Chapter Eighteen.

The royal palace, Dareli, Jeuchar 15, AC 1876 Men and women fit to still serve in the palace guard were growing fewer with each pa.s.sing day, and the two on duty at Ealasaid's door seemed to Margaine's critical eye at least two or three years too young to have been truly accepted into the guard corps. Both wore ill-fitting uniforms that had been clearly tailored for larger, bulkier bodies, and neither seemed prepared to draw the blades they wore at their sides, much less defend the Bhandreid with them.

Margaine had to wonder, too, if either of them would move fast enough to prevent her if she commandeered one of their swords to force her way past them. "Your Highness," the taller of the two youths said with distinct reluctance, "I'm terribly sorry, but Her Majesty the Bhandreid left orders that under no circ.u.mstances were you to be admitted to her chambers."

She stared hard at the boy, but could detect nothing out of the ordinary in his demeanor aside from an unmistakable hesitation to meet her eyes-and she couldn't exactly fault him for that, not when almost every soul in the palace seemed at a loss as to how to treat her. No one had been so bold as to outright refuse her direct commands, or to challenge her when she took command once more, now that the Bhandreid was sequestered in her personal chambers. But more than once she'd caught people starring themselves when they thought she wasn't looking, and all mentions of "Saint Margaine" had vanished entirely from her hearing.

That was fine with her. She didn't want to be a saint. Nor was she eager to be Bhandreid in Ealasaid's stead.

But, G.o.ds take it, she didn't want her people terrified of her, or resisting her every step of the way as she fought to keep the city and the realm from descending into chaos. There was no one else to do it, not now.

"I expect she did," she said at last, and then drew steel into her voice. "I am countermanding that order. Doctor Corrinides requires access to his patient, and in order to report on Her Majesty's condition to the people, I require access to her. Do you want to be the man who stands in the way of the business of the throne?"

She didn't have Ealasaid's decades of practice at quelling a man with her gaze. Nor was she the Voice of the G.o.ds, to burn a living being where he stood. But it seemed that what weight her word carried would suffice, for the guard hastily shook his head and muttered toward the floor, "No, Your Highness, of course not."

"Good, because I would prefer to avoid dismissing you. We need every able-bodied citizen, no matter their age, doing their duty for as long as this crisis lasts."

"Yes, Your Highness," the guard said, while his compatriot swallowed nervously and seemed to be doing his level best to remain invisible.

"Now stand aside and let us pa.s.s."

"Yes, Your Highness."

The boys hastened to open the chamber doors for her and Tamber Corrinides, and Margaine opted to ignore the surrept.i.tious flicker of the smaller boy's hand as he starred himself at her pa.s.sing. Yet her displeasure must have manifested in her face, for even as the doors closed again behind them, the doctor murmured, "You might have thanked them, my lady. Those boys were terrified of you."

"Along with everyone else in the palace, and all because I managed to avoid dying for the Anreulag," Margaine replied. "It's growing wearisome, and we've had enough rule by terror besides. Terror won't see us through to peace."

A hoa.r.s.e, breathless chuckle rose up to answer her from across the room, a noise that had barely enough force to reach past the velvet curtains swathing the ornate bed where the Bhandreid now lay. The curtains weren't completely drawn; they'd been left open enough to allow air and light to reach Ealasaid.

A lady-in-waiting sat in a chair at her bedside, a novel held open in her hands, but she hastily laid the book aside and rose to make her curtsey. "Your Highness. Will you require my a.s.sistance?"

"No, thank you. Leave us." Margaine waited until the other woman had taken her leave, and though her discomfort had not been quite so blatant as that of the boys guarding the door, still Margaine didn't miss the speed of her departure. That too provoked an outburst of laughter from the figure in the bed, and Margaine scowled as the doctor stepped forward to begin his examination.

