Hammer of Time (The Reforged Trilogy) (46 page)

When Verra was done, she took the glass crown that Duaal had designed and pinned it into the queen's dark curls. Maeve inspected the effect in the mirror. She barely recognized the woman reflected back at her. When had her hair gotten so long? How old were those lines at the corners of her eyes? The streaks of white at her temples? She was only two hundred years old…

Maeve rose and made herself smile at Dain and Verra. The two girls were annoying at best and more often unwelcome chaperones. But they were only trying to do their jobs.

"Have you heard what they say in Kaellisem?" Maeve asked.

"About you, Majesty?" Verra asked.

Maeve nodded and the two Arcadian girls traded a long look. Dain looked down at the polished glass floor and said nothing. "Yes," Verra finally admitted.

"And what do you think? Do you believe them?"

"It does not matter what we think, Your Majesty," said Verra. She touched one of her wingtips to Dain's. "We serve the crown."

Their loyalty was unshakable. It was reassuring, yes, but Maeve frowned. "It matters if it is true. A queen must be worthy of her crown. If that was not so, we would all serve Xartasia now."

"Yes, Your Majesty," Verra said at once.

Maeve's frown fell away. Dain and Verra were just children. In a better world, they should not have had to worry about such things. The royal tower thrummed with the sound of the crowd outside as though caught up in an endless roll of thunder. Maeve knelt – eliciting a gasp from Dain as the skirts of her new gown caught under her knees – and held out her arms to both girls. The handmaidens hesitated and then ran to the queen. Maeve hugged them both close. Dain was crying and Verra shivered despite Stray's heat. They were frightened. If Kaellisem fell, what would happen to these sweet, irritating girls? Their wings trembled against Maeve's skin.

"Stay inside until this is done," she told Verra and Dain. "Sir Anthem's knights will not let anything happen to you. You will be safe here."

Dain sobbed something that Maeve could not make out over the noise outside. Verra took the younger girl by the hand and pulled her back. Maeve went to the doors. They swung open on smooth glass hinges and she stepped out onto the balcony overlooking the sunset spires of Kaellisem. The roar was deafening. The streets and sky of Kaellisem were a sea of white wings and screaming voices.

Most of Maeve's tiny court stood arrayed along the balcony's curved edge. Duke Ferris stood to one side, Duaal on the other. Anthem and Logan had taken up forward positions, facing the rolling chorus of angry and spiteful songs. Four thousand fairies stood in the street, hands and wings raised. More were in the air, circling the tower like a storm and blotting out the red light of the setting sun. The rest of Anthem's royal knights stood at other balconies and roofs and windows, all half-crouched and holding spears at the ready.

Maeve moved through the flickering shadows. A bottle arced from somewhere in the swirling cyclone of angry fairies. It smashed into the glass floor a yard from Maeve's feet. The sick-sweet smell of narcohol suddenly flooded her senses. How long since her last drink? Prianus? Before that? Maeve could no longer remember.

"Make sure everyone hears me," she shouted to Duaal. The mage nodded.

Logan and Anthem parted. Maeve strode to stand between them and raised her hands. She remembered Gavriel standing here, before the crooked black cathedral that once rose up from the desert sand. The very sands that now made up the red and golden tower where she stood. She took a deep breath of the hot, swirling air.

"Kaellisem!" Maeve knew that Duaal's spell would carry her words into the city. Her own voice echoed off the crystal towers and filled the sandy streets. There was an answering roar from the crowd so full of rage that Maeve took an involuntary step back from the edge of the balcony. Her heart pounded hammer blows against her ribs.

"I hear you!" Maeve cried. Why had she not asked Panna to write this for her? "I hear your voices, your anger. You feel betrayed! And you are not wrong."

Duke Ferris shot Maeve a look, but she ignored him. This was more important than politics. She had to try to win back Kaellisem's trust. The cost no longer mattered.

"You know what happened at Tamlin. You do not need to hear the song again. We have sung it for a hundred years. But you deserve to hear that I… I am sorry I did not sing my own part for you. What you have heard of me, of Tamlin, is true. I went to the Waygate there alone, while my spellsinger remained in the city with his lover. I tried to open the Tamlin gate. My failure called out to the Devourers. It was an accident, but it was mine.

