She wrestled herself into something like calm. “Why can’t you do that?”
“I can’t leave Rielle. I can’t endanger myself and risk her safety. And,” Ludivine added, the tiniest of frowns disturbing the serenity of her expression, “whenever I try to look north, something stops me. An obstruction. A taunt. I believe angels are involved in this, and if I try to get too close to them, they’ll sense me and stop me. They’ll be on the lookout for me. But not for you, if you move quickly and carefully.”
Ludivine rose. “I know this is overwhelming. I also know you are more than capable of not only understanding what I’m saying, but also carrying out this task I’m giving you.”
Obritsa barely resisted glancing over her shoulder to see if Artem was still standing there, frozen, ready to throw his body over the railing.
“Why should I do anything to help you?” she managed, her jaw frozen tight with fear.
“Because one of your own magisters drugged you in order to keep his secret,” Ludivine replied, a twinge of pity on her face. “He and the others are allowing children to be abducted for reasons they don’t understand. They have no loyalty to you, to their kingdom, to the people they serve. They are loyal only to their own desires. You may very well be safer in the Villmark than you are in your own palace.”
“You can’t possibly be engineering this simply to protect me,” Obritsa said viciously. “Or are angels as stupid as you are cruel?”
Ludivine smiled—a lovely, easy smile that did not reach her eyes. “Of course it isn’t the only reason, or even the primary one. If you die after helping me, it will cause me no grief. I’m asking you because I can’t do it myself, and because your marque power will carry you faster than I can travel. And because whatever’s happening in the north will affect all of us, if it is allowed to continue.”
Ludivine hesitated, and when she spoke again, there was a solemnity to her voice, an exhaustion in her expression, that chilled Obritsa even more than the outside air.
“The Gate is falling, Obritsa,” Ludivine said quietly. “There are many angels in the world, and more will come, if Rielle cannot repair it. They are hiding something in the north, and I need you to find out what that is. Not for my sake, nor for Rielle’s, and certainly not for the horrible man who raised you or for his revolution. But for the world.”
Trying to wrap her mind around Ludivine’s words felt like trying to stretch her thin twelve-year-old arms around Zheminask’s fattest tower. “And if I refuse to help you?”
“Then I will slip into your mind as well as Artem’s,” Ludivine replied smoothly, “and send you both plummeting over that railing. I will forge a note, a confessional, in which you betray all your revolutionary friends. And I will smooth over any ripples of doubt until everyone is convinced of your cowardice.”
Obritsa waited until she had recovered her voice. Rage simmered at the edge of her thoughts. “I will help you,” she said tightly, “because you have forced me into it. Every day, I will resent and hate you for it. Every day, I will pray that you do not die, but instead are forced to live forever in misery for what you’ve done.”
Another flicker of darkness passed over Ludivine’s face. “I don’t blame you. And for my part, I will pray that you come to see the cruelty of those who have raised you and are able to break free of their chains. You deserve better than they have given you.”
With that, Ludivine glanced at the terrace. Obritsa turned, heart in her throat, and saw Artem reenter the room, shuddering and bewildered, hair white with snow. He sank onto the carpet, shaking on his hands and knees.
Obritsa ran to him, pulled off her dressing gown, and threw the useless thin garment around his trembling body.
“Artem, Artem, my dear.” She cupped his square-jawed face in her trembling hands, lifting his bleary gaze to hers. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders, tucked her face into the cold bend of his neck. He was alive. Her only friend, her devoted one.
“You’re here,” she whispered against his stiff collar. “You’re safe.”
Then a small sharp cry made her turn.
Ludivine’s expression had morphed into one of absolute terror. “He’s here. He’s there. He’s hurting them. Oh, God.”
“Who?” Obritsa forced herself to stand, leaving Artem in a heap at her feet. “Tell me at once.”
“His name is Corien. The most powerful of my kind.” Ludivine’s gaze turned distant and soft, as if focusing on something far away. “He is in the mountains, at a small village. Polestal. He is forcing the elementals there to hurt each other. They are burning.”
