The Separated by Troon Harrison Award Winning Fantasy

      “I can’t believe this is happening!” Vita exclaimed, her voice soaring high and tight with excitement.
       “We are fortunate to be included in the invitation list for Lord Maldici’s banquet. It’s a great honor,” agreed Ronaldo, and there was an unaccustomed tension in his lazy smile. He stood with his feet braced and his hands splayed on the long supple reins running back into the chariot from the frothing mouths of the stallions. The crimson, feathered plumes on their harness nodded and swayed in the flaring light of the torches that lined the narrow street. Their hooves clattered in the darkness and the chariot’s spinning wheels, with their golden shafts, rang high and bright. Ahead of the chariot, and behind it, swayed other chariots made a splendid cavalcade as they wound uphill between the torches towards the great black mass of the mountain shoulder and the floating balconies and pale battlements of the Maldici fortress. Streaming light from every window and tower, it seemed to float in the air overhead and be a structure, not of cold stone weighing thousands of tons, but of light and soaring lines, with pillars and bridges and arches hanging magically in the sky where the late winter constellations arranged themselves in their cold patterns.
       What a way to end my visit to the city, Vita thought. I’ll remember this all my life! When I return home next week, I’ll be able to tell Aunt Carmela all about it. Not many people in Verde have been inside the fortress of Lord Maldici!
       Craning her neck, she stared upward as the chariot swept through the first wall, five feet thick, and under the black lines of the raised portcullis, into the outermost courtyard of the fortress. Light gleamed on the bright steel tips of the guards’ spears, on the buttons forming silver lines on their black tunics, on the steel toes of their black leather boots and the silver studs in the collars of the brutti dogs snarling beside them. Through another gate the chariot swept, and a third. Now lamplight replaced the flaring tapers of torches, and liveried footmen in black, with silver condors stitched onto their chests, came forward to help the guests alight. Grooms sprang nimbly to the horses’ heads and led them away. Breathless with excitement, Vita was swept forward through the high arched doorway into a glitter of mirrors and chandeliers, the shimmer of women’s bright gowns, the brilliant painted scenes of wall frescoes.
       “Take my arm,” Ronaldo offered, holding out a sleeve crusted with woven designs of purple pomegranates, and gratefully Vita slipped her own trembling arm through it. The line of arriving nobili pressed them forward until they reached the doorway to the banqueting hall where six bodyguards, in black and silver uniforms, barred their progress and Vita watched as the nobili men prostrated themselves in bows so low that their noses almost touched the velvet shoes of the man who stood before them in the doorway. He was clad in black velvet and draped with the silver fur of the mountain leopard, the rarest and costliest of all furs. The women curtsied to the marble, sinking into the pooled drapery of their gowns.
       “It’s Lord Maldici,” whispered Ronaldo urgently, sounding nervous. “Don’t stare.”
       Vita looked down, concentrating on the rustling folds of her taffeta dress with its decoration of looped gold beads, and at her feet advancing over the marble tiles beneath the hem of her gown, in their tiny, tight dancing slippers with damask toes and sharp, golden heels. Then the toes of the Lord’s black velvet shoes were before her. She sank in a curtsy, her skirt spreading out across the tiles, and bent her head. She could feel the crackle of power in the air, the blue electric tingle that raised the hair on her arms and at the back of her neck. The Lord’s eyes seemed to burn holes in her shoulders; she held herself very still and willed herself not to flinch beneath the hot energy of their gaze. Then his hand caught her beneath the chin, sending such a shock of power through her that she began to quiver all over, and angled her face up to meet his gaze. His eyes were golden and piercing, like the eyes of a hawk or the sharpest edge of fresh-cut golden glass. His hooked nose cast shadow over his thin mouth and his beard, black and silver streaked, curled down the front of his dark robe and tangled in the silver stitching of condors and snakes that intertwined there. His grip on Vita’s chin was possessive and tight: for a moment she pictured his fingers as the talons of a condor, digging into her flesh, able at any moment to rip it open into tattered shreds of bleeding tissue. Then his grip loosened and his thin lips smiled enigmatically.
       “Vita, rise. I will speak with you later,” he said smoothly, and his golden gaze flickered away to where Ronaldo still bowed to the floor. Vita could barely stand; her legs trembled and her muscles were weak. She entered the banqueting hall in a daze, her heart hammering so hard that it seemed to shake her body. Lifting candied melon to her dry mouth from a golden tray, she leaned against a wall and waited for Ronaldo to join her.