“It won’t?” Quinton looked at the wheel, his hand on it, that iron grip holding the rudder true. “Why not?”

  “I’m not here for your courtesy. I am not interested in coming back later. I am Lord Gyles of Drastow Stronghold, and I need your soul.”

  Quinton eyed the man, the deck, and the distance to the railing. He flashed a quick, nervous smile, doffed an imaginary cap, and turned for the rail. He sprinted as if his life depended on it, and in four short strides he was on the railing, then over it, heading for the chop below. An icy embrace, true, but he would have a chance in the water. Because he knew whatever Lord Gyles was, he wasn’t here to give Quinton any kind of chance.

  It was only a short distance from the railing to the waves. Quinton fell.

  He never hit the water.

  Morgan screamed. The wheel was in her hands, the wood smoking, charring where her fingers gripped it. Water drenched her, the clean saltless ice sluce of an inland lake. She felt her body shake with the cold, the fear, the knowing she was about to die.

  The wheel shook as she gripped it. Heser the Cheg was there, of course. He shouted at her, but his words meant nothing. Past him Tarragon fluttered, glitterdust shedding to the floor. The fairy wrung her hands, anxious, but Morgan wasn’t seeing her either.

  Past both was a shadow. A gaunt man with a cape, but it wasn’t a cape at all. Wings, leathery and long, a grotesque distortion of a bat. He had an inhuman smile, not like the Vhemin at all. The monsters weren’t human, but they knew passion. Lord Gyles had nothing in his smile but a yearning, desperate hunger.

  I am the princess and the knight. I am the dragon.

  She screamed again, lightning forking from the wheel, arcing to the stone walls. Morgan felt her hair rise, wanted to drop the wheel.

  Couldn’t.

  It flashed blue, then smoked more, licks of flame curling through her fingers. She fought it, tried to pull away, and the wheel came apart in her hands. Wood splintering, it clattered to the old stone floor, each piece a burning ember.

  Heser the Cheg staggered back. Tarragon flew forward, hand out. Lightning caught the sprite, a great coiling loop of white power.

  Silence.

  Morgan blinked, momentarily night blind. “Heser? Tarragon?”

  “I am here, my queen.” Strong hands on her arms. A lesser man would have run. She could smell the maleness of him, wanted him to hold her, just fucking hold her for a minute.

  Not yet. She put a cool hand on his. “Tarragon?” Morgan blinked, the room coming back in dim flashes as her sight returned. There. Twin motes of azure blue instead of the expected emerald green.

  The fairy floated before her, eyes glowing with icefire. “I think you found it. I think you found how to break the ritual.”

  Morgan stepped past Heser, walking around the fairy. “You’re unharmed?”

  “It’s just lightning.”

  “It’s exactly lightning. It destroys rock, houses, and people. It chars the earth and blasts ancient oaks to pieces.” Morgan felt heat coming off the sprite like a coal forge.

  Tarragon shrugged. “It can’t hurt me. Not really. About now I could jump start a reactor.”

  Morgan felt more adrift than when she’d been Quinton. “Reactor?”

  “Doesn’t matter. Do another one.” The fairy pointed to the wall of relics. “That was one. Only about a hundred to go.”

  “Are you insane? I’m not touching another one of those.” Morgan crossed arms still soaked from the lake.

  “Ah.” Tarragon nodded, sad, but not arguing. “Then Evanne will die. I’m going to find her. Because she shouldn’t die alone.”

  “Wait.” But the fairy didn’t wait, because the maddening creature didn’t care she was the Raven Queen of Or’sen. The fairy cared about Evanne, and Evanne was going to die.

  “My queen.” Heser the Cheg spoke cautiously, as if words were feet placed about the rim of a pit of spikes. “Tell me how it is done, and I will do it.”

  Honest. Forthright. Carrying all my cares. Has it ever been so, and I didn’t see it? She looked at Heser, stepped to him, and took his face in her hands. “Dear man. You can’t do this for me.”

  He took her wrists. Lowered her hands. She wanted him to step in and kiss her, to taste the lake on her lips. But instead he said, “Someone must. The sprite is right. Evanne will likely die this night.”

