“Your head hurt too?” I asked Em as we walked in the snow the following afternoon. Undernight in Oldtown was teeming with people at the moment. Open-air markets had sprung up out of the cobbles, possibly literally in some cases, and it was loud.
She smiled. “A bit.”
We’d gone out in civilian clothes. Back when the weather started turning bad, we’d bought long, almost-matching coats, black leather lined with wolf’s fur; hers swept outwards as it reached towards the ground, while mine was hoodless with a high collar. Despite our garb, Em kept the warming-spell active on both of us, and as we strolled I’d managed to start sweating inside the leather.
“You should’ve come with me to Irimar’s this morning. Then your head would be hurting.”
She looked at me curiously. “Vot was it zis time?”
“Oh, he’d been trying to get some answers out of Henthae’s people about Ord Ylon – why the problem wasn’t dealt with by the Magisterium, and why it got left in Phanar and Kani’s lap for so long.”
She was still staring at me as we walked, so I continued: “Got to just love the system, haven’t you? See, Miserdell’s in Warthia, which is classed as a ‘minor territory’… which just means it doesn’t fall under the direct purview of any Seat of the Arrealbord. Its lord nominally owed fealty to another lord, whose own lord made not a penny from the place. In other words, no one cared – it didn’t threaten their assets, you see. Someone in an administrative branch just replaced the local governor when the taxes stopped flowing, and amended the expected figures for next year accordingly. It’s what they do when settlements go missing – dragons, demons, giants, whatever…”
“I understand,” she said, frowning a little. “Yet, vot of Chakobar? If zere voz a –”
I held up a hand. “Ah but the funny thing is, Ylon never actually struck anywhere in Chakobar. Plus, the house… House Daevon, that has the Lordship of Chakobar… they’re the thirty-first Seat. They’ve got no pull and they know it – they aren’t going to trade in any favours they’re owed without being sure there’s some material gains to be made. There was, after all, no hard proof that this dragon was an Ord – and everyone knows the tales of dragon-hoards are just exaggerations… right?”
She raised an eyebrow, half-smiling. We both had a very good idea just what our new friends had found in the lair.
“And when their representative was told the monster who destroyed Miserdell had his lair just a few days’ ride from Tirremuir, do you know what she said? ‘Let me know if there’s an attack and I’ll see what I can do’…”
“I suppose,” Em mused, “if zey reacted vildly to every rumour of a dragon, zey vould run out of resources very quickly. And if it vere not for ze actions of Tyr Kayn, ze Magisterium vould have done something once Phanar arrived in Mund, of zat I am certain…”
“I guess you’re right,” I admitted. “It still sucks, though. I get why no one seemed bothered when they first came to Mund – I’m onboard with the notion Lovebright was behind it – Tyr Kayn, I mean…”
Gods, why was it so hard to remember the real culprit? I didn’t feel scared, so why was my mind still shrinking away from the truth?
Because it was a dropping dragon, Kas, I reminded myself. And she made Lovebright real, whatever that means…
I shook my head.
“But it shouldn’t have even been allowed to get that far,” I went on. “No one cared, long before Phanar came here, before the enchantress –”
“Ve do not know how long she voz covering for Ord Ylon.”
She was right about that – the idea hadn’t even crossed my mind – and I nodded in agreement.
“True.”
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“Ze bureaucracy – zis is is ze real problem, is it not? Ze system itself. Zere is no power for ze people.” Em waved at the crowds, people pushing and pulling all around us. “Our institutions have zeir hands tied by regulation, regulation designed by ze rich to further enrich zemselves. If ze Magisterium did not require a mandate from ze Arrealbord, zey could have skipped all ze lobbying and simply made ze decision to send a team of archmages straight to Miserdell…”
“Do you really think they would have, though?” I asked.
She gave me one of those looks, and threw it back in my face: “Do you really think zey vouldn’t have?”
I spread my hands. “It’s not like I know them – and I know you think you do…”
“It is zeir responsibility to protect ze Realm from creatures like dragons!”
“The dragon would’ve been long gone by the time they got the news, even if it was transmitted magically.” I shrugged. “Maybe it was, just like you said, too great a risk of resources. It’s not like they intervene when a country’s undergoing a food shortage and resorting to cannibalism, is it?”
