The Mirror Prince (6 page)
Authors: Violette Malan
She stood, holding something round, flat, and thick, still wrapped in its protective cloth. “Imagine Riders are like Men—we have our own races, too, Sunward, Moonward—” she pointed at him, “—and Starward—” she pointed at herself, “and Solitaries are, say, dolphins, whales, and sharks. Naturals are the Everglades, the Oceans, the Rain Forest. How well do you figure we’re getting along?”
“Ah,” Max said.
“Exactly.” Cassandra untwisted the cloth in her hands to reveal a heavy silvery torque, almost as bright and obviously made of the same metal as her mail shirt. She placed the torque around her throat so that the ends rested on her collarbones. As soon as it touched her skin, it glowed brighter.
Now Max could see that they were standing quite close to the edge of what could have been a subway platform, if you took away a century’s worth of dirt and damage. The wall close to their backs arched over their heads—though not very far over, he thought. Either of them could easily touch the ceiling with a little stretching. But on the other side of the sunken tracks there was no matching platform. Instead, the space opened out, farther than he could see in the light given off by Cassandra’s armor. He could make out no ceiling, just a couple of round columns thick as old oak trees, thick enough to hold up the whole city over their heads. Faint gleams showed where water lay still and silent between the old pillars.
“I’ve heard about this place,” he said, his voice sounding louder somehow, now that there was more light. “People say it’s a myth.”
“People say that about us, too.”
Max turned back to her, his wonder once more replaced by irritation. “Look, before this goes any further—why don’t you just tell me what’s going on? I know you’ve got the wrong man; I could clear this up in a second—”
She was on her feet, her face suddenly inches from his own.
“You’re a Faerie Prince. You lost a war and were Exiled. Now, for some reason, they’re trying to kill you. Does that clear it up for you? Happy now?”
“But I’m not—” Max stopped talking as she raised her hand, palm up, placed his own palm against hers and kept on. “You’re making a mistake, you only met me the other night.”
Cassandra lowered her hand and pressed her fingers to her eyes, took a deep breath, and let it out slowly; it fogged in the underground air.
“
I
don’t have the wrong man.
They
aren’t hunting the wrong man. I didn’t just meet you the other night,” she said, biting off the words. “We’ve met many times. You just don’t remember.” She let her hand drop from her face. “I know you have a thousand questions,” she said, her voice low and tight. “I swear to you, I will give you all the answers I have.
Somewhere safe.
”
I
don’t have the wrong man.
They
aren’t hunting the wrong man. I didn’t just meet you the other night,” she said, biting off the words. “We’ve met many times. You just don’t remember.” She let her hand drop from her face. “I know you have a thousand questions,” she said, her voice low and tight. “I swear to you, I will give you all the answers I have.
Somewhere safe.
”
Max hesitated. It
couldn’t
be true. He knew who he was. But she was so certain, and she sure wasn’t human, she had that part right and . . .
couldn’t
be true. He knew who he was. But she was so certain, and she sure wasn’t human, she had that part right and . . .
“You could have
died
in that alley,” she said. “I only killed one Hound; do you bet your life there are no others? Shall we still be standing here arguing when the Hunt finds us?”
died
in that alley,” she said. “I only killed one Hound; do you bet your life there are no others? Shall we still be standing here arguing when the Hunt finds us?”
For an instant Max felt again the bone-deep chill that almost claimed him in the alley.
Max studied Cassandra’s face. The mask of the goddess of battles was well and truly gone. Cassandra’s hair had crinkled further in the damp, and there was a smudge of dirt and bright blood on her face. He was raising his hand to wipe it away when he remembered whose blood it was. The Hound had been real, he reminded himself. And the woman in front of him was real. More than real, somehow. As if the world came into focus around her. As if everything close to her was somehow . . .
truer
.
truer
.
“I believe you,” he said, hearing the truth in his own voice. And he did believe her. She would tell him everything she could . . . once they were safe. He would have his chance to figure it out, explain how they got it wrong. He pulled in a ragged breath of his own, looking away from a face that had become somehow more frightening than the face of Athene.
Cassandra held still a heartbeat longer before turning back to her open bag. “Did you ever go in for any weapons training?” she asked.
“That’s a funny way to put it,” Max said, glad of the change of subject. “But no.”
“None of this will be of any use to you, then,” she said, frowning at the cloth-wrapped bundles she’d taken out of her bag. Now that he looked closely, Max could see by the shapes that some of the items at least were daggers, and others looked like arrows, though he could see no bow.
“What, no guns?”
“Guns won’t kill the Hunt, only
gra’if
does, and god knows where yours might be.”
gra’if
does, and god knows where yours might be.”
“That what this is?” He brushed the tips of his fingers against Cassandra’s body armor. “Got any more?” He’d been dying to see what it was made of, but he found himself somehow reluctant to actually touch it.
“Mine won’t work for you.”
“What makes it glow?” The light, moving as Cassandra moved, prevented Max from seeing much more of what was in her unzipped shoulder bag.
“My personality.”
“Smart-ass.”
When he looked up, Cassandra was smiling the first genuine smile he’d ever seen on her face. He found it easy to smile back at her.
She pushed her hands through her hair, and her smile slowly faded.
“What is it?”
“My hair clip.” She knelt and scanned the ground around their feet. “I must have dropped it in the alley.”
“I hope you’re not planning to go back for it.” Max crouched to help her hold the side of the bag open. “What’s this?” he picked up a light helm that lay to one side of the bag, loosely wrapped in silk. It was warm, and it seemed to hum with the faintest of vibrations, as if a charge ran through it. Odd, but not unpleasant. She was quite right, he thought, this wouldn’t fit him. Even in the uncertain light, Max could see the helmet, very little more than a coronet hung with fine mesh, was fancifully carved, with a beast’s face on the guard that would rest just above and between Cassandra’s eyes. Max found that he could make out even the finest of the carved scales, even the teeth in the beast’s mouth.
