Lightborn (34 page)

The archduke sat up. He jarred and caught the protective cage and sheets in both hands with a startled, “What?” His forceful, resonant sonn impaled her like a butterfly, and swept over the sleeping Imbré and Rohan. His hands explored the cage, the sheets, the bandages on chest and arms, the unmarked skin of his face—there they moved with a flinching uncertainty that told her just how much he remembered. In one motion, he threw the cage and sheets aside, tucked his feet beneath himself, and rolled to a crouch, confronting her, naked but for the bandages and quite oblivious to it. “
Is this your doing?
” he demanded of her, low, intense.

She recoiled, but the archduke lunged for her, seizing her wrist, sliding off the bed onto his feet. “You are not leaving,” he said, “until I get answers.” Tethered by his hand, she could not escape the force of his feeling, the memories of agony, of voices talking above him of death, of a man weeping.

His sentence went unfinished, cut off as suddenly as it had been when the Mages’ Tower came under attack. The archduke’s head came up and around at sounds from outside; then the bedroom’s heavy double door was flung open before a wave of men, the Duke of Mycene in the lead. She had the vagrant thought,
He moves like Ishmael
—and then he had his revolver against her head.

“Release them,
sorceress
.”

Behind him, Phineas Broome cried out, “I sense
Lightborn
.”

“Release them
now
.” Mycene dug the muzzle of the revolver hard into the tender skin beneath her ear. As his very last act of will he would blow her brains out—as he had been prepared by his very last act of will to bring down the Mages’ Tower. The archduke’s grip shackled her to his memories of torment and fire.

“I can’t,” she appealed. “I can’t release them. They’ll wake up soon, I promise.”

Phineas Broome, at Mycene’s shoulder, said, “The ensorcellment on them is Lightborn. There’s one on her, too.”

“It’s not an ensorcellment,” Telmaine gasped. “They will wake up, if you would only wait a moment or two.”

“Don’t trust her,” Kalamay said. “She’s a sorceress.”

Blessedly, Imbré’s legs twitched. Rohan stirred in his chair and sat up, “What . . .
Janus
?” Through Sejanus’s touch, she felt his sear of alarm as Vladimer groaned. The archduke said to Mycene, “Hold her,” and rolled across the bed to land beside Vladimer. He slid an arm beneath Vladimer, eased him off his wounded shoulder, then shifted his stance and lifted him easily onto the bed.

“
Sorcery
,” Kalamay breathed, in horrified awe.

Telmaine, released, swayed. Claudius Rohan, not Sachevar Mycene, caught her and helped her into the chair he had just vacated, and waved Mycene’s revolver away to a modest distance. She could have wept at the kindness, knowing that in a moment, he might loathe her for what she was and what she had done.

“Sejanus,” Rohan said, conversationally, “might I suggest a dressing gown? There is a lady present.”

The archduke gave an odd laugh. She thought she recognized that laugh, one at the absurdity of social conventions measured against matters of magic, life, and death. One of Mycene’s followers brought the archduke a dressing gown and he wrapped it around himself, whipping the cord into a knot in a few brisk moves. He brushed Vladimer’s forehead lightly with the back of his hand, then straightened. “Claudius,” he said, “would you be so good as to stay here by Dimi while I sort this out?” He spoke with resonant authority and his actor’s confidence, betraying no doubt that he could.

He swung back around the end of the bed. Old Duke Imbré struggled stiff-jointed out of his chair and caught him in a hard hug that abandoned all pretensions of dignity. “It’s a miracle,” the old man said, hoarsely.

“Both less and more than that, I fear,” murmured the archduke, and more quietly, “If that is dying, Imbré, once is enough for me.” He clapped the old man lightly on the back with a carelessness that his words belied, and steadied Imbré’s arm as he sat. He directed the footmen—who were hovering with less than their usual unobtrusiveness—to bring chairs for himself and the dukes, and firmly dismissed the dozen or so men who had come with Kalamay. He would have dismissed Phineas Broome, with them, but Mycene said, “He is working for me. He is needed for your safety, Your Grace.”

A brief, recollecting pause. “Strange service, for a republican.”

