Splinters

Home	Caged Bird Sings	The Mall and the Void	Splinters	The City on Fire	Beware of Abstractions

Splinters
by Elisabeth Cohen

      In the last hour before the confirmation ceremony, Vircidia retired to her chamber to make the final preparations in privacy. She made graceful excuses to the hovering tutor assigned to coach her on her lines, dismissed the chattering servant girls who would have followed her even into her bedroom, and indulged in a soundless sigh of relief as she drew the bolt against the throng.
      Even after five years, her room at the citadel seemed small and barren. Vircidia knew that she yet reaped some small benefit from family connections-private bedrooms were very rare among the low-ranking priests and priestesses. It was even possible that the clergy sought to honor her in her own right, the crown princess who had broken with all precedent by laying down her claim to the throne in order to enter the service of the Goddess, and then broken it again when she announced that her particular calling to the Goddess required her to forfeit all use of magic. Her lips curled in a sneer. Doubtless they thought her grateful for the scraps they threw her, just as they assumed she would feel gratified at the chance to serve as the officiating priestess in the ceremony confirming her younger sister as Heir to the throne that should have been hers. Well, she had worked hard enough to convince them of the sincerity of her calling and her appreciation of their kindnesses-her mother had been quite explicit about what would happen to her if ever she failed to be thoroughly convincing in the role that had been so secretly forced upon her.
      She slipped the formal gown over her head and began fumbling at the complicated fastenings. The feel of rich silk against her skin was long remembered, but when she had worn such clothes she had not been accustomed to dressing herself. She remembered enjoying the sight of the dozens of tiny clasps flowing together as some lady-in-waiting or other performed the simple metalweave, but even the memory of such small childhood joys had long since shriveled to a dull bitterness.
      For everything circled back, inexorably, to the magic. Elemental magic was the pride and glory of the royal house, the basis of their claim to supremacy and the keystone of their power. They searched for it, raising the rare commoner who manifested into the pathways of power at court or in the church. They bred for it, marrying their scions only to other practitioners so that the power would run true into the next generation. Such power should have been Vircidia's birthright, along with the throne. But she had failed to manifest in her twelfth year, and by her thirteenth birthday she remained incapable of the magic required for the heir at confirmation. The tension finally came to a head late one night, when the Prince-consort came himself to wake her from her sleep and lead her, still yawning but ready-as she believed-to assail any threat to the Queendom, into the private council chamber. Behind the silence of its woodwoven door the usually biddable Prince-Consort had turned on his wife in a snarling rage, and the indomitable Queen had bowed her head, for once bereft of reply. And then the mother who had pushed her, driven her, molded her to the succession from her earliest childhood had informed her that she was to be sacrificed to the church so that the Queen could save herself from public scandal and appease her embittered husband. The hope of the queendom was to be transferred to Crystalia, five years her junior. And Vircidia had escaped-barely-with her life, packed off into this small bare room and the small petty ceremonies that filled the days of a non-magical priestess, while simpering Crystalia labored to learn the ways of a governance that suited neither her abilities nor her temperament.
      Vircidia finished with all the tedious clasps on her dress and slipped the single remaining gold snake armlet onto her right arm. Glancing quickly at the door, she reached quickly under the buttoned flap of the thin mattress and pulled a mirroring armlet out through the feathers. As she slid it over her left arm, savoring the flow of the illegal Coercive Magic through her veins, Vircidia found herself grinning. For all that she loathed Crystalia, her mother, and the royal establishment, Vircidia was pleased to have been permitted to attend Crystalia's confirmation ceremony. She had been angling for that position for almost six months, subtly. Not, as the priests believed, for the pleasure of seeing her family again, nor (as the more cynical doubtless speculated) for the honor of the prestigious assignment. It would provide the long-awaited opportunity for revenge.
      A familiar knock at the door jolted Vircidia out of the moment. She went quickly to the door and unbolted it to let Kalon in, relocking it behind him. She felt the tight muscles of her face relax in response to his smile.
      "I know I can't stay long, but I wanted to see you before you left," he explained.
      She smiled up at him. "Thank you for coming, love."
      He studied her face, and his own became more serious. "You look tense, sweetheart. What is it?" He took her hand. "It must be the ceremony. Vircidia-" He hesitated, searching for the right words. "I know how hard it will be for you to see your family again. But I'm sure you'll come through it all right. You are the strongest woman I know. You'll do yourself proud." She held out her arms to him wordlessly, and he held her. Kalon believed in her. He was the only good thing that had ever happened to her, the person who had taught her to love and trust again. His faith in her sustained her-and it was also the reason he must never know what she planned. It hurt her so to withhold anything from him that she had risked conveying to him something of her personal grief, although she didn't dare expose the grievances underlying her bitterness. But his own heart was so free of anger that he would never be able to understand why she must do as she did.
      Her arms involuntarily tightened around him. After tonight, Goddess willing, a part of the need to deceive him would end.

