Invidia Aquitaine (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
inimarupta) wrote2013-06-04 09:08 pm
inimarupta) wrote2013-06-04 09:08 pm
Entry tags:
Passages of Interest
Furies of Calderon
The Cursor frowned at the man, a mild expression, and turned to watch the city of Aquitaine come into sight.
First came the lights. Firecrafters by the dozens maintained the lights along the city’s streets, and they burned with a gentle radiance through the mistshrouded evening, all soft yellows, deep amber, pale crimson, until the hill upon which the city was built seemed itself to be one enormous, living flame, garbed in warmth and flickering color. Upon the city’s walls, and just beyond them, lights burned with a cold, blue brilliance, casting the ground far around into stark illumination and long black shadows, their harsh glare vigilant against any would-be invaders.
As the litter glided down, and closer, Fidelias could begin to make out shapes in the shifting lights. Statues stood silent and lovely on the streets. Houses, all elegant lines and high arches, contested with one another to prove the most skillfully crafted, the most beautifully lit. Fountains sparkled and flickered, some of them illuminated from below, so that they burned violet or emerald in the darkness, pools of liquid flames. Trees rose up around houses and lined the streets, thriving and beautiful life that had been crafted as carefully as every other part of the city. They, too, wore veils of colored light, and their leaves, already changed into autumn’s brilliant hues, shone in too many shades to count.
The sound of a bell tolling the late hour rose to the descending litter. Fidelias heard the trod of hooves upon paving stones somewhere below and raucous singing from a night club of some kind. Music came up from a garden party as the litter passed over it, strings supporting a sweet alto flute that pursued a gentle, haunting melody. The smell of wood smoke and spices still drifted on the evening breezes, along with the scent of late-blooming flowers and of rain on the wind.
To call Aquitaine beautiful was to call the ocean wet, Fidelias thought. Accurate enough, in its way, but wholly insufficient to the task. They were challenged by a barking voice before they had come within a long bowshot of the High Lord’s manor, a walled fortress surmounting the hill upon which the city stood. Fidelias watched as a man in the sable and scarlet surcoat of Aquitaine swept down from the air above. A dozen more hovered somewhere in the night sky above them, unseen -- but the Cursor could feel the eddies of wind that their furies kicked up in keeping them aloft.
The challenger of the Knights Aeris guarding the High Lord’s manor exchanged a pass phrase with the captain of Fidelias’s own escort, though the exchange had the comfortable, routine air of a formality. Then the group swept on forward, down into the manor’s courtyard, while more guards watched from the walls, along with leering statues wrought in the shapes of hunchbacked, gangly men. The moment Fidelias stepped from the litter, he felt the light, steady tremors of power in the earth that led back to each statue on the wall and found himself staring at the statues.
“Gargoyles!” he breathed. “All of them?”
Aldrick glanced at the statues and then to Fidelias and nodded once.
“How long have they been kept here?”
“As long as anyone remembers,” Aldrick rumbled.
“Aquitaine is that strong...” Fidelias pursed his lips in thought. He did not
agree with the principles of anyone who kept furies within such a restrictive
confine -- much less those who would trap them there for generations. But it certainly confirmed, had he been in any doubt, that Aquitaine’s raw power was more than sufficient for the task at hand.
--
Furies of Calderon
Fidelias sank into the warm bath in aching relief, his eyes closing. Nearby, Lady Aquitaine, dressed only in a robe of pale silk, placed Aquitaine’s signet dagger into a coffer on her dresser, and shut and locked it.
“And my men?” Fidelias asked.
“All being cared for,” she assured him. “I repaired your watercrafter’s hearing, and she and her man went to their suite.” She half smiled. “They deserve the time, I think.”
“I failed,” Fidelias said.
“Not entirely,” murmured Lady Aquitaine. She tested the temperature of the water, and then lay her fingers on Fidelias’s temples. “Without the dagger, Gaius has nothing but suspicions.”
“But he knows,” Fidelias said. He felt briefly dizzy as a slow wave of warmth pulsed over him. His aches began to vanish into a molten cloud of blessed relief. “He knows. Aquitaine isn’t working in secret any longer.”
Lady Aquitaine smiled. Then she stepped around the tub and let the silk robe slip from her shoulders. She slid into the water with Fidelias and wrapped her arms around the man’s shoulders. “You worry too much.”
Fidelias shifted uncomfortably. “Lady. Perhaps I should go. Your husband --”
“Is busy,” Lady Aquitaine purred. She gestured, and in the water shapes rose, solid outlines as though dolls upon a tiny stage. There were two figures there, on a great bed in a well-appointed chamber, writhing together in sensual completion, then kissing, slow, heavy kisses.
“There, sweet lady,” Aquitaine’s voice, tinny and distant murmured. “Are you feeling better?”
“Attis,” a young woman’s voice whispered, lazily contented. “So strong.”
She shivered and began to sit up. “I should go.”
“Nonsense,” Lord Aquitaine said. “He’ll be handing out rewards for hours yet. You and I have time for more.”
“No,” she murmured, “I shouldn’t.” But Fidelias could hear the excitement in her voice.
“You should,” Aquitaine murmured. “There. That’s better.”
“Such a lover,” the woman sighed. “And soon, we can be together like this whenever you desire.”
“That’s right,” Aquitaine said.
“And Lady Aquitaine?” the woman asked.
Lady Aquitaine’s lips split in a cool little smile.
“She won’t be a problem,” Lord Aquitaine said. “No more talking.”
Fidelias watched as Gaius Caria, First Lady of Alera, wrapped her arms around Lord Aquitaine and drew him closer to her.
“You see,” Lady Aquitaine purred, letting the images slide away into the water again. “We have more than one knife at his back.” She turned to Fidelias, her lips at his ear, and he felt himself begin to respond with slow, ardent hunger.
“The story is not yet done.”
--
Academ's Fury
Isana glanced around, looking for a place she could wait without jumping like a frightened cat every time someone walked behind her. There was a long stone bench beside a nearby fountain, and Isana settled lightly down on it, making sure that she could see Serai.
A moment later, a woman in a red gown settled on the other end of the bench and nodded pleasantly at Isana. She was tall, her hair dark though shot with silver. She had clear grey eyes and lovely, if remote features.
Isana nodded back with a smile, then frowned thoughtfully. The woman seemed familiar, and a moment later she recognized her from the attack at the windport. She was the woman Isana had stumbled into.
“My lady,” Isana said, “I’m afraid I didn’t get the chance to beg your pardon at the windport this morning.”
The woman arched a brow, expression quizzical, then she suddenly smiled. “Oh, on the landing platform. There were no broken bones -- hardly a need to apologize.”
“All the same. I left without doing so.”
The woman smiled. “Your first time at the capital’s windport?”
“Yes,” Isana said.
“It can be overwhelming,” the woman said, nodding. “So many windcrafters and porters and litters. All that dust blowing around -- and, of course, no one can see anything. It’s madness during Wintersend. Don’t feel bad, Steadholder.”
Isana blinked at the woman, startled. “You recognize me?”
“A great many would,” the woman said. “You are one of the more famous women in the Realm this year. I am sure the Dianic League will be falling all over itself to welcome you.”
Isana forced herself to smile politely, keeping a tight rein on her emotions. “It’s quite flattering. I’ve spoken to High Lady Placida already.”
The woman in red laughed. “Aria is many things—but none of them are flattering. I hope she was pleasant to you.”
“Very,” Isana said. “I had not expected this kind of...” She hesitated, searching for a phrase that would not give the noblewoman offense.
“Courtesy?” the woman suggested. “Common politeness uncommon in a noblewoman?”
“I would not describe it using any of those terms, lady,” Isana replied, but she couldn’t keep the wry humor out of her voice.
The woman laughed. “And I suspect that is because you have a conscience, whereas a great many of the people here would only be moved to it by their political ambitions. Ambitions are incompatible with consciences, you know. The two strangle one another straightaway and leave an awful mess behind them.”
Isana laughed. “And you, lady? Are you a woman of conscience or of ambition?”
The lady smiled. “That’s a question rarely asked here at court.”
“And why is that?”
“Because a woman of conscience would tell you that she is a person of conscience. A woman of ambition would tell you that she is a person of conscience -- only much more convincingly.”
Isana arched a brow, smiling. “I see. I shall have to be more circumspect in my questions, then.”
“Don’t,” the lady said. “It’s refreshing to encounter a new mind with new questions. Welcome to Alera Imperia, Steadholder.”
Isana inclined her head to the lady, and murmured, with genuine gratitude, “Thank you.”
“Of course. It’s the least I can do.”
Isana looked up to see Serai speaking to a hollow-cheeked man in gold and sable, the colors of the House of Rhodes. The courtesan was laughing at something the High Lord was saying as she glanced over at Isana.
The smile froze on Serai’s face.
She turned back to Rhodes, and said something else, then turned and immediately crossed the garden to Isana and the woman in the red gown.
“Steadholder,” Serai said, smiling. She curtseyed deeply to the woman in red. “Lady Aquitaine.”
Isana’s glance snapped from Serai to the woman in red, the heated anger she had felt before struggling to burst free. “You.” She choked on the sentence and had to take a breath and begin again. “You are Lady Aquitaine?”
The lady regarded Serai with a cool glance, and murmured, voice dry, “Did I not mention my name? How careless of me.” She nodded to Isana, and said, “I am Invidia, wife to Aquitainus Attis, High Lord Aquitaine. And I should very much like to discuss the future with you, Steadholder.”
--
Academ's Fury
Aquitaine let out a hiss. “That fool, Kalare. He strikes at the First Lord now?”
“Too bold,” Lady Aquitaine replied. “He would never try something so overt. This is a move that begins with the Canim, I think.”
“Then why would their leader be killing his own guards in fights in dark alleys?” Aquitaine asked.
She shook her head. “It is possible that their loyalty has been taken.” She frowned in thought. “But if there is alarm enough and confusion enough, Kalare will take the opportunity to strike. The man is a slive.”
Lord Aquitaine nodded, continuing the thought to its conclusion. “He would never pass up the opportunity to strike at a weakened foe. We must therefore ensure that he does not profit from this situation.” He frowned. “By preserving Gaius’s rule. Crows, but that doesn’t sit well with me.”
“Politics make strange bedfellows,” Lady Aquitaine murmured. “If Gaius is slain now, before we’ve dealt with Kalare, you know what will happen. In fact, it would not surprise me if the Canim are attempting to kill Gaius in order to foment an open civil war between Kalare and Aquitaine --”
“-- in order to weaken the Realm as a whole.” Aquitaine nodded once. “It is time we relieved Kalare of his bloodcrows. Pier Seven, I believe the boy said, Fidelias?”
