The Queen of Storm and Shadow

by Jenna Rhodes

  Nutmeg tugged on a stray curl brushing the edge of her ear. Her rounded Dweller ear looked as though it had begun to develop a definite upward swoop and tip like that of a Vaelinar. Dayne’s roaming attention now fixed on that for a long moment before he realized she had realized he stared, and he looked away.

  “I can’t, nor do I believe the Gods meddle. We build our own fates, I think, splinter by splinter, until we’ve built a tree of life. It might be a vast, wide-branched tree, or a scraggly bit of shrubbery, but there it is.”

  “All up to us.”

  “And those around us. I mean, I didn’t start a war, but there I was in the middle of it.”

  “So some branches might intermingle a bit.”

  “If you want to call it that. Tangled, the way I see it.”

  He sat down, near but not too near her. “Some things seem inevitable, though.”

  “Aye, well, apples will rot no matter how cool the cellar.” She crossed her ankles and eyed them, still slim and well-turned despite the two children.

  His throat ached with words he wanted to say and couldn’t. He finally shot to his feet and got halfway out of the room before calling back over his shoulder, “I’d better finish up in the barn.” And he was gone.

  Nutmeg looked after him. It occurred to her that while apples might rot, even more constant was the sun rising every day no matter how cloaked by clouds and ill-weather, its light hidden but welcome.

  Chapter

  Fifteen

  BISTANE HALTED in the narrow manor hallway as a page approached, his senses and mind still filled with the intense spring of the outdoors. He rubbed his hand down his thigh, brushing his leathers, no longer white as he used to wear but now a color somewhere between lustrous brown and burnished cherry. The warming spring day crept slowly indoors despite the shutters and hangings, and later, he knew he would wish he had worn one of his light shirts instead of armor over his torso. The chain mail hanging from his shoulders down to his hips would gain weight as the day went on, but it might well save his life again as it had saved him and Lara just a few weeks ago. He rolled first one shoulder and then the other to settle it better about him, watching the page coming down the hall. Pages. Seneschals. Head of the Grange, all trouble which Lara handled with far more alacrity than he did. Tolby had been attacked by that raving Mageborn Bregan had morphed into, proving that even the country life held no safety. Lara lived, but would she become aware again? Be able to even think again? Thoughts pounded his head from the inside out and his shoulders ached from being bowed over Lariel’s coffin-like bed for days.

  The assassin’s wound healed. Her color returned somewhat, though she’d been pale since the battlefield attack, shut in her rooms. She almost looked, once again, as if she were simply a prisoner of sleep, locked inside a dream too inviting to leave. A dream of quietude.

  The hallways and rooms also held the quiet of a tomb, without Nutmeg and the children. Nothing like the head-knocking common sense of a Dweller to dispel a mood.

  He never thought he would so thoroughly regret Tolby Farbranch’s clan leaving (and taking Bistane’s brother Verdayne with them), but he did. Wholeheartedly. Now he had no one he could trust to watch over his queen while he took a break. He’d not had one word to his two frantic missives to the Kobrir, urging them to provide the promised antidote for the king’s rest. He was a warlord, but his duty held him here. He could no longer return to see how his fields and groves fared, to walk among the beloved aryns, to lance at words with the librarian Azel d’Stanthe at the nearby Library, to drill his new recruits and otherwise tend to the family business. His pledge kept him at Larandaril to ensure her safety. He’d have to keep his trust in his own seneschal, Pieter.

  If he had Verdayne with him, he could leave Dayne on guard. But, even as Bistane had, his brother had made his own decision and chosen to keep watch over Nutmeg Farbranch and two bouncing children, and probably for many of the same reasons Bistane had made his. Duty. Loyalty. Love. Dayne did not think that Nutmeg would ever look at him as he looked at her, but he hoped so, he’d told his brother. One day. Bistane consoled him, gave him hope, but did not tell him the truth as he saw it. Nutmeg had never had to make the choice with him. Verdayne had gone into her life, become her protector and her strong right arm, and she had never had to ask herself what she might feel for him if he were not always there.