***

      The moon was high outside as Vircidia made her way through the palace in the company of Archbishop Pyrion and the half-dozen initiates chosen to escort them. She glanced involuntarily around at the halls and chambers they passed, suppressing the nostalgia and anguish evoked by the familiar contours. The palace of the Rokeli queens was a unique structure, crafted by the Elemental sorcerers from living trees that formed themselves into the implausible shapes their human associates had willed. Elemental magic, founded as it was upon communion with elemental essences, was especially attuned to plants.
      As they approached the chapel, Archbishop Pyrion turned to her, tenting his fingers in his characteristic anxious gesture. "Are you ready?"
      She fought down the mounting terror and exhilaration and smiled, nodding reassuringly. He was a good man, if his unceasing pedantry and compulsive attention to detail frequently grated. He had been kind to her as a young initiate and, with pardonable absurdity, considered himself a mentor to her. She intended to spare him tonight, although that mercy was mostly for Kalon's sake. Pyrion's mentorship of Kalon was very real, as was his affection for the old man.
      "Here we are. Good luck, Vircidia."
      "Thank you."
      She drew herself up to her most dignified posture and followed Pyrion into the innermost sanctum of the royal family. The confirmation chamber was not a throne room for grand public audiences-such an elaborate receiving room existed, of course, but it had been built at the front of the palace with high square windows that overlooked the city. The throne room was lavishly appointed with carved marble and inlaid mahogany, a room that advertised the power of Rokel and the majesty of its rulers for all the world to see. But the chapel was something altogether different. Situated in the precise center of the palace, it had no windows at all. It was instead warmed and lighted by the gentle glow of a thousand candles, set with the utmost care into their wooden niches in the walls and the spartan chandeliers that hung from the low ceiling. An infinitesimal flick of the eyes reassured her that those metal chandeliers were still woven into the wooden ceiling as she had remembered. Head held high in an attitude of serene assurance, Vircidia paced the distance from the door to her assigned position, circling the large raised platform at the center of the room and raising her skirts delicately as she passed the aisle in the pews that radiated out from it. One of the chandeliers was positioned directly above the center of the platform. She settled finally in her place atop the smaller platform at the point of the teardrop and came gravely to attention, gazing calmly out at the assembled House Rokel as her entourage swept into place around her platform's base. She ordered their ranks silently in her mind, uncles and aunts and cousins all, and wondered if any of them had even recognized the child they had once teased and cosseted in the red-gowned priestess. It wasn't a fair question, she knew; their memories, if they ever bothered to remember her after so many years, would have been of a girl who wore her emotions on her face even when she believed herself subtle, a girl who wore confidence as cleanly and unconsciously as did her mother, a child more likely to laugh out loud than to seethe in silence. The assembled throng before her had hardly changed in five years, although the absence of her-of the prince consort, that is, was more of a jolt than she'd expected. She had hated him at first, of course, but the hate had drained away over the years as she had come to accept that the Queen had shaped him to his powerless rage as much as she had shaped Vircidia herself to hers. He had been a generous man if a quiet one, and he had borne life in the shadow of his heedless queen with a calm dignity save only for that one night in the council room when his single act of rebellion had shattered her life. Her hatred of him had been the childish response of someone who did not yet understand the sort of slow-simmering, soul-engulfing fury that could drive a man or woman to strike out at a tormentor even knowing the cost in innocent lives. She watched her kin as they seated themselves in the pews, chatting quietly amongst themselves and awaiting the entrance of the queen and her heir, and she felt the momentary thrust of a deep sorrow. Yes, she understood that fury well enough now.
      The chapel door opened.

