Queen of Fire

“And what would you do with it? I fought my way through a city of horrors today, all of your design. How can you dream I would allow you to do that to the world?”

 

 

“Because you love me!” Her new eyes were beautiful, he saw. Dark, limpid pools in a pale mask, free of any cruelty, but utterly mad.

 

“You are sick,” he told her. “And I brought the healer . . .”

 

She gave a shout of frustration and attempted to dodge past him, sword reaching for the queen’s exposed back. He forced the blade aside with his own and tried to grab her wrist, hoping to disarm her. She was too fast, spinning away and slashing a cut into his shoulder.

 

“You talk of sickness,” she spat. “We live in a world of sickness. You mourn for those I killed today. Did any ever mourn for me? I killed for decades to build this empire of filth and greed. It was mine to bring down.”

 

Frentis felt his left arm growing numb as warm blood coursed down his back. “Please!” he begged her. “If he can heal a body, perhaps he can heal a mind.”

 

She paused for a second, a confused frown appearing on her brow. “The night I killed my father he wasn’t afraid. He sneered at me, he spat in contempt. He said, ‘I should have drunk your blood the night I drank from your whore mother.’ Can he heal that?”

 

“I don’t know.” Frentis reached out to her, chilled arm trembling. “But we can . . .”

 

The arrow took her in the chest, quickly followed by two more. She staggered, her confusion fading as she looked down to regard the fletchings, her expression one of complete and sane understanding.

 

The Lonak girl stepped to Frentis’s side, bow drawn, and sent another arrow into the woman’s neck, folding her body onto the sand. Frentis watched the girl move closer and deliver a hard kick to the corpse, eyes narrowed as she scanned her for the slightest sign of life. She glanced at Frentis, frowning at what she saw on his face. “The song was clear,” she said.

 

He heard a faint moan behind him and turned, seeing Weaver gently taking hold of the man lying slumped in the sand and guiding him into a seating position. The Politai stood around them, spears levelled at the Ally. “There is a great sickness in you,” Weaver said. “Let me help.”

 

The Ally’s senses seemed to return as Weaver drew him into a tight embrace, struggling feebly then throwing his head back to issue a scream.

 

 

 

 

 

PART V

 

 

Any found to have promulgated the falsehood that human life may be extended by the foul practice of drinking the blood of the Gifted are liable to summary arrest, their punishment to be determined under the Queen’s Word. Any writings containing this falsehood are subject to immediate seizure and destruction.

 

 

—THE QUEEN’S TENTH EDICT, SIGNED INTO REALM LAW BY HER GRACIOUS CONSENT IN THE SIXTH YEAR OF HER REIGN

 

 

 

 

 

VERNIERS’ ACCOUNT

 

 

 

 

Despite the stubbiness of his fingers Raulen had a fine, flowing script the equal of any scribe. Also, his reading voice was similarly accomplished, reciting my recently dictated words in even tones free of any stumbles. “‘. . . and so it came to pass that Queen Lyrna Al Nieren walked once more on the soil of her beloved homeland,’” he read. “‘And terrible would be her vengeance.’”

 

“Very good, Raulen,” I said. “I think that’s enough for today.”

 

“Thank you, my lord.” He rose from the stool and went to the cell door. “Same time tomorrow then.”

 

“Tomorrow my trial begins,” I reminded him.

 

“Yes,” he sighed, pausing at the door and forcing a smile. “No doubt this great work will be complete when your innocence is proved.”

 

“No doubt.” I returned the smile, grateful for his artifice.

 

“Even your gaolers are scholars,” Fornella observed after the heavy door had slammed shut, leaving us alone. She sat on her narrow bunk, surrounded by bundles of parchment. With little else to occupy her during the long months of our shared captivity, she had taken on the translating of my manuscript into Volarian, despite full knowledge it would most likely remain unfinished.

 

My gaze tracked over her now almost all-white hair, tied back from her face into a tight bun. In recent weeks the skin on her scalp and hands had developed faint red spots and the lines around her eyes grew ever deeper, though she bore it all without complaint. Despite the many messages I asked Raulen to convey to every Imperial official I could recall, she had never once been allowed out of this cell to relate the warning she held. Our journey was indeed an abject failure and it seemed the survival of this empire now depended entirely on Queen Lyrna’s vengeful designs. An absurd hope, I knew. For all her wits, and Al Sorna’s martial cunning, the Volarian Empire was monstrous. It requires an empire to destroy an empire, I concluded, reaching for pen and parchment to write it down.

 

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