In the House of Five Dragons
28. Reach
“Not all beginnings are written on the first page.”
— From Our Red History, by Avilla Sallusi
Rikard’s late return meant that Thainna didn’t find her own bed until even later. When she finally fell down into the increasingly familiar softness of her bed and pulled the blankets tightly around her, Thainna didn’t sleep well. Her dreams were full of unsettling images of Thain, crying and rattling in jade chains.
Thainna woke abruptly, but the clattering noise didn’t stop. She sat up, rubbing her eyes. The light coming in through the window was still dim and the pink color of the shiny interior of a seashell. It was far too early. What had woken her?
There was someone else in Thainna’s room. Sleep blurred her vision and it was little more than a thin shadow, but it held something cradled to its chest and was dashing away toward the door.
Was she being robbed? Here, in the Mazrem house? It seemed impossible, but Thainna recognized the furtive escape as one she had made too many times.
She kicked her blankets off hard enough to fling them across the tiny room and onto the thief. The flimsy barrier didn’t stop the man — Thainna could see now that it was a man — but it slowed him just enough. Thainna leapt from her bed and tackled him to the floor, smashing her temple against the doorframe in the process. Thainna saw stars but felt skin under her fingers. When she tightened her grip, hard enough to turn her knuckles white, she heard a low moan of pain. The intruder stilled.
“Stop, please! Please,” he croaked.
“Give it back!” Thainna cried. She shook the blanket-covered man.
A knob-knuckled hand emerged from under the cloth, holding the jar of expensive bluering. Thainna snatched it back and replaced the jar beside her bed. One of the others, the cardak, lay broken and its dark contents scattered across the floor. That must have been the noise that woke her up.
Thainna had not released the thief. She shook him again.
“How did you get in here?” she asked. “What the bloody hell do you want that for?”
The man wriggled free of the blanket, though not her grip. He was a middle-aged Carcaen with a narrow, drawn face and thinning brown hair.
“Caelin?” Thainna gasped, startled. “What–?”
There was a loud banging at the door. She released the other Talon.
“Thainna?”
She recognized Bastil’s voice outside.
“Thainna?” the steward called through the door. “Is everything alright? I heard something breaking!”
“Fine! All fine,” Thainna shouted back.
Caelin probably left the door open, giving himself an easy route of escape, but it had been kicked or shoved shut at some point during their struggles. There was a pause outside.
“If all is well, tell me what I called you when you first arrived here,” Bastil said.
What had he called her? Thainna thought, grasping at the memory that felt like a lifetime ago. The last thing she needed was the house steward bursting in and demanding explanations…
“Thinny!” she cried. “You called me Thinny. I’m alright, Bastil. Everything is fine.”
Both Talons held their breath and listened until Bastil’s footsteps faded into the distance. When they were alone again, Thainna swatted Caelin’s bony shoulder.
“What are you doing here, you bloody old badger? You’re supposed to be working Gaius, aren’t you?”
Caelin squeezed his eyes closed and Thainna worried for a moment that he might cry. His face was red, but it seemed he had wept his last tears. His eyes remained dry.
“Hae, I’m supposed to be, but that man’s appetites are bottomless,” said Caelin. “Lord Gaius told me to get him some more bluering.”
“More? I heard you were supposed to get him split on ophellion. When did he have bluering?”
“Lord Gaius said you gave it to him. Didn’t you?”
“Me? No, of course not! I’m on Rikard, not Gaius. Bloody hell, I did give Rikard some tea spiked with bluering about a week ago. He never seemed affected, so I didn’t bother giving him more… Did Gaius drink it?”
“Hae, must have done. Please, I need more.”
Thainna scowled.
“Why do you need it from me?” she asked. “Why don’t you get it from the House? Why are you stealing from me instead of talking to the Eyes?”
“I’ve tried,” Caelin said, shaking his head. “I’ve gone asking, but they won’t give me anything. They say the bluering’s too expensive. Your work is more important, hae? I didn’t think you’d give up the drams willing, not with such an important job, but I had to… Milla’s waiting for me to be done here.”
He said it with such despair that Thainna felt ashamed, though the whole thing certainly had not been her idea. The Crest had taken Caelin’s wife, just like he had taken Thain. She pulled the jar of bluering down again and handed it to Caelin. He reached out for it hesitantly.
