I awoke, with my cheek against his shoulder and a terrible crick in my neck, to the sound of voices in the council chamber. The drapes filtered light greenly through a lattice in the door; we could see nothing but could hear everything clearly. The councilors, a couple of dozen ministers and nobles, filed into the room beyond and found their seats. A trumpet fanfare goaded everyone into standing for Queen Glisselda’s entry.
Kiggs shifted from floor to bench and leaned his elbows on his knees, listening.
Glisselda spoke in a voice subdued and mild: “Blessed, would you kindly open this session with a prayer?”
Blessed? Kiggs and I exchanged a glance.
“I am humbled and honored, Majesty,” said a contralto voice. It was Jannoula’s. Kiggs raised his eyebrows inquiringly, and I nodded. He twitched restlessly, as if fighting the urge to rush out and put an end to this false-Saint nonsense right now. I touched his arm to still him; he covered my hand with his own.
“Hark, ye lovely Saints above,” Jannoula began, in an unwieldy imitation of ecclesiastical language. “Gaze on us beneficently, and bless your Goreddi children and your worthy ityasaari successors. Give unto us the strength and courage it will take to fight the beast, thine unrighteous enemy, and bring us bold allies in our time of need.”
It was time. I nodded to Kiggs, who opened the door. I silently slipped through the curtains and stepped onto the dais beside the golden throne. Jannoula stood a few steps in front of the Queen. The ministers and courtiers of the Queen’s council had bowed their heads in prayer, as had the dozen ityasaari to the left of the aisle. They did not notice me.
I glanced over at the throne, looked again, stared. I had not recognized Glisselda. The full crown, not her usual diadem, was perched on her head, and in her pale hands she bore the orb and scepter, emblems of queenship that her grandmother had rarely brought out of storage, considering them an unbecoming ostentation. Queen Glisselda wore a stiff golden cape edged with ermine, prickly lace at the neckline, and a silk gown, embroidered gold on gold. Her fair hair seemed frozen in corkscrew curls; her face, already pale, had been whitened with cosmetics, her lips stained pomegranate red.
The lively, intelligent girl I knew was almost invisible under all that pomp. The blue eyes were familiar, but they pierced me with a terrible coldness.
We’d wondered how much influence Jannoula had gained over the Queen; the answer was visible in this change, I had no doubt.
I tore my gaze away from the glittering Queen. Jannoula, dressed in crisp white linen, stood before me with her head bowed. Her brown hair came to a point at the nape of her neck.
“Does Heaven ever grant you the bold allies you pray for, Jannoula?” I said, loud enough for the whole room to hear.
She whirled to face me, mouth agape and green eyes startled. “Y-you’re here,” she stammered. “I knew you would come.”
She hadn’t known; I’d caught her flat-footed. I found a small satisfaction in that.
“My Queen!” cried Jannoula, turning to Glisselda. “Look who’s come.”
Glisselda looked past us as if we weren’t there, but Jannoula didn’t seem to care. She turned back toward me, her hands tucked into the broad sleeves of her pale gown. “I knew you would return to me of your own accord, Seraphina,” she said ingenuously, surely playing to her audience. “Do you regret forsaking your dearest sister?”
It was a ludicrous, deplorable act, and yet even I wasn’t immune to it. She’d asked the one question that would hurt me. “I do,” I said, swallowing hard. Alas, it was true.
Was it possible for me to test the degree to which Queen and council were being manipulated by Jannoula? I wanted to shock them, and I wanted Kiggs to hear the reaction, too, from his hiding place. I cleared my throat and tugged at the hem of my doublet, buying time as I considered what to try. “I rushed back from Lab Four because I feared for you, sister,” I said slowly. “I heard news that worried me.”
Jannoula’s lips parted; she looked convincingly innocent. “What was it?”
“The dragons claim you work for them, that you devised the Old Ard’s strategies and advised their generals. They nicknamed you General Lady,” I said, surreptitiously observing the room. The half-dragons did not react to the news, but many council members were whispering among themselves, looking disturbed. Glisselda remained impassive.
I held my breath, imagining Kiggs holding his, too. Would Queen and council question Jannoula about this alarming information? Were they so besotted with her that they’d excuse her every transgression?
