The Queen Revealed (19 page)

He nudged Adele in the ribs with his elbow. “And his widow threw an excellent wake.”

Adele smiled and was relieved that Brent’s passing had been peaceful, and that she wasn’t going to be expected to continue the philosophical side of this discussion. Who knew how many ways she could insult a priest from a different world?

“You know Queen Adelena, I have a little keg of cider set up under a tree over there if you would like to rest a while with an old priest,” he gestured at a shady spot in the garden next to an enormous tree.

Adele hesitated. Should she go and check on Stella, who was no doubt still fast asleep, or could she take a drink with this kind old man? Her heart clenched as she wondered if the gossip about Charlie had spread any further in the Manor.
Oh God, if Lady Olivia finds out I’ll lose my only female friend, all over a lie I helped make.

“A drink sounds great,” she said.

It was lovely under the trees and though the cider was sour it was very refreshing and helped settle her stomach.

Pere Raven prattled on about the recipe which was a family secret, but not his family’s, he had added with a laugh. As they chatted, Adele found herself enjoying a normal conversation with a normal, albeit hair-free, person who made her laugh and shared her disinterest in horse racing. After a while, she began to relax a little as Pere Raven entertained her with gossip and stories from behind the scenes of the Carnival. Apparently, the Carparell party were accusing the Belvoir laundry of losing their squire uniforms and were now keeping their dirty laundry under lock and key. Adele chuckled, until she remembered that Charlie had first appeared in the Carparell livery and almost groaned at another of his indiscretions. That boy was nothing but trouble.

“Is it the heat that is bringing you low, Your Majesty, or is something else making you sad?” Pere Raven asked, his expression gentle. “I’m sorry if it’s too intrusive to ask a Queen’s business, but the affairs of the Human soul are a specialty of mine and I sense a heaviness in yours at present.”

Adele was instantly swamped with insecurity. “What can I tell you?” she said drily. “My life is not my own and there is so much I’m not allowed to say.’

Pere Raven nodded knowingly. “I can only imagine what a tough road it is being Queen, let alone when we must all seem so foreign to you. It is a burden I do not envy you.”

Adele looked into the man’s guileless expression and her eyes filled with the tears that had threatened to fall all day. “You have no idea,” she whispered, but was scared to say more in case she lost her composure completely.

“You are right there,” agreed Pere Raven somewhat morosely. “But then I have always suffered from a crippling lack of imagination. It’s why I had to turn to religion, so someone else could give me all the answers to my ‘whys?’ and ‘what comes afters?’.”

Adele smiled despite herself, but it died quickly on her lips. “It has been difficult to adjust to this new life so fast,” she said, looking down at her lap. “I feel like I’m always disappointing someone whatever I do.”

Pere Raven sat back in his chair and clasped his wooden cup of cider between his hands. “Of all the things I have heard about you since your arrival Queen Adelena, most tell of you being a beautiful and kind woman. That your ways are gentle and that you are an uncommonly doting mother,” he looked over at her, his naked brows raised. The expression was much less disconcerting now she knew him better. “Are these things true?”

“I suppose you might describe me that way… on a good day,” she said. Compliments made her feel as awkward as talking about death did.

Pere Raven smiled enthusiastically and sat forward again.

“Well!” he said, slapping his knee. “Then some people understand you perfectly. On a good day of course,” he added with a wink. “As I understand it you were not a Queen on the world of Earth?”

Adele shook her head.

“It must have been a dreadful shock to land on our world and be immediately crowned and worshipped then.” He guffawed loudly. “I can only imagine what a dunce I would be if that happened to me.” He let out another hoot. “Or would if I could!”

A giggle escaped Adele before she could squash it back down. The man’s good humor was infectious.

“I say, give yourself a break, Your Majesty!” proclaimed Pere Raven throwing his hands in the air, and spilling cider on his brown cotton robe. “You strike me as a person who cares very much about the world around her. I could think of no better person to be my surprise Queen, or should I say
surprised Queen
.” He chuckled at his own joke.

