Hammer of Time (The Reforged Trilogy) (27 page)

"Sleep?" Maeve asked, not looking at him. "Do you intend to let me sleep, Sir Anthem? Or do you intend to keep me awake into the morning?"

"I will do whatever you wish me too, a'shae."

Maeve yanked one of her gauntlets off and let it clatter to the tower floor. "Whatever I wish? And I if I told you to leave?"

"I am to protect you," Anthem told her. "I will leave the room, if you wish, but I cannot go far."

"Then what is the point?" Maeve hissed. She glared venom at the other knight. "You loved Titania. How can you give yourself to me?"

"There are more important things than love. Titania has turned to madness.
Allu ma'saena…
It wounds me that in one day, I learned that she lives and that she has become my enemy. But my pain and my love do not stop the worlds' turning."

Maeve shook her head and gave her armor another yank. "Help me with this," she told Anthem. He nodded and began carefully untying the chords. Maeve was still furious. "Do you love her still, even after what she has done?"

Anthem hesitated as he worked at Maeve's intricately wrought breastplate. "That is not simple. I love my Titania. But this White Queen, Xartasia… She is someone else, I fear. I do not know if she is my enarri anymore." Anthem moved to stand in front of Maeve, brow furrowed as he detangled Maeve's long black hair from a joint between two plates of glass. "But in time, I think we may be able to love each other, a'shae. You remind me much of Titania in her youth. There are differences, but…"

Maeve's stomach churned and she wondered if she would be sick. Her skin was hot all over and the horrid sensation seemed to be pushing through like needles. "You think that you could love me? Sir Anthem, there are so many things you do not know about me. I fight Xartasia, but you should know that my sins are no less than hers."

Anthem frowned and finished unfastening the breastplate. He carefully put it aside on the stand that Verra had brought but Maeve had entirely ignored. "I do not understand, my queen," he told her.

"I was the one who opened the Tamlin Waygate," Maeve said. The unpleasant swirl in her stomach became a boiling storm. "My brother wanted to see his lover and so I opened the gate in his stead. When I failed, it triggered some sort of internal mechanism that called back to their creators, the Devourers. By unhappy chance, they actually heard that call and came."

"Asi allu?"
Anthem asked.
That was you?

"Yes," Maeve answered in miserable anger. "I have spent every day since trying to atone for what it has done. I tried to have myself killed for shame… That is how I met Logan. I placed a bounty on my own head. Xartasia called Tamlin a mere accident, the fall of our kingdom, but…"

She trailed off, unsure how to put the complex emotions into words. Xartasia's forgiveness was true but tainted by her own madness and bloody ambitions. The fault was not truly Maeve's, but of the black-storm Devourers who had torn Caith from the air and eaten him while he screamed in the bloodstained grass. Still, the pain had never left her. It was a deep scar, at least as terrible as that left through Logan's heart.

Anthem removed Maeve's remaining gauntlet and slid it onto the stand. "I was a prostitute," he said. "Has your Ixthian friend, Xia, told you that yet?"

"No," Maeve admitted sullenly. She had not seen the doctor much in the last few days. There was so much to do.

Anthem's usually smooth brow was deeply furrowed. "I am a knight. I could have found other work. I could have at least died honorably after the White Kingdom's fall. But I was lost, Maeve. Titania was gone. My home was gone. I had nothing."

Maeve suddenly remembered him, dressed in blue and silver rags, the colors of House Calloren. The Hadrian woman who had taken him away after Xia spoke to Anthem. She remembered the rage, the disgust… and that she had done nothing. She and Xia just walked away.

"We have all done terrible things," Anthem told her. "Panna Sul cut off her own wings so she could have a life among the humans. Duke Ferris told me that he left his only living child back on Sunjarrah so that he could serve Kaellisem. She is in a prison hospital and he doubts that she will survive to see him again. We have all done things."