“Yes, my lord,” Fidelias replied. “I dispatched observers who reported increasing activity. In my estimation, Kalare has sent out word to his agents, and they are gathering there to move in concentrated force.”
Aquitaine exchanged a glance with his wife, then gave her a bleak smile. “Tunnels or river?”
She wrinkled her nose. “You know I hate the smell of dead fish.”
“Then I’ll handle the warehouse,” Aquitaine said.
“Take one of them alive if you can, Attis,” Lady Aquitaine said.
Lord Aquitaine gave her a flat look.
“If I don’t tell you,” she said calmly, “and you don’t think to save one, afterward you’ll complain that I didn’t remind you, darling. I’m only looking after your best interests.”
--
Cursor's Fury
“I just bought you a brand-new girl, Attis,” teased a woman’s voice from outside the litter, the tone clear and confident. “You’ll be amused until I return.”
“She’s lovely,” said the man. “But she’s not you.” His tone turned wry. “Unlike the last one.”
The door to the air coach opened, and Isana had to call upon Rill to halt tears from filling her eyes. Isana’s fingers touched the shape of the ring beneath her blouse, still on the chain around her neck. Unlike her, it had remained bright and untarnished by the passage of years.
She shook away the remnants of the dream as best she could and forced her thoughts back to the moment.
High Lord Aquitainus Attis, who five years ago had perpetrated a plot resulting in the deaths of hundreds of her neighbors in the Calderon Valley, opened the coach door and nodded pleasantly to Isana. He was a lion of a man, combining grace of motion in balance with physical power. His mane of dark golden hair fell to his shoulders, and nearly black eyes glittered with intelligence. He moved with perfect confidence, and his furycrafting was unmatched by anyone in the Realm, save perhaps the First Lord himself.
“Steadholder,” he said politely, nodding to Isana.
She nodded back to him, though she felt her neck stiffening as she did. She did not trust herself to sound civil when speaking to him, and so remained silent.
“I quite enjoy my holidays abroad,” murmured the woman, her voice now near at hand. “And I am perfectly capable of looking after myself. Besides. You have your own work to do.”
The woman entered the coach and settled down on the opposite bench. High Lady Aquitaine Invidia looked every inch the model of the elite Citizenry, pale, dark-haired, tall, and regal. Though Isana knew that Lady Aquitaine was in her forties, like her husband and Isana herself, she looked barely twenty. Like all blessed with sufficient power at watercrafting, she enjoyed the ongoing appearance of youth. “Good evening, Isana.”
“My lady,” Isana murmured. Though she had no more love for the woman than she did for Lord Aquitaine, she could at least manage to speak politely to her, if not warmly.
Invidia turned to her husband and leaned forward to kiss him. “Don’t go staying up to all hours. You need your rest.”
He arched a golden brow. “I am a High Lord of Alera, not some foolish academ.”
“And vegetables,” she said, as if he hadn’t spoken. “Don’t gorge yourself on meats and sweets and ignore your vegetables.”
Aquitaine frowned. “I suppose you’ll act like this the entire time if I insist upon joining you?”
She smiled sweetly at him.
He rolled his eyes, gave her a quick kiss, and said, “Impossible woman. Very well, have it your way.”
“Naturally,” she said. “Farewell, my lord.”
He inclined his head to her, nodded at Isana, shut the door, and withdrew. He thumped the side of the litter twice, and said, “Captain, take care of them.”
“My lord,” replied a male voice from outside the door, and the Knights Aeris lifted the litter. The winds rose to the low, steady roar that had become familiar to Isana in the last two years, and unseen force pressed her against her seat as the litter leapt into the skies.
Several moments passed in silence, during which Isana leaned her head against her cushion and closed her eyes, in the hopes that the pretense of sleep would prevent the need for conversation with Lady Aquitaine. Her hopes were in vain.
“I apologize for the length of the trip,” Lady Aquitaine said after a few moments. “But the high winds are always tricky at this season, and this year they are particularly dangerous. We must therefore fly much lower than we usually would.”
Isana did not voice the thought that it was still a great deal higher than a walk along the ground. “Does it make a difference?” she asked, without opening her eyes.
“It is more difficult to stay aloft closer to the earth, and more difficult to fly quickly,” Lady Aquitaine replied. “My Knights Aeris must count the journey in miles instead of leagues, and given the number of stops we must make to visit my supporters, it will take us a great deal longer to reach our destination.”
Isana sighed. “How much longer?”
“Most of three weeks, I am told. And that is an optimistic estimate that assumes fresh teams of Knights Aeris await us at way stations.”
Three weeks. Rather too long a time to pretend to be asleep without openly insulting her patron. Though Isana knew her value to the Aquitaines, and knew that she could afford to avoid the usual fawning and scraping such powerful patrons required, there were limits she would be ill-advised to press. Consequently, she opened her eyes.
Lady Aquitaine curled her rich mouth into a smile. “I thought you would appreciate the information. You’d look rather silly sitting there with your eyes closed the whole way.”
“Of course not, my lady,” Isana said. “Why would I do such a thing?”
Invidia’s eyes hardened for a moment. Then she said, “I am given to understand that you plan a small reunion with your family in Ceres.”
“After the meeting with the League, of course,” Isana said. “I have been assured of alternate travel arrangements back to Calderon if my plans should inconvenience you.”
Invidia’s cool features blossomed into a small, even genuine, smile. “Hardly anyone fences with me anymore, Isana. I’ve actually looked forward to this trip.”
--
Cursor's Fury
“The lever Kalarus uses,” Lady Aquitaine said, “will serve you just as ably.”
Amara’s stomach turned in disgust. “No,” she said.
Lady Aquitaine turned more fully to Amara. “Countess. Your sensibilities are useless to the rule of a realm. If that woman does not speak to you, your lord will fail to muster the support he needs to defend his capital, and whether or not he lives, his rule will be over. Thousands will die in battle. Food shipments will be delayed, destroyed. Famine. Disease. Tens of thousands will fall to them without ever being touched by a weapon.”
“I know that,” Amara spat.
“Then if you truly would prevent it, would protect this Realm you claim to serve, then you must set your squeamishness aside and make the difficult choice.” Her eyes almost glowed. “That is the price of power, Cursor.”
Amara looked away from Lady Aquitaine and stared at the prisoner.
“I’ll talk,” she said finally, very quietly. “I’ll cue you to show yourself to her.”
Lady Aquitaine tilted her head to one side and nodded comprehension. “Very well.”
Amara turned and went back over to the prisoner. “Rook,” she said quietly. “Or should I call you Gaelle?”
“As you would. Both names are stolen.”
“Rook will do, then,” Amara said.
“Did you forget your knife?” the prisoner said. There was no life to the taunt.
“No knife,” Amara said quietly. “Kalarus has abducted two women. You know who they are.”
Rook said nothing, but something in the quality of her silence made Amara think that she did.
“I want to know where they have been taken,” Amara said. “I want to know what security precautions are around them. I want to know how to free them and escape with them again.”
A short breath, the bare specter of a laugh, escaped Rook’s lips.
“Are you willing to tell me?” Amara asked.
Rook stared at her in silent scorn.
“I see,” Amara said. She beckoned with one hand. “In that case, I’m going to leave.”
Lady Aquitaine -- and not Lady Aquitaine -- stepped into the light of the circle of fire. Her form had changed, growing shorter, stockier, so that the dress she wore fit her badly. Her features had changed, skin and face and hair, to the perfect mirror of Rook’s own face and body alike.
Rook’s head snapped up. Her tortured face twisted into an expression of horror.
“I’ll go for a walk outside,” Amara continued in a quiet, remorseless voice. “Out in public. With her. Where everyone in the city might see. Where anyone Kalarus has watching will see us together.”
Rook’s face writhed between terror and agony, and she stared at Lady Aquitaine as if physically unable to remove her gaze. “No. Oh furies, no. Kill me. Just end it.”
“Why?” Amara asked. “Why should I?”
“If I am dead, she will be nothing to him. He might only cast her out.” Her voice dissolved into a ragged sob as she began to weep again. “She’s only five. Please, she’s only a little girl.”
Amara took a deep breath. “What is her name, Rook?”
The woman suddenly sagged in the chains, wracked with broken, harsh sobs. “Masha,” she grated. “Masha.”
She pressed closer, seizing Rook by the hair and forcing her to lift her face, though the woman’s eyes were now swollen, mostly closed. “Where is the child?”
“Kalare,” sobbed the spy. “He keeps her next to his chambers. To remind me what he can do.”
Amara steeled herself not to falter, and her voice rang on the stone walls. “Is that where they’ve taken the prisoners?”
Rook shook her head, but the gesture was a feeble one, an obvious lie. “No,” she whispered. “No, no, no.”
Amara held the spy’s eyes and willed resolve into her own. “Do you know where they are? Do you know how I can get to them?”
Silence fell, but for Rook’s broken sounds of grief and pain. “Yes,” she said, finally. “I know. But I can’t tell you. If you rescue them, he’ll kill her.” She shuddered. “Countess, please, it’s her only chance. Kill me here. I can’t fail her.”
Amara released Rook’s hair and stepped back from the prisoner. She felt sick. “Bernard,” she said quietly, nodding at a bucket in the corner. “Give her some water.”
The Count did, his expression remote and deeply troubled. Rook made no sign that she noticed him, until he had actually lifted her head and used a ladle to pour some water between her lips. Then she drank with the mindless, miserable need of a caged beast.
Amara wiped the hand she’d touched the spy with upon her skirts, rubbing hard. Then she stepped outside and got the keys to the woman’s shackles from the legionare on guard. As she stepped back into the cell, Lady Aquitaine touched her arm, her features returned to normal, her expression one of displeasure. “What do you think you are doing?”
Amara stopped in her tracks and met the High Lady’s cold gaze in a sudden flash of confidence and steel-hard certainty.
Lady Aquitaine’s eyebrows rose, startled. “What are you doing, girl?”
“I’m showing you the difference, Your Grace,” she said. “Between my Realm. And yours.”
--
Captain's Fury
Marcus pushed his mildewed wooden mug away a little and did his best to ignore the smell. Then he took the little furylamp from his pouch, murmured it to life, set it out on the rough table, and waited.
The washerwoman entered the nameless tavern and paused in the door- way before looking around. It was dark enough inside that his little lamp served as a beacon for her gaze, and she crossed the rough floor to sit down at the table with him.
“Good day,” the disguised Lady Aquitaine said. She glanced around the tavern with a sniff. “I always knew you were a secret romantic.”
Marcus nudged the mug toward her. “Thirsty?”
