All insults to Varice's choices and Gift are given from her perspective. I think there's actually quite a bit to be said for the people that spend their lives arranging parties and designing events so that other people will be happy, and one of my best friends is working toward a career in planning weddings. I thought that I should clarify that stance as the narration (biased to Varice's view) is rather harsh.

Next chapter: Inert

The Emperor's Mage
Chapter Twenty-eight: Fragment

They had never been the stuff of fairy tales.

Arram was as imaginative as any deserving princess, perhaps, and he had even ended up beneath the thumb of a ruthless sorcerer. That was the type of plight that should have drawn some gallant knight or daring shepherd, not a pretty woman that used her Gift for fripperies and pretty things. Varice Kingsford had never been ashamed of her choices before, but she had never seen a man that she cared about just fifteen minutes before he would die.

She looked terrible, perhaps, but it would have been a mockery to look perfect with him in such poor condition. His hair was usually even better than hers, but there was no teasing him for vanity today. His hair (usually one of his prides) was a rather disheveled wreck that still couldn't disguise the handsome angles of his face, however drawn the expression. Not even impending death could lessen the intensity of his dark eyes, and that alone let her draw herself together enough to get through their farewell.

Varice sidled forward, just as if she wasn't wearing one of her work dresses that still was dribbled with oils and flour from the night before. She'd been making a cake to celebrate Daine's impending success with the emperor's birds when she heard the news. Varice had never doubted that the birds would be healed, not with such a light in Daine's eyes and the familiar dreamy contemplation that led to a sure result. She had been deciding whether it would be a private party or a small gathering, and what on earth would be the appropriate thing to make for the animals forever following Daine about, when the word of Ozorne's sudden mandatory audience had rippled through the castle.

She had known something was wrong. She hadn't known that she would lose Arram for it, let alone to something as silly as Arram's well-known noble streak. He played the bad man, perhaps, and he had killed people at Ozorne's direction, but Arram Draper was as evil as her most comfortable slippers. Arram had pioneered the small surgical procedure that would mute slaves without mutilation. The personal slaves surrounding Ozorne still couldn't speak, but there was not one cut made to their tongues. The two little nicks to the neck might be no more pleasant, but they were far more humane. Arram had been similarly genteel in his executions from the very start. His Gift was powerful enough to reach into a person and gently stop the heart from beating, as neatly as if he'd been a trained healer. Ozorne had tried forcing something a little more tormenting, but Arram had rather blithely listed off several spells his Gift simply was not suited for. (Varice might be the only person that knew Arram's magic was perfectly suited to blowing things-or even people-up. Arram simply refused to use it that way.) Arram liked juggling and sleight-of-hand and 'magic' tricks that were more suited to a busker than a black-robe mage, and on the rare occasions that he met with children, they adored him. He should have been a father, one to teach his children all of the right things as well as all of the silly things worth stopping an entire lesson to describe.

Ozorne knew that Arram disliked slavery. He hadn't cared. When Ozorne had a very potent focus against Arram, and Arram willingly let himself be bound so that Lindhall Reed could escape to Tortall... there was nothing else that her dear friend could have done.

Her hair was worse than his yet again, and her without the disadvantage of prison and chains. Her silk robe had wrinkles pressed into it, her shoes in no way matched the rest of her outfit, and her only jewelry was the gemstone pendant that he had bought for her years ago. It was her favorite piece, and the gem did look all the brighter when it was the only thing to distract from a severely plain dress and a mussed cream robe. Looks shouldn't be important, perhaps, and maybe it would be better for her to not notice at all, but her mind wouldn't stop thinking of details because she would lose her dearest friend and her lover.

He looked far too exhausted to rise. He was slumped against the wall for support, leaning to ease the pressure on his bound arms, so she knelt close enough that he wouldn't even need to shift his body weight. She could do small things for him now. Later, she would light incense and leave an offering in the Dark God's temple in Arram's name, and Goddess help Ozorne if he stood in her way.

"Arram, you noble, darling fool," she said with all of the fondness she could muster. It was quite a substantial amount, really, and maybe it would be some small measure of peace to know that her feelings hadn't changed.

"Varice, has his majesty spoken to you?"

Her composure came dangerously close to cracking, but she found her center with just two deep breaths, and the threat of tears receded. Arram had trained her for far too long in meditation for her control to fail now, even if he was asking after her when any reasonable person could afford to be selfish. "Yes, sweetheart. What you did... his majesty was blindsided, and has stated before witnesses that I have his full confidence. I had to make a few statements in front of truthsayers, that was all."

