“What a beautiful ship!” cried Morigan, clapping her hands.
“They are with me,” Thule stated, for the six stoic Watchmen had their hands to their hilts and were eyeing the excited maiden and the half-dressed brute through the crosses in their helmets. One of the Watchmen was a Watchwoman and was absent of her helmet, though not immediately identifiable as female with her deeply tanned, block-jawed, broad-nosed face. A handsome woman, observed Thule. The impression of masculinity carried through in her tall and strong build, her cropped sandy hair, and the armor of a male soldier that she wore. She was seemingly unfussed by the inconvenience of a breastplate not tailored to her sex—which did exist, so this was a choice, then. A suggestion of femininity could be noted in the warrior’s soft brown eyes, flush with lashes, and there a glint of kindness lay, if buried under duty. Honorably, she bowed to a knee as if each of the three were a master.
“Rowena, sword of the queen.” She nodded to Thule. “Sage Thackery of King’s Crown, I am told that we must escort you to Her Majesty at once. Please.”
Rowena swept an arm toward the stairs, and Thule hustled up them, hoping to escape the questions surely raised by Rowena’s statement. However, not even the narrow, light-bending chamber they entered, as disorienting for an instant as a house of mirrors, could distract Morigan from what she had heard: Sage Thackery. She bit her tongue, though, and Rowena entered behind them and led their company through an oval portal into a room with white padded benches and long windows through which they could spy the city. Once her guests were settled, Rowena politely excused herself. Thule sat across from his companions and stared out the windows, pretending as if the others were not dissecting him with their eyes, and a tense sand of silence later the technomagikal engine gently purred to life. Their stomachs did a small dip as the craft left the ground, and another dip as it bobbed unsteadily for a speck before finding its wings. As soon as the ship discovered its balance, they were off, the ground reeling away beneath them, flying as free and smooth as a bird would glide on currents of wind.
“Sage, hmm?” said Morigan. “I don’t follow these things, but I’m hardly dense. Isn’t that the highest honor awarded to those in the service of Eod? I can’t say that I’m entirely shocked. What with Master Simms and all the other little strings you’ve pulled over the years. Don’t think that I haven’t noticed. What is it, then? What did you do to earn the title?”
Thule continued his cloudwatching.
“The sprite is well out of the bag, Thule. Go on, what’s the story?” she pressed.
“Allow the man his silence, if that is what he wishes,” interceded Caenith. “We each have our burdens to speak of in time.”
What is that supposed to mean? debated Morigan. As much as the old sorcerer kept his pouting face to the window, Morigan saw a similar guilt in Caenith’s eyes. Both of her men were nursing secrets. She wondered how dark those truths were that they thought that she, who had witnessed rape, murder, and genocide, could not handle them? The possibilities of that revelation made her slide down the couch and take a gloomy seat at the window herself.
“You two have only so long to tell me what this is all about, and then I’ll send the bees to find out,” she threatened, and then said no more.
Caenith did not reach for her, as much as he wanted to.
VIII
THE HEART OF THE KING
I
From the moment that Morigan watched the sky carriage land upon a vast anchorage of sanded stone, so polished that it gleamed as white as a band of moonlight, she felt as if she had entered another world. She forgot how angry she was at her two insouciant companions, and she found much more to divert her frustration once she was down the transparent steps and out onto the landing strip. High up in the mountains of Kor’Keth, even the lightness of the air lent itself to a certain euphoria, and as beautiful as the palace had been from afar, true justice was not given until one stood near its loveliness. Awestruck, Morigan stared about. First at the fleet of sparkling skycarriages and their silver attendants arranged along the anchorage in orderly rows, or lifting off as if they were rising stars; then at the vine-wound colonnades, bustling cloisters, and further tiers of the palace rising up the mountainside to a summit haloed in sunlight, at which she could only squint. Of all the sights, this one struck her the most, the clawed peak of Eod blocking the sun.
