“For what?” Amara asked.
“For the boy to get here,” Bernard said.
“What good will that do us?” she asked. “No one’s sighted the Queen yet.”
Bernard shook his head. “He’s got something tricky in mind. Count on it.”
Amara nodded. “I hope so,” she said. “Love, you should have some food and rest, too.”
“Aye. In just a moment.” His fingers absently stroked her hand. “Pretty sunset, isn’t it?”
“Beautiful,” she replied. She leaned her head on his shoulder.
The sun was nearly gone, its ruddy light glaring into their eyes. Shadows spread long across the Valley’s floor.
And off in the distance, the shrieks of angry vord whispered from the Valley’s walls.
CHAPTER 40
“Let me deal with this,” Invidia snarled. “Give me our earthcrafters and the behemoths, and that wall won’t last five minutes.”
“No,” said the Queen. She paced back and forth beside the pool of water, staring down at it. Her tattered old gown rustled and whispered. “No, not yet,” she said.
“You saw the losses they inflicted.”
The Queen shrugged a shoulder, the motion elegant, at odds with the stained finery she wore. “Losses are to be expected. Especially here, at the last. They revealed hidden capabilities without destroying us, which we will overcome in our next encounter. That is a victory.” She looked up at Invidia sharply. “However, I do not understand why you did not warn me about the great fury in the mountain.”
“Because I didn’t know about it,” Invidia replied, her voice tight. “Obviously.”
“You said you had been here before.”
“To pick up Isana in a wind coach,” Invidia said. “Not to plan an invasion.”
The vord Queen stared at Invidia for a moment, as though she hadn’t quite understood the difference. Then she nodded slowly. “It must be another disparate Aleran experience.”
Invidia folded her arms. “Obviously. It wasn’t a part of the context.”
The Queen tilted her head. “But you intended to conquer Alera.”
“I intended to take it whole,” she said, “by co-opting its system of gover nance. The use of military force was never a preferred course of action. Certainly, there was little probability that I would
ever
have a need to attack this remote little valley. With the exception of providing a convenient and predictable place for the Marat to attack, it’s been of no historical importance whatsoever.”
At that, Isana looked up from where she sat, near the imprisoned Araris’s feet, and smiled.
Invidia’s presence became suffused with sudden rage, only slowly gathered back under control. The burned woman turned to the Queen, and said, “Every moment we spend here with our forces doing nothing brings complications.”
“They are not ‘our’ forces, Invidia,” the Queen said. “They are mine. And you still think like an Aleran. My troops will not desert in the face of starvation. They will not cast their allegiance with another. They will not hesitate to obey nor refuse to attack an enemy at my command. Do not fear.”
“I am not afraid,” Invidia said, her voice coldly precise.
“Of course you are,” Isana said calmly. “You’re both terrified.”
Invidia’s cold eyes and the Queen’s alien ones both swiveled to come to rest on her. Isana thought that such eyes looked like weapons, somehow, and dangerous ones at that. She further thought that by all rights, she should be frightened herself. But given the past days, she found herself having difficulty giving fear much credit. In her first days in captivity, perhaps fear would have moved her more strongly. Now . . . no. She was really rather more concerned with the fact that she’d not bathed in days than that her life might come to an end. Terror had worn into worry, and worry was an old companion to any mother.
Isana nodded to the Queen in mock deference, and said, “You’ve been dealt a harsh blow by the first Aleran force actually prepared to resist you. They didn’t have it all their way, of course, because you are unwholesomely powerful. But even so, the valley stands, and thousands of your warriors are no more. And they are ready to continue fighting. The fight seems hopeless to you, and yet they stand and fight and die—which makes you think that perhaps the fight is
not
hopeless. Yet you cannot see how that would be. You fear that you have overlooked some detail, some fact, some number that might change all of your careful equations—and that terrifies you.”
