The sound of Mykella's boots echoed dully as she descended the stone staircase to the lowest level of the Lord-Protector's palace. When she reached the small foyer at the bottom, she paused and glanced around. The ancient light-torch in its bronze wall bracket illuminated the precisely cut stones of the wall and floor with the same tired amber light as it always had—so far as she could remember.
Why was she down in the seldom-visited depths? Had it just been a dream? Had she actually seen the gauzy-winged and shimmering figure no larger than a child—though full-figured—who had appeared at the foot of her bed. The soarer had touched her. A tingle had run through her body, and then the soarer had "spoken" to her . . . and vanished, but those few words echoed in Mykella's thoughts.
If you would save your land and your world, go to the Table and find your talent.
Could that figure have really been a soarer—one of the Ancients? She'd heard tales of people seeing soarers, but whenever the Southern Guard or the city patrollers tried to track down someone who had been rumored to have seen them, the reports turned out to be groundless.
Mykella sniffed. Rumors and tales, tales and rumors. Golds were far more reliable in predicting what folk did and did not do. That, she had learned in her informal oversight of the Finance Ministry for her father. Still, she thought she had seen and heard a soarer, and family lore had held that the legendary Mykel, the first Lord-Protector, had been directed to Tempre by a soarer after the Great Cataclysm. Almost for that reason alone, Mykella had thrown on tunic, trousers, and boots and slipped out of her chamber. The guards patrolling the corridor outside the family quarters had only nodded, whatever they might have thought.
She looked through the archway separating the staircase foyer from the long, subterranean hallway that extended the entire length of the palace. The dimly lit passageway was empty, as it should have been. While the ground-level door to the staircase she had just descended was always locked and guarded, as the Lord-Protector's daughter, she had the keys to all the locks, and no guard would dare refuse her entry to any chamber in the palace itself. She'd never quite figured out the reason for the boxlike design of the Lord-Protector's palace, with all the rooms set along the corridors that formed an interior rectangle on each level. The upper level remained reserved for the family and the official studies of the highest ministers of Lanachrona; but there was only one main staircase, of graystone, and certainly undeserving of the appellation "grand staircase," only one modest great dining chamber, and but a single long and narrow ballroom, not that she cared for dancing. More intriguing were the facts that the stones of the outer walls looked as if they had been cut and quarried but a few years earlier and that there were no chambers truly befitting the ruler of Lanachrona.
Mykella walked briskly down the underground corridor toward the door set in the middle of the wall closest to the outside foundation. Once there, she stopped and studied it, as if for the first time. The door itself was of ancient oak, with an antique lever handle. Yet that lever, old as it had to be, seemed newer than the hinges. The stones of the door casement were also of a shade just slightly darker than the stones of the corridor wall. Several of the stones bordering the casement were also darker, almost as if they and the casement had been partly replaced in the past.
After a moment, Mykella tossed her head impatiently, hardly disarranging short-cut black locks, then reached out and depressed the lever. The hinges creaked slightly as she pushed the door open, and she made a mental note to tell the steward. Doors in the Lord-Protector's palace should not squeak. That was unacceptable.
At first glance, the Table chamber looked as it always had, a windowless stone-walled space some five yards by seven, without furnishings except for a single black wooden chest and the Table itself—a block of blackish stone set into the floor, whose flat and mirrored surface was level with her waist—or perhaps slightly higher, she had to admit, if only to herself. She was the shortest of the Lord-Protector's offspring, even if she did happen to be the eldest. But she was a daughter and not a son, a daughter most likely to be married off to some heir or another, most probably the Landarch-heir of Deforya, a cold and dark land, she'd heard, scoured by chill winds sweeping down from the Aerlal Plateau. She only seen the Plateau once, from more than thirty vingts away while accompanying her father on an inspection trip of the upper reaches of the River Vedra. Yet even from that distance, the Plateau's sheer stone sides had towered into the clouds that enshrouded its seldom-glimpsed top.
Her thoughts of the Plateau and Deforya dropped away as she realized that there was another source of illumination in the chamber besides the dim glow of the ancient light-torches. From the Table itself oozed a faint purplish hue. Or did it?
Mykella blinked.
The massive stone block returned to the lifeless darkness she'd always seen before on the infrequent occasions when she had accompanied her father or her brother Jeraxylt to see the Table.
"Because it is part of our heritage," had invariably been what her father had said when she had asked the purpose of beholding a block of stone that had done nothing but squat in the dimness for generations.
Jeraxylt had been more forthright. "I'm going to be the one who masters the Table. That's what you have to do if you want to be a real Lord-Protector." Needless to say, Jeraxylt hadn't said those words anywhere near their father, not when no Lord-Protector in generations had been able to fathom the Table.
Mykella doubted that anyone had done so since the Cataclysm, even the great Mykel, but she wasn't about to say so. Before the Cataclysm, the Alectors and even the great Mykel had been reputed to be able to travel from Table to Table. Another folktale and fanciful fable, thought Mykella. Or wishful thinking. No one could travel instantly from one place to another.
Yet . . . once more, the Table glowed purple, and she stared at it. But when she did, the glow vanished. She looked away, and then back. There was no glow . . . or was there?
She studied the Table once again, but her eyes saw only dark stone. Yet she could feel or sense purple. Abruptly, she realized that the purplish light was strangely like the soarer's words, perceived inside her head in some fashion rather than through her eyes.
What did it mean? How could sensing a purple light that wasn't there save her land? How could that be a talent? If the soarer had not been a dream, if she had appeared, why had she appeared to Mykella and not to her father or to Jeraxylt?
Slowly, she walked around the Table, looking at it intently, yet also trying to feel or sense what might be there, all too conscious that she was in the lowest level of the palace in the middle of the night—and alone.
At the western end of the Table, she could feel something, but it was as though what she sensed lay within the stone of the Table. She stopped, turned, and extended her fingers, too short and stubby for a Lord-Protector's daughter, to touch the stone. Was it warmer? She walked to the wall and touched it, then nodded.
After a moment, she moved back to the Table, where she peered at the mirrorlike black surface, trying to feel or sense more of what might lie beneath. For a moment, all she saw in the dimness was her own image—black hair, broad forehead, green eyes, straight nose, shoulders too broad for a woman her size. At least, she had fair clear skin.
Even as she watched, her reflection faded, and the silvery black gave way to swirling silvery-white mists. Then, an image appeared in the center of the mists—that of a man, except no man she had ever seen. He had skin as white as the infrequent snows that fell on Tempre, eyes of brilliant and piercing violet, and short-cut jet-black hair.
He looked up from the Table at Mykella as though she were the lowest of the palace drudges. He spoke, if words in her mind could be called speech. She understood not a single word or phrase, yet she felt that she should, as though he were speaking words she knew in an unfamiliar cadence and with an accent she did not recognize. He paused, and a cruel smile crossed his narrow lips. She did understand the last words he uttered before the swirling mists replaced his image.
". . . useless except as cattle to build lifeforce."
Cattle? He was calling her a cow? Mykella seethed, and the Table mists swirled more violently.
The Table could allow people to talk across distances? Why had no one mentioned that? There was nothing of that in the archives. And where was he? Certainly not within the sunken ruins of Elcien. Could he be in far Alustre, so far to the east that even with the eternal ancient roads of Corus few traders made that journey, and fewer still returned?
Alustre? What was Alustre like?
The swirling mists subsided into a moving border around a circular image—that of a city of white buildings, viewed from a height. Mykella swallowed, and the scene vanished. After a moment, so did the mists.
The strange man—could he have been an Alector? Hadn't they all perished in the Cataclysm? Mykella didn't know what to think. Still . . . she had thought of Alustre and something had appeared. Could she view people?
She concentrated on her father. The mirror surface turned into a swirl of mists, revealing in the center Lord Feranyt lying on the wide bed of the Lord-Protector, looking upward, his eyes open. Beside him, asleep, lay Erayna, his mistress. After the death of Mykella's mother, her father had refused to marry again, claiming that to do so would merely cause more problems.
Mykella felt strange looking at her father, clearly visible in darkness, and she turned her thoughts to Jeraxylt. Her brother was not asleep, nor was he alone. Mykella quickly thought about their summerhouse in the hills to the northeast of Tempre. The mist swirled, and then an image of white columns appeared, barely visible in the dark.
She tried calling up images of places in Tempre, and those also appeared. So did an image when she thought of Dereka, and she viewed the city squares in Vyan and Krost, but even the mists vanished when she tried to see Soupat or Lyterna. Finally, she stepped back from the Table. It still glowed with the unworldly purple sheen, but she could now distinguish between what she saw with her eyes and what she sensed.
She shivered. Telling herself that it was merely the chill from the cold stone of the lower levels, she eased back out of the Table chamber, carefully closing the door behind her.
Once she had climbed the two flights of stairs and returned to her own simple room, Mykella sat on the edge of the bed. What had really happened?
Mykella hadn't thought she would sleep, not with all the questions running through her head, but she had. She even overslept and had to hurry in getting washed up on Duadi morning. Dressing wasn't a problem for her, not the way it was for her two younger sisters, particularly Salyna. Mykella just wore black nightsilk trousers and tunic over the full-shouldered black nightsilk camisole and the matching underdrawers, with polished black boots. Her father insisted on those undergarments whenever they were to leave the palace, and it was simpler to wear them all the time. It seemed almost a pity that few ever saw them, and most of those who did would not have recognized them for what they were, since they cost more than a season's earnings for a crafter. Soft and smooth as they were to the touch, they could stop any blade or even a bullet, although a bullet impact would leave a widely bruised area of flesh beneath.
More than a few had tried and failed to learn the herders' secrets, but now few tried, especially since the Iron Valleys were so cold and forbidding and their militiamen were vicious fighters. What was the point of fighting and losing golds and men when the only thing of value was nightsilk that was cheaper to buy than to fight battles over?
Mykella hurried down the corridor and tried to ease into the breakfast room of the family quarters through the service pantry.
Feranyt looked up from the head of the table, polished dark oak that had endured many Lords-Protector and their families. "Mykella . . . I had wondered when you would join us, especially when I heard you had gone prowling through the lower levels of the palace last night."
Mykella managed a rueful smile as she took her place on the left side of the table—the place that had once been her mother's. "I couldn't sleep. I knew I could walk around down there safely—and quietly." She looked directly across the table at Jeraxylt, seated to her father's right. "There were others who weren't exactly quiet or sleeping, either."
Jeraxylt smiled lazily, even white teeth standing out against his tanned face and the dark blue uniform of the Southern Guard, then shrugged. "I got a very good night's sleep."
Mykella lifted the mug of already-cooled tea. Jeraxylt wasn't about to admit anything, and her father certainly wouldn't press his son, not when they'd both been engaged in a similar fashion. She took a slow sip of the cool tea and waited to be served.
"You look good in that uniform." Salyna smiled at her older brother. "The seltyrs' daughters and the High Factors' daughters think so, too."
"How would you know, little vixen?" Jeraxylt grinned at his youngest sister.
"I'm a girl, silly brother. I know."
Rachylana raised her left eyebrow. Lifting a single eyebrow was one of the skills Rachylana had pursued, as if such unusual talents were required of a middle daughter.
Jeraxylt ignored the gesture.
"What are you doing today?" Mykella asked. "Playing Cadmian again?"
"I'm not playing. I'm going through all the training a Southern Guard gets."
"Father won't let you serve, not in a combat position, anyway." Mykella eased her head sideways to let the serving girl—Muergya on that morning—set a platter with an omelet and ham strips, along with candied prickle, before her.
"Lord-Protectors don't serve. They command."
"Didn't Mykel the Great serve?" Mykella asked innocently.
"That was different. Besides, we don't know that. He probably just had the scriveners write the history that way," replied Jeraxylt.
"Be careful how you speak of history, Jeraxylt," cautioned the Lord-Protector. "You are the heir and will be Lord-Protector because of that history. Disparage it, and your disparage your own future."
"Lord-Protector . . ." Rachylana looked to her father. "Why don't you just call yourself Landarch or prince? That's what you are, Father, aren't you?"
Feranyt offered his middle daughter a patronizing smile. "Rachylana . . . names and titles carry meaning. The words 'Lord-Protector' tell our people that our duty is to protect them. A Landarch or a prince rules first and protects second, if at all."
Mykella caught the hint of a frown that crossed Jeraxylt's brow. The fleeting expression bothered her, as did a feeling, one that was not hers, yet that she had felt. That feeling had combined pride, arrogance, and a certain disdain.
After hurriedly eating the undercooked omelet and greasy ham, and gulping down the candied prickle because she knew she needed to, Mykella stayed at the breakfast table only until her father rose. Then she departed, washing up slightly before making her way to Finance chambers on the east end of the palace—still on the upper level.
Kiedryn was already at his table desk in the outer chamber, and the door to the smaller study that belonged to Joramyl, as Finance Minister, was closed, not that Mykella expected Joramyl to appear anytime soon.
Mykella glanced at the white-haired chief clerk. If anyone would know what the soarer had meant, Kiedryn might. He'd claimed to have read every page in the archives.
"Do you know if the Mykel the Great had a special talent?" she finally asked, standing beside the smaller table that was hers. "Do the archives say anything about that?"
"He had many," replied Kiedryn. "He could kill men without touching them. He could walk on water and even on the air itself. He could disappear from sight whenever he wished. He brought an army through the steam and heat when the River Vedra boiled out of its banks during the Great Cataclysm. He was called the Dagger of the Ancients because he cut anyone or anything that stood in his way. He married Rachyla because she was the only one who could stand up to him."
"Do you believe all that?"
"Mostly," replied the chief clerk. "No one with less ability could have created Lanachrona out of the chaos that followed the Cataclysm. The western lands are still mired in chaos, with all their little lordlets and the seltyrs of Southgate playing them off against one another, and the situation with the nomads to the southeast is even worse . . . and always has been."
"But you didn't say he had a talent, one talent."
Kiedryn laughed sardonically. "You didn't ask it that way. Talent—that's what they say that the nightsheep herders have up in the Iron Valleys. Maybe Mykel had it, and maybe he didn't. The archives don't say." He shook his head, almost mournfully. "You'd have to have something like that to handle those beasts."
Mykella bit back the reply she might have made. Why couldn't anyone just answer her questions? Rather than upset Kiedryn, and to no avail, she settled at the table and began to look over the latest entries in the master ledger. When she reached the end of the third page, she frowned.
Then she stood and walked to the rows of individual account ledgers set on the dark wooden shelves built into the inner wall, picking out one and taking it back to her table desk. After studying the second ledger for a time, she turned to the chief clerk.
"Kiedryn? The barge tariffs on shipments from the upper Vedra are down for the harvest season. They're even lower than those for the spring, and spring tariffs are always the lowest."
"Mistress Mykella," replied the chief finance clerk with a shrug, "I cannot say. We did send patrollers to visit all the factors and bargemasters."
"And?"
"They all claimed that they had paid their tariffs, and most of them more than last year. Almost all still had their sealed receipts."
Mykella stiffened. "What did Lord Joramyl say?"
"He claims that some of them must be lying, or that some of the tariff-collectors had pocketed the tariffs. He told your father this last week."
What Kiedryn was not saying was that no one except the Lord-Protector was likely to contradict Joramyl, since he was not only the Finance Minister of Lanachrona, but the only brother of the Lord-Protector as well.
But why had her father said nothing?
