15 Coloine, half an hour later

Had to take another turn in the kathana circle, this time manifesting the binding rune in fire. That was effective, but Cederic says there’s no way for them to know when or where in the kathana to use it. That frustrates me more than failure would. Cederic said, “It’s progress,” and then he kissed me in full view of everyone, which made me happy. He’s going to solve this problem.

I have faith in him and in all our mages—no more Vorantor mages and Darssan mages, all one group with our squabbles set aside. I’m going to practice Terrael’s th’an again for a bit. It’s as soothing as writing, at least for short periods. Then it gets tedious, and I go back to my futile efforts at creating a new pouvra.

Another tremor. There’s no way to predict when one will happen, they’re still coming at irregular intervals, but they’re definitely coming closer together.

15 Coloine, two hours past midnight

I was encouraged too soon. It didn’t work at all. I’m trying not to feel as downhearted as Terrael was. I think he knew how I felt, because he came to sit next to me when I’d retreated to my corner, before I started writing again, and gave me a board with a th’an marked on it in that dotted-line shape.

“It’s a fire-making th’an,” he said. “The fire-starting pouvra seems to be the one you’re most comfortable with. This might help clear your head, and maybe you can work out how it intersects with your pouvra.”

He gave me some chalk and then went back to the circle. And he was right; it does help clear my head, even though I have no hope of learning to scribe the th’an in just a few hours. So I practice with it for half an hour, and then I go back to trying to make that complicated th’an work. It’s something to do when there’s nothing to write, like now.

14 Coloine, an hour before midnight

It hasn’t ended yet. I’m sitting in a corner of the kathana room, writing while the mages change the kathana’s configuration yet again. There’s a diagram of the original kathana, the one that caused the whole damn mess, drawn on the northern wall in thick black inky lines. The paintings that used to be on that wall are propped below the diagram in a long row. Most of them are landscapes of the same hilly country in early spring. I hope they’re of a real place, because I look at them when I start to feel overwhelmed and tell myself we’re doing all of this to keep that place from being destroyed.

Now I’m wondering why I’m not letting the thought of saving millions of people motivate me. I feel guilty about that, but not much. Millions of people is too much for me to keep in my head; I can just about manage a picture of a grove of trees surrounded by daffodils.

The diagram is there so the mages can refer to it when they reconfigure their kathana. Terrael explained it as being like a puzzle: they have most of the elements of the original, but only one arrangement of those elements will do what they want. So they start putting it together until it becomes clear that the direction is wrong, and then they start over. It’s not something I can help with, and writing keeps me calm. So that’s what I’m doing.

Vorantor was right about one thing—the original kathana needs to be inverted. Cederic says they can alter the key parts and get the new one close enough that it will be effective. He didn’t sound convincing.

Terrael is in despair because he blames himself for not being able to read the minds of those long-dead bastards mages and produce the missing th’an. Cederic had to lecture him for a full minute until Terrael felt he was properly chastised, then told him to take a walk for five minutes to give himself a rest. It’s funny to remember when I resented Cederic’s ability to command, and how I’m so grateful for it now.

They’ve gotten a lot further than before. Looks like they’re ready for me to take part. I wish I’d realized sooner what the connection between th’an and pouvrin is. With more time we might have been able to translate that th’an he gave us into a pouvra. Cederic is certain part of the kathana must be performed using my magic, but that’s as much as he knows, and at this point we’re just experimenting.

Right now I’m going to sit in the circle, in a spot that’s been marked off by th’an, and go insubstantial when I’m told. It’s difficult, because I start to fall through the floor, and of course I can only stay that way for about two minutes before I need to breathe, but the hard part is all on them, trying to scribe the right th’an in that two minutes. No guarantee that it will work, but at least it’s direction.

14 Coloine (continued)

It’s a good thing Cederic had already established himself as the true leader of the mages, because no one argued, and he was right, there wasn’t time for that. I don’t know why our clothes had to be burned, since none of us were bloody, but I’m just as happy not to be reminded of what happened by putting on the wrong trousers one morning.

I changed quickly, washed Vorantor’s blood off my face, and met Terrael at the stairs near the mages’ quarters, and I took him to the empty wing of guest quarters. We didn’t talk much—I think he was in shock, still, so it was mostly me asking what kind of room we needed and him explaining why he’d rejected yet another one.