“My Guidebeast,” she said, taking the helm from him and sliding it into the bag.
“A dragon?”
“You have good eyes.”
Anther rush of air, another roaring moan overhead. Max looked up. This time a smell came with it, a smell like an old dirt-floored cellar. It was ancient but curiously clean, damp earth and wet concrete. Still, the ceiling was so close above his head that even those huge pillars didn’t make him confident that everything wouldn’t come crashing down.
“Okay, so if we want Union, we go that way, right?” Straightening to his feet again, Max pointed south.
Cassandra shook her head. “There’s no direct route, not anymore. We’ll have to go around the long way.”
Max shook his head, rolling his eyes to the damp splotches on the tunnel’s roof. “Why am I not surprised?”
Cassandra packed the last of her daggers back into her shoulder bag, zipped it almost shut and slipped in her longer sword before slinging the bag once more over her shoulder. She would have liked to have the sword in her hand—that’s where it felt most natural—but she’d need her hands for other things. Besides, anything that came at them faster than she could draw her sword—well, she wasn’t going to worry about it.
She glanced once over her shoulder, checking to see that Max followed, before leading the way past a bricked-over opening that had once been intended as a pedestrian exit from the platform. The concrete underfoot was uneven and cracked. Rough-poured and left untiled in the first place, it was now showing the signs of years of water damage and uneven heating.
Cassandra took a deep breath and rotated her shoulders as she walked, trying to relax muscles as tight as steel cable. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d had so much trouble saving someone’s life—well, actually, she could, and now that she thought about it, it was the same someone. The Exile always thought he knew better, no matter who he happened to be at the moment. Fine, he was often right, but he never realized that there were some situations you couldn’t talk your way out of. She hadn’t meant to lose her temper, but somehow she’d known it was going to happen ever since she’d seen Max Ravenhill at the cocktail party. Their eyes had met, and she’d felt that familiar jolt, as everything in the world rearranged itself around them. She’d spent the last two hundred and fifty years—six of his lifetimes—avoiding that feeling, and fighting the urge to experience it once more.
He was too much the same, and different enough that the sameness couldn’t help her. As usual, his response to strange events and stranger beings was more curiosity than confusion—he’d always been able to adapt easily. Malcolm, who was Stormbringer the Singer, had wondered whether this, too, was part of his fundamental nature, something left over from when the Exile was the Prince Guardian.
Right now Cassandra felt as though she hadn’t slept since Diggory the Solitary had come to give her warning. Her shoulder hurt, and she knew that soon the long muscles in her thighs would start to twitch and cramp. She’d been running on adrenaline since pulling the Exile out of the blue sedan, and killing the Hound—she pushed that thought away. She could think about that later when she had leisure to be terrified.
Still, half an hour, give or take a few minutes, and they would be close enough to the crossroads for her to Move them. Once in the Australian outback, they’d be safe. The Portal there was long destroyed, in the last Cycle according to what the Songs told, though the crossroads still existed. No Rider, and precious few humans, would think to look for them there.
Of course, then, instead of collapsing into a warm bed to nurse her bruises and rest her sore muscles, she’d have to think about what to tell the Exile. Anyone else would be satisfied with having his life saved, but not him—oh, no. All the answers she had, she’d promised him. She’d told him the truth before, more than once, and he’d believed her, every time. But something told Cassandra that Max Ravenhill wasn’t going to be so easy to convince. In the old days, perfectly ordinary people were ready to believe in the strange truths that were outside their own experience. In this day, even bards and prophets weren’t likely to recognize truth when they heard it.
Besides, she’d promised herself that she’d never tell him this particular truth again.
Cassandra reached the end of the platform and peered over the edge. She was prepared to jump down into the track bed, but though the old iron ladder was much rustier than she remembered, it held firm when she gave it a good kick. She swung herself around and let herself down, rung by rung, and waited at the bottom of the ladder so that Max could see his way down.
Enough light shone from her armor that Cassandra could just make out, about two yards away, the bottom of the narrow, concrete steps leading up out of the tunnel into the maintenance shaft for the station adjacent to this one, the real station. Cassandra squinted. Was there a shadow where one had never been before? She let go of the iron ladder and walked closer to the steps.
“Hey.”
Cassandra ignored him; even concentrating as she was, she could tell Max was annoyed, not scared. Let him move faster if he didn’t want to be left in the dark.
Damn.
One of the support columns
had
crumbled since the last time she had been through here and blocked the opening at the top of the stair. She took a step back and bumped into Max.
Damn.
One of the support columns
had
crumbled since the last time she had been through here and blocked the opening at the top of the stair. She took a step back and bumped into Max.
“Can’t you Move it?”
It took Cassandra a second to realize what he was saying.
“We’re Riders, we can only Move what lives.” She touched the rubble gingerly, laying the palm of her hand carefully on a large chunk of concrete. It was old, and there was enough natural rock and sand in the mix that a Troll could probably shift it, she thought. Where was Diggory when she needed him?
“Well, we won’t shift this mess ourselves,” Max pointed out, in a warped echo of her own thinking. “Not without a backhoe, anyway.”
Cassandra worried her bottom lip between her teeth. As much as she might feel like it, there was no arguing with that. And where there was a choice between two dangers . . .
“There’s another way,” she said as she turned back to retrace their steps, “but we’ll have to go through a tunnel that’s in use.”
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