After breakfast

I had another shock just now, and I’m still working out what to do about it.

Terrael was not at breakfast. Audryn and Sovrin were at our usual spot when I arrived. Audryn looked radiantly happy. I hoped I didn’t. I hadn’t decided if I should tell them what had passed between me and Cederic. Sovrin I could trust not to give me away, but Audryn has a very expressive face, and while she would carry my secret to her grave as far as telling anyone went, I wasn’t sure she could keep her face under control.

So I decided first to tackle Audryn, who at least knew that I knew something had happened. “Well?” I said.

Audryn grinned and hugged me. “Thank you for interfering in our business,” she said. “I can’t believe neither of us knew what the other was feeling. Who knows how long that might have gone on?”

“And they spent the night together. The whole night,” Sovrin said with a meaningful smirk.

“I don’t know what that means in your culture,” I said, trying not to blush.

“It means they’re married,” Sovrin said, and Audryn blushed harder than I was trying not to. “Married, but without the public vowing, of course.”

“Married,” I said.

“It’s symbolic of the commitment you make to each other,” Audryn said. “Because you’re most vulnerable when you’re sleeping, and sharing a bed with someone means you trust that person with your safety, physical and spiritual.”

“I see,” I said.

“And every day is a new beginning,” Sovrin said, “so waking together is like a promise to meet the future as one.”

“That’s…beautiful,” I said. “So what are the public vows for, if you’re already married?”

“That’s the legal commitment,” Audryn said. “You speak them in front of a priest during a special ceremony and they grant certain legal and social rights. Who knows if that will even be possible for us any time soon, what with everything that’s happening! But we didn’t think we should wait, given how uncertain the future is. Like you said, Sesskia, we don’t want to waste any more time.”

“That makes sense,” I said, but my voice sounded distant to me, because I felt as if I might fall over if someone breathed on me the wrong way. He sees us as married. He’s pledged himself to me, as we’d say in Balaen.

And the shock isn’t that he took that step without explaining it to me first, which bothers me a little—the shock is that it doesn’t bother me more. That the idea of being married to Cederic, even so soon, fills me with joy. Maybe it’s like Audryn said, that we don’t know how much time we have, but I want nothing more than to be with him for the rest of my life, even if that’s only a few more weeks. I am his foundation, and he is mine.

I don’t have more time before I have to be in the circle chamber, or I would write about re-reading my early entries in the other book and laughing over how much Cederic annoyed me. I’m nervous on his behalf right now, wondering how he’s going to behave to Vorantor, how he’s going to reclaim his reputation. But Cederic is the greatest mage living—I don’t think it’s just my love for him saying that—and he won’t let Vorantor’s pride and jealousy stop him from saving as much of this world as he can. He might even manage to save some of mine as well.

1 Coloine (continued)

When he was calmer, he said, without releasing me, “Tell me you love me.” It sounded more like a plea than an order, which made my heart ache for him again.

“I love you,” I said. “And not because you told me to say it. I love you.”

“Tell me I am not useless and a failure.”

“You could never be useless, and you are not a failure.”

“Tell me I still have something to offer this world.”

“Vorantor’s an ass. You may have to save the world over his objections.”

He actually laughed. I had never heard him laugh before. I don’t know if anyone ever has. “Denril hates me,” he said. “I wanted to believe otherwise, but the summoning kathana nearly failed because he tried to take too great a role, thinking it would make him look important in the God-Empress’s eyes, hoping it would lessen me. I had to fight him to keep it under control. And then I made him look like a fool, inventing that shield kathana as easily as breathing, something he knows he could never do.”

“Inventing a kathana on the fly, or breathing?” I said. “Because I know he used to be your friend, but I personally would be just as happy if he forgot how to breathe.”

He laughed again. He’s laughed a lot since that moment, enough that I’ll have to stop emphasizing it. His laugh is deep, and unconstrained, and maybe that’s how he releases emotion and he’d forgotten how, under the stress of the last two years. I love his laugh. I love everything about him. And he loves me.

He loosened his grip enough that we could look at each other. “I cannot wish Denril dead, though I do wish I did not have to walk back into that chamber today and submit to his patronizing scorn,” he said. “I have been too proud, Sesskia, and now I will have to pay for it.”

“You still understand magic better than he does,” I said, “and everyone knows it, and this will pass, and you’ll make Vorantor’s kathana work better than he ever could. And we’ll save the world.”

“Part of it, anyway,” he said, and the bitterness was back in his voice, and I couldn’t think what to say to make it go away. So I took his face in my hands and I kissed him.

I’d never kissed a man before, just my sisters, and my Dad when he was alive, and Cederic’s lips were warm and shaped themselves to mine, and it was the most wonderful feeling I’d ever had. We kissed some more, long, slow kisses that made me forget that I didn’t know what I was doing. Then they were harder, more urgent, and then we were trying to take each other’s clothes off without breaking that delicious, heart-pounding contact, and that’s a lot more difficult than I would have imagined, supposing I’d ever imagined anything like it.

Finally, Cederic removed my breast band, and we stood before each other naked, and I had a moment of intense, self-conscious embarrassment, because my breasts are too small and my hips are too wide, and in general I’ve never been happy with the way my body looks. Then I saw how he looked at me, saw myself through his eyes, and I felt like the most beautiful woman in the world, because to him, I was. And his was the only opinion I cared about.

So, naturally, that’s the moment I chose to blurt out, “I’ve never done this before.”

Both his eyebrows climbed nearly to his hairline. “Never?” he said.

I know there’s nothing wrong with being a twenty-seven-year-old virgin, and really, when have I ever had the chance to develop that degree of closeness with someone, but I felt like running away from his astonished gaze. “No,” I said.

He slid his fingers through my hair to cup the back of my head and kissed me, gently. “Are you ashamed of that?” he said.

