Sonata Form Page 3

  Milo wasn’t sure why any of it mattered, but somehow it did.

  He was staring, probably sort of wistfully, since he was busy wishing he was over there in the snug with Ellis, rather than slumping at the coven’s table, waiting for Idwal to claim chest pains so everyone else would let him have his way. So when Lilibet—Ellis’s mam—caught Milo at it, turned to follow where his gaze had been then turned back with a too-familiar smirk and a lift of her eyebrow, Milo sat up straight so fast he knocked the table.

  Wenda’s ale tottered; she caught it before it tipped. With a chiding look at Milo, she skimmed an exasperated glance all around the table, before letting it land and stay on Milo’s mam.

  “Offeiriad Ceri.” Wenda raised her voice to be heard above the nattering still pinging between all three points of an invisible triangle across the table and back again. At her formal address, it stopped. When she had quiet, Wenda went on, “Perhaps you’d care to settle the matter of changes to the evening’s planned agenda?”

  Milo’s mam was peering closely at Milo, brow drawn, corner of her mouth turned slightly up, and dark blue eyes squinting like she’d forgot her glasses, though they sat prim on the bridge of her nose. Or maybe like she was trying to figure something out. Milo reckoned she was wondering why his lip was getting fatter by the second. Or, possibly, how he’d managed to nearly upend the whole table for apparently no reason. Neither of which he really wanted to explain, so he tried to look as clueless as possible. Eventually, Ceri shared an indiscernible glance with Lilibet before she folded her hands atop the table and cleared her throat.

  “Thank you, Meistr Wenda.” Ceri gave Wenda one of her kind smiles then gave Idwal one that was a bit more indulgent. “And thank you, Arbenigwr Idwal, for attempting to keep us on course. These things do tend to drag on when we don’t.” The chuckles around the table, Milo thought, were probably a bonus; what Ceri was really waiting for, he decided, was the conciliatory smile and shrug from Idwal, because she smiled back with a wink and turned to Bowen. “But I think we all need to hear this news. Newyddian Bowen?”

  Bowen’s thin shoulders seemed to wilt a bit once everyone turned their gazes his way, but he shifted them straight then tipped Ceri a respectful nod. “It’s less news and more rumor just now.” He waved a willowy hand. “Or conjecture, I guess.”

  “Then why,” said Arbenigwr Gildas, his southeastern accent thick with an implied harrumph, “must we spend the coven’s time on it now?” His dark eyes, canted down at the crowsfeet corners, strafed the assembly with a look that was somehow both bored and indignant at the same time. “Shouldn’t this issue be tabled until there’s something to actually report?”

  Lilibet sighed. “Thank you, Arbenigwr Gildas, for your input.”

  Her remarkable ability to shut even the most vocal and vociferous antagonist up—witness Gildas’s sour roll of eyes but decidedly closed mouth—with nothing more than a soft word or pointed glance hadn’t changed since Milo was small. Still just as beautiful as he remembered, too, her sable-dark skin gaining a roseate radiance in the flux-and-flow light of the gas lamps that lit the inn’s common room. And yet it was her kindness that Milo remembered most from his youth.

  Lilibet reached across the table to set a soft pat to Bowen’s subtly shaking hand before pulling back and then, with a contrasting look of firm expectation, said, “Your report with as much confirmation as you can give us, please, Newyddian Bowen.”

  The mild dustup had clearly thrown Bowen. His mouth was flapping, and the color had drained a bit from his narrow face. Milo tried not to squirm uncomfortably on Bowen’s behalf. Young and newyddian for only a little under two years now, Bowen hadn’t been inducted into the coven at an early age like Milo had. Bowen and Undeg, Bowen’s twin sister, had come into their magic suddenly and painfully, one right after the other, when they were fifteen, having had no indication prior that they were even sensitive, let alone the middling-powerful natural elemental sorcerers they were. Eluned had taken pity on the twins’ decidedly unmagical parents and presented them to Lilibet for instruction and, because the coven hadn’t been a true thirteen for too many years, sponsored them for induction. The pickings had been worryingly slim since before Milo was born, and they’d needed the numbers.

