The Fiend Queen (30 page)

But would Nadia bother? Or would she invent some excuse to be elsewhere? Friends were hard to come by for the very powerful. How many friends did Einrich have, after all?

Starbride slapped the lid shut. She hadn’t worn jewelry in a long time. Lack of adornment seemed the proper reaction to war. And when she’d led the rebellion she couldn’t afford to draw attention to herself.

She supposed she could start now, adorn herself with some of her father’s carefully crafted pieces or the consort bracelet.

Starbride rubbed her wrist as she sat on the bed. Maybe she shouldn’t have put Katya to sleep. They could have gone on this mission together, shared this too-wide-for-one bed, and Starbride could have convinced Katya that her newfound power was a good thing.

“Sleep now, daughter,” Yanchasa said. “Time enough for thinking in the morning.”

And there was no room to be alone in her dreams. Starbride lay back and shut her eyes, but she didn’t know how sleep would find her.

What a little prick Wallux was. He sat stiff-backed on his pony with his nose so high in the air that Starbride wondered if his upper lip was covered in shit, and his nose was trying to get away from it.

For all the grandeur of the army gathered behind him with its purple pennants flapping in the air, he was unimpressive, thin faced and homely, and by the length of his legs, he couldn’t have been much taller than five feet.

He puffed up and heeled his mount to meet her when she rode closer with her honor guard. Their shaggy ponies weren’t much different from the large elk her people rode, so much more sure-footed on ice and snow than the lowland horses. Maybe Wallux wouldn’t have seemed so small if his pony wasn’t so large. Overcompensation if she’d ever seen it.

“Hail, General Yanchasa, leader of Belshreth’s mighty army,” the man to Wallux’s left said, as if Wallux himself was too important to speak to her. The aide’s Belshrethen was good, and she wondered who had taught him.

But her grasp of his language was better. She’d had the best kind of tutor, the kind whose mind she could get into and rattle around in. “Hello to you, too.”

Wallux glanced at his aide as if waiting for more. When the aide began another lengthy speech, Wallux asked, “Have you come to surrender?” in his native tongue.

“I would ask you the same question, but I don’t care to hear the answer.” She slid off her elk, and several of her honor guard did the same. She held her arms out and smiled at Wallux as the guard undressed her.

Wallux and his aides glanced at one another. An oily, superior smile broke out on Wallux’s face. “This gesture isn’t necessary. I will accept your surrender without the need for you to abase yourself.”

“Sporting of you,” Starbride said. They’d rid her of armor and weapons. Another was leading the mounts away.

As they bared her breasts, Wallux gave a start of surprise that quickly turned into a leer. Several of his aides looked away. “Of course, it would be rude not to accept such a superior offering as yourself.”

As Edette had guessed, his eyes traveled down her body as her guard removed her boots and socks, then her trousers. He licked his lips as he stared at the cloth guarding her loins. When her guard whisked it away to reveal her manhood, Wallux reared back so hard his pony shied. She hoped he’d be thrown, but he managed to bring the animal back under control.

Starbride couldn’t hold in a laugh. Her guards jogged back toward their mounts and left her naked in the middle of the field.

Wallux sneered. “We also have pyramid magic,” he said with a snarl, “and we use it for more than just these petty tricks!”

“Good for you.” Her voice roughened, the sound designed to pain human ears. Wallux flinched, but his eyes widened as he watched the horns slide from Starbride’s brow.

The pain was exquisite. Claws sprang from her fingers and toes, and four crow’s wings sprouted from her back in a flurry of blood. She pushed her jaw down, felt the chin and cheek spikes emerge as she relished the swelling of her muscles, the snapping of rearranging bone. She took her first step forward, and her vision faded to a red haze as she changed her eyes to black pools. As she walked, she called to the crystal that surrounded them, the bones of the mountains, the heart of Belshreth.

It thudded into her, drawing blood, and she made it part of herself, piling it around her until she was encased, shaping it until she towered over Wallux and his army.

She brought her foot crashing down, and he squelched between her toes. His mages hurled magic that died before it reached her, cancelled by her troops. She waded among the army, ripping, stomping, losing herself in a blood-drenched haze.

Starbride bolted upright. Power coursed through her, so much that her pyramids bathed the room in white. She could still hear the cries of the dying, their blood on her crystal covered hands.

