The spindle fell, coming down on the tower top. Only my dancing saved me as the tower cracked and sighed thunderously and collapsed. I danced atop the wreckage as it fell, not falling with it, but leaping upon it, landing and then leaping again. Down and down we went, and when we struck the valley floor, the spindle fell and parted into a thousand rounds of red-and-white-streaked stone. The circles of stone bounced and rolled throughout the ancient ruins. A haze of pink dust rose to fill the valley. The spindle was no more. Never again would the Kidona threaten either of my peoples. That battle was over.
And I danced away from it, leaving it behind, a task completed. Lisana would no longer have to keep a watch against the Kidona mages. She was freed from that endless task. I sensed her and knew that I could go to her. She would greet me with joy. But not yet. Not until all was completed.
My dancing feet carried me to Old Thares. No distance was a barrier to the magic. I danced into my uncle Sefert’s home and into his library. My book, the book I had so carefully written, called me. But it was not there on a shelf. Bodiless as a shadow, I danced, up the stairs and through the halls of his home. I found it open on my aunt’s writing desk. I danced thrice around her desk and then she came into the room and walked to the desk and seated herself there. She looked down at the book, and I pushed ideas into her mind. This book held everything she needed to become a favorite with the Queen. Again, I felt the moment of hesitation. What of my dignity? What of my family’s noble name? There were secrets in there that should never have been committed to paper.
And yet revealing them, no matter how it might hurt me, might put an end to war between two peoples. The greater good had to be served. With her I turned the pages and showed her the parts she needed to read. I bent and whispered in her ears. “A few changes. That would be all it would take to avoid scandal and win the Queen’s favor. Think of what power you could wield if you were in her highest graces. Think of the future for your daughter. A few changes. Make those words yours. Whisper them where they must be heard. That would be all that was needed.”
I danced around her while she looked at the journal. Then she opened the drawer of her desk, took out good heavy paper, textured thick as cream, and her own mother-of-pearl pen. She uncapped her inkwell, dipped her pen, and began to take notes. I smiled, danced around her a final time, and then danced away.
Away from Old Thares, following the river and the King’s Road. As I went, I could see how the road had changed everything. Wherever the road had gone, little trails and paths and byways had sprouted out from it and spread their roots. Cabins and cottages, hamlets and new noble holdings, bustling towns and ambitious little villages seemed to spring up wherever there was a crossroads or wherever the road kissed the river’s shore. There was good in that, and there was bad, but of itself it was neither; only change. People had to live somewhere, and population pushed from one area flowed into another just as surely as water flows downhill. There was nothing evil about it; change was only change.
To make people move, I saw, they had to be pushed or pulled. The Landsingers had pushed the Gernians, and the Gernians had pushed the Plainspeople. That push from the Landsingers taking our coastal provinces had propelled the Gernians all the way to the Barrier Mountains, just as a wave of water from a stone dropped in a still pond eventually laps against the far shore. The King’s Road wasn’t really the problem. The road was only the spear’s point that led the way. The People had tried to push back against the Gernians. But their impact hadn’t been strong enough; the People could not muster a large enough push to repel the Gernians.
No. But something might pull them back.
I danced to the Midlands, to my father’s holdings of Widevale. Evening was falling there. I danced up the graveled road to his house, and as I went, I saw changes there, too. The signs of neglect were small, but I saw them. Winter-broken limbs had not been pruned from the line of trees that edged the driveway. Potholes that should have been filled instead held rainwater. The circular drive for carriages and wagons was developing ruts. Small things now, but untended, they would only worsen. They all suggested to me that my father had still not resumed the day-to-day management of his estate, and that Yaril, although doing the best she could, would not see such tasks until they urgently demanded attention. But Sergeant Duril should; why had not he spoken to her?
I danced into the house; the neatness and order I saw there comforted me. Here, at least, Yaril was in her element and still in command. Spring fires burned brightly in each neatly swept hearth, and sweet bouquets of early anemones, tulips, and daffodils filled the vases. The breath of hyacinth was in Yaril’s room; she sat at her small white desk, writing a letter. I danced as I looked over her shoulder. It was a note to Carsina, asking why she had not replied to her earlier missive and asking her if she had news of me. I breathed by her ear: “Remind her that once she loved me, that once we were to be wed. Remind her of that.” I did not know why I asked her to do such a thing; her letter was to a woman months dead. The magic suggested it to me and so I did it.
