by E. J. Beaton
Lysande had one hand to Luca’s throat, and he had one to hers, their noses almost brushing. They looked up.
Lord Malsante was standing in the doorway. He stared from one to the other of them, his mouth slightly open. “Excuse me, Your Highness,” he said, “but King Ferago asked me to tell you that they’re readying the pavilion. The bride and groom are about to say the vows.”
Lysande pulled herself off Luca, leaped up, and hurried out, brushing against Malsante on the way. She made her exit down the corridor and burst through the door, murmurs following her as she ran onto the palace steps, across the stage and past the attendants scattering petals on the pavilion, and over to her table. Panting, she straightened her cloak and slipped into her seat.
“My lady . . .”
“I’m all right.” She squeezed Derset’s hand.
Luca Fontaine had offered to protect her. He had urged her not to go out of sight with any of the city-rulers. If he had been trying to win her over, why did he bother with a warning—why not simply try to seduce her? She was aware that a few of the guests were staring at her.
Trumpets blared. The Lyrians rose from their chairs. “The Council must ascend to the stage for the vows,” Derset whispered. “My lady, are you sure you’re all right?”
She nodded. Within seconds, an attendant was waiting beside her, offering an arm. Gathering her composure and trying to look as if she had not just been rolling on the floor, she followed Cassia and Dante up onto the stage, to the left of the pavilion where Vigarot and Élérie Chamboise waited, along with a woman in a hooded robe who could only be a priest. On the right side, the Feragos made a line of silver-haired royalty. Nothing seemed out of place, and inside her, too, nothing had given way; she realized that she had not craved scale during a very difficult moment. The rushing of blood through her body had taken over.
A flash of red drew her attention. Luca was walking down the steps. Whispers ran through the crowd, gaining volume as he slipped onto the end of the line and shot her a glance—in that stare, she saw anger and frustration. Good, she thought. He’s failed.
Jale and Mariana made a slow path onto the platform, between the lines of gold-encased palms and up to the stage: slow, because Mariana gave off a glare from her neck to her ankles, her path slightly obscured by the reflection of her gauntlets and greaves. The silver of her armor was clean enough for Lysande to see the first smattering of stars high above the enclosure, reflected in her breastplate: a lacquering of white light. Custom required two Bastillonian servants to trail her, holding a scepter carved with a design of a winged ram, which Lysande suspected was more mythic symbol than ancient beast. None of the Bastillonians seemed to notice the Elirans’ stares at the golden-haired entourage, who bent their heads as they walked, but Lysande was aware of their cringing gait, and she felt as much guilt as disgust.
None of the Council had foreseen this, yet they should have. She herself should have done something to stop it. Could she not have taken Vigarot aside and argued until her mouth was dry?
Jale stopped opposite Mariana on the stage. The priest mounted the pavilion and stood between the silk-decked prince and the princess in armor, creating a stiff tableau.
“It was a good idea of yours to hold the ball out here,” Cassia whispered. “Much less stuffy, with netting instead of walls.”
Lysande glanced up. “Me? But I had nothing to do with it.”
“Vigarot told me—”
“It is my very great privilege,” the priest said, “to announce the vows of Mariana Ferago, Princess of Bastillón, and Jale Chamboise, Prince of Lyria.”
The group fell silent. Lysande spotted Raden making his way back along the wall at last. He caught her gaze and shook his head, mouthing the word nothing.
“If the bride would step forward . . .”
A look around the enclosure showed Lysande that every side was guarded by Lyrians and city troops. She tried to dispel the unease that had nested in her stomach.
Mariana took her place and gazed at the floor. Lysande’s attention had scattered too widely for her to listen to the priest’s deluge of questions and Mariana’s promises to take the prince of Lyria as her husband, to honor her vows, to be true to her heart . . . the list went on and on, Mariana nodding brusquely, uttering “Yes” every time the woman paused. Every so often, Mariana darted a glance at Dante, whose eyes were cast down at the ground.
“And you, Prince Chamboise,” the priest said.
“Yes?”
