Rill Glow

"One thing only, Your Thrice Royal Grace," she said. "Allow me to rise? And be seated?" It was an incredibly bold request, one that caused his companions to lift eyebrows. But she knew Dorilian Sordaneon did not, really, mind boldness.

He flicked his silver gaze at her, deciding if he should be affronted, then signaled for her to rise and join him at the table. Palimia restrained her sigh of relief, not just at being allowed to get up from his cold marble floor.

"Surely you want more for this heirloom than my indulgence, Lady," he continued once Tiflan had shown her to a seat at the table. One at the far end of the table. He continued to keep his feet up, showing tanned, long-muscled legs. She noted with a shock they were not completely hairless, as was the case with Staubaun men. She had forgotten Dorilian's mixed blood.

She flashed the tall cousin a smile, then kept it in place for the Hierarch. "Nothing. My only goal was to see it in your hands—as Marc would have wanted."

"Is that what he told you?"

"No, Thrice Royal." She remembered that last morning very well. "He said only that if something happened to him, I would know what to do. After I read for a bit . . . I did know. I knew it was meant for you."

Eyes the color of rain clouds locked onto hers, asking what her motives might be. Marc had told her Dorilian was a true Highborn heir and gifted, able to pluck emotions from behind eyes and within heartbeats he felt from afar. She, at least, had no cause to fear what he might uncover. She felt only peace at having fulfilled the wishes of a man she'd loved.

He released her from his gaze and turned to Tiflan. "I won't be seeing anyone else this morning. Handle any petitions you can and move the others to another day." He sank back in his chair, seeking comfort, and turned to the first page of the journal. To Palimia, he said, without looking up. "You may go. Legon will see you safely home."

* * * *

Palimia's small apartment occupied the far corner of a rundown building that had formerly housed students attending a nearby academy. The dwelling had been converted to serving travelers who paid by the week and didn't mind having to carry water up three floors from the cistern. A vestige of gentility still clung to the walls and the pavement outside was swept, the house painted a hopeful shade of coral. Palimia liked the color and that the apartment's main room opened onto a tiny balcony from which, if she leaned over a railing and peered around a corner, she could see a sliver of lake. At the moment, however, she noted only the cracks in the walls, the flaking paint on the ceiling, and how the formerly fine carpet was now too faded and worn to afford either padding or beauty. The few pieces of tired furniture offered scant comfort to guests, which at the moment she regretted.

Hearing the rap that announced someone at her door had been a shock, but opening it to find Dorilian Sordaneon standing at her doorstep had stolen her power of speech for a full minute. That he had come incognito she knew because her landlord's broom briskly and loudly swept the stairs, and the building's courtyard echoed with the happy cries of children at play. A formal visit would have silenced both.

"Thrice Royal, I did not expect—"

"I thought this would be more private," he said.

Her mind raced around what those words might mean. At least her extensive experience as a hostess gave her the presence of mind to bid him enter. He had caught her half-dressed and her chiton was barely presentable, light and modest, though clean. Her hair fell about her shoulders in a tangle, held back from her face by a pair of hastily pinned jeweled combs.

She stood beside her barren sideboard, wondering what to do next as Sordan's ruler sat in the room's only chair, foregoing the couch she'd placed near the window for the breeze. His penetrating gaze and schoolboy looks confused her. The tunic of fine creamy linen and fawn cotton breeches he wore had been chosen to downplay his station yet still managed to seem too elegant for his surroundings. He'd come with only two men. Legon Rebiran had entered with him and now leaned against a wall across the room, and a hulking retainer named Tutto stood outside the door, his attention fixed on the street. Rill thrum sounded overhead, lightly vibrating the building.

"I've delved into your situation," Dorilian said. "The journal clearly states your lover's wish that you receive property upon his death."

She bowed her head, looking at her folded hands. "It says a lot of things."

"You could have used it to support your case."

"It wouldn't have mattered. The letter was even clearer, and a legal document besides. It was authenticated by Marc's secretary and five Archhalial clerks."

