Reign of Shadows - Deborah Chester [65]
“He will die soon. This final incarnation will not be as long as the others,” the Magria said firmly.
“Then the rumors that say he will find the means to bargain anew for his life are false?”
“Yes.”
Anas drew in a satisfied breath. “Ah.”
“The laws of time have been bent as far as possible, and the shadow gods are impatient to end the bargain. They will claim him soon.”
“He shall be glad to die,” Anas said with a lack of mercy that made the Magria flinch. Anas stood straight and slender in her black robes. Her eyes were blue and clear. “A thousand years is enough. Most men would find it an intolerable burden.”
“Most,” the Magria agreed wearily. She sipped again at the wine she had brought with her, needing its help. “But he is not like most.”
“He will die in the arms of Beloth,” Anas said fiercely.
“He will find death ten times harder, to match the number of times he has cheated it.”
“His death will come from the hand of one he trusts,” the Magria said bleakly. She glanced up. “When does the bride arrive for our training?”
“Lord Albain has sent word. She comes to us in two weeks.”
The Magria sipped her wine and let the silence grow.
Anas’s eyes widened. “Our future empress will—”
The Magria lifted her hand in warning. “Much of that remains unclear,” she said. But her mind was busy turning over the interpretation of her vision. The empress-elect would resist her training, would resist the emperor. As for the blue and the green ... who were these men? Blue would be Prince Tirhin, but the green? No answer came to her. A mystery. The woman whom destiny had chosen as Kostimon’s final empress would be embroiled in that mystery.
And I, thought the Magria, will die when the emperor dies.
Death she did not fear. Death at the hands of Beloth, god of destruction—yes, she feared that most implicitly.
“And the child we want from this union?” Anas asked, bringing the Magria’s thoughts back to the present. “Was it foretold?”
“Unclear.”
“How are we to train this bride if we do not know—”
“We have more to do than teach a girl how to become a queen,” the Magria snapped. “Civil war is coming. The land will inn bloody, and we will not be able to stand apart from what transpires,”
“Are we in danger, then? All the Penestrican orders?”
“The gravest,” the Magria said grimly. “Beloth has awakened.”
Alias’s eyes widened. “And . . . Mael?” She spoke the dreaded name very quietly. It was unwise to invoke the name of the goddess of destruction, that fearsome mate of Beloth. She walked clothed in famine and plague. With the distaff of suffering, she spun the fates of the doomed. The return of both was only a matter of time, thanks to Kostimon’s opening of the gates.
The Magria shook her head. “I was shown much. I shall have to meditate long to understand it all.”
“Will you try another visioning?”
The Magria did not answer.
Anas compressed her lips. “When will we have the answers we seek? Every delay only drives us farther away from power. How are we to train the bride if we do not understand the path that will be victorious for our purposes?”
There it was, the hunger and ambition that drove Anas, revealed for an instant like a flash of lightning at the window. The Magria tucked the knowledge into a pocket of her mind, satisfied that Anas had not yet completely mastered her emotions. Until then, she remained an ally, not a threat.
“What is to come is not yet determined. Destiny does not speak it. Another visioning will tell us no more than we know now.” The Magria glanced up sharply. “Be assured the Vindicants know nothing more than we do. No one has the advantage right now.”
Anas began to pace back and forth. Her black robes rustled about her, and in sudden impatience she untied her lacings and took off the garment. Leaving it beside the Magria’s, she seemed freer and more at ease. She had the kind of body that pleased men, but she was not destined for such a purpose.
“What are your instructions?” Anas asked. “Do I change the bride’s