Queen of the Pale

by Sarah Hawke

  Thankfully, he was a far better rider today than he had been back then, and once the moonlit silhouette of Rimewreath appeared on the western horizon, she slid behind him and allowed him to steer them the rest of the way. Her mind began to wander almost immediately despite her best efforts. A few days ago, her entire life had been laid out in front of her, but now all she could think about was surviving from one hour to the next. Sooner or later, someone was going to recognize her, and without Thedric to protect her…

  The harrowing thought lingered in her mind as they approached the gate. Thanks to Rohen’s armor and wraithblade, they had no trouble riding past the outlying sentries. They dismounted once they drew close to the gate, and he took the lead as she lurked in his shadow.

  “Sir Templar,” one of the guards said. Judging from his voice he might have been even younger than they were, but his face was hidden behind a closed helmet. “We weren’t told to expect another—”

  “Lady Primrose is here to inspect the soldiers from Morothir,” Rohen said. “She does not wish to be kept out in the cold.”

  “Uh, of course not,” the soldier stammered, his eyes flicking to Delaryn. “My apologies, my lady. I believe the bannermen from Morothir are camped near the main keep in the inner bailey.”

  “Good,” Delaryn said, doing her best to sound impatient and annoyed rather than frightened. “Where is Keeper Zinath?”

  “In the eastern tower with that dark elf from the Galespire, I believe.”

  Rohen nodded and promptly steered their horse inside. His raw swagger worked wonders: no one else attempted to stop them as they moved into the outer bailey, though she still tried to remain his shadow whenever possible.

  “Maiden’s mercy,” Delaryn said as she looked out at the dozens upon dozens of house banners fluttering in the wind. “There are so many soldiers…”

  “Not as many as there are supposed to be,” Rohen replied sourly. “If we work our way around the central keep, we should be able to avoid anyone important enough to recognize you.”

  She drew her cowl tight again. “I don’t see General Galavir.”

  “He’s probably inside the keep,” Rohen said. “Let’s just pray he isn’t in the eastern tower…”

  Delaryn nodded and followed his lead. As a purely military structure, Rimewreath had far fewer amenities than Whitefeather Hold, though some of the layout was similar. The main gate was on the southwestern side, since that was where the Chol and Roskarim had always flowed down from the mountains in their attempts to reach southern Darenthi, and the keep was sheltered behind a second wall on the northeastern side perpendicular to the shore. There were three major defensive towers, two on the west and one in the east, and the vast majority of the Pact soldiers were currently camped in the outer bailey between them.

  All in all, everything was exactly as she remembered it, from the high turrets to the cracked battlements. Even the smell of the campfires unlocked a trove of long forgotten memories from the last time she had stood here. She could almost hear her father recounting how thousands upon thousands of barbarians had met their end trying to climb these walls.

  With the grace of the Guardian, the coming battle against the Chol would be no different. Spread all around them in the cramped courtyard, the Pact Army was an impressive sight…though she realized that Rohen was correct about their number. Based on the gaps between some of the tents—and the absence of several houses she knew Thedric had been expecting—she wouldn’t have been surprised if there were only seven or eight thousand men here. It would still be the largest gathering of banners since the end of the civil war, but it only represented a tiny fraction of the kingdom’s full strength.

  “I bet a full third of these men are the ones who marched north with us from Silver Falls,” Delaryn whispered as she and Rohen wound their way around the outskirts of the courtyard. “The other duchies were supposed to send at least a thousand men each.”

  “They didn’t,” Rohen said flatly. “Not even close.”

  Delaryn raised her hands to her mouth and blew hot air over them. Thedric had wanted to lead by example; that was why he had committed so many of his own men to the cause. He had been absolutely confident that even the most cautious tharns would eventually come around. Evidently, that was yet another thing he had been mistaken about.

  She and Rohen didn’t have any serious trouble making their way to the eastern tower, mostly because everything was so hectic. With a major battle on the horizon, the officers were running drills even at night, and the cooks and servants were clearly struggling to keep everyone fed. Rohen’s sword and armor drew a fair amount of attention—and more importantly, kept it away from her.

