Obritsa remained unimpressed. She knew better than to believe everything she read, especially official church documents. And anyway, elementals were far too obsessed with themselves—what their power could do, how many horrifying acts they could use it to commit. Obritsa would not have been surprised if the rumors of Prince Audric’s prowess with a sunlit blade had been started by the prince himself.
Still, she would not grow complacent. Kind of face and eye the prince may have been, but he was still a prince, and someday a king, and by all accounts, the Sun Queen’s lover. Obritsa would need to keep a close eye on him.
Last of all, Obritsa found the woman herself—Lady Rielle Dardenne, the proclaimed Sun Queen. Obritsa clasped her hands to her heart and gasped in exaggerated adoration. Then she tugged on Artem’s sleeve and gushed, “Isn’t she beautiful, Artem?” and stretched up on her toes and waved.
The pale, dark-haired woman riding to Prince Audric’s left glanced Obritsa’s way. Like the prince, Lady Rielle did not look immediately impressive. Her clothes were travel-worn, and she was soft and small in stature. She was striking, to be sure—her brows arched, her mouth sly, her eyes bright and clever—but Obritsa had seen a dozen prettier women in her own palace that very morning. Lady Rielle did not glow, nor did her hands or hair spark with fire, as Obritsa had imagined they might.
But when she approached, then bowed beside the Celdarian prince, Obritsa nevertheless felt suddenly uneasy, though she could not articulate why. There was something about Lady Rielle’s face—a sharpness, a distant knowing—that threw Obritsa’s senses into a state of prickling watchfulness. Lady Rielle lifted her face, and in a shift of the midday sunlight, Obritsa thought she saw the woman’s green eyes glint, as if for a moment they had been painted a brilliant gold.
Shaking off her unease, she bid them rise—but before she could take another step toward Rielle, two Celdarian guards in gold armor stepped forward, blocking her way.
“Let her pass,” Rielle commanded, her voice sharp and clear, and when the guards obeyed, Obritsa swallowed her irritation and rushed forward with a smile on her face to take Rielle’s hands.
“I don’t think I’ve ever been so excited to meet another person in my entire life,” she said breathlessly.
Rielle bowed and kissed Obritsa’s hand. “It is an honor to meet you, Your Majesty.” Then she looked down at her travel clothes and smiled ruefully. “I apologize for asking a favor of you immediately, but might we be shown to our rooms? I confess, I feel rather small and shabby in the presence of your loveliness.”
“Oh, nonsense!” Obritsa gave the opulent folds of her own gown a scornful wave. “These fussy old-lady clothes pale in comparison to your beauty, Lady Rielle. Come! You must all rest before tonight’s feast. You poor, weary dears. Such a long journey you’ve had.”
Obritsa kept chattering as she and the magisters escorted the Celdarians to the palace, hardly stopping to let Lady Rielle or Prince Audric say more than a few words. She knew what they would see when they looked at her—a silly child, some hapless tool installed by the church to appease those Kirvayans born without magic and whispering of revolution.
But as they proceeded up the palace’s western steps and into one of the grand receiving halls lined with servants in gold, white, and scarlet livery, Obritsa felt a twinge of something at the back of her thoughts. Again, an unease, almost like hairs prickling on the back of her neck. An awareness of being observed.
She glanced over her shoulder, but only Lady Ludivine was there behind her, already deep in conversation with Grand Magister Vorlukh. Obritsa dismissed the feeling and gave the lady a bright smile.
* * *
“And, of course, we now have our Sun Queen.”
Obritsa watched the Celdarian prince turn to look at Lady Rielle, wearing such an obvious expression of love that Obritsa could practically feel, like a hot breeze, the collective swoon of her court.
Hundreds of people had gathered in Zheminask’s grandest hall to dine and gossip, and every last one of them watched in rapt silence as the prince of Celdaria addressed first the talk of dark turnings in the north, then the mysterious killings in the west—and now, Lady Rielle herself.
“I know you have all heard of her great deeds,” Audric continued, “first in Celdaria and more recently in the Borsvallic capital. And that is only the beginning of her power. Every day, she grows stronger. Every day, I love her more deeply than I did the day before.”
