A Magic of Twilight

were there now. “I’m sorry. I’m. . very happy tonight.”

“Then please come forward and sit-there are chairs for all of you here in front. This is your vatarh and matarh?”

“Yes, Archigos.” Ana introduced her parents, Tomas going forward to kneel before the Archigos with clasped hands, playing-as he always did-the devout follower. The Archigos came forward to put his own gnarled and small hands around her vatarh’s.

“I thank you for sending us your daughter,” the Archigos said. “Vajiki cu’Seranta, I’ve arranged for the Concenzia treasury to transfer five thousand solas to your family’s account against Ana’s future services to the Faith. I assume that will be sufficient?” Ana could see Vatarh’s eyebrows lift and his mouth drop. She sucked in her own breath in surprise as well-the families of the acolytes in her class had been given a tenth of that sum.

“Oh, yes, Archigos. That is quite. .” Tomas stopped. She wondered what he’d intended to say. His mouth closed and he swallowed.

“. .adequate for the moment,” he finished. Ana could see him toting up accounts in his head.

The Archigos had noticed the internal greed as well, Ana realized.

He favored her vatarh with a dismissive smile. “One of my clerks will be outside when you leave, Vajiki,” the Archigos said. “She will have papers for you to sign that will complete the transfer. You’ll note that you will also be giving up the family’s right to either select or approve a husband for Ana: she now belongs to Concenzia and can make her own choice freely. You will have no voice in that, nor will you receive any further dowry for her.”

Her vatarh frowned at that. “Archigos, we had expected to advance the family through Ana’s marriage.”

“Then perhaps a thousand solas will suffice, if you prefer to retain those rights. It doesn’t matter to me. My secretary, O’Teni Kenne ci’Fionta, is right here.” The Archigos nodded to the teni who was standing next to him. “Kenne, would you be so kind as to tell the clerks to make that change in the contract. . ”

Vatarh’s eyes widened again and he hurried to answer as the o’teni bowed and started down the aisle of the chapel. “No, Archigos,” he answered. “I think the agreement will be sufficient as is.”

“Ah,” the Archigos said. Kenne, with a slight smile, returned to the Archigos’ side. To Ana, the Archigos seemed to be smothering laughter.

“Then let us begin. .”

The ceremony was brief. Afterward, O’Teni ci’Fionta handed the Archigos the green robes that would be Ana’s attire from this time forward. The Archigos uttered a blessing over the robes, then handed one set to Ana. “If you would put this on,” he said. “You may go behind the screens there at the side of the altar.”

The robes felt strange against her skin; softer than she’d expected from the times U’Teni cu’Dosteau’s robes had brushed against her. She touched the slashes at the shoulders of the robe: yes, they were those of an o’teni, and on the left shoulder was sewn the broken-globe crest of the Archigos. Taking off her tashta and putting on the robes, she realized that she was also severing herself from her old life and putting on a new one. She would not be returning to her family’s home this evening, but retiring to a new apartment here in the temple complex.

I’m finally gone, Vatarh, and you can’t touch me anymore. .

She came out from behind the screen, holding her yellow tashta folded in her arms. Sala, beaming, hurried forward to take it from her.

Her vatarh nodded his approval, tears glistening unashamedly in his eyes-she wondered whether he was truly proud of her, or only sad-dened by what was being taken from him. Her matarh stared blankly ahead, as if transfixed by candle glints from the gold-threaded robes of the Archigos.

“Ah. .” the Archigos breathed. “Now you look the proper teni.

Vajiki cu’Seranta, I wonder if you would allow me a few minutes alone with your daughter. My clerk, as I said, is waiting outside to take care of the fund transfer while you wait. Your servants should go with you, but I would like Vajica cu’Seranta to remain.”

Anna’s vatarh looked startled, but he brought his hands to his forehead and motioned to Sala and the other servants. The Archigos waited, silent, until the chapel doors had closed again behind them.

