The Flute Keeper's Promise (The Flute Keeper Saga) (61 page)

“Their losses are
not
greater
than ours,” I said quietly.

A sudden understanding dawned on
Mr. Larue’s face. He looked away sadly. “They said there was another one
trapped up there with you—the Slaugh king.”

“He’s gone.”

Mr. Larue said no more. He docked
the raft beside one of the hall’s raised decks. The survivors began climbing
out.

The deck rattled with the sounds of
rushing footsteps. Valory, Garland, Chloe and Bazzlejet shoved through the
crowd of people going the opposite direction. They ran up onto the raft with
the clear intent of ambushing Lev and me, the returning heroes.

They stopped in their tracks when
they saw me. I was alone. That said it all.

Chloe clapped a hand to her mouth.
“Oh…oh no. Oh, Emma…”

Valory’s lips moved, but no sound
came out. She took off her hat and clasped it to her chest.

Garland and Bazzlejet gave each
other looks of disbelief.

“He can’t be,” Bazzlejet said
softly. “Not the big guy. He’s indestructible.”

I met Valory’s eyes first.

“You really are the Slaugh queen
now,” I said. “You’re the last living heir of Hagan Winterwing.”

There was no time for tears. I
joined the fighters below in taking out what was left of the duke’s forces. By
nightfall, all the red capes had been defeated. The Terra Cartisans kept a
watch on Ivywild as it drifted towards the distant mountains. The castle was
listing badly to one side. There was some talk of trying to board it and regain
control, but that was quickly squelched by higher priorities. There was food to
gather and injured to tend to and prisoners to keep a close watch over.
Woodman’s Hall was a little rebel camp no longer. In only one day, it had
become the new capital of Faylinn.

The sheer number of people now
living at the hall made it impossible to go anywhere without being surrounded.
There was only one private room in the whole place. It was a cool, dark root
cellar most recently inhabited by the late Slaugh king. In a quiet moment, I
slipped away there to rest.

The room looked exactly the same as
when I’d gone to apologize: the hammock, sagging between two support beams, a
table with sheaths and an assortment of knife cleaning tools, and a tattered
black jacket draped over one rickety chair.

I went and lifted the jacket from
the chair, running my fingers over the threadbare collar and the sleeves with
their third round of patches sewn to the elbows. Lev hadn’t worn it in some
time—had practically outgrown it, in fact. Even so, it was the very essence of
him, distilled into a symbol. He’d been wearing it the night I found him.

There was a lump in one of the
pockets. I reached inside and pulled out a little wooden figurine. It was a
miniature version of me. He’d bought it as a joke a couple years ago from a
vendor in Larlaith. I’d completely forgotten about it. He must have been
carrying it around all this time.

Something ripped open inside me.
The tears I’d been holding back came on full force, dragged to the surface by a
scream. I sank to the floor and rocked, letting the sorrow take me to a place
I’d never been. The world could turn without me, just this once. Tonight I
belonged to grief with all its pain and its confirmation of life.
I am still
here. I live and I feel and I hurt, but I’m still here.

I cried until there was nothing
left, then climbed into the hammock and wrapped myself in the jacket. I lost
track of the hours as I lay, staring at the ceiling. Sometimes I buried my face
in the rough material and drank deeply of Lev’s scent. Sometimes I just lay
still and thought.

I couldn’t get a handle on
anything. Questions swirled up into my mind like sand grains in a storm.
Everything was so fragmented that it was useless to try and put it together. I
gave up trying, letting the fragments carry me away.

Eventually I slept. My weary body
forced it upon me. At first I was fitful, waking every few moments, sometimes
crying out. Then, as fatigue won over, I slipped deeper into the kind of rest where
memories could not torment me. That’s when the dreams came.

In my dreams I was the Nameless
Beast again. All the little bits and pieces of my life force flowed freely on
currents of light. There was no struggle, no sorrow, just infinite tranquility
as I wove myself into the flow of the world. I was connected to everything. In
knowing that, I knew that the people I’d lost were, too, and so I was connected
to them. They were still out there somewhere, just little pieces of light like
stars strewn across a galaxy.

And then, something new entirely.

