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“I should be dead,” Kishori thought, as she left the house and walked back to the woods. Her hands ached terribly, and she had cuts and bruises everywhere. But they had let her live, in spite of everything. She had tried to kill Edwin Sigor, and he had decided to forgive her. More than that, he wanted her help now, and he was willing to trust her.
The contrast with Muriel couldn’t have been more stark. Edwin was decent and honorable, while the queen was cruel and vindictive. There was no doubt in Kishori’s mind which one deserved to rule Myrcia. Edwin would be a great king, if he could win this war.
But that didn’t mean Kishori necessarily wanted to be at his side when he did. She appreciated his trust, and she owed him her life. But she really just wanted to go home and see her husband. She would go back to Montgomery, get Jon, and then the two of them would go somewhere very far away. Maybe Annenstruk or the Empire. Maybe Minerto or Themasek—as far away as they could possibly get. Somewhere they would never be found by anyone, either Gramiren or Sigor.
She reached her horse and was untying it from the tree when she heard footsteps. Wheeling around, she instinctively touched her thumb to her finger, where a ring had been, and then cried out at the sudden jolt of fiery pain.
“Let me see those wounds,” said a deep voice. It was Caedmon Aldred. She shrank from him, but he took her hand, anyway. He muttered something under his breath and traced the burn with his fingertip. Instantly, the pain disappeared. He repeated the spell on the other hand and then stepped back. “I was concerned you would find it difficult to ride with your hands in that condition.”
“Thank you,” she said. Again, she was incurring a debt that she couldn’t possibly repay.
The hillichmagnar nodded. “I also wanted a brief word with you. Alone. I want to know precisely how Queen Muriel found you. You say the queen forced you to enter her service. But how was it that she tracked you down to begin with?”
Kishori shivered at the memory. “There was a woman. A hillichmagnar, like you. Her name was Jorunn.”
Caedmon mouthed the name along with her and then sighed, shaking his head. “Jorunn has been a friend for many years, in spite of our differences. But she has stopped answering my messages lately. I am afraid I must ask you to take on another mission.”
She took the bridle of her horse and started walking away. “I’m sorry, but I have this mission for King Edwin.”
Caedmon appeared right in front of her, blocking her path to the road. “I do not think you have any intention of joining the king. I do not blame you for that. But if you ever wish to live a quiet life, you must see Jorunn again. You must tell her what happened here and what Muriel forced you to do.” He held up his hands. “Otherwise, Jorunn will find you again, on Muriel’s orders, and she will not be so forgiving as she was last time.”
“This woman is going to kill me,” said Kishori, “so you want me to go looking for her?”
“Jorunn is not an evil person,” he said. “She believes, wrongly, that helping the Gramirens a little will bring peace.”
She remembered Jorunn saying that very thing to the queen. From everything that Kishori knew now, Jorunn was delusional. “Why do you think she would listen to me?”
“Because you have proof she cannot ignore: your own experience.”
Kishori promised she would find Jorunn and warn her about the queen. She would have said anything to get away. All she wanted to do was get home and never see any of these people again. But as she rode west, down the Trahern Valley, her conscience bothered her. Caedmon was right, of course, that Jorunn might hunt her down again. And Jorunn could do that to someone else, too. Maybe to Lady Rada, or some other retired Yotha. Jorunn would think she was doing the right thing, but she would be helping the worst people imaginable.
Someday, with Jorunn’s help, Muriel would try again. And perhaps this time she would be successful. Edwin would die, and maybe Elwyn, too. And it would be at least partly Kishori’s fault. Right now, she had the power to try and stop it from happening. All she had to do was find Jorunn and tell her what sort of a person the queen really was.
With the greatest reluctance, she took the road for Formacaster, rather than turning southwest for Montgomery. Courage didn’t come naturally to her anymore; she had spent years and years running away. But warning Jorunn would make up for all the horrible things she had ever done in her life.
She got to Formacaster a week later, early in the morning, with the roads full of farm carts coming to market. The city was waking up, with shopkeepers setting out their signs and shoppers rushing here and there with baskets on their arms. Kishori saw a tavern girl washing the front stoop, and she thought of how many times she had done that at her own tavern. It made her unspeakably homesick, and she almost gave up on the spot. But she knew she would spend the rest of her life afraid if she didn’t do this now.
The guards at the castle hill let her up the long, winding road when she told them she was on a mission from the queen. “Hopefully I’ll be finished and out of here by the time Muriel hears about that,” Kishori thought.
Wealdan Castle stood at the far northern end of the long, flat hill. At the southern end, where Kishori found herself now, there was a lone building—a large manor house sprouting verandas and porches and gables. It was designed with obsessive symmetry, and if it hadn’t been for the well-worn path in the rock leading up to one of the doors, Kishori wouldn’t have known quite where she was supposed to enter.
This was the Magnarhus, the official residence of the court hillichmagnars of Myrcia. Before Broderick and Muriel had seized power, this had been Caedmon Aldred’s home. According to Caedmon, this was the most likely place to find Lady Jorunn.
Kishori knocked on the door, and as she waited, she turned and looked out from the porch at the soaring towers of Wealdan Castle, only a few hundred yards away. Muriel was there, and Kishori shuddered as she remembered the dungeon and the dark, steam-filled pump room.
A minute passed, and no one answered the door. So, Kishori tried it and found it open. “Hello? Lady Jorunn?” she called out, looking in.
