Dehvi-Durzo looked at her strangely, weighing her. “Have you ever felt that you were part of a grand design, Vi? That some benevolence was shaping your fate?”
“No,” Vi said.
Dehvi laughed. “Me neither. Goodbye, Vi. Watch out for that husband of yours; he’ll change you.” Then he left.
* * *
Solonariwan Tofusin stood on deck as the Modaini merchant ship lumbered toward Hokkai Harbor. It had been twelve years since he’d been to the Sethi capital, the city he had once called home. The sight of the two great chain towers guarding the entrance to the harbor, shining white in the autumn sun, filled his heart to bursting.
As they passed between the towers, as always, his appreciation of the seemingly delicate towers became awe. Built during the height of the Sethi Empire, the chain towers stood on narrow peninsulas. The base of each tower abutted the ocean so the chain couldn’t be attacked without taking the tower. The chains themselves lay under water except during maintenance and war. Then, the great teams of royal aurochs would winch the chains apart until they were at or barely below the water line at high tide and five to eight feet above it at low tide. During a battle, the aurochs would turn the chains. A single blade shaped like a shark tooth was attached to each link. Because of the half twist in the chain at each axle, a ship pressing against the mighty chains would find half the teeth chewing through his hull in each direction. It made the entire chain a saw that had destroyed more than one fleet, and deterred many more.
Above the sparkling blue waters—gods, Solon thought, the bay was a color to shame sapphires—Hokkai rose on its three hills. Above the ubiquitous docks already filling with wintering ships, the great city rose in thousands of whitewashed walls with red tile roofs. After the ugly hodgepodge of Cenarian architecture, it was a relief.
But the most beautiful sight of all, magnificent Whitecliff Castle reigning over the highest hill, filled Solon not only with awe but something akin to terror. Kaede, my love, do you hate me still?
After Khali and her Soulsworn had massacred everyone at Screaming Winds, Solon had had nothing to do. His friend Feir had left days before they knew of the danger. When the garrison commander ignored Dorian’s warnings that Khali was coming, Dorian disappeared. Solon had been the only man to escape. He’d found himself suddenly without ties to anything. It had been Dorian’s prophecy that had kept him from going home more than a decade ago. Solon had served Regnus Gyre as prophecy dictated—and failed. Regnus was dead. Solon had served for a decade, only to be dismissed the day before Regnus was murdered. Kaede was the Sethi empress now. She wasn’t likely to be happy to see Solon, but if she killed him, so much the better.
He labored with the sailors. He could have paid for his passage, but no Sethi worth his salt would sit in a cabin while others were hoisting sails, not even on a wide-bellied Modaini merchant ship. The Sethi preferred small, light ships. It meant their merchants had to make twice as many trips, but they made them twice as fast. A Sethi ship also had to ride a storm rather than plow through it, but the Sethi accepted the ocean’s whims and loved her and feared her equally.
As the ship came to rest in the bay, the Modaini merchant captain emerged from his cabin, his eyes and eyebrows freshly kohled. Solon always thought it gave the dark-haired Modaini a sinister aspect, but the captain was an affable man. He tossed Solon his pay and welcomed him to sail with him any time before going to speak with the harbormaster, who had rowed out to collect the harborage tax and inspect the cargo.
The harbormaster clambered up the webbing onto deck with the ease of a man who did it a dozen times a day. Like most Sethi, he wore no tunic until winter, and the sun had darkened his skin to a deep olive. He had a prominent nose, brown eyes, the figure-eight earring of Clan Hobashi, two silver rings on his right cheekbone, and two silver chains strung between the earring and cheek rings—an assistant to the harbormaster, then.
The man had barely spoken two words when he saw Solon and broke off in mid-sentence. Solon, still bare-chested as he had been for the whole trip, wasn’t as tanned as most Sethi. But despite his light tan and the white hair growing in to replace the black, he was unmistakably Sethi—and he wore no clan rings. The harbormaster’s long knife came out in a heartbeat. There were only two groups in Seth that wore no rings.
“What’s your name, clanless?”
The Modaini captain looked aghast. He had never made a trip to Seth and didn’t know their customs, which was why Solon had chosen his ship.
