Heroes at Odds (34 page)

She went back to the cupboards and took out a small sealed jar. “This is karum,” she told me. “It is made from fish oil.”

“Some kind of medicine?”

“No, wine.”

Oh, that was not good. Was there a superlative more emphatic than horrific? “We have to drink that?”

“It’s quite good, actually. But more importantly, it is made by our hands from the fruits of this estate.”

“You didn’t have all this rigmarole when you were going to induct me before.”

A few people glared at me. I supposed I shouldn’t have referred to their secret ritual as rigmarole.

“When we were going to do that then, the induction was to be held at sunrise. That time has power. At this time, other steps must be taken.”

Well, I’d had to consume some foul things in my time. I supposed I could manage this.

Browne held up the slate. “I will speak a number of statements, starting with ‘you.’ You must repeat them, starting with ‘I.’ As well, I will ask you questions occasionally, which you will answer in the affirmative. Otherwise, I will be giving you instructions.”

“I understand.”

Browne lit her candle and sat on the table in the middle, her legs folded. “I call the Order of Casters of Westsea,” she announced in a voice that was too big for the room. “Share my light and show our bond.”

Tye stepped forward and approached the table. “I am Penelope Tye of Flown Raven. I seek knowledge.” She lit her candle off Browne’s. “I share strength.” She lit one of the candles on the floor. Then she stood still, looking at Browne.

“Do you welcome Shield Dunleavy Mallorough?”

“I do.”

“Will you provide guidance as required?”

“I will.”

“Will you guard Shield Dunleavy Mallorough from those who will do her harm?”

“I will.”

“Who is Shield Dunleavy Mallorough?”

“My peer and comrade.”

“We weave your strength into the whole.”

Tye stepped back to her place against the wall.

Chan stepped out. He took the same actions and made the same promises and lit candles in the same order. He was followed by a third. Everyone in the room went through the same routine, until all of the candles in the room were lit, except mine.

It took a very long time. There was an undercurrent of something in the room, something I could feel, something building up. It was still boring.

And then, finally, Browne looked at me. It was my turn. The woman beside me took my arm and nudged me into taking a couple of steps.

“You are Shield Dunleavy Mallorough,” said Browne.

“I am Shield Dunleavy Mallorough,” I responded.

“Your highest bond is to the Source and Shield Service.”

I hesitated a moment. Technically, that was true. Personally, I felt my bond with Taro was the most important of my life. Pointing that out would interrupt the flow of the ceremony. They might have to start over again. I really didn’t want that to happen. “My highest bond is to the Source and Shield Service.”

“Second in potency is your bond to Source Shintaro Karish.”

That wasn’t his entire name. Did that matter? “Second in potency is my bond to Source Shintaro Karish.”

“Your wings fly third to the Duchess of Westsea.”

Hm. All right. “My wings fly third to the Duchess of Westsea.”

“But you are a being of many parts.”

“But I am a being of many parts.”

“And one such part you will bind to us.”

“And one such part I will bind to you.”

“Into the circle you bind your arts of casting.”

I really didn’t like that one. “Into the circle I bind my arts of casting.”

“From within the circle you glean your well of knowledge.”

“From within the circle I glean my well of knowledge.”

“Its members you will guard from harm.”

“Its members I will guard from harm.”

“Its secrets you will bury within your mind.”

“Its secrets I will bury within my mind.”

“You will move as the circle moves.”

“I will move as the circle moves.”

“And should you tarnish your bond to the circle, your casting arts shall be stripped from you.”

Hey now, no one had warned me of anything like that. I wasn’t going to throw away my ability to cast just because there was some kind of disagreement between the circle and me. They certainly had no right to ask it of me. I held my unlit candle out to Browne, to be taken, not lit.

“As it pertains to casting in Westsea,” she added quickly.

That was a compromise I could accept, except for one more thing. “And should I tarnish my bond to the circle, my casting arts shall be stripped from me, as it pertains to casting in Westsea, and excluding what is needed to protect Source Shintaro Karish.”

