Chapter 2 #2
Theira sighed, pushing the food around on her plate. Varius made a point of taking a big bite, not letting her effort for him go unappreciated or to waste.
"Silly, in retrospect," she said. "Tychon's probably made it even harder for anyone to take actions without his oversight, given what I managed.
And none of them has any reason to believe they might trust me—all they know is that I'm powerful, clever, and don't want to live under the Sorcerer Ascendant.
But that describes almost all of them. But if someone did think to try. .."
That's why she had guest rooms. Spare clothes, even.
But the only one who'd thought to come to her was her enemy.
Had she been as desperate to open the door to someone, anyone, as he'd been to have a door open to him?
Varius didn't want her to think of him as just another supplicant.
"How did you manage to get away?" he asked. "I knew not to believe the official story, but what actually happened was never totally clear."
Theira smiled a little. "After that first battle—"
Her smile died abruptly, because while it hadn't been her first battle by any stretch, she didn't need to specify which one she meant. Even among sorceresses, Theira was known for her epic destructive capabilities, but at that one she'd taken it to another level.
Varius had been fighting another sorcerer at the time and was called over to support—he was the only general who reliably survived Theira.
He didn't know what traps his jackass colleague had missed and whether he might have caught them, but by the time he'd been within miles of the site, it had already been over.
His people had just seen the explosions in the sky.
He'd known some of the kids who'd died that day, and he was sad for them.
But Theira had been as trapped in the war as they were, and compared to some of her brethren, at least her sorcerous attacks weren't cruel.
She didn't torture those kids; they just died.
She didn't spread destruction indiscriminately or horrifically; she just killed.
Precisely, terrifyingly. And if those kids hadn't died that day under the orders of that particular jackass, it still would have come at someone else's hands.
They were all of them trapped.
So after an awkward pause where Theira seemed to be debating what to say after that, Varius just nodded.
Apparently deciding he didn't need her to say any more about it, she continued, "That was the first decisive victory on either side in years. The Sorcerer Ascendant awarded me one of the largest jewels in Korossia's collection, only a step down from the Crown Jewel itself."
An impressive statement. While sorceresses could store and draw power from all manner of jewels—from all natural resources, though gemstones were special—Korossia's Crown Jewel was unique.
It held incomparable power and could only be accessed by the person who bound themself to it—and it could also only bind to the one who killed the prior bearer.
That was the true source of a Sorcerer Ascendant's power: access to the largest pool of magic available that no one else could use.
It's what made them nearly impossible to kill, even for a sorceress of Theira's experience.
Not to mention the fact that the Ascendant would have managed the same feat meant they were invariably both shrewd and powerful.
Theira continued, "I thanked Tychon graciously, turned around, and broke it into a thousand tiny jewels I could actually convert into capital."
Varius barked a laugh despite himself. Of course she had.
But that had been years earlier. "You were building this all that time?"
"I was having it built," Theira corrected. "What does a sorceress know about building?"
What indeed.
"I hired experts and paid for materials, I made it worth their while, and I hid the whole thing from under Tychon's nose. You may have noticed after that battle—"
"Your tactics turned to precision. Effective, but not dramatic. I'd wondered where your power was really going, but I thought we'd found out."
When, a year later, she'd managed a second dramatic victory.
Varius hadn't been at that one either. He'd always been hesitant to seriously consider that his absence from both was on purpose as wishful thinking and arrogance.
But he was wondering again now.
"Everyone knows I'm a long-term planner," Theira said, "so after my first decisive victory wasn't immediately followed by a second, I bought myself time at court because everyone who believed it was possible for me to replicate that success also believed I needed time to work toward a bigger one."
"Your long-term planning becomes part of the long-term plan," Varius remarked dryly.
Theira flashed him a grin. "Indeed. It took as long as it did because I had to keep them from finding out what I was actually doing.
But when I managed it, Tychon was in a difficult position.
He'd already rewarded me with the biggest jewel he could part with, and since I'd delivered both a second victory, and a bigger one, he had to top the previous reward.