Mykella went to the cabinet at the end of those set beyond Kiedryn's table desk and opened it, leafing through the folders there until she found the list of factors. She carried the list back to her table and began to copy names.
By Quinti afternoon Mykella had studied the accounts enough to estimate that at least two thousand golds had been siphoned out of the Treasury over the past two seasons, just from the seasonal tariffs on the bargemasters and the seltyrs and High Factors . . . or rather that those golds had never been put into the Treasury after having been collected. But her calculations were only estimates based on past years' collections and various ratios between barge landings and other records—and she might be wrong. Nonetheless, she would have wagered almost anything that more than a few golds that should not have now rested in Joramyl's strongboxes in his westhill mansion, with its high walls and guarded gates. But there was not a shred of hard proof, and she'd been careful to be polite to Joramyl when he had come into the Finance chambers.
She'd been careful as well in not letting Kiedryn know what she had been doing, other than her normal supervision and questioning. The last thing she needed was for the clerk to mention anything to Joramyl.
How could she discover proof? Could the Table show her anything?
It was certainly worth a try.
Late that afternoon, just before the palace guards were relieved by those on evening duty, Mykella carried a stack of ledgers down from the Finance chambers to the door to the lower levels. She could feel the eyes of one of the patrolling guards on her from a good ten yards away. She maintained a resigned expression as she neared the door.
As she stopped short of the door, the guard looked at her directly, and she could sense a feeling of curiosity, a question why the Lord-Protector's daughter was lugging around ledgers by herself.
"These are the personal accounts of the Lord-Protector, but they're several years old. They aren't needed often, but they need to be kept in a safe place, and the older records are stored on the lower level," she explained. "I'll be there a bit because they have to be put in order." She tried to press the need for safety toward the guard.
Abruptly, the man nodded and stepped forward. "Do you need help, Mistress Mykella?"
"If you'd hold these while I unlock the door, I'd appreciate it. These records are only for the Lord-Protector, the Finance Minister, and the head clerk. They'd prefer to keep it that way." She offered a pleasant smile.
She could sense his feelings as she closed and locked the door behind her—too handsome for a Lord-Protector's daughter.
Handsome? That was a word for men, not women. Yet Mykella knew she didn't possess the ravishing beauty of Salyna or the exotic looks of Rachylana. She was moderately good-looking, if less than imposing in stature, but she could think . . . and liked thinking—unlike all too many of the women in her family and in Tempre, where a woman's duty was always to her husband and her sons.
It took Mykella only a few moments to add the ledgers to those in the Finance storeroom, and she was about to leave and lock the chamber when she realized that she sensed something. She whirled toward the door to the corridor, but no one had entered, and she heard nothing except the sound of her own breathing. Her eyes traversed the rows of simple wooden shelves that held the older ledgers, covered in a fine layer of dust. The shelves had been built against the stone walls, and there was nowhere to hide.
She frowned. It felt as though someone had been in the chamber, but how could she sense that? She looked at the ledgers to the left of those she had added. The dust was gone from one of the ledgers—and she realized that one volume was missing. Since the black leather binding and spine did not reveal the contents, she had to look through three others before she determined that the missing volume held, not surprisingly, the details of barge tariffs from five years previously.
A chill ran down her spine. She shook her head, then stepped back and left the chamber, locking it behind her. She crossed the corridor and walked back toward the Table chamber, where she entered cautiously, although she felt that no one was around. The chamber was empty, and the Table looked the same—dull dark stone with a mirrored surface, but she could sense more easily the purplish glow. This time, though, the purple felt almost unclean. She could also sense, somewhere beneath and below that purple, a far stronger and deeper shade, what she could only have called a blackish green.
Were the two linked? How? She tried to see or sense more, but could discern only the two separate shades—one superficial and linked to the Table and the other deeper and somehow beneath it, trailing off into the earth.
She finally stepped up to the Table and slipped a sheet of paper out from her tunic, concentrating on the first name on her list—Seltyr and High Factor Almardyn. All that the Table showed were swirling mists. The same thing happened when she tried Barsytan, only a High Factor, and then Burclytt. Had she just imagined that she had been able to see people in its mirrored surface? She concentrated on Rachylana.
The mists barely appeared and swirled before revealing Rachylana. She sat on a stone bench in the solarium on the upper southeastern corner of the palace. Beside her, with his arm around her, was Berenyt—Joramyl's only surviving offspring—for now, at least.
Mykella shook her head. Cousin or not, Berenyt would flirt with anyone, even the Lord-Protector's daughter. After what Mykella had discovered, she had to question whether Berenyt's flirtation with Rachylana was merely his nature . . . or part of something else. Yet Rachylana knew nothing about finances and cared about the workings of the Lord-Protector's government even less.
After a moment, Mykella let the image lapse. She tried the name of another factor, but the Table only showed the mists. She glanced down the list until she found a name she recognized—that of Hasenyt. This time, Table displayed an image of the sharp-featured and graying factor standing at the barge docks just north of the grand piers. Hasenyt gestured to a man in a dark gray vest—a bargemaster, from his garb.
In the end, the Table proved useless for what Mykella had in mind because it would only show what people were doing at the moment when she was looking, and it would only display images of those whom she knew. In addition, except for a handful of the oldest cities on Corus, the Table would not show her anyplace that she had not visited.
That meant she would have to find a way to visit the factors on her list, and that required help. She hated to ask anyone for assistance, but there was no other way, not in Tempre, where a woman, especially a Lord-Protector's daughter, never appeared in public unescorted.
That night, Mykella lay in her bed, looking up at the unadorned ceiling, thinking. What was the darkness below and beneath the purple glow of the Table? Why hadn't she seen it earlier? Why did the purple feel almost unclean and repulsive?
Question after question swirled through her mind. Was Joramyl the one diverting tariff golds? If so, why? Just to line his pockets and pay for his extravagances? Or was he plotting more? And if he were not the one, who could it be?
It would be so much easier if she had the powers that Kiedryn had claimed for Mykel the Great—even being able to move around unseen would be helpful.
From her bed, she absently scanned the wall shelf to the right of her small dressing table, taking in the carved onyx box that had been her mother's and the pair of silver candlesticks, the base of each a miniature replica of eternal greenstone towers that flanked the grand piers. At that moment, she realized that the room was pitch-dark, with the window hangings closed and not a single lamp lit, yet she could discern the shape of every object in her chambers.
Another facet of her talents? Or had she always been able to do that?
That had to be something awakened by the soarer's touch. But why her? She had no real power in Lanachrona. She didn't even have any real influence over her father or her brother.
She shook her head, then smiled wryly in the darkness. Too bad the palace corridors weren't kept that dark.
Mykella was up early on Sexdi and one of the first in the family at breakfast. She had to force herself to wait to ask what she wanted to know until her father was well settled and taking a second mug of spiced tea.
"What was Lord Joramyl like when you were growing up, Father?" Mykella asked, taking a sip of the plain strong tea she preferred to the cider most women drank or the spiced tea her father liked. "He seems so proud and distant now." Arrogant, self-serving, and aloof were what she really thought, but saying so would only have angered her father.
"He's always been proud, but he was always kind to Mother and Lalyna. He'd bring them both special gifts from all the places he served in the Southern Guard. Your aunt's favorites were the perfumes he brought back from Southgate when he was your grandfather's envoy there. She even took the empty bottles when she left for Soupat." He shook his head. "I knew she'd have trouble with the heat there, but Father insisted on it."
"Did you play games together?" Mykella pursued.
Feranyt shook his head. "Joramyl was never one for games. Except for leschec. He got to be so good at it that he beat old Arms-Commander Paetryl. We didn't play it together. He was too serious about it for me."
Mykella could sense that even thinking about Joramyl and leschec bothered her father. "Did you spar with weapons?"
"Father forbid it after I broke Joramyl's wrist. I was better, but Joramyl wouldn't ever quit."
The more her father said, the more concerned Mykella became. It wasn't that his words revealed that much new, but what she had discovered about the missing tariff golds gave a new meaning to her father's childhood memories. "Do you think that he feels he'd be a better Lord-Protector than you?"
"Mykella! How could you ask that?" murmured Rachylana, leaning close to her sister.
"Father?" Mykella kept her voice soft, curious, hard as it was for her.
"I'm sure he does." Feranyt laughed. "Each of us thinks we can do a better job than anyone else, but things turn out the way they do, and usually for good reason."
Mykella couldn't believe what she sensed from her father—a total lack of concern and a dismissal of Joramyl's ambitions.
"Joramyl's passion for detail serves us well, dear, as does yours. I'd like to think that my devotion to doing what is right should be the prime goal of a Lord-Protector. If one does what is right, then one doesn't have to worry about plots and schemes nearly so much." Feranyt smiled broadly. "Besides, you can't please everyone. Joramyl only thinks you can, that ruling is like finance and numbers, that there is but one correct way to approach it. If he were ever Lord-Protector, he'd quickly discover that's not the way it is."
"If anything happened . . . do you think he'd be a good Lord-Protector? As good as you are?" Mykella pressed.
"Probably not, but he'd be far better than anyone else in Tempre, except for Jeraxylt, of course." Feranyt inclined his head toward his son. "But enough of such morbid speculations." He rose. "I need to get ready for a meeting with an envoy from the Iron Valleys. Their council is worried about Reillie incursions from Northian lands."
"What does that have to do with us?" asked Jeraxylt.
"I'm certain I'll find out," replied the Lord-Protector. "They are claiming that the Reillies have been armed with weapons having a Borlan arms mark."
"We sell to whoever pays," Jeraxylt said. "Are they going to demand that we stop selling goods because they can't defend their own borders?"
"I doubt that they will express matters . . . quite so directly, Jeraxylt. Nor should you, outside of the family quarters." Feranyt smiled, then turned and left the breakfast room.
Rachylana quickly followed, as did Jeraxylt.
Salyna looked to Mykella. "You know Rachylana will tell Berenyt everything you said this morning?"
"I hope she has better sense than that." Despite what she said, Mykella knew that Salyna was right. She rose and offered her youngest sister a smile. "What are you doing today?"
"Watching Chatelaine Auralya supervise the kitchens. I'm learning from her. It's more interesting than adding up numbers in ledgers. For me, that is. I don't have your talents."
"We all have different talents," replied Mykella. What else could she say?
"You ride well," Salyna pointed out.
"So do you, better than I."
"I'm not bad with a blade, Jeraxylt says." There was a shyness and diffidence in Salyna's words, but pride beneath them.
"You've been using a sabre?"
"A blunted one," Salyna admitted. "It's fun. I can see why Jeraxylt likes the Guard."
Mykella couldn't imagine sparring with blades as being fun, but she just smiled as she slipped out of the breakfast room. After leaving Salyna, Mykella walked slowly toward the Finance chambers.
Kiedryn was already at work, and Mykella settled herself at her own table, where she began to check the individual current account ledgers. There were no new entries of tariff collections from the bargemasters or the other rivermen. She didn't expect any, since all the accounts were current, and the next collections were not due until after the turn of spring. So she turned her attention to the Southern Guard ledgers.
The accounts there showed a surplus. Mykella frowned. The Guard had not used what had been set aside. In fact, the expenditures were almost one part in ten lower than at the same time in the previous year, and that was with less than half of winter left to run.
At that moment, she heard a hearty voice in the corridor outside the Finance chambers—Berenyt's booming bass.
"Just heading in to see my sire—if he's there. If not, I'll harass old Kiedryn." Berenyt was two years older than Mykella, despite the fact that his father Joramyl was younger than his brother the Lord-Protector. Berenyt had taken a commission as a captain in the Southern Guard and ended up in command of First Company, one of the two charged with guarding the palace and the Lord-Protector.
Mykella couldn't make out to whom Berenyt was speaking, but she could sense that the other was male, and vaguely amused. She was not. After what she'd seen in the Table and what she'd discovered, she didn't want to see him anytime soon, much less talk to him.
"Is Father in?"
"No, ser," replied Kiedryn. "I haven't seen him yet this morning."
Mykella could easily sense what the chief clerk had not said—I've never seen him this early. She tried to visualize herself with the shelves of ledgers between her and Kiedryn . . . and Berenyt.
Berenyt turned in her direction, frowning, and blinking. "Oh . . . there you are, Mykella. For a moment . . ." He shook his head. "You haven't seen Father this morning?"
"We seldom see him in the morning," Mykella replied. "I've always assumed that he had other duties."
"He does indeed."
Behind the words Mykella detected a sense of more than she could possibly understand, mixed with condescension and amusement. She managed a simpering smile, although she felt like gagging, and replied, "He offers much to Lanachrona."
"As does your Father." Berenyt's words were polite enough and sounded warm enough, but the feeling behind them was cool. He turned from Mykella back to Kiedryn. "I'll find him somewhere, but if I don't, please tell him I was here."
"Yes, ser."
Mykella merely nodded, if courteously.
After Berenyt had left, she just sat at her table, not really looking at the ledger before her. For just a moment when he had first looked in her direction, she thought, Berenyt had not really seen her. Had that been her doing? Or his abstraction and interest in other matters? How could she tell?
She really wanted to work more with the Table, but she dared not go down too often because, sooner or later, the guards would reveal how often she was going there, and either Jeraxylt or her father would discover her destination. That would lead to even more questions, and those were questions she dared not answer truthfully—and she detested lying, even though she knew that sometimes it was unavoidable, especially for a woman in Tempre.
The soarer's words kept coming back to her, although she had not seen or sensed the winged Ancient except the one time. Was using the Table her talent? Just to be able to see what was happening elsewhere? And what about her growing ability to sense what others were feeling? Or the sharper sight in the darkness?
That evening after dinner, Mykella sat in the family parlor, a history of Lanachrona in her lap. She'd read some of the parts about Mykel, but there was nothing there about how he had accomplished anything—except a paragraph dismissing the legend that he had been a Dagger of the Ancients. Mykel suspected that dismissal was proof that he had been, but what a Dagger of the Ancients might have been she had no idea. Kiedryn's explanation had conveyed nothing, and her own brief searches of the archives had revealed nothing she did not already know.
Rachylana had not joined them after dinner. She had eaten little at table, claiming she had not felt well. Mykella had sensed the truth of her words and the physical discomfort behind them. Jeraxylt and her father rarely joined them in the evenings, not with their other evening interests. So the youngest and eldest daughters had the parlor to themselves.
Mykella stared at the darkness beyond the window, a darkness broken only by the scattered lights of Tempre, those that could be seen from the second level of the palace and beyond the gardens that surrounded it on all sides—except the hillside to the northeast beyond the walled rear courtyard. She knew that unseen danger surrounded them all, especially her father and brother, not only from the warning of the Ancient, but from what she had begun to sense.
After each of the times she had visited the Table, Mykella felt that she had gained something in what she could feel or sense. Yet . . . how could merely sensing or feeling more than others could save her land? She thought about Berenyt's momentary reaction once more, then glanced to the green velvet settee closest to the fire in the hearth, where Salyna was sitting, working on a needlepoint crest. Finally, she spoke. "Salyna . . . I need your help."
"I'd be happy to, but . . ." Her younger sister's forehead wrinkled up into a puzzled expression. " . . . how could I help you?"
"I just want you to look out the window for a little while, and then look back at me. Take your time looking out the window."
"Look out the window and back at you?"
"Please . . . just do it."
"I can do that." Salyna's words continued to express puzzlement, but she turned and stared out the window.
