Chapter 5 #4
Varius didn't quite dare breathe.
Finally Lysithea echoed, faintly, "No?"
"Take the Crown Jewel with you if you wish." Theira shrugged, though she was taking clear pleasure in the very obvious shock she'd managed to pull from sorceresses trained in the most dangerous court in the world. "I will not take it up."
All at once Varius began to laugh, and laugh, and laugh.
Theira arched her eyebrows wickedly in his direction, and he allowed himself to breathe again, less hysterically.
Taking pity on the stunned-silent Lysithea, Theira told her, "I have no interest in ruling."
"But you killed the Sorcerer Ascendant! No one else can bind the jewel—" Lysithea's eyes widened.
"Exactly," Theira said with satisfaction. "I will not bind myself to the jewel, and if anyone else wants to become the Sorcerer Ascendant, they will first have to go through me. And I am not easy pickings."
She certainly wasn't. Not before, not with the power thrumming through her now, and not with what everyone finally understood of just how terrifying her skill at planning truly was.
And she'd held her own against ten first-tier adepts at once without that, only the spells and power she carried on her person.
One of the sorceresses protested, weakly, "You can't just do that?"
Theira raised a brow at her. "Oh? Do you intend to try to make me?" Her red lips curved, and she said mildly, "As ever, I am ready."
The sorceress paled and shook her head rapidly.
Lysithea asked, "So, what then? We just choose our own Ascendant?"
"Consider not choosing one," Theira suggested. "You have an opportunity to make a different way than at the whims of one omnipotent person in charge. Try something else."
"Just like that."
"Well, if I don't like what you decide on, I'll kill you. I can take up the Crown Jewel any time I want, after all. So put some thought into it."
For a woman who'd just been casually threatened by the most powerful sorceress alive, Lysithea looked overcome for quite a different reason.
All the sorceresses exchanged glances.
Cunning, yes, always.
But thoughtful.
And, Varius thought, in some of them, the seed of hopeful.
Theira was rescuing them after all, by giving them the opportunity to save themselves.
But then Lysithea said, "What you're suggesting will take work that we won't be able to focus on properly with this threat on our border."
"Entirely true," Theira agreed easily, and raised her eyebrows at Varius. "So?"
So? That's what she had to say to him?
This was ridiculous. Varius popped the top of his golem and heaved himself out, trusting Theira would protect him if it came to that.
"I don't speak for the Aurelian Empire," Varius said to the sorceresses with a speaking glance at Theira.
"You are commanding an invincible army and have just deposed the empire's local leadership rather extravagantly," Lysithea pointed out somewhat dryly. "Precisely who else would you suggest I address?"
Okay, that was fair. Succession in the empire was usually a matter of extremely corrupt election, but military takeovers weren't exactly unheard of.
But if he was in charge, Varius knew perfectly well how far he'd get if he tried to keep things as a military takeover.
So he said, "You should talk to Fabiana."
If Fabi didn't murder him for outing her, anyway. But with his golems' expansive vision he'd seen her clearly taking charge organizing the cleanup, so he was fairly sure her secret had come out with Sobanus' attack on the city even before he'd arrived.
All the sorceresses, Theira included, stared at Varius with varying degrees of expectation and incredulity. Well, they wouldn't have had any occasion to meet Fabiana—though given how much time Theira had apparently spent on the wrong sides of borders undetected, the gods only knew whom she'd met.
Varius squinted, then pointed. "Theira, could you invite that woman to join us please?" He'd have to get back in the golem to do it himself.
The sorceresses stared between them. He could practically feel Lysithea trying to decide what exactly their relationship was, for two former enemies to address each other so casually.
"Gray hair, sending people scurrying one after another?" Theira clarified.
"That's the one."
"A moment."
Theira had one of the nearby golems lumber over to Fabiana, who squared her shoulders and held her ground while people dashed away. The golem kneeled before her and set an open hand on the broken pavement.
Fabiana put her hands on her hips and leaned around the golem. Varius waved at her, hoping that would be sufficient endorsement. Even without sorcerous vision he could feel her scowl, but she stepped onto the golem's palm and held on as it ran toward their position.
"No teleportation?" Varius asked.
