Traitor's Moon

1
D ARK H OPES
    T he sleet-laden wind buffeted Magyana, whipping wet strands free from the wizard’s thick white braid as she trudged across the churned ground of the battlefield. In the distance, the tents of her queen’s sprawling encampment billowed and creaked along the riverbank, black specters on a dun plain. In the makeshift corrals, the horses huddled together, their backs to the wind. The unlucky soldiers on sentry duty did the same, their green tabards the only spots of color against this grim palette.
    Magyana pulled her sodden cloak more closely around her. Never in all her three hundred and three years had she felt the cold so keenly. Perhaps faith had kept her warm before, she reflected sadly, faith in the comfortable rhythms of her life, and faith in Nysander, the wizard who’d been a part of her soul for two centuries. This damnable war had robbed her of both, and more. Nearly a third of the Orëska House wizards were dead, centuries of life and learning snatched away. Queen Idrilain’s second consort and two younger sons had fallen in battle, together with dozens of nobles and countless common soldiers—sent by blade or disease down to Bilairy’s gate.
    Magyana’s grief was mingled with resentment at the disruption of her orderly life. She was a wanderer, a scholar, a gatherer ofwonders and tales. Only reluctantly had she taken Nysander’s place at the aging queen’s side.
    My poor Nysunder
. She wiped a wind-smeared tear from her cheek.
You would have relished all this, seen it as a great game to be won
.
    So here she was, winter-locked in the wilds of southern Mycena, a nation once more bathed in the blood of two bellicose neighbors. Plenimar stretched greedy talons westward toward Skala’s borders and north to the fertile freeholdings along the Gold Road. This harsh second winter had slowed the fighting, but as the days now slowly lengthened toward spring, the queen’s spies brought daily reports of the unthinkable; their Mycenian allies were considering surrender.
    And no wonder
, Magyana thought, reaching the outskirts of the camp at last. It had been just five days since the last battle. These ravaged fields where farmers had once cut sheaves of grain were sown now with a crueler crop: shredded banners, broken buckles, arrow heads overlooked by scavenging camp followers, and the occasional pitiful scrap of human remains, frozen too hard for even the ravens to peck out. It would yield a bitter spring harvest with the thaw, one she doubted any of them would be here to witness, now that things had gone so horribly wrong.
    The Plenimarans had surprised them just before dawn. Throwing on her armor, Idrilain had rushed to rally her troops before Magyana could reach her. One side of the queen’s corselet had been left unbuckled, and during the ensuing battle a Plenimaran arrow found the gap, piercing Idrilain’s left lung. She survived the extraction, but the wound quickly festered. Plenimaran archers dipped their arrowheads in their own excrement before a battle.
    Since then, a host of drysian healers had exerted their combined skills to keep her alive while the wound putrefied and fevers melted the flesh from her bones. It was agony, watching Idrilain fight this silent battle, but she refused to order her own release.
    â€œNot yet. Not as things are,” she’d groaned, clutching Magyana’s hand as she panted and shook and laid her plans.
    Reaching the queen’s great pavilion, Magyana sent up a silent prayer.
O Illior, Sakor, Astellus, and Dalna, now is the hour! Give our queen strength enough to see our ruse through
.
    A guard lifted the flap for her, and she stepped into the stifling heat beyond.
    Huge tapestries suspended from the ridgepoles overhead enclosed the audience chamber, already crowded with officers and wizards gathered by the queen’s summons. Magyana took her place to the left of the empty throne, then nodded to Thero, her protégé and coconspirator, who stood nearby. He bowed, his calm, aesthetic face betraying nothing.
    The tapestries behind the chair parted, and Idrilain entered leaning on the arm of her eldest son, Prince Korathan, and followed by her three daughters. All but plump Aralain were in uniform.
    Idrilain took her seat and her heir, Phoria, placed the ancient Sword of Ghërilain unsheathed across her mother’s knees. Bold in war, wise in peace, Idrilain had wielded the ancient blade