The Fiend Queen (34 page)

Da tried to take both his children and his niece in his arms and ended up squashing them until they protested. They chuckled at that, the fragile mood cracking like an egg.

“At least it’s stopped snowing,” Reinholt said.

Katya knew they should have been thankful the ground hadn’t frozen. If they’d waited any longer to bury their dead, they would have been waiting until spring. “I think I’ll walk back to the palace.”

The others put up a mild protest, but she declined. She wanted to hoard her grief, to lament her loss and not have to endure that of others. She waved at her family’s carriage and enjoyed the crisp air on her warm cheeks.

As the wind gusted, she shrugged forward in her coat, sticking her fingers under her arms, a pose which blended with others who hurried past. The dark gray day promised snow, and everyone wanted to be out of the cold, their grief either forgotten or better seen to indoors. Maybe she would go to a tavern, become Lady Marchesa Gant for a few hours, but that would put her in the center of others’ sadness again, and she couldn’t afford a flood of tears.

Before she passed a dark alley, Katya moved toward the center of the street, the cautious spirit of Crowe always with her. Her gaze darted back as a shadow peeled away from the others and followed her.

Katya sighed. Maybe with the Watch’s increased patrols, thieves were getting desperate enough to attack in broad daylight. Well, hadn’t she been looking for a problem to put her sword to?

She sighed again. It just made her more tired.

Katya scanned the street before she turned. Her stare brought the footpad up short. He was older than expected, probably her father’s age, and his dark hood would have screamed thief had it not been cold enough to warrant it.

Katya rested her hand on her rapier. “It’s not worth your life, fellow.”

He grinned, showing yellowing teeth amidst his salt-and-pepper beard. “Perhaps it is and perhaps it isn’t.”

Katya cocked an eyebrow. “A philosopher thief, eh?”

“When you get to my level, they don’t call you thief anymore. You labeled me usurper.”

“No.” Her breath came quicker. “You can’t be.” The army was dead. She had a flash of Roland yelling, “Not me!
Me
!”

The thief cocked his head and gave her that
same
grin. “Hello, n—”

Katya drew her rapier and leapt. She jerked to a halt when the thief whipped a pyramid from his coat pocket. Others in the street only hurried faster if they noticed at all.

“So many dead, niece,” the thief said. “Do you want to make it a few more?”

“He’s finished.
You’re
finished. Why won’t you just die?”

“I’m thorough. You always admired that about me.”

Katya gripped her rapier so hard that either she or it had to shatter. “You I can kill.”

“Does that mean the other me is still alive somewhere?”

She circled, looking for a way to limit his throwing range. What kind of pyramid? That was always the question. And would he throw at her or other people? There weren’t many now. If it was flash or fire, she could dodge, but destruction or explosive could catch her in a blast even if he missed.

“Are we going to stare at each other all day?” she asked.

“Well, I had hoped to get a little closer.”

One of the people who’d seen them might be running for the Watch. She could wait for help, but that would give him more targets. She feinted forward, trying to get him to throw.

He backed off a step, but she darted toward his side, forcing him to twist. His arm dropped. She lashed out with her rapier and cut a line across his shoulder, tearing into his coat but not his skin.

He brought the pyramid around, but Katya batted it out of the way, knocking it from his grasp and sending it sailing across the lane. It hit the side of a shop and burst into flames. Screams started around her, and people shouted, “Fire!”

Katya put the cries out of her mind and ran her uncle’s puppet through. As he sank to the ground, the light fading from his sky-blue eyes, she heard the clatter of booted feet around her.

Someone said, “Princess, what’s—”

Katya’s eyes were fixed on the thief’s face, his
smiling
face. Alarms jangled in her mind, and she put her arms out, catching hold of several people and pulling them away. “Back, get back!”

Luckily, everyone seemed to listen lately when someone called for them to watch out. The body lay still long enough for her to feel foolish, for those around to ask what had happened, but then it blew skyward, the force of an exploding pyramid sending shockwaves across the street and raining gore on top of them.

Katya put her arms over her head, waiting for the macabre shower to stop. She looked into Captain Ursula’s shocked face.