She glanced up at him again, aware of how bureaucratic it all sounded. Dorilian looked sympathetic and willing to listen. "I submitted the letter three times," she explained, "the last time to King Stefan personally. He kept the letter, that time, and sent me a response, handwritten, saying the bequest could not be granted because the property was entailed as a crown estate. He expressed his regrets."

Though she tried to sound dispassionate, her emotions burdened the words with bitterness. She had wished to keep that house and the trove of memories it held: Marc Frederick's laughter waiting around corners, his sensibility in furnishings and his smell still haunting the upholstery. The house and the small annual stipend attached to it would have been enough, with her frugal habits, to preserve her comfort.

"Stefan's an ass. I have not seen the letter, of course. In all likelihood, it has been destroyed. However, the dead King's journal clearly states his wish that you should receive the villa in Dazunor-Rannuli. Had he known his heir would not honor his wishes, he would have done it differently, or given you a different house."

It was strange, she thought, how Dorilian avoided saying Marc Frederick's name. The two had been close, antagonists at first but at the last fiercely united in defending some hard-won ground between them that few understood—and now he would not speak Marc's name, as if it were too hated to pass his lips, or too intimate. What Dorilian, the last man to see Marc Frederick alive, recalled of those final moments, no one knew because he refused to speak of that day.

"We were not lovers very long, Thrice Royal. A year only. Though Marc said he wished me to have the house, and gave me the letter, we never thought it would be needed so soon. After his death, to stay in the house we had shared—I wanted that. But aristocratic affairs are complicated, and his queen felt the need to make a statement."

"Which she did."

"Oh, royally," she agreed.

He laughed, his amusement knife-edged. No one knew the workings of royalty better than he, who had been born into those acid coils.

"She cannot harass you here." Pride sharpened his words. "I'll make sure they leave you alone. She's afraid of me, they all are. Stefan most of all." He looked around the apartment, taking in the details: bare walls and broken slats shading the window. Palimia cringed at what he must think. She doubted this man had ever set foot in so shabby a dwelling. The Sordaneons slept on beds of gold, in rooms of pearl. "Are you bringing your mother to Sordan?" he asked. "You'll need a bigger place, with running water."

Where had he learned about her mother? No doubt he had set men to look into her family and marriages, her history, all the tiny details of her common little life. She drew herself straighter, to head him off. "I am looking—"

"Stop looking. I intend to make good on your lover's promise to you."

She stared at him, not in hope, but with a sudden, new fear. There was real danger in getting caught up in the Highborn Hierarch's battle with Stefan. Even more than others of his notably vindictive family, this Sordaneon could be terrifyingly single-minded.

Watching her with an unnerving, cat-like intensity, he continued. "Your lover had a house in the Upper City, did you know that?"

"No. But Thrice Royal, I cannot—"

"No one's living there now, of course."

Of course not. The idea that Stefan or any of the Stauberg-Randolphs would actually venture into Sordan, much less take up residence, was a political impossibility. But his proposal veered along a road that ended at a cliff.

"Please, Thrice Royal, I did not come here to seek anything for myself. I gave you the journal . . . I fulfilled a trust!"

"As will I, by appointing you administrator of your late lover's assets here in Sordan. There are other buildings—warehouses, for the most part, but also farms and mines, not to mention stocks of grain and ores that are currently stagnating—and he kept considerable deposits of precious metals in his own name here and in Hestya. I have, for weeks now, not allowed those monies or properties to be liquidated or transferred."

His gaze terrified her. In it lurked something vengeful, but also incisive and calculating in a way she had never seen before. Even Marc Frederick, a man so crafty the Highborn in the North had deferred to his vision for their nation, had not shown her such a deliberative quality, fixed on far-flung consequences. What Dorilian proposed had very little to do with her, save that it allowed him to honor a ghost.

He continued to watch her intently. "The North believes I will confiscate the Stauberg-Randolphs' misplaced wealth. I am not going to do that. It pleases me better to hold the assets in trust. You can live in the residences, if you wish—or not, that will be up to you. I think doing so will allow you better to maintain them. In return for overseeing the estate, you will receive a fee of a tenth portion of any monies earned, beginning with what's been earned thus far. My treasurer will reconcile the books twice each year."

"I am not qualified!"

"I disagree."

