by Queen, Nyna
The moment Darken disembarked from the coach, a nimble shape slid out of the shadows on the stoop, draping itself against the wooden railing.
Moonlight spilled over Belaris’ blond hair, adorning his head with an angelic golden halo, but his smile—his smile was of the devil.
“Darken.” A queer glitter filled his dreamy blue eyes. “I followed your pal’s cryptic advice and ran another check on Maria P. Carvalis right after you hung up. And you won’t believe what I found out…”
THE urgent chime of his vis-aural emitter tore the nightly silence apart and startled the Master out of his sleep. Drowsily, he grasped the device stationed on his bed stand. A quick glance at the horanium iactari resting upon a brass holder beside it told him it was a quarter past two in the night.
The Master scowled. This had better be important.
He activated the emitter with a spark of his magic. “Yes?”
“The files were breached!” a breathless voice gasped into the line.
“Excuse me? Who is this?”
“This is Bents, sir,” the voice gushed. “Officer Bents.” A trickle of hesitation. “You … uhm … you told me to immediately notify you if someone managed to access the Maria Carvalis files.”
With a vicious curse, the Master sat upright, immediately wide awake.
“Someone opened the Maria files?” Impossible!
“Yes, sir,” Bents confirmed, having no regard for his sanity. “About two hours ago.”
And the bastard only called him now?
“How could that happen?” Those damn files should have been inaccessible.
“Uhm…” More hesitation seeped through the line. “We’re not entirely sure yet, sir. It can’t have been one of the primary access codes though—that would have left an entry in the access logs. But we haven’t been able to trace the intrusion back to its source yet. It’s a delicate process, you see, that—”
“I’m not interested in your excuses!” the Master interrupted brusquely. “Tell me what you do know. Tell me everything.”
Ten minutes later, the Master disengaged the call and feverishly dialed another sequence. The moment a gruff, sleepy voice answered, he snapped, “What we feared has happened. This is a Code Red. Initiate emergency protocol Sun Down immediately.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
“RELAX, Alexandre.”
Alex cast Josy a withering glance, but before she could utter the pithy retort that was forming on her tongue, the beast below her decided it was a good time to increase its pace, and she needed all her breath just to stay on top of it.
Alex clutched the saddle. Inside her, the spider hissed and dug its claws into the inside of her skin. Josy’s lips pressed together in a poor attempt to hold in a giggle.
Little minx!
As soon as she got her hands free, Alex promised herself, she would throttle the girl. And after that she would throttle the stable lads, too, while she was already at it. The bastards had claimed that Moonsilver, the creamy-white mare they had assigned to her, was one of the most docile horse in the stables. Docile, my ass! As soon as the beast got within ten yards of Alex, it had started rolling its eyes, tossing its head and sidling about, turning into a freaking bundle of nerves.
Of course, it wasn’t so much the stable lads’ fault that the horse was acting batshit insane in her presence but, damn it, right now Alex really wanted to blame someone for her situation—someone who wasn’t herself.
She should have expected this. When she still lived at her sire’s house as a kid, she had always enjoyed watching the horses in the paddocks, but most of them had bolted whenever she got close to them. One time, she had snuck into the stables to sneak a peek at a newborn foal, and her presence had sent the horses into a panicked frenzy as if a wild puma had slunk into the barn, causing several of the horse boxes to be demolished, one of the draft horses to go limp, and a groom to be brought to the hospital with a broken shin and a dislocated shoulder. After that, Alex had developed a certain … wariness of horses. Thankfully, her sire had been kind enough not to insist that she attend her brothers’ riding lessons. It went without saying that her riding skills were at the lower end of the scale. That they were currently riding sidesaddle wasn’t exactly making things any easier.
Josy cast her a look of harried amusement. “If you get any tenser, you’ll tear a muscle. Just lean back a little more,” she instructed patiently. “Straighten your spine—uhm, but not like a broomstick—drop your shoulders and gently press your legs against the rump. The rest is a breeze. Riding really isn’t that difficult.”
