THE REFORGED TRILOGY: BOOK 3 — HAMMER OF TIME
Chapter 28: Sharp Edges
“It is easy to kill a queen. To destroy her is something else entirely.”
– Syle Lamanna (234 PA)
“I am so very sorry, Your Majesty,” Duke Ferris said. “I have no idea how this is happening.”
Maeve slammed her hands down on her desk. There were no desks in Arcadia, but she had grown accustomed to the coreworlder practice of using one. Her desk was one of the few things in the royal tower not made of glass. It was a flimsy thing, little more than two sheets of printed mycoboard with a piece of already scuffed and scratched steel bolted to the top. The desk was one of Xyn’s and the scientist had been more than happy to give it away. It was cheaper than the disposal fee and easier than dumping it in the desert. The desk was a convenient place to keep things Maeve was working on and an uncomplaining victim of her frequent frustrations.
“That bomb could have killed Logan!” she said.
Verra winced, but Ferris’ expression remained neutral. The old duke’s already graying hair had gone entirely steely at the temples and Maeve almost felt guilty for yelling at him.
“That would have been regrettable,” Ferris said. “What of your consort, Sir Anthem? Is he well?”
“He is fine,” Maeve answered, refusing to rise to the bait.
She hammered her fist against the desk one more time for good measure and then resumed her angry pacing along the length of the study. Ferris tucked his hands into the gold-trimmed sleeves of his flowing robe and glanced sidelong at the open door, at the pair of glass-armored knights standing outside. Hannu listened with obvious interest. He blushed and hid behind one wing when he saw the two older Arcadians staring. On the other side, Syle’s eyes remained fixed ahead. Maeve wondered if he was really ignoring the conversation or simply preserving his queen’s fragile dignity.
“We must increase your security,” Duke Ferris said, wrenching Maeve’s attention back into the room. “We cannot risk any danger to you, my queen.”
Maeve felt the insane urge to laugh at the stodgy old duke. She settled for a wry smirk.
“I am in no danger,” Maeve said.” It is not so difficult to get close to me that our bomber could not have done so at any time in the last weeks.”
“Do they have some other aim?”
Maeve nodded. “Their target must be Kaellisem itself. Not the towers, but the dream. Erritasia.”
“The dream of dreamers,” Ferris said in Aver. “The spirit of Kaellisem. You believe that this bomber is trying to ruin our city?”
“How many fairies have left Kaellisem since the enassui? More than three hundred! When the people learn that this newest bomb contained nitrocycline, more will go. Those who know the word, at least. Killing me is little in the face of true destruction.”
“A dead queen is still a queen,” Ferris said quietly.
“But a queen who cannot protect her people will not be queen for long,” Maeve finished. “My people will all leave, in time.”
“Finding the bombs slows the process, I am sure, Your Majesty.”
“But does not stop it!” Maeve kicked her desk and winced in pain. “And while I struggle to hold a single city together, Xartasia is still out there. I do not know if we have slowed her at all.”
Panna threw her arm up over her eyes as they stepped out into the brilliant daylight. Ballad prodded her shoulder with one wing and handed her a pair of sunglasses. Panna accepted them gratefully.
“Where are we going?” she asked as Ballad struck a quick pace down the sidewalk.
He ignored a group of scowling Hadrians in dark suits.
“Motel,” the young knight answered shortly. “And if you didn’t like the one we had before, you’ll love this place. We spent most of our money on your treatment.”
“Ixthians are the best. You can tell by the bill.”
Ballad smiled tightly. “If we’re going to send anyone else back to Kaellisem, we need to save all the colour we can. That means we’re sharing a room again.”
Panna came to an awkward stop in front of a crowded cafeteria.
“What?” she asked.
“Unless you feel like sleeping on the street. I’ve had plenty of practice,” Ballad said. He looked back over a leather-clad shoulder. “Want to give it a try?”
Panna hurried to catch up. “Nope, the motel will be fine. But not just yet. We need to go back down to Yebdemi. There are still a lot of Arcadians over there.”
Ballad slowed again when Panna caught up, but the sweating young knight was glowering.
“You just got out of the hospital,” he growled. “Xartasia’s hawk stabbed you in Yebdemi!”
“He grazed me,” Panna corrected.
“You nearly bled to death!”
He had a point and if the Ixthians were any less skilled doctors, Panna probably would not have been alive to admit it. Still, Panna didn’t want to tell Ballad that he was right. She stopped at the street corner and ignored a shouted suggestion that Hey Sweetie should drop her fairy boy for a real man. Ballad stuck his thumb and last finger out at the car that shout had come from.
“Stop that, Sir Ballad,” Panna said. She adjusted the sunglasses over her streaming eyes. “You’re just giving him what he wants.”
“He wants you,” Ballad answered.
Panna flushed, but doubted he could see it through the blinding light. Out in the road, dual rows of tall orange barriers rose up and beeped insistently at the pedestrians. Panna jogged into the street, packed in close between much taller humans. Ballad swore under his breath and had to fly to catch up. He landed next to Panna when she reached the other side of the road. Ballad didn’t apologize to the Hadrians that his arrival displaced.
“Maybe we should rent a ride,” Panna said. She looked around the light-washed city streets and pulled out her com. “I don’t even know which way I’m going. How far away are we from Yebdemi?”
“Not sure,” Ballad answered.
The fairy knight shoved his way back to the curb and scanned the busy road until he located a car with a glowing green taxi sign on top. The cab raced down the second story lane on its null-field, ignoring the pedestrians below. As it slowed for the next traffic signal, Ballad leapt into the air and rapped his knuckles against the window. Panna couldn’t see the driver inside, but the cab lurched to one side.
