The Hidden Queen, page 57
Thought I might find some comfort in the secret, but instead there’s a new chill in my bones. Know what she means. Felt the pain imprinted on the bone, even if I didn’t understand it. There’s more she’s not tellin’, but I’ve got all I can handle just now.
Arick ent doing much better. He’s wound up like a noose, and I can smell his panic. Can’t blame him. These tunnels feel a lot like the hive ward out in the desert, where Alagai Ka got in his head and turned him on his friends.
“All right, Arick?” I ask as I go to him.
“What do you think?” Arick whispers. “I don’t suppose you’ve brought my spear?”
I shake my head, pulling his kamanj case off my back. “You can do more with this, anyway.”
I can tell he’s too knotted to believe me, but Rojvah still has her choker, and I’ve my pipes. The three of us have power even in this place, if we can work together. Selen’s got her warded rings, Wonda’s arms are covered in sleeves of tattooed wardwork, and Kendall still has her fiddle case, not to mention a few bits and bobs of warded jewelry. Maybe we’re in over our heads, but we ent helpless.
Not that it matters much, with Mam around. Anything she can’t handle is apt to be too much for us, too.
“We need to get out of here before they notice we’ve escaped,” Leesha says.
“Ay, you do,” Mam agrees. “Take the kids and head out quick. Don’t look back.”
Aunt Leesha dun’t like that answer, and neither do I. “What about you?”
“Be along once I’ve finished up some old business,” Mam says.
“Renna Bales, don’t be an idiot,” Leesha snaps, and it’s all I can do not to go slippery. No one gets to talk to Mam like that.
Mam throws a glare that would make Alagai Ka shit his scales, but Leesha don’t back down. “He took us both together, Renna, with an army and the Warded Children besides.”
“Ay,” Mam agrees. “And he’s going to pay for it, and for taking a swipe at my boy.”
“Yes!” Leesha agrees. “But not here, in his place of power.”
“Did it once, when the queen was big as a house,” Mam says. “Ent got any problem makin’ an omelet out of this one before she hatches.”
“You didn’t do that alone,” Leesha reminds her.
Mam mashes her lips. “Got a better plan?”
“We run,” Aunt Leesha says. “We get back to Hollow, where Olive is already building an army. We call Inevera, and raise the greatest army in history to go to the Spear of Ala and destroy the hive for good.”
I stiffen at the name, glancing at Selen. She, Rojvah, and Arick all do the same.
Din’t tell Mam and Aunt Leesha about Olive and the Spear. Din’t want them to worry, I guess, and Olive made me promise not to tell anyone who din’t need to know. Truer is, anyone, Wonda, Kendall, Leesha, even Mam, could be working for the demon king and not even know it.
But Mam and Leesha both see the change in our auras, and the looks we all exchange.
“What was that?” Mam demands.
“Ay, well…” I rub the back of my neck where it clenches up at her tone. “Said I din’t tell you everything…”
Mam puts her fists on her hips, and I know the smell when she ent got any patience left. “Out with it, Darin Bales.”
“There’s already an army at the Spear of Ala, or one was headed there.” I swallow hard. “Olive’s leadin’ it.”
Mam’s eyes narrow, and I know she’s mad as spit. “And you din’t think it worth mentioning?”
Used to sensing Mam’s anger. It’s always there, like a knife on her hip even when she’s calm as trees. Aunt Leesha don’t get angry, though. Frustrated? Sure. Irritated? Plenty. But angry? Ready to kill somethin’ angry? Never.
Until now. “Darin Bales…”
I’m suddenly glad she gave back the knife. She takes two steps my way and instantly Selen Cutter is standin’ between us, ballin’ a fist. “Take a breath, Leesha.”
“Olive is my child.” Leesha blows out the word in a harsh and shaky breath as she takes another step forward. She ent holdin’ her electrum pen, but she could snatch it quick.
“Ay, what of it?” Selen doesn’t budge. “She’s my niece and best friend since we were playing in the same crib. Spent more hours with Olive than you ever did, Leesha Paper. Don’t you tell me I don’t understand. Olive made us all swear not to tell anyone.”
