Queen's Hunt (River of Souls 2)

“I believe so, your majesty. It has the touch of magic.”

“An equivocal reply. If you weren’t certain, why did you guard it so long?”

Because you ordered me to. Because I vowed obedience.

Dzavek did not seem to want an answer, however. “Listen,” he murmured. “Watch.”

He held the emerald up to the firelight. His gaze went diffuse. Miro detected an electric quality to the air as the magic coalesced around them. He listened, every sense trained on the emerald, thinking that at last he would hear the same musical speech his ancestors had, when Károví had first claimed Lir’s gifts for its own.

The room seemed to grow smaller, the walls pressed inward, and in intense weight pressed against Miro’s chest. Still Dzavek did not stir, but continued to stare at the emerald.

Ei rûf ane gôtter. Ei rûf ane juwel. Sprechen mir.

Dzavek was commanding the emerald to speak, bidding it as he might a servant.

Ei rûf ane …

Miro’s ears roared as the air thickened to an impossible heaviness.

… ane gôtter. Sprechen mir. Iezuo.

A loud crack echoed through the room. The emerald vanished in a burst of light, leaving a tiny heap of gray dust in Dzavek’s palm. Dzavek glanced from Miro back to the dust. “A counterfeit,” he said softly.

Miro blew out a breath. All those months, all those lives, gone. For nothing.

The king scattered the dust with a flick of his hand. “Never mind the mistake. You lost the Morennioùen queen, but I found her. She has the true emerald. She used it to escape her prison. Or it used her.”

More surprises. Miro licked his lips and considered what he might safely say. “It appears you had no need for my report, your majesty.”

“Yes and no. You brought me news of the battle and its aftermath. And yourself. I need both for the next stage of my plans.”

He turned toward the table beside his chair. He unlocked a drawer and retrieved a wooden box, not much larger than his hand. Dzavek lifted the lid and took out a small dark ruby, which flared bloodred in the lamplight.

Miro knew this one. It was Lir’s second jewel, Rana. The one the king had recovered from Vnejšek the previous summer.

As Dzavek turned the jewel over in his palm, the ruby cast a red sheen over his skin. Miro suppressed a shudder. Anastazia Vacek had been quoting Leos Dzavek when she had told Miro her true orders for Morennioù. By blood and bone and magic, Vacek would prepare the ground for Dzavek’s second invasion. Leos Dzavek had not forgiven his brother’s treachery even though lives and centuries had passed.

“We can plan the next assault later,” Dzavek said. “Once we secure the emerald, Morennioù cannot resist long, not with hostages. We will hold the new queen against their surrender. And their welfare against hers.”

I loved her once.

But those were lives and days past. With an effort, Miro returned to the present.

“She might be difficult to locate, your majesty,” he ventured to say.

Dzavek made a careless gesture. The gems on his fingers flashing in the lamplight. “Not at all. Whenever the queen speaks with her emerald, she must use magic. When she does, I will hear her.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

OVER THE PAST several months, Gerek Hessler spent his holidays wandering the streets of Tiralien, reacquainting himself with the districts from his student days. Today he browsed through the warren of secondhand booksellers in the Little University. Here one might find dozens of cheap novels, or second-rate poetry from the previous decade, but it was also possible to find a genuine treasure. Some of the vendors were iterant, much like the spice dealers Kathe mentioned, selling their wares from carts or baskets in the street.

He picked up a crumbling edition of Alberich Wieck’s essays from one such cart. The copy itself was not valuable—the binding had cracked and several pages were missing—but he had always liked Wieck’s observations on the accepted forms of scholarly interpretation. He handed over a silver denier, received his change, and moved on with the book in his

satchel. The next stall carried only mathematics textbooks. Interesting, but not worth the price. He drifted past more shops and stalls into a square populated mostly by butchers and chandlers. One lone vendor, however, had set up a cart by the entrance. Without much confidence, Gerek looked over the man’s wares. Political treatises. Erotic engravings. An occasional tract speculating about spiritual matters.

He turned over a few leaflets without much interest, then paused.

A cookbook?