She glanced at the mug, turned a shade paler, and gave him a level look.
“Suit yourself,” he said.
“Why here?” she asked him.
“No one will recognize me here.”
“I almost didn’t recognize you.”
Marcus shrugged. “No armor. Different cloak. My hood is up. I look like everyone else.”
“We could have met anywhere,” she countered. “Why here?”
Marcus glanced up and met her eyes. “Maybe I wanted you to see it.”
The washerwoman tilted her head slightly to one side. “See what?”
He moved his hand in an all-encompassing gesture. “The consequences.”
She lifted both eyebrows sharply.
“A lot of times, people who make big choices never have to see what can happen. All of this... and worse than you see here, or what you saw on the way here -- it’s all the result of choices like that.”
She stared at him without expression for a long moment. “This is supposed to horrify me?”
“This? This is nothing,” Marcus replied. “This is what happens when there’s a polite disagreement, which is more or less what we’ve had with the Canim so far. This is what happens when everyone has to tighten their belts a little, but there’s still enough to go around. It’s worse, in the south. Rampant disease. Starvation. Brigands, looting, mercenaries. Men taking more liberties. Men seeking vengeance for the same.” He nodded at the tavern. Outside the damp, stinking canvas, someone with a wet cough was wheezing for breath between fits of hacking spasms. “This is sunshine and sweetbread compared to what could happen.”
Lady Aquitaine narrowed her eyes. “If my husband and I continue in our designs, you mean.”
“I’d have to know them all,” Marcus replied. “And I’m sure that I don’t. So it’s for you to say.”
“One of the things I have always admired about you is your professionalism. This isn’t like you.”
Marcus shrugged. “It’s a secure enough meeting space. I had something to say to you. I said it. What you do with it is up to you.”
Lady Aquitaine frowned. She glanced around the shabby tavern for a few seconds. Then she shook her head briskly, took the mug, and emptied its contents onto the floor. She put the mug firmly back on the table. “Keep your focus on the task at hand.”
“I would -- if he could be bothered to arrive on time.”
She shrugged. “He’s used to being the most important person around. Important people are always late to meetings.”
“Why tolerate it?” Marcus asked.
“I need him,” she said simply.
“What happens when you don’t?”
She gave him a little smile. “He’ll have the opportunity to learn better working habits.”
--
Captain's Fury
“Well?” Arnos demanded of one of his cadre of flunkies. “You’re my legal advisor. Advise me.”
“I’m sorry, Senator,” the plump little man said, from the midst of a stack of thick books. “All the legal precedents would seem to be on the Princep --”
“Scipio,” Arnos snarled. “His name is Scipio.”
“-- Scipio’s,” the man corrected seamlessly, “side. He has... technically, of course... satisfied the legal requirements to establish his identity, and in the case of a threat of treason or dishonor to the Realm, Citizens of the rank of Lord and above have the right to issue a challenge to any Citizen of the Realm.”
“I know that,” Arnos snarled. “What do I do about it?”
The man tried to smile, and his voice came out in a squeak. “You could always renounce your Citizenship, sir.”
Arnos slapped him. “Idiot. Get out before I have you flogged.”
The little man went scrambling from the tent, and Marcus stepped back to let him pass.
“You could take his advice, you know,” said a woman’s voice. Marcus recognized Lady Aquitaine’s disguise at once.
“Bloody crows and furies,” snarled Arnos, his throat tight. “How long have you been there?”
“Long enough to see that you are in a spot, Arnos.”
The Senator let out a fairly uncivilized growl. “I’m not backing away now. I’d lose everything I’ve worked years to build. In my professional opinion, it is time for you to intervene.”
“And?” she asked.
“And make it go away,” he said, his voice coming through clenched teeth.
“I believe I’ve made a mistake in you, Arnos. I knew you were a pompous egotist with delusions of grandeur, but I did believe you were at least competent.”
Arnos stared in silence for a few seconds, then accused, “We had a deal.”
“We had an understanding,” Lady Aquitaine said. “But you’ve broken faith with me. You told me that you hadn’t acquired any of your troops as mercenaries. But your extremely well-supplied and well-armed and well-paid cavalry seem to have taken it upon themselves to loot and pillage every human habitation they come across.”
“Their Tribunes are acting independently of my orders,” Arnos said.
“You’re the commander of these Legions, dear. You’re responsible for what they do. That’s rather why one is able to attain glory and respect after a victory. Or don’t they teach that at the Collegia.”
“How dare you lecture me on --”
Lady Aquitaine’s voice, though still quiet, turned cold. “Don’t make me raise my hand, Arnos. When I slap someone, he doesn’t scurry away after.”
Arnos jerked up straight, and his face turned red. “You were willing enough to spill Aleran blood six weeks ago.”
“I’m willing to make sacrifices in pursuit of a greater goal,” Lady Aquitaine said. “That’s not the same as condoning the rape and murder of entire steadholts. There was no profit to those actions. No purpose. It’s unprofessional. Idiotic. And I have difficulty tolerating idiots.”
“Then you should agree that this conversation is unprofitable, given the circumstances. We need to focus on the matter at hand.”
“Oh?”
“We’re probably worried about nothing. Navaris is going to introduce our young captain to the crows, and that will solve the problems at hand.”
“Will it?” she said in a flat voice. “I’ve made a decision about the problems at hand, Arnos.”
The Senator’s voice sounded wary. “What’s that?”
“They’re your problems,” Lady Aquitaine said, her tone pitiless. “Solve them by yourself. If you manage to survive them, I may be willing to renegotiate our relationship. But until then, you’re on your own.”
--
Princeps' Fury
“Welcome back, Countess,” came Invidia’s voice. “We feared for you for a time.”
The voice of the Vord queen buzzed weirdly against Amara’s senses. “I did not.”
Amara shook her head, blinked the water from her eyes, and looked up at them. If she didn’t show them defiance quickly, the cold air of the deep night would suck the warmth from the water soaking her clothes and leave her shuddering and freezing. She thought the defiance might be less convincing if she waited for that.
Invidia sat in a chair that had been brought out from one of the nearby buildings. She looked hideous. There were dark circles under her eyes, and her skin was a deep, sallow shade of saffron. The Vord creature upon her chest was gone. Holes like little gaping mouths in the pale flesh beneath where it had been leaked dark fluid that only faintly resembled blood.
“Invidia,” Amara said. “Finally, the outside matches the inside. Treacherous, cowardly, petty.”
Invidia sat in her chair and slowly withdrew a hand from the waters of the healing tub. She tilted her head at an angle that made Amara acutely aware of the fact that she currently lay bound at Invidia’s feet. Other than that one motion, she did not move, until she turned her head to the Vord queen. “Well? She lives.”
“Yes,” the Vord queen said. She walked past Amara’s view, pale ankles and delicate feet tipped with green-black toenails walking with deliberate grace across the stones and stepping over Amara’s bound form. She stopped behind Invidia’s chair.
Invidia shifted her body, settling her back upright against the chair’s straight back and gripping the arms with weak fingers. “Countess,” she said. “As ever, swift to judge.”
“Perhaps you’re right,” Amara said. “You must have an excellent reason to explain why you are toadying for the enemies of the Realm and murdering and enslaving her citizens. Any reasonable person should be able to forgive and forget. Surely.”
Invidia narrowed her eyes. “Does it look like I would be here if I had a choice, Countess?”
“I don’t see a collar on you, Invidia,” Amara said.
For the first time, the other woman seemed to notice the way Amara had entirely omitted her title. Her expression flickered with surprise, then offended anger, then -- for just an instant -- with what might have been a flutter of regret.
“The people here, the ones you’ve had broken and enslaved, they didn’t have a choice. You took that from them.”
The Vord queen settled her fingers lightly upon Invidia’s neck. The tips of her green-black talons dimpled the delicate skin of the former High Lady’s throat. She shivered and rippled hideously, as if some other creature entirely had writhed in its sleep beneath her skin. Her fingers tightened, and tiny trickles of blood coursed over Invidia’s pale white skin.
“After your mentor betrayed me,” Invidia said, her mouth spreading into a rictus, “and left me bleeding on the ground with garic oil poisoning my wounds, I fled and was found by my new liege.” She tilted her head slightly back toward the Vord queen. “She made me an offer. My life for my loyalty.”
“You make it sound like barter,” the queen murmured, her faceted eyes half-lidded. “It is not so much an exchange as an ongoing arrangement.” Then she closed her eyes, and shivered again, something undeniably alien in the motion, and Invidia fell silent.
Amara shuddered and stared, revulsion and fascination competing for her thoughts.
The Vord queen smiled slightly, let out a little sigh, and parted her dark, soft lips. Impossibly long, spidery legs slowly began to emerge from between them. As they appeared, they grew like the branches of a tree, but with horrible rapidity. Once they reached better than a foot in length, they began to stir, slowly, waving about like weeds growing in the sea near the shore.
The queen opened her mouth wider, and a bulbous body emerged from it, shaping itself as it came, until it settled into the form of the creature Amara had seen on Invidia before, albeit a bit smaller.
The Vord queen lifted her hand to her mouth and took up the creature in it, as gently as any mother handling her newborn. She reached slowly around Invidia’s body and held the creature against the Aleran woman’s chest. The creature spread its legs, fluttering them lightly over Invidia’s torso, and, in an abrupt motion, struck with every leg at once, nearly a dozen limbs lashing out in separate serpentine motions. The creature clutched hard to Invidia, then slammed its head forward, long mandibles burying themselves in the Aleran woman’s flesh.
Invidia closed her eyes for a moment, shuddering, but not moving or struggling against the creature. It seemed to adjust itself for a moment, then settled, its legs each sinking a talon into her flesh, drawing more dark fluid from her.
Within seconds, her color had begun to improve, and Invidia let out a shuddering sigh. She blinked her eyes open a moment later. “Ah. My thanks.”
The Vord queen simply stared at Invidia for a moment. Then she shifted her attention to Amara.
“Now,” Invidia said. “Where were we, Countess?”
“Fidelias,” Amara said. She struggled to keep her voice calm, but she couldn’t do it. The cold had settled into her soaked clothes, and she began shivering. Her voice shook with her.
“Yes,” Invidia said, her voice growing steadier by the word. “Dear Fidelias. I don’t suppose you know where he is?”
“To the best of my knowledge he was in your company,” Amara said. “Or dead.”
“Really?” Invidia asked. “That hardly seems likely. You were close to him, after all. He was your patriserus.”
Amara clenched her teeth to keep them from chattering. “He was a traitor.”
