Empires of Moth (The Moth Saga, Book 2) (6 page)

The royal procession kept
advancing, the knights on horseback clearing the way, the trumpets
blowing, the jugglers juggling, and the Dalmatians yipping. They
moved along narrow, cobbled streets. Lanterns swung alongside upon
poles, their tin shaped as ugly, mocking faces like the girls who
used to torment Linee before she had married the king. Behind the
lamps rose buildings of opaque glass bricks and sloping, tiled roofs
whose edges curled up like wet parchment. When Linee stuck her head
out the window, she could see towers rising ahead, not beautiful
white towers like those back home, but weird things of crystal and
glass like translucent bones. Pahmey didn't even seem like a city at
all, more like a bad dream after eating something too spicy. It was
still too dark and too cold, and Linee trembled.

"I hate it," she
whispered into Fluffy's fur. "I wish we had never come here."

Her pup whimpered and licked her
face.

Linee
knew that she had only herself to blame. Ceranor did not want her
here; when marching out to war last year, he had told her to stay in
the palace back in sunlight, to play with her dolls, to pick her
flowers, and to ask her seamstresses for as many new gowns as she
pleased. She had done so for months, and it had become so
boring
.
She missed her Cery, her dear old husband, a man thirty years older
than her and so much wiser. She missed the boy Torin, the gardener
who had spent a summer in the capital, playing boardgames with her
and teaching her the names of flowers. In the long months alone in
the palace, she had even begun to miss Bailey, that gangly girl she
had once thought so horrible, what with her rough words, boy clothes,
and angry brown eyes.

"And so I came here to find
you all," she whispered as her carriage trundled along. She
whimpered when she saw two Elorian children scuttle by, and she
pressed herself deep into her seat and closed her eyes. "But now
I'm afraid. Now I want to go home to sunlight."

This
dreamscape city her husband had conquered for her sprawled for miles.
Linee huddled in her seat, almost disappearing into the plush
upholstery, and refused to look outside the window again, but she
could still
hear
the city—a cackle of Elorians speaking their language, the caws of
strange wingless birds as large as horses, and clinks and clatters of
bones and metal and talons. And she could still smell the place
too—a tang of seafood, spices, tallow, and oil. She tried to breathe
through her mouth and cover her ears, but Fluffy kept sliding from
her lap.

It seemed to take hours before
her carriage finally halted and her knights knocked on her door.

"Your Highness!" said
Sir Ogworth, peering through the window. He was a young knight with a
handlebar mustache; she had thought him handsome in Dayside, but here
in the night, their oil lanterns painted everyone an ugly red like a
baboon's backside. "We've arrived in the Night Castle, my
queen."

When he opened the door, Linee
whimpered. She had spent so long wishing she were here with her
husband, yet now she couldn't bear the thought of actually setting
foot in this place. She just wanted to go home. This city was nothing
like what she had thought, and nobody would see how pretty she was
here. In this lamplight, they would think her just a baboon's bottom
too.

"I . . . I changed my mind,
Sir Ogworth," she said in a small voice. "Turn the carriage
around. We'll return back to Dayside."

The knight's eyes widened. "Your
Highness! We've traveled for almost two months to arrive here."

Linee peeked outside the window
and shuddered to see the darkness, the swinging lanterns with their
faces, and the stars above. They could have traveled here much faster
by boat; she knew that, and perhaps Ogworth would have been more
willing to turn back then. But Linee had always feared the water, and
so they had braved the rocky plains with horses and carriage; they
would just have to spend another two months traveling home.

"This
city is not what I thought," she said. "Please, Sir
Ogworth.
Please
.
Can we go home now?" Her eyes welled up with tears. "I'm
your queen, and I'm very beautiful, and you
have
to do what I say. You
have
to."

His eyes softened and he opened
the carriage door. Linee whimpered and pushed herself deeper into her
seat, clutching her dog. Cold wind blew from outside—it was always
so damned cold in Nightside—and she trembled.

"Your Highness," Sir
Ogworth said, his voice kind, "I would be most honored to
accompany you home. But before our journey, would you not like to see
your husband? He has taken residence here in the Night Castle, right
outside the carriage. Your friends Torin Greenmoat and Lady Berin are
there too. Perhaps you would like to play a round of board games with
them before traveling back to Timandra?"

