That same old Reinholt audacity. She had to admire it even as she wanted to kick him in the shins.
“And because,” he said, “I wouldn’t accept the crown prince’s title even if our father fell over, cracked his head, lost his memory, and forgot what a total prick I am.”
Katya sputtered a laugh.
“You’ve got better crown prince instincts in your right boot than I do in my entire body,” he said.
Going a little far perhaps, but she bobbed her head side to side as if to say that was probably true. “I’m not the real heir anyway, just a placeholder for Vierdrin. You have been to see your children, yes?”
“Where do you think I’ve been since you miraculously returned to life? Even the reincarnation of my sister couldn’t tear me away from their little faces.”
This time, her smile was genuine. “And Lord Vincent?”
“Ah, that’s a pricklier manner. I’ve burned my bridges there, committed the ultimate sin in his eyes.”
“Dereliction of duty.”
“Which is a shame because I was quite in love with him.”
Katya’s mouth fell open. “Did you ever love Brom?”
He gave her a dark look. “It is possible to love more than one person, Katya. Not all of us believe in that one, perfect, true love like you do.”
“Starbride is all the woman I need.”
“Hooray for you. Lucky for me, there are all kinds of people in the world.”
She gestured for him to sit across from her. “If you love Vincent, you have to fight for him.”
“Hopeless, romantic idiot,” he said.
She did kick him in the shin then. He uttered a curse and scooted away. “Why are you here?” she asked.
“Seemed the right thing to do. You came back from the dead to see all of us.” He glanced around. “Where is Starbride? I half expected to find you writhing all over each other.”
“Must have made you wonder why I said, ‘come in.’”
He shrugged. “Like I said, all kinds of people in the world.”
“You’re an ass.”
“Granted. So, where is she?”
Katya crossed her arms, then unfolded them and let them lay in her lap. She needed someone to puzzle out Starbride’s predicament with, and here was a pair of ears that claimed to be willing. But how could she share her most intimate thoughts with Reinholt? She didn’t know if she’d have been able to do that before he was half responsible for nearly burning Marienne to the ground.
He hooked his hands under the settee. “I’m not moving until you tell me what’s bothering you, so you might as well start.”
“I could just leave.”
“I could just follow you.”
She narrowed her eyes. “I could kill you.”
“Maia wouldn’t love you anymore. I’m her favorite cousin now.”
“Liar!”
He shrugged again. “Besides, there are only a few servants around, and I’m heavy. You’d never shift my body through the halls on your own.”
Katya sighed loudly. “Have you heard any of the stories about Starbride?”
“I saw her outside Da’s tent. She’s gone pyramid wild or something.”
Katya spilled everything to him, and to his credit, he didn’t make as many pithy comments as she expected. She glossed over some details, their most intimate conversations, their lovemaking, but she got her point across.
“I don’t know what to do,” she said at last.
“Must be new to you.”
She searched his face for sarcasm but found none. “I do like to have a plan.”
He steepled his fingers and stared at the table. Katya left him alone in his thoughts and marveled at the change in him. Before Brom had betrayed them, he’d been her sarcastic but lovable brother, a man who liked to tease and wink at life. She was a little ashamed that she’d never thought much of him, even though he’d be king one day, and if she wasn’t too old to go adventuring, she’d still be leader of the Order, reporting to him as she did her father.
That had never seemed real, and not just because her father seemed immortal. When Reinholt had revealed himself to be a spoiled brat, oh, she’d thought of him more often, but nothing good. It was as if the jovial personality he’d always displayed had been some kind of mask.
Now she saw the truth: he’d never grown up before the trouble started. If he’d become king, he would have been loved, a golden god the populace could cheer, but all the work would have been done by those around him, advisors and the royal pyradisté and the Order. A committee would have done the job of one king.
And now he could see he wasn’t right for it. What he was right for, exactly, Katya had no idea, but he seemed to be trying to figure it out, and she was a little touched that one of the places he’d started was with her.
He sat up so suddenly, Katya started. “Well,” he said, “it doesn’t seem like you can convince her to give the power up. Did Master Bernard say he could help?”
Katya shook her head. “Flesh magic is new to him. He only learned a little, and Starbride taught him that.”
“Is there any way you could sneak up on her and knock her out?”
Just the thought made Katya’s insides roil. “I couldn’t hurt her, Rein.”
“There are people for that.”
Katya shuddered.
“It’d be for her own good, Katya.” When she didn’t speak, he sighed. “Well, if someone could knock her out, maybe that would give the adsnazi or Master Bernard room to work.”
“She defeated an entire army singlehandedly. If her Fiend guest didn’t rip your throat out, you’d probably find her skin hardened like steel and end up making her angry.”
“I wasn’t nominating myself to do the dirty deed.”
She opened her mouth to say, “No, you wouldn’t,” but she kept the words inside. “Any other ideas?”
“Trick her? You must have some way of making her vulnerable.”
“This is the love of my life you’re talking about, Rein.”
He barked a laugh. “I suppose this is why you keep an infamous murderer in your group, Little K. Someone’s got to think nasty thoughts for you.”
“Pennyn—Freddie is innocent.”
