rapacious hunger, its unending hordes of soldiers, its fierce youthful fire. She summoned up all her own confidence, her belief in her people and in herself, and her unbridled and all-consuming need to control: to control herself, control her people, control the ancient powers, control the world. She did not know it, but she was grinning at them like a monster. She smiled like a tyrant and, just as their ancient power had weighed on her with its demands of Worship us! so she turned her mind on them with all the force of her Imperial will: Submit to me!
The air was full of soundless fury, of invisible fire, so that Gjegevey flinched from every moment of it. But in the physical world a great silence had fallen, and Seda’s grin simply widened, and the Masters were suddenly uncertain. The world of the new and the vital was brought here before them, incomprehensible and threatening.
And, at the very last, an answer: ‘What is it that you want, then?’ said one of the women. ‘Name it.’
‘Validation,’ Seda told them. ‘Confirmation. You, with your great legacy, must accept me as your heir in the modern world. Just a nod, Masters – just the smallest nod. All of us here know how power is defined by such symbols.’ She caught a glimpse of Gjegevey’s face, and he was wide-eyed in horror, but she had come too far now to turn aside. ‘Pass on to me the mantle,’ she insisted.
The Masters of Khanaphes, and there were many more of them now, exchanged slow glances, and Seda knew that thoughts must be passing between them, not by Art or even magic, but by virtue of their having spent so many centuries in each other’s company.
‘You claim to be the heir to the Age of Lore,’ one said at last, and when Seda nodded impatiently, added, ‘You wish us to crown you, to acknowledge you.’
‘You are the first-ever great magicians,’ Seda declared. ‘I will have you name me as your successor.’
‘And are you prepared to share your throne?’ asked another woman there.
Seda’s eyes narrowed. ‘With you?’
There was a murmur of laughter amongst them, more evident in the eyes than from anything she actually heard. ‘You shall never be our peer, little Empress, but perhaps you are fit to be named queen of what scant magic this withered age still owns. With our blessing you might do great things – might even turn back the sands a little and bring back some shadow of the old days. We cannot bless you, though, unless we also bless your sister.’
The Wasp Empress stared at her, and it was a few moments before she could form the words: ‘I have no sister. Maxin killed them all, years ago. I am the last of my blood.’
At her bafflement, the amusement among the Masters spread. ‘She was not born your kin, but she is your sister now. You and she were bloodied by the same thorn. In the instant that you attained your power, she came to hers. And, though her understanding is behind yours, you are yet walking in her footsteps.’
Seda glared at them all. ‘Explain yourselves!’ she demanded.
‘You have dreamt of these halls of ours,’ another of the Masters interposed. ‘But your sister was here before you. She broke our spells and made demands of us, though she was not so ambitious as you. You are joined, you and she, and though we bless you and grant you our acknowledgement, yet we must grant her nothing less. Your lives are intertwined, but only one of you can triumph in the end. You have a rival, Little Empress, and she is watching you even now.’
Che jerked back, trying to escape from the dream, trying to be anywhere but that subterranean tomb as the Wasp Empress glanced furiously about. I am not here, she had to remind herself. This is just a vision. This is nothing -
Seda’s eyes found hers, and there was a physical jolt of recognition and enmity between them, whereupon Che stopped lying to herself.
‘I see her,’ the Wasp growled, and she thrust out a hand towards Che, as though to sting her across the hundreds of miles that separated them. There came no searing light and heat, though, and Che was just beginning to relax when Seda bared her teeth in a savage snarl, and a wave of darkness pulsed out from her, faster than any eye could follow. Che had only a moment to register its approach before she was struck. Then a hammerblow of the mind detached her from her disembodied viewpoint and cast her far away, down into endless night.
Part Three
The Huntress
Twenty
Tynisa had been left to her own devices amid the strange bustle of Lowre Cean’s compound.
The old man himself seemed to drift between a dozen baffling pastimes, as though to actually commit wholly to any one occupation would be the death of him. Sometimes he was closeted with his little singers, the sight of which still made Tynisa’s flesh crawl. At other times he would go off travelling through the snows with one band of reprobates or another, abandoning his servants and guards and vanishing for days. Tynisa was given to understand that all those armed bands that visited his estate were not, after all, bandits, or not only bandits, but also war veterans whom Lowre Cean had either commanded or fought alongside. Why the old tactician took the whole thing so personally, and what the precise relationship of duty and obligation was, Tynisa was not sure. Nobody spoke about it.
At other times, Cean would retreat into his workroom, where he would whittle away at tiny figures of soldiers and peasants and nobles, all carved out of a wood that could be found nowhere within a hundred miles, and that he had shipped in by infrequent barge. He would cook sometimes, inventing new concoctions and feeding all comers. He would tend his kadith ponds, adding his own blends of herbs and grasses for the insect larvae to knit into their cocoons, or he would retreat to his library and read some dusty scroll of centuries-old poetry.
He did not practise with weapons, or take a bow down to the butts to shoot at targets, as many of his people did. He did not talk about the war. He did not even seem to directly give orders to his guards or servants. They just went about their business, using their own best judgement.
Amidst all of this, Tynisa was left to amuse herself and she found that, rather than this leading to frustration and despair, she was oddly liberated by it all. Certainly she was waiting for Salme Alain to call upon her, as she was sure he would. Certainly she still had her great purpose, of bringing word of Salma’s end to his mother, who did not seem to want to know. Still, until that part of her life interfered again, she was a free agent. The winter world seemed to have forgotten about her, and so had her own driving demons. Even the shadows grew infrequent, and sometimes whole days could go by without her glimpsing that hunched, accusing figure in grey robes, or her father’s flayed corpse.
One morning she awoke in a sudden panic, hearing voices outside. For long moments she could not understand why the very sound of them had abruptly recalled to her all the guilt and fear that she had been hiding from. Then at last she placed it: a Collegiate accent, clear as day.
Outside in the courtyard she saw a covered wagon drawn by a brown-shelled beetle, and sitting on the driver’s board was a Beetle-kinden, who was currently bawling at the top of her voice at some of Lowre’s retainers. She was a stranger, and yet Tynisa felt she knew the woman instantly. She had seen plenty of that type in Collegium: stocky, bluff, forceful women striding about the city streets or College halls. They were independent, resourceful and practical, constantly making and selling and disputing, and always being loud.
The sight of such a woman here, wrapped in two layers of woollen robes and a long cloak, was bewildering, and Tynisa approached her cautiously.
‘Excuse me,’ she said, but the woman was giving strident directions to someone about what to feed her beetle on, and so Tynisa had to repeat herself, even louder.
‘What is it?’ the woman snapped, obviously impatient with anything not immediately concerned with her current purpose.
‘I was wondering… what can you be doing here.’
The woman stared at her, and suddenly let out a bark of outsize laughter. ‘A voice from home, as I live and breathe!’ she declared. ‘A strange-looking Collegiate you make, too. I’d take you for a native, else. Sammi, come and look at this!’
From the round back of the wagon came an elderly Grasshopper-kinden with thinning grey hair and a frame
