John smiled at me as I ran my finger over the carving on one of the combs. The wood began to sing. “They belonged to your grandmother. My mother. The last Grand Lady of the Leavenwald. They aren’t the Great Relics of Nerissette,” he said. “But they do have a quiet magic all their own.”
“I—” I went to hand them back, unsure if I had the right to such a family heirloom.
“She would be so proud of the young woman you’ve become,” John said as he brought his hand up to close my fingers around the combs. “So proud of the queen you’ve become. Just like I am.”
“Thank you,” I said quietly as he squeezed my fingers.
Kilvari banged his staff on the floor again, and we both quit staring at each other and turned to look at the goblin. “The Lady Bavasama and Ambassador Eriste have arrived.”
John moved aside to stand on my right as Rhys moved to stand beside Winston on my left. The rest of the ballroom fell silent. I started to stand, but John put a hand on my shoulder, keeping me seated.
“Make her come to you,” he said out of the side of his mouth.
Kilvari stepped to the side again, and I stared at my aunt as she stepped into the doorway, her ambassador behind her. Her red hair was escaping from its elaborate bun, and her face was pale. The emerald-green dress she was wearing was smeared with splotches of dark brown mud, and I could see more than one splatter of red. Even from across the ballroom I could smell the lingering stench of rotting fruit that seemed to cling to her.
Bavasama looked from side to side, watching as the people she had once considered her friends—before my grandmother had banished her to Bathune to rule there and given the throne to my mother instead—all glared at her. She swallowed, and I could see her throat working as she looked around her, obviously searching for even one kind face. Not that she was going to find one—not after she’d declared war on us.
“Lady Bavasama,” I said, trying to keep my voice ice cold. “Come forward.”
“Allie.” She stepped toward me and held her hands out. “My darling—”
“The proper way to address me,” I snarled as I stared at the woman who had tried to murder me all those months ago, who had sent her army to help murder my friends, “is as Her Majesty, Queen Alicia Wilhemina Munroe the First, the Golden Rose of Nerissette.”
“Of course, Your Majesty,” she said as she came forward. “But as your aunt, your only remaining family, I had thought—”
“We are here to negotiate your surrender,” I said stiffly. “Not have a family reunion.”
“My surrender?” Her eyes widened. “I thought we had negotiated a truce?”
“We have.” I nodded, trying to act tough so that she wouldn’t realize how weak I truly felt, that I was still making it up as I went along and hoping that no one noticed I had no idea what I was doing. “You surrender, and I promise that we’ll resume trade with Bathune so your people won’t starve to death.”
“You need this treaty as much as we do,” she said quickly.
“You want to bet?” I asked, raising an eyebrow at her.
“Without the fuel from our mines…”
“We’ll get by. At least for as long as it takes for us to starve you out and then take over Bathune.”
“Your Majesty,” John said quietly.
“Right.” I glanced up at him and then back at my aunt. “Enough catching up. Kneel. Beg for forgiveness. Swear that you’ll never try to take over Nerissette again.”
I watched as my aunt’s shoulders tensed and her face twisted with rage. For a second I thought she might walk away. Might tell me to take my peace treaty and stuff it. Not that I would be surprised—I was egging her into losing her temper, after all. I wanted to make her sweat. Make her suffer for all the pain she’d caused me and everyone else here in Nerissette. For all the nights I’d spent worrying about my friends, camped out on her border, waiting for war.
“I’m waiting,” I taunted.
Bavasama dropped to her knees, her back straight and her eyes on mine. Eriste knelt just behind her, his own head lowered. “Please.”
“What?” I raised an eyebrow at her again.
“Please,” she said, louder this time, but her voice trembled. “Please forgive me for my actions, Your Majesty. It was a mistake. I had thought you were in danger.”
