The Pearls (27 page)

Elandra found herself smiling back. How often had she seen Bixia turn such a look on their father? He had melted every time beneath Bixia's charm. Elandra remembered how amusing Bixia could be in their father's presence, how she used to make him roar with laughter, how she used to coax anything from him that she wanted.

Still, Elandra remained cautious. Tempting though it was, she was about to refuse Bixia's offer when her half sister said, “I thought it might please you to see how the emperor's sister does on her journey.”

Everyone came to attention. Even Lady Avitria smiled, and the chamberlain stepped closer.

“Lady Lea is well?” he asked eagerly, forgetting it was not his place to interrupt the empress during an audience. “She has reached Trau safely?”

Bixia hesitated, and Elandra lifted her hand to recall the chamberlain to his duty.

Turning red, he mumbled an apology, bowed, and retreated.

Swiftly Elandra reconsidered her decision. As yet the court was unaware that Lea might be in difficulties. Her young sister-in-law's immense popularity had not waned since her departure from the palace. If anything, people talked about her more.

The overwhelming desire for news made Elandra set aside her caution. How could Bixia know about Lea unless she really had seen something, perhaps even the same vision Caelan had seen? Elandra dared not throw away this opportunity to gain more information. With her guards and attendants in the chamber, she felt safe enough.

“You won't tell the great Magria, will you?” Bixia asked with some apprehension. “I mean, she hasn't given me permission to do this, and only she is supposed to share visions with Your Majesty. I just wanted to prove to you that I've changed.”

It was rather pathetic, Elandra thought. Poor Bixia, plumper, not as pretty now, not as young. Elandra saw the same lazy defiance of rules, the same willingness to do whatever it took to get what she wanted.

I'll give her anything,
Elandra thought, although she had no intention of saying so, or of looking too eager. “What payment do you ask for this defiance of the Magria's rules?”

Bixia looked shocked. “Nothing!”

“You don't expect a place at court? The emperor's sister is much favored here. Do you want the same status?”

Greed flickered in Bixia's eyes, but she bowed her head quickly. “No, Majesty. I ask for nothing.”

Elandra heard the lie in Bixia's voice and knew the request would come, if not today, then soon. Bixia must be wild to escape the strict austerity of the sisterhood. No doubt her eyes had been filled today with the grandeur and magnificence of the women's pavilion.
They could never beat the love of luxury out of her,
Elandra thought.

Warning herself not to expect too much from this unreliable source of information, Elandra stepped off the dais to join her half sister. When her protector tried to accompany her, she waved him back.

“Very well,” she said to Bixia. “Cast your vision if you can.”

“Majesty,” the protector said, “take care.”

Nodding, she watched Bixia, still not believing her capable of much.

Bixia raised her hands into the air and tilted back her head, mouthing something in silence. Then she reached into her robes and brought forth a handful of pale sand. She dribbled it onto the floor in a pattern that did not resemble the usual Penestrican symbols. Indeed, these looked like harmless squiggles, and the sight of them made Elandra frown in disappointment, certain that this was charlatanism after all.

Bixia beckoned Elandra to step onto the sand. “Look, Empress,” she whispered, holding her hands before Elandra's face and spreading them wide.

At first there was nothing to see, but then a glimmer appeared in the air between Elandra and her half sister. Elandra saw the air darken before her as a swirling cloud of inky mist formed.

“Look,” Bixia said, her voice taking on the crooning persuasion of a professional hustler. “Come closer. Look deep and
see
.”

Frowning a little, Elandra refused to lean forward as she was urged, but she did look.

And she saw a shape, very small, very dim, taking form within the dark swirling mist. It looked like a girl. It looked like Lea. Amazed, Elandra reached out.

Quick as a striking cobra, Bixia grabbed her wrist and twisted it hard, jerking her forward into the mist. Instinctively, cursing her own gullibility, Elandra pulled back, lifting her topaz pendant for protection as she did so.

