The Hidden Queen, page 13
She takes us through one of the many side exits, this one belonging to the dama’ting. The door is wardlocked, but some item on Amanvah’s person deactivates the lock long enough for us to pass through.
The floor slopes down immediately, and we quickly wind our way down into the underpalace, where daylight never touches, and the wards hum with permanent power.
I already know where they’re taking us. The Chamber of Shadows, the Damajah’s vault beneath the palace, where her magics are strongest. There, in a sound-warded room, is part of a great hora stone, with other parts of its whole in cities far distant, coated in precious metal and etched with wards of resonance. When the night is dark, a word spoken into the stone can travel hundreds of miles like two cups connected by string, bringing us voices from afar.
The last time I was in this room, it was for General Gared to shout at me and Selen from Hollow and threaten to come collect us. Now he’s here with us, but there are other powers in Hollow, still.
Olive, Selen, Rojvah, Arick, Gared, Amanvah, Inevera, and I gather in the small room as the stone hums to life. No one has spoken yet, but I can hear shuffling cloth and scraping feet coming from the stone. Breath and heartbeats.
“This thing workin’?” Elona Paper’s voice comes from the stone, and Selen curses under her breath.
“Favah.” Inevera ignores the question. “Is all in readiness?”
“We are gathered as instructed, Holy Damajah,” Dama’ting Favah replies. “Lord Arther, first minister and regent of Hollow, the duchess’ parents, Ernal and Elona am’Paper, and Headmistress Darsy of Gatherers’ University.”
“Here stand Olive am’Paper—” Inevera clearly means to introduce everyone in turn, but Mrs. Paper cuts her off the moment Olive’s name is spoken.
“Olive, are you there?” Elona demands. “Are you safe?”
“Is it possible Alagai Ka can intercept this conversation?” Olive quietly asks the Damajah.
Inevera shakes her head. “Unlikely, without a piece of the sympathetic hora.”
Unlikely. It ent a no, but it’s the best we got.
“I’m here, Grandmum.” Olive’s voice is softer and higher than I’ve heard it in a long time, more like the Princess Olive of old. “I’m all right.”
Reckon that’s what Elona Paper needed to hear. “Oh, thank the Creator.”
“I’m all right too, Mum,” Selen puts in, “if you care.”
“Your backside won’t be all right when I get my hands on it, girl,” Elona snaps. “Ent gonna blame Olive for being kidnapped, but you ran off without a word of your own free will. Twice.”
“Ent gonna be any punishments,” Gared cuts in.
“Ay, what’s that, Gared Cutter?” Elona’s voice is sharp. A warning. “You were ready to strip the hide off her yourself, when you left Hollow to fetch her.”
“Ay.” Gared puts a protective hand on his daughter’s shoulder. “But then I found her and Olive and Darin on the road, and know she done the right thing. Folk dun’t need permission to help their kin when they need it.”
Olive snorts quietly. Gared’s as guilty of that as any.
“Proud of her.” Gared runs his eyes over Olive and Selen, Arick and Rojvah, at last coming to rest on me, like a sack of potatoes across my back. “Proud of all of ’em.”
“That don’t—” Elona begins.
“Enough, Grandmum.” Olive’s voice has deepened again, becoming more resonant and assured. A voice accustomed to obedience. “There will be no punishments for Captain Selen when we return to Hollow, because in the absence of Captain Wonda, she will be taking command of the Paper house guard.”
Even Elona Paper stops talking at that.
“Ay, it’s news to me, too.” Selen shifts uncomfortably as everyone turns to regard her.
“We have more important things to discuss.” Olive has the floor now, and seems unwilling to yield it. I can hear her giant heart pumping blood, smell her adrenaline. “Has there been any news about Mother?”
There is a long pause, and then the voice of First Minister Arther. “I am afraid not, Highness. Our search parties have returned with empty pockets…when they have returned at all. We have identified what we could from the remains of the attack, but there are many still unaccounted for, including Her Grace the duchess, Mrs. Bales, Wonda Cutter, and Kendall Demonsong.”