  The tower itself was significantly less hectic than the courtyard. The parapets at the top had been converted into a makeshift aviary for a few of the griffons, and there were half a dozen anvils and forges just outside the bottom level. Aside from the craftsmen, smiths, and stable hands, however, there weren’t many other people around. Delaryn couldn’t understand why, at first, but then the truth belatedly struck her:

  They were all afraid of Sehris.

  Delaryn snickered at the thought. Unless three years at the Galespire had completely changed her, Sehris was about as threatening as a kitten. Most Darenthi were reflexively terrified of sorcerers and dark elves, though with the Chol horde lurking nearby, their fears weren’t completely groundless. Sehris could act as a lure…just like Delaryn herself.

  Now that they’ve heard the news about Whitefeather Hold, their fears will only seem more justified. Without Zin to protect her, Sehris would have been in real danger from a mob.

  Rohen left their horse with the stable hands, then led her up the stairs onto the curtain wall adjoining the tower. Hopefully, the door connecting the two would lead right to where Zin and Sehris were working. They just had to pray that General Galavir wasn’t inside with them…

  Delaryn hid behind Rohen as he opened the door. The chamber inside was nothing like what she had expected—it looked like an alchemist’s lab combined with a carpenter’s workshop. Hundreds of arrows and dozens of quivers were laid out upon one of the long tables, and multiple piles of blue vatari crystal dust were clumped atop the other. There were open books, scraps of paper with scribbled notations…

  And two of her best friends in the whole world.

  “Rohen?” Adrien Zinath gasped the instant the door opened. He dropped the bundle of arrows he had been carrying, and his wide, cherubic face turned as white as the snow.

  “Ilhari vlos,” Sehris breathed from across the room behind him. Her luminescent eyes widened like a pair of glowing amethysts.

  “It’s a long story,” Rohen said, stepping inside and grinning ear to ear. “Thank the Guardian we’re still alive to tell it.”

  The other two were so stunned they could hardly move, but Zin snapped out of his paralysis first. “We?” he asked. “Who…?”

  Delaryn drew back the hood of her cloak and smiled. “It’s been a long time.”

  If the two of them had been shocked to see Rohen, they were downright dumbstruck to see her. Zin actually stumbled backward a step, his mouth dropping open, but Sehris squealed and rushed forward so quickly she was little more than a blur of gray skin and black hair. Her long, slender arms wrapped around Delaryn and squeezed as hard as they could.

  “Del…” the dark elf breathed in her husky voice. “Ilhari, usstan ille’wariil dos…”

  “I’ve missed you, too,” Delaryn said, smiling. For a single perfect moment, everything was right in the world again. The two of them were back in the orphanage in Silver Falls talking about history and language and magic, and even though the future was still an indecipherable haze, they knew they were friends and that was more than enough.

  When Sehris eventually pulled away, she cupped Delaryn’s face in her hands and studied her for the first time in years. “Maiden’s tears, you are beautiful!”

  Delaryn smiled and pulled the dark elf in for a kiss
. Sehris’s lips were as warm and loving as ever, and the scent of lilacs in her hair triggered another landslide of comforting nostalgia. When they finally pulled apart for breath, they held hands and stared wistfully into each other’s eyes.

  “How?” Zin stammered, glancing between the two of them. “General Galavir told us that the castle was completely overrun!”

  “It was,” Rohen said. “We’re still not sure how, but one group of Chol got inside the keep while a larger force made it into the courtyard. We only escaped because Delaryn knew how to get us through her family’s crypts and into the mountains.”

  “Guardian’s grace,” Zin breathed as he approached Delaryn and placed an affectionate hand on her shoulder. “What about…?”

  She turned away from Sehris but squeezed the other woman’s fingers. “Thedric is dead.”

  Zin swore under his breath. “So the general was right. Gods, I’m sorry. This is…”

  “It’s bad, and it might be even worse than you think,” Rohen said, sharing a glance with Delaryn. “We have a lot to talk about. Does anyone else ever come up here?”

