The Will of the Empress Read online

  Sandry’s chin trembled. “I thought you’d want to live with Uncle and me. I thought we’d all be happy to live at Duke’s Citadel.”

  “He’s not getting any younger,” Daja said cruelly. “One day he’ll die and then his heir will kick us out. No, thanks. Now I have it. As long as I have it, Briar and Tris and even you will have a home nobody can make us leave.”

  Sandry sniffed, then defiantly blew her nose on a handkerchief. “Couldn’t you throw us out?” she demanded angrily.

  “No more than I could break that precious thread circle you made when you spun the four of us into one,” Daja said. “You know, sometimes I wish that earthquake had never happened. That you’d never had to spin us together to make us stronger. Maybe I wouldn’t hurt so much now if I hadn’t expected you to know me as well as I know me. If I hadn’t expected you to know how awful it would feel to lose Discipline cottage!”

  “So you punish me by not letting me into your mind. Fine,” Sandry retorted. “Sulk. Never mind that you three all left me here—”

  “You said we should travel!” Daja reminded her. “You said we ought to go!”

  “You never once stopped to ask if I didn’t just say it because you all wanted to go so badly!” Sandry balled her hands into fists. “Not one of you even suggested it wasn’t fair that you all go. You just said, oh, good, thanks, Sandry old girl, we’ll bring you presents from abroad, and off you went. Well, fine! Welcome home, keep your presents, and if you want to talk, you can do it by letter, or in person. You’re not the only one who can shut people out, you know!” She turned on her heel to make a grand exit, then hesitated, and turned around again. “And Uncle invites you to supper tomorrow night at six.”

  Daja blinked, startled at the abrupt turn in the conversation, then nodded.

  “Fine!” Sandry cried, and walked out.

  Daja rubbed her temples. Welcome home, she thought wearily. Everything’s changed, you just upset your sister-saati, nothing feels right, welcome home.

  The 1st day of Rose Moon, 1042 K. F.

  Number 6 Cheeseman Street

  Summersea, Emelan

  Trisana Chandler’s head still ached as she followed the cart that held her luggage down Cheeseman Street. She had spent a hard few days since her return home. Turning her very young student, Glaki, over to Tris’s foster-mother Lark for a proper rearing at Winding Circle had been hard. Tris would never admit it, but she was deeply touched by Glaki’s tears when she learned that Tris could only visit, not live with, her. It had also hurt to leave her dog, Little Bear, with Glaki and Lark. Tris and Little Bear had been Glaki’s family since the child’s mother died—it would have been cruel to take away both, and Tris knew it. At least Glaki had adjusted to the loss of Tris’s teacher. Niko had interacted with Glaki when necessary, but it was Tris and Little Bear who had played with her, washed her, heard her lessons, and borne the results when Glaki’s first magic lessons did not go as planned.

  Tris would have found those adjustments hard enough. She had prepared for them all the way home. What she had not prepared for was the effect of a busy harbor city and a busy temple city on her ability to read images carried on the wind. When she had started out to learn it, Tris had been lucky to see any vision for more than a blink of an eye. In the two years of study she had put into it, Tris had only improved the clarity and duration of the images slightly, averaging one or two images per trial. Over the long weeks of her voyage north, constant practice and fewer images to sort through had left Tris open. A flood of far sharper visions assaulted her as their vessel entered Summersea harbor. She had felt the kiss of the ship against the dock while she vomited over the rail. Glaki and the dog had to help her off. Now Tris walked behind the luggage cart, using it as a wind and image barrier, to keep her unhappy stomach from rebelling anymore.

  Tris did not look like someone who had already mastered magics that had defeated older, more experienced mages. A short, plump redhead, Tris wore a variety of braids coiled in a heavy silk net pinned at the back of her head. Only two thin braids were allowed to swing free, framing a face that was sharp-featured, long-nosed, and obstinate. Next to her hair, her storm gray eyes were her most attractive feature. Today she hid them behind dark blue tinted spectacles that cut the flood of pictures riding every draft. She was pale-skinned and lightly freckled, dressed for summer in a gray gown and dusty, well-worn boots. On her shoulder rode some kind of glass creature that sat on its hind feet, one delicate forepaw clutching one of her braids.

