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“Enter,” said a voice he knew all too well.
His sister was sitting in a bright blaze of witchlight, with a book in her lap and a robe wrapped around her. She bore a striking resemblance to Valeria—much more so than he remembered. Valeria had grown and matured over the winter. Briana was some years older, but in that light and in those clothes, she could have been the same age as Valeria.
“What in the world,” Kerrec demanded, “are you doing here?”
“Good evening, brother,” Briana said sweetly. “It’s a pleasure to see you, too. Are you well? You look tired. How is Valeria?”
Kerrec let her words run past him. “You should never have left Aurelia. With our father gone to war on the frontier and the court being by nature fractious, for the princess regent to come so far from the center of empire—”
“Kerrec,” Briana said. She did not raise her voice, but he found that he had nothing more to say.
That was a subtle and rather remarkable feat. Kerrec had to bow to it, even while he wanted to slap his sister silly.
She closed her book and laid it on the table beside her chair, then folded her hands in her lap. “Sit down,” she said. “I suppose you’ve had enough wine. I can send for something else if you’d like.”
“No,” Kerrec said, then belatedly, “thank you. Tell me what you’re doing here.”
“First, sit,” she said.
Kerrec sighed vastly but submitted. Briana had changed after all. She was more imperious—more the emperor’s heir.
Once he was sitting, stiffly upright and openly rebellious, she studied him with a far more penetrating eye than Master Nikos had brought to bear. “You look awful,” she said. “Haven’t you been healing? You should be back to yourself by now. Not—”
Kerrec cut her off. “I’m well enough. I am tired—we all are. We lost a great store of power when our riders died. Now with so many of the Called to test, we’re stretched to our capacity.”
Briana’s eyes narrowed. He held his breath. Then she said, “Don’t push yourself too hard. You’ll make everything worse.”
“I’ll do,” Kerrec said with a snap of temper. “Now tell me. What brings the regent of the empire all the way to the Mountain when she should be safe in Aurelia?”
“I’m safe here,” she said. “I rode in with the Augurs’ caravan. There’s a flock of imperial secretaries camped in a house by the south gate. We’re running relays of messengers. And if that fails, there’s a circle of mages in Aurelia, ready to send me word if there’s even a hint of trouble.”
Kerrec had to admit that she had answered most possible objections—except of course the most important one. “The imperial regent is required to perform her office from the imperial palace.”
“The palace is wherever the emperor or his regent is.” Briana leaned toward him. “Come off your high horse and listen to me. I was summoned here. I had a foreseeing.”
That gave Kerrec pause—briefly. “You are not that kind of mage.”
“I am whatever kind of mage the empire needs,” Briana said. She was running short of patience. “I have to be here for the testing. I don’t know why—I didn’t see that far or that clearly. Only that I should come to the Mountain.”
“What, you were Called?”
“You, of all people, should not make light of that,” she said. “And no, I am most definitely not destined to abandon my office and become a rider. There’s something in the testing that I’m supposed to see. That’s all.”
Kerrec wondered about that, foolishly maybe, but maybe not. His power was broken but not gone. Flashes of understanding still came to him.
He let go his attack of temper. Much of it was fear, he had to admit. He was afraid for her safety and terrified that she would see what had become of him.
She saw no more clearly than anyone else—and as she had said, she was safe on the Mountain. He sighed and spread his hands. “Well then. You’re here. There’s no point in sending you away.”
“Even if you could,” she said.
He was sorely tempted, again, to hit her. He settled for a scowl.
She laughed. “You’re glad to see me. Admit it. You’ve missed me.”
He refused to take the bait. She kept on laughing, reminding him all too vividly of the headstrong child she had been before he was Called from the palace to the Mountain.
When finally she sobered, she said, “You should go to bed. You have three long days ahead of you.”
“I do,” he said. But he did not leave at once. It was harder to go than he would have thought. Even as annoyed as he was with his sister, he felt better than he had since he could remember.
“Listen,” she said. “Why don’t you stay here? It’s ungodly late, and there’s a maid’s room with no one in it. I promise I’ll kick you out of bed before the sun comes up.”
