by M. J. Scott
One by one, the stones glowed to life, turning a warm gold. The power of the stones added another tingling layer of magic to the room. They were supposed to enforce peace and truth for those who stood under the lights and spoke from the circle. I had a feeling that it would take more than four ancient glowing stones to make that happen for this particular round of negotiations.
Looking across at the carefully controlled smirk on Ignatius’ face as he watched the keeper only confirmed my fears.
Duties done, the keepers withdrew and the Speaker for the Veil rose to his feet from his position at the queen’s right hand and moved across the floor to step into the circle.
When he reached it, he paused for a long moment before circling to face each of the races in turn. I fought the urge to roll my eyes. The endless protocol lessons had been dull enough, but actually seeing the rituals in person was somehow worse. With so much at stake, this posturing and pointless ceremony seemed like the games of children vying to secure the possession of a favorite toy.
I couldn’t see that it mattered that the Speaker stood a certain way or that the stones glowed or that the ceiling was the right shade of whatever. What mattered was that the races would manage to come to an agreement and prevent the City from falling into chaos and anarchy.
I moved on my seat, my head already starting to ache in the presence of so many people in one place. The visions were an added layer of strangeness, swirling so quickly I could barely make anything out.
Saskia shifted beside me and once again, as though she could sense my mood, her hand brushed mine in a movement so subtle that I doubted anyone but me would have noticed.
All too soon she moved her hand away again, but even the brief respite had let me catch my breath and clear my head.
I schooled myself to patience, letting my mind drift a little into the haze of the visions, trying to slow their crazed circling and see if there was anything useful to be gained from the jumble. But nothing came clear.
The Speaker began to recite the text of the treaty law that governed the negotiations. The rules of order and the bindings that all the delegates were agreeing to submit themselves to. His recitation took a long time and because I’d only so recently had the words drummed into my head, hearing them yet again made it even more difficult to concentrate.
The visions surged forward, making my head throb sharply as my focus slipped. I made myself snap back, settling my free hand over my wrist to press the iron more firmly against my skin. Beside me, Saskia turned her head, eyebrow lifting slightly. I shook my head at her and turned my attention back to the Speaker.
He continued to speak, the lines of convoluted legalistic language flowing effortlessly. I wondered exactly how many times he had spoken them before. I could probably figure it out if I wanted to, but math had never been my favorite endeavor. Not unless I was counting money.
The Speaker eventually fell silent, looking around the hall gravely. The last words he’d spoken were a challenge for anyone who did not intend to work toward the renewal of the treaty to speak first. The silence in the chamber settled deeper, but no one spoke.
The Speaker nodded once, then called the first of the delegation leaders to announce his delegates. In this case the first was Ignatius.
Ignatius stood and walked—no, “strutted” might be a better word—onto the floor. He too paused before he started to speak, taking his time to look over those assembled. I wasn’t the only one unwilling to meet his gaze, I noted. Still, the silence held as he spoke in his rasping voice, reeling off the names of his delegates with decisive force. I only recognized one or two of them.
Yet another cause for concern. I had a passing familiarity with those of the Blood who frequented the safer Assemblies and occasionally showed up at the Gilt or others of the theater halls. The more civilized of them. One couldn’t really function for long in the border boroughs without knowing some of the players.
The fact that I didn’t know many of Ignatius’ supporters meant either that they were newly risen to power—which I didn’t completely discount—or that they were of the Blood, who kept to their own world where they could play by their own rules. Older Blood who had perhaps been biding their time under Lucius’ rule, or indeed may have supported Lucius in whatever it was that he had been planning. But I’d never been able to judge the age of a Blood lord because of their ageless faces, so I had no way to tell which of the two theories was correct.
After Ignatius finished his remarks and returned to his seat, a slow whisper gusted across the hall, as though half the people present had let out a breath of relief. It seemed that more than just our delegation had been concerned that Ignatius might try something early in the process. Apparently for now he was playing by the rules.
Thank the Lady for small mercies.
After Ignatius, the leaders of the other delegations took their turns, announcing the names of their delegates and the other members of their delegations.
Eventually it was the Templars’ turn. Their Abbott General took his place. Only middling tall, his graying hair cropped short, and dressed simply in Templar gray and white, Father Cho had none of Ignatius’ strutting pride, but his quiet air of command meant that he caught and held the attention of the assembly effortlessly.
I schooled my face to stillness as I listened to the list of names he announced in his steady voice. Until eventually mine was spoken. I risked a sideways glance at where Martin sat with the Kruegers. His expression was grim, but he was pointedly not looking in my direction. From behind him, Willem’s lips had drawn back in a snarl. I got the feeling that when Martin decided to take his revenge on me for this betrayal, Willem would be the one volunteering to carry out the sentence.
Pity. I liked Willem, after a fashion. Still, I would fight him if I had to and do everything in my power to win if it came to that. Of course I would first do everything in my power to avoid having to fight him. Just what that might be escaped me right now, but I was sure I would think of something eventually.
