A Magic of Twilight

“Cenzi has given you an extraor-dinary Gift, Ana. Cenzi would expect you to use that Gift as well, Ana, and all that Gift has given you. Surely you see that.”

He said it without the question mark, as if it were an obvious conclusion, and at the same moment, a realization came to Ana. “You intended all along to connect me to the A’Kralj,” she said. The accusation made the Archigos smile.

“Yes,” he said simply. “Very nearly.”

“The Kraljica. .?”

“She agreed, once she’d met you and once I’d told her about you.

We had hoped to introduce the two of you formally at the Gschnas, but. .” The Archigos’ mouth twisted. “It is still what she would want,” he continued. “Even more so now. With the Kraljica gone, we must tie together the new Kraljiki and the Concenzia Faith-not with ca’Cellibrecca and his movement, but with our own faction.”

Our own faction. . The Archigos said it casually, and Ana shook her head mutely. Not ours. Not now. .

After the Kraljica’s death, she had been unable find the Ilmodo again. Cenzi had abandoned her for her lack of faith, for her betrayal of Him with the Numetodo. She had tried. She had attempted the simplest spells, the ones she had been able to do since she’d been a child, and they crumbled in her hands. She wouldn’t be able to keep her failures secret for long: how she avoided using the Ilmodo, how weak her spells were, how she could barely manage to conjure up light or heat from the energy with which Cenzi filled the air. She couldn’t hide the decay of her skills for long; no teni could, not when the rituals and ceremonies of the Faith required their daily use. Someone would mention their suspicions to the Archigos, and he would come to her and demand that she show him whether the rumors were true.

“That’s all I was for you from the beginning, Archigos?” she demanded, trying to disguise her fear with bluster. “A way to bring the A’Kralj closer to you? You’re no different than Vatarh; you’d use me in the same way, only with another man.”

The Archigos managed to look hurt. “My intention, and the Kralji-

ca’s, was to keep the Faith strong in a changing world. We need to look forward, Ana. Ca’Cellibrecca would return us to the dark. The world changes, Ana, whether we like it or not, and the Faith must learn to change with it-that’s not something ca’Cellibrecca is willing to do.

Our ships go ever farther out into the world. One day, perhaps even in your lifetime, they will have touched the shores of every land. As the Holdings reaches out into new territory and finds new peoples, we also find the rich beauty of Vucta and Cenzi’s creation, a richness we never suspected before.”

“The Numetodo, Archigos? Are they part of this richness?”

He cocked his head to one side as he stared at her. “They could be, if they would only acknowledge that their Scath Cumhacht is actually the Ilmodo and that it derives from Cenzi. There are other ways of bringing people to the truth than through violence, torture, and imprisonment-certainly that’s what the Kraljica believed, and why she was able to rule so well for so long. The more Nessantico draws from the knowledge of those she rules, the stronger she becomes. I don’t look to exclude the Numetodo or to ignore what they might have to teach us, as long as they can be brought to understand the truth of the Toustour.

I thought, Ana, that we might share that outlook in the same way that we share a deep faith in Cenzi.”

“I do share that,” Ana answered. Then why did you doubt Him? She shook her head. Her fears and confusion roiled in her head, boiling, and she could not snatch at them long enough to examine them. “It’s just. . Archigos, I can’t. .”

“You can. You will. If it’s what Cenzi decrees.” He waved a diminutive hand at her. When it dropped again to the table, china and silver clattered once more. “It may be, Ana, that the new Kraljiki is already too well snared by ca’Cellibrecca-I may have made a horrible mistake, allowing them to become close. I saw all this over the last several years and I did nothing. The rumors I’ve heard of ca’Cellibrecca’s daughter. .” He shrugged. “If that is the case, then we will have to find a new tactic. But if Justi is willing to listen, if he will look to how his matarh governed the Holdings so well, then he’ll realize how well served he would be aligning himself with us. Marriage can tie together even two enemies, who then discover they must work together. And we are not the Kraljiki’s enemy, Ana; ultimately, we are on the same side.

As to love. .” He reached out as if to touch Ana’s hand; she drew back. The Archigos shrugged. “Well, that’s never been a necessity in a political marriage, has it?”

He paused, and Ana remained silent, still seated on the other side of the table and staring past the Archigos to the windows of her apartment without seeing any of the day outside. The Archigos pushed himself off his chair, giving her the sign of Cenzi. “You know I’m right,” he said. “And you know your place, I trust.”

“I know where you have placed me, yes, Archigos.” She could not move. She felt bound to the chair in which she sat, caught in cords she could not see.

He gave her a strange, twisted smile, and nodded.

Jan ca’Vorl

“We found her in the baggage train, my Hirzg, raiding the stores.” The offizier standing before Jan looked embarrassed by his tale. He stood well back, obviously uncertain how Jan would react. Markell, seated at the traveling desk with a sheaf of reports before him, stifled a chuckle as Jan frowned.

Allesandra stood trembling before Jan, hands clasped behind her back, her head bowed. “What do have to say for yourself?” he barked at his daughter. “You disobeyed me. What is your matarh thinking now?

She must be frantic.”

“I left Matarh a note,” Allesandra said to the floor. “And I told Naniaj that she had to pretend as long as she could. Maybe Matarh thinks I’m still with them-she never comes to my carriage unless she has to.”

Markell snorted. Jan glanced at him, shaking his head. “How long have you been gone?”

“Two days, Vatarh. I left the first night, so that I could find the army again.”

“You rode back alone in the night, unprotected? You snuck through our rear guards?”

She gave him the ghost of a nod. “I climbed into one of the wagons.

There was plenty of food there, Vatarh.”

“Those are the army’s supplies, food for our soldiers. Do you know what the punishment is for someone who steals from those wagons?”

She shook her head. He could see her shoulders beginning to shake with subdued tears. “We cut off their hands,” he told her harshly, “for they are no better than our enemies.”

Allesandra clutched her hands tightly to her stomach, but she did not cry. She lifted her face to Jan, and he had to force himself not to take her in his arms and hug her. “I wanted to be with you, Vatarh,” she said. “I wanted to learn to command an army. I wanted to learn to be a Hirzgin you would be proud of. I didn’t. . I didn’t eat very much.”

Her face was so penitent and sorrowful that he could not keep up the pretense any longer. He knelt down and opened his arms, and she ran to him. She broke into heaving sobs against his shoulder. “It’s a good thing you are the A’Hirzg,” he whispered to her, “because that means everything here also belongs to you.”

“You can’t send me back now, Vatarh,” she said fiercely, sniffing. “I won’t go. I won’t.”

Jan looked at Markell over her shoulder. Markell shook his head.

“This isn’t a place for a child, Allesandra.”

“I’m not a child. I’m the A’Hirzg. This is where I should be, with my vatarh the Hirzg, and besides, Matarh is days away and you will protect me and I will learn ever so much from you, and Georgi could continue to teach me. .”

Behind her, Markell busied himself with the reports.

“It will be dangerous,” Jan said. “There may be fighting, Allesandra.”

“Then teach me how to use a sword as you do, Vatarh, or have Georgi do it. I’ll learn fast. I will.”

Jan hugged her again. He sighed. “Markell,” Jan said. “Take a note to send to the Hirzgin with our fastest rider. Tell her that Allesandra is with her vatarh and safe, and that she will remain with me for the time being.”

Allesandra squealed happily. “Thank you, Vatarh. I’ll be good, I promise. Where is my sword? You promised.”