It’s not the news anyone wants, but no one smells surprised.
“What about the Warded Children?” I could have kept quiet, kept the attention off me, but I need to know. “How many are left after…what happened?”
Warded Children are like family. Mum and I visited them often, and everyone snapped to attention like she was the queen bee. They were the only folk that came close to understanding me.
“Ah…” I hear the twinge in Minister Arther’s voice, and he don’t need to say the rest, but he does. “All of them answered your mother’s call, I am afraid. None have returned.”
Knew it. Mam was their leader, and they believe killin’ demons is the purpose the Creator made for them. ’Course they all wanted to go.
I was the only one that din’t. Too scared to argue when Mam told me to stay home.
Now I’m the only one left.
Selen’s fingers slide into mine, squeezing to give me something to focus on over the sudden tightness in my chest. She was with me when we came upon that awful scene. How could any have survived that destruction?
“Has the Damajah informed you that my father went to search for them, and has gone missing, as well?” Olive asks.
“Tsst!” Inevera hisses, and that combined with the gasps from the other end of the string is answer enough.
“Either we are all on the same side, or we aren’t,” Olive says. “I have reason to believe they are alive, in any event.”
All eyes turn to Olive. “How’s that, girl?” Elona demands from the stone.
“Because I was in Alagai Ka’s head,” Olive says, to gasps on both sides of the string. “It wasn’t for long and I didn’t see much, but I know something of his plan.”
“This is something you could have enlightened us about earlier,” the Damajah notes, as if their secret talk didn’t drag on long enough as it was.
“And you could have met us in a sitting room and had a normal conversation,” Olive notes in return, “instead of parading me about in front of my siblings, and then bringing us here without warning.”
They eye each other, and not for the first time, I’m glad no one ever expects me to do much of the talkin’. Ent good at cuttin’ folk with words and dirty looks.
“The history books say my father and Mrs. Bales killed the demon hive queen,” Olive says. “But not before she could lay a clutch of hatchling queens. They would have killed our parents and taken over the hive had Arlen Bales not destroyed them. With no queen, the hive could not replenish their numbers. Every demon killed after the purge was one step closer to eradicating them forever.”
“So we prayed,” Amanvah says.
“But Alagai Ka escaped,” Olive goes on. “And somewhere out on the desert, out of range of the Deliverer’s purge, was a single mimic.”
“Idiot,” Inevera whispers, too quiet for anyone to hear. I realize she’s talkin’ to herself, and my cheeks heat as she looks up suddenly, catching my eye. I can’t meet that look, and give my head a shake to drape hair over my eyes.
“The mimic transformed into a queen,” Inevera says aloud, perhaps to cover the exchange. “The mimic who waits below is a queen.”
“Yes,” Olive agrees, “and no. The mimic will lay a true queen egg, and soon. The hatchling queen will hunger, and Alagai Ka means for her first repast to be the minds and magic-rich flesh of their vanquished enemies, served live.”
“Creator preserve us,” I hear Headmistress Darsy breathe.
“Ay, and we’re on the menu, too,” I say.
Arick steps closer to me. “Only if we falter, cousin.”
“When?” Inevera demands. “How much time do we have?”
“I don’t know for sure,” Olive admits. “The neo-queen has quickened, so it will not be long, but the demon king is patient and careful. I do not think he would have waited until the last minute to set his plans in motion. Months? Perhaps a year?”
“An eyeblink, for an immortal,” Inevera says. “And not much time for us.”
“Enough, perhaps,” Olive says, “if we can work together. The snows will begin by the time I am back in Hollow, but I intend to have an army ready by the time the roads are clear.”
“I will begin preparations immediately, Highness,” Arther says.
“So Leesha is alive?” Elona asks.
“I don’t know for sure if any of them are alive,” Olive says. “But I felt the demon’s intent, and believe most if not all are held captive.”
