Hammer of Time (The Reforged Trilogy) (54 page)

"And if you die?"

"Then we will have failed and you will never have been born," Maeve pointed out. "Or at least, this will never have happened at all."

"Vyron will help you cut the best deals," added Logan. "He's a good salesman. And then your part in this is finished. All you have to do is get rich and hope that we preserve the past."

"How soon do you want to leave?" Vyron asked.

"Tomorrow morning," answered Logan.

Vyron whistled and pulled a com from his pocket. "I better get to work, then."

________

Maeve spent most of the afternoon letting Caith try in vain to talk her out of her pain. Orthain was a good man and a good knight, yes, but there were hundreds of those in the White Kingdom. She was a princess, niece to the king himself, Caith reminded Maeve. She would find love again. And in the meantime, they had each other. So Maeve had smiled at her brother in the flickering blue light of the Tamlin Waygate before begging hunger and flying alone into Tamlin.

She swooped between the blue-tinged towers and domes. Other Arcadians landed, spread their wings in respect and let the princess pass. Maeve ignored them… Most of them. A man in blue-edged glass armor flew past, with silver beads braided into his long gold hair. He did not land or step aside like the others. The knight was flying in a swift, straight line in the direction of the Waygate Maeve had just left. He passed so close to Maeve that his wings tangled with hers and both knights crashed to the ground, scattering a group of dryads working in the orchard below. They stared from between the smooth tree trunks, too afraid to criticize the greater fairies' imperfect flight.

When the world stopped spinning, Maeve jumped to her feet. "Watch where you are flying!" she shouted at the other knight. "You could have killed us both!"

It was an exaggeration, of course, but Maeve was in a foul mood. The man with the silver beads in his hair sat up slowly, holding one hand to his shoulder. For the first time, she noted his red-rimmed eyes and the wet streaks down his cheeks. Maeve frowned. She was sure that she recognized the other Arcadian, but could not place him. The knight did not rise.

"I am sorry, princess," he apologized. "I did not see you."

Maeve scrubbed at the green streaking her armor with the palm of her hand. "That much is clear. Where are you going in such a hurry?"

"The Waygate. I want only to get out of Tamlin. Away from…"

The knight's face turned red and he did not finish the sentence. Finally, Maeve recognized him. "Sir Anthem Calloren," she said, half to herself, and then cocked her head in thought. "Princess Titania is in Tamlin tonight, is she not?"

"Yes," Anthem said. The red in his cheeks darkened to a deep, angry purple. He spat his answer bitterly. "She is. Titania is at the temple of Erris, praying for the health of her father, the king."

Maeve wanted to ask what could have infuriated the elder knight so badly, but she did not dare. That was between Princess Titania and her consort. Maeve offered her hand to Anthem. He took it reluctantly and stood. Maeve wondered if he saw how bloodshot her eyes were, too.

"Your sorrows will not remain in Tamlin after you have gone," she suggested delicately. "I thought to leave mine in the White City, but they follow me wherever I fly."

Anthem sighed and picked up his spear from the ground. "You are right, princess. Naturally."

"I am bound for the Starflower," she said, naming Tamlin's famous restaurant. Now that she thought about it, she actually was hungry. "It has been a long day. Do you want to come with me?"

Anthem was quiet for a long moment, and then nodded. "It would be my pleasure, princess."

"Maeve," she told him.

The handsome knight gave her a small smile. "Maeve," he repeated.

________

Maeve spent most of the afternoon trying to listen to Panna update her on what had happened in Kaellisem over the last three weeks, but worrying about money and politics felt so… so stupid when held up against the impossibility of trying to stop Xartasia and her army from unmaking more than a century of lives. Finally, Maeve raised her hand.

"Enough," she said and stood. "Panna, you have been more than capable of handling Kaellisem in my absence. I trust that you have done right and from here, it no longer matters. All that is important now is convincing as many Arcadians as I can to fly with us to Axis."