Though at one point, while I was opening doors that all led to tiny bedrooms, he said, “So. You and Sai Aleynten.”

“I’m surprised Audryn didn’t tell you,” I said, feeling pleased that Audryn had kept my secret even from her own husband.

“Not a word,” he said. “Though it makes sense, in retrospect.”

“Why is that?” I said.

He suddenly couldn’t meet my eyes. “Um…Sai Aleynten became a lot more…relaxed… about two weeks ago, just after he proved the worlds were merging. Not that it was really obvious, but now that I know he was…that you were….”

“Yes,” I said, which wasn’t really an answer, but I thought it might stop Terrael babbling. Audryn doesn’t seem to have any complaints, but it’s sort of funny how embarrassed Terrael gets about sex even now that he’s a married man; it reminds me how young he is. How young a lot of them are.

Terrael chose a room whose original purpose I don’t know. It has a very fancy wooden floor with no rugs, so maybe it was for dancing. I don’t know if Castavirans have dancing rooms the way the King and nobles of Balaen do. It doesn’t matter. We got back to discover that servants had removed Vorantor’s body and Cederic had locked the door to the circle chamber and done something to melt the lock shut, after burning away all the blood and the contaminated clothes.

Then we ate something—I don’t remember what—and everyone went with Terrael and me to the new chamber and began setting up the kathana again. The second tremor—Sovrin’s word, and yes, I know it’s nothing like a tremor, but to me the convergence is like two overladen carts hurtling toward each other, each so heavy it makes the road vibrate, and I don’t have a better word for it—happened right about that time, and I think for a few seconds when it was over, everyone gave up inside.

Cederic doesn’t flinch, fortunately for all of us. He drew me to one side when everyone was working and set me to doing pouvrin in a steady rhythm, all of them including the secret ones. “I don’t want to frighten you,” he said, “but there is a chance you will need to be attuned to the kathana the way the body-scribing mages were, in order to make your pouvra fit into it.”

“You can’t be more specific than that?” I said.

“We lost a lot of work,” Cederic said. “At this point I am making up large sections of this kathana out of whole cloth. I don’t want to tell you anything more until I am certain. But I can assure you that you will be in no more or less danger than any of us.”

“Do you know how long we have?” I said.

“No,” he said, and there didn’t seem to be anything more to say, so he left me there and I did pouvrin until I could barely remember what they were for.

We’ve had dinner, and I’m in my room writing because I need time to myself before I join the others in the new kathana chamber. I don’t know where Cederic is. I wish he were here, because I’m finally able to write what’s really worrying me, which is that stupid Vorantor was so eager to see Cederic dead that he gave away Aselfos’s plan!

How could he let his lust for revenge, or whatever it is he wanted, destroy what might be Castavir’s chance at having a better government, or at any rate a sane ruler? I’m not stupid. I’ve seen civil war—not on a large scale, but still war—and I’ve seen the results of revolutions, and it’s vicious and brutal and only madmen enjoy it. But I’ve also heard something of what the God-Empress sends her soldiers to do, particularly what’s been happening in Viravon, and I’m not sure Aselfos’s plan isn’t better for Castavir in the long run.

In any case, Vorantor’s mania might have ruined everything Aselfos has planned for. Unless that general is able to convince the God-Empress that Vorantor made it all up.

There’s another tremor. If Aselfos is still on schedule—and that’s a big ‘if’—he’ll discover that the convergence has thrown all his plans into confusion. I don’t know if it’s writing all of this that’s calmed me down, or if I’m too overwhelmed to panic because now I’m in danger not only from the convergence and a possible war, but also from whatever insanity the God-Empress might decide to rain down on me. At least I don’t have to worry about anyone finding out about me and Cederic now. I wonder if sex will be less wonderful now that it’s not secret, semi-illicit sex. Probably not.

Tomorrow should see the end of it. It might only be a few hours from now. I won’t write that we can handle whatever that is, because I’m superstitious now. But.

But.

If it is the end—I don’t regret anything. There were days when I would stop in the middle of an empty road stretching from one tiny, xenophobic town to another and wonder why I bothered taking the next step. I had no family, no friends, nothing but the urge to learn more magic, and on those days I couldn’t even picture any more to life than that.

