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Valeria shook her head, sharp and short. She was making excuses.
The truth was much simpler. Valeria was born this way. No amount of wishing could change her.
Grania had finished nursing. Portia’s eyes asked and her arms stretched out, offering her to Valeria.
Valeria shook her head again, just as sharp as before. She turned back to her mother. “Will you take her? Just until we see what’s happening in Aurelia?”
“That would be sensible,” Morag said. “Unless her father objects.”
“He won’t,” said Valeria. At least, she thought, not to that. He would agree that Grania was safer in Imbria than at the heart of whatever was coming. What he would say to Valeria’s making the decision without him…
She would face that when it came. They had the journey. She could still see him happy, delighting in his child. Before the clouds rolled in. Before the world’s weight was on them again, as sooner or later it always seemed to be.
Chapter Ten
Kerrec found his daughter fascinating and somewhat terrifying. She was so small and so utterly dependent on her elders, and yet the patterns that took shape around her promised to be as wide as the world.
Even more terrifying was what happened to his heart when he held her in his lap. He was a cold creature—all his passion was given to his art and to Valeria. Even his father’s magic had not been enough to give him a warm heart.
When he looked at his daughter, he burned so hot he did not recognize himself. He had heard of people who would die for their children—women usually, mothers possessed of a love so fierce there was no end to it. He had thought those claims exaggerated until he held this mite of a thing in his hands, wet and squalling from her mother’s womb, and knew they were a dim shadow of the truth.
Time’s passage did not lessen this feeling at all, but it did teach him to contain it. From being so full he could hardly think, he advanced to merely being besotted. Eventually he supposed he would simply be madly in love, and that would be the way of it for as long as he was alive.
Madly in love, he could understand. He had that for Valeria. He did his best to see this in a similar light, if only to make the rest of life easier.
He had traveled the road from the Mountain so often that it was nearly as familiar as the way from his rooms in the school to the stallions’ stable. But Grania’s presence in her grandmother’s wagon made it all seem new. He was more alert than he had ever been, more watchful for any sign of danger.
He could laugh at himself, recognizing the stallion’s instinct to protect his offspring, but his wariness was no less for that. He had been ambushed on this road before and carried off to torments he would never forget, no matter how old the scars were or how thoroughly they had healed.
Nothing like that would happen now. Those enemies were dead, and their plot in the end had failed. Whatever new evil was brewing, the riders were no longer cursed with naiveté. They would never be caught off guard again.
As a First Rider, Kerrec lent his magic to the working of wards and his strength to sustaining them. By the third day out from the Mountain, the spells were strong enough to stand on their own. No one rider needed to watch over them.
All the while he focused on protecting the caravan, he was aware under his skin of his lover and her mother and his daughter whom they guarded. A riders’ caravan had never brought women who were not Valeria with it before, let alone a baby. Kerrec had thought that some of the riders would grumble, but they were almost as besotted with Grania as he was.
There was always someone riding beside the wagon or even sitting in it, hovering over the baby and, when she was not riding among them, Valeria. Grania was never alone and never unprotected. Her mother and grandmother slept with her at night and guarded her by day with an intensity that began to make Kerrec uneasy.
Between those two and himself, Kerrec would give little for the chances of anyone who presumed to lay a hand on Grania. But there was more to it than that.
They knew something. He wanted to believe they were not hiding it from him deliberately, but at camp in the evenings, Valeria had little to say though she was perfectly willing to join with him in other ways than words. Her mother was preoccupied with the nurse and the baby. No one else knew there was anything to notice.
He resolved to wait them out. Whatever it was, it would not strike the caravan without raising the alarm.
To be sure of that, Kerrec heightened the defenses with a portion of the magic he had from his father. Now the earth was on the alert and the land was armed. Whatever came would have to contend with the deep magic of the empire as well as the stallions and their riders.
The working came wonderfully easily. Horse magic and imperial magic flowed together. They were all one. There was no division within them.
Kerrec had not expected that. As always, the Mountain strengthened some powers and suppressed others. He had been growing unawares, becoming something quite other than he had been before.
It was not a frightening prospect, though it fluttered his heart somewhat. There was a profound rightness in it. As he rode out of the mountains, he basked in magic that was whole and more than whole.
He would never take it for granted again. Nor would he forget that the higher his fortunes rose, the lower they could fall.
Valeria could feel Kerrec watching her. She had not wanted to worry him unnecessarily, but he was too perceptive. He knew she was keeping something from him.
He would not ask. When they lay together, he said nothing but a murmur of endearments. Time and again, she meant to say something, but she let each moment pass. She was a coward and she knew it, but she could not seem to help herself.