How did one argue with a Sordaneon? The blood of that family flowed through the holy veins of the Rill and men alike, and Dorilian was all but worshipped by many as a god. If only Marc were still alive, he could advise her how to proceed. He alone had known how to make this young godling see reason. All she knew for certain was that everything Dorilian proposed had purposeful shape, like a javelin—sharp, deadly, and perfectly thrown at Stefan.

He accepted her stunned silence with a rare smile. Perhaps he saw that she recognized his maneuver. "There will be protests, naturally, but nothing that will require your attention. You are completely outside any authority but mine and any action threatened against you will be unenforceable unless Stefan should launch—and win—a war. I don't fear that possibility, and neither should you."

She had few arguments left, but she deployed one of them. "Stefan hates you already, why provoke him further?"

"Because doing so amuses me." He rose, and nodded to Legon that he should leave to make ready their horses.

"Thrice Royal, out of respect to the memory of my late liege, I cannot accept any position that would embarrass or harm his family."

"They harmed—and humiliated—you."

"Humiliation, yes. But I was not harmed. I was sent from Marc with no less than as I came to him, and I kept my dignity throughout. I would not now impoverish his heirs."

"Nor would I, Lady," he said. "Your own words provide the reason why I can entrust you to preserve his property. You have no loyalty to Stefan now, after what he did—you also are only moderately loyal to me. Your true loyalty belongs to a man who lies in a grave and to whom I owe a debt of promises I am foresworn to keep. I respect your allegiance to him, so long as you honor my place as your Hierarch. This, I believe you will do."

"Thank you, Thrice Royal," she said. The enormity of his trust rendered opposition silent.

He'd just reached the door when he turned back to her and flashed another of his smiles. "A year from now, you're going to thank me for setting you free. It'll be fun. You'll see."

He left without waiting to hear if she had any opinion on the matter.

She leaned against the door, astonished, a smile on her lips.

* * * *

"His wife despises him. She's pregnant but the child's not his. He's so young she thinks he's inconsequential, powerless. People forget boys grow to be men."

The night was unraveling with dawn. Silver Rill light threaded through the window into their bedchamber. Marc's mind had been too full for sleep, and all night his thoughts had spilled over into words and a strange, spontaneous lovemaking during which she had cried out his name. Afterward, he'd made her drunk with kisses and revelations.

"Some men grow to be boys again," she teased. She pulled the light cover from his body, exposing his fair skin and relaxed limbs, his cock lying quiescent upon his thigh. It possessed a regal presence even when resting, a thrilling potential.

"Yes, if they're lucky. And the luckiest of all will know love. They will find it, and keep it. And teach it to others."

She rose upon an elbow, studying him. He had taught her so much about love—had she taught anything to him? With her right hand, she caressed the broad shield of his chest thick with hair darker than that on his head. His differences from other men served as his greatest attractions. The Staubaun aristocrats she had known before him had been smooth as marble.

"I love you, Marc," she said. "I love you so much it scares me."

"Embrace it, then. Don't let powerful things scare you," he said, pulling her down, his lips seeking hers. "Fear unmakes everything, even hope. Give your heart free rein and you will be powerful, stronger than fear." His mouth seized hers, hungry and hard, consuming.

"I love you, too," he said as the sun nudged above the window sill, obliterating the glow of the Rill.

* * * *

"It's so . . . dazzling!"

Palimia stood at the edge of the Rill platform in Hestya and gazed at the gold-hued Lissam palace. At her side, Dorilian looked pleased. He also looked relaxed, his body tall and easy, his gray eyes free of the cold reserve for which he was so famous. That he accompanied her on this tour of Marc Frederick's Sordan properties was nothing short of monumental . . . doing so had required travel by Rill, and he had not traveled by Rill since Stefan's coronation nearly a year earlier.

"I designed the outer wall," he said, pointing it out. She followed the strong line of his arm, marking how martial the movement was, how suited to a leader. He had an actor's instinct for movement.

"And I shall stay there?"

"You shall have your own apartment. I can't imagine you staying anywhere else. After all, your properties here consist of warehouses and feed yards."

