Queen's Hunt Part 5

A lie. Ilse let it go. "Sit down," she said. "We'll have some wine."

She filled two wine cups and offered one to Galena. Galena took it and abruptly sat down on the couch. Her hands were shaking so, the wine rippled in the cup. She wasn't acting, Ilse thought. Was it battle fever? She tried to recall if Galena had ever seen action before.

She took a seat on the same couch-but not too close-and waited for the girl to speak.

The quarter hour rang outside, a thin soft peal. Galena shivered, as if the bells had stirred unpleasant memories. "You know about the Karovin," she said softly.

"I heard. There were three ships. Or was it four?"

"Three. They sank. Foundered on the rocks." She gulped down some wine. "You heard all that from Falco already. I should go."

Ilse laid a hand on her arm. "Stay. I've heard a few stories, but not yours."

Galena flinched, but sank back onto the couch. "It's the storm," she said. "Or that's part of it." Her voice went breathless, higher than usual. "It was magic. The captains think a mage on the ships called up the storm for cover. The Karovin sent at least twenty ships into the eastern current just last week. If the storm had hit us earlier, we might not have sighted them at all. They could have taken the city."

"With just three ships?"

"No, with all twenty."

Ilse felt cold wash over her skin. Karovin soldiers, here in Osterling, after centuries of calm. Falco had not mentioned that detail. "How did you know they were the same ships?"

Galena hesitated only a moment. "My father said the report came from the king's patrols. No other ships were sighted in those waters. They're certain it's the same fleet. The captains think they meant to head around. Except they haven't, not yet. Commander Adler doubled the watch just in case."

East from the Veraenen coast lay the open seas-there were no known islands, no continents. Nothing, Ilse thought, except an impenetrable magical barrier, and the lost kingdom of Morenniou. Again she had a shiver of premonition.

Legend said that Lir had drawn a curtain around the island province. After the second wars, when Dzavek had invaded Veraene in his search for Lir's jewels, Veraene had sent ships to contact the islands. None had returned. Fishermen brought wild tales of a burning wall in the open ocean to the east. Lir's Veil was its name. The Karovin had their own name for it, most likely.

"Did you take prisoners?" she asked.

"Yes. Thirty-four. Soldiers and sailors."

Ilse did not miss that last phrase, or the pause before Galena had answered. Falco, too, had been strangely reticent when asked about prisoners.

"Thirty-four soldiers and sailors," she repeated. "And who else?"

Galena's fingers tightened around her wine cup. "Who told you?"

"No one. I guessed. Can you tell me anything, or did you swear to secrecy?"

She hardly needed to hear the answer. Galena's panicked expression was enough. "We didn't swear an oath," Galena said. "But Lord Joannis was there. He told us to be discreet."

So the matter was important enough for the regional governor.

She offered more wine to Galena, who refused. "I promise not to spread any rumors," Ilse said. "Or would you rather talk about the fighting?"

"Yes. No. I don't know." Then she added, "They fought hard in spite of everything."

"What do you mean?"

Galena's gaze flicked toward Ilse and away. "Just what I said. They'd fought at least one battle already that day. And they were exhausted from the storm. Still, they didn't want to yield. When we tried to take them prisoner, a dozen or more fell on their swords. The ones we did take-Ranier and Tallo knocked them over the head. Then there was that woman..."

She drew a long breath and fixed those unnaturally bright eyes on Ilse. "I'll tell you. But you must promise not to tell anyone else. My father thinks that woman is not Karovin. He says she answered in Karovin, but slowly. As if she had learned it from a book."

The notes of a flute drifted up from the common room, and one of the courtesans, Luisa, began to sing. Ilse could not distinguish the words, but she knew the melody. It was a popular ballad, recounting the history of two lovers separated by chance. Several verses described their anguish, but toward the end, the song spoke in minor keys, how their grand pa.s.sion died, extinguished by nothing more than neglect. Ilse released a sigh, and drank deeply of her wine. I wonder why Luisa chose that one.

Galena, too, was listening intently, her empty cup finally at rest. "Commander Zinsar died," she said softly. "Lanzo lost an eye, and Piero took a sword thrust beneath his mail. The surgeon said he lost too much blood, and the herbs haven't taken hold."

