Aethersmith (Book 2) (17 page)

“I considered not coming. You grow arrogant when everything
you plan works out as you hope. But I am too curious to meet our son and see
what sort of man he has become. It seems amazing that he is grown already,”
Illiardra replied. She floated over to a wall as she spoke and felt along it
with a thin hand, trying to get a sense of the place in which she found
herself.

“Time passes quickly out here. Blink and you could miss a
lifetime. I imagine it to be even worse for your kind. Even your mortals can
live ten human lifetimes,” Rashan said, moving closer to her. “It is good to
see you. I must say, though, that your appearance is inappropriate for the
ceremony. You should alter it before I introduce you.”

“I am not so ignorant of mortals, you know. I wore this for
you. I have missed you, it seems.” Illiardra met Rashan’s gaze from a handspan
away.

“I meant these.” Rashan ran a finger gently along one of her
horns, tracing the curve slowly and deliberately. “And these as well.” He
brushed aside her mop of hair and revealed ears too long for a human her size,
reaching halfway to the top of her head and dropping just slightly. “Iridan
does not know.”

“I will meet our son later. For now, I seek only you,”
Illiardra answered, letting her gown puddle quietly upon the floor.

* * * * * * * *

A gaggle of servants fussed about Iridan, adjusting things
that looked fine by his eye, polishing the metal bits of his warlock attire,
and just generally being a nuisance about his person. He reached through the
throng to retrieve a decanter of brandy and took a swig straight from it.

“There will be time enough to drink at the feasting,”
Dolvaen chided him from across the small room, where he sat dutifully watching
over his charge in the capacity of oathkeeper. He bore no love for the warlock;
the favor was to Iridan himself, despite the warlock making the request. Iridan
had always been one of his favorites, a shining light among the lowborn at the
Academy. Dolvaen had fought the same battles in his youth, having to be twice
as good as his blooded peers to achieve even half the respect they got. It was
a blow to Dolvaen to discover that his successor as champion of the unblooded
sorcerers was of Solaran blood, from a strong branch of the line thought lost
in the Battle of the Dead Earth.

“Well, unless the drinks at the feast will bear magic enough
to calm my nerves
now
, I think this will work best,” Iridan joked,
taking a second pull from the decanter before setting it back down again.

I killed those two boys this morning,
Iridan thought.
I can’t see how they could have survived those wounds. He knew it … but he was
happy. Was he just going to keep finding harder and harder opponents as I
improved, until I lost my temper and used magic to win?

Iridan drew a deep breath, drawing a clucking sound from the
very proper little man who was trying to get his tunic straightened.

So I marry Juliana in an hour or so. A few days and I
will be sent off to the battlefields, ready or not. I think I can manage to
survive a few days on my own with her. Maybe if I return home a war hero, she
will take me seriously.

Iridan had been of a mind to refuse the arrangement, but
Rashan had seemed quite set on it, since Juliana was a more proper match than
any unwed girl in the Empire.

I don’t know that she’ll ever love me, not like she does
Brannis, but at least maybe she will learn to respect me. I am a
warlock
now, by the winds! I should not have to put up with her bullying anymore. I am
not eight springtimes old anymore,
Iridan told himself, building up anger
like a wall, one brick at a time.

One of the attendants muttered a quiet spell, and ran her
fingers through Iridan’s hair, shaping it in a dashing, side-swept style. “The
wind might muss it now, and it will go back likewise afterward, Warlock,” she
told him. He had not caught her name, but she was dressed in Sixth Circle
formal garb.

And I thought being wardkeeper was trivial work for a
sorcerer. I should have counted myself lucky not to have been grooming grooms.
Now that I am powerful, I need to remember not to look down on peasants—not
even peasant sorcerers.

* * * * * * * *

A few doors down the hall, Juliana sat on a small,
velvet-cushioned stool and fumed. She had been angry with herself since she had
awoken.
Spit on you, Soria. Why do you get to sit out this whole fiasco
while I have to slog through it?
It was less the feeling that Soria had
abandoned her, staying awake the night through to keep from watching the
wedding, than it was envy that she could not do likewise.
There is nothing
bad
about Iridan, all things considered. I know he has a sense of humor. He is
polite and well positioned; I will want for nothing, just as it was growing up,
maybe even more so.
She tried positive thinking to cheer herself.

