David Niemitz
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Guild Mage 256
🕑 Added 2025-09-11 14:26:01 +0000 UTCI think maybe one Liv and one Wren to take us over into Varuna, and then we begin the assault on Ractia's forces - at least the preliminary movements.
Chapter 256: Maneuvering
Liv tried to tell herself that Ilmari ka Väinis was simply angry - not necessarily at her, but at what had happened to his son. Still, it was difficult - when they’d visited Mountain Home, she’d felt like the elder had treated them well. He’d been friendly - or, at the very least, sympathetic.
What made it even worse was that he wasn’t saying anything Liv hadn’t thought herself. If she’d stayed for long enough to help Keri face the dowager, the two of them working together might have been able to finish the old woman off without anyone getting hurt. Julianne had died anyway - would it really have changed anything to have stood beside Keri, instead of leaving him to fight alone?
Of course, he didn’t have the magic or the Authority training to help her against Genevieve Arundell. Keri wouldn’t even have been able to follow them up into the sky where most of the battle took place. But with the dowager dead, and Arundell pulled away from the armies, Liv couldn’t think of much left that would have been able to put him in danger.
She sighed, put her arms on a stone merlon, and leaned out to look down. The council meeting had gone on most of the day, but the darkness of winter had given way to spring, and the sun was only just touching the western mountains now, painting the slopes and the valley in shades of orange, pink, and golden angled light. It was most obvious on the white trunks of the aspen trees, which clumped together in groves.
“You know that Keri saved my life when I was only thirty?” Liv asked. “That’s probably about sixty in Elden terms. It was when he went to Freeport to speak to the great council. He gave me an enchanted necklace meant to send up a flare of light when I was hurt. And sure enough, I ran after an assassin, like an idiot, and got ambushed in an alley. If he - and my father, and Ambassador Sakari - hadn’t come for me, I would have died right there.”
Liv closed her eyes, seeing it all again. “I had nothing left but a blade of ice in my hand,” she told the old man. “There were men standing around me with hammers raised, and others with crossbows, up on the roofs. I really did think I was about to die. And then this spear, burning with light, hits the ground right in front of me, and lights up brighter than the sun. The men are screaming, covering their eyes, and it gives me the time I need to roll out of the way.”
“He saved my life,” Liv admitted, opening her eyes and turning to face Ilmari. “Like the hero in a child’s bedtime story. I don’t think I’ll ever forget that moment.”
Ilmari looked away from her, his jaw clenched.
“He fought beside me in the Tomb of Celris,” Liv continued, her voice rising as she went on. “He fought with my father in Varuna, and with House Keria when the Garden of Thorns erupted. He chased crown raiders through the mountains, and by the time I got to the wall at the pass he’d already been there to stand against the first assault. When we were fighting the dowager together, my adopted father was killed by an assassin’s crossbow, and then Archmagia Arundell attacked Julianne. Keri saw it, the same as I did, and he turned to me and said, ‘go.”
“So let me ask you,” Liv said, stepping right up into the older man’s space. “I trusted your son to make his own decision. I trusted him to beat the dowager - and he did. Should I not have trusted him? After all the battles he’s survived, was he not worthy of my faith? Because I keep asking myself the same thing, and I can only come back to the same answer. I trusted him then, and I do now. I’ve trusted him since that day he saved my life, I think.”
Though Ilmari was turned away from her, Liv could still see him raise his hands to wipe tears away from his eyes.
“I understand you’re angry,” Liv said. “I am too. But more than being angry, I’m frightened for him. I want to say that he’s going to be fine, but the truth is I just don’t know. Arjun saved his life, and I took him up to the ring, to let the Vædic magic heal him. It was the best I could think to do, but I don’t know if it will be enough.”
She took a deep breath, reached toward Ilmari, and wrapped her arms around him. “I’m frightened too,” Liv repeated.
For a long moment, Keri’s father was stiff against her, and then with a sudden shudder, he began to cry.
☙
“Wake up,” Liv told Keri, shaking his shoulder with one hand. They’d dragged a second chair over to his bed, so that Ilmari could sit on one side and Liv on the other. She had a tray of food for him - chiefly a hunter’s stew, like the ones Emma’s father had used to make, from venison hunted around the rift, and mushrooms and herbs gathered in the same places.
Keri groaned, and struggled to sit up. His father reached over to help him, and between the two of them, they got enough pillows at his back that he could lean back.
“I didn’t mean to fall asleep,” Keri murmured.
“You needed your rest,” Liv said. “And now you need something to eat.” She dipped a spoon into the stew, lifted it up with a generous helping, and extended it toward him.
“I can do it myself,” Keri snapped. She tried not to blame him for being irritable, and simply turned the spoon around, carefully passing it off to him. Liv waited to be certain Keri had a grip on it before letting go. She was still a bit worried that he was overestimating himself, but using his right hand seemed to do the trick.