“Doubly,” Invidia mused. “I had thought your type had a name for that sort of thing, but perhaps I was mistaken.” She glanced down at the creature on her chest and shifted her shoulders gently. Its legs flexed slightly, and she winced. “Mmmfh. He could hardly have struck at a better moment. I was incognito. Had he succeeded, I would have been buried as a nameless camp follower, an unfortunate casualty of war -- and one of Gaius’s most capable foes would simply have vanished. A High Lady of the Realm, gone without a trace.”
“I can’t see where he failed,” Amara replied. “I see no High Lady here.” Invidia stared at her in deadly silence for a long moment. Amara bared her teeth at her in a humorless smile. “You may have lived through the attack, but High Lady Aquitaine didn’t survive it.”
“Enough of her survived to settle accounts, Countess,” Invidia said in a quiet voice. “More than enough to deal with you. And your husband.”
Amara felt a little chill of fear go through her.
--
First Lord's Fury
It was the signal to begin the ritual of dinner. Invidia never grew any more comfortable with it, despite the repetition. She replied politely and made inane, pleasant conversation with the Queen for a few moments as the wax spiders, the keepers, trooped toward the table bearing plates, cups, and cutlery. The insect-like vord swarmed up the table’s legs in neat ranks, setting a place for the Queen, for Invidia...
...and for someone who was apparently to sit at the Queen’s right hand. The empty chair with its empty plate setting was unnerving. Invidia covered her reaction by turning to watch the rest of the keepers bringing forth several covered platters and a bottle of Ceresian wine.
Invidia opened the bottle and poured wine into the Queen’s glass, then into her own. Then she looked at the glass in front of the empty seat.
“Pour,” the Queen said. “I have invited a guest.”
Invidia did so. Then she began uncovering platters. Each platter bore a perfectly square section of the croach. Each was subtly different than the next. One looked as if it had been baked in an oven -- badly. The edges were black and crisp. Another had sugar sprinkled over its surface. A third was adorned with a gelatinous glaze and a ring of ripe cherries. A fourth had been coated with what had once been melted cheese -- but it had been scorched dark brown.
Invidia sliced each piece into quarters, then began to load the Queen’s plate with a single square from each platter. After that, she served herself the same.
“And our guest,” the Queen murmured.
Invidia dutifully filled the third plate. “Whom are we entertaining?”
“We are not entertaining,” the Queen replied. “We are consuming food in a group.”
Invidia bowed her head. “Who is to be our companion, then?”
The Queen narrowed her insect eyes until only glittering black slits were visible. She stared down the length of the enormous table, and said, “She comes.”
Invidia turned her head to look as their guest entered the glowing green dome. It was a second queen.
It shared its features with the Queen: Indeed, it might have been her twin sister -- a young woman little older than a teenager, with long white hair and the same glittering eyes. There, the similarities ended. The younger queen prowled forward with alien grace, making no effort at all to mimic the motion of a human being. She was completely naked, and her pale skin was covered in a sheen of some kind of glistening, greenish mucus.
The younger queen walked forward to the table and stopped a few feet away, staring at her mother.
The Queen gestured to the empty chair. “Sit.”
The younger queen sat. She stared across the table at Invidia with unblinking eyes.
“This is my child. She is newly born,” said the Queen to Invidia. She turned to the young queen. “Eat.”
The younger queen considered the food for a moment. Then she grasped a square in her bare fingers and stuffed it into her mouth.
The Queen observed this behavior, frowning. Then she took up her fork and began cutting off dainty bites with it, eating them slowly. Invidia followed the elder Queen’s lead and ate as well.
The food was... “revolting” fell so far of the mark that it seemed an injustice. Invidia had learned to eat the raw croach. The creature keeping her alive needed her to ingest it in order to feed itself. She had been startled to learn that it could taste even worse. The vord had no grasp of cooking. The very notion was alien to them. As a result, they couldn’t really be expected to do it very well -- but that evening they had perpetrated nothing short of an atrocity.
She choked the food down as best she could. The elder Queen ate steadily. The younger queen was finished within two minutes and sat there staring at them, her expression unreadable.
The younger queen then turned to her mother. “Why?”
“We partake of a meal together.”
“Why?”
“Because it might make us stronger.”
The younger queen absorbed that in silence for a moment. Then she asked, “How?”
“By building bonds between us.”
“Bonds.” The younger queen blinked slowly, once. “What need is there for restraints?”
“Not physical bonds,” her mother said. “Symbolic mental attachments. Familiar feelings.”
The young queen absorbed that for half a dozen heartbeats. Then she said, “These things do not improve strength.”
“There is more to strength than physical power.”
The young queen tilted her head. She stared at her mother, then, unnervingly, at Invidia. The Aleran woman could feel the sudden heavy, invasive pressure of the young queen’s awareness impinging upon her thoughts. “What is this creature?”
“A means to an end.”
“It is alien.”
“Necessary.”
The young queen’s voice hardened. “It is alien.”
“Necessary,” repeated the elder Queen.
Again, the young queen fell silent. Then, her expression never changing, she said, “You are defective.”
The enormous table seemed to explode. Splinters, some of them six inches long and wickedly sharp, flew outward like arrows. Invidia flinched instinctively, and barely managed to get her chitin-armored forearm between her and a flying spear of wood that might have plunged through her eye.
Sound pressed so hard against Invidia’s eardrums that one of them burst, a wailing thunderstorm of high-pitched, shrieking howls. She cried out at the pain and reeled out of her chair and back from the table, borrowing swiftness from her wind furies as she went, embracing the weirdly altered sense of time that seemed to stretch instants into seconds, seconds into moments. It was the only way for her to see what was happening.
The vord queens were locked in a fight to the death.
Even with the windcrafting to aid her, Invidia could barely follow the movements of the two vord. Black claws flashed. Kicks flew. Dodges turned into twenty-foot bounds that ended at the nearest wall of the dome, whereupon the two queens continued their struggle while crouched on the wall, bounding and scuttling up the dome like a pair of dueling spiders.
Invidia’s eyes flicked to the ruined table. It lay in pieces. A ragged furrow was torn through one corner, where the younger queen had surged forward, plunging through the massive hardwood table as if it had been no more a hindrance than a mound of soft snow. Invidia could scarcely imagine the tremendous power and focus that would be required for such a thing to happen -- from a creature who had been born, it would seem, less than an hour before.
But swift and terrible as the young queen might have been, the match was not an even one. Where claws struck the elder Queen, sparks flew from her seemingly soft flesh, turning the attack aside. But where the younger queen was hit, flesh parted, and green-brown blood flew in fine arcs. The vord queens fought a spinning, climbing, leaping duel at a speed too swift to be seen clearly, much less interfered with, and Invidia found herself tracking the motion simply to know when she might need to leap out of the way.
Then the elder Queen made a mistake. She slipped on a slickened spill of the younger queen’s blood, and her balance faltered for a fraction of a second. There was not time enough for the young queen to close in for a more deadly blow -- but it was more than time enough for her to dart behind the elder Queen and seize the fabric of the dark cloak. With a twisting motion, she wrapped the cloak around the elder Queen’s throat and leaned back, pulling with both frail-seeming arms, tightening the twisted fabric like a garrote against her mother’s neck.
The elder Queen bent into a sinuous bow, straining against the strangling cloth, her expression quite calm as her dark eyes fell with a palpable weight upon Invidia.
The Aleran woman met her eyes for a pair of endless seconds before she nodded once, rose, lifted her hand, and with an effort of will and furycraft caused the air within the nose, mouth, and lungs of the young queen to congeal into a nearly liquid mass.
The response was immediate. The younger queen twisted and writhed in sudden agony, still holding on desperately to the twisted cloak.
The elder Queen severed it with a slash of her claws, slipped free, turned, and with half a dozen smoothly savage movements tore the younger queen open from throat to belly, removing organs along the way. It was calmly done, the work of an old hand in a slaughterhouse more than the intense uncertainty of a battle.
The young queen’s body fell limp to the floor. The elder Queen took no chances. She dismembered it with neat, workmanlike motions. Then she turned, as if nothing at all had happened, and walked back to the table. Her chair remained in its place though the table had been ruined. The Queen sat down in her chair and stared forward, at nothing.
Invidia walked slowly over to her side, righted her own fallen chair, and sat down in it. Neither of them spoke for a time. “Are you hurt?” Invidia asked, finally.
The Queen opened her mouth, then did something Invidia had never seen before.
She hesitated.
“My daughter,” the Queen said, her voice a near whisper. “The twenty-seventh since returning to Alera’s shores.”
Invidia frowned. “Twenty-seventh...?”
“Part of our... nature...” The vord shivered. “Within each queen is an imperative to remain separate. Pure. Untainted by our contact with other beings. And to remove any queen that shows signs of corruption. Beginning several years ago, my junior queens have universally attempted to remove me.” Her face was touched by a faint frown. “I do not understand. She did no physical harm to me. Yet...”
“She hurt you.”
The Queen nodded, very slowly. “I had to remove their capacity to produce more queens lest they gather numbers to remove me. Which has hurt us all. Weakened us. By all rights, this world should have been vord five years ago.” Her eyes narrowed, and she turned her faceted gaze upon Invidia. “You acted to protect me.”
“You hardly needed it,” Invidia said.
“You did not know that.”
“True.”
The vord Queen tilted her head, studying Invidia intently. She braced herself for the unpleasant intrusion of the Queen’s mind -- but it did not come. “Then why?” the Queen asked.
“The younger queen clearly would not have permitted me to live.”
“You might have struck at both of us.”
Invidia frowned. True enough. The two queens had been so intent upon one another, they would hardly have been able to react to a sudden attack from Invidia. She could have called up fire and obliterated them both. But she hadn’t.
“You could have fled,” the Queen said.
Invidia smiled faintly. She gestured to the creature latched upon her chest. “Not far enough.”
“No,” the vord said. “You have no other place to go.”
“I do not,” Invidia agreed.
“When something is held in common,” the Queen asked, “is it considered a bond?”
Invidia considered her answer for a moment -- and not for the benefit of the Queen. “It is often the beginning of one.”
The vord looked at her fingers. Their dark-nailed tips were stained with the younger queen’s blood. “Do you have children of your own?”
“No.”
The Queen nodded. “It is... unpleasant to see them harmed. Any of them. I am pleased that you are not distracted by such a thing at this time.” She looked up and squared her shoulders, straightening her spine -- mirroring Invidia herself. “What is the proper Aleran etiquette when an assassination interrupts dinner?”
Invidia found a small smile on her mouth. “Perhaps we should repair the furniture.”
The vord tilted her head again. “I do not have that knowledge.”
“When my mother died, my father apprenticed me to all the finest master artisans of the city for a year at a time. I think mainly to be rid of me.” She rose and considered the broken table, the scattered splinters. “Come. This is a more demanding discipline than flying or calling fire. I will show you.”
