The Queen of Storm and Shadow

by Jenna Rhodes

  “What did your queen send you to say?”

  She looked up. “Your presence has been noted. Your actions have been reported. She wishes to know your intentions. Are you carving out an empire of your own or do you wish to enter into hers?”

  “Queen Trevilara is known to me, as well. I am, for the moment, called Quendius.”

  She bit the inside of her lip. No true answers. Would he give them up only in the presence of a ruler?

  “She asks why she should not send her army to dispatch your threat. Will it be peace or war between the two of you?”

  “Do I threaten her?”

  “Do you not?”

  “It seems to me that I was the one intended to be intimidated and threatened. Either she attacked me, or troops of her so-called army are ill-disciplined. I would hazard a guess that a good ruler doesn’t allow bad discipline.” His horse pawed the road restively, but he sat at ease on the creature. She recognized the breed, one of the prized war horses of the south. Had he come from the south, from dens of rebellion there, or had he merely acquired the animal along the way? The other few and spare horses of his troop looked as though they were strays, picked up wherever convenient upon the road. Whatever the manner of his equipping, he sat still and watched her shrewdly, obeying the first rule of engagement which is to listen, and keep listening until your opponent blurts out that which he is afraid for you to learn.

  Trevilara decided she did not deal with a fool and let her head drop in shame. “I did not warn you. That was a signal for the men to attack. I was ordered by my mistress to set up an ambush to see if you and your men were as capable as her spies had told her. You may kill me, if you wish, and send my body back as your answer. I live to serve her.” She looked up to meet his gaze. “That will not, however, answer her fully as to your intentions.”

  The dark shards in his gray eyes seemed to glitter. He crossed his wrists on the front of the saddle, leaning forward, bringing his chiseled face closer to view her better. “She is willing to sacrifice whatever she might choose for information, including yourself. How close are you to your queen’s magic and counsel?”

  She could not think of a ready answer for him and stammered a bit. He stopped her. “Enough. You smell of blood and lies, and the blood is not fresh nor the lies believable. If your queen wishes to treat with me, she must come herself. Tell her I can help her cross the bridge.”

  They locked gazes.

  She only had one bridge that she could not cross on her own and wished to, and that one closed since the apparent death of Daravan beyond. She tried to think how he might know of it, or how he might be baiting her. She did not immediately ask which bridge, and he smiled slowly. “See what I can do for her.” He turned away in his saddle to face the carnage behind him and raised one hand.

  As he did so, one of her dead soldiers got to his feet, tottering, before steadying himself. He turned blind eyes to her, swung about on one heel and fell in with the ranks behind Quendius. Then another. And another.

  Until all stood but the one or two who were so utterly destroyed they had not enough limbs to stand or swing a weapon. Yet that was not the worst of what she watched. When her dead men stood and fell into ranks behind their new leader, his men fell in with them. Embraced them. And when they stood, flank to flank, heel to heel, hip to hip . . . their very flesh began to waver. To grow transparent. To melt. With a shouted command, the pairs of soldiers, his and hers, stepped into each other, becoming one. Taller. Thicker. Indubitably stronger. No longer recognizable as the men they had been, their features swallowed by the soldiers who absorbed them. When Quendius was done watching them, he squared around to her. He drew his sword and flayed her disguise away from her in three quick slashes, and she stood naked and bare, her stolen skin in bloody strips about her feet.

  “War feeds us. Defeat only strengthens us,” he said to her. “Tell your queen that.”

  He reined his horse about and ordered his men, his Undead, back down the road.

  Trevilara stayed quiet, afraid to move, until they passed from sight and hearing.

  Chapter

  Thirty-One

  RIVERGRACE WOKE SHIVERING. She sat up, rubbing her arms and then the exposed flesh of her legs, but nothing helped. The shivers intensified until she was quaking. Violent tremors ran from her toes to her chin, and she hugged herself tightly in hope of quieting the storm.