  Morgan wanted to wail there are so many! Because the wall behind her held relics enough to capture the souls for an army.

  But wailing had never fixed her life. She looked at the door. Perhaps it is time to run, then.

  Chapter Eleven

  The throne room’s décor was much as Vertiline remembered. The high, vaulted ceiling brooded above. The windows were high set within solid stone, allowing enough sun through that a young queen could glower with just the right lighting effects from where she sat on the ornate throne. The throne hulked atop the steps at the far end, made by men to impress other men. It had always been too large for Morgan, but the Raven Queen’s presence was bigger than a single chair. She owned the room and the kingdom beyond.

  The young queen is not here, though. Neither is she young any more. But who is? Vertiline stood at the door with her husband, his presence by her right side a rock. In the room were a collection of assholes, vagrants, and inbreds, all wearing the Queen’s black. The assholes lounged on the steps, or in ornate chairs about the room. Morgan had never held with sycophants, so the assholes were a new addition.

  The drapes were new, too. They looked like just the kind of thing a person could hide behind, which meant either hidden archers, or bad planning because assassins could be there just as easily.

  On the throne sat a young enough man as Vertiline counted such things. Perhaps thirty summers, and all of them easy. He’d perfected sneering down his nose to an art form she admired despite the situation. He held a slender dagger, to which she took professional interest: it had the look of the People’s craftsmanship, not the gaudy toys aristocracy tended to favour. Not as if I am an expert in the wants of the blue bloods. It has been many years since I lent my blade to the service of a lord or lady.

  “Bunch of assholes, vagrants, and inbreds,” Armitage rumbled.

  Vertiline’s lips quirked, but her hand remand as stone on the hilt of her blade. “I was just thinking the same thing.”

  “Great minds,” he muttered.

  “And small minds never differ.” The dandy atop the throne collected his sumptuous robes as he stood. He was slender, that sneering nose just a shade long for him to be attractive, but his face was otherwise comely enough. “I see you’ve brought blood and death with you.”

  Vertiline made a great show of looking beside and behind her. “There is no death here.” There is plenty in my wake, but let’s not let facts stand in the way of a good entrance.

  “My lord,” he said.

  “I am no lord,” Vertiline purred. “Nor lady, but that would be closer.”

  “You will address me as ‘my lord’,” he sneered. “I didn’t mean you were a lord.”

  “Raven crests all, yet no Raven Queen.” Vertiline took three steps forward, watching as the assholes came to attention. “Morgan deserved respect, and yet I wouldn’t bend the knee to her either. Tresward kneel only to the Three.”

  The dandy blinked, then guffawed, a great show of manufactured mirth. His lackeys shared his good humour, one even wiping a faux tear away. “The Tresward are a fairy tale. A myth to scare naughty children with.”

  “Only evil children, sirrah.” Vertiline took another step closer. “The good and righteous never need fear our blades.”

  “Well, there was that one time,” Armitage said.

  “Hush,” she muttered.

  “And that one time lasted a long time,” the Vhemin said. “My people bled plenty, and⁠—”

  “Ah, yes, a monster.” The dandy smiled. “Your kind have walked from the wastes to my doorstep, taking much and giving little. My dear dead sister accorded you too much favour.”

  Vertiline frowned. “You mean to tell me that Morgan, Queen of Or’sen, has a surprising younger brother kept hidden all these long years?” She beamed. “A marvel, I admit, and I congratulate you on your good fortune for finding yourself, perhaps miraculously so, in such esteemed lineage.” She let her smile fall. “There are but two problems.”

  The maybe-not-Morgan’s-brother took two steps down, hand clutching the dagger’s hilt so tight his fingers went white. “You tread dangerous ground, Knight.”

  “Ah, so you admit I am Tresward. It is good such peskersome details are behind us.” She held up her metal hand, two digits extended, watching as his eyes widened. “Yes, this hand is metal. That is not the issue. First, for Morgan’s younger brother to be on the throne, it would mean the Raven Queen is dead.” She folded a finger away. “Second, it would suggest the only child of the rightful ruler of Or’sen was terribly forgetful, never once mentioning to those closest to her that she had a long lost relative.” She let her hand fall.

