THE REFORGED TRILOGY: BOOK 3 — HAMMER OF TIME
Chapter 17: The Gray Queen
“Honor the people you rule and they will honor you.”
– Illain Cavainna (28 PA)
Maeve alighted softly on the wide, gently curved sill of the bedroom. But for the faint violet filtering through the tower’s glass walls, the room was dark. Maeve could just make out the pale shape of Orthain in the circular bed. His long, lovely wings draped across the silk sheets.
Maeve gestured to a nyad who stood silently in one corner. Her dark blue skin and hair blended perfectly into shadows, making her and her kind ideal nighttime servants. She bobbed a quick bow and helped her mistress out of her glass armor. When Maeve wore only a maroon scarf around her hips, she waved the nyad off and crept through the darkness to her bed. She slid under the silky sheets and wrapped her wings around Orthain’s warmth.
The knight stirred and rolled onto his side to look at Maeve. His eyes caught the moonlight, turning into pools of shimmering silver.
“It is late. Where were you?” Orthain asked. But his voice didn’t have that rough-soft burr of sleep. “No, do not answer. I know. You were out with Caith again.”
“We were working,” Maeve answered. “You know that I have duties, enarri.”
“I am a knight, too,” Orthain said. “I was your father’s squire before you were even born and I taught you the arts by which you now live. Yet I have been here in our bed for hours. Waiting for you.”
Maeve sat up, suddenly hot and prickly all over with anger.
“What exactly are you saying?” she asked. “What are you accusing me of?”
Orthain sat up in the shimmering sheets, too. They pooled like water around him. “You are gone all day and all night, Maeve. You are always with Caith.”
“He is my brother!” Maeve said. “The day he was born, you told me to go to him. How dare you tell me to turn my back on him now?”
“When I told you to go…” her husband repeated in a ragged voice. “When you left, I wanted you to come back to me. But you never did, Maeve. And you never will.”
He stood up out of their bed, shuddering and rustling in anger. Maeve rose, too, and clenched her fists at her sides. She didn’t embrace her enarri or kiss him.
“The bond between Caith and I is of blood, Sir Orthain,” Maeve said. “What you and I have traded are just songs.”
Orthain turned away from his wife. The light reflected from the pale nighttime orbs of Wynerian and Orindell streaked his body in ribbons of milky radiance. His long hair was bronze in the wan light and hung in smooth waves between his outstretched wings. Orthain was so lovely, but Maeve still shook all over with rage. How dare he question her right to see her own brother?
“Your heart already belongs entirely to Caith,” Orthain told Maeve. “There is no room left there for me. Or here. So good night and goodbye, Maeve… my enarri.”
Without looking back, Orthain strode to the open window and leapt out. His wings swept down once and then he rose on the midnight wind, vanishing into the dark sky before Maeve could answer.
“I would change nothing!” she shouted after him. “All I have done, I have done for love!”
Maeve stood like a statue in her new suit of gleaming glass armor as Duaal and Anthem checked the fit. The golden-haired fairy knight tugged gently on her greaves and the back of her breastplate.
“It sits too high against the wings,” Anthem said.
“Yeah, I bet it does,” Duaal muttered.
Maeve had no idea what that was supposed to mean and suspected Duaal didn’t either. But Anthem either didn’t hear him or pretended not to.
Ferris returned with Panna and the wingless fairy girl carried a small, plain mycoboard box, but grinned from ear to rounded ear.
“It looks just like Duaal’s design,” she said triumphantly. “You’re going to love your new crown, Your Majesty.”
Maeve glanced over her shoulder at Panna. The armor pinched beneath her left wing and Maeve winced. Anthem was right about the fit. Panna put the box down on a table and stepped out onto the balcony.
“Please lift your arm, my queen,” Anthem instructed.
Maeve did as he asked while Duke Ferris finished a quiet conversation with her young handmaidens and then strode outside.
“Sir Anthem,” he said.
The knight knelt down on the colorful balcony at Maeve’s feet, inspecting her knee-high glass boots. It was often a sticking point in armor. Arcadian knights fought most of their battles in the air, making it easy to overlook the state of their footwear. But all battles came to ground at some point, even if only in defeat.
“The right boot is too tight,” Anthem told Duaal. The Hyzaari captain rolled his eyes but dutifully wrote down what he had said. Anthem looked up at Duke Ferris. “Yes, Your Grace?”
“Sir Anthem, you will be taking over responsibilities for Queen Maeve’s protection,” Ferris said.
