Denisius was utterly nonplussed. Carala was no stranger to him, and he had never imagined such a complication. Since their childhoods they had met a dozen times, four times since the Emperor had proposed she be married off to the last son of the Lord Marhollow, and they had always gotten along well. There was little benefit to the Malachite Throne in their match, which was clearly more of a reward for the faithful service his father had rendered to the Emperor over the years. Carala had never complained. She knew as well as Denisius the importance of keeping the Emperor's Prefects and Heptarchs and Prince-Governors happy when it came to opportunities for the children of such nobles who were unlikely to inherit anything.

When the Emperor had broken the Academies Arcane, he had at a stroke eliminated the traditional path for legions of such superfluous sons and daughters. They weren't all suited for life in the military or cloisters, after all. Denisius certainly wasn't. If the Academies were still in operation, he would surely be in his ninth or tenth year of study -- he might already have graduated as a seer-magistrate or (gods help him) a cursewright, serving in a petty court in some far-flung corner of the Empire.

But Carala had seemed uninterested in such utilitarian details about her impending nuptials. Pleasant, occasionally tart-tongued, and very well read, she was the mirror image of her mother, the Empress-Consort, sharing her midnight black hair and heart-shaped face, though her eyes were the hazel of her Imperial father. She had responded surprisingly well to the few arranged courtship meetings she'd had with Denisius. They had even exchanged a chaste kiss in one of the Palace's courtyards, under the not-entirely-approving gaze of the princess's handmaidens.

Denisius wasn't floating around his home like a lovestruck mooncalf, scribbling horrid love poetry or sighing longingly as he gazed off into the distance, but he had been growing rather fond of Carala, and she had certainly been both far prettier and more highborn than any potential match he could have expected. So while the Grand Chancellor's revelation didn't totally unman him, he did feel a bit like he'd suffered a blow to the belly. Something hot and painful burned in his chest, and his fingers clutched at the hilt of his untarnished jeweled sword. "Is -- who is it? I mean, how did it happen? Some -- some other noble, or -- "

Varallo Thray took the lamp back from Denisius and indicated they should continue down the stairs, setting a rapid pace. "It's easier, I think, if I show you. I am not telling you this to humiliate you, my lord, but because I think there may yet be some chance of salvaging this marriage. If, that is, you still desire it."

"Why would I?" Fury was an unfamiliar sensation for Denisius but he found himself embracing it readily. "Is this -- is this 'infatuation' something she's consummated? And how in the gods' names do you mean we can salvage anything?" Normally it would have been unthinkable to speak so carelessly of the Emperor's daughter, but Denisius was not in the most politic frame of mind. In any event, Varallo Thray seemed none too offended by his posture.

"As far as consummation goes, I really cannot say. But then, my lord, I was never under the impression you were a blushing virgin yourself."

Denisius flushed in the dark, thinking of his infrequent trips to the Lady's Slipper.

"And I mean exactly what I say. If we can arrange matters so you can interrupt the princess's latest tryst, then I am hopeful that we can return things to their assigned course." They had reached the base of the stairway, and past a wrought iron gate found themselves among the fine manses and elegant boutiques of the Palace District. "Again, if that is something you wish. But before you do anything rash, I should tell you that I believe the princess's will is not wholly her own."

Denisius came to a halt. Varallo Thray did not break stride, and the younger man had to jog for a moment to catch up with him. "Are you saying you suspect an enchantment?"

"I'm saying I suspect her will is not her own. Now I ask for your silence. Our arrival will mean little if she or her paramour expects it." At that he doused the lantern, relying on the intermittent flickering torch lamps that burnt at the corners and intersections of Talinara's streets.

Talinara was a lively city, its existence focused naturally around the Chalcedony Palace and to a lesser extent the docks on the River Sirth, but it was no Munazyr or Gallowsport. For the commoners and merchant classes, for any who were blessed enough to avoid the politics of the Chalcedony Palace, it was surely one of the safest cities in the whole of the Anointed Realms, even as dusk fell into night. From cheerfully lit windows here and there flowed the music and chatter of salons and fellowship. Denisius and his guide skirted around these islands of light, keeping to the shadows until they had passed from the Palace District into Hearth Town. Above the lines of townhouses and the odd illuminated window, looming over the sleepy homes of Hearth Town and the docks on the opposite site, Denisius could make out the jagged bulk of the only structure in the city to rival the Palace or the Cathedral of the Graces.