“Afraid I’ll be awkward and terrible,” I said.

He smiled, a real, tender smile, and kissed me again, and said, “You could never be awkward and terrible, and I promise to show you the truth of that.”

I won’t write the rest. I could never do it justice, and really, I don’t think I’ll need this book’s help in remembering. It’s enough to say that Cederic was right, and if I thought kissing was wonderful, making love with him was so far beyond that I have no words for it. I cried a little at the end, which worried him, and I had trouble explaining how overwhelmed and happy I was, and how this was the only way I knew to express that emotion. So he kissed those tears away, and then he began kissing the rest of me, and we did it all over again, and it was even better the second time.

Afterward, I lay in the curve of his arm and played with the little dark hairs on his chest. There didn’t seem to be anything to say, and I felt cocooned in the safe space that was our bed, as if there were no oncoming disaster and no Vorantor and no mad God-Empress and no—

“I wonder what Aselfos has planned,” I said.

Cederic craned his head to look down at me. “I would ask where that came from,” he said, “but I have learned that it is better for me not to know the paths your mind takes at times.”

“It was a tortuous road,” I said. “It’s only that I don’t like not knowing what’s coming. And I don’t know how to find out more.”

He held me more tightly. “Your safety has been uppermost in my thoughts since we arrived here,” he said. “The God-Empress’s interest in you is dangerous, and your nighttime wanderings put you at risk of drawing her wrath, should she learn where you have been and what you have seen.”

“I’m at risk every time she summons me,” I said. “And it also bothers me to know that Vorantor has a secret plan that we don’t know about. I think I should investigate it.”

He sighed. “Is there any point to me forbidding it?” he said.

“None. And don’t think you can get away with threatening to withhold sexual favors, because I know you won’t be able to stick to that threat,” I said, poking him in the stomach.

He captured my hand and brought it to his lips. “I would never dream of doing that,” he said, “when I could entice you to do what I want by promising sexual favors instead.” So that was the end of that conversation.

Later, when I lay atop him trying to remember how to breathe properly, he wrapped his arms around me and said, “I had no idea, when I woke this morning, that this is how my day would end, humiliated by my former friend and then lying with you in your bed. It seems unreal, except that you are so wonderfully tangible.”

“As are you,” I said, and I rolled over to nestle against him once more. He turned out the light, and we lay like that for a while, not speaking, and I was drifting off to sleep when he said, “I dream about you, you know. About this. I have dreamed of you so many times. You have been my foundation, even though you did not know it. My foundation, and my surety in the dark times.”

It sent a chill through me, not of fear but of joy, that I might mean so much to anyone when I have been alone and disregarded for so long. And because he had opened himself to me, I wanted to do the same for him. So I told him what I swore I would never tell anyone, though as I write this it occurs to me that this was inevitable, because from the beginning, even when I hated him, I have always told Cederic Aleynten everything.

I told him about the man at the fishery who never stopped watching me.

About the day he forced me into an alley in the warren behind the docks and knocked me to the ground, and tore my trousers and my undershorts down while he choked me with his other hand.

How he forced my legs apart, and I flailed at him and tried to scream, not that anyone would have come to my rescue.

How knowing that sparked something deep inside me, and I worked my first pouvra without knowing what I was doing and he burned from the inside out, burned to ash that filled my mouth and splintered bone that rattled down around me.

I was sixteen, and I had killed a man in a way that could mean my death if anyone knew about it. And even with the horror and the disgust at myself and the terror at what he had almost done, I knew I could not stop learning magic, because it was all I had in the world.

I told him all of this, and he held me and listened in the intent way he does, and said nothing for several seconds after I finished. Finally, he said, “If that is what it takes to make a mage in your world, I am surprised that there are any of you.”

“There have to be others,” I said, “and I doubt most of them have been nearly raped. But there are other terrors that can make you fight for your life, or for your identity.”

“True,” he said, and held me closer. “My instinct is to protect you from all harm,” he said. “But that instinct is wrong. You would not be who you are if you were not willing to risk yourself. Even so—allow me a little fear on your behalf, please.”

“It makes me feel loved, that you want to protect me, and even more loved that you know you can’t,” I said.

We lay together, not speaking, until I finally did fall asleep. When I woke about two hours ago, he was gone.

I’m ashamed to admit that my first reaction was fear, followed closely by embarrassment that I’d misunderstood, that he’d only said those things because they were what I wanted to hear, that he didn’t love me. I have no idea why I was so insecure. It was completely ridiculous.

I hadn’t quite convinced myself to stop being stupid when he knocked, and entered without an invitation. “I’m sorry,” he said, “but it isn’t safe for me to be seen loitering outside your door.” Then he looked at my face, and smiled at me with wry amusement. “You thought I’d left,” he said.

“Because you left,” I said.

He came to take my hand and squeeze it. “No one can know what we are to each other,” he said. “If the God-Empress discovers it, she will use one of us to threaten or manipulate the other. So I could not be seen coming out of your room this morning. I shouldn’t even be here now, but after you fell asleep, I went back to my room and lay awake in my cold bed cursing the God-Empress for keeping me from you, when you should have woken to find me next to you. And I had to risk coming now, so you would not misunderstand me. I would have stayed, if not for that danger, you understand?”

He sounded so urgent that I nodded, even though I didn’t understand why it was so important to him. He kissed me, then left as soundlessly as he’d arrived. So I’ve been writing for two hours, and it’s time for breakfast now, and I’m trying to work out a way to ask Audryn if there’s some significance to waking up with someone I should know about. But mostly, I still feel like I’m flying.

1 Coloine

It’s amazing the difference a new day makes. A new month, a new day, new beginnings all around. I feel as if I could leap from the observatory and fly to skim the ground below.

