What eventually came to lie before us was—not unexpectedly—a manor in the style of the ones I’d been in and out of before. My experience of elven seats prior to Nudain’s nouveau cliff-side dwelling had been like Suleris’s, graceful but sprawling in tropical parks and manicured gardens, with windows open to the sea breezes. In fact, it looked familiar enough that I found myself puzzling as we rode closer. I had a visceral memory of those gates which had surely not come from Suleris or Erevar—
“Naturally we’re here again,” Kelu said, ears flattening.
“Here again?”
“This,” Amhric said, low, “is Amoret’s manse.”
I almost reined the horse in, and the arrested motion communicated itself to my mount, which caviled and tried to chew the bit into its mouth and out of the hand of its apparently inept rider.
“They didn’t tell you?” Kelu asked.
“They showed me a map. It was labeled in the Gift.”
“Which you can’t read.” Kelu touched a hand to her brow. “How do you even know this is where we were supposed to go?”
“The landsense brought me.” At the blank looks I received from most of our party, I elaborated. “When I saw the map, the landsense woke and began tugging me toward the place Ikaros indicated. I have no reason to disbelieve it.”
“Perhaps this Amoret is dead?” Ivy said. “There has been a coup, after all. There’s no reason to assume she lived through it if she is as evil as you suggest with your dismay. Some other elf might be commanding here, or perhaps a rival human group?”
“I wouldn’t gamble on that,” Kelu muttered.
“At least we have nothing to fear, do we?” Emily said, hesitant. “The prince is prince over all elves. If an elf rules here, she must bow to him, yes?”
“She’d better hope to be dead instead,” I said, grim, and urged my horse back into motion.
We reached the manse in the gloaming, beneath a sky tense and disturbed by wet winds that whispered of clouds offshore. I resented the world for sending a storm to oversee this meeting, as if I needed to draw parallels between it and the last events that had labored on beneath stormwrack and rain. It was in this foul mood that we were received by the gate’s guardians, and they were in fact elves; the sight of two elves riding alone with their pets occasioned no suspicion on their parts, for they greeted us with every evidence of welcome and opened the gates for us.
“We have had little news of others,” said one. “But we’ve been accepting stragglers and refugees for some time now. If you know anything, particularly of the other isles, our lady will be eager to receive you.”
I reflected that she would be eager to receive us whether she wanted to be or not and said, “We do have news, yes.”
“Ride on,” said the first. “You’ll be greeted at the manor proper. They’ll get you a good meal and a bath.”
“I’ll be glad of the latter,” I said. “I would hardly want to meet a lady without one after the riding we’ve been doing.”
“I can imagine!” He grinned. “And welcome, strangers, to the blood-flag Sutumon.”
Once we were riding down the lane alone, I said to Amhric, “Not a blood-flag I’ve heard of. Have you?”
He shook his head. “Either it is not Amoret, or she’s taken a new name.” A pause, almost infinitesimal. “But I suspect the latter. The glyphs used to write Sutumon. They mean shelter. And vengeance.”
“It could be some new elf,” Emily offered.
Because all elves were likely to be bloodthirsty? I said to my brother, “You knew her better than I did. Is this in keeping with her character?”
“Of course it is,” Kelu said. “She was a petty, power-hungry tyrant.”
Amhric looked at Kelu then nodded. Once. That was all, and from him this was betrayal of a wound in one who easily forgave and forgot such wounds.
Would I kill her the moment I saw her? I feared my own temper. The woman who wanted to be queen, who wanted a baby from a man guaranteed to furnish her with one and all the status that pregnancy would have conveyed. The woman who had sent me away to be raped repeatedly by her lowest elven servants. The woman who had given my brother to his worst enemies. The woman who had seen Almond “disciplined” for failing to procure a prince who met her expectations of the title, when Almond had been right.
My hands flexed carefully on the reins. Above us, the sky grumbled, and sent a low hissing wind over bright grasses, sourced from a dark horizon.