After Father Cho, the parade continued. By the time we’d made it through another two or three delegations—the human council and the Guilds and one of the Beast pack alliances—the mood in the hall was starting to relax, the silence disturbed by people shifting in their seats and, here and there, by the unmistakable sounds of discreetly smothered yawns. Of all the things I’d imagined the negotiations to be, I’d never really considered that they might be boring.
I was close to smothering a yawn myself as we neared the last delegation. The Veiled Court. The queen stayed where she was, seated on a carved chair that looked more comfortable than the rest of our seats. Her veils moved slowly, though there was no breeze to stir them. The effect was both hypnotic and vaguely unsettling.
I wondered if she took advantage of the cover of her veils to hide boredom when she needed to. Or if she was even paying attention. The Speaker rose again from his place beside her and walked to the circle. He raised a hand, like all the others before him, ready to swear the oath of amity, when a groaning rumble suddenly sounded from beneath us and then, without warning, the room seemed to catch fire as the walls around the doorway exploded inward.
Chapter Fifteen
SASKIA
The sounds of explosions—screams and rumbles and a overwhelming smothering, roaring noise that punched into my ears—crashed around me as Fen pulled me out of my chair and down to the floor, throwing himself on top of me as debris rained from the ceiling.
My back hit the marble, which shook below me. With no metal in the building, I had no way to tell what was happening. A steady rain of small pieces of debris struck the parts of me not covered by Fen, but I didn’t feel any larger blows. I twisted my head, tried to push Fen away a little so that I could move, but he only pressed me more firmly into the floor.
“Stay down.”
Idiot man. I could probably do more to protect myself than he could in this situation. But he was too heavy to dislodge.
“Tel
l me what’s happening,” I demanded.
His face was close to mine, smudged with a dark streak of something across one cheek. A trickle of blood oozed from a slice above his eyebrow, the flow thickening as his brows drew down. “Something blew up.” His voice seemed to come from far away, distorted by the ringing in my ears.
“I know that,” I said sharply. “Are you hurt? You’re bleeding.”
He shook his head, as though he was more trying to clear his ears than to answer my question.
“What about you?” I shook my head in turn. I couldn’t feel anything immediately painful, so presumably there was nothing worth worrying about.
Fen lifted his head sharply as Guy’s voice cut through the roar in my ears, calling my name. “Stay down,” he repeated. His weight vanished from me as he lifted himself to a crouching position. “We’re here,” he called.
His movement cleared my line of sight and I stared up at the gaping hole in the ceiling. The air was full of ashes and bits of falling—well, I wasn’t entirely sure what they were other than the fact that they were on fire. I pushed myself up to a seated position carefully, checking for any protesting muscles or bones. I took a deep breath—a mistake—then coughed as the smoke hit my lungs. Fen’s head twisted back toward me. He glared.
“I’m still down,” I said. Though I didn’t intend to stay that way for very much longer. My back hurt where I’d hit the floor and the sleeve of my dress was torn, but I seemed otherwise unharmed. Which meant I should start helping those who were hurt.
Guy’s face suddenly loomed above me, peering over the remains of the row of chairs in front of us. “Are you two all right?” His voice was faint but clear.
I nodded while Fen said, “Yes.”
Guy’s answering nod was brisk. “Good. Let’s move.”
Fen reached down and grabbed my hand, pulling me carefully upward as he stood. “Where?”
“Out of here,” Guy said shortly. “The building is on fire.”
“But—” I started to protest.
Guy slashed a hand through the air, cutting me off. “No arguments. You’re leaving.”
“Where’s Simon?”
“He’s fine. He’s helping people.”
“I can help.”
“No.” Guy reached across Fen to take my arm. “Let’s go.”
I looked around the room. Chaos reigned. There were bodies sprawled across the floor and some of the rows of seats. Those who were moving were either doing so dazedly or pushing and shoving toward the doors. In the Beast Kind area nearest the door, a whole section of chairs about fifteen feet across had seemingly vanished. Where were the delegates?
I peered harder through the smoky air and started to pick out bloody shapes. Too small to be whole bodies. I swallowed hard, then coughed again, fighting the urge to spit ash and bile. Sainted earth. Who had done this?
Guy tugged on my arm and we moved as quickly as we could along the row of broken seats toward the aisle. The human section seemed to have been spared too much damage. I didn’t see any bodies, at least. But when I reached the aisle and turned to look back down at the speaking floor I saw something that made my stomach heave.
“Sweet Lady,” I said. “Guy, is that . . .” I turned away, not wanting to look at the crumpled figure of the Speaker for the Veil lying across the golden ring of the speaker’s circle. A massive spike of darkened wood speared his side. The uncanny stillness of his pose and the huge pool of blood spreading across the marble floor made it clear there was no hope he had survived.
Where was the queen?
I searched the room and found her. No longer robed in white, her twisting veils turned pitch black, she stood stock-still in front of the chair that was hers, staring down at the Speaker, heedless of the rest of the chaos around her.
Sainted bloody earth. The Speaker was dead. And the queen’s veils were black. Guy was right—we needed to get out of here. Fast.
People were going to die.
I hastened my steps, but before I’d moved even a few feet down the aisle there was a second thunderclap of sound. All around me, people flung themselves down, arms wrapped around their heads protectively. But this sound wasn’t followed by a blast and flying debris.