“Taking over? Who was responsible before?”
“Logan Coldhand,” Maeve said. She narrowed her eyes at Ferris. “Is it not enough that I have accepted Sir Anthem as a consort? Do you no longer trust Logan to protect me?”
“Coldhand was not here with you this morning,” Ferris pointed out. “When Verra and Dain arrived with Captain Sinnay, you were unprotected, my queen.”
“Unprotected…?” Maeve asked bitterly. “From what? If Xartasia knows at all what we do here, she has ignored us.”
“Thank God,” Duaal said. “We’re in no shape to take on anyone. Especially the Devourers.”
Maeve sighed. Duaal was right. They were poorly prepared for a fight and wasn’t that their ultimate purpose here on Stray? But protecting Maeve was hardly the solution.
She looked down at Anthem, who held one of her hands in his. Carefully, he inspected each joint of her gauntlet for strength and flexibility.
“Stand, Sir Anthem,” Maeve said. “I have a more important task for you than serving in my guard.”
Anthem straightened and gave his queen a curious look. “Anything you wish, a’shae. I am yours to command.”
“We need knights,” Maeve told him. “The Devourers killed most of them during the fall. Yet you lived, Sir Anthem.”
He didn’t look certain if this was praise or an insult. Good.
Maeve knew she wasn’t being charitable, but she found it hard to care. Anthem had flown to her banner instead of Xartasia’s and Maeve knew that had been an amazing stroke of political luck — Logan was right about that, and so was Ferris — but she just couldn’t forgive Anthem for any of it just yet.
“You were Princess Titania’s consort and most favored knight for a long time,” Maeve said. “None living know more of our training, of our arms and armor. And so you will train a new generation of knights, Sir Anthem.”
He listened intently and then swept a wing across his chest. “As you say, my queen. It would be my honor.”
“Have Hyra fit you for armor of your own.” Maeve clenched her left fist and had to admire the sparkle of the golden-swirled glass. The fit was not perfect, but it was close. “And then you will begin. Your first student will be Ballad Avadain, a boy from Prianus.”
“The one in leather?” Duke Ferris asked her. “Your Highness, are you sure he is… suitable to be one of your knights?”
“They will not be my knights,” Maeve said. “They are knights of Kaellisem. Even this small kingdom comes from many worlds.”
“They’re all Arcadian,” Duaal said.
“Well… I’m from Cyrus,” Panna pointed out. She smirked up at Duaal and Duke Ferris. “Ballad is Prian. Kinrae and Selphia were both born on Axis.”
“And if we are as successful in building Kaellisem as we plan to be, there will be Arcadians flocking here from all across the core,” Maeve agreed. “Ballad is a good man and already an accomplished fighter. A boxer, I believe.”
“Boxer? En summari?” Ferris asked incredulously.
He used the old Arcadian word for brawler, usually reserved for dryads or nyads who fought one another — and the term was not a flattering one. Arcadians didn’t fight with their empty hands. Ten thousand years of knightly training and tradition focused on the spear. Duke Ferris’ scowl would have wilted grass, if there were any on Stray.
“Malla and Hannu will begin training as well, I assume,” Ferris said, struggling to regain control of the situation. “They are loyal and dedicated.”
Maeve nodded her agreement. The siblings would make good knights. But even better, it would give them something more important to do than follow her around.
“But there is still the matter of your guard,” Duke Ferris said, as though he had heard Maeve’s thoughts. “You must be protected at all times, my queen.”
“I can and will serve,” Anthem answered too quickly for Maeve’s taste.
“You will be training knights,” she reminded him coldly. “You will be busy.”
“Sir Anthem is to be your consort,” Ferris said. “He will be with you much of the time, a’shae. And it shall come naturally, I know, to protect the beloved and royal person.”
Maeve sighed and closed her eyes as she nodded.
“Fine,” she said without enthusiasm.
“What about the rest of the time?” Panna asked. “Sir Anthem will be working with the new knights a lot of the time.”
“I’ll do it,” Logan said from the doorway. “I can still protect her.”
Maeve’s heart leapt at the sight of her hunter, but then fell just as swiftly at the Prian’s icy, frozen expression. Duke Ferris scowled at Coldhand.
“You?” he said. “Where were you this morning? As soon as you were banished from Queen Maeve’s bed, you vanished off into the rising sun!”
Panna and Duaal gasped, and Logan fixed his glacial gaze on the old Arcadian duke. Gripper crept out onto the balcony behind Logan, chewing worriedly on a thick claw.
