Hunter's Season: Elder Races, Book 4

by Thea Harrison

  “I have rested quite well, thank you, your grace. I am excited and honored to be here.”

  Xanthe stood at rest, her hands clasped loosely behind her back as she regarded the smaller woman with some bemusement. Niniane was dressed in a pale pink, filmy wraparound robe that had a neckline and hem of floating, tiny feathers. She wore odd, dainty American shoes that matched, with high heels and a single strap that somehow held them onto her feet, and with more of the floating, tiny pink feathers along the strap. Her dark hair was pinned up, and somehow it looked both messy and softly feminine.

  Niniane caught the direction of her gaze and held out a small foot. “This ridiculous floaty, feathery stuff is marabou, and I love it beyond all reason.”

  “It is certainly striking,” Xanthe told her in perfect truthfulness.

  The Queen giggled. “How precisely worded of you. You know, I am quite the proper Dark Fae Queen out there.” She waved her hands in the general direction of the doors. “But in here, in private, I get to relax and be anything I want to be. The only thing is—” She looked around mournfully. “I don’t have cable.”

  Xanthe blinked. “Then I shall fetch one for you immediately. It would help for me to know what kind of cable you require.”

  Niniane giggled harder. “Oh no, I do not require that kind of cable. ‘Cable’ is slang for cable TV. I suppose in Thruvial’s household, you did not have access to any television during your months in America?”

  “Ah, no,” said Xanthe. “However, we were able to examine a television in one of the motels we stayed in when we journeyed to Nevada.” She paused then added delicately, “Watching this device seemed an odd pastime.”

  “Oh, it is,” Niniane assured her. “It’s also fun, if there is a good story to watch. Theoretically. In Cuelebre Tower in New York, the cable company was horrendous and installed everything wrong. Then they couldn’t seem to get it fixed right until Dragos himself went to talk to the head of the company. After that, the problems were fixed within a week. All eighty floors.” She heaved a sigh. “It must be good to be a dragon.”

  “One imagines so,” said Xanthe politely.

  She settled quickly into her new routine and duties, which were at times not at all what she had expected. The Queen had lived for two hundred years in New York, and while, as she had said, she maintained formality in public, in private she indulged in her odd, casual American ways. Often she and Tiago dined privately in her apartment. On the occasional nights when the Queen was not engaged, yet Tiago was away at work, Xanthe learned how to play card games called euchre and hearts, and once she endured a painfully long board game called Monopoly. She was not eager to repeat the experience.

  She found that while she had taken her sevenday, investigators had discovered that the little Wyr girl’s mother was a drug addict who was so far gone in her own mind, she hadn’t noticed the child had been missing. The investigators had contacted other family members who, shocked to find out what had happened, had filed for emergency custody. As soon as they could arrange to do so, they would be traveling to Adriyel to collect the girl and bring her home. Niniane would provide financial help so that they could take time away from their jobs and make the journey. Xanthe was sorry to hear of the mother’s neglect, but glad to know the child would go to a home where she would be cared for and she could belong.

  On the days when she had early duty, afterward she traveled home to the cottage. When she had late duty, she stayed overnight in the palace barracks. Every sevenday she received her wages and she got not one but two full days off, a new policy which had been instituted by this Americanized Queen and felt like the height of luxury. She also received several moons pay that was owed to her for her assignment to infiltrate Thruvial’s household and execute Tiago’s kill order. For the first time in a very long time, she had a tidy nest egg that she could set aside and leave untouched.

  On the one hand it felt good wear the palace black, not to have to cover up her identity or put on a mask. On the other hand, there were times when the guard duty felt too passive. Fortunately the Queen was quite active. Due to Xanthe’s senior status, she could have become captain of the Queen’s personal guard, but that would have involved extra boring duties such as scheduling, and besides, Rickart was a good man and didn’t deserve to be supplanted.

