When twilight fell, Amara remained at liberty.
Her body ached to her bones. The first swift rush of flight had taken the strength from her, and the second, steadier flight would have been impossible without a fortunate breeze blowing north and east, in the direction she fled. She was able to use the prevailing currents of wind to assist Cirrus, and thus to conserve much of her own energy.
Amara kept low, at the tops of the trees almost, and although they swayed and danced at the passage of the miniature cyclone that kept her aloft, she was better off flying low, where the terrain might help hide her passage from the eyes of the Knights Aeris pursuing her.
The last, rust-colored light of sunset showed her a sparkle of water, a winding ribbon running through the rolling, wooded hills: the river Gaul. It taxed her remaining reserves to guide Cirrus to bring her in for a gentle landing and took even more of an effort to remain on her feet after the tension of flight left her. She felt like crawling into a hollow tree and sleeping for a week.
Instead, she reached down to her tattered dress, tore at the hem on one side, and from it withdrew a small disk of bright copper.
"River Gaul," she whispered, pushing whatever reserves she had left into the effort to speak to the water furies. "Know this coin, and hasten word to thy master." She dropped the coin, giving it a slight spin, and the image of the First Lord's profile spun and tumbled, alternating with the image of the sun in the bloody light.
Amara slumped down then, by the water, reaching out to cup her hands in it. Long runs were not as draining as an hour of flight-even on a good day for it. She had been fortunate. If the winds had been different, she would not have been able to escape to the Gaul.
She stared down at her faint reflection and shivered for a moment. She thought of the water writhing its way up her hands, down her nose and throat, and her heart thudded with sickly fear. She struggled to force it away, but it wouldn't leave her. She could not make herself touch the water.
The water witch could have killed her. Amara could have died, right there. She hadn't. She had survived-but even so, it was all she could do to keep from cowering back on the bank.
She closed her eyes for a moment and tried to force the image of the woman's laughter out of her head. The men who had been chasing her presented no special fear. If she was captured by them, she would be killed with bright steel, perhaps brutalized-but all of that, she had prepared herself for.
She thought of the smile on Odiana's face as her water fury had smothered Amara, drowning her on dry land. There had been an almost childish, unrestrained glee in the woman's eyes.
Amara shuddered. Nothing had prepared her for that.
And yet she had to face that terror. She had to embrace it. Her duty required her to do no less.
She thrust her hands into the cold water of the river.
The young Cursor splashed water onto her face and made an abortive attempt to comb her hair with her fingers. Even though she wore it shorter than was customary, barely to her shoulders, and even though her hair was straight and fine, a tawny, brown-gold, still, a few hours in gale winds had tangled it into knots and made her look like a particularly shaggy mongrel dog.
She eyed her reflection again. Thin, harsh features, she thought, though with the proper cosmetics, she could whittle them down to merely severe. Listless hair, cobwebby and delicate-and currently as tousled as a haystack. Her face and arms, beneath the grime, were tanned as dark as her hair, giving her a monochromatic look in the water, like a statue carved of pale wood and then lightly stained. Her simple clothes were tattered, frayed at the edges from hours in the wind, and thickly stained with mud and spatters of dark brown that must have been blood around the slice in her blouse where her arm throbbed with dull pain.
The water stirred, and a furycrafted form rose out of it-but instead of
the First Lord, a woman took shape. Gaius Caria, wife to Gaius Sextus, Alera's First Lord, seemed young, hardly older than Amara herself. She wore a splendid high-waisted gown, her hair coiffed into an intricate series of braids with a few artful curls falling to frame her face. The woman was beautiful, but more than that, she carried with her a sense of serenity, of purpose, of grace- and of power.
Amara abruptly felt like a gangling cow and dropped into a curtsey as best she could, hands taking the soiled skirts and holding to them. "Your Grace."
"Academ," murmured the woman in reply. "Not twenty days have passed since my husband gave you his coin, and already you interrupt his supper. I believe that is a new record. Fidelias, I am told, did not see fit to drag him from his meal or his bed until at least a month had gone by."
Amara felt her face flush with heat. "Yes, Your Grace. I apologize for the necessity."
The First Lady gave her an arch look, up and down the grimy length of her body. Amara felt her blush deepen, and she fought not to squirm. "No apology is necessary," Lady Caria said. "Though you might work on your timing in the future."
"Yes, Lady. Please, Your Grace. I need to speak to the First Lord."
Lady Caria shook her head. "Impossible," she said, her tone one of finality. "I'm afraid you'll have to speak to him later. Perhaps tomorrow."
"But, Lady-"
"He's swamped," the First Lady said, emphasizing each syllable. "If you feel the matter is an important one, Academ, then you may leave me a message and I will present it to him as soon as opportunity allows."
