“No—,” she began, and then a hand clamped around her throat.
“You are faithless, Mort Queen,” the voice hissed in her ear.
She tried to scream, but the dark thing’s hand had already begun to squeeze, forcing her windpipe closed. She summoned everything she had and forced it away, shoving it across the room, where it landed on a table in the far corner, breaking the wood with a dull crunch.
The Queen darted behind the sofa, trying to force breath down her abraded throat, her eyes never moving from the dark mass that was just beginning to uncoil itself in the corner. Suddenly it whipped to its feet in a strange, unnatural motion, like that of a slingshot, and the Queen shrieked. A painted clown leered at her from the shadows, pale face and lips twisted in a grin. Its eyes were a bright, burning crimson.
The Queen struck again, pushing it back toward the ground. But she could strike no more than a glancing blow. The thing’s flesh was strange, shifting; she could not grasp its outline, could not find limbs or organs or tissue. There was nothing for her mind to lay hold of.
A bright jet erupted from the fire, coming straight toward her. She dove to the ground, rolling away toward the wall, and felt a rush of warm air as the sofa burst into flames behind her. The room suddenly stank of scorching fabric. The Queen tried to scramble to her feet, but a hand grabbed her arm and flung her across the room, into the wall. Something crunched deep within her shoulder, and the Queen screamed, a loud, hoarse cry. She sank to her knees and found that she could not push herself back up. Heat baked her face; the enormous carpet in front of the hearth had now caught fire as well. Her shoulder was a thicket of agony.
Fists thudded against the door, and the Queen heard a babble of voices outside. But she could not wait for them, nor could they help. She found it again, coming for her now, moving silently through the smoke. It grabbed her by the hair and yanked her to her feet, and the Queen hissed as strands ripped from her head. The dark thing pulled her up and dangled her on her tiptoes.
“We had a bargain, Mort whore.”
“The girl,” she gasped. “I can still get the girl.”
“The girl is mine already. She was an even easier mark than you.” It smiled wide, shaking her back and forth. She screamed again; her shoulder felt as though it was tearing in half. “She belongs to me, and I have no further use for you, Evelyn Raleigh. None at all.”
The chamber door burst open, the lock flying across the room. The dark thing’s attention was diverted, only for a moment, but in that moment the Queen suddenly saw it clearly: a shining silver shape in her mind, bones limned in red light. She found its rib cage, grabbed hold, and squeezed, catching its entire midsection in the vise of her mind. The dark thing snarled, but the Queen bore down, tighter and tighter, until it released her hair and dropped her back down to her feet. Its red eyes were only an inch from hers now, and the Queen shuddered at the disdain she saw there: disdain not just for herself but for everyone, all of humanity, whatever might get in its way.
“You cannot kill me, Mort Queen,” it whispered, its deep red lips parting in a grimace. Its breath stank of blood, of decayed flesh. “You are not strong enough. The girl will set me free, and I will not need fire to find you.”
The Queen sensed her guards bounding through the doorway now, vague shapes against the smoke. Beryll, too; she could feel him, loyalty and anxiety rolled up into one, all the way across the room. The dark thing squirmed within her grasp, a terrible feeling, as though worms were writhing together in her mind. She tried to crush it, but she simply didn’t have the force.
“Get the fire out!” she screamed at her guards. “All of the fire! Put it out!”
Her guards obeyed instinctively, rushing over to the bed to grab the linens. The dark thing tried to break free, but she tightened her hold again. Its outline was extraordinarily clear in her mind, but the edges were painful, a current like lightning moving beneath her hands.
Power, the Queen thought dizzily. How did it acquire so much?
The dark thing giggled, a lunatic chortle that almost made her lose her grip. “You will never have what you seek, Mort Queen. You will never be immortal.”
“I will,” she panted. She thought she felt something weakening in its ribs, but could not be sure. The sizzling sensation beneath her hands made everything difficult to judge. “I will.”
“I have seen your flight, you know. Pursued by a man in grey, the girl at your side. I have seen the cataclysm behind you.”
The Queen closed her eyes, but she could not shut the words out.
