“Welcome to my empire,” said Berenene with a gracious nod. To Sandry she added, “My dear, two sisters and a brother, however devoted, are not sufficient protection for a maiden of your wealth and position. Men of few principles might see your unguarded state as the chance to capture a wealthy young bride.”
Sandry noticed Briar’s tiny smirk and the sudden, bored droop of Tris’s eyes. Only Daja’s face had the perfect, polite expression that told onlookers nothing of her true thoughts. Daja and I should have spent the trip teaching them a diplomat’s facial expressions as well as Namornese, Sandry thought, vexed. It would be impossible not to guess that Briar and Tris thought they were a match for would-be kidnappers, something that would never cross the mind of an ordinary young man or woman.
Stop fussing, Sandry ordered herself. I know very well my cousin has had spies on me for years, and she is aware we’re all mages.
Now that the empress’s riders had stopped chasing her, Chime decided it was safe to move. She wriggled out from under Tris’s loose riding tunic and up to the redhead’s shoulder.
Instantly Berenene’s companion, the one who was not in uniform, moved in front of the empress, one hand up. The silver fire of magic flared from his palm to wrap around Berenene like a shimmering cocoon.
“He’s good,” Briar muttered to Daja out of the corner of his mouth. “I thought you said her boss mage was some old woman named Ladyhammer.”
“Do you see any old women riding with this crowd if they don’t have to?” Daja inquired.
Chime ignored the magic. She rose to her hindquarters on Tris’s shoulder, one paw clutching Tris’s hair for balance, surveying the Namornese curiously.
Chime, you show-off, thought Sandry with affection. “That’s Chime, Your Imperial Majesty,” she told Berenene. “She’s a curiosity that Tris found in the far south.”
“Curious indeed,” said the mage who still guarded the empress. His dark eyes had been amused when they first rode up, but they were steady and serious now. “It’s not an illusion, or an animated poppet. It looks like glass, or perhaps moving ice.”
“Tris,” Sandry said, a hint for the redhead to explain.
Tris sighed. “She’s mage made. A new mage, one who started out as a glassblower, had an accident. It turned out to be Chime.”
“I don’t believe the imperial glassmaker, Viynain”—the Namornese word for a male mage—“Warder, has ever made anything of the kind,” the empress remarked. “If he could, he would have done so for me. My dear Quenaill, if the creature had meant harm to us, surely it would have attacked by now. I can hardly see my cousin Sandrilene, who has been gone for so long. My dear, allow me to present the great mage Quenaill Shieldsman. Doubtless you have heard of him at Winding Circle.”
Sandry nodded graciously to indicate that she had indeed heard the name, but the truth was that she remembered little else. Their teachers were forever talking about great mages, so the names did stick after a time. Apart from her own specialties, Sandry had very little interest in the practice of magic by the better known professionals. She was far more curious about the latest fashions and weaving patterns by those who excelled in those fields.
The mage Quenaill shifted his mount so Berenene had a clear view of the four, but he remained on his guard. As he lowered his hand, his protective magic vanished into his body.
“Now I’m really impressed,” Briar murmured to Daja. “I couldn’t do it that fast.”
“You don’t do shields at all,” Daja whispered in reply.
“But if I did, I wouldn’t be that fast,” Briar said.
Sandry sighed. “It is a long story about Chime, Your Imperial Majesty,” she said, pretending she couldn’t hear the soft dialogue to her left. “I am sorry that your hunting was interrupted.”
“At least I know you are here at last. And you are expected in Dancruan,” Berenene replied. Even while Quenaill had rushed to protect her, she had not moved as she casually leaned on her saddle horn. “For weeks, Ambros fer Landreg has spoken of little but preparing the town house for you.”
“The caravan will let the saghad know we are on our way, thank you,” Sandry replied, using Ambros’s Namornese title.
Berenene smiled. “You will need to rest, no doubt, after your long journey. You may call on me the day after tomorrow—shall we say, at ten in the Hall of Roses? It is more intimate than is the throne room. And of course your…friends are invited to attend with you. In fact, I insist on it.” Her brown eyes caught and held Sandry’s blue ones. She nodded, smiled, then turned her horse. Quenaill and the guards followed her with the ease of a well-oiled clock. She slowed when they came abreast of the first of her companions, the handsome young man who had yelled at the four earlier, and extended her hand. Without hesitation the man got his horse moving so that he could catch and kiss the hand, riding up on Berenene’s free side. Once he was level with her, she leaned closer and caressed his cheek, then urged her horse into a gallop. Quenaill and the man kept up with her as if they had read her mind, while the rest of her court and her guards spurred their own horses into motion. The group followed Berenene as if they were one creature at the end of her leash.
Only after the hunting party had ridden out of view beyond the ridge did Briar say, “Did you notice that none of her friends so much as twitched when Chime came out? They were all boiling when they came chasing our glass friend over that ridge, but once Her Empressness was talking to us, they sat there like so many well-trained dogs. They didn’t even show fang at Chime.”