They all stayed awake talking long into the night. Dardan and Amira were amazed at Liam’s rescue of Katin from Elibarran; Amira said that she had always thought of Princess Taya as a sweet girl, but loudly recanted that opinion once Katin told of how vile the princess truly was. Dardan was glad to hear that Ilya and Calys knew he was alive, and expressed his astonishment that the usually selfish Baron Parvis Stanton had been so willing to help them. Katin had to work very hard to keep her features smooth when the baron’s name came up.
The tale of Carson’s Watch shocked and saddened Amira, as Katin had known it would. Her lady grew increasingly alarmed as Liam told the story of how he had tricked and betrayed the mage girl who had bent the town to her cruel will. Liam told the nobles no more than he had told Katin, but she knew more about it than he thought she did.
“Miss Broxton will not be the only one,” Liam said at the end of it. “I understand that the ‘mages’ you’ve found are altogether less bloodthirsty, but…” He stared off into space for a moment. “You found five mages in a single dukedom. It stands to reason there’s an equal number you missed. Maybe more. So ten to twenty mages per dukedom, and twenty dukedoms in the realm. That puts somewhere between two and four hundred mages across the whole realm, at a guess. And more developing all the time, if this power reveals itself at a certain age. No doubt some of them will turn out to be like Adeline Broxton.”
“Four hundred mages…” Dardan murmured.
“There may be rogue mages for a while, but that will not last. They will all have to choose one side or another,” Amira said. She stood up. “It is late. Not that we did not miss you both, but you have been travelling for days while we rested here in Elland. At least for tonight, you both deserve comfortable beds.” She rang for a maid, who led the valai to the servants’ quarters and showed them to separate rooms.
Liam and Katin stood before her door. He had been a constant presence for months, and they had lain together more than once since Carson’s Watch. Did that make her his woman? His whore? Why had he risked so much to come for her, rescue her, stay with her all this way? She’d feared he would leave at any moment, so she’d given him the only thing she could trade.
She remembered when he’d have had a grin on his face, but now his lips were pursed in a thin line. She could not tell what he was thinking. “Well,” she said, tentative.
“I suspect we will be sleeping apart for a while,” he said quietly. It was quite late; no one else was about. He reached for her hand, and she let him take it. “We could… arrange things so that we could stay together. Always.”
Giving him her body had been surprisingly easy, but to make an honest woman of her? She could not begin to grasp what that would mean. Katin quelled the rising panic in her throat and jerked her hand away. “No. Not… not… I’m sorry.” She could not suppress the tears, and she turned and fled into the little cell, shutting the door and feeling a great fool.
———
It was not until the next day that she found herself alone with Amira. After luncheon they retreated to the Tarians’ bedchamber, ostensibly so that Amira could rest, but the instant the door was closed Amira kicked off her shoes and climbed onto the bed. “Tell me everything,” she said.
When they were girls, Katin and Amira had spent many hours sitting on Katin’s bed and gossiping late into the night. Clearly Amira expected that now. But Katin felt oddly reluctant. She’d waited months to confide in someone, for there were many things she could never say to Liam. Yet somehow she was not champing at the bit to spill it all to Amira. Nonetheless she climbed onto the bed and spent the next hour telling Amira everything she’d omitted when Liam and Dardan were present the night before.
When she came to Baron Parvis, tears welled in her eyes and her story ground to a halt. The shame of what Parvis had made her do—but was trading her body to him really any different than trading it to Liam? Parvis had granted them a safe escape from Jack Penrose; Liam had rescued her and saved her life more than once. No. Parvis is a monster. Liam is a hero. The thoughts rang false.
Amira sensed that something loomed in the darkness here. She took Katin’s hand and said nothing. Eventually the dam broke. “Parvis… Parvis blackmailed me. His help came at a price. A bed price.”
Amira gasped. “What a scoundrel! Oh, you poor girl. It had struck me as odd that he’d been so willing to help. I should have known.” She paused. “Liam doesn’t know, does he?”
Katin shook her head, eyes squeezed shut. “I wish no one did,” she whispered. But it had brought her some small catharsis. Amira embraced her and Katin wept for several minutes.
