Queen's Hunt

by Beth Bernobich

He pointed to a wooden box with symbols burned onto the lid. The box was clearly a makeshift creation, unpolished and rough, but Gerek recognized the signs for a box of the dead. His breath came short. Ilse Zhalina’s?

  Kosenmark must have interpreted his thoughts, because his mouth twitched into a bitter smile. “She is not dead. At least, she did not die in battle. No, this was a soldier of the kingdom, who gave her life defending me. I would bring her ashes to her family, except that her family already believes her dead. I shall have to think over what to do.”

  His voice died away and his gaze went diffuse. He appeared oblivious—or indifferent—to Gerek’s presence, and it took Gerek several moments before he could bring himself to speak and break that reverie. “What comes next, my lord?”

  That distant gaze went blank a moment and then returned to the present. Kosenmark smiled, almost naturally. “We go home. I have a few promises to keep. And we prepare for the future, whatever it holds.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  FIRE. MAGIC. CONFLAGRATION.

  Ilse gripped her sword, ready to ward off the next blow, but none came. The battle had vanished. No, she had vanished from the battle, translated by magic into Anderswar’s plane. She still heard its echoes in her ears, still saw ghostlike images flickering before her eyes, like memories come to life. You are not true, she told them. You are base illusions, sent to frighten me.

  As if Anderswar heard her thoughts, the images faded. She was alone, with flames and fog and the lights from a thousand worlds wheeling beneath her feet. Ilse swallowed, tasting grit and ashes from that faraway campfire on Hallau Island.

  Onward, she told herself.

  One step, another. The worlds shuddered and spun. She ignored them. Far ahead—if distance mattered here—she had glimpsed movement in the shadows. A third step and the shadow resolved into a tall figure striding along the bright-lit edge. Valara.

  “Valara!” she called out.

  Valara paid her no heed. She strode faster, sending the current whirling around her. Fox and stars, the signatures were unmistakable. Impossible, Ilse thought. No one had a double signature. And then realization came to her—the woman had a magical device. Something powerful enough that it made its own separate impression.

  Ignoring the chasm on either side, Ilse raced forward and seized Valara above her elbow. Valara tried to shake off Ilse’s grip, but Ilse’s fingers tightened around that bone-thin arm. “We must go back,” she said. “Valara, do you hear me? We must go back.”

  Her last glimpse of the fight had been of Raul, his face covered with blood, fighting off three attackers. It was impossible for him and his guards to defend themselves against the Károvín for very long. If they were quick enough, if they hadn’t lost hours—or days—they might surprise the Károvín and overcome them with magic.

  “No.” Valara’s voice was rough and quick. “You can go back to die if you like. But I won’t. Not this time. Not again—”

  She broke off with an exclamation. Her chin jerked up and she had a wild fey look in her eyes. “He came. I should have expected that. He would not let death stop him from pursuing me.” Then in a softer voice, “Only an order from his king could turn him aside.”

  Ilse glanced over her shoulder.

  Clouds roiled up from an invisible horizon, a vast expanse of silver and white in constant motion. Even as she tried to make out what caught Valara’s attention, a dark shadow appeared against the bright mist, like an ink spot dropped onto snow. The spot grew larger, becoming the figure of a man, holding a sword. A breeze from nowhere ruffled the man’s dark hair, sending a trace of his magical signature toward them. She had met that same signature in lives past …

  “He’s one of the soldiers,” she said.

  Valara’s lips drew back in a snarl. “Oh yes. His name is Karasek. He led the invasion against my people.” She yanked free of Ilse’s hold. “Come with me or not. But I will not let that man take me prisoner again.”

  She dived into the chaos below. Ilse barely hesitated before she dived after her.

  … their world tilted upside down. A thrumming filled her ears. She had a vision of islands scattered over wine-dark seas. She knew them, had sailed to their shores in a different life. It was the lost kingdom of Morennioù. Valara Baussay was fleeing homeward …

  A voice rang out, a great harsh bell-like voice, so loud her bones vibrated. No and no and no, it cried. You must deliver us all …

  An irresistible force plucked them away from the islands and hurled them through a maelstrom of fire and smoke. Ilse heard a ragged scream—Valara, shouting curses to someone named Daya. Just as she thought they would be lost forever in the void, the world materialized around them and a cold wind struck Ilse in the face.

