CHAPTER TWENTY

 

 

Losing people isn’t the type of thing a person gets used to.

At least, if someone has, I don’t want to meet the bastard.

—Captain during Fey War mourning the loss of his troops after battle

 

Maeve stood at the corner of the room, wringing her hands and doing her best to keep from pacing while Emille examined Challadius. They had arrived several hours earlier, and the woman had immediately begun seeing to him, cleaning and rebandaging the wound. She’d also administered several tonics, ones she’d had to pour down his throat as the mage hadn’t regained consciousness since the castle.

Meanwhile, Guardsman Nigel and his wife sat in the other room, talking quietly, and Maeve could see the excitement at being reunited in their eyes. Part of her hated them for that, hated them for finding any sort of pleasure while Challadius lay fighting for his life. It seemed a terrible cruelty to her that the guardsman’s wife might be reunited with the man she loved while Maeve was forced to consider the very strong possibility that she would lose hers.

And she did love him. Despite many years of pretending the contrary—particularly to herself—she was forced, now, to confront the fact that she loved him, that she had always loved him. And despite her unjust anger at the guardsman and his wife, she knew that there was no one to blame but herself for the fact that that love had gone unrealized for so long.

Just as there was no one to blame for the fact that the assassin had managed to wound Chall in the first place. The mage had many talents, but hand-to-hand fighting was decidedly not one of them. That was Maeve’s territory. He had counted on her, and she had failed him. And because of that, he now lay within inches of death, all because she hadn’t been fast enough, hadn’t been good enough. Maeve the Marvelous, they called you, she thought with an angry sneer. What a pathetic joke. What good were all her talents if she could not even use them to defend the man she loved? What point in them, in any of it? She had lost one such man, long ago, when the Skaalden had come to their homeland, bringing with them that unnatural frost and fog, had lost him somewhere in the mist, him and her child.

That loss had nearly broken her. Had broken her, in fact, and she had only begun to come back together after meeting the prince and Priest…and Chall. She knew that, this time, that loss would kill her, and she thought that was okay. If Chall died, then she wanted to die as well. Let the Known Lands, let all of it, be someone else’s problem. For years, she and her companions, Chall among them, had risked their lives for the kingdom and what thanks had they received for their efforts? The prince exiled, Chall lying inches away from death, and though he had not said as much, Maeve got the impression that Priest was faring little better. Something had changed in the man in the last days, as if some light that had always filled him, one she had not even noticed until it was gone, had faded.

And then there was her. An old useless assassin who, it seemed, was fated by the gods to watch her friends fall in front of her one by one until she alone was left. And there was nothing she could do about it, not now. She’d had her chance with the assassin that went by Felara, and she had failed. So now she stood in the corner of the room, wringing her hands, her body bathed in a cold sweat, and hoped. Hoped in a hopeless world that Emille could do what she could not—that she could save Chall.

After what felt like an eternity of waiting, of starting at each moan the mage made in his sleep as the healer tended to him, Emille rose and walked to her. Maeve watched her, trying to determine by her stride, by her expression, the mage’s welfare, but the woman’s face was a blank mask.

“How…how is he?” she asked, barely able to get the words out past her fear.

“He’s strong,” Emille said, “a lot stronger than I would have given him credit for. A fighter. If you would have showed up even an hour later, I would have said he had no chance. As it is…” She slowly shook her head. “He’s lost a lot of blood, lady. Thankfully, the blade didn’t strike any vital organs but…there’s just no way to know for sure. If he makes it through the night, he should be out of the worst of it.”

If he makes it through the night.

Those words rang in Maeve’s mind like a clarion bell, like some grim pronouncement of certain doom, and a shiver of fear ran up her spine. Her vision went black for a moment then, a black darker even than the tunnel through which she and Chall had traveled.

The next thing she knew, she was in Emille’s arms. The healer-assassin said something, but her voice sounded muzzy, as if she spoke through fabric, and Maeve could not make out the words.

If he makes it through the night.

“What?” she said, her voice sounding slurred as if she’d spent a night drinking. “What?”