“I thought it was over,” Ursula said. “By all ten fucking spirits, I thought this was over!”

Katya shared her sadness if not her disbelief. At least this was a problem she could deal with. She smiled wryly. And now she knew another way the Farradains could come to see the Allusians as allies.

She grabbed Ursula’s coat sleeve. “Come on.” Katya led her away, but not toward the palace this time, toward the main gate and the adsnazi camp.

Starbride

Starbride had called the children and the remnants back to order, but the longer she stared at them, the more wrong they seemed. She could see why they didn’t sit well with people. The remnants were reanimated with adsna into a mockery of the lives they’d once led. Still, they were better than the children, who were pure adsna given breath.

With a wave, Starbride banished the children to the mountains where they belonged. Best to let them flock around the glaciers that held the rest of the council of five. They loped away without a word, but she could sense the sadness drifting off them. They’d been designed to miss her.

No, not her. Yanchasa. She couldn’t forget that again.

Yanchasa stayed silent, even as Starbride drained the magic from the remnants, and they dropped to lay with the rest of the bodies. As their reclaimed power filled her, she stretched her neck and relished the surge of warmth. Yanchasa was right, power did feel good, and the more she had, the better she felt, both in body and spirit.

“We couldn’t find the other messenger,” Freddie said.

“It’s no matter. He knows the way home.” She looked to the woods surrounding the village. The pyradisté who’d been helping Roland was still out there, and they couldn’t leave her to run amok through the countryside.

Freddie gave her a cold look. “
She
.”

“What?”

“Alecia, the other messenger. You climbed up on a horse with her, Yanchasa. You didn’t realize she was a woman?”

Starbride swallowed her anger. “I didn’t notice, and don’t call me that.”

“Didn’t bother to notice, you mean. Do you know the name of the one who got killed?”

She looked back and forth between Hugo’s and Freddie’s faces before she mounted her horse. “No.”

“Starbride would have bothered to find out,” Freddie said.

“I am Starbride,” she said through gritted teeth.

“Starbride would also have bothered to find out if any of the villagers had been hypnotized instead of mind-warped,” Hugo said, not looking at her.

Starbride clenched a fist. “They weren’t. None of them seemed bewildered when I cleansed the pyramids. They were definitely warped.”

“You didn’t check inside the buildings. Those things just killed everyone.”

“And I just dispatched
those things
.”

“And who is I, exactly?” Freddie asked.

Starbride wanted to shout that she’d saved their lives, but of course,
Starbride
would never throw such a thing in their faces. “I did what I felt was right.” She pulled in a bit of adsna to cleanse her anger. They must have seen the change come over her face; they nudged their horses away.

“I am Starbride,” she said calmly.

“Starbride would have yelled at us,” Freddie said.

Starbride wanted to snap all his bones and then knit them together again. “Nothing makes you happy!”

He smiled, and she wanted to throttle him. “I can see why Ursula hates you.” She turned her horse, following the weak signal of the pyradisté.

“Perhaps you went too far,” Hugo whispered, but Starbride heard him clearly.

Freddie made no response, but Starbride could almost feel his satisfaction.

*

In the middle of the forest, the pyramids called to Starbride like a beacon. It said something that the pyradisté didn’t abandon them even though Starbride could track her. With her footprints in the snow, maybe she thought it didn’t matter. Perhaps she feared being defenseless. She was alone, and Starbride’s attack had given her no chance to grab food or water. On foot, her lead dwindled, and many creatures in the woods would be hunting her. Wolves and other predators slinked through the trees, unseen, but Starbride felt their heat, could sense their pulses in the deadened landscape. It wasn’t deep enough into winter for them to be starving, but they wouldn’t pass up an easy meal.

Late in the day, Starbride pulled up before a small copse. The trees had thinned out during the afternoon, and the undergrowth had been battened down by a fresh layer of snow. It was eerily silent except for Hugo’s chattering teeth.

Starbride sensed that the pyramids had stopped. She could feel the pyradisté’s body heat behind one of the trees.

“I know you’re cold,” Starbride called. “Why keep running? The farther north you go, the colder it will be.”

