by Megan Derr
Reaching the great hall, Noire wandered aimlessly around, admiring the paintings that remained, looking sadly at what was left of those that had been ruined. It would take months, if not years, to restore the palace—likely years, since the Triad would put the palace as their very last priority while they worked to restore Verde. But at least when people returned to the capital it could be cleaned up.
He ended up at the main doors, which gaped open because ruin had made it impossible to properly close them. Noire glanced outside and was surprised to see that the drawbridge was down. Since the last major outbreak the week before, Etain had ordered the drawbridge to remain up with guards posted on the chance survivors approached the palace seeking sanctuary.
The sound of footsteps drew his attention, and Noire turned eagerly, but before he could react to the fact it was Ivan, not Gael, a piercing scream split the air. Noire whipped back around and saw a cluster of people at the far end of the drawbridge. The scream came again, and Noire didn't wait, just shifted as he bolted through the door, across the pavilion, and over the drawbridge.
He saw the woman in the middle of a cluster of several men—eight? Ten? More? Noire didn't bother to count them, didn't have time to, just threw himself at the nearest creature—a tiger. Noire snarled as he hit it, sinking his jaws into its rump before he was thrown off.
Rolling as he hit the ground, Noire regained his feet in time to dodge the tiger as it pounced him, throwing himself at it. He screamed as it nipped his leg, but avoided a full on bite. He threw himself on top of it, got his jaws around the back of its neck, and locked down.
The tiger screamed in agony and tried to throw him off, but the combination of teeth and claw made it impossible. When the tiger had been dealt with, Noire rejoined the fray alongside Ivan, battling wolves, coyotes, a hawk, a lion, and another bear. By the time the chaos stopped, he was covered in blood, sweat, and dirt.
He growled at Ivan, who frowned. "Where is the woman—"
Another scream, by that point familiar, drew them further down the road and into the city itself. They turned a corner just in time to see a pack of wolves trying to attack the woman who had barricaded herself in a shop all the way at the end of the street.
How had she gone so far so fast? Or perhaps the initial fight had lasted longer than he realized.
Ivan swore and ran toward them. Noire got ahead of him, threw himself into the wolves and began to bite and claw with a vengeance. He was panting heavily when the second battle finally stopped. He sat back on his haunches and wiped blood from his paws and face, grimacing at the taste, but needing to be ready for whatever came next.
"What in the Fires is going on around here?" Ivan groused. Hefting his sword, he walked toward the shop where the woman had barricaded herself. Rapping on the door—or what remained of it, anyway—he called, "Milady! All is well, your assailants have been taken care of. If you'll come with us, we'll take you to the palace where you'll be safe."
He peered through the gaping hole in the door, frowning. "There's no one in there," he said eventually, turning around to face Noire.
Growling, Noire nudged at the various boards and pieces of furniture blocking the shattered front window. Ivan moved to help him, and when they had a gap big enough Noire leapt neatly through it. He prowled the room, but could find no sign that anyone had been there just moments ago—every smell was stale, old. He also could not see how she'd gotten out; someone had nailed boards over the back door, blocking off the stockroom, and the boards had not been moved.
It was as though the woman had been a figment.
Going back through the whole, he shifted and said, "I don't know what's going on. We both saw her, we both heard her—where is she? There was no way she could have gotten out without removing everything she used to block the door.
"I see," Ivan said, voice flat. "Let me ... " He trailed off, eyes going wide as something in the sky caught his eye. Noire whipped around even as Ivan said, "That's the palace!"
They ran back the way they had come, taking the turn in the road as quickly as possible, heading back toward the palace—and stopped short when they realize it was the drawbridge that was burning.
Noire started running again, but had to stop well back because of the intensity of the flames. "What's going on?" he asked. "How is that possible?"
It didn't take long for enough of the drawbridge to burn to cause it to fall down into the moat in huge pieces. Water splashed up, and steam billowed to join the lingering smoke. "I don't understand," Noire said.
Sheathing his sword, Ivan reached into a pouch at his waist and extracted a piece of paper. "Did you get a note, by chance?"