“Lady Maeve.”

The room was spinning wildly, and Maeve’s stomach was in knots.

If he makes it through the night.

“Please,” she moaned, “oh, please,” but if someone had asked her, in that moment, who she spoke to—herself, Emille, the gods—even she could not have said. She closed her eyes, squeezing them shut as if by doing so she might not just block out the spinning room but the reality of what lay within it.

She was trembling, and the strength was gone from her legs, the only thing keeping her upright the healer’s arms wrapped around her. The woman spoke to her then. She could not tell, in that maelstrom of emotions which gripped her, what the woman said, but while she could not make out the words, the tone was clear enough. It was a soothing, comforting tone, the sort of tone a mother might use to comfort her child or a stablemaster his horses and, slowly, the worst of the storm began to subside.

Finally, she slowly opened her eyes.

“Lady Maeve,” Emille said, watching her carefully, her face full of so much compassion that Maeve felt tears began to gather in her eyes. “Are you alright?”

No, Maeve thought, no, I don’t think I am. In fact, I think I am very, very far from alright. “I’m…fine,” she rasped, her throat feeling unaccountably dry. “Just…just lost my balance for a moment.” But then, she did not think it was her balance she had lost, not really. More likely, she thought it might be her mind. Lost or losing and in the end it made little difference which it was.

If he makes it through the night.

“What…what can I do for him?” she asked.

A look equal parts sadness and desperation came over the woman’s face then. “Nothing, lady,” she said softly. “It…it’s up to the gods now.”

Nothing. She could do nothing for him now just as she could do nothing for him when the assassin attacked. One woman, one against four and she had beaten them as if it were nothing, would have killed them all had Petran not managed a lucky blow with a whiskey decanter. She was left, then, to hope to benevolence from gods who had never showed her—or, so far as she could tell, any person of the Known Lands—the least bit of it.

“You…you care for him deeply, don’t you?”

“Yes,” Maeve croaked. “More than he knows.” She met the woman’s eyes. “More than even I knew, I think.”

The healer nodded. “Well, if it helps any, lady, I believe that he will make it through.”

“You believe,” Maeve repeated, watching the woman.

Emille gave her the smallest of smiles. “I hope.”

Hope. Maeve’s life had taught her many lessons but hope was not one of them. “I’m afraid I have no hope left in me, Emille,” she whispered, studying Chall’s unconscious form and the bandages wrapped around him.

“That’s okay, lady,” the woman said softly as she turned her own eyes to the mage. “I have enough hope for the both of us.”

Maeve turned to look at the woman then. Here she was worrying over Chall when the woman’s husband was out risking his life to find Priest before the man made it to the castle not to mention the fact that Maeve and the others had endangered her and her husband’s lives not once but twice in coming here. Yet, the woman was comforting her, offering not a single word of complaint. “I’m…sorry,” Maeve said. “For coming here, for putting you and your husband in danger again.”

The woman gave a small smile, but Maeve could see that it cost her. “It’s nothing, lady.”

“No,” Maeve said, “it’s not nothing. I have nothing, nothing to offer you in return, but I want you to know, Emille…I won’t forget what you and your husband have done for us.”

“But you’re wrong, lady,” the healer said. “You and your companions do offer us something. You offer us the chance at a better world, a better kingdom.”

Maeve winced. “A slim chance, that is.”

The woman gave another smile, this one seemingly easier than the last. “Maybe, but any chance is better than none. And as for my husband, I wouldn’t worry too much. That man is too damned stubborn and annoying to do anything so convenient as die.”

Maeve found a small, fragile smile coming to her own face then. “Still…thank you.”

The woman inclined her head. “You’re very welcome, lady.”

Maeve was just about to say something more when there was a knock on the door, and she froze. “Oh fire and salt they must have followed us,” she said, “they must have—”

“Relax, lady,” Emille said, putting a hand on her shoulder. “I know that knock—I’m fairly sure I’ve had a nightmare about it recently. Come—you will see that things are not so bad as that.”

The woman started toward the door but Maeve glanced at Chall. “He will be alright, lady,” Emille said.

