The Traitor Queen

arrangements they’d made to take care of things in their absence, Lilia’s progress and future, the places they would probably stop along the journey and some of the information they had been given about Sachakan society. When Regin began yawning she insisted he try to sleep. He’d eventually done so, a travel pillow braced between his head and the side of the carriage. The roads nearer the city were smoother than those further into the countryside, so he was not often jostled awake.

She’d spent the night staring out of the window, thinking about the tasks she had been given and worrying about Lorkin. Remembering the last time she had travelled this road, following Akkarin into exile, she felt echoes of emotions from twenty years before. Fear, rejection, hope and love, all softened with time. She let them come, held onto them for a little while, and then released them to fade into the past.

This journey brought some interesting new emotions. Aside from fear and worry over Lorkin, and anxiety at the potential for everything to go badly for herself and Regin, there was a strange elation. After twenty years of being restricted to the Guild grounds, she had suddenly been set free.

Well, not exactly free. I can’t just roam about wherever my fancy takes me. I am on a mission.

“What are you thinking?”

Regin’s question brought her back to her surroundings. She shrugged.

“About being outside the city. I’d assumed I’d never leave it again.”

He made a low noise of disgust. “They should trust you more.”

She shook her head. “I don’t think trust was the problem. They had no choice but to trust me. I think they feared what would happen if we were invaded again and I wasn’t around. Or if Kallen turned on them.”

“Do you think Kallen will take advantage of your absence?”

Sonea shook her head, then she remembered the one trait she did not like in Kallen and frowned.

“What is it?”

She sighed. If Regin can read me this easily, how am I going to fare when I meet with King Amakira and the Traitors? I suppose I’m not fully awake and on my guard yet. Though I wouldn’t forgive myself if I failed to free Lorkin or make an alliance just because I was sleepy.

What to say? Regin had clearly picked up that she had concerns about Kallen, and he would imagine all sorts of reasons if she didn’t give him one. She had to tell him something.

The truth. It isn’t exactly a big secret, anyway.

“Rot,” she said. “Roet. It is his weakness. If I was going to corrupt Kallen, I’d do it by controlling his access to the drug.”

Regin’s brows knit together. “Do many people know of his weakness?”

“Vinara does. Rothen, too. I suspect many of the Higher Magicians do, though we’ve not discussed it. Or, at least, they’ve not discussed it while I was present.”

“Whoever sells it to him knows as well,” Regin added.

“Yes.”

“Lilia used roet too, didn’t she?”

“When she was with Naki. Lilia doesn’t appear to have become addicted to it. In fact, she has a distaste for roet and roet users now. I think she blames it for some of the foolish things she and Naki did.”

Regin looked thoughtful. “So the Guild has one black magician addicted to roet, and one resistant to it.”

“And one who wouldn’t go near the stuff if you paid her to,” Sonea added, shuddering.

He looked at her and smiled. “You’re too smart for that. You don’t let anything back you into a corner.”

Sonea felt her cheeks warm. “Except the Guild.”

“A worthy exception.” He looked away. “I wish I’d had your determination and willingness to defy convention when I was younger.”

She shook her head. “You? Not determined? I always got the impression you were completely sure of yourself and what you wanted from life.”

“Yes... but I never had to make any hard decisions. I was told everything had to be a certain way because it kept everyone safe, powerful and wealthy, and I didn’t question that. But as I grew older I did begin to question. I saw that my lack of resistance came out of a fear of not being accepted by my peers. I saw that the only people we were keeping safe, powerful and wealthy were my family and House. That the Houses resist change because they fear it will diminish their power and wealth. And still do.”

“Kyralia has changed a lot in the last twenty years. The Houses haven’t lost power or wealth as a result.”

Regin shook his head. “They will. It may take a long time, but it is going to happen. The warning signs are there, if you know what to look for. And you know what I’ve discovered?” He looked at her and shrugged. “I don’t care. Let them fall. They’re built on lies and greed.”

Sonea felt a pang of sympathy. Since his rather public separation from his wife, Regin had been prone to the occasional sullen and defiant comment about the habits and expectations of the highest class. Part of her approved, another sympathised, yet she wondered how much of his disenchantment would remain once the personal pain faded.

“I’m sure you wouldn’t think so if you wound up a beggar on the street,” she reminded him gently.

He looked at her and his shoulders sagged a little. “Probably not. But maybe I’d be a better man. Maybe I’d even be a happier man. By taking in lower-class entrants, the Guild has made it possible for people to cross the barriers between classes. I see the newcomers boasting about it, and I want to warn them that there is a cost. Then... then I see that the cost doesn’t apply to them and I feel, well, jealous. Somehow they get to have the wealth and power and magic, but they have no obligations to honour ancient agreements or traditions, or to only associate with the people their House approves of, or marry the woman their family selects.”

“They may have to eventually.”

Regin shook his head. “No. Look at you.” His eyes rose to meet hers. “You were never forced to marry.”

“I’m sure if I’d decided to, plenty would have been said about my choice.”

“Yet nobody would have dared tell you not to.”

“That’s only because I am the first black magician. I’m an exception. You can’t make predictions based on me.”

Regin gave her an odd look, opened his mouth to speak, then frowned and closed it again. His gaze slid away from hers. Sonea felt curiosity rising.

“What were you going to say?” she asked.

He glanced at her, his expression uncertain.

“I... I was going to ask you why you didn’t marry, but I guess it’s obvious – and rather rude of me to ask.”

She shrugged. “Not rude. Nor is it why you think. It’s true I couldn’t have entertained the idea for a long time after Akkarin died, but not for all of the last twenty years. I might have married Dorrien, if the timing had been better, but he met someone else long before I was ready.” And a good thing that is, too. “I don’t think we would have been well suited. For a start, he loves the countryside and would have had to live in the Guild grounds to be with me, since I could not leave.”

Regin watched her now with an almost guilty interest. It’s likely a lot of people have wanted to ask that question, she thought.

“By the time I was ready, nobody seemed interested,” she continued. “Men my own age hadn’t quite got over their prejudice toward magicians from the lower classes, and the only magicians from the lower classes were much too young. All were intimidated by black magic. Some of the Higher Magicians hinted to me that they thought a husband would be a weakness that someone might exploit through blackmail – as if Lorkin wasn’t that already. Then there was Lorkin. He was always very jealous of other men in my life.”

Regin frowned. “What...?” He paused and shook his head.

“Yes?”

He grimaced. “What will you do if King Amakira threatens Lorkin?”

Not expecting the change of subject, Sonea felt her heart freeze. She paused to draw in a deep breath and let it out slowly, before answering. “I will point out that it is Lorkin who knows about the Traitors, not me. It would be far more sensible to torture me to get Lorkin to speak.”