Storm and Steel Page 4

Alyra switched to the Arnossi tongue. “Be careful, Horace. He's still Akeshian and zoanii. Backbiting and deception are bred into them.”

  He frowned at her depiction but nodded so as not to start an argument. “I'll keep that in mind.”

  “While you're at it, keep both eyes on Byleth as well,” she said. “The queen is no blushing ingenue.”

  “Point taken. While you're here, you can help me avoid making any disastrous mistakes.”

  “You're the First Sword, Horace. Any mistake can be disastrous. However, I'm not as adept at court politics as Lord Mulcibar. You'll need to find your own way.”

  The mention of Mulcibar's name sobered Horace and doused his mood. He missed the old nobleman. Part of him still felt responsible for his death.

  Horace finished his wine and set the empty cup on the ledge of the pool as Queen Byleth entered the bath chamber with a small entourage. The queen strode to the hot pool where her handmaidens removed her clothing and jewelry. Lord Xantu, as ominous as ever in his black robe, stood nearby as the queen was washed. He had taken to growing out his hair, which now hung down to his collar.

  “Beautiful. Isn't she?” Alyra asked, gazing at the queen.

  Horace cleared his throat. “I, uh…sure. Yes, I suppose.”

  “She still hasn't selected a new bodyguard to replace Lord Gilgar?”

  “Not yet. She's been genuinely upset since…well, you know.”

  “I bet she has.”

  The vicious tone in her voice irritated him for no good reason. He had expected she would be happier to see him, but everything felt disjointed, as if they'd reverted back to being strangers again.

  Horace tensed as the queen was rinsed, the water sluicing down her body. Her eyes locked onto him from across the chamber, and he felt her terrible magnetism working on him. Keep your mind on Alyra, fool!

  “I've missed you,” he repeated.

  “You look like you haven't been getting enough sleep.”

  The way she tilted her head gave him hope that she was inviting him to speak more intimately, so he plunged ahead. “I worry about you when you're gone.”

  “I've told you before, Horace. You don't need to worry.”

  And just like that, the invitation vanished. Horace didn't know what to say next.

  Blanket-sized towels were brought to dry the queen. Then she departed the chamber without coming to the large pool, taking her retinue with her. Horace couldn't stop the sigh of relief from escaping his lips. Being in the presence of both Alyra and the queen was beyond uncomfortable. In fact, he'd prefer to continue this conversation somewhere more private. He turned to Alyra, but the slave girl interrupted before he could ask her.

  “Pardon me, Belum,” she said with a bowed head. “Her Majesty invites you to sup with her this evening. At the eighth bell, if it pleases you.”

  “Ah, of course,” he replied.

  The slave backed away, and Horace swallowed, wondering how Alyra would react. Yet nothing in her demeanor changed. If anything, she appeared amused by the situation. He decided to take a chance. “Can I see you tonight?”

  “I'll be in my chambers, if you can get away from the queen.”

  Before Horace could think of a witty reply, she left the pool. He watched her climb out, enjoying every curve and line of her body. He settled back into the water as she entered a dressing stall. His heart thumped loud in his chest, and his thoughts were scattered. There were problems that required his immediate attention, but they seemed insignificant all of a sudden. Alyra was back, but now he had to go prepare to meet the queen.

  He shivered as he left the warm water. A few of the nobles turned to watch him go, but he ignored them. A slave girl, a different one this time, approached to help him dress, but he waved her away.

  The landscape of his mind extended like a vast sheet of leaden glass, devoid of features or landmarks. Pale light filtered down from the hazy sky where the sun, a distant orb of deeper gray, pulsed with fierce energy. It was his qa, the gateway to his power.

  Horace focused on the endless plain. This was his hidden inner world, which he had constructed with Lord Ubar's help. Here he had solace from the pressures of the outside world, though they never left him completely alone. His zoana, for one, was something he couldn't escape, not even here. He felt it throbbing behind his qa, calling to him like a siren's lure. Early in his training he had often accessed it from this relaxed state of mind, but lately that had become problematic.