“But what about your job, Thainna?” Caelin asked. “The Crest took someone from you, too.”
Thainna pulled the other jars out from under her bed. Even with the loss of both the spilled cardak and bluering, it was an impressive collection of drams. Caelin seemed to agree. He picked up one and, after a permissive nod from Thainna, worked the stopper free. After a sniff of the contents, he whistled softly.
“Jession?” Caelin closed the jar and handed it back to Thainna. “Good stuff, I hear.”
“I gave Rikard the bluering, but he didn’t seem to give two beans about it. It was the best I have. If you need it for Gaius, take it. Maybe the Crest will call that good enough and let you go home with your wife, hae?”
It seemed that Caelin still had a few tears. He hugged Thainna gratefully and a few dropped onto the shoulder of her tabba, warm and not altogether uncomfortable. The older Talon babbled his thanks and then hurried out the door, eager to continue — and to finish — his work. A moment later, his gaunt face appeared in the door again.
“Good luck in getting your father back home,” said Caelin.
“It’s my brother, actually,” she told him. “But thanks.”
Caelin nodded and then vanished once more. Thainna considered trying to get back to sleep, but dreams of being locked away from Thain were no better than the waking reality.
She closed the door behind Caelin and swept away the spilled cardak as best she could with a dirty tabba. Thainna wrapped up the broken pieces of the jar in the cloth and shoved them under her bed, along with everything else she didn’t want the other Mazrem servants to find, including the satchel full of small but expensive trinkets she had stolen. Whatever else might happen, she still had the Auction to think about.
Satisfied with the results of her cleaning, Thainna collected a freshly laundered blue tabba from a basket beside the door and headed for the bathhouse. She wanted to stop to get some breakfast from Arliss, but decided grudgingly against it. She wasn’t hungry. It still amazed her.
When she arrived at the bathhouse, Thainna was surprised to find she had it to herself. The cooking and grounds staff were already hard at work, but it was still early and the rest of the servants were probably just beginning to stir. Lord and Lady Mazrem would not be awake for hours yet.
Thainna stripped out of her clothes and slid down into the huge tub. The water was warm, but not hot and the languid heat tugged Thainna back toward sleep. She waded over to one of the wide, shallow steps that lined all four sides of the bath and sat. If she fell asleep, she probably wouldn’t drown there. Thainna combed soap through her hair and laid back on the step to let the steaming water rinse it away.
It was not completely without fear that she had let Caelin take her bluering. The loss meant one less tool left to somehow get Rikard under her control. But Thainna didn’t think the bluering would have worked, anyway, and doubted any of the other drams Narissa had given her would be any better.
Floating in the warm water and her blissful lack of hunger, Thainna despaired. She would never get Rikard addicted to anything. He had weaknesses — plenty of them — but drams were not one of them.
Narissa seemed certain that Thainna could seduce Rikard away from his wife. The priestess didn’t know Laurael very well, Thainna decided. Despite being more than twice Thainna’s age, Lady Mazrem held herself with the graceful air of a natural seductress. Every single thing she did was lovely, beautifully practiced. Besides, it was obvious in Rikard’s every look and word that he hopelessly adored his wife.
That left blackmailing Rikard. The very idea made Thainna’s heart speed in her breast. She liked Rikard, Thainna supposed, though it was difficult to say. The man was as strange and distant as a mountaintop. Thainna combed through her memories of the past days. Was there anything she could give the House of Five Dragons? Only Rikard’s confusion, which faded by the day.
Nothing useful. Thainna pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes. She would not cry. There had to be something she could do. Something…
When she finally opened her eyes, Bastil stood at the edge of the bathing pool. The stern-faced old Carcaen gestured impatiently as Thainna started, spluttering and splashing. She struggled upright and tapped the water from her ears.
“Get dressed,” Bastil said. “Legens Mazrem wants to see you.”
“Legens?”
Thainna only vaguely recalled Rikard mentioning his new rank the night before. It had been very late. Was he finally accepting the title? It would make the knight even more powerful — if only in name — and that much more valuable to the Crest.
“What does he want?” Thainna asked.
“My lord didn’t say,” answered Bastil.