“You are very kind,” said Adele. “But I think that many people are relying on the fact that I can be more than I actually am.” Her expression turned haunted as she thought of how little progress she had made in finding out about the Prophecy that was controlling her life her in Unisia. “Too much depends on me.”

“Ah, yes,” nodded Pere Raven. “Well, my Queen, if I may give you some advice? Take a leaf from the book of the Belvoir Family. They believe that leaders are made and not born. They work together as a family to ensure that all of their children are brought up to take their duties and family honor seriously. But not all are made to rule, some are educated to learn to support from behind the throne. My advice to you, my dear Queen, would be to find yourself a good support for behind that big throne of yours. No monarch has ever ruled this Kingdom alone.” He leaned forward and touched her arm. His hand was warm and the skin was rough. “Though perhaps you already have found that support and you just have to let yourself believe in the good of it.” He smiled and Adele smiled back. The priest had flecks of green in his murky brown eyes.

“I really should check on my baby,” she said rising from her chair. “But thank you, Pere Raven, for the cider and the conversation. I feel so much better than I did before meeting you and I didn’t think that feeling better was an option today.”

Pere Raven chuckled again. “That is one of the grander compliments I’ve had in a while, my dear Queen Adelena, and the pleasure was mine alone I assure you.”

As Adele parted from the happy priest there was a slight spring in her step. All of his positive words had given her a new energy.

There was very little on this new world that Adele could control. She was a Human Queen in an alien world, after all, and though her Magic was changing in ways that frightened her, it was also exhilarating to know that she had a strength that could protect her, should she need it. Yet, she was underestimated everywhere she went. The only people in all of Evendaar who knew that she was more than a puppet Queen were her Queen’s Guard. They had seen what she had accomplished in Sandar with the Empress Sanda’hani there, forging a new relationship and ensuring peace between their two realms, however fragile that might be. She had earned the respect of her men then, and, Adele decided, she would be damned if she lost that respect because of a stupid lie.

It was time she embraced the help they could give her instead of shying away from it. She needed to trust the one man her instincts told her was honest and true. So now it was her turn to be honest.

At least, honest enough.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

“When Loyalty is a Curse”

“He did
what
?”

Poison from the fangs of the Spider Empress flew out and sprayed the cowering Schiss. He patted at the smoking patches on his old coat and shuffled backwards on his knees. The Shaman who had read the letter melted back into the crowd of watching Councilors. The entire Nest Council had gathered for this momentous occasion and the mood was very tense.

“Please, Mother of Us All, please understand…the Prince, he…” Schiss stammered and trembled under the Empress’s thousand-eyed glare. He silently cursed Grottonski’s honesty, telling the Empress everything that the Prince had done. Didn’t he know this would only make his mother angry?

“He let that little Queen escape him and hide in the black lands the Humans call Belvoir!” The Empress shivered her fangs again and this time Schiss caught a droplet just below his eye. He bit down hard on his lip to keep from crying out.

“He has betrayed me and he has betrayed us all!” shrieked the Empress and her cry caused every spider in the cavern to drop and cover their ears. The breathy clicking and popping language that was their native tongue was horribly shrill when screamed aloud in anger.

“No, no, no Empress!” Schiss protested. “The Prince has found a priest and he will marry the Queen like he promised he would.” Schiss crept forward on all fours. His Human-form felt uncomfortable on the dirt floor as pebbles and sharp bits of bone pressed into his knees, but he couldn’t mind the pain now. The Empress was crazy with rage at Prince Rainere and if he wasn’t careful with her now she might just command the death of the Marchant Prince and then all their plans would end up on the dung heap.

Schiss shivered. Grotto had promised him a place at the foot of the King when Rainere took the Throne. A place at the foot of the King would also be a place at the foot of his beautiful Queen, the gentle and kind Queen Adelena, the woman who had promised never to kill him. The very idea that the Empress may try to hurt Queen Adelena made Schiss take a firmer hold on his courage and slowly climb back to his feet before his mother.