  Dayne fretted to Bistane in his own brotherly fashion that Nutmeg might worry about the gap between them. He was, after all, half-Vaelinar, his father the great Warlord Bistel Vantane and his mother a long-lived and prosperous Dweller woman, and he himself more inclined toward the Vaelinar portion of his bloodline. He would live long, too, although nothing approaching Bistel’s time whose lifeline had exceeded most of his peers and reckoned over a thousand years. Had that made Dayne’s life far too formidable? Did Nutmeg worry that she would grow old long before he did? She carried no sign of her years, but she was Dweller, and a Dweller seldom stood taller than a Vaelinar’s elbow at the most, and lived perhaps a tenth of the elven lifespan, forgetting war and plague.

  Not to put Dayne’s worries aside as if unworthy, but Bistane knew that women mated to Vaelinars often inherited a portion of their longevity. Dayne’s own mother had lived nearly twice as long and Dayne himself approached two hundred years and was just now into his young, hot blooded prime. Nutmeg had loved a prince of the Vaelinar and carried his child. That alone increased her years, and if she became Dayne’s, that would go even further. Not a reason to marry but certainly not a reason to not marry.

  Bistane knew that the council he’d given his brother hadn’t gone far. Verdayne held too much fear deep inside of him for that, and neither could he blame his brother for it. Being half-Dweller among the arrogant Vaelinars was its own peculiar, cold hell.

  As for himself, he loved a woman who was married to her kingdom. If she ever did reach out for a partnership, it would no doubt be for one steeped in political and strategic advantage. That was what one did, after all.

  If she ever awakened.

  And when she woke, would she look at him and realize why he stood watch at her bedside, moment by aching moment?

  Footsteps tattooed his thoughts.

  Bistane inhaled and lifted his gaze to the page who finally stopped in front of him, boot heels tapping together quietly but firmly.

  “Sir. There is a personage at the back kitchen door, asking for you.”

  Bistane’s eyebrow arched. “Kitchen door.”

  “Yes, lord. Not a formal visitor, he said, but necessary.” The page’s young face had creased in upset. He swallowed hard. “I couldn’t send him away, lord, and the staff is near paralyzed in fear. It’s a Kobrir, sir.”

  The words punched him in the gut. He would ask if the page were certain, but Kobrir couldn’t be missed. Their dark garb and face veils left little to the imagination even to those who had never seen one but certainly had heard the stories. He looked over his shoulder at Lariel’s closed door. “I want two guards at the door, and one inside.”

  The page nodded and ran. When the additional guards were in place, and only then, Bistane went down the servants’ stairs to the kitchen to see what awaited him.

  The Kobrir sat cross-legged near the back door, the kitchen staff occupying the quarter of the kitchen farthest away, darting looks over their shoulders when they dared. The assassin looked totally unaware of them, as though they did not exist. Bistane knew that if any one of the five had made a move, they’d have a dagger buried in their neck. Without word, without thought, and without regret. And then the other four would be dropped just as quickly and quietly.

  The last Kobrir with whom Bistane had been face-to-face had been Sevryn Dardanon, just after he’d plunged his knife into Lariel’s thigh. Most of his last words had been to Bistane: “She’s not dead. She’s not dying. My blade is poisoned. It mimics death. Don’t leave her side till sh
e wakes. It may be days. It may be weeks. She will heal if you tend it. Don’t take the blade out. Do you hear me? Do you understand? Don’t take the blade out until she heals. The poison on the blade is the only thing keeping her alive as she heals.”

  Kobrir poison. He’d sent to them for the antidote when her body had almost finished its sluggish healing, with her deep in its coma. They had sent back they could not help. Every season he sent to them. Her healing had been nearly complete when the assassin breached her apartments and nearly killed her again. Bistane had insisted the Kobrir dagger remain in her body, and she survived again. Her scars pink but sealed, he had sought help one last time.

  Now, finally, this spring season they had sent one of their own. The surprise held him silent for a few heartbeats as he looked at the assassin sitting in the queen’s kitchen.

