The Element of Fire, Martha Wells [books for new readers .txt] 📗

with dew, silvery gauze, or were covered only by their long hair. There were men of the same ethereal beauty as the guards, in velvets, fine lace, and gold-shot brocade. Here and there a wing as delicate as a butterfly’s and more beautifully hued rose above the crowd. The bright sunlight in the open court made so much glamour the air glowed, and a troupe of gaily dressed fay tumblers performed feats impossible for humans. Most of those here were shape-changers.

Kade went down the steps and through the crowd.

They parted for her. There was no stink of unwashed flesh under the perfumes, as there would be in any human gathering. Her faded and dirty smock, her dragging petticoat lace, her page boy’s boots, were violently out of place here, and she caught many sidelong glances. She could have used glamour to make herself more pleasing to the eye; several here had done so. But she didn’t need to be told that that would have been a mistake.

Titania lay on a leopard-skin couch under a canopy of ostrich feathers, cool shade under the bright light. A small woman, smaller than Kade, the fayre queen wore a mantua heavily laden with pearls and silver embroidery, and her hair was the color of gold, true gold, and her features were much more beautiful than even Queen Falaise’s. But Falaise’s face had been touched by fear, worry, and care, and Titania’s was as perfect as a carved goddess’s; Kade suddenly preferred Falaise, for all that lady’s wavering will.

Two fay pages with the appearance of fair young boys waited on the fayre queen, one holding a wine carafe, the other her fan. They watched Kade with matched expressions of sly mockery. But seated at her feet was a human boy with skin the color of chocolate and dark curly hair, whose gaze remained locked on the tumblers.

Kade did not curtsey to Titania. She was a queen here in her own right.

Titania’s shrewd sapphire eyes considered her. She held a silver wine goblet beaded with moisture, and ran a thoughtful finger over the rim. “Oberon is not here, my sister.” Her voice was like harp strings stirred by the wind.

“But you are.” A few days ago Kade would have replied I am not your sister, but she couldn’t afford to be driven now.

Titania laughed. “And what have you come for?”

“A favor.” Kade looked down at the human boy, and when his brown eyes met hers curiously, she asked him, “Do you want to go home?”

There was an almost soundless gasp from the assembled fay, the music ceasing and the tumblers staggering to a halt.

The boy smiled and shook his head. “No, lady,” he said into the silence. His voice was a little husky, but still a child’s.

Kade looked back at Titania, who smiled. “I love him,” the queen of fayre said.

“The sad thing is,” Kade found herself replying, “you probably do.”

Titania shook her golden head in irritation and set the goblet down on a low jade table. “You always ruin our pastimes, Kade.”

“Good.” Kade paced a few idle steps away from the bower, to avoid showing her rabid impatience, to keep Titania from knowing how every passing moment grated. She saw the smaller sprites at the edge of the crowd back hastily away. She was hardly surprised; she probably looked like she should be standing over a battlefield piled with corpses with a raven on one shoulder. She had been right not to try to put on a pleasing appearance with glamour; that would have been catering to their whims. She looked like herself, fey and eldritch even in this company.

Watching her with perfect brows lifted archly, Titania said, “I only tolerate your interference because of my affection for your mother.”

Words, no sentiment. Copied from some human. Kade smiled at her feet. She couldn’t think why she had ever feared Moire, or Titania, when she had spent much of her early life sparring with Ravenna, who could have effortlessly handled both fay queens were she blind, deaf, and lame. Kade said, “I am the Queen of Air and Darkness.”

Titania accepted a fan from her page and drew the delicate ivory construction through her fingers. “You do not know what that means.”

“Someday I’ll find out.” Kade looked up and smiled. “And here you will be.”

“And what must I do about that?”

“Make me happy.”

Titania laughed again, this time in genuine amusement. Or at least genuine for her. She waved the two fay pages away, but let the human boy remain. “What do you want?”

Kade sensed the crowd behind her begin to relax. The clear note of a harp sounded, and the jugglers began to perform again. The boy’s eyes strayed in their direction. Boliver was around somewhere; she could smell his pipe. “The first, the power to shape-change.”

“Ah.” Titania must know every movement of the Unseelie Court, and she did not ask why. “Best tell me what else you want, for I cannot give you that.”

“You mean, you won’t give me that.”

Titania’s perfect brow creased in annoyance. “Words. I am not a fool; I can’t hand you that much power.”

Kade knew it would come to this. “What if I were to offer you a power in return?”

Titania shook her head, consideringly. “You are very desperate.”

“Yes. And I am very dangerous, when I am very desperate.” That was as close to a threat as she wanted to come. Threats she did not have time to make good on. Kade was at a severe disadvantage and knew it. All she had was bluff and Titania’s greed.

“What would you offer?”

