They were sitting by the fire she'd started in the hearth. Tea simmered in a pot. The wood was damp; it hissed and sputtered and cracked under the a.s.sault of the flames, sending fountains of orange-red ash spiraling up the chimney.

She raised a single eyebrow toward him.

"You believe that Cenzi takes the souls of those who die," he told her. "You believe that they continue to exist within Him, and that it's possible you may one day meet them again. I . . ." Tears threatened him again and he forced them down. "I don't have that hope."

"Having faith doesn't take away the pain," she told him. "Or very little of it. Nothing can ease the grief and loss we all feel: not faith, not the Ilmodo. Time, perhaps, might manage it, and that only blunts the sorrow." Folding the sleeve of her robe around her hand, she took the teapot from the crane and poured the brew into their cups. She handed him the jar of honey. "I still remember my matarh. Sometimes it all comes back to me, everything I felt when she died, as if it had just happened yesterday." Her fingers brushed his cheek; he could feel their softness drag against stubble. "That will happen for you, too, I'm afraid."

"Then what good is your faith, Ana?"

She smiled, as if she'd been expecting his question. "Faith isn't a commodity," she told him. "You don't buy it because it will do this or that for you. You have belief or you don't, and belief gives you what it gives you. You don't have faith, my love-Cenzi knows I'd give it to you if I could. I've certainly talked about it enough with you over the years. You Numetodo . . . you try to wrap the world in reason and logic, and so faith just crumples into dust whenever you touch it because you try to impose rationality on it. You'll do that with Kaitlin, too-you'll try to find reasons and logic in her death." She touched him again. "There's no reason that she died, Karl. There's no logic to it. It just happened, and it had nothing to do with you or with your feelings for her or what happened between the two of you."

"Not even Cenzi's will?"

She lifted her chin. She smiled at him sadly, the firelight warm and yellow on her face. "Not even that. It's a rare person who Cenzi cares about enough to change the Fate-Moitidi's dice roll for them. It was your Kaitlin's time. That's all. It's not your fault, Karl. It's not."

That had been nine years ago. He'd traveled back to Paeti to see Kaitlin's grave and to be with his sons. He'd even brought Nilles and Colin back to Nessantico with him when he'd returned the next year. Nilles had stayed two years with him, Colin four, until they'd reached their majority at sixteen. Both had eventually left the city to return to the Isle. Nilles had already given him a great-daughter-three years old now-that he'd yet to see.

He'd stayed here because his work was in the Holdings, he told anyone who asked. But truthfully, it was because this was where Ana was. There were those who knew that, but they weren't many and most pretended not to see.

Varina's hand tightened again on his shoulder and dropped away.

Karl stared at Ana's wrapped-and-shrouded body on the stone altar and the phalanx of six fire-teni gathered in a circle around it. The corpse was layered in green silk wound with golden metallic thread. The threads glinted in the multicolored light from the stained gla.s.s in the temple's windows; censers fumed around the altar, wreathing sunbeams in fragrant smoke. He could not believe it was Ana bundled and displayed there. He would not believe it. It was someone else. The memory he had of the light, of the concussive roar, of her body torn apart, the blood, the dark dust . . . It was false. It had to be false. Even the thought was too painful to endure.

Kaitlin's death, that of his parents, all the others that had pa.s.sed over the decades: none of them hurt like this. None.

Someone had killed the one person he loved most in the world, had struck down a woman who had struggled more than anyone since Kraljica Marguerite to keep peace within the Holdings, who believed in reconciliation before confrontation, who might have potentially reunited the broken halves of both the Holdings and the Concenzia Faith. There would be no comfort for Karl until he knew who had done this, and until that person was dead. If there was an afterlife as Ana had believed, then Karl would let the murderer's soul be condemned to care for Ana for eternity. If there were G.o.ds, if Cenzi truly existed, if there were justice after death, then that's what must happen.

