With the correct procedure, elementary runes can be stimulated by anyone – theurgist or unblooded. Elementary runes feed on the power contained within itself, and thus will eventually drain and must be replaced once its fuel expires.

—Of Runes and its Crafte, by Remminsk

22

↝ THE UNDELIVERED LETTER ↜ 

She may have been a rank lower than Isla, but Rajini Dhvani was no soft target. Even the distractions of court did not lower her shields, no matter how patiently Isla waited, searching for a lapse in the rajini's defences.

Isla had spent the last days considering the offers made towards her, and considering every other option she had. This, she had determined, was her best course of action. She could not face Rajini Chei alone. Sir Edric and Aldir were out of the question – they had made it as clear. She was running out of time, with her second blooding coming upon the turn of week. Whatever the reason, the rajini was waiting upon that final result.

Who knows what she would do next ... and how soon.

Isla needed an ally. One who would have just as much motive as herself.

'Supplicant eight.' A herald called. 'Come you forward.'

The queens consort held their hearings in the Hall of Matrons, and today was Rajini Dhvani's Day of Audience.

Unlike the Maha Rama's audience chamber, theirs was warm and subtle. Walls swathed in threadwork; four thrones hidden behind sheer nets. The other three were empty, but Isla could make Rajini Dhvani's face through the hanging webs.

Supplicants knelt upon cushions on the carpeted floor, each awaiting his turn. Theirs were what the Maha Rama considered lesser grievances – domestic disputes, petty thefts – but to her credit, Rajini Dhvani listened intently to every account no matter how trivial.

The current petitioner, bent in the middle of the hall, started weeping over a tale of her adulterous husband, the children she now has no means of feeding, and the other woman for whom he had left them.

Isla barely listened to the story. Her mind was busy skimming over the room. The guards standing astride the throne were well-protected. Arya, as always, stood behind the rajini, cloaked in a shield even more impenetrable. Isla had infiltrated him once, she was sure she could do so again, given more time. But she could not use time and subtlety for this task. She required a coercion far more intrusive.

Isla looked up from her place amongst the supplicants and searched their faces for a suitable distraction.

'I shall have writ for you a decree.' Rajini Dhvani's verdict rung from the dais. 'Upon every turn of the month is he to present unto you one third of his earnings. As for his betrayal; that I cannot command otherwise, nor have undone.'

Isla found the largest man in the room and shot inside. No delicacy, no gentle manipulation; she tore through his unprotected mind, begging a silent apology as she forced him to his feet.

The crowd around him immediately shied away like petals coming to full bloom. It was uncourtly to rise out of turn during audience. The man looked puzzled, but Isla wiped his face into a blank mask and sent him rushing forwards, trampling through the crowd at his feet.

The guards by the dais lifted their pikes in unison. Arya stepped in front of his mistress, a short sword in each hand. But the man only needed to reach the crying supplicant, not the rajini. He grabbed the woman by the arm and twisted her up.

Whispers now turned to screams. Some crawled away towards the exits; still loath to break convention despite the urgency.

'Bind him.' The rajini had not even stirred in her seat. Isla tested her shield – a pulsing thing that pushed her away before she could wander too close.

The woman was evidently well-trained in arts of defence. Danger only made her further enforce her shields. Isla quarrelled hard with herself, but in the end, necessity won over.

She dug deeper into the man. He grabbed the jilted wife – now howling in fear – and held her tight against him. Isla pried his mouth open and he said, 'Let me take her, rajini.'

'You dare disrupt my audience and make demands upon your rajini?'

'She dares speak ill of her husband, who has fed her, housed her, kept her for years. Let me take her home, where she belongs.'

'Please, Your Honourable Consort,' the woman stammered. 'I don't know this man –'

He pushed her to the floor. More screams broke, and this time, the crowd scattered with the frenzy of unsettled gulls.

Guards came streaming from the exits and surrounded him. One lunged forwards, but the man ducked and hurtled him to the ground with such force to send them skidding across the chamber. Another soldier collided into them, his own pike catching the sheer nets as he fell.

The veil ripped, cascading along the thrones and catching the rajini between its sheets. Arya was swift to untangle her, but it was enough for her shield to waver. A momentary lapse, lasting not even a second; but Isla did not miss it. She took the window and breezed through.

It was a dark mind. A forest, filled with hidden traps. Isla swept over it like a flood, conscious of the ever-watching presence surrounding her. A spotlight, searching for escaped prisoners.

The place was rife with blights of fear and suspicion. Isla found the rot she was looking for and fed into it; into the hatred, into the grief. She buried deep into the roots and stoked their thirst for vengeance.

It was done.

Isla slipped out, both from the rajini's mind as well as from her audience chamber. She stopped at the exit to look at the man, now hard against the floor with blades pointed against his neck. 'I don't know what came over me ...' His face was all fear and confusion. His body trembled the way a man his size should never need to tremble. 'Please ...'

