shook her head. “Such a strange, sudden thing. Vatarh thinks that the Numetodo had a hand in it.”
“No,” the A’Kralj answered. “They didn’t, though I certainly don’t mind if they pay the price for it.” He smiled, his chin jutting out even further. Mahri heard the slow intake of breath through the Vajica’s nostrils and saw the rising of her eyebrows.
“Justi. .”
The smile grew larger. “Matarh was always insisting that it was time for me to think of heirs and marriage. I will be Kraljiki soon-and I find that I’m now thinking of exactly those two things. Are you, Francesca my love?”
The woman seemed to be looking for escape-left, then right. “Of course, Justi. Of course. But this is so quick. All the careful plans we were making with my vatarh. .”
“. . weren’t necessary,” he answered. “I made my own plans, and I have followed them through. I think Matarh’s portrait should go in the West Hall, where she can see the Kralji’s throne and see me sitting there with you beside me, don’t you think?”
There was a soft knock at the door and the click of the latch. The A’Kralj sat back, releasing Francesca’s hand. Her smile was a frozen gash on her face. “But, of course, I came to ask U’Teni Estraven if he would perform a special ceremony for Matarh,” the A’Kralj said smoothly, as if continuing an interrupted conversation, as Mahri saw the servant approach the table and place a silver tray with tea and cakes between the two before curtsying and backing quickly away. “It would mean so much to her.”
“Certainly,” Francesca answered. She blinked, reflexively moving to serve him tea. “I will mention it to Estraven.” The water in the basin was cooling, and the scene above it was fading, the figures going transparent and their voices failing. “I know he would be most willing. .”
They were gone, suddenly, and the bowl was simply a bowl of lukewarm water. Mahri sighed. Rising, he put the teapot back on the crane.
He picked up the bowl reverently and went to the window, tossing the water out onto the Oldtown alleyway below. He took the bowl back to the table and sat once again, waiting for the teapot to boil. When it did, he poured more water into the bowl and once more dusted the steaming water with the infusion from his pouch.
“Show me,” he said again, and this time the scene that formed was a different place, and new figures appeared. .
Ana cu’Seranta
“You can’t go out, O’Teni,” Watha insisted. “You’re not strong enough. The Archigos said you must rest. He was very emphatic about that.”
“The Archigos isn’t me and doesn’t know how I feel,” Ana insisted.
She shrugged off the hands that attempted to hold her back on the bed and swung her feet down to the floor. She stood. The room threatened to tilt under her, but she took a long breath that stopped the movement. “I need clothes,” she said. “Not my teni-robes. A tashta, perhaps, or something else.”
Watha’s eyes seemed about to burst from her skull. “I can’t-”
“You will,” Ana insisted. “And you’ll do it now. I’ll also need a carriage.”
The young woman seemed terrified. Her matarh, Sunna, came in a moment later, and Ana repeated her request. Sunna conferred with Watha, who left the room with a terrified glance at Ana. Sunna muttered to herself as she rummaged-far too slowly-through trunks and closets to find clothing for Ana. Ana heard the outer door to her apartment open and close before Watha returned to help her matarh; Ana decided that Beida had been sent to inform the Archigos. By the time she’d dressed, the outer door opened again and Beida entered the bedchamber to announce that a carriage was at the door for Ana’s use.
Ana left the apartment, refusing the offer of a quick dinner from Watha, and Sunna’s insistence that someone from the household should accompany her. She wondered if she were being entirely foolish, since the walk down to the carriage exhausted her and she half-stumbled into the seat as the teni-driver held the door open for her. “Your destination, O’Teni?” the young man asked. It was the same driver who had picked her up from her house that day that seemed so long ago now; she knew that he would tell the Archigos everything. He was staring at her, at her lack of green robes.
“Cooper Street, one block from Oldtown Center,” she said to him.
He nodded and closed the door. She felt the carriage sway as he took his seat and heard the beginning of his chant as the wheels began to turn. She leaned back against the cushions, her hand touching the shell under her tashta.
She ignored the nagging voice and closed her eyes, feeling the lurch of the carriage and the sound of the wheels as it passed along the Avi a’Parete.
“We’re here, O’Teni,” the e’teni’s voice said through the leather flap between the carriage and his seat, seemingly only a few moments later, and Ana realized that she’d fallen asleep during the trip. She lifted the curtain at the side of the carriage. They were parked on a street lined with shops, with a tumult of people moving around them. Poking her head out the window, Ana looked around. It was dusk, the sun already gone though the sky was still deep blue and the first stars had yet to appear. Farther up the street, she could glimpse the wide expanse of Oldtown Center, where lamps set on ornate posts around the circumference of the Center waited for the spells of the light-teni to set them ablaze.
Oldtown Center had, a few centuries ago, been the social nexus of Nessantico, a function now given over to the square around the Archigos’ Temple and the newer and grander buildings on the southern bank of the A’Sele. The memory of Oldtown Center’s past was preserved in the tall, ancient buildings that flanked it and in the fountain in the middle with its stained bronze statue of Selida II, posed far larger than life with his war-spear and shield and the writhing body of a subdued Magyarian chieftain raising his hands in mute supplication at his feet: at its height, Oldtown Center had been known as Victory Square.
Now, the buildings that had once housed the offices of the Kralji’s government and the grand apartments of the wealthy were run-down, tired, and ancient. The offices were now street-level shops, the grand residences had been broken up into myriad tiny apartments above the shops teeming with the households of ci’ and ce’ and even unranked families. There was still a vitality to Oldtown Center, but it was unre-fined and raw, just as strong as it had always been but gone darker and potentially more dangerous.
“O’Teni,” the driver called through the flap, his voice audibly tired from the exertion of the drive. “Where did you want to go?”
“This is fine,” she told him. She glanced out again at the signs over the doors. “Just there-Finson the Herbalist. They have a tea infusion that my matarh always made, and I thought it might help the Kraljica.”
She opened the door and stepped out before the driver could dismount.
“Wait here for me,” she told him. He was only a black silhouette against the ultramarine sky. “I shouldn’t be long. Stay here.”
She hurried away even as she heard him protest; she was fairly certain that his instructions from the Archigos were to remain with her.
She rushed into the shop, a bell chiming as she opened the door. The herbalist-an older man with white eyebrows that curled over deep-set eyes, glanced up from a table near the rear of the store. The store smelled of herbs and the multitude of lit candles holding back the murk.
“What can I do for you, Vajica?” he asked, coming forward to a counter adorned with glass jars stuffed with dried leaves.
Ana placed a siqil on the counter, the the silver profile of the Kraljica on the coin glimmering in the candlelight. “You have a rear door?” Ana asked, her fingers still on the coin.
He was staring at the siqil-more money than he would see in a week’s sales. “Yes, Vajica. Just past there.” He pointed to the darkness at the back of the store without taking his eyes from the coin. “Here, I’ll show you. . ”
Ana shook her head. “I’ll find it,” she said. “Thank you.” She lifted her fingers from the coin and hurried around the counter. The smell of herbs was nearly overpowering, but she found the door and found herself in a