“The immortal need not flee, Mort Queen. But you, you will flee, and die, and all the accoutrements of hell will await you. Believe me, Mort Queen, for I have been there.”
The Queen bared her teeth as she felt something give inside its body, some small fault cracking open. The dark thing emitted a high screech, and the Queen howled in triumph. Blood trickled from her nose, but she barely noticed. She had hurt it. Only a bit, but that was enough. The dark thing was not immortal either. Perhaps she didn’t have enough power to kill it, but it could be killed.
Dimly, she sensed her guards bringing the fire under control. But they were ignoring the hearth.
“All of the fire, damn you! The fireplace as well!”
Over the dark thing’s shoulder a shadow loomed, a shadow that turned into Beryll, coming toward them with a wooden chair grasped in his hands like a club. He swung it at the dark thing’s head, and the Queen felt the impact ricochet all through her, the dark thing’s outline shuddering inside her mind. It hissed, turned its head, and found Beryll.
“No!” the Queen shrieked. But it was too late. Her concentration had broken. The dark thing pulled free of her, grabbed Beryll by the throat, and snapped the old man’s neck with one quick twist of its hands. Beryll went down without a sound, and at that moment the fire went out, plunging the room into darkness. The bright shape in the Queen’s mind flickered, faded, and finally disappeared. She sank to the floor, panting, clutching her dislocated shoulder.
“Majesty!” her guard captain shouted. “Where are you?”
“I’m fine, Ghislaine. Light a candle. Only a candle, mind.”
Confusion and stumbling followed her words. The Queen crawled sideways, leaning on her good shoulder and groping with the bad, until she reached Beryll’s limp, still-warm body beside the wall. As the thin glow of candlelight began to illuminate the room, she found his wide eyes staring up at her. Beryll had lived a long life, yes, and he was an old man, but the Queen could only see the child she had pulled from the pit: a tall, skinny child with intelligent eyes and a ready smile. Something contracted inside her, and she wanted to cry. But that was unthinkable. She had not shed a tear in over one hundred years.
The Queen looked up and found her guards circled around her, waiting, clearly frightened; they thought they would be blamed for this disaster. Blame needed to be taken, for certain, and after a moment’s thought, the Queen realized where the culpability lay.
“My pages. Get them in here.”
When the five women were all lined up before her, the Queen looked them over, wondering where the treachery lived. Juliette, who came from one of Demesne’s best families and clearly intended to be Queen here one day? Bre, who had once taken a whip for ruining one of the Queen’s dresses? Or perhaps Genevieve, who liked to make rebellious comments in order to win the approval of the others. The Queen had never felt her own age so heavily as when she saw the five of them in front of her, a solid wall of unrelenting youth.
“Which of you lit the fire?”
She saw many emotions flit across their faces: surprise, thoughtfulness, indignation. All of them eventually settled into exaggerated expressions of innocence. The Queen frowned.
“Mina is dead, but it wasn’t Mina. She’s never been able to light a decent fire to save her life. You know me, ladies. I am not fair. If no one admits guilt, you will all face punishment. Who defied my express command by lighting a fire?”
/> No one answered. The Queen felt as though they stood united against her. She looked down at Beryll’s body and suddenly realized the truth of things: there was no loyalty anymore. Beryll, Liriane . . . her own people were all dead now, and she was surrounded by grasping young strangers. The bubble of anger inside her head abruptly deflated, lapsing into sorrow and exhaustion, a strange sense of futility. She could punish them all, yes, but what would that prove?
“Dismissed, all of you. Get out.”
The guards went, but the five pages merely stood there, their eyes wide and confused. Blonde, redhead, brunette, even a dark, exotic Cadarese named Marina. What on earth had possessed the Queen to choose these women? She should have had men all along. Men came at you directly, with raised fists. They didn’t sneak up on your back with a knife.
“We’re dismissed, Majesty?” Juliette ventured, in a tone of disbelief.
“Go. Find me a replacement for Mina.”
“What of the corpses?”
“Get out!” the Queen screamed. She felt her own control slipping, inch by inch, but there was no way to rein it in. “Get out of here!”
