The door closed solidly behind them.
Inside, the stained glass was of rich, deep colours, which allowed only a small amount of daylight to leak in. The candles burned steadily and gave off a comforting glow. It was dry and cold — very cold. Convenient for the corpses, Cassien thought, and noticed the queen shiver.
She had moved to stand over Saria’s body, reaching to touch the woman’s hand. It must feel like ice by now, Cassien imagined. They would have to bury her tomorrow as his keen sense of smell told him it would be hours only before everyone would smell the same bouquet of decay.
‘This is the Dowager Saria,’ Florentyna explained to Tamas and as she spoke, Cassien stopped listening to her, looking around.
He saw Burrage, fully robed and bedecked in his chancellor’s finery, hair tidied, hands placed neatly across his middle. Cassien looked for the third and most recent corpse and turned to search in the other direction, frowning.
‘Cassien?’ the queen queried.
‘Where’s Tentrell?’ he said. He could now see where the body must have been placed. The pallet was in place, set away from the two more important chapel guests, but it was empty.
‘They said there were three,’ Tamas added, swivelling to check he wasn’t mistaken.
There was a knock at the door. Florentyna nodded at Cassien. He opened it. Saw Hamelyn waiting with a guard dwarfing him.
‘Come in. Er, Fend, is that your name?’ he called to the man who’d first spoken to them, as Hamelyn pushed inside, looking unsure of why he’d been called.
‘It is, sir,’ the senior man said.
‘Three corpses laid out, you say?’
The man looked at him as though he were mad. ‘Yes,’ he said, reaching for patience. ‘I checked the merchant’s laying out personally.’
Cassien closed the door, every muscle on alert and glanced at Ham. ‘Is it talking?’
‘Very disturbed,’ the boy said, ‘especially right now.’
Cassien drew the sword.
‘Shar! What are you doing?’ Florentyna asked.
‘Behind me, majesty,’ he growled, ‘now!’
She quickly moved to his back. ‘Cassien?’
‘Hush,’ he cautioned. ‘Tamas?’ he said, ignoring protocol.
He knew the king was drawing his sword as quietly as he could, but the sound of the metal echoed off the walls with a piercing ring.
‘Behind the queen. Watch her back,’ he ordered and heard the king step into place.
‘What in the name of gods are we looking for?’ Tamas murmured.
‘Cassien!’ It was Hamelyn.
His gaze swung to the boy, who nodded his head up and into the darkest shadows at the back of the chapel.
Cassien followed Ham’s line of sight and although fear was not a word that held many connotations for him, he felt it now, like a cold wind blowing through him, forming itself into a mass to settle in his gut. Staring back at him from the shadows, suspended on a ledge, where he’d presumably hoped to remain hidden, was Tentrell.
Cassien hissed with the anxiety that suddenly released itself. How had he missed the demon’s presence in the palace when he’d roamed? ‘Show yourself, demon!’ he snarled.
The man dropped to the floor, stumbling. The queen gave a low, short cry and Cassien was aware of Tamas pulling Florentyna behind him.
‘What the —?’ the king breathed.
Tentrell took a stumbling step forward, his hands held up in defence. ‘Wait!’ he said.
‘I will strike you down, Cyricus,’ Cassien promised. ‘And send you back to —’
‘Cassien, listen to me!’ It was Hamelyn. He must have been yelling at him, but he hadn’t heard. Cassien only had eyes for the demon, who was babbling. All he could hear was the sound of his pulse pounding and the slower rhythm of his heart and breathing as he prepared himself.
Ham shook him. ‘Listen!’
He glared at the boy.
‘The sword is not frightened of him,’ Ham must have repeated. He looked vaguely exasperated.
‘What?’
‘It’s welcoming him, like it welcomes you. This is not the demon.’
Cassien’s gaze narrowed as he let go of the urge to hurl himself at the resurrected body.
‘I am not Tentrell,’ the man yelled at them. ‘Hear me out. I know this is frightening, but I’m just as frightened. Please put away that sword.’
‘It stays right where it is,’ Cassien promised.
The man nodded, swallowing hard. ‘Then, please, just listen to what I have to say.’