“Blessed Jannoula,” said the Queen, her high voice piercing the councilors’ growing grumble. “Seraphina implies that you’re the Tanamoot’s spy.”
For the briefest instant, Jannoula met my gaze with steely coldness, but then her green eyes widened. “Your Majesty,” she said warmly, “it pains me to say that Seraphina’s charge is true, if incomplete and imperfectly understood. Dragons held me prisoner my entire life. My mother, the dragon Abind, returned pregnant to the Tanamoot and died in childbirth. My uncle, General Palonn, donated me to Lab Four as an infant.”
I expected her to show her scarred forearms again, the way she had in Samsam, but she was unlacing her bodice, baring the middle of her torso. The council gasped in horror; she turned to face the Queen, who neither flinched nor looked away. A long, purpled scar ran down Jannoula’s body, from her breastbone to somewhere below her navel.
“They opened me up,” she said, her eyes locked on me, as she refastened her gown. “They filled my blood with poisons, taught me physics and languages, ran me through mazes, determined how long I can last without food or warmth. I died twice; they brought me back to life with lightning.
“When my mother birthed me, I wept. When I was reborn, I raged. My third awakening made me realize I was meant to be in this world. I could not leave until I had discovered my purpose and fulfilled it.”
She turned with a graceful whirl of skirts, like a dancer, clasped her hands to her heart, and continued: “One day, one of my kind—our own St. Seraphina—found me and gave me hope. I learned I had a people.”
I glanced out at the ityasaari: Dame Okra, Phloxia, Lars, Ingar, Od Fredricka, Brasidas, the twins. They smiled; I couldn’t bear to look.
“From that day forth,” Jannoula was saying, “all my energies focused on escape. If that meant convincing my uncle to trust me by devising strategies for the Old Ard, then that’s what I did. I won them victories, yes, but each came at terrible cost. I saw to that.”
I had noted this before. I hoped Kiggs was paying attention.
“My only purpose, my single-minded goal,” said Jannoula, her voice high and clear, “was to come to Goredd, the home of my dearest sister. I would have moved Heaven to do it.”
There wasn’t a dry eye among the councilors, old and young alike. The Queen dabbed subtly at her own with a lace-edged handkerchief; the ityasaari wept openly. Jannoula stepped toward me, took my hand in her cold fingers, and raised it triumphantly, as if we were dear friends reunited at last; only I could feel how hard she clenched my hand.
“O brethren!” she cried. “Let this be a day of rejoicing.”
And with that, still clamping my hand like a crab, she strode up the carpet toward the far end of the chamber, dragging me with her. Behind us the council broke out in heartfelt applause. Jannoula waved without turning around and said nothing more until we were out in the corridor, walking swiftly through the palace.
She flung my hand away. “What was that?” she said through her teeth. “An attempt to discredit me? A little something you thought everyone should know?”
“I really do want to help you,” I said. I meant it, though probably not the way she hoped. “I saw your old cell at Lab Four, your fur suit on the peg behind the door. I know what they did to you.” The thought of the place made my throat tighten. “The dragons told me you were still theirs, though.”
She stopped short. “I am not theirs. I have never been theirs,” she snarled. “The unbearable arrogance of dragons! They will learn soon enough.”
“Will they, indeed?” I said. “How do you intend to teach them?”
She spread her arms. “Look around you. Find one thing I’ve sabotaged. The Goreddi war effort is the stronger for my presence, I promise you. Lars and Blanche are perfecting the war engines; Mina is teaching new sword techniques; my artists are inspiring the people. St. Abaster’s Trap was full of holes; I’ve fixed it. Goredd needed me, and I am here.”
“And Orma?” I said. “I was promised he’d be here.”
Her expression darkened. “You’ll see him when I decide you may.”
“You underestimate my stubbornness,” I said.
Jannoula leaned into my face, lowering her voice to a vicious whisper: “You overestimate my patience. Let me make one thing clear: I could dismantle you before the whole world. I could persuade any of those simpering courtiers to knife you, or each other, or themselves. Bear that in mind.”
I raised my hands, conceding, and she nodded grimly. “Come on,” she said, not reaching for my hand again. “I’ll show you the Garden of the Blessed.”