The rest was easier. They’d told Amira and Dardan about being thrown out of the caravan on account of Janice Briggs’s lies about Liam, but now Katin told her mistress how much it had pained her to hear such things about him. She told how Liam had begun to evince a deeply held rage that she had never seen before. “After he… killed Adeline Broxton, I spoke with some other women of the town. They’d heard rumors from those who had seen her body. They said she’d been hacked near to pieces. Mutilated.”
“Liam did that?” Amira asked, astonished.
Katin shrugged. “I don’t know who else would have. I heard from him only that he’d killed her, and even that much he had trouble saying to me.” She felt hollow within. “I could not deny him any longer. I gave him my body. I’d begun to fear him.”
“Did he hurt you? If he did, by the Aspect of Wrath, I’ll—”
“No!” Katin said, grabbing Amira’s wrist. “He’s never laid a hand on me. Months on the road, and he never tried to force himself on me, not even when we were pretend-married and he’d have had a perfect excuse.”
“Katin.” Amira put her hand under Katin’s chin and made her look up. “Whatever else you feel, it is plain as day that you are in love with him. And I would wager everything that he loves you just as strongly.”
Katin opened and closed her mouth several times. “I cannot… How can you be sure?”
“Love is never certain, I don’t think,” Amira said. She took a moment herself, looking toward the window. But she smiled when she looked back. “I love Dardan. It has taken me a while. At Foxhill Keep, I certainly did not. Even when we were married in Tyndam Town, I did not, though I cannot deny that I felt a certain comfort at his presence, especially after weeks on the road together. In Stony Vale…” She grimaced as she talked about what had happened there; breaking her promise to Dardan, their other difficulties. “But by the time we arrived in Elland, I knew I had come to love him. Whatever his faults.” There was something more to that last, Katin was sure, but Amira did not elaborate. She took Katin’s hand again. “You love Liam. Whatever else may have passed between you—whatever else may be troubling him, or you, it would benefit you both to marry. I do not think I would love Dardan as I do now if we had not first married.”
Katin stared. “I… I can’t…”
“Why? You love him. You’ve lain with him, though the Aspect of Ardor knows how little that can mean. I lay with Dardan the night before we wed. I couldn’t help myself,” she giggled. “Too much to drink. We were betrothed already, so what did it matter? This, all this,” she waved her hand around, somehow encompassing everything since the summer ball, “has brought with it a great deal of insecurity and impermanence. We must hold on to whatever little islands of stability we can.”
Something about this brought tears up again, and once more Amira held Katin as she wept and sobbed for a while. Katin eventually dried her eyes and agreed that it might be for the best if she and Liam did marry, and told Amira that Liam had in fact suggested that the previous night. Amira considered it a done deal; it was merely up to Katin to tell Liam. Her stomach was in knots at the prospect, though the Caretaker alone knew when she’d have the right opportunity.
———
That opportunity proved harder to find than Katin expected. At dinner that evening, Count Razh insisted that the Tarians winter at Tal Vieran, as his castle
was named. He also proposed, after the main courses were done and a dessert of fig pudding had been brought, that they open a school for mages on the grounds of the castle.
Katin’s jaw dropped. A school? To train mages? To bring more of them together? Razh knew what had happened in Carson’s Watch. James and Lisa Cordway and all the other goodfolk who had lived through Adeline’s wrath would be aghast at the idea of bringing mages together. And what if Edon found out about it? But it was not her place to object, here in front of so many nobles. Count Razh’s elder sisters Arta and Klea were there, and all the valai, and footmen and maids besides. Everyone at the high table seemed to approve of the idea of a school, Amira most of all.
Katin was flabbergasted when Count Razh explained that it was the events in Carson’s Watch that had given him the idea. Letting mages run around wreaking havoc was clearly contrary to the interests of the realm; an organized school would put mages to proper use and assuage the fears of folk like the Cordways. Katin was not so sure. Razh had not seen how frightened they’d been.
