Impossible Things (13 page)

‘Stop, please make it stop!’

His own voice, begging, terrified. Ishtaer’s hand falling from his face. Her chest heaving with anger as she stepped back and he crumpled to the floor, gasping for air, his whole body alive with pain.

Kael stared up at Ishtaer, standing there like an avenging angel, eyes hot with pain and fury, her wolf snarling at her side, surrounded by the Chosen and the Citizenry and several hundred of the Empire’s most influential people.

‘Ask me again why I could never be with you,’ she said, and Kael couldn’t speak.

Ishtaer turned and walked away, and Kael sprawled on the floor, broken.

‘That,’ said Eirenn, ‘was bloody brilliant.’

Ishtaer couldn’t stand still. She’d strode out onto the roadway, high above the city, and gulped in huge lungfuls of cold night air, pacing up and down the slope. Fury pulsed in her veins, anger making her hot and cold, trembling, barely able to speak.

That he’d done that, that he’d said it, that he’d provoked her—

That she’d
shown
him. Oh, nicely done, Ishtaer. Now everyone will know, and there goes any respect anyone might have been thinking about having for you—

‘It was nicely done,’ said a cool female voice behind her, and she spun around. ‘I know you’ve been having visions and you’ve seen a ghost, but I’ve never seen memories projected quite like that before.’

‘Who the hell are you?’ Ishtaer snapped, hating the quiver in her voice.

Eirenn cleared his throat. ‘Lady Celsa Luccia Aquilinia Aspicio Viator.’

A Seer and a Viator? Ishtaer winced.

‘Can’t be anyone else,’ Eirenn added.

‘Indeed.’ Lady Aquilinia sounded amused. ‘Eirenn, I believe? Go and find my handmaiden and tell her to bring the silver sash. Her name is Atella. Go.’

Eirenn hesitated, then she heard him walk away, fast. Lady Aquilinia had the sort of voice that gave orders, not suggestions.

‘I’m sorry, my lady, I didn’t mean to be rude. I can’t see, that’s the thing.’

‘Oh, but you can. You can see things other people can’t see, you can see what is to come, you can even make others see. Don’t worry, you didn’t show anyone else those memories. The rest of the crowd in there simply saw you shove Krull the Warlord to the floor and walk away. It was magnificent.’

‘It was humiliating.’

‘He needed to be humiliated.’

‘I didn’t know I could do it.’ She still wasn’t sure how she had. She’d just been angry and wanted to show him how wrong he was, and … then it happened.

‘It’s often the way.’

Ishtaer hesitated. ‘Did you see … what I showed him?’

‘Some of it. I didn’t want to pry. But a projection like that … it fairly shouted to me. I was keeping half an eye out for you anyway. Your Presentation this evening would have been only to me.’

‘There are no other Seers here?’

‘There aren’t many of us in the first place,’ said Lady Aquilinia. ‘A lot prefer seclusion, especially if they’re readers, like me. Have you ever picked up someone else’s thoughts?’

Ishtaer hesitated. ‘The odd intention, but usually when it was obvious. Not thoughts, no.’

‘Lucky you. It can get very noisy. Your particular Gift seems to be for visions. What do you think the red cat means?’

‘Lord Killen said—’

‘No. Not Killen. He was a clever man and an exceptional Seer, but I want to know what you think it means.’

Ishtaer sighed. ‘I don’t know. Maybe it’s a vision of my future. Maybe I’ll see a huge red cat one day, and then a man will stab me. To be honest, it wouldn’t be the strangest thing that’s ever happened to me.’

‘No. I don’t expect it would. Not all visions are straightforward, Ishtaer. Some deal with metaphor and allegory, and some simply show you what’s going to happen. I wish I could have been more specific with my vision about Lord Krull, but you get what you’re given.’

‘Vision?’

‘All I know is that his child will die to save him. Which child, and when, and how, I’ve no idea. You can imagine he wasn’t pleased when I told him.’ Before Ishtaer could say anything else, footsteps sounded and Lady Aquilinia said, ‘Ah, Atella, thank you. Now go and tell that man in all the braid that I’ve had my Presentation with Ishtaer and that I’d like to announce her graduation as a Seer.’

For the second time, Ishtaer thought she must have misheard. Or imagined it. Two in one day? This was ridiculous.

‘I must be dreaming,’ she said as Lady Aquilinia placed the sash over her shoulder and adjusted the way it lay.

‘Trust me, you’re not. Now then, my lady, if you’re ready?’

