The eyebrows climbed higher. “Of course, A’Morce. Of course. Only
…”
“Yes?”
Pierre shook his head. “Nothing, A’Morce.” He brushed at his thighs, raising a cloud of dust that billowed into the nearest light shaft. “I will do as you ask, and I hope you’ll be pleased with the results.”
“Good,” she said. “Thank you, Pierre. I’ll stop by next Draiordi and see what progress you’ve made.” She rose from her seat, shrugging her overcloak over her tashta. “I hope that I’m wrong and that none of this is necessary,” she told him. “That’s actually what would please me the most. But I doubt that I will have that pleasure.”
Allesandra ca’Vorl
Commandant Telo Cu’Ingres of the Garde Kralji and Commandant Eleric ca’Talin of the Garde Civile both stood at uneasy attention before the Sun Throne. The courtiers and the public had been sent from the room, and the usual monthly Council meeting had been cut short. The Council of Ca’ sat to the throne’s right, but other than the servants against the walls waiting to jump to any request, there was no one else there to witness Allesandra’s displeasure at their reports.
No one aside from Erik ca’Vikej, who was seated behind the Council. Allesandra saw them struggling to ignore the man’s presence; their discomfiture was almost pleasant. Of the councillors, only Varina seemed to take little notice of him. Varina seemed to Allesandra to be lost in her own thoughts; she’d said nothing at all during the meeting.
“Nico Morel is able to make a public speech-one that attacked both the Faith and the Sun Throne-and yet we were unable to capture him.” Allesandra sniffed. The bright yellow glow of the Sun Throne enveloped her; she could see it radiating around her fingers as she clenched the crystalline arms of the throne. She could see the cracks in the carved, translucent stone where the throne, damaged in the assassination of Kraljiki Audric, fifteen years ago, had been repaired. The cracks did not glow but remained stubbornly opaque despite the best efforts of the light- teni. “This is not what I wished to hear.” She heard Erik snort in cold amusement at her remark.
“Nor is it what we wished to report, Kraljica,” Commandant cu’Ingres said. “I was in charge of the operation, not Commandant ca’Talin, who had agreed to support the Garde Kralji, and thus he should be blameless in this. I have no adequate excuse, and will make none.”
“Then it’s good that I had other reports from the scene, Commandant,” Allesandra told him. “I know that your gardai were attacked by the crowd, and that they used admirable restraint in not responding in kind against citizens of the Holdings.” Cu’Ingres inclined his head toward her in acknowledgment. “But I think that the time for restraint against the Morellis may have passed,” she continued. “In the future, both of you have my permission to use whatever force you feel is necessary.” Allesandra looked at Varina with that statement. She made no sign, staring at the hands folded in her lap. Allesandra wondered if she’d even heard what had been said.
“Nico Morel is to be found and brought to justice for the murder of citizens of Nessantico, and for the damage he has done here,” she said to the Commandants, to the councillors. The Commandants bowed their heads, receiving their orders as any good soldier should, but the five members of the Council of Ca’ were less in agreement. Varina was lost in her own thoughts. Allesandra’s cousin Henri ca’Sibelli was nodding, the wattles of his neck swaying with the motion. But the other three… Simon ca’Dakwi’s hand prowled his white beard, his mouth twisted as if he’d tasted something sour; Anais ca’Gerodi leaned over to Edouard ca’Matin and whispered something in his hair-tufted ear, to which the man scowled vigorously, his head shaking with the palsy that afflicted him.
Have I misjudged Nico Morel’s support here? Allesandra found herself wishing that Sergei were still in the city; she needed his unvarnished honesty. But she looked instead to Erik.
He was scowling as well, but his irritation was directed at the Council: she saw that he’d noticed their reaction. “Are we in agreement?” she asked the councillors.
“We are, Kraljica,” ca’Sibelli answered, but his was the only voice. The others said nothing; if they felt otherwise, they weren’t going to say it here, then, in front of her.
“Good,” Allesandra snapped-if they were too unsure to voice their discontent, then let them be discontented. She rose from the Sun Throne, and the glow from within the crystal died. The room seemed suddenly dim. “We’re done here. Commandants, Councillors, thank you for your time.” The Commandants bowed themselves quickly out, their boot heels clacking loudly on the tiles of the Sun Throne’s hall; the councillors glanced at each other, uncertain, then finally rose from their chairs with various groans and mutterings. They bowed to Allesandra, then- hesitating-bowed also to Erik before, more slowly than the two soldiers, beginning to make their way from the room. “Varina,” Allesandra called out, “a moment, if you would…”
When the last of the councillors had made their way from the hall and the hall servants had closed the doors behind them, Allesandra went to Varina. She took the woman’s hands. “How are you?” she asked. “I worry about you. You said nothing today at all.”
“I’m sorry, Kraljica.”
“You’re recovered from your injuries?”
“My injuries?” she asked, as if uncertain what Allesandra meant. Then: “Oh, my injuries. Yes, entirely. Thank you for your concern.”
Her voice was dull, and she appeared more tired and worn even than usual. The left side of her face seemed to sag slightly, and the eye on that side was clouded. Allesandra was reminded of other longtime couples she’d known, and how after one spouse died, the other often followed into Cenzi’s arms soon after. She wondered if that would be the case here. “I’m going to send my healer over to you this evening,” she said to Varina, and waved off the beginning of the woman’s protest. “No, I won’t hear any excuses from you, my dear. I insist. I know you have the Numetodo to look after you, but Talbot tells me that you’re burying yourself in work, keeping yourself locked up in your laboratory. That’s not healthy, Varina. You should be out in the air, enjoying yourself and your friends.”
“I’m afraid that I’m feeling my mortality, Kraljica. I don’t have much time left, and there’s so much to do, so much to understand.”
“You will be here for years and decades yet,” Allesandra told the woman. It was a polite lie, and they both knew it. “You missed the Gschnas tending to poor Karl, and that’s a shame. I will have another party soon; you’ll be invited, and I will insist you come. I won’t hear of any excuse.”
“The Kraljica is too kind,” Allesandra said. “Of course I’ll come. But I do need to return to the Numetodo House. An experiment I’m conducting…” She gave Allesandra the ghost of a curtsy and began to turn, then stopped. “Kraljica?”
“Yes?”
“I always told Karl that Nico could be reclaimed, that if we only had the chance to talk to him…” She licked dry, cracked lips webbed with wrinkles. “I was wrong.”
“You’ve actually spoken to him?” Allesandra asked. Varina nodded. “Nico is convinced that he is right and the rest of us are wrong. And he’s more dangerous than any of us thought.”
With that, she gave her abbreviated curtsy again and shuffled away toward the doors, moving like a woman two decades older than she was.
“She’s right, you know.”
The voice startled her; she’d forgotten that Erik was still there with her. She felt his hand on her shoulder and she trapped it with her cheek.
“I know,” she told him. “And that frightens me.”
Rochelle Botelli
“ That Bastardo Ci’Lawli took me off the list for chevaritt,” cu’Kella said, swearing under his breath. As Rochelle had instructed the man, he didn’t turn around to look into the shadows where she stood. “He sent my daughter away, who was carrying the Hirzg’s child, and they’re offering me almost nothing, nothing, in return. Why,
