For Want of a Fiend (34 page)

“Starbride! What in the spirits’ names—”

“No time!” She rattled off the story, watching his face grow horrified. Only halfway through did she realize he was naked, but there was no time to blush. All she could do was finish.

“He’s in the council ballroom right now?” Freddie asked.

“But if we warn the others—”

“Everyone could die.”

“Yes!” She paced, grabbed up a pillow, and twisted it. “What should we do?”

When she turned back around, he had a towel draped around his waist. She couldn’t remember when he’d put it on, but she was so relieved to be part of a “we” in her situation, that she didn’t feel anything but nervous, terrified energy.

“Don’t tell the council,” Freddie said. “It can’t make anything better. If you do, and Roland manages to kill the council while sparing the royals, what does it look like?”

“Like the king’s supporters killed the council and its witnesses.”

Freddie nodded. “Including a reformation-preaching magistrate and his assistant. Who would believe the dead prince came back to life as a Fiend in order to take the kingdom through non-violent reform?”

Starbride bit her lip. “He’s a genius.”

“You should have known him when he was alive. I heard he was beyond compare.”

“When do I tell them? When do I tell Katya?”

“Afterward.”

“She’ll be so angry. Her father will be furious!”

“You’ll have to weather it, just like Crowe did when he kept things from them for their own good. You won’t have to tell them alone.”

Starbride nearly sagged in gratitude. “But you won’t be able to speak.”

He grinned, but it had a sad edge. “Moral support.”

She hugged him then. She had no choice. His arms went around her hesitantly, and she remembered with a start his state of undress. She nearly jumped back, shaking as the adrenaline left her.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“I better get back to the council room.”

“I’ll come through the passageways and be behind the curtain in the waiting room.”

Starbride hesitated, unable to believe they were just going to sit in a room with Roland and not say anything. “I thought about using a pyramid to expose his disguise.”

“He’ll have something else in place. He’s a genius, remember?”

“The best way to act is not to act? I’m terrible at that.”

“You’ll learn.”

Starbride waited outside his room while he dressed and then she hurried to the small waiting room, Pennynail with her. Katya and her father were waiting. They stared at Pennynail in surprise.

Starbride nodded at him. “In case of surprises.”

Katya nodded slowly, but suspicion didn’t leave her eyes. “I guess it would be foolish to ask if we were expecting any surprises.”

Starbride only laughed, but she heard the nervousness in it. She didn’t know how she would go beyond the curtain and not call Roland out, how she could possibly sit through a trial and listen to evidence.

And Roland would be waiting for her to act. Starbride kept telling herself that, kept picturing the broken, scorched bodies of the council members, the divot in the floor that would be all that remained of Katya, her body engulfed in nothingness.

The herald announced them. Starbride forgot to breathe as she walked past the curtain. Her eyes raked over the council members and audience until she found him. He watched her, a little smile on his face.

“Star,” Katya whispered in her ear.

Starbride whipped her head around so fast that Katya leaned back. “They can’t sit until we do,” Katya said.

Starbride looked down to see that she was standing in front of her chair on the dais. She sat without a word, but when she looked back, Roland was still watching her. When the herald listed the reasons they were there, Roland finally looked away, and Starbride could breathe again. After the herald finished, the Guard escorted Lady Hilda inside.

She had cleaned herself up and chosen a simple, demure dress in a light mint color. She looked calm, not at all haughty, as if being escorted to a garden party. She sat in a chair at the center of the square of tables and tucked her legs discreetly to the side.

The herald read off the charges against her. Lady Hilda dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief. The herald then called for evidence. King Einrich motioned toward the doors, and Captain Ursula strode into the room. She told them of Lady Hilda’s men attacking the caravan containing the fake Starbride, of the evidence gleaned from the men’s memories, evidence that had been confirmed by a pyradisté working for the city Watch.

Duke Robert stood. “Captain Ursula, was Lady Hilda present at this attack?”

“No, Your Grace.”

“And you know she was involved in this scheme only from the memories extracted first by the crown princess consort.”

Ursula nodded. “And then confirmed by one of my pyradistés.”

“Could those memories have been planted by the crown princess consort?”

Starbride bristled. Katya patted her arm as if telling her to take it easy.

