R. Anderson - Rebel

“And rightly so,” said the Empress with approval. “Or at least the intent was noble, even if the execution was shortsighted. What happened to her then, this Jasmine?”

“She became our Queen, for a while,” said Linden. “But then a faery she’d forgotten about came back to the Oak-Amaryllis. She’d been away when Jasmine cast her spell, so she still had all her wits and magic about her, and when she learned what Jasmine had done to the other Oakenfolk, she challenged her to a duel.”

The Empress’s eyes widened, like a wondering child’s. “How exciting! Go on.”

“Jasmine lost,” Linden said. “And Amaryllis wanted to punish her properly for what she’d done. So she took away all her magic, turned her into a human, and banished her from the Oak forever. That’s all I know about her.”

The Empress let out a sorrowful breath. “So cruel a fate for such a heroine! It is a pity. Had I only known, I would have sought out this Jasmine and taken her into my court. How long ago was this?”

“It’s been nearly two hundred years,” Linden told her, adding with a flash of private satisfaction, “She’s long dead by now.”

“And all that time your people have been without magic. Living like prisoners, I am told, inside that Oak of yours, struggling for every mouthful, and hardly daring to set outside lest some predator swoop down upon you. You replace yourselves with eggs when you die, but bear no children, and now fewer than fifty of you are left. Is that not so?”

Linden was taken aback. Where was the Empress getting all this information? Surely the Blackwings hadn’t observed all that from one brief flight over the Oakenwyld…but there was only one other possibility, and her mind balked from the thought.

“What a wretched existence,” remarked the Empress, flicking dust off the arm of her carved throne. “If it were not for your willful attachment to humans in spite of all Jasmine’s attempts to enlighten you, I should feel quite sorry for you all. But as it is…”

“Why?” Linden burst out. “Why do you hate humans? When you depend on them for so much-”

“I do not hate them,” said the Empress coolly. “Any more than you hate the sparrows and rabbits you eat for your dinner. But I do not befriend my dinner, either. And it does not please me to see my subjects degrading themselves by keeping company with humans, telling them our secrets, and encouraging them to waste their creativity on their own kind, when those talents would be so much better used by us. And speaking of which…”

She murmured a word Linden could not hear and made a beckoning gesture. Immediately Rob stepped out of the shadows, his guitar slung across his back. He bowed to the Empress, then sat down at her feet and began to play, paying no attention to Linden at all.

“My court musician,” said the Empress fondly, looking down at him. “And my most loyal subject-are you not, my Robin?”

“Your Imperial Majesty,” said Rob. “To serve you is my only pleasure.” There was no trace of irony in his tone, and Linden felt a shiver of unease.

“My Robin is also an accomplished spy,” the Empress continued. “The night you first came to Sanctuary, he saw you rescue the human boy from Veronica, and set out to discover why you had done it. Imagine his surprise when he learned that you were one of the Forsaken! I could scarcely believe it myself when he brought his report to me.” She smiled indulgently. “Of course Veronica was furious with him for stealing her prey, but she soon calmed down when I told her he had acted on my behalf. She appreciates cunning, though she has yet to master it.”

Brought his report to me…Had Rob betrayed them after all? Linden’s stomach convulsed, and her hand clenched on the Stone she still carried in her pocket.

“Indeed, if not for dear Robin’s vigilance, I might never have guessed that there was treachery breeding among my subjects,” the Empress went on, her fingers twining idly in Rob’s hair. “But he has insinuated himself into their very midst, gained their confidence, so that when the time is ripe I can gather them and destroy them in one blow. And, of course, he has also met with your new Queen and tested her powers, that I might know precisely how many soldiers I will need to send out to add the Oakenwyld to my empire. The answer being, of course, hardly any,” and she let out a merry little laugh.

No, thought Linden numbly. It can’t be. Not after all he’s done to help us…

Then Rob gave the Empress one of his slow smiles, and Linden’s last flicker of hope died. Surely, no one could look so adoringly at a woman he hated.

“You never know, my lady,” drawled Rob. “I may be a rebel myself.”

The Empress smiled back tolerantly, as though this were an old joke. “He will have his fun,” she said to Linden. “But what he and I both know is that I own his very soul. Do you know what sets him apart from faeries like Veronica? Poor child, she strives to be like him without knowing his secret: She has enticed one human after another, and yet the talent she steals from them always fades away. But Robin received his gift by tasting the blood of a human musician, murdered for his sake. He took that cup willingly from my hand, knowing full well what was in it; so to deny me, he would have to deny himself.”

Linden’s head reeled, and she clutched at the bars of her cage. She had trusted Rob, believed in him-and he had done this? Had he sent them to look for the Stone of Naming on the Empress’s behalf, so that she could extinguish all hope of resistance to her power? If so, it was a good thing that Linden had not admitted to finding the Children, let alone getting the Stone from them. As far as the Empress and even Rob knew, their mission had failed…

You mean it hasn’t? said a cynical voice in her head that sounded painfully like Timothy, and Linden buried her face in her hands. It was true: All her efforts to save the Oakenfolk had been futile. Rob had proved a traitor, and Garan a coward. Even the Stone in her pocket was useless, for the secret rebellion against the Empress was no secret at all, and soon it would be stamped out.

Oh, Great Gardener, she wept brokenly. Help me, please-I’m so afraid, and I don’t know what to do.

But even as she prayed, Rob strummed his guitar, while the Empress tapped her fingers and smiled. And in all the whispering echoes of that once holy place, Linden could hear no answer.

Veronica crouched in front of Timothy, one slim hand bringing up his chin. She inspected his nose where the door had struck it and said, “How fragile you humans are. Is that blood?”

“Linden,” said Timothy thickly, pulling away. “Where is she?”

“With the Empress, of course,” Veronica told him. “And Rob is with them, too-you remember Rob, I am sure?”

He shrugged, not wanting her to guess how much he knew, or cared. But his spirit leaped at the news. The Empress had only to turn her back for an instant, and Linden could slip Rob the Stone…

“It is a shame you didn’t let me take your music at the beginning,” Veronica went on, stroking his hair back from his face. “It would have made everything so much easier.”

Timothy clenched his hands. He could feel the calluses on his fingertips, earned from countless hours of practice; he wanted suddenly, and very badly, to play again.

“I could bring you a guitar,” she murmured, as though she had read his mind. “Remember the way you played for me, the first night we met?”

He remembered it vividly, for all that he’d spent the last couple of days trying not to. In spite of everything he knew about Veronica, he couldn’t forget how it had felt to play with her by his side. Before she’d pushed him, he’d been a pretty good guitarist for his age, but that night he’d been a prodigy, a genius.