Kingsbane

by Claire Legrand

  With that, the queen sat on a nearby divan, settled her arms on the cushions, and crossed one leg over the other.

  Rielle glanced at Audric, uncertain.

  “I’m waiting, Lady Rielle,” said the queen. “We’ve all been waiting, thanks to your impetuousness. While I, and the rest of the country, grieved our king’s death, you dragged his son and heir off to an enemy territory, with no regard for his safety or for our traditions of mourning.”

  “Mother, as I’ve told you,” Audric said sharply, “it wasn’t Rielle who urged us to leave Carduel. It was me, and Ludivine.”

  “There was an incident during our stay in Carduel,” added Rielle, “involving four men who attempted to kill me.”

  She pushed on before the queen could interrupt and told the whole story—from Carduel to the abandoned village on the outskirts of Styrdalleen. The tidal wave, and finally the Sunderlands.

  “We were hoping, my queen,” Rielle said, glancing at Audric, “that you would have information about where Saint Katell’s casting might be located, or how to approach the Celdarian Obex about—”

  “Absolutely not.” Genoveve moved to a small table, where a spread of tea and cakes sat on gold-rimmed platters. “Jodoc Indarien was right when he told you that you should have to find these castings on your own, without aid. To be frank with you, Lady Rielle, I’m not sure that even then you would deserve to possess them.”

  Audric’s voice cut the air like a taut wire. “Mother, you’re not listening to us. The Gate is falling.”

  Genoveve turned her back on them to fill her cup. “I’m well aware that the Gate is falling.”

  “Then you must also be aware,” Rielle said, stepping toward her, “that I am the best hope we have of mending it.”

  The queen laughed. “That’s rich, Lady Rielle, as you’ve just told me how you in fact have weakened it.”

  Rielle swallowed an assortment of uncouth replies. “Yes, my queen. I was rash, and frantic. I acted too quickly, and I don’t intend to do so again, now that I understand the true might of the Gate.”

  “And you have, of course, never given any of us reason to mistrust you,” said the queen, taking a sip of her tea.

  “No other human is powerful enough to repair the Gate, my queen,” Rielle insisted. “No other hundred humans are powerful enough. I must find the castings of the saints as quickly as possible.” She hesitated, then steeled herself. “Is your personal grudge against me worth sacrificing the safety of your entire kingdom?”

  Rielle sensed Audric moving slightly toward her, as if preparing to jump to her defense, but Rielle kept her eyes fixed on the queen. Genoveve took a final sip of her tea before returning her cup to its saucer.

  “Personal grudge?” she said quietly. “How small a thing you make it sound. My beloved niece was betrothed to my only son and heir, an arrangement engineered by my family, and the family of my late husband, when Ludivine was a mere infant. For years, this agreement defined the relationship of our two houses. It established a bright future, for our families and for the country. The House of Katell bonded with the second most powerful House in the realm.”

  The queen turned, her eyes cold and terrible, outlined by shadows of grief. “And then you seduce my son, tempting him into your bed like some common street whore, and throw everything into ruin.”

  Audric’s voice came low and furious. “Mother, you will apologize to Rielle right now.”

  “Or what, Audric? You’ll kill me? You’ll run away with her and abandon your birthright? Go live a free life in the forests, fucking like peasants?”

  The shock of such crude words falling from Genoveve’s lips made Rielle want to burst out laughing.

  Beside her, Audric’s body snapped with tension. “Mother, how could you speak like this?”

  “How could I? How could I?” The queen’s mouth trembled. “How could you embarrass me and shame me as completely as you have done? And so soon after your father’s death. Abandoning your cousin, abandoning me, and all for this girl who lied to us for years, whose power we cannot understand or trust?” She gestured at Rielle. “She said herself that she is rash and unthinking. This is the creature into whose hands you want to thrust the fate of our world?”

  “She is not a creature,” Audric snapped. “She is a human being. And she has demonstrated through the trials that—”

  “The trials.” Genoveve scoffed. “Trials most likely designed in her favor, thanks to the influence of Lord Belounnon and his weak-willed sister, and that lover of his, who would most likely do anything to keep him happy and in her bed—and not in Rielle’s.”