Her pages fled.
The Queen shuffled over to her desk, her movements strangely hunched as she tried to protect her shoulder. It was badly dislocated; probing beneath her skin, the Queen sensed the outlines of the problem, a contortion of the musculature. Setting it straight would hurt like a bastard, but the Queen had bigger problems. The dark thing’s face hovered in front of her, eyes bright and gleeful. It thought it had the girl now, and the girl was all it wanted. Worse, it had called the Queen by name.
How could it know? she raged inwardly. No one could know; she had covered her tracks too well. Evelyn Raleigh was dead. But still, the dark thing had called her by name.
Evie! The voice echoed in a corner of her mind, her mother’s voice, always a trifle impatient, always exasperated at what was lacking in her daughter. Evie, where did you get to?
The Queen sat down at her desk. Moving carefully to spare her dislocated shoulder, she opened a drawer and took out a small portrait in a sanded wood frame. The portrait was the only tangible thing left to remind the Queen of her early life, and sometimes she toyed with the idea of throwing it away. But it had been too important to a young and desperate girl, and it had taken on the quality of a talisman; for a brief time, the Queen believed, the portrait had even kept her alive. Whenever she tried to discard it, something always held her back.
The woman in the portrait was not the Queen’s mother, but when the Queen was young, she would have given the world to make it so. The subject was a brunette, heavily pregnant, her skin browned from long hours spent in the sun. This portrait was old; the woman wore clothing too shapeless to be from anything but the Landing era, and a primitive bow was strung across her back. Her face was beautiful, but it was not the easy, careless beauty of any Raleigh queen. This woman had suffered; there were scars on her collarbone and neck, and her face was lined with long-healed pain. But there was no bitterness there. She was laughing, and her eyes radiated kindness. Flowers were woven in her hair. When the Queen was young, she would spend hours staring at this picture, her guts knotted in jealousy . . . not of the woman, but of the child in her belly. She wished she knew the woman’s name, but even in the Keep gallery, the picture had never been labeled.
Evie! Why do you make me wait?
“Shut up,” the Queen whispered. “You’re dead.”
Thinking of the past was a mistake. She tossed the picture back in the drawer and slammed it shut. If the dark thing had no use for her anymore, then she held no leverage. She could not prohibit fires forever; sooner or later, what had happened today would happen again. And if the girl actually did manage to set the dark thing free somehow, there would be no defense. The last remnants of memory disappeared from her mind, and she turned all of her thoughts to the present. The girl, the girl was the problem, and no matter what the dark thing said, the Queen did not consider the girl an easy mark. She could not offer Elyssa’s bargain, for the girl had refused to send Mortmesne a single slave. For a strange, wistful moment, the Queen wished that she could sit down with the girl, speak to her as an equal. But the jewels made such a friendly discussion impossible. The Queen hesitated for a moment longer, considering, and then pressed the gold button on the wall.
A few moments later Juliette entered the room, her steps hesitant, her eyes pinned to the floor. A smart girl, Julie, not wanting to push her luck. “Majesty?”
“Prepare my luggage for travel,” the Queen told her, turning toward the fireplace. She reached behind her back and grasped her left wrist in her right hand. “At least several weeks’ worth. You will accompany me. We leave tomorrow.”
“For what destination, Majesty?”
The Queen took a deep breath and yanked her left arm backward, snapping her neck and upper torso forward at the same time. The pain was sudden and excruciating, consuming her entire shoulder in fire, and a scream climbed up the back of the Queen’s throat. But she kept her mouth shut tight, and a moment later there was the satisfying crack of the musculature popping back into place. The pain quickly faded, retreating into a dull ache that could easily be cured with drugs.
The Queen turned back to Juliette, her smile pleasant, although her brow was wet with perspiration. Juliette’s expression was horrified, her face drained of color. The Queen took a step forward, just to see what would happen, and had the pleasure of watching Juliette scuttle backward, almost through the doorway.
“Pack for warm climate and some rough living.”
“Where are we going, Majesty?” Juliette quavered. Had the Queen really found her intimidating a few minutes ago? There was nothing to fear, not from one so young.
