Thorn Queen (16 page)

“Actually,” I said, rising. “We should probably get going as well.”

“Must you?” he asked, face falling further.

“I’m sure I’ll see you soon.”

“Yes,” agreed Dorian. “You should get moving on that ball. Or maybe I should just throw one for her….”

Leith totally fell for the baiting. “No, no. I would be more than honored to.” He swept me a bow, and I let him kiss my hand. “I’ll have news for you soon, I promise.”

I smiled and expressed my thanks and allowed him to kiss my hand
again
when he insisted. As soon as he was gone, I turned on Dorian. “Are you trying to push me into his arms or away?”

“Ironically, doing one causes the other.” He stretched and stifled a yawn. “Were you telling the truth? Are you ready to leave?”

“Yeah, I think so—”

“Your majesty?”

Davros stuck his head into the room, wearing his usual apologetic look. His eyes flicked nervously from Dorian to me. “I’m so sorry to bother you…I know you must be busy and…”

“What is it?”

“She’s been found, your majesty. The missing girl? Her parents tracked her down last night but were afraid to tell you…she seemed so distraught. I only just found out myself. I told them you’d want to know—”

“Of course, I do.” I was already moving toward the door, Dorian fast on my heels. “Where are they?”

Still bobbing his head in obeisance, Davros hastily led us to a small home on the opposite side from Leith’s construction. He beat impatiently on the door. “Open up! The queen is here.”

Almost a minute passed before the door opened. The woman who had accosted me on my first visit peered out, eyes wide. “Your majesty,” she said humbly, inclining her head. She didn’t seem to recognize Dorian. “We—we didn’t know you were here.”

“I want to see her,” I said impatiently. “Let me talk to her.”

The woman hesitated, fearful of me but also fearful of something else, apparently. Davros was undeterred. “This is the Thorn Queen! Let her in.”

With a gulp, the woman stepped aside. I found myself in a small but clean cottage, dimly lit thanks to all the curtains being drawn, though all the windows were open to allow a breeze. The woman’s husband met us as we walked through the kitchen, his face pale and afraid.

“Your majesty…forgive us. We were afraid to tell you. We were afraid she’d run away again.”

“I’m not going to hurt her. I just want to talk to her.” It was a bit depressing, between Ysabel and this family, knowing everyone was terrified of me. Ironically, before I’d known about my gentry heritage, I’d been proud of the fear I inflicted on Otherworldly inhabitants. “Please take me to her.”

I felt Dorian’s hand on my shoulder and his breath warm against my ear as he whispered, “You do
not
need to say please.”

With a quick exchange of looks, the couple led us to the back of the cottage, into a tiny bedroom. It too was darkened, and I could make out a slim girl lying on a bed. There was a washcloth on her forehead that fell off when she sat upright at our approach. She cringed against the wall.

“Who is it? I told you I didn’t want to see anyone….”

“It’s all right, Moria,” said her mother. “This is the queen. She’s come to talk to you. She’s not going to hurt you.”

The girl wilted even more, blond hair covering half of her face. “No, no…She’s come with the others, come with her human blood to bind us and kill us and—”

“Moria,” I said gently, holding my hands out as one would under a white flag. “She’s right. I’m not going to hurt you. I just want to talk to you. It won’t take long.”

“They all say that,” Moria said, eyes wide with tears. “They all say they won’t hurt you…all the humans…you’re no different…they all say they aren’t….” She lapsed into muttering too low for me to hear, her hands clinging to the covers.

“I think,” Dorian murmured to me, “that her experience has left her…ah, a little touched. I doubt you’ll get anything useful from her. There’s a healer at Maiwenn’s court who’s particularly good with sickness of the mind. You should send for her.”

I had a feeling he was right but had to make one more attempt. “I just want to know where you’ve been. Who took you. I want to make sure it doesn’t happen again. Tell me who it is, and I’ll stop them.”

“No,” she breathed. “You’re the same…the same as him…the Red Snake Man.”

“Red Snake…” I still had demons on the brain, and an image of their red and black mottled skin came to mind. Were they snake-like? “Moria, were you taken by demons? Or some kind of…” Hell, in the Otherworld, any monster you could imagine pretty much existed, as Smokey had shown us. “…um, snake monster?”

She shook her head frantically. “Our own kind don’t hurt us. It’s only yours…you’re all the same…the human blood…all marked the same….” Her eyes left my face and lowered. For a disorienting moment, I thought she was staring at my chest until I realized her gaze was on my arm. I absentmindedly touched the spot. It was where my snake tattoo coiled around my arm. Moria squeezed her eyes shut. “All the same…”

I stiffened. “Did he…are you saying the person who took you had a tattoo like this on his arm?”

