Especially given how long it had been since she'd seen Bernard.
Amara sighed. Bernard, her secret husband. Cursors were supposed to devote themselves solely to their duties. Cursors served the First Lord and the Realm, and their devotion was expected to be selfless and undivided-though, like active legionares, who were also supposed to remain unwed, Cursors generally took lovers. The only thing truly forbidden was marriage.
Of course, that was precisely what she had done.
Amara should never have allowed herself to fall in love with the formidable Count of Calderon. Regardless of how steady and caring he was, how strong, how handsome, how patient and loving, how passionate and skilled and-
Amara's heart sped up, and she arrested her train of thought before she began to blush.
If love was so easily overruled by banal reason, it would not be love.
"Thinking of the good Count Calderon, Amara?" Gaius asked her. His eyes glittered with amusement.
"You don't know it was him," Amara replied. "Perhaps I've taken a dozen new lovers by now."
The First Lord's mouth quivered. Then he erupted into a rich, genuine bellow of laughter. It didn't last before he subsided, belly shaking, to stare out the window of the coach. "No," he said. "No, not you."
Amara took a moment to compose herself. She often forgot that Gaius was as skilled at watercrafting as he was with fire or earth or metal. Worse, he was a perceptive individual who had been dealing with people two or three times as long as Amara had been drawing breath-all of which meant that it would be all too easy for him to discern awkward, potentially dangerous specifics. Her relationship with Bernard was a dangerous topic of conversation around Gaius.
Especially since it felt like it had been at least ten thousand years since her husband had touched her, or kissed her, or made her cry out in-
Crows take it. She was a grown woman. It was entirely unfair that simply thinking of Bernard should reduce her to a starry-eyed schoolgirl like that.
Amara cleared her throat, took her notebook from the cabinet built into the base of the seat, and proceeded to change the subject. "Very well, sire. We should arrive back in the capital sometime early tomorrow morning. The reports from High Lord Antillus should be waiting for you when you arrive, and the final movement orders for the Rhodesian Legions should be in effect by then which-"
The coach swept into heavy cloud cover, and she paused to murmur a fury-lamp to life.
"Countess," Gaius said gently, before she could. The First Lord reached out and folded the notebook shut, setting it aside. "Come with me, please."
Amara blinked at him.
Without preamble, Gaius turned and opened the door of the coach. Wind howled in a sudden scream, whipping their clothing about, and the coach slewed slightly to one side as the sudden drag made the coach's progress uneven.
The First Lord stepped out into empty air, lifting away from the coach so smoothly that he might have been moving out onto solid ground.
Amara lifted her eyebrows, but followed him, summoning Cirrus to support her as she left the confines of the coach for the cold, clinging, dark grey dampness of the heavy clouds. They kept pace with the coach for a moment, and Gaius exchanged a nod with the leader of the accompanying Knights Aeris. Then he slowed pace, and within seconds the air coach vanished into the clouds, leaving Gaius and Amara hovering alone in featureless grey.
Gaius flicked a hand through the air, and the roar of wind suddenly vanished. For a second, Amara expected her windstream to collapse and send her plummeting toward the ground, but Cirrus's support remained steady. Her hair still whipped around her head, as it always did, especially in a hover-only the sound vanished, dying to nothing more than the sigh of a quiet breeze. Around them, Amara could hear the distant grumble of thunder, as somewhere, miles away, a spring storm gathered in the cloud cover.
"Sire," she said, confused. "The coach."
Gaius shook his head. "I'm sorry I couldn't tell you before, Amara, but secrecy was absolutely imperative. No one can know where we're going, when we left-nothing."
She frowned and folded her arms against the ongoing winds. She wasn't wearing her flying leathers, and she was surprised at how quickly a chill began settling into her skin.
"I take it we're not returning to the capital," she said quietly.
"No," Gaius said.
She nodded. "Why am I here?"
"I need someone I trust to come with me."
"Where, sire?" Amara asked.
"Kalare," Gaius said quietly.
Amara felt her eyes widen. "Why there?"
His voice stayed quiet and steady. "Because I've been sitting in the capital playing diplomat for too long, Amara, and this chaos"-he gestured with a hand, taking in the entirety of the Realm beneath them-"is the result. Allies and enemies alike have forgotten who I am. What I am. I can't allow that to go on any longer."
Lightning flickered somewhere in the distant clouds, sending a flood of silver light through the swirling mists behind the First Lord.
"I'm going to remind them, Cursor." His eyes hardened. "I'm going to war. And you're going with me."
Chapter 5
Isana made sure her hood was well up, and was grateful for the unusually sharp chill that lingered in the springtime morning air. It gave her an unquestionable justification to have her hood around her face. She wasn't trying to avoid being seen visiting Captain Rufus Scipio, precisely, since the director of the relief column would quite naturally need to speak to someone on the First Aleran's staff. But Tavi felt it was better if she went unrecognized and attracted no notice-or questions-at all, and she heartily supported his caution.
As promised, Araris was waiting at the front doors and escorted her past the two legionares on sentry duty there.
"Good morning," she murmured, as he led her into the building. It was an almost ridiculously overfortified structure, all of the same battlecrafted stone that was generally used only for fortified walls. The halls were more narrow than most, the ceilings lower, and Isana noted with surprise that at the first staircase, Araris led her down, not up, to where a leader's quarters were typically located.
"Good morning," he replied. His posture and voice were both politely formal, but she could sense the warmth that lay beneath them, radiating out from him like heat from a banked fire. She was certain that he knew she could discern his actual emotions, as well, and the sense of sudden satisfaction in that unspoken trust was a pleasant little thrill, something akin to feeling his fingers intertwine with hers. "We go down two flights to get to his office."