"Just Talis," Nico answered. "That's all."

Ca'Vliomani sighed and stood up with a groan, his knees cracking with the effort. "Then we'll have to let Talis know that you're staying with us, and maybe we'll both get what we want, eh?"

Jan ca'Vorl.

"I'M SORRY, ONCZIO FYNN," Jan whispered. "This shouldn't have happened, and I hope . . . I hope that this wasn't my fault." His voice echoed in the vault, stirring faint ghosts of himself. The guttering light of the torch made shadows lurch and jump around the sealing stones of the tombs. Twice now he'd watched the Hirzg laid to rest in these dank and somber chambers, far too quickly. Vatarh and son. At least Fynn's interment hadn't been accompanied by omens and further death. His had been a slow, somber ritual, one that left Jan's chest heavy and cold.

He'd searched everywhere for Elissa. He'd sent riders out from Brezno, scouring the roads and inns and villages for her in all directions. Roderigo had told him that he hadn't seen Elissa near Fynn's chambers. "But I was away from him when it happened. She might have managed to sneak in-or someone else might have. I don't know. I just don't know."

The words tasted of bile and poison. He tried to convince himself that it had all been coincidence. Matarh had shown him the letter she'd received from the ca'Karina family: Elissa was an impostor pretending to be ca'. But perhaps that was all: she'd fled because she'd known that her deception was going to be revealed. Maybe that was the entirety of it. Or . . . Perhaps she'd gone to see Fynn, to plead her case with him knowing that she was about to be exposed as a fraud, and had interrupted The White Stone at his work. Perhaps she'd fled in terror before the famed a.s.sa.s.sin had glimpsed her, too frightened to even stay in the city after what she'd seen. Or perhaps-worse-The White Stone had seen her, and taken her to murder elsewhere.

None of it convinced Jan. He knew what they were thinking, all of them, and when the suspicion settled in his gut, he also knew they were right. A pretender in the court, a pretender who was the lover of the King's favorite companion-the conclusion was obvious. Elissa had been the White Stone's accomplice, or she was the White Stone herself.

Either thought made Jan's head whirl. He remembered the time he'd spent with her, the conversations, the flirtations, the kisses; the rising, quick breaths as they explored each other; the slick, oily heat of lovemaking, the laughter afterward . . . Her body, sleek and enticing in the warm bath of candlelight; the curve of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s beaded with the sweat of their pa.s.sion; the dark, soft and enticing triangle at the joining of her legs . . .

He shook his head to banish the thoughts.

It couldn't be her. Couldn't. Yet . . .

Jan put his hand on the sealing stone of Fynn's tomb, letting his fingers trace the incised bas-reliefs there. "I'm sorry," he said again to the corpse.

If it had, somehow, been Elissa, then the question still unanswered was who had hired The White Stone. The Stone would not kill without a contract. Someone had paid for this. Whether Elissa had been the knife or simply the helper didn't matter. It hadn't been her who had made the decision. Someone else had ordered the death.

Jan bowed his head until his forehead touched the cold stone. "I'll find out who did this," he said: to Cenzi, to Fynn, to the haunted air. "I'll find out, and I will give you justice, Onczio."

Jan took in a long breath of the cold, damp air. He rose on protesting knees and took the torch from its sconce. Then he began the long climb back up toward the day.

Sergei ca'Rudka.

"THERE IS TRUTH IN PAIN," Sergei said. He'd spoken the aphorism many times over the years, said it so the victim knew that he must confess what Sergei wished him to confess. He also knew the statement for the lie it was. There was no "truth" in pain, not really. With the agony he inflicted, there came instead the ability to make the victim say anything that Sergei desired him to say. There came the ability to make "truth" whatever those in charge wished truth to be. The victim would say anything, agree to anything, confess to anything as long as there was a promise to end the torment.

Sergei smiled down at the man in chains before him, the instruments of torture dark and sinister in the roll of leather before him, but then the perception shifted: it was Sergei lying bound on the table, looking up into his own face. His hands were chained and cold fear twisted his bowels. He knew what he was about to feel; he had imposed it on many. He knew what he was about to feel, and he screamed in antic.i.p.ation of the agony. . . .

"Regent?"

Sergei bolted awake in his cell, the manacles binding his wrists rattling the short chain between them. He reached quickly for the knife that was still in his boot, making sure that his hand was around the hilt so that if they'd come to take him for interrogation, he could take his own life first.

He would not endure what he had forced others to endure.

