“You are fun to hunt,” the girl lisped, her eyes no longer dull and lifeless but bright, sparkling with a glee so dark it was almost madness. “More fun than the others.”
The Queen turned and fled down the corridor. Behind her came the girl, giggling. The Queen reached a connecting door and slammed it behind her, then turned and ran, the breath tearing from her throat. Behind her, she heard a cracking sound as wood shattered, but she was nearly to the door of her throne room now, and that door was made of good Mort steel with an answering steel deadlock. It would not hold forever, but it would give her some breathing room, time to figure out what to do. She stumbled through the door, limping, gasping, and slammed it shut behind her, shooting the bolt.
Behind her came the sound of stifled gasping. The Queen turned and found a naked man and woman on her throne, intertwined, oblivious to her entrance.
“On my throne,” the Queen murmured, her voice a series of ghastly echoes that faded into the far corners of the room. The woman looked up and the Queen saw that it was Juliette, her brow shining with sweat.
“M-Majesty,” she stammered.
“On my throne!” the Queen howled, her wounds and weakness forgotten; even the child forgotten. She shoved out with her mind, flinging Juliette across the room and into the far wall. Juliette’s spine shattered and she fell to the floor, her corpse still twitching.
The Queen turned to the man, curled up now on the throne, clutching his legs, trying to shield his rapidly wilting erection. The spectacle was so sad that the Queen began to laugh. She thought he was one of the Palais guards, but could not be sure, and either way he seemed so insignificant that the Queen could not even recover her anger. Normally, the throne room would have a full complement of guards, even in the middle of the night. But not now. The Queen ignored the man as he crept off the throne and crouched behind it, his terrified eyes peeping over the arm. She turned to Juliette’s broken body and felt a brief moment of regret; even Julie would have been better help than no one at all.
A thundering blow slammed against the steel door of the throne room. The Queen looked around wildly, seeking any weapon, only to realize the futility of that; no sword would take the girl down. Even her own magic was not enough. She reached into her pocket and pulled out the Tear sapphires; perhaps now, in her peril, they would respond . . . but nothing. Their power was as far beyond her reach as ever. Only one person knew how to use them.
Another blow at the door. This time, the impact sent a long blister down the steel surface. The Queen turned and fled, through the great double doors, into the wide hallway that led to the Main Gate. She could not go out the Gate; a massive mob had been gathered around the Palais for days, a mob that would probably tear her to pieces if given an opportunity. But there were other routes out of the castle; the Queen, who believed in prudence, had prepared well for this day, though she had believed it would never come.
Running, her mind whispered as she ran, her bare feet slapping against the flat stones of the hallway. Running away. The idea made the Queen snarl, but she could not deny it. She was running, fleeing the seat of her power, the Palais she had built brick by brick. The construction had taken more than fifteen years, and she had given the architect, a man named Klunder, a lifetime pension for his work. The Palais was the seat of her government, but it was much more than that: it was the place that had allowed her to forget her youth, to wash away her childhood in the Tearling, to build her own history from scratch. She could not believe how quickly the fall had come.
Ahead of her, around the next corner, a man screamed, and she heard the sounds of a struggle, muffled by the thick stone walls. Her feet slowed automatically, and she turned to look behind her. There was only a long, empty hallway, dappled with patches of darkness where the torches had been allowed to burn out. But now, distant and yet not too distant, she heard a high, happy giggle.
Damned either way.
The Queen took off running again, breath tearing from her throat. But as she careened around the corner, her feet came together in a flat halt.