There was no reply. She entered and found herself in a parlor full of well-worn furniture and thick old carpets. The walls were covered with painted scrolls and intricate little paintings of fanciful buildings that Kishori had never seen.
Someone definitely lived there. A writing desk stood open, with sheets of used blotting paper lining a small waste can. An empty glass sat on a little side table near the hearth. A book with a strip of old parchment for a bookmark lay on the couch. “Lady Jorunn?” Kishori called.
She went upstairs, and though most of the bedrooms were clearly unoccupied, she found one where the bed was made and another stack of books sat on the bedside table. “Well, she’s around here somewhere,” thought Kishori. “I just have to go downstairs and wait.”
As she headed for the stairs, she heard the door open, and she rushed down, only to see a knight in Gramiren livery standing there. Beyond him, there were more soldiers on the front porch.
“The queen would like to speak with you,” the knight said.
“Where’s Lady Jorunn?”
“Out,” the man said, with a slight shrug, as if the comings and goings of the lady hillichmagnar were no concern of his. “Come along now. The queen is waiting.”
She tried to run, but they caught her in the upstairs hallway with embarrassing swiftness now that her rings had been destroyed. They bound her hands, gagged her, and then dragged her out of the Magnarhus and up the path to the castle.
She was expecting the dungeon again, but instead, the soldiers took her through the huge front doors and across the vast Palm Court. The sunlight poured in through the massive glass dome, and the waterfalls rumbled and hissed in shaded corners. A few courtiers and servants turned and watched as she was led past, but none of them looked inclined to help.
Up a winding stairway, and the soldiers led Kishori into a huge suite, glistening with gilded ornaments and polished marble. The walls were a pure, creamy white, almost dazzling in the morning light from the long row of windows.
At the far end of the room, the queen lounged on a black velvet settee with a young knight, who was playing a song on a small lute. “Lovely, Brian,” she said, noticing Kishori and the soldiers, “but perhaps you can finish your little composition later.” She kissed his cheek. “Or, on second thought, I could find something else for those clever fingers of yours to do.”
The young man left, and the queen rose from the couch. She wore a robe of silver silk, barely tied with a gold cord, so that it gaped open, revealing her cleavage and one of her legs from mid-thigh. She stared at Kishori, eyebrow raised, and then went to a sideboard to pour wine. “So, you failed,” she said. It was a mere statement of fact, with no obvious emotion in her voice.
“Yes, your majesty.”
“And you failed so completely that I’ve now lost my agent who was fucking Elwyn Sigor, too.” She turned, with a glass in either hand. “A messenger reached me only an hour ago.”
“I...I am sorry, your majesty.”
“And yet you came straight back here, and you went to the Magnarhus. I wonder what you wanted to say to Lady Jorunn.”
Kishori didn’t trust herself to speak.
“Jorunn is a dear woman, but she has a number of illusions. I do my best to cater to her, and I would not like for her to be...disillusioned.”
“Of course, your majesty.”
Muriel smiled. There was something almost genuine about it, though the icy blue eyes remained wary. “I forgive you for your failure. And as for Hildred Cuthing, she was more trouble than she was worth—a spoiled brat without the sense Earstien gave a walnut.” She held out one of the glasses. “Come. Have a drink with me, and we will discuss your next assignment.”
Kishori looked at the glass, but she didn’t take it.
“Oh, for Finster’s sake,” said the queen. She held out the other glass, too. “Here. You can choose which one you like.”
Looking around, Kishori saw that the soldiers were moving closer. Either to arrest her, or because they thought she might attack Muriel. For a second, she even considered grabbing the glass, breaking it, and trying to slash the queen’s throat. But she doubted she could do it before the soldiers stopped her.
She took the glass.
Muriel smiled and took a long drink out of hers, then said, “Go on.” The smile faded slightly. “There are two paths that lead from here, my dear girl. On one path, you drink that wine and prove you’re a friend. On the other path....” She glanced over Kishori’s shoulder, and there was a soft, metallic hiss as one of the soldiers drew a knife.
Kishori took a drink. It tasted pretty good. From her work at the tavern, Kishori knew the flavor of expensive wine, and this was it. She took another sip.
“Very good,” said the queen. She turned and gestured toward the long, velvet-cushioned seat in front of the windows. “Now that you’ve chosen to be my friend, come and sit. Let’s talk about what you can do for me.”
Kishori took a step in that direction, but her knees shook, and she staggered, trying to stay upright. The glass slipped out of her hand and shattered on the floor. “What...?” she gasped. Her chest heaved, and her throat began to tighten.
The queen smiled. “You’ll be feeling rather light-headed now, I imagine. I can’t say for certain what will happen after that. I’ve been dosing myself with a small amount of this for years now, so I’ve never felt the full effect. It really pays off in the end to take those kind of precautions.” A low, menacing chuckle. “I suppose you’re wishing that you’d done the same.”
The room swam and blurred before Kishori’s eyes. She was lying on the floor now, in the spilled wine, but she didn’t remember falling. She clutched at her throat, fighting for air, and she felt her heart racing along in a jerking, halting rhythm. “My...my husband,” she whispered.
“Don’t worry. He’ll be with you soon.” The queen raised a hand, and some of the soldiers drew close, carrying a large, weighted sack. “If it’s any consolation, you and he will be in the same river.”
The light started fading, and the queen’s voice sounded like it was coming from another room. “I’m very sorry we have to part,” said Muriel, “but I’m so glad we can part as friends.”