House of Shadows (48 page)

“Yes, all right,” Nemienne agreed hastily, wanting all the more urgently to drop the subject because she knew he was perfectly right. “It’s only, she’s not always handy when you want her—”

“Patience is a virtue in sorcery as well as magecraft,” Taudde said mildly. “If I can’t expect you to act with reasonable prudence, Nemienne, I’ll go myself. Only I should first attend upon the prince.”

“I’ll take her, I’ll take her!” Nemienne promised.

“Attend upon me?” The prince’s voice, faintly edged with the fierceness of the dragon, made Nemienne jump; she hadn’t heard him enter.

But Taudde glanced up with no sign of surprise, then rose and bowed, a brief gesture. “Ah, eminence, welcome. It seems this house has at last seen fit to offer us a door that leads into Kalches.”

“I see.” The prince’s dark eyes rested on Taudde’s face. After a second, the pale brows lifted. “You don’t doubt I’ll give you leave to go? No, of course not.” The light, fierce voice gentled. “And is that such a burden?”

Taudde moved his shoulders uncomfortably. “It’s not a burden I ever expected to bear. Forgive me if I sometimes find it weighs heavily.”

The prince inclined his head without comment. He said after a moment, “And you are concerned about your grandfather.”

“I fear his initial reaction to… all this… will be, um. Intense.”

The prince did not smile. “You will have to persuade him, then.”

“I know. I will.” Taudde lifted a hand toward the door, inviting the prince to accompany him. “Shall we find out whether you are able to perceive this newest addition to the house’s complement of extraordinary doors?”

The young men left the music room together, Taudde politely stepping aside to allow Prince Tepres to precede him.

Nemienne didn’t entirely understand what either of them had
meant. Sometimes she felt that the ten years that lay between herself and the young men might as well be half a lifetime. She thought about the exchange as she ran down the stairs to the kitchen, collected Enkea—fortunately the cat seemed in an accommodating mood—and then headed through the infinite darkness beyond the black door to emerge in the cellars of Cloisonné House. In Lonne, as had eventually become clear to her—she was sometimes slow, but Taudde was patient—quite a number of houses hid a way into the shadows. The gallery of her father’s house, the cellars of Cloisonné, the dungeons of the Laodd, more than one shop in the Paliente, many a shadowed warehouse corner, almost anywhere where the sea came up under the docks—half of Lonne, it sometimes seemed, lay under the dragon’s shadow.

The kitchen staff greeted her absently as Nemienne emerged from the cellars into the warmth and light. They were in a desperate flurry. Clearly some massive event was planned for this evening, which wasn’t good because it meant that Leilis was probably extremely busy.

Nemienne found the other woman still in her room, however. Two little girls were helping Leilis dress in elaborate robes of sea blue and slate gray; spume broke around the hem of her overrobe and white gulls flew from knee to shoulder. Leilis wore a gull of pearls and hematite in her hair. She looked beautiful, calm, and remote as the sea. She greeted Nemienne with an abstracted nod.

“Your sister is attending a dance at the House of Butterflies,” she told her. “You would do better to look for her tomorrow. Or better still, four days from now. I believe there’s a break in her schedule at noon. She’s terribly busy. Or were you looking for me?”

“Oh, for you,” said Nemienne, rolling her eyes at the idea of trying to catch up with her keiso sister. Karah’s flower wedding to Prince Tepres was still more than a year in the future, but from the pace of preparations anyone would think that merely days remained. All of Karah’s sisters had resigned themselves to seeing very little of her until the ceremony was over.

Nemienne explained why she’d come, and also related the
exchange between Taudde and the prince. “I knew you’d understand what they meant,” she concluded, and folded her hands in her lap, looking expectantly at Leilis.

The woman inclined her elegant head. “I know you’re an apprentice mage, Nemienne, but do try to think like a keiso for a moment. They were speaking of the burden of Seriantes trust, of course. Poor Taudde.”

Nemienne didn’t understand what Leilis meant. She blinked.

“There are two edges to this knife,” added Leilis, with a slight air of explaining something obvious in words of one syllable. “Taudde has to explain to his grandfather how he has become almost a friend of the son of the man who killed the son of his grandfather—”

Nemienne unraveled this only because she already knew the story.