“It is true, Your Grace,” Rojvah says, coming to stand next to Selen.
“Even me?” Leesha demands.
Arick steps in next, and Leesha is forced to stop her advance. “You have been prisoners of Alagai Ka.” He says the words as if to a child. “Even now, how can we truly trust you, in the lair of the Father of Lies?”
Leesha inhales, calming at that. She’s more of a thinker than a feeler, and I can smell her making her calculations. Arick’s got a point, and he should know.
“Point is,” I say into the tense quiet, “Olive’s right where the demons need to go, if that queen hatches.”
Now the anger’s back. Leesha puts her hand on the electrum pen. “So we kill her, and the demon king, once and for all.”
“Ay, that’s the spirit.” Mam puts a hand on her knife. “You and me, just like old times.”
Leesha snorts. Truer is the two of them never got along.
“Ent the two of you,” Selen says. “It’s all of us.”
“It most certainly is not,” Aunt Leesha snaps.
Selen ent impressed. “You’re my sister, Leesha, not my mum. And I don’t listen to her, either.”
Aunt Leesha draws herself up at that. “I am your duchess.”
Selen laughs. “Not anymore. Hollow thinks you’re dead. We all went to Olive’s coronation.”
There’s that anger again. “Wonda, please escort…”
Wonda clears her throat loudly, interrupting. Aunt Leesha turns to look at her, smelling of shock and surprise. Don’t think this has ever happened before.
“Sorry, mistress,” Wonda cuts in, “but I’m with them on this one. Ent losin’ you again, no matter what you say.”
“Either we all run,” I say, “or we all stay. And if we run, don’t reckon we’ll get another chance, and everything comes down to Olive.”
“Won’t be able to look after you kids in there, Darin,” Mam says. “Going to need you to look after yourselves.”
I swallow. So much for settin’ back and lettin’ the adults take charge. “Came all this way to get you. Ent runnin’ off while you go in deeper.”
* * *
—
Aunt Leesha looks stronger and stronger as we go down into the ward. Still smells like Grandda’s outhouse that time the fish stew went bad, but she’s been working on herself with the electrum pen, steadily suckin’ on magic like a calf at the udder. Hidden by her Cloak of Unsight, her aura is bright, and her thin, toneless muscles have grown thick and taut. She still smells angry.
“We break the greatward first,” she’s tellin’ Mam. “Then we storm the center. Darin and the children can hang back with their instruments. I—”
“Ent interested in practicin’ a dance with you, Leesha,” Mam cuts in. “Can’t plan a fight. You’d know that, you ever been in one. Moment the demon senses us, all plans are out the window and it’s kill or be killed. You ready for that?”
“Oh, I’m ready,” Aunt Leesha growls, and again I’m glad she’s on our side.
Hive wards are great cave systems meant to collect and reshape magic venting from the Core. Even if we can’t see the whole thing, it’s easy to follow the flows to the center, where the lines converge. Find the right spot and cause a cave-in, the whole thing might snuff out like a candle.
But then what? Ent even sure what the ward does. The greatward in Hollow keeps demons out, but this one doesn’t seem to affect us at all. Where’s all that power going? What’s it for?
I’m a little light-headed, reaching out with all my senses to look for trouble. Keep expectin’ to find a pack of demons standin’ guard. I can smell them everywhere, as well as Cavivat and other, more faded human scents, tinged with fear.
Suppers past.
But there’s nothing. We get to a convergence point, and Aunt Leesha and Mam stop together. They look up at the ceiling where we’ve just passed, eyeing it like a target. Bringing it down might take away some of the demons’ power, but it will also trap us in with them.
Like we ent trapped already.
“Steady, Intended.” Rojvah’s hand slips into mine, and I squeeze it gratefully.
But somethin’ ent right. Alagai Ka ent fool enough to let a spot like this sit without a guard. Is this even the right spot? I can see the walls around us guiding the flows of magic, but the scents and sounds are all wrong. It reminds me of the cliffs on the road to Safehold.
