The Nothing: A Book of the Between (9 page)

“You are back so soon,” the Queen said. “The schools of the healers in Surmise were not to your liking?”

Her voice finished Jared completely. It was the sound of crystal on the wind, he thought, light and musical and perfectly tuned, as if wind blew through the branches of a tree hung with crystal wind chimes.

In contrast, Kraal’s voice was coarse and hard, a thing barely to be tolerated in the presence of such perfect beauty. “The schools were fine, Your Majesty. I have brought you information which seemed of greater import than my training as a healer.”

“It looks as though you have brought me more than information.” Her eyes, her focus, all turned to Jared now, and he found he could barely breathe beneath the ecstasy of her attention. He was aware of every beat of his heart, of the blood traveling through his veins, of the vulnerability of his flesh.

“I have pledged my life for his,” Kraal responded. “He has information. I have not brought him as a plaything.” There was an edge to the Giant’s voice that Jared wanted to reprimand. Surely it was not right to speak to the Queen in this way.

“Stand up, stranger. Tell me your name and your errand.”

Jared’s knees felt like jelly, but so strong was his desire to obey her slightest wish, he would have tried to fly if she had asked. He got to his feet and braced his legs, grateful all at once for the stiffness of the wounded leg.

“Now, then. Come closer. I wish to look at you.

Jared approached the throne, giddy with the hammering of his heart and an overpowering fragrance of flowers.

The Queen leaned forward, as if to see better. “I have never seen eyes of such a shade of green. They are indeed lovely.”

Blood rushed to his face, and for the first time in his life, Jared found himself tongue-tied. No woman had ever reduced him to such a state of confusion; no opponent in the courtroom had ever rendered him speechless. He didn’t know what to do, what to say to this.

Her voice sank to a low caress. He could feel it move across his skin, stirring his body into arousal. “If I asked for your eyes, or your heart, would you give them to me?”

“Anything,” he replied, one hand over his heart. “Whatever you ask of me, it is yours.”

He felt as much as saw her smile. “Tell me why Kraal has brought you to me, if it is not, as he says, as a plaything.”

Each
 
word rang pure and perfect inside his head, so that it was difficult to string them all together into sense.
 

“I—it’s about the Dreamshifter, I suppose. And the Warrior.” His lips felt numb and it was difficult to form them into the necessary shapes, which made him stutter and flush with shame. He must look like a total imbecile, groveling here in his cast-off clothes, stammering over the easiest words.

The Queen’s clear brow darkened in a frown and the whole room seemed to dim. “This is already known. I’m certain Kraal didn’t bring me a half-wit, no matter how beautiful. Tell me something new or he dies for his insolence.”

Not an idle threat. In case the exchange outside the palace doors hadn’t made that clear, two towering guards moved into position on either side of Kraal, each carrying a brutally spiked club.

Jared’s brain lurched like a slow-moving beast, seeking a path to follow in this morass of love and politics. He needed time to think, a clue as to what she might want from him. Kraal had never indicated what, among all the things they had spoken of, he thought would be of such interest to the Queen of the Giants.

“She—they—were seeking a stone key. The warrior was attacked by gray-skinned men. Well, not men, exactly—”

“Again, this I know already. Tell me a new thing. Speak with care, for I am not inclined to patience.”

Heart hammering, mouth dry, Jared prepared himself for one last attempt. Falling back on years of habit, he stood to his full height, adopting his lawyer’s voice and patterns of speech. “Perhaps if her Majesty would care to tell me what is known, I would be more able to tell what is not.”

Silence filled the chamber at his words, a silence so deep, it had a soul of its own.

At last, the Queen inclined her head slightly, as if in respect. “I had taken you for a coward, but you speak sense. We know that the Dreamshifter found the key and opened the gates for Aidan, who led all the dragons of the Between back into the Forever.”

This was more than Jared knew. He and Kraal were in serious trouble. They’d been too slow getting here, and the thing Kraal had hoped to prevent had already come to pass. The Queen saw this. Her lips curved up slightly.

“Perhaps you had thought to tell me that the Dreamshifter had found the key, or that it had been taken from her.” She shifted her gaze to Kraal, and Jared felt like he could take a deep breath for the first time since they’d entered the audience chamber. “Is this why you brought him to me?”

“I brought him to you because he has a bond with the Dreamshifter.”

“Is this true?” Again the queen shifted forward in her throne, her eyes boring into and through him.

Jared’s throat was so dry and tight, he wasn’t sure he could get words out. “Before this—mission—we were betrothed.”

“I see. So, you would be of value to her, and therefore of great value to me.”

At that, Jared felt a twisted and bitter laughter within. His value to Vivian was less than the life of an insect. She had stomped on his heart, gone off with that muscle-bound cretin, Zee. With an effort, he cut off these thoughts lest they show in his face. He’d always been good at adapting, at aiming his speech patterns at the particular jury or judge.

“We are bonded, life to life,” he said, looking directly into her eyes.

A moment.

And then she nodded and gestured at the guards. They stepped back from Kraal. Jared sucked in a breath, and then another, feeling his clenched muscles relax a little.

“You offered me a generous bond. I accept.”

Even as the import of these words struck home, she stretched out her hand toward his face, all five fingers spread wide, and made a slight twisting motion.

“No,” he said, shaking his head in denial. “It was a token bond, a figure of speech; I didn’t—”

He broke off at the sensation of suction on his eyeballs, as though an invisible vacuum cleaner was pressed to the sockets.

“No,” he said again, tripping as he stepped backward, then scrabbling away from her on his hands and knees in the grass. Distance only increased the pressure and he pressed both hands over his face, trying to ease it.

“A bond is never a token,” the beautiful voice said.