As if the powers here hold the very bodies of the heavens in their hands. How deep down the well you’ve fallen, girl, thought Morigan.
Someone had spoken in her daze, and then Caenith was pulling her by the hand down the anchorage as he followed the lead of Rowena and the sage up ahead. Morigan pondered what was being said between the two, for Thule was bent on her arm like an old maid. Sage Thackery, she scoffed, and then turned her scorn to Caenith. And you. Him, she found it much harder to muster any rage for, as twisted with fluttering emotion for him as she was. Bloody love. Is this what it feels like? Recklessness and total forgiveness for the man who lies to you? Still, she did not remove herself from his touch, and secretly they were each appreciative of that.
Rowena guided them through an opening in the mountainside guarded by two grand pillars as much vine as they were stone. Into lofty corridors they entered, finding more of this fusion of nature and magikally sculpted stone. Within the palace a brightness permeated the halls, not only from the sheer whiteness of the sandstone architecture, or from the strands of verdure with little buds of light that tumbled from the high reaches of the space, but from an intangible element of divinity that was felt, if never seen. Hallowedness was sensed in the small vestries, libraries, and sitting alcoves that she passed, with white-garbed folks who could be mistaken for peaceful ghosts wafting about each. To speak felt as if it would shatter this fragile contemplation, and the Watchmen or folk whom they passed greeted them with nods of wordless respect. Now and again conversations, soft laughter, or plucked melodies carried through the halls, though these noises were always muted, at times so low that they could be imagined, and little appeared to disturb the hum of silence other than their own clacking footsteps. In her peacefulness, Morigan quickly forgot that she was inside a mountain and was not paying attention to the wending of their travel. Whether they were moving up or down, left or right, she could not say. They were simply moving ahead through white, silver, and green spaces, surrounded in brightness and the ethereal presence of other travelers in this tranquil realm. This place…I could be dead, she mused without alarm.
On and on they trod, until Morigan’s sedation was interrupted by a climb up a flight of steps so grand that they were surely made for the feet of giants, where every stair was akin to a separate landing that required many paces to cross. At each end of step, a Watchman stood, motionless as a metal golem. The chamber that awaited them beckoned with light, and the final landing rolled out to become the floor of a grotto trickling with watery music. A whole kingdom within a kingdom was around them, and amazement captured each of the three travelers, even Thule, who had been to the Chamber of Echoes before. There was too much to see at once: the rock teeth of the ceiling overgrown in bolls of starry flora; the patchy gardens of transparent bushes, crystalline grasses, and rainbow-scattering flowers clustering around the stalagmites below; or the distant wall of water that poured from a hidden vein in Kor’Keth and thundered down the walls of the grotto and into a misty abyss. Somehow, they were on an island of land within the earth, and a drop that they dared not contemplate awaited them if they were to walk to the edge of this expanse and gaze over. Thankfully, Rowena’s path did not lead them there, but straight on, toward the land’s end. A sprawling garden was ahead, pierced by a great leafless yew as twisted and white as a tree of bones. As they approached the tree, gaping from its size, the grinding noise of the water swelled and then suddenly reduced to the merest musical echo, like a chorus of whispering carolers. Morigan knew then how this place had acquired the name Thule had muttered upon entry. Hidden in the calm shadow of the tree, kneeling
in grass of glass, was a slight figure with gold skin and pale clothing. It looked almost as if she was praying.
The woman picked herself up and flowed toward the company, as graceful as a ripple of sunlight on water. Everyone, including the brazen Wolf, bowed upon a knee, for they were in the company of a true queen. Once close enough, she drifted from member to member, examining each of them with her inscrutable amber stare. Morigan could not settle on an age for the woman; as young as she appeared, she seemed as ancient as the tree behind her. First, the amber gaze narrowed upon Morigan and then clashed with Caenith like two snakes in a pit, and broke that instant of conflict to settle on Thackery.
“My Queen, I bring you the sage,” announced Rowena.