  Bowen only kept staring at Lilibet like a stoat beneath a cat’s eye until Undeg gave him a nudge to the ribs and a look that said “today would be nice.” It seemed to bolster Bowen. His anxious frown drew into firm resolve and he sat up straight, tossing thick brown hair out of his green, impossibly wide eyes.

  “Apologies, Meistr Lilibet, but I haven’t had confirmation because no one will give it to me.” Bowen undoubtedly caught the flat look Gildas gave him but resolutely looked only at Lilibet. He cleared his throat. “But with Taraverde claiming annex over Colorat, communication has become... unreliable.”

  Milo frowned, paying attention now and no longer amused by the preceding bickering. Colorat was an ally of the United Preidynīg Isles, of which Kymbrygh was a part, and Preidyn’s Queen was reportedly not taking this hostile move by Taraverde lightly. Talks, still ongoing, had already broken down more than once.

  Bowen put out a hand, palm up. “I wasn’t surprised when the posts stopped coming. But the last one said leadership of the Colorat Coven had changed, that all Dewin had been expelled and their offeiriad—pardon me, their magie—would now be chosen by Taraverde’s chancellery. They said they’d contact us once the transition was settled. They never did. And now Magie Nis—former Magie Nistor”—it was clear the correction tasted bad in Bowen’s mouth—“doesn’t answer cables or even scrys. Not even personal ones. Not even ‘are you all right?’ ones.”

  “Magie Nistor is also a minor government official, yes?” asked Fflur.

  Bowen nodded. “Governor of....” He shuffled through a small pile of notes. “I’m sorry, I can’t remember the name of the city, and I don’t have it with me. But.” Bowen paused, expression pained. “He’s Dewin.” He shot a nervous look at Ceri, and then Milo. “And he was somewhat… outspoken in his opposition to a new government under Taraverde’s rule. Bravely so.”

  “Or foolishly,” Fflur muttered.

  Bowen bristled, as though he couldn’t help himself. “He led protests in defense of his country and its people. He spoke out for what was right. How is that foolish?”

  Fflur sighed and gave Bowen a look of jaded sympathy. “He saw what happened in Ostlich-Sztym. We all did.” Protests that turned into riots when Ostlich-Sztym invited Taraverde’s Elite Constabulary to move in and “help quell the unrest.” And then the constables started shooting. “Call it foolishly brave, if you will, but he couldn’t have expected it to end any other way.”

  Lilibet narrowed her eyes at Milo’s mam, but other than that, no one immediately spoke. The implications were plain enough that no one really had to.

  Finally, Heledd broke the silence with a murmured “Interesting.” Her wide mouth was pursed down to a thoughtful line. “And… very troubling, if it’s what it looks like.” She was a pop of color in the common room’s fickle light, the considerable bulk of her swathed in kerchiefs and kirtles in reds and golds, and her long, black twistrows shot through with startling white. Her dark gaze was soft on Bowen, but sharp when it shifted around the table. “But still only conjecture based on rumor.”

  Perl huffed out a derisive snort. “What Meistr Heledd doesn’t say is that we all know what’s going on in Colorat, and that—”

  “What Meistr Heledd doesn’t say,” Heledd put in, “is what Meistr Heledd doesn’t know. And what Arbenigwr Perl forgets is her place.”

  Milo sank down in his seat, a bit wide-eyed, and exchanged an uncomfortable look with Bowen. Both Lilibet and Ceri remained blank-faced, watching, though Eluned, usually impossible to surprise or ruffle, had gone thin-lipped and tense.

  Perl’s round, tanned cheeks went nearly as red as the parts of her hair that hadn’t already grayed. Her jaw set. “A sister coven has gone dark. We all know w
hat it means.” She waved a plump, freckled hand around the table, clearly agitated. “Three of us here are veterans of at least two wars, and every one of us knows there isn’t a government in existence that doesn’t either fear or covet—or both—every sect on the planet, and Dewin right at the top of that list, especially on the main continent right now. When they fear us, the covens are the first against the wall. When they covet us, we’re the first to be recruited. Even our own queen recruits from—”

  “Enough!” Idwal shot up and slammed his hand on the table so hard it made Milo jump. “I will hear no slander of our good Queen Rhiannon, and especially not within the bounds of a formal coven!”