So he offered me a boon. And I took it."
It took Varius a second. "You just resigned? At court, to his face?"
Theira's grin grew wicked. "Indeed," she said again, this time in a lower voice that did things to his now-responsive loins.
"And since the Sorcerer Ascendant knew I wouldn't dare if I didn't believe, in that moment, that I could back it up, he let me go, fully intending to make me pay later once he'd worked out what I'd planned. "
"And did he?"
"No. I didn't have anything there."
Varius stared, and then started laughing helplessly. "You beautiful liar. You spent years on a reputation to make him believe it long enough for you to get somewhere you did have spells ready."
An insane risk.
More insane than running away to the door of your lifelong enemy.
She'd planned her gamble, and her escape, and made it.
Theira's eyes were bright over her mug of tea. "And now here I am."
And then the light in her eyes faded.
Here she was, in an empty house. Full of books about crafts just in case she ever needed to learn something, because she couldn't count on anyone helping her. Varius could come to her, but where could she go?
To him.
The thought surged through him with the force of an avalanche.
She'd worked, and she'd tried, and somehow she'd still found herself in a situation where she'd escaped but was still trapped. Where no one took care of her, and she didn't even expect it.
He wanted her to believe that she should expect it.
And that from him, she could.
"Here you are," Varius echoed, and drained his tea without breaking eye contact.
Let her see that he wasn't afraid of who she was, and that he'd take her as she was.
"Let me clean up," he told her.
Theira waved him off. "Not necessary. I can—"
"I know you can," Varius practically growled.
She blinked at him, apparently nonplussed.
And then her head whipped around.
To the door.
Theira stood slowly, rising to her full height, and Varius watched her bearing transform her from a woman eating breakfast to a goddess ready for battle.
Gods curse it. He'd known they'd come, but here in Theira's kitchen he'd allowed himself to begin to hope they'd have more time.
She hadn't, he realized now.
That's why she was dressed for war.
"Well, well," the Sorceress Transcendent purred. "We have company."
Theira strode to the entryway, donning her work boots, casting a quick illusion so they matched her Battle Sorceress look, and flinging a cloak over her shoulders for dramatics.
Her cutthroat upbringing had duly impressed upon her how image created a perception of power, and she used every advantage she had.
"Wait." Varius followed her. "They're here for me."
"Of course they are." Theira raised her eyebrows. "Are you in any condition to fight off a sorcerous task force alone?"
She didn't want him to focus on what he couldn't do now that he'd gone rogue, but they didn't have time for a long discussion here.
He stilled. "Sorcerous? Not Aurelian?"
Theira shrugged. "You're a popular man."
The legions he'd led had done more damage to Korossia and killed more sorceresses than any single other person in the empire. Caius Sobanus couldn't possibly want him deader than Korossia did.
Varius cast her a look that was part amusement, part annoyance. "I suppose it's easier for sorceresses to get here than for an Aurelian Empire cohort to cross the border unmolested."
"Indeed. And Varius." His gaze focused on hers as she held his stare. "You are my guest here. Allow me to resolve this small matter for you."
Something passed through his gaze, and she hoped it wasn't pity. Theira wanted to seem less desperate than she'd sounded over breakfast, not more.
She was retired, not broken. She could be all of herself now.
She hoped.
Then Varius smiled, and her whole body zinged with awareness.
"Well, far be it from me to keep you back from some light exercise," he murmured. "Yell if I can help you dig some graves once you're finished."
Theira relaxed.
He still had faith in her.
She smirked at him before turning to the door.
She didn't have long to wait until a woman called, "Former First-Tier Adept Theira! You are harboring a fugitive guilty of the highest crimes against Korossia. I am here to remove this burden from you. You may turn him over at once."
Not even a knock. Her own former enemy had been more polite.
And if that was how Korossia was beginning this encounter, there was only one way for it to go.
"See?" Theira glanced over her shoulder. "The highest crimes. So famous."
Varius rolled his eyes. "You know what they say, murder is a fast way to make friends." She held in a laugh. "Would you like me visible in the background for this?"