Slipping my hand from Rojvah’s I pick up my pipes, improvising a tune to follow around the walls with my senses. The vibrations at my feet, the echoes in my ears, the air on my skin.
“It’s a trap,” I say as I pierce the illusion and realize we’re not alone.
“Clever as your sire,” Cavivat laughs, and the veil drops, letting the others see what I’ve just discovered.
We’re deeper than we thought, at the center of the ward. It’s a great wide chamber, and behind Cavivat at its center is a well of magic so strong it’s like a pit dug halfway to the Core. Beyond that are other tunnels, teeming with corelings. Cave and sand and clay demons, mostly, but there’s a little of everything. They know we’re here. I can tell.
Alagai Ka himself stands rigid by the well in the center of the chamber, the magic passing through him and into the mimic queen like blood through an umbilicus. The little dangle between his legs has grown, standin’ up like he’s got wood in the mornin’. Still ent much next to the queen, who’s big as a barn, but I reckon it ent for her. Magic has Alagai Ka stuck, waitin’ on the new queen to hatch so they can mate.
Then somethin’ inside the mimic queen moves, and I notice the ichor pooling on the floor, full of demon stink but drained of magic. A seam appears in the queen’s belly, opening in a flap. A head pokes free, covered in ichor. Rows of sharp teeth are stuck with meat as the hatchling consumes the mimic queen from the inside.
The new queen slithers out of her mam, covered in gore and blazing with magic. She looks at us with giant, unknowable eyes, and a chill runs through me.
“Did you think you could hide?” Cavivat sneers. “I knew you were coming before you did. We have been watching since you pierced the outer veil. You arrive just in time for the queen to feed.”
* * *
—
Thought I was used to seein’ Mam angry. Thought Aunt Leesha was scarier. Turns out, never seen Mam angry. Least, not really. Not like now.
“Ent dinner, yet,” is all she says, but magic starts buildin’ up in her, fixin’ to burst.
Cavivat laughs again. “You actually thought you were coming to fight! Delightful! The breaking of hope will make your minds delicious.”
“Bold talk,” Mam is lookin’ at the demon, not the priest, “with you too horned up to move. What’s to stop me coming over and crackin’ open that big head of yours?”
“The queen is far more powerful than I,” Cavivat says, “but she is hungry. Already she has stung and feasted upon her dam, but it is not enough. For a young queen, it is never enough. Your bodies are magic-rich, and will nourish her well, even as they prove what her Consort can do to her enemies. We will mate, and swarm. After millennia, we will destroy the fortress of Kavri and consume the new Unifier, if it is not already done.”
Master always spins ale stories where the villain brags out their plan. Never made much sense to me, so I asked about it.
Pride is what separates villains from heroes, Hary said. It is not enough for a villain to be great. Everyone must be forced to acknowledge their greatness.
But Alagai Ka dropped a clue in his bragging. Maybe he knows where Olive went, but he doesn’t know any more than we do what’s happening there. Probably hasn’t left this chamber in months.
Maybe he’s right and she’s dead anyway, but like with Mam, I just can’t believe it. Olive Paper ent one to die easy. Maybe she’s found the csar. Maybe she’s found her da. Maybe…
I give a little shake, tryin’ to snap out of it. What’s the point of maybes? Dun’t change anything here. Can’t look to Olive to save us. If Alagai Ka and that new queen mate and get back to the hive, she’ll start spitting out eggs, and threaten to undo everything my da died for.
Ent the only one to see it. Even before Mam explodes, Aunt Leesha raises her pen, writing a series of cutting wards quick as I can sign my name, sending them streaking toward the queen with enough power to cut through a city’s wardwall.
The queen just buzzes her wings, dissolving the spell into raw magic and absorbing it. The queen has rows of segmented legs to support her abdomen. The mimic’s is large and distended, armored exoskeleton holding its shape even as the hatchling hollowed it out.