But it was that magic that brought me here to a place where I have friendship and love and the chance to let that magic grow. I had no idea my life could be so full. I never thought I would know what it’s like to love and to be loved. If the world doesn’t end tomorrow, maybe I’ll be embarrassed and tear this page out. But if it does—I know this record won’t survive the disaster any more than I will, but this is how I want it to end, even if no one ever reads it. Here at the end, it was all worth it.

14 Coloine (continued)

Everyone screamed except Cederic, who probably didn’t dare move. Vorantor’s blood was everywhere. I couldn’t stop staring at his body, which landed across the gold circle to obliterate half the th’an he’d so meticulously guided the mages in scribing.

The God-Empress’s white dress was spattered with scarlet, her breasts and face were smeared with it, but she simply stood there, looking down at the body. “He offered to serve God all the days of his life,” she said. “God alone knows that number. Do not presume upon God’s gift.”

She turned back to Cederic. “Kilios,” she said, and the soldier holding Cederic moved slightly, making the knife press too firmly into his throat. Cederic let out a little hiss. I took half a step forward, and his eyes went to me again, warning me.

And the God-Empress saw it.

She turned around fast, and her eyes had that terrible sharpness to them. “You care,” she said, and the room went completely silent. “He is Kilios, but I think that’s not it, is it?”

I have a feeling Cederic was trying to tell me something, but I was afraid to look away from her, the way small animals know not to look away from the fox. “He is Kilios,” I agreed, wondering how I was going to get out of this.

The God-Empress smiled. Her gory face made the smile look like something demonic. “Cut him,” she said, and I couldn’t stop myself, I took another step forward and did the mind-moving pouvra on the knife, but I wasn’t strong enough to stop the soldier cutting the finest thread of a line across the base of Cederic’s jaw. I looked at him long enough to see his wince of pain, then the God-Empress’s bloody hand grabbed my chin and forced me to meet her mad, evil eyes. “You care,” she repeated.

“I care,” I said.

Her smile broadened. “What will you give me for him, Sesskia?” she said. “Your heart, still beating? Your eyes, those strange green eyes, still blinking? What is he worth to you?”

I don’t know what I should have said. If she hadn’t slaughtered Vorantor in front of us, maybe I would have kept my composure enough to bluff. But it was too late for that. “Everything,” I said. “I will give you everything for him.”

The God-Empress licked her lips, and made a pleased sound. “Life tastes like salt,” she said, and her eyes went unfocused again. “You always were the lucky one, Sesskia, yours is still moving and mine always fall down and break,” she said, and gestured to the soldier to release Cederic, who stayed frozen in place as if he could still feel the knife there.

“Thank you, Renatha,” I said, “it is a most generous gift I truly do not deserve.”

“No, you don’t,” the God-Empress said. “I am such a wonderful sister! Don’t let him break, I will be angry if you do.” She walked out of the circle chamber, the long train of her gown smearing blood across the floor that her soldiers’ boots made prints in.

The sound of their feet faded away, and still no one moved. I was focused on the empty doorway, and now I can’t remember why—I know I had a reason, but it’s gone now. I didn’t come back to myself until I felt a hand on my arm, and Cederic said, “Sesskia.”

I turned to look at him then. The thin line of blood was already clotting. “I don’t know what I just gave away,” I said, and then we were clinging to each other because it didn’t matter anymore who knew.

“It was my fault. She saw me look at you,” Cederic said.

“I let her rattle me. It’s my fault,” I said.

“I think we can agree that it is actually her fault,” Cederic said, and I tried to laugh, but it didn’t sound right. But I felt better, with Cederic’s arms around me, and the God-Empress gone for now, and Vorantor no longer able to interfere with the kathana—though I felt horribly guilty for that thought, and I certainly didn’t wish him dead no matter how much I’d disliked him.

Anyway, I was starting to feel better, so of course that’s when the first signs of the convergence occurred.

Even now that I’ve had time to reflect on it, and discuss it with Terrael and Audryn and Sovrin, I still have trouble describing it. There was blurriness, at first, like coming up out of the water and blinking your eyes clear, only it lasts longer. Then everything went clear, but distorted; that first time, I was standing toward the northwest side of the room, so opposite the door, but it felt as if I were standing right next to the door at the same time.