"But…" Panna looked down at the datadex in her hands. "Queen Maeve, there is a whole city of your people out there. They need food and shelter and medicine every day…"

"And they have you to take care of that. I've never done more than approve your plans. This city is your creation, Panna, and that of Duke Ferris. For me, Kaellisem is little more than a tool. A way to thwart Xartasia, to take Arcadians away from her. But to you, it has always been more. You know the people. You know the knights. I cannot even remember their names."

Maeve shook her head and combed her fingers through her black hair. They were still in the Blue Phoenix mess. At Anthem's insistence, the queen would return to Kaellisem only once to make her final speech. Maeve went to the sink and picked up the single bowl and spoon inside.

"Do you want me to work on your speech for tonight?" Panna asked uncertainly.

"No," Maeve told her. "Tonight, I will say my own words. My last words, perhaps. I will plead our case to Kaellisem plainly."

"What do you want me to do, then?"

Maeve began washing the spoon and smiled at her inverted reflection inside. "Whatever you wish, Panna. The world we know may end in eight days. Is there nothing you wish to do before its closing?"

By the time Maeve finished cleaning the bowl and spoon, Panna was already gone.

________

Both Logan and Anthem were too well known and too little liked in Kaellisem, so the task of gathering the remaining Arcadians fell to the small group of remaining knights. Ballad had just returned to the Blue Phoenix to report less than two thousand Arcadians had agreed to let Queen Maeve address them one last time. Less than half Kaellisem's remaining population, the Prian knight reported unhappily. The rest wanted nothing to do with their monarch.

"We could convince a few more with colour or extra food," Ballad suggested, but Anthem shook his head.

"Anyone who requires such bribery simply to listen to a speech will not be of help," he said.

"They won't be willing to risk their lives against Xartasia and CWAAF," added Logan.

Ballad's sunburnt brow furrowed as he thought about that, but Panna swept down the stairs and grabbed the young knight's hand. She whispered something to the Prian fairy that Logan couldn't hear. Ballad's face went even redder.

"But I thought you didn't even like me–" he began.

"Well, you're wrong," Panna interrupted, tugging him toward the airlock. "As usual."

The two Arcadians were swiftly gone, vanished in the direction of Kaellisem's crystal towers. Anthem watched them go with a small smile on his lips. "We will see them tonight, I think," said the knight. "But not before."

"Probably not."

Anthem turned to Logan, the strange, sad smile still on his lips. "I can finish arranging this evening, if there is somewhere else you would like to be, as well."

"You mean with Maeve," said Logan.

"I do."

Logan narrowed his eyes at Anthem. "You're encouraging me to go right now to the woman who is supposed to be
your
enarri?"

"Maeve has loved you since long before I ever met her," Anthem said. "Perhaps in another life, Maeve and I… But each of us have only one life, one heart, and she has given hers to you completely."

"You're not angry that she and I…" Logan wasn't quite sure how to end the sentence.

"Syle hid on the ship," said Anthem suddenly. "He belonged to Xartasia, never to us. He intended to assassinate Maeve. He bombed the enassui, I think, and made the other explosives that you disarmed."

"If he worked for Xartasia, then he would have known about Maeve and the Tamlin Waygate. He must have let it slip when he was working the food lines."

"Yes," Anthem agreed. "I believe so, too."

"What happened to Syle?"

"He is dead."

"You killed him?" Logan asked. "Why didn't you call me?"

"What you were doing at that moment was far more important." Anthem actually smiled, the first real smile Logan thought he had ever seen on the serious knight's handsome face. Not a bitter or sad expression. "And loud enough to cover the sounds of our battle, brief as it was."

Logan felt something hot on his cheeks and realized that he was probably blushing. "Sorry," he said curtly.

Anthem's smile fell away. "No, I am. Syle was my knight. I should have seen his treachery. I did not until it was too late."

"Maeve is still alive," Logan countered.

