The Queen's Price, page 43
“It’s a task Prince Butler gave me.” Saetien pushed another stick into the mud. “Five hundred sticks in this box, in rows. I have to bring it back to him at sunset.”
“Do you have to do it alone?”
Saetien paused. Did she? “He didn’t say I couldn’t have help.”
Caitie smiled and picked up a handful of sticks. “Then I’ll help.”
* * *
* * *
Since a human didn’t actually drive a conveyance pulled by one of the kindred, Kieran was with her only as an escort—and to argue with the Warlord pulling the pony cart if the horse got bored going to the same cottage every evening and wanted to visit someone else.
She sat stiffly, holding the box and fretting about the one stick that must have gotten knocked so that it was leaning a bit. The mud had set before she’d noticed, so she was stuck with handing over an assignment that was less than perfect.
“It gives the whole thing a bit of character,” Kieran said after she’d sighed again. “There’s no point fretting over what you can’t change.”
No point fretting? She couldn’t help fretting, since she didn’t know what the box and sticks were for.
Butler didn’t seem to notice the leaning stick, despite the careful way he eyed everything, as if deciding whether or not she’d used all the sticks.
Finally, he nodded. “Come back in the morning. Both of you.” He looked at Kieran. “And anyone else who wants an answer to a question no one has dared to ask.”
He went into the cottage and closed the door.
“What question?” Saetien asked as they headed home. “We didn’t ask a question. We spent the day putting sticks in mud.”
“I don’t know the question either,” Kieran replied. “But I think we need to prepare ourselves to face the answer.”
FIFTY-SIX
Maghre
The next morning, Saetien and Eileen helped Kildare, Ryder, and Kieran with the morning chores before Ryder hitched up the pony cart while Kieran and Kildare saddled horses. They weren’t the only ones who rode over to Butler’s cottage. Word had spread through the village that something was going to be revealed, and aristos and shopkeepers alike were waiting for them. Except . . .
Saetien couldn’t see what the people were staring at, but she recognized fear in all those pale faces as they turned toward the Warlord of Maghre.
“There are letters on the gate,” a Warlord said. “One addressed to the young Lady and one for you.”
“Stay here,” Kieran said quietly as he dismounted to fetch the letters.
The people jostled one another until they opened a clear path to what had captured their attention.
Her box of sticks. She recognized it by the one stick that leaned a bit. But it wasn’t just one box. The land beyond the cottage’s fence was covered in boxes exactly like the one she’d made, snugged together so there was no space between. Box upon box, each with five hundred sticks, stretching over the land as far as she could see.
“Saetien.” Kieran held out a letter. “This one is for you.”
She looked at the letter, then looked at the boxes that must have been created by an illusion spell. Then she looked at Kieran. “Could you read it?”
“Lord Kieran?” someone in the crowd asked. “What is this? What’s it for?”
Kieran broke the seal, opened the letter, scanned the page—and shuddered. He took a deep breath and began to read.
What you see is the price of the purge that cleansed the Realms of the High Priestess of Hayll’s taint. These are the Blood who were completely destroyed by the unleashing of the Queen of Ebon Askavi’s power.
Witch looked into a tangled web of dreams and visions and saw the war that was coming—a war that would have killed all of Kaeleer’s Queens, all of the Warlord Princes. Everyone in the Dark Court’s First Circle. Kaeleer would have won that war against Terreille, but there would have been no one left to rule the Territories, no one left to keep the human and kindred Blood united.
But that tangled web showed another path—a path that would save all the Queens and Warlord Princes by sacrificing just one Queen.
Witch chose that path, telling no one what the price would be. She unleashed her full power against the tainted Blood, cleansing the Realms.
Look upon this accounting. Each stick represents one of the Blood who was sent to the final death. There was no war in the way we usually think of such things, only one Queen determined to protect everyone she loved and give them a future she didn’t expect to see.
Only one Queen shouldered the weight of all of these dead.
Her name was Jaenelle Angelline.
Kieran folded the letter and handed it to Saetien, but her fingers wouldn’t work right and the paper fell to the floor of the cart.
“I’ll hold on to it for you,” Eileen said, retrieving the letter.
Kieran opened the letter addressed to him. He cleared his throat. “ ‘The illusion will last until tomorrow’s sunrise. Anyone who wants to stand witness should do so before then.’ ” He folded the letter and vanished it.
“I want to see,” Saetien said before anyone could suggest that she return to the house. “I want to see.”
Kieran mounted his horse and led the way, Ryder and Kildare riding behind the pony cart and the other people who had assembled at the cottage scrambling into their various conveyances or mounting their horses to follow.
Over pastures and fields and crops. A sea of the dead that stretched to the horizon no matter which way she looked. Five hundred sticks per box. How many boxes? Saetien didn’t know, felt too sick to try to count them.
Finally—finally—they reached land that had no boxes. No one else had come all the way with them.
“Mother Night,” Kildare said softly.
“And may the Darkness be merciful,” Kieran replied just as softly.
Eileen hugged Saetien and whispered, “How has she lived with this all these years?”