“Easy for you to say,” Alex grumbled under her breath. “You received lessons.” And, knowing Edalyne and Stephane Dubois-Léclaire, probably from the best tutors in Arcadia money could buy.
In fact, the girl looked so comfortable on her brown and white pinto mare, she could as well have been sitting on a couch, reading a good book. It wasn't fair. She made it look like the easiest thing in the world. Something, Alex noticed, that held true for most of the girls and women who were riding alongside them on the marked bridle path. Trueborn royals! The lot simply had too much money and too much free time on their hands!
Underneath the cobalt-blue summer sky, the dirt path wove its way through a light forest, past beeches and oak trees in their lush emerald summer dress, and tall birches whose thin, white trunks gleamed with silver in the bright sunlight filtering through the canopy. The air was spiced with the smell of wildflowers and herbs, and carried the trilling chorus of a myriad of different birds. Looking around, Alex felt a bit as if she was riding through an enchanted grove from an old fairytale.
Josy leaned forward and patted her mare’s neck, muttering quiet endearments to her. In her wide sapphire riding skirts and matching button-up jacket, she could have been taken right out of one of those ancient paintings of royal horseback rides from a century past. Her chocolate-brown hair had been carefully braided away from her porcelain face but left open to flow behind her on the light breeze like a flag of honor. A small black hat perched on top of her head at a jaunty angle.
Alex had laughed at the costume when she’d seen it in the closet, but it didn’t look quite as ridiculous now that Josy was wearing it. Perhaps because she was ‘owning’ it, as Heloise liked to call it.
Alex, on the other hand, felt distinctly uncomfortable in her black, split vintage riding skirts and ivory pearl-button blouse. True, in her current company, she would have looked way more out of place in jeans and a t-shirt, but she would have felt a lot more at ease. Left with little choice, Alex had grudgingly donned the skirt, but she had drawn the line at the hat—she wasn’t a bloody circus horse!
A group of chatting girls in colorful riding attire rode past them at a trot, startling up a flight of little robins in the trees to their right. Alex’s head whipped around. In reaction to her sudden movement, Moonsilver jumped sideways, almost sending Alex flying after the birds. Cursing viciously under her breath, Alex fought to regain control over the mare, and by the time she had succeeded they were both sweating and out of breath.
Josy shook her head with a pitiful sigh. “It would help if you weren’t so jumpy. They feel your fear, you know.”
Fear, huh? Alex was convinced it wasn’t so much her alleged fear that set the horse on edge, thank you very much, but rather the presence of the predator sitting on its back and breathing down its curved neck. She would have acted quite the same if a wolf had been digging its heels into her flanks. Considering that, the horse was probably still quite well-behaved. Alex might even have felt pity for the beast if she hadn’t suspected it was secretly plotting to break her neck.
Grimacing at the thought, Alex clenched the elegant, gray leather reins a little tighter, just in case.
“Tell me again why I let you talk me into this insanity?”
Josy smiled brightly. “Because it’s fun?”
Fun. Right.
“Try again.”
The girl heaved a theatrical sigh. “Oh,
Alexandre, would you please stop whining? I told you, it’s tradition. And a rather beautiful tradition if I might add,” she said pointedly. “Mom and I always join the Summer Solstice Parade. It would have been strange not to take part this year.”
“Well, if your tradition ends up killing me, I’ll be seriously put out!”
The kid had the audacity to laugh. Alex briefly considered pushing her off her horse but decided it was too big a risk—she herself might fall off in the process.
“I could have stayed back,” she muttered.
“Mhhm, you could have.”
Alex shot Josy a suspicious glance. “We could have simply told everyone that my horsemanship wasn’t sound enough to join you.” It would have been nothing but the truth, and it would have spared her a sore ass and a couple of near heart attacks.
“Yes, we could,” Josy agreed amicably. Her face was a picture of perfect innocence, but her honey-brown eyes twinkled with amusement. “But would you really have preferred to stay with Grandmother the whole time?”
