The Queen of Storm and Shadow

by Jenna Rhodes

  “I understand.” Nitron’s chin muffled his response, as he still stood nearly on his forehead, his face turning brilliantine red.

  “Do stand up. I’m not sure you can hear me properly with all that blood rushing to your ears. New caravan. Immediately. No excuses.”

  “None, Queen Trevilara. There will be none needed.”

  “Good. And you’ll inform Mestreth he is to lead this one. Or he will find retirement to the south one of the few options he’ll have left in his life.”

  “Yes, Majesty.”

  “Good. Now go on, get out.”

  Without another word, Nitron turned and ran, his cloak tangling inelegantly behind him as he did so. Trevilara uncrossed her legs and sat, brooding a moment at the tiny flames that might be a very inventive and vibrant embroidery upon her dress except that they were real. “I don’t need survivors,” she said slowly. “I know who hit the caravan and why. He chooses to vex me, this death master. He cannot march into my capital, so he waits for me to come to him.”

  And so she would, but on her own terms, and he would regret that. She would make certain he did.

  She summoned her personal troop of enforcers and then she summoned her God.

  • • •

  “I destroyed this . . . when?” Trevilara looked about, feeling a tiny frown line indent between her exquisite brows. A welcome coolness blanketed her from the sea spray although the smell of the air bordered on appalling. She thought she could remember the village huddled on the bay, but then they all looked alike: gray, weathered, hunched defiantly on rocky shores.

  “About sixty years ago, according to my records.”

  “Long enough for them to lose their fear and begin to rebuild again, it seems.” She gathered her dress in her hands so that she might take a step over twisted clumps of marsh grass. Her hemline smoldered and trailed steam about as she did, the only sign of her flames suppressed into remission. “They built ships, did they not? In addition to fishing and the like.”

  “Boats, mainly. Smaller but quite seaworthy and agile. We had a lot of refugees on those boats, Your Majesty.”

  “Ah. I remember them now. They assisted traitors with their seditions.”

  “By building and selling them boats, yes.” Her secretary trailed behind her at a discreet pace as though he expected her to flare up or explode in a split-second. Which, Trevilara reflected, she could and he knew that from experience. He’d lasted the longest of any of her secretaries, and she allowed him his little eccentricities such as his need for personal space. She wearied of training new successors frequently. She would keep this one in place, if she could, until he grew aged and trained his own successor, hopefully one with an equivalent sense of survival.

  “They are rebuilding their cradles.”

  “So it seems. Dry docking capabilities and longhouses for doing the framing. Stocking and curing lumber. They’ve just begun to return to their industry.”

  “I wonder why.” She looked over her shoulder. “How’s their freshwater?”

  “Their wells seemed to be stocked with sweet water, Your Majesty, plague free.”

  “Hmmm.” That might be encouraging, that might not. Trevilara watched the tide coming in as she considered. This shoreline was beautiful in its own gray-blue way, although she much preferred the waters to the far south, which were bluer and greener in its many colors, and warmer, and the sands held a faint, pink hue. “Either the plague has run its course here, which is encouraging, or . . .” She could not think of an alternative. Her hand went to her breast bone and rubbed as if she could feel the missing pinch of her soul she’d given up to poison their waters generations ago. Had her soul faded? Would she know if it had, such a tiny, infinitesimal part of it? She did not think that either she or the God Dhuriel could be vulnerable in that way. But, if her soul had blinked out of existence here, then it could elsewhere, and there were other headwaters far more strategic where her plans could be seriously disrupted if the corruption faded. She might have to take a tour and take stock of work she’d done over the decades. That would be wearisome. Would it be necessary?

  She turned about to face her secretary. “Round them up. Tell them if they want to live, they will go with my men. Don’t be over-long persuading them.”

  “And we will do what with them?”

  “Send them to the camps. They seem to be hard workers. We can always use hard workers at the camps.”

  He gave a half bow and strode off to deliver her orders to her captain and the troop of men waiting at the small, dirt road they’d gathered at. She had not brought a large contingent with her, transporting was difficult with numbers, but those she had brought would be able to manage the slaves capably as they returned cross-country. Dhuriel did not like transporting. He did not respond well to being at her beck and call; as a God went, he could be extremely fickle. He would be happy that the returning journey would only entail her and her secretary. He would be extremely unhappy when she told him of her plans to survey past sites. She might wait a bit on that. He worried about power and the loss of it. She needed to hook more Talent and souls into their network. More work for her, laborious and dull. She should start with this bunch.

  She did one twirl, letting her skirts flare out around her, flames roaring up from seemingly nothing as she did. She pointed at the outbuildings, old and new, at the lumber stacks, at the hovels, she swept her hands over the entire port and her fire answered her. She would burn this place to ash before she let the flames withdraw. Trevilara smiled as the wood caught, despite the sea spray in the air, and began to burn with a fierce roar as though it existed only to ignite when she called it. Her heart raced. How she loved to burn!

  She watched it with her head cocked to one side, her ears filled with the voice of the fire and the screams of the villagers as they ran to save what they could or fought helplessly with her men, but her thoughts gathered in one, sorry, knot.