"Please forgive me, Lady, but I was told that if I ever used the coin, that the message was to be only for him."
"Mind your tongue, Academ," Caria said, her brows arched. "Remember to whom you speak."
"I have the orders from the First Lord himself, Your Grace. I only attempt to obey them."
"Admirable. But the First Lord is not a favorite professor you can simply visit yourself upon whenever you wish, Academ." She stressed the last word, very slightly. "And he has affairs of state to attend to."
Amara swallowed and said, "Your Grace, please. I will not be long in telling him. Let him judge if I am abusing the privilege. Please."
"No," Caria said. The sculpted figure looked over its shoulder. "You have
taken enough of my time, Academ Amara." The First Lady's voice gained a note of tension, hurry. "If that is all..."
Amara licked her lips. If she could hold on a moment more, perhaps the First Lord would overhear the conversation. "Your Grace, before you go, may I give you a message to pass on to him?"
"Be quick."
"Yes, Your Grace. If you would only tell him that-"
Amara didn't get any farther than that before the watery form of the First Lady grimaced and shot her a cool glance, her features becoming remote and hard.
The water beside Lady Caria stirred, and a second furycrafted shape rose from it. This one was a man, tall, with shoulders that had once been broad, but were now slumped with age. He carried himself with a casual pride and a confidence that showed in every line of his body. The water-figure did not appear in liquid translucence, as did Lady Caria's. It rose from the river in full color, and Amara thought, for just a moment, that the First Lord himself had somehow come, rather than sending a fury in his place. His hair was dark, streaked with silver-white strands, and his green eyes looked faded, weary, and confident.
"Here now," said the figure in a gentle, ringing bass. "What passes, my wife?" The figure of Gaius turned toward Amara, squinting. His features went completely still for a moment. Then he murmured, "Ah. I see. Greetings, Cursor."
Lady Caria shot her husband's image a glance at the use of that title, and then her remote gaze returned to Amara. "This one wished to speak with you, but I had informed her that you had a state dinner to attend."
"Your Majesty," Amara murmured, and curtseyed again.
Gaius let out a sigh and waved a hand, vaguely. "You go ahead, my wife. I'll be along shortly."
Lady Caria's chin lifted, tilting with a sharp little motion. "Husband. There will be considerable consternation if we do not arrive together."
Gaius turned his face toward Lady Caria. "Then if it pleases you, wife, you may wait elsewhere for me."
The First Lady pressed her lips together, but gave a graceful, proper nod, before her image abruptly fell back into the water, creating a splash that drenched Amara to the waist. The girl let out a surprised cry, moving to wipe uselessly at her skirts. "Oh, my lord, please excuse me."
Gaius made a tsking sound and his image moved a hand. The water fled from the cloth of her skirts, simply pattered out onto the ground in a steady rain of orderly droplets that gathered into a small, muddy puddle and then flowed back down into the river, leaving her skirts, at least, quite clean.
"Please excuse the First Lady," Gaius murmured. "These last three years have not been kind to her."
Three years since she married you, my lord, Amara thought. But aloud, she said only, "Yes, Your Majesty."
The First Lord inhaled, then nodded, the expression brusque. He had shaved his beard since Amara had seen him last, and the lines of age, faint on the mostly youthful features, showed as dark shadows at the corners of his eyes and mouth. Gaius appeared to be a hale forty years of age-in fact, Amara knew that he was twice that. And that no silver had been showing in his hair when she arrived at the Royal Academy, five years before.
"Your report," Gaius said. "Let's hear it."
"Yes, milord. As you instructed, Fidelias and I attempted to infiltrate the suspected revolutionary camp. We were successful in getting inside." She felt her mouth go dry, and she swallowed. "But... But he..."
Gaius nodded, his expression grave. "But he betrayed you. He proved to be more interested in serving the cause of the insurrectionists than in remaining loyal to his lord."
Amara blinked up at him, startled. "Yes, milord. But how did you-"
Gaius shrugged. "I didn't. But I suspected. When you reach my age, Amara, people show themselves to you very clearly. They write their intentions and beliefs through their actions, their lies." He shook his head. "I saw the signs in Fidelias when he was only a little older than you. But that seed has picked a particularly vicious moment to bloom."
"You suspected?" Amara asked. "But you told me nothing?"
"Could you have kept it from him? Could you have played that kind of charade with him, who taught you, for the duration of the mission?"
Amara clenched her teeth rather than speak in anger. Gaius was right. She never would have been able to keep such knowledge from Fidelias. "Why did you send me?" Her words came out clipped, precise.
Gaius gave her a weary smile. "Because you are the fastest Cursor I have ever seen. Because you were a brilliant student at the Academy, resourceful, stubborn, and able to think on your feet. Because Fidelias liked you. And because I was sure of your loyalty."