by Jane Kindred
toward the Seraph with an elegant motion. “The Seraphim serve at
the pleasure of the Crown because the Seraphim are too stupid to do
aught but follow orders. And that, not very well.” She raised her palm toward the Seraph. “Your fire,” she said with venom, “answers my call.
That is why you serve.” Five tongues of flame began to dance in her
hand. She clenched her fist and the flame spiraled from between her
snow-white fingers. The Seraph’s howl was like nothing I’d ever heard.
I covered Ola’s ears with her blanket and shrank from the awful
sound, while the fire in Aeval’s fist spun in a violent pinwheel. The
howling increased, echoed by the Seraphim at the surrounding doors.
When Aeval hurled her fist toward the mirror across from us I curled
myself around Ola instinctively. The surface of the glass underwent a
temporary liquefaction, rippling like a pool of white-hot metal, and
cooled just as swiftly, crackling into the thousand delicate fractures of a priceless mosaic. The Seraph before me and the others at the
doorways resolved into a single flash of excruciating brilliance and
were gone.
Eyes blazing as if she possessed the Seraph’s fire within, Aeval
leveled her gaze at me. “Now look what you’ve made me do.” With the
mercurial swiftness of a player on the stage, she turned to Kae stirring on the settee, all evidence of her fury extinguished, and knelt at his
290 JANE KINDRED
side. “Hush, my angel. You’ve had another fit.”
In the wake of the Seraphim’s demise, a whisper of astonishment
came from the unguarded dining room entrance. “Anazakia?” A
young man limped toward me, a blood-soaked jacket tied around his
thigh, and for a moment I couldn’t identify him, so out of place was he in Heaven. He came closer, studying me with equal uncertainty. “Is
that you?”
“Knud? What are you doing here?” I shifted Ola in my arms,
and his eyes were drawn to the bundle of soft blankets and lace. “The
Grand Duchess Ola Vasilyevna of the House of Arkhangel’sk.” I
murmured her patronymic with an unexpected rush of pride.
He lifted the blanket to peek at her, and Ola’s crying stopped as
she gazed up at him. “Vasily sent us,” he said under his breath. My
heart leapt with hope at the name.
Aeval rose and regarded Knud with curiosity. Lifting her skirt with
a graceful ripple of silk, she lighted on the gilded chair, holding court, and gave him her most enchanting smile. “Company. How delightful.
Whom have we here?”
His face lit up with wonder as if he saw the proof before him of the
heavenly realm of Man’s tradition. “Knud of the Copenhagen Roma,
Your Supernal Majesty.” He bowed low, his voice awed.
“Knud of the Copenhagen Roma.” She made the words sound
like celestial music, almost lovely enough to fool even me. “We cannot imagine how one of your kind manages to be here in Our realm. What
is it that brings you here?”
He gave her a puzzled frown, as if he wasn’t quite sure. “The—
Exiles? Grigori and Nephilim—they’ve come for—for the grand
duchess.”
I gaped at him. Grigori and Nephilim? I’d thought they were
legend. How had Vasily managed to send the earthly Powers to
Heaven?
“Is that so?” Aeval’s voice flowed warmly from her throat,
thick and rich like treacle. In the blazing light of the chandeliers, the quicksilver of her Virtuous eyes shimmered more brightly than usual.
I touched Knud’s arm. “Don’t look her in the eye.”
Aeval threw me an irritated glare. “How very impolite you are,
THE FALLEN QUEEN 291
cousin.”
But it had been enough to break Knud’s rapt attention, and he
took an unsteady step back, keeping his gaze sidelong from beneath
his dark bangs.
From the other side of the drawing room, through the doors to the
concert hall, the clamor of unrest spilled into the enfilade. The main entrance to the palace had been breached.
Peasants advanced into the hall, and at the forefront, a band
of imposing demons stood out, more organized than the rest. They
weren’t leading the rioters, but battling them as they came on. It was immediately apparent from their demeanor and manner of dress that
these were not celestials. Brandishing an ophanic sword, a tall, dark-
skinned demoness who seemed to be the leader of the terrestrial
demons fought her way to the front against the swarm of angry
workers closing in. The others with her turned to guard the room,
while she entered and pulled the doors shut.
Barely acknowledging the presence of the queen, the demoness
gave me a look of mild disdain, and nodded to Knud. “If that’s her,
let’s get her out now. There’s no reasoning with that mob, and the fire’s crossed to this wing.” The smoke filling the air attested to this.
Aeval rose with fluid grace, extended her arm, and squeezed her
fist. “You will take them nowhere.”
“Don’t!” I took a step toward the queen, violet prisms dancing on
Ola’s skin and mine.
Aeval’s smirk dismissed me. “You may be able to withhold your
own element from me with that demon bastard in your arms, but you
have no control over the others.” She pulled her fist in toward her
chest and the tall demoness fell to her knees with her hand on her
throat. “Ah,” said the queen. “Nephil mudspirit. Your element is easily called.” She tightened her fist, and a murky liquid dripped from it, like dirty water squeezed from a rag.