Her gaze cleared. “You must take me to Polestal now.”
Obritsa hesitated. Too many things were changing too quickly. “Why?”
“Because he is doing this to force Rielle’s hand,” Ludivine said simply, “and if he succeeds, we’re all dead.”
* * *
Obritsa waited in the dark stable near the Obex temple, the shield of Saint Marzana lying in the dirt at her feet.
She heard the distant sounds of screams, smelled the faint bite of smoke, the rich stink of the stable. She breathed long and slow, imagining herself as a smooth, water-worn rock sitting at the bottom of a still pool, and the pool was in the center of a wide, flat field, and the field stretched between two towering mountains of equal size, each a silent giant impervious to the wind, the rain, the snow.
She was not afraid. She was not angry.
She was ready.
Into this stillness burst the Sun Queen’s guard, leading a passel of shaggy ponies. After them came the Celdarian prince, and then the Sun Queen herself.
Obritsa stared. Lady Rielle was drenched in blood.
Prince Audric dismounted, frowning, and then helped Rielle do the same. “Queen Obritsa? This is a surprise.”
“What happened?” Obritsa demanded.
“I’m not entirely sure,” murmured Rielle, clinging to Audric’s side. Her gaze was distant, her face drawn and pale. “But I think the villagers of Polestal might require some aid from the crown and a visit from your magisters.”
Obritsa longed to strike the woman, if only to snap some life back into her eyes. The sight of the formerly radiant Lady Rielle struck dumb and silent with fear was more disturbing than Obritsa cared to admit.
“You are covered in what must be the blood of one of my citizens, if not more than one,” she said coolly. “Humor, however black, is not appropriate at this moment.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” Rielle mumbled before turning away to hide her face in her pony’s coat.
Audric touched Rielle’s back, even that small gesture impossibly tender. “Obritsa, if you’ll permit me to explain—”
“No time for that,” she said sharply. “I have my instructions from Ludivine, and I must obey them. I’ll have your things sent to your capital, though it will take a few weeks for them to arrive. The other guards in your escort have been sent ahead and will meet you when you arrive.”
Audric’s brow furrowed beneath his damp dark curls. “When we arrive where?”
A little thrill of satisfaction bloomed inside Obritsa. So few people knew her true identity, and seeing the Celdarians’ astonishment when they realized what she was would come as a great smug joy on this awful night.
“A small forest,” she replied, “some thirty miles from here. I’m afraid that’s the limit of my abilities.” A half truth. She could have gone with them, had she wanted to, helped them flee thirty miles at a time all the way to Celdaria, if they were lucky.
But she was doing enough for them already. And she itched to return to her rooms, tell Artem what had happened, and where they now must go. The Villmark. The farthest northern reach of the continent.
She turned, leading the Celdarians into the stable’s back rooms.
“Has Lu explained any of this to you?”
she heard Audric mutter to Rielle. “Evyline, please carry the shield.”
And then he fell silent, for they had reached the hay-lined tack room where Obritsa had summoned her threads—an oval of shifting, shimmering light hovering just above the floor. Through the lights shone wavering images—a snow-covered forest, a sky thick with night.
Obritsa could not resist glancing at their shocked faces. Even Lady Rielle, blood-soaked and trembling, faltered at the room’s threshold.
One of Rielle’s guards swore.
“You’re a marque,” Audric said quietly, his handsome face soft with wonder. “Do your magisters know?”
No, Obritsa longed to reply. No one knows unless I wish them to, for I am the Korozhka, prized weapon of the Fell Blade.
But that was no longer true. Now, this foreign prince and his Sun Queen knew, as did their guards, as did Lady Ludivine.
Sasha would be furious when he found out what had happened tonight. The man had spies everywhere, each more eager than the last to curry favor.
The sooner Obritsa could escape to the north, rife as it may be with angelic dangers, the better.
