The Silvered (53 page)

“I’m a river?”

Gryham smiled. “If you want, you could put it that way. River pulls water from all around—from runoff, from rain, from springs—power works the same way. You need to be a river, not a bucket. I’m thinking you’re already halfway there.”

“I’m not…”

“You’re not an athlete, you never did jack shit to build your strength, but you’ve run from Aydori into the empire. How do you think a pampered society girl…?”

Mirian felt her lip curl. “My father is a banker.”

“How do you think a pampered banker’s daughter got this far? Your mage-craft has been rebuilding your body.”

“That’s not…” Except body equilibrium had thrown off the sleeping drug without her consciously guiding it. Logically, it could be making adjustments to help her run.

“Not to say you couldn’t use a couple of days’ rest, mind. A little natural healing to wipe those circles out from under your eyes, a few decent meals. Anyway,” he continued before she could respond, “way I heard it, the power is everywhere, but the mage has to open herself and say fuck these bullshit rules.”

“Only less bluntly,” Jake muttered.

“Just as fucking bluntly.” Gryham kissed the top of Jake’s head.

Mirian frowned. “I tested high.”

“There you go.”

She shook her head. “But the more powerful you are, the more you need rules.”

“The more powerful you are, the more you need responsibility.” When everyone turned to stare at him, Mirian twisting around so she was almost on his lap, Tomas flushed. “It was something Ryder used to say.”

“And Ryder is?”

“My brother. My Pack Leader. He died. In the Imperial attack.” To Mirian’s surprise, he looked away from Gryham, caught up her hand in his, and added, “Jaspyr died with him.”

She tried to pull free, but Tomas hung on tighter. “Let go.”

“If you’re waiting for h…Ow! Why did you pinch me?”

“She pinched you because you were being an ass,” Gryham told him quietly as Mirian got to her feet.

When Tomas tried to stand as well, she glared him back onto the bench, considered explaining, decided it was no one’s business, and left the cottage. It was too warm and too close and too full of men.

The night was clear—no sign of the rain Jake had Seen coming, and the grass was cold and wet underfoot. Mirian walked over to the chopping block, finding it more by the way it disrupted the air currents than by sight. If her mage-craft had been rebuilding her body, it seemed to have forgotten to fix her vision. There were moments when it seemed no worse than it had ever been and more and more
moments when she felt like she was looking through a veil. And not a cute net veil, either.

She sat, pulled her feet up under her skirt, heard her mother say,
You’re not a child anymore, Mirian,
and wanted to laugh. Or cry. Or scream. No, howl. She wanted to throw back her head and fill the night with sound, to bleed off some of the pressure she could feel building behind her bones. To consciously decide to let go instead of having the release controlled by circumstance.

When the cottage door opened, she expected Tomas, but she knew the space he filled in her world and, even in the dark, she could tell it wasn’t him. It wasn’t only that Gryham was so much larger, it was more that he didn’t fill a space in her world so much as push against it.

He circled the chopping block, rubbed up against her knee almost hard enough to knock her over, and changed. “You can’t blame him for trying to piss a circle around you. Lines need to be clear when two Alphas share space.”

She sighed. Tomas had no reason to be jealous of Gryham, not the way he and Jake were all over each other. “I understand.”

“No, you don’t.”

He was laughing at her. “Stop it.”

“Tomas isn’t the Alpha in your little Pack, little mage. You are.”

“That’s not…”

Gryham stood silently, waiting predator patient while she went back over every interaction she’d had with Tomas since he walked into the firelight pretending to be a dog. In spite of instinctive physical reactions, he’d barely tolerated her until…

Until she’d put him to sleep on the road to Herdon.

She must have made a noise or moved because Gryham was done waiting. “You put his ass back on that bench with a look. Pack’s not complicated; someone’s in charge, that someone’s you.”

“But I’m not Pack!”

