The Queen of Lies (37 page)

“Yes,” she said. “Some of my people know how. The Harbinger, the Storyteller, and the Keeper—they all have the ability to erase what was written. But it won’t matter.”

“Why?” Maddox asked.

The Stargazer looked up at the sky. “The stars are going dim. The little ones have been winking out of existence the whole time we’ve been talking. A few at first, but the rate is increasing exponentially. Whoever’s in your mind is following you here, erasing them.”

“The telepath at the tower. I need to fight him. What can I do?” Maddox asked.

“You’re powerful but not experienced. Maybe this is for the best. You won’t miss your gift when it’s gone. You’ll just exist. The quelling is quite peaceful actually. You’ll have your mind, but you’ll have no motivation to use it. You won’t be bored or angry or restless.”

“No!” Maddox shouted at the heavens. He saw the stars winking out of existence. “Please tell me how to fight this!”

“You just said you’re over it!” the Stargazer exclaimed. “Make up your fucking mind! You didn’t have to let Tertius shove you off the tower. You didn’t have to surrender to the Inquisition. Do you even know why you want to live, what you want, or who you want to be? The only way to stop a quelling is to know the answers to those questions.”

“I…” He stared up into the vacant black sky. “…don’t know.”

“Think harder.”

He looked at her with sad green eyes. “I don’t want to be me anymore.”

“The first lesson of being an Architect”—she laughed a little—“is to be very careful what you wish for in dreams.”

And darkness swallowed him.

Maddox blinked awake. He was restrained in a chair. Daphne and an older, fatter version of Luther were seated across from him. Luther’s clothes were rags, he noted.

“It’s done, Abbess,” Luther said, his voice sounding grave and exhausted.

Daphne rose from her seat and brushed her hand through Maddox’s chestnut hair. He didn’t move, although it felt nice. He stared ahead as she removed a small dagger and thrust it through the top of his hand. His body reacted with a shudder at the new sensation, but that was the extent of it. The pain was just a different flavor of experience, a mechanism to force his body to preserve itself.

There was nothing more inherent in pain to the flesh than seeing a displeasing color through the eye. In fact it was only memory that connected the word to the feeling of a knife digging into the flesh of his hand. Pain and hurt were something deeper than mere physical sensation.

“How are you feeling?” Daphne asked him.

Maddox understood her words. His mind offered a memory of something he’d likely tell her.
How the fuck do you think I feel, you crazy bitch?
But it wasn’t his thought, and there was no reason to offer a response.

“He is quelled,” Luther said. “He understands who he was, but he doesn’t have the emotion to drive him toward any action. He may speak again, but it’s unlikely.”

“Good.” Daphne smiled. “You’ve done very well, Luther.”

He looked up at her hopefully. “Does this mean you’ll let me see my family?”

She slashed his throat with her blade, spattering thick gouts of blood over her pristine white robes. The man who had torn Maddox’s mind apart grasped feebly at his throat as he bled out through his neck and fell to the floor. Maddox stared at his bulging brown eyes as he choked and gasped for life.

I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.

Those weren’t his thoughts. He felt no sorrow or satisfaction, even though he understood the situation clearly. Daphne obviously had some immunity to Luther’s power. She never would have been in the same room with him otherwise. And if the knowledge in Maddox’s mind were that dangerous, she would have been a fool to let Luther live.

Daphne wiped her blade on her robe and tossed it to the floor next to Luther’s body. “I know you can’t appreciate this, but I went to great expense to help you. Now you won’t hurt anyone, and you won’t ever have to hurt again.”

Her face was a mask of sympathy. A furrowed brow, sad intent gaze, downturn at the corners of her lips. Maddox knew what it meant but no longer saw it as anything other than a contraction of facial muscles in a performance of some social ritual. Lines to be read—a woman who seemed so in control, acting out a play with herself as the audience and not even aware why she was doing it.

“Just one more thing remains,” Daphne said. “Your body will heal itself of any damage, but I need to be certain that your mind will remain as is.”

And then she slit his throat.

T
HE
S
PIRIT FOLK
of Maenmarth are a reclusive, mysterious people, and it’s widely debated that they may comprise several distinct races. Witches are, as far as we can determine, the ruling faction among the Spirit folk, but their biomantic relation to the more common changelings has thus far been elusive. The second-most-recent witch to claim governance of the forests was Illyara the Witch Queen, who was deposed by Briala the Silver shortly after Josur’s rebellion in Amhaven.

While we have studied no specimens of witch blood, I recently procured a sample from one of the Witch Queen’s putative descendants, a Stormlord princess named Jessa. Her humor is quite remarkable in many respects; though the Stormlord essence is overwhelmingly dominant, there are unusual aspects not shared by her mother, who is pure-blooded. (Another interesting anomaly.)

Her humor shares a similarity with the humors of changelings, having the occasional characteristics of animals. The humans of the Maenmarth call people with such stock but no outward manifestations “quicklings”; they’re abundantly common in Amhaven and the border nations. (The term apparently is used among Spirit folk to describe children born with “quicker” human life-spans.)

Rarely the trait will become active in a particular individual, even after multiple generations. While we have recorded no demonstrations of the witches’ power (e.g., glamour, precognition) in such cases, they do possess the ability to assume the forms of certain animals, typically mammals.

Jessa’s blood provides the first well-documented link between the mysterious witches and changelings, as her pedigree is well documented, and her ancestors, aside from Illyara, were all born outside Amhaven, where quicklings’ blood is uncommon. This case provides enlightening insight into the workings of another form of possibly hereditary theurgy.