  He realized he was focused on the gateway to his power again and tried pulling his attention away, but the orb pulsed faster. A moment too late, he noticed it had opened. Just a crack, but that was enough. A rush of Shinar uncoiled across the ethereal sky of his hidden world in streaks of violet so deep they were almost black. Horace did nothing for a little while except observe the display. It was beautiful and terrifying at the same time. He reached out to the bands of energy. He didn't force it back through his qa, instead aiming to coax it. This was something he'd been working on. He'd been told the power would react to how it was handled. A harsh grip caused the zoana to gush like a bursting dam, but a softer approach yielded a more measured flow. So far, he hadn't been able to make it work, and this time wasn't any different. The zoana refused to return of its own accord, as if it was playing coy.

  Horace pushed back against the frustration building inside him, threatening to unravel his concentration. At this pace he would die of old age before he mastered his powers. Ubar was a dutiful instructor, but there was little he could tell Horace about the void. The Shinar dominion was a mystery to most sorcerers. Not even Lord Mulcibar had been able to deliver much insight about its workings. Horace had been hoping to find his own path through trial and error, but the way continued to elude him. The feeling that there was something wrong stayed with him, but he couldn't pinpoint what it was, and so it grew.

  After a time—he could never be sure of how long he had been inside this meditative retreat—Horace gave up on coaxing the flow of Shinar and went straight to the gateway. With a firm shove, he slammed it closed. The purple bands evaporated, leaving the sky a hazy gray once again. The uniform blankness calmed him once again, soothing away his qualms. His head buzzed with a pleasant euphoria. It was almost like floating. Absently, he noticed that the muscles in his physical body had begun to unkink themselves. And he allowed himself to drift along on these sensations, not pushing his thoughts in any one direction, content to simply exist in this tranquil moment.

  A face shimmered in his consciousness. Its soft edges surrounded in golden hair. Delicate eyebrows pinched together as her lips arched in a delicious frown. The blue of her eyes dazzling like a clear midsummer sky. Passing underneath this vision, Horace gazed up at the woman he loved. Or thought he loved. Things had become…complicated. With his first wife, Sari, he remembered they had just fallen in together like two old friends, as comfortable with each other as if they shared one mind. But it was different with Alyra. She tested and goaded him, challenging his every decision. Being with her was intoxicating, but also demanding.

  Points of bright light flickered on the edges of his awareness, disturbing his calm. Alyra's face shuddered like a leaf caught in a stiff wind and gently faded from view. Horace fixed his gaze on the disturbance. A bank of dark gray clouds billowed far out on the plain, moving toward his position. Every so often, light would twinkle inside the inky mass. Ghoulish green like the lightning from a chaos storm. His calm evaporated.

  The gray fog bordering his hidden world no longer felt soothing. Instead, it had taken on a disturbing aspect. He sensed hostility within the approaching darkness, although he couldn't say from what. He felt compelled to investigate, even though the part of him still connected to the conscious world wanted to break free. There was something about the phenomenon that drew him onward. He felt himself moving forward. Distant noises echoed. Faint crackles. They were almost familiar, but not quite. Then an invisible force took hold of him. He struggled against the unseen grasp, even a
s it pulled him deeper into the murky clouds. His mental vision vanished in the haze. Panicked, he reached for his physical body. The grasp gave another hard yank, and then the world exploded in a rush of gray and white.

  Horace blinked as the vision faded, to be slowly replaced by the contours of a familiar room. White plaster walls surrounded him. The ceiling was sapphire blue. The wooden floor was reassuringly solid beneath his crossed legs. He placed both hands on the floor, palms down, and took comfort in its solidity.

  Lord Mulcibar's ganzir mat laid spread out before him. As always when looking upon it, his gaze was drawn along the geometric shapes that seemed to move and pulse as if the mat were a living thing. He followed the pattern through each of the four elemental quadrants to the central circle, inside which sat the figure of a tiny man stitched in bright platinum thread. When he had first started meditating with the ganzir, the pattern had served to calm his mind as well as focus it. But lately that tranquility had become more and more elusive. Rather than moving forward, it felt like his study of the zoana was regressing, which only made him feel less confident, feeding a cycle of uncertainty and apprehension. Lord Ubar tried to help, but it seemed no one could diagnose this particular problem, which made it all the more infuriating.

