"I do."
"Why?" Edelweiss asked. "You told me how people treated you. Your father. The court, always underplaying your achievements."
"Yes," May said helplessly. "But how's that going to change for others if someone doesn't do something to change it? I was lucky. I had a brother with a lover who could teach me to fight and to not feel shame. And you... you could run away and take care of yourself with your magic. But what of everyone else?"
"And you think you're the person to change it for everyone?" Edelweiss asked, in that so-familiar smug tone.
Hesitantly, stroking Edelweiss from rib to hip again, May said, "I would like to hope we could be those people. Maybe nobody's minds will change, and it'll just be us, still doing what we want. But maybe they will."
For long a moment, Edelweiss stayed silent, only watching her with those silver eyes, the weight of hundreds of years in them.
And then she smiled again, and they lightened. "You win once more, May," she said. "I'll go with you. You will rescue the princess. And whether or not anyone else is on our side there, we'll have each other through it."
May beamed. She couldn't help it. "Thanks, lizard," she said.
"Of course, kitten," Edelweiss said, and laughed loudly enough that May was sure Rutterkin could hear it down in the clearing below.
For Queen and Country
KAYLA BAIN-VRBA
"Where is my daughter? Where is she?" the queen cried, delusional to the point of hallucination.
Kyrrin dropped his head into his hands. He and two other knights of the queen's Guard kept vigil by her bedside, but despite the other knights' devotion, Kyrrin couldn't imagine they felt the same pain he did. How could they?
He had to turn away from the sight of his queen, who no longer looked anything like her strong and robust self, but there was nothing comforting to see. The palace room was built of cold grey stone that, while excellent protection from enemies and the elements, was unyielding to his need for warmth; the curtains were drawn over the windows like a shroud. Royal family members, governors, and healers clustered together but paid him no mind. All their attention was focused on their queen, who lay still and weak amid her bed trappings, the center of attention as everyone watched and waited. The people were eerily silent, not even whispering to each other, which made him even more uneasy.
The queen was dying. The royal physician had announced that very afternoon that there was nothing more he could do for her, nothing anyone could do for her. It was time to prepare for the inevitable.
Kyrrin wanted to cry. He wanted to curl into a ball and sob. He wanted to scream and pull at his hair. He wanted to give in to the fear and loss and utter devastation he felt.
The Queen's Guard didn't cry. They didn't let others see what they felt inside; they didn't give in to the urge to lay their emotions bare for the world to see. As the heroes of their people, they remained stoic, strong. They kept their masks in place. They didn't let the world see who they truly were. They were not to be seen as ordinary people, but as something solid and infallible.
Kyrrin took a deep breath and sat up straighter, watching the queen toss and turn on her bed. What was left of her glorious hair—once her pride and joy—had been reduced to a brittle, colorless wisp around her grey face. She was so thin, he was surprised she didn't injure herself as she tossed.
"I want my daughter!" she sobbed, searching around the room with unseeing eyes. "I want my daughter back. I should never have given her up. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry!"
Her cries cut Kyrrin to his soul. If he could give the queen her daughter back, he would.
But he couldn't.
"We will send an escort to the far reaches of the Northern Kingdom," the Knight Commander swore, dropping to one knee beside her bed. "Your daughter will be found and returned to you, Your Highness, I swear it."
Kyrrin shook his head absently. The queen's heir and only child had left the palace four years before when she came of age, claiming that she needed to travel to other kingdoms and learn from other monarchies to one day be a fit ruler. She hadn't been seen since. Yes, the Knight Commander would send parties of his men to find her, but they never would. She was gone.
Kyrrin looked helplessly to the ceiling as another wave of despair rolled over him. The queen was too young to die. She wasn't even in the prime of her rule. She hadn't had grandchildren, or any of the other rites of passage that marked a woman as moving into her sage years. She was too good of a person to die from a disease the healers couldn't even identify.
