The Councillor Read online

  For the first time, she wondered why Charice had left. She had been aware, for some time, of a creeping doubt in the back of her mind.

  “We have clear rules in the capital,” Flocke continued, with an unctuous smile. “Fighters must compete one on one. They must both use the same weapon—a sword against a sword, and a bow against a bow, and so on. You see our timekeeper in the next tier?” Flocke pointed to a woman in an emerald jacket holding an enormous timepiece with two hands fashioned out of silver, and Lysande felt a burst of pride as she gazed at Axium’s first device to rival Rhimese invention. She glanced at Luca.

  Intrigue had etched itself on his face, adding a furrow to his brow that somehow increased the natural beauty of his complexion, but when he looked across and caught her stare, his expression transformed to indifference. Lysande raised an eyebrow, as if to suggest that she had glimpsed his interest in the timepiece. The cool glance she received in return made her smile.

  “The fighter who kills their opponent in the quickest time today will take home the prize: some two hundred gold cadres,” Flocke said.

  “I would not let the crowd make such a noise in Pyrrha,” Cassia said, glaring at a pair of fathers below them, who were shouting louder than their daughter.

  “Our prize-fighters are accustomed to the pressure, Irriqi.” Flocke’s mouth curved.

  Pressure. That was it. If she could put pressure on the city-rulers, somehow, the traitor might make another move, and if they did not, she would at least have the benefit of distinguishing between their fighting skills. Her time as Councillor was dripping away. She looked down at the ring, her mind working furiously.

  “There will be a change of plans,” she said, cutting across Flocke.

  The city-rulers turned to her. Even Derset raised an eyebrow.

  “Don’t tell me you’re going to cancel the tournament, Councillor,” Dante said.

  “No, the tournament will go ahead. But you will be doing the fighting.”

  Be imperative. Stand tall. Speak as if your blood runs silver. Had she managed it?

  The silence lasted for longer than even she had anticipated. It seemed to permeate the box and enter her very flesh. Lysande was wondering what she would do if they refused, when Luca laughed. “What a marvelous idea,” he said. “We can put Dante in the ring. I’ve always wondered if he can swing that sword he likes so much.”

  “You will be fighting too, Prince Fontaine.” Lysande looked around the group, taking in the confused expressions, willing her countenance to stay serene. “All of you. Whoever receives the crown of Elira should be able to defend herself—or himself—in battle.”

  If there was anywhere the city-rulers would feel pressure, it was in the middle of that sand below. Would Sarelin have agreed? She thought so. With a weapon in their hand, the traitor among them might see an opportunity to strike. Even though they weren’t fighting each other, the opportunity for sabotage might prove too tempting to ignore; a chink in the armor here, a sprinkle of snake venom there. Seize your chances while the sun gifts you light enough to sink your blade. She had written that in An Ideal Queen.

  “We can’t fight each other, surely,” Jale said, glancing quickly at Dante.

  “You would fight a mercenary, Your Highness. Each with the same favored weapon. You would be allowed to yield, of course,” Lysande said.

  Nobody spoke. For a moment, the sound of the crowd grew even greater, doubled by the silence inside the box. Lysande kept her back very straight.

  “Yielding is for children,” Dante said. “I will be happy to take up arms in the ring.”

  Jale did not protest, and the Irriqi smiled wolfishly. Lysande turned to Luca, who shrugged. “Far be it from me to refuse,” he said. “I don’t often get a chance to outscore Valderos, Lyria, and Pyrrha in the same morning.”

  “The matter resolves,” Lysande said. “Let the preparations begin.”

  Flocke sent a messenger running for a bag and sticks, and they drew lots; Dante seized the first, followed by Jale, Cassia, and finally Luca. As the messengers ran around the tiers of seats, spreading the word, the crowd’s roar swelled. “You should have charged them double,” Jale said, eyeing Flocke. “They’re getting royalty into the bargain.”

