The Will of the Empress

  Daja sank into veins of metal ore below. She followed some to the mountains and others down through the dense part of the earth, until she found the immense hot soup in which they were born. The lava’s heat bubbled through her, driving up to her body, seeking a way to break free into the world. She laughed at the strength of molten stone and metal, feeling it inhabit her skin, making her indifferent to the petty fire marshaled by Ishabal.

  Tris swept up into the rapid winds high above the mountains, where birds couldn’t even fly. She dove down to draw up the power in the movement of lava and the pressure of water channeled through cracks in the ground. Despite her physical distance from her sisters and brother, she saw them in her magical vision, their images carried to her by the warm air that raced from Daja’s smoking body. They turned, the three of them, with Tris’s insubstantial form just behind, and walked into the barrier.

  Magic inside it, built up over centuries, flew at them. Daja and Tris burned it away. Briar and Sandry wove nets of green and thread magic that snared the lattices of power that made the barrier. Slowly they dragged at the nets, forcing the barrier open.

  As they walked into the open air on the Olart side of the border, the magical barrier shattered for over a mile in each direction. It was gone, as if it had never existed.

  “I feel like I just walked through a glacier,” grumbled Daja, rubbing her arms. She bumped the palm that was not covered in metal and yelped. “Now what?”

  “Good thing we didn’t get frozen, if it was a glacier,” Briar remarked with a shrug.

  “Where’s the circle?” Sandry wanted to know. “Did I lose it?” she asked, looking at the ground, then at the hand in which she’d held it. “Mila, what’s this?”

  There was a slight lump at the center of her palm, covered by shiny scar tissue. She pressed it and gasped at a sting of pain. Then the lump sank into her palm completely, leaving only the scar.

  Briar also felt pain. He and Daja eyed the hands that had clasped the thread circle. Daja’s creamy brown palm showed a scarred lump like Sandry’s. When she tapped it, the lump also sank into her flesh, leaving only a round scar. Briar’s had burned a circle among the plants that grew under his skin, but the lump itself was gone. The plants were blooming in extravagant reds, purples, and blues all around the newest scar. It had fitted itself right between the deep pockmarks where a protective briar had bitten into his hand years before.

  Tris, miles away, watched as a tiny sun shone and faded where a lump sank into her palm. Instant warmth spread from it like wildfire, easing some of the aches in her newly healed bones. “Every time I think I understand magic, I learn that I don’t understand anything at all,” she murmured, and looked at Ambros with a broad smile. “I like that.”

  Sandry took a few steps back through the gate to look at Ishabal. “We did warn you it wouldn’t go well.” The empress’s mage sat gray-faced at the foot of one of the trees that had sprouted from the platform. “What’s the matter with you, Viymese Ladyhammer?” she asked.

  “Backlash,” muttered Ishabal. “I was still bound to the barrier from raising it. When you…did what you did…the barrier took much of me with it.” She looked up, her dark eyes glinting. “I will recover,” she said grimly. “In time.”

  Sandry saw only a feeble silver glow under the older woman’s skin. “It’s going to be a while before you make any magic, particularly any curses,” she observed. “That can only be to the good. I only wish I were willing to incur the shadow on my heart I could get by arranging for you to practice tumbling on a long flight of stairs, like you did Tris. You really should be punished specially for that.”

  Ishabal met Sandry’s cold eyes. “Go ahead,” she said. “Do it.”

  “No,” retorted Sandry. “I like to keep my magic clean.”

  Ishabal sighed. “So, young mage. What will you do now? Take the throne? You’re powerful enough, you’ve shown us that.” The mages and guards who had shared the platform with her had retreated up the road into Namorn, away from the three young people. Their faces were as ashen as Ishabal’s.

  Sandry took a step back. “Power? I’m going home.” She looked at Daja and Briar. “We’re going home. And Tris had better be coming home, too. We’ll be back here tomorrow. If you don’t let her through…”

  “I cannot stop her,” Ishabal said honestly. “In fact, I believe I shall contrive to be miles away.”

  You heard that? Sandry asked. Do you want revenge?