  Then she realized that the hut itself wasn’t cold. Coals still glowed red-edged in the banked fire pit, sending out coils of muted heat. Trails of smoke hung lazily in the corners where air did not circulate well. Not only were the outer flaps closed, but Sevryn had pulled the wooden shutter down tight sometime during the night. She put her hand out and felt the edge of the blanket. Still warm. She could even feel a faint heat emanating from her love’s sleeping form.

  Rivergrace spread her hands in front of her. No discoloration from chill. No goose bumps. And yet she could hardly hold them still in front of her, fingers dancing as though she wove at an invisible hand loom. She knotted her hands to make it stop; nothing helped.

  It wasn’t her shaking. At least, not from the inside out with an icy chill. No. Her soul strings pulled and tugged at her, and her body answered like a puppet obeying its summons. Her limbs flopped about uncontrollably.

  She could not contain herself. The violent shivers and quakes became contortions that knocked her off the bedding and onto the floor where she lay, caught in seizures not from her mind but from her soul. Her jaw and mouth worked, yet she couldn’t call out. Finally, finally, she managed a moan, a guttural wail. Sevryn, in as deep a sleep as she’d ever known him to have, for he rarely slipped soundly into a rest, didn’t move. He did not seem to realize she’d left their bed, stolen away from his side.

  Rivergrace writhed about and hammered her foot, jerking in an oddly timed rhythm, against the cot. The third time she hit the bed, he jerked awake, sitting straight up, hand filled with a throwing knife as he did.

  He blinked. “Grace?”

  Her body ground itself into the flooring of their hut. She would have sworn it clean, for she brushed it out daily, but she could feel the grit of dirt and gravel under her. She shook in yet another massive fit. He reached down and pulled her to him, wrapping her in his arms, murmuring words of alarm she couldn’t quite make sense of.

  Abruptly, the fit stopped. She took a deep, gasping breath and shoved her forehead into his chest, embracing him back for dear life.

  “What is it?”

  A minor quake returned, rattling her, but it calmed as he tightened his arms about her. He hissed with a bit of pain at first but didn’t pull back, for that meant he would suffer the same shocks again. His warm breath grazed her ear. “Shall I get the wisewoman?”

  She shook her head sharply and, amazingly, he knew it for a refusal, a movement separate from the involuntary gyrations of her body. Soothingly, he stroked her hair back from her face and put his lips to her forehead. She knew it was as much to check her for fever as to comfort her, and she closed her eyes.

  “What is it?”

  “The soul anchors.” She got in another deep breath. “I think.”

  “Suddenly?”

  “Jerked me right out of bed, as though I were one of those stringed puppets.” Now air flowed evenly, as it should, and the buzz in her ears calmed. She pulled back to eye him. “Quendius has to be near. Very, very near.”

  “You’re certain?”

  “No, but I can’t think what else could cause my bonds to act like this. I couldn’t move on my own, aderro, but my body convulsed until I thought my bones would break.” She lifted a hand to push her unruly hair back from her forehead.

  “Are you afraid?”

  Afraid? No, how could he think—and she realized he felt her heart as much as she did, fighting against her ribs like a wild bird would fight a snare, wings thrashing wildly. “No.
I’m angry.”

  He kissed the side of her mouth. “I can imagine.”

  “I have to learn how to control this.”

  He nodded slowly before resting the side of his face against her temple.

  She pulled back suddenly. “Gods, Sevryn. If I feel this—they must feel something as well.”

  “You can’t know that.”

  “I know they have to feel something. My reaction is too strong for them not to. I could . . . I could be pulling them here. We have to do something. We can’t allow that. These people will be slaughtered. They took us in, and we can’t . . . Quendius can’t come here.”

  “All right.” He took her hands in his. Now she was cold, and he warmed her. “We’ll dress and go down the mountain. To the road?”

