29
Myria waited in the gallery as the debates raged on.
Evander and Valorus were both fine orators, but the masses could only stomach so much reasoned argument.
After twenty minutes, the blades had come out.
Valorus was a spineless milksop who’d let the grayside swamp the city.
Evander was a talentless upstart who’d sprung from nowhere and was returning there just as quickly, fifty thousand lyrin poorer for his troubles.
“I thought it was forty thousand,” said Myria.
“No. Definitely sixty,” Leo answered. He leaned against the wall beside her, gritting his teeth harder with every velvety word Evander spoke. Curious, really, how that man could sound so lovely even when he was shouting slander. Almost magic.
Then, the match was over. The duelists parted with a handshake and a glare, and returned to the gallery.
Myria tracked Vixius with her gaze as he worked his way through the crowd. When he reached the door, she took Leo’s wrist and followed. They were twenty feet behind him when they came to the private corridors. As they rounded the corner, a sentry stepped into their path.
“State your business, madam,” he said, hands crossed before him in a pose of menacing calm.
“I’m here with a little solace for Praetor Evander,” she answered in a carrying voice. The man in question paused at the end of the corridor.
“Let them pass,” he said, half-turning. Myria cut past the guard with Leo in tow, then followed Vixius to his office. He waved her in, but halted Leo at the door.
“You’re the silverwalker, aren’t you?” he asked, his gaze flicking over the younger man’s face as though it were yesterday’s news scroll. Leo gave him a saccharine smile and said nothing. Vixius cocked his head.
“I hope you enjoyed the speech,” he said, an odd edge to his voice. Leo gave his former master’s back a filthy look as he followed the man inside.
At the turn of a dial, patrium charms shot across the walls and ceiling. Vixius leaned back against the door and folded his arms, surveying the pair of them.
“Take the face off, sir. You’re among friends,” said Myria.
“Am I?” His expression said he’d formed a few conclusions of his own on that score.
“The rumors? Not to worry. Easily remedied.”
“Fascinating. Almost as fascinating as the letter I had from the Lynxias this morning,” he said. Myria steeled her nerves as he pushed away from the door and paced toward them, hands linked behind his back. He halted half a step away from her, just a little too close for comfort.
“Come,” he said. She’d barely blinked before he’d cut a gateway and pressed her through into the silver lining. Leo drew a sharp breath, then followed.
The dimness of the watchtower closed around them. Vixius cast off his false face and fixed his silver eyes upon her. Her instincts prickled at the sight. Something felt out of place.
You robbed him, she thought, pressing down the feeling. He’s curious and cross, and trying not to show it. No surprise.
“Unaccountably, the very hour we spoke, my man of business went to the Lynxias with sealed orders to empty my vault,” he said coolly. “I know what you took. Thirty thousand, Myria, I might forgive. That is a trespass too far.”
“Hardly, sir. I told you we’d crack the hardest target in Carintheum. We did.”
He watched her for a moment, face unreadable. Then, he drew back half a pace. She almost saw the coin drop.
“But I’m not fool enough to injure you,” she went on, softening her voice. “That check was a forgery. We copied in flaws for the Lynxias to find when they investigate. They’ll have to compensate you.”
“That doesn’t mend your ill-timed damage to my standing in Carintheum,” Vixius shot back. He drew a thin dagger, but Myria held her ground. A moment later, he began tossing it in flashing wheels. It wasn’t a threat. By now, it seemed so much a habit that he didn’t realize he was doing it.
She shot a coded look to Leo. He edged back, and she drew closer in.
“Quite the contrary,” she said, striking up a small circle around Vixius.
“Carintheum will soon find out that it was a mercurial impersonating you. You were targeted by the grayside. Criminals who feared what’d happen if you came to power.
And when they investigate . . .” She trailed off and smiled.
“Don’t be theatrical, Myria.”
“They may just find hints of Gloriana Valora’s arcanic trace in the forgery,” she finished. “Frightful thing. Imagine how it’d look if word escaped.”
“Ah,” said Vixius, pausing his reflexive dagger spinning. She could almost see the thread unspooling in his mind. A shadow lifted from his countenance.
“Chances are, they won’t be able to nail Valorus down for it, but the damage would be done,” she went on. “They’d have to investigate the family’s financial affairs, too, and you know what those praetors are like. Pantheon knows what they’d find.”
“Several interesting interpretations of the tax law, no doubt. But what of the contents of my vault?” he asked. There was smiling intrigue in his eyes now, though. He wasn’t angling those questions to kill, but for the pleasure of seeing how she parried them.
“Safe and sound, and about to double in value,” she said, stopping at his side.
“Threaten to kick up a fuss, and the Lynxias will have to cover the cost, or they’ll never get another customer.
We’ll give back your treasures, a certain box included.
My chaps agreed to explore the wonders of Iseus in exchange for a satisfactory sum. ”
“I see. Well, if you prove as good as your word, I’d find those terms acceptable,” he said.
Then, at last, that coolness broke. She smiled, and he returned it—and dash her if there wasn’t something strangely like happiness in his answering look.
Got him.
The moment had come. Her pulse struck up a hummingbird beat, and lightning flashed to her fingertips.
