The Sheening Of The Blades (Book 1) (3 page)

Distracted,
staring, whispering, the boys almost ran into Melkin and Kai.  They were stopped again, this time before an ornate, opalescent set of doors that arched into a graceful point over their heads.  Melkin was growling something tersely to one of the guards.  Dra Kai, silent and motionless beside him, looked rather barbaric in this setting, what with his bare bronze arms and brief, close-fitting clothing.  The guard talking to Melkin turned away, looking disdainful, and headed pompously off down a side hall.  As they all waited for him to return, the boys eyed the remaining guard in a very one-sided scrutiny.  These were Queensguard, an elite bunch never seen by the public unless the Queen herself was out on display, and they came with the appropriate high self-regard.  Their tunics were blinding white leather, undertunics and breeches deep red, and the Triple Mountain in silver on their collars. A beautifully draped scarlet cloak hung from this one’s shoulders, and silverwork gleamed ostentatiously in the light of the gas lanterns.

Ari was still gazing at him, envious
and wondering what it took to be a Royal Guard, when the other guard returned.  He gazed down his nose at them, saying curtly and without much support for the idea, “She’ll see you now.”  And before Ari could really get a grasp on what exactly that implied, the door had been opened.  They were ushered into a small sitting room—which, as it already held two of the largest men he’d ever seen, promptly shrank around him.

As they entered, someone was saying in a deep, amused voice,
“Whoever told you that is slipperier than fish eggs, Sable.”

It was one of the men, but Ari
’s eyes slid promptly off of him, mind sucked clean of coherent thought by the sight of the slim young woman standing nearby.  Seeing her from a distance on Parade didn’t do the Queen of the North justice.  She looked like a young girl as she stood quietly by the one window, hands around a cup of tea, her dark brown hair jumbled in glossy waves around her shoulders.  Technically, she
was
a young girl.  Her dress was southern Empire, simple cotton and plain white, though there was delicate embroidery on the hem and wide sleeves.  Her clear complexion and the wide eyes of pansy blue, in combination with her loose hair, made her look about sixteen.  The boys, all having adopted identical frozen positions pressed against one wall, gawked.

Near her, long legs stretched casually out in front of him as he rested on the window ledge, was a gigantic man who could only be the King of the
Eastern Seas.  Stormy grey-blue eyes looked out of a face like weathered wood.  Thick, dark waves of hair, shot at the temples with silver, crested over his big forehead.  It covered the bearded jaw, too, which had the durable look normally attributed to granite. Ari thought instantly that he looked exactly like a King should: wise, noble, solemn, strong.

An impression immediately marred by
his huge guffaw at something the Queen said.  The entire room shook, reverberating off Ari’s eardrums like a bell had clanged next to him.  “And did you tell him that?” he demanded, at a decibel level that was surely making Melkin envious.

“
Oh, nevermind, Kane,” she answered crossly.  “We’ll talk about it later.” And then so smoothly there was hardly a pause, she turned to say, “Good morning, Master Melkin.  School out?”

Melkin grunted at her exactly as he would a trying student, and while the boys
’ eyes bulged at this familiarity, Melkin pulled something from the folds of his traveling cloak and handed it to her.

She took it blankly—it was the dagger Kai had pulled off the boys
’ intruder—while Melkin gave a few terse words of explanation.

“
Kai found two cutthroats lurking around the University yesterday afternoon.  We barely stopped a third from committing the unthinkable in these boys’ room.  He had this little trinket on him.”

Sable
’s clear eyes lifted in surprise to the three subjects decorating her wall, who were also surprised.  Melkin had not shared the fact that their intruder had come with friends.  For a moment, dead silence reigned, and a tight little frown began to pucker her brows.  King Kane took the knife from her loose fingers, lifting it to turn it thoughtfully in the light from the window.

