Passion Play (River of Souls 1)

“It could happen again tomorrow,” said a voice from the doorway. “Or have your forgotten how easily wealth turns into poverty?”

Petr Zhalina stood in the doorway, a tall narrow shadow against the gloom. Only a white band showed where his shirt emerged from his dark gray vest and coat. With a wave of his hand, he dismissed Lisl, who vanished into the outer rooms.

Nadežda Zhalina opened her eyes; her expression turned wary. “Dobrud’n, my son.”

“Good afternoon, my mother.”

Her mouth twitched. “Such a diligent son. Have you come to wish me farewell?”

Petr Zhalina lifted his chin. His lips thinned even more, if that were possible, and the angles in his cheeks grew more pronounced. “I came to see about your health. Therez, please leave us.”

Therez turned toward the door, but stopped when her grandmother lifted a hand. “Come again this evening, sweet.”

“She comes if her duties allow,” said her father. “Therez. Go.”

Therez hurried out the door. She heard a low murmur from her father and a brusque reply from her grandmother. She paused, wondering what the new argument was about, but both voices quickly sank into whispers.

A shiver passed through her—a reminder of death and the coming winter—and she fled to the brightly lit halls below.

CHAPTER TWO

EIGHT DAYS LEFT, then three, finally none. All the guests had accepted their invitations, including Baron Mann. Paschke had rearranged his schedule at Therez’s request. They would bring both plucked and hammer-stringed instruments, he told her, as well as a complement of oblique and transverse flutes, and even a water flute, which only a master could play with any success. In the dining room, the steward had arranged flowers made of perfumed silks and gossamers and faille in the latest fashion from Duenne. Therez’s mother seemed cautiously pleased.

That afternoon, Therez sat by her grandmother’s bedside, watching the old woman’s chest rise and fall as she slept. I’m so tired, Nadežda Zhalina had whispered. So tired, and yet I cannot sleep. Tell me a story, sweet. One about Duszranjo.

And so Therez had, repeating all the old stories and folktales her grandmother had once told her—about ghost soldiers who haunted the mountain passes, about the famine her grandparents and father had survived, about the near-immortal king who ruled that northern land of Károví. The longer she spoke of long ago and faraway, the more easily she could forget the whispers and the tensions of now. How her mother would suddenly fall silent and tremble. How her grandmother and father conducted a silent war of determination. How her brother seemed more distant now than when he first left for university.

Her grandmother stirred restlessly. “Him,” she murmured. “Always him. He never changes.”

She was dreaming again, Therez thought. Were these more life dreams? Or simply the wanderings of an old weary mind?

Outside, muted by thick walls, the bells rang five long peals. Two hours until the dinner party. She ought to go. Gently, she eased her hands from her grandmother’s and rose. She’d dismissed Lisl before, telling her to take a free half hour. The girl ought to be back soon.

Her grandmother gave a breathy moan. Therez hovered anxiously. She laid a hand over her grandmother’s forehead, which felt clammy to her touch. Her grandmother twitched away and started to mumble in Károvín—something about a palace and a king. The king. The only king.

Leos Dzavek. Now she understood. He was the one who never changed, not since he’d stolen Lir’s jewels from the emperor, almost four hundred years ago. Emperors and kings had died since then. The empire itself had broken apart. Only Leos Dzavek remained unchanged, wrapped in magic even long after the jewels themselves had vanished.

“So strange,” her grandmother whispered. Her shivering grew stronger, in spite of layers of woolen blankets and the abundant fire in the fireplace. Therez chafed her grandmother’s hands gently. The soft loose skin felt chilled to her touch.

She deserves better, Therez thought angrily. My father has money enough to hire any mage-surgeon he pleases. If he pleased. Magic might not save her grandmother’s life, but at least a surgeon trained in magic could ease her passage from one life to the next. Her mother had dared, once, to make the suggestion, but her father had dismissed it with an abrupt gesture. Magic, he said, was a useless expense.

Her grandmother muttered again. Therez heard her own name amid a stream of garbled words. She bent over her grandmother. “What is it?” she whispered. “What are you saying?”

“Ei rûf ane gôtter …”

A chill washed over Therez as she recognized those words from history books—I call to the gods—the first words in any invocation of magic, the language of old Erythandra.

I wonder if she heard them from Leos Dzavek himself. I wonder …

“Ei rûf ane gôtter,” she whispered. “What comes next, Grandmama?”

No answer. Just a faint wheezing. Therez repeated the words slowly. She’d read so many history books that talked about magic, and more books about languages, but none of them had contained any true spells. All she could remember was that the old tribes of the northern forests and plains had brought their language with them when they migrated south to Duenne, conquering as they rode. Centuries later, the priests of the empire used the same invocation to call upon Lir and Toc, to summon the magic current for their rites.

“Ei rûf ane gôtter,” she repeated. “Ei rûf …” Now a few more words came back to her. “Ei rûf ane gôtter. Komen uns Lir unde Toc.”

She felt a fluttering in her chest. Was that magic?

She drew a long breath and repeated the words, her thoughts pinned upon each syllable, upon the moment in between.