  Dante went over to the Valderran party to put on his armor. Litany seated herself on Lysande’s left, smiling nervously, but before Derset could take the chair on her right, Luca approached. As he sat down, she was conscious of the proximity between them; of the way that he studied her from inches away. The ruby drew her gaze to his throat.

  The jewel shimmered, but it did not seem half so sleek as his skin. The smooth expanse above his collar caught the morning sun, and Lysande pulled her gaze away from his neck with difficulty. She could not help noticing that his flesh looked soft to the touch.

  “You surprise me, Prior,” he said.

  “Call me Lysande, please.”

  “I must confess, Prior, that when I heard that the queen’s Councillor was the palace scholar, I thought you might be . . .”

  “Low-born?”

  “Impractical. Highly intelligent, but with no notion of applying that intelligence to anything outside a book. I see that I was wrong.”

  She looked at his throat again, then glanced quickly out at the crowd. “You find me lacking in wits, Your Highness?”

  “On the contrary. I think that you have applied your wits very well. You would have us believe that you intend to judge our fighting skills, but you really mean to put weapons in our hands and see if we turn fair or cruel. Anyone might dip a sword in poison or sneak an extra dagger in beneath an arm-guard. And then, there is always the chance to set a trap.”

  Lysande returned his gaze with all the equanimity she could muster.

  “I wonder why you choose to sit beside me, Fontaine. If you mean to win me over, you may find it difficult; I may be of little means, but I do not sell my allegiance for a gilded gift.”

  “Have I brought a box of gold bars, perhaps? Or do I have an ancient sword to offer from my armory?” He smirked. “That would be inelegant and, more importantly, ineffective. I do not take you for the kind of scholar who is flattered by baubles and trinkets.”

  “There are many kinds of scholar?”

  “Oh, an infinite number, Prior. Some quite ordinary, and others layered, like a starfruit. You have to peel back the hard skin to get to the flesh inside.”

  “It is the same with princes, I suspect.”

  Dante had climbed down into the arena, to thunderous applause. Lysande saw his armor glinting, a thick suit of steel plates with a shield that could have stopped a battering ram. His powerful frame appeared even bigger in the plating.

  “Do you know why the White Queen is so dangerous, Prior?” Luca said, quietly.

  “I fear we are close to violating Queen Illora’s Precept.” It was a challenge, to keep her voice light.

  “And I would have thought a woman who transcribed the Classical philosophers would contest censorship. There is no harm in the talking, nor in the thinking—”

  “—only in the doing. Volerus, Book Two.” She looked at him. A lock of his black hair had fallen over his brow. His queer, piercing stare gave nothing away.

  It came to her, then, the thought of running a hand down his torso, tracing its shape, then pressing two fingers against his throat, watching his reaction. Why it occurred to her, she did not know. The idea seemed to arrive like wood catching flame.

  She had felt this before, with a woman she had been kissing in the palace orangery: the woman had flinched at Lysande’s sudden interest in the pulse points of her neck. If Lysande was honest with herself, she had been too eager, too ready to take the first sign of interest as encouragement. It was one thing to prompt rejection, quite another to inspire . . . well, she remembered how the woman had looked at her, and the shame she had felt as her lover
had recoiled.

  No matter how firmly she put it down to scientific research, the flipping of pages on anatomy did not explain what stimulated it. Something inside her had been called to the beating of the pulse beneath the skin, a darkening force from somewhere beyond reason.

  To that desire, too, she had learned to apply the lesson of the orphanage. Restrain, constrain, subdue.

  “I said . . . do you know why the White Queen is so dangerous, Prior?”

  “Because she can move one of the elements, I suppose,” she said.

  “You mean fire, or water, or wind? Those are mere physical forces.” Luca leaned slightly closer to her. The lazy elegance of his posture drew him very near her side, close enough for her to be unsure if he knew the effect his proximity had on her. “Fire can be quenched with water, and water can be stopped with stone; even wind can be held back when a fortress is strong enough. And once you clap tempero cuffs on an elemental, those powers are trapped, as Sarelin Brey knew. But there are other powers, Prior. You may be perturbed to hear it, but some magical people are born with what they call powers of the mind.”

