The Gantean (Tales of Blood & Light Book 1) (9 page)

So many books! So many paintings and maps in frames on the walls! So many chaises and chairs! The room sprawled. Aisles between the shelves faded into the distance.

Costas, still holding my wrist, drew me down one of the empty aisles and pressed me up against the books. He stole an eager kiss, and a warm rush of energy stirred at the base of my spine, running along the braided cord of bloodlight I now shared with him.

I turned my face away, but he continued to kiss me: my jaw, my neck, the hollow of my throat that missed my necklace. My necklace!

“Wait!” I tried to shift his weight though it pinned me against the shelves. “Last night I lost my—”

Costas laughed. “Wait? But why? There’s no one here to see us. We’re perfectly alone. This was exactly what I hoped for in setting up the test for Ghilene.”

I could not meet the intensity of his gaze. It burned me—quite physically—just as his touch did. I tried again. “Last night I lost my necklace. The one with the bone charms and the red stone? I must find it. Did you—”

“We’ll go back to Opal and search for it later. ”

“Thank you.” His assurance brought me a small measure of relief. He wrapped his hand over mine and held it there.

“Did you get the women’s knife?” he asked.

“Oh, yes!” I pushed up my sleeve to show it to him, strapped on my arm. “It’s beautiful, your Highness, but you—”

“You of all people can call me Costas, Leila.”

I flushed. He leaned into me and stared into my eyes in an unnervingly direct way. “That knife has significance, Leila. It bears my sigil. Can you meet again tonight? After the Brokering festivities. Midnight?”

“To search for my necklace? Yes, yes!”

“We can do...anything you wish...of course, but there are some matters we must discuss—”

“Well, well,” a voice said from the top of the aisle. “Two lovebirds caught kissing in the library. This might be a first for these famed halls. The Conservatoire mages frown upon such behavior, you know. They prefer we keep our amorous activities confined to the Temple of Amarite, where we are assured Sources strong enough for our tastes.” Laith Amar leaned against the edge of the bookshelf, arms crossed over his chest, his expression far darker than the teasing lightness of his tone.

“Laith.” Costas dropped my hand.

No longer dressed in the customary white attire of a mage, but rather in form-fitting black clothes, Laith stalked down the aisle towards us. “Costas,” he replied with a familiarity I did not expect.

Costas did not seem to mind. “Doing research?” he asked the mage.

Laith smirked in reply, a lifted eyebrow his only answer. He paused and stood in the space Costas had put between us, looking first from Costas and then to me. “What brings you here?” Laith asked.

My watery knees almost betrayed me.

“I brought Ghilene Entila to be tested by the analyst. Apparently she has some magic,” Costas replied.

“Ghilene Entila has magic?” Laith appeared startled. “But the Entila bloodline isn’t known for producing mages.”

Costas shrugged. “I danced with her. She has some perceptible amount. I thought it should be measured.”

“Interesting.” Laith turned to me. “You must be waiting for your mistress then, Miss Lili.”

I nodded. My cheeks burned.

Laith’s dark brows furrowed as he examined me. I shrank into the shelf behind me, fearing he could see the twisting cord of bloodlight—aetherlight—connecting me to Costas.

If he saw it, he made no comment, but his face shuttered, and he turned back to Costas. “My brother invited you to spar with him later today.”

“I received the message,” Costas answered stiffly.

Laith slid a book from the shelf beside my head and stepped back. “Personally, I’ve never taken any interest in what anyone else chooses to do with his own body,” he remarked. “I’m a mage, after all. We do not have the luxury of virtue, and I never cared much for the concept, anyway. But people are watching you, Costas. Closely and carefully. I know you know it. Lien-bound mages must obey their masters, and I am not the only one who has been asked to see which way your aetherlight bends.” His words carried no threat, only sympathy. Were they friends, Laith and Costas? That explained Laith’s casual way of addressing the prince.

