Hammer of Time (The Reforged Trilogy) (23 page)

The Gray Queen rose and prepared herself. She wrapped herself in a long, soft robe and stood before a polished silver mirror. The night before had left her long black hair a tousled mess. Maeve reached for her brush and pulled it mechanically through her hair. Duaal arrived a few minutes later, leading a pair of young Arcadian girls, Dain and Verra, that each struggled with an armload of glass plates.

"Good morning," the Hyzaari mage said with a smooth smile. "It's as hot as five or six hells out there today. Are you ready to try on your armor?"

Maeve did not look up, but stared fixedly at her reflection. "Armor?"

Duaal pulled a delicate glass-backed chair up beside Maeve and sat. He frowned into the mirror at her. "We talked about this yesterday. You wanted to wear armor tonight. You're still a knight, you said, and were one long before you were queen. Ferris had a fit. A civil one, of course, but I swear that his ears were about to pop off. Don't you remember that?"

Maeve did, now that Duaal mentioned it, but the scene was not so funny now. She nodded and rose to her feet, dropping her robe without pretense. If her heart and body were only mere tools of statecraft, then what point was there in modesty? Logan's Talon-9 did not blush when drawn.

Duaal arched one dark brow as the Arcadian girls whispered. He crossed his arms over his chest. He looked so much like Tiberius when he did that, Maeve thought. She smiled sadly at the mirror.

"What's wrong, Maeve?" Duaal asked. "I would have thought you would be excited to suit up. You haven't worn Arcadian armor in… how many years? You should be excited about this! Hyra was up all night getting it finished in time. Why are you just standing here like a stuffed bird?"

"Nothing," Maeve answered. She made herself smile at the Blue Phoenix's young captain. "You are right. Let us inspect Hyra's work."

Duaal gave Maeve a suspicious look as she went to the table where Dain and Verra had set down her armor. There was a twisted rope of scarlet scarves. Maeve uncoiled them and began wrapping herself in the colorful fabric.

"Where is Duke Ferris?" she asked as Duaal stepped up behind her and helped Maeve wrap the red silk.

"He's downstairs, too," he told her.

"Is there anyone with him?"

"Other than Panna? Yeah, actually. Another Arcadian man. Older than you, I'd guess. Great legs, braided hair. Is that Logan's friend, Ballad?"

Maeve shook her head. "No," she answered. "I suspect that is Sir Anthem. Good, I am glad he is here."

"
Sir?
Another knight?" Duaal asked. He untangled two more of the blood-colored scarves. "Then why isn't he up here instead of me? He must know how your armor works."

Maeve shrugged. "He is probably being respectful of my privacy. He does not know yet how often he will see me like this once we are wed."

She gestured to the mirror, to her still half-nude image there, but Duaal was not listening. He jumped, dropping the scarves. The red silk drifted lazily to the floor.

"Wait, what?" Duaal shouted. "
Wed?
You mean married? What in the three hundred hells are you talking about?"

"I will announce him as my consort at my coronation tonight." Maeve closed her eyes and fought for breath again. It was as though a Devourer had closed its great black claw around her ribs. "I will tell Duke Ferris when we are done here."

"Consort?" Duaal nearly shrieked. "But what about Logan? You love him! He loves you!"

"Love does not build kingdoms," Maeve said miserably. She looped a length of crimson scarf around her neck and pulled her hair free of the cloth. "And it does not win wars. Do not forget that we are here to contest Xartasia and that we must beat her at her own game."

Duaal gaped at her. His mouth worked but nothing came out. Maeve finished knotting the scarlet silks under her wings and turned back. "I can put on this armor myself, but it will take three times longer."

The mage shook his head and picked up the delicate-looking glass breastplate. "Maeve, you can't be serious about this," Duaal said as he tied the armor in place. "You and Logan have something amazing together. Maybe not something entirely sane, but–"

"I am queen," she interrupted. "I must love my people more than any one man."