The longer she waited, the harder it was to break the silence. She had to do it soon. The days were passing and the road was growing shorter. The time would come when Morag left the caravan and turned toward Imbria. Grania would go with her—but Grania’s father would quite naturally want a say in it.
The night before Morag was to go, Valeria sat up late with her. The nurse snored softly in the tent.
It was a clear night, starlit and warm. Valeria rocked Grania in her lap. “I swear,” she said, “she smiled at me today. It wasn’t gas pains, either.”
“No doubt,” said Morag. “She’s waking to the world as they all do. She knows her mother, too.”
Valeria’s mood was as changeable as summer weather. It clouded swiftly and completely. “Does she? How long will that last?”
“I’ll make sure she doesn’t forget.”
“Maybe it will be only a few days,” Valeria said. “Maybe a week. Or two. Just a little while.”
“Maybe,” Morag said.
Valeria resisted the urge to clutch Grania to her breast. That would only alarm her and set her crying. “Gods. What are we doing?”
“Keeping her safe,” said Morag. “One thing we can say for all those royal and noble conspirators. Unless they need fodder for their wars, they seldom trouble to notice the lower classes. As long as we keep our taxes paid and our heads down, they stay out of our way.”
Valeria nodded reluctantly. “What’s another peasant’s brat? Even if they knew to look for her, they wouldn’t know where to begin.”
“Wouldn’t they?”
Valeria started violently. Grania woke and opened her mouth to wail. Kerrec gathered her up and crooned at her. She subsided, staring rapt at his firelit face. After a moment she crooned back.
Valeria was not breathing. Kerrec knelt and then sat beside her, careful not to jostle the baby. Grania gurgled at him.
That was a smile. Even Morag could not fail to see it.
It gave Valeria little joy. Her heart stabbed with guilt.
Kerrec looked up from his daughter’s face to her mother’s. His gaze was level. “I think you have something to tell me,” he said.
Valeria swallowed. Her throat was dry. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I should have—I have this terrible habit of—”
“Yes,” he said. “What is it? What do you see?”
“Unmaking,” she said baldly.
There was a brief, perfect silence. Then he said, “Ah.” Only that.
“We didn’t destroy it,” she said, “or the people who worship it. It’s still there. It still wants us. We’re everything it isn’t, you see.”
“I see,” he said. “The coronation?”
“Or the Dance. Probably both. Briana is wound up in it so tightly I can’t see where she begins and the rest ends. It’s Maurus’ vision and more. They—whoever they are—have opened doors that should have been forever shut.”
He nodded slowly. His eyes were dark in the firelight. “So you’ll send Grania out of the way.”
“I hope so,” said Valeria. “Are you angry?”
“No,” he said. “If this storm swallows everything, she’ll be no safer in Imbria than in Aurelia. But she might last a little longer.”
“She’s going to last a lifetime,” Valeria said fiercely. “I’ll stop it. I don’t care what I have to do, but I will do it.”
“So shall we all,” he said. He held his finger for Grania to clasp. She reached for it with clear intent and caught hold, gripping as if she would never let go.
They parted with Morag at the crossroads, half a day’s wagon ride from Imbria. Grania was asleep in the nurse’s arms. Valeria should not have been disappointed—this was a six-weeks-old child, too young to know anything about grief or farewells—but the heart was not prone to reason.
She kissed the small warm forehead. For an instant she paused. Was it too warm? Was Grania brewing up a fever?
If she was, all the better that she was going to Morag’s house instead of traveling on to Aurelia. The wisewoman would look after her.
It hurt to pull away. Valeria embraced her mother quickly and tightly, then half strode, half ran toward Sabata. If Morag said anything, Valeria never heard it through the roaring in her ears.
Kerrec took longer to say goodbye, but even that was only a few moments. When Valeria looked back, he was riding toward her with a perfectly still face and the wagon was rattling away over the hill to Imbria.
Valeria stiffened her spine. She had done the best she knew how. Grania was as safe as anyone could be.
The rest of them were riding into the whirlwind. She reached for Kerrec’s hand.
It was already reaching for hers. With hands clasped, riding knee to knee, they turned their faces toward Aurelia.
Chapter Eleven
Briana was playing truant. There was a hall full of nobles waiting for her to open their council and another hall full of servants intent on making this coronation more splendid than any that had gone before, and a temple full of priests awaiting a rite that she could not put off. And here she was, dressed in worn leather breeches, creeping off to Riders’ Hall to see if Corcyra had foaled yet.
Her heart was remarkably light. Too light, she might have thought. It was a kind of madness, as if after a long and arduous struggle she had come to the summit of a mountain—and leaped.
The earth lay far below, just visible through a scud of cloud. Her body would break upon it, she knew with perfect surety. But while she rode so high, all that mattered was the joy of soaring through infinite space.