  “I’ve had enough,” said the dandy. “Archers, kill them!”

  Vertiline’s blade left its sheath like one of Meriwether’s magic tricks. One moment it was hidden, waiting for purpose, the next the steel was in her hand, a slender tooth waiting violence. She waited for the first arrow, but nothing happened.

  “I said, kill them!” The assholes at the dandy’s feet looked uncertainly at each other, then drew blades reluctantly, perhaps because to Vertiline’s eye they knew very little about which end to hold. Before they could step closer, one of the drapes at the side of the room billowed, a body sliding out to slump on the stone floor. A bow clattered to rest beside the body. A moment later a Feybrind with marvellous golden eyes stepped out, polishing a dagger with a fragment of cloth.

  Sight of Day seemed like all Feybrind: lean and ready. His tail swished once. Vertiline swallowed the lump in her throat. If he is here, where is our baby girl? The Feybrind appeared weary, a look that suited him not at all. The cat sheathed his dagger. {It’s good you got here in time. I wasn’t sure how I was going to get through all of them alone.}

  Armitage opened his mouth, closed it, then tried again. “Cat? What are you doing here?”

  The dandy, who’d spent the last handful of seconds looking at the Feybrind and the dead archer at his feet, rallied. “This is preposterous! I demand⁠—”

  “Hold up,” Armitage rumbled. “Ain’t done talking. If you’re here, where is Evanne?”

  Those golden eyes softened. {There is much to speak of, and much is owed besides.}

  “Stop waving your hands,” the dandy demanded, every inch the high-pitched imperialist. “Soldiers, I demand you⁠—”

  “If you’re going to demand they arrest us or kill us,” Vertiline levelled her sword at him, doing a quick tally, “you should consider whether you think twelve men and women are good enough to beat a Tresward Knight.”

  “Oh, my Queensguard are good enough to beat a fairytale, and many other things⁠—”

  “Queensguard guard a queen. Right there in the name.” Armitage squinted. “You don’t look much like a queen to me.”

  “Needless to say⁠—”

  “Maybe it’s the uniform.” Vertiline pitched her voice, keeping it level, thoughtful almost. “The Raven Queen always looked good in black. Why throw out a good wardrobe with the rightful ruler?”

  The dandy’s face flushed. “I am the rightful ruler of Or’sen, and I demand⁠—”

  “Assumes the queen is dead, and that she had a brother.” Armitage nodded, as if considering the argument. “How do we know she’s dead?”

  “Ah hah!” The dandy’s hand surged up, index finger pointing. “Her ship was wrecked off these very shores⁠—”

  “Wasn’t,” the Vhemin said.

  “I beg your pardon?” The face flush turned a dangerous shade of red that, in Vertiline’s experience, was a precursor to a heart attack.

  “Her ship wrecked off the shores of Imshir,” Armitage explained, as if to a child. “Stands to reason it couldn’t also wreck here.”

  The dandy spluttered, blinked, turned to his men, clutched his robes, let them fall, then shrieked, “Kill them all!”

  “There are only three of us,” Vertiline said. “‘Them all’ sounds as if we are an army.” She sighed. Best get on with it. She stalked past her husband as the clatter of hurrying boots sounded from the corridor behind them.

  “I’ve got the rearguard,” he said.

  “I know,” she murmured, then put on a burst of speed as the faux king’s vagrant army surged forward, all flailing weapons and brigand-like screams. There are but twelve. Is the legend of my fallen brothers and sisters so easy to forget?

  No matter. The lesson begins.

  The first man came at her with a mace, a weapon no self-respecting Queensguard would hold. She stepped beneath the swing, the pattern of Seasons’ Rhythm holding her steady. There were four seasons, but it would do for the first four combatants well enough. She pulled her blade from low guard to high as she passed, the glimmering steel passing through the man’s hip, ribcage, and out his shoulder. His mace went up, hand loosening as it rose.

  Vertiline caught the lunge of a pike against her steel, and the Storm rumbled. The pike head glowed with heat, the shaft shattering, and she continued the movement, separating head from shoulders, then faced a flaxen-haired woman who came at her with a greatsword too large for a person twice her size. Vertiline slipped to the side of the clumsy thrust, her steel cutting her enemy’s sword in half, then she cut the woman in half, tip to tail, the two parts slithering to a messy heap.

