“Perhaps,” Sergei said. He took another swig of wine and handed the bottle to Nico, whose throat was ravaged and as dry as the Daritria desert; he took it again gratefully. “I believe in Cenzi, so, yes, I would say the gift came to you from him, but Varina certainly doesn’t, nor did Karl, and they were both nearly as gifted as you. So maybe we’re both wrong. Maybe Cenzi simply doesn’t interfere quite so directly in people’s lives.”
“If you believe that, then you deny one of the tenets of the Toustour.”
“Or perhaps I don’t believe that Cenzi is cruel enough to have wanted Liana to die and for you never to see your daughter.”
Nico started to answer. The Nico who had been Cenzi’s Voice would have had no trouble. He would have opened his mouth, and Cenzi would have filled him with the answer. His words would have burned and throbbed, and ca’Rudka would have trembled under their power. Now, he only gaped, and no words came. When I saw her fall, my faith fell with her…
“I told you about the young woman I met on the way here-I told her that she still had time to change, to find a path that wouldn’t end where I am,” Sergei said. “I think that’s what Varina believes of you, Nico. She believes in you, in your gift, and she believes you can do better with it than you’ve done.”
“I do what Cenzi demands I do,” Nico answered. “That’s all.”
“I watched a Kraljiki descend into madness, listening to voices he thought he heard,” Sergei answered.
“I’m not mad.”
“Audric didn’t think he was mad either.”
“You can’t compare my relationship to Cenzi with someone who believed a painting was talking to him.”
“I can’t? At least you can see and touch a painting. You can be certain that it’s actually there. You can’t do that with Cenzi.” Sergei picked up the bread, twisted off a piece and placed it in his mouth. “What I see here,” he said, chewing and swallowing, “is that Cenzi has brought you here, but it’s Varina who has spared your child, your life, your hands, and your tongue, and thus your gift: a person who doesn’t believe in Cenzi, but who believes in you.”
Cenzi works through her, he wanted to say, but the words wouldn’t come. Sergei, groaning, had sat on the bed next to the roll of leather. Nico could see loops and pockets on the inside, all of them empty, though the leather had been imprinted with the shapes of the devices that normally resided there. Ominous dark stains dappled the interior. “Finish what you want of the food and wine, but quickly,” Sergei said. “I have other appointments today, and I’m afraid I have to put this back on.” He lifted the silencer, dangling by a strap from his finger. Nico’s mouth suddenly filled with the memory of the ancient, soiled leather and he nearly vomited. “You should think about this, Nico,” the man continued. “You’ve nothing else to do, after all.”
“You act like you have something to offer me.”
“I do,” Sergei answered easily. “Your life, and whatever comfort you have with it.”
“In exchange for what?”
Sergei groaned again as he rose. “We can start with a declaration from you to the war-teni, telling them that they should return to their duties and give themselves to the authority of the Faith once more.”
“Cenzi told me that they should not fight,” Nico persisted. “He said that the Tehuantin are a punishment for the failure of the Faith, the failure of the Archigos and the a’Teni. How can I deny Cenzi’s very words to me, Ambassador?”
“There are two ways,” Sergei answered. “You can do so of your own will, or I can return here tomorrow with a different gift for you.” Sergei glanced back at the bed, where the empty roll lay. “Either way, you will make that statement. I promise you that. It’s for you to decide how. Either way, I’ll get something I want.” He smiled at Nico. “You see, it’s too late for me to change.”
Sergei lifted the silencer; the buckles on the straps jingled. “I really must go now,” he said, “but I’ll return. Tomorrow. And you can tell me what you’ve decided.”
Jan ca’Ostheim
The vanguard of the army was still a day or more away under the direction of the a’offiziers, but Jan rode ahead of the troops with Archigos Karrol and Starkkapitan ca’Damont, as well as several of the Firenzcian chevarittai.
He’d not been in Nessantico in fifteen years, not since Firenzcia had last come to the Holdings’ aid against the Tehuantin. He’d forgotten how magnificent the city looked. They’d halted on the crest of the last hill along the Avi a’Firenzcia, where they could see Nessantico laid out before them on either side of the glittering expanse of the A’Sele. When he’d last glimpsed Nessantico, it had been cloaked in fire and ruin, nearly destroyed. The city had rebuilt itself anew. The domes of the temples were golden, the white spires of the Kraljica’s Palais seemed to nearly prick the clouds from the Isle a’Kralji, and the city utterly filled the flat hollow that held it. Even tarnished and threatened, the city was magnificent.
“It is a stunning sight, isn’t it, my Hirzg?” Archigos Karrol said. The Archigos, with his bent spine, couldn’t ride a horse, but he’d descended from his carriage to take in the scene, standing on the road next to Jan’s stallion. “But I still prefer Brezno and our terraces.”
Jan wasn’t certain that he entirely agreed. Yes, Brezno had its beauties as a city, and there were vistas on approach that made a traveler stop and gaze, but this… There was a power here, somehow. Maybe it came from the multitudes of people here, thousands more than Brezno held. Maybe it was a product of the long history of the city, which had seen empires rise and fall, which had become the seat of the greatest empire ever seen, at least on this side of the Strettosei. Even Jan felt the tug of it. This will be yours soon enough. All of it… If you can save it now.
“Look,” Starkkapitan ca’Damont said, pointing. “The Avi’s crowded with people at the Eastern Gate. The evacuation’s already begun. The Tehuantin must be close.” He leaned forward on the saddle of his horse, peering down at the vista in front of them. “I wonder if they’re coming from the North Bank, the South, or both. If we can engage them before they reach the city itself, we should. Without the war-teni, especially, we need to keep them from the city.” Ca’Damont cast a venomous glance at Archigos Karrol, but the man seemed to be staring down at the road.
“There will be war-teni from the temples here,” Archigos Karrol said. “You will have the war-teni you need.”
“Let’s hope so,” ca’Damont answered curtly. “But it seems they’d rather follow Morel than you.”
“We’ll find out what the situation is soon enough,” Jan said quickly, interrupting the response that Archigos Karrol started to make. “Archigos, if you’ll return to your carriage, we’ll ride on. If we make good time, we could be within the walls by Third Call.”
As Archigos Karrol, helped by the quartet of his aide tenis, climbed slowly back to his carriage seat, Jan stared westward toward the city, and especially to the Isle a’Kralji and the palais. He wondered if his matarh was there, and how she felt about his impending arrival. He wondered if she both dreaded and looked forward to it all at once, contradictorily.
As he did.
“Let’s go,” he said to the others, waving his hand. “The city awaits us.”
They entered along the Avi a’Firenzcia, proceeding slowly toward the Eastern Gate of the city. The city was beginning to evacuate, the road clogged with people and carts, most of them moving away from Nessantico. The people were largely women with children, along with some elderly men-conspicuously absent were able-bodied men; Jan assumed that the Garde Kralji and Garde Civile were pressing them into service of the defense of the city. The houses and buildings along the Avi became more numerous and set closer to the main road as they approached, until they were moving between tightly-packed houses even though they were still outside the city walls proper. Someone had alerted the authorities; as they moved on, suddenly the citizenry was pausing to stop and cheer, and people were peering at them from windows and balconies, waving their hands and producing battered and ancient banners in the Firenzcian colors of black and silver-banners that had evidently been moldering in chests for years. Jan could see many of them looking eastward along the Avi as if expecting to see the army immediately following them, then looking back to them in puzzlement.
He heard his name being called out, greeting him as if he had already liberated the city. “Hirzg Jan! Hirzg