“I was never far away,” Logan told Ferris. “I would — and have — protected Maeve with my life.”
Anthem gave Logan a long, appraising look. Dark blue eyes met pale and Logan’s illonium-plated hand curled slowly into a tight fist. Anthem’s wings stretched out, long pinions fanning like a hundred slender fingers. The two men stood still for a moment, silently appraising one another.
“You managed the queen’s guard before?” Anthem asked at last.
“I did,” Logan said.
“What management needed to be done,” Duaal said. “We didn’t have a lot of personnel and we still don’t.”
“All the more reason not to waste it,” Anthem said. He turned to address Maeve and Duke Ferris. “I will take over leadership of Her Majesty’s guard.”
“They will be knights,” Ferris agreed forcefully. “Those trained and selected by you.”
Anthem nodded. “But Logan Coldhand has served our queen loyally and until we have knights enough, we will need his help to maintain a constant guard.”
Duke Ferris pursed his lips, but then he inclined his long-haired head in acquiescence. “Of course, Sir Anthem. I am certain that all propriety will be observed.”
Here, Ferris arched a blond brow at Maeve, who felt an acidic stab in her gut. What did that mean?
“Well, this has been awkward,” Duaal said cheerfully. “Anthem, are you done staring at Maeve?”
“I have finished my inspection of her armor,” Anthem said after a moment’s thought. His Aver was far more heavily accented than Maeve’s.
“We can take it back to Hyra to get the changes made,” Duaal offered. “I’m sure he’ll finish them by tonight.”
“I will go with you,” Anthem said. The Blue Phoenix’s captain scowled. “I need armor, too. And I must speak with the glass-singer about his work. We will need many spears, but there is little wood for hafts on Stray. Can it be imported?”
Maeve shook her head. “We have little money, I am afraid. What we bring from off world are Arcadians, not wood.”
“Yes, my queen,” Anthem said. “Then we will need some other material.”
“Fiber-carbon tubings might work,” Logan suggested. “It’s light, strong and fairly flexible.”
Anthem cocked his head at the Prian hunter.
“Flexible?” he asked. “You have seen our spears in battle, then? Most assume that they are like stone. Unbending.”
“Maeve and I fought many times,” Logan said flatly. Anthem frowned.
“But that was a long time ago,” Gripper added. “Right, Hunter?”
Logan shrugged.
“Take care of the glass,” he told Anthem. “I’ll watch Maeve.”
The Arcadian knight nodded slowly and then turned to Maeve. “I can meet with Ballad, Malla and Hannu. Perhaps they will know of others who may make suitable knights to serve Kaellisem. I will return when I am able.”
They all went back inside the tower. Dain and Duaal began unstrapping Maeve’s crystal armor and piling it up on the floor.
“This stuff is a lot heavier than it looks,” Duaal said when they were done. He gestured to Maeve’s other handmaiden, Verra. “How about lending me a wing again?”
The young fairy nodded and moved to scoop up Maeve’s glass pauldrons, but Duke Ferris shook his head. “Verra and Dain should remain with the queen. After all, they are her handmaidens. What if she needs her hair brushed while you are away?”
“I can do it myself,” Maeve said.
Duke Ferris waved a hand dismissively. “There are any number of other needs to consider. Take Panna with you instead, Captain Sinnay.”
Dain looked uncertain, but handed her armful of glass plates to Panna. Gripper hurried to help.
“I’ve got much bigger hands, Sprite,” he told Panna.
Gripper followed Panna and Duaal down the stairs as Anthem bowed his wings once more to Maeve.
“I will return soon, my queen and lady,” he said.
Anthem took Maeve’s hand and kissed it lightly, then went to the balcony and leapt into the air. He beat his long wings once and was gone. Duke Ferris turned to Maeve with a stiff-looking smile.
“Let us begin, then,” he said, gesturing through a doorway to the room that served as Maeve’s office.
“Begin what, exactly?” she asked.
Maeve hadn’t spent much time in the office and did not particularly want to. She slid her arms through the gauzy sleeves of a rose-colored dress that Dain held out and took a silver scarf from Verra that she wound several times around her waist.
“I have some ideas,” Duke Ferris said. “We must begin building funds, Your Highness.”
“I want to fight Xartasia, not buy her gifts,” Maeve snapped. “We have enough money.”