“Do you take this woman as your wife?” Jale made as if to speak, then hesitated. “Prince Chamboise,” the priest repeated, “do you take this woman—”
“Er, yes, Your Beatitude,” Jale said, “that is—as my wife—yes, I do.”
The priest folded her hands. “Do you vow to be true to your heart—”
“Actually, no,” Jale said. “Sorry.”
Gasps made a chorus in the desert air. Lysande watched intently as Vigarot stepped forward. Jale ran a hand through his locks. “I mean—yes, I want to be true to my heart,” he said. “But that’s why I can’t marry her. I’m sorry, uncle; we’ll have to call the wedding off.”
Vigarot seized his nephew by the shoulders. “Jale,” he hissed, “you are dizzied by the crowd. Pause, concentrate, and recollect your duty.”
“I didn’t mean for it to happen like this. And I’m frightfully sorry to Mariana, and to all of you who came so far south . . . but the problem is, I’m already in love with someone else.” Jale took a deep breath. “There’s not a thing I can do about it.”
King Ferago was gripping the edges of his ermine coat with a furious intensity, and Queen Persephora’s brow had furrowed into copious lines; in the queen’s unceasing glare Lysande read more danger than she did in the king’s posture. Yet it was Dante’s reaction that sent the tables into an ecstasy of pointing. He rose from his seat and stared at the stage. Several of the Valderran guards stepped out from their posts and edged toward him.
“Don’t talk nonsense, Jale,” Vigarot snapped.
“I’m afraid it’s true. You see, I’ve always known, since the day snow came down on me and hurled itself upon my riding party. My teeth were chattering while it pounded the carriage and covered all the horses, as if a goddess sought to bury us alive. Out of the whiteness I saw a figure, striding—he must have been three feet ahead of all his riders—he kept striding toward me, as if no blizzard in the world could stop him. I thought all the heat had left my body, but when he held me, I felt it come rushing back . . . like a terrible, thawing forgiveness.”
Lysande felt her suspicions crystallizing into an explanation she had long considered, and she wondered if she should have told the other Councillors that Dante and Jale’s intimacy had begun some time ago. She had guessed, when she first saw Dante smile at Jale over the banquet table in Axium Palace as if there were no Councillors around them, no watching guards, no gawking crowd; and even before Vigarot had read the inscription from the sword, she had known, somewhere deep inside herself. Dante looked ready to rush the stage now. He was not bothering to conceal it.
At the same time, she heard the sound of boots, well before she saw the guards gathering at the back gate of the enclosure. The slap of soles beat a tattoo that she recognized, instinctively, as a warning. Raden moved to join the commotion. After a hurried conversation, he broke away, running through the tables.
“Your Highnesses, take cover!” he shouted. “Get back into the palace!”
The crowd turned as one, jeweled necks craning. Lysande’s whole body stiffened.
“Vigarot,” King Ferago said, “restrain that man. He has forgotten his place.”
“With pleasure.”
“Look up, all of you!” Raden cried, dodging from the Lyrian guards who were edging toward him, and raising his hand to point. “Arrest me, shackle me, lock me up if you like, but Fortituda’s fist,
look up there!”
A shadow covered the moon. It was moving, and within seconds it dropped from its height to just above the enclosure, where the moonlight bathed it and turned it from a smudge to a winged shape.
The slick, dark surfaces of its scales shone like cobbles on a wet street; they could almost have been mirrors, except that the huge wings resembled skin more than glass or stone. They stretched out and beat the air, sending birds fleeing. Once the body was low enough to be visible, there was no mistaking the horns, the feline head, the black fur that covered the neck and shoulders, and the tail that hung out like a finely honed spear. Where fur met scales, Lysande saw no ridge, only the seamless meld of one texture with another. The pit of her stomach knotted. She grappled with the sight of a fantasy transformed into flesh, and bit her lip; it was fear that gripped her, of course. It could not be fascination.
“That’s . . .” King Ferago’s mouth had fallen open.
“Everyone, get back!” Cassia cried.
