Blood of the Mantis

It showed Seda only what she had always seen: a pale-skinned and slender Wasp-kinden woman, hair coiled neatly atop her head, with a vulnerability in her gaze that had been bred by long exposure to death and the cruel whims of her brother. Seda brushed back a lock of hair, and tried to see in the glass any sign of the magic that Uctebri claimed to have imbued her with.

Magic is subtlety, he had explained. It is better to work with the properties that exist, than seek to create something that is not there. You are already an admirable specimen of your kinden, therefore I shall merely hone your beauty.

It struck her that nobody had ever used that word to describe her, and that it should be left to the decrepit, blood-marked Mosquito to speak it made her sad.

If Father had lived, where would I be now? Married, no doubt, though to no one of her choosing. Alvdan, her brother, had never considered matching her with anyone, not even with his closest lackey, Maxin. He feared the ambitions of any children she might produce, let alone the ambitions of any husband she took, which would grow just as inevitably.

The one blessing of the revolution, Uctebri had told her, is that it meant magic’s day had passed. Why a blessing, you may ask? You did not believe in magic before you and I met and, among your fellow Wasp-kinden, all the way through the whole Empire, there is no belief in it. Superstition, you say dismissively to yourselves: ancient myth and foolishness. Thus it is that the simplest tricks of any magician can blind all eyes, because you Apt all accept whatever happens to you as if it made some kind of mechanical sense. A man goes suddenly mad and slays his close friend and, where once he might have said, ‘I was enchanted,’ now he says, ‘He had it coming to him.’ He invents his motives after the event, and never thinks of the subtle influence that inspired him.

Seda shivered. Perhaps the look in her eyes had changed since she met Uctebri, whatever he said about her being unchanged. They now contained a knowledge and a worry more even than she remembered. He had opened doors that were better closed.

And yet he offered her escape, from her brother and from the death sentence that was ever stayed but always present. So she had made her compact with him, and now she could not turn back.

She had applied her make-up with a care and understatement that any Spider maid might be proud of. The gown she wore was pure white, and it cinched tight at her waist to emphasize the curve of her hips and her breasts.

Iam beautiful, she realized. Perhaps it was just Uctebri’s spell-weaving breaking through, but she saw her reflection and knew it to be true.

Her first suitor arrived shortly after: the lean and aged Gjegevey. The Woodlouse-kinden counsellor stopped in the doorway, seeing her reclining on a couch as if waiting for him. She saw that banded grey forehead of his lift in surprise.

‘Your, mmn, Highness,’ he murmured. His eyes had narrowed and she knew he must be sensing the enchantments that Uctebri had put on her. That was why she had summoned him first.

‘We have spoken before, Gjegevey,’ she began, ‘and I know you are no fool. I am sure, therefore, that you have heard rumours.’

‘Certain appointments have been, mmn, mentioned,’ the Woodlouse-kinden replied. ‘You know that I am, ah, fond of you. As a daughter, perhaps – or a great-granddaughter, might be, hmm, more appropriate. Yet I fear for you.’

‘The company I keep?’ she asked him.

‘Indeed. You have made, hrm, close association with a creature of more power and evil than you realize.’

‘You fear for my virtue?’ She gestured for him to sit beside her.

‘In a very real sense, your Highness.’ He poled himself across the room on his long legs, stilt-like with age, and lowered himself onto the couch.