“Empress, you must understand, these Humans above us have many complicated ways of doing very simple things. The Prince merely sent the Queen to Belvoir to get the blessing of her people before she is to return to the Grey Palace and marry the Prince. He has told me he will fetch her back himself. She is a good Queen, Empress, she will not break her promises to us.”

Schiss ran his lying tongue over his dry lips. He had no idea what the Queen Adelena was doing in Belvoir, but he was convinced that the Prince wanted to marry the Queen and would definitely try to get her back to his side as soon as he could. Grotto had told him so. He held himself taller, buoyed by the hope that what he said was true.

“Empress, by the time the full moon rises, the Prince will be a King and all our people shall rise from the Under Lands, just as the Prophecy predicts.” Schiss watched his mother carefully, as her animal instincts warred with the more cerebral part of her ancient brain.

“But he had lied and betrayed us this… this deceitful Prince.” The Empress snapped and clicked her jaws irritably. “This letter tells me he had fallen in love with the Hidden Child and will keep her as his own after they are married. It irritates me that he has said this. She is the Lost Child, and the Hidden Child, but she is also the murderer of my son, beautiful Oki.”

The Empress shifted on her sodden mess of pillows and glared about the Cavern, seeing betrayal everywhere. She clicked again and muttered to herself, “He said he would have this Queen by now, but instead she runs all over the Above Lands, hiding in the cursed Belvoir and pulling the Prince along by a string. My string! Well, it is time I pulled that string back out of her tiny hands. Prince Rainere must learn that when he promises me a thing, it is a thing he must do immediately. I hold his Oath, I hold the true power over him and I can take away what I have given him just as easily.”

The Empress turned her attention back to Schiss and he cowered beneath the strength of her fury.

“Tell our Marchant Prince that come the day of the full moon he will give his bride to me. Then and only then will his Oath to me be fulfilled. Only after he has proved his faithfulness as our King will I let him have the
good
Queen back,” she cackled. “Or what is left of her bones.”

“Yes, Empress,” whispered Schiss, bowing as his cold blood ran even colder. There was no reasoning with his mother when she was like this. He had to get word to the Prince immediately and warn him of the Empress’s plans.

“Go now, little son,” ordered the Empress and waved her forelegs at him. “Go do my bidding and tell the Prince he has only the wedding night with his bride, then he must bring her to me, or otherwise.” Her eyes glittered malevolently. “I will add his bones to the little Queen’s.”

“Wait, Empress!”

Schiss froze at the interruption. He saw his older brother, Ki-ok, one of the Favored, step forward wearing the robes of a Councilor. This was a new appointment, and it didn’t bode well for Schiss at all. His brother was a bloodthirsty cretin.

Ki-ok bowed low to the Empress and moved to stand beside Schiss. “My little brother seems to be full of information today,” said Ki-ok in his wispy voice, as he placed a cold hand on the back of Schiss’s neck, holding him firmly. “Perhaps before we send him back to his master, the Marchant Prince, we should try and discover how it is he can be so sure the Queen will come back to the Grey Palace.”

Ki-ok turned to Schiss and leaned over him. “For such an insignificant Spider you seem to be very well informed about the Humans. I think perhaps there is more you could tell us, hmm? Or is it that you wish for only the Marchant Prince to hear all of your talking?”

Schiss looked up into the black-eyed glare of his brother and saw the calculation in his eyes. Schiss almost sighed at the inevitability of the pain that was to come even before the fear of it turned his guts to liquid. His first mistake had been to defend the Prince, his second had been to call the Queen good.

Schiss cast a glance at his mother, the Empress, and fell to his knees. “Empress, please, let me deliver this message as you have given it to me. I will return afterwards…” But he voice was drowned out by maniacal laughter of his mother and he knew words were useless. As he was dragged from the cavern Schiss sent a prayer to the Goddess Lune that he would only live long enough to see the Queen Adelena again, even if it was in the hour of his death.