“But that’s impossible!” Jale shouted.
There had been no errors. No transmutation of features in ink. Every detail matched the drawings in the history books, Lysande observed with a feverish speed, before the chimera opened its mouth to roar.
Guards rushed toward the platform. Cassia pulled King Ferago and Persephora out of the path of the chimera. Raden made a dash to the Eliran side, and he had almost reached the Council when the creature breathed fire, a great blast that burned through the roof and brought the mesh crashing onto the guests. Lysande leaped clear of a chunk of burning material, with a speed she could only credit Sarelin’s training for.
The palms on the platform ignited and a falling frond caught Anton Ferago’s silken shirt; the ends of the sleeves went up, the fire moving higher and higher as the material burned. His screams cut across the crackling. Jale tried to put out the fire while Mariana and Dion came running; Mariana fell to her knees and smothered the flames, but by the time she had snuffed them out, Anton lay still. Lysande forced herself to look away and sprinted to the middle of the enclosure, calling her guards to her, Litany running at her side, the two of them heading for Cassia and Dante.
With the rapidity of one practiced in the art, Cassia gave directions, dividing up the guards. Lysande drew a dagger from her belt, even as she realized that they would need arrows.
Of course there was no army, she told herself furiously, as she dodged another piece of flaming mesh, pulling off her cloak, flinging the garment out of her way. Of course the White Queen was moving so much money about in the Periclean States. Of course she could risk attacking the Council. But how, by the four goddesses, did she get hold of a beast that was supposed to be extinct?
Her feet seemed to know where to tread before her mind did. Most of the crowd was attempting to flee into the gardens, jostling at the back entrance of the enclosure, where the cramming of bodies prevented them from breaking free. As they pushed to get out, another sheet of burning mesh fell from the roof and landed on top of them. It enveloped Bastillonian and Eliran dignitaries like a net. Leaping over bodies and pushing through tables, guards of all cities hurried to them, but the chimera sent a fireball down—so quickly that for a moment, Lysande did not know where it had come from—and the smell of burning flesh filled the air. Lysande felt hot bile rise in her throat and pushed it down, barking out orders, dividing her Axium Guards and sending them in two directions. A shape moved at her elbow, and she looked across to see Litany gripping a thick dagger, her body positioned to shield Lysande.
Streams of water flew overhead and scattered the ground liberally with droplets. Lysande muttered a prayer of gratitude to the Shadows, though she could not spot Three, or whoever was commanding the water with such prowess.
She looked up and her thoughts glaciated inside her. A black shape blotted out the sky above her, muscular legs and feet with hooked talons descending. She could not miss the fur, the horns, the scales on the body . . . but it was the great orb of jade with a black pupil in the middle that arrested her, holding her gaze, burning with a deeper intensity than the flames around them.
The eye changed as it examined her, rage ceding to curiosity. The two of them stared at each other. Something stirred inside the heart of that pupil, something that had known prey for a long time, and yet the creature did not pour fire down upon her. Somehow, it felt as if the chimera was inviting her to come nearer, encouraging her to reach out.
Then arrows flew through the air and the thread was broken; the great beast flapped its wings, took off across the sky, and breathed a jet of orange flame onto the tables.
Lysande looked around, willing herself to move. The encounter still held her, the silent conversation working like a kind of inertia. You could not shake off the power of a chimera like an attendant shaking dust from a rug, not when the creature had been within inches of you, looming in awful splendor. Her head swam, and her arms had turned to lead. With great effort, she managed to push herself back into the cacophony of the enclosure.
By now the Rhimese archers were scattered among the other guards, black amid silver and gold and brass. She could not see Luca anywhere. Her hidden Axium Guards were pouring in, some clearing the mesh from the ground, others flinging their daggers. Raden shouted her name, leading a group of them toward her. Instinct urged her to turn, to look for someone who could give orders, but she made a quick decision and waved the guards toward the chimera.