Thainna climbed up out of the bath and squeezed the water from her hair. She wound it into a coil at the nape of her neck and belted on her tabba.
Bastil remained a little longer than was strictly necessary, but Thainna doubted that he was trying to leer at her. He looked as though he wanted to ask about the morning’s disturbance, but his good manners — or some other pressing business — won out over his curiosity. The steward left without asking Thainna any questions.
She laced up her sandals and hurried out of the bathhouse. Thainna assumed that the new legens wanted to meet her in the triclinium or maybe his bed chambers, but a maid shushed her at the bedroom door and waved her off. Lady Mazrem was still sleeping, she said, and sent Thainna outside to the east veranda.
Rikard stood on the veranda with his back to the door. He hadn’t been awake for long, Thainna guessed. He wore his pants laced around his hips, but the knight’s saela lay over the arm of a nearby couch. His long black hair was mussed, not yet combed or tied. He stared out across Dormaen.
The Mazren River was just visible in the distance, blurred by smoke and the general haze of the city into a pewter ribbon across the horizon. The sun was little more than a golden-pink arc of light above the hills to the east of the Kaelos Valley. Most of the city had extinguished the streetlamps, but thousands of shops, streets and homes still glittered with bouncing points of light like dancing stars. A cacophony of voices, squeaking doors, creaking wheels, cracking whips, hooves on the stone roads and roof tiles expanding in the warming morning all blended together into a lively thrum, audible even up on the slopes of the Everstones. Like the humming of a beehive, Thainna thought, so vitally alive. She had been born in Dormaen and suspected that she would die never seeing another city. It was her whole world, but Thainna suddenly realized she had never really considered it beautiful. Under the blushing early autumn sunrise, she had to admit that it was.
“Thainna, come here. Please.”
Rikard said it so softly that Thainna wasn’t sure that she had heard him correctly at first. She went to Rikard’s side and looked up at the tall, hawk-faced knight. His cheeks were shadowed by a day’s stubble and his dark eyes looked haunted.
“Do you see the river there?” he asked.
“Hae. That’s the Mazren River,” Thainna answered.
“My grandfather’s grandfather took his name from that river. It used to run through the center of Dormaen, like a vein of quicksilver.”
“Pata said that they had to reroute it to the east side of the valley to make room in the city. That’s where the Rows are now. The ground there is bad. Half of what anyone’s managed to build just falls over inside five years.”
Rikard nodded once and continued his contemplation of the city. Thainna tried to think of something to say, something helpful. Something Thain might say. Rikard must have heard her thought. He looked down at the small half-Fiori girl.
“Thainna, you have been the best candle… the best friend I’ve known since my return.”
“You only came back on the calends, Rikard,” she reminded him. “You’ve been here in this house most of that time.”
Rikard turned to face her and knelt. Thainna very nearly ran away, half afraid that this was some strange new alien, Alterran response, but managed to hold her ground. Rikard wound his arms around her waist and buried his face against Thainna’s stomach, clinging to her like a child. She was sure her eyes went wide enough that they could have dropped right out of her head.
“Something’s gone wrong,” Rikard said into her stomach.
“What? Rikard, I… I don’t read minds like you do,” Thainna stammered. “What are you talking about?”
“Tychon’s made me legens of VEIL,” Rikard told her. “He called it a reward, one befitting my deeds. But he lied.”
Rikard clutched at Thainna’s tabba so hard that she worried he might rip it. His voice was hoarse with despair.
“He thinks nothing of them, the knights who fought and died in ice for his empire! Not those who fell or those who live. Fat and lazy, those are his thoughts. Bullies and brutes.”
Thainna wavered. What should she tell him? Comfort or truth? She remembered Ortho, the knight who had hit her in Mazrem Square. Rikard was on his feet in a heartbeat, still clutching her close, but now face to face.
“Truth, Thainna,” he begged in a thick voice. “Please! I choke on the lies.”
She bit her lip before answering. For all that he had done to shape the world, for all that he was, Rikard knew less about it than those who lived in it now.
“The emperor is right,” Thainna told him. “You’ve been gone for thirty years, Rikard. You don’t know what VEIL’s become. I don’t even know for sure what it used to be. Your war was years before I was even born. All I have are stories and Pata was never very good at telling them. Whatever VEIL was, I don’t think it’s like that anymore.”