“In a demon hive,” Elona says.
“I never said it was good news,” Olive says. “I don’t want that information getting out. I expect folk would handle it poorly.”
“Ay, that’s undersaid,” Elona grumbles.
“There is more news that should not leave these chambers,” Inevera says. “The Spear of Ala has fallen silent.”
The Spear of Ala is one of the great csars—walled fortress cities—of Kaji, the first Deliverer. It was the final base from which humanity struck out against the demon hive, three thousand years ago. Stood empty all that time, until my da found it, along with Mam and my bloodfather.
“What do you mean, fallen?” Olive asks. “Who’s been living there all this time?”
“The alamen fae.” Inevera’s words send a chill through my spine. Mother used to speak of them. When the demons collapsed the tunnels and cut the fortress off from the surface, the captured inhabitants became livestock for the coreling hive, raised like cattle and shepherded by cave demons.
Expect they were blind at first, there in the deep dark below. But that was three thousand years ago. Can only guess how many generations that is, with nothing to do but eat and rut. A hundred? Two?
Two hundred generations, living and dying in the magic-rich eternal night near the Core. It changed them, like Mam and Da eatin’ demon meat changed me.
“Mam says the alamen fae ent entirely human anymore,” I say. “They been writin’ you letters?”
The Damajah raises a brow at me, smelling bemused. “After your mother and bloodfather resettled them in the Spear of Ala, we sent their descendants, the Sharach tribe, to find what humanity remained to them.”
“Did Mother know?” Olive asks.
“It is news to me, Highness,” Arther says.
“And me,” Darsy puts in.
Olive looks to Inevera, but the Damajah only shrugs. “It is a Krasian csar, its inhabitants descended from the same ancestors as our own. We were within our…”
“…rights, ay.” Olive smells irritated. “You and Mother both, keeping secrets within secrets. This is why the demons caught us with our bidos down last summer.”
Inevera does not reply, so Olive crosses her arms. “And?”
“The youngest alamen fae we liberated from the hive can indeed read and write now,” Inevera says. “The elders struggle even with speech, but they took to sharak as if born to it. Born in darkness, they are strong, like warriors charged with demon magic. Perhaps even stronger than you, Princes Olive, and there is other magic about them. They can scale sheer walls and walk silent and unseen when they wish.”
Born in darkness, the words echo the prophecy cast about me before I was ever born, and he will carry that darkness inside him. Does it mean something, the Damajah using those same words now?
“Doesn’t sound like they’d go down easy in a fight,” Selen says.
“Indeed,” Inevera nods. “The csar’s walls are impregnable, patrolled by Sharach warriors and alamen fae. The wards of the Spear of Ala are the most powerful in the world, and the gates will only open from the outside for your father.”
“But you’ve lost contact,” Olive says.
“Lesser csars were built as waystations along the road to the Spear, each with resonance stones to keep the signal strong even across such vast distance,” Inevera says. “One by one, they have gone quiet in the months since Alagai Ka set his plans in motion and your father disappeared.”
Inevera smells scared at the words, and pained. Whatever her cold façade, she loves her husband, and fears for him.
“Why would the gates only open for Father?” Olive asks.
I know this one from Mam’s stories. “The crown.”
“Yes,” Inevera agrees. “The Crown of Kaji is an artifact from ancient times, made, it is said, at the same time as the Spear of Ala. Its gems are cut from the same stones as those in the heart of the csar. Its hora cut from the same demons. Shar’Dama Ka could control the csar like a thing alive.”
“The father waits below in darkness for his progeny to return,” Olive repeats the prophecy her mother cast for me after the attack on Solstice. The words have repeated in my head for months. I thought they meant my da, Arlen Bales, but maybe they meant my bloodfather, Olive’s da, instead. “You think Alagai Ka needs him to open the gates.”
“If the demon hive is to live again…” Inevera begins.
“…the Spear of Ala must fall,” Olive finishes. “The demons can’t have that on their doorstep.”