Linee
swallowed and peered over the knight's head. The building that rose
there looked nothing like a castle. Real castles had thin, white
steeples with a hundred banners, ivy and roses that crawled over
their walls, warrens with bunnies in their courtyards, and handsome
knights in shining armor riding out their gates.
This
place looked like a demon's lair. Rather than sport steeples, it rose
in five tiers, each one topped with a slanting roof—it looked to
Linee more than five buildings stacked together. Golden statues of
dragons perched upon those roofs, and stone dragons guarded its
gates, roaring silently. Linee swallowed a lump in her throat.

"Cery . . . conquered this
place for me?" she asked. "Did he kill all the demons
inside?"

Sir Ogworth smiled and reached
into the carriage, offering his hand. "King Ceranor killed all
the Elorians for you, Your Highness. No more lurk here to frighten
you. Come, Your Highness, let us step inside. If you're still scared
inside the Night Castle, I promise to take you home right away."

Linee bit her lip and sniffed
back her tears. "All right."

She reached out and held his
hand. She let him escort her out of her carriage. She stood shaking
on the cobbled street, clutching her pup, feeling very small and weak
in this great darkness. Her soldiers moved at her sides. Her
musicians blew their trumpets. Sir Ogworth led her by the hand.

Be
brave, Linee,
she told herself.
You
are Queen of Arden. That means you are queen of this city too.

She looked to the left where the
streets sloped down to the river, lined with houses of glass bricks
and ceramic tiles. She looked to the right where, beyond boulevards
and columned manors, rose the crystal towers of the city's crest. She
looked ahead where loomed the strange fortress, this black and
twisted monolith like a demon of stone and metal.

Clutching her dog to her cheek,
Queen Linee of Arden held her breath and stepped toward her new
castle.

Ceranor stood in the candlelit
hall, leaning over a table and studying the maps of Eloria.

Since conquering Pahmey, he had
spent most of his time in this hall, a shadowy cavern deep within the
Night Castle. Its domed ceiling displayed the constellations of the
night, carved in silver—running wolves, leaping fish, brave archers,
coiling dragons, and a hundred others. Its granite table stretched as
wide as a boat's deck, flecked with blue and silver like a second
sky. Columns rose on every side; bronze dragons wrapped around them,
gems bright in their eye sockets, incense burning in their nostrils.

"We light only a corner of
Eloria's great darkness," Ceranor said, gesturing at the maps of
the night. "Our lanterns have brought civilization and order to
Pahmey, but beyond this city, the great wilderness of the night still
awaits salvation. It too must be liberated from shadow."

His lords crowded around him,
barons and earls and other nobles with pompous titles Ceranor barely
bothered remembering. He cared little for their bloodlines and
titles, only the troops they brought to battle. They wore
breastplates engraved with the raven of Arden, and cloaks of the
kingdom's colors—gold and black—draped across their shoulders. A
few wore sunburst pins; converts to the new Sailith religion.

"There are few lands left
for Arden!" said one man, a beefy brute with a walrus mustache.
"The other seven kings have become greedy."

Ceranor nodded, trailing his
fingers across the map. Wooden figurines, shaped as the sigils of all
eight kingdoms of daylight, stood upon the parchment map. The raven
of Arden, his own kingdom, stood over a drawing of this city along
the river. The bear of Verilon, carved from pine, was invading the
northern shores of the Qaelish Empire. The orca of Orida was
attacking the island of Leen north of Qaelin, a small kingdom of
darkness. The scorpion of Eseer, the elephant of Sania, the tiger of
Naya . . . all were attacking different locations. Some were nibbling
at pieces of Qaelin, this sprawling empire, while others attacked the
smaller kingdoms of the night.

The
man speaks truth,
Ceranor thought and frowned.

"Arden must advance,"
he agreed, "or we'll have the smallest slice of this pie. We
must move. We must conquer more of the night." He slammed his
fist against the map. "I will not see the other sunlit kings
claim more than we do. Arden has led the charge into Nightside; it is
Arden who must claim the greatest spoils of the night." His
nobles nodded and slapped the table in approval, and Ceranor raised
his voice. "All of western Eloria glows with the light of
Timandra. But in the east, darkness still looms. We must advance into
that darkness. We will march upon the city of Yintao, the distant
capital of this wilderness they call the Qaelish Empire. We will
bring Yintao to its knees!"