“Done.”

There was some grumbling in disapproval, but no one spoke outright. Browne held out the candle, and I lit mine with it. “Shield Dunleavy Mallorough is one of us. Greet her.”

I had expected to feel the jittery sensation I usually felt when a spell was successfully cast. I didn’t. Did that mean the oath was meaningless?

Everyone clapped, three times, almost in unison. It sounded kind of creepy.

“All right, then,” Mitloehner said sharply. “Can we finally move on to why we came here in the first place?”

Browne scrambled off the table, blowing out her candle. “I hope you’ve all been thinking, because the next thing we get to fight about is whether we’re going to design a communication spell.”

It was going to be a long afternoon.

“But this is insane,” I objected. “Someone is attacking your people.”

“It’s important,” Fiona told me placidly.

“How is a dance important?” I asked. “Ever?”

“A titleholder must attend public events, Dunleavy. It is one of the ways she shows her people that she values them, a willingness to spend her free time with them. It’s one of the ways she shows them she’s clear of mind and of sound muscle. And it lessens the distance between titleholder and tenant. They’ll see her as human. That can be useful in hard times.”

I would have thought the opposite would be true. Wouldn’t people, during hard times, draw comfort from feeling their titleholder was infallible? I always felt better when I thought people knew what they were doing. But this wasn’t my area of expertise. “Well, I hope you have the chance to enjoy yourself, at least.”

“Not so fast.” She clapped me on the shoulder. “It’s important that they see you’re a regular person, too.”

I almost said I wasn’t a regular person. “This is careless.”

“I thought you didn’t need to be in the manor to stop the earthquakes and the tsunami.”

“No, I don’t.”

“So there’s no reason why you can’t go out.”

I just felt dancing was trivial. When times were hard, wouldn’t people prefer to know their leader was working?

“Sometimes it is best that we make an effort to have life go on as normal,” said Fiona. “You live as a guest in the manor. One of your obligations is to assist me in making things seem normal.”

No one had ever told me that. Did she just make that up?

“I haven’t gone for the last few weeks, and if I remember correctly, you haven’t gone at all. It’s past time.”

All I knew was that if I feared I was in danger of losing my livelihood, I wouldn’t feel like dancing, and I wouldn’t want anyone else to feel like dancing, either.

“Is it that you don’t like to dance?” Fiona asked.

“No, no, I enjoy dancing.”

“There you go. A good time will be had by all. Tell Shintaro he’s expected, too. And I’ve got some lovely pieces of jewelry if you’d like to borrow some. I know all of yours was stolen.” She gently touched one of my earlobes before giving me a smile and wandering off.

Sometimes the affairs of regulars baffled me.

That evening, two carriages took us, Taro and me, my family, Fiona, Tarce, and even Daris, to the assembly hall. Within the building, all of the injured from the fire and the gear used to treat them had been cleared away. There were already several dozen people there, dancing to the music provided by a handful of instrumentalists sitting in one corner. There was a long table along one wall, covered with finger food and jugs with small glasses.

“Are you all right with this music, Lee?” my mother asked.

“This music is harmless,” said Taro.

“Thanks for answering for me, dear,” I said sarcastically.

“I am the expert in this area,” he responded without remorse.

I watched the pairs go through their predetermined steps. “Is all the dancing this formal?”

“Do you not know the steps?” Fiona asked.

“No, no. This dance is familiar to me. I just mean, if all the dancing is like this, the music will be fine.” And I wouldn’t have to stay by Taro’s side all evening. A pleasant enough place to be, of course, but it might appear that I was snubbing everyone else. And I didn’t like the idea of Taro feeling he had to watch me all evening.

Linder appeared out of nowhere, grinning broadly. His shirt was orange, which was a hideous color in general, but it looked good on him. He was cute. As annoying as the Dowager was in her attempts to lure Taro and me from each other, I had to admit she picked pretty tools for the task.