  Who exposed them? Who sent word to her throne of the renewal here? Who had watched so thoughtfully and then sent notice that the treason had begun again? Did they expect a reward for their loyalty or simply recognition? How long would it be before they stepped forward?

  Trevilara paused in her rumination only to point her hand at a new target for her flames, feeling her body warm in the heat, certain only that someone else must have hated this port, these people, as much as she did. When every bit of construction had caught, she turned toward the growing knot of people being herded by her soldiers, and closed her eyes a moment, gathering her power. They held a smattering of Talents among them, nothing so powerful as could stand against her, but useful for village life. Their weakness illustrated the prime examples of the differences between high Vaelinar and the lower classes, but they would still be useful to her and Dhuriel.

  She found her task easier by imagining each of her targets as a flower and she plucking away each colorful blossom as she walked in the garden. If she burned the ground hot enough, even weeds would not spring up. Not for many decades. Trevilara opened her eyes, and smiled benevolently. She loved the harvest almost as much as the burning. She stretched out her slender hands.

  Chapter

  Twenty-Five

  THEY WERE NOT AS SILENT as the trappers in their approach to the camp but neither were they ungraceful or loud, yet a small group of women emerged from the edge of a grove to stand in anticipation of them. Obviously, they’d been heard.

  “Ah,” said Cort. “My wife and others. I may have brought you here, but I’m a fool if I think she will have no opinion about your staying.”

  His men laughed softly as they dispersed to join the waiters and disappear into the evergreen branches. Cort halted and waited till the tall, strong-jawed woman with pale green eyes came forward to greet him. She wore buckskins and homespun trousers, her colors in light green and soft blues as if she took on the hues of the sky and high forest to hide her.<
br />
  “Strange prey you bring from the hunt, husband.” She considered Rivergrace and Sevryn evenly. The Vaelinar multicolors of the eyes played out in hers as jade shot through with a stronger, deeper jade color and tiny sparks of bronze.

  “Guests,” Cort told her. “For the winter.”

  Her eyebrows shot up. “Husband. Is that wise?”

  “Probably not, but you needn’t worry about the supplies. The lady here has a gift for sweet water, and her man is well-trained for warfare and can bring home his share of meat for the table.”

  “There are other considerations.” She looked from Grace to Sevryn and back. “Are you bonded?”

  “Not by ritual.” Heat surged in Grace’s face.

  “Lady Rivergrace and Master Sevryn, this is my wife Ifandra. She is our head councilor as well as our wisewoman.”

  “Elected or inherited?” Grace asked of her.

  “Elected. We all must earn our way, must we not?” Ifandra deftly blocked them from following the disappearing folk.

  “Is there a reason for your discourtesy?”

  She gave Sevryn a steady look. “A good one. Single women in a gathering of men cause trouble. If she is yours, and you are hers, then you must be bonded.”

  “You’ll have no problem with us,” Sevryn told the tall and stern woman.

  “Your concerns are not mine. It is the welfare of my people that concern me, and I will not willingly bring trouble into my home. There must be a bond between the two of you, or I will tell my husband you are barred from here.”

  Sevryn put his chin up as he considered the sky overhead and the growing chill. “Snow tonight in all probability.”

  “This is a mountain. There will be snow many nights between now and spring. If you love and would protect her, you wouldn’t stand there and quibble with me.” Ifandra folded her arms across her chest. “I have my people to consider.”

  “I protect Rivergrace.”

  Those light green eyes considered him closely. “And that is half the problem. A married woman needs no protection from any of us.”

  Grace put her hand on Sevryn’s arm. “I see no harm in a ceremony.” Her face still overly warm, she managed a smile for him. “It’s not what we’d planned, exactly, but I can’t see waiting for something that might never happen.”

  He shifted weight. “You don’t mind?”

  “We are together. How should I mind?”

  “We should have a celebration, not a mandate. I can’t force this on you.”

  “You’re not.”

  “But we had planned for more. To share our becoming with others. Friends. Your family. Nutmeg. Lily and Tolby and brothers.”

  “Another ceremony when we return home, that one with hard cider and dancing and the smell of good toback in the air.” She smiled at him.

  “All right, then.” He gave Ifandra an ironic bow. “Wisewoman, would you bond us? I hope that it is not an overlong ritual.”

  “Tomorrow eve.” She clapped her hands sharply. “Follow me, then, and I’ll assign you a home.” Ifandra turned on her heel abruptly and they had to hurry to keep from losing her among the evergreens.

  They had almost twice as many empty abodes as occupied, sturdy solid huts with at least one wall to the mountain which rose abruptly from its shelf here, the remaining sides woven from branches and plastered over with mud, then fired so that moisture would not disintegrate the plaster. They would be snug, relatively safe against bugs and the environment, but they were little more than two-room dens. One for sleeping and the other for cooking and work. Latrines were in steep pits outside the home lines and away from the small stream that trickled down and around the community from the other side. Grace knew as she looked at it, that it was far more primitive than the seaport they’d stayed in, and yet it seemed natural huddled against the stone side of the mountain which pushed up from the forest here in a jagged peak before giving way to more forest. The trappers had found a place which surrendered to their habitation even as it sheltered them. Rivergrace frowned slightly as she looked about. Few children could be seen. Where was the abundant life needed by any habitat?

