Hammer of Time (The Reforged Trilogy) (34 page)

The enassuanii had unwound long, flowing ribbons that trailed through the air as they flew. One by one, the singers added more flowing strands of color until the entire stage was alive with a shifting, slithering rainbow. The song rose slowly as building storm clouds and the Arcadians above the glass stage began to swoop closer to one another, delicately brushing fingers and wings.

Maeve leaned close against Logan, her wing trailing soft feathers against the back of his neck. His illonium fingers tightened on hers, making the tiny queen moan quietly in pain. But she was still smiling and her fingers curled warm and soft around Logan's. His heart raced. The enassui was rising to a crescendo, flowing Arcadian voices filling the theater as the first act reached its climax. Logan recognized one of the words. Not Arcadian, but the sound of his own name.

"They are singing of you," Maeve whispered. "Of my hunter chasing me."

"You told them about me. Why?" Logan asked. "The enassui is supposed to be about you."

"My story is hollow without you, Logan," Maeve said, so softly that he had to lean close to catch the words. "My hunter. My enarri."

"My enarri," he repeated.
My beloved.

The singers had threaded their flowing ribbons into an intricate knot, weaving strands of color into a spiraling coil. But Maeve was no longer watching them. She watched Logan with bright, wide silver eyes. She still clasped his cybernetic hand tightly, as though afraid to let go, afraid she would drown if she did. Logan raised his other hand, tracing the sharp, fine line of Maeve's jaw. How could one woman be so strong, the queen of an entire people and the spear point for their war against Xartasia, and still be so vulnerable? How could Maeve still need Logan? He was just an uneducated Prian man, a disgraced police officer, an unlicensed bounty hunter and her ex-lover. But she
did
need him. Maeve still needed him…

She was so close, those storm cloud eyes filling Logan's vision. And her lips, soft as silk and gently seeking his. Where was Anthem? He was supposed to be here, not Logan. Here with Maeve, surrounded by song and gleaming golden glass and the gentle fragrance of jasmine… His fingers curled against the back of Maeve's neck, pulling her up, pulling her close. Her lips found his and she kissed him. She tasted like the jasmine smelled, so sweet and heady that Logan was dizzy with the sensation.

Maeve… My dove, my enarri…

His eyes closed and Logan pulled her to him, hearing Maeve's soft, surprised gasp and tasting it in their kiss. The enassui surrounded them in sound, intimate yet concealing. Thousands of Arcadians below watched the show, not their queen in the arms of the man she was not supposed to love. They could not hear her small cries as Logan's hands moved across her smooth skin. It was just like playing his guitar. He had not forgotten how. He couldn't forget. Not ever.

Thunder boomed across the theater. No, Logan realized almost too late. Not thunder. An explosion. The enassuanii's song tore apart into screams. Glass filled the air in a rain of blazing crystal daggers. One of them tumbled and sliced a hot, deep line of pain along Logan's spine. Arcadians were everywhere, flinging themselves into the air in every direction, smashing into one another in storms of blood and feathers and seared clothes. Many of the fairies were on fire, hair and wings blazing. They screamed and fell to the shattered theater floor. The acrid stench of seared flesh made Logan's lungs burn.

The stage was gone. Smoke billowed from the crater where it had stood. Glass glowed white-hot and flowed in melted rivulets across the blackened sand. One of the enassuanii was on the ground, pinned by an overturned piece of the stage and screaming as liquid glass ran over his sizzling skin. More Arcadians lay dead and dying, torn apart by the explosion or impaled by shattered glass. Their blood was invisible against the red Gharib sand. Beneath Logan's feet, the royal tower shuddered. Glass snapped and shattered with sharp, brittle retorts. The whole building swayed.

"Logan…"

The voice was quiet, strained. Logan spun to find Maeve on her knees, blood spattered across her diaphanous silver gown. One of her wings was stained red; the one that had been draped around Logan. The blade of shattered glass that had cut his back had sliced right through the delicate membrane of Maeve's wing. The feathers were sticky and matted with blood. There was no way she could fly.

