The Armies of Heaven (32 page)

Helga gave her a sigh of resignation and turned toward the entrance, nodding to the Cherub who’d brought him.

“His Supernal Highness the Grand Duke Azel Kaeyevich,” the Cherub announced, his demeanor changing abruptly as he pushed Azel gently forward into the sitting room.

Helga stroked the locket at her breast. “Ah, here’s my boy.” She beamed at him with pride and Azel knew he wasn’t the boy she was proud of.

“Hello, Azel.” The pretty lady leaned forward with a smile and held out her hand. “Come here and let me look at you.” Even her voice was pretty. When he approached her, she took his hand and turned him about. “What a fine boy you are. How would you like to live in a magnificent palace with rooms filled with sweets?”

Helga threw her a wary look, her fingers poised on her locket.

“I don’t much care for sweets,” he said.

The lady laughed with delight. “What do you like?”

Azel hesitated. No one had ever asked him what he liked before. He glanced at Helga and then replied with certainty, “Horses.”

“Ah. Excellent choice. You shall have a stable full of horses. More horses than any boy has ever had.”

“What are you doing?” Helga objected. “I haven’t filled his head with such nonsense. He must live frugally, without the excesses his predecessors have indulged in. The wealth of Heaven must belong to the people.”

“Oh, who’s talking about Heaven, you tiresome woman? I intend to make Azel the prince of a much grander place.”

“You shall do no such thing!” Helga leapt to her feet. “He is mine!”

“Do you really think you can keep him in this world? Hiding him from the Tafsarim in the Garden Palace of Aden, while you plot to overthrow Heaven? Your Cherubim with their flaming swords may be able to hide the garden from ordinary angels, but as you see, they cannot hide it from me. What makes you think they can keep it hidden from the Aeons?”

Helga fixed her with a look of fury and popped open the clasp on her locket. Light blazed out, brighter than the noonday sun. Azel covered his eyes with both hands, pressing them tight.

The pretty lady laughed as if the light didn’t bother her. “You haven’t the slightest idea what you’re doing with that. Treating it like a simple charm you’ve cooked up in your cauldron. It has no effect on me. Put it away before you hurt yourself.”

The locket snapped and the fiery blaze was shut away. “Azel,” Helga ordered, “come with me.”

He stumbled blindly toward her and she grabbed his hand, but the lady moved more quickly and stepped between them and the door.

“Normally,” said the lady, “I admire a woman who will stop at nothing to get what she wants. But there are two things even I would never do.” She snatched Azel from Helga’s grasp and pressed her hands harshly against his ears as if to keep him from hearing what she said next, but the boy in his head seemed to be able to hear from outside him. “Vivisect a pregnant woman to steal her baby,” the lady hissed, “and force a dead boy’s spirit into another child by feeding him putrescent flesh. You’re completely mad.”

Azel wasn’t sure what all of the words meant, but they’d conjured terrible images. His stomach lurched and the other boy seemed to be weeping.

The lady took her hands from Azel’s ears and smoothed his hair across his brow as Helga backed away.

At a look from Helga, the Cherubim had drawn their swords, but the pretty lady outstretched her hand toward the angels, tendrils of lightning dripping from her fingers. As it struck the ground before the Cherubim, their fiery swords dwindled like a sheep’s bladder emptied of air. The lady curled her arm and flung it outward with a thunderous clap and the Cherubim disappeared.

“What have you done with my Cherubim?” Helga looked stern, though her voice sounded frightened.

“
Your
Cherubim?” the lady scoffed. “I have cast them into the Outer Darkness. They’re useless to me.”

Helga clutched her locket, muttering something under her breath.

“I’ve already told you the blossom has no effect on me. And it does
not
belong to you.” The lady held out her hand as if she expected Helga to give her the locket. She’d never do it. Azel knew Helga prized her locket above everything. But the chain about her neck snapped and the locket slipped from Helga’s fingers like butter and skittered across the floor to stop at the pretty lady’s feet.

Helga shrieked and flew at her, grabbing for it, and then grabbing at Azel when the lady scooped the locket up. “You cannot have him! He’s
my
baby! He’s mine!”

The pretty lady shoved her away and lifted Azel onto her hip as if he weighed nothing at all. “Would you like to stay here with Helga,” she asked with a dazzling smile, “or come ride horses?”

“Horses,” he said without hesitation.

Helga lunged for him again, but the lady raised her palm and Helga stopped in her tracks.