The Cursor frowned at the man, a mild expression, and turned to watch the city of Aquitaine come into sight.
First came the lights. Firecrafters by the dozens maintained the lights along the city’s streets, and they burned with a gentle radiance through the mistshrouded evening, all soft yellows, deep amber, pale crimson, until the hill upon which the city was built seemed itself to be one enormous, living flame, garbed in warmth and flickering color. Upon the city’s walls, and just beyond them, lights burned with a cold, blue brilliance, casting the ground far around into stark illumination and long black shadows, their harsh glare vigilant against any would-be invaders.
As the litter glided down, and closer, Fidelias could begin to make out shapes in the shifting lights. Statues stood silent and lovely on the streets. Houses, all elegant lines and high arches, contested with one another to prove the most skillfully crafted, the most beautifully lit. Fountains sparkled and flickered, some of them illuminated from below, so that they burned violet or emerald in the darkness, pools of liquid flames. Trees rose up around houses and lined the streets, thriving and beautiful life that had been crafted as carefully as every other part of the city. They, too, wore veils of colored light, and their leaves, already changed into autumn’s brilliant hues, shone in too many shades to count.
The sound of a bell tolling the late hour rose to the descending litter. Fidelias heard the trod of hooves upon paving stones somewhere below and raucous singing from a night club of some kind. Music came up from a garden party as the litter passed over it, strings supporting a sweet alto flute that pursued a gentle, haunting melody. The smell of wood smoke and spices still drifted on the evening breezes, along with the scent of late-blooming flowers and of rain on the wind.
To call Aquitaine beautiful was to call the ocean wet, Fidelias thought. Accurate enough, in its way, but wholly insufficient to the task. They were challenged by a barking voice before they had come within a long bowshot of the High Lord’s manor, a walled fortress surmounting the hill upon which the city stood. Fidelias watched as a man in the sable and scarlet surcoat of Aquitaine swept down from the air above. A dozen more hovered somewhere in the night sky above them, unseen -- but the Cursor could feel the eddies of wind that their furies kicked up in keeping them aloft.
The challenger of the Knights Aeris guarding the High Lord’s manor exchanged a pass phrase with the captain of Fidelias’s own escort, though the exchange had the comfortable, routine air of a formality. Then the group swept on forward, down into the manor’s courtyard, while more guards watched from the walls, along with leering statues wrought in the shapes of hunchbacked, gangly men. The moment Fidelias stepped from the litter, he felt the light, steady tremors of power in the earth that led back to each statue on the wall and found himself staring at the statues.
“Gargoyles!” he breathed. “All of them?”
Aldrick glanced at the statues and then to Fidelias and nodded once.
“How long have they been kept here?”
“As long as anyone remembers,” Aldrick rumbled.
“Aquitaine is that strong...” Fidelias pursed his lips in thought. He did not
agree with the principles of anyone who kept furies within such a restrictive
confine -- much less those who would trap them there for generations. But it certainly confirmed, had he been in any doubt, that Aquitaine’s raw power was more than sufficient for the task at hand.
--
Furies of Calderon
Fidelias sank into the warm bath in aching relief, his eyes closing. Nearby, Lady Aquitaine, dressed only in a robe of pale silk, placed Aquitaine’s signet dagger into a coffer on her dresser, and shut and locked it.
“And my men?” Fidelias asked.
“All being cared for,” she assured him. “I repaired your watercrafter’s hearing, and she and her man went to their suite.” She half smiled. “They deserve the time, I think.”
“I failed,” Fidelias said.
“Not entirely,” murmured Lady Aquitaine. She tested the temperature of the water, and then lay her fingers on Fidelias’s temples. “Without the dagger, Gaius has nothing but suspicions.”
“But he knows,” Fidelias said. He felt briefly dizzy as a slow wave of warmth pulsed over him. His aches began to vanish into a molten cloud of blessed relief. “He knows. Aquitaine isn’t working in secret any longer.”
Lady Aquitaine smiled. Then she stepped around the tub and let the silk robe slip from her shoulders. She slid into the water with Fidelias and wrapped her arms around the man’s shoulders. “You worry too much.”
Fidelias shifted uncomfortably. “Lady. Perhaps I should go. Your husband --”
“Is busy,” Lady Aquitaine purred. She gestured, and in the water shapes rose, solid outlines as though dolls upon a tiny stage. There were two figures there, on a great bed in a well-appointed chamber, writhing together in sensual completion, then kissing, slow, heavy kisses.
“There, sweet lady,” Aquitaine’s voice, tinny and distant murmured. “Are you feeling better?”
“Attis,” a young woman’s voice whispered, lazily contented. “So strong.”
She shivered and began to sit up. “I should go.”
“Nonsense,” Lord Aquitaine said. “He’ll be handing out rewards for hours yet. You and I have time for more.”
“No,” she murmured, “I shouldn’t.” But Fidelias could hear the excitement in her voice.
“You should,” Aquitaine murmured. “There. That’s better.”
“Such a lover,” the woman sighed. “And soon, we can be together like this whenever you desire.”
“That’s right,” Aquitaine said.
“And Lady Aquitaine?” the woman asked.
Lady Aquitaine’s lips split in a cool little smile.
“She won’t be a problem,” Lord Aquitaine said. “No more talking.”
Fidelias watched as Gaius Caria, First Lady of Alera, wrapped her arms around Lord Aquitaine and drew him closer to her.
“You see,” Lady Aquitaine purred, letting the images slide away into the water again. “We have more than one knife at his back.” She turned to Fidelias, her lips at his ear, and he felt himself begin to respond with slow, ardent hunger.
“The story is not yet done.”
--
Academ's Fury
Isana glanced around, looking for a place she could wait without jumping like a frightened cat every time someone walked behind her. There was a long stone bench beside a nearby fountain, and Isana settled lightly down on it, making sure that she could see Serai.
A moment later, a woman in a red gown settled on the other end of the bench and nodded pleasantly at Isana. She was tall, her hair dark though shot with silver. She had clear grey eyes and lovely, if remote features.
Isana nodded back with a smile, then frowned thoughtfully. The woman seemed familiar, and a moment later she recognized her from the attack at the windport. She was the woman Isana had stumbled into.
“My lady,” Isana said, “I’m afraid I didn’t get the chance to beg your pardon at the windport this morning.”
The woman arched a brow, expression quizzical, then she suddenly smiled. “Oh, on the landing platform. There were no broken bones -- hardly a need to apologize.”
“All the same. I left without doing so.”
The woman smiled. “Your first time at the capital’s windport?”
“Yes,” Isana said.
“It can be overwhelming,” the woman said, nodding. “So many windcrafters and porters and litters. All that dust blowing around -- and, of course, no one can see anything. It’s madness during Wintersend. Don’t feel bad, Steadholder.”
Isana blinked at the woman, startled. “You recognize me?”
“A great many would,” the woman said. “You are one of the more famous women in the Realm this year. I am sure the Dianic League will be falling all over itself to welcome you.”
Isana forced herself to smile politely, keeping a tight rein on her emotions. “It’s quite flattering. I’ve spoken to High Lady Placida already.”
The woman in red laughed. “Aria is many things—but none of them are flattering. I hope she was pleasant to you.”
“Very,” Isana said. “I had not expected this kind of...” She hesitated, searching for a phrase that would not give the noblewoman offense.
“Courtesy?” the woman suggested. “Common politeness uncommon in a noblewoman?”
“I would not describe it using any of those terms, lady,” Isana replied, but she couldn’t keep the wry humor out of her voice.
The woman laughed. “And I suspect that is because you have a conscience, whereas a great many of the people here would only be moved to it by their political ambitions. Ambitions are incompatible with consciences, you know. The two strangle one another straightaway and leave an awful mess behind them.”
Isana laughed. “And you, lady? Are you a woman of conscience or of ambition?”
The lady smiled. “That’s a question rarely asked here at court.”
“And why is that?”
“Because a woman of conscience would tell you that she is a person of conscience. A woman of ambition would tell you that she is a person of conscience -- only much more convincingly.”
Isana arched a brow, smiling. “I see. I shall have to be more circumspect in my questions, then.”
“Don’t,” the lady said. “It’s refreshing to encounter a new mind with new questions. Welcome to Alera Imperia, Steadholder.”
Isana inclined her head to the lady, and murmured, with genuine gratitude, “Thank you.”
“Of course. It’s the least I can do.”
Isana looked up to see Serai speaking to a hollow-cheeked man in gold and sable, the colors of the House of Rhodes. The courtesan was laughing at something the High Lord was saying as she glanced over at Isana.
The smile froze on Serai’s face.
She turned back to Rhodes, and said something else, then turned and immediately crossed the garden to Isana and the woman in the red gown.
“Steadholder,” Serai said, smiling. She curtseyed deeply to the woman in red. “Lady Aquitaine.”
Isana’s glance snapped from Serai to the woman in red, the heated anger she had felt before struggling to burst free. “You.” She choked on the sentence and had to take a breath and begin again. “You are Lady Aquitaine?”
The lady regarded Serai with a cool glance, and murmured, voice dry, “Did I not mention my name? How careless of me.” She nodded to Isana, and said, “I am Invidia, wife to Aquitainus Attis, High Lord Aquitaine. And I should very much like to discuss the future with you, Steadholder.”
--
Academ's Fury
Aquitaine let out a hiss. “That fool, Kalare. He strikes at the First Lord now?”
“Too bold,” Lady Aquitaine replied. “He would never try something so overt. This is a move that begins with the Canim, I think.”
“Then why would their leader be killing his own guards in fights in dark alleys?” Aquitaine asked.
She shook her head. “It is possible that their loyalty has been taken.” She frowned in thought. “But if there is alarm enough and confusion enough, Kalare will take the opportunity to strike. The man is a slive.”
Lord Aquitaine nodded, continuing the thought to its conclusion. “He would never pass up the opportunity to strike at a weakened foe. We must therefore ensure that he does not profit from this situation.” He frowned. “By preserving Gaius’s rule. Crows, but that doesn’t sit well with me.”
“Politics make strange bedfellows,” Lady Aquitaine murmured. “If Gaius is slain now, before we’ve dealt with Kalare, you know what will happen. In fact, it would not surprise me if the Canim are attempting to kill Gaius in order to foment an open civil war between Kalare and Aquitaine --”
“-- in order to weaken the Realm as a whole.” Aquitaine nodded once. “It is time we relieved Kalare of his bloodcrows. Pier Seven, I believe the boy said, Fidelias?”
