Lightborn Read online

  “I have—,” she managed, amazed that smoke did not stream from her mouth with her words. “I have—”

  And the burning net fell on her again. “No! Leave me alone!” She was back in the warehouse, where flame roared and beams ruptured and Florilinde screamed, thin and high as a trapped kitten. Beside her, the archduke shouted unintelligible words that turned into a cry of agony. Shrieks and crashing followed. Cries of, The archduke! Dani! Water! I’m burning! The voice in her mind said, and she staggered back with arms thrown over her head, thrusting him away.

  “Sejanus!” A raw shout from Vladimer, and a scream from Sylvide, “Lord Vladimer, no!” Out of the surging echoes one threw itself against her, arms around her; as they reeled together she felt Sylvide’s panic, her friend understanding nothing except some horrific, inexplicable threat to Telmaine. The explosion of a revolver, like that heard as she lay across the threshold of Vladimer’s room. She knew what must happen now, but still screamed rejection of the blunt rupture of a bullet into a flesh, the violation, the unimaginable pain, the sudden, liquid surge of mortal blood up her throat.

  Sylvide did not scream. She clutched briefly at Telmaine, her cheek pressed against Telmaine’s collarbone, her ornately decorated hair scratching Telmaine’s cheek, her hat tilted askew and about to tumble away. The impact of the bullet had driven her last breath out of her and she made no effort to draw another. Without a sound, her arms loosened, and she began to slip toward the floor. Telmaine tried to hold her, but her arms had lost their strength; they fell together. She felt the scour of the Lightborn’s power across her mind, hot and harsh and lacerating as sand, and waited to be burned out, destroyed, killed. The gem-hard mind behind the magic brushed up against that seed of Shadowborn and suddenly she sensed realization, shock, and remorse. she whispered, and in a rustle of dry grains, the other magic swept outward, effortlessly quenching flames. She was aware of a last receding,

  Vladimer’s voice shouted, “Get your hands off me! Sejanus! Janus, answer me! Let me go—leave my arm—”

  Someone said, bewildered, “He shot Sylvide. But why?”

  Her attention was riveted by the touch of skin, the last sinking spark of vitality in the woman lying beneath her. She plunged after that spark into the lake of blood spilled by the bullet’s passage through Sylvide’s heart. The destruction was almost beyond her comprehension. Painfully, she began to draw together the burst and shredded valves and muscle, reaching deep into her own reserves of bodily health and vitality. But those were already nearly spent, drained by her struggle against the Lightborn, and Sylvide had already gone beyond consciousness and almost life itself. Ishmael’s experience whispered within her that it was already too late. Then she felt hands on her, lifting her away from Sylvide, tearing skin from skin, severing the flow of magic. Her reach fell short, even at this small distance. She could no longer sense the spark within Sylvide. Someone breathed, “Sweet Imogene—”

  “Sylvide,” someone said, and she recognized the voice, that of Dani, Sylvide’s husband. “Someone get a doctor,” he said, his voice shrill with panic. “A doctor, quickly.”

  A hot, dusty wind blew out of the Shadowlands, out of Ishmael’s memories; Telmaine shrieked, fought briefly—real Darkborn or dream-born Shadowborn, how could she know?—and fainted.

  Eight

  Floria

  The sound of the door opening on the other side of the paper wall woke Floria from a light sleep. Her right hand brushed her revolver, then her rapier; her eyes sought her lights, noting their true color. On the other side of the wall she could hear the creaks and rustling of heavy Darkborn clothing, the soft chink of metal kissing metal. Three, maybe four individuals, spreading out.

  She scooped up the nearest light and slid noiselessly from the bed into the corner adjacent to the paper wall. Here, she was sheltered by stone from all but the most oblique shots, within reach of the passe-muraille. The paper was heavily reinforced, with a grille over it that limited any damage to it. If these were assassins, they would be counting on being able to survive the light spill from a few bullet holes, and on her not being able to slash open the mesh before she died—one man might choose a suicide attack, but numbers suggested they intended to survive, even if they needed their numbers for bravado or collusion. But they had neglected the passe-muraille. She had spent several awkward minutes earlier jimmying the catch so she could open both hatches from this side. A light, pushed inside, would be deadly.