“My instructions were to send you to safety,” she told Audric, “not to tell you the story of my life. The threads will deposit you in the Arsenza forest. I suggest you leave for Celdaria as soon as you’ve rested. Once word gets out of whatever you did in Polestal, you may no longer be as welcome in this country. There are supplies in that bag, enough to last you until Nazastal, where you can purchase horses. I’ve left a map in the bag as well.”
“What about Lu?” said Rielle hoarsely.
“When she arrives, I’ll send her after you. I won’t leave until she’s safely away.”
Obritsa burned to ask Rielle the question that had been spinning in her mind since Lady Ludivine had invaded her rooms: The Gate is falling. How will you possibly repair it?
But she only gestured at her threads. Audric went first, stepping through the glowing ring of light.
Lady Rielle hesitated before following him. She glanced back at Obritsa. “Thank you for this.”
“Don’t thank me,” said Obritsa fiercely. “Instead, save us.”
Rielle blinked, her expression unreadable, before turning away to step through the threads. Her Sun Guard followed her, and then Obritsa was alone. Her final words to Rielle lingered in the air:
Don’t thank me. Instead, save us.
Was such a thing even possible? Yes, seven saints had managed to craft the Gate at the height of that first glorious empirial age. But the world was different now, and Lady Rielle was only one person. What did it even mean, that her church had named her Sun Queen? What if her power was some kind of fluke and was even now diminishing?
When Ludivine hurried into the stable some time later, blood-spattered and tight-lipped, Obritsa watched the woman calmly from the imagined pool of stillness beside her threads.
“Can she do it?” she asked, just before Ludivine hurried through the humming ring of light.
Ludivine glanced at her through a curtain of damp golden hair. “Is Rielle capable of repairing the Gate? Yes.”
Obritsa touched Ludivine’s arm, holding her still. She peered hard at her, searching her pale blue gaze for comfort and finding nothing but troubled shadows.
“Will she?” she asked quietly.
Ludivine did not answer. She turned her grim face toward the distant snow and stepped away through the threads, leaving Obritsa alone in the dark.
6
In the still, perfumed rooms of her palace apartments, Obritsa waited for Artem to speak and fought the urge to squirm.
She hadn’t squirmed since she was a small child, too terrified of Sasha’s array of punishments even to risk scratching her nose—but Artem’s astonishment was rapidly transforming into an anger she had never seen directed toward her.
At last he spoke, his voice quiet and thin. “You agreed to do what?”
“You heard me,” Obritsa said coldly.
“Yes, I did. But I would like you to say it again, so you may hear the words aloud and understand exactly how ludicrous they are.”
Obritsa fisted her hands in her skirts. The night’s events had frayed her patience, but she reminded herself that she’d had at least a little time to acclimate herself to the danger of what lay ahead. Artem had had none.
“I told Lady Ludivine that I would travel to Shirshaya,” Obritsa said, keeping all inflection from her voice, “and discover where the missing children are being taken, and what’s being done to them there, and why, and then deliver this information to her.”
“Shirshaya is a bleak and brutal territory,” Artem said. “At this time of year, it will be dangerously cold and will grow colder by the day.”
“I am well aware of Shirshaya’s climate. I’m a Kirvayan, just as you are.”
Artem rose from his chair, paced for a moment, then ran his hands through his hair and returned to his seat. His restlessness alarmed Obritsa; Artem was a creature of stillness. She was not used to seeing him so thoroughly shaken.
“And Lady Ludivine,” Artem continued, “is an angel.”
It was perhaps the most remarkable piece of information they had learned, and yet Obritsa kept her voice mild. “Curious, isn’t it? I would never have guessed, to look at her.”
Artem threw her a withering look. “Do not make light of this, Obritsa.”
“I shall make light of whatever I wish, and if I order you to do the same, then you will obey me.”
“I cannot allow you to do this mad thing.”
She wished she were older, if only because she would not feel so small and frail beside Artem’s furious bulk. She sat as tall as she could manage.