"Kaellisem is small and it is fragile and I feared that it would shatter if you knew into what bloody hands you trusted yourselves. A kingdom, even one as tiny as Kaellisem, belongs not to its queen but to its people. This city is yours. You built it and it belongs to you! I hear your voices, your anger and your demands. And I will listen. I belong to you, Kaellisem. I have always belonged to you. So if you hate me so, I will go. I am leaving Stray!"

Now Ferris was striding toward her, shouting something Maeve could not hear. Anthem grabbed the duke's arm and hauled him back. She felt Logan's eyes on her, cold as ice in the poisonous heat of the desert. Maeve grabbed her crown and yanked. It came free with a few strands of black hair still tangled around the glass. She held it aloft.

"Word has reached us that Xartasia has gone to the Nnyth Tower," she cried. "We do not know what she intends there, but I will go with Captain Sinnay to find out. I may not be worthy to lead, but I will still serve my people! It is not my right to ask your forgiveness, Kaellisem, and so I go now to repent some small measure of my crimes!"

She looked at Anthem and then at Logan, then stepped back. There was no applause. There was only silence. The tornado of white wings circled once more and then broke apart. Hundreds of Arcadians scattered like dandelion puffs, spiraling away through the rising darkness. The only sounds were fading wingbeats and footsteps as everyone in Kaellisem turned away.

"What are you doing?" Duke Ferris all but screamed. Anthem held him fast. "You are our queen!"

"A queen serves her people," Maeve told him. "And the people have made it very clear that they no longer want me. I am leaving."

Maeve gestured to Anthem, who finally released Ferris. The old nobleman fell to his knees. "No, my queen! We need you!"

"You and Panna ran Kaellisem, in truth," Maeve said. "I place the two of you in charge of Kaellisem's care. You truly will need Panna, Your Grace. And Sir Ballad will protect you."

"But… I…"

She had never seen Ferris speechless before. Maeve offered her free hand to him. Ferris took it and rose. Maeve held the crown out to him. "Keep this safe," she said. "I may not be worthy of wearing it, but it is a powerful symbol nonetheless."

Ferris accepted the crown with withered, shaking hands. One by one, the glass-armored knights landed along the edge of the tower balcony. Eranna wept openly. All nineteen fell to one knee around Maeve. Nineteen? There should have been twenty… But Maeve did not have time to recount. Anthem knelt, too.

"Our loyalty is to you, my queen," he said. "It always has been. Command us and we will obey."

"Stay in Kaellisem," Maeve told the knights. "There are still dangers in Gharib. Protect the city as you always have."

"Yes, a'shae," the knights answered together.

They rose and flew off into Kaellisem. Except for Anthem, who remained on one knee. Duaal raised a dark brow and looked significantly at the remaining fairy knight.

"What're you still doing here?" Duaal asked.

"With your permission, Captain Sinnay," said Anthem, "I will go with you to the Nnyth Tower."

"Permission denied!" Duaal growled. "Didn't Maeve just give you an order? And didn't you just promise to keep obeying her?"

"And as a knight, I am bound to do so." Anthem rose and turned to Maeve. He took her hands in his. "But as your consort, my queen, I am sworn to remain by your side. Besides, I am no more popular in Kaellisem than you are right now."

She stared. Of all the possible outcomes of her decision, this one had never occurred to her. "Anthem, you do not need to do this."

"I believe in Kaellisem," the knight told her. "But there are things I believe in more. You. Titania. If you go to face her, then I will be with you when you do."

Maeve held Anthem's glass-gloved hands and nodded slowly. "Fly with us, then."

Duaal pulled out his com. "Gripper, get two extra rooms ready. Maeve and Anthem are coming with us. Get your big brown butt moving! The Tower isn't getting any closer on its own."

Maeve removed her hands from Anthem's and turned away. She had to collect her armor. She would need it before this was done, Maeve was sure. Logan Coldhand already stood at the door, blue eyes unreadable.