“We fought for peace, Thainna,” Rikard said. “At first to defend Carce’s borders, then for the other nations! We were a state of scholars! How many Carcaens died on Lyncean swords?”
Rikard’s fists tightened in her tabba. A week ago, she might have read violence in the gesture, but Thainna surprised herself… She wasn’t afraid. Rikard was angry, but not with her.
“And then for unity, hae? Just like Emperor Tychon told you to. Well, it worked. There hasn’t been so much as a Nianese squabble since Njorn Pass,” she said. “But what do you think VEIL’s done in the last thirty years? They’re bored. They’re both feared and afraid. They’re powerful.”
“There are still enemies to fight, aren’t there?”
“Like who?” Thainna asked. “The House of Five Dragons? Why bother? VEIL is just as dirty.”
She snapped her mouth shut, but Rikard furrowed his dark brows deeply.
“The House of Five Dragons?” he asked. “What’s that? I… don’t know the name.”
“It’s a syndicate of criminals,” Thainna explained quickly, not lingering on the details even in her own thoughts. “The largest in Carce, made up of hundreds of thieves and money-shavers and blackmailers and murderers. Maybe thousands. They have… they have great power in Dormaen, Rikard. The House has people everywhere. The Rows, the temples, the markets and the colleges and laweries, here in the Everstones. Probably in the Lyceum and imperial palace, too. And surely in VEIL.”
“And VEIL allows them to remain?” asked Rikard.
“VEIL doesn’t care,” Thainna answered. “Why should they? The House of Five Dragons is rich and controls so much. Better to be their allies than enemies. Any House spy in VEIL is just bringing in two paydays! It’s to their profit.”
Rikard shook his head. “Someone must protest. What could a knight of VEIL have to fear from this… this House of Five Dragons? Even the roughest iron… street tough can raise nothing against a VEIL knight with the Alterra by his side!”
Before she could stop herself, Thainna laughed. It was a hard, bitter sound.
“I’m sure there are some knights not taking House money, or buying House women, or split on House drams,” she said. “But even if they wanted to fight the House of Five Dragons, no knight would bleed for it. Maybe back in your day, Rikard, but not anymore. No one calls on Alterra anymore. I told you, they’re afraid. No one wants to end up like you.”
Rikard stared at Thainna as though she had grown a second head.
“I don’t understand,” he said. “What is a VEIL knight without the Alterra? Show me!”
Thainna was forming the words to do just that when she felt Rikard’s presence in her mind. He was a heavy, insistent pressure right behind her eyes, pushing somehow deeper than her skull could possibly contain. It wasn’t painful, but it was deeply intrusive. Thainna felt vulnerable, peeled open like a piece of fruit as Rikard peered into her memories. She cried out sharply.
And then he was gone. Thainna felt suddenly as limp as a sack of wet sand and fell against Rikard. He caught her easily in his arms and carried her to a couch. Carefully, he laid her down, pillowing her head on his folded saela. Rikard remained crouched beside Thainna.
“I’m sorry,” he said in a low voice. “I needed… but I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have, not without permission.”
Thainna felt strangely boneless and yet like she was floating on something soft and… stringy? It was impossible to put the sensation into words. Thainna was half tethered to her body, half soaring free like a flown standard. She was high above the world even as she sank deep into it. Beside it, within it… She couldn’t speak for a long moment. When Thainna finally found her words again, her tongue was heavy and unresponsive in her mouth.
Is this what it’s like to be Rikard? she wondered.
Hae.
Thainna clearly heard his answer in her mind, as easily as she knew her own thoughts but just as clearly those of another. Rikard’s short, simple word was more… brown than her own, she supposed, like turned soil. His mind was thinner, too, stretched and layered. Tempered, perhaps, like the folded steel blades that the Nianese favored.
Are you listening… feeling me, Rikard?
Hae, he thought.
…Please stop.
Sharing her mind with Rikard was not altogether unpleasant, but there were too many things he could not know about her. Unwelcome panic prickled through her like rippling black thorns and Thainna cracked her eyes open just in time to see Rikard recoil. Fear had not lost its sharp edge against him, it seemed. Thainna sat up and smiled sheepishly at him.