Isana turned to Invidia, and said, “And you. I almost feel sorry for you, Invidia. At least you had your beauty. And now even that is gone. The only haven left for you, your best hope, is to rule a kingdom of the childless, the aging, the dying. Even if you take your crown, Invidia, you know that you will never be admired, never be envied, never be a mother—and never be loved. Those who endure this war to live under you will fear you. Hate you. Kill you, I should imagine, if they can. And, in the end, there won’t even be anyone left to remember your name as a curse. Your future, no matter what happens, is a long and terrible torment. The brightest end you can hope for is a swift and painless death.” She shook her head. “I . . .
do
feel sorry for you, dear. I have good reason to hate you, yet you’ve served yourself a fate worse than any I would ever have imagined, much less wished upon you. Of course you’re afraid.”
She folded her hands in her lap, and said, calmly, “And both of you are now worried that I have realized so much about you both. About who you are. About what moves you. You’re both wondering what else I know. And how else I might use it against you. And why I have revealed what I know here, and now. And you, lonely Queen, wonder if you have made a mistake in bringing me here. You wonder what Octavian inherited from his father—and what came from me.”
Silence filled the hive. Neither of the two half women to whom she spoke moved.
“Do you think?” Isana asked in a conversational tone, “that it might be possible to have hot tea with our dinner tonight? I’ve always found a good cup of tea to be most . . .” She smiled at them. “Reassuring.”
The Queen stared at her for a time. Then she whirled to face Invidia, and said, “You may
not
have the remaining crafters,” she hissed. Then, the hem of her tattered gown snapping, the vord Queen stalked from the hive.
Invidia looked after the Queen, then turned to Isana. “Are you
mad
? Do you know what she could do to you?” Her eyes flickered with disquieting light. “Or what
I
could do to you?”
“I needed her to leave,” Isana said calmly. “Do you wish to be rid of her, Invidia?”
The burned woman gestured in burning frustration at the creature clamped to her. “It cannot be.”
“What if I told you that it could?” Isana asked, speaking in a calm, almost-toneless voice. “What if I told you that the vord possess the means to cure you of any poison, to restore the loss of any organ—even to restore your beauty? And that I know its name and can make a fair guess at where it might be?”
Invidia’s head rocked back at Isana’s words. Then she breathed, “You’re lying.”
Isana offered the woman her hand calmly. “I’m not. Come see.”
The other woman took a step back from Isana, as though the offered hand contained pure poison.
Isana smiled. “I know,” she said calmly. “You could be free of them, Invidia. I think it is very possible. Even against the Queen’s will.”
Invidia lifted her chin. Her eyes burned, and her scarred face twisted into what looked like physical pain. Terrible hope pulsed from her, and though she tried to hide it, Isana had been too near her, through too much, for too long. There was no more hiding it from her finely tuned senses. Though it sickened her to do it, Isana faced her calmly and waited for the pressure of that hope to drive the other woman to speak.
“You,” Invidia rasped, “are
lying
.”
Isana shook her head slowly, never looking away from the other woman’s eyes. “Should you wish to change your future,” she said calmly, “I am here.”
Invidia turned and stormed from the hive. Isana heard a roaring windstream bear her away—leaving her in the hive alone. Except, of course, for perhaps a hundred wax spiders, most of them motionless but not asleep. If she moved toward the exit, they would swarm her.
Isana smoothed her skirts again and sat calmly.
Waiting.
CHAPTER 41
Fidelias had watched Crassus run the Legions and manage the Canim in the retaking of Riva while Octavian rested from the rather spectacular display of furycrafting he’d put on. Fidelias was impressed with the young Antillan lord. He’d expected Crassus to behave quite a bit differently when he was the one in command. He’d expected someone much more like . . . well, like Maximus, from the heir of Antillus Raucus. Crassus had, it would seem, inherited the best traits of his mother’s bloodline, House of Kalarus: cool logic, intelligence, and polish, seemingly without being infected with the megalomaniacal self-obsession in which most of those petty-minded monsters had reveled.
Granted, Crassus’s levelheaded style wasn’t necessarily a perfect one where the Canim were concerned. An officer of their corps, a young Shuaran, had dropped a challenge to Crassus’s authority within hours, at which point his elder half brother Maximus had promptly brought one of Raucus’s strengths of character to the forefront—the ability to make a decisive and unmistakable statement.
When the Cane went for Crassus’s throat, Maximus threw him through a building.