  Each day he expected a revelation, a sudden epiphany that would make sense of this power dwelling inside him. Yet day after day, week upon week, he fought and struggled for the barest scraps, failing far more often than he succeeded.

  He'd learned that the power was often passed down from parent to child, which explained the structure of Akeshian society. However, nothing in the texts he'd read said anything about outlander magic. His parents, for certain, had possessed no special gifts of mysticism, or anyone else in his family. His entire life before the crusade had been mundane, with neither great sorrows nor extravagant bliss. Until he'd lost Sari and Josef. And since that day, nothing had been the same. Some part of him had driven him to the sea after their deaths to seek his own obliteration. Suicide hadn't been a conscious decision, but looking back he could see how he had been on a path to self-destruction.

  Then he'd wrecked on the shores of this new, ancient, bloodthirsty land, and everything had changed. Battered and floundering, he clung to the only lifeline within reach—his power—and prayed it would someday carry him to a safe haven. Each night he went to sleep exhausted and disappointed.

  He let out a deep breath and stood up, his joints aching as if he'd been sitting for hours. The image of the dark clouds lingered. It's gone now. Just a figment of my imagination.

  The words did nothing to ease his anxiety as he crossed the room. Large and beautifully decorated, with marble accents and fine hardwood furniture that reminded him of the great palaces of Avice, this borrowed suite was on the same floor as the queen's apartments. But in a different wing, for which he was especially grateful. It wasn't easy living in the royal presence for a ship-builder of modest birth.

  He left the parlor to enter the bedchamber. Horace took off his sleeping robe and tossed it on the bed as he went to one of the two large wardrobes. Selecting a lightweight tunic and skirt, he put them on with a pair of comfortable sandals. When he had finished lacing the footwear, he looked himself over in the tall cheval glass in the corner. The white silk tunic was embroidered with gold thread in interconnected squares along the high collar and down the neck. The same pattern was repeated down the side of the long skirt and around the bottom. The broad leather belt had rings to hold a scabbard, but he didn't have a weapon here. He'd decided to leave the blade of the First Sword at home. After all, this was supposed to be a vacation.

  His hair was getting long. He pulled it back in a queue like the young Akeshian men wore but then decided to let it hang free. No use pretending to be something I'm not. Not that anyone would let me forget I'm a foreign savage, even if I shaved it all off.

  He was heading back out to the parlor when the suite door opened and a young male slave entered. He bowed from the waist and said, “The queen is ready for your arrival.”

  He was the first to arrive.

  Twelve red leather couches surrounded the long dining table. Goblets of beaten gold and crystal were arrayed on the polished surface along with a variety of porcelain bowls and cups. At first glance Horace took the utensils to be gold, too. Then he looked closer at the pale hue and decided they must be an alloy, possibly electrum. A centerpiece of four candles surrounded by fresh lotuses completed the elegant tableau.

  Horace walked around the chamber. Tapestries imported from the West covered the walls from floor to ceiling. In them, men and women in classical garb were depicted at a grand feast, eating and drinking as they made merry. A sideboard had been set up with several sealed jars, presumably wine or spirits, as well as an array of cutlery knives and long forks.

  Another door opened, and two men walked in. By the cut and design of their robes, they both belonged to the zoanii class. Lord Temuni was older and exceedingly slim with a long, narrow chin to match his sharp nose, while Lord Oriathu was short and stout, his clothes straining to contain his round paunch. Both men were shaved bald in the custom of the ruling class. Horace resisted the urge to reach up and touch his hair.

  The zoanii looked to Horace in unison, and they both strolled to the opposite side of the table in a not-so-subtle gesture. Horace did his best to ignore them. He was already sweating under his tunic, despite the cool breeze blowing in through the open shutters.