Excruciating pain struck his eye sockets and from there into his brain. He heard the scream tear out of his own throat as the agony sharpened to an incandescent peak. There was a flash of white light, and then darkness.

A gush of warmth flooded his cheeks and he knew that it was blood, not tears. He could hear his own voice, whimpering like a child, but it was outside of him and separate, not a thing he could control. He collapsed to lie face down in the grass.

From a distance, he heard the Queen’s voice. “Take these and have them set for me.”

His heart would be next. She would draw it still beating from his body, but then he would at least be dead. Not blind and disfigured and set to begging in the Between. Not living with this pain, with the knowledge that the horrible mewling sound was emerging from his own throat.

“A gift for a gift,” the Queen said. “I will give you new eyes when the physicians are done with you. Kraal, take him.”

“Take my heart,” he spat out, in a voice broken and twisted and not at all like his own. “Take it now and end me.”

“Perhaps another day.” She spoke as calmly as if they were discussing a financial arrangement. “I own it already, since you have bonded it to me. But I am content to let you keep it yet a while. Kraal.”

Tree-trunk arms wrapped around him, scooped him up. The motion sent daggers straight into his brain and he gasped, unable even to cry out.

“Be easy,” Kraal’s voice said, and something cool and soothing flowed into his eye sockets. The pain eased almost instantly, although the queasiness persisted. He didn’t have the strength to fight, and he let the Giant carry him out, too much in shock to worry about all of the staring eyes, the ignominy of being carried like a child.

She took my eyes. She actually took my eyes.
He couldn’t make sense of a world in which a thing like that could happen. His perception of reality had always been made up of facts. Eyes could be removed, yes, by sharp objects. Not by a spoken word and the twist of a hand. More than anything, he wanted to go home, although now there was nothing for him there. What life would he have as a blind, disfigured attorney? No more reading law books, no looking soulfully into the eyes of female jurists or seducing the judge.

He knew when they left the palace. There was a change in the air, the fragrance of the gardens. But no light. His face was wet again, and when he put his hands up to touch it, he realized that he was crying, could feel the tears making streaks through the drying blood.

V
IVIAN
HAD
dreamed of flying as a child. Some of the dreams had been gentle, just an easy lifting above the earth. Others had been wild and out of control, where she flew higher and higher with no way to land. And she had flown as a dragon, all wings and power and the arrogant knowledge that she ruled the skies.

Working her way up over a mountain peak in zero gravity didn’t feel like flying at all. There was no sense of freedom in it, for one thing, and very little by way of control. The air was thin and icy. Her body was wracked with shivers, but that was a good thing. If hypothermia set in, the shivering would stop, her brain grow sluggish. That was one worry. Her other fear was the sudden return of gravity. She balanced her approach between speed and keeping her altitude low enough that she might survive a fall.

Poe and the dragon led the way, the penguin moving as though he were swimming, body streamlined, flippers tucked, paddling with his feet. After some experimentation, Vivian followed his lead, folding her arms across her chest and tucking her numb hands into her armpits. It was much faster to use her feet, kicking along like a scuba diver. Zee kept to her side. Behind them, slow and ponderous, came Callyn, muttering all the way.

As they ascended, the air grew colder and thinner. Vivian’s breath came hard, her heartbeat rapid and fluttering. She and Zee shared a glance, not wasting valuable breath. Both of them knew the risk. If the air grew too thin, they would have to turn back after all. There was a risk of losing consciousness and floating upward, dying in a cold blue sky because gravity would not pull them back when they stopped moving.

Poe and the dragon had flown on ahead and had already reached the summit. Much as she tried to focus on this goal, Vivian’s gaze kept dipping to the snow-packed trail so far below, and her stomach lurched. She closed her eyes to shake off the dizziness, and when she opened them again, she fixed them on the shining tip of the glacier and the blue sky above it. Breath came with increasing difficulty, and at first she thought the black specks in the sky were due to oxygen deprivation. They danced in front of her eyes and she blinked to try to clear her vision. The specks remained, becoming larger, separating into three distinct spots, drawing closer.

Dragons, she thought at first. But the shape was all wrong. The creatures were more compact, their flight pattern lithe and agile.

“Trouble,” Callyn warned.

Zee drew his sword.

Giant and Warrior drew in close to Vivian on either side, weapons at the ready.

Above, three creatures flew in formation, circling their gathered prey. Vivian felt a moment of awe along with a surge of fascinated fear. They had raptor heads, with curved beaks and amber eyes, and a wingspan as wide as Callyn was tall. Their bodies were muscular and feline, covered in a smooth, tawny fur, but the legs all ended in sharp talons rather than paws.

Griffyns, straight out of myth.

One of the creatures dove, talons outstretched, coming in for a killing strike. It screeched as it came, a shrill, terrifying sound. Callyn swung her spiked club upward, but the action pushed her backward through the air. Both club and talons missed and the griffyn screamed outrage, circling up and out of reach before turning and diving once again.

Callyn, still upside down, flailed her arms and legs, trying to get in position to take another swing. Zee had his sword in one hand, a knife in the other. “Get clear!” he shouted, and Vivian edged off to the side to be well out of the way.

With a concerted scream, all of the griffyns dove at once.

Zee spread his arms wide and tried to spin, but the creatures had wings and he did not. They easily evaded the stroke, parting at the last moment to go in separate directions. One dove at Callyn, and this time, the talons found their mark, tearing into the soft flesh of her belly, a split second before the club connected with the griffyn’s skull.

Callyn screamed as the creature’s wings jerked reflexively in a death spasm, the locked talons tearing into her entrails. Blood from both bird and Giant hung in the air in great red gouts, the two of them joined together in death.