The Assassin Princess (Lamb & Castle Book 2) (6 page)

The statue stands there still, young forever, quite indifferent to love's suffering.

Amelia fell silent. She’d begun the story without a thought as to how it ended, and it had not only failed to lift Harold's spirits, but it had sunk hers. It was a maudlin kind of story, like so many she knew – a mean and spiteful narrative trick played on two people led by their hearts. She was only glad Meg hadn't been around to hear it. Surely there existed stories other than ones about 'horribly doomed love affairs', as Meg had put it, but Amelia couldn't think of any offhand.

“I reckon they should've both stuck to their own kind,” said Harold, picking at the grass. “That way nothing bad would've happened.”

Amelia would've liked to say she didn't know what had brought that horrible story to mind in the first place, but she had an inkling. Meg had journeyed to Springhaven for the sake of her granddaughters – she hadn't expected to find Amelia still practically a child herself. A girl left behind like the statue in the story, waiting for such a time as she was wanted again. There and then, Amelia vowed to herself that she'd never again wait for anyone else's permission to live her life. She was the White Queen and she had her Mage, her Paladin, her Commander and her Warship. She would find her White King, and if she liked him enough, she’d marry him. It would be a simple decision, and hers alone.

If the would-be White Queen thought her plan was a simple one, then it was only because she’d temporarily forgotten about the rival Black Queen. Bessie stood at the bow of
Sharvesh
, face to the bitter wind, eyes alight with triumph. The attack at the Academy, now that she'd survived it, had only served to speed her on her way with Greyfell at her side once more. The first step of her own plan was to find the White Queen – simple enough, as the White Queen would have no choice but to find the hidden throne room, and in a skyship as fast as
Sharvesh
, Bessie could reach it ahead of her. The second step would be for Bessie to seize the crown – even simpler, as the White Queen was a drip and no match for an Antwin girl. Then Bessie would find her Black King, marry him, and… well, if she didn't like him then she could always hire another former Antwin girl to get rid of him. Oh, and somewhere along the way she’d have to find a Mage, but now that they were on the move again, Bessie knew she’d overcome that obstacle like any other.

She turned and watched Bryn at the ship's wheel. They'd journeyed three days northeast without delay, with the winds growing fierce and the rain like icy needles when it fell. Bryn's short fur was adapted for a warmer climate, so under normal circumstances he would have taken his business south for the worst of the winter, but he'd obviously used his time at Iletia wisely, stocking up on warming spices for their rations, and had wrapped himself up in a thick quilted coat. His mobile ears poked out of the hood of the coat, and he even had a sleeve for his tail, with a fluffy pompom on the end. Yes, the Argean guarded carefully against the cold weather. Bessie and Greyfell, on the other hand, carried little of what they needed for the journey and found themselves at the mercy of whatever Bryn had in the way of supplies. As they travelled north, the wind turning increasingly bitter, Bessie had found it a good time to practice a spell to ward off chills. The spell had a practical use for the Antwin Academy's graduates in that it kept the breath from clouding on even the coldest of nights, and could fool those beings that hunted by sensing their prey's body heat. Such a spell could be vital in evading the exotic creatures set to guard certain palaces. Greyfell, who had little to no magical ability of his own, had surrendered to the indignity of borrowing a spare quilted coat from Bryn. Although it had been made for an Argean and didn't fit a man well, Greyfell had belted it with his sword belt. With his stern face he didn't look half so foolish as the Argean skysailor as he paced briskly up and down the deck, keeping the blood flowing. Bessie knew Greyfell regarded magic as the lazy way to get things done, but he must envy her simple spell to stay warm…

He caught her watching him, and he scowled. “Elizabeth, if you must smile, at least try to cultivate a more charming expression than that devious smirk.”

“Yes, Master Greyfell.” A thousand feet below, the wrinkled grey sea passed underneath their vessel. The distant coast was a thin dark line bisecting sea and sky. “How long until we reach Ildorria?”

“We're not going to Ildorria. Not yet.”

“But –”

“I have a suspicion that Ilgrevnia holds the answers to some of our questions, and as luck would have it your Argean friend here knows where to find her.”