Some of his nobles cheered in
approval; two even drew and brandished their swords. Others, however,
bit their lips or tapped the table in concern.

"Your Highness," said
one, a slim man with a wisp of a beard. "They say that a great
army musters in Yintao. They say that a boy emperor rules there, that
he commands fifty thousand Elorian savages, a host all in steel,
bearing spears and swords. They say that a dragon fights with him."
Laughter rose across the hall, but the slim man raised his chin and
voice. "Your Highness, would it not be wiser to stay within
Pahmey, to let this boy emperor march against us and perish against
our walls?"

Ceranor stared at this skinny
coward—more a worm than a warrior—in disgust.

This
is what happens,
he thought,
when
men ascend to titles through bloodlines rather than proving
themselves on the battlefield.

"No," he said to the
coward. "We will not cower here in one city. Not when we have an
empire to conquer. Not as the seven other sunlit kings bite and peck
at the carcass of the night." He raised his fist. "You may
stay here among the savages. We true men will march to war! We—"

A high-pitched whine rose behind
him, cutting off his words.

"Cery! Oh, Cery, my
sweetling! I missed you, and oh . . . look! Dragon statues!"

Ceranor had faced barbarian
hordes screaming for his blood, warships charging toward his navy,
and the fire of cannons blazing . . . yet now, at the sound of that
voice, his belly sank deeper than in any battle.

Oh,
merciful Idar . . . she's here.

Grimacing,
he turned toward the hall's doors and saw her there.

"Linee," he said,
voice choked.

His young wife—thirty years his
junior—ran toward him with open arms. Rather than simply embracing
him, she leaped onto him, wrapped all four limbs around him like a
squid, and clung. She showered him with kisses.

"Cery! Oh, Cery, I missed
you, my little piglet."

Some of the nobles snickered
behind him, and Ceranor groaned.

"Linee!" He tried to
pry her off, but he'd have better luck freeing himself from iron
shackles.

He sighed. He had married the
girl two years ago, hoping to forge an alliance with her father who
ruled some stone bridge Ceranor no longer cared about. At first,
young Linee—barely more than a youth, a fey thing with golden
elflocks and bright blue eyes—had been terrified of him, an old
soldier with graying hair and battle scars. Yet quickly, her silly
mind had filled with love for him, a love overpowering and clingy
like a leech's love for blood.

I
invaded the night for glory . . . and to escape her,
he thought as she kissed him all over his face.
And
now the little devil is back.

Finally he managed to extricate
himself. He turned toward his nobles, saw them snicker, and glowered
at them.

"This council is over!"
he barked, then grunted as Linee leaped onto his back and began
kissing the top of his head. "Leave this place. We'll meet again
in an hourglass turn."

The nobles left, hiding their
snickers behind their palms. Ceranor fumed. He grabbed Linee's arms,
pried her off his back, and placed her back down.

"Linee," he said,
"what in the name of sanity are you doing here?"

She gave him a bright, toothy
grin. Her golden locks cascaded across her face, and her blue eyes
shone with love. She held on to his waist and hopped upon her toes,
her grin growing only larger.

"I
was so
bored
back in Arden," she said. "I was bored and lonely and . . .
bored. There was nobody to play boardgames with. The bed was all
cold. And I missed you. I know you missed me too." She kissed
his cheek, held his hands, then jumped up and down. "But I'm
here now! I told all my knights that they
had
to take me here, that I just
had
to see my Cery again. Aren't you happy to see me?"

Ceranor groaned inwardly. He
vowed to find whatever knights had accompanied her here and have them
whipped. In the same breath, he was shocked at his young wife's
initiative. The girl who chased butterflies, cried when flowers
wilted, and squeaked when kittens hissed had somehow managed to
organize a journey here. Linee would rarely leave her bed; to leave
her entire kingdom was a feat he hadn't thought her capable of. She
was vacuous, childlike, and endlessly silly, but perhaps there was
some courage lurking within the pink ribbons of her heart.