  “Don’t hold on so tight,” Tris told the creature in a whispered croak. Her throat was raw from constant nausea. It had taken her three days in bed to keep her improved magical skill from making her sick. “They’ll love you. Everyone loves you. At least, they’ll love you if you don’t go around eating their expensive powders and things.”

  The glass creature unfolded shimmering wings to balance, revealing itself to be a glass dragon. It voiced a chinking sound like the ring of pure crystal.

  “No, you hardly ever mean it,” replied Tris. While she couldn’t exactly understand the creature she had named Chime, they’d had this conversation before. “But you always eat anything that looks like it might color your flames, and then you vomit most of it up.”

  Though the luggage driver turned the cart through the gate of Number 6, Tris lagged behind, feeling anxious about seeing her sisters again. Just remember all those southern mages who found out I could see a little, or hear a little, on the winds, she reminded herself. How they acted as if I had stolen something from them—as if I would steal! How they kept saying I thought myself better than them, when I was trying not to throw up from the headaches. How they started hiding their notes and closing their doors as I came by. Do I want Sandry and Daja to change like that on me? Do I want them deciding I think I’m better than they are, just because I can do a special trick?

  It wasn’t so bad when I started out, she thought, forcing herself to go through that gate. When people didn’t know. But then it got out that time I knew Glaki had fallen and broken her arm. After that they all decided I was going to lord it over them.

  She looked at the house. Two young women, one black, one white, were coming toward her. One was in a smith’s apron; one was dressed like a noble. Both were wearing smiles as uncertain as the one on Tris’s mouth. Tris halted, frowning. For a moment these two were strangers, smooth and polished creatures who moved as if they were sure of themselves. Behind them stood a three-story house with neatly planted garden strips in front, good ironwork around the windows, and sturdy outbuildings to either side. Even the location was expensive.

  They look like the world is theirs, she thought bleakly, rocking back on the worn heels of her boots. And isn’t it? Daja could afford this house, from all her work in living metal. Sandry’s rich. When Briar comes back—if he comes back—he’ll be rich, too, from working with miniature trees. I’m the poor one. I’ll never belong here like they do.

  “I’ll be your housekeeper, Daja,” she said abruptly. “Not a charity case. I’ll earn my keep.”

  Sandry and Daja looked at each other. Suddenly they—and the look of exasperation they shared—were very familiar.

  “Same old Tris,” they chorused.

  Tris scowled. “I mean it.”

  Sandry came forward to kiss Tris’s cheek. “We know. Oh, dear—you’re clammy. And your color’s dreadful. Lark wrote you’ve been ill. Come—” Her blue eyes flew wide open as Chime stood up on Tris’s shoulder and made a sound of glass grating on glass.

  “Hello, beautiful,” said Daja, holding out both hands. “You must be Chime.”

  The glass dragon glided over to land in Daja’s hands.

  “Traitor,” grumbled Tris. She let Sandry wrap an arm around her shoulders. “Actually, I would feel better for some tea,” she admitted.

  Daja led the way indoors, cooing admiration of Chime.

  The 25th day of Storm Moon, 1043 K. F.

  Discipline cottage

&nb
sp; Winding Circle temple, Emelan

  At first Briar Moss’s homecoming was grand. Lark worked her welcoming magic on all of them, erasing lines from Rosethorn’s face that Briar had thought would never go away, and making Evvy feel as welcome as if she were Lark’s own daughter. Lark barely hesitated on meeting Evvy’s strange friend Luvo before she found him the ideal place to sit and watch them all. Briar she saluted, letting him know that he had finally brought them all home safe. At that moment it didn’t seem to matter that Tris had left a new student with Lark, or that another student, a fellow so shy he didn’t want to share the attic with anyone, lived upstairs. All that mattered to Briar was that he was safe at Discipline, that Little Bear still remembered him, that Rosethorn seemed more like her old self than she’d been since they’d reached the far east. Even the sight of temple habits—Earth green here at Discipline; Fire red, Air yellow, Water blue, novice white on the spiral road—didn’t rattle him. This was Emelan, not Gyongxe. Outside the walls he could hear the crash of the sea in the cove and the cry of gulls overhead. Briar was home, and safe.