“
This is Sheelsteel,” he said, almost accusingly.  His voice had dropped to a menacing growl, the formidable chin jutting, the dark eyes hostile.  The boys quailed. Merranics were said to fear nothing on the battlefield—a trait most Northerners attributed to lack of discernment.  Ari was a bit more forgiving normally, but the combination of size and proximity was altering his view.

Sable looked between the three
men, to the knife, then back to the men.  “Oh, no. 
Don’t
,” she implored them.  “This is quite serious enough on its own without all your paranoid superstitions warping things out of proportion…no doubt this is an old relic from someone’s grandfather.  There’s all kinds of steel lying around the Empire from the Wars—”

“
Anything else?” Kane interrupted her to ask Dra Kai.  She rolled her eyes.

The Dra shrugged, but Melkin said,
“One of them carried a purse full of tirna stamped with the Ramparts, but anyone doing business in the south of the Empire could carry the same.”

Sable
looked at him approvingly for saying something reasonable.  “Why the University?  Why these boys?” she asked crisply.

Said boys
’ ears perked up and they held their breath, wondering if their Master had come to any conclusions they didn’t know about.

“
Search me,” Melkin growled, glaring dourly at them.  “I spent a good part of the evening trying to discover some kind of connection or a motive, and came up with only three empty-headed adolescents.”

“
Still,” Kane said slowly, deep voice thrumming through the room, “it’s a bad time for the Enemy’s weapons to be showing up…regardless of where—or when—they’re from.”

Sable
looked at them firmly.  “Please do not tell me you’re going to lay this alongside your improbable collection of
evidence…”
  Both men avoided the question—also her eyes—Melkin frowning blackly at the thick carpet, Kane turning his attention back to the knife.  She looked from one to the other and then turned deliberately to Dra Kai.  “How do you read this?” she asked calmly.

The boys
’ eyebrows rose.  Drae weren’t exactly the cream of society—they were surprised he was even present.

             
He was either unaware or uncaring of his social status, looking quite unperturbed at being in the presence of so much high rank.  His dark eyes gleamed in his expressionless face, and the light picked out the hard edges of muscle in his crossed arms.  He looked patently out of place in the fussy sitting room, like a drawn sword laid out amongst children’s clothes. 

“This is White Asp work,” he answered quietly, deep voice seeming to reverberate in the small room.

Both monarchs looked at him sharply. 
“Not again,” Sable said, so low it was almost a whisper.  She shot Melkin and Kane a hard look, chiding them, “Any trouble involving the Asps is of much more tangible and pressing concern than the ghosts you three are chasing.”

             
Kane shot her an avuncular frown, then pressed Kai, “You’re sure?”

“
You’re wrong,” Melkin interrupted, flatly accusing Sable and further upsetting the boys on the wall.  She raised her delicate brows.  “Mercenaries will be the least of your troubles if the south rises again.” 

Silence like a tomb filled the room, whic
h was suddenly an airless prison.  Ari gulped, feeling himself starting to sweat.  This was the same stuff Melkin ranted about in class occasionally—the main reason he was considered a little off his rocker.  He couldn’t believe he spouted it to the Queen.

Sable
sighed softly, lips turning up a little.  “Well,” she said with bright sarcasm, “I assume you’ve brought these young men to me for protection from further heinous acts foreshadowing the downfall of the Empire?”

His silvery brows
frowned darkly at her, but he didn’t respond for several seconds.  When he did speak, he seemed more reluctant than angry.  “No…actually, I’m taking them with me.”

“
Taking them,” the Queen repeated.  “Taking them where?”

He was definitely reluctant. 
“To Addah.”

The Thrones of the North and Merrani stared at him.  Sable arched a graceful
brow.

“
Addah?  Whatever for?  I can’t believe you’re in the mood for a vacation in the Wolflands
now.
” 

“
Because I’m guessing that’s going to be the best place to unearth the old stories of Montmorency…and the Empress.”

If the wall hadn
’t been holding him up, Ari was sure he would’ve fallen. 
The Empress?