  She thought a moment, feeling cautiously along her slender chains before nodding. “Yes. It has to be.”

  He let go and turned to finish dressing, kitting himself as if he were going to war. Rivergrace shook off a last quake and joined him.

  • • •

  Dawn seemed far away as they stepped out of their hut. They passed only one sentry on the village’s borders, and he sat with his chin dropped to his chest, his snore a thin, reedy noise upon the night. Sevryn hesitated as though he might awake the man . . . was that Cort, under his oddly flapped headgear? Instead, he shook his head. No questions asked, no lies need be told. Cold lay heavy about them, but the snowfalls of the last few weeks had melted away for the moment, hinting only that winter had not laid a firm grip upon the mountain lands . . . yet. Their breath fogged before them as they made their way down the mountain, Rivergrace maintaining her silence except to let Sevryn know when her anchors tried to pull her strongly in one direction or another. Each time that happened, her heartbeat doubled before it, too, steadied. If she had ever doubted that she could track Quendius by this connection to him, that concern was gone now.

  They made their way through near dark with a low-hanging full moon at their backs that glowed through the forest with its own eerie light. Small patches of snow, behind a sturdy tree trunk or in the shadow of a boulder, gleamed like silver puddles before them. Sevryn moved quickly, and she followed him closely enough to have grabbed the hem of his long coat, to keep him within her reach. The moonlight, thin and patchy as it was, still kept her from stumbling, and they were able to make their way down the peak at a good pace, reaching the meadows at its foot with the dawn. He settled her in one spot before doing a quick recon of the area, returning to ask, “What are you feeling?”

  “The pull is strong, but I’m in control.”

  “Good. I’m going to build a quick fire to warm some stones for the mugs. You look like you could use a hot drink.”

  She nodded, and he went to work. He was more right than he knew; the mug and drink felt glorious—both in her hands and going down her throat when ready. When he’d finished and she neared the bottom of her mug, he looked at her.

  “Which way?”

  “That way. The connection is stronger than it was when I woke.”

  “But you have it under control now.”

  She made a face. “I’m pulling back. It seems to even out the tug-of-war effect.”

  “All right. Signal me when you lose control?”

  She drained her mug, thinking. “I’ll . . . I’ll . . .” When she lost control of the anchors, she’d lose control of herself as well, or she had before. Ruefully, she told him, “I’ll probably hit the ground behind you.”

  He chuckled softly. “Hopefully not, but I understand.” He took the empty mug from her. “Ready?”

  “For now.”

  He packed his small knapsack and stood to kick the fire down to its last burning ember, shoveling damp dirt over it with the side of his boot. She summoned a handful of water to drown the earth. No wildfire here, if she could help it.

  With the sun on their backs bringing light if not warmth, they jogged across the meadow until the sight of a road cutting across its wilderness brought them both to a halt. A winding ribbon, they could see little detail upon it, but she knew that somewhere close by, Quendius rode that road. A frisson of anticipation went down the back of her neck. Sevryn patted himself down, reassuring himself that none of his weapons had shifted or been lost, and she did the same although she had possessed far fewer than he did. He waited until she finished and pointed.

  “Half a day that way.”

  “What? How?” The urgency of the pull on her had abated, yes, but it had been so strong.

  “We came down the mountain the quickest way. That wound us about it. Our camp is actually there,” and he pointed up the peak, to the far side facing the dawn.

  “So I feel the pull less because, although we traveled down, we also moved farther and farther away.”

  He nodded.

  “Good. And bad.”

  His eyebrow went up, the one that had the tiniest notch in it from an old, barely perceptible scar. “Bad?”

  “I hate to walk.”

  “I learn something new about you every day.” He danced a step to the side as she swatted at him.

  “Narskap and Quendius marched me over half a continent, I swear, on foot and on horseback. I much prefer using a horse’s feet to my own, and I’m not ashamed to admit it.”