Costas’s jaw tightened. Laith flipped open the book he held and indicated a passage. “Ah, here is what I was looking for.” He read from the page, “The Gantean magic is under-researched by Conservatoire mages. All that is really known is that they make many rituals by imbibing a tea made from mushrooms, and that they seem to place great weight on blood, though no one knows exactly why. It has also been observed that nearly every Gantean wears a unique bone carving at their throat, and this object carries particular significance to them, though whether a magical significance or not remains to be seen.” Laith snapped the book closed and jabbed a finger at my neck. “You wore two such charms on your neck last night, and one of them gave off a great deal of magical energy. That’s what made me recall this passage in Ronin Entila’s memoirs.”

I sucked a breath of air. Laith had assured me he would not reveal my origins! Why had he betrayed me in front of Costas?

Costas grabbed one of Laith’s shoulders and pulled him away from me. “You’re scaring the girl, Laith,” he said coolly. “Do you mean to tell me she’s Gantean? “ He peered at me with a whole new light in his eyes, curiosity rather than disdain marking his expression. “That makes sense. She’s from the north. The Ganteans have mixed with the general population up there. Lady Entila is pressing for a colony on the island now that it’s empty—”

Laith ducked from Costas’s grasp, tucking his book under his arm as he swept up the aisle. “I imagine there are several people who would wish to know the girl is Gantean,” he said over his shoulder. “I’m sure your father would want very much to know, for instance.” The mage moved in long strides out the library door.

“Did he mean that he is going to tell your father about us?” I asked Costas, my voice wavering. Costas knew I was a member of a race his people despised, and what would Ghilene do if she learned my secret was out?

“Fucking Amatos.” Costas shoved a hand through his hair. “I have to go do damage control. I’ll see you tonight at the Brokering. We’ll meet afterwards, in the garden.”

“Yes,” I whispered. I still hadn’t managed to shift my weight from the bookshelf into my own feet.

Costas left me in the library. The thought of Ghilene’s anger urged me back to the hall. She would blame me for Costas’s departure; I did not doubt it.

After a long quarter-hour, Ghilene glided down the hall, her face beaming. At least the test must have gone well. Her expression fell when she saw that I stood alone.

“Where did Costas go?” she demanded, curling her hands into fists at her sides.

“He was called back to the Palace on some important business,” I hedged. “He asked that I tell you he looked forward to your company tonight at the party.” Yet another lie. What was the sayantaq world doing to me?

Ghilene pursed her lips. “He promised he would wait to hear my results.”

“I think the matter was urgent.”

Ghilene moved towards the Conservatoire door. She wore an odd, unreadable expression on her face. “The tester said I had the makings of a magitrix, but they don’t like to accept students who cannot name both of their parents. In my case they might make an exception, seeing as how Mother is Head of House. If I enroll, I am to study magical architecture.” She sounded both pensive and excited.

I opened the front doors for her, and we stepped out into bright sunlight that fractured through the glassy towers of the building overhead. “Magical architecture?” I asked, hoping to keep her on a pleasing topic.

Ghilene pointed up. “Mageglass,” she said. “Mages build all the mageglass structures, of course. They design them and then call them into existence with their magic.”

I stared upwards at the spiraling glass turrets of the Conservatoire, shocked. I could not fathom the blood-cost of such magic.

“And will you enroll?” I wondered aloud.

She frowned as we stepped into the bustling square beyond the school. “I’d rather be a princess than a magitrix, but I’d rather be a magitrix than the spinster bastard daughter of House Entila. If Prince Costas doesn’t give me his sigil and ask for my hand, I think I will enroll.”

G
hilene’s
words
echoed in my head as I readied her for the final ball.
If Prince Costas doesn’t give me his sigil
—he had said the women’s knife he’d given me was his sigil. I had not known what he meant when he said it had significance, but Ghilene implied that the sigil was an offer of marriage. Rills of terror and excitement shuddered through my body. I could barely focus on the gown Ghilene had selected, emerald green with a train so long I had to carry it in folds as we descended the stairs to the ballroom. I had to continually rein in my imagination, which soared on flights of fancy about wedding Costas Galatien.
Stop it
.
You could have entirely misread the situation.