***

      The door opened to admit the Queen and Heir precisely as the bells of the Cathedral began chiming the second hour of night, Pyrion noted with satisfaction. This effect had been carefully considered, thirty years ago during the planning stages of Queen Kyriana's confirmation. In fact, it had been he, still a young prelate armed with nothing but his own quick wits and memory for details others considered trivial, who had persuaded old Bishop Tias that no fanfare could be more ideally suited to announce the arrival of a future Goddess Anointed than the glorious yet unassuming sound of the Goddess's own bells.
      That had indeed been many years ago, and in the intervening years Pyrion had demonstrated time and again, to the satisfaction not only of the easygoing Tias but also that of many more critical observers, that his ability to integrate minutiae and the broader concerns of the servants of the Goddess surpassed mere competence and courted not infrequently the gates of genuine inspiration. His responsibilities had increased accordingly, and his rank too, albeit after the general manner of things more slowly, until finally he had ascended in his middle age to a position in which no affair of the Church, however lofty or mundane, was beyond his oversight. Which meant working late, of course, spending hours pouring over everything from Cathedral Larder accounts and novice disciplinary files to the latest theological treatises and analyses of the continual border skirmishes with the mongrel heretics to the north. But for all that he had grown far beyond that earnest young prelate, Pyrion could not deny a certain twinge of gratification at having come full circle to observe the confirmation proceedings of Kyriana's young daughter, this time as the ecclesiastical overseer. And the bells framed the moment every bit as gracefully as his younger self had claimed.
      Pyrion studied first the queen and then her younger daughter as they passed through the aisle and mounted the central platform. The Queen he had come to know well over the years; today she was projecting an aura of self-confidence that probably fooled everyone in the room but him. His eyes strayed with more curiosity on the girl. Crystalia of Rokel was a slight, fair-haired young woman who followed her mother with her chin lifted in a graceful dignity and her gaze fixed on some point ahead of her. Her lips were slightly parted, Pyrion observed, in an attitude that reminded him strongly of a novice entering the Cathedral for the first time and trying not to look daunted. Kyriana hadn't been so overwhelmed at her confirmation, and Pyrion was quite certain that Vircidia wouldn't have been either. But then Crystalia had always taken more after poor Aebbar, while Vircidia was in most important respects Kyriana's child. Crystalia's tutors reported that although she did not lack for intelligence her poor stamina was a continuing issue. The crown is a heavy burden. Are you sure you can carry it, girl?,
      He wished, not for the first time, that Vircidia hadn't been so obstinate about going into the church. He loved the goddess as much as anyone and more than most, but as She was his witness, surely such passion and energy should have better remained at the throne where they were most needed. But Vircidia was, if possible, even more determined than Kyriana when she made up her mind, and if the queen had failed to talk her out of her vocation, no one could. He was very glad not to have been there when Vircidia had advised her mother of the decision, although the weariness and anguish that had haunted the Queen's face for weeks afterward told as clear a tale as he'd ever seen of how badly she'd taken losing an argument and the heir to her throne at the same time.
      Crystalia ascended the platform, and the muted whispers of the assembled audience died away as she raised her arms high. She might still look anxious, but Pyrion had to admit she made an impressive picture with solemn eyes wide and golden hair haloed in the candlelight. She turned her face upward with dignity and pride, and Pyrion let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. Confidence might well come to Crystalia with time-the queen was not yet old-but such a gracious presence bade fair to anchor a royal persona, assuming a solid intelligence lay behind it.
      Princess Crystalia took a deep breath, and the captivated audience breathed with her, and began the age-old ritual woodweave that confirmed the Heir to the throne of Rokel. A pale greenish light enfolded her and stretched slender tendrils towards the living wood of the ceiling above her. As the light penetrated the wood, purple flowers began to unfold out of the carved wood, twining themselves delicately into a circlet suspended about 20 spans above her head.
      Slowly, majestically, she lowered her arms, and the streams of light binding them and the Crown of Blossoms faded, although the crown continued glowing green. The spectators' faces reflected their appreciation of such substantial mastery in one so young. Pyrion found himself contending with an almost childish glee. He had seen the weave that would follow a bare handful of times, for its technique was a secret known only to the Queen of the Realm and her designated heir. Any Elemental Magician knew that maintaining rapport in a weave without outreaching was truly difficult-and that maintaining that rapport while yielding up eye-contact was impossible for everyone but the Goddess's anointed. Finish it, Your Highness. Show them the strength of the line that bore you.
      Almost trembling, the Heir knelt before her mother and slowly bowed her head to the floor. The green light remained surrounding the crown, which began, slowly and rather tentatively, to descend on its green vines towards the lowered golden head.
      For a moment the crown seemed to falter on its downward path, and then everything seemed to happen at once. There was a loud bang and the crown began flowing downwards at improbable speed towards Crystalia's head. No, the whole carved center of the wooden ceiling was following the green tendrils down, rushing down, crushing down, and the candles flickered in their wall sockets and then the walls were tumbling too, tumbling them all into darkness. And there was screaming, and for a split second Pyrion saw the queen's face staring with open-mouthed horror towards him as he stood transfixed at the clerical platform, and then the darkness crashed down upon her too. A thick shard of wood flew into his leg and he fell to the ground. He later could not remember how long he lay there writhing in agony, all his effort bent towards clinging to consciousness, but when he had finally mastered himself and pulled himself trembling to his knees it was all over. By some miracle, the corner of the confirmation chamber reserved to the clergy had held fast, the ceiling sloped steeply downward from that corner until it joined the floor scarcely five spans from where he knelt. Blinking back tears of shock and pain, he tried desperately to cling to some shred of rational thought. He remembered the ceiling coming down-it must have collapsed, and the weight of the entire palace atop it. Was there any chance that anyone on the other side of the collapsed ceiling could survive that? Even as he wondered, he saw a flash of red out of the corner of his eye and a woman's face looking down at him. It was not Kyriana, as his confused mind tried at first to believe, but Vircidia. Her eyes were dilated but her voice was steady.
      "Archbishop, can you hear me?"
      He nodded.
      "Good. Raise the roof and hold it. We have to get out of here before the rest of the palace collapses."
      Her outstretched hand swam into vision, and he reached through the layers of fog to grasp it. She helped him wordlessly to his feet, gave him a firm, fierce nod, and went to kneel by another prostrate form.
      He reached out a tentative tendril of will towards the great tree. Even beneath the waves of shock still radiating from the shattered wood, the serenity of its essence was fathomless. The tree centered him, restored him the presence of mind he needed. He wove, and green branches emerged from the shattered ceiling, pushing it slowly upwards as they pressed down into the floor. The slender green stalks were too fragile to hold such weight independently, but they would keep rising as long as he could hold it.
      Vircidia reappeared by his side, driving a half-dozen priestesses before her. As the space between the roof and floor grew wider, they began shoving forward through the crashed benches towards the door. Vircidia cast a sharp glance back at him as he stood motionless, rapt in his weaving, and shouldered her way back through the priestesses to scoop him up in her arms and follow. As they ploughed through the smashed, blood-smeared bodies of her kin, through the stench of blood, Pyrion fixed his eyes as well as he could upon the wood above him and clung to its life-giving essence with all his strength. As for Vircidia, her arms never trembled, and her feet faltered only once, as they passed the dais. One of the bodies sprawled upon it was crushed almost beyond recognition, blood all but obscuring the pure gold of its hair. As for the other- the chandelier that had impaled Kyriana had, by some chance, buffered her face against the falling chamber. It stared back at him, unseeing eyes bulging and mouth contorted into an expression of helpless rage. Vircidia laid him down, and gently closed the eyes. He glanced at Vircidia's face as she picked him up again, and the expression of indrawn anguish that flickered across her smooth features wrenched his heart. I have lost a queen, but she has lost queen and mother at once. And yet she's carrying me. The structure over them quivered under the strain of his concentration. The tree. No time for sorrow now. There is only the tree. He was dizzy again by the time they reached the door and began jolting through the arched hallways of the castle.
      The cold sweet air hit him like a shock, and Vircidia turned him to face the palace so that he wouldn't lose the rapport as priests and priestesses spilled out behind him. Vircidia laid him down on the grass and sent young Dairo running to the Cathedral.
      This was followed by interminable minutes of waiting for relief. Above Pyrion the white moon was setting gently over the star-speckled sky, and the wind on his face was soft. The despair that welled up within him as he gazed fixedly at the palace threatened to overwhelm even the quiet support of the wood. Before his blurring vision, he saw Kyriana screaming, and then her dead face staring back at him from the platform. He saw the girl again as she mounted the platform, and the fear he'd seen in her face churned in his stomach. No, he couldn't have known. There was a world of difference between seeing that she was nervous and predicting that she would fail the promise of blood and birthright. And now the Queen and her Heir apparent and all their kin were dead of it. So this is how it feels, the detatched observer in the back of his head whispered hoarsely, when the world drops away beneath your feet. Service to the Queen and her councils had always been his best, his purest offering to the Goddess. Gone. All gone, now.
      His vision was darkening, his breath coming in ragged gasps, and the palace visibly tottering by the time the robed figures began running across the grass towards them. He felt other wills merging with the Great Tree, sustaining the branches he had grown and fortifying them. It was a relief to release his hold on the palace, but the bleakness that flooded in to replace the calm of the wood staggered him. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Vircidia collapse finally into Kalon's arms, weeping spasmodically. Hope flickered in the depths of his despair. Whatever her sister did, the blood of Queens runs true in Vircidia, at least. If the Goddess wills, we may yet be able to rebuild what has been lost today.