“Enough,” I snapped. “I don’t want to hear your lies today. I don’t want to hear about—”
“The Fate Maker told me—”
“The Fate Maker is a liar. A murderer. And if you don’t want to join him in the Bleak, then I suggest you never, ever, try to raise an army against my people again. Because next time? Next time I will march my army across your borders, and I will burn Bathune to the ground. And once I’m done with that, I’ll lock you and every single wizard I find in the Bleak, and we can see how long you last against the nightmares that call the realm between worlds home.”
“I will never raise an army against Nerisette again,” she said quietly.
“And everything else?” I asked. “The money that you’ve agreed to give us to pay for the damages your army caused when it marched through my country?”
“The reparations agreed upon have already arrived in the Leavenwald,” John said. “The wagons will leave for Neris as soon as we send word that the treaty has been signed. Each month a Woodsmen battalion will meet with the lord general of Lady Bavasama’s army to collect the tribute she’ll owe you, as well.”
“Fifteen percent of my taxes and tributes each month,” Bavasama agreed. “And my court will pay the expenses for your ambassador, Tevian, and the two hundred soldiers that will travel to Bathune to act as his personal guard.”
“Good.” I nodded and then glared down at my aunt. “If you ever try to raise an army against me again, there will be no treaties. No peace. Do you understand me?”
“Y—y—yes.” Bavasama nodded once, her eyes never leaving mine.
“And you, Eriste, what do you have to say for yourself?” I asked as I turned my attention to the silver-haired wizard kneeling behind my aunt with his head lowered.
“I apologize,” he said, his voice tight. “For my actions all those months ago.”
“Good. Now, Kilvari.” I motioned to the goblin, and he hurried forward, a large scroll tucked under his arm. When he reached the stairs to the dais, he unrolled the scroll and held his hand out, an elaborate silver quill shimmered into existence on his open palm, and he offered it to my aunt.
“Lady Bavasama.”
She took the quill from him, without saying a word, and quickly scribbled something along the bottom of the scroll.
“Thank you,” Kilvari said and then dipped his head to her once before turning toward me, leaving her holding the quill in her hands.
“Your Majesty.” He started up the stairs toward me and then knelt down less than an inch from my toes. “The Lady Bavasama has formally surrendered by signing the Treaty of Leavenwald. All it awaits to be binding is your signature.”
Kilvari handed me the scroll and then clasped his hands together in front of him, raising them above his forehead. I watched as an even more elaborate golden quill shimmered into existence.
I took the quill from him and then put the scroll on the armrest of my throne, using it as a desk as I scrawled my name on the scroll next to my aunt’s. The second I had finished signing, the scroll began to glow a bright blue, and flames licked along both my and my aunt’s signatures, a spell meant to signify that our peace was binding, even though there was nothing in place to force us to stick to the treaty’s terms.
“And as a gift,” Kilvari said, “to celebrate your newly formed peace, the Lady Bavasama has brought to you the Great Orb of the Nymphiad, which was given to her by your grandmother when her ladyship ascended the throne of Bathune.”
“You mean when my grandmother banished her,” I said. I watched as my aunt’s shoulders tensed.
“Your Majesty,” John whispered. I glanced up to see him staring down at me as
his hand tightened on my shoulder. Right. Less taunting and more finishing the formalities so that we could get my aunt the heck out of Nerissette.
“I mean, thank you.” I nodded to her. “I’m sure it will be a great addition to the royal jewels.” I paused and looked around. “So where is it?”
Everyone stood there, watching my aunt stand. “I had thought to present it to you at tonight’s ball.”
“There is no ball,” I said quickly. “No celebrations.”
“Even though today is your seventeenth birthday?” Bavasama asked.
My birthday. I hadn’t even remembered that it was my birthday until someone mentioned it this morning. We’d been too busy hammering out the treaty and finishing up the last of the work needed to rebuild my palace before my aunt’s arrival. Something as silly as a seventeenth birthday seemed unimportant compared to the fate of an entire world.
