Queen of Oblivion Page 7

  Shara wasn’t sure what was more heart wrenching, watching Baedellin or her father. Baelandra’s husband had been so kind to her over the years, an overflowing well of quiet support that she hadn’t used nearly often enough. She wanted to reach out and give him a hug, but she didn’t dare take her hands off Baedellin in case the girl attacked again.

  “We need to find whoever is controlling these weeping ones,” Shara said. “That’s the key. He, or she, is somewhere in the city. We have to find the puppet master before it’s too late.”

  Shara stayed with Faedellin as he tenderly washed the grime from his daughter’s tiny body. A basin of warm water sat next to him, and he methodically dunked the soft cloth in it and wrung it out, continuing his task. Her pale skin was covered with scrapes and open sores. “She’s so skinny,” he said, his voice raw with pain.

  Shara put both of her hands on his shoulders and suffused him with a mist of calming energy. “She’ll come back to you,” she assured him. “She just needs time.” She wished she believed those words. But if she couldn’t find what had been taken from the girl and put it back, Baedellin might remain this way forever.

  The commander’s daughter hadn’t moved since Shara’s skirmish with the other mage, but Shara insisted that they not take any chances. Someone had brought two sets of manacles to restrain her. A long chain rose from the shackles to the bolt in the ceiling that once held the chandelier. It brought back unpleasant memories of seeing the corrupted emperor restrained in his flagship so many years ago.

  Galliana slipped into the room and walked over to Shara. Faedellin didn’t even notice. “How can I help her?” he said hoarsely. “What can I do? She needs to eat. She’ll die if she doesn’t eat.”

  Galliana pulled Shara away from the man and urged her to sit down on a stool. She moved behind her aunt and began massaging her aching shoulders. Shara sighed and tried to relax. She needed a rest. She knew she wouldn’t be getting one.

  “The Lightning Swords have assembled in the armory,” Galliana whispered in Shara’s ear. “They’re waiting for you.”

  Shara nodded. She hated to make them wait, but she wanted to talk to Faedellin first, and he wasn’t ready yet.

  “What happened?” Galliana asked, giving up on the massage and kneeling down next to Shara. “Do you control her now?”

  Shara shook her head, staring at the little girl. Her pitch-black eyes stared unblinkingly up at the ceiling and her mouth hung open as she continued to pant like a woman dying in childbirth.

  “I could control her. You could probably control her now.”

  “Is it that easy?” Galliana asked.

  “Yes and no.” Shara fought the emotions boiling in her stomach. “Unless someone opposes you, it is very easy to control the weeping ones. All you have to do is grab hold of the black emmeria swirling around them.”

  Galliana hissed through her teeth.

  “That’s the thing about power,” Shara continued. “It’s very easy to come by if you are willing to sell your soul.”

  Galliana nodded. She took Shara’s hand and squeezed it.

  “Promise me you’ll never do that,” Shara said. “It’s better to die. Believe me, I’ve been there. I know.”

  “I promise.”

  Shara looked in to her niece’s eyes and knew she was telling the truth.

  Shara took a calming breath and turned to Faedellin. His face was contorted as he tended to his daughter, but he didn’t cry. He continued to wash her gently, though she was scrubbed as clean as she could be.

  “Faedellin, we need to talk about what to do next.”

  The commander of the Lightning Swords closed his eyes and nodded.

  “I will find out who created all the weeping ones and what they are trying to accomplish,” Shara said.

  Faedellin took a thick wool blanket and drew it over Baedellin’s tiny body, awkwardly tucking it around her chains.

  “But there are other dangers to this city, close at hand. The Summer Fleet approaches. I need your help, Faedellin.”

  He said nothing, continued staring at his daughter, brushing a stray lock of hair out of her face.

  “Faedellin, I need you to fight for your daughter. We need to get the refugees out of the city. I’ve already sent two of my friends to the King of Faradan, begging for supplies. I know the man. He will help us if the request comes from me. Once the people are safe, I want to abandon the Citadel and move the Lightning Swords to Clifftown. We must guard the Sunrise Gate against the approaching Summermen. We have to keep them out of the Great Ocean.”

