Queen of Song and Souls (15 page)

Dorian shot the man a single, cold look, silencing whatever objection he'd been about to make and freezing him in his tracks. When the man bowed and retreated, the king turned back to Rain and Ellysetta and swept an arm towards the palace doors. "Please, My Lord Feyreisen, My Lady Feyreisa, after you." Irritation vibrated in every word, and Dorian's normally warm eyes glittered like stones.

Ellysetta's heart thumped. The shadow shrouding Celieria's king might have been a trick of light, but the undercurrents of hostile emotion emanating from the courtiers weren't imaginary. Neither was it merely an increase in her perceptive ability that allowed her to sense them so strongly.

Something—-or someone—had been fomenting anti-Fey sentiment since last she and Rain had been here.

And Dorian was aware of it.

The tang of magic filled the wide, gilded hallways of Celieria's royal palace as Ellysetta's
lu'tan
fanned out to search for potential threats to their queen and take up protective stations. As they followed Dorian to his private offices. Rain stayed close to her side, his fingers never far from his Fey'cha.

"Your queen did not join you this morning," Rain commented casually as they walked, careful to keep his tone neutral. Annoura had made her dislike of the Fey dear on more than one occasion. She'd even actively worked against them three months ago. He wouldn't be surprised if the courtiers' hostility was a reflection of hers. "She is otherwise engaged?"

"I received word shortly before your arrival that she wasn't feeling well," Dorian replied.

Rain almost stopped walking. No Fey worthy of his steel would leave his mate's side if she were in poor health, and Dorian was Fey enough that care for his wife should have been a preeminent concern. Brows bunching in a frown, he started to say something to that effect, when Ellysetta's nails dug into his wrist in silent warning.

«
Do not chastise him. Rain. You know mortal ways are different from Fey. He is the king and Celieria is at war. His people
expect him to put them first.»

For Ellysetta's sake, he kept the censure from his voice when he said, "I hope the illness is nothing serious."

They had reached a sprawling marble stair that led to the upper levels of the palace. As they climbed, Dorian slanted Rain a glance that said he knew exactly what Rain thought of his husbandly neglect. "Several members of the court have fallen ill the last few days with a stomach complaint. The physician assures me it isn't particularly harmful—just unpleasant for the afflicted."

"I would be happy to weave healing on them," Ellysetta volunteered. "Or you, for that matter. I can sense your weariness." She gave a crooked smile. "And don't fear, I have become much more adept since the last time we met."

The king gave a quiet chuckle. He had been on the receiving end of her magic before, as one of the unwitting participants in the weave that had plunged the heads of Celieria's noble Houses into seven bells of unrelenting, magic-driven mating. "I would be honored to accept your offer of healing once we're through." His humor faded as he added, "Though the same cannot be said for all the members of my court. I'm sure you noticed the tension outside when you arrived."

They had reached the king's private offices. Guards liveried in hues of Celierian blue and gold pushed open the tall, gilded double doors to admit them into the spacious room. Rain waited for the doors to close and Ellysetta's quintet to spin a five-fold privacy weave before he said, "I take it your troubles with those who would discredit the Fey have not ended?"

"Would that they had." Dorian sighed and paced across the room to the windows overlooking the palace gardens, with their array of spectacular fountains. "Once we began building up our military presence along the borders, the murmurs began. First it was the cost, then the loss of commerce when we ceased trade with merchants known to service the Eld; then the conspiracy rumors began, whispering about how the attack on the cathedral this summer was staged by the Fey to draw us into an unprovoked war against their old enemies, the Eld."

"And when the news came about Teleon and Orest?"

Dorian turned hack from the window, his eyes weary. "You mean when the news came that the Fey armies massing in Orest and Teleon forced the Eld to launch a preemptive strike out of self-defense?" He grimaced. The Eld have been wily; you must give them that. Not once have they attacked a target unrelated to the Fey. That has not escaped the notice of the lords who supported the Eld Trade Agreement this summer. Now they claim the attacks on Orest and Teleon merely prove this is a dispute between the Eld and the Fey—-and that we should not allow ourselves to be drawn into your war. They remain convinced that once the Eld are no longer threatened by Fey aggression, there will be peace."

