of tension. “Of course, Charodeytsa. I am humbled.”
Zenaida tilted her head slightly, and narrowed her eyes. She studied him over the rim of her cup.
“Your magic is too valuable to languish in nameless obscurity.I want to take you on as a special attendant to the house of Igaveni. I will train you intensively, and you’ll be given all the same privilege and rank as if you were a member of my own family.” She said, and drew herself up, hands folded on the table. Armas was quiet for a moment, but no longer than appropriate. “How could I possibly decline?” He said, level and clear as a bell.
Zenaida nodded once, and a half smile flitted across her mouth but didn’t reach her eyes. She didn’t believe that he was safely bought after all. “We’ll train each day. You’ll be confined to the temple, of course. For the sake of purity.” Now the smile that had left her mouth lit her eyes, and hard lights moved in them.
“Of course.” Armas inclined his head respectfully. “But, I will need to inform my mother, and sister--”
Zenaida held up a hand to cut him off. “I’m afraid you’ll have to stay on sanctified grounds. But I’ll send Selya to deliver the glad news.”
“I see.” Armas murmured.
Selya gave Dvrov a sharp look, and pursed her lips. “I expect you’ll want to keep confined with him?”
“Yes.” He was too angry to say more than that. The urge to give someone, anyone, a good punch to the neck made his hands so taut his joints cracked. Preferably Serebryany, at this point. They were now prisoners by their own promise, and breaking that promise would end in expulsion from the priesthood for them both.
“I can take any messages you’d like to your mothers house, or anyone else.” Selya answered. She turned her attention to Armas. “Where’s your sister? I’ve heard she doesn’t sleep at home.”
It was baiting with rudeness, but Armas ignored it and tucked his hands elegantly into his sleeves.
“You’ll find her at Tamar’s house on Radosti street.”
“I’m sure she’ll be so pleased to hear the good news.” Selya said, and snickered.
Serebryany Teavane Veidrodis got off the train at a quiet cluster of buildings of weathered wood and neat white-wash that shone in that clear grey Northern sun that seems always to carry a memory of snow in it.
He’d passed through a sea of forest on his way through Dukzhemli, trees like the columns of an endless balustrade blurred into a corridor through the cold-warped glass of the train window as they went. Quicksilver Rivers wound between the orchards and the evergreens in the distance, dark as tea when the carriages went silently over them.
He watched the proprietary way her fingertips rested on the runners, and tried to work out some sense of their secret, of how the pressure of her hands could sound the pitch and roll of the land and shift the car through them-- if there was some clairvoyance to it, he couldn’t work it out, couldn’t catch the language that wound beneath the verdant green velvet of her tunic where it gathered in gentle folds over a lambskin belt. The knuckles of her hands showed more wear than they should have.
Messages sent through the infinitesimally small cracks of joint bones seemed fantastic and impossible to copy, so he gave it up for a bad job and stretched out his legs. Every navigator did it differently, they said. Maybe that was part of the secret too, or maybe it wasn’t a secret at all, just another magic he couldn’t see the roots of. Something bothersome wriggled at the back of his mind, and he let it, let his knees sway with the carriage, but not enough to bump the portly old man the next seat over, or roust him awake.
He felt the tug of a spring breeze along the tails of his traveling coat as he stepped down, felt the silver around his wrist grow cold with the last yawn of winter in the air. He followed the runners, a couple of broad shouldered boys with close cropped dark hair and sweat drenched backs, the thew of them showing where their brightly dyed shirts clung, toward a squat building near the station.
It was warm and well lit, and nobody was friendly. There was a pointed contempt in the deliberateness of how they ignored him. He didn’t mind them ignoring him, except for the woman behind the bar, her fox-red hair cut at daring angles along the planes of her broad cheekbones, set off by elaborately worked copper hoops that hung nearly to her shoulders, and almost touched her elaborately embroidered cerulean dress.
The navigator cut her eyes at him as he leaned against the counter with my hands clasped in front of me.
“Igaveni.” It wasn’t a question. She had eyes like ripe black-currants, and pressed her thin lips into a tight line.
“Nice work, getting us through all these trees.” He nodded and watched the bar woman watching them.
“Work isn’t something you corpses know much about.” She coughed. It was dry and rattled somewhere deep in her chest. Maybe too much magic. He didn’t ask. He had learned to curb the impulse, the want to heal. It wasn’t for him, like a lot of other things weren’t for him. Thaumaturges had their own doctors.
“I came from the sickness at Fetije.” He looked at the flat knuckles of his fingers. She coughed again and took a deep draught of her drink. She studied him from behind her raised cup.
“I came from the border at Melnismitsya.” Her eyes caught and clawed at the band around his wrist. “You’re just a parasite of Kamenna, an Igaveni moth chewing at our clothes.”