The queen emerged from behind her keepers. ‘Speak, I will listen.’
‘Thank you, your majesty.’ The impostor staggered. ‘Forgive me, I am very weak. I have much to explain. Do not let us be interrupted.’
‘By whom?’ Tamas joined in. ‘No-one is —’
‘By your betrothed, King Tamas. Your sister, Queen Florentyna. She is now one of the damned … My name is Gabriel.’
At the queen’s recognition of the name that Pel had mentioned, she permitted him to begin his tale. He told them a story of such incredible breadth they each stared, incredulous, until he finished, his head hung low. He was visibly shaking from the retelling and the cold, and what seemed to be the powerful magic he’d used to not only keep himself alive, but to reinvigorate his body.
They were so silent with shock that Cassien could hear the flames of the candles burning and the sigh of the oaken doors that settled now and then against the chill.
It was Hamelyn who broke the stillness and smashed through the frigidity of the four others gathered there. He stood up from where he’d crouched to listen and wrapped a blanket that had been folded at the feet of Burrage around the shoulders of the shivering man.
‘You need this more than Chancellor Burrage,’ he said kindly.
‘You say you’re not from this place,’ Florentyna repeated, frowning, ‘but a land called Paris.’
He nodded, gave a wry smile. ‘So very far away, majesty.’
‘But magic brought you here,’ she qualified.
‘Evil, trickster magic. As I explained, I have been a host for two demons. I brought the swan quill, which was given to me by a man called Reynard.’ The queen gasped. ‘Good, I’m glad you know him. I hoped it would make you curious and try and learn more because I didn’t know how to reach out to anyone from the secrecy of my own body. But this man who calls himself Cassien seems to know exactly what I’m talking about.’
Cassien took a breath. ‘I can’t lie. What you say rings true.’
‘Then you must know that they think I’m dead. They’ve killed to get here. They’ll keep on doing it.’
‘Is Reynard dead?’ the queen asked.
Gabe shook his head. ‘Not when I last saw him.’
‘Shar’s grace,’ she whispered and wiped a tear. ‘Thank you.’
Tamas’s deep voice came from the back of the chapel, where he’d sat brooding. ‘They’ve killed Darcelle. Is that what you’re telling us?’
Gabe nodded, and spoke softly but firmly so neither Florentyna nor Tamas would hold out hope that Darcelle might resurrect as he had. ‘Yes, your majesties. I can confirm it. She is as dead to you as Burrage over there. I am sorry for you.’ Florentyna sucked in a breath of shock, and Cassien hated to see that no matter how she fought it, she couldn’t contain the mewling sounds of grief. He wanted to comfort her, but she naturally leaned toward Tamas — almost family — who immediately and equally naturally put an arm around her, he too looking ashen. ‘She did not wish it, sire. Cyricus is so persuasive; he seduced her, and in kissing her was able to move into her with his loathed companion, Aphra.’
Through her tears, Florentyna pointed at him. ‘But if you’re alive, why not —’
Gabe shook his head helplessly. ‘For whatever reason, I have been granted a skill. It’s hard to explain, but it’s as though I can hover within myself. I was able to withdraw, hold myself back from them. They had assumed I died when we
first entered this world.’ He shook his head as though unable to accept that he was here.
Florentyna wasn’t listening and Cassien wasn’t sure if Tamas was either. They stood in each other’s arms, drawing whatever solace they could.
Cassien felt a prick of envy but pressed on. ‘Why did they need to go to the trouble of a host? Why not come in the guise they were in? We would not have known.’
Gabe looked up in puzzlement. ‘Yes, I’ve queried this repeatedly. They needed my body for a reason I don’t grasp. Or at least she did. She couldn’t come as Angelina. Angelina belonged there.’
‘And you belong here,’ Hamelyn finished.
Gabe looked even more confused. ‘No, I don’t mean …’ and then he stopped, considering the words of the boy.
Ham pressed. ‘It has to be so. If bodies from the other world are dangerous to this, how come yours isn’t … unless it belongs here?’
‘That can’t be,’ Gabe railed. ‘It doesn’t work. I’ve lived a whole life before this.’