“Pack, Mage-pack.” She could feel Gryham shrug. “Not saying you’d still be in charge if there were more than just the two of you. Not saying you wouldn’t be either. Just telling you what it is right now. Who’s Jaspyr? He the reason you and young Tomas haven’t shared skin?”

Startled, Mirian answered without thinking. “You can
smell
that?”

He snorted. “I can see that. You’re easy with him ’cause you’re not thinking of him that way and he doesn’t know what to do with his hands.”

“Jaspyr’s not…” He wasn’t a lot of things. But what was he? “Jaspyr was a moment that passed days ago.”

“Woke you up, though, didn’t he? You’d better let Tomas know this Jaspyr’s not the reason you two aren’t going at it like mink.”

“I don’t know what mink…” And then she parsed the tone, rather than the words, and stiffened. “That’s none of your business.”

“Like as not.” He held out a hand. “Have to admit, the boy’s got serious self-control because you smell bloody amazing.”

Mirian sighed and put her hand in his, allowing him to pull her to her feet. “So I’ve heard.”

“So what did you think of my Archive, Captain?”

Reiter watched the emperor watch the women down in the room. “It’s impressive, Majesty.” The large room had been lined with shelves and half a dozen huge scarred tables filled the center space. Junk covered every flat surface—old bits and pieces of tarnished jewelry, carved wood worn smooth from handling, stones with holes through them or runes etched into them. The whole room smelled as if generations of rats had died out of sight and slowly rotted, the smell too pervasive for one rat alone but too faint for it to be a problem solvable by a bringing in a terrier. Or a fan. Had Reiter not seen the tangles in action, he wouldn’t have given the whole lot a second thought.

The Lord Warder of the Archive had assured him that every item was rigorously tested using the most modern scientific criteria, and while they might not know exactly how every piece functioned, they would in time. The old man had either been impressed that the Soothsayers had prophesied Reiter’s presence, or lonely, or slightly crazy, because he’d been helpful above and beyond orders from the emperor.

“Did you see the scroll?”

“I did, Majesty.” There were hundreds of scrolls, but Tavert had been right, the Lord Warder had known exactly what he’d meant when he’d said he was to see
the scroll.
The original wasn’t paper, but
finely tanned skin; the Lord Warder had called it vellum as he’d smoothed out the surface, his fingers encased in a pair of fine kid gloves. A good portion of it had rotted away and what writing remained was faded and in a language that had been long dead when the empire was founded. Reiter had only a vague idea how they’d managed to translate it even after the old man’s explanation. Soothsayers had figured prominently, so it was no surprise the explanation made little sense.

“Did you read the translation?”

“I did, Majesty.”

“And what did you learn?”

“The Pack was created by mage-craft.” He decided to keep the whole
if the translators weren’t blowing smoke out of their asses
to himself.

“And now you understand why they’re abominations. Unnatural. An ancient construct by a blind mage so powerful he or she could pervert the rules governing life itself. The really fascinating extrapolation is that the origin of the abominations explains why mage-craft is dying out in the empire. As science and technology push the abominations back into the wild, where they’re most comfortable…”

She had gold rings in her ears.

“…the bloodlines die out. Abominations need to be bred back into the bloodlines of the mages in order for mage-craft to remain powerful. I guarantee you, Captain, that if we knew how to test for it, we’d find the abominations in the blood of these women as well as in their bodies.”

The boy, Tomas, had a slight point to his ears. Reiter had known a man in the army with three balls. He knew what he thought was stranger.

“Just think what I could accomplish if one of these five throw a mage of that caliber. Empires rise…”

It took Reiter a moment of puzzled silence to realize the emperor had been quoting the Soothsayer’s prophecy. “Or fall, Majesty.”

For the first time since he’d come into the tiny room, the emperor turned from the spyhole, his blue eyes narrowed. “What did you say, Captain?”