After I finished my last record, I dismissed the see-in-dark pouvra and lay there in my pile of furs worth more, probably, than the Darssan and every mage in it, at least according to the twisted mathematics of the God-Empress’s mind. I let my eyes go unfocused and my thoughts wander to more pleasant things, like how far Audryn and Terrael’s conversation had gotten, and had they moved on to more physical activities yet—I still don’t know the answer to that, because I haven’t even had breakfast yet, but I feel too invigorated to sleep any longer.

At some point I realized I’d dozed off, and decided I should probably return to my bed. A pile of furs is nice to sleep on in theory, but in practice it shifts too much to be comfortable, and there are very few furs it’s actually nice to rub your face against.

I went through the wall into the spiraling passage running around the tower, and decided to use Aselfos’s route to leave it. I was feeling reckless, and there was still a part of me that felt hurt and humiliated and wanted to feel powerful again, and I’ve found that dangling off the face of a high wall with gravity trying to wrap its fingers around me gives me a feeling of power that’s like nothing else in the world.

I was halfway up the wall before it occurred to me that Cederic might still be in the observatory, even though it was full night, probably just after midnight. I clung there for a minute, wavering between continuing and going back, and decided I wasn’t going to be deterred by the possibility that he might have more cruel words to hurl at me. But the observatory was empty.

I sat on a window ledge and looked out at Colosse in the darkness and thought about what it might look like when the disaster comes, whether Vorantor would be able to save anyone. My thoughts were still bleak at that point, but I wasn’t feeling nearly so much in despair as I had an hour earlier.

The wide passage was clear, with moonlight making the diamond pattern on the floor faint and blue-gray, and I amused myself by tiptoeing through the lighter patches until I reached my room, where I stopped, because there was light coming from under my door, and I hadn’t left anything burning, flame or th’an.

I used the see-through pouvra and discovered that Cederic was standing by my window, directly in the pouvra’s line of sight. It irritated me that he knew exactly where to stand, as if he knew I’d use that pouvra, as if he were approaching me with his empty hands spread wide to show he wasn’t a threat.

I thought about returning to the fur room for the night, but I was fairly certain that would only delay whatever it was Cederic had in mind. So I went in and closed the door behind me. “What are you doing here?” I said.

“Wondering if there is any point to asking your forgiveness,” he said. The drapes were drawn, but he was standing at the window as if he could still see outside, with his hands clasped loosely behind his back.

“You think you deserve forgiveness?” I said. Once I was speaking to him, I no longer felt grief and embarrassment, I felt anger. I’d reached out to him in love and he’d struck at me. If he hadn’t meant what he’d said, he had certainly known the exact words that would hurt me most, and how could he have done that if he truly was my friend?

“I think we need forgiveness most when we do not deserve it,” he said. “I said things I deeply regret and I am—I cannot express how sorry I am.”

He didn’t sound sorry. He sounded dispassionate, the way he always sounded, and it made me want to strike him in some way, physically, verbally, anything that would break through that composure and make him feel pain the way I had.

“Sorry because you hate making mistakes?” I said. “Or sorry that you haven’t had a chance to correct this one?” He bowed his head, but said nothing. “I don’t know why you care about my forgiveness,” I went on, “since nothing I say means anything to—”

“Sesskia, no,” he said, turning around. He looked anguished, he who never showed anything of his emotions on his face, and it startled me so much I lost track of what I intended to say.

“You mean everything to me,” he said, “and I beg you to forgive my hasty words, because I cannot forgive myself for saying them.”

There was so much pain in his voice that I forgot I was angry with him. I forgot the pain he’d inflicted on me. I just crossed the room to put my arms around him and hold him, resting my head on his shoulder, and felt him embrace me, first tentatively, then with a fierce grip as if he intended never to let me go.

His whole body was trembling with the effort to control whatever emotion threatened to overwhelm him, and out of nowhere I said, “I won’t let you fall,” and this time I knew the right thing to say. I held him as he shuddered, knowing he would never let himself cry. I don’t know why he can’t, or won’t, or what happened to make him the kind of man he is, but I wept for him, my heart aching with sorrow even as it was filled to bursting with joy because he loved me, because he trusted me enough to let me see him in his weakness and despair.

I held him, and waited for the storm to pass, and every shred of bitterness I’d felt toward him vanished. It was impossible for me to hate him when he needed so badly for me to love him instead.

to be continued…

30 Lennitay (continued)

Cederic was there, standing where Vorantor had the first night I’d seen the room, looking over the edge at what lay far below. I had another moment of fear, but pushed it aside and walked toward him. He always knows it’s me, though I don’t know how. This time he probably heard me shouting. He said, “There are stones in a strange pattern here.”

“It’s a way into the God-Empress’s treasure tower,” I said.

“I suppose I should expect you to know these things,” he said, not turning around. I didn’t like the sound of his voice. It was empty, and bitter, and sounded nothing like him.

“I’m a thief,” I said, trying to make a joke, but it hung in the air between us and then fell to the ground, disregarded.

He didn’t say anything. I swear I thought all I wanted was to help him. To show him that no one who mattered thought less of him for having been wrong. I cast about for something that would adequately express that feeling, and came up with, “Terrael feels terrible for having been the one to reveal that.”

“Master Peressten is an honest man. He would not have concealed it, even for me,” Cederic said.

More silence. I felt as if everything I wanted to say was running up against the brick wall that was Cederic’s humiliation. “What will you do now?” I said.

“You mean, now that it is clear to everyone that I am a fool, and that I have wasted two years of my time and that of Castavir’s finest minds?” he said.

“You’re not a fool,” I said. “Don’t say that.”

“The evidence was clear enough for Denril and the other Sais to see the truth,” Cederic said. “I let my pride in my rank convince me that I could find success where they could not. That makes me a fool. An arrogant, selfish fool.”