Then he turned to Ana.

“I deliberately brought you here, to this chapel and without any of the a’teni about. Your matarh, her illness is grave. The Southern Fever, isn’t it? She was incredibly fortunate to survive at all. I’ve only rarely heard of anyone recovering who has been affected that badly. I remember all the funerals years ago when the Fever was at its height here in the city.”

He was staring at her, as was O’Teni ci’Fionta. “It was Cenzi’s Will that Matarh lived, Archigos,” she said, and the lie felt like pins stabbing her throat.

“No doubt,” the Archigos said. “And your will, also.”

“Archigos?” Ana started.

Faintly, the dwarf smiled. “There’s no one here but the four of us, Ana. No a’teni listening, no ears here that shouldn’t hear what you might say, no prying eyes watching.” Ana couldn’t stop her gaze from going to the young o’teni. The Archigos’ smiled widened slightly.

“Kenne ci’Fionta is someone I trust implicitly, so you must also.” He paused. “You no doubt prayed for your matarh’s life.”

“Of course, Archigos. Every day.”

“And Cenzi answered your prayers? Or was it something else?” the Archigos prompted, and Ana’s face colored helplessly. “You lie badly, O’Teni,” the Archigos said. He stepped from the dais and put his hand on her matarh’s arm. At the touch, the woman stirred, turning her head slightly but still staring off vacantly. “Your innocence and naivete is very fetching, Ana, but we’ll need to work on that. Tell me the rest, and tell me the truth now. Did you use the Gift of Cenzi to thwart Cenizi’s Will for your matarh? Did you do what you knew was forbidden for the teni by the Divolonte? Tell me the truth, here where you can.”

Ana saw the joyous evening and her triumph beginning to collapse around her. She wondered how she would be able to tell Vatarh how it had gone so badly so quickly. She could imagine his face going slack, his shoulders slumping and his will shattering inside him.. and the foul anger and abuse that would follow. “Matarh was dying.

Archigos,” Ana said, looking down at her matarh unmoving in her carry-chair. “That would have killed Vatarh, too, after all that had happened to us. So I. . I. . Just the smallest help. . Just enough that. .” She couldn’t finish, her voice choking. Her hands lifted. Fell back to her sides.

“You know the punishment for this sin? You know the Divolonte?”

Ana clasped her hands behind her back. She could barely speak.

“Yes, Archigos.” Cenzi has given me His own punishment to bear for what I did. If I’d let her die, then Vatarh might have married someone else, and he might have left me alone.

“Look at me. Quote the Divolonte for me; you’ve certainly heard it often enough in your studies.”

She forced herself to look down into his face: stern now, the wrinkles holding his ancient eyes drawn harshly in his skin. Her voice was little more than a whisper. “ ‘The sinner has abused Cenzi’s Gift and shown that she no longer trusts in Cenzi’s judgment; therefore-’ ” She stopped.

“Finish it,” the Archigos told her.

“ ‘Therefore, strike her hands from her body and her tongue from her mouth so that she may never use the Gift again.”’ Ana took a long breath.

“You put yourself above Cenzi?” the Archigos asked.

“No, Archigos,” Ana protested. “I truly don’t. But I watched her suffering, watched my vatarh suffer with her. . ”

“Does your vatarh know what you did? Does anyone?”

“No, Archigos. At least, I don’t think so. I was always alone with her when I tried. I made certain of that.”

The Archigos nodded. His hand was still on her matarh’s arm. “You didn’t do all you could for her, did you?”

Ana shook her head. “I was afraid. I knew Cenzi would be angry,and I was also afraid that everyone would notice-”

“Do it now,” the Archigos said, interrupting her. At her look of shock, his stern face relaxed. “The gift of healing is the rarest tendency, the most easily abused, and the most dangerous to the person using it, which is why it’s proscribed. It’s also why I made certain that the only other person here tonight was someone I could trust. Your