"How do you plan to rule then, girl? Sweet words and genteel promises?" Ealasaid lay propped up on a mound of large, fat pillows in snow-white linen cases that made her look as though she were cradled in the embrace of several helpful clouds. The loose, flowing sleeping gown and thick eiderdown draped over her legs stood out in almost garish splashes of color against the pillows and her own pained gray countenance. Starkest of all, though, were the stretches of burned skin along her neck, shoulder and breast, gleaming dully with the patina of ointment the doctor had smeared upon them.

The scents of camphor and sage dominated the room but could not entirely obliterate the underlying stench of fire-damaged flesh. As she had for hours ever since they'd moved her to her chambers, the Bhandreid lay unmoving, so as not to put pressure upon her wounds.

The malice in her gaze, however, was undimmed. Margaine scowled to see it, and all the more deeply as Ealasaid's lips curled in the thinnest of smiles. She didn't bother to bat away the doctor as he leaned over her and frowned at the state of her wounds, for all her attention locked now on Margaine. "That is your intention, I presume? To take the throne now that it's standing empty?"

"I will hold it in my daughter's name, a.s.suming Adalonia stands long enough for her to reach her majority," Margaine said.

"Best of fortune with that, my dear. Have you come to me for counsel, or is this simply an expression of the last of your devotion to your sovereign?"

Margaine closed the remaining distance between her and the bed, schooling her face into impa.s.siveness as the doctor produced a stethoscope to listen to the Bhandreid's heart. "Neither, Your Majesty," she said. "I require information. I want to know about the gun."

A noise, part cackle and part cough, escaped the older woman, with enough force that Corrinides paused in his ministrations to tell her sternly, "Majesty, I must urge you to lie still and not exert yourself, if I'm to examine you properly."

"Don't spout nonsense at me, boy, you and I both know the Voice of the G.o.ds has killed me. My blasted body just hasn't realized it yet." Ealasaid's dour gaze slid from Margaine to the doctor and back again. "And you. Ha. I thought you'd want to know about that. I expect you've already been asking the palace armorers about it."

"None of whom were able to tell me the weapon's provenance," Margaine said. "All I was able to learn was that it was made by the master gunsmith who served your father, and that it was the last weapon he made before he died."

"Which doesn't tell you what you want to know. How he made it. Why he made it. And why it's the only gun in this entire city that's been able to deal any real harm the Voice of the G.o.ds."

Cold satisfaction glinted in Ealasaid's eyes, visible despite her profound exhaustion. It was meant to anger her, Margaine supposed. That she had to appeal to the old woman's haughty ego galled-but she too was tired, and she no longer had time for the luxury of fury. "Would you do me the honor of explaining its history, my lady?"

"Come now, girl, don't you think pretending at manners is rather futile at this juncture? I'll tell you what you want to know, but spare me your false courtesy. It isn't what I want."

Of course she'd have a price. It was almost a relief to eschew formalities, but even now, Margaine refused to grant the Bhandreid the additional satisfaction of seeing her smirk. "Those are n.o.ble words coming from a woman who's always professed that the realm is her highest priority, but as you wish. We'll bargain. What do you want in exchange for telling me what may be the only thing that will let me keep the Voice of the G.o.ds from killing us all?"

"A n.o.ble death," Ealasaid immediately replied, her voice rasping and thin, despite the ferocity of her tone. "I'm dying, girl. Maybe not tonight, maybe not tomorrow, but I can tell it'll be soon enough. You'll see to it nothing I've told you will be recorded in the royal archives, and I will be laid to rest with the dignity and honor befitting my forebears."

At that, Margaine had to scowl once more. "Forebears who have done just as you have, ruling this nation on a foundation of lies and blood. What befits them is ignominy, not dignity or honor."

"I will lie in state in St. Merrodrie's and my name will be inscribed in the rolls of the ages, girl. Or you will learn nothing, and Adalonia will burn."