“Don’t say that,” I said. “You are better than they are, and you made a mistake—”

“What do you know of it?” he shouted, turning on me so quickly I took a step back in surprise. “You, another of my many mistakes, snatched out of your world because of my carelessness! You simply cannot leave things alone, can you? I did not ask you to follow me. I did not ask for your patronizing sympathy, your cautious tiptoeing around the truth, and I cannot understand why you believe anything you have to say means anything to me!”

I remember every word of it. His face, no longer expressionless, his voice, raging at me, I remember it all. It hurt so badly that for one confused moment I thought he’d stabbed me, and I put my hand up to my chest and felt nothing but cloth. The fury faded from Cederic’s face. “Sesskia,” he said, “I didn’t…”

I turned and ran for the door. He shouted my name, and I heard him coming after me, but I was already leaping down the steps and plunging through the floor as into the ocean’s depths, into blackness, from one open space to another, anything to get away from him.

I ran through long galleries where the servants flung themselves out of my way—I have no idea what they thought, I probably looked like a madwoman—and through rows of tiny, sealed-off cubicles; across the floor of the mosaic chamber, where I lost one of my shoes; then into one of the God-Empress’s kitchens, where I kicked off the other to be a mystery for one of the servants to find.

I wasn’t thinking at all, just running, and passing through walls, and at some point I became lightheaded from all the insubstantiality, and I stopped, and I was here in the fur room. I tore all the furs off the walls and the counters and piled them in a corner, and I flung myself down on them, and I cried as I haven’t for years.

Because I didn’t know I loved him until he told me how worthless he thinks I am.

I swear it’s true. How stupid does that make me? How incredibly stupid was I not to realize that my longing to ease his pain had nothing to do with friendship? I realize, now, that I’ve loved him for a long time. Of course I go to him for every little thing, because I feel better when I’m with him, happier and more comfortable than when I’m alone.

I trust him more than anyone, even more than Audryn and Sovrin—I don’t know why that is, because in most ways I’m closer to them than I am to Cederic. It’s just—I think it’s because he makes such an effort to be…not truthful, exactly, but he never says anything without being certain that he’s not misleading you, because truth and honesty and accuracy matter so much to him, and that goes so far beyond truth and lies that it’s like a bedrock foundation I know I can always count on.

I love it when I can make him smile or joke, and I thought that was because it’s a challenge, like it was a game I was playing, but the truth is that even though his smile is tiny and thin, his eyes get this amused gleam to them that warms my heart. And I love the way his lips quirk just a little bit when he’s intent on a problem; I’m pretty sure he doesn’t know he does that, and the thought of it makes my heart ache more because it reminds me of how confident and powerful he is, or was before that bastard Vorantor took such joy in tearing him down.

Did I write once that his face was smooth and arrogant? I don’t know why I ever thought that, why I never realized how handsome he is, with those crooked eyebrows and high, strong cheekbones and those eyes I have trouble looking away from.

I love him, and he despises me. He’s right, I don’t belong here, and if I had something to offer him, I wouldn’t have fumbled around like that in the observatory, I would have known exactly the right thing to say. And I didn’t.

This isn’t the worst day of my life. Not even close. The day I came back with the medicine for Bridie, and she was lying sprawled on the bed, dried foam at the corners of her lips from her final seizure, with Mam passed out in a gin-soaked stupor in the corner so Bridie hadn’t even had someone who loved her to hold her when she died, and I picked up her little body and carried it into the street to find someone who would help me bury her—nothing’s ever going to be worse than that day.

So I don’t know why this hurts so much more. Probably because I’m a fool, and I need to stop lying here mopping tears out of my eyes. The world is still ending. There might still be something I can do to—not stop it, obviously, but make it less terrible. Even if that means working with Vorantor. Even if it means giving the God-Empress the chance to expand her empire.

It’s been about fifteen minutes since I wrote that last sentence, and I feel calmer now. I can think about this more rationally. Cederic was hurt, and angry, and I probably looked like an easy target, fumbling around and hurting him more with my awkward words. So I doubt he meant any of what he said. But how much worse is that, that he knew exactly what to say that would hurt me and didn’t even try to hold it back?

Remembering makes me feel small and worthless again, because I’m just as bad as the Darssan mages, I want him to respect me and think I matter. I want him to love me. And I think this all proves he doesn’t.

I’m going to wait here until I’m sure my face looks normal again, then I’m going back to my room, I’m going to sleep, and in the morning I’m going to go to Vorantor and ask him what he wants from me. And I’m never speaking to Cederic again.

30 Lennitay (continued)

Cederic was completely motionless. He didn’t even blink. “I see,” he said.

Vorantor said, “Oh, Cederic. You still held out hope, didn’t you? Are you convinced now?”

“No way to prevent it,” Cederic said, his lips barely moving. “You were right.”

Vorantor put his hand on Cederic’s unmoving shoulder. “Don’t worry about it,” he said, a little too cheerfully. “No harm done, in the long run, and there’s no shame in being wrong, is there?”

“Of course not,” Cederic said.

“Pity all that work was wasted,” Vorantor said. “More than two years, wasn’t it? Still, there’s time—”

“I think I should begin…evaluating a new approach,” Cederic said. He sounded so distant that I wanted to cry for him.

“You should do that,” Vorantor said, clapping him on the back again. “I’ll have some suggestions for you later, how does that sound?”

“Very good,” Cederic said, and left the room, his face completely expressionless, his head held high. Vorantor’s mages were whispering to one another and I saw one of them smirk at a comment his friend made. Somebody laughed. The Darssan mages stood frozen in place. Audryn was crying. I put my arm around her shoulders and hugged her, though I wasn’t sure why I wasn’t crying myself—probably because I was so furious with Vorantor I wanted to hurt him more than I wanted to weep.

