The Fiend Queen (19 page)

Katya stumbled. Oh spirits!
She’d
have to be the one to tell her father that her mother had died. Da was going to have to unite two kingdoms while mourning his beloved wife, while bereft of her advice and comfort. Da would want Roland dead, and Katya would give him that. If he could take some satisfaction from the fact that Ma’s murderer was dead, he would have it.

Still, the thought of telling him pained her. When her grandmother had died, Katya hadn’t even been able to speak the news. Starbride had done it for her. Well, a little voice inside her said, couldn’t that happen again? Starbride would watch her stumble and then step into the breach. That was what she did; that was the love she offered. Katya would do the same for her if it came to that.

No, she couldn’t be a coward. Her father would hear it from her lips while the two of them were alone. Then he could fall to pieces. Oh spirits, she’d never seen her father fall to pieces, didn’t know how to begin to comfort him and would have to try while desperately wanting comfort for herself.

And she couldn’t forget Reinholt. Childish brat that he was, he’d lost his mother, too. Katya scrubbed her face. She’d have to force it all down, draw on all the reserves of strength she possessed, be a comfort to her family, and then collapse into Starbride’s arms.

Starbride

Yanchasa whispered in Starbride’s ear as she walked. If she wanted to be faster or stronger, she used flesh magic to change herself in little ways, unseen to those who followed her, those she quickly left behind. She cleansed the traps she’d left on the basement stairs. No good would come from letting her friends blow themselves to pieces.

Roland was still pinned to the floor of the cavern, screaming his lungs out. She’d decided to keep him that way. The remnants would never tire, and he couldn’t command them anymore. He’d stay just as she’d left him.

“Can you feel him?” she asked, still preferring to speak aloud, no matter that Yanchasa could hear her thoughts.

“I can easily divide my attention.” He strode at her side, though sometimes he flickered out of sight. Never out of her mind, though, his presence a comfort.

Starbride burst from the palace doors, knocking them wide in her haste. She wouldn’t bother with the occasional street fight. The real fun lay outside the wall. The reason Einrich’s army hadn’t breached Marienne’s gates was probably because they couldn’t. Some design of Roland’s wouldn’t let them. Well, she’d change that.

She ran, speeding past packs of people who called out to her, but they were only blurs. She laughed with sheer joy, Yanchasa joining her in the freedom of movement. A group of people gathered near the gate, barring the way, and Starbride sensed two pyramids nearby, hypnotizing them.

“Clumsy.” Yanchasa shuddered. “Those pyramids are like—”

“Junk.” Starbride cleansed them with a thought. Some of the gate guards staggered or blinked at one another, laid down their weapons, and barked questions. Others held their ground, mind-warped into utter obedience. Starbride stopped near one of the confused who stared at his weapon as if it were the strangest thing he’d ever seen.

“A halberd,” Yanchasa said. “Take it.”

“I don’t know how to use it.”

The wielder blinked at her. “What?”

Yanchasa chuckled. “I’ll show you.”

It was as simple as images flashing through her brain, showing her how to move, how to use flesh magic to build up the muscles in her arms and back, how to strengthen her hips and legs. She grabbed the halberd, ignored the astonished man’s protests, and gave it a few experimental swings before twirling it around.

“Marienne, to me!” she shouted. “We take the gate for the king!”

Some rallied to her charge. Others turned and ran. When the first of the mind-warped engaged her, Starbride cut him down with hardly a thought. She dodged through their ranks, slicing, jabbing, and cleaving any caught in her path. When they finally took the massive gates, she heaved one of them open, bolstered by the gifts of the flesh.

She had to stop and stare as the two hosts clashed against one another in the field before Marienne. Night was falling, the field bathed in gray shadows and white snow trickling softly from the sky.

King Einrich’s troops fought what had to be the entire population of the countryside surrounding Marienne. Katya had told her that Roland had stripped the country holdings bare, making corpse Fiends of the dead and mind-warping the living into being his army. The humans would have to give way to the dark, but that wouldn’t stop the remnants from slashing through their ranks.

And then there were the holes in Einrich’s army, rivulets of dead cut down by what she’d known as lesser Fiends, Yanchasa’s created children.