Isla's eyes heated with her own shame, but she blinked them away.

No use for regrets. Not when she would have done it again.

The hallway was full of curious onlookers, but Isla pushed through them without a care. She had set her plan in motion – now there was only one other thing she needed to take care of.

    
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She found him in the palace gardens, waiting under the row of cherry trees stretching from one end of the palace to the other. Pink and white drifted from above, carried by gentle winds. Isla had seen him there, several times before, looking more forlorn than even the jilted wife.

'You didn't hear?' Isla asked from behind. He jumped off the bench, his shield failing with his alarm. That was all it took.

'W-with whom do I have the honour?'

'My name is Lilja, my good lord. I'm here to talk to you about Phrae.' And to plant her name in your mind. She coaxed her image out of him.

'I ... have I offended her in some way?'

'Why would you think such a thing, my lord?'

'We were meant to meet here, many days ago. She never showed.'

'But you waited.' He's more keen than I thought.

'Well, I ... I haven't been sitting here for three days, if that's what you think.'

'Of course not. I'm sure my lord has far more important things to do. But you are still in Kathedra.'

'It's a lovely place to be.' He shrugged, looking around as though to demonstrate his point.

But the day had taken a grey turn. Maidens around them strolled by in long syarong and oil-paper parasols. Some gathered fallen blossoms into wicker baskets, others merely stopped to appreciate the spring colours.

'And Phrae's a lovely girl to wait for.' Isla smiled.

The young lord's face turned as pink as the cherry trees. 'Has she changed her mind? Is that what she's sent you here to tell?'

Isla latched on to his anxiety, whispered into him further threats of rejection, and watched him squirm. 'My lord, between the two of us, she's sent me to spy upon you.'

'I beg your pardon?'

'She wonders why, in all the epps, have you not come to visit her. She believes you have found another dhayang.'

'Visit her?'

'She's suffered an accident, my lord. She's been at the infirmary these past days.'

'An accident? I was not aware of this! I hope nothing too alarming?' Already a hint of concern was budding within him. Isla only added logs to its fire.

'Her bed caught aflame, and she in it.'

The young lord gasped, a hand reaching up to touch his face. 'Did it – is it bad?'

'Her face is undamaged, my lord, but she did suffer burns to her arm. Nothing that cannot be improved in time, the therapeuts say.' She dug a little deeper and reminded him of Phrae's beauty. 'It's the risk, I'm afraid, of a young lady with theurgy so strong.'

'Yes ... she is fiery ...'

'Already her ward is filled with gifts. Seems a lot of your noble kin are intrigued by a dhayang powerful enough to conjure fully-fledged flame in her sleep.'

'I'm sure her power isn't the only thing to pique their interest.'

Isla honed in on that thread of jealousy. 'Still, she can speak of nothing but you, my lord. To be quite frank, it's grown quite tiring, I finally gave in and promised to see how you were getting along without her.'

'Admittedly, it hasn't been fun.'

'I've never seen her so ... besotted ... in all our time together.'

He hid his face, but Isla caught a glimpse of his smile. 'I ... I'm glad to hear. She's a charming young lady.'

'And she needs a good man to care for her.' She felt sick simply saying the words, but Isla kept her face as earnest as she could. Every man had a pitiful longing for heroicisim; she found the young lord's and amplified it. 'She needs someone strong and well-trained to keep her theurgy in check. This place is unfit for her. If she stays much longer, I fear she'll only hurt herself, and the other girls, besides.' And we can't have poor, innocent girls suffering, can we?

'No ... no, we can't have that,' the young lord muttered.

'It wouldn't be an easy thing, with her theurgy being so strong and dangerous.' Men like danger, do they not? 'I wouldn't fault you if you thought better of it. There are plenty other men willing to take the challenge. Older, granted. But perhaps more experienced in these matters –'

'Nonsense.' The young lord frowned. 'She is at the infirmary still?'

'And will be, for several days yet.'

'Well, then I should see how she is faring. Thank you, miss. If you'll excuse me.' He nodded at her and left. His mind slowly faded as he disappeared down the walkway.

Isla sighed and fell back upon the bench. An owl hooted above her, and she glared at Huu through the boughs. 'Oh, spare me your judgement.'

She had done it for Tran.

She deserved better than a man who was so easily swayed by a pretty face. She could be so much more than a night companion, living the rest of her life at the beck and call of a noble bastard.

Huu took off, shedding petals in his wake; leaving Isla in her own miserable company.

Who was she fooling? Perhaps Tran would have been content with such a future. Phrae certainly would be. In the end, that was all she had done it for. She needed Phrae gone. This was the only way.

She was disgusted with herself, all the same.

             
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