A Magic of Nightfall

RESOLUTIONS
Allesandra ca’Vorl

Jan read the missive carefully, his pale eyes scanning the words there. Allesandra already knew what it said-Starkkapitan ca’Damont’s soldiers had intercepted the rider pounding eastward along the Avi a’Firenczia with a white banner fluttering over him in the moonlight, and had brought the sealed scroll to Allesandra, insisting to her attendants that she be awakened. Allesandra had broken the seal and scanned the letter, then she’d quickly dressed and gone to Jan.

If her son noticed or cared that the seal hung broken on the thick paper, or that the Kraljica had addressed the missive to Allesandra and not himself, he’d said nothing. He moved the candle aside that he’d been using for light; its holder scraped along the table that had been hastily set up in the field tent next to the Hirzg’s private tent.

“This is genuine?” Jan asked. A blanket was draped around his shoulders, his eye sockets were baggy and tired. He yawned and rubbed at his eyes. “We’re certain?”

“The rider said that it was handed to him by Kraljica Sigourney herself,” Starkkapitan ca’Damont answered.

Jan nodded. He handed the scroll to Semini, who read it, pursed his lips, then passed it to ca’Rudka. Jan seemed to be waiting, and Allesandra, seated next to him at the small table in the field tent, tapped her fingertips on the scarred surface. “We are wasting time, my son,” she said. “The message is clear. The Kraljica is willing to abdicate the Sun Throne if we bring the army there immediately to stop the Westlanders. Rouse the men now, and if we march our forces at double-time, we can reach the city gates by early morning.”

Jan didn’t seem to hear her. He was looking at Sergei. “Regent?” he asked. “Your thoughts?”

Ca’Rudka, maddeningly to Allesandra, rubbed at his nose for a long time, staring at the parchment. She could see the candlelight flickering on sculpted nostrils. “The Kraljica wouldn’t consider abdication when it was offered it to her at the parley, Hirzg Jan, or at least ca’Mazzak would not,” he said finally. “The councillor seemed entirely confident that the Garde Civile could defeat the Westlanders. Now the Kraljica’s suddenly been afflicted with altruism? But as I told you, Hirzg, I wish what’s best for Nessantico. I wouldn’t care to see the city destroyed. But this must be your decision.”

“There, Jan, you see?” Allesandra said. She stood. “Starkkapitan, you will-”

But Jan had laid his hand on her arm. “I’m not finished yet, Matarh,” he said. “Archigos Semini, what do you think of this offer?”

Allesandra started to protest, but Jan’s hand tightened around her arm. They were all watching her. Pressing her lips together, she sat again. Semini especially stared at her, his umber eyes expressionless. He knew, she realized then. He knew that she had been ready to offer him up in exchange for the Sun Throne. Sergei… could Sergei have told him? Or…

Jan?

“I notice that the Kraljica’s offer says nothing about the Faith,” Semini answered, still staring at her. “That’s not acceptable to me. I’m reluctant to commit the war-teni to an alliance with Nessantico unless Archigos Kenne is also willing to abdicate in favor of me.” Semini turned from her then, and inclined his head to Jan. “Unless, of course, that is what the Hirzg requests of me.”

“Jan,” Allesandra persisted, ignoring Semini. “This is what we wanted from the start. We have it in our grasp; we’ve but to reach out and take it.”

“Oh, I disagree, Matarh,” Jan snapped back at her. “It’s what you’ve always wanted. It seems your whole life has been about what you wanted: your ambitions, your aspirations, your desires. Even as a girl, from what I’ve been told: you wanted Nessantico in the first place, so Great-Vatarh forced his army to march faster than it should have and lost-yes, Fynn told me that tale, which he said Great-Vatarh told him.”

“That’s not true,” Allesandra objected. It was Vatarh who wanted Nessantico so badly. Not me. I told him to wait and be patient. I did

… but Jan wasn’t listening, continuing to talk.

“You decided you didn’t want to help Vatarh after he finally brought you back, so your marriage was a sham when it could have been a strong alliance. You didn’t want me to be involved with Elissa, so you sent her away. You didn’t want to be Hirzg, so you campaigned for me to have the title. What you’ve always wanted is to be Kraljica, and now you want us to take this offer so you can have it now, whether that’s best for Firenzcia or not. It’s always been you, Matarh. You. Not Vatarh, not Great-Vatarh, not me, not the Archigos, not anyone. You. Well, you made me Hirzg, and by Cenzi I will be Hirzg, and I will do what’s best for Firenzcia and the Coalition, not what’s best for you. I love you, Matarh-” strangely, to Allesandra, he glanced at Sergei when he said that, “-but I am Hirzg, and this is what I say: We will move on to Nessantico, but we will do so in our own time. Nessantico cries out for help from us? Well, let her cry. Let her fight the battle she has brought on herself. Starkkapitan, we will break camp in the morning as planned, and we will proceed at normal pace until we are within sight of Nessantico, and there we will wait until we know more or until the Kraljica herself comes out and bends her knee to me. I won’t send a single Firenzcian life to be lost defending Nessantico from her own folly.”

“Jan-” Allesandra began, but he cut her off with a snap of his arm.

“No, Matarh. We’re not discussing this any further. You wanted me to be Hirzg? Well, here I am, and that is my wish. We won’t talk of it further. Starkkapitan-you have your orders.”

Ca’Damont bowed, and with a glance at Allesandra, left the tent. Semini yawned and stretched like a bear waking from hibernation. He gave Jan the sign of Cenzi and followed after the starkkapitan, avoiding Allesandra’s gaze entirely. Sergei watched the two men leave, then stood himself. “Should you need my counsel, Hirzg, you know where to find me,” he said. “A’Hirzg, a good evening to you.”

Allesandra gave him the barest inclination of her head. For several breaths, she and Jan sat there, silent. “You don’t want me to be Kraljica?” she said, when the silence had stretched on for too long.

“Just as Sergei wants what’s best for Nessantico, I want what’s best for Firenzcia,” he answered. Then, before she could form a response: “All I ever wanted from you was your love, Matarh.”

His words stung like a slap across the face, so hard that it started tears in her eyes. “I do love you, Jan,” she told him. “More than you can understand.”

He glared at her: a stranger’s face. No, his namesake’s face, as she imagined it all during her captivity in Nessantico, when he refused to pay the ransom for her. “Shut up, Matarh. You’ve taught me well. You’ve shown me that aspirations and drive are more important than love. I talked to Archigos Semini. I told him how you’d been willing to sacrifice him to be Kraljica. He told me something in return: that he had plotted to assassinate Fynn. For you, Matarh. All for you. He told me that you knew, that day I saved Fynn, that the attack would come. You used him-your lover-to make me a hero, to make me the Hirzg. The rest, I can figure out myself. I wonder, Matarh, who hired the White Stone-but I have an excellent guess.” She felt her face coloring, and she looked away. “Then that oh-so-noble gesture of yours,” he continued, “stepping down in favor of me: you never wanted to be Hirzg. You always wanted more. You didn’t want what was best for me, but what was best for you. I was your second child, the lesser one, Matarh. Ambition was always your firstborn.”

The breath left her. She sat there, tears damp on her cheeks, as Jan pushed away from the table and stood. “Jan…” she said, lifting her arms to him, but he shook his head. He looked down on her and for a moment she thought she saw his face soften.

But he turned and walked away into the night.