  “Mistress Floria White Hand,” said a man’s voice from the other side. He had come up close to the paper wall. Posturing for his audience, which might or might not include her. “Lightborn, I know you are in there. I am Sachever, Duke of Mycene.”

  Patriarch of the most prominent and ambitious of the dukedoms, whose lineage had held the archducal seat for hundreds of years before losing it to the Plantageters when Mycene policies led to Borders rebellion and civil war. Under the Mycene archdukes, Darkborn and Lightborn had held themselves strictly apart; Minhorne had come to be the city it was under the Plantageters.

  “You sought sanctuary here because Prince Fejelis had ordered your arrest in connection with the murder of his father. Vladimer Plantageter did not have the authority to grant you sanctuary, and did so without his brother’s knowledge.”

  This did not sound good, Floria thought.

  “By my authority as a member of the regency council convened during the incapacity of Archduke Sejanus Plantageter, I am here to review your position.”

  That sounded even worse.

  She left her light and her rapier ready beside the passe-muraille and moved noiselessly back to the head of the bed. “How has the archduke become incapacitated?” Even as she spoke, she was moving off-line.

  “Magic,” came back the one word.

  Whose? And how incapacitated was he? “I wish him a quick recovery,” she murmured, and moved again.

  “His physicians do not hold out much hope for his survival.”

  She checked her glide, involuntarily. That was unwelcome knowledge—aside from the implications for her of candor from her jailers. The archduke and his consort had had three daughters and one son. Because the absurd Darkborn convention insisted on male inheritance, Plantageter’s death would leave Darkborn power in the hands of a child and his regency council—as it had been left nearly forty years ago. And the Duke of Imbré, the moderating force on that earlier council, was old now.

  Mycene would not be telling her this—a mere vigilant of the Lightborn court—without some purpose. Magic—did he mean to imply they suspected the Lightborn?

  “Your Grace,” she said, “have you had a report from Lord Vladimer?”

  “Lord Vladimer has suffered a complete mental collapse and been confined for his own safety.”

  “Lord Vladimer believes that many recent events can be attributed to the actions of Shadowborn agents.”

  The unseen duke scoffed. “Infidelity, mendacity, venality, corruption, arson, and murder—we hardly need postulate a type of magic that no one has ever heard of, from a race that has bred nothing but beasts, to explain ordinary vice. No, my lady”—and the Darkborn courtesy was, from his mouth, definitely an insult—“our enemies are closer to home.”

  “I . . . do not like the sound of that, Your Grace,” she said, quietly, circling the room in a slow arc. “Are you accusing the Lightborn?”

  There was a silence. Mother of All, did Fejelis know yet that, instead of the stable and established regimen of Sejanus Plantageter, he had to contend with a regency council ruthless in its seizure of legitimacy—Vladimer Plantageter had shown no signs of imminent mental collapse when he questioned her—and that had condemned the Lightborn unquestioned and unseen?

  If the prince did not know, he needed to.

  How to persuade them to release her? She said, in tones of quiet resignation, “Then if you do not accept the existence of Shadowborn, I expect you
will be surrendering me to the Prince’s Vigilance.”

  “That need not be so. Why, after all, should you suffer for actions undertaken under ensorcellment?”

  If her actions had led to Isidore’s death, ensorcelled or not, she would live with that knowledge for the rest of her life. And if this duke did not understand that, then he had never served, truly served, anything other than his own base self-interest.

  “Tell me about Isidore’s son,” the duke said, “this boy Fejelis.”

  Cheap, Your Grace, Floria thought. “Prince Fejelis is nineteen, which I believe is considered of age amongst Darkborn.” She well knew it was; Balthasar had told her about the bitter debates around the raising of the age of legal marriage to sixteen, to protect young heirs and heiresses against coercion, and girls against too-early pregnancy.

  “Just. And inexperienced.”

  “Inexperienced, perhaps, but he has years of his father’s tutelage.” Which could not be said for the archduke’s own heir, who was being raised in the Plantageter country properties, sheltered by a father whose own responsibilities had fallen on him cruelly young.

