Part 16 (1/2)

”Soon you'll hear us always . . .”

She took her hand from the stone and the voices stopped. They didn't always. Sometimes, especially recently, she'd been hearing them even when she didn't touch the stone.

To kill a Hirzg . . . This would be a challenge. This would be a test. She would have to plan carefully; she would have to watch him and know him. She would have to become him.

Her fingers were back around the stone again. ”You've killed the unranked, you've killed ce'-and-ci', and they are easy enough. You've killed cu'-and-ca', and you know they're far more difficult because with money comes isolation, and with power comes protection. But never this. Never a ruler.”

”You're afraid . . .”

”. . . You doubt yourself . . .”

”No!” she told them all, angrily. ”I can do this. I will do this. You'll see. You'll see when the Hirzg is in there with you. You'll see.”

They'll know you. The A'Hirzg will know you . . .

”No, she won't. People like her don't even see the unranked, as I was to her. My voice will be different, and my hair, and-most importantly-my att.i.tude. She won't know me. She won't.”

With that, she plucked the pouch of golden coins from the bed and placed it in the chest with the other fees. From the chest, she pulled out the battered bronze mirror and looked at her reflection in the polished surface. She touched her hair, looked at the haunted, almost colorless eyes. It was time for her to become someone else. Someone richer, someone more influential.

Someone who could get close enough to the Hirzg . . .

THRONES.

Allesandra ca'Vorl.

Audric ca'Dakwi.

Sergei ca'Rudka

Varina ci'Pallo

Eneas cu'Kinnear

Jan ca'Vorl

Nico Morel

Allesandra ca'Vorl

Karl ca'Vliomani

Nico Morel

Allesandra ca'Vorl

The White Stone.

Allesandra ca'Vorl.

WITHIN A MOON . . .

That's the promise the White Stone had made. Allesandra wondered if she could keep up the pretense that long. It was more difficult than she'd thought. Doubts plagued her-she had dreamed for the last three nights that she had gone to the White Stone to try to end the contract. ”Just keep the money,” she'd told him. ”Keep the money, but don't kill Fynn.” Each time he'd laughed at her and refused.

”That's not what you want,” the White Stone replied. In the dream, his voice was deeper. ”Not really. I will do what you desire, not what you say. He'll be dead within a moon. . . .”

She hoped Cenzi was not rebuking her. Fynn probably contemplated killing me as Vatarh was dying, thinking I would challenge him for the crown. He would still do so if he suspected me of plotting against him-he's as much as said that. This is no less than he deserves for what Vatarh and he did to me. This is what he deserves for his continued arrogance toward me. This is what I must do for me; this is what I must do for Jan. This is what I must do for Vatarh's dream. This is the only way. . . .

The words were burning coals in her stomach, and they touched all aspects of her life. She had suspected it would one day come to this, but she had also hoped that day might never arrive.

Since the attempted a.s.sa.s.sination, Fynn had enjoyed the adulation of the Firenzcian populace and Jan-as the Hirzg's protector-had been taken up with it as well. Everyone seemed to have forgotten entirely that Allesandra had anything to do with the foiling of the a.s.sa.s.sination. Even Jan seemed to have forgotten that-he certainly never mentioned, in all his recounting of the story, that it had been her who pointed out the a.s.sa.s.sin to him.

Crowds gathered to cheer whenever the Hirzg left his palais in Brezno, and there were parties nearly every night, with the ca'-and-cu' of the Coalition. There were new people there every night, especially women wanting to be close to the Hirzg (still unmarried despite his age) and to the new young protege Jan.

Her husband, Pauli, also enjoyed the influx of fresh young women into the palais life. Allesandra was far less pleased with it, and even less pleased with Pauli's att.i.tude toward Jan. ”He's your son,” she told him. Her stomach roiled with the argument she knew was coming, and she placed a hand on her abdomen to calm it, swallowing the fiery bile that threatened to rise in her throat and hating the shrill sound of her voice. ”You need to caution him about these things. If one of these eager ca'-and-cu' swarming around him end up with child . . .”

Pauli gave her an expression that was near-smirk, making the bile slide higher inside her. ”Then we buy the girl and her family a vacation in Kishkoros unless she's a good match for him. If that's the case, let him marry her.” His casual shrug was infuriating. Allesandra wondered how many Kishkoros vacations Pauli had bought during their years of marriage.

They were standing on the balcony above the palais' main ballroom floor. Another party was in progress below; Allesandra could see Fynn and the usual cl.u.s.ter of bright tashtas, and that made her hands tremble. Archigos Semini was close by as well, though Allesandra didn't see Francesca in the crowd. Jan was in the same group, talking to a young woman with hair the color of new wheat. Allesandra didn't recognize her.

”Who is that?” she asked. ”I don't know her.”

”Elissa ca'Karina, of the Jablunkov ca'Karina line. She was sent to represent her family for the Besteigung, but was delayed near Lake Firenz and just arrived a few days ago.”