"Who the hells told you all that? Ferris?"

"No," Maeve whispered. "It was Logan."

________

Gripper hung from the edge of the balcony, watching Xia talk to a group of fairies. She gestured to the small white plastic box in her other hand. The front and sides were printed with the circled blue cross emblem of the Alliance medical corps. Xyn had placed the order, but Maeve had not been able to pay him back. They all owed the stout Ixthian a great deal of money, Gripper knew, but only Panna and Xia kept track of exactly how much. He had asked, but Xia only smiled a pretty silver smile and told him not to worry about it even as her compound eyes turned a concerned green.

Xia was so good at taking care of everyone, Gripper reflected. She was kind and generous and sweet right down to the root. Gripper wondered what he should do. Nothing – not the flowers or other gifts on Prianus – had done anything to earn Xia's affection. Well, her
special
affection. Xia liked everyone. That was one of so many great things about her.

Gripper swung back and forth from the balcony's edge. There was no railing around it. There were no rails or banisters anywhere in Kaellisem. A species with wings didn't need them very much, Gripper supposed.

Footsteps rang on the pink glass and he pulled himself easily up onto the balcony. A human stood in the arched doorway, his hands buried in his pockets and shoulders slumped. It was not until Gripper saw that the left one was made of dark gray illonium that he recognized Logan. The posture was all wrong.

"Hunter? What's wrong?" Gripper asked. "Where's Glass?"

Logan stared out at the colorful crystal spires of Kaellisem, flickering like kindling fire in the dawn sunlight. And then he slammed his cybernetic fist into the tower's wall. The glass cracked with a sharp retort and pale lines raced out in a jagged spiderweb around Logan's metal hand. A few peach-colored shards fell to the balcony floor, each no larger than a single seed. Gripper jumped but did not retreat.

"I left her."

"What?" Gripper blinked. He must have misheard. "But you adore her."

"More than anything. But Queen Maeve's people need an Arcadian king." The human raked his hand up the back of his neck, through his hair and over his face. "I was learning more Arcadian. So I could sing the oathsongs to her."

"Oathsongs?" Gripper gasped. If he understood right – and Gripper had spent a great deal of time with Maeve – Arcadian oathsongs were shared only between family or those who would
become
family. "You were going to…?"

Logan nodded and punched the glass wall again, but the blow was softer, almost gentle. In the red street below, Xia had finished her instructions and handed the medical case to one of the fairies. She shaded her eyes against the red rising sun and stared up at the balcony.

"What are you going to do?" Gripper asked.

"Serve my queen," Logan answered in a dead voice. "However I can."

"Your queen?" repeated Gripper. "But you're not Arcadian, Hunter."

"She's still my queen."

"Honor the people you rule and they will honor you."

– Illain Cavainna (28 PA)

Maeve alighted softly on the wide, gently curved sill of the bedroom. But for the faint violet filtering through the tower's glass walls, the room was dark. Maeve could just make out the pale shape of Orthain in the circular bed. His long, lovely wings draped across the silk sheets.

Maeve gestured to a nyad who stood silently in one corner. Her dark blue skin and hair blended perfectly into shadows, making her and her kind ideal nighttime servants. She bobbed a quick bow and helped her mistress out of her glass armor. When she wore only a maroon scarf around her hips, Maeve waved the nyad off and crept through the darkness to her bed. She slid under the sheets and wrapped her wings around Orthain's warmth.

The knight stirred and rolled onto his side to look at Maeve. His eyes caught the moonlight, turning into pools of shimmering silver. "It is late. Where were you?" Orthain asked. His voice did not have that rough-soft burr of sleep. Orthain closed his eyes. "No, do not answer. I know. You were out with Caith again."

"We were working," Maeve answered. "You know I have duties, enarri."

Orthain's eyes opened again and they were hard. "I am a knight, too," he said. "I was your father's squire before you were even born and I taught you the arts by which you now live. Yet I have been here in our bed for hours. Waiting for you."