      As consciousness slid away from him, Pyrion heard, as though from a great distance, the sound of bells ringing the third hour of the night.

***

      The first red glow of sunrise touched the lowest towers of the Cathedral as Vircidia finally dropped off to sleep. Her breath, ragged from crying, slowed and steadied, and the tense lines of her face, made even deeper by the nightmarish events of the evening, eased until only a vestigial flicker remained.
      Kalon had always thought Vircidia was at her most beautiful as she slept. All the pain and the rage and the rigid self-control were wiped from her face as though the Goddess had laid a merciful finger upon her tormented soul and restored to it the peace that She had originally intended. Gently, so as not to wake her, he ran his fingers through her rich dark hair, brushing a stray wisp out of her face. Looking at that face, so calm in repose, it was almost possible to forget that their world had changed. In just a few hours, Vircidia would be crowned Queen. Your devotion to the Goddess has always been commendable, Pyrion had said, but I think the Goddess demands a different service from you now. You must take up the mantle of magic and crown-there is none other who can bear it in your place. She had bowed her head in acceptance of that truth, and then turned to him and asked him the question he had hoped for and feared.
      She would be Queen, and she would need an Heir. The urgency of the matter was magnified even above the normal necessity of rulers to breed by the catastrophe that had just wiped out the rest of the Blood Royal and thus any back-up inheritors. And in order to breed heirs, it was necessary that she marry.
      She was his love, and he had hoped to marry her one day, but priests were forbidden by law to marry outside the clergy; if he married her, he would have to turn his back on the clerical life he had grown to love. Moreover, she needed a Prince Consort who could rule at her side, who could ride beside her into battle and promote her interests at court. Vircidia had been trained in these skills from early childhood, and she was a ruler born and bred besides. He had no training, and he was a scholar by training and disposition. If he gave up his quiet life among his books and followed her to the Palace, could he be for her what she needed?
      She had looked into his eyes, and he had remembered what she'd said when he found her on the grass before the ruined castle. It's like a chasm, she had whispered hoarsely, and it's waiting to consume me. Don't let it get me. He'd understood. War and diplomacy were only part of what Vircidia would need in a consort. You are the strongest woman I know, he'd told her that evening, what seemed like a lifetime ago, and he'd spoken truly, but she was also the most fragile. Anguish was coiled deep into her spirit like a slow poison that tormented her waking and sleeping, and she needed someone who understood that, someone who could soothe her when she cried out in her sleep and talk reason into her when she raged. Nobody could survive, let alone rule effectively, while such a gnawing from within went unchecked. He understood that he provided that stabilizing force in her life, and he loved her with all his heart. He'd looked into her eyes and told her that he would be honored.
      He knew, although she would never speak of it, that it was a trouble with her parents that lay at the center of the anguish, and he daily cursed them for whatever they'd done to their child, this bright, brilliant, beautiful woman, to turn her in on herself with such bitterness. Her mother had died tonight, along with the little sister who'd been only eight the last time Vircidia had seen her. Vircidia had probably even seen that happen. He thought that that must have been why there had been such a strangeness in her as she wept, for those few seconds on the castle lawn and then for hours later in bed as he held her. The plague had carried off his own mother when he was a child, and he�d been devastated, but his grief had been clean, fully justified in his own mind and untainted by bitterness. She had wept, he thought, not only for the loss of her mother but because she had never really had her to begin with. She'd wept because she could not accept her sorrow, because she felt guilty for having hated her mother and felt at the same time ashamed of that guilt. He couldn't remember having felt more helpless.