The count proposed that the leading men of Elland—the heads of the local chapters of the trade guilds; the city’s First Steward and his staff, who oversaw the temples of Elland; the rich barons and merchants who wielded economic power—be brought to the castle and told about the plans for the school. If done right, those men could serve as heralds, carrying word to the common people that mages were nothing to fear, and that Count Razh and the other mages would use their power as benevolently as possible.
In Razh’s office that evening, Dardan and Razh and Amira decided that the various men should be invited three at a time. Larger groups would be harder to manage. They spent hours deciding who should be invited first; not all of the guild leaders and merchants and barons got along, and it would not do for the mages’ message to be lost among petty disagreements between, say, Jarvis Poul, who led the goldsmiths’ guild, and Baron Akamar, who owned gold mines in the Stormrest Hills. The two men did not get along, not one bit, and so Razh made certain they would be invited on different days.
Breakfast, luncheon, and dinner each day were set aside for these introductions, to begin as soon as possible. Each evening after the barons and guildsmen and merchants left, the three nobles retreated to Razh’s office again to go over the next day’s plans. Katin was put to work helping the house major arrange the details. None of them got very much sleep.
For the most part, the men who came were intrigued, and did not try to raise a ruckus. Amira was glad to demonstrate her power for each of them; she lit candles and made pots of water boil. Razh stressed that all the mages—he was vague on exactly how many of them were in residence at Tal Vieran—were ordinary youths who had been gifted with this power, and that the power should be harnessed to benefit Garova. Between his reassurances and Amira’s easy charm, very few of the men expressed any hostility at the idea of their count gathering mages together in a school.
A few did, and there was nothing to be done about that; in his office, Razh assured Amira and Dardan that all the men who had reacted negatively would not find many who agreed with them. Katin was not so certain that they were as safe as Razh seemed to think, but she could not gainsay the count.
Razh was no fool, though. He did not leave things to chance. He dispatched a number of men into the city to take its pulse; and he was pleased when they reported back that the common folk seemed wary but accepting of the idea of the mage school. Whatever the guildsmen and merchants and barons were saying was mostly good. So far, his plan seemed to be working.
Now Amira began shaping the school in earnest. Part of the castle’s inner yard was sectioned off as a training area. Amira and Garen led the other mages in some sort of training exercises each morning—exercises that Katin couldn’t see or understand—and spent the evenings working out a rudimentary curriculum. It was put into practice at once, for on the very first day, three new mages showed up at the gates of Tal Vieran, two men and a woman, commoners who lived in Elland itself. They’d heard about the impending school and showed up to see if it was real. All three were astonished to find several others like them already gathered together.
Razh also saw to it that messengers carried word of the school to every town, village, and sheepfold within five leagues of the city. More extensive recruitment would have to wait until the snows thinned, but even with the roads nearly impassable, inside of a week the school had gained five more pupils, young men and women with heavy furs and haunted looks. Some of them thought it was a trick or a trap, until they were met by Amira. She showed them her silver light and demonstrated that she too had this strange power that had, in many cases, earned the newcomers fear and revulsion from those who had formerly loved them.
The Warden that had been accompanying Amira since Stony Vale, this Mason Iris, was a constant reminder of that fear and revulsion. At Amira’s insistence he had been given a room in the castle, and each morning he too came to the yard to watch the mages train. It became a daily ritual for him to demand that Amira return with him to Callaston, and for Amira to refuse. Iris would repeat to her that he disapproved of her gathering and training more mages. She in turn would remind him that she had both the right and the responsibility to impose some order on the development of mages in Garova, lest things get out of hand as they had in Carson’s Watch. She would also remind him of the promise he’d made not to harm her or her friends, which made him clench his jaw and stomp away.
“I mean to convince that man,” Amira told Katin one evening as they warmed themselves at the great hearth in Count Razh’s sitting room. It was a rare night of relaxation; every day for weeks had been spent with the growing class of new mages. Dardan and Razh and his sisters played at five-jacks, slapping cards down onto the table and calling out bets. Liam lurked by the wall, uninterested in the game or even in engaging conversation with the other valai.
“He seems a true believer, m’lady,” Katin said, warming her hands before the fire. “One cannot corrupt an honest man.”