“Still, didn’t you always say he and Crowe did the dirty jobs for the Order? There must have been a reason they were nominated.”
She waved, not willing to get into that. “I’ll think on it. If you come up with something solid, let me know.”
He nodded, but she could see his exasperation in the way he fought not to cross his arms. He could make hard decisions as long as they didn’t jeopardize his own skin.
“Have you heard about Roland?” she asked.
“Maia told me on her way to your underground city. Nice find, by the way.”
“Thanks.”
“What are we going to do with our mad uncle?”
“How do you feel about him?”
He shrugged. “Sorry for him.”
Katya sat bolt upright. “Sorry? For the man that poisoned your wife against you? That started this whole ugly business that even now isn’t finished?”
“The Fiend did all that, Katya, not the man.”
She could see by his confusion that he believed that, something she couldn’t bring herself to do. She didn’t know how she’d speak to Roland without cutting his throat, but Reinholt seemed nonplussed. “Come with me,” she said. “I’ve got another job for you.”
Katya led the way into the dungeon, though they needed Reinholt’s Fiend to penetrate to the deepest layer. Katya turned her lamp up as high as it could go and fought not to think about the stone walls pressing in. She had to close her eyes several times in quick snaps, picturing an open field, a forest, the wide blue expanse of the ocean.
She repeated over and over that these walls were steady; they weren’t coming down, and they didn’t house a giant Fiend, only what remained of one.
“I’ll stay behind you in the shadows,
” Katya said. “I don’t want to talk to him.”
“You just want me to see if he’s crazy? If he remembers what he did as a Fiend?”
“He remembers. I know he does. I just want to know…” She couldn’t finish, didn’t even know why she’d led Reinholt down here.
“If he’s sorry?” Reinholt asked.
“If there’s enough of him left to be sorry.”
He didn’t argue. She could have kissed him for that. Did it matter if Roland was sorry for what he’d done, what the Fiend had made him do? Would that make everything better? Why did she care enough that she wanted to hear it?
If she could forgive him, then anything Starbride did wouldn’t matter. Katya locked that thought away.
Soft whimpering came from Roland’s cell. Starbride had spoken about Maia’s transformation, how she’d wanted to die, how Dawnmother and others had held and comforted her. Katya felt a twinge of sympathy for anyone left alone in the dark with his sins.
When Reinholt pushed open the cell door, the whimpers ceased. “Is that you?” Roland called.
Katya slipped into the shadows while Reinholt lifted the lantern toward his face. “It’s me, Uncle.”
Roland blinked at him. “Nephew? Is that you, Reinholt?”
He was filthy, his hair and beard in tangled knots. His shirt was torn and smeared with blood. As a child, Katya had worshiped her uncle, leader of the Order, a strong, intelligent, fearless man. She’d hung on his every word, an annoying little burr stuck to his side whenever he’d been in the palace.
As this Roland held up his stump to ward off the demons in his mind, Katya knew her beloved uncle was as dead as she’d thought him to be.
“Stay back,” he said. He rolled, wrapping himself in his chains until he was flush against the wall. “I don’t want it to hurt you.”
“How could you hurt me now, Uncle?” Reinholt asked.
“Yanchasa.” Roland’s lip quivered. “I hurt everyone I love.” His stump slashed through the air as if scraping at the words. “I tried to fight back. Anytime I could slow myself down, I did. The Fiend, it likes to play with people. It likes to hurt them. Anytime I could play cat and mouse with Katya and the others I did. I thought I was enjoying it, that the Fiend was enjoying it, but now I know I was trying to slow myself down!”
Killing Ma was meant to slow them down? Katya ground her teeth together so hard sharp pain slid along her jaw.
Reinholt knelt on the stones. “Yanchasa can’t hurt you anymore, Uncle. Starbride saw to that.”
“He’s got her. He’ll get everyone eventually. You have to guard yourself, nephew. Guard your children.” He sucked in a deep breath and stared at nothing with horrified eyes. “I tried to kidnap your children.”
Reinholt snapped his fingers. “That was the Fiend, Uncle, don’t you remember?”
“They’re going to kill me. And they should. Kill me before I hurt someone else, before I have the chance. Choices are terrible, nephew. Don’t let anyone tell you differently.”
Reinholt glanced over his shoulder, asking if Katya had seen enough. She started to edge out of the cell.
Reinholt paused before he followed. “Uncle, you were in the palace while the armies were fighting outside the wall.”
Roland stared at him blankly.
“You said you knew you were toying with Katya. Why abandon your own army in the field to play with her?”
“I was with the army.”
“No, Uncle, you were in the palace, remember?”
“Not me! Me! There were many of me with the army. They could take care of things. I would have won.”
Reinholt just stared, but Katya remembered the host of attackers all speaking with her uncle’s voice. Hello, niece. He’d left his copies in charge while he’d come into the palace to kill her. From what she’d heard of the battle outside the wall, he was right. If Starbride hadn’t come along, he would have won. Katya hurried from the cell before the urge to strangle him overtook her.
Roland looked to the small movement, his eyes wide and terrified. “It’s him! He’s here!”
Katya kept going, and Reinholt followed on her heels, leaving their uncle shrieking in terror and rattling his chains.