"A what?" Noire asked, staring blankly for a moment, and then looking back at the empty space where the drawbridge had just been. "What's going on?"
Ivan grabbed his arm, forcing him to turn. "Noire, did you get a note from someone telling you to meet in the great hall?"
"Oh, no ... " Noire whispered, dread making him cold. He reached into the pocket of his jacket and pulled out his note from Gael, handing it to Ivan in silence.
Ivan read it, then balled it and his own and threw them aside. "Fire and ash! It is one of the oldest tricks in the game and I fell for it! Fires scorch that soulless whore!"
Noire blinked, stared at him. "Ivan, what is going on? Clearly you know more than me.
"I—scorch it, I should have forced it, but I let it go! Fire and ash!"
"Ivan!"
Getting a hold of himself with some effort, Ivan drew a deep breath and then finally said, "A few days ago, I posed my own theory on who could be behind the poisonings. It seemed to me that it would take someone of incredible power, someone who is also implicitly trusted and never questioned. Someone we all overlooked because it was too impossible to even consider. Ailill insisted I was wrong and I let it go because I did not want to be at odds when he could fall victim himself at any time."
Fear began to coil with the dread running cold in his veins. "You can't mean ..."
"I do mean it," Ivan said flatly. "Who else could poison the Beasts so easily? Who else could move about without ever being noticed or suspected? Who else might possibly need them out of the way, but not dead?"
Noire shook his head, tears stinging his eyes at just the thought of such a deep betrayal. "But the Faerie Queen ... Etain ... she is the beauty and the joy, the very heart of all of us. She would never hurt the Beasts, or any of her children. She would never wish harm on us. She wouldn't. She couldn't."
But suddenly he was very much afraid. Ivan was right—she could poison the Beasts easily. Etain was good at mixing things; she had been the one to create the tincture from the purity blossoms that relieved Gael's pain. "But why?"
"I don't know," Ivan said, "but can you think of anyone else?"
"No," Noire said. "I know it's not Gael or Freddie." A sudden, horrible thought occurred to him. "Do you think this could be because of Gael and Freddie? That Gael loves me and Freddie loves Verenne? But—that's ridiculous, right? Nobody would massacre so many people over that."
Ivan sighed as he stared at the palace. "On the contrary, I know a man who convinced a country to sacrifice a thousand people, all because he was in love with Zhar Ptitsa and could not overcome the guilt of his death."
Noire stared at him. "What?"
"I'll tell you the whole story sometimes, but trust me: if one man can live nine centuries and kill a thousand people in the name of love, then one would-be goddess can kill in the name of scorned love."
"That ... I can't believe that," Noire said, eyes stinging. "She's supposed to love us, all of us, no matter what. She's the Faerie Queen! She created us, she cares for us. She wouldn't kill thousands over something like that. She might kill me ... oh, Goddess." He covered his face with his hands as he recalled Gael's nightmares.
"Noire, look out!"
Jerking at the words, Noire looked at Ivan and then whipped around, barely in time to avoid the wolf that came at him—
And screamed in agony as its jaws closed around part of his hand. He fell back, hand streaming blood where two fingers had been bitten off. "Run!" he screamed, pressing his bloody hand against his chest as they fled the wolves—or tried to.
Ivan waited until the turn in the road, then whipped around and threw a dagger, taking out one of the six wolves chasing them. He drew his sword and faced the others.
Noire tried to shift, tried to help, but it just sent him to his knees with dizziness.
"Noire!" Ivan cried, then said in a soft, resigned tone, "Fire and ash."
Looking up, Noire saw more beasts had come out—more than he could count. Too many. Ivan could not take the wolves by himself, and Noire was too weak to shift and could not fight as he was.
"Fires burn you all!" Ivan bellowed, startling the looming, raged beasts into freezing. He hefted his sword and balled his other hand into a fist at his side and bellowed up at the sky, "Scorch you, Raz! Maybe you can't interfere, but I did enough for you! Protect your own, or I swear in my next life I will pluck every last one of your scorching feathers and shove them up your ass!"