Well, that confirmed the rumors. Delight moved through the great hall like a wave upon the sea, and Obritsa played her part, bringing her clasped hands to her lips and allowing tears of happiness to rise. They were, she had to admit, a lovely couple—the earnest prince, with his poise and his noble jaw and his steady, reassuring voice, and the mysterious elemental prodigy at his side, gold-garbed and beaming, much prettier now than she’d been with half the roads of Kirvaya dusting her skin. Both of them young and talented, clearly enraptured with each other.
Obritsa tapped her finger on the underside of the table, listening distractedly as Audric spoke of looking to the future, of uniting in the face of uncertainty.
How would she steal Lady Rielle away from her devoted prince?
She thought quickly, her mind spinning through the possibilities. She could request Lady Rielle’s help with a private mission, some urgent matter of state that not even Prince Audric could be privy to. She could have Audric killed or abducted, frame someone on the council for the crime, bring Sasha to the palace as a private spy hired to track down the murderer. She could be frank with the Celdarians, share her true identity, and recruit Rielle knowingly to the revolution.
But then all thoughts left Obritsa’s mind, for at that moment, the fire in the room—thousands of flames from thousands of candles and torches—suddenly flew through the air, leaving their wicks and oils for Lady Rielle’s fingers.
Obritsa’s stomach dropped, and a cold fear flooded her body, for there was Rielle, standing behind her seat at the high table, her arms outstretched. Thousands of flames coalesced into two knots of fire, one cupped in each of her palms. No castings needed, no castings anywhere to be found.
The room plunged into awestruck silence.
Then Rielle pushed out her palms and released the fire—no longer pointed flames but tiny brilliant pellets, like a scattering of luminous dust. Another flick of Rielle’s fingers, and the rushing fire froze in midair. Countless grains of light, suspended as if hung from the ceiling on invisible threads. One of the courtiers sitting near the high table reached up, eyes full of wonder, her lips parted, as if she were a child determined to pluck a star from the sky and keep it for herself.
As if from a great distance, Obritsa heard the hall exploding into cheers and applause, watched the courtiers rushing the high table, Lady Rielle’s guard circling close to protect her, Grand Magister Parova dropping to her knees at Rielle’s feet to pray.
At last, Obritsa remembered herself. She jumped to her feet and rushed toward Rielle, each tap and click of her beaded dress and the gilded bracelets encasing her arms resounding in her head like the beat of a drum.
She had grown skilled at summoning tears at a moment’s notice and did so now, clutching Rielle’s hands and pressing them against her cheek.
“I’ve never seen anything so beautiful!” she cried, and clung to Rielle’s gown until Artem pulled her away.
After that, all was chaos. The dais upon which the high table stood was thronged with nobility, temple acolytes, frightened servants. Obritsa stepped back from the mess of it, allowed Artem to sit her in a chair with a glass of water and a damp rag for her forehead.
“Such excitement!” she breathed, in case anyone could hear. “Can you believe that such a magnificent creature exists, Artem?”
He did not answer her, but Obritsa knew he was thinking, just as she was, that if Rielle c
ould manipulate an entire room full of fire with only a few flicks of her hands, and do so as a mere bit of amusement after supper—a simple parlor trick to pass the time—then no amount of subterfuge or outright aggression could bring the Sun Queen into the fold of the revolution.
Obritsa noticed Lady Ludivine peering at her from Rielle’s side, her long golden hair falling down her back in soft waves. Obritsa plastered on a wavering smile before looking bashfully away.
She would need to sit down with Rielle and request an alliance between the Sun Queen and the Fell Blade plainly, without artifice—or she would have to report to Sasha that she had failed.
And what good was a weapon that could not perform the duty for which it had been made?
Obritsa knew what Sasha would say:
Cut off the bad leg before the rot takes over.