Broome was disconcerted; Mycene, familiar with the archduke’s ability to retain the details of men and events, was less so. “He did us all the great service of warning me that Vladimer was harboring a dangerous sorceress.”

The archduke’s expression became remarkably unrevealing. “You gentlemen have the advantage of me. How long was I—indisposed? Is that the sunrise bell I hear?”

“It’s been about eight hours,” Rohan said. His face and shoulders sagged briefly with the intensity of those hours. “And no, it’s the warning bell, though sunrise itself is very close. About three hours ago, Lord Mycene’s men launched an artillery barrage against the Mages’ Tower, from emplacements on Kalamay’s land on the other bank. The tower has been, at the very least, breached, if not toppled outright.”

That, if nothing else, shook the archduke’s composure. “The
Mages’ Tower
? The
Temple
itself? Sweet Lady Imogene, Mycene,
were you mad?
”

Mycene’s falcon’s head jerked slightly and his nostrils flared in offense. Kalamay said, “Only if it is madness to seek to please the Sole God.”

The archduke ran a hand down his face, the gesture reminiscent of Ishmael. “And have we heard from the Lightborn since?” he said, in a strained voice. “Do we know how many of them were killed?”

“Not a word,” said Rohan.

Did they know, Telmaine wondered, that the gun emplacements had been demolished by the Lightborn mages? If so, neither the dukes nor Phineas Broome said so.

“Sweet Imogene,” said the archduke again. “During the night—how many of our
own
people died, do you suppose?”

“We imposed a curfew on the city. Those who obeyed it would have been quite safe.”

“Which was the reason for your rather odd request last night,” said Sejanus Plantageter, tight-jawed. “Congratulations, my lords, for having lowered us to the level of Odon the Breaker.”

“They were mages, Sejanus. You said yourself—”

“I said
what
?” said the archduke, with ripening fury. “That I wished them
slaughtered
? That I counted their lives for nothing? I might not be prepared to let magic ruin us, morally and materially, but that did not mean that I am prepared to declare war unilaterally on its practitioners and murder them in their beds.”

“You will not recognize it would come to that in the end,” Mycene said.

“Will not, or
cannot
,” Kalamay said, voice heavy with implication.

The archduke’s drawn breath checked. “What do you mean by that?” he said, dangerously quiet.

“Your Grace, magic left you on the verge of death, and yet we find you restored to full health.”

A muscle twitched at the corner of the archduke’s mouth. “No expressions of pleasure at my recovery, my lords?”

“I cannot express such gladness, Your Grace, not given the agency.”

A beat. “You are implying, my lord duke, that my will is not my own, is that it?”

There was a silence—none of them would be so ill-bred, or treasonous, as to say it aloud, but their silence did so. The archduke’s expression grew fixed. “Lady Telmaine,” said the archduke. “What do you have to say to these accusations?”

“I’m sorry, Your Grace,” she said to her lap. “It is my fault you were hurt.” She bared her face to his sonn. “I am not a sorceress, but I
am
a mage. I have not practiced magic until this last week, when I began to do so to keep my husband and children alive. Everything I told you was true, except I left out the part about my own magic. I was doing my best to help protect you—and Lord Vladimer—from the Shadowborn. But there was a Lightborn mage who thought I
was
Shadowborn, because I was—trying to learn how to use their magic. When he tried to bind my magic, the fires—burst out. He helped me come back here—to put right what he and I did. What that man calls ensorcellment is the binding he put around my magic to—to make it safe. I will swear any oath that you ask of me that I did not ensorcell you. And I did not ensorcell Lord Vladimer.”

Before the archduke could respond, Vladimer suddenly pushed himself up on the pillow, casting a ragged sonn across them. “
Janus
,” he croaked. “Sweet Imogene, Janus.” The archduke did not turn this time, but said levelly, “Yes, Vladimer. Come round here, if you would.”

Nobody spoke as Rohan helped Vladimer to his feet and the two of them came around the end of the bed, Vladimer leaning on Rohan’s shoulder. With his awareness focused entirely on his brother, he did not perceive Telmaine until he brushed her skirts, but when he did, Rohan needed to catch at him to steady him. The violence in his expression as he stood over her made her tremble. “Dimi,” the archduke said quietly, rising to rest a light hand on his injured arm, “sit down. Help me unravel this.”