“You heard the child.” She turned away, leaving Helga staring after him in shock as he watched her over the lady’s shoulder. “Despicable creature,” the pretty lady murmured. She made a twisting motion with her clenched fist behind her back and Helga clutched her chest, her eyes wide with fear, before dropping lifelessly to the ground.

Dvadtsat Tretya
: Polnoch

from the annals of Her Supernal Majesty Anazakia Helisonovna Arkhangel’skaya, Queen of the Princedom of the Firmament of Shehaqim and of All the Heavens

My train arrived in Pushkin on an early autumn afternoon. Only Lively and Belphagor knew I was here. Lively and I had shared a glamour that included our vocal essences, careful to prepare our antidotes ahead of time with our own untainted blood, and she’d gone in my stead to the ceremony in Iriy. Terrified at first of the enormity of her role, once she’d rehearsed it, she began to enjoy the game of it, even testing it out before we left by posing as me for an afternoon.

By the time I left for Raqia, it had felt almost like the tricks my sisters and I had sometimes played on would-be suitors who mistook us for one another. There had been one awkward moment as I departed the palace on the pretext of visiting the apothecary, when Margarita suddenly grabbed me and gave me a passionate kiss. I hadn’t realized their relationship had progressed so far, and I blushed prettily for Lively’s sake, with no need for playacting.

Traveling in relative anonymity, I hadn’t needed bodyguards or an entourage of any kind, and it was a welcome change of pace from the strangeness of the past few weeks during which I’d barely had a private moment. I couldn’t quite believe I was queen and often had to be spoken to more than once before I realized I was the “Supernal Majesty” being addressed. I also couldn’t quite get the hang of the supernal “We.”

The leaves were already turning brilliant orange and amber as I neared Alexander Park, and the air had the crisp and wistful feel to it I had only experienced in the world of Man. At Yulya Volfovna’s apartment, I stopped in to take the antidote that restored my true appearance. Misha had told his mother to expect me, and she’d laid out tea and biscuits while I prepared myself for what I’d come to do. More than anyone else, she managed to set my mind at ease that I’d made the right decision in my bargain with Aeval.

It had been the hardest of my life, and I knew I might never be forgiven by those whose lives it affected. A queen must be strong, Kae had once told me, and he’d believed in my strength to make the hard decisions. I am sure, however, he had never imagined the decision I would make. He’d imagined me killing him, I knew; imagined imprisonment or banishment to a forgotten corner of Heaven—even hoped for these things—but that I would turn him over to the one who’d taken everything from him, who’d destroyed him and all he loved so utterly, he could never have dreamed.

Near midnight, I kissed Yulya good-bye and walked to the hidden grove through which the Unseen World was entered to stand within the ring of mushrooms that marked the presence of the Unseen. The syla awaited me and they welcomed me in their usual enthusiastic fashion before ushering me to the place I’d been dreading:
Polnochnoi Sud
, The Midnight Court of Man’s transgressions.

Beneath the black sapphire canopy of the court’s perpetual night sky and its abundance of unfamiliar stars, Aeval sprawled across the chaise longue on the daïs in a spectacular manner, and for a moment I was too stunned to move. Gone was the silvery Virtuous hair, the glittering pale eyes, the pearlescent skin she’d worn in Heaven. Gone were the elegant, snowy gowns littered with crushed crystal facets. In their place was a stunning mane of bluest black to match the sky—wild and wind-tossed—and piercing, deep blue eyes that flashed at me with the same sort of catlike luminescence Misha’s green ones possessed.

Her dress made me blush. The translucent gown of peridot that draped her left nothing at all to the imagination, and one breast was completely uncovered; the loose fabric had slipped down from her shoulder and she hadn’t bothered to hitch it up. Beneath the gown, her feet were bare except for the dazzling jeweled anklets and toe rings that adorned them in abundance, in hues of every color. She wore similar jewels about her wrists and fingers and dripping from her white throat—and in a chatelaine about her hips that seemed the only thing keeping the dress on. Tucked within her hair was a circlet so thin I hadn’t seen it at first, but as she cocked her head beneath the starlight, it sparkled with amethyst and sapphire.

“Your Supernal Majesty.” She purred the words with exaggerated deference. “How good of you to come for the trial. It’s about to begin.”

The relatively empty court suddenly filled with the Unseen amidst a rolling wave of whispers in a language I couldn’t understand, and one of the leshi ushered me to my seat within a raised gallery that hadn’t been visible a moment before.