“Thank you, my sword,” said Queen Lila. Her use of Ghaedic carried a lilt to it, made heavier by her smoky voice. “Sage Thackery. How long it has been since you joined me in the Chamber of Echoes? The palace is colder without your wisdom and duller without your wit. I am glad to see you again, even if the situations are so ill-tided.”
“Your Majesty,” nodded Thackery. “It is an honor. Thank you for seeing me so shortly.”
“Our meeting could not be delayed, from the sound of it.”
“No, it cannot.”
The snake eyes flashed to Morigan. “The farspeaking stones do not allow for nuanced discourse. What is your name?”
“Morigan Lostarot.”
“And this man?”
“Caenith? He is my…” Wolf? Hunter in the Great Hunt? Man I met less than a week ago with whom I’ve been all over Eod and seen wonders untold, and to whom I want to offer my heart? By the kings, Morigan, spit something out.
Caenith answered for her. “I am her bloodmate-to-be, should she choose me. I am Caenith as declared.”
“Bloodmate,” repeated Queen Lila, and if their Wills were visible, there would have been fire and thunder between them. Caenith showed but a minor tremble as his nerves screamed of one predator in the presence of another, for as pleasant and golden as the queen was, magik leaped off her like sparks, raising his hackles. Only the slightest quiver of a lip told of the queen’s surprise at this barbarian who spoke with olden terms and who, with his puffing strength and sinew, reminded her so very much of a man whom she could not think of without fantasies of murder or a painful rape of his own. Morigan picked up on a bit of this, as bees sang an alarm in her head, but the moment was over and the queen appeared satisfied. She then cast her attention back to Morigan.
“Thackery has informed me that you have information vital to the safety of our kingdom.”
“Well, yes. I have seen something,” confessed Morigan.
“You’ve seen something, have you? Thackery would not have wasted a farspeaking stone to request an afternoon tea—as much as he enjoys those. Please, seat yourselves, and we shall speak,” suggested Queen Lila, and rested upon the ground straight-backed and with her shins parallel, as perfect as an artist’s portrait. Morigan didn’t think that this was intentional, but an inherent elegance. The company settled near the queen, with Caenith a pace or two farther back, and the watchful Sword Rowena standing next to her mistress as grim and towering as the ancient yew.
“What have those strange silver eyes of yours seen, child?” asked Queen Lila.
“Not with her eyes, with her mind!” blurted Thule, unable to contain himself.
The queen squinted in disbelief or amazement. “She is a prophetess?”
“Much more than that,” continued Thule. “What she can do shames the black readings of the House of Mysteries.”
“I don’t know who they are,” confessed Morigan.
“The black prophets of Geadhain,” muttered Queen Lila.
“Fallen children of Alabion, twisted Daughters of the Moon, gone from their virtue,” mumbled the Wolf.
This was the second time that this brute had referenced the old powers, and he drew the queen’s cutting glance. “An unusual association to make for a man who does not have the bearing of a scholar. That is a tie to the past that few, even Sage Thackery, are learned enough to recognize.”
“One should never assume whether a man is wise or unwise, strong or weak, given only a glance,” replied Caenith, his lip curling as he spoke to show his canines. “Even the thinnest sapling may withstand the strongest wind. Even the dullest mind can shine now and again with wisdom. I am twice-natured in many ways, and you should remember to judge me so.”
“Judge you? Pray tell, how does one judge a man who arrives shirtless as a tavern-brawler to the court of his kingdom?” The queen was not sneering—not with her face, at least—though venom laced her words.
“The wise observe before they judge, then observe thrice more before they speak. And this is not my kingdom.”
Rowena’s hand itched on the crystal hilt of her weapon, a lethal sword likely quick as lightning once unsheathed. While the deeper conflict between the queen and her lover was intriguing and surely worth examination to Morigan, that wasn’t the reason they had come to the Chamber of Echoes. Whatever was happening between the two was veering the conversation well off its course and toward a dangerous end. Mifanwae’s prudence reared in her daughter once again, and Morigan sharply took charge of the situation. She placed a hand on the bristling flesh of the Wolf.
