Hunter's Season: Elder Races, Book 4 (5 page)

Now, even if it was only for a little while, she needed to imagine those good, light things.

“You would not deny me that, would you?” she asked Inanna.

The woman on the card. She was so strong, so strong.

Xanthe spent her sevenday working on the cottage, cutting and weeding away the long tangled foliage, arranging for wood to be delivered, and walking the short path to sit and dream by the Adriyel River. Sometimes she fished for her supper. Sometimes she waded in the shallows at the edge of the river where she had played as a child.

Sometimes she watched the river barges until the sun dropped low and shone a shimmering path on the dappled, mysterious surface, beckoning her to walk an impossible journey on the water into the light.

She spoke to as few people as possible and let the silence sink into her soul. It washed away some of the terrible stains, not all, but enough so that she did not lie awake at night, dwelling on thoughts of her own death.

On the eighth day, first thing in the morning, she presented herself at the palace to await the Queen’s pleasure.

The Queen was very pleased indeed.

“Whee!” said Niniane, grinning widely as Xanthe stepped into her apartment. “There you are! I’m so excited that you are here. Did you have a good time on your vacation? Did you get enough rest? I will be most unhappy if you ever try to fib to me because it is something you think I want to hear.”

“I have rested quite well, thank you, your grace. I am excited and honored to be here.”

Xanthe stood at rest, her hands clasped loosely behind her back as she regarded the smaller woman with some bemusement. Niniane was dressed in a pale pink, filmy wraparound robe that had a neckline and hem of floating, tiny feathers. She wore odd, dainty American shoes that matched, with high heels and a single strap that somehow held them onto her feet, and with more of the floating, tiny pink feathers along the strap. Her dark hair was pinned up, and somehow it looked both messy and softly feminine.

Niniane caught the direction of her gaze and held out a small foot. “This ridiculous floaty, feathery stuff is marabou, and I love it beyond all reason.”

“It is certainly striking,” Xanthe told her in perfect truthfulness.

The Queen giggled. “How precisely worded of you. You know, I am quite the proper Dark Fae Queen out there.” She waved her hands in the general direction of the doors. “But in here, in private, I get to relax and be anything I want to be. The only thing is—” She looked around mournfully. “I don’t have cable.”

Xanthe blinked. “Then I shall fetch one for you immediately. It would help for me to know what kind of cable you require.”

Niniane giggled harder. “Oh no, I do not require that kind of cable. ‘Cable’ is slang for cable TV. I suppose in Thruvial’s household, you did not have access to any television during your months in America?”

“Ah, no,” said Xanthe. “However, we were able to examine a television in one of the motels we stayed in when we journeyed to Nevada.” She paused then added delicately, “Watching this device seemed an odd pastime.”

“Oh, it is,” Niniane assured her. “It’s also fun, if there is a good story to watch. Theoretically. In Cuelebre Tower in New York, the cable company was horrendous and installed everything wrong. Then they couldn’t seem to get it fixed right until Dragos himself went to talk to the head of the company. After that, the problems were fixed within a week. All eighty floors.” She heaved a sigh. “It must be good to be a dragon.”

“One imagines so,” said Xanthe politely.

She settled quickly into her new routine and duties, which were at times not at all what she had expected. The Queen had lived for two hundred years in New York, and while, as she had said, she maintained formality in public, in private she indulged in her odd, casual American ways. Often she and Tiago dined privately in her apartment. On the occasional nights when the Queen was not engaged, yet Tiago was away at work, Xanthe learned how to play card games called euchre and hearts, and once she endured a painfully long board game called Monopoly. She was not eager to repeat the experience.

She found that while she had taken her sevenday, investigators had discovered that the little Wyr girl’s mother was a drug addict who was so far gone in her own mind, she hadn’t noticed the child had been missing. The investigators had contacted other family members who, shocked to find out what had happened, had filed for emergency custody. As soon as they could arrange to do so, they would be traveling to Adriyel to collect the girl and bring her home. Niniane would provide financial help so that they could take time away from their jobs and make the journey. Xanthe was sorry to hear of the mother’s neglect, but glad to know the child would go to a home where she would be cared for and she could belong.