Terrael stood in the center of the room, book held loosely in his hand, head bowed. I steered Audryn toward him, took the book from his hand, and walked over to slap it hard against Vorantor’s chest. He reached up automatically to take it, but I whisked it out of his reach and put it into my pocket.

“Master Peressten is exhausted from his labors,” I said, “and he’s going to rest. Master Engilles will do the same. I’m going to take them to their rooms now. That’s all right, isn’t it.” I stared him down, willing him to see my readiness to hurt him in my eyes, and he flinched and did a poor job of hiding it. He muttered something about “overwrought, time for everyone to rest” and I took Audryn and Terrael by the hands and dragged them out of the circle chamber and through the palace to the Darssan mages’ wing.

Once there, I opened Audryn’s door and dragged them both inside with me. I’d made a decision along the way that violated one of my principles, but I was tired and heartsick and it was a principle that didn’t matter much anymore.

“Sit,” I said, shoving them both gently at Audryn’s bed. “Audryn, Terrael is hopelessly in love with you,” I said, causing Terrael to go red and Audryn to gasp. “He goes out of his way to be near you because he doesn’t know how to tell you how he feels, because you’re older and never become clumsy or awkward or any of the things he’s sure he’s doing anytime you’re near.

“Terrael, Audryn is completely in love with you.” It was Terrael’s turn to gasp. “And she’s afraid to tell you because you’re her superior, sort of, and she’s in awe of how brilliant you are and thinks you think she’s not smart enough for you. And I was going to let this go on until you were both brave enough to tell each other the truth, but it sounds as if the world’s ending and I think neither of you should waste any more time. And now I’m leaving.”

I took the Codex out of my pocket and tossed it at Terrael, who caught it, his eyes still wide. Then I turned and walked out the door, and shut it before I could hear more than Terrael saying, “Audryn—”

I ran the rest of the way up the stairs to the Sais’ wing. I can’t believe I didn’t see any of this coming. My later self is probably reading this and laughing herself sick at how stupid I was. All I wanted was to help. That’s what I thought, anyway. That helping Cederic was all that motivated me.

I stopped at the top of the steps and waited for my breathing to slow, then I walked the rest of the way to Cederic’s room and knocked. There was no answer. I remembered that a Castaviran wouldn’t expect someone to wait for an invitation, so I pushed on the door and found it locked. So I pounded on the door and shouted his name, and when that didn’t work, I unlocked the door and went in. The room was empty.

That made me afraid, though I’m not sure why. I think there was a part of me that wondered if Cederic might not do something stupid, if losing his life’s work and being humiliated by his “old friend” might not push him past breaking. But I couldn’t quite believe it of him. Mostly I worried that it was a large palace, and I didn’t know where to begin looking for him. And then I did. I left his room and went all the way down the hall and up the steps to the observatory.

to be continued…

30 Lennitay

I feel like such a fool. “I hope there’s some way I can help.” How pathetic.

I’ve made a nest for myself in these furs, and I’ve cried all the tears that are in me, and now I’m going to write all of this down, though I don’t know what the point is. Maybe it’s so I can look back later and remind myself not to be a fool again. I don’t even care if the God-Empress learns that someone’s been in her treasure rooms. Not that she’d know it was me. Aselfos can’t be that good, or he’d have caught me already.

We found out what was wrong with Terrael. And the secret of the Codex Tiurindi. But I’m going to write it all down as it happened, leaving nothing out, and these are the sort of conversations I wish I could forget. What Terrael said—I know I’m going to make mistakes, and there are gaps, and I’ve made it seem that my memory is perfect and I know that’s not honest, and right now I don’t give a damn about honest because when everything is falling apart, fiction is more comforting than fact. But I’m doing my best.

I spent the morning practicing pouvrin until I had a bit of a headache, then I took over a scrap of wall and began doodling, nothing real, just experimenting to see if I could reproduce the shapes of pouvrin. It wasn’t successful, but it gave me some ideas for other things I might try. I have no idea what the point would be, now, and I can’t believe how hopeful I was at the time. I’m such a fool.

All the mages were there except Audryn and Terrael, and I think everyone was doing variations on what I was doing—sketching kathana plans, or practicing th’an. Cederic and Vorantor were at the circle, talking quietly about something on the board Cederic held. I remember thinking how friendly they looked, and how that showed how impossible it was to tell anything just by looking.

I wish—remembering them standing together, I wish I could have warned Cederic somehow…but what would I say? I’ve already shown what a failure I am at saying the right thing—damn it, now I’m crying again. Enough. This is me writing it down, no more self-pity.

So. Audryn and Terrael finally arrived. Terrael still looked awful, but now Audryn did too. I started to approach them, but Terrael said something to Audryn, who shook her head and clutched at his sleeve to make him stop. He pulled away from her and went straight to where Cederic and Vorantor were, and said something to Cederic in a low voice.

Vorantor said, “I see no reason why you can’t tell all of us what you’ve learned, Master Peressten. Unless you think no one but the Kilios deserves to know.”

Terrael looked devastated. Cederic said, “Go ahead, Master Peressten, Sai Vorantor is correct.”

Audryn seemed ready to begin crying, and I went quickly to her, but when I asked what was wrong, she shook her head again and covered her mouth with her sleeve. Terrael’s shoulders slumped, and he took the Codex out of his trouser pocket and opened it.

“I’ve translated enough to know that it has the information we—the information about the coming disaster,” he said, loudly enough that everyone could hear him. “It has most of the kathana the mages used when they created the first disaster. We can use it to…to…” He stopped, swallowed, and turned back a few pages.