“I don’t have the expertise to answer that question, Your Grace,” Ursula said.

“Luckily,” Countess Nadia said, “we have someone who does, if Master Bernard is allowed to speak.”

The nobles conferred with one another briefly before they agreed.

Master Bernard walked to the front of the room. “Any implanted memories would have been detected as such.”

The supreme head of the intelligence and wisdom chapterhouses raised a hand from the gallery. Duke Robert’s assistant courtier rushed back, collected a note, and hurried it forward.

“Is that really the case, Master Bernard?” Duke Robert said after he read the note. “What if the pyradisté who inserted the memories is stronger than the person reading them? Research indicates that the superior pyradisté could hide his work from the lesser.”

Starbride narrowed her eyes. Well, they knew whose side the knowledge chapterhouse was on.

“No student, no matter how prestigious her title, could have magic strong enough to hide from a graduate of the academy, Your Grace,” Master Bernard said. “Some of our best pyradistés work for the Watch.”

Duke Robert smiled. “What if such a student had the power of a Fiend on her side?”

As the ballroom erupted in mutterings, Starbride’s belly turned cold. She avoided looking at Katya, barely, and looked to Roland instead. He had his head bent over a sheaf of papers, as any good assistant would.

Lady Hilda burst into tears before the babble of the council could get any higher.

Duke Robert patted her shoulder. “What is it, my dear?”

“I didn’t know what it would mean!”

“What are you speaking of?”

Lady Hilda took a few deep, shuddering breaths. “I only wanted to please her. I didn’t know what a night of passion with her could bring!”

Duke Robert glanced at the dais. “Who?”

Lady Hilda pointed a shaky finger at Katya. “The crown princess. Making love to her did this to me!” Her features blurred into the cold eyes and horns of a Fiend.

Everyone in the room leapt to their feet. Even though he wasn’t armed, Lord Vincent stepped in front of the dais. Chairs toppled as people sought to back away. Even Duke Robert seemed discomfited, and he knew what was coming or Starbride was a horse’s uncle.

Roland acted as afraid as the rest, but he must have been grinning inside. Lady Hilda simply sat in her chair, sobbing quietly. Cold came from her in waves.

“Can you…control yourself, my dear?” Duke Robert asked, but he didn’t dare touch her.

Lady Hilda took a deep breath and then blurred again, as human as the rest of them after a heartbeat. “If one night of love could do this to me, what must it have done to her?” Lady Hilda pointed again, this time at Starbride, and her face was the picture of sympathy. “You poor thing, what did she do to you?”

Everyone’s heads swung toward Starbride. She shook her head, letting all her confusion show. “She did nothing to me.”

“Perhaps,” one of the other nobles said, “it’s you who did something to her.”

Duke Robert nodded as if a sudden idea occurred to him. “Yes, if the princess’s…affection could always turn her lovers into Fiends, who knows how many monsters we’d have running around? When you had your affair, Lady Hilda, was it after Starbride became the consort?”

Lady Hilda nodded and sobbed.

“And then you became part…Fiend.”

Lady Hilda wept through another nod. Starbride almost bit through her lip. She felt Katya’s grip upon her arm.

“What are you saying?” Starbride asked.

“Master Bernard?” Duke Robert asked. “How much do you know of Allusian pyradistés?”

“I…I…” Mater Bernard looked from Lady Hilda to Starbride. “I don’t know…”

The supreme head of the knowledge chapterhouse lifted another note, as quickly retrieved as the other. He stared at Lady Hilda with fascination.

“It seems little to nothing is known about them,” Duke Robert said. “So you see, Lords and Ladies, ladies and gentlemen, there are two sides to this story. True, Lady Hilda acted unconscionably, but how could she do otherwise under the influence of this evil creature living inside her, a Fiend like Yanchasa the Mighty, the very creature the Umbriels are supposed to oppose.”

The council mumbled. Countess Nadia rapped her knuckles on the table. “What proof against the Umbriels, Robert? Any at all?”

Duke Robert walked slowly toward the dais. “Against the Umbriels? None. After their family summoned Yanchasa centuries ago and then had to defeat him, they would not willingly embrace such a creature again.”