Maeve's teeth ground and her jaw ached. What Anthem said was true. Every Arcadian had their own tale of pain and shame. It hurt, but it was a terrible sort of relief, too. She was not alone. She was not the only one who had ever failed. Logan, her scarred and tormented hunter, was not the only one who could understand.

"I wanted to tell them," she said, stabbing one angry wing toward the window and the spires of Kaellisem. "I have no desire to keep these secrets!"

"But to fight Xartasia, we must be unified. If you drive them away now, no one will stand between your cousin and trillions of Alliance lives," Anthem told her. "I think you are right not to tell them."

"Tell me," Maeve said, "do you still think that you could love me?"

"Yes," Anthem said. "Will you ever love me, a'shae?"

She turned away from the knight framed in the window. "I can manage the rest of my armor, Sir Anthem. There is another room across the hall. Make yourself comfortable there."

Anthem stepped back and lowered his wings. "Yes, my queen. Sleep well."

"There are truths and lies. In between, there are secrets."

– Logan Centra (234 PA)

Ferris had planned to sell finished art and arms, pieces of Arcadian culture, but Vyron argued that the real money was in fabrication. Fairy glass was much easier and cheaper to produce than the plastics used in ship and starscraper windows. It was useful as an electronics insulator, too, Vyron pointed out. The glass did not require the curing time that ceramics did or the energy costs of high-fire processes.

Maeve had to agree with Vyron. There was training time to consider, too. Hyra and Lorren were already working long days to train the hundreds who had volunteered to learn their craft. To create the sorts of fine work that Ferris wanted to export would take years of training and practice, but it took only a few weeks to learn the basic songs, those used to sing the sand into simple, flat sheets of glass. The structure was simple, Panna said. Even the most unskilled Arcadians had little trouble holding the basic honeycomb molecular structure in mind. Kaellisem's first exported glass was too cloudy and impure for use in windows or anything that their users needed to be able to see through, but served as a cheap and very effective insulator.

There was one incident aboard the Nova Jumper, when a sample sheet contained too much iron and exploded as a nearby magnetic clamp activated. But no one was in the engine room at the time and Vyron quickly smoothed over the incident by promising replacements and a percentage share from any Arcadian wares shipped aboard the Nova Jumper. Maeve apologized in person to the ship's Lyran captain and mechanic. The two wolfin women agreed that it was just the growing pains of a new industry and said that they were still glad to be involved at this early stage. They grinned with sharp teeth at the little Arcadian queen and hurried back onto their ship.

Vyron crossed his arms as the Nova Jumper vanished into Stray's pale sky. "Two-faced bitch harpies," he said cheerfully. "They absolutely loathe fairies. We tried to hire the Nova a month ago and they wouldn't even entertain the idea. Now that there's a profit…"

He trailed off, shaking his head. Maeve shaded her eyes and surveyed the rest of Gharib's dusty landing crescent. "Do you think that they faked the explosion?" she asked.

"Maybe," answered Logan, who stood at Maeve's other side. "But unlikely. Ferris says that there have been some production issues. They're running out of usable sand near Kaellisem. The further they have to go for sand, the fewer hours are being put in on sifting and singing it."

Maeve nodded without looking at the Prian. "Even the best sand we can find in Gharib is not pure enough. We need pure carbon and silicon, not the iron and copper that color the sand here. Is there a better source on Stray?"

"Um," Panna said, thumbing through one of the datadexes she always seemed to be carrying these days. "Actually, the polar sand is lighter than at the equator, where we are now. Want me to put together an estimate on shipping some down to Kaellisem?"

"Yes," Maeve told her. Panna smiled and took a note.

"I can help with that," Vyron offered.

"Thanks," Panna told him. "Do you think any of your contacts might be willing to make a few runs for us? Moving that much sand by ship would be a lot easier than by truck."

"Use the Blue Phoenix," Logan said shortly. "Don't pay some other captain for such a short flight. There are too many Arcadians looking for work, more than Hyra can train. They can help load the Blue Phoenix."