Freddie eased his horse close and pointed. Starbride looked ahead with augmented eyes and saw a plume of breath right where she’d known it would be.

“Why would anyone ever work for Roland willingly?” Starbride called.

“Willingly?” The pyradisté stepped out from behind a tree. Her face was red from exertion, but Starbride could see her shivering. “He has my
family
!”

Starbride eyed her up and down. She was thin as a rail, barely more than a girl. Her ears and nose were bright red with cold. She was lucky Roland hadn’t strung her with trap pyramids from head to toe. “He won’t be hurting anyone’s family now.”

The pyradisté’s eyes widened. “What do you know about it?”

“I captured him. Marienne’s no longer his.”

Hope flared in the pyradisté’s eyes, and she stumbled forward. “Oh, spirits above.” She staggered to a halt, and her face grew suspicious again. “Don’t care about no Marienne. Do you know where my family is or not?”

Hugo nudged his horse forward. “We can help you find them.”

Starbride lifted an eyebrow. The girl’s family was likely dead. All Roland would have had to do was hold the promise of their release. No good could come from saying that aloud, though.

The pyradisté bit her lip. “Why would you help me? I thought you were going to kill me after everything I did.”

Was that how everyone thought? How Katya thought? “Don’t you think a person needs to pay for her crimes?” Starbride asked.

Freddie hissed at her.

“What? Isn’t that something
Starbride
would do? Make people answer for their actions?”

“For
Roland’s
actions,” Hugo said.

Was that right? With the adsna roaring through her, it was hard to tell. She sacrificed emotion in order to let power in. Now she couldn’t always see right from wrong, but Hugo could. Maybe she should just ask his opinion before every action. It made her chuckle to think of it.

Starbride sent the adsna tearing through the girl’s pyramids, cleansing them before she could react. She clutched her coat and fumbled her pyramids out into the open. When she saw three wells of adsna, she fell to her knees in the snow. “Oh spirits.” Her eyes were so wide, Starbride expected them to drop from her face. “You did beat him, didn’t you?”

Starbride nearly laughed, but thought that Hugo wouldn’t do that. “What’s your name?”

“Bea. He said I was powerful. He said I had to do what he wanted to the people, or he’d hurt my family. He had my brother across his saddle the last time, and oh spirits, Finny cried so bad.”

Hugo dismounted and went to help her to her feet. “There now, it’s all over.”

“Did he get you from the academy?” Starbride asked.

“Never went to no academy. I lived with my family in the woods.” Tears began in Bea’s eyes, and she swiped them away, seemed offended that they’d appeared at all. “He said he sensed my potential. Are they all dead?”

Starbride didn’t know if she meant her family or the villagers, but one answer would probably do for all. “Yes.”

Bea clenched her fists, but she didn’t give in to tears again. “I felt what you did. How did you do it and so fast and all at once?”

Her eyes were hard, revenge-seeking eyes. They wouldn’t be put down easily. And Roland had been right. Power flowed through her like a river, not just the power to warp minds, but other schools as well, though none as strong as her potential for mind magic.

Starbride held a hand down so Bea could climb up behind her. “Come on. We’ll take you to Marienne.”

“What about the villagers? You’re sure none are left?” Bea asked as she climbed aboard.

“We can do nothing for them,” Starbride said, but the thought that echoed through her head was, “Wolves and bears have to eat, too.” Perhaps that was Yanchasa’s thought, but it made her smile all the same.

*

They rode as hard as they could toward Marienne but were forced to stop before they reached the tavern where they’d bedded down the first night. Starbride was glad of that. She didn’t think she could go into that room again, face that empty bed and well-loved jewelry.

They took shelter at an abandoned farmhouse. Well, all of them were abandoned around that part of the woods. It had just two rooms, so Starbride went into one and shut the door. She didn’t care if the others had to share or that they barely knew Bea. She needed to be alone.

All afternoon, Bea’s arms at her waist had been tentative, and when the horse had slowed, its footing sure, Bea had let go. Starbride felt her leaning away. As evening fell, however, she’d shifted closer, her small hands on Starbride’s back and waist, seeking warmth.