“Zat is different!” She glowered at me, and I could tell I’d struck a nerve with that one. “Ze famine in Onsolor is hardly magical in origin – ze druids can only do so much, and –“
“It’s a political crisis. For people like Sentelemeth to fix, not us.”
“Or a… a spiritual crisis. Dark hearts tend to dark gods. I do not trust my people.”
“Alright, alright.” I cast about for something else to talk about. I didn’t want to send her into a depression spiral. “Say, do you think Jaid would like that dress? The purple one. It’s about her size, right?”
Em was smiling tightly – probably clinging to the fact she’d clearly just won the argument – and she crossed over towards the stall I indicated. I followed, shoving my way through the gap she made, and arrived just as she was running her fingers over the fabric of the dress.
“Hmmm.” She lifted the garment from its hook, holding it up against her body and smoothing down the material. “Right size, and she vould love ze colour – but ze cloth itself leaves something to be desired.”
“I’ll be ‘avin none o’ that!” cried the vendor, suddenly emerging from a knot of people on the other side of the stall. She was an extremely thin woman with long grey braids hanging across her left shoulder. “Tha’s the finest Amranian cotton, missy, an’ I won’t hear a word said agains’ it!”
“Sure you will,” Em replied, Stormsword’s accent coming through strong. “The fabric is coarse, here, and here – and was there really a need to hire a blind seamstress? Look at this stitching here – it’s already practically falling apart.”
I sighed, and stood by while Em dragged the skinny woman over the coals, driving away at least fifty percent of the customers crowding around the stall.
If Tanra could see you now, I mused. Some of the seeress had clearly been rubbing off on her.
“If Xantaire was here, she vouldn’t let you buy it,” Em said to me in the end, ignoring the woman’s latest retort and replacing the dress before taking me by the arm and leading me away. She’d been bargain-hunting with Xan at least three times over the last two weeks but she’d never shown me what they’d been buying, and each time upon their return to the flat they always broke out giggling for some reason.
“Anyvay,” she tugged me in another direction, “it’s Yearseve and you’re still shopping – and not even for your girlfriend! Vot am I going to do with you?”
“I don’t know, but I can get creative if you’re strapped for ideas,” I said eagerly.
“You vish!”
She kissed me anyway, and we stood there in the midst of the crowds for a few moments, bodies crushed together, this time by our own wills. I barely noticed the constant jostling.
When we parted I chuckled. “In any case, I’ve already got the twins more presents than they’ve ever seen in their whole lives… It’s their birthday, the fi-“
“Fifth of Yunara, I know,” Em cut me off.
“– so I always get extra now… Plus, I don’t think you’d be very happy if I was shopping for you – you think I’d dare leave it so late? And, trust me, I didn’t get yours off an Undernight market…”
Her eyes lit up. “Oooh, vhat did you get me? Just give me a clue –“
She didn’t really want to know. This was just part of the game, and we’d done the same dance half a dozen times this month.
“Which one of your gifts are you talking about, exactly?” I asked archly.
Her eyes lit up even brighter. “How many am I getting? Don’t you dare, Kastyr Mortenn – you tell me right now!”
“Now that would be simply unacceptable, m’lady,” I chortled. “I’m afraid you’re just going to have to wait and see, aren’t you?”
I tried moving away, but without using my powers to cheat I didn’t have a chance: she chased me and prodded me – begged me – held the lapels of my new coat in her small fists and stared imploringly into my eyes. It was only when she moaned directly into my ear that I actually collapsed in fits of laughter, unable to bear the heat of her breath on my neck.
Once we started getting dirty looks we left… well, once we started getting continual dirty looks, at least. We were only wandering for the sake of something to do on Yearseve, anyway – the actual gifts we each needed were long-since obtained and set-aside for the upcoming events.
“I’ve got an hour before I’m looking after the twins,” I mentioned slyly once we reached an almost-abandoned alleyway.
It took us about ten seconds to get our robes on – temporarily – then we were flying towards Treetown.
You could do a lot, in an hour.
* * *