He pinned Starbride with his eyes, and his deep voice seemed to echo in her stomach. “If I recall, Crown Princess Katyarianna changed once you arrived, Starbride. On the night of your first public appearance as princess consort, a violent earthquake killed many people inside the palace. Several partygoers spotted you running deep into the palace, into lost corridors. Do you deny that you were communing with Yanchasa, bargaining with the creature?”

“That I was…what?” Starbride couldn’t help a nervous laugh. “That’s absurd!” She glanced to the side, but Katya hadn’t moved. King Einrich also sat completely still. Like a bolt of lightning, Starbride realized they were hypnotized. She dipped into her pocket and pulled out a pyramid that would break Roland’s hold.

The room erupted in cries. Master Bernard pulled a pyramid of his own, and Lord Vincent leapt onto the dais to stand between Starbride and the Umbriels. Starbride stumbled away from his intense stare.

“Put it down,” Master Bernard said.

“She’s done something to the king!” someone in the room cried.

“And the princess,” someone else shouted. “They’re both so still!”

“No!” Starbride pointed at Roland. “It’s him!”

Roland’s mouth dropped open. He clutched his sheaf of papers to his chest and stood on shaky legs. “Me?”

“My assistant?” Magistrate Anthony asked. “He’s just been sitting here this entire time.”

Starbride’s heart pounded. She couldn’t think. All she could see was a room that had been friendly one moment and hostile the next. She pleaded with herself to think of something, but the pleading got in the way of thought. In the center of the room, unobserved by anyone else, Lady Hilda smirked.

A knife flew out of the curtain behind Starbride. It streaked through the room to strike Roland in the leg. With a curse, he sagged and hung on Anthony’s arm. Starbride focused and put all her heart into what she was doing. Her eyes fell into the dark haze of pyramid sight, and she saw a golden bubble surrounding Katya and King Einrich. A tendril from that sphere flowed from Roland and led to a pyramid hidden in his clothing.

Starbride attacked that golden tendril with sheer panic, making her head pound and stealing her breath, but desperation served her well. Roland’s pyramid went dark. King Einrich and Katya gasped, but something struck Starbride from the side. She staggered on the steps of the dais. Lord Vincent had pushed her and knocked the pyramid from her grip, but she kept her feet. Master Bernard stomped toward her, pyramid held high; several council members howled for her blood. Any cries begging for everyone to keep their reason became lost in the flood of voices.

Starbride ran. Pennynail’s leather-clad arm shot from the curtain and pulled her inside, but her pursuers followed her. She grabbed one of the stiff, high-backed chairs just inside the curtain and threw it, tangling the steps of those following her. The door to the secret passageway stood open, and Pennynail waved her inside. She ran through, and he shut it behind them. Starbride lit the lamp just in time to see Pennynail plunge a dagger into the mechanism that opened the door, locking it from their side.

Starbride wanted to collapse against the wall, wanted to weep, wanted to make sure Katya was safe, but there wasn’t time. Pennynail hauled her to her feet, and she ran with him through the passageways, not heeding where they were going.

Katya took a deep breath. For the last several minutes, she had struggled, mentally shrieking, but unable to move as the council fell to chaos.

Starbride had fled. Several people chased her while Lord Vincent stood just in front of the thrones. Katya shoved out her chair and tried to escape the strangling feeling that had overtaken her.

“Enough!” she shouted.

The room stuttered to silence. Katya cast a quick glance at her father. He coughed and waved for her to proceed.

“Everyone, get back in here!” Katya yelled. “This council isn’t dismissed.”

Word passed, and those who’d ran into the waiting room trickled back inside. Their faces ran the gamut from confused and angry, to stunned and frightened.

“Take your seats.” Katya wanted to race after Starbride, but she had to see if the disastrous council could be reassembled. They couldn’t lose the chance to prove Lady Hilda’s guilt.

Several people from the gallery clustered around Magistrate Anthony’s assistant. He seemed young, no more than nineteen or twenty, and he held a bandage to his leg. What had Pennynail been thinking?

“Is he all right?” Katya called.

The supreme head of the strength chapterhouse stood from where she investigated the wound. “Should be, Crown Princess. The wound wasn’t so deep.”