  Out the corner of his eye, Milo caught the movement of Ellis sitting up straight, leaning forward. Elbow on knee, he was blatantly staring right at Milo when Milo carefully slid his glance over. Ellis lifted an eyebrow, inquiring. All Milo could do was shift a shrug as subtly as possible. Even if he knew what was going on, he wouldn’t be able to tell Ellis. Or anyone, really. One of the first things he’d learned when he’d first been inducted at age eight was that coven business stayed in the coven. The coven’s secretary—Bowen now, since Milo’s nain had passed—reported directly to the offeiriad and Kymbrygh’s MP and no one else.

  Idwal strafed a glance over the table, breathing hard, to meet the eyes of the abruptly silent gathering, then said, through his teeth, “Offeiriad Ceri, your humble arbenigwr begs forgiveness for addressing the coven so. But I remind us all that Rhiannon is Offeiriad herself, in the World Court, no less. She’s not here to defend the honor she’s earned from us through unfailing good will toward every coven under her purview and even those that are not.” The blurred consonants and rolling diphthongs unique to his Fernswallow accent usually made him difficult to understand, but not now. He set a glare on Perl. “There are four of us here, Arbenigwr Perl, who’ve served in Her Majesty’s forces and fought her wars—no draft, no conscription, but by choice—and I’ll not have any forgetting why we did it!”

  “All too easy to forget,” Perl said evenly, “when so many of us never came back, and so cannot remind us.”

  Before Idwal could fire a retort, Ceri said, “Idwal, Arbenigwr, please take your seat.” She waited, dark blue gaze level on Idwal, not unkind but not exactly kind either, until Idwal huffed, sent one last glare at Perl, then sat. Ceri nodded, satisfied. “Thank you, Arbenigwr Idwal, Arbenigwr Perl, for giving the coven something to consider for our next gathering. But, as Newyddian Bowen took care to point out, we currently have nothing more than rumor and conjecture.” She raised a hand, her glance warning, when Perl opened her mouth. “We do, however, recognize that our positions demand we take these intimations seriously. I move we form an investigatory committee, the directive of which will be to ferret out what it can and report back to us at the next gathering. All in favor?”

  All hands went up, including Milo’s.

  “Very well.” Ceri nodded. “Newyddian Bowen, please record that the motion has carried unanimously. Meistr Eluned and I will discuss committee nominations in private. Now.” She smiled and folded her hands atop the table. “Next order of business?”

  THE RITES, Milo decided, were just as boring when enduring them as they’d been the two times he’d watched others sit them. A big circle, a bunch of magelights in the branches of the ancient oak to light the Bluebell’s yard, and an awful lot of “Do you?” and “Will you?” from each meistr in the coven, to which the expected answer from the newyddian-cum-arbenigwr was always, of course, a confident “Yes.”

  Unlike the formal coven, this was an open affair. Those interested ambled out from the inn’s common room to witness and lend their good will to the circle. Milo could feel it like the fog that still clung, though this was warm and embracing, rather than chill and oppressive. Lilibet’s dogs still hung at each of Ellis’s hips, but even they gave off a friendly air.

  When the final promise to uphold the coven’s principles was extracted from Milo, all the onlookers were invited to join the circle around him. Milo couldn’t help the unexpected warmth that moved through him when Ellis shifted deliberately to stand directly behind Milo, joining hands with Gildas and someone Milo didn’t know, dogs again positioning themselves to either side of him.

  Prayers in Milo’s name went up to every goddess, everyone in the circle reciting them carefully. Milo could swear he felt every good thing in them rise with their voices to skim along the unified resonance and slick back between his ribs to hum with the echoes. Like a symphony, the prayers coalesced, melody and harmony tangling into one voice, rising, ringing, building in volume and tucking in close around Milo, stilling him, shrouding though not stifling. The cadence shifted, the volume rose, until Milo was sure he felt a swish and clatter inside him, power manifest in the faint ethereal strings he could feel connecting each in the circle with the next. ’Round and ’round the ring it flowed, until it surged in like spokes on a wheel and straight into Milo.