But it was Aris cu'Falla, the Commandant of the Bastida, who had entered the room, and Sergei relaxed, letting his fingers slide from the hilt. Aris saluted the garda who had opened the door. "You may go," he told the man. "There's lunch for you on the lower landing. Come back here in half a turn of the gla.s.s."

"Thank you, Commandant," the garda said. He saluted and left. Aris left the door open. Sergei glanced at the yawning door from the bed on which he sat. Aris saw the glance.

"You wouldn't get past me, Sergei. You know that. I have two hands of years on you, after all, and it's my duty-not to mention my life-to stop you."

"Did you leave the door open just to mock me, then?"

A smile came and vanished like spring frost. "Would you rather I shut and locked it?"

Sergei laughed grimly, and the laugh morphed into a cough heavy with phlegm. Aris touched his shoulder with concern as Sergei hunched over. "Would you like me to send for a healer, my friend?"

"Why, so I'm as healthy as possible when the Council orders me killed?" Sergei shook his head. "It's just the dampness; my lungs don't like it. So tell me, Aris, what news do you have?"

Aris pulled the single chair in the room over to him, the legs sc.r.a.ping loudly against the flags. "I've a garda I trust implicitly a.s.signed to the Council-for my own safety in this troubled time, frankly. So much of what I know comes from him."

"I don't need the preamble, Aris-it's not going to change your answer, and I suspect I already know it. Just tell me."

Aris sighed. He turned the chair backward and sat, his arms folded over the back, his chin on his arms. "Sigourney ca'Ludovici is pushing the Council hard to give the Kraljiki the power he asks for. There's to be a final meeting in a few days, and a vote is to be taken then."

"They'll actually give Audric what he wants?"

A nod wrinkled the bearded chin on his hands. "Yes. I think so."

Sergei closed his eyes, leaning his head back against the stone wall. He could feel the chill of the rock through his thinning hair. "They'll destroy Nessantico for the sake of power. They're all-and Sigourney especially-thinking that Audric won't last a year, which will leave the Sun Throne open for one of them-a.s.suming I'm gone."

"Sergei," he heard Aris say in the darkness of his thoughts, "I'll give you warning. I promise you that. I'll give you time to-" He stopped.

"Thank you, Aris."

"I would do more, if I could, but I have my family to think about. If the Council of Ca' or the new Kralji found out I helped you to escape, well . . ."

"I know. I wouldn't ask that of you."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be." Sergei opened his eyes again, leaning forward. He cupped a hand on Aris' face, the manacles jangling with the motion. "I've had a good life, Aris, and I've served three Kralji as well as I could. Cenzi will forgive me what I must do."

"There's still hope, and no need to do anything yet," Aris said. "The Council may come to their senses and see that the Kraljiki's sick in his mind as well as his body. They may yet release you; they will, if the effort of Archigos Kenne and the others loyal to you have any effect at all-Archigos Kenne has already pleaded your case to them, and his words still have some influence, after all. Don't give up hope, Sergei. We both know all too well the history of the Bastida. Why, the Bastida held Harcourt ca'Denai for three years before he became Kraljiki."

Sergei laughed, forcing down the cough that wanted to come with it. "We're practical men, both of us, Aris. Realists. We don't delude ourselves with false hope."

"True enough," Aris said. He stood. "I'll have the garda bring your food up to you. And a healer to look at you, whether you want him or not." He patted Sergei on the shoulder and started for the cell door, stopping with his hand on the handle. "If it comes to it, Sergei, I'll send word to you before anyone comes to take you down to the donjons below." He paused, looking significantly at Sergei. "So you can prepare yourself. You've my word on that."

Sergei nodded. Aris saluted him and closed the door with a metallic clash. Sergei heard the grating of the key in the lock. He put his head back again, listening to the sound of cu'Falla's bootsteps on the winding stairs of the tower.

He remembered the clean sound of screams echoing on stone, and the shrill, high pleading of those sent for questioning. He remembered their faces, taut with pain. There was an honesty in their agony, a purity of expression that could not be faked. He sometimes thought he glimpsed Cenzi in them: Cenzi as He had been when His own children, the Moitidi, had turned against Him and savaged His mortal body. Now, like Cenzi, Sergei might face the wrath of his own creation.

But he would not. He promised himself that. One way or the other, he would not.

Allesandra ca'Vorl.

"THE COUNCILLORS ARE HERE and seated, A'Hirzg," the aide told them. "They've asked me to bring you to chambers."