"Peace." Rain gave a harsh laugh. "Oh,
aiyah,
there will be peace. The cost will be misery and enslavement, but your subjects will get their peace." He spun on a booted heel and stalked to the opposite side of the room.

Ellysetta's silk skirts rustled as she took a step towards Dorian. "Forgive me, Your Majesty, but have you considered the possibility that one or more of the lords leading the opposition might be Mage-claimed?"

Dorian's mouth set in grim lines. "I have considered the possibility, yes. And I pray daily that it is not so." He turned a bleak gaze towards the portrait of his beautiful, silver-blond wife, Annoura, which dominated the wall across from his desk. His shoulders slumped in weary despair. "Because one of the strongest voices against this war belongs to my queen,"

"Merciful gods!" Queen Annoura of Celieria groaned in misery as the painful clench of her belly sent her racing to the garderobe for the third time in the last bell. She reached it just as the contents of her stomach spewed out in a series of racking heaves. She retched again and again until nothing came up but bile, and even then the nausea lay upon her like a foul blanket. Her arms and legs trembled as she dragged herself up to her feet and stood there on the cold stone tile floor, swaying and feeling feint.

Whatever illness was sweeping through her court seemed to have found its way to her. A full score of the court's highest-ranked ladies had fallen ill in the last two days, and now she could count herself among them. She'd been retching since before daybreak and showed no signs of stopping anytime soon.

Poison was the first thought that had sprung to her mind. But what miserable excuse for a poisons master would leave dozens of women ill and none dead? Besides, Annoura's food taster hadn't fallen ill, and she used his services religiously. She had too much wily, suspicious Capellan in her ever to give up that protection.

"Your Majesty?" The timid voice of one of Annoura's newest young Dazzles — a sixteen-year-old featherhead with more breasts than brains — called from outside the garderobe door. "Are you all right?”

"Oh, yes, I couldn't be better," Annoura snapped. She snatched open the door and stalked into her bedroom, ruining the effect of her regal ire when her knees gave out and she nearly tumbled face-first onto the floor.

The Dazzle— Mairi? Miranda? What the Darkness did Annoura care what the little slut's name was?— caught and steadied her. Annoura checked the urge to smack the girl's cheek for witnessing her queen's near-humiliation.

"Help me to my bed, then get out," she snapped. "And find out what in the name of the Seven naming Hells is taking the physician so long."

The girl helped Annoura back into bed before tucking the covers around her. "Are you sure I can't get you something, Your Majesty? Maybe a nice porridge?"

Porridge? Annoura's eyes bulged. Just the sound of the word made her stomach clench. She leapt from the bed and raced for the garderobe yet again.

This time, when she was finished, the little Dazzle stood there with eyes as big as dinner plates.

Now Annoura did smack her. "I heave my insides out and you ask me if I want
porridge!
Idiot! Ninnywit! Would you offer fire to a burning man? Get out!" She flung a hand towards the door and glared at the other Dazzles gathered in the suite. "All of you, get out now. And the next person to walk through that door had best have a brain between her ears."

The buxom Dazzle burst into tears and fled out the door. The rest of the morning attendants scuttled after her.

Annoura staggered back to her bed and lowered herself gingerly to the mattress. Good, sweet Lord of Light, she felt terrible. She hadn't felt this bad since . . . well, she couldn't remember.

She put a hand over her eyes to block the weak sunlight streaming in from the draped windows. Gods. Even that made her feel like retching. She flopped back into her mountain of pillows, scowling and feeling frighteningly close to tears.

Where was Dorian? Why wasn't he here? The few times in their married life that she'd been ill, he'd always come to her bedside and stayed there, holding her hand, stroking her brow, weaving cool webs of Spirit to soothe her discomfort until the physician's remedies took effect. Where was he? Surely by now one of the yammer-mouths who called themselves her ladies-in-waiting would have whispered the news of his wife's illness into his ear.

