Geared for Pleasure (2 page)

There were devices she could not begin to describe alongside produce and sweets she could not recognize or guess the flavor of. Her stomach rumbled again, attempting to convince her that it would rather have a taste of the produce than study the mechanics of the windup wonders.

She took several more steps, avoiding a steaming pile of animal excrement—which instantly allayed her appetite—before spying a vendor who sold alabaster house idols the size of her palm. They were all carved in the image of the eternally young queen, each so accurate that it was hard to believe such perfection could be replicated by hand so many times and without flaw.

Another stall held a jumbled pile of mechanical arms and legs for those who had lost limbs and needed a viable replacement. She recognized them, but she’d assumed they had been created solely for the Wode. She’d seen several elder shield guards use the clunky devices
nearly as effectively as an undamaged appendage. A few could even use the different switches to change their “fingers” into tools to tighten bolts or heat steel, allowing them to maintain their usefulness.

Of course, there were those who spoke of augmentations that would turn their new arms into powerful weapons for combat, but she doubted the veracity of those barracks stories. They did, after all, include the use of theorrite, a gem the members of the Theorrean Raj thought too rare to waste on wounded veterans. Theorrite was to be used only for “the betterment of Theorrey.” The science ministry believed their intellectual advances were far more important in that regard than an injured Wode’s pride.

Near the end of the row, her attention settled on a stall where a trader sold pendants of swirling desert glass. The beauty of the jewelry stilled her steps. The unique pieces were scattered amongst other treasures. Polished ivory horns that had been hollowed out and filled with alluring, colorful spices. Spiral daggers made of sharpened bone and leather. She believed the objects must have come from Newgarren until she saw what was beside them. Her lips parted.
Wings
. Small wings spread out to glide, made to catch the wind, and engineered out of what appeared to be tanned animal hide and brass. Dare had never seen anything like it. Surely they weren’t for actual use? They were far too small to hold a man’s weight.

The markings painted on their surface gave her an answer. The symbols weren’t of human origin.

Felidae.

Dare recognized one or two from the old journals that the scholars loved, though she would never attempt a guess at their true meaning. She knew of few who could. It was said even the Felidae themselves had forgotten generations ago. Yet these wings had been recently made.

The slender male trader noticed her studying his goods and
frowned. “Don’t hover ’round my stall if you can’t pay, boy. Felidae artifacts ain’t easy to come by, and I don’t mean to give ’em away for free.”

She heard a barked-out laugh before a bearded man stepped into her line of vision, blocking her view as he addressed the trader. “Hah! If those are genuine artifacts, I’m a bloody nobleman’s son. Everyone knows them Spotted Spines never had no culture, ’cept mining or stealing. They never made nothing but more of themselves to feed. Scavengers, not inventors, the lot of them.” He paused and studied the items more closely. “What do you want for that knife?”

Dare lowered her head and walked swiftly away before they noticed her again.
Boy
, he’d called her. Despite the coarse conversation, she bit her lip to hide her smile. Her disguise was working.

Queen Idony would love this. To walk freely amongst the people, unrecognized. Even the disguise would no doubt make her laugh with delight. The unusual sights, the raucous sounds, the dank, musky smells… she would love all of it. If only she were here to share it with Dare.

She frowned, recalling the unusual messenger that had found her in her palace rooms the day before, just as her own suspicions about the strange goings-on in the palace had become too strong to ignore.

Not human, the messenger had instead been a flying insect made of aged copper. Its wings were colored with old, weatherworn patches of blue, green, and gold. It looked like the paintings of dragonflies she’d seen in the queen’s rooms, though this one was much larger.

It appeared to act of its own accord as if it were alive, landing on the ledge of the balcony outside Dare’s quarters. Faceted crystalline eyes had followed her movements with a strange ticking sound and the unmistakable grinding of gears. It seemed to be watching her, though she knew that was impossible.

When she’d reached out to touch it, the warm metal vibrated with a unique resonance beneath her fingers. A hidden panel on its back had opened to reveal a folded parchment stamped with the queen’s personal seal: the sword and chalice.