“The Red Snake Man,” she whispered, still refusing to open her eyes.

“Did he banish you? Did he force you to this world? Or did you come back on your own?”

“Iron…iron everywhere…”

I stared off at nothing for several seconds. “I’m done,” I said, turning to her parents. “She can rest now.”

I left the house as swiftly as I’d come in, Dorian matching my pace. “What’s going on? That meant something to you.”

I nodded, heading toward where Rurik stood with our horses. “I think I know who took her—and maybe the others. Not bandits or a monster. It was a human.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because of the tattoo.”
The Red Snake Man.
I’d seen a red snake tattoo just the other day—on Art. He’d had that on one arm and a raven on the other. “It’s another shaman, one who lives very close to where the crossroads around here opens up in my world.” He was also the shaman who had told me to my face he knew nothing about gentry girls. I came to a halt by the horses and absentmindedly stroked the side of mine. She looked back and sniffed me. “But why? Why would he take a gentry girl? Or more than one? His job is to get them out of our world. I could see him banishing them out of the human world….That might traumatize her, but that doesn’t sound like what happened. She disappeared from
this
world. She made it sound like she didn’t want to be in the human world.”

Dorian snorted. “Eugenie, where in your jaded existence did you pick up this naïveté? If a human took one of our girls, it’d be for the same reason we’d take one of theirs. For the same reason any man would abduct a girl.”

I blanched at his implications. “But more than one?”

“He wouldn’t be the first man to prefer—ah, how shall we say it? Variety.”

I couldn’t see it of Art, not the Art who happily tended his garden and offered us beer and pop. He’d known Roland for years. They’d worked together. Was Art truly a kidnapper and rapist? Or was the girl just traumatized from being banished? It could be a pretty horrific experience.

I grimaced, feeling a sharp twisting in my stomach. I’d come too close to rape already in my life to treat even a hypothetical situation lightly. Was Moria a victim? Were there others like her out there? Maybe it wasn’t truly Art…and yet, her words had dark implications. The human blood. A mark like mine. The Red Snake Man. The crossroads to Yellow River. He had to be involved; I just didn’t know how.

I gave the horse one last pat and then mounted. “I have to get home,” I said, turning back to Dorian and Rurik. There was some mistake here, some mix-up. Art wasn’t involved in this. He couldn’t be, at least not in the way Dorian had suggested. “I have to talk to someone. Immediately.”

I waited for the requisite Dorian joke, but none came as he mounted his own horse. “Then we go different ways. Be careful, Eugenie.” For some reason, frankness and concern from Dorian was more disconcerting than his usual banter.

“If I’m right about this, then it’s a human matter. Should be a cakewalk compared to what I deal with around here.”

Dorian shook his head. “I’d have to disagree. Give me demons and restless spirits any day over human deceit. But if you need help, I’m here. Just ask.”

Again, there should have been a joke here. I glanced away, troubled by the way he looked at me. “Thanks. Hopefully it’ll be a simple matter.” How exactly? That I didn’t know. I wasn’t sure that roughing Art up would really accomplish anything—if he truly was at fault here. “See you later, Dorian.”

He nodded by way of a farewell. Then: “And of course, my dear, you may kill as many humans as you like, but please try not to harm any more of my subjects. If you can help it.” There it was, at last. The joke.

“Noted,” I said. I attempted a glare, but there was a smile on my lips as I did.

I set a hard pace back to my castle and the gateway that would bring me back to my own world. Crossing over at the Yellow River one would have been faster, but I needed to go to my home in Tucson and prepare myself before facing Art. Rurik matched my pace easily and mercifully stayed silent. He’d watched me and Dorian together the way a child watches his or her divorced parents, in the hopes that Mommy and Daddy might make amends someday.

My whirling thoughts made the trip go fast—as did the land’s quick route today—and we were greeted with a commotion when we reached the castle’s outer borders. A group of guards came tearing toward us, and my heart seized. What now? A siege? Demons? Kiyo? Yet as they got closer, I could see that the guards almost looked…enthusiastic.

“Your majesty! My lord! We found her.”

Rurik and I drew our horses to a halt and climbed down. I felt my legs scream and knew I’d be sore later. I wasn’t so practiced a rider that I could ride like that without consequences. I ignored the pain and turned to the guards.

“Who?” I demanded.

“We have her. The girl. The runaway girl from Westoria,” said the guard, clearly pleased at his success. Rurik and I exchanged puzzled glances.

“That’s impossible. We already saw her.”

