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  Dawn’s early light had not yet washed the darkness from the sky. From the gauzily curtained bed behind her, the soft rumbling snores of her husband indicated that Barnardo was still sound asleep, and likely to be so for several hours yet. He was always a late sleeper. And a heavy one. Alija, on the other hand, enjoyed the mornings. Perhaps because Barnardo was a late sleeper and she knew, for that time, she was guaranteed a few hours’ peace each day.

  Looking to the east and the softly brightening sky, Alija thought of her boys, back in Dregian Province. She didn’t like bringing them to Greenharbour. There was always the risk of assassination. Always the risk of something. Like most noble houses, Alija followed the practice of surrounding her sons with a number of companions of a similar age and appearance, in the belief that should an assassin manage to get close to her children, he could not be certain which was actually the heir and which were the companions, but she didn’t put much faith in that solution. Alija had always thought, were she the assassin, the simple solution to such a dilemma was simply to put all the children in the nursery to death, but apparently the Assassins’ Guild had some unlikely ethic about killing innocent bystanders. They would take out the contracted target and not a soul besides, erring on the side of caution if there was any doubt.

  She smiled grimly. That’s what she’d ordered the soldiers who assassinated Ronan Dell to do. There had been no innocent bystanders in that household. And it was the reason she had risked using her own troops rather than hiring the Assassins’ Guild. Alija wasn’t nearly as squeamish as they were. It had all gone just as she planned, too, except the dwarf was missing. She wasn’t sure if she should worry about that or not. Ronan’s deformed little pet might simply have been out of the house during the attack, in which case, Alija couldn’t have cared less about his fate. But if he’d witnessed the attack . . . if he could identify the killers . . .

  Alija froze as the faintest prickle of magic washed over her. It sent an unfamiliar chill down her spine. It was too faint to guess the source, or even the direction it came from.

  Was it Wrayan Lightfinger? He was the only other person that Alija knew of who should be able to touch the source like that. Or was there another, yet-to-be-discovered Innate out there somewhere on the streets of Greenharbour? It wasn’t such an unlikely scenario. Wrayan had been found in the marketplace in Krakandar using his untrained gift for telepathy to extort money out of unsuspecting gamblers.

  Alija’s own talent had also been discovered by accident when she’d unwittingly informed her mother about her father’s new lady friend and the games she’d heard them playing down in the boathouse by the lake. As the lake house belonging to Alija’s family was located some fifty miles from the family seat in Izcomdar, her revelation had been disbelieved at first. She was only five years old, after all. Everyone put her stories down to a child’s wild imagination. A brief smile flickered over Alija’s face as she recalled the moment her mother had finally taken her seriously. They’d been down by the kennels, inspecting a new litter of hounds, when a ruckus distracted them. Everyone had looked up to discover two of the other hounds copulating in the next cage. Fascinated by the odd sight, and paying no attention to the Kennel Master who was explaining the benefits of crossing those two particular bloodlines to her mother, Alija had laughed delightedly and announced, “Look! They’re playing the same game as Daddy and his lady friend!”

  Although she could see the funny side of it now she was a grown woman, Alija still remembered the horrified silence that had descended on the kennels. And the incessant questions her comment provoked after everyone had gotten over their initial shock. Finally, when she couldn’t get a satisfactory answer from her daughter, Alija’s mother had made a surprise visit to the lake house, where (Alija learned later) she had discovered her husband in the arms of Lady Lyana, wife of the Baron of Shalendor.

  Alija was much too young to understand the scandal at the time. It was considered perfectly all right for a man or a woman to keep any number of court’esa for amusement. They were possessions, after all, not real people. One kept them for pleasure, the same way one kept works of art hanging on the walls or bards to perform at dinner parties. But it was totally unacceptable to entertain oneself with another member of one’s class, particularly when that person was married to the ruling lord of a neighbouring borough.