“My misguided young.” Yanchasa rested a flickering arm on Starbride’s shoulder. “You know what to do.”

Starbride focused through the pyramid in her chest and felt the call go out like a pulse. This was what had given her crippling pain that morning. Roland’s twisted call had been summoning the blood of Belshreth, but he hadn’t done it correctly.

Hers was a proper call, blood to blood, promising what the children wanted. The ranks of Einrich’s army closed as the children abandoned the field. Spindly, horned things, their skin mottled blue and white, all long talons and huge milky eyes, they leapt over friend and foe and crowded around Starbride, stroking her skin and adoring her.

“Go.” She pointed at the backs of Roland’s mind-warped forces.

As she strode in the children’s wake, she called all the remnants to do her bidding, and then all that was left to kill were the mind-warped humans. She supposed she could break their conditioning, if Roland had left anything of their old selves, but Yanchasa waved a gauntleted hand.

“Be fearsome, daughter.”

She set her halberd swinging. Yanchasa’s memories filled her to the point where she could feel the heavy armor across her shoulders. From the corner of her eye, she saw Yanchasa’s shimmering form mirroring her movements and soon lost herself in combat.

When there were too many, she held out her left arm, and fire bloomed, melting flesh and cracking bone. Spheres of infinite black blossomed among her enemies while great booming explosions shook the earth, flinging men, women, and horses into the sky. She didn’t have power, she
lived
as it.

Yanchasa crowed beside her. “Long has it been since I could test my skills, daughter. I haven’t fought in my meager human form since, well, I can barely count the ages.” Yanchasa’s memories swelled, how good it felt to leap and stride again, to swing a weapon, to command those under her, and to see an enemy cut to pieces.

By the time Starbride reached Einrich’s army, her gore-covered hands stuck against the wooden haft of the halberd. Sweat ran down her face. She breathed hard, but she knew she could fight the same battle again if needed. Allusian and Farradain faces stared with open-mouthed horror even as she and her children dispatched their enemies.

In the light of their torches, she cleansed the blood from her face and bowed. “I am Princess Consort Starbride. I’ve come to see the king.”

They glanced at one another and then at the halberd. Starbride cast it away. She wouldn’t need it to kill them, but they hadn’t seemed to realize that. Several escorted her to the heart of the army while her children took the rest of Roland’s forces.

Einrich stood in the middle of a host of guards, mounted and shouting orders. Several of those guarding him sported wounds, and Starbride bet the enemy had reached him several times. Even Lord Vincent had a set of five cuts across his arm. It had to have been one of Yanchasa’s children who’d scored on him.

Einrich sat forward on his horse, peering at her in the gloom of falling night. Lord Vincent moved between them, and Starbride laughed in his face.

“Starbride?” Einrich asked.

She pointed toward Marienne. “Majesty, I’ve come to offer you your city back.”

Countess Nadia approached from Einrich’s side, her own leather gear spotted with blood. “Are you all right, Princess Consort?”

“Better than all right, Countess. Roland is my prisoner.”

Einrich’s face ran a gamut of emotions before he settled on straight-lipped caution. He dismounted and looked out over his army as the children and the remnants turned the tide. “I see we have much to talk about.”

They all stared and stared and stared as Einrich led the way to his command tent. Starbride couldn’t decide whether to laugh or rage at all the eyes on her. They watched her forehead or over her heart and both her hands. They stared boldly or from the sides of their eyes. Lord Vincent displayed the same calm, dangerous aura as always. Starbride returned his stare with one of her own and dared him to say a harsh word to her.

“Kill him if you wish,” Yanchasa said.

Starbride cocked her head and thought it best to reply in her mind.
I thought you would urge me to caution, hoard my power and bide my time.

“I am not your lord, nor queen. I am here to help you come into your own power. My time upon the world is done.”

Starbride saw the truth in that but wondered if it was really so. Maybe after her struggles were done, she could see what might be done for the council of Belshreth.

The ghost of a caress kissed her cheek. “Sweet daughter.”

Both of Einrich’s grandchildren waited in the tent with their nannies. Starbride should have expected it with Vincent so nearby. Good. That would save time. They were young, but they had to be told of all they had lost. Better to learn pain early.