“Hmph,” Amira said, and made the air before her glow. Katin watched as the little ball of pale light flitted back and forth. Amira’s displays of power were still fascinating and strange to her. “If Warden Iris were truly honest, he’d admit to his king’s foul deeds. Besides, if Edon does find out Mason’s been accompanying us all this time, his majesty will likely not be pleased.” A small smile flitted across her lips.
“That’ll likely end up with the Warden’s head on a pike,” Katin said.
“Perhaps. He is a mostly pleasant man; I would be saddened to see him die. But I owe him nothing. I could have left him locked up in Stony Vale.”
“You certainly should have left him locked up in Stony Vale.”
“Risk not, win not,” Amira said.
“Oh, does m’lady now believe she understands risk?”
The smile that crossed Amira’s lips this time was less certain. Katin saw that Amira’s wine cup was empty and took it to the sideboard to fetch more. Why do I feel like a bear cub chiding its mother?
———
Each week brought one or two new students to the school. Amira listened to all their stories. A few, a very few, came from towns like Stony Vale—Amira had told Katin all about her time there, and about how accepting and practical the residents had been about her power—but the majority had been ostracized or even attacked. However easily the people of Elland accepted mage-power, the smaller towns and villages beyond the city walls were not so sanguine. Perhaps they’d heard about Carson’s Watch before Razh’s message had gotten out.
Katin was obligated to attend her lady at the school, even though she would rather have stayed away. Being around so many mages deeply frightened Katin, so much so that she reluctantly went to a temple a few times to pray at the altar of Terror. Amira insisted that the mages were all learning rapidly, and would be able to defend the city even if Edon did show up. Francine told Katin one afternoon that Amira was certainly the most skilled among the mages—wh
ich made sense, as she’d been the first to develop the power, and had the longest to practice with it. But Amira disagreed, saying that Francine had a speed and precision that Amira couldn’t match. It made the farmgirl blush.
Garen, this blacksmith’s apprentice that Amira had found in Stony Vale, apparently had the greatest skill among the male mages, and so took the lead in training them. Katin was envious of the infatuated glances Garen and Francine shared. They made her think of Liam. In all the weeks since their arrival in Elland, she and Liam had barely had any time together. She wanted to speak to him, to accept him, to tell him that, yes, she would marry him.
There had just never been the right time. Amira stayed up until all hours, practicing her power with the other girls, even when Dardan bade her goodnight and went away, taking Liam with him.
And then an opportunity finally came, one evening in late winter. Amira and Dardan dined with Count Razh and a few guests of his—some baron and baroness, and a sea captain who’d long been friends with House Bahodir—and went up to bed at a reasonable hour. They were already halfway to the Tarians’ bedchamber when Katin realized that she would finally be able to speak with Liam, once their masters sent them away. The man seemed to be brooding less than usual, which she took as encouragement.
Katin was lost inside her head, planning what she’d say to him, when it dawned on her that Amira and Dardan were arguing. The two nobles walked ahead in the corridor a little ways, and Liam was at her side. Dardan’s voice rose sharply, and he stopped long enough to glance about, looking a little chagrined at having made a scene. Liam scooted ahead to open the door to their chamber.
“Calys is capable, I cannot argue that, but she is not the lord of Hedenham. Neither is Ilya.” Dardan stood stiffly as Liam helped him out of his coat. “We must think of our return there. It is home to both of us now.”
“I miss Hedenham too, but I cannot let you cannibalize the school. What if Edon comes?”
Katin had definitely missed something. “Is m’lord going somewhere?”
“Not until spring at the earliest,” Dardan said, in an impatient tone that told Katin this was not the first round of this discussion. He and Amira had probably argued about it in bed after the valai had gone off to the servants’ quarters. “I mean to take some mages to Hedenham to reclaim my seat and ensure that we will not be at Edon’s mercy.”
Amira sighed. She motioned to Katin and went behind the dressing screen. Many noble homes had guest chambers suitable for a married couple, with attached dressing rooms and cells for their valai, but Tal Vieran did not. It was a very old castle, maybe predating the institution of valai. At least there was a bell-pull so that Katin could be summoned if Amira needed anything, but a vala really should be by her mistress’s side.