Mykella concentrated on trying to create an image of the armchair in which she sat—vacant without her in it, the lace doily just slightly disarrayed . . .
"Don't do that!" Salyna's words were low, but intense.
"What did I do?" asked Mykella, releasing the image of the empty chair.
"It . . . it was awful. You weren't there. I knew you had to be . . . but you weren't. What did you do?"
Mykella wished she hadn't tried the shield. "I hid. I did it to see if I could move so quietly that you couldn't see me. What else could I have done?" She could sense Salyna's confusion, as well as her sister's feeling that Mykella couldn't have gone anywhere else.
For a long time, Salyna looked at Mykella without speaking. Finally, she asked, "What's happened to you?"
"Nothing," Mykella replied.
"Don't tell me that. You haven't been the same for the last week. You look at Jeraxylt—when he's not looking—as if he were roasting baby hares alive. You've asked Father more questions this week than in the last year. Now you're practicing hiding, and hiding from me."
"I'm worried," Mykella confessed. "I feel that something's not right, but I can't even say what that might be." That was certainly true, if not quite in the way Salyna would take it.
"Are they talking about marrying you off to that autarch-heir in Deforya?"
"Landarch-heir," Mykella replied. "Not in my hearing."
"You can't stay here, Mykella." Salyna straightened herself on the settee. "What would you do? Who would dare marry you? Father wouldn't let anyone of any status do so, because your sons would have a claim on being Lord-Protector, and he wouldn't accept anyone who didn't have position. You don't have any choice."
Mykella bit back what she might have said. "We'll have to see what happens. Has Father said anything about you?"
"He's said that one of the seltyrs in Southgate has a son."
Mykella couldn't help but wince. Southgate was far worse than Tempre for women.
"They say he's nice." Salyna's voice was level.
Mykella could sense the concern. "I do hope so."
Salyna finished a stitch, then rolled up her needlework. "I can only do this so long before my eyes cross." She yawned, then stood. "I'll see you in the morning."
"Good night." Mykella closed the history and set the volume on the side table, watching as Salyna left the parlor. She could tell her sister was disturbed.
What could she do? Except for functions like the upcoming season-turn celebration and parade and ball, or the High Factors' ball, or riding with escorts, she was effectively confined to the palace. And when she was out, she was never alone.
Could she use her "disappearing" skill when she took the inside main corridor back to her chambers? Getting past the guards at night should be easier because their post was in the main corridor, well back from the corner of the palace that held the family quarters, and they walked a post between the main staircase and the quarters rather than standing in one place in front of a single door or archway.
Mykella stood and walked to the doorway. How could she do what she had in mind? Sitting in a chair was one thing, but she needed to move. She couldn't keep creating a new image of the hallway without her in it with every step. Could she just create the feel of everything flowing around her as if she were not there?
She moistened her lips and eased the door open. Then she tried to visualize the light from the parlor flowing around her, as if the door had swung open without anyone there. Her vision seemed to dim, but she could sense the doorframe and the open door when she stepped out into the main corridor. One of the guards turned.
She had no idea if he saw her or if the light from the open door had attracted him. She closed the door, and it creaked as she shut it. After a moment, the guard turned away. She moved as quietly as she could, putting down one boot carefully, then the next, walking not toward her chambers, but toward the guards.
". . . thought I saw someone there . . . woman . . ."
The other guard turned in her direction. "There's no one here. Who would be up except for his regal heirness, strutting around in a tailored uniform that would never do in combat, panting after another pretty ass?"
Mykella stopped, hoping the guard would say more.
"He looks good in uniform . . . have to say that."
". . . jealous?"
"Wouldn't you be?"
The other guard snorted. "Just walk the post."
Mykella neared the two, but neither even looked at her, and they turned away. So did she, but by the time she stepped into her chambers, Mykella was breathing heavily. She was so light-headed that she felt as though she had raced up and down the main staircase of the palace a score of times.
But . . . the guards had not seen her. She smiled broadly as she sat on the edge of her bed. Her smile faded as she recalled Salyna's words.
The gray light of a winter Septi morning seeped around the edges of the heavy window hangings. Mykella sat up in her bed. Her chamber, while not excessively chill, was far from comfortable, which was not unexpected since it had neither stove nor hearth.
Thrap.
"Yes?"
"It's Zestela, Mistress."
Mykella wanted to tell the head dresser to go away, but that would only postpone matters. She smiled. Perhaps she could test her skills and give the presumptuous dresser a bit of a shock as well. She slipped from under the covers and took three steps so that she stood against the wall beside the large armoire that held her everyday garments. She shivered at the feel of the cold stone tiles on her bare feet. Even the flannel nightdress didn't help. Still, when Zestela stepped into the chamber, she would not be able to see Mykella at first.
Mykella then twisted the light—that was the only way she could explain it—and called, "You can come in."
"Yes, Mistress."
The door opened, and Zestela bustled in, cradling a long formal gown in her arms and glancing around, seeking Mykella. She frowned as she stepped toward the foot of the bed, then looked back toward the armoire. "Mistress?"
Mykella waited until the dresser looked back toward the door before releasing the sight-shield . . . if that was what it was. "I'm here."
Zestela jumped. "Oh! I didn't see you."
"Sometimes I feel like no one does," replied Mykella dryly.
Rachylana entered the chamber. "No one overlooks you, Mykella."
Mykella ignored her sister's words and turned to the dresser. "What is it?"
"Lady Cheleyza sent this gown. She thought you might find it suitable for the reviewing stand for the season-turn celebration."
Mykella glanced at the drab beige fabric with the pale green lace. She shook her head. "I'd look like a flour sack in that. I'll wear the blue one I wore at the last turn parade."
"But . . ." stuttered the dresser.
Rachylana frowned. "Cheleyza is only being kind, and you have worn the blue before . . . several times."
"People will have seen me in it before. Is that so bad?"
Rachylana and Zestela exchanged glances.
"You can't keep wearing the same blue dress," Rachylana finally said.
"Then," Mykella said, "have the dressmakers make me one just like the blue, except in green, brilliant green. The next time, I'll have something else to wear that looks good on me."
"Yes, Mistress." Zestela bowed and slipped out.
Rachylana stared down at her older sister. "You're being difficult. Salyna said you were in a terrible mood last night, and I can see that hasn't changed."
"Because I don't want to look drab in public? Perhaps you'd do anything for dear Berenyt and his mother, but I do draw the line in some places. I'd rather represent Father, in wearing something that looks good and doesn't cost more golds."
Rachylana just looked at Mykella, then, without a word, turned and left.
Mykella could sense the anger, and she should have managed something far less direct, and only gently cutting, but she'd never been that good at fighting with words and expressions.
The rest of Septi was more routine, and, although conversation at breakfast was more than a little cool, neither Feranyt nor Jeraxylt seemed to notice. After eating, Mykella hurried to the Finance chambers and continued her quiet efforts to check on all the receipts that had been recorded in the past few seasons.
She knew she had to visit the Table chamber again, if only to see if she could learn more about how it worked, but that would have to wait until evening, when she could plead tiredness and retreat to her chambers.
The day dragged, and when she finally reached her chambers after dinner, it felt like torture to sit and wait, but she knew Salyna or Rachylana would come by and ask how she was.
Salyna did, announcing her presence with the lightest of knocks. "Mykella?"
"Yes?"
"Are you all right?"
"I'm fine. I just need to be alone."
"You don't want company? Sometimes that helps."
"Thank you, Salyna. I appreciate it, but I need to think some things out."
"You're sure you're all right?"
"I'm sure." Mykella couldn't help smiling fondly at her sister's good-hearted concern. "I know where to find you if I need to talk."
"I'll hold you to it."
Mykella waited longer, a good glass, or so she thought, before she snuffed the wall lamp, not that she needed it much anymore at night, except to read, and moved to the door. She could not sense anyone nearby, and she drew her sight-shield around her, eased the door open, then closed it behind her. The guards didn't even look as she slipped along the side of the corridor, down the main staircase, and along the west corridor toward the rear of the palace.
The staircase guard at the rear of the main level posed another problem because he was stationed almost directly before the door she needed to unlock. She thought for a moment, then moved to one of the doors directly in his line of sight. Using one of her master keys, she unlocked the door, then depressed the lever and gave it a gentle push, moving away and hugging the side of the wide hallway. She stopped a good two yards short of the guard and flattened herself against the wall, waiting.
Several moments passed before the guard saw the open door.
"Who goes there?" He took several steps forward, peering through the dimness only faintly illuminated by the light-torches in their bronze wall brackets, not that all of them worked. It was a miracle that so many devices of the Alectors still functioned.
The corridor remained silent. Unseen behind her sight-shield, Mykella eased toward the stairwell door. Behind her, the guard advanced on the open door. Mykella slipped the key into the lock, then opened the staircase door, slipped through it, and closed it, quietly locking it behind her.
She took a long, slow breath before starting down the steps.
When she entered the Table chamber, she had the feeling that something had changed. A purplish mist seemed to rise from the mirrored surface of the Table, and the air even felt heavy and slimy. She wanted to turn and run. She didn't, but instead moved toward the Table.
Before she could even think about what she might wish to see, the swirling mists appeared, followed by the visage of the same Alector she had seen before.
You have returned. Excellent. The violet eyes fixed on her.
"Where are you? In Alustre?" She avoided looking directly at the Alector, sensing that was what he wanted.
Alustre? That would be most unlikely at present. But you are in Tempre, are you not?
"Where else would I be?" Mykella tried to feel what was happening with the Table.
You could use the Table to see all of Corus, and with my help, you could rule it all.
Mykella distrusted those words, even as the wonder of the possibility that mastery of the Table could create that kind of power washed over her.
She glanced up, only to see a pair of misty arms rising from out of the Table itself, arms and hands that began to extend themselves toward her, arms that exuded a cold and purple chill. With absolute certainty, she understood that if those arms ever touched her, she would be dead. Her body might live, but what was Mykella would be dead.
She stepped back, but the arms kept moving toward her. She created a sight-shield between her and the arms. The arms pressed against the shield, pushing it back and forcing Mykella to retreat as more purpleness flowed from the Table into those icy extensions that threatened her.
What could she do? Frantically, she tried to add another layer of sight-shields, only this time trying to make them stronger, welding them together.
She could feel herself being squeezed, pressed against the stone wall, but she could not give in. She had to hold on. Abruptly, the flailing of the arms against the barrier of her shields lessened. Then the arms themselves began to dissipate, fading and collapsing into the Table.
Were it not for the distance, steer, you would be mine.
Yet the unspoken words sounded hollow, and the purplish glow of the Table subsided, dropping until it almost vanished, as if the struggle between the distant Alector and her had exhausted it.
Mykella uttered a single sigh, almost a sob, shuddering as she stood there in the dimness of the Table chamber. She had to get out. She had to leave.
She forced herself to stand there, breathing deeply, waiting until she was no longer shaking or shuddering. Only then did she leave the chamber, making sure that the door was firmly closed behind her before she made her way to the staircase up to the main level. Once she reached the landing, she paused. The guard was back in position, standing less than a yard from the door.
As quietly as she could, she unlocked the door, then, holding the key in her hand, slowly depressed the lever and eased the door ajar, gathering her sight-shield around her. She could squeeze out, but barely, so long as the guard did not turn. Even if he did, he would not see her, but she wanted no attention paid to the lower level and the Table chamber.
She managed to get the door closed, but not locked, before the guard whirled. Mykella froze, standing unseen beside the door.
The guard stared at the closed door. "Not again."
Mykella eased a coin from her wallet and threw it down the corridor. It clinked loudly.
The guard turned, then stepped forward as he caught the glint of silver.
Mykella locked the door, then eased along the side of the hallway. She was exhausted and trembling by the time she reached her chamber, where, after sliding the seldom-used door bolt into place, she just sat dumbly on the edge of her bed.
As she sat there, still shaking, a greenish golden radiance suffused the room, and in its center hovered the Ancient, a winged and perfect version of a feminine figure, if less than the size of a six-year-old girl.
You have done well, child.
Mykella wasn't certain what to say to the Ancient . . . or if she could. She had so many questions, but she knew she could not delay. "Was that an Alector?"
Rather an Ifrit from the latest world they are bleeding of life. You must watch the Table to see that they do not try again, and you must become stronger. You will not take them by surprise again.
"I hardly know what I'm doing," Mykella protested.
You must learn to use your Talent.
"How can I learn with all the plotting and scheming going on here?"
If you learn, then the plotters can do little to you. If you do not, it matters little whether the plotters succeed or fail.
"Give me some useful advice." Not all these general platitudes.
Seek and master the darkness beneath the Table. With that, the Ancient faded and vanished.
Mykella sank onto her bed and buried her face in her pillow, trying to stifle the sound of her sobs and frustration.
On Decdi morning, nearly three days after her last and nearly deadly encounter with the Alector—or Ifrit—Mykella finally made her way back down to the Table chamber. Continuing her critical review of the ledgers holding the Lord-Protector's accounts had been slow, and less than encouraging, because she saw the same patterns everywhere. There were revenues missing from almost all the accounts, she thought; but any given amount was small, and, again, she had no real proof, only calculations and estimates and comparisons. That lack of real evidence was yet another reason why she had forced herself to revisit the Table, although she was dreading doing so. But the Ancient had been most definite, and Mykella had the feeling that matters were not about to improve by themselves, and greater control of the Table seemed to be the only possible way she could help her father against what appeared to be her uncle's machinations.
Because it was light, the only guards on the main level were posted in the rotunda of the main entrance, although, since it was end day, they took turns walking the halls. With her sight-shield, however, that arrangement was much easier to avoid.
Mykella entered the Table chamber with trepidation, but the Table itself continued to hold a diminished purplish glow, and she released a long sigh as she approached it. Once there, she tried to perceive more than the vague sense of what the Ancient had called the darkness beneath. For a time, all she could feel was the slimelike purpleness, faint as it was.
Then she gained a stronger feeling of the darkness below, deeper and darker and far more extensive than she had sensed before yet carrying a shade of green much like that of the soarer herself. From somewhere, she recalled that to use some properties of the Table, one had to stand on it. Did she dare?
She laughed softly. How could anything more happen if she stood on the block of solid stone? Still . . .
After a time, she climbed onto the Table and looked down at the mirror surface beneath her. The surface reflected everything, and she was more than glad, absently, that she was wearing her usual nightsilk trousers. From where she stood, she tried once more to feel, to connect to the dark greenish black well beneath the Table itself. She pushed away the thought that there couldn't be anything but more rock beneath the stone of the Table, immersing herself in the feeling of that darkness, a darkness that somehow seemed warmer than the purple, though both were chill.
She began to feel pathways—greenish black—extending into the distance in all directions. Was that how Mykel had traveled? She reached for the pathways, feeling herself sinking through the Table, even below it, with chill purpleness and golden greenish black all around her.
Surrounded by solid stone! Cold solid stone . . .
She had to get out. She had to! Mykella forced calm upon herself and concentrated on feeling herself rise upward until she was certain her boots were clear of the Table. Only then did she look down—to discover that her boots were a good third of a yard above the surface of the Table.
That couldn't be!
The sudden drop onto the hard mirrored surface of the Table convinced her that it could be—and had been. She tottered there for a moment, then straightened. Had that been how Mykel had walked on air and water? By reaching out to the darkness beneath the ground?
