Tell Tullier to give him a straight answer.
Gaultry glanced at the Sharif, willing her to pass on the direction. Tullier, with his odd upbringing, did not understand how to ask for kindness, for compassion. The Prince would offer it, she was certain, if only Tullier would give him an opening.
Tell Tullier to answer him straight so the Prince can offer him mercy.
The Sharif, glancing back, raised one dark brow and frowned. She had not followed the exchange in its entirety, but she had its gist. She gave Gaultry a single rebuking shake of her head.
“Gaultry’s sister can have her Glamour-soul.” Tullier spat. “I did not cry for it. By Llara, I asked for nothing—”
“As a Sha Muira soldier, there was nothing you
could
ask for,” Benet pointed out. “You existed only to feed the poison in your blood, to worship Storm-mother Llara with your kills. As a Bissanty Prince, the range of your ambitions is considerably broader. Now: on Lady Gaultry’s word, answer my question. Whose man are you?”
Tullier vented an angry breath. “For her—” he gestured at Gaultry. “For her word, I will tell you the duty I owe to Bissanty now—which is nothing!” He heaved himself up, painfully, and choppily sketched Llara’s storm-bolt sign. “Llara as my witness, here is truth: My father murdered my mother the day I was born, and condemned me to living death among the Sha Muira from the first day of my life. He did not care what we suffered, he cared only to revenge himself on his Imperial nephew Sciuttarus, who now reigns as Emperor.
“Why should I love him? Either him, or my Imperial cousin, Sciuttarus-the-cruel, whose actions set my father on this brutal course? I disown them—all of them. My family’s machinations are nothing to me. I will not be a pawn in their games.”
Benet listened to this outburst with saddening eyes. When he finally responded, his voice was both more gentle and more firm. “Poor Tullier,” he said. “You speak more than you are intending. You can be a pawn, or a power-broker, but you cannot so lightly escape this game. Llara’s blood cannot be so easily foresworn. Only one member of the Imperial house has been known to do it.” A shadow of pride flickered on Benet’s face. “That was my own greatest grandsire, Clarin, who convinced the gods to accept his Blood-Imperial as payment for a measure of this land’s freedom. What would you aspire to, to be rid of the god-blood within you?”
Tullier let himself fall back on the couch, an exhausted expression on his face. He made no other answer.
Benet made the Goddess-Twins’ spiral-sign, as if to clear the air between them. “We could ponder these questions through the night, but I have other business.” He gave Tullier a serious look. “First, I want to see the power returned from you to my Glamour-witch.”
“I have already said I am amenable,” Tullier replied, a little pale. “I will do whatever is required.”
Benet turned to Mervion. “So—the boy has agreed to return what is yours. Before I will decide the matter of offering him my court’s protection, I want your power reclaimed.” He glanced around the room. “We can clear the room, if you need privacy.”
The Sharif and Melaney, who had been standing by uncomfortably for some time, the one not following all the conversation, the other not sure she should be there to listen, took this as their cue, and made for the door. From his expression, Benet had no intention to join them.
“What can I do?” Gaultry asked Mervion. She held out her hand, an offer of the power of her own magic, her own Glamour-soul.
Mervion shook her head. “I’m ready. I prepared before I came.” Her gaze was downcast to Tullier’s chaise, her expression hidden.
Gaultry, surprised by her sister’s rebuff, however gentle, tried again. “We brought a soul-figure with us back from Bissanty,” she volunteered. “One of Lukas Soul-breaker’s creations. It can hold your Glamour-soul until you are ready to receive it. Shall I go unpack it?” The horrible silver figurine, with its stubby vestigial arms and merged legs, was still in her pack, nestled among layers of wadding.
“Destroy it.” Mervion shuddered. She loosened the laces of Tullier’s tunic and settled her hand inside, her slender fingers spread on Tullier’s bony chest. “I won’t use it. I don’t even want to see it.”
“Then how—” As she spoke, Gaultry realized that Mervion had already begun. She stared, the discovery that her sister did not need her fearful and bewildering.