No, instead, in its wake it left a ringing silence, as the flames died and the air cleared. I felt the sizzling sting of wild, powerful magic scrape across my skin and rose to my feet cautiously, unsure what had just happened. Everyone else was doing the same thing. One by one, we turned toward the queen, who stood in the middle of the room, with her hands raised.
“Who,” she demanded, “has done this thing?”
The silence was absolute. The feeling of power rolled across the room again, making the air close around me like the pressure before a storm. The jewels on the queen’s hands sparked color like fireworks.
“Who?” she repeated, her voice full of a rage so deep it seemed as though it might drown us all.
Nobody answered. Which, given the tug and roil of the magic she was pouring into us, I had to imagine meant that whoever it was either wasn’t in the room or lay amongst the dead. No one could have resisted the urge to speak in the face of that terrible voice.
Not unless they were protected by magics I couldn’t even begin to imagine. The hall’s wards were meant to prevent such a thing.
The queen’s veils whipped and coiled around her, edged with dark light, as though lightning bolts might spring from them at any second. She was the Fae queen. The gods-damned Fae queen. She could raze the City if she chose.
“Who?” she said again, and this time I heard not just rage but grief in her voice. Grief like ice and darkness. I shivered and reached blindly behind me for someone, anyone, to shelter me against the weight of it. I felt a hand grip mine and knew it was Fen, but I couldn’t look away from the queen to turn to the comfort of his touch.
“Justice will be done,” she said. “Until then, these negotiations are ended.”
“Somebody has to stop her,” I said to Guy. Around us, everybody seemed to be standing frozen in place. The only figures moving in the entire room were those working on the wounded and the Fae who had started to swirl protectively around the queen.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Guy said, staring at the queen.
“Seconded,” Fen agreed.
“The negotiations have to go ahead. If they don’t, then whoever did this will try and take advantage. They could end the treaty. She knows you,” I said to Guy. “She might listen to you.”
Several of the Fae had knelt beside the Speaker’s body and were covering it with a cloth produced from gods knew where. “You have to try.”
Guy’s face was grim, but he nodded, once. “I’ll try. If she kills me, then I’m telling Holly it was your fault.”
I wasn’t sure how that would work, but I wasn’t going to argue. If Guy could make any kind of a joke right now, no matter how feeble, then he must not be too worried that the queen actually would kill him. He sheathed his sword as he descended to the floor. Before he got within fifteen feet of the speaker’s circle, he was surrounded by Fae guards, bristling with weapons. He held up his hands, stopped where he was.
“My name,” he said carefully, “is Sir Guy DuCaine. I wish to speak to the queen.”
The queen’s head turned slightly, but then she focused back on those tending to the Speaker.
“Her Majesty will be leaving,” one of the guards said, his voice no less icy than the queen’s had been. “Stay where you are, human.”
Guy, wisely, didn’t move. He did, however, raise his voice. He was a Templar knight, used to working in noisy situations. He knew how to make himself heard.
“Your Majesty,” he called. “Please. Listen to me.”
This time her head turned fully, the veils writhing like serpents. “Do you know who did this, Templar?” she asked.
“No, Your Majesty.”
I held my breath, watching. For a moment I thought she was going to be reasonab
le, but, “Then you are no use to me. Be silent.” Her hand snapped out and Guy’s mouth snapped shut.
Holy mother of . . . Had the queen just cast a spell on a Templar knight?
If that was true, then we were indeed in deep, deep trouble.
Guy’s face turned thunderous, but he didn’t say anything more. I didn’t know if it was because he couldn’t or because he had decided that discretion was the better part of valor if he was to avoid being turned into a frog or incinerated by a fireball, but no one else tried to approach the queen in the few minutes before the Speaker’s body was fully wrapped and then carried—floated—out of the hall.
* * *
The minute the last of the Fae passed through the charred and shattered doorway, the noise in the hall erupted again with a vengeance. Everyone, it seemed, started talking at once. I ran down to Guy. “Can you speak?”
He shook his head. I turned to Fen, who was right on my heels. “Find Simon. Or Bryony.”
He nodded. I patted Guy’s arm, trying not to notice the fury in his eyes and the too white knuckles tightened around his sword hilt. He was furious. He jerked his head toward the door.
“Nobody is going anywhere just yet,” I said. It wasn’t strictly true. The Blood and Beast Kin delegates were streaming out of the hall, some escorting the injured or carrying bodies. Their expressions were a mixture—shaken, terrified, oddly calm, intent. The humans were hanging back, probably thinking it was wise not to get caught up amongst a crowd of Night Worlders just yet.
Fen returned, with Bryony right behind him.
The Fae healer looked at Guy with a careful expression, then laid a hand on his arm. The strain on her face eased a little. “It’s all right,” she said. “It’s just a glamour. It will wear off in a little while.”
“Can’t you remove it?” I asked.
Bryony shook her head. “Saskia, if I could undo enchantments wrought by the queen, I would be the queen. It will wear off. It’s not hurting, is it, Guy?”