  “If I hadn’t heard of the ability to read thoughts, or the power to read dreams, I would be a poor scholar of the Songs.”

  Luca regarded her for a long moment.

  “Even the most assiduous scholar might be surprised to hear that the White Queen has a rarer talent yet,” he said. “Did Sarelin Brey tell you? But I suppose that with no time for talking to elementals, she had no chance to find out.” He paused just long enough for the barb to prick. “The White Queen can control the minds of others—rule their thoughts, so to speak. At a close range, my sources suggest, or I dare say we would all be dead by now . . . but nonetheless, it puts her beyond compare.”

  Lysande’s mind moved to a tale Sarelin had told her about a captain who slew herself in a public theater. The woman had defeated a number of the White Queen’s captains outside a little eastern town, during the war, and had survived the conflict. She had married and raised two daughters after the war, with a comfortable estate and a loving husband; indeed, she had seemed to have been blessed with every possible felicity. No one had ever understood why she fell on her own sword. Lysande found the story less thrilling, now.

  “That would be power beyond measure, Fontaine,” she said, keeping her voice as low as she could manage. “To control another’s wishes.”

  “Indeed. The mind is the most valuable thing we have. To yield your mind is to lose the very thing that makes you . . . yourself.”

  One of Derset’s remarks before the banquet came back to her. The prince of Rhime has a love of scholarship. They say he keeps a library of ten thousand volumes.

  “Do you know the motto of Rhime, Prior?”

  The crest of the eastern city was a red cobra on black . . . she had seen it in the histories, often enough, with three words written at the bottom. “Strength without swords.”

  “How does one conquer without a sword? Without a weapon?”

  “The real leader conquers with her mind. Princess Santieri’s phrase, second century, was it not?”

  “Quite.” He ignored her triumphant expression. “My brother and I were taught her principles before we could grip our little training swords. A bow or a dagger can be useful, but only so far. To truly outmaneuver an opponent, you must use this.” He tapped the side of his head. “If the White Queen is allowed to storm Elira, she will take that power from everyone who opposes her, and there will be no mercy for those she captures. I am sure you are aware she has a precedent.”

  Lysande knew he meant the Conquest. She did not think it wise to respond.

  “You know, some say she was motivated by a much more personal cause in the war. That Sarelin Brey met her, as a girl, and wronged her.”

  “I try to weight my opinion on the side of evidence.”

  Below them, Dante had pulled out a longsword. His opponent strode across the ring: a woman in an eagle-head helm who seemed to be made of nothing but muscle.

  “If you have any doubt about your choice,” Luca said, his lips close to her ear, “better to choose no one at all.”

  She gave the slightest of nods, her eyes fixed on the ring.

  The crowd roared again: Flocke had raised her hand to give the signal and was retreating. Dante held his sword out. The mercenary in the eagle helm lunged forward first, slashing at Dante’s ribs, but Dante brought his weapon up. Steel sang against steel, echoing.

  Lysande chanced another glance at Luca and caught him watching her. She felt the power of his gaze. He should wear an ice-diamond, she thought; not a ruby. Everything about him is cold and sharp.

  She wanted to touch his neck, just as on that day in the orangery, she had felt the urge to place her hand on the most vulnerable part of the woman’s skin.

  “Lysande,” Litany said, turning away from the railing. “Do you think the First Sword will lose?”

  Lysande realized how far her thoughts had drifted. “I hope he’ll triumph.”

  “He fights with honor,” Jale said, with a hint of pride.

  “Oh, Dante Dalgëreth is the most honorable man in the Three Lands, so long as you do not enrage him.” A smile curled Luca’s mouth.

  The tier below them erupted into a cheer, drowning them out. The two figures on the sand were moving again. Swinging with enough force to break a lesser shield in two, the mercenary battered her sword against Dante’s; the ringing of the blow was enough to bring Jale to the rail of the box. The two fighters parried and thrusted for a moment. Dante’s brows knitted, the muscles in his jaw clenching and unclenching. Every time the mercenary moved forward, the Valderran leader pushed the big woman back.