He was still getting strange looks three days later as he left the Turris Imperio with a sack of gold weighing down his horse’s back. The general story had got around, and in the usual way had been inflated from an argument and a shove to an all-out brawl and several broken limbs, most of them his.

What hadn’t got out, he was vastly relieved to discover, was any hint of what Ishtaer had shown him.

How could he have been so stupid? Of course she’d been frightened of what he was going to do to her back in that guest room on Samara’s plantation. Why in the name of all that was holy had he thought it was because she was innocent?

He cringed as he rode through the streets, recalling pretty much everything he’d said and done with her, just like he had every spare minute since the Ball. Had he known … But even if he had, would he have realised the extent of her abuse? It was one thing to know she’d been raped and another to experience it, to feel the fear and helplessness and revulsion. Good gods in heaven, how did she function so normally? Kael continually had to resist the urge to curl into a ball and weep.

The horse took him back to the domus he’d moved into directly after the Ball. There was no way he could face the possibility of meeting Ishtaer at the Academy. He had no idea what he could say to her. Where to even start.

With an apology, you bastard,
his conscience sneered.

Kael rubbed at his forehead, feeling a headache pulse into life. Yeah. An apology would be a good place to begin.

Ishtaer was used to conversations going quiet as she approached, but since the Ball things had been getting extreme. According to Eirenn, the rumour now was that she’d punched Lord Krull in the face and then let her dog savage him, which possibly accounted for why everyone was giving her and Brutus such a wide berth.

‘But everyone at the Academy was there at the Ball,’ she said. ‘How can they have not seen it?’

‘The thing is, until he started screaming and fell on the ground, there wasn’t anything much to see,’ Eirenn said. ‘People just fill in the gaps, I guess. You could set the record straight and tell everyone what actually happened …?’

But Ishtaer shook her head firmly. She wasn’t about to spill any more hideous secrets, not even to Eirenn.

Madam Julia called her in to talk about prospects, explaining to Ishtaer that although she’d be expected to continue with her Militis training, as a fully qualified Healer the possibilities for her future were many and varied.

‘You could become a private physician,’ she said, ‘which admittedly does pay very well. You could set up a clinic and specialise in injuries, or women’s problems, or caring for children, or anything. Or you could join an existing clinic. You could go anywhere in the world – I suppose, really, you don’t have to finish your training with Sir Scipius. You might attach yourself to the Imperial Army, or a private military force – like Sir Karnos has with your Lord Krull.’

‘He’s not
my
Lord Krull,’ Ishtaer said automatically.

‘Well, not after the Ball he isn’t, at any rate.’ Madam Julia paused. ‘Or you could stay here, with me. The pay isn’t spectacular, but you get free room and board, and we can work shifts around your training.’

‘I’d like that,’ Ishtaer said, and Madam Julia squeezed her hand before changing the subject to a boil that needed lancing.

She left the sickbay that afternoon to find Eirenn sitting under a big tree in the main courtyard, teaching Brutus tricks. ‘He’ll sit and lie down, and he’s pretty good at bringing back a stick if you throw it. But his number one talent is growling menacingly at anyone who says anything remotely unpleasant to me. He’s ace at that.’

‘Glad to hear it.’ Ishtaer scratched Brutus’s head and he leaned against her, large and solid and comforting.

‘Listen,’ Eirenn said, and there was something in his voice that made her pay attention. ‘A letter came to the gate for you this morning.’

‘A letter? But – I don’t know anyone,’ Ishtaer said. ‘Except for you and Kael and he’s, that is, I don’t expect he’ll be writing to me. Besides, I can’t read.’

‘No, which is why this one came with a note attached asking me to read it to you.’ He hesitated. ‘It’s from Krull.’

Ishtaer sat down hard on the bench beside Eirenn, feeling hot and cold sweat prickle over her. ‘I don’t want to hear it.’

‘And yet I think you will.’

‘You’ve already read it?’

‘Uh.’ She felt him shift uncomfortably, ‘I – er, yes. Well, he said I could!’

Ishtaer ran her hand through her short hair and rocked her head back against the tree. What could Kael possibly have to say to her? He was probably so disgusted by what she’d shown him that he’d never come near her again. This was probably a note to say he was withdrawing his sponsorship of her, and that she’d have to get by on what the Academy paid her to work in the sickbay.

She sighed. ‘All right, then. Tell me.’

Paper crackled as he shook out the letter. He cleared his throat. And then he said, ‘
I’m sorry.
’

Ishtaer blinked.