  Rielle could keep quiet no longer, her cheeks burning. “How dare you. Those are Grand Magisters you’re talking about. Tal, Sloane, and Miren have nothing to do with me, nor with Audric or Ludivine. They have served your country loyally for many years, and they do not deserve your disrespect.”

  The queen stood in silence for a moment, then moved toward Rielle and took her chin in one cool hand, appraising her.

  Audric stood rigid nearby. The air around him popped like the snap of burning wood, painting dust motes gold as embers.

  “To think that I pitied you,” the queen whispered. “To think that I sat and prayed with you the night before the metal trial. That I was desperate for your safety.”

  She released Rielle, her mouth pulled thin and her eyes bright. She returned to her tea with unsteady hands. “I promise you this, Rielle. You’ll find Katell’s casting only when I have been laid cold and lifeless in my waiting tomb—or when my husband rises from his.”

  15

  Eliana

  “The Nest is a continuing problem, but one I’m not sure we will ever rid ourselves of—or that we should. Its presence brings smugglers, murderers, gamblers, and even angelic wraiths into our country, but the advantage of that lies in their private soldiers, their networks of villains and thieves that reinforce our own military efforts. These scoundrels and killers will protect our country as fiercely as we do, if only because their beloved Annerkilak lies within its borders.”

  —A report from Commander Lianti Haakoratto Kings Eri and Tavik Amaruk of Astavar

  When Zahra had told her that the Nest was an underground market, Eliana had thought she meant in the figurative sense—illegal dealings, illicit substances, violence and depravity.

  But the Nest was, in fact, truly underground, a subterranean city that existed in a series of caverns beneath the mountains on Vintervok’s northern border.

  Eliana and Harkan stood in the shadows behind a damp stone outcropping furred with lichens. Below them stretched an elaborate spread of contradictions—craggy rock formations above and below, flanking the city of Annerkilak like rows of misshapen brown teeth. Walking paths paved with polished jade tiles. Four-story apartment buildings boasted manicured roof gardens that crawled with shadows Eliana couldn’t define. Ornate roof spires stretched feebly toward the high cavern ceilings that disappeared into darkness. Tiny galvanized lights hung on wires that had been strung across the cramped tiled roads, from shop front to shop front. The softer light of gas lamps pooled in courtyards and behind windowpanes, and a low roar of sound punctuated the tableau—cheers and shouts, clashing strains of music played on strings and horns, the bray of a donkey, an infant’s furious wail.

  Throughout the city, massive columns of stone stretched from the ground up into darkness, displaying elaborate carvings of both humans and angels. The saints, brandishing their castings. Angels, wings spread wide. Godsbeasts, claws and fangs bared.

  “Angelic and human art?” Eliana asked, rubbing heat back into her trembling arms. They had swum through nearly two miles of narrow flooded passages to find the Nest, climbed through cramped caves only wide enough to admit one person at a time—Harkan first, Eliana behind him. Now, the cold cave air cut through her drenched clothes like knives.

 
“The battle lines so starkly drawn above don’t matter as much down here,” Zahra said, “not when the partnership between human gangsters and angelic wraiths has proven so fruitful for both.”

  “So a city of thieves and criminals has figured out how to live together peacefully down here while the rest of us on the surface tear each other to pieces,” Harkan observed wryly. “Perhaps we ought to take notes. Bring back suggestions to the kings.”

  “Collaborative art notwithstanding, this is not a city at peace,” Zahra warned. “Do not let down your guard.”

  Harkan touched Eliana’s arm. “Are you all right?”

  Eliana snapped open her eyes. She hadn’t realized she had closed them while they spoke, that she was leaning heavily on the boulder to her left.

  “You need food.” Harkan rummaged through the small oilskin bag he’d strapped to his torso and withdrew a slightly damp strip of dried pork. “Here. Eat this, and sit down.”

  Eliana waved him away. “Stop pestering me. I’m fine.”

  “You can’t do anything if you can’t walk. Don’t be foolish.”

