The Mask of Mirrors by M. Carrick; (different e readers txt) 📕

their holy city, the site of Ažerais’s wellspring, banishing the Vraszenians and forbidding them her blessing for nearly forty years. When he died, the clans drove his forces from most of Vraszan, but failed to retake the city. After eleven years of war, they finally settled for a truce: the right to visit the wellspring and hold their conclave around the Great Dream every seven years, in exchange for leaving the city in foreign-born hands.

She wasn’t surprised to see the Charterhouse pageant tell a different story. This version showed no particular interest in Vraszenian traditions; instead it focused on the Tyrant himself, how he could have conquered not just Vraszan but half the world had he not become lost in the indulgence of his own desires. The actor playing Kaius—an Extaquium cousin she vaguely recognized—didn’t hold back in depicting the Tyrant’s cruelty, his greed, his gluttony and lust. Legend said he could not be killed. Many people tried—with blades, with arrows, with poisons, with black powder—but he seemed to lead a charmed life, always evading even the most well-laid attempts. Only when word leaked out from his palace that he’d caught a simple flu did the courtesans of Nadežra realize he had a vulnerability: disease.

According to the stories, one of the three courtesans to bring the Tyrant down had been a Vraszenian man, and all the clans claimed that man as their own. This year, somebody in the Charterhouse must have wanted to curry favor with the Varadi, because that courtesan was depicted in blue and spiderweb embroidery. Ren wondered if Vargo had caught wind of the pageant preparations before choosing his own costume.

All three were executed for their treachery, of course. The Tyrant went on a rampage when he realized he was ill. But nothing could cure him—not imbued medicine, not numinatria, not prayers and sacrifices to the gods—and so he rotted away, the victim of his own excesses.

When everyone lay silent on the floor, the female courtesan rose. Their names were all lost to history, assuming any such trio had ever existed; by tradition, she was simply referred to as Nadežra. In a simple, clear voice, she described the war that followed, and the peace struck between the first Cinquerat and the clan leaders of the time. “And so, in honor of that accord,” she said, “we gather on this night of miracles, at the hour when the bells tolled with no hand to ring them, and we share a cup as we once shared sorrows.”

Along the tiers of benches, servants were passing with trays of goblets, distributing one per two people. At the head of the room, the members of the Cinquerat descended from their seats, each one pairing with a Vraszenian counterpart. Mettore, she saw, stood as far as courtesy allowed from the Kiralič. His expression of restrained distaste mirrored the one worn by the Meszarič, paired with the courtesan playing Nadežra—a tradition born of necessity, in order to match five Cinquerat seats with six clan leaders. Only Scaperto Quientis seemed to be enjoying himself, chuckling at something the Dvornic murmured into his ear.

Leato took the glass the servant passed to him and held it up so Renata could fold her fingers around his.

“To Nadežra, and to the peace that benefits us all,” the actress said, and drained half her glass. The Meszaros clan leader finished it.

“To Nadežra,” every voice in the hall echoed. Leato tugged the glass toward him, careful to drink only half.

Then it was Renata’s turn. A rainbow shimmered across the surface and along the inner sides of the glass. Aža was supposed to be sacred; in the years when Ažerais’s wellspring didn’t flow, people customarily added a bit of the drug to their wine to simulate the water’s effects, a little dream in echo of the great one. Ren had been a child when she first tasted it, and she’d giggled through the rest of the night, batting at things that weren’t there. It wasn’t meant for mockeries like this masquerade of peace.

“Cousin?” Leato whispered. “You have to drink.”

Everyone else had done so. He wouldn’t poison us, Ren thought wildly. It’s too public. He didn’t even know we would be here tonight.

She tipped the cup to her lips and drank.

The wine slid across her tongue and down her throat, like an oil slick instead of shimmering light. Leato grimaced in sympathy. “I think it’s gone off.”

It wasn’t off. It was wrong. It burned in her throat, seared through her until her necklace and mask and gown burned her skin. The light around her fractured into sickly rainbows, forming a web of threads connecting her to Leato, to Mettore, threads everywhere she looked. She heard murmurs from the crowd, people turning to one another with worried expressions, and she tried to speak, to warn them that they should run.

But it was too late. The world was unraveling around her, the warp and weft sliding apart, and she fell through the gaps between.

12

Drowning Breath

The Charterhouse was empty.

No Leato. No Cinquerat. No clan leaders with their wagon.

Ren was alone.

“What the…”

Her whisper echoed through the silence, and a shiver ran down her back. When she shifted her foot, even the brief scuff of her shoe resounded. The audience chamber was impressively large when filled with people; when it held only one, it was cavernous. The weight of the empty air beat down on Ren, making her pulse speed up, her mouth turn dry, even though there was nothing to fear. She was tiny. Insignificant. A fleeting spark that would soon be snuffed out.

She was moving before she knew it, down the risers, the echoes of her footsteps building and multiplying and chasing her toward the door, back toward the light and the life of the plaza—

“Stir the pot,” Ivrina said, “then come sit with me.”

Ren blinked. I… know this house.

The stove with its pot, the small table, the knotted curtain that separated the kitchen from