  She crouched on a bare rocky plain. Her sword, dark with dried blood, lay beside her. She blinked. Her tears turned to ice. She brushed them away with one stiff hand and shaded her eyes. Snow whirled through the air. The sun was little more than a white disk hovering above the flat horizon.

  Ilse drew a long painful breath. Her ribs ached. Her head rang with an echo of the shrieks and curses from the void. A rill of magic floated past, like a second current of wind, then vanished.

  Where am I?

  A dark mass huddled next to her—a woman, whose hair streamed loose in the wind. Valara.

  Valara Baussay lifted her head. Her tattoos stood out sharply against her cheek and lips, now gray from the cold. She spoke, but her words made no sense to Ilse. The language was neither Veraenen nor Morennioùen. It reminded her of the old text from Károví that her brother, Ehren, brought home from Duenne’s University, a time and world so long ago, they could have been a previous life.

  The wind shifted, carrying with it a hint of warmth, and the overpowering scent of magic. Ilse squinted. It was impossible to see more than a haze of white and gray. She rubbed the back of her hand over her eyes and blinked. Her vision cleared, and she gave an astonished cry.

  A mile away from them, argentine cliffs rose tall and straight from the snow-dusted plain, a vast rippling curtain of stone that interrupted the smooth horizon. And like a curtain, there appeared a gap in the front, where dark sand and gravel spilled forth to the plains below. Above, the air shimmered, as though fires roared inside that fantastical creation.

  It was like all the paintings and ink drawings she had seen in books. It was like her own memories of this place, from lives and lives ago.

  The Mantharah and the Agnau.

  She knew exactly where magic and the void had flung them, as if a map lay before her. They were in the far north of Károví, a hundred miles or more from Rastov. Oh, but this was more than some lonely mountain. Here the gods had feasted upon each other’s love. Here they’d fashioned the world, drawing out a never-ending ribbon of life from the Agnau’s molten stuff—from the magical creatures of Anderswar to the ordinary beasts and all mankind.

  Wind blasted through her thin clothes. She shook Valara’s arm. “We can’t stay in the open,” she shouted. “We’ll take shelter over there.” She jabbed a fist toward the Mantharah.

  Valara nodded dumbly, but gave no sign of comprehension. Ilse shook her again, hard. The other woman gave a gasp. She snapped her head up to face the Mantharah. Her eyes narrowed in awareness. And recognition.

  Ilse didn’t need to say anything more. They helped each other regain their feet. Both of them were stiff and clumsy with cold. Ilse sheathed her sword. She drew her hands into her sleeves and tucked her chin into her collar. Valara scowled, as if she could subdue the cold with her fury, but she did the same. Heads bent against the constant wind, they stumbled toward the Mantharah and that narrow gap between cliff and cliff.

  By the time they reached its ash-strewn slopes, Ilse’s face was numb. She caught a whiff of strong magic, of warmth, from above. She and Valara scrambled up through loose dirt and gravel, breathing in that incredible scent, as though spring had bloomed, invisible, just beyond their sight.

  The sl
ope led up to a hard-packed crown of stone. From there, the cliffs swept around a lake of silver, its shore a perfect circle of ink-black sand, washed smooth by the Agnau’s waves, which rolled ceaselessly from shore to distant shore. Surrounding the lake, the cliffs rose straight toward the sky. Here and there in the silvery walls, Ilse saw shallow indentations, as though fingers had touched them before they had hardened.

  The hands of gods.

  It was all too much. She wanted to weep at the impossibility. She sat down hard on the ground and began to curse. Her mad outburst must have frightened Valara, because the other woman retreated farther along the Agnau’s shores.

  “You.” Ilse scrambled to her feet and drew her sword. “You will tell me the truth, Valara Baussay. No more lies. I am sick to my soul with your lies. Sit over there.”

  She pointed to a small, broken off boulder next to her—an anomaly in this strangely smooth and perfect setting. Valara glanced from the boulder to Ilse. “You want to kill me.”