Logan swept Maeve into his arms. She weighed no more than a child. The glass beneath his feet cracked, opaque lines racing in all directions like fleeing snakes. An Arcadian man in seared and smoking rags tumbled from the churning sky and down to the tower top. He smashed the breaking glass, leaving smears of red across the shattered remains.

There were shouts from the stairwell. Gripper shoved his way through the narrow confines. "Hunter!"

"I'm here," Logan called out.

He backed up, ran and leapt over the widening crack across the floor. Logan wished that he could see the floor beneath his feet as he ran, but Maeve's wings obscured his view. The theater tower shivered again and swayed like a tree in the wind. Logan landed hard, sooner than he expected, and the impact shivered up his aching, injured spine. The crumbling floor was slippery with blood. Logan fought for footing.

Gripper's huge hand closed on Logan's shoulder. "The tower's falling!" he shouted. "Shimmer's doing his best to keep it up, but he says the pattern's too complicated. We have to get out of here!"

Logan nodded. His throat felt raw. There must have been glass in the smoke, too. He followed Gripper down the stairs, slamming into the translucent walls every time the tower moved and struggling to keep Maeve sheltered. Cracks snaked like bolts of lightning through the collapsing walls. The tower was full of jagged shards and deafening shrills of tearing glass. Blades of broken crystal tore at Logan's clothes and the flesh beneath. Gripper's thick skin was covered in cuts, many of them shallow but all oozing dark blood.

They staggered out of the tower at last, into the hellishly flickering firelight and billowing black smoke. Panna, Duke Ferris and Xia ran to Logan as he set Maeve down. The queen's legs wobbled, but held. Xia gasped at the bloody rent in her wing and Panna went pale. Duaal stood a few yards away, fists clenched before him and his dark, ash-smeared jaw set as he stared at the tower.

"Everybody out?" he shouted in a strained voice.

"All clear, Captain!" Gripper called back.

Sweat shone on Duaal's brow. He uncurled his fingers and raised his hands. The theater tower went milky all along its length with cracks. Duaal lowered his hands, palms down, and the glass spire fell in on itself like a house of cards. A few motes of glittering diamond dust rolled out from the stump of the tower, but the Hyzaari mage contained the rest of the dangerous razor shrapnel.

Maeve was pushing Xia away and struggling to stand. "What happened?" she asked.

"We have no idea," Panna said. She coughed and held her hand to her side.

"Bomb," Logan answered shortly. He pointed across the ruins of the theater to what had once been the stage. "There."

Several winged shapes landed in the smoky murk and ran toward Maeve. Logan moved to intercept them, but then recognized Ballad and Syle at their head. The young Prian fairy's face was smeared in ash and blood. The fairies stopped in front of Logan, eyes wide as they stared at their queen.

"Is she…?" Syle asked.

"I am fine," said Maeve. "How many are not?"

"I don't know. We came to find you and Sir Anthem," Ballad answered. "Where is he?"

"You do not know? Find him at once!"

Duaal and Gripper exchanged a guilty look. "We know where he is, Maeve," Duaal told her. "He's back on the Blue Phoenix."

"I set the airlock to seal as soon as he went into the hold. We thought that you and Hunter…" Gripper trailed off, pale-faced and trembling.

"You imprisoned the royal consort?" Duke Ferris cried, the blood draining from his lined face. "How dare–!"

"Shut up!" Maeve shouted at Ferris. She whirled on Gripper, blood still streaming from her wounded wing. "Get him out of the Blue Phoenix and back into Kaellisem. I need all of my knights!"

"Maeve, we just–" Duaal started.

She ignored him. She turned back to Ballad and Syle. "Begin a search of the theater. Help those who can be helped and count the dead. Take those who need medical attention to the Blue Phoenix. Gripper, get Xia back to the ship and her medbay. You will need to return to the ship, too, after all."

"Yes, Glass," Gripper said meekly. He followed Xia from the theater at a stoop-shouldered trot.

"Panna, go with Duaal," Maeve told the blonde girl. "Reinforce any compromised buildings and help the knights retrieve the dead and wounded."