Katin helped Amira into a nightgown and robe. Even with Amira’s power to warm them, it could get quite cold and drafty here on this upper floor of the keep. When Katin reached for the hairbrush, Amira snapped some remark at Dardan and then snatched the brush from Katin’s hand. “Go off, I’ll send for you in the morning,” Amira said.
Katin had rarely seen Amira in such a state. She and Dardan argued all the time, but it was always to do with the school—logistics, planning, that sort of thing. More like reasoned, if impassioned, debate. There was never any venom to it. Tonight had been different. How could they have become so angry with one another? Would Liam be like that? Would he show his rage to her?
She withdrew quickly and waited out in the hallway for what felt like an eternity. Her insides felt all twisted, and she simply wished it could be done with. Finally the door opened again and Liam came out, shutting the door on raised voices. “Like an old married couple already,” he murmured as they went toward the servants’ stairs.
She grimaced and let him take her arm. “I do hope m’lady talks him out of it. I don’t think it’d be wise for them to separate, even if he does long for his home again. She’s already in a mood just from the suggestion of it.”
“Edon’s still a threat, but Dardan is no man to be cowed, especially if he thinks he can counter the threat.” Liam held the door for her as they reached the servants’ stair. It was less drafty in here. Instead of going straight down, Katin stopped and took Liam’s hand. He looked into her eyes, then glanced back at the door. “Perhaps the school could move to Hedenham with them, or they could establish a second campus there. They’ve already gathered two dozen mages here, and there’s likely to be more in Tidemere alone.”
Katin buried her face in his chest. “Stop,” she grunted. “I don’t want to think about all those mages. Something terrible is going to happen.”
“As long as it happens to someone else,” Liam said. “Not us.” Katin leaned back and looked up into his eyes. They were clear and sober now, with barely a trace of the sardonic humor they’d once evinced. The man had even started to drink less since Carson’s Watch, which baffled Katin more than anything else. Elland had a number of excellent malthouses, so she’d been informed, including a few public houses, but Liam had not shown much interest in them.
“What is it?” he said, gazing down at her. Katin opened her mouth to speak, to agree to marry him, but her lips felt dry. She licked them. It should be easy to say it; she’d convinced herself, hadn’t she? And then a voice said, You don’t deserve this. What use are you?
Instead she grabbed Liam’s head and pulled him down into a kiss. “I want you,” she breathed into his ear. He hesitated only a moment, a moment in which Katin felt a strange heat radiate from him, as of something lurking. Then he pushed her up against the wall.
———
The cold began to lift as winter neared its end. When Evenday came, spring was rung in with bells, and floral wreaths were hung on every door, and the last, weak winter storms blew themselves out on the shores of Barrowmere County.
The school had grown preposterously large. Dardan kept hinting to Razh that it would need to move to a larger facility, as the mages were starting to overrun the castle grounds. They debated whether it would be wise to remove the school from the familiarity and safety of Tal Vieran.
They had heard little from points west, owing to the wet and snow that had befouled the roads. The nobles speculated on whether Edon had learned of the school yet; it had existed for a whole season, but word might not have gotten as far as Callaston. “Or maybe it has,” Razh said. “It would not do to take chances.”
When the first blush of spring spread across the landscape, and the snow began its farewell, Razh dispatched a few riders toward Callaston to try to find out what Edon was up to. None had reported back yet. It was a solid week’s journey at a moderate pace for a single man ahorse, and depending on what was happening in the west, it might be a while longer before they heard anything.
By now the whole county, and probably every county in the realm, knew of mages. Traders, travellers, and couriers began to flow again. Soon Amira and Dardan, and thus Katin and Liam, would have a much better idea about what was going on.
Mornings meant breakfast with Count Razh and his sisters before Amira and Dardan went down to the school grounds. One particular day, half a month into spring, Mason Iris attended as well, as he had on occasion. He did not wear his armor today, only the customary gray linen tunic and trousers of his order.