It was a rather absolute form of diplomacy though Fidelias could only assume that Octavian had rubbed off on Maximus to some degree: It had been a wooden building rather than a stone one. The Cane in question was expected to recover from his injuries—eventually. Varg had denied the uppity Cane the services of Aleran healers, which Crassus had promptly offered.
Fidelias’s grasp of Canim was still fairly rough, but Varg’s comment had amounted to something like, “Your stupidity will get fewer good warriors killed if you have time to reflect on today’s mistake before leading them.”
Octavian dropped his head back at Fidelias’s recounting and laughed. His voice came out sounding a little flat within the privacy windcrafting he had woven around them. “One-eared Shuaran pack leader? Tarsh?”
“Aye, Your Highness, the same.”
Octavian nodded. The two of them were walking the perimeter of the camp’s defenses as the sunset closed, after another day of hard marching, inspecting the work of the Legions and the warriors. “Maximus has wanted to have an excuse to take a swing at Tarsh ever since we met him in Molvar. And I can’t imagine that Varg would be sorry about being given a reason not to place anyone under Tarsh’s command.” Octavian nodded. “What of the survivors from Riva?”
The Legions had found a handful of folk clever or fortunate enough to have successfully hidden from the vord during the days of occupation. None of them were in what would be considered good condition though few bore any injuries. “The children are showing signs of beginning to recover,” Fidelias said. “The others . . . some of them have family who might be alive. If we get them to someplace warm and quiet and safe, they have a chance.”
“Someplace warm, quiet, and safe,” said the Princeps, his eyes hardening. “That can be a rare thing even in times of peace.”
“True enough.”
The Princeps stopped in his tracks. They were a short distance from the nearest sentries. “Your best guess. Could Crassus command this force in . . . my absence?”
“In your absence, as your lieutenant, yes,” Fidelias replied immediately. “In the event of your loss, Captain? Not for long.”
Octavian eyed him sharply. “Why?”
“Because the Canim respect Varg, and Varg respects you. The Free Aleran Legion respects you—but if you weren’t here, they would follow Varg’s lead.”
The Princeps grunted, frowning. Then he said, “Are you telling me that I should name a Canim the second-in-command of our forces?”
Fidelias opened his mouth and closed it again. He blinked, thinking it over. “I believe . . . that Varg would have a better chance of holding the force together than Crassus, or anyone else in the First Aleran’s command structure.”
“Except, perhaps, Valiar Marcus,” Octavian mused.
Fidelias snorted. “Yes, well, that’s not an option now, is it?”
Octavian regarded him steadily and said nothing.
Fidelias tilted his head as it slowly dawned on him what Octavian meant. “Oh, Your Highness. You couldn’t possibly do that.”
“Why not?” Octavian asked. “No one but my personal guard and Demos’s crew know the truth about you. They can keep a secret. So, Marcus runs the force until it can unite with the Legions, passes along Crassus’s orders, and is watched by the Maestro—who is, I believe, still uncertain as to why you aren’t hanging on a cross being eaten by vord.”
“I’m a bit unclear on that point myself, at times.”
Octavian’s visage hardened briefly. “I will do as I see fit with your life. It is mine to spend. Remember that.”
Fidelias frowned and inclined his head slightly. “As you wish, my lord.”
“That’s right,” Octavian said, some measure of bitter humor touching the tone.
Fidelias studied the young man for a moment and realized that . . . the Princeps was torn over some decision. Normally he was so confident, so driven; Fidelias had never seen him like this. There was uncertainty hovering behind his words, hesitance: Octavian himself wasn’t sure what his next steps would be.
“Are you planning on leaving the force, sir?” Fidelias asked carefully.
“At some point, it’s inevitable,” Octavian replied calmly. “If nothing else, I will be obliged to make personal contact with the Legions in Calderon—and hope to the great furies whoever is in charge over there has had sense enough to listen to my uncle.”
Fidelias grunted. “But . . . that isn’t what you think will happen.”
Octavian grimaced, and said, “Someone has to command the men, regardless of what happens to me. We have to take down the vord Queen—and her cadre of captured or treacherous Citizens. I will, by necessity, be in the center of that conflict. And . . . the odds seem to be long against me.”