“I apologize, my queen. I’m caught quite off my guard is all. I suppose I need to sleep. My nerves are a tangle.”
“It’s not that you haven’t been a good friend to my son and niece,” the queen said after a moment. “It’s that you are…” She paused, thinking. “Cunning. Willful and lovely. It’s a volatile combination. It unnerves me.”
“And now you know I’ve been keeping secrets from you during all my cunning and willful years.”
Queen Genoveve nodded. “And I wonder what others you might have yet to reveal.”
Rielle forced herself to meet the queen’s thoughtful gaze, one that so matched Audric’s that a lump formed in Rielle’s throat.
“Come sit beside me.” The queen patted the settee’s cushion. “We will pray to Saint Grimvald together, that he may bring you success tomorrow.”
After a moment’s hesitation, Rielle obeyed. For a long while, neither of them spoke. Then Queen Genoveve sighed impatiently and took Rielle’s hand in her own.
“A sword forged true with hammer and blade,” murmured the queen, in prayer, “flies sure and swift.”
“A heart forged in battle and strife,” answered Rielle, “cuts deeper than any blade.”
“Saint Grimvald the Mighty,” continued the queen, “please watch over this child tomorrow as she fights to prove her honor and loyalty in front of my husband, the king, and His Holiness, the Archon.” The queen paused. “She is much beloved by my little ones, and I pray for her safety so that they may feel joy upon finishing their day and not despair.”
Rielle stared at the queen. “My queen, I…I thank you for that.”
The queen kept her eyes closed, but squeezed Rielle’s hand gently. “I sometimes forget that, despite everything, you are still only a girl, Rielle. And no girl should have to be without her mother on such a night.”
Rielle could no longer speak, her throat tight and hot, but it was enough to sit beside the queen and shut her eyes and imagine that Genoveve’s hand was her mother’s—alive and unburnt.
? ? ?
They had built her a cage.
Rielle stared out the flap of her tent, her blood roaring in her ears.
In the narrow pass between Mount Crimelle and Mount Peridore, earthshakers had carved out a clean, square pit in the stone-riddled ground, five hundred feet deep. And the metalmasters of the Forge…They had built her a cage inside it.
It was a cube, black and unfriendly, with spiked, groaning insides that churned like clockwork and shifted every few seconds. At any given moment, half the cube’s innards were in swift motion. Metal slammed against metal. The hot oiled smell of grinding gears and the sharp tang of the metalmasters’ magic—scents that reminded Rielle of her father—drifted up from the pit like invisible curls of smoke.
Somehow, Rielle would have to get from one end of this caged maze to the other without getting crushed or impaled. And all while thousands of spectators watched from the stadium the magisters had erected around the pit’s rim.
She swallowed hard, closed her eyes.
“I thought Tal would lose his mind,” came a flat voice from behind Rielle, “once he saw what we’d designed for you.”
Rielle turned to see Miren Ballastier, Grand Magister of the Forge, and Tal’s lover—when they weren’t in the middle of one of their legendary fights. In the torchlit glow of the tent, beneath her wild cap of red hair, Miren’s pale, freckled skin looked ghostly.
“It’s a maze,” said Rielle faintly, still not quite believing it.
“It is. And Lady Rielle…” Miren paused, a troubled expression on her face. “I want you to know that I protested against it. It’s unfair and cruel. I wouldn’t be surprised if the king takes him to task for it, once he finds out—”
“Who? What’s cruel?” Rielle barely resisted pleading. She and Miren had never been the best of friends, and now that Tal’s long deception had been revealed, Rielle couldn’t imagine that would change. “Miren, tell me.”
A horn sounded, its lonely wail echoing off the mountain walls. The gathered crowd began to cheer.
“You’ll see soon enough,” said Miren, before pressing a dry kiss to her forehead. “From Tal,” she said simply and then left her alone.
You don’t have to do this, Corien reminded her. You can leave. Right now.
And do what, then, and go where? Rielle asked irritably. You’re always telling me I don’t have to do these things, yet you offer no alternative.
There was a pause. Then: You could come to me. And we could begin.
The shiver that swept up Rielle’s body nibbled like tiny, hungry teeth.
We’re going to have a discussion, you and I, when this is finished, she thought to him. I’ve put it off for too long.
I quite agree, came his smooth voice.
Unsettled, on edge, Rielle stepped through the flap as the horn sounded for a second time, raised her chin against the glare of sunlight peeking through the mountain pass, and let her cloak fall to the ground.
The crowd’s roar rattled Rielle’s bones—and she smiled to hear it.
Her outfit, constructed from a dozen charcoal and shining silver fabrics, evoked the armor of Saint Grimvald. Long black gloves stretched past her elbows. A snug jerkin and matching trousers boasted embroidered designs that flattered her curves, and the long tails of her square-shouldered jacket touched the ground. On the jacket’s back shone the sigil of the Forge—two black swords crossed on a fiery orange plane. Silver paint streaked her cheeks and eyes; Ludivine had painted her lips a flaming coral to evoke the fires of the Forge.
Eight solemn-faced metalmasters lined the narrow platform stretching toward the pit. She raised her arms to acknowledge the crowd and made her way to the pit’s edge—where the Archon stood with a tiny, satisfied smile.
As the door to the cage creaked open, the Archon extended his arm toward it. “You can choose to save them. Or not. What really matters is saving your own skin.” He turned to her, blinked twice. “Isn’t it?”
Save them. Rielle peered into the cage, and when she saw to whom the Archon was referring, the sudden rise of dread made her stagger.
Three tiny cages rose slowly from the maze’s teeming cogs. Inside each stood a child, wailing in fear.
As the crowd began to notice them, shouts of anger and horror arose from the stands.
“Are you mad?” Rielle cried.
“They are orphans from the Low Streets,” the Archon explained. “No one will miss them when they’re gone. Except, well…” He glanced up at the furious crowd. “They might, I suppose.”
Understanding sank into Rielle like a slowly twisting blade. The maze was deadly enough as it was. She would have to fight hard to survive it—and to save three children on top of that seemed impossible.
But if she didn’t…
She glanced up at the bellowing crowd.
The Archon’s smile grew. “Your move, Lady Rielle,” he said.
Rielle did not hesitate. She turned, flung off her stiff coat, raced to the waiting door of the cage, and jumped inside.
22
Eliana
“The Emperor is a hunter that never tires. A storm that never sleeps. How do we best such a creature? The answer is simple: we cannot. If the entire world turned as one to destroy him, again he would rise—and again and again.”
—The Word of the Prophet
“Who are you?”
Eliana startled to hear the Emperor’s voice. She’d imagined it before, entertained wild fantasies of storming his palace in Celdaria and slitting his throat before he had the chance to talk her out of it.
Whispered conversations in Lord Arkelion’s palace had told her the Emperor’s voice could worm its way inside your mind and heart, make you helpless to resist doing whatever he suggested. Which Eliana had long ago decided was nonsense. A voice couldn’t control you; anyone who said otherwise was a fool.
But never, in all her blood-soaked daydreams, had Eliana imagined the Emperor’s voice to sound quite like this. A purpose lived there, beneath the rich tones—resolute and unmovable, ancient and sly.