"Good idea." Panna took another note. "There's a city nearby called Bherrosi. We'll probably need to pay someone there. They've got a bad reputation for treatment of Arcadians up that way, too. Some of our first people came from Bherrosi."

"Talk to them," Maeve told Panna. "Get the names of anyone important that we may need to pay off. I will speak with Anthem. We will send his best new knights to Bherrosi with the Blue Phoenix for protection."

"We still need to tell Captain Sinnay that we want to fill his ship with sand," Panna pointed out with a smile. "Duaal's not going to like that."

"He will understand," Maeve said. "He has given much to help me. This is a small price when held against what he has already done… and what lies ahead."

"I think he likes getting to work with a queen. It makes him feel important."

"He is." Maeve searched her winding scarlet sash for her com, found it and switched it on. "Duaal? Can you hear me?"

"I hear you," came Duaal's voice from the device, echoing a little. "What can I do for you, little fairy queen?"

Maeve related Logan and Panna's plan. As she had anticipated, the Blue Phoenix's captain was quick to agree. "I'll let Gripper know to fuel us up. We've been grounded for weeks now," he said. "It will be good to fly. Can't let my extensive skills atrophy. Are you and Logan going to be coming along?"

"No. Only some of Anthem's knights to keep the others safe in Bherrosi."

There was a pause on the other end of the line. "Anthem's only been working on those new guys for a few weeks. Maybe you better send Anthem himself. To make sure the job gets done right. We want this to go well."

Maeve considered that. She glanced at Panna, who shrugged. "The knight stuff is Sir Anthem's area," she said. "Not mine. I have no idea how the training is going."

"That is a good idea," Maeve told Duaal through the com. "I will ask him."

"Great. Well, I better talk to Gripper. Have a nice time queening."

Maeve thanked her friend and turned off the com. Panna and Vyron were already talking about distribution of the new glass. Logan watched Maeve, expressionless. She walked back to the car and the other three fell into step beside her.

When was the last time Logan had played his guitar? The last time that Maeve could remember was that night on Sunjarrah, sitting on top of the Blue Phoenix, under the stars. Had he touched the instrument at all since then? Maeve watched her hunter. He was scanning the landing fields, searching for any potential dangers to the Gray Queen. She doubted that his guitar had been touched in weeks. She longed to hear him play. The thought made Maeve's heart ache. But what good would it do? Logan Coldhand was neither her lover nor one of her people. Maeve had no right to ask him to live his life any particular way.

Logan held the door for her and closed it behind Maeve. Through the window, she could see the Talon-9 on his hip, the metal and ceramic scarred by age and use but freshly polished. The weapon certainly had not been neglected.

Maeve leaned forward in the front seat, trying in vain to make room for her swiftly cramping wings. No one made cars for Arcadians. It would have been much more comfortable to fly, but Logan could not. What good was a guardian if she left him behind? Ferris had pointed out several times that Anthem and the Arcadian knights he was training could easily fly with their queen. Maeve had to admit that he was right about that.

She sighed and crossed her arms on the sun-heated dashboard as the others climbed into the car. Logan grabbed the hot steering wheel with his unfeeling illonium hand and started the engine.

"Can you drop me off at home?" Vyron asked. "Baliend's teething again – he's on his third set already – and Kes needs a hand."

"Sure," Logan told the blue-skinned man.

Vyron and Panna sat quietly in the back seat, each with a datadex in hand. They occasionally conferred on some financial point, keeping their voices soft. Logan drove in utter silence, eyes riveted to Gharib's cracked and dusty roads. He delivered Vyron to his home, where Kessa waited at one of the windows. She held Baliend against her shoulder and waved. Maeve raised her hand and waved back.

"Would you like to come in for dinner?" Vyron asked, pausing in the act of getting out and sticking his head back into the car. "If you don't mind listening to Baliend screech a little, we'd love to have you."

Maeve wanted to say yes, but she looked over to Panna and Logan. "Do I have plans this evening?" she asked.