Kade felt as if she were about to step off a precipice. After this, there was no going back. She took a deep breath, and jumped. “Knockma.” Somewhere in the crowd, she heard a thump: Boliver hitting the floor. He had known what she meant to do, but his sense of the dramatic had gotten the better of him.

Titania stared, honestly shocked. Kade waited, forcing herself to smile lightly. Then Titania shook her head, her expression of honest consternation making her look more human, and, Kade thought, more beautiful. “I cannot do it, not even for so great a prize. I cannot give you that much power.”

Kade sighed. I know. If I were you I wouldn’t do it either. But I was hoping you’d be too blinded by greed to care. So forget the first plan and try the second. With Knockma dangling before her like a diamond in the sun, Titania would break down eventually. “We can bargain.”

Titania tapped her fan on the fur couch, watching her. “Bargain. Very well. But why are you doing this?”

Kade smiled and met Titania’s eyes. “For love.” The queen of fayre looked frankly disbelieving, but the human boy grinned up at Kade.

*

Kade met an anxious Boliver at the portico above the court. “How went it?” he asked, nervously hopping from foot to foot.

“Not as good as I hoped; not as bad as I feared.” Out of her pocket, she drew one of the concessions she had wrested from the fayre queen. It looked like a well-crafted glass ball, only a few bubbles marring its perfection. Boliver peered at it closely, and she turned it in the light to show the lines of fire glowing ghostlike within. “It will turn a shape-changed being back to its original form.” She pocketed the powerful little construction carefully, and they started up the hall toward the entrance.

“Is that all? What will you if it doesn’t do its work?”

“What will I? I’ll die, that’s what will I. Gods below, Boliver, don’t ask me these questions at a time like this.” Kade had hoped to get the power to shape-change at will from Titania, hoped to get it without having to kill people right and left as Grandier did, but the fayre queen had refused her and she would just have to do it the hard way. It’s the only way to get anything done lately.

“I’m sorry, lass. But one transformation is not much. And you’ll need that to get in. You’ll be going against all the Host.”

“Yes.” She hated to lose Knockma, but it was a tie to the past, to her mother, and to the Seelie Court and all their wrangling. And if the Host did cross into Knockma, she would never be able to defend it and find Thomas at the same time. Titania would defend it now, with every resource at her disposal, and the Unseelie Court would never have it.

It was also the only home she had ever had. Besides the palace, and that had been taken away. But Knockma had not been taken away, she had given it up, and the difference was important.

And if it would help her destroy Grandier and Denzil, then it was well given.

Kade put a hand in her pocket to touch the glass ball. No, losing Knockma she could live through. It was the next part she had doubts about.

*

Thomas had worked steadily at loosening the spike in the wall and was rewarded by feeling it begin to shift a trifle. If it wasn’t his imagination; his hands were numb with cold. “Any luck?” he asked Aviler.

“No.” Aviler left off his own efforts and leaned back against the wall. “I think you should accept Grandier’s offer.”

Thomas kept working on the spike, without answering. He supposed he should be flattered that Aviler had not automatically assumed that he would leap at any way out.

If he did… Grandier would not let him interfere with his plans to start a war. And once that war was started, Thomas would have no choice but to do his best to help win it. Grandier was well aware that Thomas would not be a willing participant, and Grandier had a talent for influencing people, working his way into their thoughts, bringing them unwillingly over to his side. It was how he wrested the needed information out of his victims before he killed them and took their shapes. There was the possibility that after a year or two of helping Grandier, Thomas would find that he no longer wanted to oppose him.

And then there was Denzil.

Movement out in the anteroom jolted Thomas out of his thoughts. Aviler looked up, puzzled, and they both listened. It sounded as if the troopers who were guarding them were gathering their weapons and leaving. After a long moment of silence, there was a faint shuffling sound from outside the door, and a low deep snarl.

Dontane had said he would have to think of something else. Aviler swore softly, looking around hopelessly for something to use as a weapon. Thomas gathered himself to move, watching the lighted doorway.

A fay appeared in the doorway, the torchlight gleaming from its jaundiced yellow skin. It was perhaps five feet tall, human shaped but with clawed hands and long powerful arms dangling almost to its knees. Its mouth had a wide evil grin revealing far too many sharply pointed teeth, its face distorted by round red eyes and a nose that was an ugly ragged hole.

It sprang at Thomas too quick for thought. He threw himself sideways as far as the chains would allow, flinging up an arm to shield his face. He felt the hard grip on his wrist, the claws tear through the leather of his sleeve, a pressure that nearly tore his arm from the socket. Then its hand came in contact with the iron manacle around his wrist and it shrieked and leapt away.

He rolled over and looked back. The fay staggered, keening in rage, its hand dripping burned flesh, the stink of it filling the room.