“Solon,” Solon said, not giving his clan name, as an exile wouldn’t.
The harbormaster grabbed Solon’s chin and looked closely at his cheeks and ears, first on one side, and then, frustrated, on the other. His eyebrows tightened in confusion. Not only were there no scars where the clan rings had been torn out, but there were no scars from where the rings had been put in.
“Raesh kodir Sethi?” he demanded. Are you not Sethi?
“Sethi kodi,” Solon acknowledged, his Old Sethi diction perfect.
The harbormaster released Solon’s face as if burned. “What was your name?”
“Solonariwan Tofusin.”
One of the Modaini sailors cursed. The harbormaster’s tanned face turned green. He noticed that his long knife was still out and tucked it away as if it were scalding. “I think you’d better come with me . . . uh, your lordship.”
“What’s going on?” the captain asked.
Neither Solon nor the harbormaster answered. Solon clambered into the rowboat with the harbormaster. The sailor who’d cursed said, “The Tofusins reigned for five hundred years.”
Not exactly. It was four hundred seventy-seven.
“Reigned? They don’t anymore?” the captain asked, his voice strangled. Hopping into the rowboat, Solon couldn’t help but smile.
“No, cap’n. The last one died ten years ago. If this one really is a Tofusin, there’ll be all sorts of hell to pay.”
That, on the other hand, is dead on.
18
Khali’s blood,” Paerik swore, striding confidently across Luxbridge toward Dorian. “That was rather impressive. Who are you?” His eyes took in Jenine but dismissed her.
“It’s all right,” Dorian told Jenine, though it wasn’t. He’d destroyed a few teenage boys who had underestimated him. Paerik Ursuul was a man in the prime of his powers. And he was fresh. And he had six battle-hardened Vürdmeisters backing him.
One of the Vürdmeisters whispered in Paerik’s ear. Paerik straightened. “No, surely not. Dorian?” He stepped forward and Dorian stepped forward as well, not willing to let Paerik reach the end of Luxbridge unchallenged. Paerik smirked. Seeing that smirk, Dorian hated him, despised him, wanted to crush him.
“I am Dorian,” Dorian said defiantly. Six Vürdmeisters and Paerik. Damn it, he only wanted to leave. The dark clouds overhead rushed past, coldly impartial.
“We thought you long dead, brother,” Paerik said. “A mistake we shall soon remedy.”
Dorian lashed out with vir and Talent both, splitting the weaves to sweep the Vürdmeisters off the bridge and at the same time yanking at the magical underpinnings to drop the bridge into the abyss.
They rebuffed the attacks with ease. Even with the amplifiae, Dorian was no match for seven Vürdmeisters together.
“Brother, brother,” Paerik admonished. “This bridge will not drop a true-born Ursuul.” He laughed and skulls embedded in Luxbridge seemed to laugh with him, their eyes glowing with magical fire. “Indeed, if any of Garoth’s sons were in danger, it would be you, Dorian: the mage-trained.”
“That’s what I’m counting on,” Dorian said. He stepped forward, out of the shoe he had cut free with his Talent, and put one bare foot on the bridge.
There was a flash as the last quarter of the bridge sensed a magus and unraveled.
Paerik screamed, falling with a shower of skulls that laughed no longer. He and the Vürdmeisters plummeted down and down. They flung vir at the distant walls, hoping to catch
themselves, but the walls themselves were bespelled to deny magic purchase. The Vürdmeisters passed out of sight into the thick foul clouds of the abyss. Dorian could sense their magic for several more seconds, trying anything, everything, desperately. Then they winked out, all at the same time.
Before them, Luxbridge reformed itself. Dorian stepped back into his lead-lined shoe and tested it on the bridge. It flared green and began to turn transparent. He had simply used too much Talent too recently for the thin defense of the lead plating to be adequate, so he stretched the vir forth once more and reached under the bridge to steady it.
“We must go quickly,” he told Jenine. “Stay close.”
She nodded, biting her lip. By the God, she was beautiful. She was worth it.
