Darkening Skies (The Hadrumal Crisis) by Juliet E. McKenna

Planir truly here, she wondered, to offer Lady Zurenne this service or to soothe this facet of the girl’s intolerable grief, shared through her own ensorcelled pendant?
    The Archmage was also, Jilseth realised, far too skilled at playing these games, to provoke Zurenne by repeating his offer. Drinking his tisane, Planir had turned from the jar to examine an archaic statue of Raeponin. The god of justice’s hood hid the direction of his gaze as he held his scales in one hand and a bell in the other.
    The noblewoman cleared her throat. ‘Archmage, if you please—’
    ‘I am honoured to do this for Halferan.’ As Planir spoke, pale golden magic threaded itself through the overlapping strands of twine securing the jar’s lid. The wax disappeared and the string fell away. With a soft grating sound, the lid rose up and removed itself to the linen-draped shrine table.
    ‘Lady Ilysh?’ Planir held out his hand. ‘I need your assistance.’
    Zurenne moved to stand between her daughter and the wizard. ‘How can she possibly help you?’
    Jilseth didn’t imagine the noblewoman meant to sound so accusing but once again she reflected how little the mainlanders truly knew of magic.
    Planir didn’t seem offended. ‘Lysha is born of your lost husband’s blood and of his bone. Her touch will enable me to find his ashes among the rest.’
    Wordlessly, Ilysh walked around Zurenne and to the Archmage. As she extended a trembling hand, he touched his fingertips to hers.
    The great diamond of the Archmage’s ring blazed with rainbow-hued fire. Lysha gasped and snatched her hand back.
    ‘Don’t worry, my dear.’ Planir smiled though his gaze was remote, his attention all on the storage jar.
    ‘It’s all right, mama!’ Before Zurenne could move, the girl pressed her fingers hard against Planir’s, her face now adult in its determination.
    The Archmage’s ring caught fire a second time, this time sparking an answering glow in the gems set around it.
    Amber magelight burned in the neck of the storage jar. A brighter light kindled in the heart of it, golden as candle flame. A thread rose upwards, gossamer fine. Insubstantial though it was, Jilseth could see motes dancing within it. The dead Lord Halferan’s ashes.
    More than that, she could feel the gentle wizardry sifting through the pale contents of the jar. She could feel the infinitesimal resonances between the dead fragments and the living girl. On the very edge of her wizardly instincts, Jilseth could sense the earthborn connections between parent and child and this land that had nourished them; the minerals carried into blood and bone by their shared lives here.
    That was all that she could feel. She couldn’t begin to see how Planir was working this magic, much less attempt it. But it was more comfort than Jilseth could have possibly imagined; to feel her own affinity outstripping the reach of her own hand once again, her wizardly instincts going beyond the paltry evidence of her own eyes and ears.
    ‘Thank you, my dear.’ As Planir withdrew his hand from Ilysh’s, the radiance in his ring subsided.
    He was still carrying his empty tisane glass in its silver holder. The pale thread rising from the storage jar came to coil inside it. The humble vessel glowed as though it came fresh from the glass-blower’s hearth. Then between one heartbeat and the next, the magelight dimmed from a furnace glow to the dullest of embers.
    Planir set the glass down on the altar table. It was no longer a plain tisane glass. Straight sides rose from a broad foot shod with silver leaves. The vessel was adorned with incised lattice work framing crystal teardrops. At the top, the glass folded over to cover the veiled contents with a crystal blossom. It was as exquisite an artefact as the most skilled glasswright might produce in a lifetime.
    Ilysh knotted her trembling hands behind her back as she bent to study the five-petalled flower. ‘Mama? Is it a periwinkle?’ Tears shone on her