“Veris wasn’t a mage. She was responsible for chronicling the acts of the mages, back then, which means the Codex isn’t as useful as a record by an actual mage would be in terms of giving us a complete kathana we could use. But because she’s an outsider, she sees their magic—what existed before the disaster—the way we might, and in that sense the book is more useful—”

“Please skip to the important part, Master Peressten,” Vorantor said in that indulgent way he has when he’s talking to the Darssan mages, like they’re clever children, though some of them are older than he is.

“This is important!” Terrael shouted, startling everyone; he looks so harmless, so innocent, and it breaks my heart to think of how much all this hurt him. “Veris, and then Barklan, didn’t understand much of what they described about magic. What they describe was something of a combination of our magic and Sesskia’s—th’an expressed not through writing, but through the power of will. That’s a part I don’t understand yet.

“But the experiment that went wrong was intended to make magic more accessible, make it easier to learn and to use. They wanted to remove some of the…the inherent requirements of the magic. Barklan talks about it as if the magic were alive and could make demands, and that may or may not be true, but it’s what those mages were counting on.”

“So they tried to remove the magic, and separated their world instead,” Cederic said.

“Maybe,” said Terrael. “There wasn’t anyone left to record what actually happened, and the Codex was destroyed in the disaster, so the last record is simply a note that they were ready to try the kathana, though they call it something else. It’s the…the earlier records, the experiments, that tell what must have gone wrong.”

He turned more pages. “They practiced—I don’t know how they isolated magic, but they did, and they practiced removing the parts they didn’t want. And it worked, for short periods of time. They would…they would separate the magic into identical pieces, exactly the same except that one had the magic they wanted and the other didn’t. Just like how we summoned the Codex. But they could only keep them separated for seconds before they drew back together. Irresistible attraction. Because the magic calls to itself.”

“I fail to see the point, Master Peressten,” Vorantor said, exactly as if Terrael hadn’t snapped at him before.

“I’m coming to it,” Terrael said, though he sounded as if the words were being dragged out of him. “So with the final kathana, the one that caused the disaster, the plan was to suppress the magic long enough to take out what they wanted and recreate it in their image. Because if there was no magic, the pieces stayed separated. And if there was magic, nothing…nothing could keep the pieces from recombining.”

By this time he was talking directly to Cederic, as if no one else were in the room, and I could tell Cederic was as mystified as the rest of us, but he nodded encouragement. That probably made Terrael feel worse.

“The rest is somewhat conjecture, but I swear to you, Sai Aleynten, I’ve gone over this a hundred times and I know it’s true,” Terrael said. “The kathana was too powerful, and it tore the world in half, two almost identical pieces with key differences and all the magic gone, or at least spread so thin it couldn’t be used for anything. And they stayed apart for hundreds of years while the magic gathered itself and people learned to use it again, until there was enough of it to reverse the process.

“Every th’an, every kathana, even Sesskia’s pouvrin bring the worlds closer together. And there’s no way to stop it. They aren’t meant to be apart. Sai Aleynten, I’m sorry, but there’s no way to keep them apart. It’s impossible.”

to be continued…

29 Lennitay

Something is wrong with Terrael. I think. I mean, it’s probably normal that he’s avoiding people while he’s working on the Codex, but avoid Audryn? I doubt even Terrael could be that obsessed. And I’ve seen him go out of his way to keep from meeting Cederic in the hall. He acts…furtive. As if he has some secret he’s afraid he might give away if he steps wrong. Audryn couldn’t find him at lunchtime, so she had me and the Darssan mages look for him, and I found him in the circle chamber, scribbling on the walls.

But he wasn’t writing th’an, it looked like ordinary handwriting, not that I can read that. When he saw me, he turned absolutely white, then scrubbed off the wall as fast as he could and said it was just a theory he was trying on some I don’t know what, it was technical linguistic things and I didn’t understand him. Which, I think, was the idea. He wanted me distracted. If he’s so upset about something that he doesn’t remember I can’t read his language…something is definitely wrong with Terrael.

I told Cederic about what I learned last night, and he was furious at me, not that anyone but me could tell. When he calmed down, he said, “I think you are correct that Aselfos is planning some kind of power play. What Denril has to do with it…I dislike guessing, but it sounds as if he intends to turn his magical abilities to Aselfos’s benefit, though I cannot imagine what kind of interference they think I might represent. From what you overheard, Aselfos intends to take the God-Empress’s place, and it would legitimize him if the chief priest-mage asserted that his claim is more valid than hers.”

“So what should we do?” I said.

“Nothing,” Cederic said. “We know too little to do anything but meddle, and I don’t know how that might upset the balance of power. The upcoming disaster is far more important than anything Aselfos might have in mind, though what you overheard suggests that their timing might be related to it. And if he does intend to eliminate the mages along with the God-Empress, I think he will find that we are not so easy to kill. Now, is there any chance I can persuade you to leave this alone?”

“No,” I said. “But I promise to be more careful. Does that help?”

“Not as much as you hope,” he said, but he was smiling, and I think he’s growing accustomed to the fact that this is what I am.

Terrael will finish the translation soon, and then Cederic will have to deal with Vorantor somehow. I don’t know what part I might play in his strategy. I hope there’s some way I can help.

28 Lennitay

I’ve finally encountered Aselfos, though “encounter” is probably the wrong word, because it implies we met face to face, and I’m just as happy he doesn’t know I exist. Though that might not be true, depending on what he noticed last night.

I decided I was going to make more of an effort to figure out where Aselfos went, that night I saw him talking to Vorantor. He’d gone down the secret staircase into the treasure tower, and I already know that the treasure rooms only lead to one another and to the spiral passage inside the tower, and that the room with the war wagons has no visible exit other than the guarded one. He might have left the tower by the corridor I’d originally entered by, but there were also the brass double doors on the outside wall of the tower I’d never investigated, so I decided to try my luck with that.