It was the first time that Soria had abandoned her in a long
while, not so much as peeking through the veil of worlds to watch her through
her own eyes. The last time had been on her last Ranking Day. There had only
been four of them left and it had fallen much the way she had expected—just as
it had the previous two years. She knew that she either had to throw her match
or face Iridan in the final draw. She preferred to come in third-ranked than
lose to Iridan, and threw a match before having to draw against him. Soria had
hated that decision, and it was one of the few major disagreements the two of
them had. Juliana hated the reminder that they were only
mostly
the same
person and not just the personas she adopted in each world.

A tugging at her hair snapped her back from her mind’s
little momentary escape. Two older servants were weaving her hair through some
silly fan-like contraption perched atop her head.
I must look like a
peacock,
she thought sourly. Apparently her mother had worn the same piece
at her own wedding, nearly forty springtimes ago. She did not know what her
mother had done to deserve such a fate, but she quietly suspected that she had
done enough to vex her own mother during her short life to have warranted the
ridiculous accessory as a small vengeance.

After all, the entire day seemed bent on causing her
embarrassment.
I pictured this day a thousand times as a little girl. It
never looked like this.
When she had been very young, the groom had been
some indistinct prince or knight—they seemed so much more dashing than
sorcerers—in her daydreams. She started fixating on particular boys she liked
as she matured into considering the actual prospect of marrying some
one
,
and not just “getting married,” finally settling on Brannis as the object of
her fantasies.

She had not been put into her gown yet. Old ladies were
still fussing over its fold and making sure there were no blemishes on it. Instead
she sat in just a light slip, barefoot and bored. Everything would be dressed
onto her, she would have little to do with the process, but stand up, move a
limb here or there upon request, and try to keep from mussing anything. In the
meantime …

Juliana reached quietly into the aether, and lifted a
wineglass from a small table laid out for the servants to pick from. It was a
long morning, and there were to be no breaks for the staff until the ceremony
was underway. There was nothing fancy about the vintage they were provided, but
Juliana was no snob when it came to fermented grapes. “Some barefoot peasant
stomped on these; how refined can it possibly be?” she had once argued to her
father after spilling a valuable vintage.

“Milady, hold still,” one of the old ladies complained from
above as she tilted her head back enough to down a swallow of wine.

“This will go a lot faster if I have something to occupy
myself,” she countered.

“Aye, maybe for you, your ladyship,” the old woman shot back.
Juliana chuckled. She always preferred older servants. Beyond a certain age,
they lost that obsequious veneer that got lacquered onto them wherever it was
that servants were trained. You could actually talk to them without having them
all agree with every inane thing you said: “Yes, milady, the sky is much too
blue today.” “Of course, milady, I will bring your morning feast out to the
stables.” “Milady, I would be delighted to take your pony to the market to let
her pick out her own apples.”

Juliana paused a moment in her musings.
I was a rotten
little thing. No wonder Mother wants me to wear this silly hair-thing. I
probably deserve it.

When her hair was finally done, they had her stand to begin
assembling her dress around her. The weight and size of her peacock’s crest made
her head wobble strangely as she moved. It only felt right when she kept her
movements slow and her head steady.

Aha! Now I see. If I do not keep dignified, the thing
will pull my hair. Devious …

The gown was all white satin, with gold trim and embroidery.
It covered from the tops of her breasts clear down to the floor, hugging her
slender torso and billowing out like a bell to hide her skinny legs. If she
held her arms straight out, she could make a long band of bare flesh from
fingertip to fingertip across her collarbone, but that was about all that was
left untouched upon her.

Some young lass (who was probably ten summers her senior and
expert in life extension) came and reddened her lips, darkened her eyelids, and
brightened the whites of her eyes. Juliana usually took care of her cosmetic
magics herself, but the young sorceress was versed in making brides appear
stunning even when viewed from half a jouster’s tilt away.