Maeve gave an expression somewhere between a smile and a grimace. “Hope?” she asked, looking at the woman.

Emille gave her a wink. “Exactly.”

Maeve took a deep slow breath then followed her into the house’s main room. They arrived in time to see the carriage driver, Ned, stepping inside. And, behind him, a figure that some large part of Maeve had thought she would never see again. “Priest!” she shouted, the word out of her mouth before she could help it, and then she was running across the small room, pulling the man into a tight embrace.

The man held her, strong and gentle at once as was his way, saying nothing, unmoving as Maeve shed hot, wet tears into his shoulder. Finally, she pulled away, meeting his eyes.

“How is he?” Priest asked softly.

“Emille says…that…if he makes it through the night, he’ll…be out of the worst of it.”

The man nodded grimly, putting a hand on her shoulder. “He will make it, Maeve.”

“I wonder…” Maeve said, trying to lighten the mood, “if you couldn’t put in a good word with your goddess.”

The man winced at that, recoiling as if she’d struck him then obviously trying to feign that he had not. “I…will try, lady, though I do not know if the goddess listens to me any longer. In fact…” He trailed off, shaking his head and not finishing. But then, he didn’t need to. Maeve could read the remaining part of the sentence as if it were written on the man’s forehead. In fact, I’m not sure that she ever did.

An exiled prince, a washed-up assassin, a priest who had lost his faith, and a mage who might not survive the night. What chances did such as them have, Maeve thought, of righting all that had gone wrong in the Known Lands? Slim, she had told Emille, but now, looking at Priest, at the anguish that he kept hidden from his features but could not entirely conceal from his eyes, she thought that “none” was far closer to the truth.

“What news do you bring?” she asked, desperate to change the subject, to talk, to think about anything but the man who lay in the next room dying.

Priest’s expression grew grim at that. “Best we gather everyone—we will all want…need to hear this.”

A few minutes later they were all gathered around the table. Guardsman Nigel’s wife, Paula, with her arms wrapped around her husband, a look of defiant challenge on her face as if she dared him to try to leave her once more. Ned and Emille stood, their hands clasped together and somehow, in that small gesture, demonstrated a love as great as that shown by the guardsman’s wife. Maeve sat with Petran on one side of her, the historian looking lost and confused and afraid, much like Maeve felt. Priest sat at the head of the table.

“Before you share whatever news you have,” Emille said, “perhaps it would be best if you all explain what happened at the castle.”

Maeve was at once anxious and terrified of what Priest might say, but she nodded, quickly recounting the events inside the castle. The others listened without interruption save for gasps of surprise and fear, and by the time she was finished Emille’s face had gone a deathly pale.

“Felara, you said?” Emille asked. “Are you sure?”

“I’m sure,” Maeve snarled, the thought of the woman who had so badly hurt Chall making anger roil within her. “She made sure we knew—was proud of it.”

“As well she might be,” Emille said, licking her lips. “Felara…she is an assassin and not just any assassin but one known for being the best in the city.”

“And how would you know that?” Ned asked curiously, frowning at his wife.

Emille gave a dismissive wave, leaning toward Maeve. “And you are sure she lived?”

Maeve frowned. “I’m sure.”

Emille heaved a sigh, shaking her head. “This is bad. Felara is the best killer in the guild. She has never missed a mark, prides herself on that fact. She will not give up, not until she is dead or…”

“Until we are,” Maeve finished for her.

“That so?” Ned asked, raising an eyebrow at his wife. “Make a habit of hanging out with assassins do you, wife? Fire and salt what sort of things do you get up to while I’m out slaving away to make us coin?”

Emille winced, flushing. “It…they’re just rumors, that’s all. Ones heard at market.” She turned to Maeve then. “But ones repeated enough that they must surely be true.”

Ned was still looking at his wife strangely, and Maeve decided it best to change the subject. “Anyway, another assassin is nothing new, even if she is the best. Tell us,” she said, turning to Valden, “what happened?”

The man nodded grimly. “I went to Belle’s hideout,” he said without preamble, “and spoke to the new leader of her…organization.”

