by Megan Hart
Food was the last thing on my mind, but while Aeris the lover could have argued, Aeris the student merely replied, "Yes, my lord."
Lir dressed in movements swift and powerful. His face had gone dark, his eyes far away, his mouth a grim line I knew would grant me no kisses this day. I stopped my hand from brushing back the hair from his forehead, but I did ask him to sit.
"Let me braid it for you."
He tilted his head. "You don't have to be my fetchencarry."
"I know that."
Lir sat while I combed and braided his hair, then secured it at the nape of his neck. There would be no stray strands to block his vision during the fight. I smoothed my hands over it one last time, then stepped back. Would that my own would be so easily restrained, I thought, but uselessly. I'd have to take my chances with the rawhide ties.
We found the others dressed and ready, as we were, and we moved out. Most of that day remains a blur in my memory as we moved in discreet formations toward the White Palace. The day that had begun cool became warm and sunny, atypically hot. I remember sweating beneath the kedalya as I stood motionless in the entry hall, waiting to be summoned to do a task. I wondered how follies stood the summer heat, and I blinked sweat from my eyes and called on the Art to keep myself from swaying with nerves and heat.
Lir was one of the few men who had not spent the night in the hidden bathhouse, so he'd donned a kedalya, hunched his form and made his way there to help the others make their way through the secret passages. I tried not to think about him. It was difficult.
At last, after a day of being told to run hither and yon, carrying heavy trays of food and drink to the ballroom, scrubbing floors, doing whatever tasks had been demanded of me by Rosten's staff, it was time for the coronation. Rosten had planned it to begin just after the first star twinkled in the dusky sky, and when the call came "follies to the kitchens!" my head snapped up and my exhaustion vanished.
Everything seemed twice as bright and clear. Every sound twice as loud. I made sure my steps remained smooth and gliding, and above all, silent, though I longed to run and jump toward my goal. I followed the other follies into the kitchen, where we were handed more trays of food to circulate among the guests. I took one, heavy with grapes and other fruit from Daelyn's green houses, and I went into the ballroom.
I'd never had the chance to attend a formal party here, but had no time to gape at the decorations or architecture. I kept my head low and my tray raised. I mingled among men who plucked food from my tray without acknowledging my existence, and my mouth stretched in a wide, humorless grin every time one of them did.
We moved like ghosts among Rosten's guests, all of us women at first, though here and there I thought I spotted a folly too tall and broad to be female. Still, it was as we had assumed. Beneath the veil, we all looked much the same. The party grew, with lords and merchants, the heads of all the councils, even some estate owners I could recognize by their country clothes and talk of fields and beasts.
Rosten's two closest companions, Adamantane and Simelbon, ate and drank and laughed boisterously at the table set up for them close to the dais. Rosten himself mingled in the crowd, shaking hands, clapping shoulders, accepting toasts. He had indeed taken pains to dress himself for the occasion, not in his customary black, but in rich crimson and violet. A King's colors.
"Hey, you, folly!" He meant me. I glided over to offer the tray of grapes. My fingers clutched the ornate silver edges until my palms ached. I didn't want him to see me trembling.
Rosten grabbed and began to eat a handful of the fruit. I made the mistake of looking up as I backed away, and his eyes caught mine. His mouth thinned and curved into a frown. I looked away as fast as I could, but it was too late.
He caught at my sleeve. "Wait a minute, you bold bitch. What do you think you're doing, looking at me? Looking for a beating?"
I bent my head and shook it, not daring to say anything. He tugged me closer and, before Kedalya, I swear it, he sniffed me. Sniffed, as though he were a dog and I a bone.
"Let the folly go," said Rosten's companion mildly. "This is your party, my lord. Enjoy it."
Rosten let me go abruptly and gave the other lord a smile. "You're so right. Why should I allow one small, insignificant thing spoil my success?"
The other lord took Rosten by the elbow and began to lead him away. He glanced over his shoulder even as he spoke, and gave me a brief grin. A chill ran down my spine. He knew what I was. He was one of us.
The thought comforted me, that we had so infiltrated Rosten's domain even the guests at his own party were going to betray him. I set off again on my rounds of the room, my back already aching from the heavy tray.
I couldn't understand the gestures and hints the other follies left me, but I had to believe all was well. My eyes scanned the crowd, but aside from that one young lord, I didn't see anyone I recognized. Even to my eyes, all the follies looked the same.
At last, the hour arrived. Rosten mounted the dais. He nodded at the loincloth-clad Priest of Sinder, then sat in the throne and looked out into the crowd. Daelyn's ballroom could hold three hundred guests without crowding, and I'd venture there were that and half that more crowded onto the marble floor.
The murmuring in the room rose as Rosten grinned and nodded. Not all of it was congratulatory. I saw many shadowed expressions and many shaking heads. I stepped toward the platform, my hand at my side. Ready.
Rosten raised his hands to quiet the crowd, and it fell silent. "My good lords," he began, than fell silent himself, his eyes bulging and staring toward the back of the room.
