“We must have some advantages,” said Branwyn, sitting back down and not disguising her sigh of relief. Sitting in bed and reading the books Zelen had brought her had left her restless, especially with her half knowledge of the situation outside, but four turns around the room—one for each of the gods, Altien had said—had left her sweating and sore.
“As a people, yes. You excel at violence, and you’re paradoxically quick to form attachments, both of which can be useful qualities. We did not, you note, construct an Order like yours after the storms.”
“You weren’t facing the kind of attacks we were, from what I heard.”
“That’s true as well, and not a fact many humans have cited—though you’re the first I’ve spoken to about the issue.”
“I spent a month or so working in partnership with another of the waterfolk, out in Kvanla. They’d studied as a mage, and I was hunting an oviannic.”
“The name is unfamiliar to me.”
“They’re a malicious sort of a house spirit, mostly a nuisance until they get enough power. Then potentially very nasty.” Branwyn remembered dozens of eyes in an elongated face and fire hotter than a smith’s forge springing up in a circle around her. “They’re also extremely difficult to track, or to keep in one place long enough to fight or banish, without magic. Anyhow, Vemigira and I spent a fair bit of time together.”
Altiensarn nodded. “That name is also unfamiliar, but my brood was raised far from Kvanla. The sea is much colder there, I hear.”
“Most places are, in my experience.” Branwyn hesitated over the story and then said to the other outsider what she wouldn’t have said to Zelen. “A few of the Adeptas, the Order’s scholars and leaders, used to debate whether Heliodar got off lightly because it was farther south to begin with, and near the ocean, or because Thyran still couldn’t bear to strike his home too hard.”
“I would be very much inclined to believe the former,” said Altiensarn.
“Me too. Practically speaking, the spell never exactly worked as he intended—he got stuck in time before he could build it up and direct it as much as he wanted, or so say witnesses.”
“The general who I hear has come back?”
“Him, and the soul in my friend Darya’s sword.” There was a long and involved story there, one that Branwyn didn’t entirely know was hers to share. Besides, she was trying to keep her mind off of soulswords. She moved on. “From all I’ve heard, Thyran had no reason to feel at all fondly toward the city either. I’d have expected it to be his first target, really, or the most severely hit one, if he’d had things entirely his way.” Branwyn laughed without humor. “I should’ve made that argument to the council while they’d still listen to me.”
“You may yet have their ear,” said Altien, calm as ever. “But I wouldn’t be certain, myself, in your estimation of Thyran.”
“Gods know I’m not overly familiar with the man, and glad about that, but how so?”
“People’s sentimental attachments very rarely obey common sense, in my experience. I have often found it surprising to witness what one can still be fond of, or want to believe, even in the face of hostility.”
* * *
“Thank you for joining me,” said Gedomir, standing up from behind his desk and bowing quickly before waving Zelen to a seat in one of the hard horsehair chairs facing him. “I hope the roads are still adequately maintained. We’ve had workers out, of course, but haven’t been able to properly supervise them this year.”
“The ground’s what it is in winter, but they did a good job,” said Zelen, not wanting to expose the laborers to his brother’s notion of proper supervision.
“Good. Good. Your journey was a pleasant one then?”
“Fairly, thank you.”
There were always more pleasantries here, where Zelen was the visitor. Until a few years before, he’d assumed Gedo was busier in the city. Eventually he’d come to see the truth: a matter of territory and control, points awarded based on who could get their business over with first.
Asking about the reason for his summons would annoy Gedomir, and Zelen needed his goodwill just then. Besides, he had the entire evening, and it wasn’t as though there were more congenial places in the house than the study.
A few changes had taken place in that room: a couple new books stood in the cases against the wall behind Gedomir, their covers catching the yellow magelight with more of a shine than those of the other, more weathered volumes. The portrait of their great-grandfather had been reframed, and the man’s hawklike features peered out from a border of dull gold, ugly but expensive. The heavy curtains were the same, and so were the dark desk and chairs, but while the bookcases themselves hadn’t changed, the shadow one of them cast was subtly different.
“Has the council discussed the succession?” Gedomir asked.
“Not in any useful way,” said Zelen, “or I would’ve written.”
“You’ve had a great deal on your mind lately.”
“Nonetheless.” He let the point go. “The obvious heir is Kolovat.”
Var, said a voice: high, female, and familiar, though Zelen couldn’t for the life of him have said who it was. He blinked and glanced behind him.
Nobody was there. That, after a second, was no real shock. The voice hadn’t sounded like it came from anywhere in the study.