  “No,” Ilse said harshly. “I want to hear the truth for once. Sit. And speak.”

  Gingerly, Valara took her seat on the boulder. Ilse remained standing.

  “Where should I start?” Valara asked.

  “With you and Leos Dzavek. No, with the jewel you found in Morennioù.”

  Valara flinched. “Yes. That.”

  She chafed her hands one within the other, as if searching for the words to begin her story. She still wore that plain wooden ring, Ilse noticed. It had turned darker over the past few days, and its polished surface took on a brighter gleam. A brother’s gift. A very strange one, much plainer than one would expect from a royal prince to his sister.

  Valara met her gaze. Her lips quirked into a smile. “My ring. Or rather, Lir’s emerald. I called it a gift from my brother. In a sense, that is true. I would not have it except for him. Leos Dzavek, I mean. He is not my brother now, but he was, once.”

  Ilse’s pulse took a sudden leap. She lowered her sword and stared at Valara, who glanced away. Of course. It explained so much. The magical storm that destroyed the three Károvín ships. Valara’s escape from Osterling’s prison. How she killed those soldiers with a powerful magic that seemed to surprise her as much as it did others.

  It took her many moments before she could collect her thoughts and focus on the essentials. Even longer before she trusted herself to speak in anything resembling a rational tone.

  “When did you find it?”

  Valara opened and shut her mouth. Then she wiped a hand over her eyes and smiled, a strange sad uncomfortable smile. “Last year. Shortly before my mother and sister died. When I became my father’s heir. You must understand…” She stopped a moment, pressed her lips together and sent a glance upward to the cliffs, as if she would find an answer there. “Or perhaps you cannot understand. You were not there, after all, through these past three hundred years. You see, in Morennioù, we have certain conventions. There are magic workers, mages, wizards, whatever you like to call them, but none of them are kings or queens. Even the nobles do not cast any spells other than the simplest ones. Lighting a candle, sealing a letter.”

  “Those are not necessarily simple spells,” Ilse murmured.

  Valara gave a soft laugh. “No. Over the years, the definition for ordinary has stretched and twisted and changed. But I can assure you that powerful magic—including a journey to Autrevelye, to Anderswar—is strictly forbidden. I broke the conventions because I was curious, at first. Later, when I discovered that Leos Dzavek was my brother, and I the one who hid Lir’s jewels, I studied more magic so that I could reclaim the jewels for Morennioù. I knew that one day, Luxa’s Hand would fail us and we would have to face the world. I did not wish to do that without a weapon at hand.”

  She twisted the ring around her finger. “I had not realized that day would come so soon.”

  Luxa’s Hand. What the Veraenen called Lir’s Veil. It had stood so long—three hundred years—they had all forgotten to question its existence.

  Except Leos Dzavek. He forgot nothing, whether good or evil. Was that a factor of his long life? Or of himself, his own nature, refusing to take anything for granted?

  She knew the answer already, from her life dreams. So did Valara Baussay.

  She turned back to her questions. “Dzavek sent his soldiers after you and the emerald. Did Markus Khandarr know?”

  Valara’s mouth tensed at the mention of Khandarr’s name. “No. He would not have allowed me to live so long, I think.”

  Very true. Ilse could understand this woman’s reluctance to speak openly. She was a queen among her enemies.

  It would have been simpler if she had trusted us. But then, we did not entirely trust her.

  A savage ache had settled between Ilse’s eyes. She was hungry, weary, frightened. Angry with herself for not guessing the truth earlier. For trusting too much and not enough, all at the same time. Absently she rubbed her free hand over her forehead. Smelled the lingering scent of smoke and blood, overlaid with the strong scent of magic that permeated the air. I cannot stop the questions yet. She is speaking at last.

  “Did anyone else in your court know about the emerald?” she asked.

  Valara shook her head. “Not at first. I had not decided when, or how, to introduce the matter. It is a delicate subject.”

  And you were not certain you wished to share this information.