That lasted for a few seconds, then faded, giving the sensation of being pulled slowly back into place. It felt like the much harder pulling I’d felt when I was brought to Castavir. When I described it to my friends, they all said that was nothing like what they experienced, and none of us could agree on anything except the sensation of being pulled.

It’s happened three more times since then (four times in the last nine hours) and there hasn’t been any pattern to it, or any better warning than the blurriness, or whatever it is everyone else feels.

But that was later. Cederic and I held each other for a few moments after the convergence’s warning passed, then he stepped away from me and said, “We no longer have any time to waste. Everyone gather your materials and your slates, go to your rooms and change your clothes. Return here with what you are wearing now so it can be burned. This room will have to be abandoned. I will arrange for Sai Vorantor’s body to be cared for. Sesskia, take Master Peressten to find us a new chamber. He will know what we need. We will mourn Sai Vorantor later. For now we have two worlds to save.”

to be continued…

14 Coloine (continued)

But nothing happened. People began to calm down, once it was clear Cederic and Vorantor weren’t going to turn their verbal battle into a magical one. The kathana began to take shape. One of the Sais had just suggested to Vorantor that it was time to break for lunch when soldiers suddenly filled the doorway, pushing mages out of the way until they could make a double file along the southern wall of the room.

I wonder what kind of person can serve the God-Empress as a soldier. Never mind the awful uniform; she’s insane, and sometimes she’s the funny kind of insane that makes me dress up in beautiful but useless clothing, and sometimes she’s the unnerving kind of insane that makes her think she’s God, and sometimes she makes horrible demands of her soldiers, like killing that collenna master, and how in the name of the true God can anyone justify doing those things? Is it just that they’re afraid of her? Or do they enjoy being given freedom to indulge their own evil desires? I don’t understand.

So they all lined up along the southern wall, and I was bumped by people moving out of their way (I was standing near the northwest point), and then the God-Empress came in. She was dressed entirely in white today, thick white satin with a neckline that plunged to her navel and no jewels or anything that might distract from the sight of her perfect body outlined in white. Was that coincidence, or do Castavirans associate white with death the way we do in Balaen?

Vorantor went to her and bowed, all very proper, and she touched the top of his head to acknowledge him and allow him to rise. Cederic approached to make his bow as well, but she ignored him, so he was forced to continue kneeling through everything that came next. “Denril Vorantor, you have asked for a judgment,” she said, in that remote, formal voice that meant she was God.

“I have, my God. I accuse Cederic Aleynten of treason,” Vorantor said, and I gasped, but since everyone else was making similar incredulous noises, I didn’t stand out. Cederic raised his head to look at Vorantor, but said nothing.

“Your word is not enough,” the God-Empress said, raising a finger. Her nail was enameled pearly white. Four soldiers came to make a loose circle around the group that was Vorantor, Cederic, and the God-Empress. Vorantor was even paler than usual, and his self-control slipped enough that he grimaced with anger at the God-Empress’s words. I’m sure he thought Cederic’s word would have been good enough for her.

“I have proof for you, God,” he said. He reached inside his robe and pulled out a handful of familiar scraps of paper. I made a sound and Cederic’s gaze flicked to me, blazing with the message to Stay silent.

The God-Empress regarded the papers as if he were offering her a mass of writhing worms. A soldier in what I thought was a general’s uniform—in fact, the soldier who was Aselfos’s co-conspirator—stepped forward and took the papers from Vorantor’s hand, which was shaking. “I found these in Cederic Aleynten’s chambers,” Vorantor said. “Carefully concealed, but nothing is hidden from God’s true servant, which God knows I am.”

The general began reading the scraps of paper silently. “They are half of an ongoing communication between two people, one of whom requests that the other perform certain magical services in benefit of a proposed coup against God,” she said.

“Cederic Aleynten,” the God-Empress said.

“Yes, God-Empress?” Cederic said. I still can’t believe how calm he sounded.

“You plot against God?” the God-Empress said.

“I do not,” Cederic said. “Denril Vorantor is trying to discredit me. He has no proof of anything he has said.”