“Well…” I sighed as I looked at the nobles surrounding us. “I guess since everyone is already here, we can have a small party.”
Yeah, like anything that involved three hundred nobles was ever going to be considered small.
Chapter Two
Three days later—as we made our way to the formal ceremony to see my aunt back off toward her own kingdom—I stared at the glass ball in my hand as the royal carriage, with its flying white horses, soared over the forests between my palace and Neris, the capital city of my country. The leaf inside it rotated slowly, blooming from a small curled ball of green to a fully formed leaf before it browned, the edges withering and curling in on themselves before the leaf crumpled into ashes at the bottom of the orb. Over and over again the leaf appeared, bloomed, and then wilted.
“So what does it do?” Winston asked. I turned to look at my boyfriend. Things had been tense between us since he’d come back to the palace. There were things that he hadn’t wanted to tell me, things he didn’t want me to know. And I had secrets of my own—nightmares that I didn’t want to worry him with.
“I don’t know.” I shrugged, trying to find some way to breach the distance that seemed to have grown up between us. “And since Darinda and the rest of the dryads aren’t here, I don’t have anyone to ask.”
“Have you looked in the library?”
“Yeah.” I huffed as I thought about my worthless trip to the library the morning before. I’d asked the map—a piece of living Tree Folk furniture that had the ability to answer back by writing on its own parchment—and all it had done was send me to books on horticulture. Like that was helpful at all. Then again, I wasn’t surprised.
The map could understand when you made a request, but sometimes—okay, most of the time—she tended to get stuff scrambled. After all, I’d asked her once to see if the library had a copy of Pride and Prejudice, and she’d sent me to a section on how to talk to your children about not bullying pixies while still embracing your own magical legacy.
“Nothing?” Winston pressed.
“Not unless you want to know how to grow healthier ferns,” I said.
“I think I’ll pass. I spent enough time in the woods this year that I don’t want to see another plant for a while.”
“Right.” I winced. “It’s probably better if I wait for Darinda anyway. After all, my guess is this orb actually belongs to the dryads.”
“So you going to give it back to Darinda if she asks for it?” Winston asked cautiously.
“Of course,” I said. “It’s not mine. Besides, I can’t use it. Whatever magic this orb has, I can’t feel it.”
“Right, magic,” he said slowly, his tone guarded.
I narrowed my eyes at him. “What?”
“Nothing,” he said, his eyes fixed out the window of our carriage.
“Win, talk to me. Come on.”
“If you could feel the magic of the orb, would you still give it back?” he asked and turned to look at me, his eyes guarded.
“Yes. Like I said, if it belongs to the dryads, then the dryads should be the ones to keep it. Why?”
“Well, it seems to me,” Winston said, glancing out the window again and not meeting my eyes as he pulled his hand away from mine, “that you don’t have too much trouble taking things from people that don’t belong to you these days.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, stunned. What was he trying to say? That I’d been stealing from my people?
“Fifteen percent of your aunt’s tributes every month? Two wagonloads of coins and treasure as reparations are even now making their way into Neris.”
“Those wagons of gold are meant to pay to fix all the damage my aunt’s army did. To rebuild Neris after they destroyed it.”
“And the increase in our people’s taxes?” Winston asked.
“I didn’t have a choice in that, either,” I protested. “We needed that money to keep the army fed. To keep supplies going to the White Mountains while we were laying siege at Bathune’s border.”
“And now that the siege has lifted?” he asked. “Now that we’ve signed a peace treaty and the army is no longer necessary? Will you cut the taxes back down?”
“You really think the army isn’t necessary?” I asked. “Really? You think we’re completely threat-free just because my aunt decided to come here and beg for forgiveness?”
“I think that you’re so busy preparing for war that you’re becoming the very ruler you fought so hard against.”
“What?” I snapped, stunned. “I’m nothing like my aunt. Or the Fate Maker.”