Saetien rested her head on Eileen’s shoulder and wondered the same thing.
* * *
* * *
Kieran leaned against the desk in his study and waited for his father and brother. His mother would seek him out later for whatever she needed to say.
Kildare and Ryder walked into the room. Kildare closed the door and turned the lock.
“There was more to the letter Butler left for you,” Kildare said. “More than you told the others.”
Kieran nodded. “He didn’t supply a number, but he wrote that the purge sent forty percent of the Blood in Terreille to the final death. Another thirty percent were tainted enough to be broken back to basic Craft.” He scrubbed his hands over his face. “I keep thinking that none of us would be here if Jaenelle Angelline hadn’t done what she did, but Mother Night!”
“We might be here,” Kildare said. “Morghann and Khardeen had a child before . . . that day.”
“Who would have been left to raise that child?” Kieran countered. “Assuming anyone from their bloodline would have been allowed to live?”
“There will be talk,” Ryder said. “Especially since everyone knows the Lady is still at the Keep. Or has returned to the Keep.”
“Do you think Daemon Sadi knows?” Kildare asked.
“Someone did a tally of the dead,” Kieran replied. “If not Sadi, then the previous High Lord of Hell. So yes, I think they, and Lucivar Yaslana, understood the nature of their Queen and the choice she made. But I don’t think any of them would have let her pay that price if they could have stopped her.”
“Our Brenda is living at the Hall.”
“I know.” Sadi was powerful and lethal and everything that should be feared. But until he saw that tally of the dead, Kieran hadn’t appreciated how dangerous Sadi could be. To be Consort and husband to the Queen who could do that? What other man would embrace such a Queen with so much joy?
Understanding that, he shared Kildare’s concern about Brenda living at the Hall—and he had a new understanding of why Saetien couldn’t live with a father she loved.
* * *
* * *
“Come in.” Saetien adjusted the heavy shawl, grateful that Eileen had added a warming spell to the wool, because she kept fumbling every bit of Craft she’d tried to do since returning from that . . . accounting.
“A message from Butler,” Kieran said, coming into the room but leaving the door open halfway. “He said not to come tonight.”
She nodded. She wasn’t sure what she could say to him after seeing . . . “When Butler said all the Warlord Princes would have died, he didn’t mean all the Warlord Princes. Did he?”
“He did, yes. Your father and your uncle would have fought till their last breath and beyond. Would have kept fighting until they used up the last drop of reserve power in their Jewels. And maybe that would have been the difference between Kaeleer winning and losing the war. But they would have been gone. Demon-dead for a little while, maybe. But you wouldn’t be here. Neither would I. Neither would so many of the people you know.”
“They survived because she loved them,” Saetien whispered. “Do you think she expected her spell to destroy her too?”
“I don’t know. You’ll have to ask Butler tomorrow.”
She nodded.
“Do you want a tray in your room?”
“No, I’ll come down for supper.” She offered a wobbly smile and opened the shawl, revealing the puppy in her lap. “Besides, Shelby and I need to go out for walkies.”
*Walkies!* Shelby said.
“Kieran? My father still serves her. Do you . . . Do you still like him after seeing . . . ?”
“I do, but I imagine there are many who couldn’t. He is who and what he is, Saetien—and so was the Queen.”
“So is the Queen.”
“Yes.”
Saetien took Shelby out for walkies, had dinner with Kieran and his family, then retreated to her room. She didn’t want to talk, didn’t want to read any more journals. She just sat on the window seat thinking about all those sticks and boxes—and she wondered what else Butler was going to tell her.
FIFTY-SEVEN
SaDiablo Hall
Titian waited with the other girls and the boyos who were serving in Felisha’s court today. They’d all struggled during the first couple of weeks of these exercises, but the requirement to stand for other members in the court and stand for the people under the Queen’s protection was slowly seeping past the rules and manners children learned in order to respond to adults—especially adults who were from aristo families or wore dark Jewels. Or both.
Lady Dumm’s table manners had improved considerably. Whatever Uncle Daemon had done that one night to create that smell guaranteed there would be no more farting at the table. But the “special guest” at the Hall was still pushy and opinionated and crude and rude. Because of that, the students were all learning when to push back, when to draw a line and call in reinforcements, and when to officially report an offense to the Queen they were serving that day—and she would take it to the Queen she served. Unless she was the ruling Queen that day.
Titian had never given much thought to what the hierarchy of District Queens to Province Queens to Territory Queens meant in terms of who had to make the final decision about a wrong someone had done—and the debt owed to a family or a village for that wrong. She’d seen Queens talking to her father and seen the order of command among the men who served him directly. But she hadn’t appreciated the price he must sometimes have to pay for being the person who made the final decision about someone else’s life.
Was it easier for Lucivar and Daemon now that the Queen of Ebon Askavi had officially returned to the Keep? They no longer had to make that final decision if they didn’t want to. But they wouldn’t ask the Queen to shoulder that burden unless they weren’t certain of the choice that should be made.