He smiled at her looked away. “We take care of ours. You tell her that. You may think of yourselves as the teeth and claws of the world, but we’re the spine.”
There was no stillness in the room, but he felt the pressure of many eyes before they turned back to the clink of cups and coin, and muttered conversations.
She turned abruptly, went to a rough hewn bench and sat down with ferocious heaviness. The woman behind the bar tilted her head at him, her face a face from a cameo, clear, round and delicate.
“Drink?” She had the trill of a Northern accent.
He pushed his hair back from his face and grinned at her. “Something hot?” She poured him hot whiskey with a slice of sour preserved pear in it. She had lovely hands, broad and calloused, with the half moons of her nails polished smooth from wiping the bar. He tossed a coin on the bar.
“Stopping here?” It was bar talk, nothing in it. But it was a distraction.
“Going on to Kiengrod.” She nodded absently. “Not taking the caravan.” That also wasn’t a question.
“I guess I’ll go over the pass.”
She clicked her tongue. “They don’t allow horses past here. Not in forest up there.”
“On foot suits me I guess.”
“You could go through the tunnels, but it’s crowded.” She cut her eyes at the colorful crowd of Thaumaturges.
“Not a lot of people going over the mountain?”
“Still too early. Snow on the rocks yet. It’ll take you awhile.”
“I’ve got time to spare.” He watched her face, waited for it to open. She gave him the ghost of a smile.
“You look like an old fashioned figure from a painting from a thousand years ago, you do. Ought to be rushing somewhere important on a bay horse with white fire in your fists.”
“Why a bay horse?” The whiskey was smooth, but it burnt in his throat.
“I don’t know. You’re wearing too much white and black and grey and not enough color.”
“I wouldn’t look like a man who should be on a bay horse if I were wearing yellow.” Her eyes warmed up a little at that, but there was sly laughter in them.
“Pray for me?” She polished the bartop energetically.
“I’ll ask himself to pass you over, and when he can’t pass you over to make the road broad. I’ll ask a thousand times.”
“You sound like a man who should be on a bay horse.” She was finished with him, and turned her back to shine the hammered copper of the tankards where they sat stacked.
He went out of the tavern.
The mountains arced above them like the lower part of an enormous jaw and rose to snow-capped jagged cat’s teeth. The chill in the wind deepened and carried more of the sea. He took the left hand side of the road, and fell into a steady walk, lulled into a rhythm by the ring of his dagger-hilt against his belt. The air was bracing after the stuffy warmth of the train and the bar and the humid heat of Fetije. He saw someone on their way down the mountain, walking beside their deer cart, and they looked like an ink smudge on the margins of an old book against the dirty white pavers of the road, and he imagined the trees were words that only seemed haphazard from inside of them, but from far above were the history of the empire, pressed all around them, so present that they walked within it unaware. He nodded as the woman with her cart swayed and creaked by, and felt a question in the roll of the eyes of the deer when it arched its neck and sniffed at him. He was awash in a book of trees, and the ebb and rise of the drone of the wind through them and the beat of his legs made a faint music and lulled him into a reverie. The exhaustion of repugnance spread from the band around his wrist up through the fibers of his muscle and into the threads of his nerves, an exhaustion that he refused to allow into his legs.
He had grown drowsy in the year that his ascension to Trevoved had made him an indispensable healer for the empire, and sent him on roads far from Myesetsmir, and its border with Kamenna, from his surrender to Zenaida. He had never left himself unguarded, but he’d grown too used to the absence of her oppressive weight, of the steady grind of time as it moved him-- by his own volition, on his own two feet-- back to her. Self-pity was in his nature, so he ground it out with the heel of his boot every time it struck the road. He had no-one to blame, he reminded himself, for this. His Doma, his house, none of them had asked for this cross grained self-sacrifice.
He squeezed his eyes shut against the whip of the wind and remembered his last free conversation. It had been an early autumn afternoon, just about to turn to dusk, and he’d knelt beside the pool in the inner courtyard of Myesetsmir, had balanced on the edge of it on his bare toes, and watched the clouds on the still surface, and the white serpents moving under the water without stirring it.
“It’s not your duty to do this.” They said from above him where they stood.
“I know, doma. You never imposed duty on me, only expected it. It worked, by the way.” He smiled up at them, at their lovely face, now of an age to soften into wrinkles.
“Do you think you can change the course that she has set out upon by beauty alone? Or do you expect to poison her in the end?” His doma had a voice that was gentle and resonant, but there was an edge under it now.
“Perhaps if she has me she’ll be satisfied.” He had paused then, and looked at the water and the impossible green of the moss, the russet and red of the leaves of the apple trees and the gold of the fruit that hung on their gnarled branches, “If I could love her, I might at least prevent the ruin from spreading.”