He would have faith in that: a grim, dark, and uncompromising faith.

Archigos Kenne patted his hand and whispered more words he couldn't hear. The Regent Sergei's shoulder pressed against his to the left. Kraljiki Audric wheezed on the other side of the Regent, his labored breath louder than the chanting of the teni. He heard Varina weeping softly in the pew behind him.

The fire-teni stirred around the green-wrapped body. Their hands moved in the dance of the Ilmodo, their voices lifted in a unison chant that fought against the choir's ethereal voices. They spread their hands wide as if in benediction, and the fierce blaze of Ilmodo-fire erupted around Ana's body. The heat of the magical flames washed over them, savage and relentless. There were no sparks, no pyre feeding them: while the Kralji and the ca'-and-cu' burned in flames fed by wood and oil, the teni burned their own with the Ilmodo-quickly and furiously. The Ilmodo-fire consumed the body in the s.p.a.ce of a few breaths, the metallic-green fabric turning black instantly, the heat shimmer so intense that Ana's body seemed to shake within it. As Karl watched, as his body instinctively leaned back against the fierce a.s.sault of the heat, Ana was taken.

The flames died abruptly as the choir ended their song. Cold air rushed back around them, a wind that tousled hair and fluttered cloth. On the altar now, there was nothing but gray ash and a few fragments of bone.

The mortal cage of Ana was gone.

"She is back in Cenzi's hands now," Archigos Kenne said to Karl. "He will give her solace."

And I will give her better than solace. He nodded silently to the Archigos. I will give her revenge.

Allesandra ca'Vorl.

"IT WAS NOT a sign."

Fynn slammed his fisted hand hard on the arm of his chair. The servants standing ready along the wall to serve dinner shivered at the sound. The long scar down the right side of his face burned white against his flushed face. "I don't care what they're saying. What happened was a terrible accident. Nothing more. It was not a sign."

"Of course you're right, Brother," Allesandra told him soothingly. She paused-a single breath-and gestured to the Magyarian servants: they were taking supper in Allesandra's rooms within the palais. The servants moved forward, ladling soup into the bowls and pouring wine. Fynn sat at the table's head; Allesandra at the foot. Archigos Semini and his wife were to Fynn's right; her son Jan to the left.

Allesandra had heard some of the rumors herself. Hirzg Jan is upset that Fynn has taken the crown, not his daughter . . . The Hirzg's soul cannot rest . . . I heard from one of the servants in the palais that his ghost still walks the halls at night, moaning and crying out as if angry. . . . There were dozens of the tales surging through Brezno, twisted depending on the agenda of those who spoke them, and growing larger and more outrageous each time they were told. Cenzi sends a warning to the Hirzg that the Holdings and the Faith must become one again . . . The souls of all those the Hirzg killed-the Numetodo, the Nessanticans, the Tennshah-pursue him and will not allow him to rest . . . They say that when the sealing stone fell, those in the chamber heard the old Hirzg's voice call out with a curse on Firenzcia. . . .

The soup had been served and the silence had stretched too long. Allesandra could hear the breathing of the servants and the distant, m.u.f.fled clatter of the cook and the kitchen help a floor below them. "I understand that the other lancer has died also," Allesandra commented when it was apparent that no one else was willing to start a conversation.

Fynn glared at her down the length of the table "That was Cenzi's Blessing," he said. "The man would never have walked again. The healer said his spine was broken; if I were him, I'd rather die than live the rest of my life as a useless cripple."

"I'm sure he felt the same as you, Brother." She kept her voice carefully neutral. "And I'm sure that the Archigos did what he could to ease his pa.s.sing." Another pause. "As far as the Divolonte would allow, of course," she added.