The light began to fade. Starbride flexed her numb left arm; it had been caught beneath her while she slept. One leg was on the bed, the other dangling over the side. She must have been restless in her dreams. Her head throbbed, and between the pain and the power buzzing through her, she felt as if she hadn’t slept at all.

A noise made her look to the open window. The shutters knocked into the wall as they moved lazily in the icy breeze.

“How did the window get open?” she asked.

No one answered. The adsna died down, the room went dark, and the cold became immediate. She pulled the coverlet around her. “Yanchasa?”

His voice seemed faint. “Breathe deeply, daughter.”

“I told you I don’t want your memories!”

“I only wished to show you the heights that power can take you to.” He sounded as tired as she felt.

“I already know. I defeated Wallux’s, I mean,
Roland’s
army. Why do you sound so tired?”

Yanchasa’s spectral form appeared on the edge of the bed, but she could see the dresser through his torso. His helmet was still missing, and now most of the armor from his arms and legs was gone, leaving only a few pieces, reminding her of how she’d felt in his dream. She barely felt his touch at first, then he flared, and his caress across her cheek felt as substantial as her own hand. As he pulled back, he faded, and she couldn’t get over the feeling that he’d exhausted himself.

“What’s happening to me?” she asked. “What’s happening to you?”

“You are beginning to feel again, now that your grief is less.”

But whose feelings, his or her own? “I don’t want…” But she remembered the way the cold had seeped into her bones, the certainty that she couldn’t go back to the way things were, not after everything she’d done. Yanchasa loved her, would always love her, perhaps was now the only person who
could
love her.

“No!” she said, burying her face in her palms. “Katya loves me.”

“Of course she does, daughter.”

“No, I mean it!”

The bedroom door flew open. “What’s wrong?” Freddie stood framed in the doorway, one dagger out. When he spied the open window he went to it and took a quick look out. “Did someone try to—”

Starbride barreled into his chest, nearly knocking him over. She threw her arms around him as confusion wouldn’t let her be, emotions pulling her back and forth, muddying the way to the adsna. “Katya loves me,” she said.

“She does, Starbride,” he said as his arms went around her. She heard his dagger clatter on the dresser top. “I’ve known her a long time, and she’s never happier than when she’s with you. She’s never cared about anyone more.”

Starbride sighed into that thought. Why did she need it so badly? Why was it so important to her? What was it compared to the power in her grasp?

“The power will make her love you even more, daughter,” Yanchasa said.

Starbride turned his way, but Freddie dipped his knees until they were eye level. “Hey!” He snapped his fingers in her face. “Whatever it’s saying, don’t listen. Stay with me.” In the moonlight from the window, his eyes seemed colorless.

“You don’t understand.”

He laughed harshly. “The temptation to do bad things? Oh, I understand, sweet.”

“See where his mind goes?” Yanchasa asked. “Same place as the rest of them: power equals evil.”

Freddie held her cheeks, capturing her face. “Remember when you had to try skulking?” he asked. “And again, when you wanted to go to a dive bar, what did you call it? A den of ill repute?”

She smiled at the memory. “It wasn’t much of one.”

“But you were so excited, remember? You were so desperate to see the seedy side of life. That’s when I really started thinking of you as a friend.”

“Dawnmother had too much beer.” Tears rolled down Starbride’s face, and she dashed them away. “Why am I crying?”

“Lack of beer has that effect on me, too.”

She laughed. She’d told Ursula she didn’t care if Freddie lived or died, but that was a filthy lie.

The cold of the room hit her so hard she collapsed. Freddie caught her arms and held her upright. “What is it, Star? Tell me how to fix it, and I will.”

“Do you need to be fixed, daughter?” Yanchasa asked.

“The cold,” Starbride said with a gasp. Her knees wouldn’t stop trembling. She’d thought the adsna was weak before, but this felt as if someone had taken the floor away.

“Stay here.” Freddie lowered her to the rug, and she heard him ripping the bedding from the mattress.

Yanchasa knelt in front of her face. “Cold again, daughter? You need only ask.”

“Why are you doing this?”

“Stay with me, stay here with us.” Freddie wrapped her in blankets and lifted her. He hurried from the room. “Hugo!”