We were met at the door, as promised, and greeted with every expectation of friendship, as if elvenkind had not lately been at war with itself. The revolution of servant against master must have been far more widespread and more successful than we’d imagined for Amoret to be taking in anyone of the same species. Or perhaps this was her way of having all her guests off-balance: treat them like friends to ensure their complacency, and then kill them later if she decided they wouldn’t suit her plans. Whatever the case, we were given two separate rooms, and baths of sweet-smelling hot water to use, and trays of food and new clean clothes, and all this was luxury beyond speech after so many days traveling.
“Women don’t wear much around here, do they,” Ivy said, looking at what had been left for her. I glanced at the diaphanous length of cloth she was holding to her body and was glad we’d had the privacy to indulge ourselves prior to that point, because if I hadn’t the sight of her under so much sheer cloth would have been an impossible distraction.
It was still a distraction, just... not quite as urgent.
“It extends to your shoulders,” I said. “That makes it modest as elves count such things. Many elven women go bare-breasted.”
“I’m glad I’m not an elven woman, then. Saints, think of what Guy and Radburn would say.”
“Think of what they will say when they get here,” I said, amused.
She laughed and dressed, and if she wore two of the gossamer shifts rather than one in an attempt at propriety, she was still cooler than she had been in her old clothes... and as beautiful.
“How bad will it be?” she asked, quiet. “This woman.”
“She is spoiled and petulant and now has a woman’s power,” I said. “But beyond that... I fear myself more than I fear her.” I sat on the low bed and leaned over my legs, my hands clasped together between them. The last time I’d been in Amoret’s manor, such ease of posture would have been beyond me, but these observations had grown less frequent. I was becoming accustomed to having a working body, and the memory of my life of constant pain receded.
Was that how Amhric managed his easy forgiveness? Did he simply let everything fade as nature ordained?
Ivy sat alongside me. She’d brought my name out to rest over the thin fabric, and I focused on the creases its weight created over the slope of one of her breasts... watched them shift as she breathed and her ribcage lifted. Despite all Amoret had tried, Amhric was free and so was I. We were here on our own errand, and forewarned of her we could handle whatever she planned. I sighed, let as much of my agitation escape as possible.
“That’s better,” she said. She rested her hand on my chest beneath her ring, traced it with a fingertip. “You’ll be fine, my love. I promise. You are not the monster you think power could make of you.”
“Yet?” I said.
She laughed. “Ever.” And added, still playing with the ring, “Even if I don’t think much of it for women, I rather like the elven aesthetic for men. Bare chests suit you very well!”
“Do they,” I murmured, amused.
“I shall demonstrate,” she agreed, and pushed me back onto the mattress.
We both gave thanks afterwards for the conveniences of magic, that could warm water and make it clean again.
By the time we were sent for, the rain had begun. We were led from the guest house, which was outside, under covered walkways toward the manorhouse proper; even protected from the brunt of the weather, we were damp by the time we arrived, for the humidity was inescapable. On Ivy and Am
hric and I, the results were merely unfortunate. The genets suffered far more, though. Seeing them, I remembered Suleris keeping their cages outside and the casual way the genets had confessed to being left to the rain, and my anger rose again. This woman had been in league with that blood-flag. It made me wonder why she was here on the Archipelago. Why hadn’t she followed her allies through the Door?
We found her on a cushioned bench, being fanned by elves, and the incongruity of this was so distracting that I forgot to lunge for her throat. Why were elves filling the roles of servants in her house? Had she decided to trust no humans at all? And where were her genets, for she’d obviously had them if she’d been sending Kelu and Almond to the mainland on her errands?
“So,” Amoret said, lazily. “The king returns.”
“Amoret,” Amhric said. He paused, searching for words, and said finally, “You live.”
She laughed. “Is that all you can think of to say? Given all that’s between us?”
“It’s all I have,” he said, and after a moment finished, “Or want to give you.”