"Remind me, my lord. Was Marhollow home to an academy?" Thray's voice was a whisper.

Denisius nodded, his eyes scanning the mass of shadows that towered above the cobbles of the street. No lamps stood here, and the many empty niches that had once held magnificent statuary, the empty arches that were once frames for windows of brilliantly colored glass, were indistinguishable from the greater portion of the ancient edifice. "Briarcliff. There's nothing there now, just empty ruins. My father keeps meaning to tear them down, but they do bring in tourists."

"Of course," Thray nodded. "Briarcliff. Its reputation was quite high, if I recollect."

"I suppose." Truthfully, Denisius didn't know whether Briarcliff had been considered an academy of any distinction or if it had been regarded as a backwater school for bumpkins. The dissolution had happened not long after his birth, and he had no firsthand memories of the Academies Arcane or their respective reputations. "But it was -- well, nothing compared to this."

That, at least, he knew to be true. The Maathinhold, the Sidereal Reach, was a place of legend, even two decades after its scholars and students had been massacred. Supposedly founded by a cohort of demons, cleansed by an alliance of priests of the Graces and the Hethmar Blades, it had stood at Talinara for untold ages and predated the Chalcedony Palace by centuries. The Empire's capital had been moved here from Munazyr to be closer to the Maathinhold, long before the current occupant of the Malachite Throne had even been conceived. Before the dissolution, it had been the heart of the Academies Arcane and the greatest center of learning in the Anointed Realms. Now it stood vacant, its colleges and libraries stripped bare, three of its great towers razed to the ground, a fourth tower so crumbled and neglected that Talinara's governor had been forced to bar all entrance to the site except by leave of the Emperor himself. But its fifth and tallest tower was still relatively preserved, and it was toward this brooding structure Varallo Thray now led Denisius.

Strangely, it wasn't the first time he had been here. The Curate's Tower, as it was known, had been maintained as a storehouse, not a museum or an academic center but a titanic junkroom with an Imperial seal on the doors. Occasionally, favored guests of the Chalcedony Palace could secure a guided tour through the dust-choked lecture halls and high-ceilinged chambers that had once been libraries. Stripped of their scholarly accouterments, they groaned with disjointed piles of castoff paintings, ornamental weapons, suits of armor, moldering rolls of genealogy, and the collected detritus of dozens of noble houses that had offended the Emperor and fallen from grace over his forty year reign. On his first visit to the capital, Denisius, his father, and Vos had been on one such tour, led around the piles of decaying grandeur by a Palace functionary of far lower rank than Varallo Thray.

Denisius had been amazed by the things he had seen there, for the first time in his life realizing that the power of noble houses such as his own was a transitory thing, as fleeting as the whims of the Emperor. The remains of houses far older and far greater than his own were kept in the Curate's Tower like a grand but decrepit reliquary. They were names he had read in history books, the texts usually carefully slanted to make the Emperor's destruction of them appear justified: Blackspur, Freegale, Mourthia, Saariel, many others. Now he was here again, under circumstances the teenage Denisius would have found difficult to fathom.

Silent as shades they passed through a watchman's door beside the great gates that led to the welcoming hall of the Curate's Tower and which had not been opened in over twenty years. Varallo Thray chanced a pinprick of light, the thin beam of his lantern illuminating polished white walls gritty with dust, a colony of some nameless insect scattering. All around them, Denisius could hear the skitter of rats, no doubt chewing on and making nests of the various papers, parchment, and fabrics that filled the tower. He remembered seeing a magnificent sea-green ballroom gown that had belonged to the Dowager Queen of Tymalus, his father admiring it as something Denisius's mother would have loved until he saw it had been shredded by rodents. It had been eight years, but in that time the smell of mold seemed to have grown considerably. He struggled with a powerful urge to sneeze.