"Yes, Your Majesty," Panna said. She grabbed Duaal's elbow and the two of them ran off into the shattered ruins of the theater.

"Duke Ferris, find Hyra or Lorren. This much broken glass is dangerous and only they know how to deal with it," Maeve instructed the old nobleman.

"My queen, you could have been killed! For all we know, that was the very purpose of this attack. Syle!" Ferris called.

The yellow-eyed knight had not flown far. He wheeled and landed again. "Yes, Your Grace?"

"Remain with Queen Maeve," Ferris told the knight. "Do not let her out of your sight and protect her with your life!"

"Yes, Your Grace," Syle answered at once.

Satisfied for the moment, Ferris took two steps across the blasted glass and leapt to the air in search of the glassmiths. He vanished quickly into the dark smoke. Reluctantly, Logan looked at Maeve. "What do you want me to do?" he asked.

The raven-haired queen's gray eyes were narrowed slits like blades. "You are released from my guard," she said in a low, furious hiss. "You have a new duty, my hunter. Find the one who did this!"

Logan bowed. "Yes, Your Majesty."

________

Jessica Centra had not brought an umbrella. Stupid… It had been raining for two months. Why should it stop today? It was just another day on Prianus, no different from any other. The acidic rain fell in sharp diagonal lines, yanked north by the cold, razor winds. It probably didn't matter whether she had an umbrella, Jess decided.

Captain Lain stood under the leafless old alder tree. He did not have an umbrella, either. The rain splashed unnoticed from the shoulders of his dark blue uniform. The left one was a slightly different shade than the rest of the uniform. Patched, probably shredded by a hawk's talons… or by the bullet that had taken its previous owner's life. There was always a bird, always a bullet, always rain on Prianus. Captain Lain raised his hand. He was young. Barely more than a boy, Jess thought. A large oil-fed torch burned on his right side, hissing and popping and twisting in the rain.

"Our lives are only the last things we give for our world," he said loudly, but still only barely audible over the drumming rain. "We each knew that when we put on the uniform and we face our life's end without fear. But what about those left behind? We miss our brothers and sisters, husbands and wives, sons and daughters when they are gone."

When they were taken. Stolen away on a routine chem investigation, right after finally making detective.

Jess barely saw Captain Lain. She could only stare at the line of white-wrapped bodies on their biers, shrouded and soaked by the rain. All seven bodies looked the same, faceless and anonymous. Shouldn't she be able to tell? Some instinct, some otherworldly sense that drew her? But there was nothing. There was only the rain and the fire.

Captain Lain was still talking, but Jess was not listening anymore. She just stared at the dead.

Which one? Which one was her husband? Had been her husband? Beside her, Vorus tugged on his mother's rain-soaked dress. Jess pushed him away. Where was he? Where was Logan?

Captain Lain finished his speech and took up the torch, walking slowly through the rain along the line of biers. Jess wanted to jump to her feet, to scream at the police captain to stop. Not yet, she had to find Logan! But she sat still as a statue while Vorus cried silently beside her. Rain ran down her face, burning and stinking of chemicals.

The first bier began to burn, red and gold flames spread along the cloth, turning it as black as the boiling clouds filling the sky. The wet wood threw sparks like miniature lightning bolts into the darkening evening, cracked and popped like tiny booms of thunder. But the flames burned low and pale under the unceasing torrent. Captain Lain moved down the line, setting the second, third and more funeral pyres ablaze. Faceless white bodies became flickering golems of flame and then faceless black ash.

Where was Logan? Where was he?

Jess stood in the rain long after the fires had burned out.

"The moment you decided to fight, you lost the battle."

– Syle Lamanna (234 PA)

Glass did not burn well. The fires went out within ten minutes of the explosion, sinking the ruined theater into darkness. The lights had either been blown to fragments or been crushed under falling debris. The knights searched by flashlight and wavering glow spells, one of the first charms that Sir Anthem had taught those who could learn Arcadian magic. The prince consort joined the search as soon as Gripper released him from the Blue Phoenix, asking no questions of the Arboran or anyone else until much later. Not until his job was done.