"Good. I couldn't... well, I don't want you to be hurt, ever, and it would be the worst thing I'd done if I let you be hurt because of this."

He was entirely serious, which only made Varice feel all the more like crying all over again, but she wouldn't give Ozorne the satisfaction. It was a fair bet that he was watching them, and that let her keep herself together. "You're the best man that I've ever known, Arram. I... I don't want to watch, truly, but I'd never forgive myself if I wasn't here for you." She wrapped her small hands around his much larger ones, letting herself pretend that the chains weren't there. "You're my best friend."

"Varice, if I'd run, all those years ago..." Arram's eyes usually could catch her when he showed half that much emotion, but his Gift was said to be severely drained even before the block had been put in place. One of the more sensitive guards had muttered that Arram would fall over if he tried lighting a candle with the Gift-binders removed. Perhaps that was why he couldn't catch her mind one last time, just as he'd done when she was seventeen and still awed at the sight of the palace, only to turn and find herself looking at the most fascinating man she would ever meet.

It would have been much easier if she loved him. He was the most talented lover that she had ever taken to her bed, and he was solicitous on nearly all occasions in or out of bed. There was no accounting for when an idea would strike him, of course, but she found those rather obsessive turns of fancy rather endearing. After the first time it happened, even, she thought it was darling that the insane man could forget entirely about sex in favor of scribbling notes, and that was when they'd been quite involved the moment before. He was intelligent, handsome, charming... and a friend. They had sex, and even had sex to the exclusion of all other partners, but neither had ever seen the need to move in together or write poetry or produce babies or whatever it was that people in love did.

Still, she had been with him for almost a third of her life, and sometimes she felt as if she could reach out to take his mind into her own. "I wouldn't have followed you," she whispered, feeling almost ashamed. She'd come from the north, maybe, but Carthak was her home now. She couldn't abandon it even to Ozorne. "You talked about it, once. Running away north, anywhere that would take us. You said that you'd juggle to support us."

"I didn't think you remembered," Arram said, and something in his expression eased. "What if I had asked you a week ago?"

"I would have thought you quite mad, and would have been sad to stay here without you," she answered, puzzled. "I... I don't know, Arram. I'll feel worse with... when you're... I just want to make people smile, and this is the only way that I know how. I'm not one to start it all over again."

Arram leaned close. When she gratefully supported herself against his strong chest, one last time, he pressed a kiss into her hair. "Sometimes I think you've always had the better profession. Don't feel guilty about working where your talents lie. None of this was your fault, Varice."

"I think I'd have felt worse of you for not helping Daine," she admitted quietly. "You're a brave man, Arram."

His hands slipped apart for a moment, letting her own fall inside quite naturally. His hands felt oddly smooth to her touch, but this was no time to wonder if he had found himself a better moisturizer. She had never been one to criticize his strange turns of mind, not when her own wandered so frequently. "Keep in touch with her," he suggested. "Both of you could use a friend."

"Always looking out for me," Varice said quietly.

A guard cleared his throat. He was looking the other way in an unexpected display of manners, but there was no use in forcing the man to be rude. Truthfully, Varice hadn't expected so much uninterrupted time. She paused only to lean back and press one last kiss to Arram's lips. "Goddess guard you, Arram."

He didn't say anything in reply, but she supposed that there was nothing else to say. She backed away, to keep eye contact for as long as she could, and nearly backed directly into Daine.

There was one thing she could do, at least, before she sat through the execution, lit candles in Arram's name, and somehow forced herself into working again. Daine had extended one arm to keep Varice steady, and Varice had no curiosity to spare for the waterskin cradled in the girl's other arm or the practical leather mage kit strapped at the girl's hip.

"Write to me, sweetheart," Varice said quietly. If the guards overheard, it was of no account. "I'll... we both thought the world of you, and I'll never hold you to count for this." If Varice ever did give into the temptation to let Daine's slim shoulders take the weight of all this sorrow, nobody else would ever need to know. She would rage and cry in the privacy of her own chambers, but she would never let a girl-child take up all the badness in the world.

Daine looked as shaky as Varice felt. She nodded, but didn't look ready to voice a reply. Varice understood that perfectly, as she was out of words herself. They nodded at each other, quite politely, and both felt that it was a perfectly serviceable goodbye.