She almost wanted to scream. She kept learning things, but what she learned—except for being able to conceal herself—didn't seem to provide the sort of skills she needed.
Mykella eased herself off the Table and studied it, just trying to sense everything around it. As she did, she gradually became aware that there were unseen webs or lines everywhere. Ugly pinkish purple lines ran from the Table to the south, to the southwest, and to the northeast, but those lines did not touch the far-more-prevalent blackish green lines that were deeper and broader—stronger, in a sense. When she looked down, she was surprised to sense a greenish black line running from herself into the depths and connecting to the stronger web.
She shook her head. Somehow she was connected to the world, but everyone was, and she couldn't see how that could help—except that she might be able to travel that web, if the old tales were right. But she wasn't ready to run away. Besides, what good would that do except land her someplace else, where she'd be penniless and totally friendless? As a woman of position in Tempre, she was powerless enough, if comfortable, and anywhere else would likely be far worse . . . and far, far less hospitable. And, if she were honest with herself, she wasn't certain she wanted to feel herself sinking through and surrounded by solid cold as chill as ice.
She straightened and looked directly at the Table. At least, she ought to be able to see what Joramyl was doing.
When the swirling mists cleared, she saw Joramyl with three other men in a paneled study. The four seated around a conference table were Joramyl, Berenyt, Arms-Commander Nephryt, and Commander Demyl. Whatever they were discussing was serious enough that there were frowns on most faces. Then Joramyl said something, and both Demyl and Nephryt laughed. After the briefest moment, so did Berenyt.
Try as she might, and as long as she watched, Mykella could not discover more, and after a time, as her head began to ache, she stepped back from the Table.
She still felt like screaming in frustration, but she was too tired . . . and too worried.
Duadi came and went before Mykella saw Jeraxylt again since he'd been off on "maneuvers." Just after breakfast on Tridi morning, she cornered her brother just outside the family breakfast room.
"Have some of the Guard left or been stipended off?"
"How would I know?" Jeraxylt looked past her down the corridor toward the staircase to the main level of the palace.
"You know everything about the Guard," Mykella said gently. "You've told me how many companies and battalions there are . . ."
"The numbers change every week, and every season. There might be a few less now. Some of the companies are understrength." Jeraxylt paused. "I wouldn't know about stipends to ranker guards. I do know that Majer Querlyt petitioned for an early stipend because of deaths in his family. The Arms-Commander granted it. Commander Demyl said that there were reasons to grant it, but they only gave him a half stipend, and if he'd served two more years, it would have been full."
"Was he a good commander?"
"One of the best. He and Undercommander Areyst were the ones who turned back the Ongelyan nomads three years ago, and he hardly lost any men at all. Neither did Areyst."
"Jeraxylt? How would you like to help me?"
"Mykella . . . I am rather . . . involved in my training."
"What I have in mind will certainly not interfere with your training." She offered her most winning smile.
"Whom do you want to meet?" He grinned broadly.
"It's not that kind of help." She didn't need Jeraxylt's assistance in meeting men, not that she'd seen any in the Southern Guard or around the palace who appealed to her. "I need to follow up on some of the tariff collections, and I need an escort."
"Mykella . . ."
"Of course, I could make it known that you've been bedding Majer Allahyr's younger daughter."
"So?"
"Father wouldn't be pleased that you're taking your pleasures with the younger sister of his mistress, nor would he like it known. Besides, you'll get to ride through Tempre in that uniform, and everyone will know who you are and admire you."
"Why don't you ask Arms-Commander Nephryt?"
"My asking him might make matters . . . difficult, because, well . . . I hope you understand. Anyway, the collections don't match up. You don't want to see Father cheated, do you?"
"I don't know . . ."
"Would you like to be cheated when you become Lord-Protector?" she asked. "Would you like to see the cheating continue until you do, then have to be the one to tell everyone that they can't keep doing what they've done for years?"
Jeraxylt thought about that for a moment. "How do you know . . ." He shook his head. "You and your ledgers and figures." Then he cocked his head and smiled.
Mykella could sense what he was feeling—the mix of wanting to show initiative, the appeal of being seen in uniform, and the idea of wanting to call in a future favor from Mykella.
"I can get some of my squad to do it tomorrow afternoon," he said after a moment. "I'll make it a squad exercise. They'll think it's all an excuse, but it's the sort of thing they'd think I'd want to do." Another smile followed. "You do realize . . ."
"That I'll owe you a favor? Yes. But it has to be the same kind—nothing that's improper."
Jeraxylt nodded. "I'll expect the same diligence from you when I'm Lord-Protector."
When he stepped away, she realized that she could sense that her brother also had one of the unseen threads that ran from him into the ground—but his thread was more of a golden brown. Did everyone have such a thread? What did it mean?
After she left the family quarters, Mykella headed toward the Finance chambers for another day of looking at figures and trying not to appear concerned.
Mykella was already mounted, her ledger in the saddlebag, waiting in the cold winter air of early afternoon. She was vaguely surprised at how warm the nightsilk riding jacket was, but she was most comfortable as she studied the rear courtyard of the palace.
That was when Jeraxylt rode in and reined up beside her. "The squad's in front."
"Thank you." She smiled and urged the gelding forward beside her brother's chestnut.
Neither said anything until they were at the head of the column.
"Where do you want to start?" he asked. "At the barge piers or the Grand Piers?"
"Actually, the first place is that of Seltyr Almardyn."
"You said we were visiting tariff-collectors," Jeraxylt murmured, his tone cool.
"No," replied Mykella softly, "I said we needed to check on the tariff collections, and that means visiting those bargemasters and trade factors who paid them."
"They'll just say that they paid . . ."
"They have to have receipts . . . and I'll know if they're accurate."
"You would." The words were under his breath. "Column! Forward!"
Seltyr and High Factor Almardyn's warehouse was less than a block to the south of the Grand Piers, an ancient stone structure of two stories with a series of loading docks on the west side.
Jeraxylt had the squad rein up in front of the front entrance, a simple doorway, though with an ornate marble arch above it. He accompanied Mykella to the door. "You would start with a seltyr."
"He's first on the list."
Clearly, the sound of a squad of guards had alerted someone, because Almardyn himself opened the doorway. His eyes widened as he looked from Jeraxylt to Mykella, and back to Jeraxylt, but he barely paused before saying, "Please come in."
Mykella noted that his lifethread was more of a deeper brown, and somehow . . . frayed.
The two followed him to the study, a small white-plastered chamber with a table desk and wooden file boxes stacked neatly to the right. There, Almardyn turned. "Both the Lord-Protector's heir and daughter at my door . . . I am indeed honored. Might I ask why?"
"It's a bit . . . unusual," Mykella said. "You might know that I oversee the accounts of the Finance Ministry for my father . . ."
"I did not know, but would that all daughters were so dutiful . . ."
Mykella could sense the doubts.
"And I discovered that some figures had been entered incorrectly. It might be that an entire column had been one set of numbers off, but since several of the payment receipts were spoiled, it seemed that the easiest thing to do was to check with those who paid the last tariffs." Mykella did her best to project absolute conviction and assurance, along with a hint of embarrassment about Lord Joramyl.
"What would you like of me?"
"Just a quick look at your receipt for your fall tariff," Mykella said. "I may not have to visit every factor, but since the lists are in alphabetical order . . ."
"I'm the fortunate one. Just a moment." Almardyn turned and lifted one box, then another, opening the third. "Should be on top here. Yes." He turned and extended a heavy oblong card, bordered in the blue of the Lord-Protector. "Here you have it. The seal is quite clear."
"I'm certain it is," Mykella replied. "The fault lies not with you or the tariff-collector." She copied the number into the new ledger she carried, one she had designed to show the discrepancies. Almardyn had paid a good ten golds more than had been entered in the collection ledger. She straightened. "Thank you very much, Seltyr and High Factor. Your diligence and cooperation are much appreciated."
"I'm certain your sire appreciates yours as well," replied Almardyn.
"We do thank you," Mykella said, inclining her head slightly before turning to depart.
Little more was said, until Mykella and Jeraxylt had left the factor's building.
"For all your fine words, he'll still think you're checking to see if he's a thief," murmured Jeraxylt as they walked out to their waiting mounts and Jeraxylt's squad.
"Not after word gets around that everyone's been visited," replied Mykella. "Besides, is anyone going to fault a Lord-Protector for checking on tariff collections once in a while during his reign?"
"It's going to cause problems," predicted her brother.
"I'm sure it will, but it will create more problems if we don't verify that it's happening and how much Father is losing."
"That's the only reason I can see for this."
Out of the twenty-three bargemasters and High Factors Mykella visited, she managed to meet eighteen. With the exception of Hasenyt—the sole factor whom the Lord-Protector and Mykella knew personally—every single one had a receipt for paying more golds than had been entered in the ledger as received, a fact Mykella revealed to no one.
She had to work hard to keep a pleasant expression as they rode back toward the palace. She had no more than reined up outside the gates to the courtyard, about to take her leave of Jeraxylt, when another officer rode toward them. He was blond, of medium height, and muscular. While his face was calm, she could sense the anger.
"Oh, frig . . ." muttered Jeraxylt. "I knew this would be trouble. That's Undercommander Areyst."
The Undercommander reined up and looked directly at Jeraxylt. His green eyes conveyed a chill that was not reflected in the tone of the words that followed. "I don't recall authorizing any sort of patrol in Tempre."
Mykella eased her gelding forward, cutting between Jeraxylt and the senior officer. She smiled politely. "Undercommander? Does the Finance Ministry serve the Lord-Protector?"
Areyst turned to her, not that he had a choice. "I beg your pardon, Mistress Mykella?"
"I asked you if the Finance Ministry served the Lord-Protector."
Areyst's thin lips turned up slightly at the corners. "How could I contest that, Mistress?"
"On behalf of the Ministry, I requested an escort to check some tariff records. Perhaps I should have contacted you directly, but was there any harm done by Jeraxylt's arranging the escort for me?" Mykella extended the ledger she carried. "I was cross-checking the entries in this ledger. Would you care to see them?"
"I think not, Mistress. Your word, as is your sire's, is more than enough."
Mykella thought she sensed a grudging admiration from the Undercommander, the third man in the chain of command for the Southern Guard, although his anger had not totally abated. "Thank you, Undercommander. I apologize if I've caused any difficulty; but, as always, I have only the best interests of the Lord-Protector and the people of Tempre at heart, as I know you do." Mykella tried to project true concern, which she felt, because she could sense the basic honesty of Areyst, whom she had only seen previously from a distance, or in passing. She added, "If there is any fault, it must be mine, for I was the one who requested the service. If you find that a fault, please tell the Lord-Protector directly, and let him know that it was my doing. Jeraxylt was only trying to accommodate me."
Areyst smiled faintly, an expression now devoid of bitterness or anger and holding barely veiled amusement. "It might be best if it were logged as a commercial verification patrol. I would request, if further such patrols are needed, Mistress Mykella, that you contact me."
"I would doubt the need anytime in the immediate future, Undercommander, but I will indeed follow your advice." And she would, because she could sense that honesty and loyalty ran all the way through him . . . and through a lifethread that held a faint green amid a golden brown.
Areyst eased his mount forward slightly and nodded to Jeraxylt. "Your squad will be doing arms practice on foot tomorrow. Riding the stones is hard on mounts."
"Yes, ser."
Only after Areyst had ridden off, eastwardly, in the direction of the Guard compound, did Jeraxylt turn to Mykella. "You owe me double for this."
"I do," she acknowledged demurely. And you owe me far more than you realize.
After the evening meal, at which Feranyt made no mention of patrols, thankfully, Mykella retired to her chambers to study the ledgers. What she had suspected was in fact true. The total discrepancy for the fall tariffs was close to two hundred golds. If the same had been true for the other four seasons, and her estimates suggested that it had been, Joramyl—or someone—had diverted close to a thousand golds from just seventeen factors and bargemasters. Her calculations suggested that other diversions were also taking place, but she was not about to try further excursions without presenting what she had verified to her father.
Then, too, much as she still dreaded it, Mykella knew she needed to follow the soarer's advice about the darkness beneath the Table. Despite her fears, she did need to learn more. So, after it seemed quiet in the family quarters that night, she left her room once more.
This time, she merely waited until the stair guard moved before slipping behind him.
The Table remained as it had, nearly quiescent, but the darkness beneath seemed stronger and closer. Did she want to try to travel those dark webs? Given her father's lack of concern about Joramyl, she might indeed need to escape Tempre.
She stepped up and onto the Table, seeking the green blackness once more. Again, she found herself sinking through and beneath the Table and into the depths beneath. She could not move, and a chill filled her from her bones outward.
Chill? What was so cold?
She tired to reach for an even-more-distant blackness, then began to sense movement, but it was as though she remained suspended and frozen in place while the greenish darkness swept by her. The motion ended. She willed herself to rise and found herself in a different darkness—a mere absence of light—and the biting cold of a raging winter. Somewhere above her, the wind howled. She exhaled, and ice crystals fell from the steam of her instantly frozen breath.
Her entire body was so cold, so tired . . .
She shook her head. Wherever she was, if she didn't leave, she would likely freeze to death in the darkness where she stood. Trying to reach the darkness beneath her was far harder. Her eyes watered, and her tears began to freeze on her cheeks. Even sliding downward seemed to take forever. While she had thought the depths would be warmer, she remained cold, immobile, icy tears frozen in place on her cheeks in the silent depths.
Tempre! She had to reach Tempre. This time, she called up an image of the Table chamber, with her standing before the Table, its purple mist just faintly sensed.
At last, she felt movement.
Later, how much later, she could not tell, she found herself standing before the Tempre Table for a long moment before her legs collapsed, and another darkness enfolded her.
When she woke again, beside the Table, she knew it had to be close to dawn, and it took every bit of strength she had to hold the sight-shield long enough for her to return to her chambers. There, she slumped onto the bed, dragging the quilts around her in an attempt to get warm.
Mykella had hoped to be in the Finance chambers before Kiedryn or Joramyl, but she'd been so tired that she'd nearly slept through breakfast. Her sleep had been anything but peaceful, with nightmares about struggling through a blinding blizzard of black snow, trying to reach . . . something.
Her stomach was roiling, and she knew she couldn't face the day and what she had to do without something to eat, and that meant Kiedryn was already at his table desk when she arrived. Fortunately, as she had expected, Joramyl was nowhere to be seen.
She gathered the ledgers she needed, then wrapped the sight-shield around them, not that Kiedryn more than glanced in her direction as she paused by the door. "I need to get something. I'll be back before long."
The chief clerk merely nodded.
She had to wait outside her father's study for nearly half a glass before Seltyr Porofyr departed, and she could make her way inside. She slid the door bolt behind her.
"We wouldn't be interrupted, anyway, daughter," offered Feranyt.
For a moment, Mykella studied her sire, with her senses, more than with her eyes. His lifethread was almost the same as Jeraxylt's—golden brown—and for the first time she noted that there was a knot of sorts in the thread, as if tiny threads from all over his body merged into that nexus that connected him to the lifethread.
"Perhaps not, ser," replied Mykella after a pause. She laid the ledgers on the corner of the Lord-Protector's desk. "Father . . . I've been worried about your accounts. Receipts have been going down, yet everyone has been saying that times are good. I couldn't track everything, but I did track the fall tariffs of the bargemasters and the High Factors . . ." She went on to explain how she had cross-checked by visiting most of those on the lists and how their sealed receipts uniformly showed greater payments than those shown as received. She used each ledger to point out the exact differences. ". . . and since we don't use tariff farmers the way they do in some places, the numbers should agree, but they don't. Someone has diverted or pocketed nearly a thousand golds this year—"
"You only know about two hundred for certain."