Queen’s is round, but still sleek and light. She tamps down and leaps, flying across the room at Aunt Leesha. Six wings pump rapidly, multiplying her speed. Her reticulated tail is bent over her head like a scorpion, stinger poised to strike.
Aunt Leesha responds by drawing a queen ward in the air like it was written in silver fire. Queen bounces off it, but she ent hurt. Most wards work by stealing corelings’ own magic and throwin’ it back at them, but the queen ent givin’ anything up. All the power’s comin’ from Leesha’s pen, and that has its limits.
The queen stabs at the forbidding with the clawed ends of her forelegs. First two bounce off, but the third punches a few inches through, sending a shower of sparks like a log poked on the fire.
Mam tackles the queen away before she can strike again. She cries out as the queens’ wings cut at her, and I smell blood, but she works her way in between them, where neither wing nor leg can reach her. Her arm moves so fast even I can barely keep up, stabbing into the thorax again and again. Like the forbidding, the first few skitter off, but Mam was right about that blade, and soon even the queen’s armor begins to crack.
The stinger comes for her, but Mam is ready for it, collapsing into mist and re-forming atop the reticulated tail as the stinger strikes the cracked armor, punching through.
It looks like a kill, but it ent. Queen stabs herself, but she doesn’t pump any venom, and before the stinger is in too far, the tail flicks back hard, smashin’ Mam into the stone.
“Renna!” Aunt Leesha cries, drawing another queen ward to knock the demon away from Mam.
Cavivat charges her, staff raised like a club, but he’s intercepted by Wonda and Selen. Arick looks ready to help them, but the demons around the room, frozen a moment ago, start to move for us.
I have my pipes to my lips before the others can react, using all the power in the little warded shell to fill the room with my song. No point tryin’ to hide. That many demons will trample us flat whether they see us or not.
Instead I sow confusion, driving them back and into one another with sharp, stabbing notes. Corelings are creatures of vicious instinct, and not too particular about who they scrap with. Happy to lash out at one another when they stumble together.
Another clue. If Alagai Ka was controlling them directly, there would be greater discipline in the demon horde. But he’s still frozen in place, the queen sucking magic from the well through him like water through a straw. She’s gettin’ stronger by the moment, and even if Mam kills her, that will just free him to destroy us.
Key is to get to him, first.
Rojvah lifts her voice to join me and Kendall’s bow touches string, but I’m in the lead, feeding the chaos with our song as I work out the plan. Can’t get the corelings to attack Alagai Ka. Don’t think they could intentionally lift a claw to him even if they wanted.
But we can drive them his way, and an accidental trampling is just as good as one on purpose.
Arick appears beside me, and I feel the rightness of it. This is what we’ve spent all those hours training for. We got this. Soon as he’s got his kamanj set, we’ll finish my da’s work once and for all.
But then Arick slaps the pipes from my hand, and punches me right in the nose.
“Arick!” Kendall shouts, but she and Rojvah dare not cease their song. It falters a moment without me to lead, but Kendall’s fiddle smoothly slips in to guide them, keeping the demon horde at bay a little longer.
“I’m sorry, cousin!” Arick cries as I try to shake off the festival flamework detonating inside my head. Nose is scrunched and bloody. Can’t smell a thing.
Arick sounds sincere. Not angry, even as he punches me in the head, reigniting the explosions. If anythin’ he sounds scared.
“It’s not me!” he shouts.
Vision’s still blurry, but I think I see him spin and I suck in just in time as his heel connects with my chest, throwing me onto my back. That kick would have broken ribs, but sucked in and tough, it’s probably worse on his foot than on me.
Arick doesn’t seem hindered as he attempts to pin me, but I go slippery and pop out from under him. “It’s not you then cut it out!”
“I can’t!” Arick tries to sweep my feet out from under me, but I quickstep back.
“Why in the core not?!” I’ve got my bearings now, even if I still can’t smell. I stay slippery, letting Arick’s punches and kicks slide off me as I get in close.
“You were going to stampede the demons,” Arick says. “Can’t let you hurt him.”