  “Don’t speak to me like that.”

  Harkan blew out a sharp breath. “You barely controlled that fire in your room. Do you think you’ll be able to do so again, if you end up having to use your power while you can hardly hold yourself up?”

  Eliana grabbed the meat from him and tore off a furious chunk. “There. Happy?”

  “Honestly, El. Are you eight years old? I’m trying to help you—and by doing so, help Navi. That’s why we’re here, isn’t it?”

  To that, she had no reply. He wasn’t wrong, and she hated that, how he’d made her feel as small and guilty as a misbehaving child.

  Almost as much as she hated the power that had forced her into this half-alive, half-wild state. Hungry and tired, frayed at the edges.

  She didn’t tell him what she was truly thinking, for she was afraid that if she did, both he and Zahra would turn her around and force her back through the caves to the palace.

  She didn’t tell him that she was afraid to eat even a few bites, for what if that quenched too much of her hunger? What if that left her softened and incapable of summoning her power when they needed it most?

  If this was how her mother had existed, it was no wonder she’d gone mad and joined the angels.

  I don’t think humans are meant to possess this kind of power, she told Zahra. We’re too small for it.

  You are hardly small, my queen, Zahra said after a moment, but she didn’t sound convinced. Then a feeling of someone wringing their hands crept into Eliana’s mind. I shouldn’t have brought you here, Zahra said softly. I should never have told you about it.

  And thereby condemned Navi to an unspeakable death? Eliana shoved the rest of the meat into her pocket. You did exactly as you should have. And if you try to force me back, I’ll never forgive you for it.

  Zahra fell into a miserable silence.

  “Using your mind-speak again?” Harkan asked. “Whispering secrets you don’t want me to hear?”

  “Yes,” Eliana said simply, moving past him and ignoring his mutinous look. “Let’s do the job and get home.”

  Harkan’s voice was thin and quiet in the dark. “Just like old times.”

  • • •

  With Zahra’s guidance, they worked their way slowly through the strange streets of Annerkilak. To avoid detection by the wraiths who ruled the Nest, Zahra had shrunken her presence to a mere palm-sized shadow in Eliana’s pocket, her thoughts so faint that Eliana had to strain to understand them.

  Stop here, Zahra instructed, and Eliana obeyed, gently touching Harkan’s arm as they passed the mouth of an alleyway where a sullen vendor had set up shop—a sagging cart laden with startlingly beautiful statues carved from various precious stones. Saint Marzana, in ruby. Saint Ghovan, in diamonds and pearls. A topaz idol of the Emperor, his eyes of glittering obsidian.

  At Zahra’s bidding, Eliana purchased an idol of the Emperor while Harkan flirted with the vendor.

  They moved on, the idol a sharp and unwelcome weight in her left hip pocket. Her tired mind imagined its tiny stone fingers poking the flesh of her thigh, insistent and grinning. She resolved to dispose of it as soon as possible.

  Turn there, Zahra ordered, directing them toward an archway that led to a plaza gurgling with fountains—one in the center, an ivory-white angel with water trickling from her eyes as tears would. Others in each corner—weeping angels all. Some despairing, some furious. Some in prayer; others in combat, with writhing humans caught beneath their boots. The water from the fountains collected in a series of shallow, square pools, where bathers lounged and drank.

  Why are we here? Harkan tapped against Eliana’s wrist—the old, wordless language they had devised while growing up in Orline.

  Because, Zahra replied, two strangers appearing out of nowhere and swiftly heading straight for the wraith nest will attract suspicion. We must be cautious. The moment they detect me, we’re finished.

  Eliana relayed her answer to Harkan, tapping her fingers against his own.

  He subsided, his expression tense.

  They traveled through the city in such a fashion for what felt like hours—wandering through shabby neighborhoods on the perimeter of the Nest, where the streets were narrow and hushed; and then in and out of buildings crammed with markets stuffed into parlors and kitchens, like eccentric houses opening up their rooms for perusal by prospective buyers. Vendors shouted prices from behind their carts. Shoppers whispered furtively in corners, counting through damp purses of coins. Eyes liquid and dilated from fresh drops of lachryma; breath sweet and stale, bodies teetering.