  He laughed. “No chance of that today. I want to sneak up on our targets.”

  “Of course. Maybe we can procure a mount for the trip back.”

  “It would be butchered for the meat when we get home.”

  She shuddered. “Truly?”

  “Probably. I can’t see them supporting a grazing animal through the winter, and meat is always welcome.”

  “I’ll walk.”

  “I thought you might.”

  In companionable silence, they made their way across the meadowland, following a border of scrub trees and bushes that stubbornly edged the road. By the time the sun topped the sky, she could feel a wind had risen as well, a stubborn wintery wind that more than offset any warmth the pale sun might try to provide. She was dressed for the heights of the mountain, though, and warm enough. The terrain had grown broken, studded with hillocks as well as groves of twisted trees, their leaves gone but their branches thick for all their bareness. Come the spring, these groves must be nearly impenetrable, providing good coverage for the mountain looming behind them.

  She felt a twinge on her soul strings, a jerk, and responded by reaching out for Sevryn ahead of her and jerking at the corner of his coat flapping in front of her. He spun about, yet she could say little, losing control of herself again, standing there and shivering as if she’d just climbed out of an icy river.

  He took her hand, which helped more than it should have, and went to his knees and then stomach, crawling up brown-and-blackened grass on the hillock in front of them. She crept at his side, not wanting to let go of his fingers. As he crested the view, he ducked down slowly, sucking in a long breath.

  “That’s Trevilara on the road.”

  “What do you want to do?”

  He scratched the side of his jaw with a contemplative thumbnail. Then Sevryn shook his head. “I don’t want to meet her, and neither do you.”

  “I can hold my own.”

  His other hand tightened on hers. “No, Grace, you can’t. I don’t even want you trying.”

  “You have no faith in me . . .”

  “No. That’s not it. I’ve faced her. I know the power she can call up. When the time comes, we’ll have to take her down together. It’s going to take both of us.”

  She wasn’t sure how much truth she could hear in his words. “You followed me here. From our home, across the bridge, to here.”

  “Yes, and I would follow you anywhere.” He looked over at her, lying on the ground next to him. “I’ve tangled with her. You haven’t.”

  “I know what she must
command.”

  “I don’t think you do. She’s a God. Nothing less.”

  “She rides on the backs of her followers. I know. She has sucked them dry of whatever Talents her people might have had, once, and consolidated them within herself.” She freed her hand from his. “I can take her. She is vulnerable now, down there all alone.”

  “Not alone, if Quendius is within earshot, I think. She has to be waiting for him. She might very well have troops of her own around the bend, hiding and ready to defend her if the meeting doesn’t go as she anticipates. We can’t let them ally. Quendius must be cut down first.”

  “Because your hate for him is greater?”

  He looked at her again, silver-gray eyes steady but with a gleam deep inside them. “No,” he said evenly. “Because if we try to kill her and manage it, and he still lives, he will raise her as an Undead. And that we cannot afford. He has to go first.”

  His words: quiet, still, and cold. But true. Terribly, awfully, true. She found the breath to say, “You’re right.”

  He touched her shoulder. “I fear that I am. Can you track them?” He cleared his throat before reaching inside him to bring up his Voice and asked for them to be unseen as he made a way where Rivergrace guided him, where her chained souls pulled her. He did not need to see them to know when they neared. Her efforts to quell the convulsions that ran through her told him. Against old fallen trees that the wind had claimed winters ago, he pulled them into a niche and rested his arm over her shoulders until she got command of herself.

  Rivergrace flung her hand out to grip Sevryn’s shoulder. “It follows him.”

  “What does?”

  “The portal. Like an eye overseeing all of them.” She pointed with her other hand, unable to keep a tremor from it as she did.

  “Does he know it’s there?”

  “How could he not?” she answered slowly. But even as she spoke, she leaned close over Sevryn to see the troop all the better. “I don’t think he does. I don’t think any of them do.”