Энтони Райан - Queen of Fire

“They teached you cooking as well as torturinʼ, then?” Draker asked him between mouthfuls, the grease beading his beard as he chewed.

“My last masterʼs cook-slave fell ill during the voyage here,” Thirty-Four replied in his now eerily accentless Realm Tongue. “He was required to teach me his skills before he died. I have always been able to learn quickly.”

Lady Ulice accepted a bowl of stew from the former slave, her expression cautious. “Torturing?” she asked.

“I was a numbered slave,” Thirty-Four replied in his precise, uncoloured tones. “A specialist. Schooled in the arts of torture from childhood.” He continued to ladle out the stew as the lady stared at him, her gaze slowly tracking across the faces around the fire. Frentis knew she was seeing them truly for the first time, the brutality that had shaped them now plain in the hard set of Drakerʼs eyes, Illianʼs frowning concentration as she tightened the string on her crossbow, and the preoccupied cast in Arendilʼs eyes as he stared into the fire, spooning stew into his mouth with automatic and unconscious regularity.

“It was a hard road, my lady,” Frentis told her. “Hard choices had to be made.”

She looked at her son, reaching over to smooth the hair back from his forehead, drawing a tired smile. “Iʼm not a lady,” she said. “If we are to be clan-mates, you should know that. I am the unacknowledged bastard daughter to Baron Banders, nothing more. My name is just Ulice.”

“No,” Arendil stated, casting a hard glare around the fire. “My motherʼs name is Lady Ulice, and any calling her by a different name will answer to me.”

“Quite so, my lord,” Frentis told him. “Quite so.”

He busied himself with cleaning his weapons, long after the others had taken to their tents, the familiar drone of Drakerʼs snores drifting across the camp. When his sword and knife were gleaming, he cleaned his boots, then his saddle, then unstrung his bow and checked the stave for cracks. After that he sat and sharpened every arrowhead in his quiver. I do not need to sleep, he told himself continually though his hands were beginning to tingle with exhaustion and his head constantly slumped unbidden to his chest.

Just dreams. He tried to force conviction into the thought, casting a reluctant gaze at his tent. Just the stain of her company, the stink of her in my mind. Just dreams. She does not see me. He finally surrendered when his fatigued hands left him with a bleeding thumb, returning the arrows to his quiver and walking to the tent on weak legs. Just dreams.

• • •

She stands atop a tall tower, Volar spread out beneath her in all its ancient glory, street after street of tenements, marble mansions, gardens of wondrous construction and myriad towers rising from every quarter, though none so tall as this one: the Council Tower.

She raises her gaze to the sky seeking a target. The day is clear, the sky mostly unbroken blue, but she spies a small cloud some miles above, thin and wispy but sufficient for her purposes. She searches inside herself for the gift, finding she has to suppress her song to call it forth, but when it does the power of it staggers her, making her reach for the parapet as she sways. She feels a familiar trickle from her nose and understands the price for this one will be harder to bear even than the wonderful fire she stole from Revek, his words returning now with precise irony: Always the way with stolen gifts, donʼt you find?

What did he know? she thinks, though the scorn is forced and hollow. He knew enough not to be blinded by love.

She forces unwelcome thoughts from her head and focuses on the cloud, the gift surging, more blood flowing from her nose as she releases it, the small cloud swirling into a tight vortex before flying apart, tendrils fading in the clear blue sky.

“Impressive.”

She turns to see a tall man in a red robe emerge from the stairway onto the tower roof. Two Kuritai follow him into the light, hands resting on their swords. She has yet to test the skill offered by this new shell and has to resist the urge to do so now. Hide an advantage and you double its value. One of her fatherʼs axioms, though she suspects he may have stolen it from a long dead philosopher.

“Arklev,” she greets the tall man as he moves to her side. She can see a change in him, a new weariness around his eyes, an expression she knows well. He grieves.

“The Messenger did not linger,” he tells her. “Save to say that the Allyʼs guidance will now be spoken only by you.”

The Allyʼs guidance… As if he could comprehend the true meaning of those words, what it means to a soul in the Void to hear the Allyʼs voice. She almost laughs at the ignorance of this ancient little man. Centuries of life and still he knows nothing.

He is staring at her in expectation, a faint concern on his brow, and she realises it has been several moments since he spoke. How long had she been standing here? How long since she climbed the tower?

She breathes deeply and allows the confusion to fade. “Youʼre grieving,” she tells him. “Who did you lose?”

He draws back a little, concern deepening into fear, no doubt wondering how much she already knew. She was learning the appearance of omniscience could offer as much power as omniscience itself.

“My son,” Arklev says. “His vessel never reached Varinshold. The scryers can no longer find a trace of him in times to come.”

She nods and waits for him to say more but the Council-man fixes a mask on his face and stays silent. “The Ally wishes you to elevate me to Council,” she tells him. “The Slaverʼs Seat.”

“That is Council-man Lorvekʼs seat,” he protests. “One he has discharged with care and diligence for near a century.”

“Lining his pockets and failing to breed enough Gifted in the process. The Ally feels his guidance has not been fully appreciated. And with our new assets coming to maturity, he feels I would offer a more trustworthy overseer for this very particular enterprise. If Lorvek wonʼt step down, Iʼm sure ample evidence of corruption will be found to justify a charge of treason. Unless you prefer a quieter method.”

He says more but she doesnʼt hear him, feeling time slip away once more. How long has she stood here? When the confusion fades she is alone again and the sky is a darker shade of blue. She turns her sight to the west, tracking the broad estuary to the coast and the ocean beyond. Please hurry to me, beloved. I am so very lonely.

She had seen enough corpses to know the dead rarely retained expression. The rictus smiles and fear-filled grimaces merely the tightening of sinew and muscle as the bodyʼs humours drained away. So it was a surprise to find the priestʼs face such a picture of serenity; but for the deep narrow cut in his throat he could easily have been mistaken for a slumbering man, his features betraying a soul content with the world.

Content, she thought, moving back from the corpse to rest on her haunches. How fitting he should only find peace in death.

“This is him?” Vaelin asked.

She nodded and rose as Alornis came to her side, touching her hand in reassurance. Vaelin held up his sisterʼs sketch, eyes switching from the priestʼs face to the rendering on the parchment. “What a talent you have,” he told her with a smile before turning to the hulking man standing near the tent wall. “And you¸ Master Marken. Quite the eye for detail.”