  And then, at last, her own body so stiff and tense she felt brittle, bleached, a bald mountain stripped of all woodland, Eliana sensed Zahra’s thoughts directing her toward a grand building across the road—circular, dark, quilted with windows lit amber from within.

  Zahra’s fear poured through Eliana’s mind, slow and viscous.

  “Is that it?” she murmured for Harkan’s benefit.

  Zahra sent the feeling of a nod. “The hive, they call it.”

  Then her presence stiffened, a shock of surprise. She pressed herself into the rigid flat of Eliana’s palm.

  “We must move quickly.” Her low voice held a new urgency. “Sarash is on her way.”

  Eliana tensed. “Sarash?”

  “A wraith?” Harkan asked.

  Zahra’s affirmative came with sharp, cool pressure against the fleshy part of Eliana’s thumb. “If she arrives before we are safely away, there will be very little I can do to protect you from her. The other wraiths are lustful, easily distractible. Not Sarash.” She cursed then, softly, an angelic vulgarity. “Last I was here, it seemed she would not return to Annerkilak for some weeks.”

  “How long do we have?” Eliana asked.

  “An hour. Perhaps a little more.”

  Now Harkan was the one to curse.

  A wave of exhaustion moved swiftly through Eliana, but she did not allow it to fell her. Her vision danced, careening. She clenched her fists and teeth, willed her sight steady. “Take us inside.”

  • • •

  Nearly an hour later, having successfully infiltrated the hive’s lower levels thanks to Zahra’s whispered instructions, they raced through a dark, clean honeycomb of basement tunnels. The walls were damp with the same black cave water through which they had swum, and small galvanized lights flickered and buzzed, haphazardly illuminating their path.

  As Eliana ran, Harkan silent and swift beside her, she recited the steps of their mission as if intoning the verses of a prayer—get to the stores where the wraiths hoard their drugs. Medicine to treat the wounds and illnesses of their slaves, recreational substances like anodynum and lachryma.

  Poisons.

  Antidotes.

&n
bsp; Then she recited the Lissar words Zahra had taught them as they crept through the upper levels of the hive—backs pressed flat against the tapestried walls, boots treading carefully down corridors slick with polished mosaic tiles. Lissar: the most basic of the angelic languages. Far easier than Qaharis and Azradil, Zahra had said, before Eliana hissed at her to shut up. Lissar might have been easier, but Eliana still found the unfamiliar words difficult to remember. Remy was the one with the gift for languages, with the memory like a steel trap.

  But she could not think of Remy in these tunnels.

  She had to fly through them unfettered, cycling through the Lissar words over and over, in case Zahra had to unexpectedly leave, create a diversion upstairs, give them time to complete their mission alone. She had to keep her mind as clear and sharp as it had once been as the Dread.

  Upstairs, the wraiths held court in a series of darkened lounges, lit by galvanized lights in multicolored glass casings. Wild footsteps and whirling dance reels, performed on wailing pipes and frantic fiddles, floated down through the hive’s many floors—a faint spectral refrain.

  Eliana pushed herself faster, ignoring the exhausted buzz in her head and the cramp pinching her side. She sent a fleeting thought to each of her castings and felt nothing in return. Her eyes stung with frustration. Harkan was right; she should have eaten, she should have slept. All her work, all her self-torment, and for what? For two castings that remained a mystery to her and provided no comfort.

  She recalled the sensation of the flames lining the rafters in her room—how their heat had pulled at her, how her castings had felt tugged forward by an urgent, ruthless hunger. She had created the flames, and yet they had been of something else too—not just of her own will, but of something else’s.

  She had felt, in that moment, that she was a mere vessel. A conduit between the power in her blood and the flames overhead, licking for a taste.

  Would there ever come a time when she could use her power and not feel as if it was using her?

  Zahra pressed against her fingers, her touch so faint and careful that it could have been a mere twitch of nerves. Later, my queen. We can talk about that later.