  “I’m told he has ties to a mage who is not well regarded by the Temple.”

  Tammorn? “I am not certain I know who you mean.”

  “One Magister Tammorn, peasant-born, and associated with the artisans’ republican movements.”

  Having had Balthasar’s perspective on the Darkborn republicans to match up against the Vigilance’s impression of the Lightborn revolutionaries, she thought something had been lost in translation. But how had the Darkborn duke come to know about Tammorn? Was he accusing Tammorn of having injured the archduke? On Fejelis’s behest . . . Mother of All.

  “I know Magister Tammorn, as it happens,” Floria said, carefully. “Any difficulties between himself and the Temple are long resolved.”

  Mycene questioned her for some minutes longer, regarding Fejelis: his relationship to the mages, his acceptance by their brightnesses of the court, his adherence to southern alliances and values. And regarding Tammorn: his power, his politics and affiliations. She stepped carefully through the answers, paying close attention to a man who was—or thought he was—Fejelis’s peer. He had little regard for Fejelis’s youth, though that should not have surprised her; his reputation on the other side of sunrise was of one who kept his own son down.

  At last, he seemed satisfied. She had moved back toward the corner where the lamp sat, and now glanced down at it at her feet. She detested the thought of exposing her vulnerability, but it was as foolish to put her life at risk through paranoia as through recklessness—“Your Grace,” she said. “Would you be able to arrange it so that the skylight in this room could be opened when morning comes? I have lights with me, but they need daylight to recharge.”

  She heard the soft creak of leather and chime of metal as he moved to square himself before the paper wall. “I will consider it.” But there was neither concern nor promise in his voice. She slipped down to a sitting position, back against the stone, rapier held balanced between her hands, and, listening as they withdrew, stared at her light.

  Was it more yellow? The color change that indicated impending extinction progressed over several hours. But if they did not open the skylight above her, the lights would fail by tomorrow’s sunset.

  She pushed herself out of her crouch and began to circle the refuge that had become a prison. Tested the grille over the paper wall, but that seemed entirely solid, and even if she could break through, it would simply move her deeper into the darkness. She returned to the door by which she had entered, like all Darkborn doors finished but not stained, its woods matched for texture but not color. Its closed blankness was a reproach to her lack of foresight. If she did not find a way out, she would die in the same manner as her prince.

  Fejelis

  For the second time that night, Fejelis jerked awake, sweating, at the shock of the blow beneath his shoulder blade. This time, he did not shout out, and the taste of peach and blood was faint and easily swallowed. He carefully lifted his head to favor his attendants with his best effort at a drowsy smile. Two palace vigilants, armed men in loose crimson tunics and trousers, stood on either side of the door. A mage vigilant occupied a chair several yards to his right, her eyes closed, her strained face indicating she was attending to her other senses.

  Tam sat at the end of the bed, a letter in his hand, green gray eyes staring into an unseen distance.

  Fejelis threw off sleep and sat up. When he had awakened before, Tam had been the first to reach him, the first to speak to him, the first to recognize his need for a basin as the taste of blood and peach sickened him. Now the mage slowly turned an ashen face toward him. Fejelis’s heart jumped as he thought of Tammorn’s small children, of Beatrice, of the artisans—all the people whom Tammorn passionately cared about. If any of their enemies wished to strike at him—“. . . Trouble?”

  At the mage’s incomprehension, Fejelis indicated the letter. Tam went to thrust it out of sight. Then his hunched shoulders sagged, and he pushed it toward Fejelis. “Read it.”

  Fejelis took it, noticing that the paper was stiff and smooth to the touch and blemished to the eye, of Darkborn rather than Lightborn manufacture. But the script was Lightborn, a spare cursive hand devoid of the flourishes fashionable in court circles. He flipped it over to read the signature: Floria.

  “I have done,” Tam said, in low voice, “a great deal of harm. I intended ill to one person, but what I have done . . .” His voice shook and broke off as Fejelis lowered the letter. “Read it. It . . . starts to explain.”

