The Born Queen

"Listen to her," Hespero said. "There's not much time."

Cazio looked down at Austra. "Do you trust him?"

"No," she replied. "But what choice do we have?"

"Well, I'm not letting him have you," Cazio replied. "He might kill you both."

She closed her eyes and took his hands. "Cazio, if that's what it takes…"

"No."

"I don't know why I spent any time talking to you at all," Hespero said. Cazio saw that he had drawn a rapier.

"You remember that your weapon can't hurt me, I trust."

"Oh, we'll find a way, Acredo and I," Cazio said, taking up his guard.

A

He laughed, just as he had laughed in the otherwhere she first had met him in.

What was so irritating was that she'd had him right under her nose-or at least the part of him that was Stephen. She could have killed him at any time, if only she'd understood, and this would never be happening. Worse, it had been her vision that sent him off to become-this.

How many of her other visions were false?

Well, there was still time to correct that mistake. She clapped her hands together and ripped him out of the world, into the sedos realm.

"A change of scene?" he said. "Very well, my queen."

The sky raged with her will; the land was all moors of black heather.

"This is mine," she told him. "All of it."

"Greedy," he said.

Her fury kindled deeper.

"I didn't want it. I didn't want any of this, but you all pushed me. The Faiths, you, my mother, Fastia, Artwair, Hespero-your threats and your promises. Always wanting something from me, always trying to take it by guile or trickery. No more. No more."

She struck out then, filling the space between them with death of sixteen kinds, and with lovely glee she watched him falter. Yet still he kept smiling, as if he knew something she didn't.

No more. She saw a seam in him and pulled him open like a book, spreading his pages before her.

"You dare call me greedy?" she said. "Look at what is in you. Look at what you've done."

"Oh, I've been a bad boy, I'll admit," he said. "But the world was still here when I went to sleep. You're going to be the end of it."

"I'll end you for certain," she said. "You and anyone else who won't-"

"Do what you say? Leave you alone? Wear the proper hat?"

"It's mine," A

"There you are," he said. "That's what we've all been waiting for."

She felt him bend his will toward her, and it was strong, much stronger then she had thought. Her lungs suddenly seized as if filled with sand, and the more she fought, the more the weight of him crushed her.

And still he smiled.

"Ah, little queen," he murmured. "I think I shall eat you up."

CHAPTER TWELVE

NEIL FELL and rolled, desperately clinging to consciousness. He fumbled for the little knife in his boot, but the man kicked him in the ribs hard, flipping him onto his back.

"Stand him up," he heard Robert say.

Rough hands lifted him and slapped him up against the wall of the house.

"That wasn't a bad performance," Robert said. "I had heard you were in worse shape." He laughed. "Well, now I guess you are."

Neil tried to focus on Robert's face. The other fellow had his head turned; he seemed to be looking for something.

Neil spit on the second man. He turned back and slapped Neil.

He hardly felt it.

Robert pinched Neil's cheeks. "Last time we talked," he said, "you likened me to a mad wolf who needed to be put down. And here twice you've failed to do that. There's no third chance for you, my friend."

"I didn't fail," Neil said. "I did all I needed to."

"Did you? And what was that?"

"Distracted you," Neil said.

Robert's eyes widened. There was a flash of actinic blue light, and then Neil was facing two headless men. Behind the stumps of their necks a grim-faced Alis appeared, as if stepping from a dark mist, the feysword held in both hands.

Neil fell with the dead man who had been holding him. Robert's body continued to stand.

Neil wiped blood from his eyes and watched through a haze as Alis picked up Robert's head. The prince's lips were working and his eyes rolling, but Neil didn't hear him say anything.

Alis kissed Robert's forehead.

"That's for Muriele," she said.

Then she tossed the head away, into the yard.

Fend's dead eyes glimmed like oil on water as the witch of the Sarnwood stooped toward Wi

"No," Aspar said. "Fend tricked you."

She paused, cocking her head.

"It won't work the way you want it to," he said. "It can't."

"It will," she said. "I know it."

"You can't have my child," he said. "Her child."

"My child," the witch replied.

"Not for long," Aspar said. He pulled the knife out of his stomach. Blood gouted.

"That can't hurt me," the witch said.

"I've been wondering," Aspar grunted. "Why my child?"

He dropped the knife and put one hand on Wi

He closed his eyes and saw again the Briar King's eyes, stared into one of them as it opened wider and wider and finally swallowed him.

He had been sleeping, but something had awakened him; he felt wind on his face and branches swaying around him. He opened his eyes.

He was in a tree at the edge of a meadow, his forest all around.

A Ma

There was pain showing through the woman's eyes, but he mostly saw resolve. As he watched, she pushed and screamed again, and after a time she pulled something pale blue and bloody from herself. It cried, and she kissed it, rocked it in her arms for a few moments.

"Aspar," she whispered. "My lovely son. My good son. Look around you. This is all yours."

Then she died. That baby might have died, too, but he reached down from the tree and took him in, kept him safe and quick until, almost a day later, a man came and found the dead woman and the boy. Then he drifted back into the long slow dream of the earth, for just a little while, until he heard a horn calling, and knew it was time to wake fully and fight.

"I'm sorry," Aspar told the witch. "I'm sorry your forest was destroyed, your world. But there's no bringing it back. Trying to will destroy what's left of my forest. That's what Fend wanted, although I don't know why."

"Stop," the witch hissed. "Stop what you're doing."

"I couldn't if I wanted to," Aspar said. It was the last thing he was able to say; agony stretched him as everything inside of him pressed out against his skin. Then he split open, and with the last light of his mortal eyes he saw green tendrils erupt from his body. They uncoiled fast, like snakes, and reached for the sun.

The pain faded, and his senses rushed out from tree to grass blade and vine. He was a deer, a panther, an oak, a wasp, rainwater, wind, dark rotting soil.

He was everything that mattered.

He pulled life up from the earth and grew, pushing up through the roof and absorbing the thorns into him as he went.