“With respect,” Ferris said, “we do not. I have spoken to Panna and Captain Sinnay about it. Kaellisem survives on loans and gifts from your friend, Xyn. But that will not hold out much longer and we owe him a great deal of money. Majesty, We must begin generating revenue.”
Maeve stalked into her office. Ferris, Logan and the two Arcadian girls followed her like a line of ducklings.
“Your Grace, is it not enough that I have agreed to take Anthem as my consort? That I will let you put a crown on my head tonight?” Maeve asked.
She paced furiously back and forth across the smooth, shining floor until one of her bare feet slid on the glass. Why couldn’t they afford carpet…?
“How many more of these ridiculous displays must I make to be a queen?” Maeve asked.
“That is being queen,” Ferris told her. “You are our future, Your Majesty. You show us what to be.”
These last words were slightly strained. Maeve stopped pacing and looked at the fairy duke. “So stop acting like a petulant child? Is that what you are telling me?”
Ferris spread his hand and politely chose not to answer.
But Logan did.
“Yes,” he said. “It is. You will be whatever your people need you to be, Maeve. You know that.”
She looked into the Prian’s sky-colored eyes, then turned back to Ferris.
“Money, then,” Maeve said. “If Kaellisem requires me to become an accountant, then an accountant I will become.”
“Not an accountant, my queen, but we must begin considering ways to make money. I have already outlined a course of action. We can discuss it now, while you have some breakfast.”
Maeve went to her desk. “I am not hungry. Tell me your plan, Duke Ferris.”
Duaal and Gripper left hastily after delivering the queen’s armor back to Hyra’s workshop. The two young men walked close, whispering urgently to one another and darting angry glances back at Sir Anthem. Panna couldn’t hear what they were talking about, but she could guess.
Hyra, the one-winged glass-smith, was happy enough to make the changes that Anthem requested, but was less pleased about the knight’s request for a dozen more suits of armor and three times that many spears.
“I can make the spears easy, yes,” the white-haired old Arcadian said, scratching the back of his calloused hand. “Those are simple. But armor is a more complicated business. I need Lorren for fine pieces and she is working on the towers.”
“You need more smiths?” Anthem asked Hyra. “I thought you had several apprentices?”
“Yes,” he answered. “But they do not know much yet.”
They stood beneath a patched plastic awning that was coated in a thick layer of brown-red dust. The wind was quiet, but that never stopped the sand from getting everywhere. Hyra pointed with his remaining wing to a pair of young fairies standing across a table from one another. They held their hands flat on the tabletop, on either side of a tall heap of sifted and washed red Stray sand. The Arcadians sang together in low, sibilantly smooth voices. Their eyes were squeezed shut in concentration. Visualizing the results, Panna knew. Magic didn’t work unless the caster knew exactly what they wanted to happen.
The pile of sand began to move, spreading out across the table like a blanket tugged at the corners. It flowed like water and turned that same non-color as it stretched and shaped… almost. Veins of scarlet and orange swirled through the sheet of finished glass. Heat shimmered over its smooth surface, but not nearly as much as there would have been in a coreworlder forge.
Panna had seen the process before — she insisted upon watching the very first pieces of Arcadian glass that Hyra forged on Stray. But it still astonished her every time. She grinned at Hyra, but the smith was watching Sir Anthem.
“Fallo and Dellanon are two of my best students,” Hyra told the knight. “The glass there is the clearest that we can make. The others are out with Lorren, singing up the new towers from the sand plots. It is not as pure as what we make in sheets here, but it is faster and good enough for walls. We sing them a little thicker than we would like to keep them strong.”
“But this is the quality of glass we need for armor,” Sir Anthem said. It wasn’t a question. “Make the spears first. Knights must know how to fight. We will armor them as we may.”
“The queen wants you in armor, though,” Panna reminded him. “It’ll be nice to see a real knight in real glass armor.”
Hyra looked Anthem up and down. “I can have a suit ready in a week. Three days if I pull Lorren off the towers.”
Anthem considered a moment and then nodded.
“Do that,” he said. “I will find you some additional singers. We will need a lot of glass.”
“As you say, sir,” Hyra agreed. The one-winged smith whistled sharply to his apprentices. “Come over here. We have work to do on Her Majesty’s armor. Did she like the crown?”
“I don’t know. Maeve hasn’t seen it yet,” Panna admitted, but gave Hyra a reassuring smile when the smith’s wing sagged. “Everyone will see it tonight.”
Hyra straightened a bit at that. Panna said good bye, then she and Anthem left.