5
Obritsa stared at the ceiling, hands clasped at her waist, legs straight, back straight, corpse-straight. She spent two hours dutifully trying to clear her mind and methodically relax every inch of her body. She counted long lines of imaginary shaggy goats jumping over an imaginary sty. A childish trick, but one that usually worked for her.
Not tonight.
She sat up with a sigh, more than a little relieved that sleep had proven elusive.
Her nights had been terrible of late, polluted by dreams that were all teeth and meat. Every time, a horrible stench would follow her into her waking life. It was a stench she half recognized, a sharp, acrid odor that seemed somehow familiar.
She rose from her bed, padded across the plush red carpet, slipped on her scarlet dressing gown, and then curled up, frowning, in the brocaded crimson chair by the low-burning fire.
Red, red, red. Everything she owned was red, or gold, or red and gold. And now, her dreams were red. Red and reeking.
She glared at the fire, mutinous, and took a savage pleasure in using every curse she knew against Marzana, as if the dead saint could somehow hear her through the flames—and then, something shifted. A subtle change in the air.
She was not alone.
She whirled, reaching automatically for her boot and realizing, with a swift, angry drop of her stomach, that of course she was barefoot, her boot knife tucked away in her closet.
A few paces away, in her chair’s crimson twin, sat a young woman—tall, slender, pale, poised. Long golden hair in a loose braid, body draped in a dark, snow-dusted cloak.
The impossibility of seeing her there meant that Obritsa did not at first recognize her.
“Lady Ludivine?” Obritsa blinked, blinked again, and then clutched her dressing gown closed at her throat and found a shy, girlish smile. “Sweet saints, you’re not supposed to be here. I’m hardly dressed, and it’s the middle of the night! However did you get past my guards? This is decidedly odd. Wait a moment…”
She hesitated, crafted an expression of worry. “Has something happened to Lady Rielle or Prince Audric? Are you ill? Oh, please, tell me, Lady Ludivine, I really cannot bear your silence.”
Obritsa’s skin crawled as she watched a knowing amusement move across Ludivine’s face. Hers was the smile of someone in possession of many secrets.
“You’re a wonderful liar,” Ludivine observed. “You’ve convinced Rielle and Audric—particularly Audric, because he trusts easily—but you never had me convinced, not for a second.”
Obritsa’s senses sharpened, her mind scrambling to figure out what this could mean. She laughed, wrinkling her nose. “You’re acting rather strange, Lady Ludivine. I don’t know what to make of what you’re saying.”
“I know you’re a marque. If you don’t cooperate with me, I’ll tell everyone what you really are, and I won’t lift a finger to help you when they come for your head.”
Obritsa froze, her frantic heartbeat taking up every inch of space in her body. Her mind raced through a few quick calculations. She saw no sense in maintaining the facade.
Her smile vanished. Her voice turned cold. “How did you find out?”
“My family’s spies are better than yours,” Ludivine replied, “and yours are sloppy.”
Her family—House Sauvillier of Celdaria. Obritsa knew them to be the most powerful family in the country, in many ways more powerful than House Courverie—more land, more money, more soldiers, beloved and feared in equal measure, immensely popular, if only because Sauvillier soldiers had kept Celdaria relatively safe from invasion by Borsvall for decades now. Were it not for the fact that House Courverie was the ancestral house of Saint Katell, Obritsa was certain Ludivine’s family would be the one to govern the realm.
And, if Sasha’s spies had brought her correct intelligence, Merovec Sauvillier was currently trying to accomplish precisely that.
Obritsa set her jaw. “What do you want, then?”
A slight flicker of something shadowed and terrible moved across Ludivine’s face and then, just as quickly, was gone.
“This city is rotten with dark workings,” Ludivine said smoothly. “The missing children, the murders. I’ve tried to investigate what it means and have reached many dead ends. All I’ve managed to uncover is that three members of your Magisterial Council are involved in the abductions, and that the children are being taken somewhere in the Villmark, in the region known as Shirshaya.”
Obritsa grasped for words but kept her voice cool. “Oh, yes? And which magisters are these?”
“Magisters Yeravet, Kravnak, and Vorlukh.”