A string: golden, shining. One tiny
line thrown into sharp contrast against a blank backdrop—blank, but not empty.
I got the sense I was looking at the tiniest fraction of something, like one
single dot of color in a vast, unknowable painting. I followed the thread, but
got nowhere. I was missing something. There had to be more to it.

Don’t follow it. Just let it
take you.

I relinquished control, letting the
thread slide by me. That’s when I realized it wasn’t just a flat line,
constrained by two dimensions. It went up and down and side to side as well,
forming the nexus of an incomplete pattern.

Not incomplete. Look.

No, not incomplete, nor even a
single thread, but one among many, forming a giant web.

This is my gift. Use it.

I opened my eyes. All was quiet and
still. I sat up and looked around to make sure I was really awake. My
surroundings convinced me that I was back in the real world, but part of the
dream stayed with me. Somehow, the golden web had imprinted itself in my mind.  If
I closed my eyes, I could see it clearly.

Lev?
I thought back to our
final embrace in the throne room. For a breath of existence we had been one
entity. I wondered if pieces of him were with me even now.

It was the only thing that could
have stopped my grieving. I began to sleep normally after that and to feel
hunger and soreness and all the other things that regular people had to deal
with. When I felt strong enough, I left the little cellar.

My friends handled me carefully. I
sensed their awkwardness around me. Everyone knew to tread lightly and nobody
dared to ask questions that might upset me.

Whenever I tired of the delicate
handling, I retreated to the cellar to think. Now that the wheels in my mind
had started turning again, I had plenty of things to mull over.

I still had the dagger. I had not
yet carried out the task handed to me by Marafae and echoed by Lev. I must use
it to destroy Robyn.

But how? And what did Lev mean when
he told me I had the power to lift the curse on Seraph’s Tear? Most importantly
of all, what was Robyn trying to do? Why had she pulled the tree from the
ocean?

Questions. Always questions. I
paced the room and stretched my shoulders, rolling them as though I could
expand wings that weren’t there.

***

It had been three weeks since
things had settled down, and already Chloe was at her wit’s end. There were so
many people around and they all
needed
things. Still, she'd take
overcrowded, under-stocked Woodman’s Hall over the human world any day. Things
had certainly changed, though. Living with the Slaugh was quite an adjustment. At
least Valory was a compliant queen. Her brother’s death rocked her so much that
the other Slaugh had come to accept her. She was one of them now, and much as
they were lost without their king, they would have been hopeless without her—especially
little Noemi, the youngest Slaugh. Valory had taken the girl under her wing and
now they were inseparable.

“Vistkern!”

Chloe turned her head in surprise
as Violet stormed into the room, looking very red in the face.

“What does that mean?” Chloe asked.

Violet tossed a wad of bandages angrily
to her desk. “I don’t know, but I’m tired of getting called that! Every time I
try to help that blasted Katriel with her wound, she goes off on me and starts
shouting things in Slaugh. She’s the worst patient I’ve ever had!”

Chloe was amused. She’d never seen
Violet so riled up. “Have you tried a silver horse feather?”

“I’ve tried everything short of
jamming a porcupuff needle into her neck. Her wound won’t heal on its own! Part
of the arrowhead is still in there but she won’t let me touch it!” She flopped
onto her bed and crossed her arms. “I’m taking a nap.”

“You do that,” Chloe said, rising
from her spot by the window. They shared the hall’s most spacious bedroom with
their mother. Chloe didn’t enjoy it much. The whole place was just so cramped.
It wasn’t going to work, not for the long term.

She passed Tobin Leboux on her way
outside. He was acclimating quickly to life in Faylinn, but caring for his
mother took up much of his time. Kiros had suffered much more than she let on
at the hands of the duke. Chloe wondered if her worst injuries weren’t in her
mind. She had been forced to do monstrous things. People were dead because of
her.

“Hi, Tobin,” she said as they
bumped into each other on a stairwell. “How is your mom?”

He glanced away briefly.
“She’s…well. Well as can be expected. She’s been asking about home a lot—New
Orleans, I mean. I don’t suppose there’s any chance I could take her back soon,
is there?”