  The first problem came when Rosethorn told him that he could sleep in her room for his few nights at Discipline. She would stay with Lark for the present. The child Glaki had Briar’s old room. There was no question of sharing the attic with the ferociously shy Comas. It felt strange, lying down in Rosethorn’s small, neat chamber, but it was only temporary. Since they picked up Sandry’s letter when they made port in Hatar, Briar had known that things had changed. It was just as well, he’d thought then. He couldn’t live as he did these days in a small temple cottage, under Lark and Rosethorn’s far-too-perceptive eyes.

  Rosethorn’s bed was just not comfortable. It was a dedicate’s hard cot, not luxurious by anyone’s standard, but Briar was not used to even its mite of softness. With mental apologies to Rosethorn, and a promise to restore the room later, Briar moved the pallet to the floor. That was better, but when had Discipline gotten so noisy? The attic floor creaked—was that fellow up there rolling to and fro? Briar couldn’t remember if the clock in the Hub tower had ever woken him before. Then he could swear he could hear the dog snoring from Glaki’s room.

  It was also stuffy. Who could breathe in here?

  At last he found his bedroll and crept out the back door, into the garden. It was cold, for Emelan, wintertime around the Pebbled Sea, but Briar’s roll was made for Gyongxe winters. It was more than adequate for a night without rain, even in Storm Moon. He laid it out on the garden path and slid between the covers, plants and vines in full slumber all around him. He was asleep the moment he pulled the blankets up around his chin.

  He heard the chime of temple bells, summoning Earth temple dedicates to the midnight services that honored their gods. As he fell back into his dreams, flames roared up around him, throwing nightmare shadows on his eyelids. In the distance, triumphant warriors shouted and people shrieked. The wind carried the scent of blood and smoke to his nostrils.

  Burning carpets wrapped around him. Briar fought to get free while boulders shot from catapults smashed temple walls to rubble.

  Briar gasped and sat up. Sweat poured over his face, stinging in his eyes. He’d ripped his bedroll apart in his struggles, flinging blankets into the winter garden. Shuddering, he gulped in lungfuls of cold air, trying to cleanse his nose and throat of the lingering reek of burning wood and bodies. As his head cleared, he drew up his knees and wrapped his arms around them. Resting his face against his legs, he began to cry.

  “It was the bell for services, wasn’t it?” Rosethorn was hunkered down close by, a shadow among shadows. She spoke with a trace of a slur.

  Briar scrubbed his face on his knees before he looked up. “Bells?” he asked.

  Rosethorn had her own share of bad dreams from the last two years. “You slept fine on the ship, with hardly any nightmares. But now you’re in temple walls, surrounded by temple sounds, including the calls to midnight service. It started the dreams again. You won’t even be able to stay here a few days, will you?”

  If she was anyone else, maybe I’d lie, Briar thought. But she was there. She knows. “I jump just seeing all the different color robes,” he said wearily. “Doesn’t matter that the folk here are different races for the most part. We even use the same kind of incense they did back there.” He shrugged. “Evvy will be all right,” he said. “Once the stone mages here start teaching her, she’ll be busy. And I’ll be around.” Briar sighed. “So I’ll tell her when she gets up. I’ll see tomorrow if Daja’s got room for me.”

  Rosethorn got to her feet with a wince and offered Briar a hand. “I doubt that Daja would write to say she has a floor of the house opening onto the garden set aside for you if she didn’t mean for you to live there,” she said dryly as she helped him to his feet. “And Briar, if the dreams don’t stop, you should see a soul-healer about them.”

  Briar shrugged impatiently and picked up his things. “They’re just dreams, Rosethorn.”

  “But you see and hear things sometimes, and smell things that aren’t there. You’re jumpy and irritable,” Rosethorn pointed out.

  When Briar glared at her, she shrugged, too. “I’m the same. I don’t mean to put it off. Terrible events have long-lasting effects, boy. They can poison our lives.”

