Princeps’ Fury

“As you wish, sire,” Ehren said hurriedly, and padded to the stairs from the tower’s roof. He went down them and took a moment to steady his breathing, then began the familiar, comforting ritual of checking each of his knives. It helped him begin to push aside the images of the battle and sort through his thoughts.

Foremost among them was that there really were a great many vordknights coming toward the city. Ehren imagined that they would be no less deadly and terrifying while hacking their way through the halls of Ceres than they had been in the skies above it. He had no desire whatsoever to discover whether or not his estimation was an accurate one.

It was not so much that Ehren was afraid to fight, as such. Oh, the thought and act alike of genuine mortal combat terrified him. It should terrify anyone who wasn’t an idiot or a lunatic. And though he knew he was well trained and far more capable than most would guess by looking at him, he was also well aware of his limitations and, being neither a moron nor a madman, he much preferred the idea of avoiding a fight altogether.

That being the case, it seemed wise to leave the city. The vordknights, it was thought, could not match Aleran fliers in terms of sheer speed, except in short bursts of effort. Surely, the First Lord would summon his coach, and they would fall back to the next fortified position before much more time had passed. He couldn’t remember the name of the position at the moment-a large town about fifty miles to the northeast on the causeway leading toward Alera Imperia.

They all lead to Alera Imperia, genius, Ehren said to himself. He put the last of his knives away, shook his head, and suddenly realized what they needed, at the moment, more than anything else. It was obvious, and the First Lord would likely have realized it already, but at least Ehren’s brain was in motion again. He turned to go back up the stairs, and paused at the sound of voices on the roof of the tower.

“… beside the point,” Gaius’s mellow baritone murmured. “It must be done.”

A woman’s voice, one Ehren had never heard before, answered him. “There will be lasting repercussions.”

“Worse than the instability already unleashed, and what is likely to be added to it if you do not do as I ask?”

“That depends upon one’s point of view, child,” replied the woman’s voice, amused.

Ehren blinked. Child? Child? Who could speak to the First Lord like that?

Gaius replied with wry amusement in his own voice. “Behold my own.”

“Mmmm,” she murmured, a pensive sound. “Some of your folk are among them.”

“Nonetheless.”

“I have no preference,” she said. “Not of my own accord. Though I admit that I have grown… accustomed to you and yours, child.”

“I ask for no exemptions,” Gaius responded. “Only prevailing conditions.”

She laughed, a gently mocking sound. “You, child? Seeking to prevail? Surely not.”

“Time presses,” Gaius said, his tone polite, but thick with an underlying urgency.

“With you and yours, it seldom does otherwise.” She paused for a moment, then said, “It is entirely possible that we may never speak again.”

“I have made my wishes known.”

“Your father would be… what is the phrase?”

“Rolling in his grave,” Gaius supplied.

“Yes. Were such a thing possible.”

“But you will honor them?”

Ehren blinked again, not so much at the words the First Lord had used as at the intonation.

It had been a question. Not a command.

To whom would the First Lord speak like that?

“It has never before been done this way. But I believe so.”

The First Lord’s voice dropped to a lower register, relief evident in it. “Thank you.”

“Gratitude?” the woman asked, her tone quietly merry. “What is the world coming to?”

Ehren, burning with curiosity, eased up the last few stairs and opened the door as silently as he possibly could, peering around it.

Gaius stood where he had before. A woman stood beside him, facing him, his equal in height. Her skin was a deep bronze, her hair silver, threaded with rare strands of scarlet and gold, though her face was younger than Ehren’s own, strong and beautiful in a way he had never seen before. She wore a simple gown and shawl of what Ehren first thought was homespun, but at a startled second glance he realized that the clothing was made purely of what looked like opaque grey mist, as thick and swirling as any storm cloud, but holding its solid shape as if it were cloth.

The woman turned her head abruptly to one side, her eyes flicking toward him. They were brilliant gold. As Ehren watched, they flickered to silver-metallic silver, not simply grey-and a heartbeat later became sky blue, then green and faceted, like a masterfully cut emerald, then dark and glossy as obsidian.

Gaius turned as well, and the woman was abruptly gone. There was no flicker of a veil coming up, no blur of motion as of a windcrafter’s drawing upon a fury for additional speed, nothing. One instant she was standing, regarding Ehren calmly, and the next she was simply… not.