Feast of Fates (Four Feasts Till Darkness Book 1) (43 page)

“What do you say, my Queen?” asked Galivad.

The queen was not aware that a question had not been answered. “To what?”

“The Silver Watch has already been dispatched to track the missing vessel, though I am confident that should we find the skycarriage, it will provide us with no more enlightenment than our dialogue today. Shall we pursue the smith, then? Shall we see if his trail leads to Menos? It is likely that answers regarding the missing sage will present themselves during our search.”

A queen could not be seen to waver. The watch masters needed a reply—a sign of confidence, the same unflappable decrees that their king would dole out to uncover injustice.

“Find the smith,” decreed the queen.

III

In the corner of the First Chair’s sleek office was a concealed panel that led into a metal chamber. Within was a surprisingly cheery space, bright with halogen spheres and a shelf of fuchsia, violet, and burnt-orange flowers. The rest of the small chamber was occupied by an aluminum cot, a neatly stacked desk, and a corner for one’s daily ablutions. This room was the First Chair’s sepulcher, where the
sacred treasure
of the First Chair was kept in cases of extreme emergency: a place warded against every known physical and spiritual element and impossible to crack without an assault of sorcerers. Gloriatrix had made it her home, though she was so immaculate that no signs of use were seen in the linens, washbasin, or anything else that one regularly touched. Today, she was pruning and watering the flowers, her face knotted in intense concentration.

Horticulture was not what the iron masters or lowly slaves would envision that the First Chair occupied herself with, yet that was precisely the activity that brought her the greatest calm after a trying day. Too often, the roads in Menos led to death, and she had her hand in many of these misfortunes. Tending flowers was a reminder to herself, then, that she was not only a heartless arbitrator, but also a bringer of order. Although it was a forest of black iron, Menos was the greatest garden in Geadhain—next to Eod, but that would soon change. That life could grow here, in a city spawned in barren mountains, was a testament to the Menosian attitude that creation was carved and won through progress and determination, much like her position. Growth was a part of creation, beautiful or cruel, green or iron, and she was simply a caretaker to its grounds. The
true
caretaker, if the Sixth Chair’s scroll was to be believed.

She snipped the head off a dying flower and added it to the pile. The sick had to go or they would rot the whole plant. Dismally, she pondered if she or another would show her the same callousness when it was her time to be removed. Though who knew what wonders the Sisters had seen. One could extend life; why should a Black Queen not surpass it entirely?

She checked the elegant dark crystal chronex she kept in her pocket. It was almost time for her meeting. She hurried from the sepulcher, dusted off her hands, and was seated at her grand desk before her meeting commenced. She appeared more relaxed than her standard manner, as this guest was not deceived by pretenses.

“Elissa,” said the Iron Queen, nodding as the white-and-gray woman glided into the room.

“Gloria,” smiled the mistress of Mysteries.

The women weren’t exactly friends, any more than two vipers in a basket would be, though when alone they addressed each other as friends would. In a city ruled by men and might, they were anomalies—women who had taken off the apron or garters to play in politics and masculine pursuits—there was a sisterhood they shared because of that. The examination of the Sixth Chair’s scroll had drawn them into a deeper entanglement, making them conspirators now.

“Adder spit?” asked Gloriatrix.

Elissandra swept back her hair and rose in her seat like a preening swan; she was close to one hundred and fifty, but still had not a line to her face. Perhaps it was her magik that kept her young, thought Gloriatrix, as those with the gift of Mysteries tended to outlive even the most devout fleshcrafter aficionados: those sutured with fresh organs for every failing one, those outfitted in new skin at the onset of every wrinkle. Elissandra nodded, and Gloriatrix reached for a crystal decanter on her desk, pouring each of them a glass of black liquid. She slid the drink to Elissandra.

“How goes the work on the scroll?” inquired Gloriatrix.

“Very well.” Elissandra took a sip of adder spit. “Mmm. Lovely vintage. You can taste the wood. Makes me think of trees…tall and black…and a shadow—vast and powerful—running through them.”

The Iron Queen was familiar with her guest’s mental ambling, and drummed her fingers on the table to get the woman’s attention. “Elissa? Where have you gone? We were talking about your work on the scroll.”

Dreamily, Elissandra blinked back into the room—she appeared confused about where she was for a moment. “I do apologize. I have been having the strangest dreams of late. I believe the sleeplessness is getting to me.”

“What sort of dreams?”

“Dreams of a red-haired maiden.” While she spoke, Elissandra reached out as if touching a misty shape. “A woman of fire and pearl being chased by a Wolf…the largest creature I’ve ever seen. The moon is full and full of promise. Yes…something to do with a promise. And the rust of blood. I smell it as strongly as the Wolf’s scent. What a strange scent it is. Intoxicating. As
if I would like him to…” The reaching hand came to her pale clavicles and stroked the flesh there. She shivered.

“That is a strange dream, Elissa,” agreed Gloriatrix. She knew that it could be more than that. “Do you think it means anything?”

“I do.”

Thoughtfully, they nursed their drinks. After some time, Elissandra shared her thoughts.

“I believe that it is a portent.”

“Of what?”

“Death, fate, love. All three feelings I feel when I am in that dream. My bloodline is of the Far East, and while I have never seen the pines of Alabion, the soul never forgets its heritage. I believe that is where I ran in my dream: to the Untamed.”

Greedily, Gloriatrix leaned forward. “Is this related to the scroll and the Sisters’ prophecy, then?”