  His mam would kill him if she knew what he was thinking, but it was abruptly imperative that Milo see it. He wanted to See, as he usually only did with the dragons, but it was different with them—a necessary risk when it was only him and creatures who needed him to know what they were thinking, how they were feeling, what ailed them, where it hurt, and could never tell anyone what Milo could do anyway.

  This… he needed to See this because it was his.

  He shut his eyes, tugged at that place inside him where sight and knowledge curled together like sleepy dragons, a thing instinctive and bone-deep, yet also something that spent so much time buried and repressed inside him it had become almost as instinctive to keep it there. It was risky doing it here, out in the open and in front of so many witches and sorcerers, but it wasn’t like anyone could tell just by looking at him. And when would he get a chance to See something like it again?

  Quietly defiant, Milo let it flood through him, pulled in a soft, slow breath and… opened his eyes. Blinked.

  It didn’t so much flare at him as slide across his vision in smeary whorls, bright and brimful with cordial sentiments he could all at once See and feel and taste. The Seeing, when he set it loose like this, never failed to dazzle him. As though he spent most of his time colorblind and now suddenly wasn’t.

  He didn’t cry out or anything dramatic, though he gasped, his mam’s gaze skipping to him sharply, startled, knowing because she could See Milo as well as he could See her. Lilibet, too, was watching him shrewdly, and Eluned, both of them staring before catching each other’s glances then frowning slightly, as though bemused. Milo’s mam, though....

  Watching. Glint-eyed, and.... Yes. Red and sharp and all but shooting off sparks. Angry. Because she never stopped warning him.

  Milo couldn’t care, because the wishes and the songs and the colors and the knowing all pitched up and welled out through him. It was all he could do to stand straight and not let his knees buckle at the shocking beauty of the twisting aurora-bursts winding out from everyone around him.

  It wasn’t power, Milo decided, not really. Potential, perhaps. A promise borne on the chanted prayers, rising from them in bright scattershot prisms, and the echo of an answer in the strange soft rapture trickling into his veins like warm water. Awash in the magic offered by every sorcerer and witch in the circle, and the goodwill of everyone else, motes of it clinging to the fine hairs on his skin—he could See them—burrowing in and down like it belonged to him. And then, somehow, it did, slender streams of light and color slipping from the nimbi of every living thing and into his own like he was sipping at them with a straw.

  Not a theft, but the acceptance of a gift. Not a reduction of power for those who offered, but an increase of his own nonetheless. It filled Milo so completely it seeped from his skin like soft misted light. He knew almost no one else could see it, yet was still somehow shocked they couldn’t.

  He peered at his mam—only another in the circle, no Offeiriad set apart here—asking he wasn’t sure what. She gave
him nothing but jagged colors and an exasperated stare.

  Milo knew better than to smirk. He almost did anyway. He was going to catch proper misery for it, no doubt, but how could he not want to See this? Natur magic from Saeth blooming up from the ground, spangling all over her, then sending shoots of opaline out to Milo. Elfennol magic gathering in the air around Idwal and pushing out in a soft-blushed brume.

  There was magic in every blade of grass; Milo had learned that at his mam’s knee, his nain’s, Lilibet’s, and then studied it deeper in his years at school. Now, like this, when he opened himself wide, he Saw it, pulsing like blood through veins. More defined than it was with the dragons; maybe because that was more observation than participation. Here, now, the small gifts of power from everyone around him coalesced into something bigger, sharpening his Sight, deepening the colors and pulling wispy strands into richer focus. The oak above him was almost too bright to look at, the magic of every rite ever performed beneath its gnarled limbs still beating like a heart beneath bark and branch. Streamers like the tails of tiny comets skirled on the breeze and worried at the edges of the sparkling fog still clinging to grass lying low for the coming winter, breathing the magic in slowly, storing it up for its approaching long sleep.

  Faint shades in muted hues wore the shapes of those who had stood here before and those who stood here now, colorful ambient bwci bos—abstruse ghosts that came and went in the steps their physical bodies once walked. Milo knew, if he concentrated, looked at them properly, he could determine who’d been here before and what they’d been doing. If he touched those not-quite-wraiths, saw their colors, felt their edges, he could See yet more, could....