Song Of Unmaking

“Enter,” said a voice he knew all too well.

His sister was sitting in a bright blaze of witchlight, with a book in her lap and a robe wrapped around her. She bore a striking resemblance to Valeria—much more so than he remembered. Valeria had grown and matured over the winter. Briana was some years older, but in that light and in those clothes, she could have been the same age as Valeria.

“What in the world,” Kerrec demanded, “are you doing here?”

“Good evening, brother,” Briana said sweetly. “It’s a pleasure to see you, too. Are you well? You look tired. How is Valeria?”

Kerrec let her words run past him. “You should never have left Aurelia. With our father gone to war on the frontier and the court being by nature fractious, for the princess regent to come so far from the center of empire—”

“Kerrec,” Briana said. She did not raise her voice, but he found that he had nothing more to say.

That was a subtle and rather remarkable feat. Kerrec had to bow to it, even while he wanted to slap his sister silly.

She closed her book and laid it on the table beside her chair, then folded her hands in her lap. “Sit down,” she said. “I suppose you’ve had enough wine. I can send for something else if you’d like.”

“No,” Kerrec said, then belatedly, “thank you. Tell me what you’re doing here.”

“First, sit,” she said.

Kerrec sighed vastly but submitted. Briana had changed after all. She was more imperious—more the emperor’s heir.

Once he was sitting, stiffly upright and openly rebellious, she studied him with a far more penetrating eye than Master Nikos had brought to bear. “You look awful,” she said. “Haven’t you been healing? You should be back to yourself by now. Not—”

Kerrec cut her off. “I’m well enough. I am tired—we all are. We lost a great store of power when our riders died. Now with so many of the Called to test, we’re stretched to our capacity.”

Briana’s eyes narrowed. He held his breath. Then she said, “Don’t push yourself too hard. You’ll make everything worse.”

“I’ll do,” Kerrec said with a snap of temper. “Now tell me. What brings the regent of the empire all the way to the Mountain when she should be safe in Aurelia?”

“I’m safe here,” she said. “I rode in with the Augurs’ caravan. There’s a flock of imperial secretaries camped in a house by the south gate. We’re running relays of messengers. And if that fails, there’s a circle of mages in Aurelia, ready to send me word if there’s even a hint of trouble.”

Kerrec had to admit that she had answered most possible objections—except of course the most important one. “The imperial regent is required to perform her office from the imperial palace.”

“The palace is wherever the emperor or his regent is.” Briana leaned toward him. “Come off your high horse and listen to me. I was summoned here. I had a foreseeing.”

That gave Kerrec pause—briefly. “You are not that kind of mage.”

“I am whatever kind of mage the empire needs,” Briana said. She was running short of patience. “I have to be here for the testing. I don’t know why—I didn’t see that far or that clearly. Only that I should come to the Mountain.”

“What, you were Called?”

“You, of all people, should not make light of that,” she said. “And no, I am most definitely not destined to abandon my office and become a rider. There’s something in the testing that I’m supposed to see. That’s all.”

Kerrec wondered about that, foolishly maybe, but maybe not. His power was broken but not gone. Flashes of understanding still came to him.

He let go his attack of temper. Much of it was fear, he had to admit. He was afraid for her safety and terrified that she would see what had become of him.

She saw no more clearly than anyone else—and as she had said, she was safe on the Mountain. He sighed and spread his hands. “Well then. You’re here. There’s no point in sending you away.”

“Even if you could,” she said.

He was sorely tempted, again, to hit her. He settled for a scowl.

She laughed. “You’re glad to see me. Admit it. You’ve missed me.”

He refused to take the bait. She kept on laughing, reminding him all too vividly of the headstrong child she had been before he was Called from the palace to the Mountain.

When finally she sobered, she said, “You should go to bed. You have three long days ahead of you.”

“I do,” he said. But he did not leave at once. It was harder to go than he would have thought. Even as annoyed as he was with his sister, he felt better than he had since he could remember.

“Listen,” she said. “Why don’t you stay here? It’s ungodly late, and there’s a maid’s room with no one in it. I promise I’ll kick you out of bed before the sun comes up.”

The temptation was overwhelming. He could think of any number of reasons to resist it. Still, in the end, weakness won. “An hour before sunup,” he said as the yawn broke through.

“An hour before sunup,” she agreed with a faint sigh. Maybe she was regretting her impulse.

Or maybe not. He never could tell with any woman, even his sister. Women were mostly out of his reckoning.

He knew already that with her there to watch over him, he was going to sleep well, maybe even without dreams. That alone was worth a night away from his too-familiar bed.

Eleven

Valeria had been dreaming of her family again, her mother and father and particularly her brother Rodry. For once, mercifully, she roused before the Unmaking came to mar the dream.

Something else had come instead—something that she was not sure she wanted to examine too deeply. It, or he, had been coming to her more and more often lately. At first the guilt had been so sharp she had fled the dream. Then little by little its edge had blunted.

Last night there had been no guilt. There had been a great deal of laughter and a burst of pleasure that went on and on.

When it was past, her body still thrummed with it. She let herself linger in the dream. She deliberately forgot dark hair and olive skin and keen hawk’s face and reveled in milk-white skin and fire-red mane and eyes as yellow and slanted as a wolf’s.

If that was a betrayal, then so be it. It was not she who had blown cold.

There was certain irony in waking from that dream, in that mood, to find Kerrec’s sister sitting cross-legged at the foot of her bed. Briana had a book in her lap and was reading quietly by witchlight.

She looked as if she had been there for quite some time. Since the sun was not even up yet, she must have come in very early.

Valeria enjoyed the luxury of waking slowly. Briana did not melt into the edges of her dream. She was really here.

“You heard the Call,” Valeria said.

Briana started a little. She had herself under control quickly, enough to say, “No. It was a premonition, that was all.”

Indeed, Valeria thought. But she only said, “It is good to see you.”

Briana smiled. She was much less obsessively dignified than her brother. “And you. I asked Master Nikos if I could accompany you for a day or two. He said that if you agreed, he had no objection.”

Valeria sat up. The rush of delight startled a grin out of her. “Really? He said that?”