“
And
Prince Chontas Taudde ser Omientes ken Lariodde
also
has to explain to the King of Kalches how he came to be in service to the heir of the Dragon of Lirionne. And this on the eve of the solstice. The King of Kalches cannot be pleased at any suggestion of divided loyalties in a prince of Kalches. I wonder whether he will understand how Geriodde Nerenne ken Seriantes forced Taudde’s choice?” Her expression had become calm and even more distant. Despite her youth, she looked every bit a worldly, experienced keiso. “It would be a pity if Taudde loses his grandfather’s trust because of the Seriantes Dragon. We shall need the King of Kalches to listen to his grandson. Perhaps I would like to go to Kalches, after all. Travel broadens the mind, they say.”

“And strengthens the will” was the rest of that saying. Nemienne tried to think of someone whose will needed strengthening less than Leilis’s, but failed. And Seriantes trust… Nemienne had never thought of trust as a burden, either to give or to bear. But she understood that it might be, for Taudde. In fact, thinking about it made her flinch a little. She asked instead, an easier question, “Will Narienneh let you go?”

“I should think so, if I put it to her properly. Almost anything
can be managed if one simply goes about it properly.” Leilis slipped three silver bangles over her left wrist and turned to study the effect in the new and expensive full-length mirror that stood next to the fireplace.

She looked beautiful. And intimidating. Her mood did not seem precisely confiding—Leilis was never in a confiding mood, as far as Nemienne knew. And the sharp side of her tongue was nothing Nemienne wanted turned her way. But Nemienne asked anyway, cautiously, “I have wondered… I know it’s nothing to do with me, but I have wondered—what sort of proper management…”

“Led to the rearrangement in Cloisonné House’s line of inheritance?” Leilis glanced over her shoulder. Her tone was dry, but not offended. “In fact, that was hardly my management. Lily removed herself from the line by her own efforts.”

“Oh.”

Leilis gave a brief, matter-of-fact nod. “Mother knew well enough that her daughter would never make an acceptable successor for this House. She had known for years, of course, though she hadn’t wished to know it. I was actually sorry when she was forced to admit the truth. It was hard on her.” She sounded distantly sympathetic.

“Oh,” Nemienne said again.

“I didn’t expect her to name me as her heir,” said Leilis, but added without a trace of modesty, “but it was a good decision, so I wasn’t actually surprised.”

Nemienne doubted anyone had been.

Leilis glanced absently about the room and added, “You might hand me those slippers. Thank you. You might go to Kalches, too, if your sisters could spare you.”

Nemienne hadn’t thought of going to Kalches herself. She didn’t answer right away, for she hardly knew what she thought of the suggestion. She had hardly been out of Lonne; she had never really imagined leaving Lirionne itself. And to go to Kalches, of all countries! She wondered what her sisters would think of the idea.

Well, she knew, really. Ananda and Enelle and Tana would
worry for her, but Ananda was too wrapped up in her marriage and Enelle in the stone yard and Tana in running the house for any of them to protest very much. Liaska certainly wouldn’t worry; far from worrying, Liaska would fight passionately to come along. Jehenne and Miande were the ones who would miss Nemienne the most: not just worry about her, but miss her. And she knew, as she would not have been able to guess half a year ago, that she would miss them both quite bitterly.

Leilis said calmly, “I believe Taudde would agree with me that a Lonne mage with a heart tuned to the darkness under the mountain ought to learn something useful from listening to the wind in the heights.”

“Anyone with a heart tuned to those shadows might,” Nemienne agreed. “Anybody who managed to tangle up magecraft with the magic of the dragon, for example. Especially anybody whose father was a mage.” She didn’t quite dare say,
Or anybody who’s fallen in love with a mage.

“Why, yes,” said Leilis, in an extremely bland tone. She turned back toward the mirror, adjusted her silver bangles, and said to her reflection, “Yes, I rather think that might be true.”

T
hanks to my fabulous agent, Caitlin Blasdell, without whose critical insight every one of my books would be the poorer; and to the whole Orbit team, especially my editor, Devi Pillai, who tells me I’m “awesome.” Always good to hear!

Hastings’ Creative Images, Inc.

R
ACHEL
N
EUMEIER
started writing fiction to relax when she was a graduate student and needed a hobby unrelated to her research. Prior to selling her first fantasy novel, she had published only a few articles in venues such as
The American Journal of Botany
. However, finding that her interests did not lie in research, Rachel left academia and began to let her hobbies take over her life instead. She now raises and shows dogs, gardens, cooks, and occasionally finds time to read. She works part time for a tutoring program, though she tutors far more students in math and chemistry than in English composition. Find out more about Rachel Neumeier at
www.rachelneumeier.com
.