The Nephil made no sound, not even a gasp, but from her
convulsing chest, it was obvious she couldn’t breathe. Aeval twisted
her hand and the Nephil tore at her throat, her dark complexion
reddening.
Despite his limp, Knud stepped swiftly between the two women, a
292 JANE KINDRED
curiously curved blade clutched in his fist. He raised the knife toward the queen. “I have no element to call. Let Vashti go or I’ll bury this in your throat.”
“No element?” Aeval gave the charming laugh of a hostess at a
fete indulging a guest’s witticism. “What do you think you are made
of? You are nothing but element. You are all elements.” She released
Vashti and curled her fist toward Knud. A dark substance resembling
dirt and blood mixed together crumbled and dripped from between
her fingers.
Knud stumbled back, his face twisting with agony, and crumpled
to the floor.
“No!” I knelt where he’d fallen, and tried to lift him up while
holding Ola against my chest. The best I could do was cradle his head
in my lap.
Blood trickled from his nose and bubbled up through his mouth.
“It’s all right,” he wheezed. “I was already gone.” He nodded toward
his thigh where blood had soaked through the jacket and spread over
his pants to the hem. “I just wanted to complete the mission.” He held out his weapon. “Take it. It’s a good knife. You might need it.”
“No, Knud.” I shook my head, weeping, while he placed the pearl
grip in my hand. “You can’t go.”
“I got to see little Ola,” he said with effort. “Vasily will be… ” He
grasped my arm, searching for words. “T
ell him… tell him to forget
about his mother.”
“His mother?”
But it was too late. His eyes registered only emptiness.
The Nephil joined me at his side. “If you want to leave this place
alive, it has to be now.” Vashti held her hand out to help me up, but I couldn’t leave Knud. “He’s dead,” she insisted in her heavily accented angelic. “And your baby can’t handle all this smoke.”
I looked at Ola wailing in my arms. We had already been here too
long. I clutched the knife and stood, but when Vashti moved to join
me, she faltered and slipped down to the floor.
“Son of a bitch,” she gasped. Her sword fell from her fingers. The
surface of her skin was turning to stone.
I whirled on Aeval. “What are you doing to her? Leave her alone!”
THE FALLEN QUEEN 293
The queen held out her open palms. “What could I possibly be
doing?” Her lips curved in a small, curious smile. “It seems her cardinal element of earth is warring with her human blood. A side effect of my
calling it.”
Vashti looked up at me helplessly. “Go,” she said, though her
mouth was almost too stiff to form the word.
I didn’t know this woman, but she’d risked the wrath of the queen
of Heaven to come for me and my daughter. I couldn’t abandon her.
I knelt and took her hand. It felt smooth and dry, like a cake of soap.
Ola’s crying became more frantic, and I pulled her in close and pressed my lips to her forehead. As my skin touched hers, a tiny flicker of gold sparks amid the violet of Ola’s scattered across Vashti’s arm. Each
added radiance seemed to complete a kind of circuit, with Ola at the
heart. And the celestine was an object of focus.
With a hiss of anger, Aeval made a move toward us, but the sparks
of radiance arced toward her once more. She could do nothing to stop
the bonding of our elements.
Clutching Ola’s tiny fist, I concentrated on the ring, and thought of
how it had felt to have two aspects of myself split apart and rejoined by the twinning spirits from the Demon Market. It seemed an age
ago. Pale violet light rose up the Nephil’s arm, and a shimmer of gold followed it, seeming to impart life where it traveled over her skin,
making the stony surface once more supple living flesh. Was this
how I’d healed Vasily? Two cardinal elements brought together with
an object of focus? Perhaps the elements weren’t meant to be kept
pure, but became stronger mixed together. In our celestial purity, we’d neglected our potential.
Vashti heaved in a great breath when the radiance reached her
core, as if her lungs, too, had been solidifying and were now restored.
With a shudder, she blinked, and scrambled for her sword.
“Don’t let go of me.” I clasped her hand around Knud’s knife and
we stood together. “Aeval can’t harm you so long as you touch me. Not
while I hold Ola.”
Aeval’s eyes glittered with anger, her stance dangerously still.
Beside her on the settee, Kae sat watching, his eyes shielded with
mistrust. He’d killed me once, and yet I would be dead tonight if not
294 JANE KINDRED
for him. I couldn’t forget what he’d said in the corridor, so lost in his madness and yet for a moment lucid and clear, but speaking words
I couldn’t understand. Twice he’d pleaded with me to help him and
twice I’d shrunk from him.
“Come with me, Kae.”
A burst of pure, enchanted laughter came from the queen. “Do
you mean to rescue him? This faithless prince of Heaven who has
bloodied his hands with the House of Arkhangel’sk for a mere kiss?”
“He’s my cousin.” I met his eyes. “He was my friend.”
“And he is my serf. He stays with me.”
I looked at the ring on my finger, protection against the protectors
who’d abandoned us. Gambling that the celestine would protect me
from Aeval, I put Ola into Vashti’s arms.
The Nephil held the baby as if I’d handed her a snake. “What are
you doing?”
“Take me instead,” I said to Aeval. “My life for Kae’s. It’s what
you’ve wanted from the start.”