“To be satisfied is not in Zenaida’s spirit. She left the mechanisms of contentment behind in the fields of Vypas.” His doma folded lowered themself beside him and crossed their long legs neatly under their grey tunic. “I have always given you your choices. But let me speak to you once more, as my son, before you make yourself a sacrifice.” They rested their hand lightly over his where he held them clasped in front of his knees. He nodded.
“You have cultivated your beauty as a part of your magic, have made yourself a shining mirror of heaven, and have turned most of your perfidy and cunning to the greater good.” He scowled at them and they smiled back and tucked his hair behind his ear gently. “But understand, what you endeavor now is to show Zenaida what she longs for in the mirror of yourself, and to show the world a lie. I have no doubt that your strength of mind and control of spirit will be enough to carry this lie through-- but it will be at bitter cost, and the truth, when it comes, might break you.” They patted his hand and turned to watch the last of the sunlight gild the water.
“I understand.” He’d answered. He had not understood then, though, and still didn’t. They did not reply. He’d risen and turned to go to the outer hall where Zenaida waited.
Snow stung his face and brought him back to the present as the wind whipped it down the front of his collar. He stopped and turned to see the valley below, the sod roof of the bar among the village, and the wet slate-roofed houses of the land workers dotted here and there among the orchards. The train was a snake below him. and the rivers like quicksilver. He was three-quarters of the way up the mountain now, and shoved his cold hands into the fur-lined pockets of his tunic. The wind shifted and the trees sheltered him from the worst of the coming storm, but he picked up his pace. Drobleniye and Razrushenyie, Biting and Crushing in the common tongue, rose above the timber line and were lost in the heavy clouds.
This was a storied place, the only pass into Kiengrod when the last empress Narjoska and the white falcon Sakalas had held off a thousand of Omacek’s children between them, while the living memories fought at Kienviory, against ten thousand more, and the great demons they bought with them. Iriyll herself was seen on the ramparts of the shrine. In the end, history said that they had lured the enemy to the heart of the fasthold and Brigd had manifest in a terrible holy fire, and had purified the world. So the last of the five pillars earned its name. There was no reward for sacrifice, for doing one’s duty. That the road and the trees alone remembered the last flight of the holy dragon Narjoska the just, the last Empress of Perandorai, and kept her memory in stolid indifference was bitter proof of that.
He’d seen a mural of her in the house of a land-worker once, and she stood like a beacon, flanked by great silver hounds, her face impassive, arms and pressed palms carved in ebony, her white tunic in marble, with a belt of gold, indistinct mountains in mother-of-pearl behind her. There was none of that soft opulence here. These mountains were black rock, and loomed in sheer, bare cliffs above the forest. The high priestess of Kienviory, its Veduny Taika, was herself a descendant of Narjoska’s sister Louhi. He had yet to meet her, and the fear that she was already under Zenaida’s thrall ran a prickle down his his back.
He made the crest of the pass and saw the city of stone and trees and the sea beyond through a veil of wind blown snow. The red roof of Kienviory was muted. He put up his hood and picked up his pace, and the misery of slip splashing through the wet spring snow was enough to drive him to pragmatism. He heard the bells ring the hours as they passed, deep bells, red with copper in their notes, and trotted along the old imperial highway, past withdrawn houses of grey stone and older houses of massive sod-roofed timber. All of them had intricately carved lintels, painted brightly.
Trees grew everywhere, and followed their own ancient patterns among the houses, with roads and fjords twined among them. Gardens were planted among the trees, rather than the trees being cleared for gardens, and it was clear that the forest held dominion. It gave the city a chaotic feel, as if people slipped in stealth through the wood and lived hidden, furtive lives there. Everyone he met along the road, however, was friendly and open in their demeanor and bowed politely from their shoulders. In a port city, people had no particular look about them except hardiness. He saw the temple of Kiengrod, the fasthold of Brigd of the Sacred Flame rise up, and stopped to gather himself and scrape the muck off his boots. The entrance to the main gate was lined with plum trees, stubborn in their early bloom, and a deer-carriage with a massive stag in fine black and gold tracings stood alone under the falling snow and petals.
He saw her then, as the red bells of Kienviory pealed out. She was tall, broad shouldered and hipped, and held herself erect. She had severe features, inclined to foxiness, a tall forehead, and a gambler’s pallor. Hers was that kind of face that taken feature by feature should have no fascination, but becomes striking for the spirit that moves it. Her large dark eyes were set wide enough to be thoughtful, and her full mouth would have been sombre if it hadn’t turned up slyly at one corner and made a dimple in her cheek. She held her right hand out, and he thought for a moment that she meant to catch a falling flower, until she brought it to her mouth to lick it and blow on it.