  In terse summary the letter told of attacks on the Darkborn, of fires and assassinations, of the attempted ensorcellment of Vladimer Plantageter . . . and of the speculations of Vladimer Plantageter and this Darkborn lady, Telmaine, that the reason the Lightborn Temple had not reacted to these abuses was that they could not sense the magic used. He lifted his eyes. “. . . Do you believe this?”

  “I have no reason to doubt,” Tam said, heavily.

  “. . . Explain,” Fejelis said, after a long silence of disbelief.

  Tam glanced toward the mage vigilant, met her eyes, gave a wan and apologetic smile, and traced a small loop in the air, trapping sound. “When . . . I visited your father’s rooms, I found a box of Darkborn design that was imbued with an unfamiliar form of magic—at least, I had only sensed its like recently. Its aura was extremely unpleasant, yet the Temple mages behaved as though they were unaware of it. I palmed the box and took it to Magister Lukfer.”

  So that explained the theft. Fejelis kept a studied neutral attentiveness in his expression, wanting no omissions.

  “Lukfer identified the box as a talisman to annul magic. Specifically, of ensorcelled lights.”

  Fejelis strove to keep all emotion off his face, hard as it was.

  “Another talisman of that same magic nearly killed you last night. The crossbow bolt was ensorcelled to annul life.”

  Fejelis flinched, the reaction unavoidable, and rebuked himself for doing so, for Tam fell silent. “. . . Whose magic is it?” he asked, what was to him the most salient question.

  “Lukfer believes it is Shadowborn.”

  “. . . Shadowborn?”

  “Lukfer visited the Borders some years ago; he sensed it there. He corresponded with a Darkborn mage who identified it as Shadowborn.”

  “. . . A Darkborn mage? . . . Then why does Lukfer believe it is Shadowborn magic, and not a variant of magic as practiced by Darkborn?”

  “To a mage, the nature of the vitality behind a magic reveals itself.” His eyes shifted away, as if recoiling from that thought.

  Fejelis noted the reaction for a later question. “. . . I was under the impression,” he said, slowly, “that the Shadowborn were entirely animal.”

  “I, too. But the fires in the city, the murder of your father, the ensorcellment of Lord Vladimer . . . all these suggest a mind or minds, though what purpose besides chaos, we do not kn
ow.”

  “. . . And are Lightborn and Darkborn mages incapable of these things—annulling lights, sparking fires?”

  “No, but . . . Shadowborn magic is distinct. We can use it—Lukfer annulled the magic on the box, learning its structure. He annulled the magic on the bolt, knowing that. He can kindle a fire, in the way they can.”

  “. . . I think I must speak to your Magister Lukfer, as soon as possible. . . . What else?”

  Tam’s expression seemed to collapse in on itself. He gulped in a breath, like a novice swimmer in choppy water. “Lukfer said that the box had been enspelled by two mages, one skilled and one less so, master and student, he thought. The talisman of the crossbow bolt was a grotesque perversion of healing practice, but not one that requires great strength. I had not even been able to detect it until it struck you. If Lukfer hadn’t . . .” He checked himself. “When I sensed Shadowborn magic being wielded within the archducal palace of the Darkborn, I thought it might be the student. So I made an attempt to bind the mage responsible. She was stronger than I thought; she fought me—”

  “She?”

  “A woman. Potentially sixth-rank, by her strength, but entirely untrained. She was in the same room as the archduke. She had been experimenting with the Shadowborn magic, and when she resisted me, it—expressed itself. Sejanus Plantageter tried to help her, and was badly—critically—burned.”

  Fejelis’s eyes closed. Aside from any compassion due the man, the loss of an experienced and moderate leader on the other side of sunrise would add incalculably to the tensions. The archduke’s heir was still a boy, and the regency council . . . the major dukes who would compose it included Duke Kalamay, whose hatred of Lightborn and mages had been controlled in its expression only by the archduke. If yesterday’s crossbow bolt had been aimed to kill Fejelis and leave Orlanjis prince, with the southern faction behind him—

  He had only Tam’s word that Tam’s intent was to bind the Darkborn mage and not kill the archduke. He watched Tam’s eyes, steadily. “. . . They’re trying to start a war between us.”