Queen's Hunt (River of Souls 2)

The world had turned translucent. Bright fires—other spirits—were moving about. Two bright sparks circled the opening between the cliffs—winter foxes on the hunt. From the south came a sense of many more. Rastov and Leos Dzavek’s castle.

Ilse turned south, and began the journey to Zalinenka.

* * *

VALARA RETURNED TO find Ilse lying motionless next to the Mantharah’s cliffs. Her eyes were closed, and her lips parted. In the Agnau’s extraordinary light, it appeared as though the other woman were speaking. Right away, she noted that Ilse wore the ring on her left hand.

She thought I betrayed her. She went to Zalinenka. Alone.

Valara wasted no time in fury or second thoughts. With the sapphire clasped in one hand, she lay down next to Ilse and spoke the words to release her spirit from her flesh.

* * *

ILSE WALKED FOR hours across the plains, through a world painted in grays and black and muddy white. Her passage left a glittering trail, visible to the spirit eye until she wiped its trace clean. In places, a companion set of tracks dented the snow crust. The tracks were slight, a powdery dusting of snow crystals swept over them; nevertheless, she took care to interrupt her trail on rock outcroppings, or by taking detours through an icy, free-running stream. Strange that her spirit communicated physical sensation to her. Habit or clue to some tenuous connection between body and soul?

As she walked, she thought of Valara. She thought of Raul Kosenmark. And Galena, Alesso, all those others from her past. If she did not succeed, she would be dead and beyond helping anyone, yet she continued this internal recitation of those in danger.

Hours passed. The miles slipped away, impossibly fast. The sun arced toward the horizon, then dipped below. More hours passed, as the last of daylight drained from the sky, leaving behind a scarlet thread of light above the southwest horizon. She sensed Rastov’s bright constellation of souls and fixed on that direction. Soon she came to a narrow track cut into the ground. It led to a second, larger path, which joined a third to become a road leading south. Gradually the high flat plains began their long descent, dropping from the plateau toward a broad valley with a river winding through it. She saw at once the large city, its buildings a dark mass. On the nearer bank, at the northern edge of the city, stood a castle. Zalinenka.

Daya had remained silent throughout the long journey, but she felt its presence even stronger here, in this point between flesh and pure spirit. Now it spoke. You remember?

Ilse nodded. I lived there once. My name was Milada Ivet Darjalova. My father was a prince of Károví.

Four hundred years ago, and yet the roads of time had led her back.

She went on, following the road as it looped down from the plains toward the castle. Sentries stood guard at various points; to her, their bodies appeared cloudy, their spirits like concentrated flames within a darker husk. Ilse forced herself to continue. She was spirit and not flesh, she reminded herself. They could not see her. As she passed the first visible perimeter, one soldier did turn, his expression startled, as if he had sensed her presence, but no one spoke or tried to bar her way.

At last she came to a side gate into the castle grounds. The gates were closed, and six guards stood at attention, swathed in voluminous fur capes against the cold. More guards patrolled inside the courtyard.

Ilse cautiously explored the gate, taking care to stay clear of the sentries. She thought of herself as invisible, but that wasn’t entirely true. Spirit alone would fly to Anderswar, and so she existed now as a distilled version of her complete self. Walls and closed doors blocked her, and though darkness obscured her footprints, it could not hide her actions completely. She waited until the old watch left their post, then followed them to another gate, where they gave a password. As they passed through, Ilse hurried behind them.

Once inside, she wandered through a maze of halls. A wide set of stairs led her upward. She climbed them, and found herself standing in the castle’s great hall. The room stood empty, draped in blue shadows, yet from this point, she could number every inhabitant of the castle, from scullions and lackeys, to courtiers and nobles. The steady pulse of heartbeats sounded in her ears, and the presence of hundreds crowded against her skin. Running just below the surface was Rana’s song.

The call drew her upward, and she climbed two flights up a broad curved stairway to another gallery. She passed two cavernous rooms, then turned down a narrow corridor, past antique statues and fluted columns of snowy marble. No more servants appeared. No sentries or guards stood in attendance. Warnings nipped at her consciousness, but the ruby’s song drew her onward, as if it were a magnet and she the metal filings. She came at last to a tall carved door, painted dark red, like a scarlet drop in Zalinenka’s white infinity.

She glanced around. The corridor remained silent and deserted. She tested the latch. Unlocked. Her fingers sank into the metal, but not completely. She pushed harder, and the door swung open.

It was a large room, with a freshly laid fire. Scrolls and books filled the many tall shelves. A graceful desk stood by a window, and several chairs circled the fireplace with tables at their sides. By the largest chair stood a pedestal carved from a single block of marble. On it rested a small wooden box, its lid opened wide. Even before she saw the dark red gleam inside the box, Ilse knew from Rana’s rising song that she had found the ruby.

Slowly she approached, hardly daring to breathe. Rana lay in a bed of white silk, its surface alight with magic. Its song beat against her thoughts, a complex pattern of dark and light notes. Her hand had just touched the ruby, when the door closed behind her.

“Andrej. You came b

ack.”

Ilse plucked her hand away. Her skin contracted, as if her spirit still inhabited a body. Keeping her movements slow and deliberate, she turned around.

Dzavek stood at the entrance to the room. The outline of his face wavered, and through his eyes, Ilse saw the pale stones of the castle walls. He’d left his body behind, just as she had, and spirits in the realm of flesh could sense more than any guard.

“Milada,” he whispered.

His once-brilliant eyes widened. Age had clouded them, but it had not obscured the intelligence behind them. She remembered, from the distance of dreams and almost-forgotten days, how they had argued so passionately about Károví and its people, and whether the connection with the empire could be broken. She had not loved him—theirs was a marriage arranged by their fathers, both high-standing nobles whose families traced their lineage back to the old kingdom, before Erythandra had absorbed Károví into its domains. But she had always admired him.

“Leos.”

He smiled. “So you recognize me.”

“It took me some time. You expected Valara Baussay, of course.”