Touché. That was exactly the reason why Alex was now sitting on the back of this creature hellbent on killing her. The choice had been easy at the time.
Throwing a look around to make sure nobody was close enough to overhear, Josy nudged her mare closer to Alex—causing Moonsilver to nervously flick her ears—and leaned over, lowering her voice for good measure. “And didn't you say you wanted to see the terrain for yourself?”
Granted, she had said that. Since she would be cutting across a good part of this area later tonight, it had seemed sensible to get an idea of the conditions she would be facing. However, she had expected them to take a little detour with the coach on the way here, not … this!
“When I said that to your uncle,” she hissed, “I certainly didn’t mean—”
“Now, what are you two whispering about?”
Alex and Josy jolted upright in unison upon realizing that Elizabeth Saunier had fallen back from the group of riders in front of them and was watching them with open curiosity. Completely concentrated on survival, Alex hadn’t even felt her approach.
“Nothing!” Josy squeaked with the unmistakable air of someone caught doing something fishy. Alex wanted to slap her palm against her forehead.
Lady Saunier tapped the side of her straight nose with a ringed finger.
“Boys, isn’t it?” She nodded with a rather knowing look. “Ahh, to be young again. The excitement and heartache of first love. Stolen kisses behind hedges and dusty bookshelves…” She chuckled. “Summer stirs the blood, especially on a day like this. Well, there will be plenty of time for the manhunt, once we reach Canterbury Estate, I promise. Do remind me, Alexandre, there are several well-heeled bachelors I’d love to introduce you to.”
Alex tried to smile, although it must have been more of a strained grimace.
A frown puckered Lady Saunier’s forehead. “Are you alright, my dear? You’re looking a bit stiff there.”
“Oh, she doesn’t have much riding experience,” Josy jumped in kindly. “I’m afraid it was my idea to drag her along regardless. It wasn’t very thoughtful of me.”
Elizabeth bent closer to Alex and gave her clenched, knuckle-white hands a motherly pat. “The trick is to relax, dear.”
Alex gnashed her teeth. The next person who told her to relax would receive a taste of her claws.
“Riding is one of the noble sports, Alexandre,” Lady Saunier told her with a wink, smoothing the skirts of her cherry-red riding habit bordered with black. She rode with an almost dismissive elegance on top of her majestic chestnut stallion, a queen of everything she saw. “Good for body and soul. I suggest that you take advantage of the Dubois’ stables for as long as you can. Believe me, there is nothing to get your mind off things like a good long ride…” Her eyes took on a dreamy quality. In Alex’s mind, her stallion turned into Porter Olbec, Elizabeth’s lover boy, and she had to work hard to keep herself from vomiting into the bushes.
“Oh, but listen to me talking and talking when I should get to the front to make the preparations for the flores praesentinum. We are almost at the meeting point. Toodles, ladies, talk to you later.” Elizabeth waved her gloved hand at them with another sugar-candy smile and urged her stallion into a light canter.
Josy glared after her and pretended to shudder. “That woman is just so put-on.”
Alex could only agree.
At that moment, Edalyne closed up to them. Josy’s mother took one pitiful look at Alex and clucked her tongue. “Alexandre dear, it would really help if you relaxed a bit.”
TO Alex’s utter relief, Elizabeth’s estimation proved to be true, and they reached the meeting point only a few minutes later. The bridle path narrowed, took a sharp turn and abruptly ended in front of a fifteen feet high wall stretching in both directions slightly curving to the west. It was made up of big, ancient stone blocks that had attracted moss over time but apart from that looked sturdy enough to withhold an attack of a battering ram. Of course, with the tell-tale glow of magic wards sneaking across the wall, one would not need to worry about such primitive forms of assault. With all the magical energy crackling in the air around them, it was a hell of a strong ward, too.
A rounded archway appeared to be the only entrance far and wide. Silvery spikes had been thrust into the mural at the top and bottom of the archway. Between them stretched a glowing energy field—a portable magic scanner. It wasn’t one of the high-tech thingies they used at Crona Palace, but it would do its job. The one at Stephane’s office in Lancaester had been from the same generation.
