He clapped Niente on the back, hard enough that Niente staggered. “What do you think of that, Nahual?”
Niente stared at the city, dwindling in the boat’s wake. “I will look in the scrying bowl tonight, Tecuhtli Citlali” he said, “and I will tell you what Axat says.”
The White Stone
The new voice in her head screamed and wailed and raged, speaking half in the language of Nessantico and half in a language she didn’t understand at all. The others in her head laughed and hooted.
“Your lover Jan… What a pleasant vision he has of you now!”
“Do you think he would marry the filthy assassin he saw?”
“He laid with a murderer and now she carries his child.”
“He’s glimpsed the truth. I hope you always remember the horror on his face when he recognized you.”
That last one was Fynn, pleased and smug. “Shut up!” she shouted at them, but they only laughed all the louder, their voices crowding out what she heard with her own ears.
She’d followed Talis and the Westlander leader from the Isle back to the Red Swan after she’d made certain that Nico seemed to be safe. She was angry, furious with Talis-he’d broken his promise to her. The Numetodo… they might be disgusting heretics, but they had treated Nico kindly and with respect, the woman especially.
But Talis…
Talis had betrayed Nico and because of that Nico’s matarh lay near death, and she had told Talis what the price would be. She had told him, and she would exact payment. The White Stone always kept her word.
So she had followed him, when-all out of nowhere-the sounds of battle had erupted from the east and she’d watched the Westlander leader arrange his men to ambush the Firenzcian chevarittai and soldiers. Suddenly there was far too much fighting going on, too much movement for her to make a move, and she was worried now about Nico and whether he was truly safe and she wanted desperately to run back to him, afraid that following Talis might have been a mistake. But she’d seen Talis slip from the room into which he’d gone and rush out into the street, and she’d followed. She watched the confrontation and she’d seen the chance. She slashed her blade across his throat and she felt him die as he dropped the flask of dark powder And as she laid him down and started to put the stone on his eye, she’d glimpsed him.
Jan.
The shock had been palpable. She’d felt it as strongly as if her heart had been placed directly on a bed of hidden, red-hot coals. Jan: he stood there, and she had witnessed the slow recognition on his face. His expression had frightened her. It was full of shock and affection, of yearning and horror. Seeing him was awful and wonderful at the same moment, and she had wanted to run to him, had wanted to take his hand and place it on her swelling stomach and whisper, Here, darling. This is the life we have created together. This is what our love has made; she wanted also to run, to flee, to hide her face and pretend this revelation had never happened.
The second impulse was the stronger.
She’d taken the white stone from Talis’ eye and she’d fled, wanting Jan to follow her and afraid that he actually would.
She didn’t stop until she reached the Pontica Kralji. There were no strange, bronze-colored men there; none who were living, anyway, though their bodies littered the ground. She could see soldiers in the black and silver of Firenzcia moving everywhere on the streets-causing Fynn to exclaim excitedly inside her head-and she carefully made her way across the Pontica and slid quickly into cover on the island. That was easy; so many walls tumbled down, so many fire-scarred buildings. She went to the gardener’s cottage on the palais estates where they’d taken Nico and his matarh, where the healer for the Westlander had worked over her injured body.
The healer and all the Westlander soldiers were gone, but her fears eased when she saw that Nico was still there, holding onto his matarh’s hand as he crouched next to the table on which she lay-it must have once been one of the dining tables from the palais, still covered with fine, lacy damask, now bloodstained and filthy. She could see Serafina’s chest rise with a slow breath, but her eyes were still closed and she seemed unresponsive.
“Nico,” she said, and he started, his hand clenching his matarh’s tightly.
“Oh,” he said a moment later. His face brightened slightly. He sniffed and ran his hand across his nose. “Elle. It’s you.”
She nodded and came to him. She clasped her own hands around his and his matarh’s. She saw him stare at the blood that mottled her skin. “We need to go, Nico,” she told him.
“I can’t leave Matarh,” he said. “Talis will be back soon.”
She shook her head. Her hands pressed tighter against his. His skin was warm, so warm, and she felt the child within her jump at the touch-the stirring of life, the quickening. She gasped slightly at the feel. “No,” she told him. “I’m afraid Talis is dead, Nico.”
She saw the tears start in his eyes and his lower lip trembled. Then he sniffed again and blinked. “That’s the truth?”
She nodded. “The truth, Nico. I’m sorry. I’m very sorry.”
He was crying fully now, the words coming out between the sobbing breath. “But my matarh… I can’t… They just left her… She’s asleep and I… can’t wake her up…”
“Your matarh would want you to go with me. Look at her, Nico. She loves you so much, I know she does, but I don’t know if she’s ever going to wake up, and the city is full of soldiers and death. She would want you to go with me because I can keep you safe. I will keep you safe.”
“But I did this to her,” Nico said. “It was my fault. I want her to know that I’m sorry.”
She pressed Nico’s hand around his matarh’s. “She knows. Nico, we need to hurry.”
She pulled his hand away from his matarh’s, prying away the fingers gently. He released his grip reluctantly but without protest. “Give her a kiss,” she said. “She’ll feel it, and she’ll know.”
Nico stood up. Leaning over his matarh’s body, he gave her a kiss on the cheek. He put her hand, dangling over the side, on the table, and patted it. He looked back over his shoulder, then, his eyes swimming with tears that didn’t fall.
“I promise you, Nico-I’ll find her again if she lives and bring her back to us. I promise you.”
He nodded. She held out her hand to him, and he took it. She brought him to her, hugging him briefly, then releasing him with a sigh. She took his hand again.
“It’s time,” she told him.
Together, hand in hand, they made their way from the smoldering, ruined city.
Allesandra ca’Vorl
“ Here you are, Matarh. It’s all yours. I hope it makes you happy.”
Jan’s words were scalding water poured over her. They burned and seared her, delivered with an appalling and terrifying scorn and distance. He gestured grandly and mockingly in the direction of the Sun Throne. Allesandra stared at the massive piece of carved crystal, sitting-strangely misplaced-in the middle of the ruined Old Temple. The throne had been cracked and badly repaired; a cloth with strange geometric patterns was draped over it, the ruins of the shattered dome and its lantern littered the broken tiles behind, and all around the hall were the remnants of some feast. Rats prowled the corners of the room, and the air stank of smoke and rotting meat. Near the rear there was a body, with one of the tapestries thrown hastily over it.
Allesandra knew whose body was under the covering: Sigourney, her staked head lolling separately near the throne.
The Regent and the two Numetodo were standing limned in sunlight by the open doors of the temple, too far away to hear her and Jan’s conversation. Starkkapitan ca’Damont called out orders in the temple’s plaza, sending out patrols to make certain that all the Westlander troops were gone from the city and to stop any looting by the survivors.