On the days when she had early duty, afterward she traveled home to the cottage. When she had late duty, she stayed overnight in the palace barracks. Every sevenday she received her wages and she got not one but two full days off, a new policy which had been instituted by this Americanized Queen and felt like the height of luxury. She also received several moons pay that was owed to her for her assignment to infiltrate Thruvial’s household and execute Tiago’s kill order. For the first time in a very long time, she had a tidy nest egg that she could set aside and leave untouched.

On the one hand it felt good wear the palace black, not to have to cover up her identity or put on a mask. On the other hand, there were times when the guard duty felt too passive. Fortunately the Queen was quite active. Due to Xanthe’s senior status, she could have become captain of the Queen’s personal guard, but that would have involved extra boring duties such as scheduling, and besides, Rickart was a good man and didn’t deserve to be supplanted.

She saw Chancellor Riordan often, as much as several times a week. He and the Queen might take a walk through the palace grounds as they discussed an issue, or they shared breakfast. They often attended the same functions, whether it was a dinner of state, or some gala like the annual regatta, where boats and barges of all sizes and kinds floated on the river, lit with colored lanterns that reflected off the sparkling black water until the night was ablaze with light. During those occasions, Xanthe usually saw Riordan from a distance, although there were always the moments when he greeted Niniane. Then he would glance at Xanthe and smile.

She treasured those smiles. They were fleeting, and of course they meant nothing. They were just a courtesy, little more than a pat one might give a horse. But he looked right into her eyes when he smiled, and for the briefest moment, she felt outside of her life, transported somewhere else.

She had already devoted herself to the Queen when she went to work for Tiago. It was easy to grow fond of Niniane, who was funny, charming and kind to everybody, including her servants. But Xanthe would have taken the position as Queen’s attendant solely for the chance of receiving one of those rare smiles from Riordan.

One night soon after the regatta, Niniane had just finished a dinner in the great hall with prominent American businessmen and a collective of Dark Fae artisans and metalworkers. Neither Riordan nor Tiago had attended. The palace was built on a hillside, and the great hall was on the lower level with massive windows that offered a spectacular view of the nearby falls and river.

The Americans were suitably impressed, and the Dark Fae artisans were frankly delighted. The results looked to be highly promising for a healthy increase in trade, but the affair had gone on overlong, and Xanthe was hot, tired and hungry. She had eaten a snack just before the dinner and a full meal would be waiting for her in the kitchen, but she was just as inclined to slap a piece of meat between two pieces of bread, go to her bed in the barrack and call an end to the day.

Niniane looked as tired as she felt. She gestured for one of the servers who came to her immediately. “Please let Lord Black Eagle know that the dinner is over, and I am retiring for the night.”

“Yes, your grace.” The server trotted away.

Niniane glanced at Xanthe and gave a ghost of a chuckle. “I enjoy dinners like this, but there’s a limit to how many functions poor Tiago can endure, so I try not to ask too much of him.”

Xanthe inclined her head. Also, she thought, the risk factor for this dinner had not been high. There was a distinct pattern to the lord’s behavior. Anything to do with Dark Fae nobility or involving open air, like the regatta, and Tiago was sure to attend. He was also present for anything that Niniane particularly loved, such as going to a drama house to see any of the many plays that were dark, twisting tales filled with swordfights, deceit, treachery and impossible love. “Bloody soap operas,” he called them, but he said it in that easygoing indulgent way of his that seemed for Niniane alone, and besides, Xanthe suspected that he enjoyed the plays too.

She and Niniane walked back to the Queen’s apartment. They had climbed the grand staircase to the upper hall when she heard running footsteps behind them. All the blood in her body pounded. She shoved Niniane forward and drew her sword as she spun to meet the newcomer, because running at that urgent pace in the palace was never good.