For a moment, Noire swore he heard someone laugh.
Then the world burst into flame. All he could see was fire: orange, red, blue, green, and pure white flames danced around him, filling the world, stealing his breath ... but not harming him.
Before he could figure out how to ask what was happening, the fire was gone. So too the beasts.
"Thank you," Ivan said, and Noire once again heard faint laughter. Ivan sheathed his sword and walked over to him. "How is your hand?" he asked as he knelt.
"Um—" Noire stopped, realizing it didn't hurt. He gave a shaky laugh. "Is—is it stupid I'm afraid to look? It doesn't hurt anymore, but it doesn't feel right. I don't—"
Ivan rested a hand against his cheek. "Shh. You have every right to be upset. I have seen men with lesser injuries handle it worse. Keep your eyes closed, or keep them on me, and let me look at your hand.
Noire nodded and closed his eyes, knowing he was being a coward, but not caring. The brief glimpse he'd gotten before, the horrible pain of it… "How bad is it?" he asked when Ivan finally let go of his hand. He forced his eyes open.
"It's been cauterized," Ivan said. "Zhar Ptitsa did what he could for you; that is why you feel no pain. It will heal well. I am sorry; if I had seen them sooner—"
"The only one to blame is the wolf," Noire said tightly, then looked down at his hand before he thought better of the impulse.
Gone. He was staring right at the stumps where his third and fourth fingers used to be and still he could not entirely believe it; he half expected them to return at some point.
He sucked in air and then looked away, just focusing on his breathing until he no longer felt like screaming. "What do we do now?" he asked and let Ivan help him to his feet.
"We need to get back into the palace," Ivan said. "Is there another way?"
Noire shook his head. "No. The palace was built so that the drawbridge was the only way; it's a holdover from the early days after the Loss, when everything was much more violent and the sorcerers prowled."
Ivan swore. "For the moment, then, we need to find cover. Raz saved us once, but he won't be able to do it again. We need shelter, food, and healing supplies for your hand. Probably a glove as well; best not to get blood and dirt and all in those wounds, sealed or not. Come on."
Standing, Noire followed him further down the street, watching as Ivan poked and prodded at various buildings. "What are we looking for?" he eventually asked, tired of doing nothing except walking and standing.
"A place we can defend. Cities are annoying because there are nooks and crannies everywhere. There's always a window or a door or something that people can use to get inside. We need a place that lacks most of that, that we can easily defend with just the two of us. If we're right in that the Faerie Queen is behind this, then she's not going to quit any time soon. I think Raz is the only reason she's backed off for now."
"Raz? That's the third time, I think, that you've said that name. But it was Zhar Ptitsa who helped us, wasn't it? Who is Raz?"
Ivan laughed. "Raz was his name when he was just a fleet-footed little thief. Then he threw himself into the Sacred Fires and became a god. It's hard to think of him as Zhar Ptitsa, honestly. But it's also hard to believe I know a god."
"Or that he helped you after you threatened to shove his own feathers up his ass," Noire added dryly.
"Or that," Ivan agreed with a grin. "This building is no good; let's keep searching. Keep an eye out for any place we might food as well. If we have to go without for a few days, we can, but given we'll need energy to fight and find a way back into the castle ... "
Noire nodded. "I can find us food once I've rested. The blood loss has weakened me, but I'll be fine by morning and can hunt then. I'm sorry I'm not of much use this way."
"No need to apologize," Ivan said with a smile. "If I could turn into a cat to fight, I definitely would do that. Much easier than costly weapons. Ah, this looks promising."
"A pawn shop?" Noire asked, looking askance at the building.
Ivan nodded. "Yes. I doubt it has more than a single back door, and that well-secured. Pawn broker is just another word for fence. If there is any place that does not lack for security, it's a place like this. Come on."
He approached the door, which was locked—well locked, Noire saw. The door and locking mechanism weren't cheap; it explained why nobody had broken in or broken the door down. The window had been broken, but somebody had boarded it up before that.
