22

A Watcher password got them by the guards at the same postern gate Alec had used as a refuge a few months before. Riding through the palace grounds, they dismounted at a tradesman's door near the Ring wall of the Palace.

"I feared you would not come," Nysander said, hurrying them inside. As he reached to close the door behind them, Alec noticed the hem of a finely embroidered robe beneath the wizard's plain mantle.

"You caught us in the middle of a job," Seregil told him.

"I suspected as much, but I had no choice. Come, there is little time."

Nysander inscribed a faint sigil in the air over their heads, then led the way silently down a servant's passage. They hadn't gone far when a serving woman came around a corner ahead of them carrying an armload of linen. She looked directly at Alec as she passed, but gave no sign that she'd seen him.

Magic?

Alec signed.

Seregil motioned him onward with an impatient nod. still hope I don't have to find my own way out of here, Alec thought as Nysander hurried them up stairways and through more corridors and increasingly lavish public rooms. Climbing a final, curving stairway, they reached a closed door. Nysander took a key from his sleeve and let them into a long, dimly lit gallery.

An ornate balustrade screened by panels of wooden fretwork ran the length of the right side of the room. Light streamed up through the openings, casting netted patterns on the ceiling overhead.

Nysander raised a finger to his lips, then drew them to one of the panels. Putting his face close to the fretwork, Alec found himself looking down into a brightly lit audience chamber.

He'd seen Queen Idrilain only once before, but he recognized her at once among the small knot of people gathered around a wine table at the center of the room. Phoria sat at her left with several other people in Skalan court dress. To Idrilain's right sat a man and two women dressed in a fashion he'd never seen before.

All three wore tunics of soft white wool accented only by the polished jewels glowing on their belts, torques, and broad silver wristbands.

Two of them, the man and the younger woman, wore their long dark hair loose over their shoulders beneath elaborately wrapped head cloths. The older woman's hair was silvery white, and on her brow was a silver circlet set with a single large ruby in a fan of blade-shaped gold leaves.

Intrigued, Alec turned to Seregil but found his friend pressed rigidly to the screen, his face a mask of anguish washed with stippled light.

What's he seeing?

Alec wondered in alarm, looking down at the strangers again. Just then, however, the younger woman turned her head his way and Alec felt his breath catch in his throat as he recognized the fine features, dark shining hair, and large, light eyes.

Aurenfaie.

Still staring down, he reached for his friend's shoulder, felt the slight trembling there before Seregil shrugged him away.

The conference below continued for some time. At last the Queen rose and led the others out of the chamber.

Seregil remained where he was for a moment, forehead resting against the screen as a single tear inched down his cheek. Wiping it quickly away, he turned to face Nysander, who'd stood silently behind them all the while.

"Why are they here?" Seregil asked, his voice husky with emotion.

"The Plenimaran Overlord died today," the wizard replied. "The Aurenfaie had the news before we did and translocated a delegation here tonight. There is still no official alliance between Plenimar and Zengat, but both Aurenfaie intelligence and our own suggests that secret agreements have in fact been made."

"What's that got to do with us?" Seregil's face was stony now, the naked sorrow too thoroughly erased.

"Nothing, as yet," said Nysander. "I summoned you here because the lia'sidra has granted permission for you to speak with her briefly. There is a small antechamber just through that door behind you."

Still rigidly expressionless, Seregil stalked away into the next room.

As soon as he was gone, Alec let out a pent-up gasp. "Illior's Hands, Nysander-Aurenfaie!"

"I thought you should see them, too," Nysander said with a rather sad smile.

"Who's he meeting?"

"That is for Seregil to tell you. And with any luck, before you wear a trench in this excellent carpet."

Seregil paced the small, well-appointed sitting room, one eye on the side door. And as he paced, he fought to maintain some semblance of inner calm. There was a looking glass on the wall and he paused in front of it, ruefully inspecting his reflection. His hair was tangled and windblown, and a week of puzzling over Rythel had left dark circles under his eyes. The old surcoat he'd thrown on that evening was frayed at the cuffs and one shoulder was torn.

Don't I look the ragged outcast? he thought, giving the glass a humorless smile as he combed his fingers through his hair.

Behind him the side door opened and for a moment another face was reflected next to his, the two images so similar, yet worlds apart. When had his eyes grown so wary, the lines around his mouth so harsh?

"Seregil, my brother." Her pure, unaccented Aurenfaie washed through him like cool water.

"Adzriel," he whispered, embracing her. The scent of wandril blossoms rose from her hair and skin, blinding him with memories. She had been both sister and mother and suddenly he remembered what it had been to be a child, smelling her special scent as she comforted him or carried him home from some moonlit festival. Now she felt small in his arms and for a long moment he could do nothing but cling to her, his throat tightening painfully as he blinked back four decades of unshed tears.

Adzriel stepped back at last, still holding him by the shoulders as if afraid he'd disappear if she didn't.

"All these years I've carried the image of that unhappy boy looking down at me from the deck that awful day," she gasped, her own tears flowing freely. "O Aura, I missed seeing you grow into a man! Now look at you; wild as any Tirfaie and wearing a weapon in the presence of your kin."

Seregil quickly unbuckled his sword belt and hung it over a nearby chair. "I meant no offense. It's like another limb to me here. Come, sit down and I'll try to remember how civilized people act."

Adzriel stroked a hand through his unkempt hair.

"And when were you ever civilized?"

Sitting down next to him on a divan, she drew a small bundle of scrolls from her tunic. "I have letters for you from our sisters and your old friends. They haven't forgotten you."

More memories held at bay pressed in, and with them a pang of long suppressed hope. Swallowing hard, he examined the heavy silver bracelet of rank on her wrist. "So you're a member of the lia'sidra now. And an envoy, too. Not bad for someone who hasn't seen her hundred and a half birthday yet."

Adzriel shrugged, though she looked pleased. "Our family's tie to Skala may be useful in the coming years. Idrilain welcomed me as a kinswoman when we arrived, and spoke highly of you. From what little your friend Nysander i Azusthra had time to tell me, I gather you've been of some service to her?"

Seregil studied her face, wondering how much Nysander had said about their work. Little enough, evidently.

"Now and then," he told her. "What did your companions make of that, I wonder, Seregil the Traitor praised by the Skalan Queen? I remember old Mahalie a Solunesthra, but who's the other?"

"Ruen i Uri, of Datsia Clan. And you needn't worry about either of them; they're both moderates, and good friends of mine."

"And you're here because of Plenimar?"

"Yes. All recent reports indicate an alliance being attempted with Zengat and there can only be one reason for that."