She looked at him, and then through him, without calculation, concern or curiosity-- she saw him truly, not the artifice or the impression but the present truth. It convulsed something fearful in him, beneath the exhaustion, like a serpent that had slept too long and stirred in springtime water. He saw Zenaida and Selya at the red gate, in a knot with two others, but some part of him rebelled against the steady indifference of time, against the immutability of bargains with fate.
“May I?” He held his hand out for hers. The ghost of a smile brightened her face, but she was still occupied with the study of him, with an intimacy that startled him, and made him look away. She held out her hand. She had long fingers, and powerfully muscled palms with callouses. The hands of a working woman, with a bad burn. He caught scent of smoke, iron and flowers from her, and a heady forest fragrance he couldn’t name.
“You may.” Her voice was pitched low, trilled Northern, and held a song in it. He started when he rested his fingertips above her palm and felt some resistance. Inviolable, but not a priestess. That was unusual, especially around any of the five pillars. He pushed through it and cooled her skin, began to knit it. She didn’t flinch, or give any indication that the pain of fast healing registered for her. The pads of her fingers against the edge of his hand were warm and sent a roll through him that he felt through his lungs to his hips.
He hadn’t been touched by anyone, not even the slightest casual brush of the hand since he’d left Myesetsmir. The ill and injured didn’t touch him, and the engagement band around his wrist made damned sure no-one else did either. He rested his palm on hers, and felt the pulsebeat in her wrist like a dawn prayer. He felt her eyes on him, but couldn’t look away from where his fingertips touched her skin, just below a heavy torque of gold. Her skin was hot under his hand as she sloughed off his magic, and drew more of it, the old call of enchanter and inviolable, two sides of one coin.
Zenaida called, and a sudden regret gripped him, as if he’d been forced to put down a book that had all the secrets he longed to know in its pages, a book to which he could never return.
She gripped his hand for a moment. “Thank you.”
He slid his fingertips along her palm and the length of her fingers until they no longer touched, and composed himself. “Yes, of course. I’m Serebryany--” he trailed off, discomfited by the sensation that she already knew his name, already knew him quite well, both good and ill. She smiled at him in earnest now, and her smile etched small, pleasant wrinkles around her eyes. “Of course.” She nodded informally, “Tura.”
He felt the pull of Zenaida, and turned on his heel. His books were all shelved now, in favor of the practical and the destined. He curled his fingers into his palm and held onto the heat of her touch there. He re-assembled his veneer of genteel good-nature with effort, but there was heat below the cracks now. He greeted Zenaida and Selya in a haze, with a bitter, thick taste in his throat. The Irillemeiri boy reminded him of a goshawk, sharp and nervous, but by no means a mouse, and he had a beautiful voice, melodic and fluid. He resembled his sister only about the mouth and the height of his cheekbones, but had none of her slyness. The Koldan reminded him of all the others of their family that he’d met-- proud and direct, with languid grace. Dvrov broke the mold with his curious eyes and wild curls, the hallmarks of a scholar, rather than a fighter. He followed Selya wordlessly after their departure. He was too unnerved by Zenaida and the heat that lingered on his fingers to pay attention to what was said. He felt caught between bleariness and a growing appetite for impossible revolt.
The outer walls of Kineviory rose sheer and wet as they passed through the gates, and he held his silence in favor of observation. No soaring vaulted ceilings over open halls, here, none of airy lightness of Milovany in Talunmil, the heart of the Empire; Nor had it any of the delicate marble work and lush indoor gardens of Milostivmoreto in Sedefvatan. The halls were narrow enough to be defensible and the ceilings were high and dark with massive beams. It was heavy and ancient, with touches of unexpected beauty. Every one of the five pillars was a warren of halls and sub-chambers and paths that took weeks to learn, and Kienviory, he saw, would be no different. No-one passed them. It was time for the evening meal. They ascended to the second floor of the inner hall, on its western edge, closest to the sea. This was brighter, with large windows, and long silk banners with the sigil of Iriyll, Brigd and Narojska hung between them; and polished walnut floors with long rugs from the desert, thin and elegantly faded. Selya led him to his rooms, situated on the northwestern corner of the hall, and unceremoniously ushered him through the door. He stopped short as she turned to face him, almost caught in the doorway, and eyed him balefully.
“Have you considered my proposal?” She said, and curled her lip at him.
“If I could, I would.” He answered as flatly as possible, and clasped his hands behind his back.
“Fucking fool.” She snarled and leaned in close to him. She smelt of turmeric and myrrh.
“I don’t care about Melnismitsya. I don’t care about the Empire whole, to speak the truth.