We sailed into the ballroom, and Ghilene gestured for me to let her skirts fall. I tied a ribbon around her wrist that allowed her to control the garment as she danced.

Costas cut across the room to join us. “Lady Ghilene.” Flocks of tiny birds fluttered their wings in my stomach, but he ignored me in favor of my mistress.

Ghilene smiled. “The test was successful.”

Costas nodded, though he seemed distracted. “I am glad to hear it. Let me get you some refreshments.” He ushered Ghilene towards the tables that lined the rear of the ballroom. I did not follow, knowing how Ghilene loathed my presence.

Costas and Ghilene took wine flutes and small plates to a table. Costas performed his role well, leaning attentively over Ghilene, laughing when she spoke, responding to her every motion, but he never gave her his genuine attention. He played a role to distract her, nothing more. When he lifted his head and caught my eye, I slipped the new women’s knife from its holster, hoping he would correctly interpret my signal that I need to speak with him. A hand grasped my shoulder. I squeaked and attempted to shove the women’s knife back into its sling, but failed. I met the angry scowl of Jaasir Amar.

“You think I can’t see what you’re up to, fumbling around with that knife?” he hissed, herding me into one of the curtained sitting alcoves. “Flashing it around for everyone to see like a mirror in the sun?” He shoved me into a seat. “There’s an art to the language of the blades, you know.” His voice dripped scorn. “Highborn girls are masters of it by the age of ten
.
”

“W—what?” My hands shook even as I let the women’s knife drop back into my hand. He frightened me.

Jaasir lounged into the alcove’s opposing seat. “You’re an uppity little creature for a filthy Gantean, casting your eyes at the Prince of Lethemia. Oh yes, Laith told me.” Jaasir leaned forward and grasped the neck of my dress, pulling me so that our faces were but a hand’s breadth apart. His dark blue eyes were such a startling color in his pale face—they almost exactly matched my own.

“He doesn’t really want you, you know. He’s toying with you because he can.”

“I—”

“He likes novelties, that’s all. You’re something new. He’ll tire of you when he realizes your manners only go skin-deep. You’ll slip up. You might not look it, but
I
know you’re as savage as the rest of the Ganteans underneath whatever veneer they shined upon you. A pebble is only a diamond to a blind man. Costas will open his eyes soon.”

“I don’t—”

“I give you one more day. Or less. Costas values fine things in every domain. He needs a wife, not a mistress. Have no doubt, I’ll be making sure he won’t look at you twice after tonight.”

“Do you really think he’s likely to give his sigil to a man, Jaasir Amar?” I lashed out like a cornered cat. Laith had told me his brother was obsessed with Costas.

Jaasir dropped me back onto the alcove bench as though I’d burned him. “A good lie draws more believers than a bad truth.” He flicked open the curtain to expose us to full view of the ballroom. “If I tell Mydon Galatien you are a Gantean using unsanctioned magic to lure his son, he’ll believe me.” He stalked away on those ominous words.

The women’s knife shook in my hand. I arranged it back up my sleeve and stood on weak legs. When I looked up Ghilene Entila filled the alcove’s arch.

“I heard what he said to you.” She pushed me back into the alcove and snapped the curtain closed once again. “Have you? Have you used some barbarian magic to attract Costas Galatien?”

I collapsed onto the bench, trembling. “No! Ganteans don’t use magic for such things.” Magic, used to attract a mate? Iksraqtaq would be ashamed of such a notion.

“But you have magic? You never told me that.” Ghilene’s green eyes snapped madly.

“All Ganteans have magic.”

“Damned Amatos!” Ghilene cried, tearing at the alcove curtain so that it wavered on its rod. “I hate you! I hate you!” She whirled and flounced away, leaving me awash in conflicted emotions: concern for whatever she meant to do in her temper, relief at the blessing of her departure.

I surveyed options in my head—the mess deepened with every new player who learned my origins.
Could I escape into the streets of Galantia?
Though I might be able to disappear into the High City unnoticed, without my necklace and the precious anbuaq, I could not leave. Not to mention Tiercel had warned me that the magemark burned on my shoulder was trackable. Besides, if Costas really meant to marry me, staying right where I stood might be the wisest choice of all.