“Something’s happened,” Einrich said when they were as alone as they were going to be. He looked her up and down. “Something terrible.”

“Terrible and wonderful, one after the other.” The image of Katya cut through the haze of power, and Starbride lost her breath. So much of her life would never happen again. She stumbled, and Einrich reached out to her. His concern shook her to the core. Tears started in her eyes, and the roaring in her ears drowned out Yanchasa’s voice.

Einrich gasped and turned her hand over, staring at the pyramid as if that was all he could see. Had he meant that a terrible thing had to have happened in order to bring her into her new power, or was he calling the power itself a terrible thing?

“Small minds,” Yanchasa said. “You’ve delivered them vengeance.”

And that was what mattered. “Katya…” Even with all her power, she couldn’t say it.

He grasped his heart as if he might fall. “No.”

Starbride stammered, trying to get the words out, but they wouldn’t come. She went the easier route. “And the queen has fallen.”

“Fallen?” Vincent said, shocked beyond decorum. “In battle?”

“Of course,” Starbride said, glaring at him. “Bravely and fighting, using the gifts given to her.”

Einrich went pale under his beard. Vincent helped him sit. Both children started to cry. Even if they couldn’t understand what had happened, grief hung heavy in the air. Einrich’s breath came harder. “You said Katya,” he said. “Please, spirits, don’t tell me Katya had to kill her mother.”

“No,” Starbride said, “Roland killed her, but Katya…” Why couldn’t it pass her lips? It hurt, but she had fixed it. Roland was her prisoner, and now the power to change the world filled her to bursting. Starbride could make all of Katya’s dreams for her kingdom come true.

“Katya what?” Einrich said. He’d gone completely still, and she thought her next words could shatter him like glass.

“She…” The core of her seemed to vibrate, as if something deep inside was screaming. “She is…”

“Dead?” Vincent asked.

Einrich took a shuddering breath.

“Yes,” Starbride said, and if Yanchasa’s power hadn’t been holding her up, she would have fallen.

Einrich gathered his grandchildren into his lap. He held out an arm to Starbride, inviting her into his grief.

She staggered back. “No!”

His arm dropped. “Please, all of you, leave us.”

Vincent jumped up to haul the nannies outside. When he began to shoo Starbride from the tent, she almost lit him on fire, but she didn’t want to make enemies in her own camp.

Outside, the snow continued to fall, muting the world in a gray and white haze outside the torchlight. Starbride turned her face up, only mildly surprised when the flakes rolled down her cheeks without melting.

“Why don’t you weep?” Vincent said.

She lifted an eyebrow. “Why don’t you?”

“Because I don’t. But you do.”

And when had he ever seen her weep? Or did he just assume she did because she was a woman? Maybe it was because she was human, and he was above such things. “Reinholt is alive,” she said, trying for some reaction.

He only cocked his head, and Starbride grew bored with him.

*

The others found their way to the command tent soon enough: Maia, Brutal, Freddie, Hugo, Scarra carrying Castelle, and then moments later Reinholt and a few of his friends from Dockland. They met in a whirlwind of weeping and hugging as tragic news passed from group to group. Reinholt stared at Vincent, who returned his look calmly. Without a word, Reinholt brushed past him and entered his father’s tent, Maia on his heels. Starbride stayed back from them all, at a loss for what to do now that the fighting was done.

“There are many tasks ahead of you, daughter,” Yanchasa reminded her.

The city would need seeing to. Luckily, Starbride wasn’t sleepy. And after Marienne had been set to rights, Einrich wouldn’t want to rule without her input, not once he’d found out all she’d learned about the world. She had access to insurmountable power, the kind that would keep any future Rolands from even thinking of taking the kingdom. Einrich would be the king—Starbride had no wish to strip him of his title—but she would be his strong right hand, his hammer.

“Miss Starbride?”

She turned to Freddie and Hugo. They’d been a great help to her. She had a sudden thought about sharing laughter with them in her hideout, together with Dawnmother.

A chasm threatened to widen under her feet, but she filled it with power. Loss hurt, but the power muted it, made her calm. Funny, she’d thought she’d loved them more than that.