She hid it well; either that or the lord forbore to comment. She couldn’t be sure which.
“Lady Amalayna,” Lord Damion said. “Please be seated.”
Had he been Vellen she would have demurred, but in truth she felt tired and was glad of the opportunity to fold her legs and let something else carry her weight.
“I ask my son’s pardon. He is absent on business at the moment, and I fear he will not return before dawn.”
She shook her head. “Not at all. I didn’t have an appointment.”
“No? Then what brings you, Lady? Perhaps I might help.”
“Is the business Church business?” That was direct, and a bit chancy.
“It is not house business,” Lord Damion replied.
She was silent a moment; there was really little else for her to say. Church business, though, and in a hurry, from what she could tell. An emergency?
Her skirts rustled as she shifted uncomfortably in the chair. Lord Damion’s benign expression did nothing to hide the fact that he watched her keenly. His smile smoothed out so slowly she didn’t notice the change of expression until he spoke. “Lady Amalayna, was there some emergency that brought you here tonight?”
Only then did she look at him carefully. He dressed in the same manner as his son did when at home—blues and silvers dominated the black background of velvet and embroidery. He wore no lace and no obvious finery, but the ring on his finger was platinum—almost a year’s worth of the house annuities. He was shorter than his son, but not by much—and his eyes were the same clear blue, a piercing, cold light.
“No,” she answered, neither too quickly nor too slowly. What had she been thinking? She hadn’t; that was plain enough. To come here like this, prepared for war, and to think that her only enemy in the house was Lord Vellen, was the reckless act of a child. “Yet we are promised, and I have not seen my lord in over a week.” Her voice was cool now as she remembered clearly where she was. The why didn’t matter.
“You did not seem overanxious to see him when he gave you the crest.”
“Lord Damion, I am no young girl and no untrained one, to react so obviously and with so little dignity in front of other houses.” She paused, letting her voice chill further. “But perhaps Lord Vellen is reconsidering his decision? I assure you, if that is the case, you will find House Valens in a particular position to tender you the only viable response.”
If she hoped to catch him off guard, she failed. He was after all an older man and well versed in the political skills of conversation. His face gave nothing away. “Meaning?”
She drew breath, letting an expression of anger and uncertainty, both of which she was feeling, flit across her face. It was important to be genuine in your lies. And it made her look younger than her years, which had always been an advantage.
“I had heard, through my sources, that Lord Vellen has been seen with Lady Eveline of Morganth. It is said that they are ... close.”
This, too, was true.
The smile that Lord Damion turned upon her took none of the edge out of his eyes. Still, he was pleased; this much was obvious. “My dear lady,” he said, with just a slight inclination of his head, “in a few short weeks I will ask you who your sources are; they are good.” To her surprise, he bowed. “Very well. But do not think the heir to my house so foolish or so lacking in intelligence. He is well aware of the merits of association with your house. He will not endanger or risk a breach war. I will see to that myself. It is, after all, my house that you are questioning.” The smile that he tendered then was not for her; its malice was turned elsewhere. “If it helps, I assure you that he is not now with her; his business is of a more practical nature.”
She let the relief she felt show and took to her feet, carefully straightening out her skirts. “Thank you, Lord Damion. I shall let you get back to your house business then. Please forgive me for being so headstrong as to interrupt you.” She meant every word. Funny how the truth could be so neatly twisted to serve any purpose the user deemed fit. She turned to the door.
“Lady Amalayna.”
“Lord?”
“One other thing.”
“Yes, Lord?”
“I was at the last rites for your former bond-mate.”
She froze.
“You wore black and white. You looked quite elegant—and very, very much the foolish, sentimental girl you claim not to be. Whatever business you have with my son I will leave to your discretion. I believe that I understand its nature, and I am pleased with your cleverness in hiding it; you are not respected for no reason. But do not think to endanger my house. The war would destroy yours.”
She turned again, to see the eagle’s smile on his face. She should never have come to him. “How much do you know?” Her words were flat.
“That, my dear, is a very foolish question. Not up to the standards of the rest of your conversation.” He did not lose his smile, though; it became sharper, sweeter. “But perhaps I will answer a little of it. I do not think this business is my son’s alone. Why don’t you speak with your father?” His voice was a purr.
Amalayna looked directly at his eyes and caught just a glimmer of red about them. The blood ran strong in the Damion line—and strong enough that she was unable to rob him of all of his victory. She turned and left the room, knowing what he looked like, knowing that he would chuckle and turn back to the fire or walk to his desk.
But he had, perhaps, made one mistake in judging the lady his son had chosen. He had seen her at her bond-mate’s funeral rite in the gaudy, sentimental colors she had chosen and had felt a certain amusement and a little scorn for the weakness she showed in wearing them. Not even for the death of his heir would he humiliate himself so in public. He was not a weak man. And Lady Amalayna was; weak enough, certainly, to grow too fond of her rite-mate.
What Lord Damion would never have considered was this: She was too close to the loss of the things that had become her life. She did not think of her death, but did not fear it either. Any threat he had made this eve had become just another weapon in her quest for vengeance and peace.