“To the front, Julie,” she replied dismissively, moving to look out the western window. “To the Tearling.”
All the way up the stairs, Ewen kept his eyes on the Mace’s back. He was scared, but there was no question of not following; Ewen knew that much from Da. When you were summoned by the Captain of Guard, you simply went. The Mace carried a large grey bundle under his arm, and he hadn’t even looked at Ewen since they’d left the dungeon. Worse yet, the Mace had left another jailor to take Ewen’s place while he went upstairs. The new man was not as big as Ewen, but he was certainly smart, with quick eyes that darted around the dungeon. The one remaining prisoner, Bannaker, had completely recovered from his injuries, and Ewen, knowing that Bannaker would be dangerous when fully healed, had moved him to Cell Two. But the first thing the new jailor did was to walk over to Cell Two and check its locks, and this made Ewen angry: as though he would leave a cell unlocked, with a prisoner inside! The new man then sat down at the desk as though he owned the place, putting his feet up, and at that moment Ewen knew that the Queen was going to remove him from his post. He had been a good jailor for almost five years, but the Queen must have found out that he was slow. With each stair that Ewen climbed, he became more sick to his stomach. Their family had been jailors in the Keep forever, all the way back to Da’s grandfather. Da had only given up the job because he could no longer walk. Ewen couldn’t bear to tell Da this news. He felt naked without his ring of keys.
But they did not leave the staircase at the ninth floor, the Queen’s Wing. Rather, they kept on going, several floors up, and the Mace led him into a large room that was lit up like Christmas, more than a dozen torches lining the walls. Two Queen’s Guards, one large and one small, sat in chairs just inside the door, and in the center of the room was a tall cage, but Ewen couldn’t make out what was inside.
“Morning, boys.”
“Good morning, sir,” they both replied, standing up. The smaller man had eyes so light that they seemed white, and they reminded Ewen of the woman Brenna. Three Queen’s Guards had removed her from the dungeon several days ago, which had relieved Ewen no end. Bannaker’s eyes might plot escape every moment, but still he seemed less dangerous than the woman. A witch, Ewen was sure of it, powerful an
d terrible, just as Da had always described them in stories.
“El. Keys.”
The big guard came forward into the light, and Ewen recognized him now: the man with the scary teeth. He tossed the keys to the Mace, who slammed them against the bars, a metallic clanging that hurt Ewen’s ears.
“Wake up, Arlen! It’s your big day.”
“I’m awake.” A ghostly thin shape unfolded itself from the ground inside the cage, and Ewen recognized the scarecrow. But he was dressed differently now, in a white linen shirt and trousers, and even Ewen knew what that meant: it was the uniform of a prisoner sentenced to death.
“Are you going to behave, Arlen?” the Mace asked.
“I’ve made my bargain.”
“Good.” The Mace unlocked the cage. “Tie him up.”
Ewen was beginning to wonder if the Mace had forgotten that he was there, but now those sharp eyes found him. “You! Ewen! Over here.”
Ewen moved forward, almost tiptoeing.
“Listen carefully, boy, for we haven’t much time.” The Mace pulled the bundle from beneath his arm and shook it out, and Ewen saw that it was a long grey cloak. “You showed great courage in capturing this man, and the Queen is grateful. So today, you will be a Queen’s Guard.”
Ewen stared at the grey cloak, mesmerized.
“You and Elston will transport this prisoner to the New London Circus. Elston is in charge. Your only job is to guard the prisoner, to make sure he doesn’t escape. Do you understand?”
Ewen swallowed, found his throat almost too dry to speak. “Yes, sir.”
“Good. Here.” Mace held out the cloak. “Put it on and come help us.”
The deep grey fabric was soft, softer than any clothing Ewen had ever owned. He fastened the cloak around his shoulders, trying to puzzle out what was happening. He knew that he could not be a Queen’s Guard; he was not smart enough. But they were waiting for him beside the cage, so he hurried over and stood at attention. The short guard had already tied the prisoner’s wrists.
The Invasion of the Tearling Page 29
