Minutes later, as the lighted fumes from the pipe curled through the mildew-dank warehouse, Quen slept curled like a dog by the doorway. Equally oblivious, though deadly pale, Elaira sat crosslegged, her eyes closed and her back propped straight against the dye-vat. Her strength of self-discipline could not be faulted as she laid the pipe aside and drew the slow, measured breaths that indicated full surrender to the broadening, glass-sharp awareness induced by the poisons in the herb smoke.
Across a gloom deepened by the embered stubs of the torches, Lirenda stirred. ‘You were easy on her.’
Morriel sighed. Fragile under crushing layers of shawls, she crossed the floor and sank into the quilts her servant had prepared for her. ‘You think so?’ The voice so precisely edged but a moment before now sounded querulous and tired.
Belatedly, Lirenda stirred to attend her Prime’s comfort.
Yet as she reached to assist with the blankets, Morriel fended her away. ‘You pay no mind to your heart, First Senior. That is a most wasteful fault.’
Taken aback, Lirenda was forced to reconsider. ‘Then Elaira is to think she’s forgiven for falling prey to distractions of the flesh, not to mention the further possibility she has abetted the despoiler, Asandir?’
Morriel clasped skeletal fingers. Her eyes as she looked up were empty, like fog or featureless rain. ‘Elaira played a girl’s prank that placed her most woefully in a bad place at the wrong time. She is intelligent, and gifted with an insight that runs rare and true. Which strengths caused her to see the s’Ffalenn heir through to his depths and let him touch her. I venture to suggest that her reasons for attraction are real, and dauntingly powerful to any mind born female. That is why you alone were called to witness the scrying that shall take place tonight. I would shield our other Seniors from exposure to fearful temptation. There is warning for you in this. Heed the risk.’
‘You
The Prime denied nothing. ‘I pity the fact I have ruined her.’
Lirenda would not believe this. Planks creaked as she crossed a fallen trestle to brighten a fresh set of torches. ‘Nobody asked Elaira to create that scene in the taproom, or to seek Asandir out beforehand. The silly girl ruined herself.’
‘No. She would have recovered from the mistake. Had done so quite admirably, in fact, until I sent her afterwards to Etarra.’ Hard to her core now, and misliking the strengthened light which inked shadows in every seam of her face, Morriel drew a short breath. ‘You will learn from this, First Senior, if you covet position as my successor. Elaira is a valuable tool, a window into Arithon’s character we’re going to need sorely if we wish to track the conflict the Fellowship has set loose upon the continent. We must tenderly encourage that girl to keep discipline. She is dedicated. With judicious handling, her botched insight will prove useful for a very long time before she breaks. For as you guessed, if our order’s training had held, she should have rejected the curiosity that prompted her foray into Erdane. Elaira is a flawed instrument. But she will serve as no other can, until the day comes when she is driven to forsake her vows. Let her own shortfalls, and not your vindictive perfectionism, be the quality that throws her to destruction.’
The Prime closed her eyes to snatch an interval to meditate, indication enough that she had spent her reserves on talk. Lirenda as ever was wily enough to respect the line that was drawn; too wily, the aged Prime sometimes thought. Like many another former matriarch, she wished the last trial of initiation for the Koriani seat of Prime Power was not fatal to most every aspirant.
Lirenda was the forty-third hopeful selected to attempt the succession. Morriel battled to separate her consciousness from the ache of her brittle bones. She feared afresh to become the first to break the chain of command: to become the Prime that death would overtake before an heir survived to finish training.
Old she was, and bitterly tired. Morriel snatched what solace she could from the disciplines of her office. What Lirenda did through the minutes that passed held no concern. Years since, the Prime had ceased to invest interest in the particulars of any one candidate. The woman who succeeded – that one only she could love. Since the death of the first, the rest had been nothing but ciphers.
Informed at length by the scent of charred herbs that the pipe had been fully smoked, Morriel stirred. On the moment the narcotic peaked Elaira’s powers of recall, she shed piled blankets and arose. Lirenda had already stationed herself over the dye vat, her rapt expression clear enough indication that an image already lay in view. Careful of joints over-worn from centuries of unnatural lifespan, the Prime Enchantress crossed the warehouse to share what the waters would show.
‘A throwback,’ Lirenda murmured, as the matriarch drew abreast. ‘He could almost be Torbrand’s double.’
Humbled by Elaira’s courage, which had dared display Arithon first, Morriel said nothing. Then she looked, and her heart would not allow speech past the stunningly expressive detail in the image in the vat.
The chosen moment was one that Elaira had stolen; when the man had foolishly supposed no observer with higher interests would be present. He crouched in a filthy alley, attended by those who least cared for power, and sorceries, and bloody contentions between factions. Surrounded by a tattered pack of children, Arithon bent in the act of setting a brigantine fashioned of shadows to capture the breeze in full sails.
Elaira had caught him glancing up to see his illusion under way. His face held untrammelled peace. A laugh of delight and satisfaction lightened the corners of his mouth. His eyes were unshadowed and the sharp-angled features of s’Ffalenn inheritance had fleetingly softened to expose, in vivid clarity, the depths of generosity and caring that buttressed his musician’s sensitivity.
The effect was spirit stripped naked. The accuracy of Elaira’s recreation gave the lie to every sharp edge, every cutting word, every difficult and cross-grained reaction that Arithon had ever employed to defend this, his vulnerable inner heart.
‘Daelion Fatemaster,’ Morriel gasped. ‘The girl’s unmasked him for us, wholly. I never believed it could be done.’
Totally absorbed by the image, Lirenda never noticed that her nails had broken under the force of her tightened grip on the scaled stone. ‘He can be brought down, though. The killing will unman him, finally, for s’Ffalenn conscience must force him over time to back down.’
Morriel gave the image long study, her head cocked in unexpectedly grandmotherly fascination. ‘Look again,’ she urged. ‘War will not be what stops this prince.’ When Lirenda made no response, she added, ‘My point is subtle. But plain to be read, if you study his hands before his eyes.’
Obedient, Lirenda regarded Arithon’s fingers, which were slim and quick, and in this frozen moment of Elaira’s