Maeve sat up, suddenly hot and prickly all over with anger. "What are you saying to me, Orthain?" she asked. "What are you accusing me of?"

He sat up in the shimmering silk sheets, too. They pooled like water around him. "You are gone all day and all night, Maeve. You are always with Caith."

"He is my brother! The day he was born, you told me to go to him. How dare you tell me to turn my back on him now?"

"When I told you to go," her husband said in a ragged voice, "I wanted you to come back to me, Maeve. But you never did. You never will."

He stood, shuddering and rustling in anger. Maeve rose, too, and clenched her fists at her sides. She did not embrace her enarri or kiss him. "The bond between Caith and I is of blood, Sir Orthain," Maeve said. "What you and I have traded are just songs."

Orthain turned away. The light reflected from the pale nighttime orbs of Wynerian and Orindell streaked his body in ribbons of milky radiance. His long hair was bronze in the wan light and hung in smooth waves between his outstretched wings. Orthain was so lovely, but Maeve still shook all over with rage. How
dare
he question her right to see her own brother?

"Your entire heart already belongs to Caith,” Orthain said. “There is no room there for me. Or a place for me here. Goodbye, Maeve… my enarri."

Without looking back, Orthain strode to the open window and leapt out. His wings swept down once and then he rose on the midnight wind, vanishing into the dark sky before Maeve could answer.

"I would change nothing!" she shouted after him. "All I have done, I have done for love!"

________

Maeve stood statue-still in her new suit of gleaming glass armor as Duaal and Anthem checked the fit. The golden-haired knight tugged gently on her greaves and the back of her breastplate. "It sits too high against the wings," said Anthem.

"Yeah, I bet it does," Duaal muttered.

Maeve had no idea what that was supposed to mean. Did Duaal? Probably not. Anthem either did not hear or just pretended not to. Ferris returned with Panna. The wingless fairy girl carried a small, plain mycoboard box, but grinned from ear to rounded ear.

"It looks
just
like your design, Duaal," she said triumphantly. "You're going to love your new crown, Your Majesty."

Maeve looked over her shoulder at Panna. The armor pinched beneath her left wing and Maeve winced. Anthem was right about the fit. Panna put the box down on a table and came out onto the balcony.

"Please lift your arm, my queen," Anthem instructed.

Maeve did as he asked. Duke Ferris finished a quiet conversation with Maeve's young handmaidens and then strode outside. "Sir Anthem," he said.

The knight knelt on the colorful balcony at Maeve's feet, inspecting the pointed glass boots. It was often a tricky point in armor. Arcadian knights fought most of their battles in the air, making it easy to overlook the state of their footwear. But all battles came to ground at some point, even if only in defeat.

"The right boot is too long," Anthem told Duaal. The young Hyzaari captain rolled his eyes but dutifully wrote down what he said. Anthem looked up at Duke Ferris. "Yes, Your Grace?"

"You will be taking over responsibilities for Queen Maeve's protection," Ferris said.

"Taking over?" Anthem repeated. "Who was responsible before?"

"Logan," said Maeve. She narrowed her eyes at Ferris "Is it not enough that I have accepted Sir Anthem as a consort? You no longer trust Logan to protect me?"

"He was not here this morning," Ferris pointed out. "When Verra and Dain arrived with Captain Sinnay, you were unprotected, my queen."

"Unprotected?" Maeve asked bitterly. "Protect me from what? If Xartasia knows at all what we do here, she has ignored us."

"Thank God," Duaal said. "We're in no shape to take on anyone. Especially the Devourers."

Maeve drew a deep breath. Duaal was right about that. They
were
poorly prepared for a fight and was that not their ultimate purpose on Stray? But protecting Maeve was hardly the solution. She looked at Anthem, who held one of her hands in both of his. He carefully inspected each joint of her gauntlet for strength and flexibility.