“And did you find out anything?” Maeve asked. “Anything that might help us?” she finished, doubting very much if such was the case.

“I…found out something,” Priest said, “but I do not know how it might help us.” The man hesitated then, a look of almost physical anguish mixed with fear coming over his face.

“Well?” Maeve asked, her own voice shaky, for she had known Priest for a long time, and the man was not the sort that frightened easy. “What is it?”

“Nadia, the new leader, divulged to me the identity of the person behind the assassination attempts on Prince Bernard and Guardsman Nigel.”

“And?” Maeve demanded. “Who was it? Some Feyling? Or one of the king’s new advisors?”

Priest winced. “No, Lady Maeve. It was not a fey creature nor one of the king’s advisors. According to Nadia, it was…” He took a slow, deep breath as if to steady himself. “The assassination was ordered by none other than King Matthias himself.”

Silence descended on the room then, as loud as a thunderclap, and Maeve found herself staring at Priest, wondering if it wasn’t some sort of terrible joke. But the man did not laugh or smile, only returned her gaze with a miserable one of his own.

“But that can’t be right!” Ned exclaimed, startling Maeve. “I met the king, if only for a moment, and he seemed like a good enough sort. Young, sure, but that’s a crime we’re all guilty of at one time or another.”

“He tried to kill his own father?” Petran said. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

“No, it doesn’t,” Maeve agreed with a desperation in her voice even she could hear. “Matt loves the pri—Cutter. Why, he’d be dead if it weren’t for him.”

“I said as much,” Priest said, “but Nadia assures me that it is true. She had it from the mouth of one of the assassins hired for the task.”

“Well…it…she has to be lying, that’s all,” Maeve said. “Matt would never…” She trailed off then, thinking of how the youth had acted in the last weeks. True, the young boy who had once lived in Brighton, the young boy who she had come to know and even love like a favored nephew over the past months, would never have contemplated killing anyone, least of all Cutter, for he had idolized him. But then, that boy had changed. Matt had become something, someone different since they’d arrived in New Daltenia, and had, over the last days, seemed to endeavor to put increasingly more distance between himself and Cutter, as well as Maeve and the rest.

“But…but why?” she demanded. “Why would Matt do such a thing?”

Priest shook his head grimly. “I have thought long and hard on that myself, Maeve, since first learning of it, and I have come to only one conclusion—he wouldn’t.”

Maeve frowned. “But you’re saying he did. What are you talking abou—”

“Matthias wouldn’t,” Priest interrupted. “But I do not think that the man we know as king is Matthias, not any longer.”

“Well, that’d be a neat trick,” Ned said. “What are you saying, that he’s got a twin and that twin decided to show up, take his place?”

“No,” Priest said, his eyes still locked on Maeve, “not a twin.”

“So…what then?” Emille asked. “You think he’s being blackmailed or…or threatened maybe?”

“No,” Priest said again, still watching Maeve. “I fear that what has befallen Matthias is far worse than that.”

Maeve shook her head in frustration. “Then what?” she demanded. “Besides, it couldn’t be blackmail, could it? It seemed that Matt started acting strangely the moment we arrived in New Daltenia, and he was with us all along.”

“I believe you are wrong, Maeve.”

She snorted angrily. “I think I would have known if the lad had snuck off somewhere, Priest, or if someone had kidnapped him. I might be old and addled, but I’m not that addled. Not yet at least.”

“What I mean,” Priest said, “is that you are wrong that Matthias has been acting strangely since we arrived in the city. Think back, Maeve. When did we first notice him acting…unusual?”

Maeve frowned, opening her mouth to utter some angry, dismissive remark, but then she paused. Priest was right. Matt hadn’t started acting strangely when they arrived in New Daltenia but before then. “You mean…Two Rivers?” she asked.

“Yes,” Priest said. “And what happened in Two Rivers, Maeve?”

She sighed, frustrated. “We fought two Fey creatures who were trying to take over, as you well know. One of them a Glutton and the other—”

“The other?” Priest asked softly.

