Queen's Hunt (River of Souls 2)

… he shouted and the air turned bright and heavy. Then came a wind. Then a burst of fire. Then I saw the soldiers along the perimeter wall burning, burning, and yet they did not die …

… Khandarr was furious, Iani told them. He called up magic so thick that I could hardly breathe. Dedrick fought hard against it. Gods, I thought his throat would burst. And then … And then it did.…

Her stomach heaved at the memories.

I should have sent word to Raul myself, she thought. Alesso might have helped, if she offered him enough money.

What if. Might have. Ought to.

All those second guesses were worthless.

She heard a soft scratching at her door. Ghita the cook? One of the runners? Her pulse gave a start when she heard Alesso’s voice instead. Interesting that he would be awake at this hour. Except that true spies never slept.

She drank off the wine and went into her bedroom.

The signs of Lord Khandarr’s search were few but telling—the bed quilt rumpled, her bookcase with several volumes pulled out, one trunk with its lid propped open, the scent and texture of his magical signature heavy in the air. He had not rifled through all her books, however. The books of poetry and history remained as she had left them. She removed one thick volume of Tanja Duhr’s poetry and let her breath trickle out in relief.

He had not discovered her most secret weapon, then.

Ilse took out the scroll from its hiding place. It had come from Lord Iani, from her last few months in Tiralien. He had not liked her request, but he had given in to her insistence. He was right to be reluctant. With these spells, she might erase her mind completely. She could lock her memory against all probing, sealing her thoughts away forever, or locking them with a particular key.

For a long while, Ilse considered the spell and its implications. Once invoked, she would forget Raul Kosenmark and everything between them. His shadow court would be safe. She … she would be a mindless puppet. She could use the variation with a key. The right person with the right key could recover her self. But then she risked the key being lost or misunderstood.

Or understood by the wrong person altogether.

Not yet. Better to wait and see what Khandarr does next.

* * *

VALARA BAUSSAY LAY on her back, staring at the ceiling. A spider had begun a web in one corner, near the window. The web shook from an unseen breeze, a breeze so weak it did nothing to relieve the suffocating heat inside the prison. Nor the smell. The guards were late emptying the slop buckets today, and the air smelled ranker than usual.

In the weeks since her capture, she had come to know every detail of her cell. It measured four feet by five—an enormous, luxurious space. Other prisoners slept two or three together, their straw pallets crammed close along one wall, as far away from the slop buckets as possible. And hers had an actual window—just a foot-square opening, blocked with iron bars, but through it, Valara could see a patch of sky. If she stretched onto her toes, she could even make out a thumb-sized smidge of wall from some other part of the garrison. Once the summer storms came, the guards told her, she would get a bit of tarpaulin to keep out the rains.

Summer. She could hardly imagine a season hotter than this one.

In Morennioù, on the island Enzeloc, the lilies and orchids in the castle gardens would be ripe with new blooms. Outside the grounds, the trees in Louvain’s orchards would be shedding their blossoms. She loved riding with Jhen Aubévil through the blizzard of petals.

Not this year. This year, soldiers burned those orchards.

Her chest squeezed tight in grief and anger. She remembered—could not forget—that terrible first day of spring. The alarm bells, her running to find her father and his chief mage. Her confession about the jewel. Their panicked attempts to conceal Lir’s emerald, only to have the emerald awaken and change itself with its own magic. Valara absently rubbed the wooden ring on her finger and felt a dull prickle of the current, uninspired and nearly imperceptible. Once she had imagined the jewel spoke to her. Or was that a memory from old lives? An image from ordinary dreams from long ago?

The hour bells rang out, followed by a softer quarter bell.

Valara stirred, restless and hungry. It was two hours past the usual time for supper, but no guard had come with her meal. She heard one of the Károvín complaining to his cell mates. She understood them much better, six weeks later. At times, she practiced Károvín and Veraenen,

whispering the words to herself. The languages had changed in the past three hundred years, but not beyond recognition. She had spoken both fluently in previous lives. She could do so in this one.

A loud crash brought her alert and to her feet. Six guards marched through the outer doors and down the corridor. One of them unlocked Valara’s cell door and seized the overflowing slop bucket, cursing at the mess. Another tossed her straw pallet to a companion. “What are you doing?” Valara demanded. Fear made her reckless. For a moment, she forgot she was only a prisoner and grabbed the guard’s arm. “What is happening?”

The guard shook her off. Before she could fling herself after him, another guard carrying a bucket of soapy water shoved her into a corner. He pinned her against the wall with one arm and scrubbed her face with a rag. “Finish yourself,” he said, dropping the bucket at her side. “And hurry.”

He slammed the door shut. Valara choked and spat out a mouthful of soap. All down the corridor the other prisoners shouted curses. The guards ignored them and continued to work at a feverish pace. Torches lit. Pallets and blankets taken away. A hasty scouring of the floors and prisoners. Something very strange was afoot. A visitor?

My message to the king. They finally delivered it.

She snatched up the rag from the floor and washed her hands, her neck, behind her ears. She wore the same threadbare clothes as the other prisoners. It was not how she wished to appear before a king or his representative, but she could make herself presentable at least.

The senior guard marched past the cells to make one last inspection. Once he completed his circuit, he shouted an order. Immediately a squad of soldiers poured inside. Half of them peeled off to line the corridor, the rest marched down, almost to Valara’s cell and swung about, blocking her view. The din was unbearable—boots ringing off the stones, the clatter from several dozen swords drawn in unison, a great shout like a panther’s coughing roar.