  Being the wronged party, Alija’s mother had been able to demand all sorts of concessions from her husband and his family for the humiliation she suffered, and Alija saw her father only rarely after it happened. Fortunately, she was much older before she made the connection between her visions and the visit to the lake house that had resulted in so much crying and screaming and recrimination.

  Once the fuss had died down, however, her mother’s attention turned to her daughter and how she had seen what was going on in the boathouse, rather than what she had seen. There was a trip to Greenharbour and a lot of meetings she didn’t understand between her mother and the High Arrion, and then she was informed that she was to be taken into the Sorcerers’ Collective and apprenticed to be a sorcerer. She was an Innate, they told her. The first one they’d found in decades. She was special. She was destined for great things. One day, she might even be famous.

  As the youngest of five children and the only girl, Alija had always felt rather more put upon than special. She embraced the notion of her destiny with enthusiasm, waved goodbye to her mother and her brothers and turned her back on the outside world, determined to fulfil her unknown destiny in the Sorcerers’ Collective the best way she could.

  By the time she reached her teens, Alija was certain she had discovered what that destiny was. Hythria was slowly being destroyed by corruption. It had infiltrated the ranks of the Collective and reached right up to the High Prince’s throne. The Sorcerers’ Collective was a mockery of what it had once been. Hardly any of the sorcerers had the faintest idea about magic. Most didn’t even pretend to learn. They were interested in political power and were simply using the Collective as a way to secure it.

  Alija was determined to stop it any way she could and her first step was to rid Hythria of the Wolfblade family, whom she considered the root of the problem. Garel Wolfblade had been a fool and a spendthrift. His son, Lernen, made the former High Prince look like a statesman. They had to go and Alija was resolved to make it happen. Then, when she took her rightful place as High Arrion—there was nobody else who could even come close to her power—she could sort out the Sorcerers’ Collective as well.

  She had continued to believe it was her destiny until Tesha Zorell marched into the Sorcerers’ Collective ten years ago clutching the collar of a ragged, fair-haired boy of about thirteen, claiming he was an Innate, too.

  Tesha had found Wrayan Lightfinger in Krakandar, she claimed, while visiting the city to check on the administration of the province for which the Sorcerers’ Collective was responsible until its young heir came of age. Alija’s first reaction to Wrayan had been unreasonable jealousy. She was the special one and it simply wasn’t fair that some pickpocket’s bastard from the slums of Krakandar could be blessed with the same ability. But over the years, her anger had changed to cautious hope. Wrayan’s ability had never been in question, but he was still an apprentice ten years later, indicating that he was having a great deal of difficulty mastering his magical ability. Alija had been studying the texts left behind by the Harshini since she was seven years old. They’d had to teach Wrayan how to read at thirteen before he could even begin to learn anything. He had power to burn and no way of mastering it, which meant perhaps his arrival was part of her destiny, too. She had certainly redoubled her efforts to learn after they brought Wrayan to Greenharbour, so in a way, she had him to thank for her high level of skill.

  And she could use his power, Alija had discovered.

  There were a number of Harshini techniques for amplifying your power temporarily. Alija had found the text just before she’d left Laran for Barnardo. She hadn’t finished worki
ng the method out yet, but she would one day, and then she would be able to achieve pretty much anything she wanted just by willing it to happen. The catch—there was always a catch—was that even simple mind-reading took intense concentration and only seemed to work if she was in physical contact with her subject. How much easier life would be if she could simply seek out the mind she wanted from across the room and sift through its contents without her victim being any the wiser. Unfortunately, unless Alija could manage to brush against her target, or find some innocent reason to touch them, she had little hope of learning anything useful.

  Barnardo mumbled something in his sleep and turned over with a grunt, but he didn’t wake. The sky was considerably lighter than before, but there had been no further feeling of magic.

  Was it Wrayan? she wondered. What was he doing?

  And now there was the problem of Marla to add to Alija’s woes. Lernen had managed to surprise the Patriot Faction with his sudden move to marry his sister off to the Fardohnyan king. It was unclear who had first suggested the idea, but the notion had caught on quickly and it seemed they were only days away from an agreement.