Allesandra stood in the corridor outside the council chamber with Pauli and Jan on either side of her. Her hand touched her tashta, low on the throat where-under the cloth-a common white stone hung surrounded by golden filigree, next to Archigos Ana's globe. Even Pauli, who had been chattering contentedly about how West Magyaria and Firenzcia, when he was Gyula and Allesandra was Hirzg, would together solidify the Coalition, went silent as the aide nodded to the hall servants to open the double doors and they peered into the shadowed dimness beyond, where the Council of Ca' was seated at the great table.

Jan, for his part, was solemn and quiet, as he had been since Fynn's death and Elissa's departure. Allesandra put her arm around her son before they entered. She leaned over to him and whispered: "When I leave here, you must go to your rooms and wait. Do you understand?"

He looked at her strangely but finally gave her a small, puzzled nod.

The chamber of the Council of Ca' in Brezno was dark, with stained oak paneling on the walls and a rug the color of dried blood: an interior room of Brezno Palais with no windows, illuminated only by candled chandeliers above the long, varnished table (not even teni-lights), and cold with only a small hearth at one end. The room was dreary and cheerless. It was not a room that invited a long stay and slow, leisurely conversations-and that was deliberate. Hirzg Karin, Allesandra's great-vatarh, had intentionally a.s.signed the room to the Council. He found the Council of Ca' sessions tedious and boring; the lack of comfort in the room ensured that they would at least be short.

"Please, come in, A'Hirzg," Sinclair ca'Egan said from the head of the table. Ca'Egan was bald and ancient, a quaver-voiced chevaritt who had ridden with Allesandra's vatarh before Hirzg Karin had even named Allesandra's vatarh as A'Hirzg. He'd been on the Council of Ca' for as long as Allesandra had known him; as Eldest, he was also t.i.tular head of the Council. Four women (one of them Francesca), five men; they rose as one and bowed to her as A'Hirzg, a nicety even the Council of Ca' could not ignore, then sat once more. Six of the nine, especially, nodded and smiled to her. Allesandra, Pauli, and Jan stood-as etiquette demanded-at the open end of the table. Ca'Egan rattled the parchments set in front of him and cleared his throat. "Thank you for coming. We certainly needn't be long. A mere formality, actually. Hirzg Fynn had already named Allesandra ca'Vorl as A'Hirzg, so we only need to have your signature, A'Hirzg, and those of the councillors here . . ."

"Vajiki ca'Egan," Allesandra said, and ca'Egan's head came up wonderingly at the interruption. At her right side, Pauli grunted at the obvious breach in etiquette. "I have a statement to make before the Council puts its stamp on that doc.u.ment and sends it to the Archigos for his acknowledgment. I have thought about this ever since my dear brother was killed, and I have prayed to Cenzi for His guidance, and everything has become clear to me." She paused. This is your last chance to change your mind. . . . Semini had argued with her for a long turn or two, as they lay in bed together, but she was convinced that this was the right strategy. She took a deep breath. She could feel Pauli staring at her quizzically and impatiently. "I do not wish to be Hirzgin," she declaimed, "and I hereby revoke my claim on the t.i.tle."

Ca'Egan's eyebrows clambered high on his bare, wrinkled skull and his mouth opened soundlessly. Francesca, in shock, reared back in her seat, stunned by the announcement, but most did not. They only nodded, their gazes more on Jan than on Allesandra.

"Cenzi's b.a.l.l.s!" Pauli shouted alongside her, the obscenity almost seeming to draw lightning in the dark air of the chamber. "Woman, are you insane? Do you know what you're doing? You've just-"

"Shut up," she said to Pauli, who glared, though his jaw snapped closed. Allesandra raised her hands to the councillors. "I've said all I need to say. My decision is irrevocable. I leave it to the Council of Ca' to decide who is best suited take the throne of Brezno. However, it won't be me. I trust your judgment, Councillors. I know you will do what is best for Brezno."

With that, she gave the sign of Cenzi to the Council and turned, pushing the doors open so abruptly that the hall servants on station outside were nearly knocked aside. Pauli and Jan, surprised by the suddenness of her retreat, followed belatedly. Allesandra could hear Pauli charging after her. His hand caught her arm and spun her around. His handsome face was flushed and distorted, made ugly with anger. Behind him, she saw Jan standing at the open door of the chamber watching their confrontation, his own features puzzled and uncertain.

"What in the seven h.e.l.ls is this?" Pauli raged. "We had everything we ever wanted in our hands, and you just throw it away? Are you mad, Allesandra?" His hand tightened on her bicep, the tashta bunching under his fingers. She would be bruised there tomorrow, she knew. "You are going back in there now and you're telling them that it was a mistake. A joke. Tell them any d.a.m.n thing you want. But you're not going to do this to me."