"I can only prove two hundred at the moment. The ledgers suggest a thousand."
"We can only go with proof, daughter."
Why couldn't her father see? Why wouldn't he?
"Mykella . . . you've been diligent and thoughtful, and I appreciate what you've let me know. Corruption is always a problem, because there aren't enough golds to sate all men's appetites." He looked at his daughter more closely. "You're exhausted. You have black circles under your eyes. You shouldn't have pushed yourself so hard."
"Father . . . I don't see how this could have happened without Lord Joramyl knowing something about it."
Feranyt laughed, ironically. "Just how often does he even come into the Finance chambers? I suspect that you and Kiedryn do most of the work, after the entry clerks take in the papers and order the entries."
Mykella was tired, if not for the reasons her father had suggested.
"Dear child . . . I am the Lord-Protector, and you'll have to trust me to handle it. It's not something that can be rushed."
"You are the Lord-Protector, Father, and I am your daughter. But please don't think I'm overstating matters."
"Mykella, I understand your concerns for me, but if I rush and handle matters wrongly, things will only be worse." He paused. "I will look into it and do what is necessary."
She could sense that, if she pressed her father, it would do no good, and he would only resist. "That's all I wanted, ser. Do you need the ledgers?"
"Not right now, but keep them safe."
"I can do that." Mykella straightened.
Mykella had struggled to stay awake the remainder of Quinti, and had slept poorly that night and awakened early on Sexdi. She was walking toward the breakfast room when she saw her father waiting outside. His face was stern, and she could sense concern . . . and sadness. He motioned to her.
"What is it?" she asked.
"I said that I would look into what you found out," Feranyt began.
Mykella waited.
"There was a great deal of validity to your findings. So much so that . . . well . . . Kiedryn is dead. He took poison last night, and left a note, saying that he'd stolen far too many golds. He said he was sorry, but he didn't want to disgrace his family. The note pleaded not to make matters public . . ."
Mykella managed not to gape. Kiedryn? He had likely been the only honest one there, besides Mykella herself.
"His family will have to accept exile, of course, but there's no reason to make it public."
"Kiedryn couldn't have . . ." Mykella protested.
Feranyt shrugged sadly. "I know you thought he was honest, but at times appearances are deceiving. I saw the note. Joramyl showed it to me, and we even compared the writing to his. He wrote it, without a doubt."
Under what sort of duress? Mykella swallowed.
"I know this is hard for you, daughter, but that sort of hard truth comes with ruling. Those you trust most are often those who betray that trust."
"But . . . Joramyl?"
"He's been as solid as a rock. His assistant steward will take over until we find a permanent replacement for Kiedryn. I'm counting on you to help him."
"Yes, ser." Mykella felt that her voice was coming from someone else. Why couldn't her father see what was happening? Yet she could sense that trying to convince him that his own brother was behind it all was futile. Speaking against Joramyl would only result in her being unable to do anything . . . not that what she had done had gone as planned.
Feranyt patted her on the shoulder. "I'm counting on you. I need to get ready to meet with that envoy now."
After he continued toward his study, Mykella turned toward the breakfast room, only to find Jeraxylt standing there.
"Father was pleased, you know," offered Jeraxylt. "He said you handled things the way a smart woman should . . . finding out what was happening, you know, and letting him know."
A smart woman? How smart had she been? Poor honest Kiedryn had been poisoned and set up as the guilty party, when Joramyl was the one who'd been diverting the golds—and now matters were even worse because both her brother and her father believed Joramyl, and she had no proof at all who had diverted the golds . . . and no way to obtain it now that everyone was convinced of Kiedryn's guilt.
Mykella barely ate any breakfast, but she did manage a full mug of tea that helped settle her stomach.
Then, girding herself up, she made her way to the Finance chambers.
The man who rose when Mykella entered the outer chamber was barely a span taller than she was, and squat, like a human toad, she thought. He smiled, and from behind the sincere expression flooded insincerity. Even his lifethread seemed snakelike, holding a sickly yellow brown. "Maxymt, at the service of the Lord-Protector."
"I'm pleased to meet you, Maxymt. The Lord-Protector has asked me to make sure you're familiar with the ledgers and accounts."
"Once I've had a chance to become familiar with these, you really won't have to check the ledgers, Mistress. The Lord-Protector's daughter shouldn't be doing a clerk's work." Oiliness coated the insincerity of every word.
"How well do you know the accounts?" she asked. "Could you tell me which ledger holds the receipts from the smallholders?"
Maxymt smiled, showing brilliant white teeth. "I'm certain that won't be hard to determine . . . assuming that Kiedryn was not too . . . creative."
"I'm sure that you will be able to learn," Mykella replied, "but while you are, I'm certain my father would wish me to continue as I have."
"As you wish, Mistress Mykella."
She could sense a most palpable dislike behind the honeyed words. Now what could she do, except try to strengthen those talents awakened by the Ancient? "First, I'll show you the summary ledgers, then the individual account ledgers, and you can go through each one to gain some familiarity."
"Yes, Mistress Mykella."
Almost a glass later, Joramyl hurried into his Finance study, smiling at Maxymt, who was still studying the master ledger, and at Mykella for a moment. Berenyt followed his father, and he did not look at Mykella.
Mykella had to know what they were saying. The moment Maxymt turned his head, she gathered her sight-shield around her and tiptoed to the study door, where she stood, ear against the crack between door and jamb, trying to make out what the two said.
". . . talk about it here . . ."
". . . wanted you to know . . . Mykella's sharper than she looks . . . don't think she'll accept . . . knew Kiedryn too well . . ."
". . . what could she do, Berenyt? The Lord-Protector saw the confession . . . she's just a woman, barely more than a girl. If my brother weren't so sentimental, he'd have long since sent her to Dereka and gotten a pile of golds for her as well . . . what women are for . . . golds and heirs . . . At least, he doesn't listen to her the way he did to her mother. Good thing Aelya died when she did."
Mykella stiffened. There had been something more there, behind the words, and she missed the next phrases.
". . . besides, Feranyt's offsprings' meddling served us well . . . not have to worry about Kiedryn any longer . . . now . . . don't come see me here more than once a week . . . Off with you."
"Yes, ser."
Mykella slipped back to her table and released the sight-shield.
Maxymt started. Then he stared at Mykella. "Where did you come from?"
"Come from? I've been here all along."
"You weren't there a moment ago."
Mykella shook her head. "I haven't left the chamber. You would have heard my boots. Everyone's always said that I walk heavier than some of the guards. I did drop my figuring paper and had to bend down to get it."
"That must be it." Maxymt shook his head.
Mykella could tell that he wasn't totally convinced, but she hadn't been able to hang on to the sight-shield any longer.
Once more, Berenyt didn't look in her direction when he hurried out of his father's study.
Over the next week, Mykella waited for something to happen, some tragedy or catastrophe, but she could see or sense nothing. Various tariff receipts continued to appear in the ledgers, but now, none showed any discrepancies. To Mykella, that was only proof of Joramyl's cunning, but, again, what could she say? Negotiations proceeded with the envoy from Southgate, and her father mentioned, obliquely, something about an envoy from Deforya.
All she could do was to practice what she had been learning. She had become adept enough with the sight-shield that she could move anywhere unseen. She'd even visited the palace gardens in the dead of night. She'd also traveled from the Table chamber to three others, avoiding the one somewhere in the icy north, but where they were, she had no idea, because all three had been walled shut from the outside. One was chill, and the air seemed thin. Could it have been in Dereka?
She also continued to observe with her life-senses, if that was what they were, and from what she could tell, only her lifethread held that strange combination of black and green, and she had the feeling that the green was becoming more brilliant. But was she just imagining that? Was she imagining everything?.
She observed Joramyl, if intermittently, through the Table. He continued to meet with the Arms-Commander and Commander Demyl, sometimes with Berenyt present, but not always. Outside of the fact that they were plotting, she could tell nothing from what she saw. Berenyt kept flirting with Rachylana, and Rachylana had become ever more distant from Mykella.
Before she knew it, Mykella was in the reviewing stand with her sisters and her father, as the companies of the Southern Guard stationed in Tempre rode past in celebration and recognition of the end of winter and the turn of spring. The small reviewing stand was set at the base of the Grand Piers, equidistant from the green towers at each end. The mounted Guard companies rode northward toward the Piers along the great eternastone highway that split farther to the south, heading west to Hafin and southwest to Southgate, due south to Hyalt and east to Krost and the wine country of Syan. Once the guards reached the reviewing stand, they turned onto the Palace Road, heading due east back to their compound.
When she'd been little, Mykella had once asked her mother why the reviewing stand wasn't before the palace, but Aelya had just smiled, and said, "It's tradition. Tradition is very important. Someday you'll understand how important."
Tradition might well be important, but the day was raw and damp, under heavy gray clouds, and a chill wind blew out of the northeast with such vigor that Mykella wouldn't have been surprised to see snow by the next morning.
Mykella stood to her father's left. Had he not been riding with the Southern Guard, Jeraxylt would have stood to his right. Instead, Lord Joramyl did. To Mykella's left was Cheleyza, Joramyl's second wife, only five years older than Mykella.
"I don't ever get tired of watching the guards," offered Cheleyza. "They ride so well."
And they're all so handsome. That thought was as clear to Mykella as though Cheleyza had shouted it.
"They do ride well," replied Mykella. "Here comes Second Company, and you can see Berenyt there, at the front."
"He rides well, too." Cheleyza paused. "What are you wearing to the ball tonight?"
"Something blue . . . I think. And you?"
"Blue and silver, with a special shimmersilk scarf from Dramur. Joramyl wants me to look my best."
"I'm certain he does." Mykella kept the sarcasm she felt out of her voice. Even so, she could sense Salyna's amusement from behind her.
"He is very particular about the way I look."
"Many husbands are, I've heard."
"You'll find out, dear."
After Second Company came First Company, and Mykella was happy to change the subject by noting, "There's Jeraxylt, leading his squad." She could also see a well-endowed redheaded girl at the end of the reviewing stand, taking a special interest in her brother.
Following First Company were the senior officers of the Southern Guard, followed in turn by the headquarters group. First came Undercommander Areyst, and Mykella sensed both respect and sadness as he bowed his head to the Lord-Protector. Behind him was Commander Demyl, but while the commander looked toward the reviewing stand and bowed his head to the Lord-Protector, Mykella could sense the contempt. Arms-Commander Nephryt merely radiated arrogance.
What could she do? She knew what others were thinking and feeling, and yet she had no proof of anything beyond what she had shown her father, and now, even that proof had been reduced to uselessness by Kiedryn's supposed suicide.
The ballroom was on the southeast corner of the main level of the palace, and had been created centuries before by merging a series of chambers, so that it was long and comparatively narrow, with windows only on the eastern and southern walls. A parquet floor, now ancient, if polished and shining, had been laid over the stone floor tiles, and the wall hangings were of blue and cream. The orchestra was seated on a low platform set against the midpoint of the long inner wall of the ballroom.
Mykella stood at one side of the orchestra, beside Salyna, and only a few yards from where her father and Joramyl chatted amiably. Standing in the receiving line and smiling politely had been more than enough to boil her blood and curdle any thoughts she might have had about the milk of human kindness. Rachylana was already off dancing, and Mykella wished that she were, not that she cared that much for dancing, but the hypocrisy of Joramyl's apparent concern for his brother the Lord-Protector was making Mykella more than a little uncomfortable.
As the orchestra began to play another melody, Undercommander Areyst eased across the space before the platform toward Mykella. He bowed politely. "Might I have this dance, Mistress Mykella?"
"You might." Mykella inclined her head and smiled.
Areyst took her right hand in his left and positioned his left hand at waist level on her back, guiding her gently into the flow of dancers.
"After our last meeting, Mistress Mykella, I've discovered that you're quite good with numbers and ledgers. That is an unusual preoccupation for the daughter of the Lord-Protector."
"Not so unusual as one might think," replied Mykella. "A Lord-Protector's daughter should know her heritage, yet she cannot mingle so freely as a son. From where golds are collected, and in what amounts, and where they are spent and at what frequency can tell a great deal . . . if one knows where and how to look."
"Pray tell, what do they say to you?"
"The Southern Guard is currently understrength. It lacks as many experienced officers as it once had. Supplies such as tack for mounts are more costly than in the past, possibly because of the depredations of the Ongelyan nomads several years back—"
"That was several years ago, though." Areyst guided her past another couple.
"Tack requires leather. Calves take several years to become steers," Mykella pointed out.
"Tell me more."
"Ammunition supplies are down, most probably because gunpowder costs are up, and that is because brimstone has become more costly. I wouldn't be surprised if you or the Commander had considered ordering great care in rifle practice."
"Considered? That is an odd way of putting it."
"If you had actually done so, Jeraxylt would have let it slip. Since you have not, and since you are a prudent officer, I would wager that you have considered it but possibly did not because that might have made the seltyrs of Southgate and the plains nomads more bold. It might also have encouraged the Landarch to request a concession or two."
Areyst laughed. "Would that some of my officers understood so well."
Mykella forbore to comment on that.
"What else might you tell me from your ledgers? About something other than the Guard?"
She could tell he was interested, and not merely patronizing her. "The vineyards in Vyan had a bumper crop last year, and that reduced tariffs . . ."
"Reduced?"
"There were so many grapes that the prices went down, and tariffs are leveled on prices. Not so much as if the crop had failed, but the slight increase in tariffs on raisins showed that the cause was a surplus of grapes."
Areyst looked directly at her. "You could unsettle any man, Mistress Mykella."
"I don't usually speak so, especially to men, Undercommander, but you did ask, and you were interested, and since you were most kind to my brother, I thought you deserved an explanation of sorts."
"Your golds will tell what has occurred. Can they tell what will happen?"
"No more than good judgment and observation," she replied. "Some things are obvious. If tariff collections are lower than in the past, that will mean that expenses must be reduced, or tariffs must be raised. If times are hard, raising tariffs will create unrest and discontent. Yet, if one reduces expenditures, say, for the Southern Guard, that can create another kind of discontent." She smiled. "Would you not agree?"
"That is true if the Guard is required to do as much as before, or more," Areyst acknowledged.
"But when times are hard, there are always more challenges to the Lord-Protector and the Guard."
At the end of that dance, when Areyst escorted her back to her sisters, Mykella could tell that her comments had not so much upset Areyst as put him in a far-more-thoughtful mood than when he had asked her to dance. Strangely, she found that thoughtfulness far more attractive and appealing than a smile or pleasant and meaningless banter would have been.
"You left the Undercommander with a most-serious expression on his face," observed Salyna. "That's not what you wish to do with a man who has no wife. You want to put him at ease."
"He asked some most-serious questions," replied Mykella, "and I made the mistake of replying seriously." She doubted that it had been a mistake, but it was wisest to say so.
Three days later, at breakfast, Feranyt looked up from his tea and asked Mykella, "Have you been prowling around the lower levels of the palace again?"
"Ser?" Mykella counterfeited confusion. Besides, she hadn't been prowling. "No, Father. I haven't been prowling anywhere. I have more than enough to do teaching Maxymt about the accounts. Why?"