Tamber shot Margaine a look from across the bed as he straightened up again. "Her pulse is erratic, Highness. Her heart and lungs are too damaged," he said quietly. "She's right. She won't last much longer."

"Hear that?" Ealasaid croaked. "Make your decision."

Margaine drew in a deep breath, slowly let it out again and inclined her head. "I accept your terms."

With a ragged sigh, the Bhandreid closed her eyes and lay there for a long moment before she finally whispered, "Seventy-nine years ago, we fought our last great battle with the elves. I wasn't born then, and wouldn't read the accounts of it for another twenty years. But my father told me the story as soon as I was old enough to understand. How his brother's own daughter had fallen in love with the elves' own prince. The Anreulag killed him at my father's command. And when she'd wiped out the elven forces that stood against her, she brought back two prizes. One was my father's niece. Darlana Araeldes."

"There's no such person in the royal records," Margaine said.

Her severe tone provoked another weak gasp of laughter from Ealasaid. "Of course not. Father had her excised from them as soon as he discovered she was pregnant by her elf lover. Every law of the Church commanded he put her to death. But he banished her instead to the remotest convent he could find."

Such an exercise of royal prerogative in blatant violation of holy law might have astonished Margaine no more than a week before, yet the only reaction she could find within her now was bitter laughter of her own. "And the other prize?" she demanded, when the Bhandreid's voice grew fainter.

"A sword. The elf prince's sword, the one weapon they had that could hurt the Anreulag in battle. He brought the d.a.m.ned thing back and had his head armorer melt it down and make him a gun." Ealasaid opened her eyes, though her lids seemed to have grown heavy. Her gaze was dull, with the barest spark of life in its depths. Even then, her voice retained a ghost of arrogant pride. "Father knighted the man for his contributions to weapons development. It's taken other gunsmiths decades to replicate what he did, making pistols that could fire multiple shots, and without him we never could have gone to war with Tantiulo..."

Margaine could have argued whether that was an accomplishment worth lauding, but the older woman's voice trailed off again into a rasping, whistling silence. Her eyes drifted closed again, and after a moment the doctor said, "I think that's all you'll be able to get out of her for now, my lady. You should let her rest. I'll stay with her."

He was too polite to utter it plainly, but Margaine heard the meaning beneath the doctor's words. Let her die. "Send the guards with word at the slightest change in her condition," she said. "I have arrangements to make, and until I can make them, I'll be with my daughter."

"Of course, Highness."

She strode out of the chamber then, anxious to quit the company of imminent death and bask instead in the comfort of her baby's new and vibrant life. Yet not even the prospect of Padraiga in her arms, where she belonged, could distract her from the duty pressing on her. The gun she'd confiscated in St. Merrodrie's was a gun made from an elven weapon, the only weapon that could kill the Voice of the G.o.ds, and it fell to her now to decide how to use it. How to choose who would fire it-she'd have to ask them to stand in range of the Anreulag's power-or whether she could ask of any loyal subject of the crown what she would not do herself.

Whether she'd have to volunteer to die again, and this time, with no clever subterfuge of the doctor's to save her.

The camp of the Army of Nirrivy, Kilmerry Province, Jeuchar 16, AC 1876 The outpost commander kept his word to the d.u.c.h.ess, and within a few hours of their meeting, the gates opened on a group of males and females who stole out on silent feet through the refugee camp beyond the walls. Their faces were thin and worn from work and care; their garments were threadbare and patched. Several sported shaved heads, others mangled ears that reminded Kestar uneasily of Faanshi. One elf woman was even carrying a child in her arms, a tiny boy with pointed ears, who stared warily and silently at everyone they pa.s.sed.

Gerren, along with every elf who'd ridden out of Dolmerrath, waited for them on the nearest edge of the Nirrivan encampment. Dozens of curious humans had gathered nearby to watch, but Kestar paid them little mind. An aching need to see the elves rejoining their kin kept all his attention on those who emerged through the gates.