Vashti stared aghast, trying to push the baby back at me.
“Take her,” I insisted, shaking my head. “Her element will protect
you.” Tears were running from my eyes, smoke and sorrow draining
me of my own element. “Take her to her father.”
“How noble,” said Aeval. “And stupid. What would I want with
you?”
I held up the ring on my finger. “My element. And the celestine to
control it. If you let Kae leave with Vashti, I’ll give you back the ring.
You’ll be able to call my element as you please.”
Aeval’s laughter was genuine, rolling from her throat with the peal
of delicate bells. “You are a delight, my dear. I have no need of either.”
I closed my hand, taken aback. “But you said it was an object of
focus.”
“A fair one, yes, but hardly more than a simple conductor. Its
properties are but ice and stone. The most efficient by far is ice and fire.” She brushed her hand along her dress, setting the crystal facets on it dancing in the flame of the chandeliers. The facets were sewn into every garment I’d seen her wear—the stones Men called diamonds.
Aeval smiled. “How was it you thought I bent your hapless cousin
THE FALLEN QUEEN 295
to my will? With his silly celestine?” She held out her hand and Kae
came to her, his ring plainly visible on his finger. “I command the
purest elemental fire in all the Heavens. And I have ice in abundance.”
She raked her fingers through Kae’s hair and pulled his head back, and he allowed her to do whatever she cared to. When she kissed him, his
gaze fixed on her, mesmerized by her beauty.
She smiled and released him, her lips sparkling with a sheen of
ice. “All it took was a kiss of it.” Drawing his head back against her shoulder, she caressed his bare chest between his open robe, her hand
against his heart. “I’ve called his blood. Without the balance of ice and fire I provide, he is nothing. If he leaves me, he will die.”
Ice and fire. My breath caught in my throat and I choked on the acrid air. The syla had called the fern blossom a flower of ice and fire.
What were the words they’d spoken? Fire and ice will protect and
bring the lost angel home. They hadn’t meant me or Azel at all. The syla had given me the means to release my cousin from his bondage
and I had let it slip away.
The fighting outside the door was growing louder.
I tried to reason with her. “But he’ll die if he stays. You can’t keep him here. The fire—”
“He’ll die if I will it,” she snapped. “He is mine.” Spite and fury transformed the silver in her eyes into a deep, roiling grey, a dark
storm rising in them. She whirled on Kae. “Fall on your sword.”
I screamed and flew at him to try to stop it, but Kae had drawn his
sword in a fluid movement. Swift and emotionless, he dropped to his
knees, grasped the hilt before him, and thrust the point of the blade
beneath his ribs with a forward lunge. There was nothing I could do. I sank to my knees beside him and slumped over his shuddering form
in despair.
“I’ve reconsidered,” said Aeval. “I believe I shall have your
&n
bsp; element after all. As well as your head.”
The celestine was no deterrent at all. I clutched my stomach
against the nauseating tug of her elemental call reaching into me.
Beside me, Kae was coughing up blood. He was the last of my family,
his will destroyed by her, yet she’d taken him too. The pearl handle of Knud’s knife was still in my hand.
296 JANE KINDRED
I hurled myself at Aeval in a blind rage and slashed the wicked
hook of the knife into her side before she could defend herself. It was no mortal wound, but I hoped it hurt like hell.
She shrieked with the fury of a great cat. Staring at the gash in her
pretty bone silk pooling with blood, she staggered back and fell into
the chair. “What have you done?” she gasped. “What is that?” Her
pale complexion was tinged with grey.
“It’s a knife,” I snapped. “And it’s for Kae. There isn’t enough pain
I can give you for the others.”
“I know it’s a knife, damn you! What kind of knife?”
“A gypsy knife. A steel knife. Who cares?” Steel. Steel was made from iron, and iron, I’d read somewhere, was poison to fair folk. And
she had been queen of the syla. My eyes widened. “You’re fae. And it’s made of iron.”
“Nonsense.” She sucked in air with a grimace of pain. “Wives’ tale.
You little bitch.” She heaved another shallow breath. “You stab me—
over your imbecilic cousin.” She pointed behind me. “And he’s not
even dead.”
Kae was staggering onto his feet, the sword hanging limply in his
hand. Despite the blood he’d coughed up, very little had spilled from
the wound in his gut.
“His blood,” gasped Aeval, “is mine. It does my bidding. It will not
flow—unless I will it.”
Kae let the sword drop from his fingers. He stepped to the chair
and lifted Aeval in his arms, his pale grey eyes glassy and uncertain.
Her head fell against his chest, and her eyes fluttered closed.
“Anazakia,” urged Vashti. “Now.” She pressed Ola into my arms.
“Kae?” I whispered. My vision blurred with tears. “Come with me.
Come away from here. Elysium is falling.”
He blinked at me without expression. “I am Her Supernal
Majesty’s eternal slave.”
One of the doors from the concert hall splintered with a loud
crack and the sounds of the rioting demons swelled like a steam boiler ready to burst. They were already pressing through the door, and if the mob didn’t take Kae, the fire would.
