A Magic of Dawn

Varina ca’Pallo

“I need your help, Varina.”

It was not a statement that a person expected to hear from the Kraljica. In the years that Varina had known Allesandra, she’d come to consider the woman a friend, yet there was always a necessary distance and deference to that friendship due to her title. Allesandra wasn’t someone who asked for help; rather, she generally expected help to be offered without the necessity of a request, or she would instead issue an order for the aid. Yet here was Allesandra, sitting in Varina’s sunroom as if on a social visit, and asking.

The room was warm with the sunlight pouring through the glass, and full of the scent of blooming flowers. Varina had watered them little since sending the servants away, and the stress and neglect seemed ironically to have startled them into bloom. She had never seen the room so vibrant and alive.

It was almost a mockery. The plants flaunted their color and brilliance against the gray, wrinkled bag of her own flesh and against the gray plain of her continuing grief.

“I need your help.” Varina was afraid that she knew exactly what Allesandra wanted, and she wasn’t certain it was something she could do. “If this has to do with Nico and the attack on the Old Temple.. .”

“It does,” Allesandra replied flatly. She stroked the yellow petals of a sunrise flower on a stand alongside her chair. “Very pretty,” she said. “The ones in the palais garden are just beginning to bud.” She laid her hand back in her lap, her gaze on Varina again. Varina could see the steel of the ca’Ludovici line in her face: the sharp nose, the jutting chin. “Nico Morel doesn’t only threaten the Faith and me,” Allesandra said. “He also threatens you and the Numetodo, and he does so directly. If he has his way, the persecution of the Numetodo by the Faith would begin once again. He wants to see your tortured bodies hanging in cages from the Ponticas, as they did when Orlandi held the Archigos’ throne.”

“You wouldn’t allow that, Kraljica,” Varina answered. “I know you that well.”

Allesandra gave an audible sniff, as if searching for the perfume of the flowers in the room. “I wouldn’t, no. But if Morel has his way, then my refusal would be mean that there would be someone else on the Sun Throne, a lackey who would bow first to the Archigos’ throne rather than to the people of the Holdings, who would place religious issues before political ones. If that happens…”

“How can it?” Varina said. “Nico can be charming and persuasive; I know that well. But this tiny group of followers taking over the Faith?” She shook her head. “Surely that’s not a serious threat.”

“You underestimate both Nico, and the Morelli influence among the teni and the populace. They aren’t a ‘tiny group,’ Varina. When A’Teni ca’Paim called for the war-teni of the Holdings to join the Garde Civile to defend Villembouchure, few of them answered. Most of those who ignored her are now in the Old Temple with the Morellis. My people are telling me that the Garde Kralji doesn’t have the capacity to deal with the raw power Morel has gathered there. I suspect they also don’t have the will to do so-I know that some of the offiziers within the Garde are actually sympathetic to the Morellis and their stance.”

The bright colors of the sunroom plants filled the air behind Allesandra, discordant. Varina’s hand had gone to her throat. She felt a sour burning there, deep inside: a remembered fear that she’d thought long extinguished and forgotten. She remembered Sergei’s advice to her; she wondered whether she should have listened, if once again he’d been right when everyone else had been wrong. “It’s that serious? How did we miss this?”

“When things don’t go well, people look for scapegoats to blame. They never blame themselves, they never blame Cenzi, they never blame circumstance, they never blame chance. They blame others.”

“And the Numetodo have always been convenient scapegoats. Is that what you’re saying?”

A nod. “The way to ensure that the Numetodo survive is to make certain that the Nico Morel and his people receive the justice they deserve. Strength is the other quality that people respect. If you show that the Numetodo are stronger than the Morellis, then you’ll see the blame shifting the other way; all the talk will be about how it’s the Morellis who have caused the problems and who are endangering the Holdings. Not you. Not the Numetodo. The affection of the people is fickle. We can change it.”

“You’ve become a skeptic, Kraljica. Or a pragmatist.”

She shook her head. “I haven’t changed at all. In this, I’ve always been a realist. And I’m right. That’s why you need to help me.”

“How?”

She turned slightly and stroked the soft petals of the sunrise flower once again. Varina watched the bloom bend and spring up again under the Kraljica’s hand. “It’s simple enough. I can’t fight war-teni without magic of my own; you’re the A’Morce Numetodo. If I no longer have the Faith as my ally, if I can’t trust the teni there, then my only hope is to turn to the only rival to them-the Numetodo: your magic, your knowledge, your black sand. And whatever else you have that would change the equation.”

Varina glanced at her desk, on which a weeping violet drooped small, purple flowers like bloody tears. Below the plant, in the drawer of the desk, was her sparkwheel. “Kraljica, we’ve been friends for a long time now…”

“We have,” Allesandra answered. “Which is the other reason I’ve come to you. I ask for friendship’s sake, too. You know what Morel asks-no, demands -of us?”

Varina shook his head. Allesandra took a scroll from her pocket, and what she read to Varina stunned her to the core. Her hand trembled at her throat and she wished, at least momentarily, that the shock would sweep over her and take her, that she could join Karl in the sweet oblivion of death. She glanced again at the desk, at the weeping violet and the drawer. It seemed that she could smell the weapon there, the scent of burnt black sand.

The odor of violence and death.

“He can’t be serious,” she said. “He can’t really expect you to accept those terms. That’s madness.”

“Nico Morel is mad,” Allesandra answered. “And he believes that Cenzi will make this happen.” She rose from her seat, and she moved into the sunlight streaming through the window, Varina could see the age in her face: the wrinkles, the sagging of her chin, the gray that was beginning to show in the hair. For a moment, Varina saw Allesandra as she might look in another decade. Then the sun slid over her face and left her in shadow again, and the moment was gone. Varina started to rise with her, but Allesandra waved to her to keep her seat.

“No, don’t get up. Varina, I can’t wait, as some in the Garde Civile have advised me. I have to take care of this quickly, because I fear that Commandant ca’Talin won’t be able to hold back the Tehuantin, and I can’t have this distraction while trying to fight a greater enemy. I tell you again-I need your help. Nessantico needs our help. I need the Numetodo, and I promise you that if you give me the aid I ask for, then the Numetodo will never have to fear persecution within the Holdings ever again. Will you help?”

She knew how Karl would have answered. She could almost hear his voice. I know you love Nico, but he’s not the child that we knew. He’s changed, and he’s been terribly damaged, and he’s dangerous. He’s brought this upon himself. “Yes,” she told Allesandra. “I’ll have to talk to the others, but I’m certain they’ll agree. I’ll arrange with Talbot to coordinate things.”

Allesandra nodded. Her face seemed to relax. “Thank you,” she said. “You won’t regret this, Varina. I promise.”

Varina pushed herself up from her seat, and Allesandra embraced her gently. “Thank you,” she heard the Kraljica whisper again. Allesandra’s lips brushed Varina’s cheeks momentarily, and the Kraljica turned to leave.

The wake of her passage smelled of flowers and damp earth.