"To you?" Allesandra answered mockingly, calmly. "How does this have anything to do with you, Pauli? I was the A'Hirzg, not you. You are just a pitiful, useless excuse for a husband, a mistake I hope to rectify as soon as I can, and you'll take your hand from me. Now."

He didn't. He drew his other hand back as if to strike her, his fingers curling into a fist. "No!" The shout was from Jan, running toward them. "Don't, Vatarh."

Allesandra smiled grimly at Pauli, at his still-upraised hand. "Go ahead," she told him. "Do it if you'd like. I tell you now that it will be the last time you ever touch me."

Pauli let the fisted hand drop. His fingers loosened on her sleeve and she shook herself away from him.

"I'm done with you, Pauli," she told him. "You gave me all I ever needed from you long ago."

Eneas cu'Kinnear.

VOUZIERS: A LANDLOCKED CITY, the largest in South Nessantico, the crossroads to Namarro and the sun-crazed southlands of Daritria beyond. Vouziers sat at the northern edge of the flatlands of South Nessantico, a farming country with vast fields of swaying grain. Vouziers' people were like the land: solid, unpretentious, serious, and uncomplicated.

The coach took several days to reach Vouziers from Fossano. In a village along the way, he purchased all the sulfur the local alchemist had in his shop; the next night, he did the same in another. At each of their nightly stops, Eneas would take a private room at the inn. He would take out a few chunks of the charcoal and begin, slowly, to grind it into a black powder-he could hear Cenzi's satisfaction when the charcoal had reached the required fineness. Then, with Cenzi's voice warning him to be gentle and careful, he mixed the charcoal powder, the sulfur, and the niter together into the black sand of the Westlanders, tamping it softly into paper packages. Cenzi whispered the instructions into his head as he worked, and kept him safe.

The night before they reached Vouziers, he took a few of the packs out into the field after everyone was asleep. There, he poured the contents into a small, shallow hole he dug in the ground-the result reminded him uneasily of the black sands on the battlefields of the h.e.l.lins and his own defeat. As Cenzi's Voice instructed him, he took a length of cotton cord impregnated with wax and particles of the black sand, buried one end in the black sand and uncoiled the rest on the ground as he stepped away from the hole. Later, he heard Cenzi say in his head, I will show you how to make fire as the teni do. You should have been a teni, Eneas. That was My desire for you, but your parents didn't listen to Me. But now I will make you all you should have been. You have My blessing. . . .

Taking the shielded lantern he'd brought with him, Eneas lit the end of the cord. It hissed and fumed and sputtered, sparks gleaming in the darkness, and Eneas walked quickly away from it. He'd reached the inn and stepped into the common room when the eruption came: a sharp report louder than thunder that rattled the walls of the inn and fluttered the thick, translucent oiled paper in the windows, accompanied by a flash of momentary daylight. Everyone in the room jumped and craned their heads. "Cenzi's b.a.l.l.s!" the innkeeper growled. "The night is as clear as well water."

The innkeeper went stomping outside, with the others trailing along behind. They first looked up to the cloudless sky and saw nothing. Out in the field, however, a small fire smoldered. As they approached, Eneas saw that the small hole he'd dug was now deep enough for a man to stand in up to his knees, and nearly an arm's reach across. Stones and dirt had been flung out in all directions. It was as if Cenzi Himself had punched the earth angrily.

The innkeeper looked up to the sky where stars twinkled and crowded in empty blackness. "Lightning striking without a storm," he said, shaking his head. "It's a portent, I tell you. The Moitidi are telling us that we've lost our way."

A portent. Eneas found himself smiling at the man's words, unaware of how prophetic they were. This was indeed a portent, a portent of Cenzi's desire for him.

The next day, he was in Vouziers. During the long ride, he'd prayed harder than he ever had, and Cenzi had answered him. He knew what he must do here, and though it bothered him, he was a soldier and soldiers always performed their duty, however onerous it might be.

On reaching Vouziers and obtaining lodgings for the night, he put on his uniform and slung a heavy leather pouch around his shoulder. He'd filled a long leather sack with pebbles; that he put into the inner pocket of his bashta. As the wind-horns blew Third Call, he entered the temple for the evening service, which was performed by the A'Teni of Vouziers herself. After the Admonition and the Blessing, Eneas followed the procession of teni from the temple and out onto the temple's plaza, alight with teni-lamps against the darkening sky. The a'teni was in conversation with the ca'-and-cu' of the city, and Eneas went instead to one of her o'teni a.s.sistants, a sallow man whose mouth seemed to struggle with the smile he gave Eneas.