The temptation was overwhelming. He could think of any number of reasons to resist it. Still, in the end, weakness won. “An hour before sunup,” he said as the yawn broke through.
“An hour before sunup,” she agreed with a faint sigh. Maybe she was regretting her impulse.
Or maybe not. He never could tell with any woman, even his sister. Women were mostly out of his reckoning.
He knew already that with her there to watch over him, he was going to sleep well, maybe even without dreams. That alone was worth a night away from his too-familiar bed.
Eleven
Valeria had been dreaming of her family again, her mother and father and particularly her brother Rodry. For once, mercifully, she roused before the Unmaking came to mar the dream.
Something else had come instead—something that she was not sure she wanted to examine too deeply. It, or he, had been coming to her more and more often lately. At first the guilt had been so sharp she had fled the dream. Then little by little its edge had blunted.
Last night there had been no guilt. There had been a great deal of laughter and a burst of pleasure that went on and on.
When it was past, her body still thrummed with it. She let herself linger in the dream. She deliberately forgot dark hair and olive skin and keen hawk’s face and reveled in milk-white skin and fire-red mane and eyes as yellow and slanted as a wolf’s.
If that was a betrayal, then so be it. It was not she who had blown cold.
There was certain irony in waking from that dream, in that mood, to find Kerrec’s sister sitting cross-legged at the foot of her bed. Briana had a book in her lap and was reading quietly by witchlight.
She looked as if she had been there for quite some time. Since the sun was not even up yet, she must have come in very early.
Valeria enjoyed the luxury of waking slowly. Briana did not melt into the edges of her dream. She was really here.
“You heard the Call,” Valeria said.
Briana started a little. She had herself under control quickly, enough to say, “No. It was a premonition, that was all.”
Indeed, Valeria thought. But she only said, “It is good to see you.”
Briana smiled. She was much less obsessively dignified than her brother. “And you. I asked Master Nikos if I could accompany you for a day or two. He said that if you agreed, he had no objection.”
Valeria sat up. The rush of delight startled a grin out of her. “Really? He said that?”
“Would I lie?”
“Not you,” said Valeria.
“So? May I impose myself on you?”
“Of course,” Valeria said. “Though following a very junior rider about might not be—”
“It would be a complete pleasure,” Briana said. She paused. “If it would be more trouble for you than it’s worth—”
“Oh, no,” said Valeria, and she meant it. She had not known until she said it, how much she had missed Briana. It might be absurd and presumptuous, since Valeria was a soldier’s daughter and Briana was the emperor’s heir, but this was a friend. Better yet, she was a woman—and Valeria had been living with men for much too long.
She sprang out of bed and dived for her clothes. She was grinning so widely her jaws hurt. “Come on. Let’s appall the riders.”
Briana grinned back. She laid her book aside and went willingly where Valeria led.
At this hour, just before sunup, most of the riders were at breakfast in the dining hall. Valeria had stopped attracting attention some time since, but when she appeared with another woman behind her, the silence was abrupt.
They did not recognize Briana. She was dressed like one of them, and she was making no effort to look familiar.
That was an art. Valeria resolved to study it.
Breakfast was plain but plentiful, as always. Valeria dipped herself a bowl of hot porridge with a handful of berries sprinkled on it and a drizzle of cream. After a moment’s perceptible thought, Briana did the same.
Iliya and Batu were sitting at their usual table. They were halfway through a platter of sausages and bread and cheese, while Paulus watched them with his usual expression of faint disgust. Paulus was much too haughty to eat like a drover as any sensible rider learned to do.
“Riders work hard,” Iliya was reminding him between bites of sausage. “They earn their provender.”
“Not that hard,” Paulus said.
He had his back to the door. Iliya saw Valeria first, and then Briana.
His eyes widened. Unlike the other riders, he recognized the emperor’s heir. He opened his mouth to say so.
Batu elbowed him into silence. When that threatened to fail, he stuffed half a sausage into Iliya’s mouth and smiled at the women. “Good morning,” he said in his deep beautiful voice.
Valeria smiled back. “Good morning,” she answered. “The Master’s given us company today. Will we all be civil? Is it possible?”