The sandy streets of Kaellisem were far from crowded, but she was still proud. It wasn’t the largest gathering of Arcadians in the galaxy — not yet — but it was close. And by far the most beautiful. Stray’s ruddy sun cast only hazy shadows and pale glows through the glass city. Kaellisem was nothing like the imperial White City, less than a hundredth Arcadia’s size and grandeur. But Panna had never been to Cavain’s home.
Kaellisem was the most amazing thing she had ever seen. Panna loved it even as she choked on a mouthful of dust and spat into the unpaved street. The desert drained away the moisture in seconds.
It was not until he repeated himself loudly that Panna realized Sir Anthem was speaking to her.
“What?” she asked. “Sorry, I was thinking. What did you say?”
Anthem rearranged a gray scarf across his face. He must have spent a lot of time on Stray, Panna thought. The native ones were used to the unpredictable wind and dust storms, always prepared and covered.
“I asked you where to find Ballad Avadain,” Anthem repeated.
“Oh.” Panna thought for a moment. “Well, I’m not sure. I haven’t actually met him. But he’s Prian and Duke Ferris said that he wears leather. I’m sure we can find him without too much trouble.”
It didn’t take long to locate Ballad. Only a few other fairies knew the newcomer’s name, but several remembered him by description and pointed Panna to one of the new towers. It was banded like a Mirran in dark yellows and oranges.
Panna groaned. Like most of the Kaellisem towers, it had no stairs. There was a door at ground level, but it led only into a single room where a small group of older fairies clustered around an even older Arcadian woman.
“Is Ballad Avadain here?” Panna asked. The old woman stared blankly, so she tried again. “En alla Ballad Avadain?”
“I’m right here,” said a voice to one side.
A young winged man stood in the doorway. Just as Ferris had complained, he wore his hair cut Prian short. A blue scarf hung around his neck in acquiescence to the necessities of Stray, but the rest of his clothes were Prian, too. Denims with ragged and often-patched knees, sturdy boots and a black leather jacket with long gashes up the back where his wings jutted through. Panna wondered if she imagined the Prian squareness to his features. It was not as if humans and Arcadians could interbreed.
“Who are you?” Ballad asked. “You want something?”
He stalked into the room, followed by another similarly dressed young fairy. The pair eyed Panna and Anthem suspiciously. Panna crossed her arms over her narrow chest.
“Stop that,” she said. “We’re not your enemies. No one in Kaellisem is.”
Ballad stopped his circling and narrowed suspicious olive-green eyes at Panna.
“You’re Arcadian,” he said, frowning. “What the hells happened to your wings?”
“I had them removed,” Panna answered. Her face was flaming, she knew. She felt the heat in her cheeks like a sunburn.
“Why?” Ballad asked.
“That’s none of your business. And not really relevant right now. I’m not the one who wanted to see you,” Panna said. She gestured toward Anthem. “This is Sir Anthem Calloren, the queen’s consort and first of her knights.”
Panna stood back. Let Anthem deal with the prickly Prian Arcadian boy. Ballad scowled at the knight.
“Consort?” he asked. “Queen Maeve’s got a hawk. He’s a friend of mine. Maybe you’ve met him… Tall, human, got a hand made of illonium. Good fighter.”
“As am I.” Anthem strode across the room to peer closely at the much younger fairy. “And I am Queen Maeve’s consort now. Do you challenge my right to court her?”
Ballad’s jaw clenched. “Ain’t my place. Logan should have the pleasure of ripping you apart.”
“Logan Coldhand has agreed to the situation.”
“Like hells. He would never–”
“He has agreed,” Anthem said with blade-edged finality. “This is the queen’s decree. And it is also her wish that you become first of my students and newest knight of the White Kingdom.”
Ballad’s mouth worked a moment before the sound came out.
“You want me to be a knight? A proper glass knight?” he asked.
“Queen Maeve Beltain Cavainna summons you to honor and glory,” Anthem said in a ringing, formal tone. “Will you answer her call, Ballad Avadain? Will you take up your spear for your queen and your people?”
“Yes!” Ballad answered fiercely. “Yes, I’ll fight!”
The other Arcadians sang out short, bright cries of pride and pleasure. Anthem held out his hand to Ballad, who hesitated and then clasped the other man’s wrist.
“I still don’t like you,” Ballad told him.
“But we both serve the queen,” Anthem said.
“No,” Panna corrected. “We all serve Arcadia.”
Anthem and Ballad shared a look, then nodded in agreement.