“You know that your father’s going to be going to Varuna soon,” Liv began. “And that I will too, once I’ve got things settled in Whitehill so that I don’t have to worry about them.”
“I know,” Keri said. “And I’m to be left behind.” He scowled, the spoon and stew forgotten for a moment. “I can still fight, you know. Baron Henry cast from one of these chairs.” He jerked his head toward the wheeled chair waiting at his bedside.
“You can,” Liv said, rather than contradict him. “I know you can. You don’t need to be running around to throw a flare of light at our enemies and burn them.”
Keri regarded her suspiciously; he’d clearly expected a different response. “I can’t use my spear, though,” he admitted. “And my second word will be useless now.” He gave a great huff of frustration, and shook his head.
“You finally imprinted a second word?” Ilmari asked, his bushy white eyebrows raised in surprise. “Which one? Cer goes well with Savel...”
“Bheuv,” Keri answered. “To see. I learned it from Liv’s sister-in-law, Lady Beatrice. It’s wonderful for spearwork - you can see the slightest change in your opponent’s balance. It makes blocking their strikes as easy as fighting a child who’s never lifted a blade before.”
“Not a word that is common among our people,” Ilmari admitted. “There are some interesting possibilities there.”
“That’s actually part of what I wanted to talk to you about,” Liv said, seizing the change to steer the conversation. “I’m not sure that ‘to see’ is an entirely accurate translation. Pandit Sharma can use it to tell when someone is lying. Something about perceiving the truth of a thing might be closer to the original meaning.”
Keri narrowed his eyes, and Liv imagined that he was feeling at the word, where it lurked in the back of his mind, getting a sense of it. “Perhaps,” he admitted. “That would help to explain how the word of power is so adept at telling a feint from a true attack...”
“Which is why I want you to learn how to do that from him,” Liv said. “I think it will come in very useful for my regent, while I’m gone.”
“For Sidonie? I can see how it would,” Keri agreed. “You want me to stay here and advise her?”
Liv shook her head. “It’s all Sidonie can do to handle things for a day or two. She really isn’t suited to organizing people. Set her loose in a library, or in Vædic ruins, and she’ll come out with three secrets you’d never suspect and a new spell. But I’d be doing her a disservice leaving her to handle politics. No, I need you to be regent, until I get back.”
Keri dropped his spoon into his lap, leaving a smear of stew across his blanket. “I’m not human,” he pointed out. “The barons and knights are expecting someone like Matthew or Triss -”
“I’m not counting on either of them for anything until Triss has given birth,” Liv said. “And I need someone I can trust. Can you think of anyone I could trust more than you, Keri? Can you think of anyone that you would trust more than yourself?”
After a moment of silence, he leaned forward. “I feel like I’m being maneuvered.”
“I suppose that if it had been Julianne doing it, you wouldn’t have noticed,” Liv admitted. “My apologies for not being her equal. But it doesn’t make anything I’ve said less true. The alliance isn’t simply a human thing, Keri. Everyone who fought at the pass knows exactly what sort of man you are. I don’t think any of them will give you anything but respect.”
“It can’t be Wren or Ghveris,” she continued. “That’s a bridge too far, as they say. Half the Eld still call Wren ‘turncloak,’ and most people aren’t sure what to think about an Antrian. Arjun’s from neither Whitehill, nor the Eld. He’s a healer, and he’s more useful to me on the front lines. Master Grenfell and Lia Every have all they can do to rebuild the guild and teach new students. The elders are going to Varuna. Give me a better name,” she offered, “and you can come with me.”
“Kaija,” he said.
Liv laughed. “She’s assembling my personal guard. Insists that I need one, now. And she’ll be leading whoever she rounds up to Varuna with me. You’d have to hit her over the head and tie her up to keep her here.”
“Miina.”
“My cousin, who I’ve known for less than a month?” Liv asked. “Don’t get me wrong, I like her. But she didn’t go to the bottom of the Tomb of Celris with me, Keri. Name me one other person I can leave behind with absolute faith that they will do their best to hold everything together for me.”
“If you set such neat traps with a blade, you wouldn’t need so many spells,” Keri grumbled.
“Stay here. Learn from Vivek Sharma. Handle anything that comes up. And take time to recover,” Liv insisted. She reached out and took his hand in hers. “Please.”
Finally, Keri nodded.
“Good,” Liv said. “I’ll let you have some time with your father before he has to leave for Varuna.” She stood up, then paused. “Perhaps Rei could come visit? I’m certain he’d like to see his father again.”
Keri shook his head. “Now I know how your enemies feel when you beat them.”
☙
The next morning, Liv, her father, and her grandmother ate atop the ramparts. At her request, three chairs and a small table had been carried up the stairs and placed between two of the siege engines, where there was enough space to fit everything.