Vladimer released Rohan to grip the breast of his brother’s dressing gown with his sound hand. “Janus,” he whispered, “by all the gods, I am sorry.”

“You, too, Dimi? Perhaps I
am
dead,” the archduke said, with harrowed levity, “to be hearing those words from you of all people.”

“I failed you,” Vladimer said, hoarsely, speaking as though the two of them were alone in the room. “Casamir had suspicions. I confess I did not give full hearing to those suspicions. I believe he was investigating them, when he was caught outside—or trapped outside—and died.”

His mendacity was breathtaking: he had
known
. He had
known
, because she had told him, and he had done nothing to stop it.

This is for Sylvide
, she thought. She said in a whisper, “Lord Vladimer,
you did know
.”

“I failed you, too,” Vladimer rasped, “when I trusted this woman. It was her magic that nearly killed you. Had my hand been steadier, she would already be dead.”

The silence lasted several heartbeats. “Sit down, if you would, Vladimer,” the archduke said. “My lords, it seems this is becoming more tangled, not less. Leave us, please. I need to speak first to my brother, who is obviously not well enough for a prolonged interview. Then I will speak with yourselves. Rohan, would you remain, please, since you have been privy to this strange affair from the beginning.”

“And the sorceress?” said Kalamay.

To Telmaine’s wavering sonn, his expression was unreadable. “Lady Telmaine,” he said, with deliberate courtesy. “I must also ask you to wait as well.”

By a sickening irony, of which the archduke was surely unaware, they were escorted into the same waiting room as the one that Mycene and Kalamay had been waiting in when Vladimer set her to discover their plot. As she preceded them into the room, Mycene said from behind her, “The penalty for sorcery is death. Rank is no protection, as Strumheller has cause to know.”

“And the penalty for treason, Your Grace?” she managed, though her voice was little more than a whisper.

“Is irrelevant,” Mycene said, gesturing her to an armchair with a mockery of courtesy. “The Lightborn are not our masters. Indeed, they are not even our peers. Plantageter will acknowledge that—if his will and wits are still his own.”

“Mycene,” said Kalamay from the door. “Are you prepared to wait in here, with this
sorceress
?”

The Duke of Mycene did not answer him directly but waved his men to flank the facing armchair, and Phineas Broome to their side, disregarding the mage’s hesitation. “He reluctantly admits you are his superior in magic, but claims you could not overwhelm him before he could give warning. At my word or his, my men have orders to shoot, and not to stop shooting until I personally order them to do so.” He sat down, even as she still stood, a studied insult. “Do sit down, Lady Telmaine.”

“Mycene, have a care,” said Kalamay.

“All my life,” the Duke of Mycene said, carelessly, “timid people have urged me to have a care, and all my life, I have disregarded them, to my gain.”

“This is for your good standing with the Sole God and His Church,” Kalamay said. “The woman’s power has too much fascination for you.”

“All power has a fascination for me,” Mycene allowed. “I admit it does fascinate me to know that a young woman has managed for decades to conceal her true nature.”

She needed only her ears, not her magic, to hear the appetite in the words.

“And it is power, Lady Telmaine,” he said, unknowingly echoing Ishmael. But, sweet Imogene, the difference between Ishmael and this man . . .

“A venal, corrupting power,” Kalamay said.

“Oh, do stop cawing, Kalamay,” Mycene advised, without turning his head.

“There are penalties for associating with mages.”

“Vladimer Plantageter is much more guilty of that than I, and Sejanus cannot impugn me without impugning Vladimer, which he will not do. I sometimes wonder if there is not something unhealthy between those two. Their mother’s behavior certainly was never constrained by decency.”

“You have a foul mind,” Kalamay said. He had sat down on a chair close to the door.

Telmaine, her head low, said, “He simply measures love as he knows it, Duke Kalamay.”

She was rewarded by a sucked-in breath. “Don’t speak to me, sorceress.”

“I am no sorceress.”

“In law,” Mycene purred, unprovoked, “you are.”

Broome shifted uneasily, his expression that of a deeply unhappy man. she said, but had the sense that she had spoken in a heavily curtained room that swallowed up all sound, all echoes.