      Vircidia's breathing changed, and her eyes opened and focused. He managed not to clench his teeth in frustration as all the pain and guilt and fear and rage flooded her face. He had lots of practice.
      "Kalon, I need you to do something for me."
      "Anything."
      Her eyes met his urgently. "The coronation has to be today. Pyrion said so and he was right. The people need to be shown that the line is strong, that the future has hope."
      "And-?"
      "Kalon, I haven't done any magic in six years. I went into the church only a few months after I manifested. I have no doubt that I can get it all back, but it's going to take time. I didn't completely master it in the first place, and right now it's like an ingrained taboo. And in five hours I'm going to have to stand in the great square in front of the entire city and use it."
      "It's a pretty simple weave," he offered. "Just a woodweave, and they're the easiest."
      She shuddered. "I know that. The point is, it's magic. My sister," she almost spat the word, "just destroyed the palace and killed the entire House Royal by foiling a weave. Can you imagine how much confidence will be shaken if I do it wrong?"
      "I can watch you practice if you'd like. You can do it, Vircidia. Since there's no other choice, you'll find a way. You always do."
      "But there is another way, if you'll help me." She rushed on. "Look. If we marry before the ceremony, you'd be my consort. The ceremony calls for the Queen to make the flowers on the Queening Tree blossom while her consort woodweaves behind her. I suppose the intent must originally have been to verify that the consort is also capable of perpetuating the Blood Royal. But supposing I woodweave and reach out to the tree and you make the tree blossom by a contactless weave? It would look the same, and there would be no chance of my messing up."
      "But-that would be falsifying the ceremony. It's a contract with your people we're talking about. Isn't it important that it be a genuine one?"
      "Listen to me. The relationship a Queen has to her people has to be more than just ceremonial. A coronation is just a spectacle, and the Queen owes it to her people to make it a convincing one. Right now the people are frightened. They are lost. They need a symbol of strength."
      "But a false symbol?"
      "It's not a true symbol in the first place! Why should the ability to make a tree blossom have anything to do with ability to rule a country? House Rokel has been propagating the idea of magic as the signifier of the divine right of Queens for generations, but that doesn't make it any more than self-serving propaganda. I'm not saying they don't believe it-the Goddess knows they believe it through and through, but that doesn't make them right! Even if magic were good for much-and you know it isn't, really-there's no reason to believe that the Queen herself needs to have it, instead of her courtiers or her generals. Kalon, we've been over this, and you agree with me!"
      He chewed on his lip. Everything she said was true, but still-
      "Let's go talk to Pyrion, then. If he agrees I'll do it."
      She sighed. "I know you trust Pyrion, and I know you respect him. But he's the last person I'd want to tell about this. Pyrion is wise, and he's loyal, but he's also an old man and set in his ways. He's served the crown for most of his life, and he really believes that the ceremonies matter. I think what happened yesterday shook his faith in the way the world works to its core. A scion of the House Royal wreaking havoc with her powers because she lost her nerve? He was smitten. How do you think he'd react if he thought there were a problem with my magic? He probably believes that old myth that children of House Rokel manifest with all the finer points of elemental weaving fully ingrained. I'm going to need him desperately in the next few months, and I'm going to need him focused and confident. We can't tell Pyrion."
      Her voice softened, and an edge of pain crept in. "I'm sorry, love. I would not lay this upon you if I thought it could be responsibly avoided. If you won't do it, I can't make you. All I can say is, you didn't see my weakling sister yesterday. If you had been doing that weave, fifty people who died last night would still be alive. I think the greater good is clear."
      The greater good. Queens had to place the greater good at a premium, above personal integrity, above the irrational prick of conscience that said a thing was right or wrong. It happened that a strict cultivation of the conscience, of seeking purity in one's life and all of one's actions, was a central tenant of the approach his service to the Church had inculcated within him.
      Of course, he'd never really had a chance to make a real difference in the greater good before. And now Vircidia was offering him a life as a Prince Consort of the realm, a life where he might put his talents-if such they could be called-at the service of the people. In a way, it was like a child's fantasy of saving the world, that secret yearning he had laid aside in practical acknowledgement of what was possible. If the realization of such a bright dream came at the cost of his innocence, well-he had always believed that heroism requires sacrifice, even if this wasn't how he'd pictured that sacrifice. He nodded.
      "I'll do it."
      Her eyes closed momentarily, and her breath blew out. "Thank you."
      He let out his breath shakily. "I guess maybe I'll do all right as a Prince Consort after all."
      She smiled. "I never doubted it. Let it never be said that you are not brave as well as noble." She kissed him suddenly and fiercely. "My dearest love, you redeem my faith. Thank you."
      The sun was over the highest tower as they got up and began dressing in the fancy clothes they'd been given last night for the ceremony. Probably Pyrion was still asleep in his room at the top of that tower, dreaming the dreams of the righteous. Kalon surveyed himself in the mirror and splashed water from the basin on his lined face. He watched Vircidia struggling with her clasps, and reached out to metalweave them together. She laughed, flinging her arms around his neck as he drew her close.