“Now I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
Rikard touched his forefinger to his lips. It seemed like a strange gesture, but when he dropped his hand again, he was smiling back at Thainna. “Now we’re even.”
“Did you see what you needed to?”
“Hae,” answered Rikard. His smile fell away and Thainna almost regretted asking. “The bond with Alterra is all but broken. Even when Mask fell, I never… I didn’t realize it was so bad. No one in Terra knows about the war. Stumble and Flickerdim fight in defense of a brotherhood that’s been forgotten. How did we drift so far away? They… you all keep talking about how I built the empire. But without the Alterra, I could have done nothing. VEIL is so afraid of blood now, of what they may have to give up.”
“We thought you were dead and no one else wanted that to happen to them,” said Thainna. “You lived, as it turned out, but we’re not so sure that death wouldn’t have been better.”
“How can you say that?” Rikard asked.
He peered at her curiously. In his dark eyes, Thainna could clearly see the temptation to simply reach into her thoughts for the answer. She couldn’t lie to herself — it was tempting. That mental bond was a much more effective, intimate sort of communication than any words.
Intimate? Don’t even think that, stupid girl, Thainna told herself firmly.
“Thirty years fighting in Alterra, in an alien world,” she said instead. “Twice that or more if they hadn’t sent you back. Bleeding gods, you didn’t age at all while you were gone. Your own son is older than you are. Nothing can be worth that!”
“That’s why Nikas was so upset when I saluted the Alterra,” Rikard said in wonderment. He sat down next to Thainna. “They’re afraid of Alterrans. Because of me? Because of what happened to me?”
Thainna nodded.
Rikard drew a deep breath. “I think that I understand. Thank you, Thainna.”
A maid emerged from a nearby door bearing Rikard’s breakfast. He accepted the tray from her and set it down on the cushion next to Thainna. She moved to stand, but Rikard laid a restraining hand on her shoulder.
“Is there something else you need?” she asked.
“Hae, there is. Are you hungry?”
Thainna was about to tell him no when her stomach grumbled loudly. “Well, I wasn’t, but I guess my guts have their own opinion.”
Rikard offered Thainna a plate of sliced green melon and she accepted. The servants in the Mazrem house ate well, but not half so lavishly as their masters. The melon was as crisp and sweet as honey. Thainna had never tasted anything so delicious.
“Did you just want to share some breakfast, Rikard?” she asked when she had finished off the melon and concluded that licking the plate clean might be a little too rude. “Do you want me to go now?”
“No. I want to fix this, Thainna. All of this. I’m going to report to the Star Court archouse today to take my new position in VEIL. I want you to come with me.”
“I’m flattered, of course, but why? I’m just a–” Thief, Thainna almost said, but corrected herself. “–a foster. What could you need me for?”
“I begin to understand that I have broken… that I have enemies, Thainna. I believe that my health will make an easy target.”
“You want me to tell them where to stick it if they claim that you’re in no condition to do… whatever you want to do?”
Rikard laughed. “Hae. But that isn’t all. I feel something inside you, Thainna, something harder than I knew. Your concern for your brother makes you twice as watchful, as careful. I don’t understand the shape of it, but Thain is your twin, like Saerus to Surma. It must be good fortune. You remind me of Stumble.”
“Stumble? Who is that?”
“A young Alterran, a curiosity. He’s a good… man, I suppose. Stumble and I were friends. He taught me the ways of Alterra when I first arrived. We fought together for many years. I want you near me, as Stumble always was. You will see things that I will not. And you tell me what no one else will.”
Thainna blushed and nodded. “Hae, then. When do we leave?”
“I need to talk to Laura first.” Rikard stood and pulled on his saela. He fastened the knotted buttons and straightened his sleeves. Did he look nervous? “Get anything you might need and meet me at the front gate.”
“I’ll be there soon,” Thainna promised.
At first, Laurael was relieved to find herself alone in bed. Rikard had kept them both awake late into the night and she had no particular desire to begin the new day in such a sweaty fashion.
A cold wave of doubt doused her pleasure. Where was her husband? Their visit with Emperor Tychon had not gone well. Rikard’s childish departure had only strengthened Tychon’s conviction that the young knight would turn on him. She argued with the emperor for almost an hour, trying to convince him that Rikard had no design on the throne, but was not at all certain of her success.