  She saw Chancellor Riordan often, as much as several times a week. He and the Queen might take a walk through the palace grounds as they discussed an issue, or they shared breakfast. They often attended the same functions, whether it was a dinner of state, or some gala like the annual regatta, where boats and barges of all sizes and kinds floated on the river, lit with colored lanterns that reflected off the sparkling black water until the night was ablaze with light. During those occasions, Xanthe usually saw Riordan from a distance, although there were always the moments when he greeted Niniane. Then he would glance at Xanthe and smile.

  She treasured those smiles. They were fleeting, and of course they meant nothing. They were just a courtesy, little more than a pat one might give a horse. But he looked right into her eyes when he smiled, and for the briefest moment, she felt outside of her life, transported somewhere else.

  She had already devoted herself to the Queen when she went to work for Tiago. It was easy to grow fond of Niniane, who was funny, charming and kind to everybody, including her servants. But Xanthe would have taken the position as Queen’s attendant solely for the chance of receiving one of those rare smiles from Riordan.

  One night soon after the regatta, Niniane had just finished a dinner in the great hall with prominent American businessmen and a collective of Dark Fae artisans and metalworkers. Neither Riordan nor Tiago had attended. The palace was built on a hillside, and the great hall was on the lower level with massive windows that offered a spectacular view of the nearby falls and river.

  The Americans were suitably impressed, and the Dark Fae artisans were frankly delighted. The results looked to be highly promising for a healthy increase in trade, but the affair had gone on overlong, and Xanthe was hot, tired and hungry. She had eaten a snack just before the dinner and a full meal would be waiting for her in the kitchen, but she was just as inclined to slap a piece of meat between two pieces of bread, go to her bed in the barrack and call an end to the day.

  Niniane looked as tired as she felt. She gestured for one of the servers who came to her immediately. “Please let Lord Black Eagle know that the dinner is over, and I am retiring for the night.”

  “Yes, your grace.” The server trotted away.

  Niniane glanced at Xanthe and gave a ghost of a chuckle. “I enjoy dinners like this, but there’s a limit to how many functions poor Tiago can endure, so I try not to ask too much of him.”

  Xanthe inclined her head. Also, she thought, the risk factor for this dinner had not been high. There was a distinct pattern to the lord’s behavior. Anything to do with Dark Fae nobility or involving open air, like the regatta, and Tiago was sure to attend. He was also present for anything that Niniane particularly loved, such as going to a drama house to see any of the many plays that were dark, twisting tales filled with swordfights, deceit, treachery and impossible love. “Bloody soap operas,” he called them, but he said it in that easygoing indulgent way of his that seemed for Niniane alone, and besides, Xanthe suspected that he enjoyed the plays too.

  She and Niniane walked back to the Queen’s apartment. They had climbed the grand staircase to the upper hall when she heard running footsteps behind them. All the blood in her body pounded. She shoved Niniane forward and drew her sword as she spun to meet the newcomer, because running at that urgent pace in the palace was never good.

  She recognized the palace runner immediately and straightened out of attack position, although she did not sheathe her sword. The runner, a young girl named Drinde and unarmed, paused cautiously several steps below Xanthe and held onto the guard rail, gasping for breath. “Pardon, ma’am—your Highness. Oh, you must come quickly!”

  Niniane
had come up beside Xanthe, her face blanched white. In a harsh voice that sounded quite unlike her, she snapped, “What has happened?”

  “It’s Chancellor Riordan, your grace,” Drinde stammered. “He has been attacked. His servants—his servants say it is very bad.”

  Xanthe’s world gave an ugly, sickening lurch. Beside her, Niniane tore off the stiff, richly worked, knee length jacket she wore. The jacket was a work of art and highly restrictive. She threw it to the floor. Underneath it she wore a thin shirt made of fine cotton, leggings and polished ankle boots.

  “Let’s go,” Niniane said.

  Abruptly Xanthe’s mind clicked over to icy logic that won control just barely over the hot panic galloping through her body. “We don’t know the veracity of this. It might be a trap.” She turned to Drinde. “Are you sure they were the Chancellor’s servants?”

  The girl met her gaze. “Yes, ma’am.”