Jagged edges of wood and stone cut into the darkening line of sky mingled with torch. Rubble adorned the foot of the central column, which was all that remained of the tall, grand pillar that the priests had ordered carved two centuries ago. The walls had been leveled to their base, and breeze flew through them to stir the dust in gray-white clouds.
It was like this everywhere. The whole of the south wing was gone. And layered among the rubble and the broken beams were the crushed remnants of dead bodies. Here and there black robes fluttered in the wind when they were not too heavy with blood.
Lord Vellen had taken no slaves with him and was glad of it. He could not contain his expression of disbelief and horror. With great care he mounted an opening in the wall itself. His fingers came up sticky and red—he had discovered the edge of a window. The careful handwork of multihued glass, lead, and crystal was gone. He could not see even shards of it, except for the one his hand now contained. He curled his fingers around it, grimacing. The air was dust-heavy and dry, his lips were cracking, and he had not even been here long.
“High Priest?”
He did not bother to turn; the voice was an irritating chitter, but enough of the priesthood had been lost this eve. “Yes?”
“Shall I have an acolyte send for the rest of the Greater Cabal?”
“Wait my word,” he answered. He had to have time to absorb it all—and there was much damage. What had caused it? There was no sign of fire, no blackening of walls, no charring of wood, no molten rock. Nor had there been sign of lightning; such a strike would have been seen for miles.
He crossed over another body. Legs alone were exposed. But these legs were jointed and mailed—a Sword. He wondered if his weapon had ever left its sheath.
The air grew still of a sudden, and Vellen stopped his aimless wandering.
“Karrick?”
“Lord?” The voice was
caught by the twist and turn of splintered stone. It did not echo as grandly as it once might have within the south hall.
“Leave me. Come back in an hour. Speak to no one yet.”
There was no answer, but none was expected, and Vellen did not so much as turn to see the acolyte bowing. He waited until the footsteps had left him alone in silence. The silence was thick and heavy, and the shadows that pooled beneath the open sky seemed thick and hazy.
“Who did this?” he asked, his voice very soft.
Sibilance twisted itself around the words that came from the darkness. “The First of the Sundered.”
“Why?” There was more in that word than many ears would dare to catch: anger, fear, and a burning hatred.
The answer to this question was not so easily delivered. Vellen cast a little spark of his personal power outward. It flew like red moth to black flame, and Sargoth became suddenly visible. He stood cloaked in shadow, so much like the First that Vellen’s hands clenched into fists, driving the splinters further into his flesh.
“Sargoth. Second,” he added, remembering himself.
“It is an interesting question,” the Servant said, even more remotely than was his wont. “I do not have the answer. I would ask him, I think, but it would do you no good.”
“What do you mean?”
“He is in the Dark Heart’s hand.”
He was not here then. Good. Vellen felt the muscles around his jaw relax. Without question, he knew he was no match for the First of the Sundered. What the nightwalker had accomplished here in short hours, he could not do with a team of mage-trained priests in days.
“It is odd,” Sargoth continued. He looked straight at Vellen, but it was not to the leader of the Greater Cabal that he spoke. “I had not foreseen this difficulty.”
“Difficulty?”
“High Priest, it is merely wood and stone. Blood your altars well, and call upon God’s power. This wing of the building can be redone.” He turned and looked around him. “Not, perhaps, with complete ease, but certainly not with great trouble.” It was hard to tell in the shadow, but it appeared that the Second of the Sundered shrugged. “I have never liked this architecture anyway.”
His cloaked form drifted above the ground, as if caught by the breeze that had started once again. Then he stopped.
“High Priest, perhaps you can help me.”
Lord Vellen did not reply.
“The First went to only one place this eve. I followed him from afar.”
“Yes?”
“House Damion. If memory serves me, that house is yours.”
“Yes.” The answer was curt.
“What did he accomplish there?”
“Nothing,” Vellen replied. “He killed two slaves. No more, no less.”
“Killed?”
“Fed, then. What difference does it make? The Church will find me others.” The entire south wing lay before him, a maze of rubble and death. Gray stone, brown wood, pale white marble—these distinctions were meaningless. Perhaps they had always been so to the one who ruled.
“I see,” Sargoth answered. Stefanos would have been pleased, but the irritation in the Second’s voice was not so clear to Vellen. Why, Stefanos? Why destroy this place? This is the seat from which you rule the Empire you built out of these half bloods and their kin.
He reached for the Dark Heart’s whisper and found it absent. The God was feeding.
No homecoming could have been more welcome than this. The night air was chill, and Vellen the high priest had been too wise to use his power to take the edge off its bite. He was weary, and a fine powder clung to his boots and the hem of his robe. The bleeding in his palm had stopped, and the priest who had tended it thought no infection would take in the wound, but the hand still ached.
House Vellen loomed above him beneath a sky that was turning to pinks and blues. Gardeners were already about their tasks—they were among the few who had been spared the Church dictate of rising with the dusk. The grounds seemed preternaturally silent.