Everyone turned to follow his gaze. A figure stood in the grand double doorways at the back of the ballroom.The murmuring grew louder. Shocked. I stole a glance at Rosten's face, which had gone first red, then slowly paler.
The figure wore white from head to toe. The fabric was sewn from squares of fine linen, silk and satin, edged with lace and spangled with glittering jewels. It was an elegant, luxurious garment, more stunning than anything else in the room, including Rosten's own outfit. It was also a kedalya.
The veiled form moved forward, a parody of a folly, with the same gliding movements. The crowd parted to let the figure pass, and the muttering grew louder. I heard cries of "ghost" and "spirit."
The figure mounted the dais and stood close enough to Rosten to touch him. I waited for the Book Monster to move, to strike out at the apparition, but he seemed paralyzed. Slowly, slowly, the figure reached up and unclasped the row of pearl buttons at the neck of the kedalya, loosed the fine fabric hood, and pulled it off.
"Hello, Rosten," Daelyn said, as insouciant as ever. "I do believe you're sitting in my chair."
Rosten made to get up, but before he was halfway out of his seat, quick as lightning, something flashed into Daelyn's hand. The blade pressed to Rosten's throat. His guards sprang forward but fell back at Daelyn's warning shout.
"I fear you've overstepped yourself," said Daelyn, her voice loud in the still-silent ballroom. "But now I've come to take back what you stole from me."
I've said before that in battle there is no time for thought, that the mind works independently of the body. What I know to be true is that time seemed to slow while my mind kept detailed account of every action and decision I made. As the Art filled me and I pulled off my kedalya in one smooth motion, I found my blade and raised it.
All around the ballroom, I could see my comrades doing the same. As though a mighty wind had come and ripped us free of our veils, we exposed ourselves to Rosten's guests. There were screams, some from us and many from those we faced, weapons in hand.
The men who cowered before me, or who did not raise a hand, I spared. I am somewhat ashamed to admit to the zeal and swiftness I used on any who took out their own blades. I was not alone in this. The room was filled with women who had lived their lives subject to the whims and furies of the men of their house, and now they rose up almost as one entity.
War is not a woman's game, but t
o protect those they love, they will play it.
The marble floor grew slick with blood. I fell, my blade held out in front of me as I landed on my back. The lord who had struck me down leaped toward me, his eyes alight with fire. He landed on me hard enough to knock the air from my lungs. My blade missed him and I tried again, but he bent low and bit my shoulder hard enough to come away with blood smeared on his lips.
I drew up my legs in Scuttling Beetle and kicked him off me. His dying words to me were "you're nothing but a walking cunt." I felt no remorse about slicing his throat, not then, not now.
Somehow, I found myself on the dais. Daelyn still stood over Rosten, blade still held to his throat. His guards sliced at him, but didn't come too close, perhaps out of fear that Dae would kill their master.
I had spent enough time standing at Daelyn's back not to mind it now. I faced Rosten's guards. And then, we danced.
They too had been Lir's students, but they couldn't best me. One by one, they fell, they slid in the blood of their comrades. One by one, they died.
I turned, expecting to see Rosten's corpse fallen under Daelyn's blade. She had forced Rosten to push the chair with his feet until it reached the back wall. She used the hood she'd removed, torn into strips, to tie his hands and feet to the chair so he couldn't move. Her white kedalya was still unstained, but for one small drop of crimson on the sleeve.
"I want him to watch this," she said to me in a voice so emotionless it made me wonder for a moment if she really was a ghost. "Watch and see, Book Monster, how your men desert you. How those who supported you are slaughtered the way you've slaughtered so many innocent babies. Watch this, you bastard, and wait until it's your turn to die, choking on your own blood."
I didn't hear Rosten's reply, as I was forced to fight the young lord who had leaped up after me. Daelyn jumped forward in front of Rosten, to attack the other man trying to free him. Together we fought back to back and kept the dais free of any who'd claim it.
The battle took forever, and only a moment. I'm not certain when I even realized it had ended, only that I was covered in blood, no small part of it my own, and I had no more opponents to fight.
There were many who had not raised arms against us. Now they stood, all of them, facing the wall with their hands clasped behind their backs. Some sobbed. Others bore the events with stony silence. Some of the Elitani men guarded them, because the Alyrian women would have likely killed them as well, even though they didn't fight.
I looked around the room. I couldn't bring myself to count the bodies. My mind felt calm and clear, though my body had begun to ache. I looked back toward the throne.
Daelyn had forced Rosten to his feet, her hand twisting his arm behind his back and her blade still at his throat. She walked him forward, one resentful step at a time, and made sure he was turned to take in the full view of the carnage.
"This is what you've done to Alyria," she said.
"My prince," ventured one of the Alyrian men who had joined our forces. "Would you like us to take him into custody?"