  “Why does he not finish her off?” Litany said, looking across at Lysande.

  “I don’t know.” She watched Dante beat the woman back again.

  Valderran doggedness seemed to be paying off, as the mercenary was thrusting loosely now. The woman stumbled as she tripped on a clump of sand. An angry yell; there was enough time for Dante to rush forward and strike above the breastplate; yet still he did not. He doesn’t want to kill her, Lysande realized. He wants the mercenary to yield.

  “How valiant,” Jale breathed.

  “If he keeps this going much longer,” Luca said, settling back in his chair, “he may stumble and fall on his valiant face.”

  Below them, the mercenary pulled something short and bright from her sheath. She threw it at Dante’s chest. The weapon veered to the left.

  “Cheat!” somebody shouted below them. “No second swords allowed!”

  Dante’s eyes narrowed, and a chill ran through Lysande. The Valderran circled around his opponent for an instant, then charged, his longsword whipping through the air. Blow after blow rained down so hard that the eagle-helmed warrior lost her footing, stumbling again in dry sand.

  Just as he reached his target, Dante swerved, his right arm arcing around toward his opponent’s neck. The blade carved cleanly through the flesh. Blood rained down on the sand. The woman’s head flew through the air, spinning—encased in the helm like a boiled egg in its shell—and landed in the lap of a spectator in the bottom tier.

  The catcher held the severed head with a stunned expression. All of the Arena seemed to hold its breath.

  There was a kind of silence that widened, opening a space where fear mingled with approval, while people looked around for a sign as to which emotion would triumph, waiting for a pact to be formed: for the numbers to add up a particular way. Fear or approval. Lysande thought that she was watching that decision being made now. At last, cheering burst from the tiers as a bottle of wine comes uncorked, spilling its vintage freely.

  She found herself applauding, falling into place with the others as the sound washed over her, yet she could not quite believe what she had seen. Even after Sarelin’s grisly stories of tournaments and duels, thi
s was too much. She had examined the queen’s wounds, but that was different from seeing a blade carve through a body. Under the pretense of checking her sleeves, she glanced from side to side. Cassia and Jale were clapping, and in response, Dante made a bow in the direction of the box, the sun lighting up his breastplate. Lysande could make out a rainbow of jewels where Flocke was waving.

  “I believe that’s for me,” Jale said, turning to look at them. “Wish me luck, won’t you, Councillor?”

  Lysande worked to find a smile. “Good luck, Your Highness.”

  “I daresay I’ll be quicker than Dante.” He grinned. “Clap loudly.”

  As Jale left, Dante rejoined them, prompting a flood of congratulations from every quarter and an analysis of the fight from the Valderrans. The headless corpse in the Arena was still being dragged away, leaving a trail on the ground, which Lysande watched, wishing she could look away. The dead of the Arena must be hungry for company, she thought, after all these years.

  A pain struck her so forcefully that she leaned forward; it was the same crushing force that had overwhelmed her in the Great Hall, but magnified several times. Surely even chimera scale could not do this. Surely this agony was another level, beyond quotidian aches. She reached out to grasp the railing, almost blind to the Arena, and breathing hard, she listened to the rise and fall of her chest and gritted her teeth; it took a long time for the pain to fade, and when she looked up, Luca was watching her.

  “Are you often troubled by headaches?”

  “Not at all.” Did twice count as often? Blue flakes glittered in her mind. “It is a fleeting pain.”

  “Indeed.” But this time, he did not throw out a quip, only regarded her a moment longer before turning to speak with one of the Rhimese nobles. Lysande wondered if he too had a copy of the third-century physicians’ records that mentioned experiments with chimera scale. She tried to imagine what a vial of chimera scale would smell like to Luca . . . what sensory form desire would take if he breathed it in.

  An aftershock ran through her, and she pressed a hand to her right temple.