“I’m sorry,” Chloe said, shaking
her head. “Without a working Pyxis Charm, there’s no easy way.”

Tobin sighed. “Guess I’ll miss the
playoffs. Oh well. My team was crummy this year anyways.”

Chloe hadn’t the faintest idea what
he was talking about. She went on her way, nodding greetings to others she
passed. She had to fake a smile as she passed a woman with a baby bump. There
was a lot of that going around and she really didn’t appreciate it at the
moment.

It was a relief to reach the
outdoors even though the midsummer air was stale and smelled of the hard-baked
mud on the exposed forest floor. Dead trees lay bleaching in the sun.

 Aha. I knew you’d be out here,” Bazzlejet
said. He joined her in the shade of an overhead deck.

“What’s the latest on Ivywild?” It
was always the first thing she asked him.

“Still drifting. It’s a miracle it
didn’t crash after that last attempt. At least we learned how
not
to
pilot a flying castle. The Gremlins and I are rigging up something else. It
should be ready soon.”

Chloe had learned not to get her
hopes up. Even if they could safely land the castle, it would take a long time
for it to be habitable again. “Well one thing is for certain: we can’t stay
here much longer. Food supplies are dwindling, space is already a problem and
selfish, inconsiderate nitwits keep deciding to make babies! What’s a queen to
do?”

“I dunno. Ask Valory. She’s a
queen.”

She wished she had something to
throw at him. It was therapeutic. She had learned to act the proper lady in
front of everyone else, but with Bazzlejet she could bare her claws and he
didn’t seem to mind.

“You’re lucky we’re surrounded by
dried out wood,” she said. “Otherwise I’d torch you.”

“I’d like to see you try,” he said
with a grin. The effects of Kiros Rubedo’s alchemy had worn off, but it was
quietly understood by everyone that he was at least as powerful as his uncle
had been.

“I saw Emma out today,” he said in
a more serious tone. “She was talking to Lord Finbarr. She seems different.”

“Of course she’s different,” Chloe
said. “You would be too if you’d been through what she has.”

She understood what he meant,
though. The changes in Emma went far beyond the ravages of mourning. Chloe felt
for her deeply. At first, when she’d seen Emma hurting, she tried to be gentle
and give her plenty of space. Now she didn’t know what to do. Emma didn’t seek
out anybody’s company. When she did pop up unexpectedly in the common areas of
the hall, she looked so distant that nobody approached her.

Chloe had watched her from afar one
day. She marveled at how differently Emma carried herself. Strangely, she
seemed more graceful. Not exactly light on her feet, but more attuned to the
space she took up. The expression on her face was intense. If Chloe had been a
young child, she would have thought Emma looked mean. Certainly the lowered
brows and the tightly set jaw didn’t speak of kindness. But Emma was kind.
Chloe knew this, so it perplexed her that she couldn’t reach through the new
layers her friend had wrapped herself in.

“She hardly talks to anyone,”
Bazzlejet said. “When she does, her voice sounds different. She’s just not
herself. I miss her the way she was…you know, spunky.”

Chloe tossed her chin. “I’m spunky
enough for both of us. Emma’s the same Emma she’s always been and she’s still
our friend. Don’t you go criticizing her! She’s just got a lot on her mind,
that’s all.”

Bazzlejet opened his mouth to say
something else but then he clapped it shut and looked sheepishly at something
over Chloe’s shoulder.

Chloe turned. Emma was standing in
the doorway.

“Don’t look so surprised. I haven’t
been here long.”

She
did
sound different. So
gruff. So Straightforward. It threw Chloe off-kilter. “Um, glad you came out to
join us.”

Emma stepped out of the shade. She
passed between Chloe and Bazzlejet and looked down at the parched forest. She’d
lost a fair amount of color. Usually by this time of the year she had a tan.

“What’s on your mind?” Bazzlejet
asked.

Emma crossed her arms and looked at
both of them. Something in her gaze made Chloe feel like a small child. She
wriggled uncomfortably.

“We can’t stay here.”

Chloe perked up. “That’s just what
Bazzlejet and I were talking about! I mean, I guess you know that since you
were listening, not to imply that you were eavesdropping, I mean—”