The guard shrugged. “We found her out near the steppes, by the Rowan Land border. She matches the description and was clearly afraid of us. She tried to run away.”

“Take me to her,” I said helplessly. Had my guards found another of these kidnapped girls? It would certainly provide more information.

He led us inside toward one of the little-used rooms, explaining that they hadn’t wanted to put her in the dungeon—although her fear and desire to escape had required a guard. His expression turned uncomfortable.

“We, um, also had to bind her in iron. She kept attempting magic. They’re still not able to fully stop her.”

A guard like this could never handle iron shackles without causing himself intense pain. Sometimes, though, prisoners would be bound in bronze cuffs with a tiny bit of iron affixed to them. It required delicate handling by the captors but was usually enough to stunt the prisoner’s magic.

We reached the room, and the men on duty stepped aside for us to enter. There, across the room, a slim young woman had her back to us. Long blond hair cascaded down her back, and I had a weird, disorienting sense for a moment as my brain grappled with the possibility that Moria had somehow made it here before us. Then, as the girl slowly turned around, the torchlight began bringing out glints of red in the golden hair that little Moria hadn’t had. I realized what was happening even before I fully saw my prisoner’s face.

“You have
got
to be kidding me,” I said.

It was Jasmine.

“You!”

Even with her hands bound, Jasmine didn’t hesitate to attack me. She came tearing across the room, face filled with fury. I’m not sure if her intent was to kick me or simply throw herself at me, but she never even got close. My guards were on her in a flash, hauling her back. Magic started to flare around her, but one of the guards countered it with some weak nullifying magic. Her iron cuffs made magic hard to use, but the human in her gave her greater resistance. I turned on all of them incredulously.

“That’s not the missing girl. That’s my sister! How could you not know that? She was Aeson’s mistress!”

It was Rurik who answered. “A lot of the guard has changed since Aeson’s time. Many here came as a gift from King Dorian.” It was true. Dorian had warned that even though I’d won the Thorn Land fair and square, many of those who had served Aeson would have a hard time shaking that loyalty. Rurik had consequently sifted through the servants and guards, getting rid of those he didn’t think could be trusted.

“Still,” I said. “Someone should have known. Where the hell is Shaya?”

“She is away, tending to administrative errands,” said the guard who’d been so excited initially. Now he seemed deeply embarrassed and upset.

Jasmine, meanwhile, hadn’t ceased in her struggles to break free of the guards. Without her magic, she wasn’t much of a threat and seemed to realize using it was futile right now. She stood average height for a girl her age, but her build was slim, and she always seemed a little too skinny. Maybe that just ran in our family. Her eyes were large and blue-gray, reminiscent of storm clouds.

“You can’t hold me here, Eugenie!” she screamed. “I’m going to break free and kill you. Then
I
will be the one to bear our father’s heir!”

“Jesus Christ,” I muttered. “The song remains the same.”

To be honest, I was actually kind of surprised Jasmine wasn’t already pregnant and took it as a positive sign that she was still referring to it as a future event. The prophecy that loomed over both of us said that Storm King’s daughter’s son would be the one to lead the battle to conquer humanity. It hadn’t specified which daughter, and apparently, Jasmine was still hell-bent on beating me to it.

“It’s going to happen,” Jasmine continued. “You can’t stop it.”

“Are you out of your mind?” I demanded. “You’re fifteen! You have no business even talking about getting pregnant, let alone conquering the human world. You were raised there, for God’s sake. Do you know how much Wil misses you?”

“I hate them,” she spat. With the angry look in her eyes, I expected to hear thunder rumbling somewhere. “I hate them all. Even him. I never belonged there.
This
is my world.”

“Not if I pack you up and send you to Catholic boarding school somewhere,” I mused, rather entertained by the idea.

“They’d never be able to hold me.”

“I was joking. Geez, doesn’t sarcasm run in the family?”

“You’ll never be able to hold me either. Your men got lucky, and you know it. I’ve been dodging them for weeks, each time they thought they had me.”

I rolled my eyes at her smug attitude, secretly wondering what the hell I was going to do with her now. I’d spent all this time hunting her and had almost gotten used to the idea that she was gone for good. Now that we had her, I was at a bit of a loss. Never would I have guessed that my guards would inadvertently stumble across her while looking for Moria. In the midst of my puzzling, Jasmine’s words suddenly replayed through my mind.

“My guys have never found you before,” I said. “Believe me, we’ve been looking.”

Jasmine stared at me like I was crazy, which was something, considering that she was the one who needed to be on medication. “They almost got me last week. Maybe they were just too embarrassed about how I nearly drowned them with a tidal wave to tell you.”