Blood of the gods, Tychon is like a jealous child brooding over his favorite toy. He reads envy in every glance and thinks everyone is out to steal what is his.
Still, she couldn’t be too angry. Tychon’s paranoia played quite well into Laurael’s hands. The emperor was worried about entirely the wrong Mazrem. Rikard had no ambition, but Laurael thanked the gods every day that their son more than made up for that particular failing.
Gaius could be a difficult boy, but what young man was not? He would be a fine emperor, if Rikard didn’t steal VEIL and the Lyceum out from under him.
Laurael sat up in her bed and called for a dresser. A moment later, the door opened, but instead of one of her girls, Rikard strode into the room. His long hair was still sleep-tousled, but he was already dressed. Laurael’s young husband sat on the edge of the bed and kissed her. Especially when compared to his desperate, needy lovemaking of the night before, Rikard seemed to be in high spirits.
“I’m going to the Star Court today,” he announced.
Laurael kept her expression carefully neutral. “Are you certain, my lord? You’re not to strain yourself, you know. The foster girl has said it herself.”
“Thainna’s coming with me.”
“Is she? Well, then I’m sure you’re in good hands. Will you be gone long?”
“Most of the day, I think.”
“After thirty years alone, I suppose I shall survive a little longer,” Laurael said with a sigh. “Return as soon as you may, my lord.”
“I thought that I would bring Gaius along, too. He’s a VEIL captain, after all.”
“Let our son sleep. Making his own time is one of the privileges he’s earned. When he wakes, I’ll send him to join you.”
Rikard cocked his head and looked as though he might protest, but only nodded. He gave Laurael a lingering kiss and turned away to leave.
“Comb your hair,” she snapped. “You can’t appear at the archouse looking like a Rows vagabond.”
When Rikard had pulled his black hair into some semblance of order, he bade her a final farewell and left. Laurael lingered in bed until the dressers arrived to arrange her hair and makeup. When the oldest girl finished lacing her corset, Laurael sent her to fetch Gaius.
“Breakfast?”
Arliss offered Thainna a heel of dark bread smeared in cheese curds, but she waved it off.
“No, I’ve already eaten. Are you expecting anyone soon?”
“You’re pretty early. Breakfast for most is in about half an hour. Bastil hasn’t come through yet, but he’s a late eater. Foolish man, he’s all skin and bones! I notice you’ve put on a little fat,” Arliss said. “Not that you couldn’t use a little more…”
“I had breakfast with Rikard,” Thainna told her. The cook’s eyebrow shot up. “He’s taking me with him to the Star Court today. Can you take a report to the House for me?”
“Is it important?”
“Hae,” said Thainna. “You were right before, when you said… Anyway, I have to send news as often as I can. I need to tell Narissa that I’m finally getting somewhere.”
“I can’t get away until after midday. What do you want me to tell her?”
“Rikard said that I remind him of an Alterran friend of his and he wants to keep me nearby. He seems to trust me.”
Arliss blinked and shook her head, disbelieving.
“I think that’s the angle I can work on him. Tell Narissa that I tried the bluering, but it only hooked Gaius, not Rikard.” Thainna thought for a moment and then corrected herself. “No, don’t tell her that. Tell her I need some more of the ophellion and bluering instead.”
“You just said you weren’t using them,” Arliss said, suddenly suspicious. “You’re not split yourself, are you?”
“No! It’s for Caelin, but please don’t tell Narissa that. Caelin said the House has been turning down his requests because they’re low priority or something like that. But Narissa said the Crest will give me anything I ask for.”
“Hae, then.”
“If she sends you back with anything, just give it right to Caelin. I don’t know how long I’ll be gone today.”
The older woman nodded. “I’ll do that. Take care of yourself, Thainna.”
Thainna was waiting for Rikard at the front gates, chatting with one of the household guards. Another guardsman held the reins of a kajja hitched to a chariot, though not the one Rikard used the night before. When he neared, Thainna broke off her conversation and approached.
“I had one of your men bring this around,” she said, pointing to the chariot. “They want to know if you’d like an escort.”
“No. I just want to get underway.”