I don’t want much, Veidrodis, but I want you away from her. Keep your alliance to her, but
do it out of sight. It’s what you want anyhow.” She finished, with an edge of certainty in her harsh voice.
“I do care for the Empire. Someone must.” He was so weary that his tongue felt thick in his mouth. They’d had this conversation before. He’d been tempted before. The seduction of walking away to leave Selya with to contain the damage with her indefatigable devotion and her own devices. But the couldn’t elude fate. He was already shackled.
“Gods save us from your simpering nobility,” she barked at him. “I’ll follow her to the end. You’ll turn on her, it’s in your filthy nature, because you believe yourself so good, so pure and fine.” She said, and he heard bitterness and tiredness underneath her anger.
“What do you know?” He asked, and knotted his fingers in the fabric of his cuff.
“Nothing I’d tell you. The only thing is to protect her. You’re not the only one that knows how to make a promise. The difference between us is that I never lied.” She spat back, and her hands tightened into fists. She turned abruptly, and stepped out the door. “I’ll see you far from her, in time to come. That’s another oath I mean to keep.”
She closed the door quietly behind her, and left him numb, as he looked at the room. It was whitewashed, cool and clean, with three high windows draped against the chill, worked firwood beams across the ceiling and around the windows, a down bed with a heavy woolen coverlet, a fire grate already lit for the night, a desk, chests and wardrobe against one wall, already piled high with the baggage that had been sent ahead of him. It was luxurious, in its way. He was helpless, but at least he was comfortable, he noted wryly. There was a black cowhide on the floor, and a beautiful shrine to Myesets in the northeast corner, correct in every detail, from the large white copper mirror, covered in a black silk cloth to the white copper bowl of fresh water and the bundles of applewood. He stood in a torpor for awhile, then slid down, closed his eyes and stretched out on the floor to press his cheek against the cool of the wood and inhale its beeswax scent.
He lay like that without thought until he heard footsteps in the hall. If another priest saw him like this, even the excuse of the journey wouldn’t be sufficient. He heaved himself up and rubbed his temples, then worked his way out of his coat and traveling clothes. They’d left a decanter of wine, which he sniffed at, and then inhaled deeply when he realized it was from Melnismitsya. Lush velvet, and all the herbs and rocks and fruits of autumn. He drank straight from the decanter, then washed with cold water from the basin, but couldn’t summon up the will to shave. The jagged slope of Imperial Woman mountain loomed out the window in the deepening dusk, with cliffs and spindly trees, and the sea beyond. There was no further to go from here, but beyond the borders of the world, into the dark of the speaking beasts. He sat naked on the bed, his long toes gripped against the rug, as he ran a peach wood comb through his hair with almond oil to clean it. A hot bath could wait. His hands had a persistent, irritating tremor. He drank another cup of wine. The sea was obscured by the heavy snowfall, and he lay down on the bed to watch it fall. A restless half-sleep took him, and he snapped awake at the eighth bell with a sour milk taste in his mouth and a drubbing heart. The only light in the room was from the dying ashes of the fire, and he fumbled upright and turned up the lantern.
It was Zenaida. He was familiar with her magic, knew the horror of it well enough. The room was cold, and he stoked the fire before he knelt in front of the shrine. When he took the shade off the mirror it was immediately suffused with all the light in the room and reflected him dimly. He took a few deep breaths, dipped his fingers into the water to purify them, and sang a low prayer. When his shakes had passed, he pressed his wet palm to the mirror, and focused, drawing a cold magic through his nerves-- it was indistinct as spider threads and held him like a cradle of fog. He pictured the long highway, the inland sea, the sweep of the land between here and there, and waited. Halina came clear in the mirror, dignified as always, with her golden-brown skin aglow, and her thick black curls free around her face. She was now the head of the house of Veidrodis in all but name. It was safer that way.
“I’ve been worried about you, Sereya.” It wasn’t her voice, precisely, but the vibration of is through his flesh, the meaning of it understood.
“I’m sorry cousin Halichanka. I only arrived near dusk, and I needed to rest.” A glib lie.
“There’s more.” It was as simple statement of fact. Her fine features were pinched with fear.
“Zenaida--” he bowed his head slightly, “just now. She may have killed someone.”
“Have you any idea of what her plans are, or why she’s at Kienviory?” She said, and knit her thick brows.
“I don’t know. But she’s growing stronger. Selya wants me to turn tail and run. Well, she wants me to seal my loyalty to the Igaveni, but she feels my being here will send Zenaida over the edge. Of what, I wish I knew. But it’s enough to frighten Selya.”
“And you? Do you think you’re in peril? Is it a demon?” Halina asked with gentle concern.