To their left a low set of stairs led from the old guard post to the welcoming hall proper. Though this area of the Curate's Tower was less packed with artifacts than the upper levels, it was still immensely cluttered and Thray's lantern was wholly inadequate to the task of illuminating the stacked piles of noble refuse. Carefully they picked their way among the piles, Denisius occasionally startled by the silhouette of a castoff helmet or a cobwebbed statue, its face torn away by hammer blows. Abruptly Varallo Thray came to a halt, placing one gnarled hand on Denisius's chest. Silently he pointed the lantern's light along the floor.

Tracks in the dust. Heavy booted feet, beside a pair of smaller, more delicate ones, both sets of tracks blurred by the drape of some heavy cloth, perhaps a cloak . . . or a flowing skirt suitable for an Imperial princess.

The footprints wound through the stacks toward a narrow door that led to one of the Tower's many stairwells, the ones that led to what had once been lecture halls and laboratories and private quarters for the Maathinhold's scholars. Denisius felt the blood draining from his face, that newfound sense of rage building in his heart and gut more and more the longer he stared at the tracks: they were not the only set. As limited as his understanding of the art of tracking might be, even Denisius could perceive that the other tracks were from the same individuals, just older. How much older he couldn't say, but whatever was going on in the Curate's Tower had been going on for some time.

Denisius gasped and looked about. From elsewhere in the Tower had come a rustling, stealthy creak. He couldn't be sure if it had been a real sound or merely his imagination, prodded into frenzy by both his anger and the foreboding atmosphere of the Maathinhold. Founded by demons, he thought randomly, and began stammering something to Thray.

"Just the place settling, my lord," replied the Chancellor. "These halls are never entirely quiet. I suspect vermin rather than ghosts. Be grateful -- it will cover our own sounds. Nevertheless, perhaps you should draw your blade."

Privately Denisius was grateful Thray had made the suggestion first, though he wasn't at all sure he'd be able to put his sparring lessons to use against whoever might be trysting with Carala. The blade glittered in the faint light of Thray's lantern, its lustrous jewels throwing off rays of crimson and blue. The point trembled minutely in his grip as they made their way to the stair.

The stair wormed its way into the upper levels of the Tower beside the exterior wall, and narrow windows admitted cool air if little light. The white moon Saya had risen, but kept her face behind a bank of clouds. There was just enough room for Denisius and Varallo Thray to climb abreast of each other, though the Chancellor stood a little forward, keeping his light trained on the footsteps in the thick dust. The higher they climbed the more of the darkened shape of the city Denisius could see, and soon he could make out the graceful spires of the Cathedral of the Graces, lit in comforting hues of gold as its lanterns blazed into the night. He found himself wishing he were there, amid the incense and the readings of the Sorrows and the Joys.

How many stories they climbed following those footprints Denisius didn't know, but his legs had begun to ache miserably and sweat was pouring down his cheeks. Silently he cursed his softness; if he spent a little more time in the training yard and less in the library and arboretum he might be better prepared for something like this. Beside him, the Grand Chancellor looked as unflappable as ever, perfectly calm and perfectly free of perspiration. He was pondering the impassive expression on Thray's face when the man came to a halt, his head cocking toward the next and final landing. Abruptly Denisius realized that he could see rather well. A pale light was shining through a door that stood ajar.

A voice drifted from within, soft and quavery and familiar. "Oh -- Tacen -- you -- you didn't tell me -- it would hurt like this -- I don't know if -- if I can -- "

"Just relax through it, love. It only hurts once. After that . . . . " This second, deeper voice trailed off, sinking into the unmistakable sound of kissing, the female voice uttering a low moan.

Denisius only refrained from bursting through the door with his sword raised and a howl of outrage because he felt Varallo Thray's bony fingers digging painfully into his upper arm. The Chancellor was not restraining him, precisely, but merely leading him more cautiously toward the partly opened door. They approached it in silence, Denisius's blade glittering, Thray hooding his lantern. Wordlessly he took his hand from the younger man's arm and pushed the door fully open, the hinges groaning as if they were in pain.