"I want my daughter. Tell Ghree I've changed my mind." The queen began sobbing again, and Kyrrin broke. She was everything to him, but the queen didn't recognize him anymore. He would never get to say goodbye to her, as the healers had told him to do, because in a way, she was already gone.
Without a word, he got up and left her chamber. As he exited, the queen's stony-eyed niece took his place at the bedside. She would be the next Queen of the Land, as the right to rule in their kingdom was passed through the female blood line, and even though Kyrrin would one day serve as a knight in her guard, her gaze glanced off him without recognition.
He stumbled through the palace hallway without knowing where he was going. All he knew was that he needed to get away from the room that was becoming the queen's tomb. He could breathe again, outside of the stuffy room, with its candles and incense burning constantly as the healers worked magic and the priestesses prayed for the queen.
The entire country was praying for the queen. Sorcerers, wizards, even kitchen witches, were casting their best spells in hopes of saving their queen. Priests and priestesses, even the hidden druids practicing the old religions, were calling on their gods for her.
But nothing anyone did had made any difference. No one could save the queen. Not even the knights of her guard, sworn to lay down their lives for her without question or hesitation.
"Hiding from the queen Mother, are you?" a voice wheezed from the shadows, drawing Kyrrin up short.
He spun around to see a short old man with an untamed mess of grey hair and more wrinkles than he could count creep out of the shadows, clutching his wizard's staff in his knobby fist. He narrowed his eyes, which were so dark they were almost black. Ghree had lived in the palace with the royal family for time out of mind, but he rarely ventured from his estate in the palace.
"You don't know what it's like in there," Kyrrin protested.
Ghree cocked a bushy eyebrow at him. "I have been to see the queen Mother," he rasped, his voice hoarse, as if he didn't use it enough. Maybe he didn't. He didn't have a companion, not to Kyrrin's knowledge. "My magic cannot cure her."
"Then nothing can," Kyrrin announced softly, shaking his head against the inevitable prospect. It was only a matter of time. If the great wizard Ghree couldn't save her…
"Not true."
Kyrrin narrowed his eyes. "What are you saying?"
Ghree stretched out his hand between them, and a roll of parchment appeared in it. Kyrrin took the parchment, unfolding it to reveal a map.
"It is old," Ghree warned. "Many things may have changed since this map was drawn in the days long since past. The flower may not even bloom any longer."
"Flower? What flower?" Kyrrin felt like he was grasping at sand in an hour glass, but he could feel a wishful fluttering in his chest. Maybe, just maybe…
"There was once an Elder Flower that grew in that valley there." He gestured toward the map with gnarled fingers. "A star fell to the earth an age ago, and the flower bloomed in its wake. Once upon a time, it could cure any malady—magical or otherwise. It was hidden, for good reason. If any still exist, they would grow there."
"Are you saying that this flower can save my—save my queen?" Kyrrin stumbled, hope rising within him like a phoenix.
Ghree inclined his head. "If it still exists. The flowers haven't been seen for more than an age; even I forgot they existed." He turned back toward his chambers. "Good luck, Queen's Guard. I know that you will fig
ht harder than any other to save her, if she can still be saved."
Kyrrin gripped the map tightly, hardly daring believe it. A magical flower, even more powerful than Ghree? Powerful enough to save the queen?
No matter how impossible it seemed, he had to try. Ghree's confidence in him, his assurance that Kyrrin would not rest so long as there was hope of saving the queen, strengthened his resolve.
It took only minutes to ready his horse and alert the Knight Commander of his quest. The commander granted him permission immediately, wishing him luck. It was obvious that the commander cared deeply for their queen and would approve any venture, no matter how obscure, if there was a chance of saving her.
That was the easy part. Before he left, he had to say goodbye—even if there was no point.
The queen's room was almost empty when he arrived; the king had claimed his time with her, and the others had left him undisturbed.