Fire shot from the mist, right at her face, but struck the pendant instead and glanced off. Although most of the magic shot missed Elandra, as she ducked she felt the edge of it burn across her temple. People were shouting around her, and she heard Bixia cursing in a shrill, frantic voice.

Elandra's pendant exploded. Knocked backward by the blast, Elandra was torn from Bixia's grasp. Her ears were ringing. Her whole body felt numb. She could see nothing. And then she hit the floor with a jolting impact that knocked the breath from her lungs. The back of her head hit something hard and sharp, flaring white pain through her head, and all went dark.

W
ith
a groan, Thirbe came to, and found himself lying with his face in the dust. He shifted his head, which weighed as much as a boulder, scraping his cheek through the dirt before he managed to rest it on his outflung arm.

Memory stirred in his muddled thoughts, confused impressions of shouting and violence exploding around him, the thunder of galloping hooves, a stab in the back, steel—alien and cold—piercing his armor and ribs, the jolting impact of hitting the ground, then nothing.

Until now.

Merciful Gault, but he hurt.

All was quiet around him, save for some birds squawking in the trees and the song of insects in the grass. He'd fallen into a small fissure of rock down below the trail, and extracting himself was awkward. Sitting up nearly made him pass out, but he sucked in his breath to keep from yelling and endured until the pain subsided. Nauseated and trembling, clammy with sweat, he felt certain he might as well lie down and die right there.

He did neither.

The wound was midway up his back. He was losing blood, and when he tried to lift his left arm the agony left him doubled over and gasping.

So here he was, sitting trailside, with a sharp piece of rock digging into his rump while he slowly bled to death. Thirst burned his throat. Someone had stolen his cloak, but he still had his boots and weapons, probably thanks to having fallen into these rocks.

Betrayal was a sour thing, a rotten evil, and he cursed Hervan in all ways possible. He cursed the Crimsons and their fool ideas that had jeopardized the emperor's sister and brought him, Rafin Thirbe, to being left to die in a dusty ditch.

“May you find hell, Hervan,” he swore aloud. “May you rot there for a thousand eternities with Mael's breath charring your bones and Beloth's claws digging out your entrails. May your flesh burst from pustules and your privates shrivel up and burn with fire. Damn you!”

A soft sound down the slope from him caught his attention away from angry self-pity. He drew his dagger, gritting his teeth in an effort not to moan, and leaned forward as much as he dared to see what was coming. A sorrel horse with a white blaze came into sight. It was grazing with its bridle on, the reins dragging the ground, a saddle twisted askew on its back. Thirbe stared in disbelief. It was his horse, and he'd never loved an animal more than at that moment.

He licked his dry lips and gave a low whistle. The horse lifted its head, pricking its ears in Thirbe's direction and staring at him while Thirbe held his breath and dared make no movement that might frighten it off.

“Come on. Come on,” he said under his breath.

The horse put its head down to graze again, cropping the sparse tufts of grass growing from rocky ground.

“Here, you lazy rack of bones,” Thirbe said. He whistled again, holding out his hand.

The horse snorted and climbed the hill to him with some tail switching and head tossing. It hesitated just out of reach, and Thirbe forced himself not to lunge for the dangling reins.

“Come on,” he crooned, and the horse walked up to him and blew hot breath in his hair as it nuzzled him. Its velvety mouth lipped his fingers.

Thirbe closed his hand over the reins and felt profound thankfulness.

Using his horse as support, he made it to his feet, gasping and fighting off the tiny black spots dancing in his vision. It wasn't easy, but he righted the saddle and fumbled in his supply pouch for cloth and a spare sword belt. Eventually he got a crude bandage cinched around himself, and then he sat down for a while, the reins firmly knotted around his wrist so the horse couldn't wander off while he slept.

When he awakened, feeling more parched and terribly weak, he found the sun going down.

His head had cleared, and although his anger burned a steady flame in his heart, he felt grateful that he'd not died unsworn; Gault had been merciful to him there.