"But Syle did much damage." Anthem's dark blue eyes seemed old and tired. "If he had not attacked the enassui, if he had not turned Kaellisem against the queen…"

"I should have been uncover Syle out, too."

"He was a knight. He knew everything that you and I did. It was all too easy to maneuver around us. There is blame enough to keep us debating until long after Xartasia lands on Axis, but it no longer matters. What is done is done."

"Not if Xartasia has her way," said Logan.

"She is a strong and clever woman. For all Titania has done, what she intends to do, I cannot help but admire her. She is still wrong – terribly wrong – but my enarri is a great woman."

Logan couldn't bring himself to agree, but he extended his left hand to Anthem. The knight took it. Glass rang against glass. The two men held each other's gaze for a moment and then both turned away, nothing left to be said.

________

Both Anthem and Panna had argued her choice of venue. But if this was to be her final act as queen of Kaellisem, Maeve would do it her own way. She stood on the uneven remains of the stage. For the first time since her coronation, she wore her armor. But not her crown… That symbol remained in Duke Ferris' keeping.

The theater was a blasted, nightmare landscape of twisted black glass. Arcadians stood among the sharp, frozen shadows in clusters, none of them approaching the stage too closely. Was it Maeve they feared? Or something else? There were more than the seventeen hundred fairies that Ballad had promised, maybe drawn by some morbid curiosity. But not many more. There were still less than two thousand Arcadians willing to listen to Maeve speak. How many would do what she asked?

"How many ships did you manage to get?" Duaal asked Vyron, standing to one side of the stage. A dry wind stirred his dark hair.

Vyron looked over his sunglasses across the theater. "More than you're going to need, I think."

"Where's Xyn?"

"Back at Unbreakers," Vyron said, "gleefully dissecting the Nnyth you brought him. Xia's with him, looking over his shoulder with her eyes turning red. What happened? I didn't think Xia had any particular feelings about the Nnyth."

"You had to be there, I think," Duaal told him, then turned to Maeve. "Are you ready for this?"

"No," she said. "But there is not time for me to get ready. We must leave by dawn."

Logan and Anthem walked silently to either side as Maeve strode to the center of the stage. Her glass armor was an unfamiliar weight and she felt strangely graceless lumbering around in it. Had it truly been so long since she had been a knight, since she had worn a suit like this every day? Maeve took her spear from Logan.

"Kaellisem!" she called. Or tried. Maeve stammered. She was shaking and the plates of her armor shivered against one another like wind chimes. In the last year, she had given as many speeches as any Alliance politician, and even grown used to it. But this was different. She would ask her own people to risk their lives for the Alliance that had never, ever protected them… Maeve closed her eyes and fought for breath.

"Kaellisem!" she said again. "We have been to the Tower and found it fallen! It was not by Xartasia's hand, but the Nnyth themselves who sundered their own home to prevent the White Queen from using it. They knew what Xartasia plans, and have told us. She flies now to the center of the galaxy, to Axis, to unmake all that has happened since I went to Tamlin. To restore the White Kingdom. To save our homeworlds."

There were cries and sharp, shocked notes from the crowd at this. Not displeased, but clear, happy songs that Maeve had not heard for a long time. She hated herself as she raised her spear like a banner.

"But to do it, Xartasia will destroy over a hundred years of history," Maeve shouted over the noise. "The coreworlders do not live as long as we do! Trillions have been born and lived since the fall of the White Kingdom. Xartasia will sacrifice their lives, their history to save our own.

"The Central World Alliance has been no friend to Arcadia, it is true, but they are a young empire. The White Kingdom stood for ten thousand years! Next to us, the people of the Alliance are but children. Children can be cruel. They can be heartless. But they are
innocent
, Kaellisem. I come before you tonight not as your queen but as a knight, as I was so long ago. We have witnessed true destruction, true loss and pain! We have the chance now to save the Alliance from that.