“Yes, my lord,” Fidelias replied. “I dispatched observers who reported increasing activity. In my estimation, Kalare has sent out word to his agents, and they are gathering there to move in concentrated force.”
Aquitaine exchanged a glance with his wife, then gave her a bleak smile. “Tunnels or river?”
She wrinkled her nose. “You know I hate the smell of dead fish.”
“Then I’ll handle the warehouse,” Aquitaine said.
“Take one of them alive if you can, Attis,” Lady Aquitaine said.
Lord Aquitaine gave her a flat look.
“If I don’t tell you,” she said calmly, “and you don’t think to save one, afterward you’ll complain that I didn’t remind you, darling. I’m only looking after your best interests.”
--
Cursor's Fury
“I just bought you a brand-new girl, Attis,” teased a woman’s voice from outside the litter, the tone clear and confident. “You’ll be amused until I return.”
“She’s lovely,” said the man. “But she’s not you.” His tone turned wry. “Unlike the last one.”
The door to the air coach opened, and Isana had to call upon Rill to halt tears from filling her eyes. Isana’s fingers touched the shape of the ring beneath her blouse, still on the chain around her neck. Unlike her, it had remained bright and untarnished by the passage of years.
She shook away the remnants of the dream as best she could and forced her thoughts back to the moment.
High Lord Aquitainus Attis, who five years ago had perpetrated a plot resulting in the deaths of hundreds of her neighbors in the Calderon Valley, opened the coach door and nodded pleasantly to Isana. He was a lion of a man, combining grace of motion in balance with physical power. His mane of dark golden hair fell to his shoulders, and nearly black eyes glittered with intelligence. He moved with perfect confidence, and his furycrafting was unmatched by anyone in the Realm, save perhaps the First Lord himself.
“Steadholder,” he said politely, nodding to Isana.
She nodded back to him, though she felt her neck stiffening as she did. She did not trust herself to sound civil when speaking to him, and so remained silent.
“I quite enjoy my holidays abroad,” murmured the woman, her voice now near at hand. “And I am perfectly capable of looking after myself. Besides. You have your own work to do.”
The woman entered the coach and settled down on the opposite bench. High Lady Aquitaine Invidia looked every inch the model of the elite Citizenry, pale, dark-haired, tall, and regal. Though Isana knew that Lady Aquitaine was in her forties, like her husband and Isana herself, she looked barely twenty. Like all blessed with sufficient power at watercrafting, she enjoyed the ongoing appearance of youth. “Good evening, Isana.”
“My lady,” Isana murmured. Though she had no more love for the woman than she did for Lord Aquitaine, she could at least manage to speak politely to her, if not warmly.
Invidia turned to her husband and leaned forward to kiss him. “Don’t go staying up to all hours. You need your rest.”
He arched a golden brow. “I am a High Lord of Alera, not some foolish academ.”
“And vegetables,” she said, as if he hadn’t spoken. “Don’t gorge yourself on meats and sweets and ignore your vegetables.”
Aquitaine frowned. “I suppose you’ll act like this the entire time if I insist upon joining you?”
She smiled sweetly at him.
He rolled his eyes, gave her a quick kiss, and said, “Impossible woman. Very well, have it your way.”
“Naturally,” she said. “Farewell, my lord.”
He inclined his head to her, nodded at Isana, shut the door, and withdrew. He thumped the side of the litter twice, and said, “Captain, take care of them.”
“My lord,” replied a male voice from outside the door, and the Knights Aeris lifted the litter. The winds rose to the low, steady roar that had become familiar to Isana in the last two years, and unseen force pressed her against her seat as the litter leapt into the skies.
Several moments passed in silence, during which Isana leaned her head against her cushion and closed her eyes, in the hopes that the pretense of sleep would prevent the need for conversation with Lady Aquitaine. Her hopes were in vain.
“I apologize for the length of the trip,” Lady Aquitaine said after a few moments. “But the high winds are always tricky at this season, and this year they are particularly dangerous. We must therefore fly much lower than we usually would.”
Isana did not voice the thought that it was still a great deal higher than a walk along the ground. “Does it make a difference?” she asked, without opening her eyes.
“It is more difficult to stay aloft closer to the earth, and more difficult to fly quickly,” Lady Aquitaine replied. “My Knights Aeris must count the journey in miles instead of leagues, and given the number of stops we must make to visit my supporters, it will take us a great deal longer to reach our destination.”
Isana sighed. “How much longer?”
“Most of three weeks, I am told. And that is an optimistic estimate that assumes fresh teams of Knights Aeris await us at way stations.”
Three weeks. Rather too long a time to pretend to be asleep without openly insulting her patron. Though Isana knew her value to the Aquitaines, and knew that she could afford to avoid the usual fawning and scraping such powerful patrons required, there were limits she would be ill-advised to press. Consequently, she opened her eyes.
Lady Aquitaine curled her rich mouth into a smile. “I thought you would appreciate the information. You’d look rather silly sitting there with your eyes closed the whole way.”
“Of course not, my lady,” Isana said. “Why would I do such a thing?”
Invidia’s eyes hardened for a moment. Then she said, “I am given to understand that you plan a small reunion with your family in Ceres.”
“After the meeting with the League, of course,” Isana said. “I have been assured of alternate travel arrangements back to Calderon if my plans should inconvenience you.”
Invidia’s cool features blossomed into a small, even genuine, smile. “Hardly anyone fences with me anymore, Isana. I’ve actually looked forward to this trip.”
--
Cursor's Fury
“The lever Kalarus uses,” Lady Aquitaine said, “will serve you just as ably.”
Amara’s stomach turned in disgust. “No,” she said.
Lady Aquitaine turned more fully to Amara. “Countess. Your sensibilities are useless to the rule of a realm. If that woman does not speak to you, your lord will fail to muster the support he needs to defend his capital, and whether or not he lives, his rule will be over. Thousands will die in battle. Food shipments will be delayed, destroyed. Famine. Disease. Tens of thousands will fall to them without ever being touched by a weapon.”
“I know that,” Amara spat.
“Then if you truly would prevent it, would protect this Realm you claim to serve, then you must set your squeamishness aside and make the difficult choice.” Her eyes almost glowed. “That is the price of power, Cursor.”
Amara looked away from Lady Aquitaine and stared at the prisoner.
“I’ll talk,” she said finally, very quietly. “I’ll cue you to show yourself to her.”
Lady Aquitaine tilted her head to one side and nodded comprehension. “Very well.”
Amara turned and went back over to the prisoner. “Rook,” she said quietly. “Or should I call you Gaelle?”
“As you would. Both names are stolen.”
“Rook will do, then,” Amara said.
“Did you forget your knife?” the prisoner said. There was no life to the taunt.
“No knife,” Amara said quietly. “Kalarus has abducted two women. You know who they are.”
Rook said nothing, but something in the quality of her silence made Amara think that she did.
“I want to know where they have been taken,” Amara said. “I want to know what security precautions are around them. I want to know how to free them and escape with them again.”
A short breath, the bare specter of a laugh, escaped Rook’s lips.
“Are you willing to tell me?” Amara asked.
Rook stared at her in silent scorn.
“I see,” Amara said. She beckoned with one hand. “In that case, I’m going to leave.”
Lady Aquitaine -- and not Lady Aquitaine -- stepped into the light of the circle of fire. Her form had changed, growing shorter, stockier, so that the dress she wore fit her badly. Her features had changed, skin and face and hair, to the perfect mirror of Rook’s own face and body alike.
Rook’s head snapped up. Her tortured face twisted into an expression of horror.
“I’ll go for a walk outside,” Amara continued in a quiet, remorseless voice. “Out in public. With her. Where everyone in the city might see. Where anyone Kalarus has watching will see us together.”
Rook’s face writhed between terror and agony, and she stared at Lady Aquitaine as if physically unable to remove her gaze. “No. Oh furies, no. Kill me. Just end it.”
“Why?” Amara asked. “Why should I?”
“If I am dead, she will be nothing to him. He might only cast her out.” Her voice dissolved into a ragged sob as she began to weep again. “She’s only five. Please, she’s only a little girl.”
Amara took a deep breath. “What is her name, Rook?”
The woman suddenly sagged in the chains, wracked with broken, harsh sobs. “Masha,” she grated. “Masha.”
She pressed closer, seizing Rook by the hair and forcing her to lift her face, though the woman’s eyes were now swollen, mostly closed. “Where is the child?”
“Kalare,” sobbed the spy. “He keeps her next to his chambers. To remind me what he can do.”
Amara steeled herself not to falter, and her voice rang on the stone walls. “Is that where they’ve taken the prisoners?”
Rook shook her head, but the gesture was a feeble one, an obvious lie. “No,” she whispered. “No, no, no.”
Amara held the spy’s eyes and willed resolve into her own. “Do you know where they are? Do you know how I can get to them?”
Silence fell, but for Rook’s broken sounds of grief and pain. “Yes,” she said, finally. “I know. But I can’t tell you. If you rescue them, he’ll kill her.” She shuddered. “Countess, please, it’s her only chance. Kill me here. I can’t fail her.”
Amara released Rook’s hair and stepped back from the prisoner. She felt sick. “Bernard,” she said quietly, nodding at a bucket in the corner. “Give her some water.”
The Count did, his expression remote and deeply troubled. Rook made no sign that she noticed him, until he had actually lifted her head and used a ladle to pour some water between her lips. Then she drank with the mindless, miserable need of a caged beast.
Amara wiped the hand she’d touched the spy with upon her skirts, rubbing hard. Then she stepped outside and got the keys to the woman’s shackles from the legionare on guard. As she stepped back into the cell, Lady Aquitaine touched her arm, her features returned to normal, her expression one of displeasure. “What do you think you are doing?”
Amara stopped in her tracks and met the High Lady’s cold gaze in a sudden flash of confidence and steel-hard certainty.
Lady Aquitaine’s eyebrows rose, startled. “What are you doing, girl?”
“I’m showing you the difference, Your Grace,” she said. “Between my Realm. And yours.”
--
Captain's Fury
Marcus pushed his mildewed wooden mug away a little and did his best to ignore the smell. Then he took the little furylamp from his pouch, murmured it to life, set it out on the rough table, and waited.
The washerwoman entered the nameless tavern and paused in the door- way before looking around. It was dark enough inside that his little lamp served as a beacon for her gaze, and she crossed the rough floor to sit down at the table with him.
“Good day,” the disguised Lady Aquitaine said. She glanced around the tavern with a sniff. “I always knew you were a secret romantic.”
Marcus nudged the mug toward her. “Thirsty?”
She glanced at the mug, turned a shade paler, and gave him a level look.
“Suit yourself,” he said.
“Why here?” she asked him.