I shot a questioning look to Rurik, who shook his head. I turned back to her. “Those weren’t my guys.” A strange thought suddenly occurred to me. “Were they human?”

“No, of course not.”

“Are you sure?”

Jasmine gave me a narrow-eyed look. “I know the difference between humans and shining ones.
You’re
the one who’s in denial, trying to act like you’re all-human.”

I doubted she would say that if she had any idea what I’d been contending with here lately. Her obnoxious adolescent attitude aside, I was thinking again about what she’d said. She’d spoken of nearly being caught…by whom? I thought back to my meeting with Moria and her babbling about the Red Snake Man. I’d made a huge leap about Art being responsible for kidnapping her and the others.

Again, I slowed down my racing mind to think of other options. It was possible that Moria’s red snake was something entirely different. Or, maybe she’d just run into him here. Like all shamans, he probably crossed over every now and then. Maybe she’d seen the tattoo then. Or, perhaps most likely, was my earlier notion that Art had simply banished her back. All of that seemed more plausible. Yet was it enough to cause Moria such terror? That was the repeated question with no answer.

And now here was Jasmine, also talking about abduction. It seemed too much of a coincidence that that would happen while other young girls were disappearing.

“Were they brigands?” I asked Jasmine. “Like…sort of rough and dirty types?”

“They were guards or some other kind of fighter,” she said. “Stop trying to act like you had nothing to do with it. I know the difference between a bunch of gross beggars and trained soldiers.”

“Yeah, yeah, you’re a freaking genius,” I muttered.

“That’s not hard, compared to you.”

“Oh, look at that. Sarcasm is in the genes.” When I was younger, I’d hated being an only child and had longed for siblings. I’d never in my wildest dreams imagined this was what I’d end up with. “What did these guys look like? Were they in uniform?” My guards’ uniforms were mismatched. They all had leather armor, but Dorian’s recruits wore the green of his army while mine had blue left over from Aeson. Some just wore whatever color tunics they wanted.

“I’m not telling you anything else,” she said. “Now let me go!”

There was almost a whine to her command, making her seem very much her age and less like someone literally set on world domination. Of course, there was no way I was letting her out of this place, not when she was clearly willing to spread her legs for anyone who might help fulfill our deranged father’s grand plans.

Then, staring at her young face, a new thought occurred to me. I was always so concerned about her wanting to get pregnant that I never paid much attention to the idea of her facing the same risks I did. My queenly status had given me some reprieve, but there were still plenty of Otherworldly guys not above raping me. Jasmine had to be facing the same thing, the target of anyone who wanted to be the father of Storm King’s heir. These soldiers she was talking about might have had no connection at all to Moria’s abductors—if she had been abducted. Fuck. This was all hurting my brain. I needed to talk to Roland and Art before jumping to any more conclusions.

And in the meantime, this was all good reason to keep Jasmine under lock and key.

“Sorry,” I told her. “You aren’t going anywhere. You’ll be lucky if I don’t break out the Depo-Provera and fill your cell full of abstinence propaganda.”

“Cell? You are
not
locking me in any cell.” Her lips were puffed into a pout. Again, she seemed so much like any ordinary surly teen that I nearly laughed. She looked more like a girl who’d been grounded from texting than one who aspired to be an all-powerful fairy queen.

When I didn’t respond, the impact seemed to truly hit her.

“You can’t…you can’t do that! Do you know who I am? I’m a princess. I’m Storm King’s daughter! My son is going to rule the worlds.”

I shook my head. “No, you’re a self-absorbed brat in serious need of discipline and counseling.”

“You can’t do that!”

“I can…or did you forget who
I
am? I’m the big sister who rules a kingdom and isn’t going to let you jump all over this prophecy.”

“You can’t lock me up forever,” she warned.

“She’s right,” a voice behind me said.

I turned and saw Ysabel hovering near the doorway. She didn’t look terrified of me anymore, but she no longer bore that cocky arrogance. She looked cool and aloof.

“You can’t lock her up forever,” continued Ysabel. “You should kill her.”

“What?” Both Jasmine and I spoke at the same time. Ysabel seemed perfectly blasé about it all.

“She’s your greatest rival to bearing Storm King’s grandson. So long as she lives, she always will be an obstacle. The only way you’ll be free and retain your power is if she’s gone.”

I started to protest that I didn’t want to beat Jasmine to the prophecy. Then, I realized that part didn’t matter. It was Jasmine’s own desire for getting pregnant that was the problem, and Ysabel was right to a certain extent. As long as Jasmine was around, I wouldn’t have any peace.