‘Enough,’ the queen said, rallying and wiping her tears. ‘Cassien, I’m entirely confused. We need clear thinking. You know more about this than any of us here.’
He stared back at her vacantly. ‘The demon is among us, your majesty. And, fortunately, we know in whose guise. You cannot stay here. I can’t permit it. We must get you away, but we must also watch Darcelle. She is our only clue to his next move.’
‘Which is?’ she asked.
‘I think I can answer that,’ Gabe said. ‘He spoke of destruction. He wants to tear down all that a person — whom I know only as Elysius — holds dear.’ At this the queen and Cassien shared a glance.
‘Fynch mentioned Elysius to me,’ the queen admitted.
‘And Fynch is now the keeper of the Wild, as Elysius was before him,’ Cassien explained, although Tamas frowned with lack of understanding.
‘Then Cyricus will destroy the people Fynch cares about and the land he loves, but most of all, he will lay waste to a magical force known as the Thicket, and what I gather are hallowed lands beyond that he called the Wild.’
‘Magical?’ Florentyna repeated. ‘The Wild in the far northwest of Briavel is just that … a wild place where nothing flourishes. People hate it, speak of it feeling wrong.’
‘That’s the magic they’re feeling,’ Cassien counselled. ‘I have learned about this place from Fynch. It repels most.’
‘You know the man and the place that Cyricus speaks about,’ Gabe said. ‘So you know I am telling you the truth. I now realise Reynard was telling me the truth as he knew it.’
Cassien saw the queen sag. She looked as though she’d been punched and all the wind in her body had been expelled.
‘Poor Reynard,’ she whispered.
‘He warned me. And yet, I still get the feeling that he wanted me to come here. He pushed me into it but at the same time needed me to understand the danger. I can’t explain it. I still don’t understand the quill. He called it a scrivener’s quill, because he knew I liked history and also to write.’
‘No,’ Florentyna said, ‘that’s not why he gave it to you. It was a message to me. I gave Reynard that quill, because he always told me the old stories from when I was very young. He was a great storyteller. I begged him all of my life to write them down and I gave him the swan quill with the royal sigil on it and told him it was a royal order.’ She laughed mirthlessly. ‘I was eleven. He knew I’d notice it had disappeared, knew I’d notice if it came back in the wrong hands. He was sending me that message from far away. Why couldn’t he just come back?’
Gabe shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’
‘Because he needed magic to travel,’ Ham said, understanding quicker than any of them. ‘He probably didn’t have access to that magic once Fynch had sent him.’
Before anyone could ask more, the door hammered.
‘Queen Florentyna, we have an urgent messenger from Princess Darcelle.’
Cassien shook his head at them and moved to the door, opening it slightly. ‘We are not to be disturbed.’
The guard had a frightened-looking maid alongside. ‘Forgive me, sir,’ she mumbled. ‘The princess said I was to bring either King Tamas or Queen Florentyna, or both, in my wake.’ She curtsied. ‘Sorry, sir, that’s what I was ordered to say.’
‘And you have, thank you,’ Cassien said. ‘Tell your mistress they will be along shortly. Oh, and can you send the queen’s private maidservant, please, with her majesty’s warmest riding clothes.’
The maid frowned.
‘Just give her the message.’ He dug a coin from his pocket and handed it to her. ‘And that’s between us alone. The queen wants a little time to herself. Don’t tell anyone at all.’ He beamed her a bright smile.
She thanked him, shyly curtsied, and ran. Cassien eyed the guard. ‘You can move all the guards now, Fend. We’re done here.’
‘Very good, Master Cassien. All of them? What about the personal guard for their majesties?’
‘Send everyone away. The queen wishes some private space. I will escort her the short distance back into the palace.’
The man frowned but nodded. ‘I’ll attend to it.’
‘Thank you.’ He closed and bolted the door from the inside.
Everyone looked up expectantly, but Tamas. The king looked dark and Cassien recognised the storm gathering.
‘King Tamas —’
‘Let me kill him,’ Tamas said.
