Sapphique

‘I presume our war is at a standstill?’

‘You presume wrong,’ the Queen whispered. ‘My war is over.’ Her voice was broken, a faint quaver. Through her veil her eyes, pale as ice, watched him. She seemed bent, even bowed.

‘Over?’ He glanced at the Pretender. The boy who had claimed to be Giles stood grimly before the empty hearth, his right arm still bandaged, his fine armour tarnishing even as they watched. ‘What do you mean?’

‘She means it’s finished.’ Jared came forward and stood before the Queen and Fi

‘Are you?’ Sia whispered. ‘Maybe you are, Master Jared.

Maybe only you can know something of what I feel. I once taunted you with your own death. You would be justified now in doing the same to me.’ He shook his head.

‘I thought you said the Queen was young?’ Keiro muttered in Fi

‘She is.’ But then her fingers caught at Jared’s sleeve, and Fi

‘After all, of us both I will be the one now to die first.’ She glanced aside, with a trace of her old coquettish ma

The room was silent. Keiro glanced back at Medlicote, standing humbly inside the door.

Sia dropped her veil. She said, ‘Whatever else I was, I have been a Queen. Let me die like a Queen.’ Jared bowed. He said, ‘Ralph. Light a fire in the red bedroom. Do the best you can.’ Uncertain, the steward nodded. He took the old woman’s arm, and helped her out. 

32

The dove will rise above destruction With a white rose in her beak.

Over storm Over tempest.

Over time and the ages.

And the petals will fall to the ground like snow.

As soon as the door closed Keiro said, ‘I don’t get it.’

‘She tried to preserve her youth.’ Jared sat, as if the moment had weakened him. ‘They called her a witch, but she almost certainly used skinwands and some sort of ongoing genetic implants. Now all her stolen years have come crashing down on her at once.’

‘It sounds like one of Rix’s fairtytales,’ Keiro said calmly.

‘So she’ll die?’

‘Very soon.’

‘Fine. That just leaves him.’ Keiro jabbed his injured hand at the Pretender.

Fi

The boy’s appearance had altered too, his lips thi

‘Look,’ the Pretender said. ‘It wasn’t my idea. They found me. They offered me a kingdom! You would have done it — anyone would! They promised my family enough gold to keep my six brothers fed for years. I had no choice.’ He drew himself up. ‘And I was good, Fi

Keiro found a chair and lounged in it. ‘I think we should put him in that tiny cube you call the Prison.’

‘No. He writes a confession and admits publicly that he was an imposter. That the Queen and Caspar were behind a plot to place a false Giles on the throne. And then we let him go Fi

He turned his head and gazed back at Fi

Without turning, Jared said, ‘Get him out,’ and the guards hustled the Pretender away.

Fi

‘So we’ve won.’ Keiro picked it up and examined the blade.

‘A ruined kingdom, maybe, but all ours. We’re Winglords at last, brother.’

‘There’s a greater enemy than the Queen.’ Fi

‘And Attia.’ Keiro looked up. ‘Don’t forget your little dog-slave.’

‘You mean you’re concerned about her?’ Keiro shrugged. ‘She was a pain. But I got used to her.’

‘Where’s the Glove?’ Fi

Jared drew it from his coat. ‘But I told you, Fi

‘Sire Fi

‘Might I suggest that it is also our only danger?’

‘What do you mean?’ The secretary came forward, hesitant. ‘It’s clear the Prison will destroy us all if it can’t have this object. And if we hand it over then Incarceron will leave its Prison and all the Inmates will be left to die. It is a terrible choice you face.’ Fi

Jared said, ‘But you have a suggestion?’

‘I do. A radical one, but it might work. Destroy the Glove.’

‘No.’ Fi

‘Sirs, listen to me.’ He seemed scared, Fi

‘No, I don’t. We need the Glove.’

‘But you said—’

‘Give me time.’ Jared rose and came over. ‘Give me time and I’ll work it out.’

‘We don’t have time.’ Fi

‘You don’t, and neither do those in the Prison.’ Medlicote said, ‘You are the King, sire. No one — not even the Privy Council — will doubt that now. Destroy it. This is what the Warden would want us to do.’ Jared said sharply, ‘You can’t know that.’

‘I know the Warden. And do you think, sir, that the Steel Wolves will stand by and allow this new danger, now that Protocol is gone?’ As the candle guttered Fi

‘How could I, sire?’ Medlicote kept one eye on Keiro, but his voice was meek and anxious. ‘You must decide. Destroy it, and the Prison is trapped for ever in its self. Allow it access to Sapphique’s power, and you will unleash its horrors on us. Where do you think Incarceron will come, when it is free? What sort of tyrant will it become Out here?

Will you allow it to make us all its slaves?’ Fi

More than ever he wished that Claudia would open the door and stalk in. She knew her father. She would know if this was what they should do.

In the shattered room a broken casement banged in the wind. A gale was howling around the house, and rain began to patter hard against the cracked glass. ‘Jared?’