your doors opened at other times of the day.”
“If you left me a note, I might know when to expect you,” said Rhianne. “Then I could arrange for the door to open at the proper time.”
Janto tasted her potato-and-leek soup. “I prefer surprising you.”
“If you wish to have dinner with me, there’s a price to pay,” said Rhianne.
He looked at her, eyebrows raised, with the spoon still in his hand.
“You will tell me something about yourself.”
“Tell you what?”
“I told you about my background, how Florian stole me away from my real parents, how Lucien and I were the terrors of the palace because we were the backup children, of interest only as future marriage prospects. But I know almost nothing about you.”
“I’m a shroud mage. I speak five languages. I climbed lorim cliffs as a boy—”
Rhianne shook her head. “I mean your
Janto drizzled oil onto a slice of bread. “How much do you know about Mosari politics and history?”
“Almost nothing.”
“And the royal family?”
“There’s a king and a queen. Two princes.”
“Mosari nobility, what do you know of them?”
“Nothing.”
“I don’t want to lie to you,” said Janto. “I can’t tell you my zo name or the names of my family members, because if I did that, I’d be putting people in danger—”
“Your zo name?”
“You don’t know what that is?” He shook his head. “You’re supposed to govern my people alongside Augustan, and you know nothing about Mosar.”
“My uncle doesn’t believe in educating women, at least not about politics and other countries. That’s why I recruited you to teach me the Mosari language myself.”
“Well, when a Mosari mage soulcasts, if he does it successfully, he is given a new name. Like
“Is Janto a zo name?”
“No. I have one, but I don’t use it here,” said Janto. “Too dangerous.”
“Make up names for your family members. I don’t care,” said Rhianne. “Just tell me about them. What are they like? Are your parents still alive?”
“They were alive when I left Mosar.”
“Do you like them? Hate them? Why do I have to drag details out of you? You’d think I was performing an interrogation.”
“Of course I like them,” said Janto. “They’re good people.” When she glared at him, he added, “My younger brother and I were competitive. We’d try to seduce the same women.”
“Oh?” She felt a little jealous of those unknown women. “Who usually won?”
“My brother.” Janto placed a cheese slice atop a pear slice and ate them together. “He’s taller. Handsomer.”
“Those women were fools,” said Rhianne.
“Naturally,” said Janto. “Look, I’ll tell you a story that might actually mean something to you. I went through my magical training with one of my same-age cousins. I’ll call him Bel. Are you familiar with the root called jovo?”
“I’ve heard the name before, but I don’t know anything about it.”
“It doesn’t grow here. Only on Mosar. We warn our children not to chew it, but some do anyway. It has an effect like wine but more powerful. It fogs the mind and produces euphoria. If you chew it once, you feel compelled to chew it again and again. Over time it rots your teeth, and I think it must rot your insides too, because jovo addicts die young. Bel and I went through magical training together, and we became friends. He was, at the time, chewing jovo, but he was discreet about it, and I never caught on. He soulcast into a cliff bear, which made him a stoneshaper.” Janto stopped to take another bite of pear.
“We parted ways because our training diverged, but we stayed in touch. He became an accomplished stoneshaper, but his jovo chewing caught up with him. He was disciplined repeatedly for not showing up to work and for shoddy or unsafe workmanship. Finally he was brought before my father, an authority within our family.
“My father believed that the only way to induce Bel to behave more honorably was to remove him from the island of Mosar—get him away from jovo entirely. He wanted to send Bel to sea as a sailor in the Mosari Navy. After a year or two of no access to jovo, he might safely return to stoneshaping.”
“That sounds like a good idea to me,” Rhianne said.
“I thought so too. But Bel was horrified at the prospect of going to sea where his magic would be useless and he’d have to perform hard labor and be separated from his friends. He implored me to speak to my father and change his mind. He had learned his lesson, he said, and would never chew jovo again, if only I would spare him this fate. I liked Bel, and I believed him, and we were chronically short of stoneshapers. We needed several for a building project at Silverside Mountain. So I persuaded my father to find a spot for Bel at Silverside.” Now he paused to take a sip of wine, as if bracing himself.
“Several sagespans later, there was a cave-in at Silverside, in which we lost not only Bel but a dozen other mages. In the investigations that followed, we learned that Bel had been disciplined several times at Silverside for showing up under the influence of jovo and that his inappropriate thinning of a key structural pillar had caused the collapse.”
“Janto, I’m so sorry,” said Rhianne. “You sound like you feel that accident was your fault. But you couldn’t have known your cousin would lie about the jovo again.”
“I should have known,” said Janto. “In hindsight, it seems obvious. Addicts always have problems giving it up. My father’s solution was the right one. At the time, I thought it was harsh, but those two years on a ship might have saved Bel’s life. They would certainly have saved the lives of the other mages. The compassion I showed Bel did him no favors.”
“I cannot fault you,” said Rhianne. “It was the wrong decision, but you made it for the right reason. There is altogether too little compassion in this world.”
“You possess it in abundance to give me that much credit,” said Janto. “I have thought long and hard about Silverside and that collapsed cavern. Compassion must be tempered by judgment.”
“Of course,” said Rhianne. “But if good judgment were easy, we’d make the right decisions every time, wouldn’t we?”
“I suppose we would,” said Janto.
“Here’s what I think,” said Rhianne. “I think you should pull up all the jovo root on Mosar and burn it.”
He shook his head. “If only it were that easy. But for now, I have another question. Have I met your requirements, Princess, and told you something of substance about my family? Have I earned the right to share your dinner?”
“I don’t know why you bother to ask, since you ate half of it while we were talking even after you had the gall to say you weren’t using me for food. If not food, what
Janto grinned, and his eyes twinkled. “Come over here and find out.”
It was past dark when Janto left the palace and went searching for one of his bolt-holes to spend the night in. A stable was a good choice, sometimes a supply shed. Anywhere reasonably warm where he could throw a shroud over himself and be certain no one would trip over him. It was a harsh reality check, trading the silk sheets of an imperial princess’s bed for a chilly dirt floor. He shivered just thinking about it.
As he turned the corner, he noticed to the south, away in the harbor of Riat, a soundless yellow light exploding in the air. Janto blinked as the afterimages danced before his eyelids. That was a pyrotechnic signal!