Ilse knew the surgeon. Aleksander Breit was more skilled and conscientious than most. If his patients had any chance, he would give it to them. Still, his best herbs and spells might not be enough. "How is Marelda?"

"Angry. Frightened. She went back to the hospital as soon as our captains dismissed us." Galena's eyes narrowed. "I hated the fighting. I wish-" She broke off with a frown.

Ilse waited through a long silence. Luisa had reached the last section of the ballad. Someone joined in with a guitar, drowning out the flute. Another moment and the new musician gained control of his playing, the two instruments blending into a seamless harmony. Above them, Luisa's sweet contralto swelled to pure and unfaltering tones.

"I heard Lord Joannis wants to celebrate your victory," Ilse said.

Galena shifted uneasily, but said nothing.

I've struck close, Ilse thought. "Would you like more wine? Or coffee?" she asked.

Galena shook her head. "Water. Just ... water."

Ilse fetched a carafe of water and filled Galena's cup. She watched as the girl drained it, then wordlessly refilled it when Galena held out the cup for more. Around them, the pleasure house was quiet for the moment, but Luisa's song, of love and lovers lost, still ran through Ilse's mind.

"Ilse, why did you come to Osterling?" Galena said softly.

The change in conversation took Ilse by surprise. She sent a covert glance toward Galena, but saw nothing in the girl's expression except ordinary curiosity. What would Galena say if Ilse told her the truth? That she had come to teach herself magic, to find Lir's jewels so that these endless wars between Karovi and Veraene would end. So that one day, she and Raul Kosenmark might marry.

But the reasons started long before she met Raul Kosenmark. She had come to Osterling by a series of hard choices, each seemingly inevitable, that had led her from Melnek to Tiralien, from Raul Kosenmark to Osterling Keep. Galena would not understand, and so Ilse gave the simplest answer. "I came because I needed employment, and Adela offered me a position as her steward."

Adela Andeliess had been delighted to hire a steward with experience at pleasing a duke's heir. So she told Ilse, proving it by raising Ilse's salary twice in the past four months.

"I remember the day you came here," Galena went on. "Marelda saw you at your window. You waved back to her."

Ilse nodded. That had happened her first hour in Osterling, while she stood poised between her old life and the new. "You were walking through the courtyard with Marelda and Piero and Aris," she said. "I met all of you a week later, when the garrison commander allowed me to drill with the others."

"We thought you were a rich woman, playing at soldier. At least, that's what Aris said at first. He said later he'd been wrong."

Exactly the words Aris had used, when he later came to Ilse seeking her advice about the northeast borders, where Ilse spent her childhood. Ilse had told Aris what she knew about the garrisons and patrols. A week later, Aris had secretly applied for a transfer and vanished from Osterling Keep.

"I'm sorry he's gone," she said.

"So am I. I thought- I thought at first he left because of you."

Ilse shook her head. She knew why Aris had left, both the reasons he gave, and the one he kept secret. But she doubted Galena wanted to know about her brother's relationship with Ranier Mazzo. In Galena's uncomplicated mind, love and desire were the same. It would be too difficult to explain that Aris had desired Ranier, but could not love him, even though Ranier desired him in return. Not because a man should not love a man, but because Ranier himself made trust, and therefore love, difficult.

"My turn," she said. "Why did you come here tonight?"

"To talk."

"We did talk. About everything except what bothers you. Was it something you saw today in the battle?"

Galena's breath caught in a laugh. "You could say that."

One beat, two, and three. There were no bells to count the pa.s.sing moments, but Ilse heard them in the pulsing at her temples, in Galena's shivering as she fought to bring herself under control. Oh, there were secrets unfolding here. She wished she didn't need to listen to them. They would do Galena no good. Nor her. It was for Veraene and the peace that she kept still and waited for the other young woman to speak.

"It was after the fighting started," Galena said at last. "One of the Karovin- We fought hard. He drove me back, away from the others. Then he knocked me down. I hit my head against a rock."

"But he didn't kill you."

"No, and I don't know why. Or maybe he thought he had. Killed me, I mean."

"What happened to him, Galena?"

"He got away." That in a whisper.

So. A Karovin soldier had escaped into Veraene. He'd head directly for his homeland, no doubt, but the patrols would intercept him long before he reached any border. Strange that Falco hadn't mentioned this particular detail. Had Joannis required them to keep the news a secret? Then her breath deserted her when she realized where Galena's confession headed. "Galena, did you tell your father? Or the commander?"

