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Kel swept one last glance over the crowd, catching sight of a shining black carriage with scarlet wheels. Against it leaned a slender, long-legged figure all in black.He goes round all in black, like Gentleman Death, come to take your soul, and his carriage wheels are stained with blood.Could it be the Ragpicker King, come to see the Prince speak? Kel supposed he could, if he felt like it. As a child, he’d asked Conor why the Palace didn’t simply arrest the Ragpicker King.
“Because,” Conor had said, looking thoughtful, “he has too much money.”
Enough.Kel knew he was letting his nerves direct his imagination.Concentrate,he told himself.You are the Prince of Castellane.
He closed his eyes. Against the darkness, he saw blue sea, a ship with white sails. Heard the sound of waves, and the call of gulls. Here, where the western stars drowned with the turning of the world, he was alone in the quiet, with the horizon beckoning. The ship rocked beneath him, the mast at his back. No one knew this place but him. Not even Conor.
His eyes snapped open. He reached out his hands to the crowd,the thick velvet of his sleeves falling back, the rings gleaming on his fingers. The crown was heavy, a bar of iron across his forehead. He said, “I greet you, my people of Castellane, in the name of the Gods,” his voice amplified by the talisman at his throat. It echoed through the square.
My people…Many in the crowd brandished the red-and-gold flag of Castellane—the ship and the lion. The sea and the Gold Roads. There was a rug worked into the shape of the land of Dannemore in the Palace library. Conor walked upon it sometimes in bare feet: now in Hind, now along the Gold Roads, now returning to Castellane. So the world was to a prince.
“Today,” Kel said, and the words rose up in him, unbidden but remembered, “is the day of our freedom, the birth of our city-state. Here, among these streets, did the people of Castellane lay down their lives that they might never again kneel to an Emperor, nor bow down at the feet of a foreign power. Here did we become what we are—a shining beacon to all the world, the greatest city in Dannemore, in all the world—”
The crowd roared. The sound was like thunder, like a storm growing closer and closer until it seemed it would shudder the sky apart. In this moment, it did not matter that Kel was not truly their Prince. The cheering lifted him up as if he walked the sky roads like lightning-struck Elemi.
Their excitement seemed to catch along his bones as if his marrow were filled with black powder. He felt it as a fire rising, becoming a blaze within his blood. It was overwhelming, to be so loved—even if the love was not truly directed at him. Even if it was an illusion.
—
“Very good,” said Conor, when Kel had come back into the Convocat. The crowd, whipped up into a frenzy—in part by the appearance of the Crown Prince, but also, it had to be admitted, by the free alcohol provided by the Palace—was still roaring outside.Tankards were being given out at booths hung with red-and-gold banners as the noble families packed up their belongings and hurried back to the Hill. Soon enough the patriotic crowd would become a raucous and celebratory mob. “I liked the part about the heart and soul of Castellane being…what was it? Ah, yes. The citizens. Extemporaneous?”
“I thought we rehearsed it.” Kel leaned back against a pillar, feeling the cool marble against his back, his neck. He was very hot all over, suddenly, though he had not felt the sun when he’d stood atop the Grieving Stairs. “People like to be complimented.”
“Are you all right?” Conor, who had been sitting with his back against a pillar, scrambled to his feet. Jolivet and Mayesh were deep in conversation; the Arrow Squadron paced up and down the room, silent as guards always were. Conor usually forgot they were there. “You look…”
Kel raised his head. He and Conor were of the same height; Kel was sure somehow Mayesh had made sure of that, as he had made sure that Kel’s eyes, over the years, had turned the color of tarnished silver. “Yes?”
“Nothing. Sunstruck, perhaps. It will do you good to get into the dark.” Conor put a hand on Kel’s shoulder. “Today is a day of celebration. So let us celebrate. Go and change your clothes in the carriage, and we will head to the Caravel.”
“Right.” Kel sighed. As he often did after public appearances as Conor, he felt an exhaustion deep in his bones, as if he had been stretched into a peculiar position for hours. He wished for nothing more than to return to the Palace and collapse into bed. “Joss Falconet’s party.”
“Why the reluctance?” The corner of Conor’s mouth curled up. “It has been too long since we visited the Temple District.”
The Temple District was a neighborhood of pleasure houses; it had earned its name because most brothels kept a house shrine to Turan, the God of desire. Kel half wished to ask if they could go some other evening, but it was clear Conor was looking forward tothe party—and besides, Kel himself had some business in the Caravel quite apart from the usual, and tonight would be as good a time as any to conduct it.
“Nothing,” Kel said. “Only Falconet’s gatherings can be…excessive.”
Conor chucked him lightly under the chin. “Excessively enjoyable. I’ve already asked Benaset to bring the horses around. You can ride Asti.”
Beneath the light tone, Conor sounded anxious. He knew Kel didn’t want to go; the offer of Kel’s favorite horse was a bribe. For a brief moment, Kel wondered what would happen if he refused, said he would return to the Palace with Bensimon and Jolivet. Spent the evening in a dark room with cold blue wine and a map of the western seas.
The answer was: Not much. But Conor would be disappointed, and he would still need someone to accompany him to the Caravel. Conor could not ride out into the world alone, unprotected; he must always be defended. If Kel returned to the Palace, Conor would be assigned a guard from the Arrow Squadron to watch him, and would be accordingly miserable. And if Conor was miserable, Kel would be miserable. Not because Conor would take it out on him; he wouldn’t. But the knowledge that he had let Conor down would eat away at him like caustic.
Kel slipped the crown from his head. He held it out to Conor, the gold circlet dangling from his fingers. “Very well,” he said, “but do not forget your crown, Monseigneur, lest they treat you disrespectfully at the Caravel. Unless,” he added, “being treated disrespectfully is what you’re paying for tonight?”
Conor laughed, the anxiety vanishing from his eyes. “Excellent. We will have a memorable evening, I think.” He turned to wave his crown breezily at Bensimon and Jolivet, who gazed at the two young men with matched expressions of stony disapproval. “We bid you good afternoon, gentlemen,” he said. “Should you wish to find us, we will be in the Temple District, offering the appropriate prayers.”
There has always been magic.
It is a force of nature, like fire, water, and air. Mankind was not born knowing how to use magic, just as they were not born knowing how to create fire. It is said the secrets of magic are whispered of in the higher air, where those who have the ability learn the incantations that, in the right hands, become spells.
We do not know who codified the first spells or committed them to writing. Such knowledge has been lost. But we do know that every chant or conjuration has always included the One Word, the ineffable name of Power, without which a spell is only empty speech. Without the Word, there is no magic.
—Tales of the Sorcerer-Kings,Laocantus Aurus Iovit III
“I’m sorry.” Not looking the least bit sorry, Dom Lafont—a nervous little man with black-rimmed spectacles perched on a warty nose—shook his head. “It isn’t possible.”
Lin Caster placed her hand flat on the wooden counter that separated them. The Lafont Bookshop in the Scholars’ Quarter was a dusty little place, the walls festooned with old prints and sketches of Castellane and famous historical figures of days past. Behind the counter, shelves of books stretched away: some bright and new, in fine colored leather jackets, some plain, bound galleys produced by the Academie to aid students in their coursework.