________

There was no moon that night and Kaellisem sank swiftly into darkness. The city was quiet, strangely subdued in the wake of the queen's announcement. A few fairies moved slowly through the sky and the streets, drifting like snowflakes. They sang softly, if at all. They had what they wanted. They had exiled their own queen for her crimes…

Syle swooped low on silent wings, searching through the darkness. His armor was already gone, an unwanted glittering skin peeled away and left not far away from the golden royal tower. The spy and saboteur still carried his spear, however. He would need that.

Maeve was leaving Kaellisem. She was going to the Tower after the White Queen herself. Even if the new kingdom failed now, Maeve Cavainna was still a danger to Xartasia. Syle hissed an oath to himself as the cooling desert wind ruffled his feathers. He should have seen this coming, should have known Maeve would fight to the last breath. Even without Kaellisem, the queen would fight ever on.

There. Beyond Kaellisem's glittering edge, the ugly, bulky silhouette loomed up suddenly out of the night. The ship was graceless and thorny as a demon. Every inch of ceramic and fibersteel glistened with a faintly greasy phenno finish. Syle landed silently on the packed sand behind the Blue Phoenix. Gripping his spear tightly, he searched for a way to slip inside.

"Life owes you nothing. It's life. It's already given you more than anyone else ever will."

– Kessa Fethru (233 MA)

There was not much to collect from Maeve's tower. Her armor, some clothes and a few other personal effects, but she gathered them all up in a single trip and then made her way discretely to the Blue Phoenix to join the rest of the expedition. The tower would belong to Duke Ferris now, if he wanted to use it. Dain and Verra were still there and were welcome to remain. The girls had asked to come along with Maeve, but did not put up very much of a fight when she told them no. It would be a long and dangerous journey. Dain and Verra did not really want to go. They just did not want to abandon Maeve.

It was strange to be back in her own room. Alone. No one watching, no one trying to brush her hair or get her signature on a datadex. She had left detailed instructions for Duke Ferris, but Panna would be far more useful to him. She and Ballad would be back on Stray about a day after the Blue Phoenix was scheduled to leave. Maeve felt a little guilty about being grateful for that. She had no desire to face Panna and have to explain why she was leaving Kaellisem.

Maeve added a few favorite dresses to her old wardrobe and left the rest empty for Anthem's use. The bunk's sheets were neat and clean and white. Someone had laundered them since Maeve left. She ran her fingers over the coarse, inexpensive cloth. Gripper, she guessed. There was no dust in her room, although Stray was covered in the stuff. That had probably been Gripper, too, or maybe Xia. Maeve just could not imagine Duaal cleaning rooms.

All of the needles and narcohol bottles were gone, too. Had she done that herself? Maeve could no longer remember. It seemed like a lifetime since she had stayed in her room on the Blue Phoenix. The little quarters should have felt cramped, she supposed. They were much smaller than any of the rooms in her glass tower and there was only the single scratched porthole window. It was pointed away from Kaellisem and looked out only across empty desert. If Maeve pressed herself against the wall on the left side, she could just make out the edge of Gharib.

But it did not feel small. Maeve changed into a pair of her old spacer's pants and a backless shirt from her closet. The gauzy dresses and scarves that made up an Arcadian queen's wardrobe were hardly practical on a starship full of moving parts and sharp metal edges. She tied her black hair up into a tail and inspected the results. Sloppy. Dain would have been aghast, but Maeve did not mind. She pushed a few stray strands of black hair behind her ears.

The door chimed. "It is open," she answered. "Come in."

Gripper ducked to poke his head in through the door. "The Blues are here to make the last delivery. I thought you might like to say hello."

"Yes, thank you."

Maeve followed the Arboran engineer through the Blue Phoenix. The hold was full of crates and piles of parts tangled up in orange cargo nets. Duaal and Logan loaded a final pallet of boxes against the cargo bay's rear wall, both men stripped to the waist and sweating profusely in the heat. As promised, Vyron and Kessa were there. The Dailons stood beside Xia, who held Baliend with a smile curling her silver lips. The baby burbled at Xia and reached for her antennae.