Kneeling, Ivan withdrew a small roll of leather from a pouch and unrolled it on the ground. Extracting one of what were clearly lock picks, he set to work. Only a few minutes later, they were inside. Ivan smiled in satisfaction. "As I said: secure."
"You were right," Noire agreed. Every other building they'd passed had been ruined inside and out. But the pawnshop was perfectly intact inside; the only damage to it at all was the window.
Noire moved further into the room, stepped behind the front counter, and found a lamp and matches. Lighting it, he set it on the counter and then looked around the shop. Junk, most of it: cheap jewelry, instruments, a few articles of clothing, music boxes, dolls, other knickknacks and toys. Inside the glass counter were more expensive pieces of jewelry and various collectibles. Somehow, the whole thing seemed very depressing.
But it was a safe place to stay, and for the moment that was definitely all that mattered. Picking up the lamp, Noire carried it with him to the back, hesitating as he dithered between the stairs and the back rooms. Finally he decided on the back rooms. There were two of them: the first proved to be a storage room filled with items that put the jewelry in the glass case to shame. Noire was fairly certain a couple of the paintings had been stolen from the palace. "You weren't lying about the pawn broker being a fence."
Ivan snorted. "They always are. It's a very easy, very profitable way to move stolen goods."
Noire looked at him in amusement. "You really were a mercenary once, weren't you?"
"Once? Only two years ago; I still feel more mercenary than duke, especially of late. Come on, let's see what else is around here. Paintings and jewels are no good without someone to sell them to." Ivan closed the door and led the way down the hall, and they both smiled in relief to see they had wandered into the kitchen.
When they were finished poking around, there wasn't much, but there was enough: Bread that was a little stale, but not yet molded; dried fruit and vegetables; tea… Ivan snorted in amusement as he opened a tin. "Flowers. I will never get over the way you people eat flowers."
"We eat other parts of plants, what's so weird about eating the flowers?" Noire asked and took the tin from him. He broke out into a smile when he saw what was in it. "Dragon blossoms!" Picking out a candied petal, carefully ignoring his missing fingers as he did so, he popped it in his mouth and chewed slowly. The fragrance, the delicate, sweet flavor, immediate
ly improved his mood. "These are my favorite."
"I think Ailill prefers rose petals," Ivan said. "Which seems remarkably expensive for a man who hates being a lord, but when I point that out he just tells me to hush."
Noire laughed as he replaced the lid and set the tin down. "Well, we have food and respectable accommodations. Shall we see what there is in the way of beds?"
Ivan nodded and led the way out of the kitchen, back down the hall, and then up the stairs. There proved to be only one bed, but it was more than large enough to fit them both. Next to the bedroom was a small washroom.
All in all, things could have been worse. Noire tried to keep that in mind as the reality of their situation finally slammed home. "Gael will go out of his mind when he realizes I am missing."
"Hopefully he will go out of his mind and then try to find you," Ivan said somberly. "But I fear that no help is forthcoming, that the Queen will ensure he does not come looking. Ailill would, but ... " His face twisted, and Noire reached out before he thought, gripping Ivan's arm in comfort. Ivan smiled weakly at him, but the tension did not ease. "I would have at least liked one last chance to see him, to say some sort of goodbye."
"We'll see them again, no matter what it takes," Noire said, then frowned as a question struck him. "I understand why I am here. She wants me dead, and in a way, that has nothing to do with her. She could have poisoned me, but that would have made Gael suspicious, I think. But why you?"
"Because she can't control me," Ivan said. "I am immune to whatever spell she has woven that is poisoning the rest of the country. Don't you think it strange that no one, but me has thought it could be one of the Triad? Verde is not so idle a land that it has no jaded individuals. There will always be someone who doubts the throne. It should have occurred to somebody to question the Triad. But no one has. When I tried to mention it to Ailill, he got angry and refused to consider it. After we stopped talking about it, I swear it seemed like he had forgotten about entirely." Ivan frowned. "Come to that, why do you believe me? Why have you seemed unaffected?"