The Born Queen (47 page)
Authors: Greg Keyes
She made a single fist of both of their hands. He winced a bit, for the whole arm was still tender, but he treasured the touch.
“We’ll stay here, then?” she asked.
He laughed, and she only looked puzzled.
“Would you make a liar of me?” he asked.
“I don’t even know what you mean.”
“I said I would take you away to where neither of us has duties. Now, the queen gave me my freedom and Berimund gave you yours, but we are still very far from that place.”
“And where, husband, would that be?”
“We will have to hunt it,” he said. “It could take the rest of our lives. Who knows how much of the world we shall have to see?”
And she kissed him and seemed young for the first time since he had known her. Together they watched Skern grow before them.
I saw Zemlé grow old, never knowing what happened to me. When I walked the world again, healed as much as I could heal, she was years dead.
So I returned to the empty Witchhorn. I grieve and write. And I remember what I can.
There is one thing I won’t forget until the river finally takes me out into everything. That was the time I saw through his eyes.
I never imagined such a beautiful thing—to gaze with every eye of the forest, feel and hear through every leaf and fern. It was only once, years after the battle.
It happened where the tyrants once stood, the great ironoaks Aspar loved so well. They were all fallen, but acorns had sprouted, and for those first years things grew with unnatural speed. So many of the trees were already four or five kingsyards high, slender young things, but already starting to shadow out the underbrush, reconquering their territory.
A woman came there, still young, her face rosy from the winds, for that year was cooler. She was bundled in a wool coat, and she wore elkhide boots. I knew her, of course, for I once thought I loved her, and I did in a way.
Holding her hand was a girl of perhaps six or seven years. She had a bright, intelligent face that was full of wonder as she stared about the place.
“Here he is,” Winna told the girl. “Here is your father.”
And, through him, I felt every tree strain, and shudder, and yearn toward them, and all the birds sang at once.
It was the last truly human thing I ever felt from him, and not long after that he slept, as sleep he must.
When he slept, I awoke, and found the world changed.
—The
Codex Tereminnam,
Author anon.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
G
REG
K
EYES
was born in Meridian, Mississippi, to a large, diverse storytelling family. He received degrees in anthropology from Mississippi State and the University of Georgia before becoming a full-time writer. He is the author of
The Briar King, The Charnel Prince, The Blood Knight,
and the Age of Unreason tetralogy, as well as
The Waterborn, The Blackgod,
and the
Star Wars
®
New Jedi Order novels
Edge of Victory I: Conquest, Edge of Victory II: Rebirth,
and
The Final Prophecy.
He lives in Savannah, Georgia with his wife, Nell, and son, Archer.
By Greg Keyes
The Chosen of the Changeling
T
HE
W
ATERBORN
T
HE
B
LACKGOD
The Age of Unreason
N
EWTON’S
C
ANNON
A C
ALCULUS OF
A
NGELS
E
MPIRE OF
U
NREASON
T
HE
S
HADOWS OF
G
OD
The Psi Corps Trilogy
B
ABYLON
5: D
ARK
G
ENESIS
B
ABYLON
5: D
EADLY
R
ELATIONS
B
ABYLON
5: F
INAL
R
ECKONING
Star Wars
®
: The New Jedi Order
E
DGE OF
V
ICTORY
I: C
ONQUEST
E
DGE OF
V
ICTORY
II: R
EBIRTH
T
HE
F
INAL
P
ROPHECY
The Kingdoms of Thorn and Bone
T
HE
B
RIAR
K
ING
T
HE
C
HARNEL
P
RINCE
T
HE
B
LOOD
K
NIGHT
T
HE
B
ORN
Q
UEEN
The Born Queen
is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2008 by J. Gregory Keyes
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Del Rey Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
D
EL
R
EY
is a registered trademark and the Del Rey colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Keyes, J. Gregory.
The born queen / Greg Keyes.
p. cm.—(The kingdoms of Thorn and Bone; bk. 4)
I. Title.
PS3561.E79B67 2008
813'.54—dc22 2007041832
eISBN: 978-0-345-50479-1
v3.0