It was still early morning. The air was cool and sea-scented. The night’s fog had burned off already, promising a warm day later.
As she walked down the passage between the palace and Riders’ Hall, her back straightened and her shoulders came back. The weight of her office was no more than she could bear—she was born and bred for it and trained from childhood to carry it. But even she needed to escape now and then.
The passage had numerous turnings and branches. The one she chose ended in the stable, which at the moment was empty except for a stocky bay mare and the young black, Corcyra. All of her sisters had foaled days ago. They were in pastures outside of Aurelia now, running with their offspring and getting fat on the rich green grass.
With just the two of them in residence, the stalls were open for the mares to come and go. They could go out into the riding court if they liked, which at the moment they did not choose to do. The bay Lady was nose-down in a manger full of sweet hay. Corcyra dozed in a stall.
Briana’s eyes narrowed. The mare seemed placid. Her belly drooped and her sides seemed oddly flat. Her rump was sunken, her tail limp. She looked just as she should at the very end of her pregnancy.
“She’ll go tonight,” Quintus the stableman said as he came up beside Briana. “She’s crossing her legs and holding her breath as it is.”
Briana shook her head and sighed. “Mares,” she said.
Corcyra barely acknowledged her as she came into the stall. Briana stroked the sleek neck and rubbed the little lean ears. “Only a little while longer,” she said.
The bay Lady snorted derisively. She was a horse by courtesy and physical semblance, but in the world of the spirit she was greater than gods. It was her choice to live here in Aurelia, pretend to be the empress’s favorite mount and bide her time for some purpose known only to herself.
Briana would never presume to ask what it was. The Lady had chosen Briana for her rider—a thing no Lady had done in a thousand years. Ladies lived on the Mountain. They showed themselves to no mortals except those select few riders who attended them in their high pastures.
This Lady came and went as she would and did as she pleased. Briana existed to serve her, no more and no less.
Maybe that was why she had chosen Briana. An empress more than any needed to be reminded that there were powers higher than she. In front of this blocky, cobby, yet rather pretty little horse, Briana understood the meaning of humility.
This morning the Lady was even more inscrutable than usual. Some of the reason for that came clear in Quintus’ words. “I had a message last night, lady. The riders will be here by tonight, or tomorrow morning at latest.”
No doubt a similar message was waiting among the hundreds that Briana had eluded in coming here. She nodded and sighed a little. “Good,” she said. “I’m glad. They’re all safe? No one’s missing?”
“Everyone’s well,” Quintus said. “The road was clear and nothing got in their way.”
“Send word when they come,” Briana said. “Will you do that for me?”
“Of course, lady,” said Quintus.
Briana withdrew regretfully from the stall. Duty was calling more loudly with every hour that passed.
She paused to stroke the Lady’s neck and head and feed her a bit of sugar. The Lady ate every scrap and demanded more. Briana laughed, spreading her hands. “Look, see. You ate it all.”
The Lady snorted wetly over her hand. Briana grimaced and wiped it on her breeches.
She opened her mouth to say something appropriately cutting. The words never came. The Lady’s head had turned, her ears pricked.
Quintus was still outside Corcyra’s stall. Corcyra had roused abruptly and was circling in a way Briana had long since learned to recognize. Her body was tense and her mind focused inward. Her tail flicked restlessly. She pawed, paced then pawed again.
She went down abruptly. As she dropped, water gushed. Briana started forward but forced herself to be still.
The mare stiffened in spasm. The silver bubble of the caul appeared under her tail, with the foal dark inside. Briana saw the sharp curve of hooves—one behind the other—and the blunter shape of the nose.
It was all as it should be. Every one of this season’s foals had been, as if their ancestry protected them from the dangers of mortal birth. They were a white god’s get, sired by the stallion Sabata over the course of long summer nights.
The foal seemed to take a very long time to be born. It could not even be half a turn of the glass, or Quintus would have been in the stall, doing what needed to be done. Instead he stood with arms folded, watching calmly.
When half the foal was out, it broke the caul, scrambling with its front feet, digging into the straw of the stall. Its head was already up and seeking, its lips working. It butted its mother’s side imperiously, demanding the teat, though she was still racked with the pains of birth.
It was dark as all these god-begotten foals had been. There was a thumbprint of white on its forehead. When it dried, no doubt it would be black as Corcyra. Maybe it would stay black, or more likely it would turn grey as it grew, like its father.
Almost before the rest of it emerged from the mare, Briana knew it was a filly like all of its siblings. Even so new, it was a solidly built young thing, with a big square head and broad haunches.
That was its father’s legacy. So were the eyes that turned to her. They were preternaturally bright and focused.
