The Exile's Curse Read online

  He nodded and, not wanting to give him the chance to say anything more, she turned and hurried away.

  The next morning, the navire descended into Bonaroi after a breakfast during which Chloe kept her attention firmly away from the end of the table where Lucien sat with the other senior officers.

  She wasn't going to quit or ask to go home, but it was something of a relief to touch down and know there would soon be more than the space afforded by the navire between the two of them.

  The stop in Bonaroi was to give the mages who powered it a night of rest and to allow for the delivery of mail for the small garrison stationed in the portside town. The next leg would be longer, only one more stop before they reached Elenia and their destination. The town was in Kesseret, one of the small eastern countries closest to Illvya. It was busy and bustling, and Chloe, tasked with accompanying the colonel and Captain Theisse to speak with the commander of the garrison, drank it all in with curious eyes, an odd sort of peace descending over her.

  Different streets. Different stores and houses. Different people.

  Nothing with any memories of family or marriage or Anglion tied to it.

  If Lucien hadn't been on the mission, it would have been just about perfect, but the unwanted awareness that he was made a small dark spot in her enjoyment of the day. All she could do was ignore it and focus on doing her job. Which was mostly to listen as Colonel Brodier and Captain Theisse spoke to the commander and discussed mundane things like provisions and the quality of roads and handed over directives from the various imperial officers.

  Chloe scribbled notes and also worked on storing the information in her head. She'd been cramming on the geography and politics of the empire, and the grounding she had from her studies at the Academe had come back easily enough, but a seasoned diplomat like Colonel Brodier had to know the empire intimately. Know things like the ai-fish catches being lower than usual, as the commander was relaying, and what that meant for the farmers here who apparently used the parts of the fish discarded from human consumption for fertilizing crops.

  So she paid attention.

  They finished with the commander after lunch and walked back to the navire.

  "Thank you, Lieutenant," Captain Theisse said as they stepped on deck. "Make sure you have a copy of those notes by the time we reach Elenia. We can send them back to Lumia then. But for now, you should head to language practice."

  Damn. She'd forgotten about that part. That they would all be drilling on Andalyssian, trying to cement the language acquired by reveille. "Will you be joining us, sir?"

  He shook his head. "I've been to Andalyssia before. I had a refresher rather than the full reveille. And I have duties to complete before we take off. But I will be joining the class for the next few days while we fly. So pay attention today."

  Lucien regarded the door before him with something akin to distaste. And he was rarely troubled by such things as doors.

  But today, he was troubled by many things. He'd been thankful when there had been no message for him upon landing, requesting the services of a Truth Seeker, and he'd been able to stay in his cabin for most of the morning and attempt to get his temper back under control.

  He'd been trying—and failing—since the previous evening.

  Not that he was angry, precisely. But he hadn't expected Chloe. Though, once he'd checked the final packet of briefing papers that he'd ignored back in Lumia, her name had been on the list of personnel the colonel had sent. So it was his own damned fault that he had been sandbagged by her presence.

  He didn't blame anybody else for that.

  But what was needling at him was why she had been included. The emperor, goddess damn it, was meddling. Either he was trying to put Lucien and Chloe together because he thought they had unfinished business between them or he was doing it because he thought it would be useful in another way.

  Neither option sat easily. Chloe appeared to have no desire to mend fences, and he had to respect that. And if there was another reason Aristides wanted them together, then it would have been useful to know of it in advance.

  But he had agreed to come on this mission. His emperor had asked, and he had, as usual, chosen to serve. Aristides owed him no explanations about personnel choices.

  So, he needed to take control of himself and think of Chloe as just another junior lieutenant.

  Which would be easier if Honore Brodier hadn't informed him after breakfast that Chloe would be one of the mages attending all the wedding ceremonies with him as Aristides’s proxies. It made a horrible sort of sense. There weren't that many officers in the mages who were noble born. There were plenty, of course, who were experienced with courts and protocol, but given the nature of diplomats, most of them were out in various parts of the empire at any given time and not so easily recalled. Chloe was the most experienced of the younger officers when it came to courts. She was also a widow, rather than an unmarried woman, which was helpful in Andalyssia, where unmarried women were subject to more rules than married ones, and she was Lady de Montesse, for better or worse.

  He suspected that she, like he did, viewed it as worse.

  An opinion that wouldn’t change when she learned that he would be escorting her to the balls and other celebrations surrounding the weather. Making conversation with her. Dancing with her.

  The last time she'd stepped into his arms, she'd ended up fleeing the room afterward, and the stupid senseless male part of him had wanted to chase her down and not let her go, so that didn't bode well.

  He gritted his teeth. He was a gentleman. A nobleman. He would respect her feelings. He could look at her dressed in whatever silks or satins or jewels she chose to drape herself in and still treat her as just another lieutenant.

  He wouldn't enjoy it, but he would do it.

  Two months. It wasn't forever.

  Two months of frozen northern wilderness in a court of nobles who didn't welcome Illvyans and the woman who hated him.