There was no doubt it was her sigil. More than its design convinced Dare. The queen had showed her long ago how to confirm the authenticity of her mark. She had made the lesson a game, leaving parchment filled with clues around the palace. Clues she would need to follow to find whatever it was Queen Idony had hidden from her that day.

The trick for this particular game was queensfruit, the most abundant fruit in Theorrey. The pale pink rind had to be peeled and its juice dabbed on the red wax sigil to cause a unique transformation. The vertical broadsword that seemed to pierce the heart of the chalice would turn a light silver while its jeweled hilt darkened to amber and brass. The chalice itself became silver as well, the darker brass used to outline the lotus design etched on the outside of the cup.

Only the queen’s wax, her personal mixture, could create that reaction. It meant whoever had sent this had her approval and followed her command above all others. A true ally.

For Dare, the note on the parchment confirmed and doubled her suspicions, the stunning news leaving her no time to investigate the mechanical insect. Not that it gave her a choice. Its job completed, it had shuddered to whirring, clicking life and taken off into the air with the grace of a living bird, disappearing too quickly for her to gauge its direction or learn anything further from it.

The instructions it had delivered had been precise and emphatic. She was not to go to the ruling body. About this, the Theorrean Raj and the Wode commanders were not to be confided in or informed. It had been an unusual command, but Dare’s loyalty was first and foremost to her queen. It always had been, even before she had been chosen as the Queen’s Chalice. Her father had made sure of it.

The missive had posited a truth that Dare had confirmed for herself that very night, though it struck her even now as impossible. However, it could not be denied.
Her
queen was no longer within the protection of the palace. Something insidious and untenable was going on, and Dare was on her own.

Hopefully this captain of the Deviant had answers she did not. Or, at the least, knew how to communicate with her mysterious, message-sending ally for more information.

“Welcome to Trader’s Square.”

Dare stopped short, digging the heels of her scuffed, borrowed boots into the dirt. That was the queen’s voice. It was tinny and unnatural, but it was hers.

She looked over the crowd to find the source of the cheerful announcement. There, seated on a throne of limestone, nodding to the passersby, was a life-sized automated replica of the queen coated in delicate copper leaf. A crank key at the base turned slowly as the figure moved through its sequence of operations with clockwork precision. A nod. A wave. An expression of serenity.

It was a masterful likeness. Dare had seen other such automatons before, most as they were being built. The artisans told her that people loved to feel the queen was watching over them wherever they lived, which was why they were sent out to all of the cities in Theorrey. In this way, everyone could be as close to her divine presence as possible. In spirit if not in truth.

This one was the best yet, forged with such attention to detail that Dare had to move closer.

Queen Idony the Ever Young. The artistic engineer had captured the eternally fourteen-year-old monarch perfectly; the mischievous smile, the large, deep-set jeweled eyes, wise and knowing beyond her apparent years. Even the distinctive shining hair was exact—made of fine, individual strands of white gold. It fell to her shoulders, drawing attention to the necklace that always adorned her graceful neck.

The Nymphaea Infinitum.

Dare had been a much younger, newly chosen Chalice the first time she saw the amulet. It had fascinated her ever since. Its strangely shaped gears, made of a metal unlike any she’d seen before, surrounded a lotus whose many petals were crafted from the valuable greenish-blue theorrite. What made it all the more unusual was that it seemed more than an ornament. It appeared to be grafted to the queen’s skin. As much a part of her as her own flesh.

“The symbol of my rule,” Queen Idony had told her with a small, ironic tilt of her lips.

The immense sadness emanating from her when she’d said it had made Dare—naïvely foolish and unaware of protocol—ask her why. Father had warned her not to share the knowledge of her gifts with others, but he couldn’t have meant to include the queen. Surely she, of all people, already knew. She knew everything.

“You dare to presume what your queen is feeling?” Idony’s smile had grown, and real amusement rolled off her in pleased waves. “I think you will be my favorite Senedal, Demeter. And I know we shall be friends. Though I’m not sure such a stodgy name will suit you. What
was
the commander thinking? I believe I will call you Dare.”