Feeling decidedly shaken by his close call, he bent his proud neck and humbly gave thanks, seeking forgiveness for his actions and renewing his vows. Maybe the gods would accept his prayer and maybe not. He would have to perform an act of atonement for taking the Hidden Ways. When he found a priest he'd have to pay for a sacrifice and full cleansing rites.

For the first time since regaining consciousness, he allowed himself to wonder about Lady Lea.

Hervan, the damned little pox mark, had been right when he'd said Thirbe loved her, aye, he did. But like a daughter. He'd felt the brittle shell around his heart soften from the first day he entered her service, when her blue eyes had stared at him with such warm understanding and her smile had lit up his dour world.

Gritting his teeth, Thirbe climbed into the saddle and set his horse picking its way slowly through the battle site. Men lay sprawled in death, flies buzzing around them, stripped of boots and gear, their protections and personal effects scattered, their fine uniforms bedraggled or stolen, their helmet plumes trampled in the dirt. Vultures already wheeled lazily in the sky, waiting for the feast to come. The unnecessary waste of lives made Thirbe scowl grimly.

He found Lieutenant Rozer, lying gray and still in an enormous pool of blood. He found Sergeant Taime crumpled near the gulch wall, so hacked and battered he was almost unrecognizable. Nearby lay Aszondal's body, tangled with the corpse of a mercenary. And over in the bushes, as though he'd been hiding, lay Poulso the priest, stabbed in the back.

“Like me,” Thirbe muttered with a fresh wave of anger.

Bad enough to see his comrades slain like this, but it was the betrayal that burned Thirbe worse than his wound.

The insult of it, the dirty cowardice of Rozer's sneaky blow just as they poured out of the Hidden Ways, left a bad taste that Thirbe could not spit out of his mouth.

“Knifed and left for dead,” he said. “But I ain't dead, Captain Fancy-Me-Lad, and since you ain't here, I figure you've slipped off and let your men die without you.”

He circled around, counting carefully, but Hervan was not found. At the edge of the trampled ground, Thirbe finally found a track, a hoofprint he recognized as belonging to the captain's horse. Thirbe had been trained to always know the tracks of his officers in case of trouble; the skill had come in useful during his army years, even more useful when he was a predlicate, and now he stared in the direction Hervan had taken and narrowed his eyes.

“I ain't letting you get away with attempted murder, shadow magic, and whatever the hell else you're doing,” he said aloud. “Using the shadows always carries a reckoning. I don't know what'll be coming to me for it, but I'm
your
reckoning, boy. I'm your reckoning.”

He knew he hadn't a prayer of saving Lady Lea now. Gault help the poor maiden, for he'd failed her. But he could hunt down Hervan and take vengeance on him. Young Captain Hervan of the Household Regiment—blessed with good looks and the vanity to go with them, a young man favored at court, favored in life, raised to do anything he pleased and damn the consequences—was not going to be saved this time, Thirbe thought grimly.

“Papa can't buy you out of this trouble,” Thirbe muttered, his voice hoarse as he tightened his reins. “Thanks to you, my sweet lady is lost. For that, and this hole in my back, I'll be your shadow. I'll track you, chase you through the very gates of hell, if I must. I'll see you eat steel, even if I die for it.”

With his vow spoken, he kissed the knuckles of his sword hand and held his fist weakly in the air for Gault to witness. Then, grimacing in pain, he kicked his horse forward.

A
t
the palace in New Imperia, Caelan rushed through the galleries and passages, strode down a loggia without seeing the astonished or worried courtiers who backed out of his way. Someone called out, but he paid no heed.

The sentinels snapping salutes at the gates barely had time to step aside as he swept into the women's pavilion and made his way into Elandra's private apartments. Inside, he was met by the backs of a crowd of onlookers, all craning their necks and whispering.

“The emperor!” a page shouted belatedly. “Make way!”

His escort of Guards was already pushing people aside. Caelan strode past them, past a line of stern sentries at the inner doors, through her personal sitting room, an antechamber, and finally into Elandra's private bedchamber.