***

      The afternoon sun beat down swelteringly upon the crowded central square, and Pyrion wished for the tenth time that he'd listened to Talys when she'd advised he bring a cushioned chair to the coronation ceremony. You don't understand, he'd airily overruled her sound medical advice, the people need to see its leaders as strong after last night. We need to keep the sickroom out of the coronation. His wife had rolled her eyes skyward. You and your politics, she'd sighed. Well, stand through it, then-I can see there's no use trying to convince you to see sense-but when your leg starts throbbing through the bandages I hope you'll remember I warned you. His lips twitched, and he barely managed to convert the wry grin to an attentive smile. It was just like Talys to be right about something like this.
      Whether from the effort of standing still when his leg felt ready to explode, the sun, or the fever even Talys' herbs hadn't been able to bring down completely, he seemed unable to focus on the ceremony. His mind kept wandering back to the euphoric glow he'd seen reflected in the faces of his two proteges that morning as they were married, and the ritual unfolding before him seemed flat by comparison. He wearily trained his eyes back upon it anyway, reminding himself sternly that under any other circumstances the coronation of a Queen would have excited the keenest interest.
      A green glow surrounded Vircidia, and a tendril reached out towards the branches of the thick crowning tree beside her. As if in answer, a glow surrounded Kalon. As Vircidia's tendril lost itself in the leafy boughs, red flowers folded out from their buds and began blossoming exuberantly. He had never seen Vircidia weave before, he realized. Her touch was defter by far than her sister's had been last night, and much lighter than he would have expected from Kyriana's daughter. Aebbar's influence, perhaps, or Kalon's, although of course Kalon couldn't have had any direct hand in training her until this morning.
      He felt the audience let out its collective breath and begin slowly making preparations to depart. It was over, thank the Goddess. He headed towards the new Queen and Consort, but the pounding in his leg made him draw up short. He mentally cursed all the splinters that had lodged there last night when Crystalia's fumbling woodweave had brought the darkness down. Suddenly the world seemed to lurch beneath his feet.
      Splinters. Splinters come about when wood is forced to bend against its grain, against the Will of the branch.
      The central tenet of Elemental magic is communion of human with elemental essences, and any output is caused of the combined Will of both.
      Which means that splinters ought never, ever occur in Elemental Magic. It shouldn't be possible. The splinters in his leg, and the destruction of the palace, could not have been caused by Crystalia's weave.
      Could it have been an ambush, a secret attack from the heretics in the North who practiced a magic of coercion? Had they sought to infiltrate one of their own into the palace just as the royal family of their enemies assembled there, and cast a black sorcery to wipe them all out at once?
      No, that didn't make sense either. The elemental essence of wood is holy and resists compulsion, dealing back a terrible fate to the one who would dare to coerce it.
      And yet he had seen the castle collapse, seen the wood tumbling down upon the princess and her mother and their kin. The ceiling had fallen from the center outward as though dragged down by the weight of the flower crown. It had to be magic, but it was something new, a deed that should not have been possible either for elemental or coercive sorcerers.
      It was hardly likely that princess Crystalia, a novice for all her royal blood, had unwittingly stumbled upon this new power. Much easier to believe that somewhere across the Northern border, where Elemental and Coercive magicians dwelt and studied their craft together, some great practitioner of the dark arts had discovered this new technique that would subvert the Will of wood, and brought it as a trophy to his king. Pyrion had no doubt that King Aeryal, by all accounts a shrewd man, would have known just what to do with this secret weapon. They might have been waiting for years for just the right moment to strike, to bring Rokel and its House Royal to their knees.
      But they had failed. Vircidia was still alive, and smoothly assuming the mantle of leadership. Somebody out there must be cursing the clumsy stroke that spared her. Somebody would surely not hesitate at taking another shot.
      He tottered dizzily towards the center of the square, where Vircidia and Kalon were still accepting congratulations, and managed to tug urgently at the sleeve of Kalon's shirt. As the young man turned, he gestured him urgently away from the crowd. Kalon looked flushed and nervous.
      "Pyrion, can't this wait?"
      "No, you have to listen to me now. I think Vircidia is in danger."
      The color rolled out of Kalon's face, and his eyes sharpened. "Go on."
      "Listen. The magic that brought down the castle last night was coercive, not elemental. It couldn't have been Crystalia-it was someone who wanted to destroy her, and the Queen, and the whole House Royal. We've got to keep Vircidia safe, or-"
      His leg gave out, and Kalon barely caught him before he fell. Kalon's voice seemed very distant.
      "By the Goddess, you're about ready to keel over. Just sit there and I'll fetch a doctor." He set Pyrion down.
      "But Vircidia!"
      Kalon leaned over him. "Thank you for the warning. I'll see to Vircidia. Now just stay there." He turned on his heel and strode away.

***

      The interminable afternoon ceremonies and unbearable evening festivities were finally over, and he was alone at last in the rooms that had been hastily assigned him. The huge suite was lit by a profusion of candles, and the very air seemed to shimmer and swelter beneath their heat. He wished there were a window somewhere-it would have been a comfort to see the sky. Where you could see the sky, his father had told him once, it didn't matter where you were, because the sky was the same everywhere. But there wasn't a window, so he stretched out on the tapestried couch and buried his head in his hands.

      It was just an idea, a crazy, paranoid idea that had blossomed so searingly in his head as Pyrion warned him to guard Vircidia. What was it Pyrion had said? It was someone who wanted to destroy Crystalia and the Queen, and the whole House Royal. He had had it on his tongue to answer: A subtle sabotage if so. What enemy of the House Royal understands it so deeply that he knows how to strike with such precision at the heart of its most intimate ceremony? But he hadn't said it, because having framed the question he instantly knew the answer. Vircidia.

      Vircidia, who had been raised in the bosom of the royal family, raised to be a Queen. Who had left her home-everybody knew the story-and gone into the clergy even though it was obvious to everyone that she was a born ruler. She had gone into the church, so it was said, because she had received a vision from the Goddess that she should do so. In all the years he had known her, she had never been willing to discuss this decision or elaborate upon it. But he did know that she hated the Cathedral and the clerical life. Her piety was an external thing, projected for the world to see and unceremoniously dropped on the rare occasions she let down her guard. She was, he had always suspected, far too much of a pragmatist to believe in visions. He had even wondered at times if she was too much of one to believe in the Goddess at all. He had long ago decided that the church held nothing for Vircidia in itself-that its true function in her life was a refuge from her family.
      Vircidia, who hated her family-and her mother and sister above all-with a burning passion. Her sister because she was a fool, unworthy of the crown Vircidia had formally renounced. Her mother because she had betrayed Vircidia so deeply that she was forced to give up her birthright in order to flee her. And the royal family-he thought she hated the Royal family most because of its fixation upon magic.
      Vircidia, who had made the wholly unprecedented choice to forswear all use of magic when she renounced her throne and entered the church. He was probably the only person who knew how much magic had tormented her, how she had enlisted his help sneaking into the library in the middle of the night to pour over books about it in secret. Sometimes the books she read wandered disturbingly far from orthodox teachings on the subject. He had even seen her read books that skirted heresy with their descriptions of coercive magic, how it was practiced, how it could mimic many of the effects of elemental magic, how the power to use it rested within the grasp of most of the mongrel children born from the union of magical and non-magical stock. He would have credited her unhesitatingly with an academic understanding of coercive magic. And today, she had persuaded him to forge a woodweave, the one thing a coercive magician absolutely can't duplicate.

