Now Nico, too, faced the Kraljica, and he bent low at the waist toward her, giving her the sign of Cenzi as best he could with manacled hands. “Kraljica,” he said. “Councillors.” He seemed to be scanning the crowd. Varina wondered if he were looking for the Archigos. “And especially, teni. I’ve come to plead for your forgiveness, and your understanding.”
His voice was a husk, containing but a memory of the power Varina remembered. He sounded weak and exhausted. But he lifted his head, and he looked out at each of them, his eyes finding all of them in turn. Varina felt the shock of connection when his gaze came to her. He smiled again then, nodding ever so slightly to her, and she could not stop herself from giving him a smile in return. Then his gaze drifted on, and Varina thought that he stared for a long time past the teni into the citizenry, and she halfturned to see who had caught his eye. But he finally cleared his throat and began to speak again.
“I acted in the belief that I was doing what Cenzi required of me,” he said, more loudly. “Nothing more. I say that not to excuse my actions, but so you understand that there was no malice in them, only faith. A terribly mistaken faith.” His voice ignited with the last few words. They shivered, they pulsed, they rang from the ramparts of the buildings around the plaza with impossible clarity. Varina found herself looking around to see if some teni were chanting, adding the power of the Ilmodo to his words, but she could see no movement among the green-robed ranks, and she realized that it must be from Nico himself. She wondered if Sergei realized that Nico was able to use the Ilmodo even with his hands chained, as no teni should be able to do. Even Allesandra’s head moved back as if trying to escape the sound, and now Sergei glanced over at Nico, his head cocked as if he were puzzled.
“I thought I was Cenzi’s Voice,” Nico continued. “I thought I was the Absolute. But I was not. It was actually my own voice I heard, my own hatred and prejudices. I apologize to all of those who listened to me then, and I tell you this: I was, all unwittingly, a false prophet and you would have been better not to have listened to me. I might still have the love of the most important person in my life had I not been so foolish.” Varina heard his voice choke at that, and she thought of Serafina-she’d left the baby asleep at the Numetodo House, with the wet nurse Belle watching over her.
“I apologize to you,” Nico continued, “and I am profoundly sorry for what I’ve done. Your sins are on my head, and when Cenzi calls me I will need to answer for them. I release you. I tell you now: follow your Archigos. Follow your Kraljica and your Hirzg.”
“There,” Allesandra whispered to Varina. “That is what we’ve come for. We have you to thank for this, Varina…” She seemed almost ready to rise and respond, but Nico had taken a breath, and now his voice was ice and fire at once.
“I believed,” Nico said. “I still believe. I have prayed now for days for His direction. What I’ve come to realize is that the gift Cenzi has given me is not constrained by laws and restrictions that the Faith placed on me. Cenzi’s revelation to me in the wake of my folly was both enlightening and freeing.” He raised his bound hands as if offering them to the sky. “I had allowed the Archigos and those within the Faith to chain and bind my gift in their human fetters, when, in fact, Cenzi places no such limitation on them. That’s what the Numetodo have known all along, to their credit-” and there Nico’s gaze found Varina again, and he smiled broadly toward her. “That’s what I finally realized myself, and what I demonstrate to you now.”
Varina stood. “Nico, no…” she began, her voice a pale shadow of his own, but it was already too late.
Nico’s hands were still raised, and now he gestured once with both of them together, and he shouted a single word-a word in the language of the Ilmodo, of the Scath Cumhacht, of the X’in Ka. A darkness, a fragment of a starless and moonless night, seemed to wrap around him, hiding him. Sergei gave a shout and reached toward Nico, only to draw his hand back with a cry when he touched the darkness. The gardai did the same, but when they reached the darkness, the false night in which Nico had wrapped himself suddenly vanished.
And where Nico had been, they found only the chains in which he’d been fettered, lying on the wooden planks of the dais. Nico himself had vanished.
Varina blinked. “Well,” she said, “it seems he listened to me more than I thought.”
Rochelle Botelli
Rochelle watched Nico, weighed down in chains as he was helped up to the dais, with Old Silvernose standing right alongside him. She felt helpless, the emotion even more acute now than when she’d glimpsed him in the tower of the Bastida from the Avi a’Parete. Then, she’d had no hope that she could help him. Now, he was so close: without the horrid black stones of the Bastida holding him; without the unknown corridors between them; with only the teni and some gardai separating them.
Yet she still couldn’t help him. They would catch her and drag her down before she reached him even though several of them would be dead as a result. But she would fail. Must fail. That was another thing Matarh had taught her, even in her madness. “Make certain the odds are well in your favor before you move. Sometimes, you must just accept that you can’t win and not even try.”
To be so achingly close to him, to see her brother again and not be able to help him…
It hurt. It wounded her as surely as a sword’s edge. Yet there was something she might accomplish today, if she had the chance. The Kraljica was here, her great-matarh, and though Allesandra was as well guarded as her brother, perhaps there might be a moment, a chance. Rochelle’s hand went to the dagger under her clothing, the dagger she’d stolen from her vatarh. The vow she’d made to her matarh burned in her mind.
If she couldn’t save a life, perhaps she could take one just as important.
On the dais, Nico bowed to the ca’-and-cu’ on their own raised platform. “Kraljica, Councillors. And especially, teni. I’ve come to plead for your forgiveness, and your understanding.” His voice sounded tired, and he was looking around. His gaze flitted over each of them, and Rochelle stood on her toes, trying to see better over the people around her. Then it happened. Nico’s eyes found hers. She could feel the connection and acknowledgment. Nico was staring right at her, and his lips curled in the faintest of smiles, as if he knew her. He nodded toward her, as if telling her that he knew why she was there and to be patient. She wanted to wave toward him, to shout out his name, but then his gaze moved back to the dignitaries on their stand, and his voice had gained volume and power. She half-listened to him as she tried to push through the crowd closer to the stand. Nico’s voice continued to swell and pulse; it was like the beating of summer sunlight on her. She caught words here and there:
“I thought I was Cenzi’s Voice… I am profoundly sorry for what I’ve done… I believed. I still believe…” Above the crowd, she saw Nico lifting his hands and the gesture caught her. She stopped, wondering.
“I had allowed the Archigos and those within the Faith to chain and bind my gift in their human fetters, when, in fact, Cenzi places no such limitation on them. That’s what the Numetodo have known all along, to their credit. That’s what I finally realized myself, and what I demonstrate to you now.”
Nico?
She never saw clearly what happened next. It was as if Nico had wrapped himself completely in a black cloak. She heard people shouting and gesturing, saw Old Silvernose withdraw his hand from the darkness with a curse, then…
Nico was gone, and people all around the plaza were shouting wordlessly. The gardai were buzzing like a hive of bees whose nest had just been struck. Rochelle had moved to the rear edge of the Kraljica’s dais, just behind the ring of gardai. They jumped up onto the stage now, closing around the Kraljica with their swords drawn, and Rochelle drew back. There was no hope of getting to Allesandra now. None. Again, this was one of the times when she must allow herself to fail.