They were both with her then, talking to her, rubbing her arms, their touch like brands.

“Is this better?” Yanchasa asked, her voice cutting through the clutter. “Do you like being weak?”

Hugo’s face passed through Yanchasa’s as if through fog. “Do you remember that time I followed you into the woods, and I kept staring at your legs?” Someone had lit a candle, and in the dim light she couldn’t tell if he blushed or not.

Starbride tried to summon the memory, but it felt so far away.

“Remember when we first saw Katya in the hallway at the palace?” Freddie asked. “When she’d sneaked in after Roland, and we came in after her? You were so happy to see her.”

“What would she say if she could see you now?” Yanchasa said. “You’re supposed to be helping the king, not collapsing like an old wet sack.”

Starbride sobbed as shame piled onto the thoughts writhing inside her. Why wouldn’t her body work; why wouldn’t her limbs obey her?

“Make them,” Yanchasa said.

Starbride tried, but the others were shouting memories, and she couldn’t think. Why weren’t they helping her? Why were they just standing there, touching and talking to her? “Help me.”

They claimed that they were, but they were just calling out memory after memory, one misery after another, so many
feelings
until she felt as if her head would split open.

Over their heads, standing beside the mystified messengers, Yanchasa waited. “You can do it, daughter.”

And she felt it, a spark deep inside. She’d let it go, but she could get it back. “I’ll help you if you need it,” Yanchasa said.

No, she could do this. She could return to power. She’d lost it momentarily, but she was not weak. She grabbed for it, but it slipped from her grasp. She wailed, and they patted her more frantically. Freddie yelled at the messengers to saddle the horses. They wanted to take her back to Marienne as she was, weak and in pain. She’d have to admit her shame to the king, to Katya, and watch their eyes go dark with pity. They’d put her to bed and set a nursemaid to watch her, maybe several to fetch her food and drink, to dress and bathe her. They wouldn’t think her capable of anything if she fouled up this one, simple job.

Katya’s eye would stray to someone more capable, someone like Redtrue.

“No!” Starbride grabbed the adsna and yanked, making power roar through her, knocking back those around her and silencing them at last.

Starbride basked in the power as she stood. The blankets fell away, and she glowed again, secure. “Sorry to trouble you.”

Freddie cursed. Hugo rubbed his face and looked as if he might weep. The messengers watched her closely as if they feared another emotional purge.

“It’s not yet dawn,” Starbride said. “Get some sleep.” She strode outside, done with sleeping for the time being.

“I’m so proud of you daughter,” Yanchasa said. Starbride was pretty proud of herself.

Katya

Katya studied a drawing one of the knowledge monks had made of the hidden city’s ten spirits. She’d commended his accuracy. She could almost feel the gritty dust drifting in the air and smell the dry stone.

Katya breathed deeply and stared out the window in her sitting room. She was no longer underground. She was high above the dead city and never had to enter it again. Whenever she thought about the cramped tunnels and the subterranean rooms, her palms began to sweat, and the shakes overtook her.

Eyes closed, Katya prayed to all ten spirits that this feeling would go away in time.

But which spirits? The images she’d known ever since she could remember, or those in the drawing? Ten spirits, five male and five female, each pair dressed exactly the same, features mostly the same, and worshiped by a people who’d had no contact with her own before the great battle that decided their fate.

Katya folded the paper until only one figure remained of each set of twins. Five spirits, each sharing a body with its male and female halves; five rulers of ancient Belshreth, each able to shift between man and woman. The natives hadn’t brought spirits from Belshreth. They’d brought their rulers.

But if the Belshrethen had overthrown the council of five, why build a temple to them? She pushed the paper away and then pulled it closer as if the motion would give her the answer. “A
hidden
temple. You weren’t supposed to remember them? Or maybe you weren’t supposed to venerate them.”

It must have been hard in those first days for the refugees of Belshreth. They’d had to flee their crumbling city after imprisoning its rulers. They were separated from the rest of their people either by accident or choice, and they arrived in a land foreign to them. Perhaps they met other friendly natives; perhaps they’d had to struggle through on their own. There had to have been those who’d lamented the rebellion, who’d wished a return to the good old days when they were safe and warm and comfortable. Some of them would turn the tyrants of memory into saviors who could perform miracles.