"There have been reports, strange things, doors opening with no one around, silvers lying on the stones, door locks clicking when no one was there . . ." He kept looking at her.
Mykella was surprised—and more than a little worried, not that there were reports, but that such reports had been brought to her father only weeks after the events had occurred. Was that just another indication of how out of touch he really was?
Feranyt chuckled. "I can see you're as surprised as I am. Good. I wouldn't want you to make a habit of nocturnal prowling."
Not like Jeraxylt, she thought, without voicing the thought.
After breakfast, she made her way to the Finance chambers, thinking about both her father's questions and Undercommander Areyst. She'd been concerned about the Undercommander ever since they had danced that single waltz at the ball because he came across as direct and honest. After what had happened to Kiedryn and what she had sensed from both Nephryt and Demyl, the thought that something might happen to Areyst was more than a little disturbing. Yet how could she even warn Areyst without putting him in danger? And what could she say—that he was the only honest senior officer left in the Southern Guard and that he was in danger because he was? Who could possibly believe that? Equally problematical was that she was unlikely to see him anytime soon, and to create any public opportunity would be noted, and jeopardize him, while any use of the sight-shield to reach him might well create questions better left unraised. Then, too, there was the problem that she found him attractive . . . and, if anyone discovered that, she'd soon be on her way to Dereka—or somewhere even worse.
Once in the Finance chambers she turned to the ledgers, reviewing the entry clerks' work and Maxymt's entries. She had to admit that Maxymt had learned quickly and that he was probably sharper with figures than Kiedryn had been—and that worried her as well.
She forced herself to concentrate on the columns of figures in the ledgers before her. Slowly, slowly, the figures began to absorb her, and she was beginning to see yet another pattern . . .
"Mykella!" Salyna burst through the door to the Finance study.
Mykella looked up from the ledger, biting off the words of annoyance she had almost voiced when she sensed the grief and fear radiating from her sister. "What's the trouble?"
"Jeraxylt . . ." Salyna opened her mouth, then closed it. Her body shook with silent sobs.
Mykella bolted to her feet. "What about Jeraxylt?"
"He . . . there was an accident . . . they were practicing with blunted sabres . . . and his broke. So did the other guard's, but . . ."
Mykella glanced to Maxymt, then back to Salyna. Somehow, Maxymt was surprised . . . yet not surprised.
"I'll be back when I can," Mykella said, moving toward Salyna.
The ceremony for Jeraxylt was private and held in the family's hillside mausoleum behind the palace. Beside the honor guard, only the family—including Joramyl, Berenyt, and Cheleyza—and the senior officers of the Southern Guard were present.
Under a clear silver-green sky, her head lowered, Mykella studied the mourners standing under the graystone arches of the open stone structure. Her father radiated sadness in a distant way, and Salyna had trouble holding in sobs. Silent tears ran from the corners of Rachylana's eyes, but Berenyt stood beside her.
To the right of Feranyt stood Joramyl, his head bowed. Within him, Mykella could detect, not so much a sense of triumph or gloating, but a feeling of acceptance and inevitability. Arms-Commander Nephryt actually seemed saddened, but Commander Demyl held within himself a sense of righteousness and duty.
The ceremony was brief, beginning with an acknowledgment by his father of Jeraxylt's death, followed by a short statement about the meaning of his life by Arms-Commander Nephryt.
After that, Undercommander Areyst stepped forward to deliver the final blessing. "In the name of the one and the wholeness that is, and always will be, in the great harmony of the world and its lifeforce, may the blessing of life, of which death is but a small portion, always remain with Jeraxylt, son of the Lord-Protector. And blessed be the lives of all those who have loved him and those he loved. Also, blessed be both the deserving and the undeserving, that all may strive to do good in the world and beyond, in celebration and recognition of what is and will be, world without end."
His words had been offered with dignity and a clear sense of sadness and mourning, for which Mykella was grateful. She didn't know if she could have concealed her rage if either Nephryt, Demyl, or Joramyl had offered the blessing.
In the moment of silence that followed, Mykella eased over to the Undercommander. "Thank you for the blessing. You offered it well, and in a spirit of honesty that reflects the past heritage of the Southern Guard."
She could sense him stiffen inside.
"I know you embody that spirit, and that made the blessing meaningful. Thank you." She inclined her head as if in respect, and murmured. "Take great care of yourself."
From his internal reaction, she could sense he had heard.
Areyst inclined his head in response, then straightened. "I could do no less in serving Tempre and the Lord-Protector."
"It was still appreciated, Undercommander." Mykella eased back toward her father.
"Mykella?" inquired Feranyt.
"I just thanked him for the blessing. He offered it well, and he meant it." She stepped back and waited for the honor guard to begin the long walk back to the palace.
That night, unsurprisingly, Mykella knew she would not sleep, or not well. Had her actions led to Jeraxylt's death? Would the "accident" have occurred had he not accompanied her on her visits to the factors? She had the clear feeling that, although she had not intended it that way, at the very least, her inquiries had been indirectly responsible.
She had to do something, even if that something were futile, and after retiring to her chambers and waiting, she gathered the sight-shield around her and made her way down to the Table chamber, slipping past the guards with an ease born of practice.
Once inside the chamber, she wasted no time but walked to the Table itself, where she looked down and concentrated on trying to see Joramyl, but when the swirling mists cleared, she found herself looking at the image of the Ifrit. At least, she thought it was the same Ifrit.
You have returned once more. Most excellent. The violet eyes burned, and immediately, she could sense the misty purple arms rising out of the Table.
Mykella only took one step back, throwing up her shields against the arms, yet those arms did not move toward her as they swelled with purplish power and malevolence, but toward her lifethread where it passed through the solid stone toward the greenish blackness below. Instinctively she extended her shields to protect it, and the arms lunged toward her midsection and that node where the fine lines of her being joined to form her lifethread.
Mykella managed a second set of shields, but she found herself being pressed back by the expanding force of the arms. The Table itself was glowing an ever-brighter purple, so bright that she wanted to close her eyes, although she understood closing them would do nothing because the glare was in her senses, not in her eyes.
Did the arms have a node, something similar to what the Ifrit sought to attack in her? She made a probe, like a sabre, extending from her shields, angling it toward a thickness in the leftmost of the arms facing her.
Just as suddenly, one of the arms hurled something at her. Her shields held as the object shattered against them, but Mykella found herself being thrown back against the stone wall of the chamber. Her boot skidded on something, and she went to one knee. She put out a hand to steady herself, and found the stone floor wet, with fragments of ice chips.
Ice? The arms had thrown that icicle with enough force to disembowel her had it not been for her shields.
I will not be defeated by something attacking me from inside a stone Table. I will not! She forced herself erect and called on the darkness, and the greenish depths to which her lifethread was somehow attached.
A purplish firebolt sprayed against her shields, and she staggered, but moved forward, calling . . . drawing on the greenish blackness of the depths, the green that recalled the Ancient.
The entire chamber flared greenish gold, and under that flood of fully sensed but unseen light, the purplish arms evaporated into mist and haze, then vanished.
The Ancients . . . still there . . .
There was a sudden emptiness around the Table, as it subsided to the faintest of purplish sheens. Then, that, too, vanished.
Mykella felt a smile appear on her face. Exhausted as she was, she had learned two things. Her shields were proof against weapons, some of them, at least, and she could stand up to the distant Alector. And if she could stand against an Ifrit, surely she could hold her own against Joramyl and his scheming supporters, could she not? Could she not?
On Quattri, Mykella was nearing the Finance chambers in late afternoon, after returning from carrying a summary of recent expenditures to her father in his study.
He had seemed tired, almost gray, and had taken the sheets from her with a weary expression. "Thank you, Mykella."
While he had not actually dismissed her, he might as well have, for his eyes had dropped to the papers on the table desk before him. Mykella had slipped out, once more asking herself what she could do. Sooner or later, either Joramyl or Berenyt would become Lord-Protector, and with the weariness she saw in her sire, she feared it would be sooner, and that was her fault. With Jeraxylt's death, he had become quieter, more withdrawn, as well. Why was it that everything she tried to do had made matters worse? She tried to warn her father and only succeeded in warning Joramyl. She'd let Jeraxylt know, and that had made him a danger to Joramyl, and now her brother was dead.
Her thoughts were interrupted by the sight of an officer in a Southern Guard uniform standing outside the Finance door, waiting. It was Berenyt.
She forced a smile as she neared him. "Good afternoon."
"Good afternoon, Mykella. You're looking well."
"After all that's happened, you mean?"
"It's been a difficult time for everyone," he replied.
What bothered her immediately was that he clearly believed that. Why had times been difficult for Berenyt? He hadn't been close to Jeraxylt, and he certainly hadn't cared anything about Kiedryn.
"It has, but we'll manage. Life does go on."
"It does"—he nodded—"often for the best, although we don't always see it that way. You know, Mykel the Great lost his entire family in the Cataclysm? You have to wonder if he'd been so good a Lord-Protector without suffering that loss."
"I'm sure he wouldn't have wished that." Mykella barely kept her voice pleasant.
"You know, Mykella, it's too bad that Jeraxylt had that accident."
Mykella had doubted that Berenyt's words were ever anything but carefully chosen, and this was no exception. "It was a surprise to all of us. He was always so careful in arms practice."
"He wasn't always as careful in other matters. He could have been a great Southern Guard and Lord-Protector, if he had concentrated on arms. That was his strength."
Mykella managed to keep her expression puzzled. "Jeraxylt was always careful, and he certainly did concentrate on arms."
"He should have. He should have concentrated on those more, rather than using you as a front for his calculations."
Mykella wasn't sure from the swirl of feelings within Berenyt whether he actually believed that Jeraxylt had been the one to discover the diversions of golds and brought them to the Lord-Protector's attention or whether Berenyt was not so indirectly offering her a way to disavow what she had discovered. Although she felt frozen inside, Mykella managed to offer a sad smile. "We all have different talents."
"With all of your abilities, Mykella, it's too bad we're cousins." said Berenyt, not quite jokingly.
"I like you, too," Mykella replied politely. Always implying, never saying, that was Berenyt's style. He never really used words that committed to anything, even as he was implying the unthinkable.
"It really is," insisted Berenyt.
Even though his eyes remained fixed on her face, Mykella could sense the physical appraisal . . . and the muted lust. She barely managed not to swallow or show her disgust. "We are cousins. Nothing will change that."
"You might wish otherwise." Berenyt smiled brightly.
"What I might wish, Berenyt, has seldom changed what is."
"That's true, Mykella, but often what I've wished has." With a pleasant smile, he nodded, then turned and walked down the corridor.
Within herself, she shuddered.
Then, for a time, she stood outside the Finance door before reaching out and opening it.
Early on Quinti morning, Mykella donned black, from nightsilk all the way outward to boots, tunic, and trousers, as well as a black scarf that could double as a head covering, if necessary. The events of the past week, especially Berenyt's words and her encounter with the male Ifrit the night before, had convinced her that anything she could do as a woman—anything that would be seen as acceptable for a woman, she corrected herself—would not save her or her father, or her sisters, from Joramyl and his schemes.
She needed to discover if what the Ifrit had attempted against her was something she could master—and use, if she had to. She had a sickening feeling that would be necessary.
Under cover of her sight-shield, she made her way to the small building behind the palace that served as the slaughterhouse. She waited until no one was looking, then opened the door and closed it behind her, walking as quietly as she could toward the open-roofed slaughtering courtyard in the back.
Three lambs, close to being yearlings and mutton, were confined in a pen—an overlarge wooden crate. Several fowl were in the next crate.
Melmak, the head butcher, looked to a rangy youth. "We need to get on with it. The first one."
As the youth folded down the front of the crate and lifted a blunt stunning hammer, Mykella reached out with what she could only call her Talent and grasped the lamb's lifethread, a thread that felt both thinner and yet coarser, or stronger, than her own seemed to be. But no matter how she tried, she could not break the thread.
The hammer came down, and the lifethread remained. Then the youth dragged the stunned animal over to the iron hook and chain. Only after he slit the animal's throat did the lifethread break—spraying apart at the node, as if all the tiny threads unraveled all at once.
Mykella tried to work on the second lamb, but just as she thought she had understood how to undo those threads, the assistant completed the kill.
She struggled to work more quickly on the last animal—and she succeeded. It died before the assistant even raised his bloody knife.
"It's dead."
"Never seen the like of that before," said the butcher.
"Melmak, ser, you just scared it to death."
"Off with you. You hit too hard with the hammer."
As she turned away, Mykella felt chill inside. She'd never killed anything before—except spiders and flies and the like. Still, the lamb would have died one way or the other. And Jeraxylt and Kiedryn had both been killed by Joramyl's plots.
She stiffened, then walked back across the rear courtyard toward the palace, still holding the sight-shield.
True spring had finally arrived in Tempre—or at least several days and afternoons warm enough to enjoy the private gardens to the northwest of the palace, and on Decdi Mykella slipped away from the palace to the gardens and their budding foliage to be alone. She was edgy, and still had trouble sleeping, even though the ledgers showed no more diversions, and the actual receipts matched the ledger entries.
One of her favorite places was a small fountain in the northwest corner of the extensive walled garden. There, water trickled down what resembled a section of an ancient wall, and tiny ferns circled the shallow pool below. In summer and fall, miniature redbells bloomed.
She was halfway across the garden on the side path when she heard a feminine laugh from behind one of the boxwood hedges forming the central maze. The laugh was Rachylana's, and Mykella could sense that her sister was not alone. She moved closer, drawing her sight-shield around her.
"You're much more beautiful than Mykella." That voice was Berenyt's.
"Mykella has her points."
"But so many of them are sharp . . ."
Mykella snorted. Time to put a stop to this particular scene. "Rachylana! Where are you?" As if she didn't know.
There was absolute silence from the hidden bower, but Mykella dropped the sight-shield and moved toward it, making sure her boots echoed on the stones of the curving pathway. When she came around the last corner of the boxwood hedge before the bower, Berenyt stood.
"Mistress Mykella." His words were pleasant.
Mykella could sense the unvoiced condescension and the irritation. "Good day, Berenyt," Mykella said politely. "I didn't realize you were here."
"It was a most pleasant end day, and I happened to encounter your sister, and she suggested we enjoy the garden. It has been such a long and gray winter."
"It has indeed," Mykella agreed, "some days being even grayer than others."
Berenyt bowed. "I will not intrude further. Good afternoon, ladies." His smile was clearly for Rachylana. He stepped gracefully past the sisters and made his way down the hedge-lined path that would lead him out of the maze.
Mykella waited for the outburst that was certain to follow once Berenyt was out of earshot.
"You came out here looking for us, didn't you?" accused Rachylana.
"No. I came out here to be alone, but you were giggling and making over him. He's your cousin."
"He's going to be Lord-Protector someday. Father won't wed again."
Mykella had tried to avoid thinking about that. "If Lady Cheleyza doesn't have a son, and if nothing happens to Berenyt."
"He'll still be first in line."
"He's your cousin," Mykella repeated.
"So?"
"Berenyt's just using you," Mykella said, not concealing the exasperation in her voice. "You're behaving like every other silly woman, even like a tavern trollop. You think that he cares for you. All he wants is information and power. He really doesn't even want to bed you, except to make his position as heir-apparent to his father more secure."
"That's not Berenyt."
