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  Marius let his breath out. This was all wrong. His parents had never lived in Rodgany, and he was the eldest child. Laelia was two years younger than he.

  “Florian left Sabina and Anton where they were, but he took the daughter. You have two sisters, Marius. Not one.”

  He shook his head. “I’ve always been the eldest.”

  “You have never met Rhianne,” said Lucien gently. “She was raised in the imperial palace and is now the Queen of Mosar.”

  Marius stared at him, dumbstruck. He had an older sister, and she was a queen? No, that could not be true. “You’ve got the wrong family—”

  “I don’t,” said Lucien. “I’ve been searching for years, and I’m certain I’ve found the people I’m looking for. You are my cousin. You are also Florian’s nephew and Rhianne’s full brother. Rhianne has wondered for years whether her parents had more children after Florian stole her, but they moved away from Rodgany and changed their names, even their professions. They did not want to be found again.”

  “Why?” Marius blurted.

  Lucien leaned back in his seat. “Because they didn’t want their children taken away a second time.”

  “You’re saying they moved and changed their identities because of me and Laelia?”

  “They didn’t want to lose you. I promised Rhianne that I would find you, if you existed. All her life, she has missed her parents and wondered about possible siblings. Florian raised Rhianne with every advantage of education and position and wealth, but in other ways he was not good to her. She’s in Mosar now, and far happier than she was here. She will be happier still if she can be reunited with her long-lost family. And Marius, you and your sister belong at the palace. Your mother says you’re not educated. Is that true?”

  “I’m a journeyman apothecary. I work for Appius—”

  “Do you know your letters?”

  “No, but...” He’d never needed them, and never thought he would. Appius couldn’t read either. His cheeks heated as realized how provincial he must seem to this man. When Lucien said educated, he didn’t mean someone who had learned a trade. He meant someone with a formal education, a scholar like they had at the universities. Marius couldn’t even read a street sign.

  “I can fix all that,” said Lucien.

  “You’re asking me to go with you to the Imperial Palace—”

  “I’m not asking,” said Lucien.

  Marius looked into those hard black eyes. His mother’s fears had been justified. The emperor did mean to take him away, and apparently Marius wasn’t going to have a say in the matter. He glanced out the carriage windows. Could he escape? Probably not with all those guards watching. Did he want to escape? He wasn’t sure.

  “I never knew your mother,” said Lucien. “She fled from Nigellus before I was born, and we met for the very first time today. I don’t know why she made the choices she did, but Marius, those choices have greatly limited your opportunities in life. When she separated you from the rest of your family, she denied you the education and the magic that should have been your birthright—”

  “I don’t want them,” said Marius.

  “Are you certain? You’re an apothecary. What led you to choose that calling?”

  He shrugged. “I like to help people.”

  “How effective are your herbs and poultices?”

  Marius bit his lip. For most conditions, not very.

  “What if you augmented the skill you already possess with the magic of a Healer?” continued Lucien. “Think how much more you could do.”

  Marius was silent. He knew Healers could help the people that apothecaries couldn’t. All his life, he’d envied those rare few with healing magic. The emperor had known just where to poke him to make him hurt. And to yearn for more.

  “I’m taking you back with me to Riat,” said Lucien. “But I won’t break up your family. All of you will come: you, your sister, and your parents.”

  He swallowed. “My sister’s...friend...may give you some trouble.”

  “If a situation develops, my guards will handle it,” said Lucien. “Let’s get started, shall we? It’s time this family was reunited. Did you know your sister Rhianne has children? You’re an uncle, and you didn’t even know it.”

  Marius couldn’t respond. He felt as if a dust devil had descended upon Osler, picked up the pieces of his life, and whirled them into the air, scattering them hopelessly.

  Chapter 2

  After Lucien left to fetch Laelia, Marius was permitted to gather his things from his apartment atop the apothecary—under guard. While his parents rummaged through their home, making a more thorough packing job than the rucksacks, Marius returned to the apothecary in the company of two Legaciatti. He would be sorry to leave this place behind. Appius, the old master, wasn’t getting any younger, and Marius was certain the man had meant to retire and leave the business to Marius within the next few years. Now Appius would have to start over with a new apprentice.

  He sorted through his clothes, picking out the nicer items. When was he going to wake up and realize this was all a dream, or perhaps some kind of nightmare? Lucien had asked him to pack lightly; most of his things would be replaced in Riat. The emperor meant to dress him in imperial silks, apparently, but Marius doubted he would ever feel comfortable in fancy clothes. Put a mule in a fancy harness, and it was still a mule. How could a village hayseed like himself ever pass for an imperial? It wasn’t just the clothes he lacked. He didn’t have the right mannerisms, the right education, or even the right accent. The courtiers at the palace would laugh at him.

  In coming here to take them from Osler, was Lucien rescuing his family or destroying them? His mother saw Lucien as a villain, but Marius wasn’t sure anymore. She’d lied to Marius all his life. She’d claimed to be illiterate, but if she’d been raised in the Imperial Palace as the daughter of an emperor, she’d have been educated as such. That meant she could have taught him to read and write if she’d chosen to. How much did she know, how much talent did she possess, that she’d never offered to share with him? Why had she never told him the truth about his family?