Francesca let her spoon clatter back to the table at that. "You may have been soiled by the beliefs of the false Archigos during your years with her, A'Hirzg," she declaimed coldly, "but I a.s.sure you that my husband has not. He would never-"

"Francesca!" Semini's rebuke caused Francesca to snap her mouth closed, like a carp gulping on a riverbank. He glared at her, then clasped hands to forehead as he turned to Allesandra. His gaze held hers. Allesandra had always thought that the Archigos had exquisite eyes: powerful and engaging. She had also noticed that when she was in the room, Semini often paid close attention to her. That had never bothered her; she enjoyed his attentions. She'd thought, back when her vatarh had finally ransomed her, that he might have married her to Semini, had he not already been tied to Francesca. That would have been a powerful marriage, allying both the political and religious powers within the state, and Semini might have been someone she could have come to love, as well. Even now . . . She closed off that thought, quickly. She had taken lovers during her marriage, yes-as she had known Pauli had also done-but always carefully. Always discreetly. An affair with the Archigos . . . that would be difficult to conceal.

"I apologize, A'Hirzg," Semini said. "Sometimes my wife's, ahh, devotion to the Faith causes her to speak too harshly. I did give the poor lancer what comfort I could, at the Hirzg's request." He addressed Fynn then. "My Hirzg, you shouldn't be concerned with the gossip of the rabble. In fact, I will make it clear in my next Admonition that those who believe that there are portents in this horrible incident are mistaken, and that these wild rumors are simply lies. I've already had people begin to make inquiries as to who is spreading all the vile gossip-I would say that if the Garde Hirzg takes a few of them into custody, especially a few of those of lower rank, and, ahh, convinces them to recant publicly before they're executed for treason, that would certainly act as a lesson to the others. I think we'd find that all the talk about what happened at your vatarh's burial would vanish as quickly as snow in Daritria."

Francesca was nodding at her husband's words. "We should treat these people no better than we would the Numetodo," she agreed. "Just as the Numetodo are traitors to the Faith, these rumormongers are traitors to our Hirzg. A few bodies swaying in gibbets will adequately shut the mouth of the populace." She glanced at Allesandra. "Wouldn't you agree, A'Hirzg?" she asked, her voice far too gentle and far too eager. The woman actually leaned forward at the table, emphasizing her humped back.

"I think it's dangerous to equate rumormongering with heresy, Vajica ca'Cellibrecca," she began carefully, but Jan interrupted her.

"If you punish people for gossiping, you'll convince them instead that the rumors are true," her son said, the first words he'd spoken since they'd sat at the table, then shrugged as the others looked at him. "Well, that's the truth," he insisted. "If you give them the sermon you suggest, Archigos, you'll just be drawing more attention to what happened, which will make people believe the rumors even more. It's better to say and do nothing at all; all this talk will fade away on its own when nothing else happens. Every time one of us repeats the gossip, even to deny or refute it, we make it seem more real and more important than it is."

She followed Jan's gaze from Semini to the others at the table. Semini was glowering, his eyebrows lowered like thunderclouds over those captivating eyes; Francesca's mouth gaped open as if she were too stunned for words at the boy's impertinence; she gave a cough of derision and waved a hand like a claw in Jan's direction, as if warding off a beggar's curse. Fynn was staring down at the tablecloth in front of him. "It's better to say and do nothing," Jan repeated into the silence, his voice thinner and more uncertain now, "or what happened will become a sign. You'll all have turned it into one."

Allesandra touched his arm: it was what she would have said, if less diplomatically spoken. "Well said," she whispered to him. He might have smiled momentarily; it was difficult to tell.

"So if you were the Hirzg, you'd do nothing?" Francesca said. "Then let's thank Cenzi that you're not, child."

That brought Jan's head up again. "If I were Hirzg," Jan answered her, "I'd be thinking that these rumors aren't worth my time. There are more important events that I'd be considering, like the death of Archigos Ana, or the war in the h.e.l.lins that's sapping Nessantico's resources and their attention, and what all that means for Firenzcia and the Coalition."