“God sees how he wears his Kilios’s robe though it is not a honey day,” Vorantor said. “He believes his rank puts him above everyone, including God. He wants to take God’s place.”

“Untrue,” Cederic said, and then he couldn’t say anything else, because a soldier stepped up behind him, grabbed his hair to lift his head, and put a knife to his throat. I opened my mouth to scream, and he gave me another look, warning me off. I should have struck that soldier. I know I could have found a way to make him drop the knife without hurting Cederic. Everything would have been so different—

Yes, different. And probably many more people would have died. I—I have been sitting here, trying to figure out how I could have stopped it all. I hate that the God-Empress makes me feel so helpless. That she has the power to make men and women do evil things, or convince them that they have to, which I realize isn’t the same, but what’s the point at which all your choices narrow down to just one? And what do you do then?

Well, I did nothing, except glare at Cederic so he’d know he had damn well better have a plan, or my plan would be to start setting people on fire. I’m not sure how much of that went through, but I could tell he knew I wasn’t going to wait much longer. I kept glancing at the God-Empress, though it was hard for me to take my eyes off Cederic and that so-very-sharp knife. The God-Empress wasn’t looking at him; she had her eyes fixed on Vorantor. “Would you serve God, then?” she said, her voice distant.

“With my life, my God,” Vorantor said. I spared a glance for him; he was glowing with ecstasy, the poor bastard.

“As God’s most high priest?” she said, still in that same distant voice.

“Until the end of my days,” he said.

“You seem interested in your life and the end of it,” the God-Empress said, and stepped around the still-kneeling Cederic and approached Vorantor, followed by a soldier. “God knows the count of your days, you know,” she said. “All of them. And she is merciful.” To the shock of everyone, she took Vorantor’s face between her hands and kissed him full on the lips. Then she took a step back, leaving him motionless, his eyes wide, and made a little gesture with her finger. The soldier whipped out his knife and drew it across Vorantor’s throat in one swift motion that sprayed the God-Empress with arterial blood.

to be continued…

9 Coloine

Breakthrough BREAKTHROUGH!!!

I’ve been going back and forth from elation to feeling like a complete idiot, trying to tell myself that there was really no way I could have known this, when really it’s that with one thing and another I forgot about the collenna. Well, no wonder, when all I could see for days was the master’s neck snapping. And I know I told Cederic, but I can’t have made it make sense or he would have seen it. Probably.

Oh, I’m so excited—everyone is, even though we don’t know what use it will be—but I’m having trouble keeping my thoughts from flitting all over the place like a pod of baby dolphins, so:

1. Pouvrin and th’an ARE related.
2. We may be able to combine a pouvra with the merging kathana.
3. Creating new pouvrin is now more likely.
4. Using pouvrin in the merging kathana is unlikely no matter how successful we are, thanks to damned Vorantor and his pride.

It was a dream I had last night that did it. I was touring Colosse with Cederic, and we were both in our underclothes (no mystery about that; it had been six days since we made love), and Terrael was driving the God-Empress’s rose-colored collenna. Only instead of painting the th’an in the grooves of the brass plate, he was drawing them in mid-air, making it three-dimensional instead of flat.

And I saw it.

The reason it felt familiar is that it’s the mind-moving pouvra! Missing pieces, and flat instead of multidimensional, but once I saw it in the dream it all fell into place.

I wrenched myself out of the dream and startled Cederic awake, and then I started babbling until he hushed me (that still works on me, and I hope it doesn’t become a problem for us later) and made me explain everything more slowly. He went very still, of course, as I explained, then when I’d wound down he said, “But you never recognized th’an before.”

“No, it all makes sense now,” I said. Honestly, I thought I might leap out of the bed, I was so excited. “I’ve been looking at individual th’an, or maybe two or three combined, and that’s like…like recognizing a person by being shown their heel and big toe. Pouvrin are far more complicated than that, have many more parts—many more th’an, is another way of looking at it. So on the lowest level, there’s the th’an you use to lift things—not to disparage your ability—”

“I understand,” Cederic said. “Then the next step up are the th’an combinations used to power a collenna, and your pouvra is another degree of complexity beyond that.”

