A Magic of Twilight

take another look.”

She shook her head at him. “I prefer this distance,” she said, looking at the carriage from the rooftop: safely small and removed. She saw the Archigos’ carriage appear on the far end of the Pontica, surrounded by green-robed teni. Seeing ca’Cellibrecca in the ornate, gilded brocades of the Archigos that Dhosti ca’Millac had worn so recently, the broken globe of Cenzi golden at his breast, made her lips twist into a scowl.

Mahri touched the device and it swung easily, the thicker end pointing toward the city gates. “Look here,” he said. “Tell me what you see.”

Ana bent over the verzehen again. As her eye adjusted to the circular world it revealed, she saw the stones of the mighty gate that had been formed from the massive stones of the ancient city wall. There, caught between the stones midway up the tall column to the south side of the gate, there was a cylinder that seemed to be formed of glass-she could see just one end of it, thrust deeply into a chink in the mortared cracks. “A vial,” Ana said, “sealed with brown wax on one end. There’s something inside-a red substance? — but I can’t see it well.”

“I put the vial there,” Mahri said. “Like the verzehen, there’s nothing magical about it. It holds two different chemicals, separated by a stopper of wax. Alone, those substances do nothing. But if that vial should break or the wax melt, and the chemicals come into contact. .

well, they are violently incompatible with each other. Each would seek to destroy the other and erupt like one of the great volcanoes of Il Trebbio, spewing flames and smoke and sending the stones of the gates crashing down on whomever was below.”

Ana had straightened again. Out on the Avi, the Kraljiki’s carriage moved slowly and inexorably toward the city gates. Mahri’s single good eye held her. “But nothing will happen unless the vial breaks or is heated-something someone who knew the Ilmodo could do easily, I’m certain. All it would take is a few moments of chanting and the proper release, easily reachable from here.” From the street, the cheering in-tensified as the Kraljiki’s carriage rolled below their building and began to make the turn toward the gate. Mahri’s eyebrow raised. The sun touched the scars of his face; to Ana, it appeared to be a stern mask.

“The stones would crush those beneath utterly, and the panic that would follow would kill more. Such an event, properly timed, would end the life of the Kraljiki or the Archigos,” he continued. “I’ve no doubt of that.”

Ana tore her gaze away from Mahri. She stared at the Kraljiki, then down the street to ca’Cellibrecca, whose carries was now leaving the Pontica. “I’ll do it,” she heard Karl say, almost eagerly, but Mahri lifted a hand.

“No,” he said. “You won’t. I won’t allow it. It’s Ana’s choice. Ana’s alone.”

“Who will be blamed?” Karl persisted. “The Numetodo. That’s always the way it is with them. Why not make it the literal truth this time?”

“I won’t allow it,” Mahri repeated. “Ana?”

Why not? Either of them would take your life without remorse or regret.

Justi never loved you, not one moment; he took what you offered and used you to betray the true Archigos. And ca’Cellibrecca would have done to you as he did to poor Dhosti. It was only Dhosti’s warning that saved you at all.

You would only be doing to them what they would do to you, or to Karl, or to Mahri. .

“Ana?”

The Kraljiki’s carriage turned. The Garde Civile around him were at the gate, the carriage itself close now. Why not? Can the Hirzg be a worse ruler? Can he hurt you more than the Kraljiki or ca’Cellibrecca already has? Cenzi would forgive you-the Divolonte itself says it: “Those who defy and subvert Cenzi’s Will will be sent to meet Him, and full justice will be given unto them.” You can make them pay for Dhosti, for the Numetodo they’ve killed, for the torment they gave Karl, for the way they treated you. It would only be fair. .

The Kraljiki’s carriage was nearly at the gate. All she had to do was speak the words. A simple spell of fire- something U’Teni cu’Dosteau had taught the class in the first year. She mouthed the words of the Ilmodo, felt her hands begin the shaping of the spell.

The carriage moved into the gate. The crowds pressed around it, cheering and waving as the Kraljiki waved back to them. They would wave and cheer the same way if it were Hirzg ca’Vorl riding through those gates, because cheering was safe. Pretending to be on the side of the victor was safe, even when the victor was no better than the person he replaced.

The flame searing flesh, great boulders flying in the air, the screams. .

Justi’s death, or the Archigos’, yes, but others would die with them, all those down there who are cheering and shouting only to protect themselves, and who haven’t asked for any of this. .

Her mouth closed. Her hands stopped moving.

“I can’t,” she said.

“Ana,” she heard Karl say, but she was looking at Mahri’s impassive face.

“I just. . can’t,” she said again, not quite certain who she was trying to tell. “Not like this. What happens if I do it?” she asked the wind, the sun, the sky. “Do I help, or do I just end up causing more hurt and confusion and death? I don’t know. .”

She lifted her hands, let them fall. The Kraljiki’s carriage moved through the gates and past; the Archigos’ carriage moved between. The crowds roared, a sound like the roaring breath of Cenzi Himself. Ana felt tears burn her eyes. “I can’t do it. Not without knowing. Not without some hope that I’m changing things for the better.”

Mahri simply nodded. She felt Karl’s arms go around her from behind. “I understand,” he whispered in her ear. “I do.”

They watched the Archigos’ carriage pass through the gate, following the Kraljiki out of Nessantico and onto the Avi a’Firenzcia and the waiting Hirzg.

Parleys

Jan ca’Vorl

“I think it’s very pretty, Vatarh. It should be a painting.”

“I wish I could see it with your eyes,” Jan told his daughter. “All I see is a battlefield.” He let his arm rest around her shoulders and hugged her.

The pine-studded arms of the Cavasian Range cradled Passe a’Fiume in their long, steep slopes. There, the River Clario poured white and fast in its descent from the Sigar Highlands of Nessantico’s eastern reaches. The town was perched on the Clario’s western bank; a wide bridge arched over the Clario from Passe a’Fiume’s eastern gate: the Pontica Avi a’ Firenzcia, the only safe place to cross the wild Clario for many miles in either direction, until the river settled itself and widened as it prepared to meet the great A’Sele.

The town knew its importance-the largest of the cities in eastern Nessantico, it still resided almost entirely within the three-century-old fortified walls that had been erected on the orders of Kraljiki Sveria I during the interminable Secession War, as Nessantico sought to bring Firenzcia fully under its control. The thick, granite walls had repelled a half-dozen sieges since the time of the Kraljiki Sveria.

Now the populace looked out from flower-boxed windows and crenellated towers and wondered whether they could survive a seventh assault.

“Can the war-teni really break those walls, Vatarh? They look so thick.”

“They can. They will, if the Kraljiki doesn’t submit to our terms.”

“He won’t,” Allesandra said with certainty. “If he’s like you, Vatarh, he won’t submit.”

He chuckled at that. The mirth sounded out of place.

Jan had arrayed the army on the slopes across the Clario-a few miles from the city but high on the ridges that faced the town. He knew the citizenry could see the tents and cook fires, the fluttering banners and the dark, writhing mass of the soldiery, covering the slopes like a horde of ravening insects about to descend and feed upon the town.

They had seen the army assemble over the last two days; they could glimpse them through the wisps of morning fog even now. He knew the fear they would be feeling, and knew the forces the Kraljiki had brought with