Maeve frowned. “I don’t know what she was—I’ve never seen one before.”

“Nor have I,” Priest said, “but do you remember what she did?”

Maeve nodded slowly, casting her thoughts back to Two Rivers, to the mayor’s home where they nearly died. “She…seemed to make the people obey her, cast some sort of spell over them or something.”

“Exactly,” Priest said.

“And…what?” Nigel asked, chiming in for the first time. “What does it mean, sir? Do you believe that this Fey creature cast a spell over the king?”

“But that’s impossible,” Maeve said. “We killed it—it couldn’t do—”

“Not we, Maeve,” Priest said, watching her.

“Oh,” Maeve said. “You’re right. Matt killed it. But…what difference does that make? Dead is dead never mind the hand holding the sword. The creature couldn’t do anything, not with her head separated from her shoulders…could she?”

Priest shook his head slowly. “I don’t know, Maeve. I have never seen the like of that creature before—there is no knowing what it might do, just as there is no denying that it was following the killing of her that young Matthias began to act…erratic.”

Maeve blinked, feeling as if so many pieces of a puzzle were beginning to fall into place. “You’re right,” she said. “I thought…at the time, I mean, I thought that it was just, you know, the killing that had done it.” She hissed in anger. “Damn, I’m a fool.”

“If you are a fool then we all are,” Priest said, “for we all thought the same.”

“But…could it really do that?” Maeve asked. “Take…take him over, I mean?”

Priest shook his head, his frustration showing on his expression, and Maeve glanced around the room to see that same frustration and uncertainty mirrored on the faces of the others.

“Damn,” Ned breathed finally. “If what you’re saying is true, if they can really do that, I mean, then who’s to say what else they’ve done, what other terrible things they’ve been behind?”

“Deeds done in the darkness bear fruit in the day,” Maeve muttered.

“What’s that, lady?” Nigel asked.

Maeve shook her head, unsure herself of why the words had come to her. “It’s…a saying. Or, at least, I think it is. Cutter, he told me that Queen Layna, before…well, before, said it.” But then, she realized, remembering the odd conversation with the prince, that hadn’t been all he had said. He had said that Layna had claimed they were words her real mother had told her. “Shit,” she hissed.

“What is it, Maeve?” Priest asked.

“Shit,” she said again as the pieces began to fall into place, as she remembered Ladia, Layna’s mother, telling her that they had taken her daughter from her, telling her that they had done it even before she died. At the time, Maeve had thought it no more than a mother’s anger, likely justified. But…was it more than that?

She was standing from the table before she realized it, the others watching her. “I have to go,” she said.

“Go where?” Petran asked. “Lady Maeve, it isn’t safe in the city, you know that.”

“He’s right, lady,” Ned said. “Not the best time to be thinkin’ on taking a late-night stroll, if you ask me.”

“Maybe not,” Maeve said, “but I have to. If I’m right—” gods please let me be wrong—“then we never really won the war at all.”

Priest frowned. “What do you mean, Maeve? We drove the Fey back to the Black Wood.”

“Yes,” she said, “and they might have driven our kingdom apart. Now, I have to talk to someone…if she’s still alive.”

“An old friend?” Ned asked.

Maeve winced. “No. No, I think she’d call me plenty of things, but I doubt ‘friend’ would be among them. Still, there’s no choice, and I need to go now—as I recall, she lived on the far end of the city.”

“Well, if that’s the case, why not take the carriage?” Ned offered. “I can drive you and—”

“No,” Maeve interrupted quickly, glancing at Emille. “No, I have to go alone.”

The carriage driver shrugged. “If you say so, lady.”

“I do.” She moved to the door then paused with her hand on the latch. She’d been so caught up in her thoughts that she had nearly forgotten about Chall. “Wait,” she said, “I can’t leave, I—”

“I will look after him, lady,” Emille said softly. “You have my word.”

Maeve met her eyes, trying to convey some of the gratefulness she felt in her gaze, then she gave a nod and, before anyone could say anything to dissuade her—before she herself could think better of it—she opened the door and stepped out into the darkness.