Trust Fall

"You catch on fire when you're angry. Did you know?"

Taylor breathed deep, opened the part of him that was supposed to hold his spirit, and pressed. He kept pressing until he was bursting at the seams. Even then it wasn't perfect: a skilled practitioner could tell he was still blooming out, but at least he wasn't on fire. The tiles on the floor around him had taken on more vibrant colors from the raw spirit, and no longer matched the rest of the house.

This happened with strong practitioners. Too many breakthrough workings of magic, like crossing the line between life and death, building palaces inside one's thoughtspace, or pouring spirit like it was water all day long, could cause a practitioner's spirit to grow wild. Puberty both hurt and helped, by growing the body's spirit and its capacity to hold it. Add to that the emotional highs and lows of youth and it was common for people in Taylor's situation to be unbalanced for a while, to have trouble containing themselves.

But practitioners didn't blaze with mana for all to see. That shouldn't ever happen, except maybe when wrangling uncontainable forces. A competent practitioner did not catch on fire with a silver flame that made people shy away from them in fear and wonder. Anisca's curiosity was in the fore, but there was caution, too, of a different kind than before.

"You weren't supposed to see that. I apologize." His bones felt creaky as he resettled himself, his muscles sore, and skin stretched, protesting all that he was asking of them. Hopefully, the strain would encourage his capacity to grow faster. "Nobody is supposed to see that. It's not supposed to happen."

"Then we didn't see anything. Right, Inez?"

Inez, who guarded the door, wore traces of a smile. "Did something notable happen?"

"Thank you." Taylor sighed with relief. He didn't want his fellow practitioners to know he was having problems of such an embarrassing nature. He'd never hear the end of it from the older healers.

"So let's talk about our next steps."

"We can find other suppliers," Taylor declared, "Lavradio was just the most convenient option. The gardens have coir cloth to trade, including some very fine stuff if we want it. There might be metal deposits in the desert or the bordering mountains. We can make paper from almost any kind of fibrous plant, even though it's not convenient. Charcoal is the biggest problem. We need a lot of tirun scales for armor, and most practitioners aren't strong enough to make them without a strong fire. And my anti-summoning cage is so strengthened against the arts that even I can't get it to budge without a true forge. We need literal tons of char, multiple shipments of it. Cutting down thousands of garden trees and desert brush just to burn them is …," Taylor shivered.

"Unthinkable," agreed Anisca, "even sacrilegious. The desert couldn't sustain it and the Calique would turn against us for it. It has to come from somewhere else. Lavradio is the best source by far. Trees are practically weeds there. Some years, we couldn't cut them fast enough."

"But I ended the negotiations. On impulse. I'd like to avoid crawling back to Jorgo two minutes after throwing a fit."

"It wasn't a fit. It was a rational response to an irrational threat. And you don't have to crawl anywhere because you didn't end the negotiations. You said, 'This discussion is over', not 'These negotiations are over'. And this," she spread her arms to include the two of them and the sounding board between them, "is called a reset. The two sides separate, consider their options, and then meet again. It happens all the time in diplomatic discussions. And that's what this is: diplomacy. Two world powers building a relationship. You made it clear that Gonzolez Monforte is important to Nexus, and they crossed lines by threatening him. And then you refused their lame excuses. Now Lavradio has to go out of its way to prove its friendly intent towards Nexus. Somehow, your overt honesty keeps working in your favor. I don't understand it, but I can use it."

"I'm not talking to Jorgo again. I've never had a conversation with him I didn't hate."

She laughed again, the same laugh as before but without the scorn. "Leo has a blind spot when it comes to Jorgo. He's a brilliant administrator, but his contempt for others runs away with him. You touch all his sores: you're not a noble, you're not Lavradian, you won't submit to his king, and yet Leo still likes you. It must gall Jorgo something awful. He's probably jealous.

"Leo doesn't punish him because it's useful to have someone in your retinue to push boundaries on your behalf, even if they offend. It's like having a hunting dog: they're supposed to bark a lot. Jorgo's done it for my brother for so long that he's forgotten there are limits, and Leo's let him run so often that he forgets to yank the leash. And now it's going to cost them."

Anisca seemed excited at the prospect of fleecing her older brother. "He'll kick Jorgo out of the room for causing a disaster. And you will refuse to attend the next round due to the depth of your offense and your doubts that anything good can come from further talks.

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"We have an enormous advantage. They need you to win this fight against Enclave, and they already owe you. It's time you started collecting on that debt. But to do that effectively, I have to say things to them that would never be tolerated with outsiders present. I need to meet with them alone."

"Not a chance. All Leo has to do is give you an order, and you'll turn spy on me. Or worse. Just like the last king. You're a beautiful woman in a position of trust, put here by the palace to 'help' me, and you have close ties to the spy-master dowager queen. They might as well send Micas to poison me all over again."