He shivered, but knew that this was not from the cold. The vast expanse of the south wing still lay before his mind’s eye like the shattered body of a treasured friend. Vellen had few enough of those, and he took the loss poorly.
He should have waited until tonight to call the council. It angered him that he had not, but there was no one to take that anger out on—the house had lost a number of slaves over the past months and could ill afford any more. His father, no doubt, was already in bed, along with most of the staff.
He thought of rousing the cooks and decided against it; although he was hungry, the thought of food displeased him.
Had he not enough to contend with? Oh yes, the Greater Cabal could have waited.
He could still see Benataan of Torvallen standing in full robes, his back to the lowering moon. He could hear clearly the precise ring of the first words he had chosen to speak.
“Lord Vellen. I see that your actions have displeased our Lord.” No more, but he hadn’t needed to say more. It was obvious that he had been forewarned of the disaster and had had the presence of mind to turn it properly.
Vellen would find the acolyte that had delivered the information on the morrow.
He walked in silence through the gates of his house. Guards snapped to attention and held it crisply, chancing nothing but the most formal of behavior. Their eyes did not even follow their dust-covered, tired master.
The stairs seemed impossibly long, and Vellen passed them in mounting anger. The door to the gallery had been removed from the marbled floor below, but the hinges and cracked wood of the frame still sullied the entrance to the empty hall. He paused a moment to stare, remembering Sargoth’s questions. Tonight he would, perhaps, begin questioning the slaves about the nightwalker they had encountered. Then again, he might not have the time for it.
Dawn stretched out, illuminating the stained glass windows that followed him as he made his ascent. He was weary indeed.
If not for the presence of Lord Valens this eve, he might have been tempted to a foolish display. But Lord Valens had done what he might to take the edge and power from Benataan’s words.
“Benataan, do you not recognize a threat to the Church when you see it? Save your petty politicking; if the whole of the Greater Cabal cannot address this, it will avail you nothing, even if you win.” They were wise words, said with the right mix of warmth and coolness. Vellen was keenly aware that he should have been the one to speak them.
The doors to his chambers were closed, and there were no guards at them. He paused one last time before them and let a little of the tension dissipate. In moments he would let sleep claim him, and when he woke to darkness again, he would have the answers to the predicament that had absorbed his evening.
Dark Heart, he thought, let me have those answers.
The minute he reached the safety of his sitting room, he began to remove his robes. A little cloud of dust stirred round him as the sash peeled away. He walked to the door of his room, swung it open, and stopped.
Lady Amalayna was seated in the only chair the room held, her arms laying calmly over the blue velvet-covered wings, her ankles crossed demurely beneath her skirts.
Her face was pale, and her eyes were accented by dark rings that lent them a bruised appearance.
“My Lord,” she said quietly.
“What-are-you-doing-here?”
“Waiting for you.” Her eyes cut through the dust and the sweat that covered him; they were cold and sharp.
He let the robe fall back into place, aware of the advantage her gathered, crisp appearance lent her.
“I will have to ask you to leave,” he said, forcing the anger out of the words, but barely. Lord Valens had been instrumental this eve; he could not risk too large an offense. “I have had a very busy evening and am not in any condition to answer any concern you might have come with.”
The words had no effect at all; she did not even bother with the pretense of rising. Instead, s
he continued to regard him intently.
“Amalayna,” he said, “I am warning you. Do not press me now.”
“You are warning me?” A delicately shaped eyebrow rose askance. White fingers held on to the rounded fall of the chair arms a little more tightly.
Not since he had been a small child had he wanted so dearly to strike someone. He gestured, and a crackle of energy enveloped his hands. Filaments of flame, delicate and burning, came from them.
She raised an eyebrow again, but her face, already white, did not pale further. She did not even blink; this game she understood well. “My Lord,” she said, in her most demure voice, “not even for the sake of an alliance would you offer your promise to a fool. This does not impress me.”
No. No, it wouldn’t. Her value was in her life, and he knew that she knew it well. The fingers of fire that he held forth could not be allowed to caress her. He held the flames a moment further, unwilling to grant her the point, and then relented. The fire died at his hands, but it grew in his eyes; they were red and palely luminescent.
“Why have you come?”
“For the truth.”
“My Lady, enough of your games. I am not in the mood for them at present. If you have a point to make, make it and be done.”
“Very well.” She inclined her head as if accepting the most graciously offered invitation. “I want to know who you hired to assassinate Laranth of Tentaris.”
The weakness that he showed then was a weakness that any man would have showed—shock, smoothing out to incredulous silence. He opened his mouth as if to speak, then snapped it shut; the lines of it molded into an exquisitely unpleasant smile.
“Laranth,” he said, and the word was a thrum that pulled her forward in her chair. “Your former bond-mate.”
Her nod was stiff, but it was still under control.
“I had heard rumors, Lady.” He shook his head in a mockery of disapproval. “I had not credited them with truth.”
Still she waited.
“Did you really let him mean so much to you?”
That struck; she flinched. His smile grew sharper, his eyes more red.