"That's very much Berenyt. While you're thinking he's appreciating you, he keeps asking you questions, doesn't he? He flirts, but never says anything." Mykella's words were edged with honey more bitter than vinegar.
Rachylana lunged toward Mykella.
Mykella stepped aside, but also called up the unseen webs of greenish energy.
Rachylana reeled away from the unseen barrier and staggered back, nearing toppling over the stone bench. "You hit me!"
"I never touched you, but I certainly should have. You tripped over your own feet, and you'll trip over more than that if you're not careful."
"You and your pride. You seem to think that you can do anything a man can, and you can't," snapped Rachylana. "You're the one who'll trip." She straightened herself and smiled. "You seem to forget, Mykella, that you're a woman, and women need to carry themselves with care if they're to acquire what they wish."
Mykella had never forgotten that she was a woman. How could she, reminded as she was at every turn about what women couldn't do, shouldn't do, or ought not to do? She said nothing more as Rachylana turned and stalked down the garden path.
Only after Rachylana had left did Mykella walk to the far corner of the garden. How could she make people pay attention to her—truly pay attention to her? She was half a head shorter than her sisters, and she was a woman. Her voice and perhaps her posture were the only commanding aspects she possessed.
Could she use her talents . . . She paused. The Ancient had not said talents. She had said Talent—the same sort of Talent that her ancestor had possessed. Could she summon the Ancient?
Standing in the shadows of late afternoon, she concentrated on the Ancient. Nothing happened.
How could she reach the soarer? Could she find the blackness below? She wasn't all that far from the Table, not really. This time, she reached downward toward the greenish black darkness. Surprisingly, touching that underground web was far easier away from the Table. Did the Table make it harder?
The Table interferes with many things. The soarer hovered to Mykella's right, in the deeper shadows. You have called me. A sense of amusement radiated from the soarer. What do you wish?
"Some assistance with a few small things," Mykella said.
Why should I offer such?
"You wanted me to deal with the Ifrit, didn't you? I did. Now, I may need to deal with others."
Mykella gained the sense of a laugh.
You need little from me. You can already tap the lifeweb of Corus.
"Outside of the shields and the sight-shield, I don't know much," Mykella confessed.
You can kill, reminded the soarer.
Mykella winced. Did the Ancient know everything?
Only what you have done, because you have accessed most of your Talent.
"It doesn't seem that way."
That is because you do much when you are not linked to the lifeweb. If you link to the web itself, all that you do will be strengthened. The soarer vanished.
"Who were you talking to, Mykella?"
At the sound of Salyna's voice, Mykella whirled. "Salyna?"
"I thought you were talking to someone, but there wasn't . . . there isn't anyone here." Salyna frowned.
Hadn't Salyna seen the soarer? Did one have to have some vestige of Talent to see the Ancients? Was that another reason why the soarer had contacted Mykella?
"Mykella?"
"Sometimes . . . sometimes I just have to talk things out to myself," Mykella temporized.
"What's a lifeweb?"
"Oh . . . that's something I learned in the archives. Everything in the world that is living is tied together. That's what the Alectors thought." Mykella hoped that her hasty explanation would be enough. "I was trying to work out . . . about why some things happen. Sometimes, it helps to put it in words."
"I thought I was the only one who did that," offered her youngest sister, pausing, then adding, "You know . . . you really made Rachylana mad."
"I'm certain I did, but she shouldn't be sneaking off and flirting with Berenyt. They're cousins."
"He can be nice."
"He can. Of that, I'm most certain." Mykella smiled. "We might as well head back so that we won't be late for supper."
Salyna nodded, clearly glad not to say more about Rachylana and Berenyt.
Mykella knew she had much to practice in the days ahead.
By Londi night, Mykella had managed two more small skills. In addition to getting light to flow around her to render her invisible to others, in trying to use her Talent to focus a lamp into a dark corner of her chamber to help locate a broach she had dropped, she had stumbled across another skill. In the end, she managed to concentrate or focus light around her without making her less visible. The effect was to heighten her presence, as if she were outlined in light.
If she were the Lord-Protector, such a skill might be valuable, but for now, it was merely a curiosity.
She also managed to project a whisper the length of the long corridor at night. She'd almost laughed when the duty guard had jumped and whirled.
She'd had no success in trying to walk on air. She could lift herself almost a yard above the floor, but she could not figure out how to move laterally. Nor could she even imagine how one could walk on water, when the blackness she drew upon had to be so far beneath the surface.
Going to work on the ledgers had become more and more of a chore, because Maxymt and the clerks had clearly gotten the word to make sure all the entries agreed. Yet Mykella felt that if she did not keep overseeing the accounts, matters would revert to what they had been.
On Duadi, as she was checking the latest entries in the master ledger, the door to the Finance chambers slammed open, and Salyna rushed in. "It's Father! He's had a seizure. He's dying, and he wants you!"
Mykella bolted from her table desk, dashing after her sister toward the Lord-Protector's apartments.
At the door to the bedchamber stood Joramyl. His face wore a concerned look, and there was worry beneath the expression, although Mykella had the feeling that the internal worry was somehow . . . different.
"What happened?" Mykella asked.
"We were having an afternoon chat in his study, and he began to shake." Joramyl shook his head. "He tried to stand, and his legs gave out. I helped him here to his bed and summoned the healer . . ."
"Mykella . . . he needs you." Salyna pulled on Mykella's sleeve.
Mykella turned.
Treghyt, the white-haired healer Mykella had known for years, stood at the far side of the wide bed on which Feranyt lay, still in the brilliant blue working tunic of the Lord-Protector although the neck of the tunic had been opened and loosened.
Mykella moved to the nearer side of the bed and bent over the shuddering figure of her father. "I'm here. I'm here, Father." She forced the tears back from her eyes.
". . . Lord-Protector . . ." gasped Feranyt.
"You're the Lord-Protector," Mykella insisted quietly, taking her father's hand in hers, aware that his fingers were like ice. She could feel his lifethread fraying as she sensed it.
"Joramyl, and . . . after him . . . Berenyt . . . they . . . must . . ."
"Berenyt?" blurred Mykella.
". . . still of our blood, daughter." Feranyt took short shallow breaths, each one more labored than the one previous. "Promise me . . . promise me. The Lord-Protector must . . . must be of our blood."
"The ruler of Tempre must be of our blood," repeated Mykella. She could promise that.
The faintest smile crossed Feranyt's lips before a last spasm convulsed him
"He's gone," said the angular healer, looking toward Joramyl, who remained standing beside the doorway. "Lord-Protector."
Mykella wanted to protest. She did not, but straightened, looking down at the silent figure of her father. There was an ugly bluish green that suffused his form, fading slowly as his body cooled. Poison? It had to be, and she had no doubts about who had been behind it. Yet how could she prove it when the only evidence was what she could sense and that no one else could?
And if she insisted it had been poison, too many questions would arise as to how and why she knew. Besides, her father was dead. So was Jeraxylt, and Joramyl was Lord-Protector. And . . . all of it had happened because—or at least sooner—she had noted discrepancies in the ledgers and tried, as best she could, to do something about it.
After her father's death, Mykella knew she had little time in which to act, especially after both the healer and Joramyl concluded that her father had died of a brain seizure. Over the next two days, she made several more trips to the slaughterhouse, working so that the animals died from her efforts only instants after their blood gushed out, and so that Melmak never knew what was truly happening.
She also made other arrangements . . . and forced herself to wait. Waiting was the hardest part, and that was the part of the role of a woman of Tempre that had always challenged her.
On Quattri, Joramyl requested Mykella, Rachylana, and Salyna to join him in the Lord-Protector's study immediately after breakfast.
Mykella led the way and could not have said that she was surprised to find Joramyl behind her father's table desk, at least the desk she had thought of as her father's. Nor was she particularly amazed to see Berenyt there, although he was standing.
"If all of you would be seated." Joramyl gestured to the four chairs set in a semicircle before the desk.
Mykella recalled that there were usually only three there.
After waiting until the four were seated, Joramyl went on. "Everything has been arranged for your father's funeral tomorrow. There will be a week of mourning following the ceremonies. The procession will be public, the interment and final blessing private, in keeping with tradition. Do you have any questions?"
"Who will do the blessing?" asked Salyna.
"Would you like to, since you asked?" inquired Joramyl. "I had thought that Mykella might offer the statement of his life, since she is the eldest."
Salyna nodded.
"Is that acceptable to you, Rachyla?" asked Joramyl.
"Yes."
A silence descended on the study. Mykella waited, unwilling to be the one to speak.
Joramyl cleared his throat. "Now . . . uncomfortable as it may be, we need to talk about your future." The Lord-Protector-select's words were mild.
Mykella could sense the calculation and the disdain behind the politeness. "Now? We have not even had Father's funeral."
"By the end of the week after the funeral, of course, you will all retire to your father's hill villa for a half season of mourning. By then, the envoy from Southgate should have arrived, and we can begin the negotiations for Salyna's marriage. I have renewed the negotiations with Deforya as well, Mykella."
Mykella wasn't aware that those negotiations had ever been broken off. "Salyna isn't old enough to be married to anyone," she said quietly
"She needs the protection of a strong consort, especially now," suggested Berenyt. "So do you and Rachylana."
"And whom would you suggest?"
"Cousins have married," Berenyt said.
Joramyl merely offered the slightest of smiles.
"You and Rachylana?" asked Mykella.
"If such were to occur, I would leave that decision to the two of you." Berenyt smiled.
"Perhaps you and Rachylana should discuss such matters," added Joramyl, gazing pointedly at Mykella. "Your father did wish his successors to be of his blood."
Mykella looked blankly out the window. If Berenyt married Rachylana, no one would ever complain, not loudly, that Joramyl had succeeded her father, because both bloodlines would be united in their children. But . . . it was wrong.
Yet, if she challenged Joramyl and Berenyt, she would be acting against her own sister. And what could she really do? Could what she had learned sustain her against Joramyl and the leaders of the Southern Guard?
After a moment, she inclined her head politely. "That is true. He did wish his successor to be of his blood, and his successor will be."
Berenyt relaxed ever so slightly. Joramyl did not, although he smiled broadly. "I'm sure he would have been glad to know that you intend to support his wishes."
"I am a dutiful daughter," Mykella replied, inclining her head, "and his wishes are and will be my command."
That evening, after a cold dinner, Salyna followed Mykella back to her chamber.
"What do you want, little sister?" asked Mykella gently.
"Rachylana's worried, Mykella," Salyna said quietly.
"Why should she be worried?" replied Mykella. "Berenyt will ask for her hand, whether he loves her or not, and she'll become the wife of the future Lord-Protector of Tempre."
"She thinks you'll do something stupid, like try to poison Joramyl or something like that, and that you'll be killed, and we'll be exiled."
Mykella laughed, a low and ironic sound. "You can tell her that I never once thought of poisoning anyone, not after I saw what it did to Father."
"Father? You think he was poisoned?"
"I can't prove it to anyone. But he was healthy. He had a glass of wine, and he had a seizure. He was dead in less than half a glass. That all happened less than half a season after Jeraxylt died in a sparring accident. Most convenient, don't you think?"
"I had wondered." Salyna's face crumpled, and her eyes brightened. "But what can we do? You can't . . . Either it was all the way Uncle Joramyl said it was . . . or . . ." She said nothing for a moment, before asking, "If you're right, who would believe it?"
Mykella nodded. "And if anyone poisoned anyone now . . . I'm most certain everyone would look at me. You're too sweet, and Rachylana has everything to lose."
"But . . . they'll send me to Southgate."
"That's possible." Mykella didn't want to let her sister know anything, for Salyna's own protection. "You'd be safer there."
"What . . . about you?"
"They're still talking about marrying me off to the Landarch-heir of Deforya. I understand it's not too bad a place, except that it's cold and dry."
"Do you know what he's like?"
"That doesn't seem to matter, does it?" replied Mykella.
"But . . . Mother loved Father . . ."
"They were fortunate, and they had met some years before," Mykella pointed out.
"What will happen, Mykella?" Salyna's voice was small.
"We'll have to see, won't we? But there's no use in worrying right this moment." Mykella wrapped her arms around Salyna, all too conscious that her younger sister was the taller.
Mykella rose early on Quinti. She prepared herself for the ordeal ahead, in all the ways that she could, including her dress, a severe dark green and high-necked gown, trimmed in black. Her head-scarf was black, but of shimmersilk—and had been her mother's—and her cloak was black. Under the long skirt of the gown, she did wear black boots, well-polished ones.
She forced herself to eat at breakfast, but kept to herself until the time for the ceremony. She said little as she joined the others before they were escorted to the small reviewing stand set up on the north side of the boulevard, directly in front of the wall enclosing the palace. More than a thousand people lined the space on the south side of the boulevard, crowding the area between the low wall that comprised the northern edge of the public gardens and the edge of the boulevard.
As the late Lord-Protector's eldest surviving child, Mykella stood on the uppermost level of the stand, under a clear green sky, with a cool breeze blowing out of the northwest. To her right was Joramyl, and beyond him, Berenyt. To her left were her sisters, and beyond them, Lady Cheleyza. Below the family were the seltyrs and High Factors of Tempre—in effect the councilors of the city and more—and their wives.
"I can see the Guard is leaving the Grand Piers now," Joramyl said conversationally.
"It won't be that long now." Berenyt concealed his impatience badly, so much so that Mykella could have read it clearly even without her Talent.
As her cousin had predicted, it was not that long before the funeral procession appeared, led by two guards riding on each side of a riderless horse whose saddle was draped in the blue of the Lord-Protector. Behind them rode Second Company, and all the officers and men wore black-edged blue mourning sashes. Behind them came the caisson carrying her father's coffin, drawn by four black horses.
Just before the caisson carrying her father's coffin, draped in the blue of the Lord-Protector, drew abreast of the reviewing stand, Mykella stepped forward. She drew upon the lifeweb darkness beneath her and Tempre and focused light around her . . . then around the coffin, not enough to be blinding, but just enough, she hoped, so that all who watched saw the faint link of light between her and the coffin of the late Lord-Protector. Then she projected respect and honor for her father the Lord-Protector, easing it out across the area, but she let that projection center on her as the caisson passed. The riders of Second Company looked back, and those of First Company, following the caisson also fixed their eyes upon the Lord-Protector's daughter. Mykella remained motionless, but she did not bother to try to control the tears that rolled down her face.
Then, once the last of the riders had passed, she stepped back
"How . . . did that happen . . ." murmured someone.
"Don't say a word," murmured Joramyl.
Mykella let tears roll down her face as she watched the caisson heading into the palace grounds and toward the mausoleum on the hillside behind the palace.
After the last horseman in the procession had entered the palace gates, as Mykella walked down the steps toward the honor guard that would escort them to the mausoleum, Salyna slipped beside her.
"What did you do?" whispered Salyna. "They all looked at you. Joramyl got that stern stone look he gets when he's displeased."
"I didn't do anything," Mykella lied, "except step forward a bit to pay my respects to Father—publicly."
"But everyone looked at you . . ."
Mykella certainly hoped so.
Joramyl certainly had felt both anger and worry, but he had said nothing to Mykella. Even so, she maintained a Talent-shield around herself as she let the honor guard escort them through the plaza in front of the palace, then through the rear courtyard and the rear gate to the memorial garden around the private mausoleum—well to the east and uphill from the regular palace gardens.
Once the coffin had been carried into the mausoleum, and everyone had assembled in the small outer rotunda, Joramyl began the ceremony.