“Right,” I said. “And if the collenna th’an is similar to, but isn’t as complex as, the mind-moving pouvra, that means there are individual th’an that could be added to it to make it do what the pouvra does. Which means I might be able to turn any large group of th’an into a pouvra by adding the right th’an to it!”

Cederic nodded, slowly. “But you don’t know enough about th’an to know which ones,” he said.

That sobered me up a bit. “No, and I have no idea how it can help the kathana,” I said. “I mean, I could see how, in theory, a pouvra could be substituted for a group of th’an or a step in the kathana, but I only know the seven pouvrin, and even if we could use one of them, Vorantor would never agree to it.”

“We need to look at Denril’s kathana and determine which groups you can turn into a pouvra,” Cederic said. “And you are correct that he will resist that. So leave him to me. Tomorrow you and the mages will begin work on the collenna th’an to turn it into a true representation of your pouvra. That should be good practice for the real thing. And if I cannot convince Denril to cooperate, I can at least extrapolate from what I do know and possibly establish what th’an you should work on.”

I think that’s what he said, there at the end, because his hands were sliding under my sleep shirt and pulling it off over my head, and I was so busy kissing him while he stroked my breasts that I wasn’t really paying attention. We really shouldn’t go that long without sex again, though I have to admit it was probably more spectacular for being so long delayed.

Anyway.

Today I shared the news with our mages, and they were as excited as I was, and then we were all angry that Vorantor is still monopolizing Terrael’s time, because he knows more th’an than anyone except Cederic, and what we needed was a lexicon of th’an that might be the missing parts of the pouvra.

But Sovrin had the clever idea of drawing out the collenna th’an a piece at a time, in colored chalks so it was obvious which part of the two-dimensional shape went to which th’an, and then letting me fill in the spaces as best I could with ink. Then she erased the chalk and what was left was…well, not much of anything that made sense, but she directed everyone to start looking up th’an to see if we could find anything that matched those shapes. We didn’t have any luck, but morale is high because at last we have a direction!

Cederic, on the other hand, looked as if he were barely containing his anger. I saw him talking to Vorantor a couple of times, and the first time Vorantor didn’t seem to pay him much attention and continued to write on his board the whole time Cederic was talking to him.

The second time, Cederic pulled him off to one side and they had an increasingly heated exchange, which ended with Cederic storming off (except that, because it was Cederic, “storming off” meant he walked away at his usual pace but more expressionless than he’d been all day). It’s only a matter of time before one or both of them explodes.

5 Coloine

Terrael has almost worked out all the details about the kathana that separated the worlds, though he told Audryn he had to guess at about a tenth of the th’an, since Veris and Barklan weren’t mages and assumed there would be people around after the “success” to write it all down more fully. Or maybe some of those mages did keep records, and we just don’t know about them.

Even though Terrael is uncertain, Vorantor’s plan is to reconstruct the kathana, then invert it to describe the world as it used to be. I think of it as “reminding” the worlds how they’re supposed to be united, something I won’t tell Terrael in case he calls me a savage again. He ought to thank me for being so considerate of him, not forcing me to soak his head. It’s so undignified.

We’re having no success blending the two worlds’ magics, and I’m starting to wonder if Vorantor is more clever than we thought, setting Cederic to work on research that’s a dead end. Cederic behaves as if our work is important, and I know he’s determined not to waste his time again, so I have to believe he knows what he’s doing. He was collaborating with Vorantor again today, and then after dinner, and if he comes to bed before I fall asleep, I’ll ask him whether Vorantor is actually accepting his input. Because I think if Vorantor can get away with it, he won’t.

4 Coloine (continued)

“You should begin,” the God-Empress said, frowning, “or God will believe you have brought her here frivolously.”

Aselfos dropped my hand and took two steps away. “I will not,” he began, and one of the soldiers stepped up behind him and put one of those very sharp knives against his throat. He stopped speaking. The God-Empress screamed, “You will do as God says or your blood will water this floor!”

“Don’t worry, Renatha, um, Perce and I want to be married,” I said, reaching out to take Aselfos’s hand. In the instant before I clasped it, the beginnings of an idea struck me. Just as our fingertips brushed, I worked the walk-through-walls pouvra and let my hand slip through his.