I waited for Vorantor to finish his meditation, or whatever it is he does in the observatory after dinner, then I used the secret staircase to get into the treasure tower. I probably could have taken my original route, but Aselfos’s way is more fun.

Once inside, I trotted down the spiral passage to the double door, looked through it to be safe, then pushed it open (it was unlocked) and went inside. As I wrote before, it opened on a corridor about five feet long that made a sharp turn to the right. I peeked around the corner and saw a hallway extending off into the darkness, which I proceeded along, quietly and cautiously. I recalled my mental map of the palace and concluded that I was beneath the Sais’ wing. This was certainly close to the same length as that hallway, though much narrower.

Eventually I came to an iron door held only loosely in place by rusted hinges. The door was locked, and the strange thing was that the lock was much newer than the rest of the door. That seems foolish to me, given that someone could easily break the door down, bypassing the lock, but then there’s a lot about this that makes no sense to me.

I used the see-through pouvra and discovered that the corridor continued a short distance to another door, this one wooden. Also strange. I unlocked the iron door and went down the corridor to the wooden one, which was also locked, but with a simpler lock that wasn’t any newer than the door. I looked through it, but whatever was beyond it was too far away to make out details.

So I started to unlock the door and got a nasty surprise: someone had set a clever little trap on the locking mechanism. It wasn’t intended to harm anyone, just to show anyone who knew how to look that someone had passed through the door. A warning to the trap-setter. It was complicated enough that it would take at least three hands to prevent it from going off while the door was being unlocked, and would be impossible to stop if you were entering from the other direction. Now I was certain Aselfos used this route, because I bet he’s got that kind of devious and suspicious mind. So that’s one thing we have in common.

I examined the trap until I was sure I knew how it worked, and carefully removed the trap with my hands while I used the pouvra to unlock the door. I might have been able to do the whole thing with magic, but why take unnecessary chances?

I set the trap on the floor inside the corridor, out of the way, and shut the door behind me. The room beyond looked like it might be a music room, though the instruments leaning against the walls weren’t familiar to me. I peeked outside and was able to orient myself; I was in the wing containing all the empty guest chambers.

At this point I really had nothing to go on. I felt it was safe to assume that Aselfos had exited the tower through this door, and that he suspected someone might follow him on his trips up to leave notes for Vorantor. But I could only guess where he’d gone from here. I took the most obvious option, concealed myself, and went toward the one alcove off the main chamber that I hadn’t yet explored.

I’d only gone about a hundred feet when I was nearly caught. I admit I was careless, just as I’ve always feared using the concealment pouvra too much might make me. And I was getting tired. So it was mostly luck, and the fact that I’ve been doing this for a long time and my reflexes are excellent, that saved me.

I was nearly to the mosaic chamber when a door opened ahead of me and I had to dodge to one side and press myself flat against the wall. There was no convenient doorway for me to hide in, and I was grateful for the concealment pouvra even as I cursed myself for depending on it so much.

A man and a woman emerged from the open door. The woman said “…past time.”

“It will have to be enough,” said the man, and I recognized Aselfos’s voice. When he came closer, I got a better look at him. He was older than I’d guessed, nearly fifty, but lean and athletic, and he moved with assurance. That he could navigate the secret staircase did not surprise me at all.

His companion was about the same age, with close-cropped hair that was gray in the dim light, and although she was fat where he was slim, she moved with the same assurance, like someone accustomed to command. I recognized her after a few moments as one of the God-Empress’s soldiers, the one who’d worn a different uniform than the rest at the kathana. If this were Balaen, I’d assume she was some kind of general, though again, I don’t know the Castaviran Empire’s military ranks.

“It would help if we had a better estimate,” the woman said.

“Vorantor says the time is shrinking,” Aselfos said.

The woman snorted. “Vorantor is a problem.”

“He’ll validate my claim, and I’ll make him powerful,” Aselfos said. “Whether he’s right about this catastrophe or not. And his work on this supposed disaster is keeping the Kilios occupied.”

“I suppose as long as his summoning puts our resources in the right place at the right time, it doesn’t matter,” the woman said. “But you should tell Vorantor sooner is better. Who knows what idea the crazy bitch might take into her golden head?”

“Have patience,” Aselfos said, and he began to walk in my direction. I held my breath. “We’ll have a day’s warning, and that will have…” and they were out of earshot. I continued to hold my breath for a few more seconds, then released it slowly and retreated to the music room, through the door and into the hall, where I again paused before resetting the trap and locking everything behind me. Then I returned to my room as quickly as I could. That brings me to now.

I’m a thief, not a politician, but that sounded like a plot against the God-Empress to me. And Vorantor is involved. And they’re afraid of Cederic interfering, I think. I should tell Cederic. But…if Aselfos is planning to act against the God-Empress, how is that a bad thing? He might be a better option than her—almost certainly would be.

I just don’t know enough about Castaviran politics to know how a coup would affect the mages. They might be associated closely enough with the God-Empress that Aselfos would want to destroy them with her, and Vorantor has been negotiating with him for their protection. Or, knowing him, his own protection, and to hell with what happens to the rest of us. No, that’s too cynical even for me.

I’ll tell Cederic in the morning, wait for him to stop being sarcastic at me, and figure out what I can do.

27 Lennitay

Very boring. Terrael is preoccupied with the Codex and the Darssan mages are half-heartedly cooperating with Vorantor’s mages on the kathanas he’s developed for “minimizing the damage” when the worlds come together.

Cederic was gone today, teaching the shield kathana to the God-Empress’s battle mages. He didn’t look happy about it when he returned, and I can’t blame him, but he really had no choice. He told me he wishes it wasn’t quite so simple a kathana, and I told him he should have thought of that before he went around being brilliant at people, which made him smile. What he needs is a good laugh, but I have a hard time imagining him laughing.