  No, replied Tris. It’s too much time and bother.

  “Tris says she had best not see you,” called Briar. He and Daja had heard the conversation. “She says if you cross her path again, she’ll have to get strict with you.” No sense in letting her—letting any of them—relax, he told the girls firmly. We don’t want them forgetting this day anytime soon. He trotted back to collect his shakkan and the horses, and returned with them through the arch.

  In the meantime, we are now out of Namorn and in Olart. Aloud, Daja said, “Here come Zhegorz and Gudruny. Isn’t it past midday? I’m ravenous!”

  Sandry mounted her horse. While Briar and Daja rode on, she stood before the gate, frowning.

  Things undone, thought Sandry. What have I left undone? Tris is right: Revenge isn’t worth the trouble.

  She turned her mount away and followed the others. She came up in time to hear Briar say, “Now, if memory serves me, when we came here last, we ate at Ratey’s. The Traders were having some fasting holy day. Ratey’s had the best fish casserole I’ve ever eaten. I wonder if it’s on the bill of fare today?”

  Their reaction to the magic they had worked set in over midday. Suddenly it was all even Briar could do to keep putting food into his mouth. All three young mages soon apologized to the cook for not finishing their meal and retreated to the rooms that Gudruny had thought to hire for them.

  When they woke, they had slept the night through noon. Ambros and Tris had arrived after sunset, though Tris, worn out by trying to catch up to them, woke as they were finishing their second midday. When she limped out to their garden table, Chime on her shoulder, Zhegorz rushed to help.

  “I did as you said,” he told her. “Did I tell you last night?” He helped her sit on the bench next to Briar. “They know you see things on the wind now. I don’t think they believe you are conceited.”

  Tris sighed. “No doubt you’re right. Zhegorz, thank you for helping them. I knew you could do it. Now, please, I would like to eat, if it’s all right. I’m starved.” She looked at Briar’s plate. “Is that cabbage rolls? I don’t care if I never see another cabbage roll in my life.”

  A girl who had waited on them came to tell Tris the day’s selections. Once Tris had chosen, a brief silence fell. It was broken by Zhegorz, who said, “I liked it.”

  Tris and the others turned to look at him. He had chosen a bench at the table next to theirs. From the tilt of his brass-lensed spectacles, he was staring into the distance. “Liked what, Zhegorz?” Sandry asked gently.

  “Being attended to. Being heard. Being useful.” There was wistfulness in his voice. “I was never any of those things before, only crazy. I don’t want to go back to being the crazy man who hears all manner of things and sometimes sees them. I like being attended to.” He got up and wandered off, his hands in his pockets.

  “Zhegorz,” called Tris. He stopped, though he didn’t look back at her. “It is nice. I know,” she told him.

  He nodded, and left them alone in the garden.

  Once he was gone, Ambros looked at Briar, Daja, and Sandry. “Your friend over there is very determined,” he said with respect, nodding to Tris.

  “Oh, all three girls are like that,” Briar said carelessly. “Sometimes you need to hit them with a brick to get their attention. They get it from our mothers, I think.”

  “It occurs to me, that it’s possible to be too determined,” Daja remarked with a glance at Sandry. “Determined to the point of not doing right by people because we insist on only seeing things o
ne way.”

  “Determined that what’s good for you is just good,” drawled Tris.

  Sandry scowled, knowing they were trying to tell her something. “Hush. I have things on my mind,” she informed them, picking at her berry pie.

  “Not enough things,” Briar grumbled.

  The maid returned with Tris’s food, while Ambros excused himself to buy supplies for his trip home in the morning. Sandry picked up her embroidery hoop after she finished her own meal. Something was still bothering her. Embroidery usually helped her to think clearly, but not that afternoon. She snipped off one color of thread. Chime was seated in her basket, holding up the next color she needed, when Sandry realized that Briar, Tris, and Daja were watching her.

  “What?” she asked. Briar whistled silently. Tris drummed her fingers on the table. Daja leaned her head on her brass-mittened hand and watched Sandry calmly.

  What?! Sandry demanded.