  That meant nothing. It could still be a trap. Everything inside of her was screaming to race to Riordan’s house. Instead, she forced herself to say to Niniane, “I have to advise you to wait until Tiago is found.”

  “Noted,” the Queen said in a clipped tone. “We’re not waiting. We’ll collect guards on our way out.” The Queen looked at Drinde. “Find Lord Black Eagle. Tell him what has happened, and where we have gone.”

  Niniane didn’t wait to hear the girl’s reply. She turned and raced down the hall, and Xanthe raced beside her. They burst through a set of doors, out into a warm, humid night. Xanthe shouted for guards and several came running. She asked Niniane, “A carriage?”

  “It’s quicker on foot,” Niniane said. Her eyes were frightened and bleak.

  Xanthe rapped out orders. The guards surrounded Niniane, and they all took off running, down the colonnade of ancient sycamores, along the stately mansions on Ambassador’s Row, cutting across a small park and then racing down that street to the end where the Chancellor’s house was ablaze with torchlight. All the while Xanthe remained at a razor’s edge, just this side of violence, her gaze darting around to every dark shadow and to the guards that surrounded her and the Queen, while her mind kept replaying those few, terrible words that Drinde had spoken.

  “He has been attacked.”

  Riordan was strong, and he would have access to some of the most highly skilled and Powerful physicians in Adriyel.

  If the physicians could reach him in time.

  “His servants say it is very bad.”

  One of their guards raised his fist to pound at the front door of the Chancellor’s house, just as it opened. A distressed male servant looked out at them. His gaze landed on Niniane, and his face crumpled. “Your Majesty, this is so terrible—”

  Niniane said through whitened lips, “Is he dead?”

  “No, not—no.” The male stood back, holding the door open wide, and Niniane would have raced into the house, except Xanthe grabbed her arm and stopped her.

  “You and you,” Xanthe said, pointing to two of the guards. “Come inside with us. The rest of you, check the perimeter of the house. Guard all exit points, doors and windows.” She released Niniane’s arm and ran into the house with her, followed by the two guards.

  The interior was a blur of rich wood furniture and golden, glowing lamps. Riordan’s major domo led them up the stairs to where several servants stood, weeping. Xanthe’s stomach was tight with raw nerves. She and Niniane looked through the open doors of an apartment.

  Inside was an expansive, elegantly masculine bedroom, the hangings to a large bed pulled back. Two people, a male and a female, were working over a lax, bloody body. Power surged and eddied around the three of them. Xanthe clenched her teeth as nausea welled, her body rebelling at the sight. As quickly as it hit, it passed, leaving a sheen of cold sweat on her hands and face.

  “If you’ve come to gawk, get out,” said the male without looking up. “I won’t have his lordship subjected to it.”

  “I’m not here to gawk,” Niniane said shortly.

  The man’s head jerked around. “Your Majesty—my profound apologies—”

  “Forget about it. Focus on your patient. Is he—will he—?” Niniane’s voice stopped abruptly as she clenched a fist in Xanthe’s uniform sleeve.

  The physician turned back to his patient. He said tersely, “I don’t know. With respect, please leave us to work now.”

  “Yes, of course,” Niniane whispered.

  Xanthe put an arm around the smaller woman’s shoulders, hugging Niniane tightly against her side. She did not know if she did so for Niniane or for herself. She could not look away from the man on the bed. His bare, well formed chest was mottled with sword gashes. A blackened bruise disfigured fully half of his still face, and oh gods, all that blood.

  Xanthe had seen such terrible wounds before. Most of those who had suffered them had died. Riordan disappeared in a wet haze as her eyes filled. She cleared her throat and said huskily, “Come, let’s find a sitting room.”

  “Of course,” Niniane whispered again.

  Riordan’s major domo had just shown them to a sitting room when Tiago blazed into the house. It took some effort to endure the Wyr lord’s presence when he was in a rage. Xanthe retreated as Tiago enfolded Niniane in his arms and asked her questions filled with quiet urgency.