Rosten finally spoke. "I have the right to a trial. The Law of the Book –"
"Shut up." Daelyn's voice was cracked and hoarse, her eyes wild. The hem of her kedalya had bloomed red from the mess on the floor. "Don't you quote the Law of the Book to me. I'll decide what to do with you, and burning alive might be too good a punishment."
Incredibly, Rosten smiled. "Vengeance, my...lady? 'Twould seem you had more of the female in you than even I thought. Certainly you fucked like one, and I can see you breed like one, too--"
"Shut up!" The blade sliced Rosten's throat enough to make a line of blood well up. Daelyn grimaced. "Where's my sister? Bring her here. We'll decide what to do with this waste of breath."
Gerard stepped forward, his face bleak. "She's...fallen, Your Majesty. Carinda is fallen."
I saw Daelyn's gaze flicker. "Dead?"
"No. But badly wounded."
"And Galya?"
Gerard hesitated. His eyes met mine. He spread his hands, but seemed unable to speak.
I jumped from the dais and searched the crowd for the sight of my friend's familiar face. I didn't see it. "Gerard?"
"I'm sorry, my lady," Gerard replied, answering us both. "She fought valiantly."
Daelyn made a strangled noise. Rosten began to laugh. Without another word, Daelyn slashed her blade across his throat without bothering to step away from the blood that gouted out. It covered her, soaked her white clothes and stained her pale skin. She watched as he crumpled to the floor, then spat into his open eyes.
"Take this carrion out into the woods and leave it for the beasts to tear apart," she said, and went to the ballroom floor to kneel beside her lover's corpse.
Chapter Sixty
As Daelyn had predicted, without Rosten's threats and rants to fuel it, his army gave up with very little effort. The war was not won without protest. There was fighting and burning in the streets, but there were more arrests made than executions, and after a week of unrest, Alyria was once more quiet.
Though we advised her against it, stating the danger of assassination, Daelyn called an assembly to meet at the House of the Book.
Spring had fully arrived. Puddles of muddy water had replaced the mounds of snow. The sun shone brightly, and birds sang. The air smelled fresh and new. Flowers had begun to bloom in the window boxes.
Daelyn wore solid black to address the crowd. Her hair hung in loose curls to her shoulders beneath the simple gold circlet like the one she'd worn the first time I saw her. Her cheeks flushed pink without cosmetic, and her eyes were bright, her lips crimson against pale cheeks made paler by the darkness of her collar.
"I am in mourning," she addressed the men and women in front of her.
Lir and I stood behind her, part of her guard, ready to fight again to defend her if the need arose. I watched the crowd for any sign of madness there. Not all the people in the crowd were men. There were many women, too, some who had chosen to forgo their follyblankets and others who still wore them.
Daelyn addressed the crowd. "Not only for those who also gave their lives, whether they fought for or against me. I am in mourning for Alyria."
I spotted many people weeping. Some held hands. Some stood apart, their eyes dry and faces hard. Yet all were listening.
"I mourn for the way of life we used to know so well. It served us for a hundred years or more. It kept us in peace. It set us apart from the rest of the world. It made us Alyria."
Murmurs of agreement and some of anger rustled through the crowd. Daelyn kept her head high and didn't falter. She took the time to look out over her people, perhaps seeking to meet as many individual gazes as she could.
"All things must change, however, if they are to grow. I love this land. I love the people in it. All the people," she said, and paused. "Men and women. I will not allow this country to stagnate in the muck of its own prejudices. I will not allow the rest of the world to point a finger at Alyria and say we are a country of madmen."
She paused again, and I heard the smile in her voice when she spoke. "I don't expect things to change overnight. I myself have lived too long in one form to immediately take on that of another."
Someone in the crowd laughed aloud. I couldn't tell if it was meant as mockery or humor. Whoever made the noise didn't make it again.
"I am the same Prince Regent I have always been," Daelyn continued. "You may love me or hate me, as you have always done, but whatever your feelings for me, let them be in judgment of my actions, not of my gender."
"What of the Law of the Book?" shouted out one bold man. "What of that?"
"I will see it is upheld, as I've always done," said Daelyn calmly. "But I won't allow it to be twisted."
"And of our follies?" cried another, a man who stood next to two women still wearing their kedalyas. "Are you to take them from us?"
"I will take nobody from their home who wishes to stay. Nor will I support any woman being forced to live in a ho
use where she is not treated with compassion."
An unveiled woman stepped toward the platform. "And love?"
"I can command an army," Daelyn replied. "I can't command anybody's heart."
"What of those who don't want to live under the rule of a folly?" Another man, face red with fury, shook his fist. The crowd around him drew back with shaking heads. "What then? What if we don't want a smelly folly on our throne?"
"You are free to leave Alyria at any time. Or you are welcome to stay, so long as you abide by our laws. The choice is yours."
The man seemed mollified. "It's not right, a folly on the throne. Follies belong in the kitchen, or tending squalling babies, or cleaning my boots! Who will do those things for me now? Who will take care of me?"