  Maybe you got what you wanted, but the empress still gets most of what she wants, too, Daja told her. She can tax Ambros until he calls for your help, and you’ll have to come or leave him to flounder. And if you come, it will be this all over again—

  Except now they know what we can do, and they’ll be ready, interrupted Briar. They’ll have more great mages waiting.

  And the women of Landreg will have no one to go to, added Tris. Unless Ambros does that really expensive double registering thing you thought of, where he pays twice to enroll women as your subjects and his. He still won’t have seats in the assembly to influence the other nobles to vote down new taxes. You saw how she treated him. She acts like he’s a caretaker, and he is. The power’s all yours.

  Sandry stared at them. “Stop nagging me,” she snapped. “It’s not your history. It’s not your family.”

  No, said Daja. But it’s his. And frankly, he’s put a great deal more work into it than you have.

  There’s one way you can make sure Berenene doesn’t win anything, Briar said. After all you put us through there, you ought to be decent enough to admit it.

  It’s mine, argued Sandry, though the remark felt watery and overused to her.

  How much more rich than disgusting rich do you want to be? asked Briar.

  Sometimes you owe your people a little less pride and a little more respect, Daja added.

  “I refuse to listen!” cried Sandry. She tossed her embroidery into the basket, forgetting that Chime was in it. Her exit ruined by the dragon’s unhappy scratching noises, she uncovered Chime and set her on the table. “I’m going for a walk!” She marched out of the inn, accompanied only by her own uncomfortable thoughts. She returned while their entire group was at supper in the common room, and ate alone in the room where she slept with Gudruny and the children. When they came up to bed, Sandry hired a private room where she could sew—and think—alone.

  Very late that night, Briar, Tris, and Daja were jolted out of slumber by a silent call from Sandry. Don’t let Ambros leave in the morning, she ordered. Satisfied? She did not wait to hear their reply, but cut them off and went to sleep.

  Keeping Ambros there in the morning was a chore. He was determined to go. He might have actually left, had his horse not lost a shoe. Getting a farrier who was not already busy with a week’s worth of other such chores to replace the shoe lasted well past midday, particularly since Ambros stumbled over Briar, Tris, Daja, Zhegorz, or Gudruny at every turn. The one person he didn’t trip over was Sandry. She was strangely absent.

  Once the horse was shod, it was so late in the day that Ambros gave up leaving until morning. He settled down to a game of draughts with Daja. They were nearly done when Sandry returned. With her she brought a trembling woman in the gray gown of an advocate.

  “Cousin, may I speak with you?” asked Sandry. She indicated one of the inn’s private chambers.

  Briar, Tris, and Daja waited in the common room. They were content to wait in silence: Tris had a book, Daja some work for the farrier who had seen to Ambros’s horse, Briar the potted herbs from the inn’s kitchen. It was nearly suppertime when the door to the private room opened and the advocate lurched out.

  “I’ve never heard of the like!” she babbled as the hostler fetched her horse. “Never. A, a count, just like that. Like…that!” She tried to snap her fingers but failed, due to her shaking. “Has she always been mad?” she asked Briar.

  “No, usually she’s sane enough,” Briar said, grinning as he jammed his hands in his pockets. “Every now and then, though, she does the right thing.”

  “You’re as mad as she is!” exclaimed the advocate. She ran out into the inn yard.

  Ambros and Sandry emerged from the private room. Ambros looked overwhelmed. Sandry glared at her friends. “Are you happy now?” she demanded. “Meet Cleham fer Landreg, sole heir to the Landreg title and lands.”

  All three of the young mages rose. Briar and Daja bowed to Ambros; Tris curtsied. After a moment, Sandry curtsied as well.

  “I never expected…,” Ambros began to say. His voice trailed off in confusion.

  “That actually made it easier, that you didn’t,” admitted Sandry. “And they’re right. I just had to, oh, catch my breath.” She smiled. “And now the rest of us can go home. Back to Summersea, and back to Winding Circle.”