Maybe that was part of the price they paid for being Warlord Princes rather than being the rulers of their Territories. The Warlords and Princes who were among the students didn’t seem to be changing, but the Warlord Princes . . . A look in their eyes, a slight shift in attitude that said We are a law unto ourselves. And they were. A lot of the Blood’s laws and social rules didn’t apply to them. Couldn’t apply to them because they were predators born to stand on killing fields.
Had Uncle Daemon intended to nudge that predatory nature to the surface by using Lady Dumm?
Daemonar had said it was better to find out where the lines were drawn with a dressmaker’s dummy than with someone who could bleed.
No one believed for a minute that Daemonar had missed the target when his arrow had pinned Lady Dumm’s shoe to the ground moments after she started making comments about amateur artists—comments that had made Titian flinch. Line drawn. Warning given. The next arrow would damage more than a shoe if the subject came up again.
He’d been passing through on his way to some other lesson and had overheard Dumm’s first sly comment. He’d barely checked his pace when he nocked the arrow, pivoted, and let it fly.
No one was sure what Grizande’s target was supposed to be when her knife whipped past Lady Dumm and sliced off several plumes in Dumm’s hat before hitting a tree. Grizande claimed she missed, although she became vague about what she’d intended to hit, since no one had been standing near the weapons practice area.
Defend. Protect. That was the purpose of a court.
“Any idea why Felisha is having this extra meeting with Azara?” Trent asked as he came to stand beside Titian. “If Felisha has to give Zoey and Kathlene orders for their courts, we won’t get anything done this morning.”
Azara was the Territory Queen today, Felisha the Province Queen, and Zoey and Kathlene the District Queens. Either Azara, who preferred agreeing with other people’s opinions in case her own were wrong, had been given a challenging assignment for the day and needed extra time to figure out how to accomplish the task or . . .
“Something’s not right,” Trent said. “Raeth is with Azara today, and he says Azara and Felisha were arguing about Felisha’s part of the assignment until Azara threatened to discipline her for disobedience.”
Titian stared at him. “That doesn’t make any sense.” Especially if Azara was the one holding a line that Felisha didn’t agree with.
“No, it doesn’t.” He studied her. “You trust your uncle?”
“Of course I do!”
“What about the instructors? Lady Dumm’s table manners were an exercise pushed too far, but I didn’t get the impression that Lady Brenda or Prince Raine would do anything that would hurt anyone. And our other instructors aren’t really part of the group of adults working out these assignments.”
“My uncle wouldn’t put any of us at risk.” Titian was sure of that. But that Trent was even wondering about that just proved he wasn’t the same young Warlord Prince who had walked into the Hall a few months ago.
The door opened. Felisha walked in looking very unhappy.
Titian studied Trent, who was studying Felisha. Aunt Surreal once said there is always a moment when a Warlord Prince decides whether to obey an order or defy it, a moment when he moves a little closer to being loyal to the Queen he serves or becoming an adversary. Surreal had said with someone like Daemon or Lucivar the decision could be made in a heartbeat, but that hesitation was always there. And if it wasn’t there? That meant the Prince’s loyalty to his Queen went so deep, he would do anything for her without question. Anything. And that would make him the most dangerous male in the Realms.
She hadn’t thought about the way Daemonar hesitated when asked to do something, even when asked by their mother or father. Hadn’t considered that it was an expectation of his caste to act that way. Now, as she watched Trent, it was like seeing that aspect of a Warlord Prince’s nature unfurl. Now the boy who sometimes laughingly scolded her for not eating all her vegetables was changing into a man who would draw a line and really fight with her if he believed she needed to eat all her vegetables.
Trent was becoming a warrior who would stand on killing fields. A dangerous man. Like her brother. Like her uncle. Like her father.
* * *
* * *
“Hold out your hands,” Felisha said, gesturing to Titian, Trent, and Arlene.
Zoey frowned. Titian had said Felisha was upset after the meeting with Azara, but she didn’t seem upset now. Annoyed? Uncertain? Determined?
All of those things.
Felisha slapped the hands of the three selected members of her court. Kathlene gasped, then belatedly put a hand over her mouth to hide the sound.
Felisha turned to Zoey and Kathlene. “Sometime today, before you return from your courts’ assigned tasks, you will slap the hands of three people serving in your court.”
“Why?” Zoey asked.
“Because that is what the Queen commands,” Felisha snapped. “That was the command I was given to pass on to the two of you.”
“But . . . why?”
“Because whoever is Territory Queen now has additional instructions, specific things the people under her hand are required to do.”
“Like slapping someone?” Kathlene asked.
“Yes!” Maybe Felisha heard her own distress, because she stopped and took a couple of breaths before continuing. “It’s . . . strange, but Azara showed me the instructions that were in the envelope she received this morning, and that is what we’re required to do.”
“Who wrote the instructions?” Zoey asked. “Could this be another Lady Dumm lesson?”
Felisha shook her head. “I don’t know. Azara had to copy the instructions, so what I saw was in her handwriting.” Another couple of breaths. “It’s just a light slap. You saw how I did it.”