The human soul was a wellspring of power, its manipulations best left to the gods alone. Gaultry had learned that as one of the deepest laws of magic and life, as something immutable and changeless. Besides, to manipulate a human soul required power beyond anything a normal person could command—even the most powerful sorcerer. The only exceptions were those who were double-souled themselves—like those born to an Imperial house, or to Glamour. Even then, their ability to touch or affect the human soul was insignificant. It took someone like Lukas Soul-breaker, who had commanded the power of three souls—his own, his Blood-Imperial, and the Blood-Imperial of his sister Columba, to reduce the human soul to something like an animal’s spirit: something that could be twisted, controlled, used as a tool.
But even Lukas had been forced to augment his power during the soul transference, using the silver soul-figures to aid him. Indeed, Gaultry
had retained the soul-figure in the belief that Mervion would need it to reclaim her power.
Evidently Mervion did not need it. A shimmer of gold emanated from her as she stood over Tullier’s sofa and touched her hand to his wound. Tullier shivered, his eyes opening wide, his pupils dilating. The room filled with a shock of power, a pulse of strength that popped Gaultry’s ears and sent her reeling. Benet grabbed for the back of Gaultry’s cane-seated chair.
“I am done,” Mervion said simply. She rose from Tullier’s bedside and shook out her hands. Then, with more open satisfaction, “I have done it.” For one moment, triumph lit her, then, just as quickly, she hid it away.
Tullier’s face flushed with a healthier color than Gaultry had seen in him since his wounding. Fresh sweat trickled from beneath his hair. He pressed his palms to his cheeks. “What did you do?” he said shakily. “What have you left me?”
“You should feel better now.” Mervion smiled. “My sister is a butcher, not a healer. I have what is mine now, but with what I did, you should find your wound much soothed.”
“I feel so empty—” A sudden sound of a scuffle rose from the street below, cutting him short. Everyone glanced inquiringly toward the open window.
“What was that?” Benet said sharply. He stepped to the window and glanced down into the street. “Men. Wearing palace uniforms. Someone’s letting them into the house.” He cast Gaultry a suspicious look. “I did not call for them. Did you?”
Several things happened very quickly. A scream rang through the house, terror and alarm combined. The sound of rushing feet clattered on the stairs, and, in seemingly the same instant, the salon’s door burst open. Three swordsmen propelled themselves inside, the first stumbling, recovering awkwardly from the kick that had driven the doors inward.
“Stand back.” Their leader, a thin man with a swordmaster’s scars on his sunken cheeks, kicked a chair out of his way as he advanced. “We are here for the boy. The rest of you—” His eyes swept the room. Shock crossed his lean face as he spotted Benet, his blue-and-silver coat gleaming in the last light of the window. Then he regained his resolution. “The rest of you just stay out of our way.”
There were more men behind him, crowding the landing, ready to follow the three swordsmen into the room.
“You have no business here.” With two steps, Benet took a stance in front of Tullier’s sofa and unsheathed his sword.
Gaultry scrambled up to join him, glancing around for a weapon, and seeing none. In expectation of company, their equipment had been tidied away upstairs.
“Nor do you, Sire. Let us take the boy and leave, and no one will be hurt.” The swordmaster flicked the tip of his sword, and his pair of armsmen spread out, the man who had kicked in the door moving a little clumsily, as though he had bruised his foot.
“Siànne,” the clumsy man addressed his leader in obvious bewilderment. “What is he doing here?”
The swordmaster shook his head. “Twins in me, that is not for us to ask.” As he spoke, he touched the silver gorget at his throat, and sketched a ceremonial gesture with his free hand.
“Don’t cast it.” Mervion, who had not moved from her place by Tullier’s side, spoke directly to the swordmaster. She was the first to recognize a calling of magic in his gesture. “Leave here before worse than this threat to your honor befalls you.” Her voice was sweet, almost dreamy, in contrast to her words. But there was something dangerous in her eyes. Dangerous, and intense.
It was not enough. The swordmaster bit his lower lip, concerned, but he advanced another step, ignoring the warning. He touched the backs of his knuckles to his throat, another ceremonial gesture, then flashed the flat of his blade outward.