"Leo wouldn't do that."

"Wouldn't he? Can you honestly tell me that, if something happened that convinced him we were going to lose and Enclave was going to win, he wouldn't turn on Nexus? How long would it take him to decide to put the knife in my back? And if he ordered you to do the job, could you defy him? Because that would cost you everything: home, family, honor, wealth, all of it gone. You could even become their next target."

"They would take a more cautious approach because you have me as a hostage."

"That's no good. I'm not going to threaten them with your life. I'd only kill you if you did something to deserve it. Vanni knows that about me, which means Leo knows. You have zero value as a hostage."

Something wry and unexpected crept into the princess's face. "Oh dear. I don't know how to feel about any of that."

"I'm not blind to all you've done so far." Taylor crossed his arms and wouldn't look at her. "We're out here fumbling around with people we don't understand, with an old memoir as our only guide, and yet we're making progress. Pashtuk seems to want us here, for now anyway. I couldn't have done it alone.

"But," he said confessionally, "every time we drink together, I check the cups for poison."

"I know." Her voice was kind. "You're discrete about it, but I learned from the same taster you did. And I had more time with her." Was she being honest right now, or was this some new change of tactic? Taylor regretted that he couldn't believe her.

"It isn't just my father's fault, or mother's for failing to dissuade him. I was awful to you the first time we met. I made other mistakes, too, with Chapa and then Uzan."

"Uzan doesn't count. She negotiated in bad faith. And, we learned a circle's signature isn't worth much. It was a necessary lesson that you've made good use of."

"Chapa, then. I was terrible to Chapa, and that added to your distrust."

They sat across from each other, stuck. She was too skilled with guile to take at face value. He was too hurt by betrayal to let down his guard.

Anisca had tried to get the story firsthand, to learn what wasn't in the dry recitation she'd received from her mother. She knew Inez had played a role in Taylor's assassination, but the former royal guard wasn't talking. The only time Anisca found the courage to ask about it, Inez's eyes had bored holes into her. "I confessed to Phillip the Younger, and he graced me with mercy and honorable work. Do you think I'd compromise his trust for an Odemira?" No, of course not. Who would serve a royal family that disposed of its friends so easily when they had Phillip the Younger as an alternative?

King Joaquim's feckless reign had poisoned more than one young disciple. He'd driven a duke into rebellion, lost the loyalty of people like Inez, let his capital decay, staffed the government with nobles just as feckless as himself, and was ill-regarded by his peers. His one redeeming virtue was laziness. By stirring himself to action for the sake of sport and little else, he was prevented from doing more harm.

Anisca's father, being a man of more diversion than imagination, couldn't have conceived his casual summoning and subsequent assassination of Taylor DeLanion would have such far-reaching consequences. Who would have thought the stripling boy, clothed only in a bathing towel and sandals when he arrived, and who couldn't speak the Unity language, would bring Tenobre to such a crisis in little more than a year?

Father, you've been dead since Spring, she thought, but we're still cleaning up your messes. How do I win the trust of someone you betrayed so thoroughly?

Taylor was lost in thoughts of his own, his pensive fingers touching on the cylinder that held his fragment. Anisca wondered if he was aware of the habit, when struggling with himself, of reaching for the light. The fragments were more revered than the old seven-pointed star, for their powers were tangible and miraculous. They drove away cursed darkness, revealed spiritual talent, and cast liars into shadow.

"You can't trust me," she said suddenly, "but you trust your fragment."

"I do." After a moment's thought, he unclipped the cylinder from his harness and placed it unopened between them. "Are you willing to make promises in its light?"

"I am, subject to successful negotiations. For example, I could promise to report any request to betray or spy upon you or Nexus."

Taylor pulled his slate closer and began to write. "Any 'request, suggestion, or demand'," he amended, "is that acceptable?"

"It is. I won't tell you everything we talk about, because I intend to use family secrets against them. But I'll agree that certain Nexus topics are off-limits."

"Inventions other than the links and sounding boards we've given them, tactical information … we need to make a list. Or, it might be easier to list what you're allowed to talk about."

"Perhaps we say anything we've revealed to the Calique not residing in Red Tower. But I need your promise that the meeting will be secure, that you'll make a privacy barrier for me and not let anyone, including yourself, listen in."

"I make no promises about the royals' room, but this one will be safe."

"And there are a few specific things I might want to reveal, but only if Leo brings them up."

Their negotiations continued for some time, and their contract had to be revised twice after the mutual swearing failed. A fragment's light was fastidious. Its coruscating waves got under the skin and found the cracks in one's resolve, pried them open, and scooped out all the except ifs and but not whens left unsaid.

The third attempt succeeded, and when Taylor charged the link it was chiming with royal impatience. He took his fragment, now closed around the discomfiting light, set the privacy barrier for Anisca, and left the matter in her hands.