“That sounds expensive,” said Kel, and immediately regretted having said it. Conor stopped his stretching and looked at Kel, hard. After a moment, he said, “If you are still worried about the Prosper Beck business, don’t be. I’ll take care of it.”
“I wasn’t worried at all,” Kel said, but it was not the truth, and he suspected Conor knew it.
This time, when a knock came on the door late in the evening, Lin knew immediately that it was not Mariam. She would have used her code: two quick raps, a pause, then a third. This was the thud of a fist against her door, and she bolted to her feet, suddenly panicked.
She had spent much of the evening, after her rounds in the city, studying the few pages she had of Qasmuna’s book and cursing herself for never having studied Callatian. She had a translator’s dictionary from her time as a student and had been doing her best with it, skipping from the dictionary to the original. The pages were also not in order, having been torn from their bindings, making it difficult to construct a narrative or even a series of instructions from the pages.
So far Lin had learned only a few rather disappointing things. The Source-Stones had indeed existed, and been invented by Suleman the Great, lord of what was now Marakand. There seemed three ways to fill them with power: One could drain off one’s own magical energy into them, like filling a flask with water. One could take power from a magical creature—a dragon or phoenix or hippogryph, something formed from the power of the Word itself. Or one could kill another magic-user and take their energy in the form of blood.
Magical creatures, alas, no longer existed. Lin did not know how one could manage the method of saving one’s own magical potential, and her physician’s Oath forbade her from killing anyone else, had she even known a magic-user in the first place.
Frustrated, she took out her own stone—she was beginning to think of it as hers, and not Petrov’s—and looked into it. How can I use you? she thought. How can you help me heal Mariam?
For a moment, she thought she saw the odd shapes in the stone rearrange themselves, flowing like the letters and numbers of gematry. She thought she could read the old Ashkar word for “heal,” buried down deep, a cinder glowing through smoke—
And then the knock came on the door. She scrambled up, sliding the pages of Qasmuna’s book—and her notes—carefully under the pillows on the window seat. Then she went to the door.
To her surprise, standing on her stoop and looking diffident, was Mayesh. He seemed to have just come from the Palace, for he wore his Counselor’s robes, and around his throat the silver medallion of his status gleamed.
“Barazpe kebu-qekha?” he said. May I enter your home? It was a formal request, not the sort usually made by family.
Wordlessly, Lin stood back and let him into the main room of her house. He took a seat at the kitchen table, careful not to disarrange her remaining books and papers.
Lin locked the door and came to sit across from him at the table. She knew she ought to offer him tea at least, but he seemed distracted. She could sense him studying the room, from the various items Josit had brought back from his travels to the cushions her mother had carefully sewed. She did not think he had been in this house since her parents had died, and she could not help but wonder if it made him think painfully of Sorah. Surely there was pain when he thought of his lost daughter? It had always felt an extra injury to her, that in taking himself out of her life, Mayesh had taken from her the last person in the Sault, besides herself and Josit, who truly remembered and loved her mother.
“I heard you managed to get yourself into the Palace,” Mayesh said, his words snapping her out of her reverie. “Despite Conor’s request to the contrary.”
Lin shrugged.
“You are lucky it was only a request,” said Mayesh, “and not a royal order.”
“What is the difference?”
Mayesh’s eyes were red-rimmed. He seemed tired, but then he always seemed tired. Lin could not remember a time she had seen him look as if he did not have the weight of the world on his shoulders. “A royal order is a formal demand made by the Blood Royal. The punishment for disobeying it is death.”
Lin kept her expression calm, though her heart skipped a beat. “No one,” she said, “should have that kind of power over another human being.”
Mayesh studied her. “Power is an illusion,” he said. This surprised Lin; she had always assumed him obsessed with power, its dilemmas and possibilities. “Power exists because we believe it does. Kings and queens—and yes, princes—have power because we grant it to them.”
“But we do grant it to them. And death is no illusion.”
“Do you know why the King always has an Ashkari Counselor?” Mayesh said abruptly. “In the time of Emperor Macrinus, the Empire was on the brink of war. It was the good advice of the Emperor’s Counselor, a man named Lucius, that brought it back. When Lucius lay dying, the Emperor was distraught: How would he ever find another to advise him so well? It was then that Lucius said to him: All the good advice I have ever given you was first told to me by my friend, a man of the Ashkari people, named Samuel Naghid. Against the advice of his Court, the Emperor brought Naghid into his confidence, and named him his next Counselor. And for thirty years, Naghid guided the Empire, serving first Macrinus and then his son, and the Empire retained its territories and peace. After that, it was considered both wise and lucky to have an Ashkari Counselor to the throne, and the Kings of Castellane keep that tradition.”
“I see,” said Lin. “What meaning do you take from that? Because to me it sounds as if the wisdom of an Ashkar was trusted only when people believed it came from a malbesh.”
“That is not the lesson I take from it. The malbesh opened the door, but Naghid proved himself, and because he proved himself, the belief continues that an Ashkari Counselor is indispensable—both wise and impartial, for they stand apart from the squabbles of the people. They have the power of the outsider.”
“A power that is used to serve the throne?” Lin said, quietly. She half expected Mayesh to fly into a fury. Instead, he said:
“Because there is always an Ashkar close to the throne, the King is forced to look upon us and remember we are human beings. The task I perform protects us all. Not only do I speak for our people, but I am a mirror. I reflect the humanity of all our people to the highest seat in Castellane.”
Lin raised her chin. “And you are telling me this because you want me to understand why you chose the Palace over me and Josit?”
Mayesh flinched almost imperceptibly. “I did not choose the Palace. I chose everyone in the Sault.”
A knot of pain, presaging a headache, had begun to form between Lin’s eyes. She rubbed at it and said, “Why are you telling me this?”
“I was impressed with the way you got yourself into the Palace,” he said. “It indicated to me an understanding of the uses of power. You could not get in yourself, so you found someone who could, and you worked your will through them.”
It was Mariam’s idea, Lin wanted to say. But that would be of no help to Mariam, and might in fact cause trouble.
“But the Prince was furious,” she said, instead.