She recognized the palace runner immediately and straightened out of attack position, although she did not sheathe her sword. The runner, a young girl named Drinde and unarmed, paused cautiously several steps below Xanthe and held onto the guard rail, gasping for breath. “Pardon, ma’am—your Highness. Oh, you must come quickly!”

Niniane had come up beside Xanthe, her face blanched white. In a harsh voice that sounded quite unlike her, she snapped, “What has happened?”

“It’s Chancellor Riordan, your grace,” Drinde stammered. “He has been attacked. His servants—his servants say it is very bad.”

Xanthe’s world gave an ugly, sickening lurch. Beside her, Niniane tore off the stiff, richly worked, knee length jacket she wore. The jacket was a work of art and highly restrictive. She threw it to the floor. Underneath it she wore a thin shirt made of fine cotton, leggings and polished ankle boots.

“Let’s go,” Niniane said.

Abruptly Xanthe’s mind clicked over to icy logic that won control just barely over the hot panic galloping through her body. “We don’t know the veracity of this. It might be a trap.” She turned to Drinde. “Are you sure they were the Chancellor’s servants?”

The girl met her gaze. “Yes, ma’am.”

That meant nothing. It could still be a trap. Everything inside of her was screaming to race to Riordan’s house. Instead, she forced herself to say to Niniane, “I have to advise you to wait until Tiago is found.”

“Noted,” the Queen said in a clipped tone. “We’re not waiting. We’ll collect guards on our way out.” The Queen looked at Drinde. “Find Lord Black Eagle. Tell him what has happened, and where we have gone.”

Niniane didn’t wait to hear the girl’s reply. She turned and raced down the hall, and Xanthe raced beside her. They burst through a set of doors, out into a warm, humid night. Xanthe shouted for guards and several came running. She asked Niniane, “A carriage?”

“It’s quicker on foot,” Niniane said. Her eyes were frightened and bleak.

Xanthe rapped out orders. The guards surrounded Niniane, and they all took off running, down the colonnade of ancient sycamores, along the stately mansions on Ambassador’s Row, cutting across a small park and then racing down that street to the end where the Chancellor’s house was ablaze with torchlight. All the while Xanthe remained at a razor’s edge, just this side of violence, her gaze darting around to every dark shadow and to the guards that surrounded her and the Queen, while her mind kept replaying those few, terrible words that Drinde had spoken.

“
He has been attacked
.”

Riordan was strong, and he would have access to some of the most highly skilled and Powerful physicians in Adriyel.

If the physicians could reach him in time.

“
His servants say it is very bad
.”

One of their guards raised his fist to pound at the front door of the Chancellor’s house, just as it opened. A distressed male servant looked out at them. His gaze landed on Niniane, and his face crumpled. “Your Majesty, this is so terrible—”

Niniane said through whitened lips, “Is he dead?”

“No, not—no.” The male stood back, holding the door open wide, and Niniane would have raced into the house, except Xanthe grabbed her arm and stopped her.

“You and you,” Xanthe said, pointing to two of the guards. “Come inside with us. The rest of you, check the perimeter of the house. Guard all exit points, doors and windows.” She released Niniane’s arm and ran into the house with her, followed by the two guards.

The interior was a blur of rich wood furniture and golden, glowing lamps. Riordan’s major domo led them up the stairs to where several servants stood, weeping. Xanthe’s stomach was tight with raw nerves. She and Niniane looked through the open doors of an apartment.

Inside was an expansive, elegantly masculine bedroom, the hangings to a large bed pulled back. Two people, a male and a female, were working over a lax, bloody body. Power surged and eddied around the three of them. Xanthe clenched her teeth as nausea welled, her body rebelling at the sight. As quickly as it hit, it passed, leaving a sheen of cold sweat on her hands and face.

“If you’ve come to gawk, get out,” said the male without looking up. “I won’t have his lordship subjected to it.”