Bryn grinned the toothy grin of a tame maneater. “It is wise to know the whereabouts of the rebellious Flying Cities. Like bad currents, or wyverns in the mating season, one would not wish to cross their path unprepared.”

Bessie could well imagine. Even peaceful Flying Cities could move surprisingly fast, great walls of golden stone emerging from the clouds, scattering startled flocks of birds and unwary skysailors. And as for a Flying City intent on war, or even just defending its airspace… As far as she knew
,
Sharvesh
had no weapons, and Bryn never looked for a fight.

“But why Ilgrevnia?” The Archmage she'd spoken to had said
Ildorria
held the hidden throne room, so why on earth did Greyfell want to waste time anywhere else? “We'd do better to reach the throne room ahead of the White Queen, so we can lie in wait and seize the crown from her on arrival.”

Greyfell shook his head, disgusted at the idea. “This is an appalling farce,” he muttered. “Does no one care for the rules? For the very spirit of the Queens' Contest? The White Queen is crowned, and yet –”

“The White Queen
isn't
crowned, no matter how many times you say she is!” Bessie snapped. “She
has
the crown, but it's not on her head yet! And I'm damn well not giving up before her bum's on the throne!”

“
Miss Castle!
Take out your exercise book and write five hundred lines of
'I will not use language unbecoming of a lady'
!”

“How can I? My exercise book's back in Iletia with all the rest of my things!” She'd been lucky to escape with her conjuring rings – it was a good thing she kept them in her pocket when she didn't need them, rather than in a fancy case like some of her classmates did.

“Sir,” Bryn interrupted, “My lady: pardon me, but there is something strange approaching.” He sniffed the air, his nose wrinkling at a smell he clearly didn't like.

Bessie and Greyfell both stopped to look in the direction Bryn's sensitive nose pointed, but could see nothing more than open sky and a handful of large birds. Eagles perhaps, judging by the size. Bryn stared at the birds, his slit pupils opening up into black pools, and Bessie shivered. Those birds were not birds after all… As the creatures altered their course, spiralling closer to the skyship, their avian charade disintegrated in a whirlwind of clashing blades. Their bodies were wrapped in gauze, but of the wings each feather was a blade; each blade was sharp as a new razor. If they had eyes or brains, they didn't keep them anywhere Bessie could see, but they made unerringly for
Sharvesh
and her passengers.

“Keep them away from the sails!” Bryn shouted, anticipating the first strike. Whether his warning had been meant for Bessie and Greyfell or for
Sharvesh
herself, the skyship veered away from the encroaching creatures sharply enough to knock Bessie off balance. She tumbled halfway across the deck and stayed low, the cacophonous creatures rattling by inches above her head. As the razorbirds regathered for another attack, she counted three: one for each of them. They flew faster than
Sharvesh
, and the skyship would never evade the attackers by outmanoeuvring them, not without throwing her passengers overboard. Bryn cowered: his claws and fangs, so fearsome to a human opponent, were no match for enemies composed almost entirely of blades. Greyfell, seeking better reach than his sword would offer, had grabbed a docking pole and hit one of the attackers with all his strength. The creature blew apart, shrapnel littering the deck, scraps of dirty gauze and paper flying away in the wind. Bessie gathered her wits, summoned fire and took aim, dispatching the second of the creatures easily. The third, if it learned anything from the demise of the first two, remained hell-bent on attacking
Sharvesh'
s passengers, and Bessie soon scored her second hit.

“Elizabeth, are you hurt?” Greyfell asked her, still scanning the skies for more assailants.

Bessie shook her head: a few little cuts, but nothing serious. Greyfell himself had taken the worst of it when that first one had exploded so close to him, but luckily the padded coat he wore afforded him good protection, and he'd been quick enough to guard himself. Between them, their quick action had protected Bryn, too. Most of the blood had been shed by the strange bird creatures. Bloodstained gauze littered the deck, and scraps of parchment marked with sharp stark strokes of black ink. Bessie picked one of them up, but couldn't read what it said.

Greyfell snatched it out of her hand, crumpling it up and tossing it overboard. “Don't waste your time with that.”

“But –”

“You've no business learning
that
sort of magic. Far too advanced for you anyway.”