My escort explained court protocol. “You will not be permitted to speak during the trial unless you are called upon for your testimony. And you will not be seen unless you speak.”

“All silent for the Lady of the Green.” Another leshi stood before the chaise, speaking in angelic for my benefit. “The Ineffable Ruler of the Unseen World, Queen Aeval of the Syli and the Leshi, Protector of Bereginyi, Mavki, Samodivi, and Snegurochki, Tsaritsa of Rusalki, Vili, Vodyanoi, Domavoi, and all Nechysta Syla, Elusive Empress of the Wights of the Western Isles and Sovereign of the Seelie Court, Mistress of the Fair Folk and Grand Dame of the Aos Sí, the Daoine Sith, the Tylwyth Teg, and the Sluagh Sidhe, Patron of the Dames Blanches, the Wittewijven, and the Mnathan Nighe, and Supreme Arbiter of the Midnight Court of Man’s Transgressions presides. The Midnight Court is now in session.”

As the court fell silent, Aeval rose onto one elbow, held her open hand before her, and blew into it, scattering a sudden burst of glittering golden dust throughout the entire hall. It fluttered down and settled upon us all like dew. This, apparently, was the banging of the gavel.

Through an arch to the left of the daïs, two figures emerged from what had been only a grey emptiness a moment before. Misha led Kae forth in chains with a leather strap about his neck. Kae’s head hung forward, his pale hair falling over his masked face, and like the leshi, his chest and feet were bare. As Misha drew him before Aeval, his back was turned partially toward me and I saw the marks of a beating that had happened before he’d come here.

The leshi bailiff unrolled a scroll in his hands and spoke. “The Court will hear the case of the Celestial Realm versus Kae Lebesovich Arkhangel’skov, formerly Grand Duke of Iriy, formerly Principality and Autocrat of the Firmament of Shehaqim and All the Heavens, formerly Field Marshal to Her Supernal Majesty the Queen of Heaven. The defendant stands accused of crimes against the Host of Heaven, having viciously cut down in the prime of life the Principality Helison Alimielovich of the House of Arkhangel’sk and his wife, Queen Sefira Huzievna; their children, the four grand duchesses Omeliea Helisonovna, Tatia Helisonovna, Maia Helisonovna, Anazakia Helisonovna, and the Crown Grand Duke Azel Helisonovich; having first committed a wanton and vile assault upon the person of the Grand Duchess Omeliea Helisonovna followed by the infanticide of his own offspring; and having committed numerous other crimes against the Heavens.”

Gasps and murmurs rippled through the court as if all of this were news to the gathered Unseen.

“How do you plead?”

Misha stepped forward. “I speak for the defendant. The accused pleads guilty to all counts except assault and infanticide. I believe it has been established that the former crime was committed by another, and the latter crime did not occur.”

Aeval’s lips turned up at one corner. “That remains to be seen. All evidence must be presented in due course.”

I wanted to cry out that she knew perfectly well this was true, and that furthermore, I myself was evidence that among his actual crimes, he at least had not murdered me, but as my escort had warned, I couldn’t speak.

The queen waved a bejeweled hand. “The Court accepts your plea of guilty on the first seven counts of murder and the subsequent mayhem these actions caused.” The bailiff crossed to a table beside the daïs and made a note at the bottom of the scroll.

I struggled in mute outrage, leaning forward over the gallery rail. She’d promised me I would have the opportunity to make a case for his innocence and I’d been prepared to charge that she herself had been the author of his deeds. Now he was as much as sentenced before I could speak a word.

Aeval nodded to Misha. “You may call your first witness in defense of those charges you dispute.”

I looked toward the leshi, wondering if he could see me, trying to catch his eye. Surely he would call on me.

“The defense calls to the stand the Grand Duke Azel Kaeyevich of the House of Arkhangel’sk.”

My heart leapt into my throat and Kae’s head shot up in shock. From the wavering greyness beyond the arch, little Azel stepped into the court, led by a syla who curtsied before Aeval. Azel took his cue from her and gave a little bow, eliciting coos of delight from the crowd. A little silver chair like those the syla occupied appeared for him to sit in.

Kae railed against his bonds in anguish. “Why is he here?”

Aeval fixed Misha with a look of disapproval. “Control your ward.”

The leshi put a hand on Kae’s arm and spoke quietly to him, and Kae hung his head once more, looking thoroughly defeated. Misha then turned to Azel with a warm smile. “Hello, Your Supernal Highness.”