“My word’s as good as I am,” she said, slipping a silk pouch from her glove. She drew open the top, stretching it far wider than the fabric should have allowed, to reveal a familiar brass box.
Half a dozen emotions crossed her master’s face at once, and she wasn’t certain she could name a single one of them. Her stomach tensed. There, again, that horse sense flickered. Something wasn’t right.
She held up the box on four fingers. Vixius reached for it, then paused and drew back, cutting behind her to examine it over her shoulder.
Go on, you bastard. Touch it. Touch it . . .
“You return it, and I restore your faculties?” he said, eyes fixed on the device.
“A fair trade, I thin—”
A thud against her ribs cut off her words and breath together. For a moment, she thought Vixius had knocked her as he reached for the box.
Something warm and ticklish trickled down her spine. She batted at the itch, and frowned to find her gown damp to the touch.
What . . .
She drew back her hand. It was slick and glossy red. Her wits ground to a halt, and so did the world. Pins and needles woke in her fingers as she stared at them like a dimwit. Her next breath came with the dull burn of pain.
Damn. The voice in her head was stupidly, utterly calm. He stabbed you, the little . . .
Her balance tilted, and Vixius’s arm went around her chest to hold her up.
“Myria!” Leo cried. The room gave a sudden lurch, and she saw her friend before her at a curious angle. The edges of her vision flickered gray. She blinked, trying to clear it. Another breath. Another flare of pain, stronger this time. The clammy heat was spreading down her gown.
“Myria . . .” Vixius murmured in her ear. “You know, the damned thing is, I would’ve met my end of the bargain.”
“What are you talking about?” Leo panted, his panicked eyes flashing between her and the fifth lord.
“All you had to do was give it back.” Vixius shook his head, stroking her hair clear of the blood. “Why couldn’t you have just kept your word?”
“She did!” Leo exclaimed. Myria looked down at the box still balanced on her hand, half seeing it. Then, her fingers folded, and the device thudded to the floor. The pins and needles were spreading. Her legs were turning weak.
“I know a simulacrum when I see it,” Vixius said.
“We haven’t . . .” Leo trailed off, the last of the color draining from his face. “No. Mercias, no. It’s Valora. We . . . we went to her. That’s how we got her trace to plant in the check. We said we’d sabotage you in the election. She must’ve . . .”
Well done, Myria thought vaguely. It wasn’t a bad lie, under the circumstances. Shame it was too late. His voice was echoing curiously in her head, now. A burning cold pain was growing in her ribs amid the heat around it. Air. She pulled for it, but couldn’t seem to get any.
“The sad thing is, you could be telling the truth,” said Vixius, easing her slowly back. “But never let me be the man to utter those immortal words, I should have killed you when I had the chance.”
He looked down at her, still stroking her hair. His expression seemed somehow gentle, bitter and sad all at once, as though he were watching her die from some terminal disease, knowing it was inevitable and despising it all the same.
Say something. The thought bounced about her skull like a trapped fly.
“Sir,” she tried. Her voice came breathless, but ethereally calm. “I didn’t betray you. There’s been some . . . mistake . . .”
Her legs gave up, and he bore her to the ground. Agony jerked suddenly between her ribs. A moment later, Vixius’s face came swimming before her eyes. In his hand was a ruby-bright dagger.
Don’t spin that, you little—
He sheathed the blade and stroked her cheekbone with one curled finger. Anger warred with grief across his countenance, but his hand was gentle—and there was no mistaking the tremor in his touch.
“The two of us against the world,” he said softly. “I’d not have asked for more. I’m sorry. Sleep now, Myria.”
He set her down at last.
Then he stood and turned to Leo, and his expression went cold.
A flick of his hand paralyzed the man in place.
Vixius strode to his side, cut a quick circle around him, then felt up his sleeve.
He whipped out Leo’s feather with bloodied fingers and spun it each way, examining it hard.
A moment later, flames flashed up from his fingertips and seared it to ash.
He met Leo’s eyes, and when he spoke, vicious anger trembled just beneath the coolness of his voice.
“Well, master silverwalker, I need to attend the second round of the debates,” he said, “after which, you and I are going to have a discussion concerning the contents of my vault. Sit. Stay.”
Vixius raised his hand. The silver lining jolted and condensed, as though the walls had turned from mist to iron. With that, he cut a gray streak in the air and stepped through it into darkness.
Leo was at her side in moments, hands darting frantically around the pooling blood.
“Myria. No, no . . . Myria. We’ve got to get you out of here. Can you stand? No, damn, of course you can’t . . .”
“It’s alright,” she said, her voice vague and light. She was unsure where the words were coming from, as it wasn’t her brain. “You’ll be alright. Just a hiccup . . .”
“Hiccup?” he choked, tugging off his cravat.
He hauled her onto her side and pressed the bundled cloth to her wound. Agony seared through her. She tried to scream, but didn’t have the breath. Slow panic began to claw at her brain. Where was the air?
Then, Leo swept his hand across the ground, and an amber thread cut the stone. He closed his arms around her, rolled, and pulled her through into the fraying fabric of the world.