Shattered Dance. Caitlin Brennan

      That would never happen. The Lady would not let it.

      She might if it suited her divine and inscrutable purpose.

      Valeria’s head had begun to pound. All these gods and emperors and plots and counterplots were more than her poor peasant brain could stand. Life should be simple. Death should be clean, not tainted with Unmaking.

      It was her fault for stumbling into this world of power and princes. If she had stayed in Imbria as her mother wanted her to, none of it would be any concern of hers—at least until the darkness came and everything vanished into it.

      That was the trouble with destiny. Sooner or later it swallowed everyone. Valeria could be simple mindless prey, or she could fight back. She had that choice.

      She held on to Kerrec as if he had been a rock in a storm. His arms were secure around her and his magic blessedly safe around that. For this little while, nothing could touch or trouble her.

      She was not a woman to submit blindly to any man’s protection. But she was also a mage, and she was learning to accept that the occasional power might be stronger than hers.

      Kerrec’s certainly was. Someday she might be his equal in skill—as in raw strength she was his superior—but for now she was an apprentice and he was a master.

      It was unusually humbling to contemplate that. Humility was a rider’s virtue. It was good for her to cultivate it.

      Sleep was closing in on her. She fought it by reflex, then sighed and let it have its way.

      Chapter Thirteen

      After her morning’s fit of truancy, Briana found the weight of the day a little lighter. She had eluded a council and a session of the court, but one duty she was pleased to perform. It was the first rite of her coronation, the first step that would seal her to the empire.

      It was also the oldest of the rites and the most nearly solitary, with no one to share in it but the gods’ servants who celebrated it with her. Part of its lesson was humility and part was remembrance—of who she was, what she was and where she had come from. Before every court and every gathering of the people, she was to remember that in her essence she was alone. No one else could be what she was or share what she had, either the good or the ill.

      The rite began shortly after noon, as the long summer day began its slow descent into evening. Priests and priestesses of Sun and Moon met her in the palace, blessed and consecrated her and led her outside the city by a way that was only taken when the imperial heir was about to be crowned.

      She found herself in an ancient and overgrown garden, where a long-forgotten door led to a passage that might be older than the palace itself. The scent of magic was strong in it. Parts of it might not be properly in the world—Briana felt strange as her guides led her through them, as if her substance had shifted and subtly changed, then been restored to itself.

      There are more magics in the world than your orders may know of.