I stepped from the alcove to be greeted by a dead silence in the ballroom. Costas stood upon the dais with both his parents at his side.

King Mydon took his son’s arm in a formal gesture, lifting it and bringing it straight out in front of him.

Costas wore that masklike expression again, the same one he’d worn for Ghilene earlier. I’d seen his face lit by true feeling, and this man on the dais was a pale copy—he performed a duty, and he did it woodenly.

“My son has decided,” Mydon Galatien announced. “He has offered his sigil. Our Brokering is complete.”

My breath caught. Shock and excitement coursed through my entire body. He meant to marry me? He meant to announce it
here,
in front of the entire court? I experienced an impossible blend of horror and relief. Horror at the thought of being part of the sayantaq world so fully, relief that he meant to honor the ung-aneraq we had made. And wouldn’t it be that much easier to get the necklace back and find the Cedna if I was Costas Galatien’s wife? I would have resources I’d never imagined. I stared straight ahead, resurrecting the powers that had died inside me after Gante: I could act. I could choose. I was no longer a piece of flotsam flung across the sea and praying not to drown. I could swim.

I would go to him, and I would shoulder my duty as a Gantean. I could blend these two worlds. I would love him. I would find the Cedna. I would feed the Hinge as Nautien had asked. For so many moons I had felt like a puzzle whose pieces would not match, but now, now, all my parts were coming together. I would not be alone anymore; Costas would help me, even though he was sayantaq, I could talk with him and get him to understand the importance of my duty
.

The
crowd’s attention remained on Costas and his father on the dais. I took two strong steps forward and trained my gaze on them. When Costas saw me, his jaw clenched, and the bloodlight cord tautened between us. I smiled at him, the first full smile that had crossed my face since my arrival in the southern lands. He understood. He had understood what it meant to me as a Gantean to be with him. I hadn’t even had to explain. He knew me. He wanted me.

The crowd parted, and I trembled at the thought of stepping into the space they made.

I would do it. I would become this new person. This powerful person.

“My son will marry Stesichore Ricknagel!” called Mydon Galatien in a carrying voice. Applause and hushed whispers rippled through the audience as my innards liquefied and drained into my feet. I froze where I stood, breathless and drowning in the crowd. My newfound courage fled; my fragile hopes shattered.

Two figures moved past me, one so close her royal blue skirts brushed my legs. Stesichore Ricknagel sailed into the opening the crowd had made, clutching her father’s arm as he guided her forward.

Stesichore and Xander Ricknagel stepped onto the dais together and took positions beside Costas and his father.

Mydon Galatien spoke over the rustling murmurs. “This betrothal solidifies a vital alliance between Houses Galatien and Ricknagel as we continue to resist the Vhimsantese Empire at our eastern border. United, our two families will present a solid wall of defense there. We make this union with great hope for the future of our nation.”

Xander Ricknagel, a tall, broad-shouldered man with cropped greying hair and a square jaw, placed his arm beneath his elder daughter’s and raised it so that they stood in the same stiff position as Costas and his father. Stesichore lifted her head proudly. The feather headpiece she wore wobbled with the motion. Her gold hair, twisted into heavy loops, looked equally precarious.

The two fathers pressed the hands of their offspring together. Xander Rickangel had a voice made for public speaking, clear and potent. “It is my pleasure to offer the hand of my daughter in marriage to the House of Galatien.”

Mydon squeezed Costas and Stesichore’s hands together. “It is my pleasure to accept,” he said. “Let our houses be joined.”

The ballroom exploded with applause and cheers. Costas and Stesichore stepped down from the dais and walked into the crowd, which parted again to let them pass. The couple moved in a practiced, courtly walk, as though they had always belonged with each other. They arrived at the center of the dancing area.

Everyone watched as they danced. Even I observed, though I had been unable to coax my body to move in my shock. What a fool, to think he could have meant me. What had I been thinking? Was I so seduced and misled by a sayantaq man? I blushed furiously as I attempted to gather my wits. I met Jaasir Amar’s smirking gaze. He stood nearby, arms crossed over his chest, his lying mage Laith lurking behind him.