  The Kobrir looked up at him.

  “Do you have it?”

  “May I see the queen? If allowed?”

  “You’re an assassin. How do I know you’re not here to finish the latest attempt?”

  The Kobrir tilted his head. “Latest?”

  “Someone tried to slit her throat.”

  “Is the Kobrir dagger still in her body? Does she yet heal?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then your assassin was not Kobrir, for one of us would have succeeded. And we would have removed the dagger which prolonged her life.”

  “That gives me little faith to let you near her now.”

  “You had enough faith to plead for an antidote.”

  “Sevryn told me you had one. I’ve yet to see it.”

  The Kobrir unfolded agilely getting to his feet. “I have some news on that request.”

  Bistane suddenly felt a heat from the staring kitchen staff. He dipped his shoulder and turned about sharply. “Follow me, then.”

  The Kobrir moved after him, relatively silent on boot soles that seemed to be felted rather than leather, up the stairs, avoiding the boards that breathed or groaned with every step, a shadow in Bistane’s wake.

  The hair on the back of his neck prickled, reminding him he was being followed by an enemy. Bistane did not turn about until they reached the third-floor landing. Then he looked to the Kobrir. “Another letter refusing aid would have been sufficient.”

  “We told you we could not help. Not that we would not.”

  Bistane cut the air with his hand. “Playing at words as if they held a knife edge.”

  “But still true. Our master herbalist, the Kobrir who taught Sevryn much of his knowledge, including that of the poison called the king’s rest, died in our camps while the battle to save Larandaril raged here. He took with him the knowledge of the antidote. We couldn’t help you, even if we had wished.”

  “That explanation would have been appreciated.” Bistane felt his jaws tighten.

  The Kobrir gave a fleeting smile. “But then you might have let the queen slip away, thinking your efforts and hopes futile. We couldn’t let that happen. By thinking us stubborn, heartless perhaps, you kept her in her sleep, hoping we might change our minds.”

  “And you’re here now.”

  “Yes. We’ve been testing what we know, and we believe we now have the antidote our master intended. He always told us that maidens nodded and bowed before a king. We thought it a fanciful philosophy. Then one of our young potion makers remembered the flower you call the maiden’s nod. I believe the meadows of Larandaril are full of them, this time of year.”

  Bistane blinked slowly. He inclined his head.

  “We have been brewing and testing, and we believe this is satisfactory.” The Kobrir opened the pouch at his belt and took out a corked, brown glass vial. He held it up but moved his hand swiftly when Bistane attempted to take it.

  “Enough games!”

  “She must be healed, or nearly so if she has grievous wounds, or she’ll die on you yet.”

  Bistane tried to relax his clenched hands. “She is, as near as our healer can promise me. That last attack was swift and brutal, but only to her throat. The wounds she took in battle had been far worse. She would have bled out in a dozen heartbeats if Sevryn hadn’t acted. Now . . . she’s not perfect. She’s very pale. We can tell she’s had a lot of blood loss, particularly with this last. But it’s closed. We don’t believe there is any internal bleeding. Now it hurts her to linger. I have to let her live, or let her go.”

  The Kobrir inclined his head. “The king’s rest cannot be in her system indefinitely or it will act as a true poison. Shall we see if this works?”

  Stiffly, reluctantly, Bistane led the assassin into Lara’s rooms.

  It smelled like . . . he couldn’t put a finger on the word he wanted. Like a sickroom, an odor of illness and near death, hiding under the scent of herbs and flowers, of spring wafting into the apartments through a barred window. Bistane flicked a glance at that window, out of habit. That was the window the ild Fallyn bastard had come through. Then it had merely been shuttered, and the flick of a knife had swung it open. That had been remedied. The floors were freshly sanded and oiled where the body had lain, blood pooling underneath it. He’d had Lariel’s bed moved, too, after her mattress and linens were taken out and burned, her own blood staining them heavily, but he’d moved her so that she could catch the breeze a little easier. Her maids had thanked him, for that now made it easier for them to make the bed and move her. The healers who came up kept the bed sores away and dictated periods of exercise, twice a day, moving her still body about as though Lara were nothing more than a puppet. Sometimes the incision where the dagger was buried to its hilt in her thigh would leak a few drops of blood. Most often it would not.