“No one will recognize me here.”
“I almost didn’t recognize you.”
Marcus shrugged. “No armor. Different cloak. My hood is up. I look like everyone else.”
“We could have met anywhere,” she countered. “Why here?”
Marcus glanced up and met her eyes. “Maybe I wanted you to see it.”
The washerwoman tilted her head slightly to one side. “See what?”
He moved his hand in an all-encompassing gesture. “The consequences.”
She lifted both eyebrows sharply.
“A lot of times, people who make big choices never have to see what can happen. All of this... and worse than you see here, or what you saw on the way here -- it’s all the result of choices like that.”
She stared at him without expression for a long moment. “This is supposed to horrify me?”
“This? This is nothing,” Marcus replied. “This is what happens when there’s a polite disagreement, which is more or less what we’ve had with the Canim so far. This is what happens when everyone has to tighten their belts a little, but there’s still enough to go around. It’s worse, in the south. Rampant disease. Starvation. Brigands, looting, mercenaries. Men taking more liberties. Men seeking vengeance for the same.” He nodded at the tavern. Outside the damp, stinking canvas, someone with a wet cough was wheezing for breath between fits of hacking spasms. “This is sunshine and sweetbread compared to what could happen.”
Lady Aquitaine narrowed her eyes. “If my husband and I continue in our designs, you mean.”
“I’d have to know them all,” Marcus replied. “And I’m sure that I don’t. So it’s for you to say.”
“One of the things I have always admired about you is your professionalism. This isn’t like you.”
Marcus shrugged. “It’s a secure enough meeting space. I had something to say to you. I said it. What you do with it is up to you.”
Lady Aquitaine frowned. She glanced around the shabby tavern for a few seconds. Then she shook her head briskly, took the mug, and emptied its contents onto the floor. She put the mug firmly back on the table. “Keep your focus on the task at hand.”
“I would -- if he could be bothered to arrive on time.”
She shrugged. “He’s used to being the most important person around. Important people are always late to meetings.”
“Why tolerate it?” Marcus asked.
“I need him,” she said simply.
“What happens when you don’t?”
She gave him a little smile. “He’ll have the opportunity to learn better working habits.”
--
Captain's Fury
“Well?” Arnos demanded of one of his cadre of flunkies. “You’re my legal advisor. Advise me.”
“I’m sorry, Senator,” the plump little man said, from the midst of a stack of thick books. “All the legal precedents would seem to be on the Princep --”
“Scipio,” Arnos snarled. “His name is Scipio.”
“-- Scipio’s,” the man corrected seamlessly, “side. He has... technically, of course... satisfied the legal requirements to establish his identity, and in the case of a threat of treason or dishonor to the Realm, Citizens of the rank of Lord and above have the right to issue a challenge to any Citizen of the Realm.”
“I know that,” Arnos snarled. “What do I do about it?”
The man tried to smile, and his voice came out in a squeak. “You could always renounce your Citizenship, sir.”
Arnos slapped him. “Idiot. Get out before I have you flogged.”
The little man went scrambling from the tent, and Marcus stepped back to let him pass.
“You could take his advice, you know,” said a woman’s voice. Marcus recognized Lady Aquitaine’s disguise at once.
“Bloody crows and furies,” snarled Arnos, his throat tight. “How long have you been there?”
“Long enough to see that you are in a spot, Arnos.”
The Senator let out a fairly uncivilized growl. “I’m not backing away now. I’d lose everything I’ve worked years to build. In my professional opinion, it is time for you to intervene.”
“And?” she asked.
“And make it go away,” he said, his voice coming through clenched teeth.
“I believe I’ve made a mistake in you, Arnos. I knew you were a pompous egotist with delusions of grandeur, but I did believe you were at least competent.”
Arnos stared in silence for a few seconds, then accused, “We had a deal.”
“We had an understanding,” Lady Aquitaine said. “But you’ve broken faith with me. You told me that you hadn’t acquired any of your troops as mercenaries. But your extremely well-supplied and well-armed and well-paid cavalry seem to have taken it upon themselves to loot and pillage every human habitation they come across.”
“Their Tribunes are acting independently of my orders,” Arnos said.
“You’re the commander of these Legions, dear. You’re responsible for what they do. That’s rather why one is able to attain glory and respect after a victory. Or don’t they teach that at the Collegia.”
“How dare you lecture me on --”
Lady Aquitaine’s voice, though still quiet, turned cold. “Don’t make me raise my hand, Arnos. When I slap someone, he doesn’t scurry away after.”
Arnos jerked up straight, and his face turned red. “You were willing enough to spill Aleran blood six weeks ago.”
“I’m willing to make sacrifices in pursuit of a greater goal,” Lady Aquitaine said. “That’s not the same as condoning the rape and murder of entire steadholts. There was no profit to those actions. No purpose. It’s unprofessional. Idiotic. And I have difficulty tolerating idiots.”
“Then you should agree that this conversation is unprofitable, given the circumstances. We need to focus on the matter at hand.”
“Oh?”
“We’re probably worried about nothing. Navaris is going to introduce our young captain to the crows, and that will solve the problems at hand.”
“Will it?” she said in a flat voice. “I’ve made a decision about the problems at hand, Arnos.”
The Senator’s voice sounded wary. “What’s that?”
“They’re your problems,” Lady Aquitaine said, her tone pitiless. “Solve them by yourself. If you manage to survive them, I may be willing to renegotiate our relationship. But until then, you’re on your own.”
--
Princeps' Fury
“Welcome back, Countess,” came Invidia’s voice. “We feared for you for a time.”
The voice of the Vord queen buzzed weirdly against Amara’s senses. “I did not.”
Amara shook her head, blinked the water from her eyes, and looked up at them. If she didn’t show them defiance quickly, the cold air of the deep night would suck the warmth from the water soaking her clothes and leave her shuddering and freezing. She thought the defiance might be less convincing if she waited for that.
Invidia sat in a chair that had been brought out from one of the nearby buildings. She looked hideous. There were dark circles under her eyes, and her skin was a deep, sallow shade of saffron. The Vord creature upon her chest was gone. Holes like little gaping mouths in the pale flesh beneath where it had been leaked dark fluid that only faintly resembled blood.
“Invidia,” Amara said. “Finally, the outside matches the inside. Treacherous, cowardly, petty.”
Invidia sat in her chair and slowly withdrew a hand from the waters of the healing tub. She tilted her head at an angle that made Amara acutely aware of the fact that she currently lay bound at Invidia’s feet. Other than that one motion, she did not move, until she turned her head to the Vord queen. “Well? She lives.”
“Yes,” the Vord queen said. She walked past Amara’s view, pale ankles and delicate feet tipped with green-black toenails walking with deliberate grace across the stones and stepping over Amara’s bound form. She stopped behind Invidia’s chair.
Invidia shifted her body, settling her back upright against the chair’s straight back and gripping the arms with weak fingers. “Countess,” she said. “As ever, swift to judge.”
“Perhaps you’re right,” Amara said. “You must have an excellent reason to explain why you are toadying for the enemies of the Realm and murdering and enslaving her citizens. Any reasonable person should be able to forgive and forget. Surely.”
Invidia narrowed her eyes. “Does it look like I would be here if I had a choice, Countess?”
“I don’t see a collar on you, Invidia,” Amara said.
For the first time, the other woman seemed to notice the way Amara had entirely omitted her title. Her expression flickered with surprise, then offended anger, then -- for just an instant -- with what might have been a flutter of regret.
“The people here, the ones you’ve had broken and enslaved, they didn’t have a choice. You took that from them.”
The Vord queen settled her fingers lightly upon Invidia’s neck. The tips of her green-black talons dimpled the delicate skin of the former High Lady’s throat. She shivered and rippled hideously, as if some other creature entirely had writhed in its sleep beneath her skin. Her fingers tightened, and tiny trickles of blood coursed over Invidia’s pale white skin.
“After your mentor betrayed me,” Invidia said, her mouth spreading into a rictus, “and left me bleeding on the ground with garic oil poisoning my wounds, I fled and was found by my new liege.” She tilted her head slightly back toward the Vord queen. “She made me an offer. My life for my loyalty.”
“You make it sound like barter,” the queen murmured, her faceted eyes half-lidded. “It is not so much an exchange as an ongoing arrangement.” Then she closed her eyes, and shivered again, something undeniably alien in the motion, and Invidia fell silent.
Amara shuddered and stared, revulsion and fascination competing for her thoughts.
The Vord queen smiled slightly, let out a little sigh, and parted her dark, soft lips. Impossibly long, spidery legs slowly began to emerge from between them. As they appeared, they grew like the branches of a tree, but with horrible rapidity. Once they reached better than a foot in length, they began to stir, slowly, waving about like weeds growing in the sea near the shore.
The queen opened her mouth wider, and a bulbous body emerged from it, shaping itself as it came, until it settled into the form of the creature Amara had seen on Invidia before, albeit a bit smaller.
The Vord queen lifted her hand to her mouth and took up the creature in it, as gently as any mother handling her newborn. She reached slowly around Invidia’s body and held the creature against the Aleran woman’s chest. The creature spread its legs, fluttering them lightly over Invidia’s torso, and, in an abrupt motion, struck with every leg at once, nearly a dozen limbs lashing out in separate serpentine motions. The creature clutched hard to Invidia, then slammed its head forward, long mandibles burying themselves in the Aleran woman’s flesh.
Invidia closed her eyes for a moment, shuddering, but not moving or struggling against the creature. It seemed to adjust itself for a moment, then settled, its legs each sinking a talon into her flesh, drawing more dark fluid from her.
Within seconds, her color had begun to improve, and Invidia let out a shuddering sigh. She blinked her eyes open a moment later. “Ah. My thanks.”
The Vord queen simply stared at Invidia for a moment. Then she shifted her attention to Amara.
“Now,” Invidia said. “Where were we, Countess?”
“Fidelias,” Amara said. She struggled to keep her voice calm, but she couldn’t do it. The cold had settled into her soaked clothes, and she began shivering. Her voice shook with her.
“Yes,” Invidia said, her voice growing steadier by the word. “Dear Fidelias. I don’t suppose you know where he is?”
“To the best of my knowledge he was in your company,” Amara said. “Or dead.”
“Really?” Invidia asked. “That hardly seems likely. You were close to him, after all. He was your patriserus.”
Amara clenched her teeth to keep them from chattering. “He was a traitor.”