  It would just seem like forever.

  He suppressed a sigh. Goddess damned duty.

  Some days it was easier to bear than others. Today it was a choke chain at his throat. But he was sworn to serve, so he went where he was sent, he did his work, and he did it well.

  A Truth Seeker. One of the emperor's hounds of justice, on watch for prey.

  It was a speech that Maxim Girarde, the advocate general, liked to give to younger members of the judiciary. Leaning heavy on the glory and righteousness of the law. Of the rewards of being a faithful servant of the empire.

  Well, Lucien had been that, but he was no dog to obey his master unthinking. And Maxim's speeches left out the reality of the work. That it often wasn't easy, and it was the very opposite of glory when his skills were truly needed. There was justice, perhaps, and the service of truth, but the tools at his disposal, the means by which he could uncover the truth if someone tried to hide it, were hardly glorious. More brutal and efficient.

  He would have preferred not to have to use them at this damned wedding.

  Given that he was going to have to wade back into the mess wrought by House Elannon and figure out who amongst them might be trustworthy, what he preferred didn't matter.

  What mattered was securing the treaty with Andalyssia and the rule of the king. Who had been a small boy the last time Lucien set foot in his country. The old king had been a tough and ruthless mountain man who had no trouble smiting his own internal enemies, a fact proven by his holding the throne for thirty-odd years unchallenged.

  But even tough and ruthless mountain men weren't immune to the vagaries of fate. King Berlund had fallen from a horse and died, and his twenty-three-year-old son had been crowned a little over a year ago. So far he had survived, but if he was to continue to do so, and to thrive, he needed a council who supported his power. The father of his bride was one of the Ashmeisters, which would help, but not enough if the priests and the seers continued to agitate about balance and House Elannon couldn't be restored.

>   It could all go very horribly wrong despite Lucien’s magic.

  The power was rare, and he still didn't know exactly why the goddess had gifted it to him when other illusioners had, it seemed, far more entertaining lives using the Arts of Air. He could do those things, too, of course, conjure illusions to delight or conceal or confuse. But he could also see truth. Not just the awareness that allowed illusioners to see through another's illusion but actual truth.

  And in Andalyssia, the truth was complicated.

  As was the fact that Chloe was here.

  Today he wasn't so sure about where the truth lay. Aristides had requested him to join this mission, and his orders to board the navire on the appointed date had arrived shortly after.

  Last night, at dinner, she walked into the room, and Lucien had been undone all over again.

  He was a thousand times a fool when it came to this woman, it seemed.

  Months they had to spend now. In proximity that he was perfectly clear she didn't desire. Just as he was perfectly clear that his own preference would be different.

  Which was why he was still standing outside the dining room like an idiot, regarding the door as though everything would be just fine as long as it stayed closed. During the day the room became a working part of the ship, and today he was taking his turn teaching the junior members of the delegation some of the finer points of Andalyssian.

  One of whom was Chloe.

  Who was going to be loathing him every moment.

  He fought the urge to bang his head gently on the still new wood of the door. He had refrained from using his powers on Chloe. He didn't use them when he wasn’t required to in service to the law.

  But he didn't need to use them to understand how she felt about him.

  He could feel the sting of her dislike in the blaze of those dark eyes and in the lines of tension in her body every time they met.

  Goddess knew why they kept meeting.

  But there was nothing to be done about that.

  He couldn’t go to Colonel Brodier with the whole troubled history he and Chloe shared. For one thing, she was probably already well aware of it. Of who Chloe was and who her husband had been and Lucien's own role in what happened to Charl. She hadn’t already raised the subject, so Lucien could hardly do so.

  Instead he had to find a way to do his duty and minimize the pain for both Chloe and himself.

  And given he had no good answer about how he might do that, he would instead open this damn door, go inside, and see if trying to teach the snaky, smoky syllables of Andalyssian might prove a distraction.

  Chapter 12

  Of course it was Lucien.

  Chloe had assumed the language classes would be led by one of the mages whose sanctii had done the reveilles. Apparently not.

  That would be far too simple.

  Lieutenant Plesse, who had served in the corps for several years already, stood as Lucien entered the room and threw a salute. Everyone else copied him, bumping chairs and rustling uniforms.

  "Major de Roche, my lord Truth Seeker. Welcome," Lieutenant Plesse said. He sounded nervous, and for a man who had a sanctii at his side, that was unusual.

  But sanctii, while not exactly common, were more common than Truth Seekers. Most people didn't cross paths with them often.

  Lieutenant Plesse, Chloe had discovered last night after dinner, was, like her, from a non-aristo background. His parents owned a cloth factory in Neimes, one of Illvya's smaller cities. They’d had a few mages in the family in earlier generations, but Theo's abilities had been something of a surprise. Even more of a surprise when he turned out to be a water mage and had chosen to join the army rather than return to the family business.

  Not a history which would have given him much cause to mingle with Lucien or any of his colleagues. Most of the more experienced members of the delegation would have dealt with the judicial branch from time to time, but even they looked nervous. Maybe it was because most of them weren't from noble families.

