Queen's Hunt (River of Souls 2)

Leos smiled faintly. “Ah, yes. You said much the same, that other time, when you tried to persuade me to yield to the emperor. A month later, you led his army against me.”

The old challenge and response had grown more bitter over the passing centuries. Ilse circled around to the far end of the room, thinking she might take advantage of the situation while their attention was locked on each other. Dzavek glanced toward her sharply, but when Valara Baussay glided closer, his attention flicked back. His hand tightened around the ruby, which gleamed dark and ruddy, so that its light spilled through his fingers like blood.

Valara paused. Her chin jerked high. She lifted her right hand in a fist and muttered a phrase. A dark blue fire poured through her translucent skin.

Dzavek’s mouth softened into a smile. “You have Asha.”

“And you, Rana. We are well matched.”

Wolf and fox stared at each other. The bitterness was gone, the only emotion left a cold calculation of the other. Then, so swiftly Ilse did not see the gesture until complete, Valara swept both hands up. Her lips were already moving in the invocation to magic, but Dzavek acted only moments behind.

“Ei rûf ane gôtter. Komen mir de strôm unde kreft. De leben unde tôt.”

Magic burst against magic. For one instant, the air burned bright and still, so still, it was as though the world’s hourglass had paused in turning. Then, a gout of cold fire rushed outward. It tore through Ilse’s spirit essence. Blinded, she fell back against the wall. This was like the moment when flesh translated to spirit, dissolving, caught by the winds of magic. More and she would vanish altogether.

… ei rûf ane gôtter. Ei rûf ane Lir unde Toc, ane bruodern unde swestern …

All three jewels were shouting, great ringing tones that echoed from the walls. The winds of magic did not lessen. They streamed around and through Ilse, but no longer tearing at her essence. She could see nothing—the fire burned brighter than before, if that were possible—but she heard and tasted and smelled the magic, felt the signature of all three jewels pressed against her ghost form. Daya, the strongest, like a brand upon her finger. Rana, dark and angry. Asha, a river of silver. They spoke a language beyond her comprehension. Older than Erythandra. As old as the world itself, born from the Mantharah when Lir and Toc made love.

… komen mir de strôm. Komen mir alle kraft …

The words vanished into a crescendo of bright tones. Ilse heard them, saw them, si

lver shaded with dark and edged with the sharpest of light. Faint, oh so faint, she caught a glimpse of Valara’s signature, the fox slipping between, and once of Leos Dzavek’s. Then the magic of the jewels overwhelmed her again. As from a distance, she heard a single bell tone, and the word, Now.

Now.

The air cracked, the world divided. Her vision turned black …

… silence … emptiness … the faint tattoo of her own heartbeat … the green of magic rolling over her skin …

Her vision cleared. It took her more moments before she could make sense of what she saw. She crouched on a hard surface. Splinters and other debris covered the floor around her. Smoke filled the air, dense and black. A few crimson sparks floated slowly to the ground. Except for a hissing noise, the study was eerily silent, invisible behind that black veil. Her first instinct was to touch her ring finger. Yes, there was Daya, or at least its essence.

The smoke stirred. A voice—harsh and low—spoke a word, and the darkness lifted.

Valara knelt by the doorway. Her eyes were wide, rimmed with pale circles, her ghostly essence thin and insubstantial. “Ilse?”

The room lay in shambles. Smoke blackened its walls and ceiling; dozens of cracks marred the tiled floor. One bookcase had collapsed, scattering papers and books everywhere, and the floor was littered with the shattered remains of Dzavek’s desk.

The sight recalled Ilse to her senses. She scrambled toward the last place she had seen Leos Dzavek. She found him stretched out on the floor, pinned beneath the marble pedestal. She dropped to her knees beside him. “Leos.”

“My brother.”

He coughed noisily. Ilse tried to lay her hands upon him, but her spirit sank through his body. Cold, cold, cold. He was dying in truth this time.

Dzavek jerked upright, in spite of the pedestal’s weight. His eyes were blank, unseeing. But then he sniffed the air, like a dog scenting a fox, and he swiveled around to Valara Baussay. “Andrej. You…” He coughed. “You will not—”

He crumpled over. Ilse wrapped her fingers around his wrist. Her touch meant nothing, and yet he stopped and gazed into her face with his blind eyes. They were almost white now, like a winter snowfall.

“You never loved me,” he said.

Truth at last.

“No,” she said softly. “Because you loved Károví too dearly. You were a king, Leos, even before they set the crown upon your head. And yet, I would have been proud to be your wife and your queen.” Memories of those early days came back to her, of the time before Leos Dzavek and his brother traveled to Duenne and the imperial court, when she and he had been companions, if not lovers. He had returned entirely changed. The jewels. The break with his brother.

“But you doubted me,” she said softly. “You believed I wished to betray you. I never did. I left because I loved Károví, too, and I did not wish to watch our people die in war.”

“You loved that man.”