The Serpent Bride. Sara Douglass

creature itself.

      “She would have to be marked, Maxel,” Vorstus continued, “and if she isn’t, then she is truly what the Coil claims her to be — a simple ward when no one else was left to ward her.”

      Egalion grinned. “Does that mean Maximilian gets to spend his wedding night going over her with a magnifying glass?”

      Maximilian smiled politely, but his eyes were far distant.

      The group broke up a half hour later. It was not a moment too soon for Maximilian, who needed to be by himself to think.

      Egalion and Garth left, but Vorstus hung back a moment to hand Maximilian the sheaf of documents.

      “Maxel,” Vorstus said softly, “when you go through these papers, do be sure to cast your eyes over the map of the Outlands that Lixel enclosed most helpfully. I’m sure it will prove … interesting.”

6

       THE ROYAL PALACE, RUEN, ESCATOR

      Late that night Maximilian moved restlessly about his bedchamber. The palace at Ruen was a massive structure of dark red stone, rising more than five windowless storeys from street level before splintering into fifty-three towers and spires. Maximilian could never quite decide whether it was the most beautiful structure he’d ever seen, or the ugliest, but he loved it. He’d been born within its walls, and raised here by loving parents for his first fourteen years before Cavor snatched him and condemned him to the Veins. Now, once more encased within its red stone walls, Maximilian appreciated the palace for the isolation it allowed him. Maximilian liked people, but he also loved solitude, and at night in his bedchamber, which rested at the summit of the highest of the palace towers, he could indulge that to the fullest.

      There was something about living at the pinnacle of the tower, about being so high and having the castle stretch down beneath his booted feet, that sated some deep need within Maximilian.

      But tonight that isolation irked him. He couldn’t stop thinking about the Coil’s offer of Ishbel Brunelle as a bride. His first instinct was to refuse her: he was repulsed by her association with an order as abominable as the Coil. Even if she had taken no part in any of their murderous ceremonies, nor even if she swore horror herself at their activities, Ishbel would always be tainted in his mind with their depravity.

      But on the other hand she did come from a good family — Maximilian had spent an hour this afternoon poring over the information Lixel had sent … if not poring over the map that Vorstus was so eager for him to read. Vorstus could annoy Maximilian at times with his secretive eyes and his ambiguous words, and Maximilian was in a perverse enough mood that he did not want to immediately do what Vorstus wanted.

      The documents kept Maximilian occupied enough. Gods, this Ishbel came with such wealth trailing at her skirts! Escator’s economy was virtually moribund. It had depended so greatly on the gloam mines, and when they had been destroyed during Maximilian’s release there was nothing to take their place. Maximilian had worked hard to increase trade, but he’d concentrated on trade alliances with Tencendor, and when that country had sunk beneath the waves five years ago then so also had Maximilian’s hopes of an economic resurgence in Escator within his lifetime. The Central Kingdoms to the east, his only other useful trading partners, were locked in exclusive trading alliances with the far northern nations of Berfardi and Gershadi. The Coroleans were too hopelessly unreliable and treacherous to consider as allies in anything, and as for the great southern lands beyond the FarReach Mountains … well, they were so isolated by reason of both the mountains and lack of ports, as well as being totally uncommunicative, that Maximilian had never even considered them as potential trading partners.

      Besides, what did Escator have to trade with anyone? A tiny surplus of agricultural produce and a surfeit of geniality essentially encapsulated all Escator had to offer, and Maximilian honestly couldn’t think of anyone desperate for a bucketful of beans delivered with a smile.

      Lady Ishbel Brunelle, ward of the Coil, offered Maximilian and Escator a lifeline. Perhaps some of the eastern princelings would smile disdainfully at a handful of vast estates and the Deepend manorial rights, but to Maximilian they represented salvation. The income would make all the difference to the country.

      They would make all the difference to Maximilian’s guilt. Although he knew he had no need, he did feel guilty about the loss of the gloam mines. Yes, they were vile, but they had kept Escator rich, and it was now Maximilian’s task to replace those lost riches.

      A ring on Ishbel’s finger would do it.

      Ah! Maximilian paced restlessly about the chamber, his thoughts tumbling. Marriage to a woman tainted with the Coil to restore Escator’s riches, or continued personal isolation and poverty for so many of his subjects?

      “Damn it,” he muttered. “Why couldn’t I have found someone else with that kind of dowry who was interested in me?”

      He paced about for a few more minutes, stripping off his jacket and shirt and tossing them over the back of a chair, running his hand through his too long hair and thinking he really ought to get it cut, rolling the Persimius ring around his finger, over and over.

      Finally, coming to a decision, Maximilian walked to one of the high windows and opened wide the glass panes. He stared out into the night for a moment, then returned to stand by his bed, his back to the window, the fingers of his left hand absently running over the ungainly outline of the Manteceros on his right bicep.

      He waited long minutes, finally relaxing when he heard the faint sound of movement in the window.

      “How arrogant you are,” she said softly, “that you were so certain I’d be crouching on a rooftop somewhere waiting in hope that you’d open a window for me.”

      Maximilian smiled, slowly turning about. “And how glad I am, StarWeb, that you were sitting on that rooftop, waiting for me to open the window.”

      She crouched in the window, her dark wings held out gracefully behind her for balance, watching him with unreadable dark eyes. She had a mop of black curls, a fine-boned face and a dancer’s body, currently clothed in a short silken robe as dark as her hair and wings.

      Maximilian slowly walked over to her and held out a hand. “StarWeb, I took a chance, knowing you often soar over the palace late at night. Arrogant assumption didn’t open that window. Hope did.”

      StarWeb hesitated, then took his hand as she jumped down to the floor. She started to walk into the chamber, but Maximilian’s grip on her hand tightened, and he pulled her close enough for a soft kiss.

      “Smile for me,” he whispered, drawing away fractionally.

      “Why? What good news could you possibly have to make me smile?”

      Still keeping her hand locked in his, Maximilian drew back enough so he could study her face. StarWeb was an Icarii, one of the race of bird people who had once ruled over the land of Tencendor to the west. StarWeb had also been one of the elite among the Icarii, a powerful Enchanter who could manipulate the magic of the Star Dance. But then Tencendor had descended into chaos, the ruling SunSoar family had imploded into tragedy; the Star Gate, through which the Icarii Enchanters drew the power of the Star Dance, had been destroyed. Tencendor itself vanished into the waters of the Widowmaker Sea, taking all its peoples into doom.

      But not quite all its peoples. Caelum SunSoar, who had ruled the land in its final years, had maintained strong diplomatic ties with both Coroleas and the continent over the Widowmaker Sea. During the final wars that had destroyed Tencendor, almost five thousand Icarii had been scattered about Coroleas and the eastern continent. More had joined them before the final cataclysm. Currently, StarWeb had told Maximilian, there was an expatriate community of almost six thousand Icarii scattered about the lands surrounding the Widowmaker Sea, as well as the Central Kingdoms. There were at least six hundred living in Escator alone.