Gerren began to sing in a warm, clear tenor as soon as the first arrivals came into sight, and then other voices joined him in a swell of ethereal harmony. First Dolmerrath's elves, and then, one by one, the freed slaves of Riannach sang with them.

Kestar knew none of the words, but they sank deep in nonetheless, reaching that hidden part of him that Faanshi had first found with the sunlight of her magic. Words weren't needed for the sentiments given wing and voice by the song, and in the faces of those who sang. There was welcome on behalf of Gerren and his scouts, and relief from those coming out of Riannach. Acknowledgement and surcease of suffering. Grief, particularly from Tembriel-who, Kestar thought, sang as much for her lost brother as she did for those her people greeted. And a defiance from all of them that could not be denied, as they sang in full sight and hearing of humans who, like him, stood and watched in uneasy silence.

Did Faanshi feel the same strange, piercing urge to sing with them? Did that hearth within her heart resound as his inner meadow did, with harmony that seemed forged of both sound and light?

Would his father have wanted to sing with them too?

He never saw his mother step quietly up beside him, and only when the elves' singing faded at last into silence, only when Gerren's people escorted the newcomers away, did Ganniwer finally speak. "You have such sorrow in your eyes, my son, for a man who's just helped several people back to long-awaited freedom."

Startled, Kestar turned to her, and had to wrestle with his own roiling sentiments before he finally offer her a lopsided smile. "I was just thinking of Father," he murmured.

"As was I, Kescha. I think he'd be proud of you. And what you've helped do here today has given his soul some peace."

"I hope so, Mother. But we're not done." He reached for his father's amulet, in its place about his neck, and for the first time could think of it as something other than dead silver. Between his fingertips, the pair of discs was warm from proximity to his skin. It was no longer blessed by holy power-it never had been. But memory of his father made it sacred, and that was more than enough.

No surprise showed in Ganniwer's aquamarine eyes. "You're going to have to leave me here. It's the only way you'll travel fast enough."

That his mother knew exactly what he was thinking was both comfort and consternation; it made it all the harder to have to leave her. "I hate this. After all we've been through, I don't want to let you out of my sight." I don't want to have to lose you again.

"Dearest boy, I'm the one who's supposed to say that to you." Ganniwer wrapped her arms around him and hugged him close, with enough fierceness to make up for all the times she hadn't been able to embrace him when he was small. "I will be perfectly safe in the company of several thousand soldiers, so don't concern yourself with me. Do what you must do. Go to Dareli. Find that gun and put an end to this."

"I won't be alone," he promised. Most of the others would come with him, he was sure. Celoren and Faanshi went without saying, and where the healer went, the a.s.sa.s.sins were sure to follow.

"Which is the only reason I can accept your leaving-because I know they'll look after you, just as you will them. Find our friends before I change my mind about letting you go. May the G.o.ds be with you, Kescha."

To Kestar's relief, once he sought their council, neither the d.u.c.h.ess nor Gerren forbade him to carry out his plan or to ask Faanshi if she would come with him.

"You will move faster without my army," Khamsin agreed when he came to see her in her tent. "If you can eliminate the threat of the mage Marwyth, then by all means, do so. Better still, take this to the Bhandreid, or to her authorized representative." She handed him a packet of folded doc.u.ments on paper of fine enough quality that it glided against his fingertips, bound in golden cord and sealed with a stamp of bright red wax. "One of these is the statement that I, Sister Sother, Father Grenham and others have composed to declare Nirrivy's independence, and the terms by which we will ask Adalonia to abide. The other, in Adalonic and Elisiyanne, is the affirmation that Nirrivy supports the free elven peoples, and that we call on Adalonia to grant immediate freedom to all elven slaves. They are copies. The akreshi Gerren and I retain the originals. Deliver yours if you can. If you cannot, we will deliver ours."