It felt awful. I could feel the blood flowing through his hand, felt bone grate on bone even though we were both insubstantial, and Aselfos cried out and jerked his hand up, making the soldier with the knife take half a step back and a thin line of blood bead up along Aselfos’s neck. “Our vows are rejected!” I screamed. “God will not allow me to take his hand!”

The God-Empress stared at my hand, then grabbed it and pinched the skin between my thumb and forefinger, hard, making me cry out. “I have done no such thing,” she said. “Your love is meant to be. I would never reject your vows.”

“It must have been an accident,” I said. “We should try again. Renatha, please ask that man to release my love. There should be no violence on such a…a sacred day.”

The God-Empress nodded, the soldier moved back, and Aselfos raised his hand to wipe the blood away. He was breathing a little too heavily and looked as if he were even more afraid of me than of the God-Empress.

I held out my hand to him, and he reached out to take it, and I did the pouvra again. It was still awful, though at least this time I was ready for it. Aselfos looked as if he were going to be sick. “Renatha, why is this happening?” I exclaimed, making a big show of examining my hand. “It surely means we are not meant to be married!”

“But I have decreed it!” the God-Empress wailed. She pushed me aside, ran down the dais, and snatched a longsword from one of the soldiers, who made as if to stop her before coming to his senses. The God-Empress raised the sword and swung hard at the dais; it made a strange sound somewhere between a clang and a thunk. “I am God and I will not be thwarted!” she screamed.

I felt lightheaded, like I was spinning, or maybe that was the room turning around me, as if the God-Empress’s madness were infectious and I had caught the disease. “But it is marriage that would thwart your will, Renatha!” I shouted. “Our desire to be married is wrong!”

The God-Empress turned on me and dropped the sword, which landed with a clunk. “It is,” she agreed, her voice low and vicious now, her eyes narrowed. “Why would you waste my time like this, Sesskia?”

Now I was terrified. There were at least twenty soldiers, and I was certain I couldn’t keep all of them at bay with fire, and concealing myself and running was a very short-term solution. “I…made a mistake,” I said. “God is forgiving of mistakes.”

“God dislikes waste,” the God-Empress said, “but she is understanding of human frailty. And you are my sister, Sesskia.” She turned toward Aselfos. “But he…he is nothing to me. Destroy him.”

Aselfos had recovered from the shock of feeling my incorporeal hand pass through his, but now he went ashen. “I can’t,” I began, and the God-Empress said, “You will do as God commands, Sesskia, or I will be forced to watch these men kill you. God must be obeyed.”

Aselfos’s eyes met mine. He was pleading with me. I closed my eyes, willed him to hold still, and said, “God’s command, then,” and wreathed Aselfos in fire. He screamed, and I put the fire out before he could truly panic and flee.

“Renatha!” I shouted. “How dare you use your sister that way!”

The God-Empress took a step back. “What?” she said.

I drew myself to my full height and glared at her. “You dare command me to do something God has forbidden? This man is protected by God. Is this some sort of test?”

I had her thoroughly confused now. The God-Empress looked at Aselfos, who stood in the same place, shuddering, then at me. “But I—” she began.

I cut her off. “I only have power because God gives it to me,” I said. “My magic has no power to harm that which God has protected. God must not be mocked. You are trying to trick me into betraying God.”

“No,” the God-Empress said, sounding once again like a child, but afraid rather than cheerful.

“I understand now,” I said. “It was a test, wasn’t it? A test of my loyalty? Did I pass?”

Confusion cleared from the God-Empress’s face. “Oh, Sesskia, it was a test!” she said, and embraced me. “You are truly God’s choice.” She released me, went to Aselfos, and embraced him as well. “And you have been marked by God’s power,” she said, fingering the charred neck of his formal tunic. “I am sorry about the marriage. I know Sesskia is your heart’s desire.”

“My God, I will turn my heart elsewhere,” Aselfos said, his voice barely trembling, his eyes fixed on me. When the God-Empress turned away, he nodded to me, slowly, as if acknowledging a debt.

“Oh, Sesskia, I do love you more than my other sisters. They never visit me,” the God-Empress said, hooking her arm through mine once more. “We will eat together, and then you will return to Denril Vorantor and tell him that God smiles on his work. I’m sure he’ll find ways to make use of you.”