“No. Whatever she wants with me, it’s not time yet. It’s not a demon-- it-- she comes and goes. Our bargain still stands-- my alliance to contain whatever has fallen on Kamenna.” He answered.
“The border is quiet. We’ve sent in two observers, but they haven’t come back. The ravens are the only things going into the pit now. Even dragons won’t fly there.” She finished acerbically.
“As long as it isn’t spreading.” He answered mildly.
“You’re reaching the end of your strength alone.” There was fear in her voice again, a crack of stress.
“Don’t send anyone; it could spark the conflagration that explodes us into open war.” He pled.
“Then find someone there. I’m working to forge alliances quietly, but it’s not easy when we don’t even know exactly what’s happening, or what may come. If you break, we may never have the information we need.”
“I won’t break. I need to go, to prepare.” He cut off the exchange abruptly, and withdrew his hand. Her need, her care for him was unbearable.
The Veduny would receive him at the tenth hour, and Zenaida would be back sooner than that. When he’d finished rubbing the kohl around his eyes, hid his poisoned needles in their places on his clothes, and drawn his hair back into a loose queue, he went out to wander the halls of Kienviory nervously. The place thrummed with magic in the night, heavy as brocade, heat and fire and blood, ink and the presence of a knowing mind. Everyone he bowed quietly, but their eyes lingered on him too long.
A temple hound, lean and long faced, lazed beside a pillar in the inner hall, half-asleep in the hunters repose. She stretched and stood, her thick silky coat red on white, her almond eyes umber and alight. She wasn’t massive compared to some of the hounds he’d seen, but tall enough that her head reached his neck, and she cocked her head at him and sniffed. He bowed and offered his open hand. She sniffed and then licked him, he rested his forehead in the dish of her face. She leaned into him, and he looped his arms around her neck, buried his fingers in her silky ruff, and breathed in the homely scent of her. Temple hounds had been his favorite companions from his earliest memories, comfortable in their silences, canny in their quiet way. She settled back into her place as he took his leave.
Zenaida found him at the main gate, with blood on her fingers. Valomir and Dvrov shambled past them in silence, and looked emptied out, still enthralled. It would be Tura with her long braid bloodied and tangled against the snow, then.
“Sobachka.” Zenaida simpered, and giggled nastily. She’d called him her little dog since she put her band around his wrist. She had a nasty, drunken smile, and her eyes were slaty, with pinpoint pupils. “You neglected to mention that the older sister was inviolable.”
It would be her, then.
“Really, I question your loyalty,” she continued, and crowded him backward. She reached out as if to stroke his face with her bloody fingers, and he recoiled. It didn’t matter now. She never really remembered what happened when she was in the grip of whatever had her.
“Don’t.” He hissed.
“So upstanding and long-suffering and,” she held her fingertip just above his lips, and the rusty scent of the blood was thick. “Weak. Vain, stupid Veidrodis.” She smeared her fingertip across his cheek. He drew a needle from inside his cuff and held it very close to her eye.
“Why darling, you stun me!” She giggled again. “I’ve so missed these intimate little moments.” She purred, and trod back a few paces. She staggered and would’ve fallen, if Selya hadn’t caught her. Zenaida leaned heavily on her and swayed; the ornament fell out of her hair and the cloisonne broke on the stone. The sound woke her, brought some will back to her face, and she narrowed her eyes at him, at the blood on his cheek. She still leaned on Selya, but with more composure.
“Wipe that off,” she said sullenly, “And don’t go howling murder in the night. I just gave the Irillemeiri daughter a light warning. She defied me. If you’d warned me about her, she wouldn’t have been there.”
Selya tossed him her kerchief, and he scrubbed the blood off his cheek. “As you say, I should have given you warning.”
Zenaida cut her eyes at him. “I’m sure you’ll remember next time.”
They left him, arm in arm, and he leaned against the gate and blew out puffs of white breath into the dark. The city glowed here and there below, with fires at every crossroads, and the fjords like sleeping dogs laid out atop it. An imposing older woman with tawny skin and long white hair, in the red robes of a Charodeytsa walked toward him.
“Charodeysta Orlaveta.” He said, and bowed deeply. He liked her, her forthrightness and sternness were familiar, a respite after the nightmare scene that had passed.
“Trevoved Veidrodis.” She answered, and returned his bow. “It’s pleasant to call you that. Have you eaten? It’s a bit late for a meal, but I understand you went to your quarters for rest after your journey.”
“I haven’t. Thank you for the offer, Charodetsya, which I will accept.” He answered.
She smiled at his formality. “Your manners still live up to your name.”
They made their way to an empty, well-lit dining room, and she laid out bread, spring butter, and hard cheese, and poured them wine. This was from further south, earthy and rich.
