But she had no intention of going to bed early. There was too much to think about.
A candlemark later, wrapped in a warm robe and nibbling on a honeycake as she gazed out into the dusk- filled gardens, she still hadn't come to any conclusions of her own.
Things just felt wrong; she was restless and unhappy, and she wasn't certain why. The restrictions Selenay had wanted to place on her movements had merely heightened those feelings, which had been there all along.
It's almost as if there was something I should be doing, she decided, as the blue dusk deepened and shrouded the paths below in shadows. As if somewhere I have the key to all this, if I can just find it.
One thing she was certain of.. this would not be the last time Ancar attempted an assassination, or something of the sort. He wanted Valdemar, and he was not going to give up trying to annex it. There was no way he could expand eastward; the Aurinalean Empire was old and strong enough to flatten him if he attacked any of its kingdoms. North was Iftel-strange, isolationist Iftel-guarded by a deity. He could not move against them; not unless he wanted a smoking hole where his army had been. South was Karse, and if rumor was true, he was already making moves in that direction. But Karse had been at war with Valdemar and Rethwellan for generations, and they were quite prepared to take him on as well. Taking Valdemar would give him protection on the north, a western border he would not need to guard, and another place from which to attack Karse. Besides doubling his acquisitions.
He probably assumed that if the rightful rulers and their Heirs died, it would leave the country in a state of chaos and an easy target for takeover.
He might not be ready for another war now-but he would be, given time and the chance to rebuild his forces.
So no matter what, there's going to be another war, she thought, shoving the rest of her dinner aside, uneaten. I know it, Kero knows it, Stepfather knows it-Mother knows it, and won't admit it.
She turned away from the window and rested her back against the sill.
She'd had a fair number of discussions with Kero and Prince-Consort Daren on this very subject. Her stepfather didn't treat her like a child.
Then again, her stepfather hadn't ever seen her until she was adult and in her full Whites. It was an old proverb that a person was always a child to his parents... but it was war she should really be worrying about, not how to make her mother realize that she was an adult and capable of living her own life. The two problems were entwined, but not related. And the personal problems could wait.
The next try Ancar makes is going to involve magic, I know it combative magic, war-magic, the kind they use south of Rethwellan. the kind the Skybolts are used to seeing. Kero says so, and I think she's right.
She can talk about real magic, and I can... and that might be a clue to what I need to be doing right there.
For Valdemar was not ready to cope with magic, especially not within its borders. For all the efforts to prepare the populace, for all the research that was supposed to have been done in the archives, very little had actually been accomplished. Yes, the ballads of Vanyel's time and earlier had been revived, but there was very much a feeling of 'but it can't happen now' in the people of Elspeth had talked to. And she wasn't the only one to have come to that conclusion. Kero had said much the same thing. The Captain was worried.
Elspeth licked her bitten lip, and thought hard. Kero's told me a lot of stories she hasn't even told Mother. Some of the things the Skybolts had to deal with-and those were just minor magics.
'Most of the time the major magics don't get used,' she'd said more than once. That was because the major mages tended to cancel one another out. Adept-class mages tended to be in teaching, or in some otherwise less- hazardous aspect of their profession.
Most mages, Adept-class or not, were unwilling to risk themselves in all-out mage-duels for the sake of a mere employer. Most employers were reluctant to antagonize them.
But when the ruler himself was a mage, or backed by one-a powerful mage, at that-the rules changed. Mages could be coerced, like anyone else; or blackmailed, or bribed, if the offer was high enough. There was already evidence of coercion, magical and otherwise; outright control, like the men of his armies. And where there was a power broker, there were always those who wanted power above all else and were willing to pay any price to get it.
So Valdemar wasn't protected anymore because there was someone willing to pay the price of breaking the protections.
Or bending them...All right; when the Border-protection has failed, what's been the common denominator? She rubbed her temple, as she tried to think of what those failures had in common.
It didn't keep Hulda out-but she didn't work any magic while she was here. It didn't keep some of Ancar's spells out, but they were cast across the Border. It didn't keep that assassin out-but the spell must surely have been cast on him when he was with Ancar. And it didn't keep Need out, but Need hasn't done a blessed thing- openly-since Kero got here.
