THE REFORGED TRILOGY: BOOK 3 — HAMMER OF TIME
Chapter 16: Broken Armor
“Love is a blade. Any weapon can be taken away and used to cut the one who treasured it most.”
– Anthem Calloren (294 PA)
Maeve walked beside Logan all the way up the spiraling glass stairs of her tower. It was one of few spires in Kaellisem that had a staircase, crafted by Hyra at Maeve’s insistence. When they reached the top, Logan sat in one of the open windows and pulled Maeve into his mismatched arms. She closed her eyes, resting her head in the hollow of his shoulder, and wrapped her long white wings around them both. Logan stroked the soft skin between Maeve’s wings.
“Ferris isn’t wrong,” he told her. “You and I can never have children, dove. You know that.”
“I do not care!” Maeve said. At least, that’s what Logan thought she said. It was hard to make out the words with her face buried against the side of his neck. “I love you. You are my enarri.”
“And I–” The words caught in Logan’s throat as though they had thorns. He laid his cheek against the top of Maeve’s head. Her black hair was smooth and soft. “Dove, don’t be so quick to discount this.”
Maeve slid out of Logan’s arms and jumped to her feet. “Do not dare to tell me that you would give me up to Anthem Calloren!”
Logan remained sitting on the windowsill. His cybernetic hand slipped on the smooth glass and scraped loudly. The tower room was full of a diffused orange glow as the sun shined through the delicate walls and the warm wind smelled of dust. Maeve began to pace, stalking back and forth like a caged animal. Her eyes were rimmed in red.
“If I am truly queen,” she said, “then I may make any law I wish, take any lover that I desire! And I desire you, Logan. I will have you or no one!”
Logan couldn’t keep from smiling at his furious angel. Maeve had such fire. Even when he felt coldest, numbed and chilled by his mechanical heart, a single kiss or moment in her arms made him feel so alive.
Logan stood and stepped into the path of Maeve’s angry pacing. She bumped into him and hissed with rage.
“Do not dare–” Maeve started, but Logan caught her wrist in the unbreakable grasp of his illonium fingers.
“You know it’s not that simple,” Logan said. “Maeve, you know what I’m like. You’re here to inspire, to take your people away from whatever Xartasia’s got planned for them, for the whole galaxy. I’m no good at that. Do you think this Anthem hawk might be?”
Maeve swiped tears out of her gray eyes and one splashed onto Logan’s hand. It sparkled in the filtered sunlight, but he couldn’t feel the wet heat.
“Sir Anthem is an accomplished knight,” Maeve admitted as reluctantly as if Logan had tortured the answer out of her. “Ferris did not exaggerate that. He was well known in the White Kingdom.”
“And was Xartasia’s consort, right?” Logan said. “If they see him by your side instead of hers, that’s going to look bad for her.”
Maeve tried to yank her hand from Logan’s metal one. “Yes, I suppose. You have a better head for politics than you claim. And in the name of these higher ideals, you would let me go? After you fought so hard to find me again?”
Logan’s hand clenched around the Arcadian’s delicate wrist. She squirmed, but her expression remained defiant.
“I would do anything for you, Maeve,” he told her in a low voice. “Anything. Including letting you go, if I have to. What we’re doing here is important, dove. I know what it means to you.”
“Not more than you do!” Maeve shouted. She put her free hand over Logan’s cybernetic one and kissed the flat gray illonium.
“Yes, more than me,” Logan said. He pulled Maeve close again and closed his eyes. They burned with tears. “Maeve, I told you that you would be a great queen. Your people need you.”
Maeve cried and beat her fists against Logan’s chest until she finally collapsed sobbing to the ground. He sank to the ground and held her until the storm of tears subsided. Maeve’s wings draped across the glass floor behind her like a bridal train. She lifted her face and kissed Logan.
“You are right,” she said. “Tomorrow, I will go to Ferris. I will tell him that… that I accept Anthem as my consort. But not now.”
