Song Of Unmaking

“Would I lie?”

“Not you,” said Valeria.

“So? May I impose myself on you?”

“Of course,” Valeria said. “Though following a very junior rider about might not be—”

“It would be a complete pleasure,” Briana said. She paused. “If it would be more trouble for you than it’s worth—”

“Oh, no,” said Valeria, and she meant it. She had not known until she said it, how much she had missed Briana. It might be absurd and presumptuous, since Valeria was a soldier’s daughter and Briana was the emperor’s heir, but this was a friend. Better yet, she was a woman—and Valeria had been living with men for much too long.

She sprang out of bed and dived for her clothes. She was grinning so widely her jaws hurt. “Come on. Let’s appall the riders.”

Briana grinned back. She laid her book aside and went willingly where Valeria led.

At this hour, just before sunup, most of the riders were at breakfast in the dining hall. Valeria had stopped attracting attention some time since, but when she appeared with another woman behind her, the silence was abrupt.

They did not recognize Briana. She was dressed like one of them, and she was making no effort to look familiar.

That was an art. Valeria resolved to study it.

Breakfast was plain but plentiful, as always. Valeria dipped herself a bowl of hot porridge with a handful of berries sprinkled on it and a drizzle of cream. After a moment’s perceptible thought, Briana did the same.

Iliya and Batu were sitting at their usual table. They were halfway through a platter of sausages and bread and cheese, while Paulus watched them with his usual expression of faint disgust. Paulus was much too haughty to eat like a drover as any sensible rider learned to do.

“Riders work hard,” Iliya was reminding him between bites of sausage. “They earn their provender.”

“Not that hard,” Paulus said.

He had his back to the door. Iliya saw Valeria first, and then Briana.

His eyes widened. Unlike the other riders, he recognized the emperor’s heir. He opened his mouth to say so.

Batu elbowed him into silence. When that threatened to fail, he stuffed half a sausage into Iliya’s mouth and smiled at the women. “Good morning,” he said in his deep beautiful voice.

Valeria smiled back. “Good morning,” she answered. “The Master’s given us company today. Will we all be civil? Is it possible?”

Paulus was refusing to turn and see who was with Valeria. His shoulders were stiff with it. Briana, who was his cousin and knew him very well, slid onto the bench beside him and set down her bowl. She began to eat as if she belonged there.

Paulus choked on nothing at all. Briana pounded his back until he stopped, crimson-faced and with his eyes streaming. “What in the gods’ name are you doing here?” he demanded when he could talk.

“My brother asked the same thing,” Briana said. “You two are terribly alike.”

“Your brother is less stuffy,” Iliya opined. He grinned at Briana. He was a prince where he came from, and imperial rank did not impress him in the slightest. “The Master really gave you to us?”

“For a day or two,” said Briana. “I can fork hay with the worst of them. I even know how to groom a horse.”

“That’s more than Paulus did,” Iliya said, then added, “He’s better now.”

“I would hope so,” Briana said.

Valeria had noticed the year before when she was in the imperial city, how Briana seemed to know how to talk to anyone of any rank. She seemed perfectly at ease here, as she was everywhere that Valeria had ever seen her. She had the least pretension of any noble Valeria had yet met—not that Valeria had met many, but between Paulus and Kerrec, she had seen plenty of the less comfortable sort.

There was no point in being envious. Valeria could study and learn, if she could not exactly imitate. She doubted that Briana was even aware of what she did. She simply did it.

Still, Valeria found her mood a little sour as she finished breakfast. She stood up without looking to see if Briana was ready and made for the door, dropping her bowl in the cleaners’ barrel as she went by.

Briana caught up with her just outside the door, somewhat out of breath but not apparently offended. Valeria pushed down the uprising of guilt and sat on it.

All the teaching masters were busy with the Called, but there were still stalls to clean and water buckets to be filled and horses to exercise. The Third and Fourth Riders and the older candidates were detailed to oversee the first- and second-year candidates.

What the day lacked for time in the schoolroom, it easily gained in physical labor. It must have been grueling for an imperial princess.

Briana never so much as whimpered. She even rode with the others.

She was hesitant about that, but when older stallions were brought out for the candidates’ instruction, there was one more of them than usual. Some of the candidates growled. At least one of them yelped: a large hoof had come down on his foot.

The stallion who presented himself for Briana to ride was Kerrec’s own Petra. He slid a bland dark eye at Valeria and studiously ignored the rest of the students.

Briana greeted him with visible gladness. She mounted easily, like the lifelong rider she was.

If she was a little breathless, that was no wonder. No one outside the school ever sat on one of the white gods. It simply was not done.

The gods did as they pleased. Today, that was to teach the emperor’s daughter the beginnings of their art.

It was deceptively simple. They were asked to ride quietly in exact circles without variation of rhythm or figure, over and over until they had perfected the movement. The stallions would give nothing that the riders did not ask. That was the gods’ pleasure and their challenge.

Sabata was unusually tractable today. He walked and trotted and cantered politely, did precisely as Valeria asked, and offered none of his usual opinions on the subject.

Maybe he was ill. He might be a god, and a Great One at that, but his body was mortal.

When the lesson was done, Valeria examined him thoroughly. He seemed well enough. He was pensive, that was all—most unusual for him.

Something was brewing. Valeria paused with her hand on Sabata’s neck, searching the patterns that shaped the world. There was nothing there, nothing clear. The only word she could find for it was imminence.

Sabata shook his mane and snorted. Humans had to attach words to everything. It was a flaw in their creation.

So it was. Valeria dug fingers into his nape until his neck flattened and his lip wobbled in ecstasy. It was revenge of a sort—reminding him that he, too, in this form, had weaknesses.

He was in no way disconcerted by it. That was the trouble with gods. Nothing human could really touch them.

He nipped her, a sharp and startling pain, and departed at the trot for his stable. She stood gaping after him. In all his fits and fusses, he had never bitten her before.

Who could understand a god? She trudged in his wake, slightly humiliated but beginning in spite of herself to be amused.

“Testing isn’t only for the Called, is it?” Briana asked.

She had survived the day in remarkably good condition, considering. At dinner the riders’ stares had changed. Word was out. They knew who she was.