A heartbeat of silence followed. "No."

Ilse closed her eyes, silently cursing Galena's folly. "Why tell me?"

"Because you know Commander Adler and Captain Spenglar. You could-"

"Lie to them?"

"No! But you could tell them you heard a rumor."

Ilse thought briefly of striking Galena with a very hard object. That would do no one any good. No, she had to tell one of the garrison commanders-or better, Nicol Joannis, so they could send out patrols and track the man down.

Galena had begun to weep silently, tears pouring over her face. Ilse put her arms around the girl and held her close, stroking her hair. When Galena relaxed against her with a sigh, Ilse stiffened. No, she told herself, the girl was too distressed to mistake kindness for desire. She continued to stroke Galena's hair, which was a springy ma.s.s of brown threaded with silver, barely contained by the many cords she wore.

"Why are you so kind to me?" Galena murmured.

I am not kind, Ilse thought. But it's best you believe that I am.

VALARA BAUSSAY WOKE in a suffocating darkness that reminded her of Autrevelye, of the void between worlds and lives. Panicked, she tried to fight her way clear, only to roll over heaving and retching. Through the roaring in her head, she heard shouts and the clang of metal against metal. It was a battle. Karovin soldiers swarming up the stairwells and through the halls, cutting down her guards as she tried to escape from Morenniou castle.

Gradually the thundering in her skull subsided. There was no battle, only the memory of one. She spat out the bile and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. Filthy. Stained with muck from the bottom of the ship, with dirt and salt and sand. Her wrists were bruised from the manacles they'd used, even after they had subdued her with magic.

Her treacherous stomach heaved again, but there was nothing left inside her aching body. Valara collapsed onto the stone floor. It was cool and damp against her fevered skin. Fragments of her surroundings intruded. She smelled damp straw, overlaid by crushed herbs and the sickening reek of stale vomit. Her guts pinched harder. She bit her cheeks to stop another bout of retching.

She was a prisoner, taken by the Karovin invaders. That much remained clear. They must have landed safely, then. She dimly recalled being roused from a magical stupor and hauled onto a ship's deck. Winds were howling with unnatural ferocity and the scent of magic had overpowered her. There'd been a coastline in the distance-Karovi, she'd thought. But that general, that duke, Miro Karasek, had roared out orders to the ship's captain, demanding they steer north, north, d.a.m.n it, even while the sh.o.r.e rushed toward them. Then came a terrible rending noise. The shock of water closing over her head. After that her memory blurred.

It took her several tries before she could stand up. She shuffled over to the cell door. The corridor was empty. Torchlight stippled the stone walls. It reminded her of another prison, from another life.

She wanted to break open the doors, flee the prison, but she remembered enough from those previous lives to make her cautious. She ran her fingers over the iron bars, then the lock and keyhole, probing for traps and alarms. Slow, slow, slow. She approached the magic and the bars as she would a wild deer in the mountains. As she had first approached magic five years ago.

Needles p.r.i.c.ked at her skin, as though the dead iron could read her intentions. So. They had placed a magical guard on her cell. That argued for Karovi and Leos Dzavek. The last time he had taken her prisoner, many lives ago, she had escaped by slashing her wrists and throat with magical fire, drawn to a sharp burning edge. It had been a painful victory. Leos would have remembered that incident and prepared against it.

Not that death is my choice. Not with Lir's emerald in my hands.

She touched the ring on her second finger. Magic hummed at her fingertips, the only trace of the emerald's true ident.i.ty. How long before Leos Dzavek discovered the jewel his duke had stolen was false? How long before he thought to strip her of all possessions and force the truth from her throat? Then he would possess two of the three jewels. Morenniou would be helpless against a second invasion. (And he would invade a second time. She knew the man who was, who had been her brother. He did not suffer disappointment.) She had to escape, before he found out her secrets.

There is only one way. Only one choice.

It was a gamble, attempting to make a leap across the magical void in the flesh. She had managed the trick dozens of times in previous lives; she had done it last summer when she recovered the emerald from Autrevelye, and again that last fateful time when Dzavek confronted her. But she had never tried to when so drained of strength. She would have to concentrate hard if she wanted to land in Morenniou and not lose herself in other worlds.