“I’m surprised that you’re not dining with your bride-will-take.” She considered him closely and directly.
“She’s had a tiring day, and went to her rooms to retire.” He answered blithely. She cocked her head at him as he hid the lower part of his face behind his cup.
“You look worn, Teavane.” She used his matrynomic too familiarly, and it irritated him.
“Thank you for your concern, Charodeysta. Fetije was distressing, and my dispatch here was too sudden to prepare for the change in altitude and climate.” He responded, bland and polite.
“I see.” She said cooly. “Although you’ve officially ascended to the rank of Trevoved, Veduny Taika has offered you a rare position as the first pupil she’s trained in 50 years. I hope that your travails won’t prevent you from rising to meet her standards.”
He had assumed that his family name was the cause for the summons to Kienviory, and his engagement to Zenaida, but there was calculation in Orlaveta’s voice and face.
“I am honored.” He bowed and clasped his hands in front of him respectfully.
“Shall we go to her?” Orlaveta gestured toward the door.
He felt like as rumpled and ragged as an old linen left to go bad in a pile of wash, and smoothed his hair back instinctively. It would take months to make sense of the turns and passaged that she led him down. He glimpsed the heart of the temple, and felt a thick heat, an old, rich magic well up around him like smoke as they passed. Their destination was a room on the western edge of the inner sanctum, where Brigd’s banners hung heavy in the chill. They parted them with a shush and the scent of bergamot and cyprus coiled around him. The Veduny’s reception room was a small square, draped with red silk on the ceiling and walls, and lit dimly with brass lamps and beeswax candles as thick as his thigh. She sat in her red and white robes on a low chair draped with furs. She was small and dark, elegant in her features and the thick, kinky silver hair rolled and braided tightly to her head. He bowed from the waist and sat down at Orlaveta’s gesture.
The Veduny poured akavit from a decanter into small red agate cups, and gestured wordlessly.
“Serebryany” She addressed him with friendly informality, her voice was low and rich. “I am pleased to welcome you to the keep of Brigd of the Sacred Flame.”
“Thank you, Veduny.”
“I knew your Doma at Milovany. Please send them my respects.”
“With pleasure.” He nodded and held up his cup congenially.
“I don’t intend to keep you after your long journey, but I want you to feel welcome here. Our houses have shared an alliance since the days of Iriyll, and I want you to feel as if we’re family.” He wondered if he imagined a deeper cadence on the word ‘family’, and then wondered how much she knew about Zenaida. It was telling that she had offered no congratulations, made no mention of their alliance. Even She wasn’t in a position to openly defy the Igaveni herself, but it was suggestive. The priestly houses had to align themselves before they could reach out to the land-working houses and the Troika, the real power in the Empire. But a tacit acknowledgment of her alignment, or the beginnings of one, was better than hostility or neutrality.
“That is gracious of you, Veduny. I am overwhelmed by the offer of your tutelage.”
“I suspect you will be, shortly,” She answered with good humor, “but you seem the dutiful type. We’ll work on each Sreda day after the 7th bell, if you find that auspicious.”
“I look forward to it.” He answered, mechanically. Whether she was pleased or puzzled by him or some combination of both would reveal itself soon enough.
“You may take your leave then.” She folded her hands in her sleeves and returned his parting nod.
Orlaveta directed him to the baths, and after stumbling around in the shadows for a quarter of an hour, he found them, stone pools under vaulted ceilings. The sound of running water, the steam, the muted lantern light that filtered through the slatted wooden screens between tubs, and the well of magic in the water pulled him into a reverie as he floated in the dark. There was no possibility of moving unseen tonight, and the weather was too heavy for him to have a decent chance of finding the Irillemeiri house. It might be best to find Tura on neutral ground, at that; she’d be leery of him. So would the boy, but he’d know where to find her if anyone did. He’d have to track down his rooms and brace him before the shock wore off, before Zenaida put the fear of her in him. She would find him in the morning, which meant a slog through the novices quarters to find him tonight. He’d seen the blood on Zenaida’s hands, and it was a good enough ruse to offer his services as a healer, Armas’ was probably already sick, but not with anything he could heal-- sickness of the soul was out of his purview.
It took a small threat and some flirting with the night watch, but Serebryany found the room he was looking for, and paused before he rapped his knuckles on it lightly. The wind boomed against the stone outside like an intermittent cough, and he waited, unable to hear if anyone stirred behind the door. Dvrov wrenched it open, and looked at him blankly. He was shirtless, and stood in his skirts, sweaty and rumpled.
“Is it--” He pulled his curls off his forehead and started again. “What can I do for you, Trevoved? Are you lost?” He was polite, but the tension came through.
