Free Lightborn by Alison Sinclair

Lightborn, something serious.”
    “Will Lord Vladimer be there?”
    “Yes, more fool he,” said the apothecary. Shook his head. “Don’t suppose he’s much choice. Here we are. Over to you, m’lady.”
    Over to her, indeed. Quick pat of hands to veil, hair beneath it, collar, bodice, gloves, skirts. Draw spine very straight and sail forward into the sonn of the two footmen. “Lord Vladimer is expecting me,” she proclaimed, with emphasis on the name.
    She could hear voices raised in argument behind the closed door, muffled by its thickness, unnervingly loud as the doors swung open before her. She almost shied on the threshold, but forceful interlaced sonn pinned her there like a naturalist’s beetle, and the voices went suddenly silent at her unexpected appearance.
    “Lady Telmaine!” said Claudius’s voice. There was a general rustle of movement as the men rose to their feet. The movement struck her then as peculiarly sinister, a closing of ranks. She walked steadily forward, striving to project composure. “Lord Vladimer asked me to attend, Your Grace.”
    “Thank you, Lady Telmaine,” Vladimer’s voice said. “Indeed I did.”
    There was a brief, low exchange; though she could not make out the words, she could well guess the content. Then Sejanus Plantageter’s voice said, “Bring a chair for the lady. There will do.”
    There was in the empty space at Vladimer’s side, Sejanus dealing a little discomfiture Vladimer’s way. She risked a light stroke of sonn over the figure in the armchair, the one who had not risen. Vladimer was fully dressed, even overdressed, his formal coat more suited to winter than summer. Social armor, or warmth? His left hand rested atop his cane in a familiar pose—and she would think very respectfully of that cane hereafter—and his right arm was propped carefully on the chair arm. His face was drawn, his lips dry, but his expression was alert, his sonn crisp. Too alert, and too crisp, for a man with his wound. She tallied signs she had learned from Balthasar, with his interest in treatment of addictions, and realized that the apothecary’s “more fool he” was not merely a comment on Vladimer’s being on his feet. Stimulants could negate the effect of injury and blood loss, for a time.
    “I trust,” the archduke said dryly, “that we can now proceed.”
    “Yes, Sejanus. I apologize.” Trying for bland, Vladimer sounded merely sardonic.
    “Then, my lords, I was explaining why, on Vladimer’s request, I signed and sent ducal orders to the Borders, authorizing the raising of troops by the five baronies beyond the allotment stipulated in the order of six twenty-nine.”
    “And I was saying,” Sachevar Mycene growled, “that it is the most ridiculous farrago I have ever heard—” and once again, everyone was talking at once.
    Telmaine started as a hand gripped her sleeve; it was Vladimer, leaning over to hiss beneath the hubbub, “They’re all themselves, I take it.”
    “Yes,” she breathed.
    “A shame,” said Vladimer, and eased himself upright, leaving her to ponder his twisted humor. Which of them would he prefer were a Shadowborn, or Shadowborn touched? Sachevar Mycene, the archduke’s political rival? Xerxes Kalamay, devout follower of the Sole God, opposed to the least accommodation with the Lightborn?
    “What’s happened?” she risked whispering.
    “Wait.”
    Though she had met these men at social events, here, in their power, they seemed to use up all the air. Of the four major dukes, the next tier of rank down from the archduke, three were present.
    Xerxes, Duke of Kalamay, did not turn his head at her sonn, though its pitch and quality would have marked it as feminine. As with the archduke, experience and character had engraved itself on his face. It might have been a benign face, had he achieved his youthful aspirations to the service of the Sole God and the hand of the merry daughter of a fellow cleric. But one short summer’s night his