Logan kissed Maeve again and together they stumbled into the bedroom, tearing off each other’s clothes with a terrible, desperate need. Maeve twined her arms around her hunter’s neck and would not let go. She whispered and sang out her passion in lyrical Arcadian, in words Logan did not understand. Maybe it was better that he couldn’t.
He traced his fingertips over the pale, slender curves of Maeve’s body, memorizing every bit of her. The scent of her hair and sun-warmed feathers, the taste of tears and sweat on her silky skin, the sound of Maeve’s cries and his name on her lips…
Logan held her long after their bodies could no longer endure their need. Starlight shone weakly through the glass tower and outlined them both in faded silver. Maeve’s eyes fluttered, fighting sleep. Logan kissed her forehead.
“Sleep, dove,” he told her. “Tomorrow is an important day.”
“Do not leave,” Maeve whispered, splaying her fingers over his heart, over the knotted white scar there. “Stay with me.”
Logan put his hand on top of hers.
“I won’t go. Not until morning,” he promised.
Maeve nodded and fell at last into a deep, still sleep. Logan lay awake until dawn, watching her.
Maeve woke up alone in the pale pink light of dawn. Logan was gone. His clothes, his gun and even the warm spot beside her in the bed had all vanished. Maeve drew a deep, shuddering breath. The time for tears was over.
The Gray Queen rose and prepared. She wrapped herself in a long, soft robe and stood before a polished silver mirror. The night before had left her long black hair a tousled mess. Maeve reached for her brush and pulled it mechanically through her hair.
Duaal arrived a few minutes later, leading a pair of young Arcadian girls — Dain and Verra — that each struggled with an armload of glass plates.
“Good morning,” Duaal said with a smile. “It’s as hot as five or six hells out there today. Are you ready to try on your armor?”
Maeve didn’t look up, but stared fixedly at her reflection.
“Armor?” she asked.
Duaal pulled a chair beside Maeve and sat. He frowned into the mirror at her.
“We talked about this yesterday,” he said. “You wanted to wear armor tonight. You’re still a knight, you said, and were one long before you were queen. Ferris had a fit. A civil one, of course, but I swear his ears were about to pop off. Don’t you remember that?”
Maeve did — now that Duaal mentioned it — but the scene wasn’t so funny anymore.
She stood, dropping her robe without pretense. If her heart and body were only mere tools of statecraft, then what point was there in modesty? Logan’s Talon-9 did not blush when drawn.
Duaal arched one dark brow as the Arcadian girls whispered. He crossed his arms over his chest and frowned. He looked so much like Tiberius when he did that, Maeve thought. She smiled sadly at the mirror.
“What’s wrong, Maeve?” Duaal asked. “I would have thought you would be excited to suit up. You haven’t worn Arcadian armor in… how many years? You should be excited about this! Hyra was up all night getting it finished in time. Why are you just standing here like a stuffed bird?”
“Nothing,” Maeve answered. She made herself smile at the Blue Phoenix’s young captain. “You are right. Let us inspect Hyra’s work.”
Duaal gave her a suspicious look as she went to the table where Dain and Verra had set down her armor. There was a twisted rope of scarlet scarves. Maeve uncoiled them and began wrapping herself in the colorful fabric.
“Where is Duke Ferris?” she asked as Duaal stepped up behind her and helped Maeve wrap the red silk.
“He’s downstairs,” he answered.
“Is there anyone with him?”
“Other than Panna? Yeah, actually,” Duaal said. “Another Arcadian man. Older than you, I’d guess. Braided hair, great legs. Is that Logan’s friend Ballad?”
Maeve shook her head. “No. I suspect that is Sir Anthem. Good, I am glad he is here.”
“Sir…? Another knight?” Duaal asked. He untangled two more of the blood-colored scarves. “Why isn’t he up here instead of me? He must know how your armor works.”
“He is probably being respectful of my privacy,” Maeve said. “He does not yet know if it is acceptable to see me like this before we are wed.”