  “I won’t let them,” Briar said, his voice harsh. “That’s one victory the Yanjing emperor don’t get.”

  Folding blankets over her arm, Rosethorn looked at him. “There’s something I don’t understand,” she remarked abruptly. “We’re having a perfectly clear conversation right now. Before we journeyed east, if I wanted to talk to you, I would have to slip every word in between five or six from the girls in your mind. The four of you were always talking.” She tapped her forehead with a finger to indicate what she meant. “Now, all your attention is right here. And another thing. Why weren’t they on our doorstep the moment we came home? Tris and Daja are back; Lark said as much. Did you tell them not to come? You aren’t the only one who would like to see them, you know.”

  “I’m not speaking with them,” Briar muttered, avoiding her gaze. “Not in my mind. I didn’t tell them we’re coming, or we’re here.”

  Rosethorn’s eyebrows snapped together. “You haven’t linked back up with the girls? In Mila’s name, why not? They could help you so much better than I can!”

  Briar stared at her. Had Rosethorn run mad? “Help me? Boo-hoo and wail and drape themselves all over me and treat me as if I was a refugee, more like!” he said tartly. “Want me to talk about it, like talking pays for anything, and cuddle me, and cosset me!”

  Rosethorn’s delicate mouth curled in her familiar sarcastic curve. “Did some imperial Yanjing brute knock you on the head ten or twelve times?” she wanted to know. “That doesn’t sound like our girls. If you’ve shut them out for that reason, boy, you took more of a beating than I guessed.”

  Briar hung his head and ground his teeth. Why does Rosethorn always have to cut through any smoke screen I put up? he asked himself. It’s unnatural, the way she knows my mind. He steeled himself to say the truth: “I don’t want them in my mind, seeing what I saw. Hearing what I heard, smelling…I don’t want them knowing the things I did.” Sure of Rosethorn’s next objection, he quickly added, “And I don’t know if I can hide that away from them once they get in. It’s everywhere, Rosethorn. All that mess. My head’s a charnel house. I have no way of cleaning it up yet.”

  To his surprise, Rosethorn had no answer to that but to hug him tight, blankets and all. After a moment’s hesitation, he hugged her back. With Rosethorn, hugging was all right. She had been in Gyongxe, too.

  The 26th day of Storm Moon, 1043 K. F.

  Market Street to Number 6 Cheeseman Street

  Summersea, Emelan

  As a way to build up her defenses against being overwhelmed by sights on the wind, Tris had begun to journey farther afield in her marketing, controlling the drafts that touched her face and the images she chose to inspect. On this day
she had offered to go to Rainen Alley to buy Daja’s metal polish. It meant she would take Market Street on the way home, spending three blocks on a direct line with the East Gate, able to catch whatever wind came through.

  She had barely stepped into that wind when it showered her with pictures. She walked along, discarding or ignoring most as useless, dull, or meaningless, until a solid one gleaming with the silver fire of pure magic brought her to a complete halt.

  A young man five feet nine inches tall walked through the slums beyond the East Gate, leading a pack-laden donkey. Atop its more usual burdens the donkey carried boxes with an assortment of shakkans, or miniature trees. The young man was a handsome fellow with bronze skin, broad shoulders, and glossy black hair that he wore cropped an inch long. His eyes were gray-green, turning darker green as he returned the admiring glances of the women who passed him by. Those eyes were set over a thin blade of a nose, a sensitive mouth, and a firm chin. He wore a Yanjing-style round-collared coat and leggings in tree green, and rough leather boots with fleece linings. A closer examination revealed what looked like flower tattoos covering his hands. Very close examination showed that the flowers lay under the young man’s skin and nails. They also moved, grew, put out leaves, and blossomed.

  Tris immediately changed course. If she hurried, she could have a batch of Briar’s favorite spice cookies in the oven when he reached the house.

  That night Tris set the dining room table for four. Daja walked in as Tris laid out plates of olives and warm, fresh bread.

  “What, no wine?” asked Daja. She was still wet from scrubbing her face and hands after a day at the forge. She carried the tang of hot metal around her like perfume.