I slowly shook my head. “I’m not killing my own sister. But I am double-binding her. Somebody get another set of iron cuffs.”

I saw a few guards flinch. Even with as little iron as the cuffs had, that was still more than most gentry could comfortably handle. Doubling it would stunt her magic even more, but that human blood was still going to give us trouble.

“I want her cell guarded at all times,” I told Rurik. “With more than you usually would post. And make sure you’ve got guards that can actually use magic.” Someone had returned with the second set of cuffs by then, causing Jasmine to start up a new round of shrieks and protests.

Rurik gave me a nod and then said in a low voice, “If I could speak to your majesty in private?”

I arched an eyebrow. Rurik always obeyed me but rarely bothered with formalities or respect, which didn’t bother me. In public, though, he always used my titles, and I wondered what was on his mind. We stepped out of the room, past a disapproving Ysabel, and came to a halt a little ways down the hall.

“Keeping the girl locked and under guard might not be the best idea,” he said.

I groaned. “Don’t tell me you think I should kill her too.”

He shrugged. “Dorian would tell you to. But if you insist on keeping her here, then get that demon of yours to guard her.”

For a moment, I thought of the fire demons. Then, I realized he was using a more generalized term. “You mean Volusian?”

“I’m not saying they’d do it….” Rurik hesitated. “But I’m not saying they wouldn’t either. A lot of those guards might be tempted by the thought of fathering the heir, and if she offered…”

“Good God. She’s fifteen.”

“Old enough. It didn’t stop Aeson, and if she convinced one of the guards, her age wouldn’t matter. I’m guessing your, uh, friend wouldn’t be so easily swayed.”

Volusian swayed by sex? Hardly. Particularly if he was under my commands.

“Fine. I’ll summon him.” Volusian would also stop any magic she could muster.

“You might also consider finding a potion master to create a tincture of nightshade.”

“A what?”

“It’s a drink that will inhibit her from using her magic.”

“Isn’t nightshade poisonous?”

“Not to shining ones. Not if mixed with the right ingredients. With her human blood, it will, ah, leave her a little…disoriented. But it won’t kill her.”

“I’m not going to keep her in a drugged stupor.” I started to return to the room and then paused to give Rurik a canny look. “Why warn me? I remember a time when
you
wanted to father the heir. Why not take your own shot?”

“With her?” Rurik snorted. “I still wouldn’t hesitate to beget Storm King’s grandson—but she’s not the one. The heir’s mother should be a warrior, and unfortunately, that only leaves you.”

“You’re never getting near my bed, Rurik.”

“Yes, I’ve deduced as much. But I would still support Storm King’s grandson and would be nearly as happy for my lord the Oak King to father him.”

“Dorian? That’s the only other alternative as far as you’re concerned?”

Rurik’s expression seemed to wonder that there could be any question. “Who else?”

I shook my head and left him, off to order the imprisonment of my sister.

Before setting Volusian on permanent guard duty, I had one brief task for him. He wasn’t very happy about it, not that that came as any real surprise.

“My mistress, as usual, is intent on furthering my eternal torment.”

“I don’t really see how watching a teenage girl is that bad—for you, anyway. It’s going to be a lot harder on her.”

“I am a being of considerable power. I cannot die. If you insist on enslaving me, you should use my abilities to bring nations to their knees.” Volusian’s red eyes narrowed ever so slightly. “Instead, my mistress dispatches me to supervise children and deliver love notes.”

“It’s not a love note! Just ask him, okay?”

Volusian blinked once and then vanished.

While he couldn’t teleport, exactly, he could travel much faster than human or gentry. After Jasmine’s capture and Moria implicating Art, I wanted nothing more than to sit down with Kiyo. I needed to talk this out. I wasn’t used to this sort of turmoil and indecision in my life. I longed for the days when my job had simply been to go out, find the monster, and get rid of it. It had been a lot easier than this sort of deliberation.

Kiyo, to my knowledge, was with Maiwenn, and I’d dispatched Volusian to see if Kiyo would come to me later. It was the closest I could get to making a phone call in the Otherworld—but still far from it, seeing that it took Volusian about twenty minutes to get back to me.

“You see?” I said when he appeared in my bedroom. “That wasn’t so bad.”

“The kitsune says he will come to you in two hours,” Volusian said in his flat voice, not deigning to acknowledge my comment.

Two hours. Well, it was better than nothing. I sighed. “Okay. Thanks.”

Volusian simply stared. My gratitude meant nothing to him.

“Alright. Go watch Jasmine then. Don’t let her escape, and for God’s sake, don’t let her get pregnant.”