Ballad pressed a small cenmark chip to the window and glared through the tinted glass. There was a short shouted exchange above Panna’s head and then Ballad pulled the rear door open. He planted his feet inside and held his hand down toward the sidewalk.
“The plucked driver says he can’t land here,” Ballad said. “Give me your hand.”
Panna reached up. Ballad grabbed her wrist and then pulled, lifting the wingless little Arcadian off her feet. Panna grunted as he heaved her up into their cab. It was hot inside and stank of sweat. Ballad followed her quickly inside, then shut the door behind him.
“That was more of a climb than I was hoping for,” Ballad said. “Is everything still inside that’s supposed to be?”
Panna touched her stomach. It ached faintly, but not enough to bother complaining about to the prickly Prian fairy. She nodded.
“Good,” Ballad said. He tapped the thick glass barrier between the back of the cab and the front. “Yebdemi.”
The Hadrian driver refused to budge until Ballad paid the entire fare up front. Even then, he muttered into his com the entire time. Panna didn’t catch any of the words and wasn’t sure she wanted to. Instead, she watched Ballad. The other Arcadian sat forward, uncomfortably hunched as his wings took up most of the seat with fluffy white.
“So where are you going today?” Panna asked Ballad. “Back to Dark End?”
“Yebdemi. If Xartasia sent a knight, you’re going to need yours.
Caith waited for Maeve at the fountain. The glass sculpture of Cavain stood five times taller than any Arcadian and water cascaded from his upraised hands. What was that supposed to mean? It was the nyads who lived in the water, not Cavain’s own species. Was the water some metaphor for the wellspring of peace and unity that his war had won? Or maybe Maeve was reading too much into it. Perhaps the fountain was intended only to be beautiful. It was that, at least.
Maeve landed beside her brother with a soft clink of glass. Caith wore the white robes of a Spire Adept, but they were sashed shut with a richly embroidered scarf of Cavainna red and gold. Whatever trade the royal princes and princesses took up, they always wore the family colors and Maeve wondered why. Wasn’t their black hair symbol enough? But she shook her head and hugged Caith. When Maeve released him, her brother frowned.
“What is wrong?” he asked. “You have been crying again.”
Had she? Maeve wiped her face with her hands, but the glass of her gauntlets absorbed nothing and succeeded only in smearing the wetness across her skin. She shook her head. “Orthain was at Morningfire Court. It is hard to… Never mind. I am fine. Tamlin and Karrian await.”
With obvious reluctance, Caith flew alongside his sister toward the Illisem Waygates. Despite the early hour, the capitol city was alive with people. The streets were full of nyads with their shining cerulean skin and the delicate gills draped between their shoulders, like tiny versions of their masters’ wings. There were thousands of green-haired dryads, too. They tended the endless gardens of the White City, caring for the soft lawns, ordered orchards and flower-dotted hedges. Dryads and nyads both kept their heads down, focused on their work as their Arcadian overlords flew overhead.
Caith glided in close beside Maeve, his feathers brushing against her beating wings. He said nothing as they landed in the broad white-paved plaza in the city’s heart. Thousands of Arcadians filled the ground and sky under the shifting shadows of King Illain’s palace. The castle of glass rose on a steep green hill over them, the verdant slope crowned in a hundred glittering towers.
Maeve and Caith made their way to the foot of a great white staircase. Another knight with simpler armor than Maeve gestured the young prince and princess forward, past the lines of other fairies all waiting their turn to travel through the ring of glowing Waygates. He inclined his wings to Maeve and Caith.
“Highnesses,” he said respectfully. “Where are you bound?”
“Orindell,” Maeve told the knight. She gestured to her brother. “We are to relieve the Tamlin openers.”
The Arcadian nodded and pointed to one of the Waygates. “The falcon gate is open to A’sai, princess.”
Maeve thanked the knight. She and Caith flew up the graceful white ziggurat, ignoring the oversized stairs that ran up the center of each face. Only the dryads and nyads climbed those. They landed at the top, where another robe-clad Spire Adept waited. He paused for a moment and then nodded to Maeve.
“The way is clear,” he announced. “Please pass through.”
Maeve took Caith’s hand. He didn’t need her help, but she ached for contact with her brother. He squeezed her fingers gently and they stepped through the Waygate. Blue light shimmered around them and then faded, leaving them alone in another ivory plaza not unlike the one they had just left. There was no Waygate here, however. The great constructs worked in only one direction and required no receiving gate. In the center of this tiled plaza rose a transparent plinth with an intricate glass heron on top. There were so many of these reception sites all over the White Kingdom — each one bore some mark, some symbol to differentiate it from the other so that the Spire Adepts could remember them in detail. After all, without memory, the Waygates would not function.
Maeve had been to so many of these plazas with Caith that she suspected she knew every single one in Arcadia. She turned slowly, orienting herself. It was late in the afternoon on Orindell. To one side were the blue glass domes of A’sai, glowing in the golden afternoon light. That meant Tamlin was to the northwest. She gestured to Caith with one wing.
“This way,” Maeve told him. “We can reach Tamlin in an hour if the wind is with us.”
“Wait.”
Maeve lowered her wings and turned to look at her brother.
“What is it? I thought you were in a hurry to reach Tamlin. You said that you would die if you could not see Karrian tonight.” Maeve smiled at his youthful overstatement, but Caith didn’t smile back.
“Maeve, I know your separation from Sir Orthain has been painful,” Caith said. He touched gentle fingertips to Maeve’s cheek. “Yes, I do miss Karrian, but I will remain with you. I would never leave you alone with your pain.”