“And how do you intend to stop me?” She was small, but her words were sharp. She spat them like the clean slice of arrows. “Will you chain me to your side? Will you beat me until I submit to your will? You could, you know. You’re stronger than I am. You could beat me easily, but you would have to do a very good job of it indeed, for Sasha beat me, too, as you well know, and taught me how to bear it.” She could no longer sit still and rose to glare down at him—though, even standing, even slumped as he was, she only just surpassed him in height. “That’s what you’ll have to do, Artem, and even then, it may not work.”
Her words did just as she had intended. Artem’s expression crumbled beneath the weight of her gaze.
“You know I would never do such a thing to you, Obritsa,” Artem said. He reached for her hands, gently pressed his large thumbs into her palms. “I am not Sasha, and I am not cruel. Please tell me you do not truly think of me this way.” Artem bowed his head, squeezed his eyes shut.
Obritsa hesitated, then pulled one of her hands free to caress Artem’s ruffled hair. He must have been dragging his fingers through it over and over while she’d been away in Polestal.
“Of course I don’t,” she said softly, and when Artem let out a tiny, relieved sound, Obritsa’s chest seized around her heart. She stepped away from him at once, for the warm feeling sweeping through her body was too immense, too tender, and she knew Sasha would disapprove. She disapproved.
Artem was not to be indulged, and he was certainly not to be loved. He was not her family; he was her guardian and protector. Her soldier, her subordinate. If she had to kill him someday, or let him die to complete a mission, then she would do it.
She moved to the hearth, allowing Artem the chance to recover his composure.
“If I don’t do as Ludivine demands, she will tell everyone what I am.” Obritsa watched the fire. Its heat, pure and unfeeling, chased away all unwanted feeling from her body. “She will reveal the revolution’s secrets, disclose their locations, betray Sasha’s movements to the Council. The revolution will collapse, and I will be executed.”
She turned back to Artem. “Do you understan
d, Artem? I am no longer under Sasha’s control, or yours—not until this task is done. I must obey Lady Ludivine, or I will die, as will everything we have long fought for. The revolution will mean nothing if the Gate falls.”
Artem was quiet for a long time. “And if what she said about Grand Magister Yeravet is true—”
“It is.” Obritsa steeled herself against the memories Ludivine had helped her recover. She had to consider them from a distance, or else horror overwhelmed her—Grand Magister Yeravet’s cloth-covered hand clamping over her mouth, the acrid bite of the widow’s tears clouding her lungs. “It’s all true, what she said. I remember it clearly now. Too clearly.”
A shadow flickered across Artem’s features. “If it would not further endanger you and our mission, I would tear out his throat for what he did.”
“Your devotion is to be commended,” said Obritsa with a small smile. “Perhaps someday it will come to that, but for now, we must do as Ludivine demands.”
Artem rubbed his chin, staring thoughtfully into the fire. “Grand Magister Yeravet helped persuade the Council to appoint you queen. Why would he do that and in the next breath aid an angel?”
“I’ve wondered. Perhaps he plays the eager helper to everyone who needs it, to ensure safety and power for himself no matter who wins this game we’re all playing. The revolution, the angels—my guess is that he doesn’t much care who emerges victorious, as long as he is there at their side.”
“A coward and a traitor.”
“Indeed.”
Artem nodded, drew a long breath. “It could be safer to go elsewhere for a while, regardless of Lady Ludivine’s wishes. You obviously saw something you were not meant to, and the Council will be watching you even more closely now. Which will, regrettably, make slipping away all the more difficult. And I’m not certain how we will explain a prolonged absence.”
The answer came to Obritsa at once. She hurried to her desk, withdrawing pen and paper. “I will return to the Temple of Her Own Daughters,” she said, already scribbling out the beginnings of a letter to Sestra Bozhena. “I’ll live in seclusion for a month, a traditional novice’s meditation in honor of Saint Marzana—no visitors, no intrusions. No one can argue with that. And from the prayer room assigned to me, I’ll find a thread and travel north.”
Queen of the Blazing Throne Page 5