Rikard found himself unexpectedly impatient. He climbed into the chariot. Thainna gestured to the guard she had been speaking to.
“No escort today,” she said. “Can you get the gates?”
“Hae, Mana Vahn.”
He jogged down to the bottom of the hill and waved to the other men. Thainna stepped up into the chariot with Rikard. She felt very small and very warm next to him. The guards below heaved the gates open and saluted Rikard as he drove past.
The outer wall of his home was a jumble of flowers, candles and more. Curious, Rikard slowed the kajja to a walk. What was all of this? Offerings…?
“All of this is… for me?” he asked.
“Hae. I’m a little surprised Lady Mazrem hasn’t had it all removed yet,” said Thainna. “I don’t know, maybe she has and they’ve put down more. They keep trying to make you a god, you know.”
Rikard scowled. “Laura told me.”
“Of course, most of the people in Dormaen don’t need a Lyceum dictum to worship you.”
Rikard darted a shocked look down at the flame-haired girl.
“Do you…?” he asked.
Thainna blushed. “Me? No, I’ve never worshiped you. I don’t visit the temples much, except the fostral.”
“But you’re a spring-thrice… a priestess!”
“Hae, right. A priestess.” Thainna looked away, at the offerings. “You’re not offended, are you?”
“That you don’t pray to me?” Rikard laughed and shook his head. He silently urged the kajja on, out into the street. “No. I don’t want to be a god. I just want to be a man. A husband and a father and a knight. That’s hard enough.”
Laurael’s face paint was dry and her dressers had long since retreated by the time Gaius staggered into her dressing room. His eyes were red-rimmed and slitted against the pale sunlight as though it might blind him. Gaius’ cheeks were ruddy and rough with dark whiskers.
“What is it now, Mother? Are you out of other men to annoy?” he said sourly. He swept a faltering bow. “I’m at your disposal, great lady.”
“You’re drunk,” Laurael snapped.
Gaius raised a finger and waggled it at her. “No, Mother, I was drunk. Now I’m hung over. But I had a nice tall cup of bluering. Maybe you’d like some, Mother? It might sharpen your mind. I’m certain you need it as much as I do. After all, we’re about to lose everything.”
“You’re babbling, Gaius.”
“Hae? Are you quite sure you’re awake, Mother? You seem to be dreaming,” her son said. His breath stank like burnt sugar. “Despite Father’s blatant disrespects to Tychon, the old scab still made him legens! Why? Because the worlds might collapse if some poor, deluded soul didn’t worship the great Rikard Mazrem!”
“Gaius–” Laurael began, but he cut her off with a petulant cry.
“I wanted to be emperor, Mother! But Father might as well have robbed me of the throne!”
Gaius fell to his knees on the rug-strewn floor and hammered his fists against his thighs. Laurael knelt and put her arms around her son. She kissed his fever-flushed cheek.
“Your father will take nothing from you, Gaius,” she whispered in his ear. “Nothing! I swear it on my blood. I’ve spent my life ensuring that you will succeed Tychon. Rikard will not interfere.”
“If it was up to him, I’m sure he’d agree. The man is too humble by half. He’d not take an offered acorn! But it’s not going to be his choice, is it? It’s up to Tychon and the Lyceum!”
“They will choose you, my son. There will be no other choice.”
She stroked Gaius’ dark hair. It needed to be dyed again. She would tend to it herself. No one else ever got it right. Gaius pulled away and turned to face Laurael, his expression puzzled.
“Why?” he asked. “What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to kill your father,” she said. “Tychon will appear responsible for it. The emperor is already consumed by fear for his throne. It will not be a stretch of reason that he might eliminate such a rival. His paranoia of usurpation will brook no other conclusion. Castum Tychon is the only man in Carce who doesn’t love your father.”
“Except us.”
Laurael shrugged. “The Lyceum will remove Tychon from the throne. When that’s done, who better to take control of the empire than the son of the martyred Rikard Mazrem?”
Gaius pressed his lips together into a flat, thoughtful line. “Can you do it, Mother?”
“Hae, of course. Haven’t I always taken care of you, Gaius?”
It was a mother’s right and responsibility to comfort and provide for her child. Laurael would gladly burn the worlds to ash to make sure they were safe for Gaius.
