Shattered Dance

“You’re still better at it,” she said.

He pondered that for a moment before he said, “I’ll do it.”

“Here? Now?”

“When I’m ready.”

The urgency in her wanted to protest, but she had laid this on him. She could hardly object to the way he chose to do it.

He smiled, all too well aware of her thoughts. His finger brushed her cheek. “It won’t be more than a few hours,” he said.

“That’s what you said about us.”

He had the grace not to laugh at her. “Before that, then.”

That did not satisfy her. “What if those few hours make the difference?”

“They won’t,” he said. “I can feel the patterns beginning to shift, but they won’t break tonight. It takes time to do what I think they’re going to try. They’ll need more than a day or two to set it in motion.”

“What—how can you know—”

“If you know where to look, you can see.”

She scowled at him. Sometimes he forced her to remember that he was more than a horse mage. He had been born to rule this empire, but the Call had come instead and taken him away.

Kerrec had died to that part of himself—with precious little regret. Then his father had died in truth and given him the gift that each emperor gave his successor. All the magic of Aurelia had come to fill him.

It had healed Kerrec’s wounds and restored the full measure of his magic. It had also made him intensely aware of the land and its people.

His sister Briana had it, too. For her it was the inevitable consequence of the emperor’s death. She was the heir. The land and its magic belonged to her.

It was not something that needed to be divided or diminished in order to be shared. The emperor had meant it for both reconciliation and healing, but maybe it was more than that. Maybe Artorius had foreseen that the empire would need both his children.

Kerrec seemed wrapped in a deep calm. His kiss was light but potent, like the passage of a flame. “Soon,” he said.

Voices erupted outside. Hooves thudded on the sand of the stableyard. Riders were bringing stallions in to be groomed and saddled for afternoon exercises.

Valeria stepped back quickly. There was no need for guilt—if everyone had not already known what was happening, Grania would have been fairly strong proof. But it had been too long. She was out of practice.

Kerrec laughed at her, but he did not try to stop her. She was halfway down the aisle by the time the foremost rider slid back the door and let the sun into the stable.

Kerrec was more troubled than he wanted Valeria to know. He would have liked to shake the boy who, instead of taking what he knew to the empress like a sensible citizen, reached all the way to the Mountain and inflicted his anxieties on Valeria. Was there no one closer at hand to vex with them?

That could be a trap in itself. Valeria was notorious among mages. She was the first woman ever to be Called to the Mountain and a bitter enemy of Aurelia’s enemies. She had twice thwarted assaults on the empire and its rulers. In certain quarters she was well hated.

Kerrec was even less beloved, though the brother who had hated him beyond reason or sanity was dead, destroyed by his own magic. There were still men enough, both imperial and barbarian, who would gladly have seen Kerrec dead or worse.

This kind of thinking was best done in the back of the mind, from the back of a horse. He saddled one of the young stallions, a spirited but gentle soul named Alea.

The horse was more than pleased to be led into one of the lesser courts, where no one else happened to be riding at that hour. Kerrec had been of two minds as to whether to bring the stallion with him to Aurelia, but as he smoothed the mane on the heavy arched neck, he caught a distinct air of wistfulness. Alea wanted to see the world beyond the Mountain.

“So you shall,” Kerrec said with sudden decision. He gathered the reins and sprang into the saddle, settling lightly on the broad back.

Alea was young—he had come down off the Mountain two years before, in the same herd that had bred Valeria’s fiery Sabata—and although he was talented, he had much to learn before he mastered his art. Kerrec took a deep and simple pleasure in these uncomplicated exercises. They soothed his spirit and concentrated his mind.

As he rode each precise circle and undulating curve, shifting pace from walk to trot to canter and back again, he began to perceive another riding court in a different city. The horse under him was a little shorter and notably broader. The neck that arched in front of him was narrower and lighter, and the mane was not smoky grey but jet-black. The little ears that curved at the end of it were red brown, the color called bay.

Kerrec kept his grip on the unexpected working. He bent his will until his awareness separated from that other rider, so that he seemed to ride side by side with his sister. Alea bowed to Kerrec’s sister’s mount, the bay Lady who alone of all the mothers of gods had chosen a mortal rider and left the Mountain.

They were riding the same patterns. That was not a coincidence. Each bend and turn brought them into harmony.

Briana smiled at her brother. “Good afternoon,” she said as serenely as if they had not been riding this paired dance across eighty leagues of mountain and plain.

Kerrec acknowledged her with an inclination of the head. With the Lady leading, the pattern was growing more complex, though still simple enough for Kerrec’s young stallion. In its curves and figures was the vision Maurus had given Valeria.

Briana’s expression did not change. She had taken it in, Kerrec did not doubt that, but she showed no sign of what she was thinking.

He would not ask, either. He had done what was necessary. The empress knew what Maurus had seen. It was for her to decide what to do about it.

The ride went on, which somewhat surprised him. It was a Dance, a doorway through fate and time, though there was no ritual and no formal occasion and no flock of Augurs to interpret it. To a Lady, all those things were inconsequential.

She had chosen to Dance now for reasons that might have little to do with Kerrec’s message. The only wise course was to ride the Dance and ask no questions. Answers would come when, or if, the Lady pleased.

These patterns seemed harmless and sunlit, but Maurus’ vision underlay all of them. A priest of the One God, a cabal of idle and disaffected nobles, an altar of sacrifice that had seen long and bloody use—all that was clear enough, one would think. Yet another conspiracy raised itself against the empire, or more likely this was an offshoot of older and failed conspiracies.

But the priest had said something that would not let Kerrec go. The creature had mocked the circle that summoned him. Something beyond them had brought him there—some great power in Aurelia, strong enough to conjure evil out of air.

That made Kerrec’s back tighten. He caught himself before he passed that stiffness to Alea. The stallion did not deserve it, and the Dance assuredly did not need it.

Tomorrow Kerrec would ride to Aurelia. Whatever was going to happen there, he would do his best to be ready for it. So would his sister. So would everyone else whom either of them was able to warn.

Meanwhile he rode the Dance, taking its patterns inside him, committing them to memory. They might be useful or they might not. The gods knew. It was not for a mortal, even a master mage, to judge—though he might come to conclusions of his own, given time and space to think about it.

Chapter Nine

“You’re sure of this?”

Valeria paused in tightening Sabata’s girth. The rest of the caravan was still forming in the pale dawn light. The question did not surprise her, but the one who asked it did.

Master Nikos held the rein of a stallion nearly as majestically ancient as Valeria’s Oda, who waited patiently in the line of stallions who would go riderless on this first day of the journey. Valeria acknowledged Master and stallion with a nod of respect. “I am sure,” she said.

The Master glanced at the cluster of people beyond Valeria. Morag was already in her cart with the nurse beside her. Grania, having eaten a hearty breakfast, was peacefully asleep.

“They’ll be safe,” Valeria said. “My mother may be only a village wisewoman, but she’s a strong mage.”

“Your mother is not ‘only’ anything,” the Master said. “I don’t fear for her or even the child. It’s you I’m thinking of.”

“I’m not weak,” Valeria said. “If I’m even slightly tired, I’ll ride in the wagon. My mother has already delivered the lecture, sir.”