  “Are you kidding?” Sehris asked. “No one here wants to be within a hundred feet of me.”

  “Right now, that’s a good thing,” Rohen told them. He turned around and barred the door behind them, then signaled for Zin to do the same with the one on the other side of the workshop. “Like I said…we have a lot to discuss.”

  ***

  The more Rohen recounted what had happened, the more he realized how absolutely barking mad it all sounded. The fact that he and Delaryn had escaped was astonishing, and the fact they had gotten all the way here to Rimewreath was nothing short of miraculous. That, coupled with sheer number of unanswered questions looming over them, made their whole situation seem even more preposterous.

  “Watcher’s balls,” Zin hissed as he ran a hand through his curly red hair. “When Thorne told us what happened, I didn’t want to believe it. None of it made any damn sense. It still doesn’t.”

  “Believe me, I know,” Rohen murmured, glancing back at the door for about the hundredth time since he started his explanation. He had left out a few choice bits, including the fact that he and Delaryn had been alone in the chapel. The details of that particular scandal could wait…possibly forever. He also didn’t mention anything about her magic just yet, let alone her ability to rend the Pale. He didn’t even know where to start with that.

  Both he and Zin had been pacing back and forth across the workshop the whole time they spoke; they had a long tradition of “moving conversations,” as Sehris liked to teasingly call them. The girls, by contrast, were an island of calm amidst the chaos. They were holding hands while sitting next to each other atop one of the workbenches.

  “My first question is how in the bloody void did those monsters even get into the keep?” Zin asked.

  “We don’t know,” Rohen admitted. “The best I can figure is that they came up from the larder. Maybe the renovations left a gap they could tunnel through. The walls looked like they were mostly repaired from the outside, but I know the laborers weren’t anywhere near finished yet. I suppose there could have been another breach somewhere that no one noticed.”

  “You don’t just miss a hole in the wall large enough for the Chol to crawl through,” Zin said, shaking his head. “And they aren’t clever enough to silently dig their way in without anyone hearing the ruckus.”

  “It does seem difficult to believe,” Rohen agreed.

  “Not that difficult, necessarily,” Sehris said, tapping her bottom lip with her fingernail like she always did when she was deep in thought. “Whitefeather Hold has been largely abandoned for three years. It’s conceivable that there is a whole breeding ground hidden beneath the Crescent Slopes.”

  “That’s a pleasant image,” Zin muttered. “I thought the whole point of a Culling is that all the wretched bastards gather in one place to try and annihilate us.”

  “That’s a common misconception,” Sehris told him. “When High King Aradris Whitefeather declared the first Culling, he was referring to the need to winnow the Chol population, not—”

  “Fine,” Zin interrupted with a sigh, “even if there is another horde lurking beneath the Slopes, I still don’t see how they could have burrowed into the keep without anyone knowing.”

  “Right, and the ‘how’ is only the first part of the puzzle,” Rohen said. “The ‘why’ is just as confusing. Whether they broke off from the main horde or came from the mountains, we still don’t know what drew them in the first place.”

  “We have one possible explanation,” Delaryn whispered. “General Galavir could have intentionally led them to castle.”

  Zin and Sehris both turned and eyed her as if she were speaking a foreign language. “Uh…what?” Zin asked first.

  “When we reached Dorelas, they told us that Galavir was the one who warned you about the attack on Whitefeather Hold,” Rohen said. “They said he barely escaped on the last griffon.”

  Zin nodded. “Right, what of it?”

  “Galavir left on that griffon before the feast. The Chol didn’t break into the keep until many hours later.”

  Zin and Sehris shared another look, and the dark elf shook her head. “Are you saying he lied?”

  “I’m saying there’s no way he could have known about the attack,” Rohen told her. “Not unless he knew it was coming ahead of time.”

  “Maiden’s tits, you can’t be serious,” Zin breathed. “Do you have any idea what you’re implying?”