Slowly, sluggishly, life came back to my limbs. I moved towards the safety of an alcove, seeking quiet and privacy. If only I had an ulio, the Gantean blackstone blade used to cut bloodlight, I could cut the ung-aneraq that tied me to Costas. Where could I get the tools of Gantean ritual here in Galantia?

As I picked my way towards the alcove, Sterling Ricknagel’s handmaiden—the tall, imperious one I’d envied in Entila, caught my arm. She wore a long black column dress with golden beads on the sleeves and looked even more impressive than she had when I’d seen her before. Magic rippled from her touch. “Love is more bitter than sweet,” she murmured, squeezing my arm. Then, like a ghost, she melted into the throng of people watching Stesichore and Costas dance.

Before I could settle into the alcove, Costas’s silent servant brushed my side and tucked a note into my palm in one deft maneuver. He, too, faded into the rapt crowd before I could get a word out.

I pulled the curtains of the alcove closed and opened the note, willing my fingers to cease their insipid shaking. What kind of sayantaq fool had I become, mooning over a man this way? I was Gantean; I was Iksraqtaq. No man, mate or otherwise, could define me. Even so, I could not quell my urgency to read the message.

I’m sorry. I can explain. Meet me tonight as planned?

I tucked the note down the front of my bodice and rested my face in my hands. The blade Costas had given me burned against my arm, demanding that I answer him. I did not—

A blast rocked the hall. As the floor pitched, I fell from the alcove bench and tangled in the curtains that Ghilene had abused, ripping them from their moorings to expose the ballroom. Mageglass orbs crashed to the floor in a shattering racket. People dove beneath tables to avoid the falling glass. Shrieks and yells obscured a deeper thrum, a sound like the beating of an enormous heart.

Crack!
The white marble dancing floor split in half. Murky water bubbled through the widening crevice. Was it a quake of the earth? We’d had them often in Gante, though never ones so strong.

“Mages! To me!” A deep voice rose above the frenzy. The House Galatien mages—recognizable in their stark white robes—gathered atop the dais with Costas and his family. The lead mage’s heavy brows knit together as he glared at a figure standing near the crack in the floor.

The figure, a woman in black, stretched one arm towards the ceiling. Her other hand gripped Ghilene, who swayed weakly, as though she might fall at any moment.

A plume of water rose from the crack in the ballroom floor.

The Galatien mages on the dais answered with a protective magic of their own, brandishing staff and stones. The sorceress—what else could she be?—flung her arm and sent a lash of her water flying across the room.

Ghilene fell, collapsing to the ground like a bird shot from the sky. I gasped and tried to move towards her.

A scream rattled the remaining mageglass orbs.

The sorceress’s serpentine water engulfed Lady Malvyna Entila, who stood below the dais in her purple finery. The water wrapped her from ankles to neck, and she fell. The magicked water, pulsing like a living creature, pulled Lady Entila down into the chasm that divided the ballroom.

The ground shifted beneath my feet again, sending me lurching towards the crevice in the floor. The ballroom went entirely black, though only for a moment. Colored lights soon spiraled before my eyes in a complex web. My ribcage constricted; the air grew heavy with the telltale feel of Yaqi, though I had done no bloodletting and no magic to get there.

In Yaqi the water that had flooded the ballroom exuded the ghostly vapors of enchantment. All the party guests were limned in their colored bloodlights in a dazzling array. Only the sorceress did not glow. She was a hungry black void that sucked energy from everything. A white, hard jewel roiled in the center of all that shadow, clear and sharp as a cut diamond.

I caught my breath. In one hand, the sorceress grasped a string made from Ghilene’s vivid green bloodlight, the very cord that connected Ghilene to her mother—the bloodlight umbilicus all Ganteans had cut shortly after birth. The witch was using Ghilene to feed her magic! Then I saw what the sorceress held in her other hand: a Gantean ulio. All my attention narrowed to a point.