  Xanthe stepped out into the hall and looked for the major domo. When she found him, she asked, “How did it happen?”

  He looked at her with red rimmed eyes. “We don’t know, ma’am. The Chancellor was late. Well, he almost always works late these days. Tonight he was later than usual. He always tells us, you see, whenever he has an engagement or is detained. He’s a thoughtful lord, a good lord.”

  “I know he is,” she whispered.

  “But he didn’t come, and he didn’t send word. Finally I sent two servants to look for him. They found him in the park like this. It was clear he had fought. There was blood everywhere. I sent for the physicians then to the palace.”

  Rage whipped through Xanthe, its sting as harsh as a cat-o-nine tail. “Why did he not have guards with him?”

  The major domo blinked rapidly. “It was not his way. He said it was such a short walk from the palace grounds to his doorstep, he felt stupid calling for a guard every time he made the journey.”

  She pulled herself up short. The major domo did not deserve her rage. The people who attacked Riordan did. She nodded to him and left him with a quiet word of thanks, returning to wait with Niniane and Tiago in the sitting room. They didn’t seem to mind when she reappeared, but she went to the window anyway and pretended to stand guard there.

  The dark hours trickled by and turned to the bleak gray before dawn when the major domo stepped into the open doorway. “The physicians ask that you come,” he said.

  Niniane and Tiago rushed out of the room and raced up the stairs, with Xanthe close behind. She followed them into the bedroom and closed the door behind her on the anxious faces awaiting in the hall. Her hands shook. Any moment now, she thought, I will be sent out to wait with the others.

  But no one seemed to notice or care that she was in the room. The physicians didn’t know who she was, and Tiago and Niniane paid no attention to what she did. They were both focused on the man and woman who were tiredly washing up at basins that had been placed on a nearby sideboard.

  “He’ll live,” the woman told them. “But he almost didn’t. I was certain a couple of times that his spirit had left his body.” She looked at them. “His injuries were severe and extensive, and we did the best we could but there’s only so much we can do. It may take several hours to a day for him to regain consciousness, and he’ll need to convalesce in peace and quiet. No work and no stress, not for a few sevendays at the very least. He’s a strong man, and he used a lot of that to survive. Now he’ll need to rebuild that strength.”

  Xanthe did not truly hear anything past the first two words. As both Tiago and Niniane asked questions and the doctors answered, she slipped like a ghost around all of them and
approached the unconscious man on the bed.

  She was an expert at murder, and this was how murder was done—by gaining the trust of the people around the intended victim so that you become commonplace, a fact of life like an armchair or a side table. Then no one questioned you when you came close. No one saw as you slipped the stiletto between the ribs, or dropped the poison in the drink.

  Or attacked a man in a small neighborhood park.

  She looked down at the noble face of the man who lay so quietly, his black hair spread on the pillow. He did not look peaceful. He looked worn and deeply ill, his closed eyes bruised with dark shadows. The coverlet had been pulled up to his bare shoulders. Sometimes when the injuries were so severe, a physician simply had to stop healing because an abused body could only take so much Power coursing through it. This must have been the case with Riordan, for she could see the uneven bump of bandages underneath the covering.

  No one was watching, and it was, after all, such a simple thing she needed to do. She reached out a hand and touched his temple, feeling the pulse of life underneath the pads of her fingers. Then, tenderly, she stroked the silken black hair from his forehead. It was the most audacious thing she had ever done, stealing this one moment.

  Some extra sense made her turn her head. Niniane stood a few feet away, staring at her. The Queen’s gaze was very wide and startled, and far too perceptive. Xanthe snatched her hand back and cleared her throat. Turned away. Turned back again. She was in an agony of embarrassment.

  Niniane stopped her by simply putting a hand on her arm.

  Meanwhile, Tiago saw the doctors out the door and closed it firmly on everybody else again. He turned back to join Niniane and Xanthe, looking down at Riordan.

  “We’ll have to investigate everybody,” he said. “That includes everyone in his household, of course, and his staff at the palace. The neighbors will need to be canvassed.”