  “She has her mother’s hair,” Faedellin said. “Her mother’s beautiful red hair.”

  “Yes, she does,” Shara whispered. “And she has her mother’s fiery spirit as well. She will be fine. I will take care of her. I need you to take care of everybody else.”

  “I sent her away,” he said. “Sent her away because there was work to be done. And this is what happened to her. I won’t leave her again. She’s all I have left.” He lay down and wrapped his arms around his daughter.

  Shara started to speak again, but Galliana’s hand on her shoulder stopped her. She watched Faedellin as he stroked his daughter’s arm. Slowly, Shara bowed her head, holding back the sorrow that welled up within her.

  Galliana walked across the room, picked up the Sword of Winter, and handed it to Shara. “The Lightning Swords are waiting, Captain.”

  Shara sighed and stood up, taking the sword belt from her niece’s hands. The smooth leather of the scabbard felt strange in her hands. The oversized diamond in its pommel seemed to glow with a life of its own. The gem had come from the Heartstone herself. It was the city’s last connection to the Brothers and Sisters of the past.

  Shara turned to face Faedellin. He hadn’t noticed that she had his sword. “Stay here,” she told him. “Keep holding her hand. Keep telling her you love her, and she’ll find her way back to you.”

  Shara buckled the sword around her waist and followed Galliana out of the room.

  Chapter 8

  We’ll send what help we can, when we can.’” Lawdon mimicked the King of Faradan in a low voice. “What the hell does that mean?”

  “It means No.”

  Lawdon and Mikal tromped through the muddy streets of Port Royal. They weaved around the haphazard throng of street vendors who assaulted anyone exiting the shabby wooden stockade that Farads called a palace. “That smug bastard showered Shara with jewels a month ago,” Lawdon said to Mikal, not caring anymore who might overhear her. “But now he can’t afford a few boatloads of grain to keep her people from starving?”

  Mikal dodged around a mud puddle with a look of extreme distaste. “You can’t blame the man. A letter from a friend in need is hardly the same as a visit from the great Shara-lani…” He paused dramatically. “In the flesh.”

  “If flesh is all the man wants, I’d be happy to drop my pants, squat on his face, and smother the bastard in mine.”

  “A delightful image, I assure you. Murder by maidenhood would certainly inspire a cad like me, but kings are made of sterner stuff.”

  Lawdon laughed in spite of herself. “It’s about fifteen years too late to fear my maidenhood.”

  Mikal stopped in his tracks, aghast. “Say it isn’t so, my lady. I can’t bear the thought of you with another man.”

  “It was a boy, not a man, and a clumsy one at that.”

  “I weep for your indignity.”

  “You should weep for his indignity; I practically had to hold the poor boy down.”

  “I will not weep for him. I cannot abide that he has tasted of your most precious fruit, and yet I have not.”

  “That’s your choice, my fickle prince, not mine. I’ve got a whole bowl of fruit waiting for you whenever you’re ready.”

  “Patience, patience, my royal assassin of love. Our murder weapons will cross soon enough.”

  Lawdon gave Mikal a shove, and he let himself be pushed into an ankle-deep mud puddle, reveling in
the indignity of it all. She was actually really enjoying that she and Mikal had not taken that final step. At first it was just a little game they played. Her verbal pursuit of him was an amusing jest, considering the way he’d thrown himself at her every waking moment when they’d first met. But beneath the levity, there was something more, something unspoken between them, that Lawdon was saving for a better time and place. Right now they both had larger issues on their minds.

  Lawdon still wasn’t sure they had done the right thing by leaving Shara in Ohndarien. The stories told by the refugees they had met on the Petal Islands were rather hard to believe. They claimed that most of the city had been taken over by some new kind of corrupted. She was actually not very surprised that the Farad king didn’t take her warning very seriously. Lawdon had never seen one of these “new” corrupted. Between Reignholtz’s death, the end of the Eternal Summer, and the madness of Vinghelt’s invasion of Physendria, a magical plague in Ohndarien was just one more tragedy too large to comprehend. Lawdon and Mikal’s playful banter was the only way they kept from drowning in it all.