Obritsa shook her head, struggling to gather her thoughts. She rose from her chair and slowly made her way toward her desk, which stood near the room’s southern wall of windows.
“These are incredible accusations,” she murmured. “Why should I believe any of them?”
“Because they are true,” Ludivine replied. “And because I know many things I shouldn’t. I know you are a tool of the revolution, raised by Sasha Rhyzov in the lower districts of the city of Yarozma. I know they cut the wings out of your back and regrew your skin. I know they want you to abduct Rielle and use her as a weapon of your revolution, which I find hysterical, since Rielle could flatten this city with a flick of her wrist, if she wanted to.”
Obritsa listened, heart pounding in her ears, and pressed the tiny brass button on the underside of her desk. It was an ingenious mechanism, designed by Artem. Pressing the button awakened a channel of earthshaker magic that slept in a stone passage connecting his rooms to hers.
Any moment now, he would burst in and knock Ludivine to the ground with his staff.
But first, Obritsa would wring as much information out of this pretty golden snake as she could.
“What a fascinating tableau you’ve painted, Lady Ludivine.” Obritsa leaned back against her desk. “Please, do go on.”
“I know what you saw the other night in the courtyard of that school,” Ludivine continued, her posture impeccable, her braid glinting in the firelight. “You saw a child kill his teacher and then climb inside a carriage that bore him away into the night. You tried to follow, but couldn’t. Shadows confused your vision and blocked your passage, making it seem as though the carriage was traveling much more swiftly than it should have been able to. You thought perhaps this was shadowcaster magic. It wasn’t. It was the work of angels, fogging your mind, misaligning your senses.”
Ludivine paused, then continued. “I know Grand Magister Yeravet grabbed you, drugged you with widow’s tears, and returned you to your rooms. You woke up remembering nothing but echoes. The Grand Magister told your guard that he had found you drunk on the street, that you had been sneaking out to taverns. I know you’ve been enduring terrible nightmares. They are the product of your mind screaming at you to remember the events of that night.”
Obritsa could hardly breathe. Tears stood hot in her eyes. For a moment, she forgot herself—her training, her tongue silver with lies. Ludivine’s words had
unlocked a stubborn door. A stream of images rushed at her.
The dim stone yard past the gates of Saint Marzana’s Hope.
The young boy watching his teacher slump to the ground. Her wet, piteous cries. The growing dark stain on her clothes.
A clouded, shifting road. The rattle of carriage wheels against dark stone.
Grand Magister Yeravet, a gentle smile on his face. How admirable, my queen. Truly, you are a wonder.
A damp cloth smothering her, burning tears from her eyes, flooding her nose and throat with fumes.
Obritsa’s horror pinned her where she stood. She clutched her stomach, nauseated and breathless.
She managed one word. “How?”
Then the door flew open. Earthshaker magic poured into the room, sharp and acrid—the scent of wood, the musk of damp soil. Artem raced inside, his brown eyes blazing, his staff raised high.
Obritsa wanted him to stop—she needed more information from Ludivine about how she had learned these things, about what else she might know—but she didn’t speak quickly enough.
Ludivine turned to regard Artem. She did not rise, and she said nothing, yet somehow, impossibly, Artem froze. His shoulders sagged, and his face slackened. He lowered his staff to the ground and then walked placidly across the room, out the glass-paned doors, and onto the terrace. In came a burst of winter wind, blowing papers off of Obritsa’s desk.
She watched, helpless, a horrible fear cresting inside her, as Artem walked across the terrace and began to climb over the railing.
“Stop!” Obritsa cried, rushing forward.
“Leave him,” said Ludivine coldly. “One more step, and I’ll tell him to keep going.”
Obritsa stared at Ludivine, shivering. “What are you?”
“I’m an angel, and I believe others of my kind are building something in the far north, in the Villmark. I need you to go see what it is and report back to me.”
Too many questions flooded Obritsa’s mind. She felt suddenly weighed down, as if by great humming stones. An angel? Impossible. Unthinkable. The angels were all gone, banished to the Deep.
Queen of the Blazing Throne Page 4