  Ilse kept that thought to herself. “You say not at first…”

  “I told no one at first. It was too dangerous—dangerous the way I used to understand such things. Court dangerous. Politically dangerous. There were several factions who— Well, never mind about them. I told my father and his mage councillor, but not until that very last day. They are both dead now.”

  More glimpses into the woman’s life and Morennioù’s Court. Ilse had the impression of a strict and cold existence, of a life requiring exquisite balance. Like walking the knife edge above spinning worlds in Anderswar.

  Which reminded her of another question. “What about now? Why did you remain in Veraene? Why bargain with us at all?”

  “Ah, that.” Valara lifted her hand to show the ring. “Because Daya would not allow me. She—he—they told me clearly they wanted deliverance, for themselves and their brothers, sisters. I had not understood before what they meant. I’m still not certain.”

  More pieces from history and her own memories fitted together to complete the picture. Daya. Lir’s emerald. Once joined together with the other two.

  Even through the enveloping magic, Ilse could hear the wind thumping against the Mantharah, like a vast fist hammering on a door.

  Or like an angry supplicant, demanding satisfaction of its god.

  Deliver us all, the voice like bells had cried out.

  We are all bound to these jewels, Ilse thought. Just as they are bound to us.

  A man was created free, the philosophers said. It was his own choices, however, that bound him in the end. Even the choice to do nothing, to deny responsibility and claim that one was powerless to act, that, too, would bind a soul to the same life, the same questions, again and again.

  “So then,” Ilse said softly. “I have my answers. Now I give one to you. We do as the jewels ask of us. If we refuse, we are set to this same task in our next lives, and the next, and so on until the end of eternity. If we deliver them to freedom, that in turn sets us free. So. We must recover the other two jewels and join them all together, as they once were.”

  “I—” Valara broke off and stared at the Agnau’s surface. “No, I cannot argue that. But how? Leos Dzavek has Rana—the ruby—locked away in his castle. We cannot hope to attack him in that stronghold. Remember how it was before?”

  “I remember.”

  She did. If Ilse closed her eyes, she could see ghostly images of Zalinenka. The hundreds of guards who stood outside the gates and patrolled the lower halls. Even before Károví divided itself from the empire, the court had its factions who did not always restrict thems
elves to mere speech to gain their point.

  “So we do not attack,” she said. “We infiltrate. But not yet. First we need to recover the missing jewel.”

  “Asha,” Valara said. “I hid her, him in Autrevelye.”

  Three hundred years ago, when Valara Baussay had lived as Imre Benacka. And I read about you from a book written by a prison official named Karel Simkov. You died before you would admit to Leos Dzavek where you hid those jewels.

  “So search your memories,” Ilse told Valara. “Find Asha and bring her back here. I shall stay by the Mantharah and keep Daya safe. Once you return, we can plan our next steps.”

  Valara’s lips curled back in a snarl, as if she were a dog. No, a fox. Then her eyes closed and she touched the ring again. Her lips moved in a silent conversation. A long pause followed before she released a sigh.

  “No choice. Or as you said, the only choice left.” She stared at the ring upon her finger, and for a moment, her features seemed to shift in the Agnau’s strange light, from woman to man and back again. “The only choice,” Valara repeated softly. “Would that I had accepted this before.” She glanced up, once more the Morennioùen queen, no traces of her former selves apparent. “Let us make our plans then.”

  * * *

  THEY SPOKE OF practicalities next. What were the implications of Valara’s search? How long would it require? What if Leos Dzavek detected her presence there?

  A few hours, no less, Valara insisted.

  What if you need more? Ilse asked, equally insistent. And what about the time difference? A single hour in Anderswar can mean days, years, in this world.

  More arguments followed. Each of them was practiced in evasion, obfuscation, the many other intricate maneuvers one encountered in royal courts. In the end, the knowledge that they had to act for the future—theirs and their kingdoms—decided the argument.

  “One day, then,” Valara said. “No longer.”

  “How can you know when you return? Anderswar—”

  “—is not invincible. Trust me to know that.” Her lips thinned to a sardonic smile. “Though, indeed, you have little reason to trust me. But what I say is true. Once I have the sapphire, I can traverse the void more precisely. I can return before the sun sets.”