“Doubly,” Invidia mused. “I had thought your type had a name for that sort of thing, but perhaps I was mistaken.” She glanced down at the creature on her chest and shifted her shoulders gently. Its legs flexed slightly, and she winced. “Mmmfh. He could hardly have struck at a better moment. I was incognito. Had he succeeded, I would have been buried as a nameless camp follower, an unfortunate casualty of war -- and one of Gaius’s most capable foes would simply have vanished. A High Lady of the Realm, gone without a trace.”
“I can’t see where he failed,” Amara replied. “I see no High Lady here.” Invidia stared at her in deadly silence for a long moment. Amara bared her teeth at her in a humorless smile. “You may have lived through the attack, but High Lady Aquitaine didn’t survive it.”
“Enough of her survived to settle accounts, Countess,” Invidia said in a quiet voice. “More than enough to deal with you. And your husband.”
Amara felt a little chill of fear go through her.
--
First Lord's Fury
It was the signal to begin the ritual of dinner. Invidia never grew any more comfortable with it, despite the repetition. She replied politely and made inane, pleasant conversation with the Queen for a few moments as the wax spiders, the keepers, trooped toward the table bearing plates, cups, and cutlery. The insect-like vord swarmed up the table’s legs in neat ranks, setting a place for the Queen, for Invidia...
...and for someone who was apparently to sit at the Queen’s right hand. The empty chair with its empty plate setting was unnerving. Invidia covered her reaction by turning to watch the rest of the keepers bringing forth several covered platters and a bottle of Ceresian wine.
Invidia opened the bottle and poured wine into the Queen’s glass, then into her own. Then she looked at the glass in front of the empty seat.
“Pour,” the Queen said. “I have invited a guest.”
Invidia did so. Then she began uncovering platters. Each platter bore a perfectly square section of the croach. Each was subtly different than the next. One looked as if it had been baked in an oven -- badly. The edges were black and crisp. Another had sugar sprinkled over its surface. A third was adorned with a gelatinous glaze and a ring of ripe cherries. A fourth had been coated with what had once been melted cheese -- but it had been scorched dark brown.
Invidia sliced each piece into quarters, then began to load the Queen’s plate with a single square from each platter. After that, she served herself the same.
“And our guest,” the Queen murmured.
Invidia dutifully filled the third plate. “Whom are we entertaining?”
“We are not entertaining,” the Queen replied. “We are consuming food in a group.”
Invidia bowed her head. “Who is to be our companion, then?”
The Queen narrowed her insect eyes until only glittering black slits were visible. She stared down the length of the enormous table, and said, “She comes.”
Invidia turned her head to look as their guest entered the glowing green dome. It was a second queen.
It shared its features with the Queen: Indeed, it might have been her twin sister -- a young woman little older than a teenager, with long white hair and the same glittering eyes. There, the similarities ended. The younger queen prowled forward with alien grace, making no effort at all to mimic the motion of a human being. She was completely naked, and her pale skin was covered in a sheen of some kind of glistening, greenish mucus.
The younger queen walked forward to the table and stopped a few feet away, staring at her mother.
The Queen gestured to the empty chair. “Sit.”
The younger queen sat. She stared across the table at Invidia with unblinking eyes.
“This is my child. She is newly born,” said the Queen to Invidia. She turned to the young queen. “Eat.”
The younger queen considered the food for a moment. Then she grasped a square in her bare fingers and stuffed it into her mouth.
The Queen observed this behavior, frowning. Then she took up her fork and began cutting off dainty bites with it, eating them slowly. Invidia followed the elder Queen’s lead and ate as well.
The food was... “revolting” fell so far of the mark that it seemed an injustice. Invidia had learned to eat the raw croach. The creature keeping her alive needed her to ingest it in order to feed itself. She had been startled to learn that it could taste even worse. The vord had no grasp of cooking. The very notion was alien to them. As a result, they couldn’t really be expected to do it very well -- but that evening they had perpetrated nothing short of an atrocity.
She choked the food down as best she could. The elder Queen ate steadily. The younger queen was finished within two minutes and sat there staring at them, her expression unreadable.
The younger queen then turned to her mother. “Why?”
“We partake of a meal together.”
“Why?”
“Because it might make us stronger.”
The younger queen absorbed that in silence for a moment. Then she asked, “How?”
“By building bonds between us.”
“Bonds.” The younger queen blinked slowly, once. “What need is there for restraints?”
“Not physical bonds,” her mother said. “Symbolic mental attachments. Familiar feelings.”
The young queen absorbed that for half a dozen heartbeats. Then she said, “These things do not improve strength.”
“There is more to strength than physical power.”
The young queen tilted her head. She stared at her mother, then, unnervingly, at Invidia. The Aleran woman could feel the sudden heavy, invasive pressure of the young queen’s awareness impinging upon her thoughts. “What is this creature?”
“A means to an end.”
“It is alien.”
“Necessary.”
The young queen’s voice hardened. “It is alien.”
“Necessary,” repeated the elder Queen.
Again, the young queen fell silent. Then, her expression never changing, she said, “You are defective.”
The enormous table seemed to explode. Splinters, some of them six inches long and wickedly sharp, flew outward like arrows. Invidia flinched instinctively, and barely managed to get her chitin-armored forearm between her and a flying spear of wood that might have plunged through her eye.
Sound pressed so hard against Invidia’s eardrums that one of them burst, a wailing thunderstorm of high-pitched, shrieking howls. She cried out at the pain and reeled out of her chair and back from the table, borrowing swiftness from her wind furies as she went, embracing the weirdly altered sense of time that seemed to stretch instants into seconds, seconds into moments. It was the only way for her to see what was happening.
The vord queens were locked in a fight to the death.
Even with the windcrafting to aid her, Invidia could barely follow the movements of the two vord. Black claws flashed. Kicks flew. Dodges turned into twenty-foot bounds that ended at the nearest wall of the dome, whereupon the two queens continued their struggle while crouched on the wall, bounding and scuttling up the dome like a pair of dueling spiders.
Invidia’s eyes flicked to the ruined table. It lay in pieces. A ragged furrow was torn through one corner, where the younger queen had surged forward, plunging through the massive hardwood table as if it had been no more a hindrance than a mound of soft snow. Invidia could scarcely imagine the tremendous power and focus that would be required for such a thing to happen -- from a creature who had been born, it would seem, less than an hour before.
But swift and terrible as the young queen might have been, the match was not an even one. Where claws struck the elder Queen, sparks flew from her seemingly soft flesh, turning the attack aside. But where the younger queen was hit, flesh parted, and green-brown blood flew in fine arcs. The vord queens fought a spinning, climbing, leaping duel at a speed too swift to be seen clearly, much less interfered with, and Invidia found herself tracking the motion simply to know when she might need to leap out of the way.
Then the elder Queen made a mistake. She slipped on a slickened spill of the younger queen’s blood, and her balance faltered for a fraction of a second. There was not time enough for the young queen to close in for a more deadly blow -- but it was more than time enough for her to dart behind the elder Queen and seize the fabric of the dark cloak. With a twisting motion, she wrapped the cloak around the elder Queen’s throat and leaned back, pulling with both frail-seeming arms, tightening the twisted fabric like a garrote against her mother’s neck.
The elder Queen bent into a sinuous bow, straining against the strangling cloth, her expression quite calm as her dark eyes fell with a palpable weight upon Invidia.
The Aleran woman met her eyes for a pair of endless seconds before she nodded once, rose, lifted her hand, and with an effort of will and furycraft caused the air within the nose, mouth, and lungs of the young queen to congeal into a nearly liquid mass.
The response was immediate. The younger queen twisted and writhed in sudden agony, still holding on desperately to the twisted cloak.
The elder Queen severed it with a slash of her claws, slipped free, turned, and with half a dozen smoothly savage movements tore the younger queen open from throat to belly, removing organs along the way. It was calmly done, the work of an old hand in a slaughterhouse more than the intense uncertainty of a battle.
The young queen’s body fell limp to the floor. The elder Queen took no chances. She dismembered it with neat, workmanlike motions. Then she turned, as if nothing at all had happened, and walked back to the table. Her chair remained in its place though the table had been ruined. The Queen sat down in her chair and stared forward, at nothing.
Invidia walked slowly over to her side, righted her own fallen chair, and sat down in it. Neither of them spoke for a time. “Are you hurt?” Invidia asked, finally.
The Queen opened her mouth, then did something Invidia had never seen before.
She hesitated.
“My daughter,” the Queen said, her voice a near whisper. “The twenty-seventh since returning to Alera’s shores.”
Invidia frowned. “Twenty-seventh...?”
“Part of our... nature...” The vord shivered. “Within each queen is an imperative to remain separate. Pure. Untainted by our contact with other beings. And to remove any queen that shows signs of corruption. Beginning several years ago, my junior queens have universally attempted to remove me.” Her face was touched by a faint frown. “I do not understand. She did no physical harm to me. Yet...”
“She hurt you.”
The Queen nodded, very slowly. “I had to remove their capacity to produce more queens lest they gather numbers to remove me. Which has hurt us all. Weakened us. By all rights, this world should have been vord five years ago.” Her eyes narrowed, and she turned her faceted gaze upon Invidia. “You acted to protect me.”
“You hardly needed it,” Invidia said.
“You did not know that.”
“True.”
The vord Queen tilted her head, studying Invidia intently. She braced herself for the unpleasant intrusion of the Queen’s mind -- but it did not come. “Then why?” the Queen asked.
“The younger queen clearly would not have permitted me to live.”
“You might have struck at both of us.”
Invidia frowned. True enough. The two queens had been so intent upon one another, they would hardly have been able to react to a sudden attack from Invidia. She could have called up fire and obliterated them both. But she hadn’t.
“You could have fled,” the Queen said.
Invidia smiled faintly. She gestured to the creature latched upon her chest. “Not far enough.”
“No,” the vord said. “You have no other place to go.”
“I do not,” Invidia agreed.
“When something is held in common,” the Queen asked, “is it considered a bond?”
Invidia considered her answer for a moment -- and not for the benefit of the Queen. “It is often the beginning of one.”
The vord looked at her fingers. Their dark-nailed tips were stained with the younger queen’s blood. “Do you have children of your own?”
“No.”
The Queen nodded. “It is... unpleasant to see them harmed. Any of them. I am pleased that you are not distracted by such a thing at this time.” She looked up and squared her shoulders, straightening her spine -- mirroring Invidia herself. “What is the proper Aleran etiquette when an assassination interrupts dinner?”
Invidia found a small smile on her mouth. “Perhaps we should repair the furniture.”
The vord tilted her head again. “I do not have that knowledge.”
“When my mother died, my father apprenticed me to all the finest master artisans of the city for a year at a time. I think mainly to be rid of me.” She rose and considered the broken table, the scattered splinters. “Come. This is a more demanding discipline than flying or calling fire. I will show you.”