Where was it? Who had built it? Was it safe?
The questions rolled on even as the windowless carriage bumped its way down cobblestone streets, turning left here and right there, until passing through the gates and picking up speed on the open highway.
Petronus found the carriage jostling him into a light sleep. In it, he dreamed of miles and miles of books-old and new-stretching out for as far as the eye could see. And Neb was there, grinning like a wolverine, alongside Charles and Rudolfo and Isaak.
I am not in my own dream, Petronus realized.
But then again, he didn’t need to be.
He only needed to know that the light was in such capable hands.
Winters
Winters sat beneath the guttering lamp and pored over another volume from the Book of Dreaming Kings. Since her meeting with Ezra nearly a week before, she’d given as much of herself as she could spare to the long, winding row of shelves that stretched back to their earliest days in the Named Lands.
She’d started with the volumes that her grandfather had added, written down from his dreams with meticulous care, and now she read her father’s. So far, she’d found nothing, but she wasn’t sure exactly why she looked. The old man had told her that the book hadn’t changed until Windwir fell.
During my reign. Still, something in her longed for some clue, anything, that would negate his words or expand upon them. She replayed them again and again, and each time she saw the white lines of a scar upon his chest that was easily older than she was. Whoever Ezra was, he’d taken the mark of House Y’Zir a goodly while ago-when her father still lived. And her father had seen the fall of Windwir in his dreams, though the old man’s scar could well have been older than even that visitation.
Winters shuddered to think the cutting went back even farther.
She heard a low whistle and looked up.
Seamus, the oldest of her Council of Twelve, approached. Even in the dim light, his face was drawn and pale. “My queen,” he said in a low voice, “we are at alarm.”
She stood quickly, closing the book she read. “What is it?”
“We’ve received birds from the Summer Papal Palace,” he said. “They are under attack.”
“By whom?” The Papal Palace was under Gypsy protection, populated now by a few hundred Androfrancine refugees who had chosen not to make their way to the Ninefold Forest. She blew out her lamp and joined him at the entrance of the cavern that housed the book.
His mouth was a firm, white line. Then he spoke. “By us, it seems.”
She walked ahead of him, forcing him to keep up with her shorter legs. As they walked, her mind spun.
By us. Three weeks earlier, she wouldn’t have thought it possible. But now, after seeing the bodies of her own men with the mark of House Y’Zir carved into them and after hearing Ezra speak to the changing times and the rise of this so-called Crimson Empress, Winters knew that no matter how ludicrous it appeared on the surface, it could very well be true.
They followed the winding caverns upward until breaking into the wider, cavernous throne room with its wicker chair. Beside it lay the silver axe of her office, and she took it up before sitting.
Six of the Twelve were present, as were a handful of scouts and headmen. “What do we know?”
One of the headmen stepped forward. “We know that birds were spotted racing south and east.” He held a small bird himself, stroking its brown back. “The message invokes Androfrancine and Gypsy kin-clave.”
Winters extended a hand, and the headman slipped a small scrap of paper into it, tied still with white thread. She scanned the note quickly. It spoke of Marsh scouts at the gate and bore markings of a day earlier tied into its carrying thread. She looked up from the note. “Do we have scouts near the Palace?”
Seamus shook his head. “No. None that I’m aware of, Queen.”
Winters bit her lip and read the note again. It had come to her though it was unaddressed. But why? Surely, if they believed the Marshers besieged them, they wouldn’t send birds to her of all people.
“It could be a trap,” she said in a quiet voice.
“If so,” another of the Twelve said as he entered the cavern, “then it’s a convincing one.” All eyes turned to him and he frowned. “There’s smoke to the northwest,” he said. “The Papal Palace is burning.”
Winters felt the blood drain from her face. First, the assassinations. Then the caravans. Now, this. She wished Hanric were here. Or Rudolfo. Or even Neb. Surely one of them would know the best path she could take through this particular turn of the Whymer Maze.
Still, despite the confidence she lacked, the answer spelled itself out clearly. Winters sighed. “Ready my mount,” she said. “We ride at once.”
Seamus leaned close to her, and his hands moved in the dark sign language of House Y’Zir, his body shielding his words from prying eyes. Is my queen certain of the path she takes?
She nodded. I am, Seamus. Then, she said it aloud for the benefit of the others. “I am certain.”
The room emptied quickly as the men set about readying themselves. Winters hefted her axe, barely able to lift it with one hand, and stood. “I will need your aid, Seamus,” she said.
The old man bowed. “Yes, Queen.”
Winters frowned. “I’ve not needed armor before. Nor have I needed blades.”
“I will see to it,” he said.
As he scuttled off, she retreated to her private chambers to toss spare clothing and a sturdy pair of Gypsy boots into a knapsack. She also tossed in a tablet of parchment and a handful of pencils. She paused for a moment before the oak bureau that had been her father’s. There, sitting where she had left it upon her return from the mountain, was the vial of voice magicks.
Perhaps now I preach my first War Sermon.
The bitter taste flooded her mouth as she remembered that day atop the spine. She remembered the cold wind and the way the throne bit into her flesh, the way that her voice echoed across the craggy mountain peaks and how it moved along the hollowed-out, snow-swept canyons and valleys. It had been her first time with the voice magicks.
She took down the vial and tucked it into her knapsack.
There was a knock behind her and she turned. “Yes?”
Seamus entered bearing an armful that he spilled onto her narrow bed. “I’ve raided the armory,” he said. “I’m not sure how much of this will be useful to you.”
She pulled out a worn leather belt with a single long scout knife in an undecorated sheath. When she drew the blade it whispered against the leather sheath. She tested its edge with her thumb, drawing a beaded line of blood. She resheathed it and set it aside. She’d learned to fight at Hanric’s hands, though she’d not found herself very good at it. She’d mastered the sling but had virtually no sword or knife skills to speak of. She’d not taken to it, preferring instead to carefully write out her dreams and add them to the Book, trusting her shadow and the men he commanded.
Only now, I command them, she realized. She thought of Hanric sleeping in the ground and swallowed back the sadness that suddenly ambushed her.
Seamus was pulling bits of leather and chain free from the pile. “Some of these may fit you,” he said, “but they really weren’t intended for battle-more for training children.”
She nodded. He thinks we ride to battle. Winters feared he thought correctly. “What do you think we will find?”
Seamus paused, holding her eyes with his own. “Bodies,” he said.
She lifted up a leather cuirass from the pile and held it up to her chest. Cocking his head to one side, Seamus inspected it, then circled around behind her, cinching in the straps. She felt the hard leather flatten her breasts as he tightened it up. She held her breath until he finished, then let it out slowly. “And the attackers?”
He picked out a helmet-small and round and iron. He lowered it onto her head and frowned when it swallowed half of her face. He traded it out for another, then lifted her long, braided hair up and coiled it around the top of her head. “They are long gone by now, I’ll wager,” he said. “I’m more concerned about the others.”
Yes. Meirov’s rangers had been patrolling much farther north than custom since the assassinations, as had Turam’s border scouts. And with armies forming and marching slowly north these past few weeks, it was only a matter of time. The attack on the Summer Papal Palace could very well be what sparked war between her people and their neighbors to the south.