Kyrrin knelt beside the queen and gently took her papery hand in his. "Ghree has told me of a magical flower that will save you," he whispered with more confidence than he felt. Even if the flower did still exist, would he have enough time to retrieve it and return? She was fading more and more each day. "I will save you, my Queen."
"You're leaving?" the king demanded from his cushioned seat beside the queen. He shook his head and drew his robes even closer around himself. He had never been particularly warm, but with the impending loss of his wife—or loss of his crown, since only women could rule their kingdom and his title was tied to his marriage—he had grown even more surly. "You've already made it clear that your desire to be a renowned hero is more important to you than aiding the queen and me as we entreat peace with the neighboring kingdoms. Now you're going to abandon her to die without you by her side?"
Kyrrin clenched his jaw at the dig. The king was a politician, not a warrior, and he had always looked down at Kyrrin in contempt for choosing a knight's life. Perhaps if the king had not been injured as a young man and could still fight, he would not look down on those who protected him when he could not. Kyrrin did not allow his frustration to color his voice. "I'm going to save her."
The king scoffed, "If anyone could save her, they would have done so by now. It certainly wouldn't be the likes of you. You see only opportunities for grandeur."
"It is not grandeur I seek, but to save my queen! I swore an oath to guard and protect her with my life."
The king's upper lip curled in disgust. "You made your choice to risk your life daily as a knight, knowing that losing you would break your mother's heart. And still you have the gall to stand here now—"
"Your Highness," Kyrrin interrupted hotly, "I did make my choice, a choice she fully supported. She welcomed me as a knight when I told her of the good I wanted to do for the kingdom in her service. I am a man of action, not pretty words with false meanings."
"Of course she supported it! What other choice did she have? Either you would become a knight, or you would leave the palace and she would lose you."
"I'm right here," Kyrrin whispered, gripping the queen's hand tighter. Did she know he was there? Could she hear him, feel him?
"You should stay," the king said, his voice cracking. He got up and placed his hands on Kyrrin's shoulders in a rare display of affection. "You belong here. You should be by her side when it happens."
Kyrrin choked on a sob and struggled to hold it back. When he could finally speak, he whispered roughly, "I have to try to save her."
The king's hands slid away and he returned to his chair, stone faced, the moment of fatherly warmth gone as fast as it had come. "So be it."
Dismissed, Kyrrin kissed the queen's forehead and left.
Outside the city walls, the air felt almost breathable again. The past weeks at the castle had been stifling—and not only because of the candles and incense. There was a feeling of death and decay in the air around the palace, and Kyrrin didn't think he was the only one to feel it. The farmers tending their fields beyond the walls held themselves a little lighter and a little taller than the weary stoop of the townspeople within the walls. It was clear that all of the queen's people loved her; they loved her enough that in her illness, they developed a sympathetic sickness of their own. He hated to think of what would happen to them should she pass.
He shook his head roughly at the thought. He couldn't think like that. He couldn't.
All he'd ever wanted was to be a knight in the Queen's Guard. Ever since he was a child, he had been around the men and women in her guard, and he had seen the way they carried themselves differently than other people. They had a love and devotion in their eyes; they held themselves as if they served a greater purpose and would not let anything come between them and their service to their queen. They knew where they belonged. They knew who they were and who they were supposed to be. They served without question and with complete obedience, ready to give it all for Queen and Country.
It was everything Kyrrin, even as a small child, had wanted for himself. A place to belong. A purpose. A sense of self.
The Queen's Guard had given him that. He had left for a year once he turned eighteen, and that had been one of the most confusing and difficult years of his life. He'd had no home, no idea who he was or what he was supposed to do. Where he was supposed to be. He had nothing.
When he had come home, the Queen's Guard had become everything to him. A place to call home. A place to belong. A beloved queen to serve with utter devotion. After joining the Queen's Guard, he had grown even closer to the queen, learned a new side of her, and delighted in serving her and his country. Finally, his world hadn't felt confining and confusing.