  In some ways, that actually helped their cause. Barnardo had begun to look a lot more attractive to the other Warlords since the alternative might be a Fardohnyan-born High Prince some day. Perhaps they should let this fiasco develop as it would. Kagan might actually be playing right into their hands. Perhaps it had been unnecessary to eliminate Ronan Dell. Maybe Barnardo didn’t need to move against Lernen at this Convocation after all. With the threat of a Fardohnyan ruling them in the future, the Warlords might finally be goaded into doing something about Lernen and actually approach Barnardo to take the crown, instead of the other way around.

  But without reliable eyes and ears in Lernen’s camp, Alija was only guessing. Reading minds took time and concentration, and she couldn’t wander around the palace all day, clutching at people while she sifted through every mind surrounding Lernen, trying to figure out what was going on.

  Alija needed something a little more reliable. A little more traditional.

  She smiled as the solution came to her. Marla was almost sixteen and about to be married. It was obvious she’d not yet been court’esa trained. The young princess would need to purchase her own court’esa soon to teach her the arts of love, before heading north to Talabar and her new husband. That Lernen would consider sending his sister to Fardohnya without such training was unthinkable.

  If Alija worked things right, she could place her own eyes and ears in Marla’s entourage and nobody would ever know. It was perfect.

  Barnardo stirred on the bed again. She glanced over at him with a frown. If only, she lamented silently, there was such an easy solution about what to do with you, my dear.

  But Alija could only work magic. Miracles were out of her reach.

  chapter 14

  B

  y mid-afternoon on the day following the ball, Wrayan was beginning to panic and suspected Kagan was, too.

  Marla’s condition had not changed. She lay on the bed caught in a frozen moment and showed no inclination to emerge from this state. The compresses had had no effect. The nurse was beside herself. Lirena was demanding the High Prince be told and threatening to do it herself if Kagan didn’t do something to immediately restore her mistress.

  In the end, Kagan had sedated Lirena with a powerful soporific, leaving Wrayan to watch over the princess while he settled the old nurse into her bed and a nice long sleep that would hopefully keep her out of the way until Marla recovered.

  Wrayan paced the princess’s room anxiously, trying to recall what it was that he had said or done to bring about this disastrous turn of events. He could think of nothing but his own approaching doom if the situation couldn’t be resolved. His thoughts grew ever more morose until he was beginning to wonder if Lernen would demand his life in retribution for this terrible thing when a noise by the window startled him. Wrayan jumped at the sound of an unexpected voice.

  “Boy, you’ve really gone and done it this time, haven’t you?”

  He turned to find the motley-dressed boy from the wharf sitting on the windowsill, studying him with a smug, supercilious grin.

  “How . . . how did you get in here?”

  “I’m a god,” the boy reminded him. “I can go anywhere I want.”

  Wrayan glanced at the closed window, wondering how the lad had managed to climb through. They were on the third floor and the only thing outside the princess’s window was sheer drop to the water in the harbour below. “Kagan let you in, didn’t he?”

  “Kagan? Oh, that fat old fellow with the white hair, the diamond pendant and the really bad poetry?”

  “Poetry?” Wrayan asked in confusion.

  “What do you call it? Not poetry. Something else . . . something even sillier . . . That’s right! Spells!”

  “Spells?” Wrayan repeated blankly.

  “You know. Those awful verses sorcerers use when they want to call on us to help them.” The boy climbed down from the windowsill and began to walk around the room, picking up objects as he went, like a thief casing the place for a burglary. Wrayan watched him carefully, wincing as the boy upended a priceless crystal vase to check the maker’s mark on the base. “I can’t remember whose idea it was that they had to rhyme, though. Zymelka’s probably. Calling on all gods divine, make this grape fall off the vine . . . or something equally ridiculous. He makes all this noise about being the noble God of Poets and how he’s above the petty games of the rest of us, but he’s really just an Incidental God when all is said and done, although as cunning as an outhouse rat when you get to the truth of it. Anyway, I mean it’s not as if we can’t hear humans speaking.”