Chapter Twenty-eight
Starbride
Starbride watched the forest go by. Shame burned in her cheeks whenever she recalled the night before, but she didn’t exactly know why. Because she’d succumbed to her weaker nature or because she hadn’t fought harder against…
She couldn’t finish the thought. Yanchasa crouched in her mind, and it was foolish to think he didn’t know how she felt whether she let herself articulate her thoughts or not. Yanchasa stayed silent, though she thought she felt something from him. Satisfaction. When had she started feeling his emotions?
“Look ahead, daughter. Listen.”
Starbride’s gaze snapped forward. There was nothing to see along the road, but she heard rustling and the echoing crunch of cracking wood.
Freddie slipped off his horse with an easy motion. “I’ll scout ahead.”
Starbride almost called for him to stop, worry for his safety warring with her need to be the one who led the charge. She narrowed her eyes and fought to find her center.
Freddie jogged back moments later. “It’s a whole hypnotized village.”
“How do you know they’re hypnotized?” Hugo asked.
“Regular people talk to one another as they work. They take breaks. These were just…blank.”
“What was the snapping noise?” Starbride asked.
“They brought down a tree at the village edge. Probably firewood.”
“Hypnotized or not, Roland wouldn’t have wanted them to freeze to death,” Starbride said. “How many?”
“Too many for the few of us.”
“For you perhaps. Not for me, not for them.” She nodded into the trees and put out her call, the adsna filling her with confidence. The children gathered in the nearest shadows. The remnants shuffled their feet, ready to attack.
She gestured one messenger forward. “Ride back and tell the king what we’ve discovered and that we’re taking care of it.” She waved four corpse Fiends toward him. “Make sure he gets to Marienne safely.” She put mind magic behind the words, embedding it in the remnants’ pyramids.
They gathered around the messenger, who grimaced as if he didn’t know which was worse, staying here where he could feel the presence of the children or riding back alone with the remnants. “Yes, Princess Consort.” He spurred his horse back along the trail.
“We’ll circle around the side,” Freddie said, “come at them from two different directions, but we should scout that way first.”
Starbride shook her head. “Let’s do what we came to do so we can get back.”
He opened his mouth, but Starbride waved him away. “You circle around if you need to. We’re going in.” She kicked her horse forward, taking the children and the remnants with her.
A small cluster of thatch-roofed buildings sat in a clearing ahead. A stream wound near the opposite side, frozen over now, but during spring Starbride bet it flooded its banks time and again, the reason for the low rise of dirt near its edge.
People moved through the village with single-minded purpose, carrying wood or blades, and she heard the clang of a blacksmith’s hammer. The people seemed a little worse for wear, their clothes ragged. Starbride could smell the dirt on them, and she was certain that the thatch would have been repaired if the villagers had been in their right minds. And there would have been children or dogs playing in their midst.
As she rode into the open, she sensed hypnosis pyramids in several of the houses. She let the adsna flow, changing them to wells of power. She’d expected the villagers to drop whatever they were holding, but the work didn’t cease. They’d been mind-warped.
That shouldn’t have been possible without a pyradisté working on them, and Starbride didn’t think Roland had been out here recently. He’d had too much to do
in Marienne. But he’d either made time, or someone else was working for him.
Starbride scanned the houses as she rode closer, looking for active pyramids. Something called from the edge of her senses.
One of the mind-warped villagers turned her way and gave a shout. His expression didn’t change to fear or fury but remained placid, soulless as an alarm. The other villagers picked up weapons or tools, whatever they could reach, and charged. Starbride waved the remnants and the children forward. This would be a slaughter.
“Look out!” Yanchasa called, and Starbride’s body lurched to the left. An arrow skimmed her arm, drawing a line of pain across her bicep. She hissed and sealed the cut with flesh magic before sliding down from her horse, making herself less of a target.
She spotted the archer along the tree line to the east and commanded two of the remnants to lope after him. He shot several arrows into them, but they didn’t slow, and she didn’t stay to watch them tear him apart.
She burned several villagers to ash. When a pyramid came flying at her from a cluster of buildings, she cleansed it with a thought.
“Stop, stop, we’re on your side!” someone cried.
Starbride followed the pyramid scent and found the pyradisté between two shacks. She was young, probably thirteen or so. Her dirty blond hair had been cropped close to her head, and she hadn’t lost the baby fat in her cheeks.
“My side?” Starbride asked. “Which side is that?”
“I work for the Fiend king! Don’t you? You have the corpses!”
“Guess again.”
The young pyradisté looked hastily left and right as she backed away.
“Princess Consort!” someone called from out in the press. The young pyradisté ran. Starbride was about to pursue when one of the messengers charged toward her on his horse. “Princess Consort, Lord Hugo and Master Freddie are trapped within the forest.”
“Trapped?”
“By a gang of these.” He gestured at the hypnotized people. “I was barely able to escape. They’ll be overwhelmed.”
Perhaps they should have scouted ahead after all. She cursed Freddie for getting himself and Hugo into trouble. She needed to catch the pyradisté. She started after the young girl without thinking.
The Fiend Queen Page 25