At last, she stepped into her slippers. They were the
plainest part of her wardrobe, chosen for comfort in standing for extended
periods rather than looks—the only kindness they had done her all day, by
Juliana’s reckoning. The length of her dress would hide them entirely. She had
always wanted to wear heeled slippers on her wedding day, but she towered over
Iridan as it was, they told her. She had then offered to go barefoot and was
met by stern, disapproving looks.

She sighed.
Maybe when married life wears on me, I can
see if Brannis could be convinced to take a mistress. The man is not made of
stone.

* * * * * * * *

Captain Varnus Coldlake cut an impressive figure as he stood
guard over the door where Juliana dressed: a hulking mass of muscle wrapped in
polished silver armor (which bore real, functional runed steel beneath the
surface) and baring a heavy steel greatsword, gleaming as it sat point-first
against the black marble floor shot through with veins of green. Hard, ice-blue
eyes scanned the corridor in either direction, clearing a path around him that
servants and guests alike steered clear of. Though of a mind to wear a beard
through the cold season, he was clean-shaven for the wedding, his weathered
face finally getting the same view that his shiny, waxed pate normally got
after a winter of being entombed in greasy black hair.

It was a proud day for Varnus. While he was not to be the
center of attention, he would be just slightly off-center, in full view of
everyone worth knowing in the Empire. His position with House Archon was
secure. His low birth limited his options for advancement anyway, but he liked
the idea of being known. Juliana had done him quite the favor in naming him
oath guardian. It was a ceremonial position to be sure, harkening back to the
days when a treaty might ride on the continued virginity of a noble daughter up
to the point of her wedding night. The thought was that a trusted knight would
guard the honor of a lass of fourteen summers or so, lest anyone overpower and
defile her. They had not anticipated in that bygone era that the hereditary
sorcerous bloodlines would take up the idea and parade a soldier around with a
sorceress of twenty-and-three autumns under the pretense of her needing his
protection.

Still, Varnus honored the tradition, keeping anyone from
entering the room. At length, there was a knocking from within, and he took the
key from around his neck and unlocked the door. Even with one in six guests
being a member of the Imperial Circle, they used a mundane lock and key as
tradition would have it.

Juliana emerged, prettier than he had ever seen her, despite
the funny fan thing they had done with her hair. She smiled up at him
self-consciously, seeking approval.

“You look stunning, Lady Juliana,” he offered. There were
days when he had trouble keeping her and Soria separate in his head, but today
was not one of those. He could not envision Soria wearing such finery (without
being in disguise, at the least).

Varnus sheathed his blade and offered Juliana his arm. It
was his honor to escort her to the ceremony while his Archon house guards kept
the halls clear as they made their way to the expansive front lawns of the
palace.

He could feel the tension in Juliana as she walked along
beside him. She usually had such an ease about her, doing what she wanted, when
she wanted. Being paraded about at the center of an event she would much rather
have avoided entirely, she was trembling.

She manages to look happy enough. Most folk wouldn’t know
the difference. Hope she can keep the act up all day. That Iridan doesn’t seem
like a bad sort. Perhaps he’ll grow on her.

When they exited the palace doors, they were greeted with a
massive cheer from the assembled guests gathered upon the lawn. He handed the
bride off to her father, who escorted her down an aisle in the middle of the
throng, so that more of the attendees might see her, and brought her back
again. Iridan would have already done the same before their arrival, escorted
by his mother.

The mother was a curious woman, Varnus noted. She was petite
and looked young enough to have been Iridan’s sister—with him the elder
brother, at that. She wore her hair a gaudy green color, unlike the more
tasteful blondes and deep blacks that most Kadrin sorceresses preferred, or
even the more exotic reddish-gold that Juliana and Lady Ophelia fancied. Her
eyes seemed just a bit too large for her face as well. Juliana said she had
heard Iridan’s mother was immortal, but had no other information about her. She
stood out from the warlock at her side, dressed in a plain white shoulderless
gown of humble design. It contrasted with her creamy brown skin, making her
look foreign among the fair-skinned native Kadrins. Iridan obviously took after
his father’s looks.