Dorian stepped onto Luxbridge, and it held. It was even more eerie, he thought, to walk across the span without the skulls. Looking at the harmless skulls of the dead scared him less than looking at clouds far beneath his feet.
In moments, they made the crossing. The guards standing at the Gate Keep gaped and dropped to their knees. Dorian recognized Rugger.
“I’m sorry,” he said. Rugger looked up, sure he was about to die. Dorian Healed the man’s wen with a touch. Without the ugly protuberance, Rugger wasn’t half bad-looking. Rugger’s hands went to his forehead, disbelieving.
Hand in hand, Dorian and Jenine stepped through the iron portcullis and looked over the city from their perch.
Paerik’s army wound through the city and out onto the plain. The front of it was just beginning the climb up the ridge where Dorian and Jenine stood. The men and women on the leading edge weren’t soldiers; they were meisters and Vürdmeisters, two hundred strong. And they were already halfway to Dorian. They couldn’t help but have been aware of the magical firestorm he just been part of. Every one of them had their eyes fixed on him.
“Are we going to die?” Jenine asked.
“No,” Dorian said. “These people have lived under tyranny so long, they have no idea what to do after you’ve killed their leader. One more bluff, and we’re on our way home.” What home is that, Dorian?
“You really think you can bluff that?” Jenine asked, pointing to the entire army.
Dorian smiled, and he realized how long it had been since he’d thought about the future. He was no prophet now, but yes, he was sure. He was about to gamble it all for one last time. A few orders, a few curses, maybe a few deaths, and he and Jenine would be on their way to Cenaria. It would work. It could, anyway.
Something cold touched his cheek. Dorian blinked.
“What?” Jenine asked, seeing the hope die in his face. “What’s wrong?” She followed his eyes up.
“It’s snowing,” he said softly. “The passes will be closed. We’re trapped.”
In the distance, barely audible beneath the hiss of falling snow, Dorian thought he heard Khali laughing.
Snow made the worst weather for invisibility. In Cenaria, snow usually melted as soon as it hit the ground, but tonight it was sticking long enough to show footprints. The sleet itself gave shape to Kylar’s body as it ran down his limbs. Kylar had to move as slowly toward the Ceuran camp as if he were an assassin. At least he still remembered how to sneak. And at least the clouds blocked the moon. Still, it was cold. As usual, Kylar was only wearing underclothes beneath the ka’kari, and it wasn’t enough.
He tugged at his earring, pushing down the distant awareness of Vi. Shivering, Kylar climbed a rocky knoll to get a better view. The Ceurans had four men camped on the windy hill, huddled around a banked fire, with oil-soaked torches nearby so they could give signals to the army below. Kylar sat five paces from a weary sentry. The man was a peasant foot soldier rather than a sa’ceurai. His armor was made of plates sewn onto fabric. Rather than being fastened with leather, which was durable but would harden and shrink if it got wet too often, Ceurans always fastened their armor with ruinously expensive Lodricari silk laces.
After the Battle of Pavvil’s Grove, Garuwashi’s plan had been to pull the Cenarian army east after his “Khalidoran” raiders while the main strength of his own army swept behind them and took the capital. It would have worked, but for something he never could have foreseen: walls.
Most of Cenaria’s old walls had been cannibalized for their stones. By the time Kylar was a child, generations of Rabbits too poor to pay for masonry had finally left the Warrens without walls. The richer east side had seen a similar if slower erosion. But in the last few months while Kylar was gone, walls had appeared around the entire city. It was breathtaking. With Cenaria’s endemic corruption, it would have taken five generations of kings and millions of crowns to equal what Garoth Ursuul’s cruelty and magic had done in two months. Of course, he’d also had a ready supply of stone from all the houses Terah Graesin’s followers had abandoned. And when those ran out, they simply demolished more homes and took what they needed.
Now, the Ceuran army was laid out in a crescent hugging the south and east of the city. On finding walls, Garuwashi’s generals had prepared a siege until their leader could join them—which he had, by now. The west side of the city was an alternately boggy and rocky peninsula that held the Warrens. West of that was the ocean. North of the city were mountains and only one crossing of the Plith River. Garuwashi had contented himself with burning that bridge so he could concentrate his forces on the east side of the Plith and the two gates he would probably assault.