A Bastillonian servant screamed, running down the path between the tables, a piece of mesh melted onto his skin like a molten choker. The pair of Bastillonians near him looked over but did not take a step. The servant flailed and ran at Lysande. Her feet froze, but Cassia stepped forward and drew her sword: it went through the man, and the burning figure heaved a breath that turned into a sigh. Lysande watched him fall. He had the misfortune of golden hair, she thought, another bolt of anger shooting through her, even as she turned to thank Cassia. She felt the staccato rhythm of her pulse.
“Archers!” Cassia cried, scanning the enclosure even as she pushed forward. “Anyone with a bow, aim for the underbelly! Where in Cognita’s wisdom is Fontaine?”
A blast of air shot through the enclosure and her next words were whipped away. Tables flipped and chairs scattered; Lysande dropped to the ground as the gust struck the chimera in the side. The animal roared and huffed more flame. Forced back by the blast, it flapped around the side of the palace, shrieking.
Litany jumped on top of Lysande to shield her from a piece of debris, but even as she blocked the way, Lysande thought she caught a glimpse of a tall figure with white hair, behind the group of statues in the back-right corner.
The wind had barely stopped when jets of water arced up over the guards and Councillors and landed on the flaming tables, quenching the fire. Even in the chaos of the smoking enclosure, she could not help but admire the Shadows’ skill.
She and Litany picked their way through bodies and mesh, taking in the chaos around them. “Dante!” she heard Jale cry. The First Sword strode toward him at a pace that she would not have thought possible if she had not witnessed it; at one point, he kicked aside a shield as if he barely saw it, his stare fixed on Jale.
The Valderran banner had ceased to burn, giving off a thick smoke, and within seconds, the scene was still. The palms on the platform dropped pieces of smoldering leaf. Between the upturned tables, those who had been struck by the mesh lay wrapped in their golden shrouds. Only the Council and their guards remained, the surviving guests fled, with the bodies of the dead littering the ground. Lysande tried to calm her pulse and dispel the uncanny feeling that had spread through her since the encounter with the chimera, as if a seal had left its imprint upon the wax of her mind.
Dante pulled Jale to him, pressed his lips to the prince’s brow and held him tightly, lifting him off the ground a little as he gripped him, before suddenly seeming to become aware that he was surrounded by pe
ople, and setting Jale down. The center of Jale’s cheeks turned an interesting shade of puce. Looking everywhere but at each other, the two princes formed a knot with the other Councillors in the middle of the enclosure.
Amidst the bustle, Lysande leaned against Litany and whispered her thanks.
“Did you see the streams?” Litany said.
“Streams?”
“Elementals at work. Without a doubt. I saw the water move in arcs—steady as the fountains in Axium Palace.” Litany’s expression changed. “You’re not surprised. Fortituda protect us, you’re not even frowning.”
Excuses jostled for place in Lysande’s head, but before she could settle on one, Cassia was tapping her on the arm. She could not ignore that swift touch, as much as she wanted to reply to Litany and devise something that was only half a lie.
Litany gripped Lysande’s forearm. “When that physician met me outside your suite, I thought perhaps—”
But her next words were drowned out by louder voices.
The Feragos had been seen hurrying into the palace after Anton’s death, Dante reported—Mariana Ferago was the last to be glimpsed, hefting her brother’s body on her shoulders—and no one seemed in a rush to pursue them. They looked to one another, breathing hard. Lysande checked her surrounds for any sign of Three.
“What just happened?” Jale exclaimed.
“A chimera,” Vigarot Chamboise said, stumbling out from behind the honey jug. “A chimera happened.” He was holding out a smallsword in front of him, as if it might explain the phenomenon.
“How in the name of Vindictus did it get here? They’re meant to be dead.” Dante’s voice would have made a legion cower. “And there were elementals out here, too—her people did magic—water and wind. You saw it. We should hunt them down.”
Lysande opened her mouth to interject. The right words refused to come.
“Never mind that. We have to alert the city. Get everyone under cover,” Cassia said, looking around grimly. “The first thing you do after an attack is prepare for a second charge—learned that one from the Qamaras.”