Maeve gestured to the mirror, to her still half-nude image there, but Duaal wasn’t listening. He jumped, dropping the scarves. The red silk drifted lazily to the floor.
“What?” Duaal asked. “Wed? You mean married? What in the three hundred hells are you talking about?”
“I will announce Anthem Calloren as my consort at my coronation tonight.” Maeve closed her eyes and fought for breath again. It was as though a Devourer had closed its great black claw around her ribs. “I will tell Duke Ferris when we are done here.”
“Consort?” Duaal shouted. “But… what about Logan? You love him! He loves you!”
“Love does not build kingdoms,” Maeve said. She wound a red scarf around her neck and then pulled her hair free of the cloth. “And it does not win wars. Do not forget that we are here to contest Xartasia and that we must beat her at her own game.”
Duaal gaped. His mouth worked but nothing came out. Maeve finished knotting the scarlet silks under her wings and turned back.
“I can put on this armor myself,” she said, “but it will take three times longer.”
The young mage shook his head and picked up her delicate-looking glass breastplate.
“You can’t be serious about this,” Duaal said as he helped tie the armor in place. “You and Logan have something amazing together. Maybe not something entirely sane, but–”
“I am queen,” Maeve interrupted. “I must love my people more than any one man.”
“Who the hells told you that? Ferris?”
“No,” Maeve said. “It was Logan.”
Gripper hung from the edge of the balcony, watching Xia talk to a group of fairies.
She gestured to the small white plastic box in her other hand. The top and sides were printed with the circled blue cross emblem of the Alliance medical corps. Xyn had placed the order, but Maeve hadn’t been able to pay him back. They all owed the little Ixthian scientist a great deal of money, Gripper knew, but only Panna and Xia kept track of exactly how much. He had asked, but Xia only smiled a pretty silver smile and told him not to worry about it even as her compound eyes turned a concerned red.
Xia was good at taking care of everyone, Gripper reflected. She was kind and generous and sweet right down to the root. Gripper wondered what he should do. Nothing — not the flowers or other gifts on Prianus — had done anything to earn Xia’s affection. Well, her special affection. Xia liked everyone. That was one of so many great things about her.
Gripper swung back and forth from the balcony’s edge. There was no railing around it. There were no rails or banisters anywhere in Kaellisem, actually. A species with wings didn’t need them very much, Gripper supposed.
Footsteps rang on the pink glass and the Arboran pulled himself easily up onto the balcony. A human stood in the arched doorway, hands buried in his pockets and shoulders slumped. It wasn’t until Gripper saw that the left one was made of dark gray illonium that he recognized Logan. The posture was all wrong.
“Hunter? What’s wrong?” Gripper asked. “Where’s Glass?”
Logan stared out at the colorful crystal spires of Kaellisem, flickering like kindling fire in the dawn sunlight. And then he slammed his cybernetic fist into the tower’s wall. The glass cracked with a sharp retort and pale lines raced out in a jagged spiderweb around Logan’s metal hand. A few peach-colored shards fell to the balcony floor, each no larger than a single seed. Gripper jumped, but didn’t retreat.
“I left her.”
“What?” Gripper asked. He must have misheard. “Left? But you adore her.”
“More than anything. But Queen Maeve’s people need an Arcadian king,” Logan said. He raked his hand up the back of his neck, through his hair and over his face. “I was learning more Arcadian. So I could sing the oathsongs to her.”
“Oathsongs?” Gripper asked, gasping. If he understood right — and Gripper had spent a great deal of time with Maeve — Arcadian oathsongs were shared only between family or those who wanted to become family. “You were going to…?”
Logan nodded and punched the tower’s glass wall again, but the blow was softer, almost gentle. In the street below, Xia had finished her instructions and handed the medical case to one of the fairies. She shaded her eyes against the red rising sun and stared up at the balcony.
“What are you going to do?” Gripper asked.
“I will serve my queen,” Logan answered in a dead voice. “However I can.”
“Your queen?” Gripper repeated. “But you’re not Arcadian.”
“She’s still my queen.”