“Impossible,” Amanvah says. “The Shar’Dama Ka would never…”
“Tsst,” Inevera says. “All things are possible for Everam, and for Nie. Ahmann Jardir would not help them willingly, but there might be a way to…pervert his magic, or find another capable of activating the crown. Perhaps that is what the demon king meant for Iraven, who was already his creature, and Blood of the Deliverer.”
“So the crown is useless, unless worn by an heir of Kaji?” Olive asks.
“Hardly useless,” Inevera says. “The crown is powerful. Unworn, its magics are still enough to hold an army of alagai at bay. Anyone wearing it would have a portion of those powers, but nothing like those a true heir could unlock.”
A true heir like Olive. The words are unsaid, but we’re all thinking it.
“I do not know that even Alagai Ka could take the crown from my husband,” Inevera says. “After it was knocked from his head in battle, I added a blood lock to the strap. Only the Deliverer himself can remove it, and no demon can draw close, but that he wishes it.”
“Reckon they could bury it in a cave-in,” I say. “Make sure no one can ever use it.”
Inevera nods. “Perhaps, but the crown is all but indestructible. It would remain. I do not think Alagai Ka would leave such a loose end, and it would leave the csar as a formidable base at their back.”
“Can you ask your dice where the crown is?” Olive asks.
“I have.” There is no lie in the Damajah’s voice or heartbeat. “The answer does not help. In darkness, they say.”
Dice ent ever much help, I think, but I’m smart enough not to say it aloud. In my experience, rippin’ things cause as much trouble as they’re worth.
“You will need to find your father,” Inevera says to Olive. “Free him if he is alive, and take the crown if he is not.”
“I need to find my mother,” Olive says. “If Father is with her I will free him, too. But take the crown? Why? I have more than forty older brothers, not to mention Prince Kaji. Ay, is there anyone in Krasia who isn’t descended from Kaji?”
Inevera says nothing, her face serene, but her eyes bore into Olive and I can smell her frustration. She wants it to be Olive. Needs it to be, though she ent offering a hint as to why.
Arick drops to his knees, putting his hands on the floor and touching his forehead between them. “Damajah, it is said Leesha Paper helped nurse me when my own mother could not. If it is Prince Olive’s quest to find her, I would, with your permission, offer him my spear and shield.”
The Damajah smells bemused. “Your mother and the first of her spear sisters were the nieces of Ahmann Jardir, born of his dal’ting sisters. There were those who believed their common blood made them less than his heirs of more royal lines. But your mother Sikvah and her spear sisters earned another name in the dama’ting underpalace where they trained. Do you know what it was?”
Arick shakes his head, eyes still on the floor.
“Sharum Blood of the Deliverer,” Inevera says, and I hear Arick suck in a sharp breath.
Amanvah smells suddenly angry. Dunno what those words mean to her, but it ent anything good. Never been good at readin’ auras, but I can see hers cracklin’ like a fire and even I know what that means.
“I saw you at Leesha am’Paper’s breast, Arick, son of Rojer,” Inevera says. “The bonds of milk can hold as tightly as blood, and I will not deny you a Sharum’s rights in this. You may go north with Prince Olive.”
Amanvah’s heart is pounding, her breath sharp. I can hear her muscles tightening. Rojvah attempts to take a step forward to join her brother, but Amanvah latches onto her wrist and holds her in place with a sharp “Tsst!”
Inevera doesn’t turn, but her ear twitches, and I know she heard. Rojvah smells as angry as her mother now, but when the Damajah does not offer leave to approach, it turns into resignation. She ent going anywhere.
Hard to say if it means Rojvah means too much to them, or Arick too little.
Selen’s had enough of everyone when we get back to our suite of rooms. I know the look and leave her be as she heads off to wash her face and fall into the pillows.
It’s just as well. I’m in no mood for company. I feel like Darin when he has one of his fits. Too many fears and half-formed plans are running through my head for me to focus. I feel dizzy and sick with them.
