Prince of Fools (The Red Queen's War 1)

“Visitors.” She rolled her neck, and ice crunched.

“Hail Skilfar.” Snorri bowed. Behind him I wondered just what it was this witch did sitting here in the dark when she didn’t have us to talk to.

“Warrior.” She inclined her head. “Prince.” Cold eyes found me again. “Two of you, bound by the Sister, how droll. She does enjoy her little jokes.”

Little jokes? Anger rose, elbowing aside a measure of my sensible fear. “Your sister, madam?” I wondered how cold her blood was.

“She would tell you she was everybody’s sister. If she ever spoke.” Skilfar rose from her chair, the freezing air flowing from her skin like milk, pouring to the floor. “A stench of ill dreaming hangs around you both.” She wrinkled her nose. “Whose taint is this? It was not well done.”

“Are you twin to the Silent Sister?” Snorri, through gritted teeth, his axe moving.

“She has a twin, certainly.” Skilfar advanced to the front of the platform, just yards from us. My face ached with the cold. “You don’t want to strike me, Snorri ver Snagason.” She pointed one long white finger at his axe, the blades now level with his shoulder.

“No,” he agreed, but his body remained coiled for the blow.

I found myself advancing, sword raised, though I’d no recollection of drawing it or desire to get any closer than I was. Everything held a dreamlike quality. My eyes filled with visions of the witch dying on the blade before me.

Skilfar wafted the air towards her face, inhaling deeply through a sharp nose. “Sageous has touched your minds. You particularly, prince. But crude work. He normally has a more subtle hand.”

“Do it!” The words burst from me. “Do it now, Snorri!” I clapped a hand to my mouth before I could damn myself further.

Two bounds had him on the step below Skilfar, his axe high above her, the huge muscles of his arms ready to haul it down through her narrow body. And yet he held the blow.

“Ask the right question, child.” Skilfar glanced away from Snorri, meeting my gaze across the sea of statues. “Better that you shrug Sageous off for yourself. Safer than if I do it.”

“I—” I remembered Sageous’s mild eyes, his suggestions that had turned into truths as I’d considered them. “Who—who is the Sister’s twin?”

“Pah.” Skilfar snorted out a breath that wrapped white and serpentine around her thin torso. “I thought she would choose better.” She extended a hand towards me, clawed, talons of ice springing from her nails.

“Wait!” A shout. For some reason I saw my locket. Whole, its gems in place. “I— Who— Garyus! Who is Garyus?”

“Better.” The hand relaxed. Still no smile though. “Garyus is the Sister’s brother.”

I saw him, my great-uncle, twisted and ancient in his tower room, the locket in his hand. “I had a twin,” he had told me once. “They broke us apart. But we didn’t break evenly.”

On the step below Skilfar Snorri lowered his axe, blinking as if shaking off the dregs of sleep.

“And his blood could break this curse?” The question billowed white before me.

“His sister’s spell would be broken.” Skilfar nodded.

“How else can it be broken?” I asked.

“You know the ways.”

“Can’t you do it?” I tried a hopeful smile, but my frozen face wouldn’t cooperate.

“I don’t wish to.” Skilfar returned to her chair. “The unborn have no place amongst us. The Dead King plays a dangerous game. I would see his ambition broken. Many hidden hands are turned against him. Perhaps every hand but that of the Lady Blue, and her game is more dangerous still. So no, Prince Jalan, you carry the Silent Sister’s purpose and the magics with which she sought to destroy the greatest of the Dead King’s servants. I’ve no interest in taking it from you. The Dead King needs his claws trimmed. His strength is like a forest fire.” I wondered at her choice of words. “But like such conflagrations it will burn itself out, and the forest will prevail. Unless of course it burns the very bedrock itself. Destroy the unborn; that will complete the spell’s purpose and it will fade from you. There are no other choices for you, Prince Jalan, and when there are no choices all men are equally brave.”

“How?” I asked, without really wanting to know. “Destroy the unborn? How?”

“How do the living ever defeat the dead?” She smiled a small cold smile. “With every beat of your heart, every hot drop of your blood. The truth of the Sister’s spell is hidden from me, but carry it where it leads you and pray it proves sufficient. These are the ends you serve.”