"We acknowledge that the Lord-Protector of Lanachrona has died, and that he has left a legacy of love and goodness bestowed on his family and people throughout a long and prosperous life. We are here to mourn his loss and offer our last formal farewell in celebration of his life." With that, he stepped back and nodded to Mykella.
Mykella stepped forward. She waited several moments before she began to speak, letting silence fall across the mausoleum and the area beyond. Her eyes traversed the three Southern Guard officers present, but she did not look sideways at Joramyl, nor at her sisters.
"Our father was the Lord-Protector of Lanachrona, but he was more than that. He was a good man, a caring man, and a trusting man, who loved his wife, his children, his larger family, and his people. He believed most deeply that the principal goal of a Lord-Protector was to protect his people, both from those outside the borders of Lanachrona and from those within our borders, for there are enemies in both places. He spent his efforts as Lord-Protector to assure peace and prosperity for all his people, and not just a favored few. And . . . to the end of his days, he believed in the goodness of those around him. We will miss him, and so will Lanachrona."
While her words were brief, Mykella did not know that she could have said more, or that more needed to be said.
After another silence, Salyna delivered the blessing. "In the name of the one and the wholeness that is, and always will be . . ."
Mykella listened intently, but while Salyna almost choked on the words near the end, her voice remained firm, steady, and loving.
During the entire brief ceremony, Mykella had barely glanced in the direction of Undercommander Areyst, except the one time in passing, not because she had not wished to do so, but because she felt that any favor she might show him might jeopardize his very life.
The honor guard re-formed below the steps of the mausoleum.
Joramyl turned to Mykella, a pleasant, but thoughtful look upon his face, an expression belying the mixture of anger and worry within him. "You were very . . . impressive today. I trust you will be equally supportive of your father's successor."
"I intend to be, Lord Joramyl. Like you, I am beholden to my father's legacy." She paused. "I apologize if my words are brief, but it has been a trying time." She did her best to offer an apologetic smile.
Mykella wasn't certain exactly how she made it through the rest of the day, replying to all sorts of meaningless platitudes politely. She was just thankful when she could plead exhaustion after a light supper and retire to her chamber.
As she closed the door, she realized she was thirsty, and she walked toward the side table by the bed. The tumbler there was empty, but the pitcher beside it has been refilled by the staff., and she reached for it. Her hand stopped short. A purplish aura surrounded the pitcher—the exact shade of purple she'd perceived shrouding her father just before he died.
She bent over the pitcher and sniffed, but she could smell nothing.
For the briefest of moments, she thought about using the sight-shield to place the pitcher where Joramyl would use it, but that was not a good idea for two reasons. First, he had not moved into the palace and would not until after he was formally installed as Lord-Protector at noon the next day—far too soon, Mykella thought, but no one had asked her. Nor would anyone. That, she also knew. Second, as Salyna had pointed out, Berenyt would make certain that she was blamed, and he would just become Lord-Protector sooner—and he probably wouldn't even have to marry Rachylana.
Mykella snorted. If she'd drunk the poison, doubtless Joramyl would have claimed a brain weakness ran in the family.
She did make sure that the door bolt was fastened before she put out the lamps and climbed into bed.
The faintest click awakened her from a restless sleep. She could sense someone outside her door, and she immediately reached for the greenish darkness deep beneath the palace, even as she slipped from beneath the covers and to her feet, waiting.
The door bolt slowly slid open, and the door opened. Despite the near pitch-darkness of the room, Mykella could make out that the slender but muscular figure who entered her chamber was garbed entirely in black, with even a tight-fitting black hood. She waited until he closed the door and edged toward the bed, a loop of something in his hand.
Using her Talent, she reached out and slashed at his lifethread node. Tiny threads sprayed away from him, and he pitched forward onto the stone floor. The thud was muffled by the old rug at the foot of the bed.
After cloaking herself and the dead man with her sight-shield, Mykella eased open her door. As she half suspected, none of the guards were anywhere in sight. Although she was no weakling, it did take her quite some time to drag his figure to the staircase, where she pushed the body off the top landing.
How far the dead assassin rolled down the steps she didn't know. Nor did she care.
She made her way back to her chamber where she rebolted the door, then took the desk chair from before her writing table and propped it under the door handle lever. While it might not hold against a determined assailant, anyone who could break it to get inside would definitely make enough noise to wake her.
She smiled grimly.
Her dear uncle was obviously worried. The fact that he was suggested that his support among the seltyrs and High Factors was not all that he might have liked. She hoped so.
Mykella was the first in the breakfast room—for what was to be her last meal there, at least according to her uncle. Salyna and Rachylana entered just behind her.
"Did you hear?" asked Salyna. "They found an assassin on the stairway."
"How did they know he was an assassin?" asked Rachylana. "No one would claim that."
"He was dead," Salyna said. "That's what Pattyn said—he was the head of the guards on duty. The man was wearing assassin's black, and he had a dagger and a garrote."
"The guards killed him?" asked Mykella, sitting down at her place, all too conscious of the empty seat where her father had always seated himself. Her eyes burned, and she looked down for a moment, then swallowed before she raised her head.
"No one knows," Salyna replied. "Pattyn said he was dead, and there wasn't a mark on him." She poured herself cider.
The serving girl brought Mykella tea, but Mykella studied it for a moment, deciding it was safe, before taking a sip.
Rachylana glanced at Mykella. "There have been too many strange things happening, like the light that fell on you yesterday."
"It fell on Father's coffin," Mykella pointed out.
"And on you."
"She is the eldest, Rachylana," Salyna said. "What other heir does Father have?"
Mykella hoped her youngest sister hadn't guessed too much.
"Daughters can't inherit."
"Can't . . . or haven't?" asked Mykella. "There's nothing in the charter or the archives that forbids it."
"You've looked? I would have thought as much," sniffed Rachylana. "Even if Joramyl and Berenyt didn't exist, just how much of the Southern Guard would accept a woman?"
"Rachylana . . . that's . . ." Salyna shook her head.
"Who would know?" asked Mykella. "There's always been a male heir."
"I still say that too many strange things are happening," Rachylana finally said, after swallowing some cider.
"Like the doors that opened in the palace with no one around," added Salyna quickly, clearly thankful not to have to discuss the possibility of a woman as Lord- or Lady-Protector. "One of the guards even found a silver in the middle of the lower corridor."
"Some factor probably dropped it. He wouldn't have missed it," pointed out Mykella. "Some people can't see what's before their faces."
Salyna gave the slightest of headshakes, and Mykella wished she could have taken the words back.
"What are you wearing today, Rachylana?" Mykella asked quickly.
"A new gown of light blue, I think . . ."
Salyna and Mykella walked down to the rotunda inside the main entrance to the palace at a half glass before noon. Rachylana was already there, talking with Berenyt, who wore the full dress uniform of a Southern Guard.
Rachylana looked at Mykella. "That long black cloak makes it look like you're still at the funeral."
"I can wear mourning garb if I wish," Mykella replied. "Joramyl said we were in mourning." Actually, under the cloak, Mykella had chosen what she wore with care—everything was black, except for the vest of brilliant blue—the Lord-Protector's color. While she appeared to be wearing a full skirt, it was actually a formal split skirt for riding, the difference not noticeable under the cloak.
"After the investiture," replied Rachylana.
Salyna glanced to Berenyt, as if to ask for an intercession.
"I heard about the assassin," said Berenyt. "You'll all be safer in the hill villa. I've asked Father to send two squads with you as guards."
More like gaolers, Mykella thought.
"You will visit, won't you?" asked Rachylana.
"I wouldn't think otherwise." Berenyt bowed. "I have to leave you now and join Father. He wouldn't wish his heir-apparent to be late."
"No . . . you should be with him," Mykella said politely, "especially today."
Salyna frowned for a moment but said nothing.
Berenyt smiled and turned, then walked briskly along the corridor, the sound of his boots echoing in the near-empty hallway, a space that normally would have held at least a score of people doing business with the Lanachronan functionaries housed on the main level of the palace.
"He's most elegant," observed Rachylana.
"He does look very handsome," Salyna replied.
"There's an old saying about handsome is as handsome does," Mykella said blandly. She still couldn't forget that Berenyt had been with the plotters at every meeting. That made him as guilty as his father.
Rachylana sniffed, and Mykella could sense her thoughts—You're just jealous.
Mykella wouldn't have wanted Berenyt on a silver platter, even if he hadn't been her cousin. He wasn't anywhere close to the man her father had been, nor a fraction of the man Undercommander Areyst was. She pushed that thought away for the moment.
"Ladies?" An undercaptain of the Southern Guard appeared, with Lady Cheleyza behind him. "It's time for you to take your places."
Mykella followed the undercaptain and Cheleyza, with her sisters behind her. They took their positions on the fourth step of the five low and wide stone steps that led to the main palace entry—the topmost one was empty, by tradition, because the Lord-Protector-select had to ascend that last step alone. Cheleyza stood on the left side of the open space that formed an aisle down the center of the steps, alone, and Mykella and her sisters stood on the right. The lower three steps held the various ministers and senior functionaries, and their families. The public crowds around the plaza were modest, with possibly fewer spectators than had attended Feranyt's funeral, but since the plaza was not that large, and since both Southern Guard companies assigned to the palace were drawn up in mounted formation, the plaza appeared full enough.
The investiture was a simple ceremony. Joramyl would ride in from the side, accompanied by Berenyt, dismount, and present himself to the three senior officers of the Southern Guard, waiting on the east side, then to the seltyrs and High Factors on the west. After making his statement and bowing to each group, he would slowly ascend the steps. Once he reached the top step, he would turn and offer the ritual statement. Then he would walk down, alone, mount, and ride off—if only to the rear courtyard.
A single trumpet heralded Joramyl's approach. Wearing the brilliant blue dress tunic of the Lord-Protector, he rode slowly down the open space before the arrayed Southern Guard companies and the palace. Behind him rode Berenyt in his formal dress uniform.
They reined up short of the senior Southern Guard officers and the seltyrs and High Factors, then dismounted and handed the reins to two waiting guards. Joramyl stepped forward and nodded to Arms-Commander Nephryt before turning and walking several paces toward the seltyrs and High Factors, to whom he offered the ritual question, "Will you accept me as Lord-Protector?"
Mykella sensed that the approval was somewhere between perfunctory and grudging.
After inclining his head to the seltyrs and High Factors, Joramyl slowly started up the stone steps toward the outer columns of the rotunda, columns clearly added later, because they had already become rounded and pitted in places, while the stone of the original structure looked as though it had been built within the past few years. The Lord-Protector-select was followed by Berenyt, as Joramyl's heir-apparent.
Although Mykella had begun to draw upon the darkness deep beneath Tempre as soon as Joramyl had ridden toward the steps, she waited until Joramyl reached the third step before dropping her cloak and stepping sideways and onto to the topmost step, where she looked down upon Joramyl.
"What . . . don't be a fool, Mykella," said Joramyl.
Blazing light flared around the Lord-Protector's daughter as Mykella focused those energies with which she had practiced and practiced.
"You killed my brother, and you poisoned my father."
Joramyl's mouth opened as Mykella's voice carried across the steps toward the crowd, amplified with her Talent—amplified and carrying the utter conviction of truth. "All this was done in shadows and silence. You cannot bear to have the truth come out, and that truth will kill you here where you stand!"
Without touching Joramyl—except with her Talent—she severed his lifethread node, and he pitched backward down the stone steps.
Behind him, Berenyt's eyes widened.
"You, Berenyt, plotted with your father so that you might become Lord-Protector in turn. The truth will kill you as well."
Berenyt's mouth opened, his face ashen, before Mykella cut his lifethread node. Like his father, he toppled silently.
"No . . ." murmured Rachyla.
In the stunned silence that followed, Mykella took the four steps down the stone stairs, decreasing the intensity of the light that surrounded her. Then she stopped and surveyed the three officers of the Southern Guard.
"Will you have a Lady-Protector of Tempre?" she asked more quietly. "Or will you try to hide treachery as well?"
"You? No woman will rule Tempre while I'm Arms-Protector." Nephryt's sabre slashed toward Mykella's seemingly unprotected shoulder.
His face turned ashen as the blade shattered against her unseen Talent-shield.
Mykella reached out with her senses and ripped his lifethreads from his body.
Nephryt's mouth remained open as he fell face-first onto stone pavement of the plaza, further scattering the fragments of the shattered sabre.
Mykella turned to the two remaining Guard officers. She smiled. "I believe that takes care of Arms-Commander Nephryt's objections."
Demyl looked from the fallen form to Mykella, then back to the body. He swallowed.
"You may leave Tempre this moment," Mykella said to Demyl. "If you do not, you will never leave."
Demyl glanced at the body on the plaza before him. "Much good it will do you."
"Go, traitor!" This time Mykella's voice rang across the plaza. "Be not seen in Tempre again, nor in Lanachrona!"
Demyl turned and walked woodenly toward the guard who held his mount. The crowd beyond the low stone wall watched as he mounted and spurred his mount out through the gates.
Mykella turned to the Undercommander.
Areyst looked to Mykella. "There has never been a Lady-Protector of Tempre."
"There's a first time for everything. Before Mykel, there had never been a Lord-Protector," she replied. "If I name you as Arms-Commander, will you serve me and the people of Lanachrona honestly and with all your abilities?"
Areyst inclined his head. "I can do no less, Lady-Protector."
Mykella sensed his feelings—both dismay and respect . . . and a grudging admiration.
Those would have to do. She doubted that Mykel the Great had gained any more at the beginning, either.
Then she turned and walked to the seltyrs and High Factors, inclining her head to the group of twenty-odd. She could sense the absolute fear radiating from them. "Honored Seltyrs, High Factors, will you have an honest and true Lady-Protector of Tempre? One who will not divert your tariffs or plot in secret and silence? One who will hold your liberties as dearly as her own?"
There was a moment of silence. Then Almardyn and Hasenyt exchanged glances. Hasenyt nodded to Almardyn. Almardyn cleared his throat. "Your father stood for us, and we would be unwise indeed to refuse a Lady-Protector of your power and his honesty."
Scarcely a ringing endorsement, but an endorsement. "You will have the benefit of all my Talent and all the honesty my father prized so dearly, even at the cost of his own life."
"We accept you as Lady Protector," replied the two.
After a long moment, a chorus followed. "We accept . . ."
Mykella inclined her head once more, then turned. Grudging as it was, they would honor it, and she would honor her pledge.
As she walked back toward the steps, she stopped before Areyst. "If you would follow me, Arms-Commander."
"I am no heir, Lady-Protector."
"For now, I have no other heir, and Tempre and Lanachrona deserve the best."
Areyst lowered his head. "I did not . . ."
Mykella smiled. "I know. Follow me."
Mykella turned and walked up the steps, sensing the approval sweeping the crowd—and the Southern Guard—of her designation of Areyst as heir-apparent.
When she stood on the topmost step and turned, she surveyed the plaza and those below for a long moment. She spoke firmly and quietly, though her voice carried to all, as she offered the ancient and original pledge that had not been used in centuries—and now, she knew why.
"I swear and affirm that I will protect and preserve the lives and liberties of all citizens of Tempre and Lanachrona, and that I will employ all Talent and skills necessary to do so, at all times, and in all places, so that peace and prosperity may govern this land and her people."
Her eyes flicked to the Arms-Commander-heir-apparent . . . who would be more, much more.