  Truth Seekers, aristo or not, tended to move in the higher court circles when they weren't working. Their talent was rare enough that forming an alliance via marriage with one was an attractive proposition to a great family. Or, at least, a great family who thought they might be able to sway a Truth Seeker to work in their favor. Truth Seekers who weren't aristos like Lucien found it easy to marry well when they chose to do so.

  From what Chloe knew of Lucien's unswerving allegiance to his work and the truth he had sworn to pursue, she doubted those marriages worked out as the noble families expected in terms of gaining sway over a Truth Seeker. Or future Truth Seekers, perhaps. But given there weren't many of them alive at any one time, the families seemed to think it was worth continuing to try. Lucien, born to inherit his father's title, had no ladders to climb. And he didn't use his talent for personal gain.

  Or he had never done so when she had known him. She'd met a few of his colleagues, and while not all of them were as serious as him, they all seemed scrupulously honorable. And none of them complained about the burden of responsibility they bore.

  Then again, they did somewhat cultivate an air of mystery about their work that made whining in public counterproductive. Or so Lucien had informed her one night when they'd all had too much campenois. He'd been embarrassed about that confession, but that didn't stop him being able to play the role with aplomb when acquired. And he'd had ten years to refine it since she'd last seen him at work.

  Lucien's green gaze swept over the class, a smile of “relax, I’m not intending to read your minds just this moment” resting on his lips. His public face, intended to put people at ease. His eyes met hers for a moment, then moved on.

  "Thank you, Lieutenant Plesse," he said. "Good afternoon, everyone. Colonel Brodier has asked me to take the lesson today. I'll admit, my Andalyssian might be a bit out of date, but I can certainly help you with the pronunciation and some context."

  He looked back at Lieutenant Plesse. "Colonel Brodier also said you were the one who knew where everyone's skills are, Lieutenant. Perhaps you could give me a summary?"

  Theo stood and started to do just that. Not everyone was as new to Andalyssian as Chloe. The diplomatic corps valued language skills. Illvyan had spread throughout the empire as the language of trade, but most countries retained their own languages as well. And understanding a language required more than just having it stuffed into your head by a sanctii. The fluency to navigate delicate situations took professions. So diplomats had lessons in the languages they wanted to use and studied the countries and cultures they would be working with. Chloe, who had always loved to learn—too much her father's daughter to be otherwise—had been happy to realize this when she first joined up.

  A sanctioned reason to indulge her thirst for knowledge that had been somewhat stifled in Anglion. She had focused on the herb lore and medical knowledge that Ginevra had taught her and supplemented that with some history and geography when she had begun to read Anglion well enough and had money to spare for books. But she hadn't been able to dive deep into anything that might draw the temple's attention.

  But now she didn't need to stay invisible, and she was, in a strange way, looking forward to the mountain of information she'd be learning if she stayed in the mages.

  But that learning had barely begun. And when it came to Andalyssian, “barely begun” was too strong a term when she could still remember the headache from the reveille.

  In Anglion, she’d learned the hard way, stumbling over words, listening to people, and reading with a notepad at hand so she could ask Ginevra for help.

  Samuel, the sea captain who had taken her from Illvya to Anglion, had taught her some basics of Anglish and given her a translation of a very sparse vocabulary that had been built up from his experiences and contacts with the refugees he ferried over his years of doing so.

  Over time, she'd met one or two other Illvyan refugees and learned a little more from them before she'd been able to get her hands on a d
ictionary. Some Anglions—mostly the military or certain members of the court—learned Illvyan, so there were books translating one language to the other to be found.

  Having learned a language that way, she was curious to see how the reveille impacted the process. How quickly would practice let her find some order to the unfamiliar words crowded into her head so she could put them to work as she was keen to do? She was less keen to find out by spending hours in a small room with Lucien. But she had no choice, so she bent her head and took notes as he ran through some practice exercises.

  His voice sounded odd speaking Andalyssian, though there was something about the depth of it that suited him. It was a language of contrasts, with the drawn-out sibilants and the more pointed harsher consonants. The deeper tones of Lucien's voice smoothed out some of the contrast somehow, taming it into something slightly more familiar.

  And Lucien, damn him, was a good teacher.

  Of course he was. He was good at most things.

  He explained the connections in the words and the rules of Andalyssian grammar easily. And after warming them up on some basics, he moved them into more advanced concepts to do with laws and contracts.

  The kinds of things that diplomats needed to know. The kinds of things that were complicated enough to learn about in Illyvan, let alone understand in another language while also trying to understand how the laws might be subtly altered by a culture. The empire imposed some standard rules on its citizens, but, like languages, there were still local laws in each country based on their traditions.

  The Illvyan emperors had not tried to turn an entire continent into one country, recognizing, perhaps, the futility of such a task.

  But with choice came complication.

  Complexity.

  And a lot of words in any language to understand it all.