“Gods, my lord?”
“Gods. Philosophies. Stories of the world that shape it. Ghosts that wear kingdoms instead of flesh. Whatever you want to call them. It doesn’t matter to me.”
“Whatever they are, they won’t get in here twice. Not while I’m breathing.”
“Careful,” Ausai said with a grin. “They’ll hear you. What is it? You’re so glum.”
“I failed you, my lord. I thought you would be displeased.”
The thin, boyish shoulders shifted in a gesture that meant yes-and-no. “I should be. But it was interesting. And I’m young. It’s been so long since I was this young, I almost forgot what it felt like. And a boy. Boys have a thirst for danger, so for now anyway it’s easy to let go of the mistake. Nothing bad happened, after all. We got away with it. I was so old when I was Ausai. I would have been angry if I were still him. I could smell death with his nose, especially at the end. Youth can’t feel what age does. So you’re lucky I’m still what I am, I guess.”
“If you say so, my lord.”
“And Saffa. Saffa’s come all the way here. She was a beautiful woman. Bronze Coast priestess. Smart. Deep. Beautiful with her robes off. I never thought she’d come after the boy. She was so much of the place she lived, you know? I couldn’t imagine her stepping out of it.”
“You sound as if you loved her?”
“I liked her, anyway. We’ll have to kill her, but I enjoyed her company. I’d almost want to see her again. Seeing your lover through her own child’s eyes. You discover so much more when you can have different perspectives that way. Who she was when she was letting herself be seduced. Who she is trying to save her son. A lover and a mother are very different people, even when they’re the exact same woman. And the eyes. Ausai’s eyes were hungry for her. These eyes won’t take her in the same way at all. That’s why this is all worth doing. It’s like eating a good meal. The world is so much rounder when you have more than just the one life in it.”
“It sounds… it sounds astonishing, my lord.”
“Yes. But it won’t happen. There’s no time. Not with this weather.”
Tregarro felt his gut tighten and didn’t know why. Not at first. “It’s pissing down sleet,” he said, lulled by Ausai’s manner into forgetting both his formality and his chagrin.
“It is. It’s warm enough to. I can feel the change. The air smells different. If I listen deeply enough, I can hear the river creaking.” The joy and anticipation and longing in his voice sang like a viol.
Thaw, Tregarro thought. He’s talking about the thaw. The moment of transformation when the passage between what has been and what will be is thinner, and easier to breach. For a moment, he thought of Andomaka, and the knot in his stomach grew worse. He pushed the image of the pale woman away. This was a good thing. It was what they had been waiting for. They would be one step nearer to taking the false bloodline off the throne, and putting the true spirit of the city in its right place. They were saving the city. That was all he had to remind himself of. Andomaka would be prince, and he would guard her then as he did now.
These were the mysteries, and he was dedicated to them.
Like a fox fleeing a farmer’s stone, Elaine a Sal had vanished. The whispers of it rippled through the court, but what it meant, no one knew. The plague had spread to the palace, and she was the first to grow ill. Or she had gotten pregnant by one of the redcloaks or an Inlisc servant or one of her half dozen suitors from the court. Or she was dead.
Andomaka’s little wolves might have taken the fox. Or something else might have happened. She didn’t know, and the people who did weren’t telling.
“You are many things, Halev,” Andomaka said. “You aren’t my cousin.”
Despite the goldwork on the wall and the oil lanterns, the palace meeting room was small and dark. The thick walls held the cold of winter so that she hadn’t taken off her cloak, nor had Halev Karsen removed his jacket.
“The prince is very busy,” Halev said.
“I don’t remember Ausai being so constrained by his duties,” she said. It was a barb that might pass for innocent, and if Halev felt it, he hid the sting with a shrug.
“It’s Byrn’s first year. Once he’s been through the cycle a few times, he’ll get the knack for it. It’s always like this when something’s genuinely new.”
Genuinely new. Was that a barb in return? Was Karsen saying that the bastard who wore the name a Sal like a mask was the new order of Kithamar? That she couldn’t tell made it seem more likely that he was.
“Well, then perhaps I’ll ask after him again next year.”
“If there’s something I can help you with, I’m pleased to do it,” Halev said. And then, a moment later, “What does bring you, Andomaka?”
The question seemed to resonate, like the room had suddenly grown larger. She’d meant to answer with a triviality, but that false echo gave her pause. What would it mean if she’d dreamed that someone like this—an acquaintance since their mutual childhood and now perhaps-enemy—had asked her why she was coming to the palace? If her sleeping mind had conjured Halev and his question, what would it have been trying to tell her?
It was the kind of question she’d been trained to ask, but since Ausai’s return, her training had become harsher and more rigorous. There were whole days now when she felt like she was barely tethered to her body at all. She saw things, heard things, found meaning in things that she never had before. It felt like growing suddenly wise, except she sometimes had trouble remembering the lessons she was learning. They all seemed to run a little, like fresh paint in a sudden rain.
“Andoma?” Halev said, and for the first time, he seemed almost unguarded. “Are you all right?”
“What brings me to the palace is… Elaine, I suppose.” And that was true. Elaine would bring her there, if only by her death. So that made sense. “We have been talking, she and I.”
“Have you now?”
“You knew that.”
“I did. What do you two talk about?”
“Byrn never followed the brotherhood,” Andomaka said. Which was true. All their conversations with their threads of love and sex and death, politics and magic, were about her father and his false blood. They had been talking about the betrayal of the city and her family’s role in it, even if Elaine didn’t know that. “It would be better for the city if she followed custom.”
“I hear what you’re saying,” Halev replied. She didn’t think that was true. He didn’t trust her, she could feel that, but he was also distracted. She couldn’t see the things in his mind that were drawing him away, not quite. There were glimpses of them. Something about wax and pig’s blood. Knowing it left her feeling lightheaded. “I’m afraid Elaine isn’t available either. Not right now.”
“Is she well?”
“She’s young,” Halev said. “Being young is always hard. Every generation fights to survive it.” Another odd answer. Evasive. Something had happened, there was no doubt, but it didn’t sound as if the girl was dead. Not yet.