  And on top of all of it, Lawdon and Mikal were still looking for her brothers and sisters. Lord Reignholtz’s natural-born children had been sent to King Celtigar for safekeeping right after their father and oldest sister were murdered. Lawdon hadn’t even had a chance to say good-bye to them. But the Farad king insisted that they had never arrived. Lawdon didn’t want to panic at the first sign of trouble. Hastily arranged rendezvous were notorious for running afoul. Still, the children should have been here four or five days ahead of them. And Lawdon had heard that Vinghelt had put a modest price on the children’s heads.

  “Do you think the king was lying about the children not arriving?” Lawdon asked Mikal as he made a great show of shaking mud off his boots.

  “The man is such a liar that his stern smells better than his prow, but…” Mikal paused, grew serious for a moment. “I don’t think he was lying about that. He seemed as mystified as we were. How well do you know the men sailing with them?”

  “Very well. Any one of them would have died to protect those kids.”

  “Let’s hope they didn’t have to.”

  Lawdon nodded, fighting back her growing sense of dread. Mikal gave her a quick embrace. It was such a simple thing, but it made a huge difference. It frightened Lawdon a little how easily Mikal could make her feel better.

  He gave her a little kiss on top of her head and danced away with a flourish. “It is better this way. I’d hate to see the noble progeny of the great Lord Reignholtz succumb to the indignity of setting foot on land. They are undoubtedly off somewhere, sailing the Summer Seas, stylishly slipping through the claws of danger at every turn.”

  “I’m sure you are right,” she returned. “We did say we would meet in Ohndarien if something went wrong.”

  “Ohndarien it is, then,” Mikal said, offering his arm. “They are probably sitting at Shara-lani’s feet at this very moment, hearing wondrous tales of how she caught all those newly corrupted in a giant silver net and cast them into the sun.”

  “And she probably looked really good doing it.”

  “Undoubtedly she did.”

  The two of them shared a smile for a moment, but the mirth faded as quickly as it had come. Lawdon’s thoughts turned to plans for the voyage back to Ohndarien.

  They were nearly back to the docks when a very hungover-looking sailor, scrawny and well past his prime, spotted them through the window of an alehouse. He hopped though the open window with more dexterity than Lawdon would have expected. He was wearing a coarse Farad tunic, but he was undoubtedly a dust-born Summerman.

  “Good Captain,” he called, hurrying across the street, his gait lopsided because of a sideways curve to his spine. “It’s a joy to see a summer smile on these dusty streets.” Lawdon looked around for trouble, but didn’t see anyone else. She was glad to have Mikal at her back. His hands were conspicuously far from the handle of his blade, but she knew he was ready for anything.

  “Any chance you be needing a little floating crew on your next haul?” the old sailor asked. “Me and some of my mates are all good hands and we’d work for meals and a wee bit of jingle if we could get a hop back home.”

  “You looking to join the fleet?” Mikal asked.

  The twisted man laughed. “No chance of that. I’d rather be a whore for hogs than a soldier. That’s Fessa’s own truth. But with all those fools heading off to drink sand, there’ll be a lot of good work they’ll be leaving behind. I’d hate to miss that.”

  Lawdon looked the man up and down and decided she didn’t like him. They were short on crew, but she didn’t like the idea of this man on her boat. “Sorry, friend,” she replied. “We’re not headed south.”

  “We don’t mind going roundabout. We’ve been stuck here for a few weeks. With all this war nonsense, it’ll be tough to find another hop.”

  “My boat’s full,” Lawdon told him, and continued on her way.

  The crooked sailor hurried after her. Lawdon was about to draw her dagger when the man leaned in and whispered, “I hear you lost some cargo. Six little packages that belong to a fallen summer prince.”

  A rush of heat filled Lawdon’s chest, and she stopped in the middle of the street, hope and suspicion warring for control of her thoughts.

  “I’ll be in there,” the sailor said, pointing to the alehouse he’d come from. “If you want to discuss it.”