Paulus was refusing to turn and see who was with Valeria. His shoulders were stiff with it. Briana, who was his cousin and knew him very well, slid onto the bench beside him and set down her bowl. She began to eat as if she belonged there.
Paulus choked on nothing at all. Briana pounded his back until he stopped, crimson-faced and with his eyes streaming. “What in the gods’ name are you doing here?” he demanded when he could talk.
“My brother asked the same thing,” Briana said. “You two are terribly alike.”
“Your brother is less stuffy,” Iliya opined. He grinned at Briana. He was a prince where he came from, and imperial rank did not impress him in the slightest. “The Master really gave you to us?”
“For a day or two,” said Briana. “I can fork hay with the worst of them. I even know how to groom a horse.”
“That’s more than Paulus did,” Iliya said, then added, “He’s better now.”
“I would hope so,” Briana said.
Valeria had noticed the year before when she was in the imperial city, how Briana seemed to know how to talk to anyone of any rank. She seemed perfectly at ease here, as she was everywhere that Valeria had ever seen her. She had the least pretension of any noble Valeria had yet met—not that Valeria had met many, but between Paulus and Kerrec, she had seen plenty of the less comfortable sort.
There was no point in being envious. Valeria could study and learn, if she could not exactly imitate. She doubted that Briana was even aware of what she did. She simply did it.
Still, Valeria found her mood a little sour as she finished breakfast. She stood up without looking to see if Briana was ready and made for the door, dropping her bowl in the cleaners’ barrel as she went by.
Briana caught up with her just outside the door, somewhat out of breath but not apparently offended. Valeria pushed down the uprising of guilt and sat on it.
All the teaching masters were busy with the Called, but there were still stalls to clean and water buckets to be filled and horses to exercise. The Third and Fourth Riders and the older candidates were detailed to oversee the first- and second-year candidates.
What the day lacked for time in the schoolroom, it easily gained in physical labor. It must have been grueling for an imperial princess.
Briana never so much as whimpered. She even rode with the others.
She was hesitant about that, but when older stallions were brought out for the candidates’ instruction, there was one more of them than usual. Some of the candidates growled. At least one of them yelped: a large hoof had come down on his foot.
The stallion who presented himself for Briana to ride was Kerrec’s own Petra. He slid a bland dark eye at Valeria and studiously ignored the rest of the students.
Briana greeted him with visible gladness. She mounted easily, like the lifelong rider she was.
If she was a little breathless, that was no wonder. No one outside the school ever sat on one of the white gods. It simply was not done.
The gods did as they pleased. Today, that was to teach the emperor’s daughter the beginnings of their art.
It was deceptively simple. They were asked to ride quietly in exact circles without variation of rhythm or figure, over and over until they had perfected the movement. The stallions would give nothing that the riders did not ask. That was the gods’ pleasure and their challenge.
Sabata was unusually tractable today. He walked and trotted and cantered politely, did precisely as Valeria asked, and offered none of his usual opinions on the subject.
Maybe he was ill. He might be a god, and a Great One at that, but his body was mortal.
When the lesson was done, Valeria examined him thoroughly. He seemed well enough. He was pensive, that was all—most unusual for him.
Something was brewing. Valeria paused with her hand on Sabata’s neck, searching the patterns that shaped the world. There was nothing there, nothing clear. The only word she could find for it was imminence.
Sabata shook his mane and snorted. Humans had to attach words to everything. It was a flaw in their creation.
So it was. Valeria dug fingers into his nape until his neck flattened and his lip wobbled in ecstasy. It was revenge of a sort—reminding him that he, too, in this form, had weaknesses.
He was in no way disconcerted by it. That was the trouble with gods. Nothing human could really touch them.
He nipped her, a sharp and startling pain, and departed at the trot for his stable. She stood gaping after him. In all his fits and fusses, he had never bitten her before.
Who could understand a god? She trudged in his wake, slightly humiliated but beginning in spite of herself to be amused.
“Testing isn’t only for the Called, is it?” Briana asked.
She had survived the day in remarkably good condition, considering. At dinner the riders’ stares had changed. Word was out. They knew who she was.
