First Lord's Fury

Tavi suppressed his own grin. “Well. You never know when some furyless freak is going to develop talent. Do you.”

Fidelias eyed him for a moment, then sighed. “You aren’t going to explain, are you.”

“It’s a First Lord’s sacred right. I get to be cryptic whenever I want. So there.”

Fidelias huffed out a short laugh. “All right. That’s an argument I’m not going to win.” His face sobered. “But… sire. Given my sentence… I thought you’d have settled my account by now.”

“Haven’t I?” Tavi asked him. “Fidelias ex Cursori is dead. His name is black and ruined. He betrayed a dead First Lord for the sake of a High Lord and Lady who are also dead. All that he wrought for either patron has been destroyed. The labor of a lifetime, gone.”

The man who wore Valiar Marcus’s face looked down. There was bitterness in his eyes.

“I sentence Fidelias ex Cursori to death,” Tavi continued quietly. “You will die in service to me, laboring under another name, a name that will be heaped with well-deserved honor and praise. I sentence you to go to your grave knowing how things might have been had you never strayed from my grandfather’s service. I sentence you to die knowing that the First Lord who should have crucified you six months ago is instead granting you trust, a staff, and an expense account that a fictional man deserves far more than you do.” He leaned forward. “You have too much talent to throw away. I need you. You’re mine. And you’re going to help me build the Alliance.”

Fidelias grunted. Then he asked, very quietly, “How do you know I won’t betray you?”

“The question is,” Tavi replied, “how do you know I won’t betray you?”

Fidelias looked a bit taken aback by that logic.

“I’m arrogant sometimes, but I’m not a fool. Don’t think that I’m not watching you very carefully. I’m simply willing to invest in the paranoia it takes to make sure I get full use out of you. The Realm needs it.” He lowered his voice. “The Realm needs heroes. The Realm needs you, Marcus. And I have no intention of letting you go to waste.”

The other man blinked his eyes once, and nodded. “Crows,” he said quietly. “If only Sextus had your courage.”

“Courage? He was no coward,” Tavi said.

“Not physically, no,” Marcus answered. “But… the courage to look at the truth and admit to himself what it was. The courage to strive for something that was right even if it seemed impossible. He never walked out of the bounds set for him by his father’s fathers. Never even considered that our future might be different than our past.”

Tavi smiled slightly. “Well. He didn’t have the benefit of my fine education and upbringing.”

“True.”

Marcus squared his shoulders and faced him. “For what it’s worth, I’m yours, Captain. Until death takes me.”

“That’s been true since the Elinarch,” Tavi replied quietly. “Please return to the party below and tell them that I’ll be down in a moment.”

Marcus saluted Legion style, despite his lack of uniform, and departed quietly.

Tavi sat down on a chair and closed his eyes for a moment. Now that the day was upon him, this entire notion of marriage seemed a great deal more… permanent than it had before. He took some slow breaths.

There was a ripple of water in the little pool in the room, and a ghostly voice whispered, “Young Gaius?”

Tavi rose and hurried to the pool. It was the only way Alera could still appear to him. Over the six months since Third Calderon, she had continued fading away, appearing less frequently and for less time. Tavi leaned over and smiled down at the water, where the ghostly reflection of Alera’s face had appeared.

“You are to be wed,” Alera said. “That is a significant moment. You have my warmest regards upon this day.”

“Thank you,” Tavi answered quietly.

She smiled at him, the expression kindly, and somehow satisfied. “We shall not speak like this again.”

A little pang went through Tavi’s chest at the words—but he had known that the day was coming. “I will miss speaking with you.”

“I ca

“Well. You say I introduced you to Kitai, without realizing it, because of our bond. That’s why you can speak to her.”

“Indeed.”

“Then you should trust me. Interaction with the other Marat will be just as rewarding, on some level. As it will with the Canim. And the Icemen are already watercrafting, whether they realize it or not. It’s hardly any change at all.”

“I somehow do not think that the lords of your ancestral line would agree. Nor would they agree with the concept of… how did you phrase it?”

“Merit-based furycraft,” Tavi said. “Those who want more of it should be able to work to get it. It’s only fair. We’re losing the contribution of talented minds in every generation simply because they were not born with enough furycraft for their ideas to be respected. If that doesn’t change, we won’t survive.”

“I quite agree,” Alera replied. “And I’m willing to implement your plan before the end. I’m just… surprised to find the attitude in a mortal.”

“I’ve had everything,” Tavi said, gesturing at the room. “And I’ve had nothing. And I’ve made my peace with being in either place. That’s not something many of my ancestors can say.”

“Your people will look at this year, in the future, and they will call it a great marvel. They will call it the day your kind stepped from darkness into light.”

“Provided such ridiculously arrogant know-it-alls actually survive to do so, I will be content,” Tavi replied.

“You have a century and a half, by my estimation. Perhaps two. And then the Canean vord queen will come for you.”

Tavi nodded. “Then I’ll make us ready. Or get us part of the way there, at least.”

“Strange,” Alera said. “I feel a certain empathy for you, knowing that great events are to come, but that I will not be there to see them. I feel more like a mortal now than at any time I have existed in this form.”

“That’s to be expected. You are, after all, dying.”

Alera smiled, the expression warm. “True,” she whispered. “And not true. Some part of me, young Gaius, will always be with you, and your children after you.”

“What do you mean?” Tavi asked.

But the reflection in the water was his own.

He stared down at the pool for a few moments more, just to be sure. Then he rose and firmly watercrafted the tears from his eyes and marched off toward his fate.

Tavi met Kitai outside the Rivan amphitheater, where the Senate, the Citizenry, and anyone else who could squeeze into the building were waiting. The young Marat woman was wearing a white gown that left one shoulder bare and draped across her rather fetchingly. Trimmed in gold and studded with pearls and gems, her gown was easily a match for his own tunic. Granted, the Horse Clan hair-style she wore would have scandalized the Realm, even if she hadn’t dyed her pale hair in brilliant colors. He’d pointed it out gently to her a few days back, and she’d responded that her mane was dyed in the royal colors of vibrant red and blue, and so what did anyone have to be scandalized about?

Isana and Araris were there as well, both dressed in the green and browns of Lord Calderon’s House, standing next to Bernard himself. Isana embraced Tavi when he appeared, and said, “What happened to your collar? It looks… stretched.”

“I stretched it, in the interests of breathing,” Tavi replied.

His mother smiled at him, her eyes wrinkling at the corners. “Well. It will do, I suppose. You’ve always looked too thin, the past few years.”

Tavi turned to Araris and offered his hand. The swordsman took it, his sun-browned skin rough and warm, then embraced him in a brief, tight hug. “Your father would be proud of you, Tavi.”