—MAGUS QUIRRUS’S FIRST DRAFT OF “OBSERVATIONS ON THE PHYLOGENY OF THE ELEMENTAL SUBSPECIES”

“W
HAT
?” J
ESSA SWIRLED
the brandy in her glass as she met the gaze of her advisors. She felt good and drunk from the brandy and slightly buzzed from the dragonfire. Her council sat around the long table in the Silverbrooks’ formal dining room, which had been converted to a war room. The entire room was twice the size of the Amhaven embassy.

“Perhaps Cameron should be present for this,” Lord Fincher offered. He was a timid slug of diplomat from Amhaven.

Warmaster Sarnia or Genata—Jessa couldn’t tell the Fodders apart at this point—offered, “If Nasara is bringing her army into Amhaven, then what’s the purpose of surrendering to Rothburn?”

“This is a betrayal of your supporters,” Duke Clayborne insisted.

Jessa felt a stab of sadness for the old man. The Claybornes had suffered the worst assaults from Rothburn’s forces. The frail white-bearded man, who’d been her father’s mentor, was practically a refugee himself.

“Even under the inept leadership of Rothburn, our people will be better off,” Jessa slurred, “but as the fates would have it…it makes no difference. Rothburn works for Nasara, and this whole stupid, fucking war has nothing to do with Amhaven. So whatever it takes to stop people from killing each other should be our top priority.”

Lord Fincher interjected, “Your Grace, perhaps we could pick this up tomorrow when you’re more…”

“Lucid,” one of the Patrean warmasters said.

Jessa took a swig from her glass. “Look…Rothburn, Nasara—it doesn’t matter. The Dominance
will
annex Amhaven, and I
will
be appointed queen. In the interim no one else needs to die to dispute a claim that nobody fucking wants.”

The council grew silent.

“I realize you’re under pressure, Your Grace,” Duke Clayborne said, “but it’s imperative that Josur’s heirs sit on the throne in Weatherly castle. I swore an oath to your grandfather—”

Jessa rubbed her temples, “Who is dead. Along with your son and your grandson…whom I could have wed, had he not died.”

“That is…uncalled for, Your Grace.”

“Uncalled for?” Jessa hurled her glass against the wall. “This entire campaign is uncalled for! This war is bullshit. I’ve done everything you’ve advised me to do, and it’s only caused more suffering while lining the pockets of the Patrean warmasters.”

Sarnia protested, “We’ve held Weatherly with minimal resources.”

Jessa scowled. “I could hold Weatherly myself. I could walk into Rothburn’s camps and rain lightning and thunder upon them until your Fodder brethren are nothing more than ash. Arrows and steel are nothing before the power of the elements.”

Genata countered, “Patreans have defeated Stormlord magic on multiple occasions.”

Lord Fincher offered, “Perhaps we could pick this discussion up tomorrow.”

Jessa walked over to the liquor cabinet and poured herself a fresh glass of brandy. “No. I’ve signed the declaration of surrender. If you wish to carry out this war behind my back, I no longer have the will to stop you. But my decision is made. Now please leave me.”

She didn’t turn as she heard the scoot of chairs and the hasty shuffle of boots toward the doors.

When the dining hall was silent, Jessa drew a small vial of black liquid from a fold in her dress. Grinning, she poured it into her glass of brandy and swirled it. The taste was foul, but she knew that once her unborn child was dead, she would have nothing more left to lose.

J
ESSA WRITHED IN
agony. Her body was slick with sweat although she shivered intensely. It was one of the few times she could remember wanting to be dry. The black potion had worked its way through her veins, wracking her with nausea. A sheet half covered her lower body. She had abandoned trying to make herself comfortable, and in her tossing, the bedding had wound itself between her legs.

She wondered whether the potion was supposed to feel this awful or whether her mother spitefully had schemed to poison her. Delirious with fever, she chuckled at the idea. The memories that flashed through her mind were happy ones. Satryn had been an erratic parental figure at best, but there had been times when her father was still alive when she and her mother had been close. It hadn’t always been awful. That didn’t start until she grew older and became something her mother couldn’t control.

In the winters Satryn would disguise Jessa in a heavy cloak that hid her silver eyes and take her into the village on adventures. They’d go to the cider house and buy a copper’s worth of hot apple cider and sit at their usual table in the back, where sawdust covered the floor and the air was heavy with smoke. They’d giggle and listen to the local gossip and maybe meet with a snitch or two.

They’d spend the hot summer days swimming at their remote lakeside chalet in Maenmarth, even though her mother complained about the taste of freshwater. They chased each other under the cool water and devoured raw trout with their teeth.
Would I have done the same things with my own child?
Jessa wondered.

Satryn’s callow disregard for Weatherly’s traditions and her disdain for her exile became a wedge between them. Over time the outings were replaced with distant glances, the laughter with disapproving sighs.

She couldn’t kill her mother, no matter how terrible things were between them. She could get her out of Rivern, before her plan could come to fruition. She could sign the document of concession, yielding the throne of Amhaven to Rothburn or Nasara; it didn’t matter as long as there was peace. But she wasn’t the one to bring it.

And lastly she could spare her unborn child the torture of her legacy. Let the Shyford line and all its misery die with her. If the black potion killed her as well, then she didn’t begrudge the ending. If the poison didn’t kill her, the imperial family’s retribution surely would seal her fate. She did all she could. Save Rivern, stop the war in Amhaven, end the family line before another child found himself a pawn in the twisted struggles between the empires.