THE REFORGED TRILOGY: BOOK 3 — HAMMER OF TIME
Chapter 31: Hear Them
“It’s often not important what you do, but what you won’t do.”
– Vyron Fethru (234 PA)
Maeve flew down from the hovering Blue Phoenix to her tower as her knights struggled to keep the growing crowd at bay. Even over the roar of the cargo freighter’s engines, she could hear their cries and angry songs.
Inside, the gold-streaked crystal walls rang with voices. Maeve wanted to cover her ears, but Verra was working urgently on the queen’s windblown black hair. She made herself sit patiently as the girl labored. Dain approached with a properly somber gray and red gown, like smoke and flame swirling together. Delicate coal-black embroidery curled around the edges. It was not a new addition to the royal wardrobe, but Maeve had never worn it before. She sighed and let her handmaidens dress her.
When Verra was done, she took the glass crown that Duaal had designed and pinned it into the queen’s dark curls. Maeve inspected the effect in a mirror, but she barely recognized the woman staring back at her. When had her hair gotten so long? How old were those lines at the corners of her eyes? The streaks of white at her temples? She was only two hundred years old…
Maeve rose and made herself smile at Dain and Verra. The two girls were annoying at best, and more often unwelcome chaperones. But they were only trying to do their jobs.
“Have you heard what they say in Kaellisem?” Maeve asked.
“About you, Majesty?” Verra asked.
Maeve nodded and the two Arcadian girls traded a look. Dain looked down at the polished glass floor and said nothing.
“Yes,” Verra finally admitted.
“And what do you think? Do you believe them?”
“It does not matter what we think, Your Majesty,” Verra told the queen. “We serve the crown.”
Their loyalty was unshakable. It was reassuring, yes, but Maeve frowned at the girls. “It matters if it is true. A queen must be worthy of her crown. If that were not so, we would all serve Xartasia now.”
“Yes, a’shae,” Verra answered at once.
Maeve’s frown melted away. Dain and Verra were just children. In a better world, they wouldn’t have to worry about such things. The royal tower thrummed with the sound of the crowd outside as though caught up in an endless roll of thunder.
Maeve knelt — eliciting a gasp from Dain as the skirts of her new gown caught under her knees — and held out her arms to both girls. The two handmaidens hesitated and then ran to the queen. Maeve hugged them both close. Dain was crying and Verra shivered despite Stray’s heat. They were frightened. If Kaellisem fell now, what would happen to these sweet, irritating girls? Their wings trembled against Maeve.
“Remain inside until this is done,” she told Verra and Dain. “Sir Anthem’s knights will not let anything happen to you. You will be safe here.”
Dain sobbed something that Maeve couldn’t quite make out, but then Verra took the younger girl’s hand and pulled her back. Maeve went to the doors. They swung open on smooth glass hinges and she stepped onto the balcony overlooking the sunset spires of Kaellisem.
The roar was deafening. The streets and skies of Kaellisem were a sea of white wings and loud, furious voices.
Most of Maeve’s small court stood arrayed along the balcony’s curved edge. Ferris stood to one side, with Duaal on the other. Sir Anthem and Logan had taken up the forward positions, facing the chorus of angry and spiteful songs. Three thousand Arcadians stood in the street below, hands and wings raised. More were in the air, circling the tower like a storm and blotting out the red light of the setting sun. The rest of Anthem’s royal knights stood on other balconies and roofs and windows, all half-crouched and holding spears at the ready.
Maeve stepped out through the flickering sunset shadows. A bottle arced from somewhere up in the swirling cyclone of angry fairies and smashed into the glass floor at her feet. The sick-sweet smell of narcohol suddenly flooded her senses. How long since her last drink? Prianus? Before that? Maeve could no longer remember.
“Make sure everyone can hear me,” she told Duaal.
The mage nodded.
Logan and Anthem drew back as Maeve came to stand between them. The fairy queen held up her hands. She remembered Gavriel standing just here, in front of the crooked black cathedral that once rose up from the desert sand. The very same sands that now made up the red and golden tower where Maeve stood. She took a deep breath of the hot air.
“Kaellisem!” she said.
