disturbances break out. Just this past tenday, I’ve heard report of an incident in Sessaline—a village fifteen kilometres north. Here, this is interesting, too . . .”
He led me past a small district that had been leveled by fire—recently, from the rising trails of smoke and the heavy stink of char and refuse. The area was an exact square, the bordering houses lacking even a trace of soot. “This was a street of solicitors and small banking houses. It burnt three years ago.”
No response came to mind. I was, after all, plain, plodding Anne de Vernase, who could speak seven languages but could not come up with a witty retort until a day late, who preferred a book to any adventure, who believed that everything in the world had a rational explanation, save my father’s great betrayal.
Duplais urged his skittish mare closer to Ladyslipper. “Keep moving, damoselle. Sunset is the riskiest time.”
“Wouldn’t it be better to make straight for the palace if we’re in such a hurry?” I said as Duplais detoured through yet another narrow lane, behind Merona’s Temple Major.
“There is no straight in Merona just now. Damnation . . .”
Duplais’ mount shied, dodging sideways and forward all at once, near unseating the man. Only my most insistent persuasion kept Ladyslipper from doing the same. A soft hissing, as of spewing steam, swelled into a pulsing, whining, scratchy rush of sound from every side. Rats flooded the alley before and behind us. Pouring from the shadowed verges as if birthed by the brick walls, they surged toward the temple’s back steps and its servitors’ entry as if summoned to the god’s service.
A bolt of violet light shot from Duplais’ raised palm, halting the squirming, screeching vermin before they started climbing our horses’ legs. A second bolt parted the flood in front of us. We kicked the horses onward, bursting from the alley in disarray. Sweat dripped down my back and from my brow, the air suddenly a furnace. Appalled, disgusted, it was all I could do to maintain any sort of calm instruction for the quivering Ladyslipper. Duplais mumbled epithets and wrestled his mount into nervous compliance. “Saints and spirits, should have known he’d not exempt the Temple . . .”
Which comment I understood not at all. But I needed no urging to stay close and move faster. We turned onto a wide, paved boulevard, divided by a row of spreading plane trees—the Plas Royale. Duplais glanced up at the deepening sky, now the hue of charcoal, then released an unhappy exhale. “Watch your step, damoselle.”
Duplais reined in to a slow walk, picking the way up the broad street as carefully as he’d done on the narrowest hillside track. Grand stone buildings with sculpted facades and fluted columns lined the Plas Royale: the Academie Musica and the Collegia Medica, and merchant halls such as the Vintners’ Consortium and the Wool Guildhall. Farther ahead of us stood a striking edifice of deep green granite, the Bastionne Camarilla. I could just make out the sculpted figures that stood atop its facade—a pair of robed male and female mages, each with one hand upraised to Heaven and one opened in generous provision to the onlookers below.
Despite the benevolent images and the elegance of its carvings and polished granite, the headquarters of the Camarilla Magica had always made my skin creep. Its lack of windows brought to mind an eyeless face. And that was before I had learned that inside those impenetrable walls, magical practitioners who violated Camarilla strictures were routinely whipped or branded in the name of preserving magical purity, even if they were naught but ignorant countryfolk. In its deepest bowels, so it was said, the prefects executed the most serious violators, as they had my father’s magical accomplices.
“Great Heavens!” I said. As we closed on the Bastionne, it became clear disaster had struck. Two of the fortress’s walls and a third of its slate roof had
He led me past a small district that had been leveled by fire—recently, from the rising trails of smoke and the heavy stink of char and refuse. The area was an exact square, the bordering houses lacking even a trace of soot. “This was a street of solicitors and small banking houses. It burnt three years ago.”
No response came to mind. I was, after all, plain, plodding Anne de Vernase, who could speak seven languages but could not come up with a witty retort until a day late, who preferred a book to any adventure, who believed that everything in the world had a rational explanation, save my father’s great betrayal.
Duplais urged his skittish mare closer to Ladyslipper. “Keep moving, damoselle. Sunset is the riskiest time.”
“Wouldn’t it be better to make straight for the palace if we’re in such a hurry?” I said as Duplais detoured through yet another narrow lane, behind Merona’s Temple Major.
“There is no straight in Merona just now. Damnation . . .”
Duplais’ mount shied, dodging sideways and forward all at once, near unseating the man. Only my most insistent persuasion kept Ladyslipper from doing the same. A soft hissing, as of spewing steam, swelled into a pulsing, whining, scratchy rush of sound from every side. Rats flooded the alley before and behind us. Pouring from the shadowed verges as if birthed by the brick walls, they surged toward the temple’s back steps and its servitors’ entry as if summoned to the god’s service.
A bolt of violet light shot from Duplais’ raised palm, halting the squirming, screeching vermin before they started climbing our horses’ legs. A second bolt parted the flood in front of us. We kicked the horses onward, bursting from the alley in disarray. Sweat dripped down my back and from my brow, the air suddenly a furnace. Appalled, disgusted, it was all I could do to maintain any sort of calm instruction for the quivering Ladyslipper. Duplais mumbled epithets and wrestled his mount into nervous compliance. “Saints and spirits, should have known he’d not exempt the Temple . . .”
Which comment I understood not at all. But I needed no urging to stay close and move faster. We turned onto a wide, paved boulevard, divided by a row of spreading plane trees—the Plas Royale. Duplais glanced up at the deepening sky, now the hue of charcoal, then released an unhappy exhale. “Watch your step, damoselle.”
Duplais reined in to a slow walk, picking the way up the broad street as carefully as he’d done on the narrowest hillside track. Grand stone buildings with sculpted facades and fluted columns lined the Plas Royale: the Academie Musica and the Collegia Medica, and merchant halls such as the Vintners’ Consortium and the Wool Guildhall. Farther ahead of us stood a striking edifice of deep green granite, the Bastionne Camarilla. I could just make out the sculpted figures that stood atop its facade—a pair of robed male and female mages, each with one hand upraised to Heaven and one opened in generous provision to the onlookers below.
Despite the benevolent images and the elegance of its carvings and polished granite, the headquarters of the Camarilla Magica had always made my skin creep. Its lack of windows brought to mind an eyeless face. And that was before I had learned that inside those impenetrable walls, magical practitioners who violated Camarilla strictures were routinely whipped or branded in the name of preserving magical purity, even if they were naught but ignorant countryfolk. In its deepest bowels, so it was said, the prefects executed the most serious violators, as they had my father’s magical accomplices.
“Great Heavens!” I said. As we closed on the Bastionne, it became clear disaster had struck. Two of the fortress’s walls and a third of its slate roof had
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