Surely he would not be so coldhearted as to continue their estrangement when she was in ill health?

A knock sounded, and the heavy door to her bedroom swung inward. Annoura looked up, a surge of hope lifting her spirits. "Dorian?"

But the feet that stepped over the threshold did not belong to her husband. Annoura sank against her pillows, blinking back tears. Well, at least it wasn't that useless Dazzle or another idiot just like her. The woman walking through the bedroom door did indeed have a brain between her ears—and a face nearly as pale as Annoura's own.

Jiarine Montevero dropped a graceful curtsy to her sovereign as she entered, then approached the bed. "Mirianna said you were taken ill, Your Majesty."

Mirianna. That was the dim-skull Dazzle's name.

"If by ill you mean that I've been retching until my intestines nearly saw daylight, then yes, I suppose I am," Annoura snapped. She hated being sick. The loss of control that came with illness was an agony to her, and she had never borne it graciously or well. "Fetch a cold compress at once."

"Of course. Your Majesty." Without the tiniest blink of hesitation, Jiarine made her way to the nearby nightstand, where a bowl, a stack of scented towels, and an ewer of fresh water had been laid out earlier. Moments later, she laid a damp cloth over Annoura's forehead and eyes.

Annoura sighed as the cool darkness soothed the frayed edges of her temper. Calm, efficient Jiarine. She'd been such a help these last weeks. For all that Annoura had never been keen on keeping female confidantes, she'd come to rely rather a lot on Jiarine recently. Especially after the queen's Favorite, Ser Vale, had disappeared from court with nary a word save some useless, impersonal scrap of a note claiming a dire emergency on his family estate.

Lady Montevero and Ser Vale had been good friends. She had, in fact, been the one to initially sponsor Ser Vale at court and introduce him to the queen's circle. Now, with Vale gone and no word from him in months, Annoura had found herself talking more and more to Jiarine, hoping Jiarine might have news about the handsome Dazzle who had so quickly become Annoura's indispensible confidant and Favorite. Alas, the lady had received no word from their mutual friend either.

Annoura plucked at the coverlet with restless irritability. "Where is the king? Has he been told of my illness?"

Silence. Then, "I delivered the message myself, Your Majesty. Half a bell ago."

Half a bell.

Half a bell and still Dorian had not come. Time was he would have been at her side in mere chimes, breathless from having run through the palace to reach her. But now, even with half the court afflicted by this mysterious stomach illness, he'd not roused enough concern to visit her?

"I'm sure he will come to see you soon, Your Majesty," Jiarine soothed, "but the Tairen Soul and his mate arrived this morning.”

Annoura's fists clenched around the comforter, pulling until the satin was taut. "The Fey ... are here?"

No wonder Dorian wasn't by her side. The Fey. It was always the Fey. They—not she—would always be first in his heart. She could be on her deathbed, and if a single flaming Fey crooked a finger, Dorian would abandon her without a qualm and go running to his magical master's side like the obedient lapdog he had become.

"They arrived unexpectedly this morning," Jiarine said. "I'm sure the king would not otherwise have stayed away."

"Oh, of course he wouldn't."

If Jiarine heard the heavy irony in Annoura's voice, she gave no sign of it. "Your Majesty, I've sent for the physician, but he left the palace a bell ago to attend Lady Verakis. I don't know how long it will take him to arrive." Skirts rustled as Jiarine moved closer to the bed. "Lord Bolor is outside, Your Majesty. He's no physician, but he has a tonic that worked wonders tor me earlier this morning."

Annoura grimaced. "No."

"But, Your Majesty-"

She lifted one corner of the compress long enough to fix Jiarine with a withering look. "Have your ears failed you? I said no." Then, because Jiarine had been such a boon companion to her these last weeks, Annoura sighed "Jiarine, I know you’ve taken to him. He's handsome enough, I'll grant you, and he has a sharp wit." Too sharp at times. "But there's just something about him that rubs me the wrong way. I don't trust him."