The archway was manned by a good dozen guards in black and green tinted body armor equipped with a shocking arsenal of weapons. They looked like they meant business, too. Not one smile broke the scowls on their faces.
“Usually, security isn’t this strict here,” Josy muttered quietly beside Alex, studying the guards anxiously while the riders gathered in front of the entrance. “It’s probably because of what happened at the Summerball.”
Oh, Alex would wager her last panty on that. Ever since the ball, the entire realm had been in a jumpy state, and security had been upped almost everywhere.
Everybody had to dismount and pass through the scanner with their horse one by one. When it was Alex’s turn, she was so busy keeping a prancing Moonsilver from stepping on her toes, she barely had time to get nervous about the scan. And then, if the palace’s scanner hadn’t found her out, it seemed a safe bet this one wouldn’t either.
On the other side of the wall, a wide meadow stretched before her eyes, lush green grass dotted with tiny white, blue and yellow wildflowers. It was sheltered by ancient trees cushioned in moss and silver lichens.
As the women filed in from the north, a matching group of men rode in through a mirroring entrance at the south side of the wall, all polished boots, baloney vintage riding pants and long coats. Some even wore old-fashioned top hats.
Alex thought she caught a glimpse of Stephane and Max, but they were quickly swallowed by the bulk of riders swarming the meadow.
From the inside, Alex could see that the wall arched around in a half circle, connecting the two entrances in the west, while opening to the east where the meadow slanted down until it became a wide trail that turned into some kind of tree-lined alley at the end of which Canterbury Estate was located.
Moonsilver pulled on the rains and Alex quickly gave up on trying to control her, just letting her graze beside Josy’s pinto mare while they waited for everyone to pass through the scanners.
Excited voices rose around them. Alex glanced up in time to see the riders part like a seam to make space for seven young women in flowing white dresses atop of seven snow-white horses. The sheer fabric of their dresses shimmered with every movement, and their heads were crowned with the most artful floral wreaths Alex had ever seen. All the girls were beaming, but the one at the front was positively grinning like a maniac.
“Those are the Flower Maidens,” Josy told Alex as they w
atched the girls take position in front of the group, lining up toward the alley. “They are the lucky ones who have been chosen from a pool of more than a hundred applicants. It’s a great honor.”
Which probably explained those ear-to-ear grins.
“What’s a Flower Maiden?” Alex asked.
Josy blinked at her, wide-eyed. “Don’t you know the Tales of Litha?”
“Seems I missed that particular lesson in school.” As a matter of fact, she had missed school altogether.
Josy seemed to remember her poor upbringing. “Well, according to ancient folklore, on the day before Midsummer Night, the unwed maidens of each village would wander deep into the woods and collect seven sacred flowers the names of which have been passed down orally from generation to generation to the day. Upon their return, the flowers would be burned by the tribe and their holy ashes would be used to fertilize the ground for the planting of a sacred apple tree.”
“Sacred, huh?”
“Oh yes.” Josy nodded and grinned at Alex’s expression. “The apple tree is a symbol for prosperity, abundance and love. It is said that, as long as the apple tree blooms in a village, it will bring health and happiness to the community.” Her grin widened even more. “And, of course, if an unwed woman dances barefoot around it on Midsummer Eve, the spirits will help her find her true love that night.”
Alex rolled her eyes. Trueborns! They weren’t just squandering and tradition-hungry, but also superstitious to a flaw.
She herself had never had much use for superstitions. When she was a kid, she’d prayed to the Great Mother and any other deity or power she could think of to safe her sire when he was lying on his deathbed, but he had died anyway, mocking all her childish efforts. It made her realize that some things simply couldn’t be changed, and that she was the only one who had control over her fate.
Still, she could appreciate why the members of the trueborn elite would see a silent allure in a romantic old ritual which involved sneaking through the forest on a quest to find happiness and true love.