Francesca snorted again. She returned her attention to her soup, as if Jan's comment was beneath consideration. Semini was shaking his head and glaring at Allesandra as if she were directly responsible for Jan's impertinence.

She thought Fynn was angry beneath the scowl he wore, but her brother surprised her. "I believe the young man's right," Fynn said, breaking the uncomfortable silence. He gave Jan a smile twisted by the scar on his face. "I hate the thought of having to hear the whispers for even another breath, but . . . you're right, Nephew. If we do nothing, the gossip will fade in a week, maybe even a few days. Perhaps I should make you my new councillor, eh?"

Jan beamed at Fynn's praise as Francesca sat back abruptly with a frown. Semini tried to look unconcerned. "You've raised an intelligent young man, Sister," Fynn told Allesandra. "He's as bold as I'd want my own son to be. I should talk more with you, Jan, and I regret that I don't know you as well as an onczio should. We'll start to rectify that tomorrow-we'll go hunting after my afternoon conferences, you and I. Would you like that?"

"Oh, yes!" Jan burst out, suddenly the child again, presented with an unexpected gift. Then he seemed to realize how young he sounded, and he nodded solemnly. "I'd enjoy that very much, Onczio Fynn," he said, his voice pitched low. "Matarh?"

"The Hirzg is very kind," Allesandra told him, smiling even as suspicion hammered at her. First Vatarh, now Fynn. What does the b.a.s.t.a.r.d think he can gain with this? Is he just trying to get to me by stealing Jan's affection? I'm losing my son, and the tighter I try to hold him, the faster he'll slip away. . . . "It sounds like a wonderful idea," she told Jan.

The White Stone.

THERE WERE EASY KILLINGS, and there were hard ones. This was one of the easy ones.

The target was Honori cu'Belgradi, a merchant dealing in goods from the Magyarias, and a philanderer who had made the mistake of sleeping with the wrong person's wife: the wife of the White Stone's client.

"I watched him tup her," the man had told the White Stone, his voice shaking with remembered rage. "I watched him take my wife like an animal, and I heard her call out his name in her pa.s.sion. And now . . . now she's pregnant, and I don't know if the child is mine or . . ." He'd stopped, his head bowed. "But I'll make certain that he'll do this to no other husband, and I'll make certain that the child will never be able to call him vatarh. . . ."

Relationships and l.u.s.t were responsible for fully half of the White Stone's work. Greed and power accounted for the rest. There was never a dearth of people seeking the White Stone; if you needed to find the Stone, you found the way.

Honori cu'Belgradi was a creature of habit, and habits made for easy prey. The Stone had watched him for three days, and the man's ritual never varied by more than a quarter turn of the gla.s.s. He would close his shop in Ville Serne, a town a half-day's ride south of Brezno, then stroll to the tavernhouse on the corner of the next street over. He would stay there until four turns of the gla.s.s after third call, after which he would go to the rooms where the woman-the wife of the Stone's client-waited for their nightly tryst.

On the way to those rooms, Honori would pa.s.s the alleyway where the Stone waited now. The Stone could already hear the footsteps in the cool night air. "Honori cu'Belgradi," the Stone called as the figure of the man pa.s.sed by the opening of the alley. Honori stopped, his face cautious, then eagerly interested as the Stone stepped into the light of the teni-lamps of the street.

"You know me?" cu'Belgradi asked, and the Stone smiled gently.

"I do. And I would know you better, my friend. You and I, we have a business arrangement to make."

"How do you mean?" cu'Belgradi asked as the Stone stepped closer to him. So easy . . . Only a step away. A knife thrust's distance apart, and cu'Belgradi tilted his head quizzically.