“Elianté blessed me with good hunting,” he intoned. “To her alone, I am pledged. I have found my quarry, I will take it—”
Green fire struck out from his sword, driving Benet, foremost of those arrayed against him, to his knees. This was not an effect the lean swordmaster had anticipated. Horror blossomed on his face, twisting fearfully with fear and helplessness, but the spell had him now, and he was in its thrall. He moved forward, jerkily, like an animated doll, the smoothness of his swordsman’s stride disrupted, transformed into something hideous and intent.
His armsmen closed in nervously behind him, overtly dubious, but obedient to whatever orders had set them to this course.
Gaultry held wide her hands, even as she attempted to shield her fallen Prince. “This is treason, but stop now, and you can redeem yourselves!”
The swordmaster kept coming. The green fire spread off his blade,
sheathing his body like armor as the spell reached its full effect. He bore down on them, his blade windmilling almost aimlessly, more like a farmer’s scythe than a weapon. It seemed he was fighting the spell—and losing.
A clash of arms rang out from the landing. A bloodcurdling scream, half woman’s cry, half feline’s yowl, was followed by a man’s shriek of terror. The Sharif, and Aneitha too, coming to their rescue.
With no weapons to hand, Gaultry snatched up the cane-seated chair, hoping to hold the swordmaster off, at least until the Sharif and the cat could reach the salon. Another flash of magic from the sword took her, this time spreading its enveloping green flame. She fell back against Benet, and the flame spread to take him too, slapping them both with alternating waves of fear, cold, and wrath.
As her own magic surged to repel it, recognition shot through her. Black-green. This magic was an angry black avenger-green, indistinguishable from the power that had struck at them on Sizor’s Bridge. But this time the spell was not bound to a physical focus, like the vines that had sheathed the bridge. It was free to jump from one object—or person—to another, wreaking havoc in its trail. She felt like she had been struck by a thunderbolt.
Behind her, a wave of magic smacked Benet down, then flared to a new peak of power. Gaultry threw the chair at the swordmaster, and retreated, stumbling back against the sofa.
At the edge of her vision, she had a confused impression of Mervion, emerging at last from her dreamy torpor, rising from the sofa and opening out her arms with an unfamiliar, slow-paced deliberation.
As Mervion opened her arms, Gaultry sensed, rather than heard, the word of power she invoked. It thundered and grew, pounding in the air, rising as Mervion stretched wide her hands and flattened her palms toward the ceiling.
One of the swordmaster’s armsmen staggered, drew in his hands, and covered his ears, an action exactly counterpoised to her sister’s outward motion.
Mervion spoke again, challenging and loud. “For Benet!” she cried.
The man cried out too, his words and tone parroting Mervion’s. “For Benet!”
“For Tielmark!” Mervion screamed.
“For Tielmark!” the man echoed her. He thrust with his sword, cutting the swordmaster from behind. “For Tielmark, and for my Prince!”
As the armsman’s blade took him, the swordmaster let out an agonized cry. But he fell toward Benet, his sword clutched in his outflung hand, even this intervention failing to deter him. The Prince, writhing under the nimbus of green magic, barely raised his own blade in time. Gaultry threw herself into the scrum, trying to separate them, just as the armsman Mervion had suborned struck again. By a miracle, his blade again pierced the swordmaster, missing Benet and Gaultry.
The green magic hissed and flared, even as the swordmaster weakened. It seemed, weirdly, to be gaining power from the body to body contact of the Prince and his assailant. The swordmaster, still horribly animated, pressed Benet backward so they crumpled together across Tullier’s couch.
“It’s Tielmaran magic!” Gaultry yelled, as Tullier was knocked over the back of the couch. “It’s taking strength from the Prince!”
Frightened cries rang in from the landing. Gaultry caught a glimpse of the Sharif, and then of the great cat Aneitha, tearing open a man’s throat in a roil of feline savagery. Someone else was fighting there—fighting on their side. Melaney? The girl had not been armed that Gaultry could remember. Their attackers were in total disarray, uncertain whether they should be fighting at all, unable to retreat without orders, and unwilling to enter the salon to join the attack on the Prince. If it had not been for the green spell’s rising power, there would have been no question who would win this fight.