The Traitor Queen

were smaller then.

“What is it?” Regin asked.

She realised she had been leaning forward, craning her neck to better see the outside. Leaning back in her seat, she shrugged.

“I thought I recognised something.” She shook her head. “A place we stopped, last time.”

“Did... something happen there?”

“Not really. Nobody said much during that journey.” She couldn’t help a smile. “Akkarin wouldn’t talk to me.” But I kept finding him looking at me. “He was angry with me.”

Regin’s eyebrows rose. “For what?”

“For making sure they sent me into exile with him.”

“Why would he be angry at that?”

“His plan – or so I thought at the time – was to get himself captured by Ichani and communicate the result to all magicians.”

Regin’s eyes widened slightly. “A brave decision.”

“Oh, very honourable,” she said drily. “Shock the Guild into realising the danger it faced while sacrificing the only person who could do anything about it.”

His eyebrows rose. “But he wasn’t. There was you.”

She shook her head. “I didn’t know enough. I didn’t even know how to make blood rings. We wouldn’t have beaten the Ichani if he hadn’t survived.” But that wasn’t why you followed him, she reminded herself. You did so because you couldn’t let Akkarin die. Love is selfish. “By forcing him to keep me alive, I forced him to keep himself alive.”

“Those weeks must have been terrifying.”

She nodded, but her thoughts suddenly shifted to the Traitors. She’d always suspected there was more to Akkarin’s time in Sachaka than he’d told her. Once, when checking facts for his book, Lord Dannyl had asked her if there was any truth to the rumour that Akkarin had been able to read a person’s surface thoughts, without touching them. She could not remember Akkarin speaking of it. People had believed Akkarin had all kinds of extraordinary abilities, even before it had been revealed that he’d learned black magic.

Perhaps he had been able to, but kept it a secret. Like his deal with the Traitors. Made with the Traitor Queen, no less, though maybe she hadn’t yet become queen. I’m sure he told me the person who taught him black magic was a man. Was it a deliberate lie, to help conceal the Traitors’ existence? I can’t help feeling a little hurt that he didn’t trust me with the truth, but then I wouldn’t have wanted him to break a promise made to somebody who saved his life.

Sighing, she looked out of the window at the sun, which hung low in the sky. Her memory of the end of the climb to the Fort was of exposed rock and little vegetation. While stretches of rock were visible here and there, the trees had not yet thinned to the degree she recalled. We’re going to arrive later than I planned – maybe even after dark.

A sharp turn to the side forced her to brace herself. Surprised, she leaned close to the window, wondering why the carriage had changed direction, and blinked at the unexpected brightness of a tall, curved wall blazing yellow in the late sun ahead of them.

Not late after all, she thought. Trees must have grown over all that bare land I remembered.

“We’re here,” she told Regin. He moved to sit beside her so that he could look out of the window on the other side.

She watched his face, glimpsing echoes of the awe she’d felt as a young woman on seeing the Fort for the first time. The building was a huge cylinder carved out of solid rock, encompassing the gap between two high, near-vertical rock walls. Turning back to the window, she saw that the facing wall was not the flawless smooth surface that she remembered. A different-colour stone had been used to fill large cracks and holes. They must be repairs of damage done during the Ichani Invasion. She shivered, remembering the battle here, seen by all magicians as the Warrior leading the Fort’s reinforcements, Lord Makin, had broadcast it mentally, until he died at the hands of the invaders.

The carriage rolled to a halt before the tower. A red-robed magician and the captain of the Fort’s unit of Guard walked forward to meet them. Sonea unlatched and opened the door with magic, then paused to look at Regin. The excitement in his face made him look younger – almost boyish. It brought a flash of memory of him as a smiling young man, but she didn’t entirely believe that memory was real. In her recollections of him at that age, his smile had been always full of malicious triumph or glee.

Not for a long time, though, she thought as she climbed out of the carriage. Actually, I don’t remember him smiling much this last year. Unless with forced politeness, or maybe in sympathy. To her surprise, she felt sad. He’s a very unhappy man, she realised.

“Greetings, Black Magician Sonea,” the red-robed magician said. “I am Watcher Orton. This is Captain Pettur.”

The captain bowed. “Welcome to the Fort.”

“Watcher Orton.” Sonea inclined her head. “Captain Pettur. Thank you for the warm welcome.”

“Are you still planning to stay for the night?” Orton asked.

“Yes.” The title of Watcher had been created for the leader of the magicians who now guarded the Fort along with their non-magician counterparts. The Guild had been worried that no magician would volunteer for the role, so they had given it extra benefits of both influence and wealth. They hadn’t needed to. Watcher Orton and his predecessor were both men who had fought the Sachakan invaders and were determined to ensure none would enter Kyralia again without a decent effort at resistance.

“Come this way,” Orton invited, waving toward the open gates at the base of the tower.

Sonea felt a shiver of recognition as she saw the tunnel beyond. They walked into the shadows of the interior. Lamps kept the way illuminated, revealing more repair work, and the traps and barriers that had been added.

“We have a memorial to those who died here at the beginning of the invasion,” Orton told her. He pointed to a section of wall ahead, and as they drew closer Sonea saw that it was a list of names.

Reaching them, she stopped to read. She saw Lord Makin’s name but the rest were unfamiliar. Many of the victims had been common Guard. At the top of the list were longer names that included House and family – men from the highest class who had sought a career in the Guard and were guaranteed a position of power and respect. The men working at the Fort in those days, however, had often been failures or troublemakers, sent to where it was believed they could do no harm – or, if they did, it was well out of the sight of anyone who cared.

Above those were the magicians. The family and House names were familiar, but she had been too young and new to the Guild to have known any of the magicians personally. Except one.

Fergun’s name drew her eyes. She felt an uncomfortable mix of dislike, pity and guilt. He had been a victim of the war. For all that he had done, he hadn’t deserved to die by having all the energy within him ripped out by a Sachakan magician.

But that still doesn’t change the fact that he wasn’t a good person.

At that thought, the conflicting emotions faded away. She understood it was possible to feel sadness at the injustice of a person’s death without having to convince herself that they were a better person than she’d known them to be.

And he got a Stayhouse named after him. She turned away. Which I’m sure would have appalled him for entirely different reasons than it appalled me.

Watcher Orton led them to a dark, narrow door. A complicated procedure followed, in which he identified himself, the captain and their visitors, and then all kinds of sounds followed as a locking mechanism was worked. When the door opened, she was amused to see it was a hand-span thick and made of iron. They entered a room, then went through the same procedure to pass through another, equally robust door. The occupants of the Fort were not taking any chances.

A narrow, curved passage with a sloped floor led steeply upwards. The ends of pipes protruding on either side suggested that something could be poured into the space. Water, or something less pleasant? Physical defences wouldn’t necessarily stop a magician, but they could use up power, trick a magician