  Sevryn pitched his words quietly. “You don’t have to do this.”

  “We need a home for the winter.”

  “We can go south. Or back to the sea.”

  “It’s not that. It’s . . . why are these homes empty? What has happened here? Are they asking us to live where others died inexplicably? What might we be exposed to?”

  Sevryn stopped in his tracks. Ifandra and Cort ranged ahead of them. The tall woman turned. “You hesitate?”

  “I wonder,” Grace said to her, “why so many are empty. Where are the young?”

  Ifandra’s shoulders slumped. “A generation has passed since they were filled. We have a queen who wars against those who speak out. Some fled to be even safer, others left to fight, and our young leave because they are restless, as youth always has been.” She looked at them sharply. “Have you a problem with that?”

  “No more than you might have a problem with strangers who are no more trappers than you are bakers with sweet shops in the city.”

  The corner of her mouth quirked. “So we are agreed in certain matters, then. That is good to know. My husband,” and she smiled faintly at Cort, “is as like to bring home orphaned critters as he is fine pelts and meat. He has a good heart, you see.”

  “Which you do not wish taken advantage of.”

  “Yes.” Ifandra spread her hands. “Has one of our homes taken your eye?”

  Rivergrace considered the huts. One had a small hanging near the front threshold, a wind chime whose dangles were corroded with patina from wind and weather and yet twisted stubbornly from rawhide thongs, determined to dance in the wind and sound their melody. “There,” she pointed.

  “A good choice. That one belonged to my sister-aunt and her husband. He was lost in an avalanche on the mountain’s far side and she, it is said, died in Throne City when she went to join her parents and take care of them in their elder days. We are not certain of her.” Ifandra looked away. “We never received word from her.”

  “It can be a hard life here,” Cort added.

  “Only dying is easy,” his wife finished for him. She pulled aside the still supple hide from the doorway. “The furnishings were left here. We do not borrow from the empty homes, in hopes we can someday fill them. The only thing you will need is lamp oil. We will share, to a point, but it is wise that you count on making your own as soon as you can. There is a nut pod we gather and press for that. And firewood, of course. We always have a need of firewood. You are welcome to take from the central pile for a night or two, but again—”

  “You expect us to be self-sufficient. We will.” He moved to replace Ifandra from the door.

  “Tomorrow night, we will hold your bonding feast. The moon should be bright, and our plates should be full.”

  Rivergrace ducked inside, and immediately a certain warmth and quietude greeted her, broken only by murmuring outside as Sevryn came in, with a skein of oil in his hand, the hide door rolled back so that a slanted beam of light fell inside. By that waning light, he filled both lamps and lit one.

  “Is there wood on the hearth?”

  “Yes.” She moved to light it with a quick spark from her hands, but he reached out and caught her.

  “Let me check the chimney pipe first. It could be filled with debris or even nests.” He ducked back outside and she could hear him on the roof of the hut, creeping cautiously overhead, the framework of the small building creaking and complaining under his weight. A brief squeaking and squabbling broke out overhead, and then he called down the pipe. “Light away. I don’t want the mice to think they can move back in.”

  She knelt down and touched her fingers to the dry kindling under a small log bundle and let the briefest of sparks go. The anc
ient wood caught fire quickly, smoke sucked up the chimney pipe eagerly, and she swung the iron framework for the cooking pots to the side so she could use them later. For now, the cot in the corner of the other room, which was hardly enough of a room to qualify as one, beckoned. She was lying on it, herbs from the pillow-mattress still giving off a sweet and comforting scent as Sevryn entered. He plopped down beside her.

  “What about hunting?”

  “I will later,” he murmured, “the night doesn’t bother me, but a nap sounds better than a meal.”

  She fell asleep with her hand laced into his wavy hair, pulling his head back against her chest.

  She awoke in the night to the sound of rain, a steady drumming that grew louder and fiercer until she carefully slipped free of Sevryn and went to the doorway. A round wooden disk, reminiscent of a foot soldier’s great shield, had been forced into place, and she shouldered it aside so that she could pull back the hide covering and peek out. The noise grew with every move she made, and the sight of big, white hailstones bouncing upon the ground did not surprise her. Rivergrace watched them fall, melting soon after they hit, so that the white carpet of ice did not build up but stayed in patchy cover. The wind off the mountain howled round and rattled at her wind chimes and tried to tear the hide door from her fingers. She watched until the hail stopped and the rain began again, leaving great, slushy puddles. For a moment, she thought of bringing in the chimes lest the rowdy wind tear the aging artwork apart and then decided against it. It had, after all, hung there for many a season already. As she regarded it, her sleep-hampered eyes opened enough that she saw the tiny rag woven amongst its base, and pulled it free. There seemed to be writing upon it, but she decided against lighting the lantern to read it. Morning would be soon enough. Uncertain that it could even be meant for them—had it or had it not been woven there when she first looked on the chimes? She put it from her immediate worries. When she dropped the hide and muscled the wooden door back in place, she found Sevryn half-awake and yawning.