Queen's Hunt (River of Souls 2)

She did. If Ilse closed her eyes, she could see ghostly images of Zalinenka. The hundreds of guards who stood outside the gates and patrolled the lower halls. Even before Károví divided itself from the empire, the court had its factions who did not always restrict thems

elves to mere speech to gain their point.

“So we do not attack,” she said. “We infiltrate. But not yet. First we need to recover the missing jewel.”

“Asha,” Valara said. “I hid her, him in Autrevelye.”

Three hundred years ago, when Valara Baussay had lived as Imre Benacka. And I read about you from a book written by a prison official named Karel Simkov. You died before you would admit to Leos Dzavek where you hid those jewels.

“So search your memories,” Ilse told Valara. “Find Asha and bring her back here. I shall stay by the Mantharah and keep Daya safe. Once you return, we can plan our next steps.”

Valara’s lips curled back in a snarl, as if she were a dog. No, a fox. Then her eyes closed and she touched the ring again. Her lips moved in a silent conversation. A long pause followed before she released a sigh.

“No choice. Or as you said, the only choice left.” She stared at the ring upon her finger, and for a moment, her features seemed to shift in the Agnau’s strange light, from woman to man and back again. “The only choice,” Valara repeated softly. “Would that I had accepted this before.” She glanced up, once more the Morennioùen queen, no traces of her former selves apparent. “Let us make our plans then.”

* * *

THEY SPOKE OF practicalities next. What were the implications of Valara’s search? How long would it require? What if Leos Dzavek detected her presence there?

A few hours, no less, Valara insisted.

What if you need more? Ilse asked, equally insistent. And what about the time difference? A single hour in Anderswar can mean days, years, in this world.

More arguments followed. Each of them was practiced in evasion, obfuscation, the many other intricate maneuvers one encountered in royal courts. In the end, the knowledge that they had to act for the future—theirs and their kingdoms—decided the argument.

“One day, then,” Valara said. “No longer.”

“How can you know when you return? Anderswar—”

“—is not invincible. Trust me to know that.” Her lips thinned to a sardonic smile. “Though, indeed, you have little reason to trust me. But what I say is true. Once I have the sapphire, I can traverse the void more precisely. I can return before the sun sets.”

She took off the ring and laid it between them. “One day,” she repeated. “If I do not return before then, consider me dead, and do what you must.”

* * *

FOR VALARA BAUSSAY, it was as though she had carried a great weight this past year, one that grew heavier with every moment. Valara pressed both hands over her eyes a moment to regain her equilibrium. She still heard echoes of Daya’s bell-like voice within, but softer now. Soon I will be alone.

“I must go in the flesh,” she said. “I can read the signs more easily that way.”

Ilse nodded. Her hand had closed over the ring, but loosely. A cautious woman. Good. She would need to be.

Valara seated herself on the sandy shore. She would do this properly, the way she had read in the old philosophers’ textbooks and journals. The oldest ones of all said that forms were irrelevant. That you did not need even word or thought to work magic. For herself, Valara took comfort in the ritual.

Ei rûf ane gôtter. Komen mir de strôm. Komen mir de vleisch unde sêle. Komen mir de Anderswar …

Her first journeys to Autrevelye had taken place with wrenching suddenness that left her ill and almost blind. This time, she felt nothing more than a subtle displacement, a momentary dizziness as her body accustomed itself to new surroundings. Then the rest of her senses caught up. Mantharah’s keening winds had vanished. The scent of magic was strong here, but nothing so intense as the steam rising from the Agnau. And less tangible, the sense that she was alone.

She released her breath, opened her eyes.

She sat in a darkened room that smelled of old stone and wet earth. Water trickled over the rough-cut walls. Strange how she had missed that sound at first—as if she had to relearn how to listen. The floor itself was smooth, worn to a velvet softness, as though many travelers had visited this chamber before.

Expectations, she reminded herself. Autrevelye read them from her mind to construct itself anew each time.

A plume of musk drifted past her. Shadows rippled away with its passage. The shadows turned upon themselves, revealing a lean dark wolflike creature. It curled around to face her. Its lips drew back from yellowed teeth in an unnatural grin. Rikha. Her first and only guide in this other world for the past five years.

Rikha snuffed at the floor and growled. “You returned.”

“I did.”