Greg Keyes - The Born Queen

The men confronting him stared at him in what could only be terror.

“You can walk out of here,” Aspar snarled, “or I can kill you.”

A look of resolve flashed over the face of one of them, and he cut at Aspar with the sword. He ducked so that the edge thunked into a tree branch and stayed there while Aspar disemboweled the wielder. The other howled and swung wildly, hitting Aspar on the side of his head with the flat. Aspar stumbled back, ears ringing, as the man shouted something in a language the holter didn’t know.

He threw the ax, and it buried itself solidly in the fellow’s breastbone. He stared at Aspar as he walked up, yanked it out, and kicked him over.

“Fend!”

Fend drew a pair of knives.

“How did you do that?” the Sefry asked.

Aspar didn’t reply. He just stepped into the leafy hall, feeling a sort of calm settle over him. “Aspar!” Winna shouted. She was holding her belly, and her face was ashen. He thought there was blood on her lips, although in the dim light it was difficult to be sure.

“It’s already too late,” Fend said. “It’s already begun.”

“Not too late to kill you, though,” Aspar said.

“Is that all you ever think about? I helped you.”

“Only to get Winna here. You planned to kill me after that.”

“Well, true. I really should have done it sooner, but I had a sense I would need you, and I was right. I only planned to do you because I knew you would slaughter me.”

“And I will.”

“You remember the last time we fought? You’re even older and slower now, and I’m more powerful than ever. I’m the Blood Knight, you know.”

“No playing this time,” Aspar said.

“We can still do this together,” Fend said. “It needs doing.”

“Even if it does, you said it’s already begun. So what do I need you for?”

“I guess you don’t.”

“Aspar!” Winna screamed.

Fend leapt at him, faster than a Mamres monk, his right-hand dagger slashing toward Aspar’s face. The holter ducked, stepped in, and took Fend’s other knife in the gut, then drilled his dirk under Fend’s jaw so hard that he lifted the Sefry clean off his feet. He felt the man’s spine snap.

“I said no playing,” Aspar told him. Then he dropped the gurgling man and slumped down to one knee, lowering his gaze to the knife still stuck in his belly.

He took another look at Fend, but the Sefry was gazing back from beyond the world.

“About time,” he muttered, lowering himself down and scooting toward Ehawk to cut his bonds.

“You let him stab you,” the boy said.

“If I’d fought him, he would have won,” Aspar said. “I’d be dead, and he’d still be alive.” He handed Ehawk the knife. “Cut Winna’s bonds.”

He got up and walked over to Winna. She was panting hard, and he could see her belly moving. She clutched his arm, but her eyes were closed.

“Sceat,” he said. “I’m sorry, love.”

“It’s killing her,” Ehawk said.

“Yah,” he replied.

“What should I do?”

“I don’t know,” Aspar said. “Go bring Leshya here; maybe she knows. She’s right near the entrance.” Ehawk nodded and left.

Aspar was finding it hard to take a deep breath. It was as if something were pushing down on him. “Winna,” he said. “I don’t know if you can hear me. I’m sorry for how I’ve been—always, but especially lately. There was a lot I needed to tell you, but I couldn’t. I had a geos laid on me.”

Winna started to speak, but then she cried out again. Her eyes opened, and he saw they were glazed with pain.

“Still love you,” she said.

“Yah. I still love you. Nothing will change that.”

“Our baby…” She closed her eyes again. “I can see her, Aspar. I see her in the forest with you, with her father. She’s got my hair, but there’s something wild in her, something from you, and she’s got your eyes.”

Aspar reached to stroke her hair, saw he had blood all over his hand, and wiped it on the ground first. When his hand touched the earth, everything went still, and he felt his fingers reach into the soil, dividing, splitting, faster and faster, and his skin was expanding, moving out through the valley, across the hills, to the dying earth around it, and then he was back up north, staring into the eyes of the Briar King as he died.

Holter.

He lifted his hand and was back where he’d started, next to Winna.

Fend was looking down at him.

“Ah, sceat,” Aspar said.

“It’s time,” Fend said. Except that it wasn’t Fend at all, not anymore. It was the witch.

Cazio stood for a moment in a daze, wondering what had just happened, but then he realized that Austra was awake, looking at him.

“Love,” he said. “Are you well?”

As she pulled up, the other people who had been in the crypt rushed out, probably to see what Anne could do now that she could fly.

“I’m fine,” she said. “I was asleep.”

“For days, yes,” Cazio said. “Do you know what happened?”

“I was with Anne, or she was with me,” the girl replied. “It’s a little confusing, but I think her soul came into me while her body healed.”

“Do you know the way out of here?”

Austra looked around. “We’re in Eslen-of-Shadows?”

“Yes.”

“There’s a path up to the castle, yes. But we have to find Anne.”

“Well, she just flew off with the Kept,” Cazio said. “Can you walk?”

“I feel fine.”

“Let’s go, then.”

He helped her to her feet and kissed her.

“Come on,” he said. “Let’s go see what’s happening.”

“A moment there,” a familiar voice said.

Marché Hespero stood in the doorway to the crypt. He looked disheveled, and his voice sounded strained.

Cazio drew Acredo.

“I just need her,” Hespero said, pointing at Austra. “She’s the link; she’s the way to Anne. I can still save us all.”

“You?” Cazio nearly laughed the word. “You expect me to believe you’re trying to save us?”

“Listen,” Hespero said. “The man who brought you here and Anne are fighting as we speak. Anne will probably win, and then she will come and finish me. If that happens, we will wish—beg—for the days when we were Skasloi slaves.”

Cazio stepped in front of Austra.

“About all of that, I know nothing. You might be lying, you might be telling the truth. If I had to guess, I would say the first. It doesn’t matter.”

“He isn’t lying,” Austra murmured.

“What are you talking about?”

“Anne was trying to tell me something like that, even though I don’t think she knew herself what she was getting at. And I am linked to her; we walked the same faneway.”

“Listen to her,” Hespero said. “There’s not much time.”

Cazio looked down at Austra. “Do you trust him?”

“No,” she replied. “But what choice do we have?”

“Well, I’m not letting him have you,” Cazio replied. “He might kill you both.”

She closed her eyes and took his hands. “Cazio, if that’s what it takes…”

“No.”

“I don’t know why I spent any time talking to you at all,” Hespero said. Cazio saw that he had drawn a rapier.

“You remember that your weapon can’t hurt me, I trust.”

“Oh, we’ll find a way, Acredo and I,” Cazio said, taking up his guard.

Anne called lightning into him and for a moment thought it might actually be that easy. But the Jester grinned and regained his feet, and when she hurled another bolt at him, he twirled it around himself somehow and sent it back.

He laughed, just as he had laughed in the otherwhere she first had met him in.

What was so irritating was that she’d had him right under her nose—or at least the part of him that was Stephen. She could have killed him at any time, if only she’d understood, and this would never be happening. Worse, it had been her vision that sent him off to become—this.