“I think you’re right, Renatha,” I said, but my heart continued to beat like a rabbit’s until we were seated in one of the formal dining rooms at opposite ends of the table, too far apart to converse, and I could concentrate on chewing and swallowing tasteless food. It probably was very good, but I was too keyed up to appreciate it.

I matched her madness for madness, and now I wonder if I’ve finally exhausted my stores of luck. The only good thing that’s come of this morning is that I saved Aselfos’s life, and he knows it. But I have no idea how that might benefit me. Maybe if Aselfos really is planning to kill all the mages, he’ll spare my life. Or maybe he’ll think twice before attacking the mages, if he thinks my magic is representative of what they can do. I don’t know. I’m still jittery.

The God-Empress was back to being her usual cold, distant self by the time the meal was over, and dismissed me without any friendliness. She also didn’t suggest that I return to change into my own clothes. When I said, “I think you should have someone put this away for me,” attempting to remove the diamond necklace, she said, with some anger, “Mother always liked you better,” and walked away.

I don’t know what to make of that. Either she’s going to forget I have it, or she’s going to send soldiers to retrieve it from me some day when I’ve forgotten I have it. So I walked back to the mages’ wing, holding my head high and pretending no one was staring at me. That was hard, because everyone was staring.

I got as far as my own room before I realized it was impossible for me to get out of the dress without help. Everyone had already finished their lunch, so I had to go into the circle chamber dressed like the God-Empress’s life-sized doll and submit to the exclamations of the women and the teasing of the men. Cederic went totally impassive when he saw me, and Vorantor said something about the God-Empress’s favor; I think he was jealous of me, because I’m sure the God-Empress has never given him a fortune in diamonds.

Sovrin came back to my room with me to help me change. “I was watching Sai Aleynten,” she said with a grin, “and he had a look in his eye that nearly made me melt, and you know he’s not my type.”

“I couldn’t look at him and keep my composure,” I said, and at that point I realized I’d left some of my favorite clothes back in the God-Empress’s dressing room. I shook my hair out and put the silver combs on the dressing table next to the necklace. They’re beautiful, and I wish I had some reason to wear them more often. Then I remember who gave them to me, and I wish I dared throw them away.

“So why are you dressed up?” Sovrin asked.

“I…we can talk about it later, so I don’t have to repeat the story for Audryn,” I said. That was only partly my reason; I was starting to feel panicky about how close I’d come to being married to the wrong man.

“Oh, if you have to be sensible,” Sovrin said, pretending to pout, and we went back to the circle chamber, where we both went back to work as if nothing had happened. Cederic treated me as he always did, with respectful indifference, and we made no more progress than before, partly because I simply could not stay focused. When I wasn’t remembering the God-Empress’s mad, confused expression when I challenged her, I was seeing Aselfos’s eyes when the fire surrounded him. Th’an couldn’t keep my attention.

Sovrin and Audryn came with me to my room right after dinner to hear my story. I felt guilty about telling them before telling Cederic, but I didn’t even make eye contact with him at dinner before he and Vorantor went back to their research, and by that time I really needed to talk. We sat on the red bearskin rug, Sovrin wearing the necklace, Audryn with her hair pinned up with the combs, and they were perfectly silent as I told the story. When I was finished, Audryn said, “You are brilliant.”

“I think I’m lucky,” I said.

“That too,” Sovrin said. “Saying marriage vows to one man when you’re already married to another…even if neither of you mean it….”

“I was afraid of that,” I said. “But I couldn’t exactly tell the God-Empress that.”

“At least you got something nice out of it,” Sovrin said, running her fingers across the rows of diamonds. “And the dress is beautiful. You looked stunning.”

“I doubt I’ll get to wear it again,” I said.

Audryn and Sovrin exchanged meaningful glances. “I think Sai Aleynten will figure something out,” Sovrin said with a wink.

That’s probably true. I almost asked them to help me put it back on, so I’d be wearing it when Cederic comes to bed, but as I wrote, I don’t know how late that will be, so it will have to wait for another time.

It’s nearly midnight now. Still no Cederic. I’m going to sleep now, and hope the God-Empress doesn’t decide she needs her “sister’s” company again anytime soon.