The Wizardwar - Elaine Cunningham [33]
"She didn't know," the girl murmured, thinking of the potions which had shaped both her mother's destiny and her own. "That son of a scorpion poisoned her!"
Fury filled her, focused her. Tzigone swiftly fell back into her vision of the past…
*****
Keturah's respite was short-lived. A member of the Exchelsor family, a stout, matronly woman whose name Keturah had never heard spoken, pounced on her like an overweight tabby and dragged her into the midst of the feasting.
The bride stood with her back to the garden wall, an untouched plate of food in one hand, watching the celebration with the bewildered detachment of an ancient, fading wraith spying on the living. By wind and word, she could not understand why these strangers were so pleased!
Her new-made husband came toward her, a wine goblet cradled in both hands. There was a strange glint in his eyes that made her skin crawl. Keturah was no stranger to the ways of men, and she knew full well the response her face and form evoked. She took the cup from him and managed a single sip. Her stomach roiled in protest, and she turned away so that he could not read her revulsion.
Dhamari's mother chose this moment to bustle over. Dressed in cloth-ofsilver, a reminder to all of her wealth in electrum mines, she rustled like aspen leaves in a gale.
"Where is your steward, daughter? There are arrangements to be made and apprentices to dismiss."
"Dismiss my apprentices?" echoed Keturah blankly. "Whatever for?"
The woman tittered. "You must have drunk deeply if you've forgotten the moon of seclusion! Lady Mystra grant, you will soon thereafter devote yourself to a mother's duties. There will be no time for apprentices for years to come."
Ambition gleamed bright in the woman's eyes, shedding light on the family's collective glee.
The Exchelsor family had wealth in great abundance, and they did not hesitate to use it to get what they wanted. They'd given her this very tower as Dhamari's apprentice fee. Their son was accounted a wizard, but his talents were small, and he would never be famed for his mastery of Art. But if he wed a wizard of power and growing acclaim, he might sire a child who could do what he could not. With Keturah's help, Exchelsor could be known as a wizard's lineage. In Halruaa, that was the path to nobility.
But if her precipitous marriage had no more basis than a merchant family's ambition, why had the Council approved it? Keturah did not believe the Elders could be swayed by wealth alone. What hidden gift did Dhamari possess that might make a child of their mingled blood so desirable? What could possibly have brought this matter to the interest of Queen Fiordella?
She looked around for Zephyr, but the elven jordain was not to be found.
"Drink," Dhamari urged softly, nodding at the cup Keturah clenched. "I put a potion into it to help you sleep. When morning comes, we will begin to make sense of this."
Because his words so closely echoed her own thoughts, Keturah lifted the jeweled cup to her lips. As Dhamari promised, each sip brought her deeper into blessed lethargy. She was dimly aware of the increasingly raucous wedding feast, and of the rising moon, and of her guests' snickering jests as Dhamari caught her when she swayed and carried her into the tower.
Then Dhamari was gone, and there was only the young apprentice, her childish face worried and perplexed as she helped Keturah out of her wedding robe and into her solitary bed.
Maybe Dhamari was right, Keturah thought as she drifted into slumber.
Perhaps with the coming of dawn, all of this would start to become clear…
The eerie song of the dark fairies pulled Tzigone away from the memory, drawing her back into the frenzied terror she'd so recently escaped.
She pressed both hands to her throbbing temples. "These things don't know when to quit," she murmured. With difficulty, she brought to mind an illusion.
The faint glow of firelight brightened the mist, revealing a cozy tavern bedchamber and two inhabitants-a