  “I know how it sounds, believe me,” Rohen assured him. “But there’s more: after we escaped the castle, we found a few bodies south of the road not far from the forest’s edge. There were three of them, all sorcerers from the Galespire who had been killed by the Chol.”

  Sehris’s eyes narrowed. “Sorcerers? How is that possible?”

  “It shouldn’t be,” Rohen said. “You’re the only one who is supposed to be anywhere near here.”

  “What the f…?” Zin shook his head. “Did you recognize any of them?”

  “No, and we didn’t find any traces of their Keeper, either. They were young—very young—and they had all been Branded.”

  “That’s…” Sehris trailed off. “Could they have been fleeing to Nelu’Thalas?”

  “Del suggested the same thing, but the bodies were way too far east for that,” Rohen said. “Besides, we never heard anything about adepts escaping before we left the Galespire.”

  “That doesn’t make any damn sense,” Zin grumbled as he crossed his arms over his chest. “You think the Chol might have been drawn by them?”

  Rohen shrugged. “Three sorcerers traveling together would be a tempting target. I suppose they could have been dragged out there on purpose to act as lures for the horde.”

  Zin shook his head. “I don’t know, Ro, that seems like a stretch.”

  “I agree. I’m just saying it’s possible.” Rohen shook his head. “Either way, their presence still doesn’t explain why the Dretches continued to the Hold or how they got inside the keep, but you have to admit that it all sounds pretty damn suspicious. A random group of sorcerers in perfect position to lure Chol to the Hold? The monsters mysteriously finding a way inside? The High King and a bunch of troublesome tharns dead not long before a great battle to unify the kingdom?”

  “But Thedric just gave Galavir his own castle!” Zin said. “He made him a bloody duke!”

  “But he could want more,” Delaryn whispered. “Thedric was the last of his line. Without his royal blood on the White Throne, the line of succession is broken. Darenthi will plunge right back into civil war…unless a popular, well-known man could unite the country in its grief.”

  “A man who just so happens to be leading the effort against the Chol,” Rohen said. “Suddenly the Pact Army here looks more important than ever, and the man leading it will gain even more prestige. The people will be desperate for a sign of leadership, especially from a known hero. If Ge
neral Galavir defeats the Chol, every tharn from here to Calaneth will be clamoring for him to be crowned king. He’ll be the man who saved Darenthi from annihilation twice in the past few decades.”

  “You’re making a lot of assumptions there,” Zin said, though his protests sounded increasingly reflexive rather than earnest. “The Chol aren’t assassins, Ro. Besides, Galavir and Thedric are legendary friends!”

  “Once, perhaps,” Delaryn said softly. “But Galavir despises me. He warned Thedric about me many times—he said that marrying a Whitefeather would destroy the country. He said it spit on the memory of every soldier who died fighting to overthrow my father.”

  They all turned to look at her. The flames from the dying fire flickered in her brilliant blue eyes as she stared off into nothingness.

  “Every tharn in Darenthi knows how long and hard the general pleaded for Thedric to have me executed,” she went on. “He insisted that the daughter of the Winter Witch would bring doom upon the kingdom.” She slowly turned to face them. “He was right.”

  “That’s not true and you know it,” Rohen said, stepping over and kneeling in front of her. “You’re not the reason the Chol were there.”

  “You can’t know that for certain,” Delaryn said, her so soft it was barely audible over the crackling logs in the furnace. “But even if you’re right, it doesn’t change what I am. It doesn’t change the fact that Galavir was right to warn Thedric about me.”

  “What are you talking about, Del?” Zin asked, his brow furrowing in confusion.

  Delaryn swallowed heavily and glanced at Sehris. The dark elf pursed her lips and nodded slowly.

  “Rohen knows?” she asked.

  Delaryn nodded. “Yes.”

  “Knows?” Zin asked. “Knows what?”

  Sehris squeezed Delaryn’s hand again. “She can feel the Aether. Just like me.”

  “What?” Rohen and Zin gasped at unison for completely different reasons.

  Sehris had known about this? How is that possible? They haven’t even seen each other since Sehris was taken away by the Keepers…