Just in time Kestar stopped himself from asking what language Elisiyanne was-for it had never occurred to him that of course the elves would have their own name for their own speech. And of course she'd have asked, he thought ruefully. She's a d.u.c.h.ess. Out loud he said, bowing, "I'll do my best, Your Grace."

She dismissed him to find the others. Perhaps warned by his mother, or perhaps simply because they knew him best of anyone in their number, Celoren and Faanshi had antic.i.p.ated him. They'd already gathered their gear by the time Kestar finished his circuit through the camp, leaving messages for his friends when he couldn't find them face-to-face. Likewise, Julian and Rab were waiting with the horses, the Rook grim-eyed, and his partner practically beaming with antic.i.p.ation.

"Of course you'll need us," Nine-fingered Rab said at Kestar's startled look. "Unless you've somehow acquired some other master thieves who can help you fetch that magic gun you'll be looking for."

Likewise, there was no surprise in the presence of Semai el-Numair Behzad. "I travel where Faanshi travels," he proclaimed, "as I pledged to the akresha Ulima."

As they loaded their packs onto their horses, though, a voice Kestar hadn't expected in the slightest hailed them out of the deepening evening shadows. "Don't leave without us, humans."

They whirled to find two more figures approaching with horses of their own, but it was Faanshi who spoke up first, in surprise and pleasure. "Tembriel, you're coming with us?"

"Alarrah and Gerren sent me," the she-elf said in grudging tones. "They wish you good fortune, and Gerren wants me to make sure you make it back safely to our people, mouse. Especially since Alarrah must tend to those we've recovered from Riannach." Then all at once she grinned, a tight and feral curl to her mouth. "And besides, if I come with you, I have a much higher chance of setting humans on fire."

"As long that doesn't include any of us," Kestar warned.

"If you insist. Vaa.r.s.en, you're no d.a.m.ned fun."

He choked back a laugh, even as he had to admit that having someone capable of fire-magic with them could be useful indeed. But that didn't explain who'd come with the she-elf, and who even now stood stiffly, avoiding the measuring stares trained on her. "What about you, Lieutenant?" Kestar asked.

Jekke Yerredes finally looked his way, pulling herself to her full height with a kind of bruised pride that didn't diminish the discomfort in her eyes. "The Church lied to us. The Order lied to us. I need to see why with my own eyes. And if I can, I want to help set it right."

"I can hardly argue with that," Celoren said. Striding to Jekke, he offered her his hand while tossing a sidelong nod at Kestar. "And I know the cloud-head and I don't exactly qualify as fellow Hawks anymore. Even so, we'll welcome a sister to our swords."

"Ani a bhota-" Jekke began, and then cut herself off with a harsh little laugh. "Though I suppose we can't say that anymore, can we? And I can't call myself a lieutenant anymore either. I've deserted."

"But you're here in the name of what's right, and if the G.o.ds' eyes are still on us all, hopefully they'll know. So thank you for coming," Kestar said, swinging his gaze from face to face, taking in the sight of each. "Thank you all. I couldn't do this alone."

"Thank us when we pull this off, Vaa.r.s.en." Julian hoisted Faanshi up onto Morrigh, then climbed into the saddle behind her. "We'd best get moving, before the d.u.c.h.ess decides our making off with the figurehead of her revolution isn't a good idea after all."

The healer maiden smirked, or at least as much as she ever did. Next to the practiced smirks either of the a.s.sa.s.sins could produce, hers was still quite gentle. "I have no wish to be a saint. Djashtet bids me follow Her ridahs, and the ridahs say I must help Kestar. I believe the Lady of Time will watch over us, but I can hardly speak for Her, much less any other G.o.ds."

"Don't look at me," put in Rab. "I myself am a devout atheist. Mostly I find deities useful for creative cursing, and little else."

"Tykhe does what She does. We'll get Her left hand or Her right, but don't expect Her to broadcast Her intentions," Julian said.