"Like this," the Stone answered, looking around the street and seeing no one watching, and clapping cu'Belgradi on the shoulder as if the man were a long-lost friend. At the same time the hand holding the poisoned blade drove hard up under the man's rib cage and twisted it up into the heart. Cu'Belgradi made a strangled, blood-choked cry, and the body was suddenly heavy against the Stone's athletic build. The Stone half-dragged, half-carried the dying cu'Belgradi into the alleyway, laying the body quickly on the ground. Cu'Belgradi's eyes were open, and the Stone dug into a cloak pocket and brought out two stones: both white in the dimness of the alley, though one was smooth and polished as if from much handling. The stones were placed on cu'Belgradi's open eyes, the Stone pressing them down into the sockets. The one on the left eye the Stone left there; the gleaming, white, and smooth one over the right eye-the eye of the ego, the eye that held the image of the face it saw in its last moment-that one the Stone picked up again and placed back in a leather pouch around the Stone's neck.

"And now I have you, forever," the apparition known as the White Stone whispered.

A breath later, there was no one left alive in the alley, only a corpse with a white pebble over its left eye: a contract fulfilled.

PERMUTATIONS.

Audric ca'Dakwi.

Varina ci'Pallo.

Jan ca'Vorl.

Eneas cu'Kinnear.

Allesandra ca'Vorl

Karl ca'Vliomani

Sergei ca'Rudka

Allesandra ca'Vorl.

Nico Morel.

The White Stone.

Audric ca'Dakwi.

THIS WAS ONE OF the bad nights.

Every individual breath was a struggle. Audric had to force the old, useless air from his lungs, and his chest ached with every inhalation, yet he was never able to bring in enough air. He sat up in his bed; he felt that if he lay down he might suffocate. The palais healers bustled around him, looks of deep concern on their faces-if only for fear of what might happen to them if he died under their care-but Audric paid them little attention except when they tried to get him to take a sip of a potion or to inhale some sour gra.s.ssmoke. His arms were tracked with fresh scabs; the healers had nearly bled him dry and another one of them was making a new cut, but Audric didn't even flinch. Seaton and Marlon, Audric's domestiques de chambre , rushed in and out of the bedroom, fetching whatever the healers requested of them.

All of Audric's attention went to his war for breath. His world had shrunk down to the battle of each inhalation, of trying to suck enough air in his lungs to stay conscious. The edges of his vision had darkened; he could only see what was directly in front of him. He felt little but the eternal pain in his chest.

He focused on the portrait of Kraljica Marguerite set over the fireplace mantel at the foot of his bed. His great-matarh stared back at him, her painted face utterly realistic, as if the gilded frame were a window behind which the Kraljica was sitting. He swore he saw her move slightly against the backdrop of the Sun Throne, that the painted Sun Throne itself flickered with the light of the Ilmodo as the real one did whenever he sat on it.

Archigos Ana had never given more than a sour glance at the portrait, which always seemed to snare the gaze of other visitors to Audric's bedroom. Once, Audric had asked the Archigos why she paid the masterpiece so little attention. She had only shaken her head. "There's far too much of your great-matarh in that painting," she said. "It hurts me to see her trapped there." She frowned then. "But your vatarh loved the picture, for his own reasons."

Marguerite regarded Audric now with her appraising, piercing stare. He waited for the attack to pa.s.s. It would pa.s.s; it always had in the past. It must pa.s.s. He prayed to Cenzi for that, his mouth moving silently: that the invisible giant sitting astride his chest and crushing his lungs would slowly rise and lumber off, and he'd be able to breathe easier again.

It would happen. It must happen.

His great-matarh seemed to nod at that, as if she agreed.

Staring at the painting, Audric heard more than saw Regent ca'Rudka push into the room, scattering the healers as he leaned over the bed, waving away the sourgra.s.s smoke drifting from the censers. "Get those out of here," he snarled. "Archigos Ana said the smoke makes the Kraljiki's breathing worse, not better. And take yourselves out of here as well." The healers scattered with mutterings, b.l.o.o.d.y fingers, and the clinking of vials, leaving the Regent alone with Audric. No, not alone . . . There was someone else with him. Reluctantly, Audric took his gaze from the painting and squinted into the darkness.