“Want to dance?” he asked Mika, who took his arm.

“Have a nice evening, people,” Mika said before he was pulled away into the crowd.

“So I guess we won’t be seeing either of them again tonight,” Dias commented dryly.

Taro invited my mother to the floor, and a young woman came out of nowhere to invite Dias. Tarce turned to me. “Care to dance?”

Sure. Why not? I nodded and let Tarce lead me to the end of the sets, so we could blend in with the other dancers without causing disruption.

And during the first circular hey, Tarce smiled at me. A small, delicious curving of the lips that was entirely fake. I couldn’t help it. I laughed. He flushed. I felt bad. “I apologize,” I said sincerely. “But . . . what were you trying to do?”

We were separated by the steps of the dance and then brought back together. “Showing good manners,” he answered. “You might give it a try.”

“That wasn’t about manners. That was flirting.” Or an attempt at it. Why would he do that with me? “Is that what Taro has been teaching you?”

He managed to look even stiffer. “I don’t know what you mean.”

I hoped Taro wasn’t teaching Tarce to flirt with absolutely everyone. I didn’t imagine there were many who could get away with that. When Taro had done it to me at our first meeting, I’d been a little repulsed, and he was really good at it. Someone with less skill could get himself in trouble. “I really don’t think that’ll work on Radia.”

“Do you normally speak of things that are no concern of yours?”

“Only when people try to pull me into them.”

“No one is doing that, yet you seem to be everywhere, insinuating yourself into every situation. You overstep your bounds.”

Hey, he was the one flirting with me inappropriately. Or something. What other situation could he be referring to?

And if I was doing too much, he was doing too little. “How have you been helping Fiona in this business with Kent?”

He expressed no surprise at my use of Kent’s name. So he thought Kent was behind it all, too. “That’s no concern of yours, either.”

“It’s the concern of all the people who live here.”

“You don’t really live here. You are merely stationed here for a couple of years, and then you’ll be moving on. Nothing here, other than your responsibilities as a Shield, is any business of yours.”

He was right, of course, but having let myself get drawn into all sorts of local matters, I would have to get used to defending myself. “So you’re saying I should live in some sort of box, and the only thing in that box is Shielding. I’m to have no connections to anything else.”

“I’m sure you have all sorts of Triple S mysteries to keep you busy. Why don’t you focus on those?”

Obnoxious twit. “I suppose because I care about Fiona. She’s an admirable person and I want things to go well for her. I can’t imagine knowing her and being prepared to do nothing to help her during difficult times.”

He glared at me. I did not regret what I had said. He wasn’t as bad as Daris, but he was still a sort of leech. He seemed ready to let Fiona handle everything herself. That wasn’t what family was supposed to be about.

To give him his due, he properly finished the dance and escorted me back to Taro. I wouldn’t have blamed him for leaving immediately. “Are you trying to teach him to be charming?” I asked Taro once Tarce was gone.

“Some things are to be kept between gentlemen.”

“It’s not working.”

He sighed. “I know.”

A pretty young woman approached me. “I am Yanara Ren,” she said. “Would you care to dance?”

“Certainly.” And it was the beginning of a busy evening for me. I didn’t sit out a single dance for the first few hours, constantly kept on my feet by various tradespeople and occasionally my brothers and Taro. In fact, I was kept so busy that I didn’t notice some people imbibing the punch a little more freely than they should have, nor the edge that was developing in the conversation around us.

Then I heard, “Well, then, maybe Kent would do a better job of it,” from immediately behind me, and I walked out of the formation to look at the woman who had spoken the words. I couldn’t really help myself; I was moving before I really thought about it.

I didn’t know what to say. Something along the lines of “Really?” or “Again?” Didn’t the oaths they made to Fiona mean anything to them?

Maybe such oaths didn’t. Maybe that was why the Emperor had been supplementing the oaths given on the day of his coronation with a spell. Maybe people just played out certain rituals at certain times as a bow to history, and didn’t mean anything by it.