Tembriel sprang effortlessly into her horse's saddle, and the smirk she leveled at them all was as sharp as any of the a.s.sa.s.sins' blades. "I'm hardly convinced the Mother of Stars wants me on this fool's errand, never mind any of you. I'll let you know if I decide otherwise."

Last of them all to mount, Celoren said, deliberately bland, "And as none of us appear yet to have adopted any of the other G.o.ds of Nirrivy in this roll call of the divine, I suppose that leaves me. Can I interest any of you in joining the First Church of Kestar's New Horse?"

Startled laughter broke out at his words, and though neither Tembriel nor Jekke could be said to smile, even they relaxed ever so slightly as their company set out. The d.u.c.h.ess must have sent orders down to the sentries, for they rode unchallenged out of the camp, and even caught a few calls of farewell and good luck as they pa.s.sed. Kestar acknowledged what hails he heard, and strove to look as calm and brave as he could as they left the camp. He could only hope that between them all, they'd draw the eyes of at least one G.o.d or G.o.ddess who'd be willing to grant them success and fortune with what they sought to do.

And if Tykhe wished to intervene on their behalf, it'd be all the better. Even though he'd been raised to disdain any G.o.ds but the Father, Mother, Son and Daughter, Kestar could think of no better Nirrivan deity to guide them than the G.o.ddess of luck.

They were going to need all the luck they could get.

Chapter Nineteen.

Somewhere in the city of Dareli, Jeuchar 19, AC 1876 Her doom was no longer in a form she remembered-but when the bullet pierced her, her flesh recognized what her mind did not. Blind rage made her hurl fire at the old human woman who dared to raise a weapon against her, the woman she knew only as Bhandreid, ruler of her round-eared enslavers. Pain made her will herself out of the human church, before any of the Bhandreid's servants could claim the doom and use it on her a second time.

Even in her rage, even in her pain, her mind began to offer her fragments of memory. Human bullets had wounded her before, but this one was different, searing her with a fire she recognized in her blood and bone. Amathilaen. Somehow the humans had found it and forged it anew into a shape that could strike her from afar, though the arts of their smiths couldn't disguise the enchantment in metal shaped by the Moonwise. The spell was almost as old as she, and once, in the proper hands, it had almost killed her.

In the hands of the human queen, it could only wound. Yet that was enough to drive her to ground in the first place her magic took her, the quiet dark of a chamber that smelled of dust and wood and burlap, and within the burlap, grain. Like a wounded wolf she curled on the sacks, drawing a veil of power and warmth over her to conceal herself from watching eyes while she healed the a.s.sault on her flesh. Not even the cats that prowled restlessly through the barn in search of mice could find her.

As safe as she could make herself, she slept. She dreamed. She remembered.

Janlec Dalrannen, with ash and blood on his face, lunging at her with the sword in his hands. It blazed with the clarion silver of the stars, and his eyes caught and reflected the brilliance until he seemed made of starlight himself. Her hands hurled back red-golden fire in reply, but as long as Amathilaen was in his grasp, she couldn't strike him. And so she struck at Astllerame instead, turning a city of white granite and marble into a city of flame.

Janlec again, younger. There was no difference in the lines of his face, for like all their kind he could go unmarked by time for many hundreds of years-but she knew he was younger, for the weight in his eyes was lighter. Until it began to change. Because of her.

Then the faces of the Amatharinor, though only two names flashed across her dreams from the recesses of her oldest thoughts: Jerendriel, the second youngest and the lightest of spirit, and Brendalah, the eldest and most powerful. Their faces changed as Janlec's did, first open and welcoming-and then shuttering against her, turning worried, turning cold.

Earlier still, to a recollection so old it might as well have been the beginning of time. The birth of her power, when she herself was young and untried, and saw the land itself and the living creatures that walked on it warp themselves to her slightest whim. An entire human village changed before the Moonwise found her and made her one of their own. Made her, for a time, a friend.