It was cool, but not cold, and dew wet the stone beneath their boots. A pot of tea with a candle under it, along with steaming plates of quail eggs, bacon, and potatoes was enough to keep them warm - not that descendents of Celris had much to fear from the cold. There was a fresh loaf of bread with a jar of apple preserves for spreading, as well, and nearly every ingredient practically burst with mana on Liv’s tongue.
“No seal blood,” she observed. “My apologies for that, Granny.”
Eila snorted, and took a sip of her tea. “Somehow I doubt you’re mourning the absence,” she muttered.
“I never refused to drink it,” she pointed out.
“No, you just made a face like we’d put a plate of manure in front of you,” her father said, with a laugh and a grin. “It will be good to actually be in one place for a while. How long before you join us in Varuna?”
“A few days,” Liv said, after thinking it over. “Keri’s agreed to be regent in my absence, and I’ll make sure he has a good set of advisors to help him. Pandit Sharma can let him know if someone is lying, and has a remarkable talent for giving good advice. Sidonie has the genealogies of the Lucanian houses, their words of power, and most of their political histories memorized. Master Grenfell and Mistress Every can support him with the rebuilt guild. I’ll make certain he has the ability to draw funds from the bankers guild, and Mistress Trafford can help with his recovery. Between them all, there shouldn’t be anything short of a full-scale invasion they can’t handle.”
“You know this wasn’t how any of us expected things to develop,” her father said, setting down his fork and knife for a moment. “The humans are calling you a queen now, Livara. Some of them say you’re an archmage, and half our own people call you the Lady of Winter, as if you’re a new god come to protect them.”
“Speak for yourself,” Liv’s grandmother said, then paused with the rim of her teacup at her lip. Both Liv and her father were staring at her.
“I know great-uncle Eilis came south with some sort of plan about all this,” Liv said. “But I didn’t think you were part of it.”
“It was less a plan,” her grandmother said, “than a feeling. You were the right person, in the right time and place, to assume a position of power. A people at war need a single leader, at least until that war is over. The council could give that role to your father, but we couldn’t dictate who the humans would follow. You’re the only person of mixed blood with a high enough profile to fill the role. If you’d practiced more with Dā, you would have felt this coming, as well. At least pieces of it.”
“So what does this all end up looking like after the war is over?” Valtteri asked.
“I have a few ideas,” Liv admitted. “I don’t want to force anyone into anything. A council - something like the great council, or a council of elders. Where each barony, guild, or Elden house can send a representative. A new school, that will take anyone who wants to learn magic - Eld or human. And an actual, organized study of the rifts. We’ve left them to decay for twelve-hundred years; it’s time to take control of our own world, and stop being at the mercy of every eruption.”
“You’ll have House Däivi’s full support, of course,” her grandmother pledged.
“I’d better,” Liv grumbled. “After how neatly your brother set this all up.”
“He just gave you and your friends a nudge here and there,” Eila said. “Most of it was you. Nearly all.”
“That makes two Houses,” her father said. “You’re the darling of House Syvä - the lost child returned, the woman who brought the Crown of Celris back from his tomb, and let us give my sister a proper funeral at last. I think they’d tie me up and gag me if I tried to get in the way of it. Look at how Kaija’s come out of retirement for you.”
“To get the others, you’ll need to meet them at the Hall of the Ancestors,” Liv’s grandmother warned her. “That will be the tricky moment.”
Liv frowned. “I’m not doing this because I want to consolidate power,” she insisted. “I think we all need to be united long enough to deal with Ractia, but after that - I’d like to be on friendly terms with all the Elden houses, but I don’t want to force them into anything. Anyway, we can worry about it after we’ve won. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”
“Agreed,” Eila said. “You’ll be with the elders, behind the front lines. I understand you’ve been rushing from place to place, but it's time for you to master a two-word spell. I hear you nearly blew yourself to pieces trying.”
“What’s this?” Valtteri narrowed his eyes and pinned Liv with his gaze.
She sighed. “I tried, and failed. I’d honestly be grateful for any help either of you can give me - but I don’t know how much time I’m going to have. We’re going to have to fight our way up the entire mountain range...”
“During which you will not be on the front lines,” her father stated, firmly.
“Rumors are already making the rounds about your difficulties existing outside a rift,” Eila said. “You’ll wait at the painted sands rift with us, until it's time to move out. It will give you a chance to preserve your strength, and to start to get a handle on casting using multiple words in combination.”
“We can talk more about it in Varuna,” Liv grumbled. “But there’s one last thing I need to do here before I leave. I need to attend my mother’s wedding.”
Comments
Catherine
waited for Liv and Baron Henry’s old sola Should be 'in' Baron Henry's old sola
Tarrim
I believe it would provide temporary relief and slow things down but it would be no substitute for just spending time in a rift.
Fahnir
If Liv learned Julianne's archmage spell converting lightning into mana, could it help her periodically recharge so she could stay outside of rifts longer??