His beloved wife lay curled on her side, either asleep or unconscious. Her long auburn hair glinted fire on her pillows, its highlights reflecting the lamplight and candle flames. Bareheaded women in Penestrican robes tended her, bathing her arms and bare feet with water, gently applying compresses of damp linen to the small wound on her brow.

The sight of her like this unmanned him. Caelan jerked to a halt and stared, his throat working, his powerful hands clenching helplessly at his sides.

“Excellency.”

The stern, almost cold voice that spoke to him belonged to a woman with keen blue eyes and a shining curtain of straight blond hair that hung down her back in pale contrast to her somber black robes. Anas, young Magria and leader of the Penestrican order, seer of visions, stepped forward from the gloomy edges of the chamber. Her beautiful face held no expression.

She smelled of herbs, and their pungent combination of scents flung Caelan back in time to his father's infirmary, a place with bare stone walls and a long battered worktable. He remembered himself as a young boy, standing at the table with a mortar and pestle, resentful of having to grind herbs for potions when all he wanted was to go fishing with Old Farns.

“The empress will live,” the Magria said before he could ask. “Be not afraid for her. She is stunned, but not fatally injured.”

So coldly, so emotionlessly did the Magria speak that Caelan didn't believe her at first. But he realized there was no reason for her to lie.

A massive wave of relief rolled over him. Shutting his stinging eyes a moment, he tried to breathe. “Gault be praised,” he murmured.

But when he attempted to go to Elandra's side, the Magria intervened.

“Do not disturb her now.”

His alarm came back. “You said she's not hurt.”

“No, I said her injury is not fatal. She needs rest and quiet.”

With a gesture, the Magria led him away into a smaller chamber. The ladies-in-waiting scattered away from them with frightened faces, leaving them alone except for Caelan's grim protector and the Imperial Guards at the door.

“I've had the report,” Caelan said impatiently before the Magria could speak. “I know the attacker was her half sister, Bixia. She fled, tried to hide in the palace, but she's already been caught and taken by the guards for questioning.”

“Your torturer will learn nothing from her,” the Magria said.

“Then
you
question her.”

“No need, Excellency.” The Magria's blue eyes blazed with anger. “A Maelite puppet, lacking powers of her own. They used her as a weapon. She knows nothing of value.”

“A Maelite,” he breathed. A muscle jumped in his clenched jaw. He burned to order the entire palace turned inside out, with every person questioned and put to the lash. The place was riddled with spies and traitors, despite all efforts to keep them out.
Elandra could have died,
he thought and felt chilled.

“Bixia dared call herself a Penestrican,” the Magria said with suppressed fury. “Dared pretend she could cast a vision. When your torturer is finished with her, give her to me, Excellency. Not for questioning, but to pay dearly for her lies.”

It occurred to him that the Magria was angrier about the slander done to her order than the actual attack on Elandra, but he shoved that thought away. “Done,” he said. “Although I doubt even you can punish her as much as she deserves. But how was Elandra tricked? She's too clever to be caught unawares. She would never trust Bixia.”

The Magria nodded, her delicate nostrils flaring as she drove her anger back under control. “I believe there must have been a spell working to cloud her mind, to make her more susceptible to trickery.”

“Who could work such a spell inside the palace without detection?”

“Maelites.”

“Gods, how did a witch get in here? How did our protections fail?”

“Let that question be put to Lady Avitria.”

“Avitria? Is she—”

“Yes.”

Shocked, he remained silent for a few moments, staring at the door leading to Elandra's chamber. His dear Elandra, whom he'd sworn to keep safe, lay hurt, struck down inside her pavilion with Imperial Guards and her protector around her. The sense of safety they'd all relied on had been an illusion. First Lea, now Elandra, he thought.

“My son?” he whispered.

“You are wise to take extra precautions there,” the Magria said. “But do not fear for the child. We shall watch over him.”

Caelan inclined his head in acknowledgment of the offer, even as his more skeptical side wondered if the Magria could keep her promise. “As for my wife…her sister, her chief lady-in-waiting…how many more are involved in this plot to harm her?”