"Good evening, O'Offizier," the teni said, giving Eneas the sign of Cenzi. "I'm sorry, should I know you?"

Eneas shook his head as he returned the gesture. "No, O'Teni. I'm pa.s.sing through town on my way to Nessantico. I've just returned from the h.e.l.lins and the war there."

The o'teni's eyes widened slightly, and his thick lips pursed. "Ah. Then I must bless you for your service to the Holdings. How goes the war against the heathen Westlanders?"

"Not well, I'm afraid," Eneas answered. He glanced around the temple square. "I wish I could tell you differently. And here . . ." He shook his head dolefully, watching the o'teni carefully. "I've been nearly fifteen years away, and I come back to find much changed. Numetodo walking the street openly, mocking Cenzi with their words and their spells . . ." Yes, he had judged the man correctly: the teni's eyes narrowed and the lips pressed together even more tightly. He leaned forward conspiratorially and half-whispered to Eneas.

"It's indeed a shame that you, who have served your Kraljiki so well, should come back to see that. My a'teni would disagree, but I blame Archigos Ana for this state-and look what it got her: the thrice-d.a.m.ned Numetodo killed her anyway. Archigos Kenne . . ." The o'teni made a gesture of disgust. "Phah! He's no better. Worse, in fact. Why, in Nessantico you see people flaunting the Divolonte openly these days: the Numetodo tell them that anyone can use the Ilmodo, that it doesn't require Cenzi's Gift, and they show them how to do their small spells: to light a fire, or to chill the wine. They won't use the spells openly, but in their homes, when they think Cenzi isn't watching . . ." The o'teni shook his head again.

"The Numetodo are a blight," Eneas said. "Old Orlandi ca'Cellibrecca had the right idea about them."

The o'teni looked about guiltily at the mention. "That's not a name one should bandy about openly, O'Offizier," he said. "Not with his marriage-son claiming to be Archigos in Brezno."

Eneas gave the sign of Cenzi again. "I apologize, O'Teni. That's another sore point for a soldier like me, I'm afraid. The Holdings should be one again, and so should the Faith. It pains me to see them broken, as it pains me to see the Numetodo being so brazen."

"I understand," the o'teni said. "Why, here in Vouziers, the Numetodo have their own building." He pointed down one of the streets leading off the plaza. "Right down there, within sight of this very temple, with their sign emblazoned on the front. It's a disgrace, and one that Cenzi won't long allow."

"On that point, you're right, O'Teni," Eneas answered. "That's exactly what Cenzi tells me." With that, the o'teni glanced at Eneas strangely, but Eneas gave him no chance to say anything else, bowing to him and moving off quickly across the plaza toward the street that the man had indicated. He whistled a tune as he walked, a Darkmavis song that his matarh had sung to him, long ago, back when the world still made sense to him and Kraljica Marguerite was still on the Sun Throne.

He found the Numetodo building easily enough-the carving over the lintel of the main door was a seash.e.l.l, the sign of the Numetodo. There was an inn across the lane from the building, and he went into the tavern and ordered wine and a meal, sitting at one of the outside tables. He sipped the wine and ate slowly, watching the place of the Numetodo as the sky went fully dark above him between the buildings.

Three times, he saw someone enter; twice, someone left, but neither time did Cenzi speak to him, so he continued to wait, eating and occasionally touching the leather pouch on the ground alongside him for rea.s.surance. It was nearly two turns of the gla.s.s later, with the streets having gone nearly empty before refilling again with those who preferred the anonymity of night, that he saw a man leave the Numetodo building, and Cenzi stirred within him.

That one . . . Eneas felt the call strongly, and he shouldered his pack, left a silver siqil on the table for his meal and wine, and hurried after the man. His quarry was an older man: bald on the top with a fringe of white hair all around. He was wearing tunic and pants, not a bashta, and was bareheaded-it would be difficult to lose him even in a crowd.

It was quickly apparent why Cenzi had chosen this one; he walked down the street toward the temple plaza. The teni-lights were beginning to fade, and there were few people in the plaza, though the temple domes themselves were still brilliantly lit, golden against the star-p.r.i.c.ked sky. Eneas glanced quickly around for an utilino and saw none. He hurried forward, and the Numetodo, hearing his footsteps, turned. Eneas saw the spell-word on the man's lips, his hands coming up as if about to make a gesture, and Eneas smiled broadly, waving at the man as if hailing a long-lost friend.

The man squinted, as if uncertain of the face before him. His hand dropped, his lips spread in a tentative returning smile. "Do I know-?"