  Zhegorz cleared his throat. When they all looked at him, he said, “Do you know, Viymese Daja tells me it never snows in Emelan. Never. It seems unnatural to me. And they have no beet soup, or bacon and millet soup. I’m quite fond of that. Please understand, I’m certain that Winding Circle is a splendid place.”

  “Well, it produced us,” Briar said with a grin. “Zhegorz, it’s all right. Go ahead. Whatever it is, you can tell us.”

  Zhegorz smiled shyly. “I know, I know. Except that I want to tell him.” He pointed a bony finger at Ambros, who blinked in confusion.

  “Me? You hardly know me,” he said. “I mean, we’ve seen each other, but…”

  “I know you’re a good man,” Zhegorz said firmly. “A good Namornese man.” He looked at Briar, at Daja, and at Tris. “Don’t you think a Cleham who is not a favorite of Her Imperial Majesty could use someone in his service who can hear conversations on the winds? Who can see things on the winds?” He looked at Ambros. “I get better every day. I breathe, and I sort through what I hear and see. I practice every day. I will always be a little shaky. But I can be useful.” He looked at the mages.

  Briar nodded. “He could be useful, Ambros.”

  “He’s wobbly, but I would trust him,” said Daja.

  “As would I,” confirmed Sandry.

  Tris glared at Ambros. “You’d be a fool not to take his service. Just treat him with kindness”—Briar snorted, and she ignored him—“treat him with kindness, and he’ll help you navigate that snakepit Her Imperial Majesty calls a court,” Tris continued.

  Ambros looked at Zhegorz and took a deep breath. “Then we’ll discuss salary and where you’ll be living, your duties and so on, on the way home,” he said. “Welcome to my household, Zhegorz.”

  Ambros was quiet through dinner. He picked at his food, which was very good. Briar took pity on the man and helped himself to bits when it was plain Ambros wouldn’t eat it all. Even the sight of Chime discovering she did not like mushrooms failed to engage Ambros’s quiet sense of humor. Finally, as the dishes were removed by wide-eyed servants—the advocate had told the hostlers what she had come there to do, and the hostlers had spread the word—Gudruny asked, “My lord Cleham, what occupies your thoughts? Repairs that you can now order done?”

  Ambros looked at her. His face lit with a smile that he shared with them all, one that turned his eyes to pale blue diamonds. “Actually,” he said, his voice cracking slightly, “I believe I will confer with my fellow members of the Noble Assembly. It is time, and past, that the forced marriage of unprotected women is banned in Namorn.”

  That night, Sandry lay awake, listening to Gudruny’s soft breathing, her son’s muffled snorts, and her daughter’s occasio
nal mutter. Others might find the company, and the close quarters, annoying, but she liked it. Here were three lives she had wrested from Namorn and that disgusting custom. And she had come to like Gudruny’s steadiness and common sense. At first she’d meant to find Gudruny some other post when she got home, but not any longer. Unless Gudruny wanted to leave her service, Sandry would keep her as her maid. She liked having Gudruny—and the children—around.

  Listening to them, she felt a tug in her magic, in a part of her that had not been active in far too long. She followed that magical tie and found herself emerging into the direct sunlight of a summer afternoon at Winding Circle. She stood on a familiar straw-thatched roof. It gave off the rich scent of sun-bleached hay as she sat down on it. When she looked around she saw Tris. Unlike their last time on the roof, this was not the child Tris, but Tris the adult, who wore her many braids tucked into a silk net. She lay flat on the straw close by, hands clasped behind her neck, staring dreamily at the clouds that moved overhead. Briar straddled the peak of the roof, a piece of straw sticking from his mouth. Daja, too, straddled the roof, leaning back against the stone chimney of Discipline cottage.

  “How did you do this—create this so it actually feels real?” asked Sandry, delighted. “I can smell, I can hear…which of you did it?” Below, she could see Rosethorn’s garden in full summer extravagance. Around them spread the temple. The spiral road was empty: Very few people cared to venture along its unshaded length during the postmidday rest period during the blast of Mead and Wort Moons. Yet the long hand on the Hub clock moved as it ticked off the minutes. The wind brushed Sandry’s face as it carried the scents of lavender and herbs into her nostrils.