  He had, for the most part, been happy in Osler. He liked his job and his family. He would confess he was a bit lonely and anxious about his prospects for marriage. The selection of young women in Osler was limited. He’d courted two young ladies in succession, but hadn’t fallen in love with either of them. After witnessing all his life the deep love his parents felt for each other, he knew he would settle for nothing less in his own marriage, and at twenty-two, he was starting to feel old for a bachelor.

  He’d packed everything he wanted, and the travel chest was only half full. Pathetic. He closed it, and one of the guards stepped forward. “I’ll get that, sir.”

  “Thanks,” said Marius, bemused. Sir.

  He followed the guard out of his apartment, down the steps, and along the dirt road to where the carriage waited.

  His mother’s forbidden love was the cause of all this mess. She had fallen in love with the wrong man—at least, one her father didn’t approve of. But there was no sense being angry with her for leaving the imperial palace. If she had not eloped with his father, Marius himself would never have been born. Neither would Laelia, or apparently Rhianne. Wait a minute, I’m half noble and half commoner. Would he be scorned for that? Perhaps not. Lucien didn’t seem to care, and his sister Rhianne had done well enough, marrying the king of Mosar.

  Maybe the villain of this saga was neither Lucien nor his mother, but long-dead Nigellus, who’d tried to force an unwanted marriage on his daughter. Perhaps a single ill act spilled over from generation to generation, unstoppable, like a waterfall over rocks.

  At the carriage, Marius clasped wrists with the emperor. “Your Imperial Majesty, are you going to break up their marriage?”

  Lucien’s brows rose. “Whose?”

  “My parents’. So my mother can marry a prince or something.”

  “Oh, gods, no.” Lucien laughed. “Has that be
en worrying you? The time for Sabina to make a political marriage is past, and there’s no longer any need. My sister has married into Inya and your sister into Mosar. We’ve alliances enough to last us until the next generation, and I have no quarrel with Anton. He’s been married to my aunt for over three decades, and they seem to still be in love, so why should I cause any more trouble? Obviously she chose the right man.”

  Marius’s shoulders dropped in relief. He was sure his parents were angry about being forced to move to the Imperial Palace, and perhaps a bit frightened as well, but at least they would have each other. “What about me?”

  “I thought you were single.”

  “I am,” said Marius. “But will I be expected to make a political marriage?”

  “Let’s put it this way,” said Lucien. “I would like you to make a marriage that befits your station. But I won’t force you into anything. I want to bring this family back together, not tear it apart.”

  A marriage that befits your station. What did that mean? What station did he possess, as a half-commoner, half-imperial with no education and no magic?

  Never mind. He wouldn’t worry about that now.

  At Lucien’s gesture, he climbed into the carriage. His mother and father were already within, sitting on the backward-facing seat. His mother looked furious and his father terrified. Laelia sat beside them, red-faced and teary-eyed, but there was no Gratian. Apparently her live-in lover had chosen not to come, or perhaps he was not invited. Laelia might be upset about that now, but Marius was secretly relieved. He had never liked Gratian, and his sister had changed a lot when she’d gone to live with him. She’d become quiet and distant, not the young firebrand he’d known all his life. Perhaps now the old Laelia would re-emerge.

  The forward-facing seat was empty. That was presumably where Lucien would sit. Marius could sit with Lucien and make the numbers a little more even, or...

  He sat beside his parents. Awkward as it was, it gave them solidarity. His mother reached over and squeezed his hand.

  Lucien climbed into the carriage, eyed the four of them sitting together for a moment, and sighed as he sat alone on the opposite seat. “Found this,” he said, handing a box to Sabina. “Were you going to leave it behind?”

  Sabina snatched it from him and placed it on her lap.

  Marius had never seen the box before. “What’s in it?”

  Sabina did not answer, but after a moment Lucien did. “It’s her riftstone. She’s a mind mage.”

  “What?” Marius stared at his mother, whom he thought he’d known all these years and clearly hadn’t known at all. Not only was she educated, she was magical. And powerfully so.

  His sister gasped as well. “You mean all this time...?” She did not finish her thought but shook her head and leaned back against the seat.

  “Brace yourselves. We’re going to Riat.” Lucien knocked on the roof, and the carriage lurched into motion.

  Chapter 3

  Isolda repeated the code words in her head as she approached the dock at Cus, the Sardossian port city. They were her mantra, her magic words. Used properly, they could change her life.

  Her legs shook with fatigue and more than a little fear. She’d never been this far from home, and she had no husband with her, no protection of any kind. A weight dragged at her shoulder, and the suddenness of it almost pulled her to the ground. Her four-year-old son, Rory, had collapsed on the wooden planking of the dock. She picked him up and heaved him into her arms.

  “Wan’ go home,” he sobbed into her shirt. The boy was exhausted and out of sorts. If this day had been remotely normal, he’d have been in bed hours ago.

  She said nothing; it was impossible to explain the situation to a child his age. He’d understand when he was older that they had to leave. Someday, she hoped, he would be grateful that she had undertaken this journey from Sardos to Kjall on his behalf. Rory had no future here. Few children did, now that the blood wars had begun. She was not going to see her only son recruited as a child soldier in some Heir-hopeful’s army and end up spitted on a bayonet.