“Hello.” Azel gave him a little shrug of indifference, as if bemused by the proceedings.

“Would you tell us who your parents are?” asked Misha kindly.

A look of uncertainty and worry crossed Azel’s face. “I don’t know.”

I brushed at a tear on my cheek and tried to keep myself together.

“Was your mother Helga Semyazovna of Raqia?”

Azel frowned. “She says she’s my mama, but I don’t believe her.”

“But you grew up in her home.”

“Yes.”

“And what did Helga Semyazovna tell you was your full name?”

“The Grand Duke Azel…” Here, he paused a moment with a brief look of confusion, and then continued, “Kaeyevich.”

Murmurs rumbled through the hall as the heads of leshi and syla bowed together.

“Thank you, Azel.” Misha smiled at him again. “That’s all. You may go.”

Azel hopped down from the little chair and took the syla’s hand, and they disappeared through the arch.

Misha looked at Aeval. “I submit to Your Majesty and to the Midnight Court that the boy’s extraordinary likeness to the defendant, along with the assertion of the former supernal nurse herself that his patronymic is that of the defendant—a name belonging exclusively to the Supernal House of Arkhangel’sk—that there can be no doubt this child is the same taken from Her Supernal Highness the Grand Duchess Omeliea Helisonovna of the House of Arkhangel’sk in the attack upon her on the night in question.”

Aeval rested her chin in her hand, looking bored. “His paternity does not automatically make him that same child. Perhaps this is another child conceived of the defendant.”

“By whom, Your Majesty?” asked Misha in frustration. “Yourself?”

Her eyes flashed angrily and she sat up on the chaise longue. “You are out of order, leshi.” She stared him down a moment and then turned to the syla flanking her. “What is the opinion of the jury? Shall the child’s identity be recorded by the Midnight Court as put forth by the defense?”

The syla whispered together and then nodded as one.

“What about you, Your Supernal Majesty?” Aeval suddenly turned her sapphire gaze on me.

Kae’s head rose slowly, and his uncovered eye fell on me with a look of utter betrayal as the gallery apparently became visible.

Aeval raised a dark eyebrow. “Do you attest that Azel Kaeyevich, whom we have just seen, is the son of your sister Omeliea and your cousin Kae—the same child you consigned per our agreement to live forever in the Unseen World?”

Kae’s face twisted with pain and shock.

“I do.” Though my voice was barely audible, it carried in the utter stillness of the court.

Aeval nodded to the bailiff. “Let it be so noted. And while there is no proof of the matter, I will accept the assumption that the supernal nurse who raised the boy is the same who delivered him by force.” She reclined once more on her side. “The Midnight Court finds the defendant, Kae Lebesovich Arkhangel’skov, not guilty on the counts of assault and infanticide and guilty on all else.” She held out her hand once more and blew another burst of golden dew into the air.

I leapt up among the falling drops, gripping the rail of the gallery. This was not our agreement. “You said you would let me speak on his behalf!”

Aeval smiled. “Did you not, just this minute?”

“You know that isn’t what I meant!”

“Don’t be tiresome. If you meant something else, you should have specified something else. I have ruled.”

“I agreed to give you Azel in exchange for Kae!” Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Kae lunge in my direction, restrained by Misha. “You cannot keep him here!”

“Oh, I have no intention of keeping him here. He’s no longer of any use to me.” Her voice was cloyingly sweet. “After his sentence has been carried out, you’re perfectly free to return him to Heaven. Whatever is left of him.” As she flicked her hand at me in dismissal, the entire hall dissolved before my eyes and she was gone.

The court had been replaced by a cold stone cellar, empty but for a pillar in the center, to which Kae was now chained with his hands above his head and his back to the room. Misha stood beside me.

I turned to the leshi. “What’s the sentence? She never read the sentence!”

“The Queen does not sentence the accused. She only judges. The sentence is predetermined.”

“Then what is it?”

“Are you sure you don’t know?”

I stared at his glowing eyes, completely baffled. “Why would I know?”

A sudden
crack
and
thud
split the air and Kae let out a shriek of pain. A long, thick line split open on his back as if a hook had been drawn through it. I cried out and Misha grabbed me before I could run to him. Another
crack
rang out, and another line opened on his back.

I tore at Misha’s grasp. “What is it? What’s happening?”

“What you wanted to happen.” Misha regarded me with sympathy while another crack split Kae’s flesh. “One hundred lashes with the Great
Knut
.”