“Not the welcome I was hoping for,” she admitted. “Given that I have granted you refuge.”
“Refuge!” I exclaimed, unable to hold my tongue any longer.
“Yes,” she said, her eyes sliding to me. They started on my face and moved down to my feet before making their leisurely way back up to my face. It was obvious she liked what she saw—and equally obvious that she didn’t recognize me. Perhaps she had poor distance sight, as I had? That seemed improbable in an elf, particularly female. “Refuge. You had noticed the war going on?”
“Is that what you’re calling it?” I asked. “A war?”
“What else?” She shrugged one slim shoulder. “The slaves are rebelling. Unfortunately, they’re doing so successfully. Sutumon is one of the few places in the Archipelago where elves can be safe.” She considered me again. “And you are, my fine sir?”
“That,” Kelu said from between gritted teeth, “is the prince.”
She glanced at the genet and said, “Oh! You! I’d thought you dead!” She leaned forward, frowning. “In fact, I was sure you fled me, in defiance of me as your mistress. But I see I was wrong, and you were still at the work I gave you, seeking the prince? Well done!” She rose and approached me, intent. “This is certainly the one. I can tell. Now that I’m paying attention.” She curtseyed to me in the elven fashion, smiling past her clasped hands with eyes gone sultry, all lowered lash and engorged pupils. “Forgive me, my prince. I had given up hope of ever finding you.”
This... this surpassed all belief. That she not only didn’t recognize me, but was now trying to cozen up to me! I had left my staff behind in favor of the more discreet knife for protection. I was glad now I had deprived myself of the temptation of using the weapon of my office on her. “You can tell, can you?”
“Oh, certainly.” She lowered her eyes, affecting a demure nature everyone in the room knew to be alien to her, including Ivy who had never met her and couldn’t understand most of the words she was using. “I had thought to court the king, but I see that was wrong of me. Amhric was always meant for hermitage, and requiring anything as worldly as mating out of him was wrong. Cruel, even. You, though... you are cut of different cloth.”
“Very,” I said dryly.
“I am Amoret e Sutumon,” she said, offering me her hand.
I took it and said, “My name is Morgan Locke.”
She froze.
I smiled. “Ah, yes. You might remember me now.”
“I... this is... this is some sort of jest!” she exclaimed, scowling. She tried to jerk her hand back but I kept it. “You use the name of a human—”
“That your genets brought you from the mainland, wearing an elven name around his neck,” I said. “And whom you promptly dismissed as a fakery, and then consigned to the kitchens. As food. Your lackeys fed on me before they abandoned me to be dragged to my cell by another human. Did they tell you that they were sampling the goods you probably intended for their betters?” She was now trying harder to retrieve her hand but I kept it. “Despite having decided I was worth nothing to you save as fuel, you nevertheless sent an armed party in pursuit of me when I escaped, and no doubt you would have found some entertaining end for me had Sedetnet not claimed me instead.” I lifted my brows. “Now do you recall?”
“This is monstrous!” she hissed.
“I quite agree. That you should still live after all that you have done, to your prince unknowing and your king with full understanding? That you should have escaped the retribution of your human slaves when so many other elves have died?” I shook my head. “Had I not had recent proof of God’s goodness, I would surely question it now.”
Her breath had quickened, and anger had flushed her cheeks. Once they’d been impossible in their marmoreal perfection; even now, absent the enchantment’s trapped-in-time perfection, they remained distracting, to one who cared to be distracted by her. I did not, which is how I was able to snap a command past her at her fan-bearers. “Don’t.” Instantly they checked their advance, but their uncertainty was palpable, so I said, “This ship, gentlemen, is sinking. Do you really choose to go down with it?”
Apparently they did not, for they made no move to aid their mistress.
“And now,” I said. “What shall I do with you, Amoret?”
She lifted her chin. “Your brother would not like to see me killed at your hand.”