  She seemed closer to dying than ever before. Despite their care. Despite his worry.

  The Kobrir looked to him. “You must be certain before we do this. Do you need to call a council to certify your decision?”

  “Why?”

  The Kobrir shifted weight. “We tested our poison and antidotes a number of times. We found a danger of not removing the dagger in time, or removing it too soon.”

  “Too soon?”

  “That’s a deep wound. She could bleed out from it, if the king’s rest doesn’t clot the bleeding properly before it is excised from her system.”

  “So we remove the dagger and wait to apply the antidote.”

  “Not precisely. If we wait to apply the antidote, the king’s rest will turn deadly.”

  Bistane cut his hand through the air impatiently. “If it hasn’t killed her by now . . .”

  “No.” The Kobrir’s dark eyes watched him intently. “That’s a hollow-bladed knife. Pulling it out releases a reservoir of poison within, flooding the wound. A fresh application, if you will.”

  “Cold hell.” Bistane took a step toward Lariel. “You people are diabolical.”

  “So we were created to be. It distresses us almost as much as it does you.”

  “This might kill her.”

  “It could very well.”

  “Then why come to me now? Why not wait until you’re certain?”

  The Kobrir shook his head slowly. “We had a success. When we did, we knew we had to come to you as quickly as possible.” His slender fingers tightened about the vial. “No one has ever awakened from a king’s rest as long as Lariel Anderieon has slept. She slips with every day that passes now.”

  Bistane took another step, then two, until he reached the side of her bed. He brushed a finger alongside her cheek. She always felt cold to him, now. Who would he ask for an opinion and permission? Sevryn and Rivergrace were gone, lost two years now beyond that unholy break between worlds, swallowed and lost for good. Tranta’s body had come in on the tides below the cliffs of his shattered gem. Bistel, long since passed. The ild Fallyns wanted her dead and didn’t care how it happened. The Guardian King Diort had no say in the matter, though . . . and Bist
ane hesitated a moment . . . his oracle might prove useful. Still, if rumor was correct, Ceyla herself was an ild Fallyn, for all her loyalty to the Galdarkan, and Bistane couldn’t feel any trust in himself for the girl. “I don’t need a council. We’ll take the antidote.” He looked back at the Kobrir. “Do I need a healer in here?”

  “It wouldn’t help. It’s the timing.”

  “Timing?”

  “I put the vial to her lips. She swallows if she can—”

  “She drinks. Not much, but we keep her hydrated.” The sacred Andredia River kept its vow with her and its waters kept her alive, he thought privately, as much as healers and the king’s rest did.

  “Good.” The Kobrir joined him at Lara’s bedside. “Then this is what we do. I give her the vial, pour it down her throat at a measured pace. It has to be administered drop by drop, for all intents and purposes. You withdraw the dagger when I mark the vial as half gone.”

  He thought he understood what the other intended. He’d worked with wounds in the field. A good many times, the blade, if left behind in the soldier, blocked bleeding even as it slashed deep. Removing the blade before adequate bandaging could be provided could be as dangerous as the original wound, unless a vital organ had been hit, in which case internal bleeding doomed the soldier anyway. “The antidote will burn most of the poison from her system and begin to attack the bleeding of this last wound, even as I create it?”

  “Yes. Then you will need to put pressure tightly, a dressing on the cut, while I force the second half of the vial into her at once.”

  “And then?”

  “We wait. We see if the bleeding slows appreciably. If it does, we’ve won. The queen should awaken. If not, we still have some hope that pressure on the wound will work. That she will not bleed out almost as soon as she gathers consciousness.”

  “Some hope is better than none.” Bistane grabbed up the utility table which contained scissors and dressings, as well as thin gauze bandages which were placed to keep the dagger steady whenever Lara had to be exercised or otherwise moved. He put it near at hand.