  More guests arrived—eleven in all, including him. All nobility of various ranks, the cream of the royal court. Horace had seen most them several times at the palace, either at official events or in passing. He knew their names and even a little about the cliques into which they aligned themselves, mostly thanks to Mezim. They all watched him. Not openly—that was not the Akeshian way. Instead, they glanced at him with sideways looks and expansive sweeps that were meant to appear to take in the entire room, but he noticed their eyes lingered on him a little longer than the artwork or the place settings. They mingled and chatted, their voices light and full of mirth. At least, so it seemed on the surface. Already in his short time at court Horace had learned enough about Akeshian politics to understand a smidgen of the game they played. The lesser players circled their superiors, but not just those with which they were allied. No, they circled their foes as well in an intricate dance that somewhat resembled the movement of fish schools, flowing in and among each other, sometimes matching their movements before breaking apart for no outward reason. Meanwhile, the two largest “fish” in the room, Lord Temuni and Sarleskar Balashi, who was the acting commander of the queen's military since Prince Zazil's mysterious disappearance. An incident, by the way, which no one—in typical court fashion—ever talked about, as if there were an unspoken rule that members vanished every so often, and it was best not to discuss it. The whole thing made his head hurt.

  Fortunately, servants orbited the room with carafes of wine and liquor. Horace gulped down the first cup of red wine and sipped at the second, feeling somewhat better.

  A door opened at the far end of the room. Lord Xantu came in, wearing his customary robe of deep black, head freshly shaved. Four handmaidens entered behind him, all of them wearing identical purple gowns cut to expose their left breasts. Each bare nipple was painted gold. The handmaidens formed an aisle from the door, through which arrived Byleth. Never one to allow herself to be outshone, the queen wore a sheath gown of indigo silk so sheer it was virtually transparent. A heavy necklace of gold and sapphires did nothing to distract from her sensuality as she sauntered to the table.

  “My lords and ladies,” Byleth said, holding up her arm as if inviting an embrace. “Please, be welcome.” She looked to him and held out her hand. “Lord Horace, come take your place beside me.”

  He took the couch beside her. The upholstery was so supple that lying on it was a sensual experience. Byleth had told him she designed these couches especially for him, presumably to make him feel more at home. She had bee
n so excited to show him that he hadn't had the heart to tell her they were an affection of the elite class of the fallen Nimean Empire, not something modern Arnossi used in their homes. Although their padded tops were comfortable to lie on, the odd position made it difficult to eat or drink without making a mess or choking.

  Byleth smiled as her guests got settled. “My cooks have been busy with a special surprise for tonight.”

  “That's very kind, Your Excellence,” Horace said. “I have the latest reports from Erugash. There aren't any new developments on the Chapter House attack, but I've ordered a complete inquiry.”

  Byleth placed a hand on his arm. “I've seen the reports, Horace. Please, be at ease tonight. Our duties can wait until tomorrow, yes?”

  She clapped her hands once, and a dozen servants in fine dress entered carrying covered silver platters. These platters were set down on the table and the covers removed all at once to reveal an exotic selection of foods. Horace leaned forward for a better look. One dish was lined with rows of quail, stuffed and roasted in a glaze. Another was piled with slabs of grilled meat that looked like Arnossi beef, but he found it hard to believe. There were also two soup bowls, fresh bread slathered in melted butter and honey, and other wonderful foods. The smells were divine. Before Horace said anything, the servants began loading his plate with choice selections from each platter.

  “I hope you like it,” Byleth said as she accepted a filled wine glass from a handmaiden. “I went to great lengths to obtain the finest delicacies of your homeland.”

  “This is…extraordinary.”

  He smiled and made a show of trying everything, even the tortoise eggs, which he really didn't care for. The other guests ate more selectively. As they picked at the unfamiliar food, it reminded Horace of when he had first arrived in this country and how alien everything had seemed.

  The queen raised her glass. “To our continued friendship. May it ever grow closer.”

  Everyone drank to the toast. Horace hesitated a moment before he sipped from his cup. While his closeness with Alyra had entered a strange, uncertain place since the Tammuris, his relationship with the queen had flourished. Not too hard to guess why. I saved her life, twice, and brought down her enemies.