How funny that he had found his freedom by pledging to serve someone unyieldingly.
He adored the queen. He found her dry wit to be far more delightful to the comedy routines of any jester. She was kind and compassionate, a genuine humanitarian who honestly found pleasure in helping her people. More than once, he had seen her stop to pick flowers with a child, offer to carry a mother's baby while they talked, or play stick ball with a group of boys while she was on tour of the country. She was wise and clever, making her an unflappable diplomat.
He didn't know Miata, the queen's niece, very well. Her late mother and the queen had been estranged, and so Miata had not grown up at the palace. From what he had seen of her over the last few weeks, she didn't measure up to the queen. She gave off a cold, hard air that contradicted the queen's loving strength.
He didn't know what serving Miata would be like, but his duty was to the queen of the country, whoever she might be.
Kyrrin shook his head again, with such ferocity that his horse flicked his ears and glanced back at him in confusion. Kyrrin patted the horse's neck soothingly, partially to calm himself. He didn't need to be considering such thoughts. He was going to find the flower and save his queen.
Yes, he convinced himself as he found a wooded area in the Outlands to make camp for the night. Ghree had sent him on this mission, and he would not fail. The Queen's Guard did not fail their queen. They did not accept defeat. They carried themselves with an honor and determination that was more than that of ordinary men. They had a higher purpose, and they were bound to it completely.
He crawled into his bedroll, feeling safer and more assured than he had in weeks.
*~*~*
Arriyah woke with a cry as a hand clamped over her mouth. Her eyes flashed open even as she began to struggle, but she could barely see in the darkness. Her small fire had gone out sometime during the night.
It didn't matter. The only people who preyed on the woods of the Outlands were slavers.
She was no one's slave.
She bit down hard on the gloved fingers, then screamed as loud as she could when the man cursed and jerked back his hand. In the unlikely event that there was anyone nearby—doubly unlikely since even her people thought the nearby wood was haunted—they would come to her aid.
Hopefully.
She twisted and kicked out with her
booted feet, trying to connect with any of the bodies milling around her, or at least make it difficult for them to get a grasp on her. She couldn't tell how many there were, but there shouldn't have been any. She had set magical traps before she went to sleep. How had they gotten to her without setting off her alarms?
She kicked someone in the groin. She heard him cry out and drop back to care for himself. One of his partners cursed her. She tried to activate a charm, tried to call up magic of any kind from the earth beneath her, but it was like the world had suddenly gone void of magic.
With a sick feeling in her belly, she realized what had happened. These men had a Block of some kind, an anti-magic talisman that could be used to block someone's magic.
They had locked it around her neck.
They laughed as she screamed again, gripping the collar around her throat. It wasn't tight enough to choke her of air, but it choked her magic in a way that was even more painful. She couldn't find a seal or lock to break it open. She couldn't get it off.
She was helpless.
Even so, she wasn't going without a fight. She kicked and screamed, largely without reward. Then again, if she could cause them enough pain, if she could be enough of a thorn in their side, then maybe, just maybe, they would decide she wasn't worth the trouble.
Or they'd just kill her.
Perhaps if she went along quietly, they would loosen their guard, and she could find a way to escape.
Before she could weigh her options, a fierce battle cry sounded and a man came charging in. Arriyah was unceremoniously tossed aside, and she landed precariously close to the torch the man had dropped into her campfire to illuminate the small area. Looking up from the ground, she saw that he was clearly a knight, judging by both his immaculate leather armor with the purple insignia of the Queen's Guard emblazoned on his chest and the brilliant steed he rode.
He was wielding a club, not the sword strapped to his side, and he struck to immobilize rather than kill. Once, twice, three times he swung from atop his horse; Arriyah heard a crack and then a scream as his club connected with one man's shoulder. She looked away, but a roar brought her attention back as one of the slavers pulled the struggling knight from his horse.
To the Victor Page 32