      Suppose, then, some secret impurity of blood had rendered Vircidia unable to perform elemental magic. The family would have cast her out, never mind her abilities, preventing their secret from becoming public by providing a cover story that would explain why she never, ever, used magic. Vircidia would hate them for it, her mother most of all because her mother could have vetoed the decision. She would want to recover the crown that had been denied her. So many mysteries, all explained at once. He was almost surprised that he had not thought of it before.
      But could she have-would she have turned that hatred to bloody vengeance? He thought of the tension that had gripped her in the weeks before the ceremony, far exceeding what might be expected from anxiety about reciting a few prayers. The increase of late night trips to the library, and the time when he'd been unable to find her for hours. And the strangeness afterwards, the way she wept as though the sobs were being dragged from her throat like snakes. It's like a chasm, she had told him on the lawn before the ruined palace, and it's waiting to consume me.
      He thought again about the abstract genius of the plot. It would have involved careful calculation about the structural weaknesses of the chamber, exactly where and how to bring it crashing down. It would have involved an exact knowledge of the ceremony, to know how to destroy the room and make it look as though the Heir had done it herself. And it would have involved a profound grasp of what magic meant to the royal family, how it defined them not only to their people but to themselves. It was staggeringly elegant. Vircidia was the most elegant problem-solver he had ever known. Did she possess the sheer brilliance necessary to conceive of such a plan and execute it? Assuredly. But did she possess the ruthless monomania? The madness?
      He knew-he had known it for years-about the rage that boiled deep in her soul. It had always worried him, but he had always hoped that it might dissipate in time. She smiled for him-she even laughed, and she said she'd thought she would never laugh again. In his arms she slept peacefully through the night. He'd seen madness in her eyes, but when she looked at him it flickered and died, and only she remained. He had thrilled to see the tension leave her face, and he had hoped-he had sometimes even believed-that one day it would depart and never return. He had loved her so much, and been so proud that he could make her happy.
      He had blinded himself to what was plainly visible. Although the rage might bank, it could never be banished entirely. He had opened up his heart and soul to her, and she had been systematically deceiving him, by word, deed, and omission. He loved her, and he could not bring himself to believe that she had lied when she said she loved him, but there were some things even love couldn't mend.
      Was it just suspicion? His evidence was only circumstantial, after all, but the more he thought about it, the less he doubted. The plot had Vircidia written all over it, in so many ways, all the parts of her he had seen and tried to convince himself didn't really matter. He was married to a madwoman, a murderess.
      Which meant he was very probably a dead man, if she ever found out that he knew. She had just murdered fifty people to take back her crown-what chance that she would spare the life of one who might threaten that crown, even if she did love him? Could he possibly hide it from her, when he had never kept a secret from her before? And even supposing, against all odds, he found that he could, would he be willing to go on living that lie for the rest of his life? Was there any chance that if he told her and swore by all he held sacred to keep her secret, she would let him go alive, to retire to some small country parish with his books? Perhaps she would permit it, and he could live out the rest of his natural life in solitude, trying to forget the unearthly beauty of the light in her eyes, the exquisite brilliance of her mind, the touch of her skin and the lilt of her voice. Better that than to live out his life in torment of conscience, close to her and shrinking from her, loving her and lying to her with every breath.
      Conscience. Would his conscience really be content, in that rural backwoods, knowing that the absolute ruler of the realm was a psychopath, and that he was the only one who knew? He was a Prince of the realm now, and his responsibility went beyond himself and his private conscience. How safe was Rokel in the hands of such a queen? Didn't he owe it to his people to expose her, unseat her and see her replaced with someone sane? He owed it to her not to abandon her in a position where she could do so much harm to the people she sought to serve.
      So suppose instead he told Pyrion what he suspected. Pyrion probably had enough power to see her unseated, perhaps quietly packed away somewhere with guards to make sure she would never trouble the realm again. Was that the right thing to do? He remembered what Vircidia had said that morning. If it had shaken Pyrion so profoundly to believe that a royal Princess could destroy the palace by accident, knowing the truth would destroy him. He shook that thought away. Beside the good of the realm, even Pyrion was expendable.
      He shuddered. What then? Everything would come out, of course, the incapacity to practice elemental magic, the years of deception, the heresy. It would be a nightmare at best. The people would be horrified, the stability of the nation truly shaken. And Vircidia herself would be absolutely debased. I think she would rather die. And at worst, if Pyrion didn't act quickly enough, there would almost certainly be a civil war. Leaving her in power was unthinkable, but there was no guarantee that exposing her wouldn't be just as bad, for Rokel and for both of them.
      He had never been good at thinking his way out of holes, and this hole was opening wider and wider before him, dark and fathomless. He had always looked to Vircidia to find solutions to the tangled questions-she was the quick one, the strong one, the one who could find the one way out of the labyrinth and hold her course against all odds. The question was painfully absurd, but it was nevertheless the right question to ask: What would Vircidia do?
      The answer came quickly, like a shaft of cold steel. Kill her. Kill her yourself, quickly and cleanly and quietly. Nobody would have to know why she died. They'd call it assassins, and they would find a new leader and rally behind him. They would grieve, but Rokel would survive it and move on.
      He saw her face then, in the darkness behind his closed eyes. He saw her laughing, eyes shining. He saw her buried deep in a book, brows furrowed in fierce concentration. He saw her standing at the window, lips pressed together and eyes unreadable. He saw her asleep, hands unclasped and face at peace. How often he had held her like that, praying that she wouldn't wake quite yet so he could watch her face while it was free of pain.
      If he could bring himself to do this thing, to do the duty of a Prince of the Realm and rid the nation of this dangerous menace, then at least she would never be hurt again.
      Kalon rose from the couch then, stood slowly and drew his hand up to the dagger Vircidia had given him. A Prince does the right thing, whatever the cost to himself. Vircidia was in the connecting room now, dozing as she waited for him to come to bed. If he did it quickly, then he could make himself do it. And then he could follow her into the sweet oblivion, where the Goddess in her infinite mercy would take from them both the anguish of their sins and grant them peace.