“I know that something happened tonight, something that might call for a healer.” Serebryany rested his forearm on the door-frame, crowding Dvrov. Dvrov glanced at his engagement band and narrowed his eyes.
“If you knew what happened, you’d know that we’re not the ones who need mending.” He said with a burr in his voice, and crossed his arms.
“Just let him in. I don’t feel like freezing while you sneer at each other.” Armas’ interjected from the bed, his voice hoarse and ragged. Dvrov stepped aside and waved him into the dim room. Armas was wrapped in blankets, and the fire was stoked high, until the room was all but suffocating. His hair was an untidy snarl, and his eyes were dark smudges in his face, pallid except for his freckles, that reminded Serebryany unpleasantly of splattered blood.
“Well, they’ll be talking about me before my sister for once.” Armas’ croaked out sardonically. “What brings you here, beautiful? Did the Igaveni send you to make sure we wouldn’t tattle on her?”
“She’ll see to that herself, in the morning.” Serebryany answered with a flippant gesture.
“She’ll get herself hauled up before the Veduny if she tries. As it is now, she can expect blackmail, at the very least.” Dvrov interjected.
“I wouldn’t try it.” Armas’ glared at him blearily, and Dvrov snorted. “Believe me, I would know.” He pursed his lips and decided to save his soul the lie. “I can assume that you’re as talented as advertised from the ruckus tonight, which means you’ll be on her collection list. You haven’t got much in the way of leverage, and she’ll systematically dismantle your lives, both of you, if you defy her. She’s good that way.”
“Not a love match, I take it.” Dvrov said with a sneer as he poured himself water, and drops of sweat beaded on his back in the heat. Serebryany’s tunic was starting to stick to his ribs and back, and the collar chafed at the back of his neck.
“I’m what happens when you push her.” Serebryany answered, bluntly.
“Why’re you here, letting down your long black hair into our respective laps? We’re just as likely to cross you and choose what you’ve described as the winning side in this nasty little game.” Dvrov said sharply, and went to sit cross legged on the bed beside Armas.
“Maybe. But I don’t think so. You,” he gestured at Dvrov with his thumb, “love him too much to let this injury go unanswered. You’re a Koldan, scholar or no, your pride won’t let you ally yourself with Zenaida so easily. And you,” he repeated the gesture towards Armas, “love your sister too much to let this pass without some kind of a gesture.”
Armas’ curled his lip and pressed himself close to Dvrov. “Tura’s easy to love. I’d keep that in mind, and keep my skirts down around my boots, if I were you.”
Serebryany let that slide, and went toward Armas. “You’re cold as a corpse, now. It’s a side effect of her magic. Let me help you.”
“A favor for a favor, and then we’re pulled even deeper into your mess, Veidrodis.”
Dvrov said caustically, and put his arm around Armas’ shoulder.
“You’re in it up to your necks already.” Serebryany answered.
“You tell us everything, and we’ll wear your sigil, Veidrodis.” Armas answered through clicking teeth.
“We’re not there yet. I have to know that you’re strong enough to keep your wits about you. Let me help you and your sister.” He pled. Zenaida wouldn’t give a damn about his midnight wander, or if he went haring after Tura. They could tell her everything and he’d be no worse off than he already was, but the price of spilling her secrets was an equal spilling of blood.
“Isn’t that perfect-- you want our loyalty in exchange for nothing. How predictable.” Armas snapped.
Dvrov, however, studied him intently, with a ken in his dark eyes. “No, it’s the truth.” He said softly. “She’s got you terrified. I don’t think you’re a coward, which means that whatever her hold is, it’s got a bite like a bear trap.”
“I find myself in desperate need of friends.” Serebryany answered, quietly.
Armas let the blanket fall from around his shoulders and shivered; his muscles twitched and jumped, and there were dark marks around his throat, like bruises. Serebryany knelt and rested his palms on Armas’ chest, very lightly, and pushed with his magic. The boy coughed and flinched, and gripped Dvrov’s hand tightly. He coughed out blood and phlegm into a handkerchief, and then Serebryany started on his throat. The bruises were bone deep, and the flesh was almost like something rotted. Armas held himself still, and forced himself to take deep, painful breaths while tears rolled down either side of his nose. When it was over, he curled up in his blankets wordlessly, like a small child, and turned his back on them.
“I need to find his sister. She’ll be in worse shape than this, inviolable or not.” Serebryany murmured to Dvrov.
“ She’s my sister too.” He answered. “So let me tell you, Tura’s not the kind of friend you need. You’re on the edge, and she’ll take you about the waist and launch you both off, and she’ll do it laughing all the way.” He shook his head. “But I can’t stop you. She fights down in the gambling quarter, and there’s one on the books for tomorrow, after the 10th bell. Look for her on Radosti street, by the docks.”
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