“Possibly true,” I said. “Fortunately he has conveniently abnegated all responsibility for your fate—or indeed the fate of anyone who gives him offense—into my hands.” I smiled at her. “You may appeal to him for mercy if you wish. He will probably grant it, with regret, before you die at his feet.”
The red flush of anger had blanched away. “You would kill me in my own hall. Knowing that you would probably not escape.”
“I’m sure we would, actually. I am prince here. I can make that very clear to anyone who might test me. Or how do you suppose I am here? And all the Archipelago wracked with rebellion? Have you thought to ask where your little confederates are? Suleris’s blood-flag heads? Nudain’s? Ekadet’s?”
“You want me to believe you killed them. You, who were so weak you couldn’t even stay the hands of my minions.”
“Your... minions.” I dropped her hand, feeling soiled. “Really, Amoret. You pass belief.”
“Well?” she said. “Are you going to kill me?” She folded her arms. “I don’t think you have it in you.”
“And if I left you alive?” I asked. “Would you work against my aims, and my brother’s?”
She laughed. “I don’t know. Would you marry me?”
“Sadly—for you—I am already betrothed. And you will not lay a hand on Amhric while I live.”
“And you have no convenient extra brother?” She lifted her brows.
Amhric’s interruption startled us both. “Amoret? I don’t understand.” He drew closer. “You sought a child because to have one would have made you singular among elves. Because the enchantment made so many of us incapable of fruitful union. Now that we are no longer bound, why are you still seeking that aim? There will be no power in it, not as there was before.”
“And if I said I didn’t care?” she said, arch.
“I wouldn’t believe you, certainly,” I said.
She sneered at me. “You wouldn’t. Being male, and incapable of bearing a child.” She rested a hand on her belly, and if the gesture was rehearsed or intentional I could see no signs of it. “Do you know how long I’ve wanted a child? All my life, I’ve wanted to be a mother, and the enchantment took that from me.” She glared at us both. “Yes, I sought you both. Yes, I wanted you both. The royal gifts give enhanced virility to its carriers. I knew if I had a night with one of you, I would finally have my child. It would spare me from years of trying with this man or that until I got what I wanted.” Her gaze turned vicious, lips peeling back from her teeth. “What do men know of this need? N
othing! You have no idea what it’s like, to want to grow new life, to bear it. To hold it in your arms. To you the act is another conquest in a bed, and even when not, it is some foreign process that takes place in someone else’s body. You will never understand.”
Amoret could have chosen no better appeal to arrest me... because it was true, and because—I glanced at Ivy—I feared that I might be consigning someone I loved to this very disease. Would Ivy become an embittered, twisted creature one day because of what I had denied her by accident of birth? Would she forgive me for our barren union? Or would she go to her grave hating me for it, even if she kept that hatred secreted away in her heart where I might never see it?
If this was all that afflicted Amoret, giving her the chance to fulfill that desire would heal her. Was that not what Amhric would counsel? What God would? What a coup it would be, to reclaim Amoret for goodness...! And yet to spare her would be a risk, and ask much of us all. She had done us grievous ill.
It was for me to decide, and I opened my mouth without knowing how I would decree.
Kelu swept past me, palming my glass blade from its makeshift sheath, and leapt for Amoret’s throat. We were all too slow to stop her, even the guards, who stood petrified by the unexpected violence. Standing from the body as blood spread in a widening pool around the enormous wound in the elf’s neck, Kelu said, “You would never have been able to trust her.” Bending, she wiped the blade on Amoret’s skirts. When she offered it back to me, I took it, numb. “And all that about only wanting a baby for a baby’s sake was a lie, anyway.”
Striding away, Kelu paused at the door. “Well?”
“Well what?” I said, hoarse.
“Well, are you coming?” Kelu said, dry. “We just beheaded the Sutumon blood-flag. Someone needs to take over.”
I looked one last time at Amoret’s body, at the shock of red on pale gold floors. Then I squared my shoulders and went to do the work.
On Wings of Bone and Glass Page 26