“The prophecy, Majesty. Empires rise or empires fall.” Reiter could feel sweat beginning to bead along his spine. The emperor’s
expression made him feel a certain kinship to the pelt they stood on. “If the Soothsayers are concerned…”

And just like that, the bayonet was withdrawn and the emperor shook his head indulgently. “The Soothsayers aren’t so much concerned as they are open to all possibilities.” He pushed his hair back off his face and smiled. “It’s up to us, as reasoning people, to apply those possibilities. Thanks, in part, to you, I control five of the six possibilities and the sixth is on her way.”

Reiter didn’t want the responsibility the emperor seemed willing to grant him.

“Did you know that science keeps us alive fifteen years longer than in our grandfathers’ generation?”

“No, Majesty.”

“It does. I’ve been thinking, since I first read the scroll, what mage-craft strong enough to create a whole new species could do. If I controlled that mage, if that mage had been trained from birth to obey me, if I could trust their mage-craft, then I could live forever. I’d have the time I need to make the empire great. And when the abominations are gone, wiped out in the wild, mage-craft will die out in the wild. I will control the only remaining mages. Worth the losses in Aydori, don’t you think, Captain?”

Fortunately, before Reiter could answer, before Reiter could decide what to answer, the emperor kept talking.

“And now this new possibility of science and mage-craft working together…” He rubbed his hands together, rings whispering over each other, and grinned. “I can’t wait. If you could move back behind the rear draperies, Captain.”

As the emperor settled into the chair, Reiter backed through the two panels of fabric, until he was suddenly teetering on the edge of the stairs. Weighing the chance of a fall against missing what was about to happen, he decided to balance right where he was. Shuffling left on the balls of his feet, heels suspended over nothing, lined him up with the narrow gap between the pieces of fabric. When the emperor reached down to the side of the chair, Reiter noticed a brass-bound lever built into the base.

Long, pale fingers closed around the lever and shoved it forward. The floor vibrated and the front of the room opened, splitting in two and folding back. On the one hand, the emperor formed policy
based on the insane ramblings of Soothsayers interpreted through bad poetry. On the other, his engineers were superb. The man was a mass of contradictions.

Reiter was tall enough he could see the faces of the women around the table as they stood and turned to face the emperor. He didn’t know how the emperor saw it—it was all theory to the emperor, and he believed he’d proven his strength, so he probably saw it as respect—but Reiter thought they stood because it was a better position for fighting than sitting down.

“It has occurred to me,” the emperor said, “that I have very little personal experience with mage-craft.” Reiter could hear the smile in his voice. “While I’m considering a certain proposal…” His tone was an unpleasant mix of coy and patronizing. “…I require more data points in order to make an informed decision. If the net were removed and you could give me one small demonstration of your power, what would it be?”

The largest woman said something under her breath.

“Ah, yes, you’re the one who speaks so little Imperial. Louder please, so it can be translated.”

“She said she would make a rose bloom, Your Imperial Majesty.” It was the blonde who’d spoken on the road. Something about her tone reminded Reiter of Major Halyss’ father, and he wondered what the other woman had actually said.

“Fascinating, but not very useful. You.”

The youngest woman started, glanced at the blonde, who nodded. “I part water, Majestied.”

“You’re part water…oh, you can part water.”

She visibly relaxed when the emperor laughed—even kidnapped and imprisoned, that was the effect he had on people. Reiter found it one of the more disturbing things he’d ever seen.

“A lot of water?” he asked. “Lakes? Rivers?”

She shook her head. “Not know amount, Majestied.”

“Oh.” She actually looked disappointed when he sounded disappointed. “No matter. I’m sure it’ll be fascinating discovering how much water you can part. Eventually, of course. You.”

The tiny dark-haired woman stared at the finger pointing at her. “I send you smells.”

“Not very useful, I’m afraid, although I could see sending smells
away as being of some benefit. Still that’s what we have fans for. And you,” he pointed at the blonde, the other woman in blue, “you’d do the same. So what would you do?”