‘
I made some assumptions about you and your past that were thoughtless and unfair. I only wanted to provoke a response in you that would get you fighting for yourself, which you unarguably did, just not in the way I expected. I’m sorry that those things ever happened to you, and I’m sorry I provoked you into showing them to me. I can’t imagine how painful they are to recall. That is – I can, because I lived through them all, condensed into a few minutes, and I think they’ll give me nightmares for the rest of my life. I’m sorry for the way I treated you. You deserved better. To be honest, I’m amazed you have the strength to carry on as normally as you do. So, I’m sorry. I really am.
’

Eirenn fell silent, and Ishtaer realised she’d been holding her breath. She let it out in a rush.

‘Well,’ she said, and ran out after that.

‘I know. I didn’t think he was capable of apologising like that. Must’ve been something awful you showed him,’ Eirenn said.

‘Must have,’ Ishtaer said briskly. ‘Right. Come on, Brutus, time to get you fed.’

Brutus bounded up, but Eirenn said, ‘Wait, there’s more.’

‘I’m not sure I can take more.’

‘It’s not more apologies. It’s – look, just listen.’

Reluctantly, she settled back down again.

‘
I don’t know how far this will go to make things up to you, but I’ve been trying to find out who you are and where you came from. I’ve asked Eirenn to do some research for me and sent a Viator to the Saranos, and what I’ve found simply can’t be a bunch of coincidences.
’

Ishtaer sat in the spring sunshine, her dog at her feet, and listened to Eirenn tell her the story of a woman on a secret mission, a child born in a storm and a father who never stopped searching.

‘
If only you still had the crystal necklace your mother gave you, we’d know without doubt, but I guess I know where that ended up. Maybe one day we could hire an Aqualis to search for it. But I remember your father; he treated me a few times. Thanks to him I still have the use of my right knee. He had warm olive skin and pale blue eyes, and dark hair that took the sun. And he was tall, taller than me. He was quiet, he was kind, he was clever. And he never stopped searching for you or your mother. He never gave up. Right up until his death he kept looking for you. Your father loved you even when he’d never met you.
’

Her hand clenched in the thick fur at the back of Brutus’s neck. Her eyes prickled.

‘
He died seven years ago. I think he’d have been proud of you. I’m sure his brother will be. I didn’t know whether I should contact him on your behalf or not, but I decided not. I’ll let you decide. His name is Citizen Garados Mallus, and he is a well-respected and successful merchant in Liman, on the Draxan coast. I believe he’s married with a child around your age. His mother died a number of years ago, but she was named Ishtaer. You’re named for your grandmother.

‘
With respect to your mother’s family, you can find out all you want about them, but I’m not sure you’ll ever want to go near them. Your mother was the second daughter of Citizen Aculio Sarius, a family with a long history of being Chosen and an even longer history of being cold-hearted bastards. They used to trade in slaves and vociferously opposed the abolition of slavery. I think Sarius is dead now, and good riddance. The whole family cut your mother dead when she married your father. They’re friends with the Gloriuses and their like. I wouldn’t recommend you have anything to do with them, but it’s up to you.

‘
The Emperor has contracted me to sort out the mess in Palavio, so I’ll be back in town when I’m done, but don’t worry, I won’t bother you. And I won’t tell anyone what I saw. You have a family now, kid. And you have status, higher than nearly every other female in the Empire. You’re a Citizen now. You can own property and vote and you don’t even have to get married to do it. Well done, and good luck. Kael.
’

Eirenn folded the letter back up, and Ishtaer stared at the blackness behind her eyes. She didn’t realise there were tears on her face until Brutus licked them off.

She cleared her throat and said, ‘What mess in Palavio?’

Eirenn sounded surprised. ‘Uh, tribal skirmishes, I think. Been going on a while. They’re the riverlands out east.’

‘Oh.’

‘You want to talk about anything in that letter?’

‘No.’
I have a family.

‘You want to get something to eat?’

‘No.’
Will they like me? Will they accept me?

‘You want me to leave you alone so you can think about this?’

‘Yes, please.’
Will I like them?

‘All right.’ He got up to leave.

‘And, Eirenn?’

‘Yes?’

‘Thanks.’

Palavio was a gods-forsaken swamp delta that no one in their right mind would ever want to live in. Unfortunately for Kael, the residents weren’t in their right minds and constantly squabbled over who owned which bit of bog. Like Krulland, it was an Ilani protectorate. Unlike Krulland, it had no less than seventeen people claiming to be the rightful prince. All of them had armed forces, ranging from armies to militia to a few blokes waving pitch forks. All of them were at each others’ teeth.