“I would like to hear more of this House of Mysteries and its connections to my gift. I really would, as there is much about myself that I know nothing about. That said, my Queen, in the interest of Eod, you really must see what I have seen. Not all of it; I believe there are parts from which you should be spared.”
With a deep breath, the blush of rage had left Queen Lila’s caramel cheeks and she smiled to Morigan and Caenith. The expression was so lovely that the hate toward her lover was only noticed by Morigan’s bees.
“Do pardon any offense, yourself in particular, Caenith. You remind me of someone, is all. A man I would rather not be reminded of. We have matters of far graver importance to focus on than my personal torments. Now, Lady Lostarot. Your vision, yes. What have you seen?”
“I think it might work better if I showed you,” proposed Morigan.
She came forward on her knees and offered her hands to the queen so that she might take them. The queen studied the invitation, as circumspect as she was curious.
“Show me? How?” asked Queen Lila.
“In your head!” exclaimed Thule. “It’s like nothing you’ve ever known! Quite safe, quite safe! She won’t scramble anything too badly, far as I can tell.”
As Thule was no longer the subject but the chronicler to this process, he appeared more enthusiastic about Morigan’s gifts. He shuffled nearer to the queen to watch the magik unfold.
“When you are ready,” said Queen Lila, taking Morigan’s hands without pause.
Morigan had already begun. In a flicker of thought, the bees were off and harvesting from their mistress. She was careful about what brain-nectars they were to bring back: as fearless as the queen might be, she did not need to relive her king’s crime. The bees returned with their droplets of memory, each a tear of the sorrow and suffering that Morigan had experienced in the Dreaming. Before the queen could blink, the static of Morigan’s magik had crawled up her arms, and a dazzle of silver light from the young witch’s face was her final vision before the horror of the crimson-drenched court of the Sun King swallowed all that she knew. Admirably, when the queen gasped and tore her hands from Morigan a sand hence, she did not scream, cry out, or shed a tear. If Morigan were to guess, her puffing breast, rosy cheeks, and slitted eyes showed anger, not distress.
The queen reached for her sword, who was at her side as quick as one’s cane, helping her to stand. Together the queen and her sword turned away from the company.
“What is it, Your Majesty?” asked the sword, hushed, though the Wolf still heard it.
The queen did not speak and only shook her head ruefully. Morigan and the others knew too well the Sun King’s evil. What the queen had seen required ruminat
ion; she would speak when she was ready. While they waited, Caenith crept over to sit behind his Fawn, his legs rising aside her like two mountains over a canyon with his comforting strength pressing into her back. She could feel him inhaling and cautiously nuzzling her hair. They hadn’t touched all that much since she deduced that he—and the old sorcerer—were concealing things from her, and as she watched the silently torn Queen Lila, thoughts of what she had seen in the heads of Magnus, Thule, and Brutus pronounced themselves, and she understood that dealing with darkness was a battle, and one not won in an instant. She would give these men time, more time than she had angrily declared, to draw their darkness out into the light. Such could not be an easy task to submit oneself to.
Consumed in these sentiments of forgiveness and compassion, Morigan reached out to hug one of Caenith’s knees. I am sorry, my Wolf. Share your darkness with me when you are ready. I shall not stir the monsters of your past from their lair. She meant what she said, with the whole of her heart, as an expression that wanted to be shared, and mayhap that is what stirred the bees and sent their silver stingers flying from her head. Caenith tensed behind her. As she looked over her shoulder and saw his toothy grin, followed by him mouthing the words thank you, she made the calm if unsettling realization that he had somehow just heard what she said—without words, and using only her mind. Was further confirmation of this feat needed, Caenith gave a slow, approving nod at the astonished expression of his mate.
Feast of Fates (Four Feasts Till Darkness Book 1) Page 19