Terrael won’t talk about what he’s learned so far—says talking is a distraction, and makes him jump to conclusions—but I know he’s in ecstasy over being the first to read the Codex Tiurindi in centuries, maybe millennia. We still don’t know exactly how long it was after the disaster that civilization began repairing itself.

Nothing for me to do, though I could look at it as a good thing that the God-Empress hasn’t called on me to entertain her. Today I finally went to look at the picture in the floor of the mosaic room. It’s a falcon. It looks much more like the real bird than the helmets, but at least now I know where the inspiration came from. Exploring tonight for sure.

26 Lennitay, continued

Vorantor’s eyes were wide and panicked. “What do you—what should I show you, God-Empress?” he begged.

“The Codex Tiurindi was written in a time when defensive magics were more refined than they are now, God-Empress,” Cederic said. “Would you care to see one of them?”

Vorantor’s eyes were even wider now. I know a good lie when I see one, and I prayed to the true God that Vorantor wouldn’t do or say anything to give Cederic’s game away. Of course there was no way the Codex Tiurindi could show the God-Empress anything, but she didn’t know that, and I was certain by the expressionless look on Cederic’s face that there were a lot of other things about magic she didn’t know.

“The book, please,” he said to Terrael, who was as wide-eyed as Vorantor, but handed the Codex to Cederic. He flipped it open (at random, I guessed) and said, “We will need to translate it to create the ultimate kathana, of course, but there are smaller pieces to the puzzle—here.”

He shut the book, tucked it into his trouser pocket, stripped off his robe and began scrubbing with it at the floor to remove the residue of the th’an. He’s slim, with a scattering of short dark hairs across his chest, and he has more muscle than I would have guessed, for an academic. He was nearly done before it occurred to anyone to join him. He threw the stained robe away and began chalking th’an on the floor, looked at the book again, chalked a few more th’an, then said, “Step back, please,” and made a few final marks.

A shimmering hemisphere about two feet tall sprang up around the th’an, glowing with a greenish-gold light that swirled like a film of oil across the hemisphere’s surface. Cederic stood and rapped on the hemisphere with his knuckles, making the oil ripple out from that point of contact as if his hand were a stone thrown into a lake. “You might ask one of your soldiers to strike it,” he said, “but I am not entirely certain it will not turn that force back on him.”

The God-Empress shrugged and snapped her fingers in the direction of her soldiers, and with some hesitation, one of them came forward. She pointed, and the soldier drew his knife and approached the hemisphere, then brought the weapon down as if he were stabbing an enemy in the back. The knife met the oily surface—and shattered.

No one spoke. The soldier looked impressed. All the mages looked stunned. I don’t know how I looked, awestruck probably. Cederic looked bored. The God-Empress nodded once, slowly. “I am satisfied,” she said. “Teach the others. And tell me when the book is translated.” She gestured at her soldiers, and they surrounded her as she left the room.

The instant she was gone, and the heavy door was shut, Vorantor was in Cederic’s face, shouting, “What in hell’s name were you thinking?”

“I was thinking,” Cederic said, not shying away from Vorantor’s ire, “that I would prefer that none of us be killed by the God-Empress’s soldiers.”

“You had no idea whether that kathana would work!” Vorantor shouted. “Kilios or no, you could barely have understood what you were reading—how could you even know it was what you said it was?”

“I didn’t,” Cederic said. “I made it up.”

That left Vorantor gaping with nothing to say. “Even Master Peressten cannot read that book,” Cederic said. “I gambled that the God-Empress would not believe that we were telling the truth that it would take time to translate all of it, and I…invented a kathana that would satisfy her.”

I think I was the only person watching Vorantor at that moment—everyone else was staring at Cederic in awe—and I was enjoying the look of stunned chagrin when it turned, for the briefest instant, into something much darker, something that frightened me. Then he smiled, and threw his arm around Cederic’s shoulders. “You never stop amazing me, old friend,” he said. “Cheers, everyone! It’s time to celebrate!”

The first cheers were weak little things, but they grew into robust, happy noise as it settled on everyone that we, first, had succeeded in the task that had driven us these many days, and second, were not dead. The room wasn’t really conducive to celebration, so we moved to the dining hall, and I ended up at the tail end of our procession next to Cederic, who looked as calm as always, though a bit scruffy in his reclaimed, wrinkled robe. He congratulated me on my part in the kathana, and I expressed my admiration at him making up a new one out of whole cloth.

“That may turn out to be a bad idea,” he said in a low voice. “It probably saved all our lives, so I do not regret it, but now the God-Empress will want us to turn that kathana to her army’s use. Just one more way in which we are giving her more power. And I am not entirely certain I remember how to repeat it.”

“I don’t believe you’ve forgotten a kathana in your entire life,” I said, making him smile, “and I don’t see that you had much choice. She wouldn’t have been satisfied with a kathana that showered her enemies with rose petals.”

He smiled again. “Not unless they were rose petals that exploded,” he said.

That brought us to the dining hall door, and I thought about inviting him to sit with me—he couldn’t possibly want to sit with Vorantor after that, could he?—but I hesitated too long, and he nodded at me and moved off to his usual table. So I sat with my friends, and we laughed, and drank too much wine, and had a wonderful time. My head hurts from the wine, so I’m going to sleep it off, and in the morning—strange, I don’t know what I’m going to do next.

I’ve been so focused on the kathana that I’m used to having direction, and now I think it’s a matter of waiting for Terrael to translate the book. And I really don’t know what happens then. Will Vorantor be able to accept that he’s been wrong? I really think he’d be capable of violence if threatened, and I’m sure he sees Cederic’s competence as a threat to his position. Never mind that Cederic wouldn’t want to be the God-Empress’s chief mage even if—well, no, if it meant saving both our worlds I think he’d accept the position. But certainly not for anything less.