  A man screamed his rage, and her thrown sword took him in the face, lodging in his skull. It was a move Geneve would be proud of. She kept throwing her weapons away. Vertiline pivoted, took a step back, and reached her sword hand behind her. The mace she’d sent toward the Three earlier came back down, the haft hitting the palm of her hand, and she swung it against the shield of a toothless man who leered behind his guard. The force of her blow, backed by the Storm, smashed his shield into him, pulverised his body, and sent the remains splattering against the steps below the dandy.

  One of the guards turned to the dandy, a slip of steel in his hand, and an arrow took him in the side of the head. Vertiline glanced to see Sight of Day with the fallen archer’s bow, another arrow ready to take another life. She turned back to the fight, stepping into Sunset’s Next Sunrise, a pattern meant for harder jobs than this.

  A woman, clearly smarter than her peers, decided attacking Vertiline head-on was a fool’s game and swung a morning star at the Knight’s feet. Vertiline felt the Storm with her, the strength of the Three within her, and stepped down onto the morning star’s head. Thunder roiled as the head shattered, brilliant coils of electric blue coiling up the chain. The woman stiffened, skin blackening as the lightning coursed through her, arcing into a man behind her, and then into a third nearer the throne. And that’s eight.

  Thunk, thunk as Sight of Day’s arrows took two more. Vertiline tossed her borrowed mace aside, heading for the dandy, her face blank, but heart filled with murder. She fetched her sword in passing, the hilt warm to the touch, the blade smoking as it burned the blood clean.

  The remaining two guards took a defensive position below the faux king on the steps. Vertiline could hear the song of Sight of Day’s bow, the roar of Armitage’s fury, and the screams of the dying reinforcements behind her. She put it aside, because this man knew something about her daughter, and she was going to find out what it was.

  The guards before her had a more seasoned look. Perhaps they were Queensguard once, before their vows were traded for easy coin. Or maybe hired steel, ready to do things that others wouldn’t. It didn’t matter to Vertiline. They had the high ground, but she had the Three.

  The left man lunged, and she parried, running her steel against his, shearing through the cross guard, and taking his hand off. He stared at his smoking wrist, and she jerked her blade right, through the raised shield of his colleague and through his skull. Then she ran the man on the left through, letting both bodies tumble down the stairs.

  The dandy took a step right, then left, looking for an exit.

  Vertiline borrowed some of Ormeon’s grin as she climbed closer. “Fairytales, was it?” She heard the trouble behind her cease, no one left but this one before her. “Have you forgotten all the Tresward were?”

  “I remember now,” he assured her, head bobbing like a woodpecker’s.

  “I don’t think you have. Not really. But that’s okay.” She kept on, and he backed into the throne, sagging into the seat in a tumble of limbs. “I’ll help you remember.”

  Chapter Twelve

  As far as carriages went, it wasn’t half bad. Plush seats with cushions, and not a hint of blood from the previous owners. Curtains, to keep the bad out. A hint of cedar, without being cloying. Lots of black and red, dark tones, nothing that would excite the blood and get the humours going. Amir liked it. A good enough place to die, if that’s how it’ll be.

  “What kind of trap do you supposed this is?” Faust bent his head forward because this carriage was designed for humans of a different scale to him.

  “Usual kind,” Larochette said. “Get us to a place with food and wine. Slip a little poison in. Do us in right quick.”

  Amir nodded. “It’s how I’d do it.”

  Faust nodded, then winced as he cracked his head against the carriage’s roof. “Why’d you let them take our weapons, then?”

  Amir spread his hands. “Because they wouldn’t fit in here.”

  “But … we’ll need them.”

  “Maybe.” Amir leaned back, trying to get more cedar and less Faust-meets-Larochette. They’d been aboard together for weeks, and none had the chance for a refreshing turn at the baths. “Vertiline is off doing hero stuff.” He waved a hand toward the carriage’s wall, and by inference, the greater city of Ravenswall. “She’s taught us well. Time to put those skills to good use.”