Allegiance (River of Souls 3)

“Heloïse? You did. She and your other sisters are in Duenne. They would visit you, but the king will not allow it. He only permitted Heloïse to accompany me, to see for herself that you lived, and only after a very long negotiation. Your brother remains at home, your mother, too. In case they need to defend our lands.”

He paused, and glanced toward the airshaft, as though he could read the passing hours there. “There is one more thing. Not a public matter, though I care not who knows it. But I must … I wish … Raul, I am sorry.”

Raul jerked his head up. “Why?”

His father kept his gaze fixed on the stone walls of the cell, and when at last he spoke, his voice strained with unexpected emotion. “Because I planted ambition in your heart, even before you were aware of it. Because I did not forbid you to fulfill Baerne’s demands, though I knew how it could … how it would

damage your future.”

“It was not your fault,” Raul said. “You had no choice—”

He stopped, suddenly aware of what his father had not explicitly said.

“I could have stopped you,” his father replied. “I could have denied the mage surgeon. I might have sent word to the king, refusing to submit to his demands. Even better, I could have demanded a public audience to announce my disgust and dismay at his tactics. I did not, because I was ambitious, too.”

He bent down and kissed his son on his forehead.

“I love you,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

He did not ask for forgiveness, nor did Raul offer it.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

THE RAIN HAD started early that morning, a heavy, soaking downpour that continued throughout the day and well into the evening. Ehren Zhalina had noted its arrival in passing when he breakfasted. A typical autumn storm, which would pass soon enough. He woke long before sunrise most days, but today the skies had remained as gray as a winter’s evening and water streamed without pause over the walls and windows of Zhalina house. Here in his office, once his father’s domain, he had closed the shutters against the damp, but he could not shut out the rill of water over stone. Its silver-dotted song reminded him of water flutes, and of another autumn night three years before, when his father still lived, and his sister …

My father and sister are dead.

He struck a line through his last calculation, then set the pen aside and chafed his hands together. It was the turning point between seasons, here on the border between Veraene and Károví. A chill penetrated brick and stone, despite the generous fires in every hearth, and the air carried a dank, damp scent. His head ached from too many hours bent over these books. If he had returned to Duenne, to university, he would have expected hours just as long, in a bare uncomfortable cubicle. The knowledge did little to comfort him.

Darkness ticked down suddenly. Night already. Ehren lit another branch of candles, then settled back into his chair. Contracts, always contracts. The issue of new fees demanded by the shipping guild, in response to the king’s demands for new fees regarding ports and highway maintenance. The rumors of war, ever present, had intensified in the past few months, and the autumn negotiations reflected the merchants’ fretfulness. Ehren had just recaptured his focus on the subject, when he heard a soft tapping at his door.

“Yes?”

His senior runner, Váná Gersi, opened the door. “Maester Zhalina? A message has come for you.”

Metz or Pribyl, Ehren thought. He wasn’t surprised. Both were newer merchant houses with much to gain, and far more to lose, in the coming contract negotiations. “Do they want an answer tonight, do you know?”

“As soon as you can, Maester Zhalina.”

Ehren held out his hand for the message. Gersi hesitated only a moment before he handed over a small square of paper.

A shock of magic stung Ehren’s palm. He dropped the paper onto his desk and stared at his runner. “Who gave this to you?”

“The stable master,” Gersi said. “He received it from a person he knows.”

A man the stable master recognized? Impossible, Ehren thought. None of his colleagues or acquaintances practiced magic. Except Gersi himself seemed unsettled, and by more than the presence of magic.

“Wait outside,” he said. “I shall send for you when I have an answer.”

Gersi silently withdrew. Ehren rubbed his mouth. He could smell the traces of magic—so strong, so green, as if someone had crushed a handful of new grass under his nose.

Petr Zhalina had never allowed magic within the household—he declared the money better spent on ordinary measures, but Ehren Zhalina had encountered magic aplenty the year he studied at Duenne’s university. He knew there were a dozen or so spells used in everyday commerce—spells to light candles or spark a fire, spells to warm hands or ease a child to sleep. The one most commonly used by scholars and diplomats was a spell to seal a letter against anyone except the intended recipient. It did not require great skill, but it was impossible for strangers to use.

Someone who knows me sent me this letter. Gersi knows them, as well. And the stable master …

With a shudder, he took up the letter once more. The paper was cheap, discolored by grease and smoke, the flap ragged, as though the sender had torn the page from a larger sheet. A rusty red blotch at one corner could have been blood or wine, or the imprint left by a mug to anchor the paper.

Ehren pressed his fingertips against its edges. Strong magic flooded through his veins—he could almost sense it taking stock of his identity. He caught a glimpse of stars against a twilit sky. The next moment, the current vanished from perception, and the paper unfolded onto his desk.