Katin sat off to the side with the other valai. Liam mopped at his eggs with some toast while Count Razh’s old valo, Patric, shuffled through parchments. Lady Arta’s vala had already finished eating and worked at needlepoint. Katin listened with half an ear to the nobles’ conversation, and was surprised when she realized that the Warden was speaking to Count Bahodir.
“I am compelled to remind you once again that what you are doing is dangerous in the extreme. King Edon will bring his wrath down upon you when he learns what you have done here, if he hasn’t already.”
Razh put down his fork with a clatter. “Warden Iris, I have great respect for the Virtuous Order of the Wardens of Aendavar. I must, however
, have less respect for a man who would still so loyally follow his majesty after the things he has done. My own interactions with the king, which are surely to come, are my concern, not yours.”
Katin had turned to watch them. It would be impolite for a vala to stare or involve herself in the conversation, but she could not help it. She could not sit by and let tense situations get out of hand.
No one had stood up in anger or raised their voices yet. “I serve my king loyally,” Mason said. “You must submit yourselves to—”
“We must do nothing!” Razh said, slapping his palm on the table. Now all the valai turned to stare, and even the footmen lurking in the corners watched with mild alarm. “Lady Amira, I apologize for my rudeness, but I must insist that this Warden be sent away at once. He need not be exiled from the city, but I will not have him in my home any longer.”
Amira seemed about to speak, but noticed that all eyes were on her now and held her tongue. She took a moment to smooth her dress and then slowly stood up. “Lord Razh, permit me to speak with the Warden privately for a moment.” At Razh’s nod she turned and swept toward the door. Katin rose to follow, eyeing Warden Iris sidelong as he trailed after her lady. Katin put herself between the two of them, not for fear of Amira’s safety—Iris wore neither his armor nor his sword—but for Iris’s.
Amira came to a halt squarely in the middle of the corridor outside, and waited until the door had closed and Warden Iris stood before her. Katin took up station at Amira’s elbow and let her own glare loose toward the Warden.
“M’lady, I—”
“Be silent,” Amira said, her voice as cold as Katin had ever heard. “I applaud your loyalty. Few men could be so constant. But you are acting the fool. Even if you feel you must keep up this charade, you would do well to acknowledge the reality around you rather than blindly assert your righteousness. You are surrounded by enemies and kept safe only by my word. I have protected you more than you know.”
Iris, in Katin’s experience, rarely betrayed any emotion either in face or voice. What lay beneath was a mystery. But now his eyes showed alarm, or perhaps fear. “My… m’lady, I must—”
“You know that Edon is evil. Don’t deny it,” she interrupted when he opened his mouth again. “I see through you. You told me what he did in Vasland. Your heart has been against him ever since, hasn’t it?”
Now the Warden’s face grew red, and he trembled. Katin felt her own instinctive panic begin to rise—but he would not try to hurt Amira, Katin was sure of it. “My heart is not your concern!”
“So I am correct, then,” Amira said quietly. She stepped forward and put a hand up to Warden Iris’s cheek. His jaw went a little slack at her touch. “You must join me. Edon is a monster. You know it is true.”
After a moment, Iris breathed in sharply. He stepped back, almost stumbling, then bowed hurriedly and strode from the hall. Amira watched him go. She bore a faint smile.
“You cannot make everyone dance to your tune, m’lady,” Katin said.
Amira shrugged. “Warden Iris was born to dance to someone’s tune. Better mine than Edon’s. He will come around.”
Back in the great hall, Razh and Dardan watched Amira as she settled back down. Katin could tell they were deathly curious, but Amira instead began to speak of the weather.
The footmen had just brought in the second course when the house major came in and signaled to Patric. The valo lumbered to his feet and went outside with the major for a moment, then returned, moving with haste. “My lord, forgive the interruption,” he said. “The city guards bring news. A force of armed men is approaching the city along the west road.”
Katin’s pulse quickened. She rose to her feet, unbidden, and saw Liam do the same.
“Do they bear banners?” Razh asked.
Patric nodded. “The eagle of Relindos.”
CHAPTER 36
AMIRA