Garuwashi’s army camped like the raiders Kylar had seen at the edge of Ezra’s Wood. Tents made up a grid pattern, with small streets separating the tents and wider streets between platoons, commanders’ tents at regular intervals, couriers’ tents next to those, and latrines and fires laid out with precision.
What they didn’t have were wagons. Whatever tunnels the Ceurans had taken were evidently not big enough, or too steep, or too claustrophobic for horses. Garuwashi had sacrificed everything for speed. The war leader himself had probably only caught up to his army in time to see the horror of the walls for himself. And now it was snowing.
This was not going to be a protracted siege. When Terah Graesin had left Cenaria, those who had followed her had put their possessions to the torch to keep them from falling into Khalidoran hands. How many granaries had gone up in those fires? Perhaps a better question was, how many bakeries and mills and warehouses were left? For their part, Lantano Garuwashi’s men had the freedom of movement, but all the crops had been taken into the city long ago. Lantano’s men could raid villages a few days out—but without horses, they couldn’t bring the food back quickly, and they could only bring what they could carry. Even if they stole horses and built a few wagons, that would take time—and they had an entire army to feed.
Each side was going to be absolutely desperate within days.
Logan’s force outside the walls wasn’t likely to do much to sway the balance, not without communication with Terah Graesin. If they could tell the queen to hold on and not do anything stupid, Logan could use his cavalry to destroy any attempts Garuwashi made at foraging. In a standoff involving thirteen thousand foot soldiers, a few hundred horses could make all the difference. If Terah didn’t do anything stupid.
Which meant someone needed to talk to her.
~Someone? Let me guess.~
Kylar had six hours until dawn. It was going to be a busy night. Before he left, just for fun, he tied the silk laces of the sentry’s leggings together.
19
I’m sorry, Jenine,” Dorian said. “I’m sorry we didn’t leave earlier.” With snow falling now, they would have had to leave a week ago to make it through the passes. A week ago, he hadn’t even found Jenine yet. There was nothing he could have done differently. Still.
“You did everything you could. You were magnificent,” Jenine said. The way she said it, with such bravery and unguarded admiration, told him she expected to die. Of course she did. Twenty thousand good reasons for that were marching through the city. She was so brave it made Dorian ache.
 
; “I love you,” he said. It just slipped out. He opened his mouth to apologize, but she put a finger on his lips.
“Thank you,” she said. She reached up and kissed him gently.
It shouldn’t have meant so much, those words, that kiss, coming from a girl who thought she was about to die, but they were liquid fire and hope and life to Dorian.
“We do have one chance,” he said.
“We do?”
He shook himself and Halfman—at least the Feyuri ears and eyebrows and the less comfortable portions of his eunuch disguise—burst apart and disintegrated.
Rugger gasped. “Dorian?” he blurted out.
Dorian glared at him. Rugger dropped to his face. “Your Holiness,” he said.
It was that simple. Garoth Ursuul had ruled absolutely, and if one disregarded the moral dimensions, he’d ruled efficiently and well. His death left a vacuum, and a people that expected to be ruled as they had been. They were a people accustomed to obeying orders instantly. Dorian and Jenine ran across Luxbridge and into the castle.
From somewhere deep in his mind, Dorian dredged up the correct sequences and shifted the halls so that the front gate led to the Lesser Hall, which then led to the Greater Hall, and finally to the throne room. The stones ground and shook, and obeyed him.
Before going to the throne room, Dorian ran to his old barracks. Hopper refused to open the door, so Dorian had to break it open. He quickly apologized to the terrified concubines, who all looked at him like they should know him, but didn’t. Hopper recognized him faster and dropped to his face.
“Hopper, dammit, I don’t have the time. Go to the Godking’s chambers and get me the finest clothes you can as fast as you can. I need you girls to dress Jenine appropriately, and then I need two or three of you to be throne ornaments—but it’s dangerous. Only volunteers, and only if you can be ready in five minutes.”
“I don’t want to leave you,” Jenine said as he moved to go.