Cursor's Fury (Codex Alera #3)(89)

Bernard's ring, on its chain around her neck, felt heavy. She could hardly be the first to cast that particular stone. After all, hadn't she put her own desires ahead of her duties?

Bernard settled down next to her and exhaled slowly. "You look exhausted," he said quietly. "You need to sleep."

"Soon," she answered. Her hand found his.

"What do you think?" he asked her. "About all this." "It's bad," she said quietly. "It's very bad."

Gaius's voice rolled through the little garden, rich and amused. "Or perhaps it only seems so on the surface, Countess."

Amara blinked, rising abruptly, and turned to find Gaius standing behind them in the flesh, emerging from a windcrafted veil so fine and delicate that she had never had an inkling that it had been present. "Sire?" she said. "You were here all along? But Kalarus..."

The First Lord arched an eyebrow. "Kalarus Brencis's ego is enormous-and an enormous weakness. The larger it grows, the more of his view it will obstruct, and I have no objections to feeding it." Then he smiled. "And my old friend Cereus needed someone to remind him of what he is capable. It was generous of Kalarus to volunteer."

Amara shook her head. She should have known better. Gaius Sextus had not retained his rule in the face of dangerous, ruthless men like Kalarus by being weak or predictable. "My lord, you heard what Lords Atticus and Placidus said."

"I did indeed," Gaius said.

Amara nodded. "Without their forces to help hold Ceres, Kalarus's gambit may well succeed."

"I give him five chances in six," Gaius agreed.

"Sire," Amara said, "this is... this..." Her outrage strangled her voice for a moment, and she pressed her lips firmly together before she said something that, in the eyes of the law, could not be retracted.

"It's all right, Cursor," Gaius said. "Speak your mind freely. I will not hold anything you say as a formal accusation."

"It's treason, sir," Amara spat. "They have an obligation to come to the defense of the Realm. They owe you their loyalty, and they are turning their backs on you."

"Do I not owe them loyalty in return?" Gaius asked. "Protection against threats too powerful for them to face? And yet harm has come to them and theirs."

"Through no fault of your own!" Amara said.

"Untrue," Gaius said. "I miscalculated Kalarus's response, his resources, and we both know it."

Amara folded her arms over her stomach and looked away from Gaius. "All I know," she said, "is that they have abandoned their duty. Their loyalty to the Realm."

"Treason, you say," Gaius murmured. "Loyalty. Strong words. In today's uncertain clime, those terms are somewhat mutable." He raised his voice slightly and glanced at the far corner of the little garden. "Wouldn't you agree, Invidia?"

A second veil, every bit as delicate and undetectable as Gaius's had been, vanished, replaced by the tall, regal figure of Lady Aquitaine. Though her eyes looked a bit sunken, she showed no other signs of the trauma the city's sudden surge of panic had inflicted upon its more powerful watercrafters. Her expression was cool, her pale face lovely and flawless, her dark hair held back into a wave that fell over one white shoulder to spill over her gown of crimson silk. A circlet of finely wrought silver in the design of laurel leaves, the badge of a recipient of the Imperian Laurel for Valor, stood out starkly, against her tresses, the ornament emphasized by its contrast against her hair.