A scratchy, female voice interrupted her musings and brought her back to reality with a jolt. “Pretty version ain’t she, boy? We’ve been needin’ a new one for years. Got her in a few weeks ago though, surprised if this is the first time you’ve seen her.”

Dare couldn’t tear her gaze away from the moving statue as it nodded in regal welcome. She knew she had to acknowledge the woman who had appeared beside her lest she seem odd or out of place, but it was not easy to look away from the dearly familiar queen.

She tried not to flinch when she finally glanced up at the thin,
taller woman’s face. One half of it was smiling. The other half, malformed from some terrible misfortune, was pulled into a grimace.

Dare forced herself to speak. “I’ve been ill. A… friend was looking after me.”

The scarred hand patting her arm stilled for a moment, and Dare sensed a jarring edge of suspicion from the woman. “Ill, you say? That’s too bad. But you look healthy enough now. Young and strong. Though I’m guessing it must be a tender throat that has you still sounding like a girl at your age. Friend, huh? Don’t have any family to look after you, then? No one who would care that you walk through the square untended?”

Dare tried to deepen her voice. “Yes. My throat. And I’m old enough to be on my own. I need no attending.”

Suddenly, Dare could barely hold back her tears. All the emotions around her must be affecting her control. A member of the Wode did
not
cry. She’d learned that long ago, when her father had first left her at the palace. She was a warrior, a soldier. Bred to be a companion and guard. Love and family were not for people like her.

Yet she
did
have a family of sorts in Queen Idony and Cyrus. An Arendal, Cyrus was Dare’s counterpart, the Queen’s Sword. They had arrived at the palace on the same day, replacing generations of their predecessors as the queen’s companion guards. Her Arendal and Senedal. Her Sword and Chalice.

She hadn’t cried when, months ago, she had been informed that Cyrus was missing, presumed dead. She hadn’t cried when she discovered that the queen… No. She could hardly admit the truth, even to herself. It was too horrific.

She could not cry now.

Dare tugged the brim of the large woolen hat farther down, to hide her expression. She wasn’t quick enough.

“Oh my,” the young woman, who looked to be around her age,
tutted. “Here you’ll be thinking Lucy Thrice is ugly
and
mean. Put my foot in it, did I? I’m sure you are perfectly capable of attending yourself. Nothing could scare a brave lad like you, eh? But that throat and those watery eyes have given Lucy an idea. Tell you what, I have a special grain tonic that’ll ease your troubles. My own creation. Good for all that ails you. I won’t charge you a thing for a taste.”

The queen’s automaton tilted her head. “Welcome to Trader-der-der-der-
Dare
-
Dare
-Trader’s Square.”

Dare’s heart stuttered along with the replica’s vocal recording. Had it just said—? No, that was preposterous. It had to be a coincidence.

A man walked by and kicked the platform, the hollow thud making Dare cringe. He no doubt believed, as anyone with good sense would, that the gears within had jammed. As he passed, one of the queen’s metal eyelids lowered over a jeweled eye, which was emitting a soft blue glow. It looked decidedly like a wink. Impossible.

“The artist’ll be hearing about that little glitch I’ll wager. Come on, now. Time for my famous remedy.” The woman tugged on her arm but Dare shook her head. Seeing the queen’s likeness had only increased her urgency and reinforced her determination to complete her mission. Visiting with this pleasant unfortunate had no part in it.

“You are kind, Miss—”

“Thrice, is me. Lucy Thrice.”

Dare nodded. “You are kind, Miss Thrice.” She politely but firmly disengaged herself from the woman’s grime-covered grasp. “Unfortunately I must be on my way.”

“Listen to that,” a male voice drawled behind her. “If I closed my eyes, I’d be sure a lady from the Hill had come to visit with those sparklin’ manners, instead of a dirty lowborn boy.”

She saw Lucy’s mud-brown eyes narrow. “So would I. The lady part leastwise. I’m thinking we’ve found our special bird. Though you two are here early.”

The man snorted. “We’re right on time, with you
just
thinkin’ that.
Had you fooled for a tic did she, Thrice? Thought you were the smart one. But then, you don’t have the right parts to sniff out the difference like we do. Bet she’ll fetch a price worth claiming at the docks.”