“Yes, Master Greyfell,” Bessie grumbled. She was
good
at written magic – better than anyone else in her class – but she didn’t want to accumulate more lines of punishment for whenever she next had access to her exercise book. Greyfell was old-fashioned enough to believe that proper ladies had no place writing magic, and should keep to the more feminine arts of potions and gesture magic.

Bryn had fetched clean bandages and a jar of ointment, and was trying to tend to Greyfell's wounds. Greyfell brushed him off irritably, until the Argean reminded him of the danger of what he called 'blood plagues'. Who knew what diseases those filthy razorbird creatures might spread? Then and only then did Greyfell permit Bryn to dab the ointment onto the cuts and scratches he'd sustained during the attack.

“What were those creatures?” Bessie asked, offering her own cheek for the cleansing ointment.

“Thanks to your impressive marksmanship, we shall never know,” said Greyfell. “Still, those were no creations of nature. I’m certain they were mage-made, and I've no doubt they were sent by the dragon prince.” They weren't quite sure how the old Archmage summoned the cursed dragon prince, but they avoided using his name aloud, just to be on the safe side. “None of them escaped to report back to him, at least.”

Bessie didn't think it mattered much: the very fact that they'd run into mage-made enemies suggested to her that they'd lost the element of surprise. Even though they’d destroyed the plague-ridden razorbirds, she had a horrible suspicion that the blond gentlemen from the docks had somehow survived their fall from the Flying City. After all, hadn't Greyfell said he'd killed them twice before?

~

As
Sharvesh
reached the fog-shrouded coast, she drifted to a halt.

“What now?” Greyfell demanded.

Bryn stood at the helm, staring out into the distance, his whiskers twitching. He turned to his passengers. “I'm very sorry, sir, but
Sharvesh
scents hostile skies ahead. She's afraid to spring the next trap.” He hesitated. “I am only a humble skysailor, and no strategician, but the fog may offer enough cover for us to continue our journey in safety, low to the ground.” He immediately saw and understood the looks of doubt on his passengers' faces – it was dangerous enough for a skyship to skim low to the ground in full visibility, but in the fog she'd be wrecked for sure. The Argean smiled ruefully. “Believe me, I would not choose to do this for just any passenger, Miss Castle, but
Sharvesh
has more than one trick up her sleeves.”

At Bryn's command,
Sharvesh
sank so low that her belly almost touched the sandy beach. With her passengers safely at the railings, her masts folded flat against her deck, and she let down four enormous tree-trunk legs with splayed hands at the ends, that touched down gingerly onto the wet sand. Bryn bade Greyfell and Bessie hang on tightly to the railings, as the skyship began to walk, lumbering up the beach. Bessie grinned, glad that they'd chanced to hire this intriguingly odd skyship and her amiable captain, but it wasn't long until the rocking of
Sharvesh
's walking gait made her nauseous. She watched the white haze above their heads for any sign of the traps
Sharvesh
had sensed, but whatever they were, the skyship and her passengers passed safely underneath them, unseen. According to Bryn's line charts, they would meet with Ilgrevnia by nightfall, even at
Sharvesh
's slower walking pace, and Greyfell claimed that Ilgrevnia might even hold the throne room, no matter what the mage had said. Bessie, doubting that Greyfell would ever be so dishonourable as to lie to her face, began to accept the fact that she might as well search Ilgrevnia before moving on to Ildorria. Greyfell had already agreed that Bessie would fare best going into Ilgrevnia alone, and now they talked of how she might infiltrate the City:

Early in the voyage, Bessie had turned out her pockets so that she and Greyfell could take inventory of what supplies they had between them. Not much. Now, as they approached Ilgrevnia, Greyfell handed Bessie a spellpaper he'd confiscated from a first year student, just a day before they'd been forced to flee the Academy. Spellpapers were schoolboy magic and (as far as Greyfell was concerned) not meant for girls, but this one granted the user the power of flight, and trumped anything Bessie had managed to bring with her. She tore the spell neatly down the middle, and waited anxiously for it to take effect. She didn't have long to wait: the back of her neck began to prickle, and the feeling soon spread. Sharp quills began to poke out through her skin and her blazer, blossoming into grey-brown feathers. “Ouch!” Pins and needles pains danced up and down her arms, and she tried in vain to shake the feeling out.