‘That would require you to kill Darcelle,’ Cassien said bluntly, ‘and I doubt you could do that. Besides, you are not dealing with a mere “him”, your majesty. You are confronting a demon. He doesn’t die on your order or necessarily beneath your sword, although I’m not fully sure of the latter. I suspect he is vulnerable in a body.’ He looked at Gabe, who nodded.
‘That makes things interesting.’ He began to pace. ‘We could drug Darcelle, possibly.’
‘Wait. I’m not having my sister slaughtered in her sleep.’
‘It’s not her, your majesty,’ Cassien said.
‘Yes, but Darcelle the impostor will walk, talk and act like the princess you know,’ Gabe warned. ‘No-one who loves her should attempt this.’
‘No-one is going to until I’m absolutely certain that my sister is not buried deep within herself. If you can, Gabriel, she might be able to emerge as well,’ Florentyna said, ignoring the appeal in Cassien’s eyes that begged her to believe the opposite. ‘Will he tire of her body?’
Gabriel considered this. ‘Definitely, if he senses that anyone suspects she is acting strangely. If you want to keep her under watch, then she has to be watched either clandestinely or by someone she implicitly trusts and thus has full access to the princess.’
That made sense to Cassien. ‘We’re getting you away from here, Florentyna. And I suggest you come with us,’ he said to the king. ‘We must work from a position of safety. It is not safe here. I don’t know who he might become next, but the palace has myriad hosts to choose from.’
‘Except the princess gives him power,’ Ham reminded them. Cassien was glad he’d brought this youngster along. His advice was sage counsel.
‘I’ve gone along with this talk of magic and mayhem since I can’t explain it any other way — especially because I saw your dead body,’ Tamas replied, looking at Gabe but including the group. ‘But do you expect me to just give up everything I’ve worked toward?’
Florentyna shook her head. ‘Tamas, Cassien is right. We’re trapped here. We need to go somewhere that the demon doesn’t know about. Right now, he can only know what Darcelle is being told. Soon she will start exerting herself and not care a whit about protocol. Let’s get away before that begins.’
‘No, leave me behind to find out more,’ he said. ‘I have to see this with my own eyes. I am the one who has access to her and whom she trusts. More importantly, I can keep her occupied and give you long enough to get Florentyna away to safety.’
The queen looked to be in pain.
&nb
sp; ‘But you are the very one she can compromise,’ Gabe warned.
‘I will be on my guard, I promise you, Queen Florentyna,’ Tamas said, taking her hand and surprising everyone by putting it to his lips for a heartfelt kiss.
Gabe stood up, looking a little stronger. ‘Your majesty, please, if you’re going to do this do not let her become intimate. And remember, the demon can become anyone. I’m not sure how the magic has evolved. I thought I had it worked out, but the possession of Darcelle broke the rules as I understood them. The most important thing is that he doesn’t know that we know anything. Cyricus is moving around in the smug belief that he is the one springing the surprise. Best we keep it that way.’ He looked around at the small group.
Cassien nodded. ‘King Tamas, we cannot tell you what to do. I would prefer that we stick together, but I’m also grateful for the time you’ll buy us. Please heed Gabe’s warning.’
‘Believe me, I have no intention of being possessed by the devil.’ He shot a glance at the queen. ‘Forgive me, Florentyna, that was clumsy of me.’
She put a hand on his arm in silent forgiveness and the king absently reached and covered her hand with his own. Cassien noticed the intimacy, as he said, ‘I have asked the guard to leave. We are going to slip out of here and hope to move unnoticed. I don’t know how yet, but I plan to get the queen well away from Stoneheart. We will use Ham as a go-between. He can move far less obtrusively than any of us, masquerading as anything from a page to a —’
‘Gong boy,’ Ham finished for him, looking excited. ‘Where will you head?’
Cassien shook his head. ‘I’m more worried about getting out of the complex. We’ll head north and we can all meet up in a couple of days. Any suggestions?’
‘Majesty?’ Tamas asked. ‘You know Morgravia best.’
Florentyna frowned. ‘Farnswyth is logical.’
‘We want the least logical,’ Cassien suggested.
‘There’s a hamlet called Tyntar in the north,’ she offered.
‘I know of that place,’ Ham remarked. ‘Isn’t it where people go for their health?’
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