“I…would…say…” Elissandra indulged in a torturous pause, her gaze flickering with contemplations. Into the dark syrup in her glass she stared, as if it were a pool of secrets through which she could scry. Whatever inspiration she sought struck her like a thunderbolt, and she whipped her head up and glanced to Gloriatrix from under her loose cottony hair, which had gone quite wild.

“Yes…yes, it is all connected,” finished Elissandra, and slumped back against her seat as if a weight had been lifted.

They polished off their drinks in silence. Elissandra did not need her gifts to know that she was not here for chitchat and spirits: Gloriatrix had summoned her because she needed a task done. Elissandra placed her glass back upon the desk and looked to the First Chair.

“The scroll. Work is progressing well. We can decipher a few of the words on the upper half, though we shall need the complete scroll to understand the whole of what the Sisters Three imparted to Malificentus. What remains of his skin could be between here and Alabion, though it was enchanted, powerfully so. The piece is out there, it is simply a matter of where.”

Following the sentence of the Black Queen’s rise, the Sixth Chair’s scroll was jaggedly ripped in half, with faded or partially scrawled lettering along the tear. For weeks and counting, Elissandra and her farseers had been attempting to divine its location.

“That we haven’t found it thus far means that it is powerfully warded or otherwise in a place where magik cannot pierce,” proposed Elissandra.

“Alabion?”

“Yes. That is likely.”

Gloriatrix drummed her fingers upon the desk again. “Well, that places it effectively out of our reach. Your ancestor could have passed clutching it to his chest. We were lucky enough that the Broker managed to catch our little treasure in the Drowned River. We should count our blessings with that. Regardless, I have another task on which I shall need you to focus your resources.”

“What would you have me do?”

“My son will be returning in a day or so. He has brought with him a girl. A young witch, I am told, with powers much like those of the House of Mysteries. Perhaps even greater than yours, Elissa.”

“Really?”
muttered Elissandra, her smile a gash of hungry teeth.

Gloriatrix couldn’t recall seeing such excitement in the woman before. “Indeed. My ears in the palace tell me that she and my late brother—”

“Late brother?”

Gloriatrix shrugged, scowled, and tossed back her adder spit. “Yes, Thackery is no more. A pity I wasn’t there to plunge the dagger in myself. Or light the fuse, in this case. I thought that I would feel vindicated or celebratory, though it is mostly a disappointment that my son did the work his mother should have. I suppose your agents might be a bit slower than mine are, as mine were out doing the deed itself, and from your silence I take it that you haven’t heard the news. It should be all over Menos by the afternoon. Giving the rabble something to cheer over as they scrub our toilets.”

“News?” asked Elissandra.

“The war has begun, Elissa. I started it. King’s Crown has been attacked by witchpowder explosives.
Sage
Thule is presumed to be suffering the curses of my ancestors. I’ve planted the rumors, my whisperers are seeding his name as we speak. There is no turning back now.”

Elissandra’s head was chiming with crystal bells of intuition at the mention of a myriad of events: the death of Thackery Thule, betrayer to his bloodline, inciter of a short-lived rebellion, philanthropist, and saint of refugees; the gauntlet at last thrown down to Eod. Behind her cold expression flashed
smoky images of a white square streaked with sheets of fire, of shadows moving through woods, and of a crimson-haired beauty staring at her with stabbing silver eyes.
That’s her. That is the maiden in the woods. The Daughter of the Gray Man. The one and only true. The loom on which the threads are woven. First and last. The snake that eats itself, the dawn of a new Age
—

“Elissa, you’re very quiet.”

“I applaud your success, First Chair,” Elissandra said, and then stood. “If you will excuse me, I should return to my estate and prepare for the arrival of the witch.”

Gloriatrix held up a hand for her to halt. “The witch? I haven’t said what I need you to do with her.”

“I thought that was obvious. I shall open her mind up and strip it of its secrets. You wouldn’t have mentioned her to me otherwise, Gloria.”

The women bid good-bye with sinister smiles. Once alone, Gloriatrix left her desk to survey Menos’s dark vista through the tinted glass of her office. She was frowning in her reflection. Elissandra’s actions today appeared more abstract than usual, and this dream of wolves and maidens was troubling. She sensed that Elissandra was withholding secrets, which was to be expected. What worried her was that the prophecy only spoke of a Black Queen. Singular. On the throne of Geadhain, there was room for only one ruler, one Black Queen, and that certainly wouldn’t be Elissandra. Contingencies should be made in case their alliance ended, and the spider set her mind to spinning.

IV

Thackery groaned on the hard earth, more stiff and sore than he had been in years, and with what felt like a terrible sunburn. At least a cool hand of wind caressed his face and ruffled his clothing, which smelled of ash. No sooner had he made a noise than Caenith was upon him, shaking him and shouting.

“What happened? Where is she?”

“What! I don’t—I don’t know! Please, release me!” cried Thackery.

“Where is she!” growled Caenith.

“They took her!”

Caenith could smell the sharp stink of innocence among the man’s fear, and he threw Thackery to the ground and stomped away. Carefully, Thackery righted himself. First to his knees until his head ceased its spinning, then up on trembling legs; he almost fell again once he took in his unfamiliar surroundings. They were camped in the shade of a lipped fold in Kor’Keth, somewhere along its endless range, with dunes rolling out in golden waves before them. Twisting eddies of sand swept the desert, but the horizon was otherwise bare. The baked desolation clenched Thackery’s heart, and he rubbed his shoulders even though he wasn’t cold, noting that the fabric there was tattered and burned, and feeling only more vulnerable. He turned to Caenith, who sulked in the shadows of their tiny stone pocket. In the darkness, the Wolf’s eyes were cold glowing stones that watched him, and Thackery stumbled to find his courage.