***

      The room had been her mother's. Kyriana had scorned delicate furniture and fragile knickknacks, as she scorned everything she considered weak or ineffectual. The room was sparsely decorated in sturdy, dark wood. The rich drapings had been her one concession to softness, and they served only to cover the clean, strong, functional lines, not to conceal them. In sunlight and candlelight alike the room had exuded unapologetic competence, unconscious dignity. In the dark, the draped, high-backed chairs cast long shadows across the bed. Vircidia pulled the blankets over her head.
      Her mother had turned towards the priestess's podium as Vircidia pulled the chandelier down upon her. Had their eyes met in that instant? She had thought so, but as she played the scene through her mind over and over she became increasingly convinced that the Queen had been staring through her or past her at something or someone behind her. It was almost fitting, in a way-Kyriana had seen her first as an heir to be molded and then as an embarrassment to be dealt with. There had never been any space beneath all those layers of calculation to see a daughter, a person in her own right.
      It wouldn't have mattered anyway, Vircidia supposed. Even supposing that her mother had turned to her in her last moments, what would that have meant? That she realized that Vircidia was responsible? That she was realizing what a mistake she had made in unseating a competent Heir in favor of a weakling in order to conceal her own debauchery? What would she have said, given the chance? I'm sorry for ruining your life? Absurd. I love you? Worse than absurd.
      She pushed the darkness away. I have faced the shadows and crushed them. The time for fear is over. She felt strangely light. Kalon might be the only one who had ever looked at her and seen a person, but Kalon was enough. For the rest, if they looked at her now they would see somebody to be reckoned with. And in a few years, Goddess willing, they would come to see her as someone worthy of their respect. The itch between her shoulderblades, the omnipresent fear that the Queen would finally decide to have her assassinated, was a thing of the past. The door opened, and she heard Kalon's reassuring footfalls. He was coming to bed at last, and in his arms she would be able to rest. The bed shifted. And then she heard it, the scrape of a dagger in a sheath.

***

      Blackness. One step forward, and then another. There was an unsheathed dagger in his hand, and a woman on the bed in front of him. They were all that mattered. A deed that must be done, and a warm release that could follow it. The pain would only last a moment, and then it would all be over. Another step. Another.
      He reached the bed, climbed up. The dagger. The woman.
      In the silence he became aware of her quiet breathing, such a gentle, melancholy sound.
      It was Vircidia lying there, not some nameless entity. It was one thing to make a picture of her in his mind-brilliant, beautiful, and tormented-but it was something entirely different actually to confront her. He was a scholar, and thus a master of abstractions. He could manipulate them, expose them to the dagger-edge of cold logic. He could even convince himself that they were dangerous, and that they must therefore be eliminated. But Vircidia, she had always eluded his best attempts to simplify her into abstraction. It was one of the reasons he loved her.
      And in that moment he knew with an absolute certainty that he couldn't do it. Not tonight, not ever. He and all of Rokel might be damned for it, but he could not knowingly harm her.
      The murderous tension flooded out of him, and weariness rushed into the void, overwhelming terror, confusion, despair. It was late, and it had been a very long day. Perhaps, after all, the world would make more sense tomorrow.
      He quietly slid the dagger back into the sheath.

***

      She sprang up and thrust the blankets aside, kicking sideways to push herself out of the dagger's path. The snake armlet throbbed as she reached out with her power to find the human form on the bed. She found it and shoved with all her might, hurtling it across the room and banging it against the far wall. She grabbed for the dagger hidden in the thick feather mattress of the bed, tore off the sheath and flung it at the pinioned form. It connected with the shoulder, and the assassin gave a low moan. She slammed him to the floor.
      She found the lamp beside her bed, lit it with steady hands, and turned to face her would-be murderer.
      It was Kalon who lay crumpled on the ground, with blood seeping out from his shoulder around the hilt of her dagger. Another dagger lay by his hand, half-sheathed. She found herself shuddering uncontrollably, reached blindly for her robe and drew it around her. The floor seemed to thud ominously under her feet as she plodded over to him.
      He made as if to touch his bleeding shoulder, then seemed to realize he couldn't move.
      "Coercive magic," he croaked.
      She realized then that she was still holding him bound. But as she started to release him she registered his lack of surprise and drew up short, suddenly unsure that she should. How had he known?
      She reached down and lifted the other dagger. It was the one she had given him. Merciful Goddess, let there be a simple explanation to this. "Kalon, what were you doing with the dagger?"
      His eyes met hers, and seemed to flinch away from what they saw there.
      "I couldn't go through with it," he muttered.
      She tasted bile, and swallowed hard. "Kalon, look at me. Couldn't go through with what?" Oh please, let him mean anything, anything but-
      He gazed up at her helplessly. "I was going to kill you. To save Rokel. But I couldn't do it."
      Blackness flashed before her eyes, and a wave of pain ran tingling through her body. She fell to her knees. Give me back the nightmares. Take the crown, take my life if you have to, but not this. Oh Goddess, anything but this. She thought she could almost feel her heart breaking. She hadn't thought anything could possibly hurt as much as it had hurt the last time. This was worse. As her vision slowly cleared, she saw that he was weeping.
      She felt something wet lapping against her knees, and looked down in surprise at the pool of blood.
      "Vircidia." His voice was an urgent, raspy whisper. "I love you." And he fainted.
      If she screamed now, would they be in time to save him? She needed answers from him. How much had he known? Who had told him, and whom had he told? The nightmares, it seemed, were only beginning. Whom could she trust?
      No one. Not ever. Trust hurt too much. It led to betrayal as surely love led to heartbreak.