“
You must be joking,” Sable said, dead-pan.  “The legend of the Empress?  What next?  The Swords of Light swooping down to help us ward off the endless armies of Enemy??”  Her voice changed a trifle, “Look, I started down this path because you said some things that made sense.  But if you’re going to start delving into, literally, storytales—”

But Kane was looking very serious. 
“The Five Hundred Years of Peace,” he inserted into the Queen’s tirade of disbelief.  Her head spun to look at him, pretty mouth dropping open.

“
That’s ancient history!” she protested.  “More tale than truth!  The last great battle of the Ages of War—a legend of prophesied peace—I don’t even remember it.”

“
Me neither,” Melkin said grimly.  “And it’s not written up in a single chronicle, not a word in all the Histories.  How can that be?” He shot her an accusing look.

She made a face at him. 
“Are you serious?  I’ve been on the Throne seven years, Melkin—it’s not like I was responsible for keeping all the histories these past centuries.”

“
So…” Kane mused, thumbing his lip thoughtfully.  “You’re going to where history is still oral.”

“
Merranic history is still oral, and a sight better than any flaming Illian’s,” a voice like good-natured thunder rumbled from behind them all.  The boys jumped, having completely forgotten the other man in the room.  He was probably the largest human they’d ever seen, and was presently crammed into one of the flowered armchairs.  One pinky was wedged tightly into the ungenerous handle of a tiny teacup, which he was absently trying to shake off.  His hair and beard were so brown, stiff, and abundant that they almost obscured his face.

“
Well,” Sable said dryly.

“
Our relations with the Illians were never as good as the North’s,” Kane explained, a little apologetically.  

“
Not enough diplomacy,” Sable said archly.

“
Not enough greed,” he shot back.  “Do you remember any more of the story, Banion?”

There was a pause
while the over-strained chair let out a peep of protest, then the bristles on the behemoth parted in a wolfish grin.  “No.  Most of our history concerns the Battle.  We’re not so interested in peace.”

“
Exactly,” Melkin ground out, voice rough and gravelly after all the smooth Merranic baritones.  “So, I’m off to the High Wilds, and they’re coming with me.”  He jerked his thumb at the boys.

“
Take Banion along,” Kane offered.  “You never know what you might meet up with in the Wastes.”

Melkin
’s face lightened and he muttered a gruff thanks.

“
Wait a minute,” Sable begged.  “Before you all go galloping off over the horizon, what about the problem in front of us?  How are you going to protect these boys in the wild, on the trail?  The danger to them is a definite, if ill-understood, reality.  Their connection to a Realms-wide threat is nothing but conjecture.  The threat
itself
is nothing but conjecture.”  She looked at the men firmly, and Ari could almost feel Rodge silently applauding.  He, on the other hand, was a little confused. What connection did he and Loren and Rodge have to a threat to the Realms?  What threat?  The White Asps?

“
Evidence is mounting.” Kane looked belligerent.

“
Half-truths and echoes of legends,” she said crisply. She looked like a doll next to him, tiny and delicate, but she didn’t show any signs of being intimidated.  “We can’t stop our lives and run into hiding at every conspiracy theory that we arrange facts to support—”

“
If you’d brush off the Histories—the real ones, not the milksop they feed at the University—you’d have a little better appreciation for what’s imperiling your Empire,” Melkin snapped.  The boys’ jaws dropped.  In the silence, to their amazement, their Queen looked as chastised as any classmate.

“
I did promise I’d do that,” she murmured.  There was a moment’s silence.  Ari felt sweat trickling down the back of his shirt.  Would this never end?

“
Well,” she finally allowed.  “You must do what you must.  But I want to send Cerise with you.  She can keep me abreast of those minute little changes in the course of human history that you don’t seem to have time to pass along…”  She held up a hand as Melkin, whose face mirrored the outraged horror in Ari’s mind, opened his mouth to protest. 
She?