Theira shrugged. "You said 'invite'."
So he had.
When the golem set her on the ground, Fabiana took a shaky step off and glared at him, then at Theira. "You used sorcery to cushion your ride over on one of those things, didn't you?"
That was Fabi all over. Never missing a detail, never afraid to demand answers, and practical to the bone.
Theira's lips curved. "Absolutely. Shall I craft a spell for your return?"
Fabiana snorted. "I'll walk, thank you. Why am I here, Varius?"
"Our Korossian neighbors have some questions about future Aurelian policy as it pertains to this border."
"Don't we all," Fabiana said. "Seems to me that's a you problem."
"And if you think I'm going to commit to anything without speaking to the head of the rebellion, you must think I've lost my wits."
"You have lost your wits, Varius, you came here with a bloody sorceress."
Her tone was tart, not accusing, so Varius said with some amusement, "Give me some credit, I did remove Sobanus for you."
"Remove, ha! We'll be scraping bits of him off the stone so we can rebuild."
Theira murmured, "A beautiful metaphor."
Fabiana snorted. "Are you asking for my backing, Varius, or my opinion?"
What was he asking her?
Varius regarded Fabiana, her brash behavior disguising the bone-deep fear she had to feel standing amidst all these sorceresses without any kind of military training or shield. And yet she hadn't hesitated, and wasn't letting on. She'd be a wonderful leader, given the opportunity.
Then he looked at Theira, who was watching him expectantly. Theira, who'd opened a new world of possibilities for him, a taste of a different way to live that he wanted so badly he hurt.
She'd refused to rule her country. She'd passed off that responsibility—mostly.
Maybe... maybe he could too.
Maybe not everything and everyone had to be his personal responsibility anymore. He knew they'd all benefit from someone outside the empire's power structure reshaping it.
Maybe, for once, he could dare to dream a little bigger—for his people, and for himself.
This, he finally realized, was actually what Theira hadn't wanted to tell him, before. It wasn't that she hadn't trusted him with her plan for Tychon.
It was that when the moment finally came to decide what kind of power he could wield, she didn't want to influence his choices.
Didn't know if he would truly be happy turning his back on it all like she had, and was giving him the space to decide, without the weight of promises or expectations between them.
Theira was, as ever, doing her best—deniably, while making sure he had everything he needed—not to back him into a corner.
Varius had promised her he'd handle his side, and that didn't just mean his people.
It meant choosing for himself, finally, what he wanted.
Like she had.
If he wanted a different life, one with her, he had to be the one to step up and claim it.
"I'm asking," Varius said slowly to Fabi, "if, with the patricians gone, you require immediate military support in order to take power yourself."
Fabiana frowned, her gaze searching his. "You want to be the power behind the throne? Again?"
Never. "I want to leave and never come back, Fabi. I'm asking if you need me to stay."
She raised her eyebrows in surprise, and then her gaze softened.
But Varius' heart sunk as her expression turned gentle.
"In a word, yes," Fabiana said. She glanced toward the sorceresses and back. "Our position isn't stable yet. If the empire sends legions from elsewhere, they'll roll over us. We need a champion that can make them back down."
Varius had bowed his head in resignation, but his mind kept spinning.
No. He wasn't ready to give up yet.
It was his turn to reach for a new life if he wanted it.
Wasn't he supposed to be a strategist? It was past time to apply that to his own life.
"Perhaps all you need," he said, turning to Theira, "is the threat of a champion."
Theira raised an eyebrow coolly, waiting.
She'd waited for him for too damn long.
"Would you object to leaving the golems here?" Varius asked. "As a deterrent."
"They won't do any good—or bad—without someone directing them. Only a fool won't put that together."
"We can make it known that Fabiana has a way to send a message to the house if needed."
Fabiana sucked in a breath. Lysithea and the other sorceresses held still, too.
Varius knew what he'd just implied, out loud and for an audience.
The only reaction he cared about in this moment was Theira's.
"You're sure?" she asked him softly.
"As sure as you don't want that jewel," he told her.
That wasn't all of what she meant, and he knew it, but that was a conversation for another, private, time.
Fabiana had missed the Crown Jewel part of the conversation, though, and this gave him an excuse to catch her up.