True, but Marc Frederick had owned lots of those. Over the past six months, Palimia had gained a firm grasp of the late king's holdings and found to her astonishment that she controlled a fortune of over six million decares. Her portion as administrator provided over five hundred thousand decares annually, more than the proceeds of a Rill slot. She was now, without a doubt, a rich woman. Her first act had been to move her mother and widowed sister into the jewel box of a palace Marc had owned in Sordan's Upper City. Her second was this trip to the thriving grain port of Hestya, where the bulk of Marc's Sordan assets were located.

Upon arriving at the palace, she found that her apartment consisted of several chambers for herself and her servants—she had hired a lady's maid to attend her and an old scribe to help her catalog the assets—as well as a spacious bath, kitchen and garden. The Hierarch provided her with a cook and gardener. Leaving her maid to unpack, she visited two of the properties in town, then returned to the palace to rest for the remainder of the hot afternoon. When she awakened, she found a summons to dinner. Dorilian did not issue invitations.

Legon escorted her to the Hierarch's dwelling, which occupied the highest floors of the main, heavily guarded building. Everything about the palace bore Dorilian's stamp and was magnificent. Rooms filled with light greeted her, floors of soft white stone yielding to carpets of rich earth hues beneath a high ceiling supported by gold-veined pillars. To one side a terrace rimmed with sandstone perched high above the palace and city, looking out at the Rill mount and, beyond it, the copper ribbon of Hestya's sunset-gilded river. Dorilian waited, looking as casual as she had ever seen him, clad in a plain white chiton with only sandals strapped upon his feet.

He guided her to a table set with a simple yet exquisite repast. Dishes of quail hearts in wine and delicate rolls of nearly translucent shellfish nestled among plates of dense, fresh bread and steaming pearls of Sordan's elegant native rice. If there were servants in this place, they stayed out of sight. Even Legon had melted away. She and the Hierarch were alone.

Palimia drew a deep breath, and spooned tiny hearts bathed in rich sauce onto her plate. "You completely defeated my intention in returning to my birthplace. I came only to give you the journal, then fade into the populace, a mere footnote. Now look at me, acting as a landlady! I enter a building, men turn over their account books . . . I ask where the real ones are—"

He laughed and so did she.

She related her adventures, not even attempting to conceal her excitement. There was still so much, really, for her to learn—barges and loads, contracts and leases. The old scribe, who had served as a Triemperal accountant during the occupation, was earning his salary by catching all manner of tricks.

"He's clever," she said in the old man's praise. "I've already given him an added bonus! I make him explain everything until it makes sense. That's the only way I'll learn. I enjoy learning new things, visiting new places. So did Marc. That's why—" She stopped herself, the name crashing between them. She could prattle terribly when excited. "I'm sorry, I—"

"You can say his name." The young man looked away, toward the Rill mount and its crown of surreal power. "I need to hear it. It keeps him from fading." After another awkward silence, he asked, "Did you read the whole journal?"

"Yes. I read it constantly those first weeks . . . I simply needed to have something of him still, to read his words. When I do, I hear his voice, even now. His letters, his books. Reading them helps me deal with the loss." That, at least, they shared. What gazed at her through the young Hierarch's eyes was part pain, part yearning. "I thought—I hoped—maybe you would find healing, too."

"I was suspicious of you at first. I had my agents in the North look into whether Stefan had, by some chance stroke of brilliance, recruited you as a spy. But all they could find was that Stefan had denied your bequest in order to placate the Gracious Queen. You could have attempted to change Stefan's mind by offering him the journal. But you didn't. And so you left, and nobody cared enough to try to stop you. They foolishly believed you could have nothing I would find useful." He set his silver fork upon his plate, indicating he had finished eating. Politely, she followed suit. "Weren't you afraid I'd try to silence you, because of what that journal says?"

"No," she said, though her confidence in that answer was false. The journal revealed in detail the promises to have been exchanged at Permephedon—world-changing promises, including Dorilian's agreement to unleash the god-machine that ruled their lives. Changing the Rill changed . . . everything. The North's powerful merchant princes, and Stefan also, would have paid a great deal to obtain that information. That she had delivered the journal to Dorilian instead had opened a different door.