Ei ruf ane gotter. Ei ruf ane Lir. Ei ruf ane Toc. Komen mir de strom.

Magic rippled over her skin, clearing her head and easing the cramps in her gut. She murmured the phrase again, her sight narrowing down to a point on the stone floor, to a single speck of water gleaming in the torchlight.

Komen mir de strom. Komen mir de vleisch unde sele. Komen mir de Anderswar.

The world tilted away. A narrow edge, a bright sharp line, arced through the darkness. She glimpsed a hundred worlds refracted in all directions. Just as she caught sight of Morenniou, of Enzeloc Island and her home, a force, like a ma.s.sive hand, struck her backward.

The shock of return drove the breath from her body.

She lay there, gasping. (There? She had no idea where.) Eventually she coughed, spat out a mouthful of blood. Her ribs ached sharply. Her throat felt bruised and sore. Voices yammered inside her skull. Outside, too-voices shouting curses in Karovin and another language. Veraenen.

Valara hauled herself to sitting. Just as she feared, she was still a prisoner in that same dank dark cell. Off to one side stood a bucket and a tray with a loaf of bread. Valara dragged herself closer. The bucket was half full of water. She drank a handful, then another. When her body stopped its shivering, she crawled back to the iron bars of her cell.

Magic roused at her touch. She moved her palms to the walls. Here the magic beat a slower, deeper rhythm. Hush, she told it. Let me read the past, nothing more. Nothing more.

She closed her eyes and focused on her hands. When her breathing had slowed, she narrowed the focus to her palms and then to the point where flesh met stone. The current welled up around her; she felt its electric presence rolling over her skin, rippling through her flesh, between her palms and the air-to the region between body and mind.

Ei ruf ane gotter. Ei ruf ane Lir. Ei ruf ane Toc. Komen mir de strom.

Her breathing slowed, her thoughts stilled to match the barely perceptible rhythm of the stone. Rock and mortar used no words, but human speech had echoed here in days and weeks and decades past. Where am I? she asked.

Sunlight glinted from the faceted granules; a man's voice echoed one word. Osterling.

Yes. Osterling. The early kings of Fortezzien had built a series of castles along the coastline as watch points. The Erythandran emperors had taken over those castles and turned them into forts, manned by soldiers from the imperial army.

Slowly, the rocks yielded their memories, and the trickle of words had become a flood of human speech. Fragments of conversation. Oaths and curses whose meaning had disappeared into time. Valara sank deeper into the past, to the first settlers. Digging. A castle built by common laborers overseen by mages. A remnant of that castle formed this prison. Slowly the voices faded into silence, and she heard only the gulls crying, the wind sifting through sand, and the distant surf, unimpeded by walls or towers or other works of mankind. She had come to the end, which was the beginning.

She withdrew her hands. So she was in Veraene, not Karovi. But still a prisoner, and half a world away from her kingdom. Karasek had left seventeen ships behind-nearly a thousand soldiers. Morenniou had only a small militia for each city. They had forgotten to guard against an enemy from outside.

No, it was not them. I did this. I destroyed my homeland.

She sank to the stone floor. Her eyes were dry of tears. She had foresworn grief to keep her strength in the face of an invasion. But now, in the quiet of this cell, memory recited a relentless litany of faults and errors and grave mistakes.

Five years ago, she had thought nothing of breaking the conventions against exploring magic. Or rather, she had thought a great deal about it. Her life dreams had pressed upon her nights, then her waking world. Eventually, reluctantly, she had to accept that she was Leos Dzavek's brother in a former life. She had helped him steal Lir's jewels from the emperor. Later, in yet another life, she had stolen the jewels again, and hidden them in Autrevelye.

It was a matter of curiosity, she told herself, unconnected with her life as a princess in Morenniou, the younger daughter, not even an heir. Then her mother and sister died in that shipwreck. Valara had become the heir. Whatever excuses she had made to herself before were worthless. She had sworn before her father's council to obey Morenniou's laws.

And yet, she could not resist the pull of curiosity. So she had poked and prodded at her memories, had explored Autrevelye in flesh and spirit, until her life dreams finally yielded enough clues to help her find the first of Lir's jewels.