  Lawdon let the man walk away and then turned to Mikal. “I don’t trust him,” she said.

  “Neither do I. He’s one of my countrymen after all. But we still need to talk to him.”

  “You’re right,” Lawdon agreed, flexing her ankle to make sure her spare knife was still in her boot. “You ever fought a hunchback before?”

  “Only when she wouldn’t let me out of her bed.”

  Lawdon smiled and followed the sailor into the alehouse.

  The place was small, crowded, and dirty like most taverns near Port Royal’s docks. It smelled like a cross between a brewery and a latrine. Lawdon spotted the hunchback on the far side of the room. He caught her eye for a moment and then slipped through a narrow door. Lawdon and Mikal followed. The door led into a blind alley behind the kitchen. It was filled with broken barrels and a rotting scrap heap below the kitchen window. The rest of the alley was empty. Lawdon checked that the door wouldn’t lock and closed it behind her.

  “You Reignholtz’s captain?” the sailor asked her.

  Lawdon nodded. “And his daughter.”

  “You know there’s a fair price on your head?”

  “That’s what I’ve heard.”

  “I hear there’s a price on all of the lord’s brood. That’s why they never made it to the dusteater’s palace. They were snapped up the moment they arrived in Port Royal. Never even got off the docks.”

  Lawdon felt the heat of anger rise through her neck and into her face. “Who took them?”

  “I did, of course,” the sailor said with a crooked grin.

  Lawdon drew her dagger.

  “Looks like a party back here,” Mikal interjected.

  Lawdon turned and saw four more men step into the mouth of the alley, blocking their escape.

  “I’d like you to meet my mates,” the crooked man said, drawing a blade from inside his sleeve. “Now I suggest you stay nice and calm before someone gets hurt. Lord Vinghelt don’t want you dead, but he’ll take you that way if he has to.”

  Fighting back her fear, Lawdon forced herself to smile. “You really don’t know who I’m with, do you?”

  The sailor glanced at Mikal. “Looks like a little fishlicker too yellow to join the war.” He turned to Mikal. “Don’t worry, precious, we don’t need you, just her. Now get your rich little ass outta here.”

  Lawdon started laughing. “You’ve been in Farad too long, my friend. Allow me to introduce Mikal Heidvelt.”

  The sailor’s jaw dropped. His friends stopped in their tracks.

&nb
sp; Lawdon raised her eyebrows at them. “I see you’ve heard of the duelist who humiliated the great Avon Leftblade right before he took young Natshea’s life.”

  The sailor’s friends looked at him, not sure what to do.

  “Take him in a rush, lads,” the crooked man said. “This is an alley fight, not a duel.”

  Mikal drew his blade with a flourish and spun it about lazily.

  This certainly is your lucky day,

  Brawling in alleys is not my forté.

  A rush of blades would surely do the trick,

  And this rich little ass is yours to prick.

  “Enough,” the crooked sailor shouted. “He can’t kill a man with words. Don’t you want a little noble blood on your blade?”

  Lawdon’s heart was pounding like mad, but Mikal smiled as if he didn’t have a care in the world. He stood there waiting for the five men to attack him. None of them made a move.

  Come now, my friends, don’t be shy.

  My words make women sigh, not men not die.

  And there’s nothing better than a sack full of gold

  When waveborn blood spills so easily for the bold.

  “Now, lads!” the crooked sailor yelled. “Now! That little whore is worth ten thousand in Physendria.”

  Nobody moved.

  Lawdon hissed and walked up to the man. He retreated, taking feeble swipes at her until his back was pressed against the far side of the alley and her knife was at his throat.

  “What are you, little girls?” the leader yelled. “We’ve got them five on one and—”

  “Actually,” she said, right to his face. “I think it’s two on one, because those men are free to go. We’re only interested in you.”

  With a spinning lunge, Mikal leapt toward the four swordsmen. They turned and fled from the alley. He shrugged and sheathed his sword before turning back to the crooked sailor. “I suggest you drop your dagger, my friend. She’s been known to geld men for the joy of it.”