The Born Queen

"Will this work?" he asked. "This thing you're going to do?"

She parted her hands. "I can't see that, if that's what you mean. But it might. That's something to hope on. But you and my brother, you must keep us safe until we are done. Then, whatever happens, we must find each other. I do not want to die without you."

"I don't want you to die at all," Neil said.

She placed her hand on his. "If we survive, Sir Neil, will you take me away?"

"Wherever you want."

"Someplace where neither of us has any duties," she said. "That's what I would like."

He gripped her fingers in his. Then he leaned toward her until her eyes were very close.

She bent her head, and their lips touched, and all he wanted was to take her away right then and there, forget the war, the law of death, everything. Didn't they deserve…

She touched his cheek, and he saw that she understood what he was thinking, and she turned her head just slightly from side to side. Then she got up and gently untangled her fingers from his.

"Remember your promise," she said. "Find me if I do not find you."

"How will we know when you've finished?"

"Somehow, I think you will know," she replied.

Marche Hespero drew on the faneway of Diuvo and made himself small in the eyes of the sky and of men.

The fighting had ceased at nightfall, at his order. Although his body was warded against steel, there were some things that might do him harm; the blow of a lance or mace, though it would not cut his skin, might well break bones and organs through the skin. And a splintered lance, a broken arrow-he frankly wasn't certain what they might do. During an open melee, any of those things might find him by sheerest accident even though no eye saw him.

He slipped through the lines of his men, past their fires and amid their grumbling. The enemy had withdrawn into Eslen-of-Shadows and crouched behind a low wall that had never been meant to serve as a fortification. Still, they had managed to hold it passably well. Crotheny might have lost its witch-queen and her ability to slay thousands with a wish, but if anything, the leadership of the army had improved.

He slipped over the barrier and wove through the alert front ranks, back through where men were sleeping, into the houses of the dead.

He knew his knights were questioning an attack that was not only sacrilegious and unprecedented but to their minds nonsensical. The only approaches to the castle from the shadow city were steep and fully exposed to anything the guards on the city walls might want to launch or drop on them for hundreds of kingsyards.

What he wanted, of course, was control of the throne, which finally had shown itself a few days after he had killed A

He hadn't intended things to be this messy; he'd intended to seize control of A

Instead, he had to make do with talents he already possessed, at least until he appropriated the sedos throne and then took control of the others. That shouldn't be so hard, with the Vhen throne empty and measures taken to keep it so. When he had both of those, he would find the keeper of the Xhes and dispense with him.

He had hoped to have Eslen-of-Shadows pacified to make the task of wi

He was nearing the tomb itself when a soundless explosion of red-gold light came pouring from the door frame. He shrank against a cold marble wall, gathering his will to hide himself as completely as he could yet also ready for battle.

Something came flying out of the opening, a dark cloud, and a woman, glowing…

He blinked. It was A

She was the throne. She was what he had come to claim. But how- A

His vision had started like this. Had he failed? Was there any chance to stop her now?

The Black Jester. If he could take his strength, add it to his own…

"Hespero!" a voice called over the din.

He jerked around and saw, to his great surprise, Stephen Darige.

"Brother?"

"Nice trick," Stephen said. "Good for sneaking about. Too bad you were distracted."

And with those words, their battle began.

CHAPTER TEN

THE CANDLES all flickered when Bri

There it came, Mery whispering a note and then, suddenly, the same tone issuing, clear and perfect, from the mysterious woman at the keys. It shivered up his spine to know that she was hearing the sound itself, not in this world but in the other. He wished with all his being that he could hear what Bri

Now Areana joined in with the quick line, starting low but climbing higher separately from the first theme, never touching it, as if two deaf musicians were playing side by side, each unaware of the other. The melodies wandered like that for a while, tightening but still separate until, in a moment that shocked him even though he knew it was coming, they were suddenly in unison for three notes. It sent a thrill of pure terror through him, and he suddenly very much did not want to go through with this.

But now it was his turn to sing. He prayed he was up to the task.

In the house, a hammarharp sounded a single chord, and then a voice lifted in one high, clear note. Neil was startled; it reminded him of frightening a covey of quail along the side of the road. What was more surprising, that surprise or the startlement itself?

Because it was Bri

The note dropped and wavered, and a second voice joined it, another woman: the composer's wife. The song suddenly wasn't pretty anymore, and Neil remembered a time not so long ago when he'd been sinking in the sea, dragged down by the weight of his armor, and he'd heard the Draugs' lonely, jealous song, welcoming him to the cold land of Breu-nt-Toine, a country without love or light or even memory.

In this music-in Bri

He walked away from the house not so much because the music repelled him as because he was drawn to it, just as his armor had dragged him toward the sea floor.

But then another memory came.

He'd been seven, in the hills, gathering the goats. Goat gathering wasn't such a hard business, and he'd been doing some of the work on his back, watching the clouds, imagining they were islands filled with strange kingdoms and peoples, wondering if he could ever find a way up to them.

Then he'd heard the horns blowing and knew the fleet was in. He jumped up, leaving the goats to themselves, and rushed down the hill trail, racing along with the sea down below, until ahead he could see his father's longship with its broad blue sail and prow carved in the likeness of Saint Mene