  “Who are you?”

  The boy carried on inspecting the room as if Wrayan hadn’t spoken. “Still, I suppose it helps sort out the real requests from the idle musings. And it’s not as if Zymelka can get his honouring from many other sources, poor chap. He plays up to Kali when he’s really desperate, trying to get her to make people fall in love, ’cause humans are notorious for spouting bad poetry when they’re lusting for someone. And I suppose it would get a bit mucky if we thought every rhetorical question uttered by a human was a call for assistance, wouldn’t it? You’d have unexplained stuff happening all over the place.”

  Wrayan, by now, was completely lost. “What are you talking about?”

  The boy rolled his eyes. His inspection had taken him around the room until he reached the bed. He glanced down at the unconscious princess laid out on the silken coverlet and then looked at Wrayan with a cheerful grin. “Never mind. Did you want some help fixing your little princess?”

  “You know what’s wrong with her?” he gasped.

  “Don’t you?”

  “Well . . . not really . . .”

  “You’ve suspended time around her. Anybody can see that.”

  “Anybody?”

  “Any god, then,” the boy conceded. “Why did you do it, anyway?”

  “I didn’t. Well, not on purpose.”

  The boy laughed. “My, my, aren’t you going to have some fun now you’ve stumbled over the source.”

  “What source?”

  “The source of the gods’ power,” the boy explained. “You don’t think you did that just by waving your arm, do you?”

  “Actually, that’s exactly what I did.”

  “No, what you did was tap into the source, my friend, the same way the Harshini and the gods do. Not a skill owned by many humans, let me tell you. In fact, can’t think of a single human who can do it. You have some Harshini in you.”

  “That’s absurd! At best, I’m an Innate.”

  “Innates can only skim the surface of the source. You dipped into it.”

  “I did no such thing!”

  “Fine,” the boy shrugged. “Bring her back without my help, then.”

  Wrayan hesitated for a moment and then sighed. “I can’t.”

  The lad smiled. “Then
you’ve got a problem, haven’t you?”

  Wrayan closed his eyes, beyond confused, almost beyond hope. “Are you really a god?”

  “Yes.”

  “Which one?”

  “I am wounded beyond words you have to ask that, Wrayan Lightfinger.”

  “Dacendaran,” Wrayan concluded with a resigned sigh. “The first time we met you said I should go back to Krakandar and be a pickpocket like my pa. Only the God of Thieves would encourage a sorcerer to become a pickpocket.”

  “Yes, well, I have a problem with this whole ‘sorcerers should worship all gods equally’ philosophy myself. It’s not really fair. Especially when Zymelka manages to make every sorcerer say a poem any time they want to invoke our power. Nobody objects to that. If there had to be some great act to differentiate a spell from a prayer, why couldn’t they steal something and honour me? Or kiss someone and honour Kali?”

  “Why not kill someone and honour Zegarnald?” Wrayan suggested.

  Dacendaran sat himself down on the edge of the bed, treating Wrayan’s suggestion as if it was serious. “We thought about that once. Forever ago. Zeggie was rather fond of the idea, as you can imagine, but in the end we decided it might get a little messy. And Voden didn’t like the idea much, either. Zegarnald bosses the rest of us around, but even he doesn’t mess with Voden. The God of Green Life is way too strong and has absolutely no sense of humour when it comes to things like that.”

  “Can you really bring her back, Divine One?”

  “For a price.”

  Wrayan sighed. “How much?”

  “How much?” the god repeated, looking hugely offended. “I’m a god, you fool. What do I care about money?”

  “Then what must I do?”

  “I want to be honoured.”

  “I will build a whole temple in your name, if you want,” Wrayan promised. “Just bring her back.”