“What you did to her was cruel, Allie. Humiliating her that way in front of all the nobles. You bullied her just like Heidi and Jesse used to bully you.”
“That was different.”
“How?”
“She deserved it. She brought an army into our country and tried to take my throne. She killed our friends. Or did you forget about how Heidi and Jesse died in that forest?”
“The Fate Maker killed our friends,” Winston said. “And you banished him for it.”
“She helped him.”
“And you humiliated her. What do you think happens now?”
“What do you mean?”
“You embarrassed her in front of all those people. Do you think she’s just going to accept that? Or do you think she’s going to go home and let that fester like some kind of open wound? Sit there and think about it for months, getting angrier every single day until she decides that she’s got to have revenge.”
“And then what?” I asked. “You think she’s going to try to march across the border again? After we’ve already beaten her?”
“I think you humiliated her enough that she might be willing to take her chances.”
“Whatever,” I said with a turn to look out my own window.
What made him think he had the right to question my decisions? I was supposed to be the queen—the one in charge. They’d left me here in Neris, abandoned me, to lay siege to the border of Bathune. Winston and Rhys and my father had left me here alone to make decisions, to be queen, and now that they were back, they wanted to second-guess everything I did. It wasn’t fair. They’d left me with no one to lean on. They didn’t have the right to come back and complain because they didn’t like the decisions later.
Besides that, Winston was my Prince Consort—the guy who was supposed to have my back. And even if I had gone a little too far, been a little too harsh with my terms on the peace treaty, it was because I was trying to keep him safe. I was trying to keep him alive the only way I could.
The carriage began to make its descent, and neither of us said anything as it bumped to the ground, the bottom of the carriage scraping against the stones that acted as its resting place in front of the Hall of the Pleiades.
“Her Majesty,” I heard a loud male voice announce. “The Golden Rose of Nerissette. Queen Alicia Wilhemina the First. Long may she reign.”
“Long live the queen,” the crowd roared as the doors to my carriage opened, and I stepped out of the carriage. When I landed on the platform, the people began
to cheer louder, and I lifted my hand, waving at my subjects.
“Your Majesty?” The red-coated soldier at the bottom of the stairs held out a hand, palm down, and I put my hand on top of his, letting him help me down the stairs. I heard Winston get out of the carriage behind me, and the crowd continued to cheer as he followed me down the steps and then up the cramped center aisle that had been roped off.
When we reached the stairs to the Hall of the Pleiades, all of the nobles in the front row bowed, and I started toward the podium where my aunt was waiting with her white-haired ambassador in the long, silver robes that denoted his status as a wizard.
“Thank you,” Bavasama said quietly, between gritted teeth, “for coming to tell me good-bye.”
“I wanted to make sure you actually left,” I said under my breath.
“You know,” she whispered as we both stood staring at the crowd and waving, fake smiles plastered on our faces. “Everyone says how much braver you are than your mother. What they’re really saying is how much stupider you are. And that’s pretty amazing considering your mother was a nitwit.”
“My mother—”
“Let me trap her on the other side of the mirror with barely a fight.”
“What?” I turned to look at her, completely forgetting about putting on an act for the crowd. “Esmeralda told me—”
“You think that stupid housecat is the only sorceress in this world?” Bavasama grinned at me. “The only one who can change people’s perceptions of what really happened?”
“You—”
“I helped the Fate Maker imprison your mother in her tower, and I took on her face, sat on her throne, and pretended to wear her crown. As it should have been from the very start.”
I stared at her, wide-eyed.
“And when people started to question why strong, brave Preethana was letting herself get walked on, I ensorcelled the cat so that she remembered helping your mother through the mirror. When, in reality, I was the one who forced your mother through at the point of a sword.”
“You—”
“What are you going to do, darling niece of mine?” Bavasama said under her breath so that only I could hear. “Kill me? Sink your kingdom back into war? Risk the lives of all these people who you love so much?”
Infinity (Chronicles of Nerissette) Page 2