  A man guarded the ship’s gangway, and Isolda did not like the look of him. Dirty and rough, with uncombed hair and sun-darkened skin, he was clearly a stray, nothing at all like the respectable men at home. She hesitated, considering the many possible fates that could await her on the ship and beyond. Some of those imagined fates were worse than minding a shop for a husband who didn’t love her.

  But for Rory’s sake, she stepped forward.

  “Bright moons tonight,” she said to the stray.

  It was a long time before he turned his head. He grunted at her dismissively. “Move along. I’ve no use for land beetles.”

  “I’ve a letter to send to my great-aunt,” she said.

  That was the code phrase, and it was clear he recognized it, since his brows rose a little. His eyes roamed over her body, lingering first on her breasts and hips, then on her face, and then on the exhausted child slumped on her shoulder. “Sorry, but we don’t take mail.”

  “I thought that in this case...” She trailed off, not knowing what to say. The code phrase was supposed to grant her a hiding spot in the hold of the ship. She had not prepared for the possibility of his turning her down. Why would he do that, when she had money?

  “Lady, do you know how many people come here wanting to send letters to their great-aunts, now that the blood wars have started? More’n I can count.”

  “Yes, but...” She was at a loss. This wasn’t supposed to happen.

  “We ain’t got the space. You understand? If this was an exceptional case...” His eyes skimmed her form again. “But it ain’t. You got nothing special, lady.”

  His insult didn’t stab, but left only a dull ache, like scar tissue built up in a wound. At least she understood now what was going on. He thought she was buying passage to Kjall with the use of her body. No wonder he’d said no; her body wasn’t worth a tin slug. Even her husband didn’t want it. “You misunderstand. I can pay.”

  “Not interested,” said the sailor.

  She reached into her shirt and pulled out the pouch that contained everything she owned in the world. She withdrew several heavy coins and dropped them into the sailor’s hand. “Payment. And that’s all I’m paying. You understand?”

  He gaped at the coins. “Where’d you get these?”

  “I earned them.”

  His brow furrowed with suspicion. She understood why. Sardossian women didn’t normally have money. In a legal sense, Isolda had stolen the money from her husband, but she didn’t feel guilty about her crime. The money was hers, ethically if not legally. She had earned it.

  The stray looked her over again, mystified. Then he closed his hand, shrugged, and stepped aside. Coin was coin.

  “The captain will show you where to put your letter,” he said.

  Isolda heaved a slipping Rory back onto her shoulder and walked up the gangplank. She was still frightened, but on the inside she was also singing. She was on her way to a new country and a new life. If all went well, she and Rory would soon be far from home, in the Kjallan city of Riat.

  ∞

  “Good news, Isolda,” her mother had said, stepping into her tiny bedroom. “A man has offered for you.”

  Isolda gasped. She’d known something big had been in the offing when she’d been sent to her room without even a glimpse of the visiting stranger. But she had not expected this. As the youngest of three sisters, and the least pretty, she had believed she would never marry. Her older siblings had told her no man would pay a bride price for an ugly girl. Now they had flown the nest and started families of their own. Isolda had come to accept that she would not be a wife. Instead, she would be her father’s assistant in the apothecary and her mother’s assistant in the kitchen. Not a bad life, but it saddened her to think that she would never know love, never have a child to call her own.

  Now it appeared that her sisters had been wrong, after all! Excitement rose in her, mixed with fe
ar. Would she like the man who had offered for her? What sort of man offered for an ugly girl? She swallowed. Her parents had probably lowered the bride price. She understood how these things worked; it was supply and demand. Her husband-to-be would be a poor man, but that didn’t mean he was a bad person or in any way unlovable.

  Isolda’s mother sat on the bed next to her and took her hand. “I want you to understand something. Jauld isn’t like your sisters’ husbands. He’s humble.”

  Isolda nodded. “I understand.”

  “You can’t expect too much.”

  “I don’t.” Isolda’s cheeks heated as she said it. She knew better than to expect much, but that didn’t stop her from dreaming, in the privacy of her bedroom, of a husband who was kind, loving, handsome, and if not rich, at least self-sufficient. “What does he do?”

  “He’s a shopkeeper. He owns a general store.”

  That sounded acceptable. She could see herself helping out in a store, thinking about supply and demand, figuring out how to eke a little bit more profit from their modest stock. She would miss her father’s apothecary. But if Jauld were a good man and kind, she could imagine herself in the role of shopkeeper’s wife.

  “Are you ready to meet him?”

  Was a woman ever ready to meet the man she’d been sold to in marriage? “Yes.”

  Isolda’s mother squeezed her hand. “Let’s go show you off.”

  Isolda walked behind her mother, wanting to hide herself from view. She hadn’t asked how Jauld had learned about her. Had he seen her before? Was he aware she wasn’t pretty? Maybe he would change his mind when he saw her.

  And then they were in the sitting room, and her mother was shoving her front and center, and the stranger—Jauld—was beaming at her. It seemed he did like her, after all.