Maeve knew that Duaal’s spell would carry her words through the whole city. Her voice echoed off the crystal towers and filled the sandy streets. There was an answering roar from the crowd so full of rage that Maeve took an involuntary step back from the edge of the balcony. Her heart pounded hammer blows against her ribs.
“I hear you!” Maeve said. Why hadn’t she asked Panna to write this for her? “I hear your voices, your anger. You feel betrayed! And you are not wrong.”
Duke Ferris shot Maeve a look, but she ignored him. This was more important than politics. She had to try to win back Kaellisem’s trust. The cost no longer mattered.
“You know what happened at Tamlin,” Maeve said. “You do not need to hear the song again. We have sung it for a hundred years. But you deserve to hear that I… I am sorry I did not sing my own part for you. What you have heard of me, of Tamlin, is true. I went to the Waygate there alone, while my brother spell-singer remained back in the city with his lover. I attempted to open the Tamlin gate and my failure called out to the Devourers. It was an accident… but it was mine.
“Kaellisem is small and it is fragile, and I feared that it would shatter if you knew what I had done. A kingdom — even one as tiny as Kaellisem — belongs not to its queen, but to its people. This city is yours. You built all of this and it belongs to you! I hear your voices, your anger and your demands. And I will listen. I belong to you, too. I have always belonged to you. So if you no longer wish me here, I will go. I am leaving Stray!”
Now Duke Ferris was striding toward her, shouting something that Maeve couldn’t hear. Sir Anthem grabbed the duke’s arm and hauled him back. Maeve felt Logan’s eyes on her, as cold as ice in the heat of the desert. She grabbed her crown and yanked. It came free with a few strands of black hair still tangled around the glass. Maeve held it aloft.
“News has just reached us that Xartasia is bound for the Nnyth Tower,” she said. “We do not know what she intends there, but I will go with Captain Sinnay to warn the Nnyth and find out. I may not be worthy to lead, but I will still serve my people! It is not my right to ask your forgiveness, Kaellisem, and so I go now to repent some small measure of my crimes!”
Maeve looked at Anthem and then at Logan, then stepped back. There was no applause — only silence. The storm of white wings above circled once more and then broke apart. Hundreds of Arcadians scattered like dandelion puffs, flying away through the rising darkness. The only sounds were fading wingbeats and footsteps as everyone in Kaellisem turned away.
“What have you done?” Duke Ferris all but screamed. Anthem held him fast. “You are our queen!”
“A queen serves her people,” Maeve answered. “And the people have made it very clear that they no longer want me. I am leaving.”
Maeve gestured to Anthem, who finally released Ferris and the old nobleman fell to his knees. “No, my queen! We need you!”
“Ferris, you and Panna truly ruled Kaellisem,” Maeve told him. “And now I place the two of you in charge of the city’s care. You will need Panna, Your Grace, and Sir Ballad will protect you.”
“But… I…”
Maeve had never seen Ferris speechless before. She offered her free hand to him. Ferris took it and rose. Maeve held out her crown.
“Keep this safe,” she said. “I may not be worthy of it, but it is a powerful symbol nonetheless.”
Ferris accepted the crown with shaking hands. One by one, the glass-armored knights landed along the edge of the tower balcony. Eranna wept openly. All nineteen fell to one knee around Maeve. Nineteen? There should have been twenty… But Maeve didn’t have time to recount. Anthem knelt, too.
“Our loyalty is to you, a’shae,” he told her. “It always has been. Command us and we will obey.”
“Stay here in Kaellisem,” Maeve said. “There are still dangers in Gharib. Protect the city as you always have.”
“Yes, a’shae,” the knights answered together.
They rose and flew off into Kaellisem. Except for Anthem, who remained on one knee. Duaal raised a dark brow and looked significantly at the remaining fairy knight.
“What are you still doing here?” Duaal asked.
“With your permission, Captain Sinnay,” Anthem said, “I will go with you to the Nnyth Tower.”
“Permission denied,” Duaal answered. “Didn’t Maeve just give you an order? And didn’t you just promise to keep obeying her?”
“And as a knight, I am bound to do so.” Anthem rose and turned to Maeve. He took her hands in his. “But as your consort, my queen, I am sworn to remain by your side. Besides, I am no more popular in Kaellisem than you are right now.”
Maeve stared. Of all the possible outcomes of her decision, this one had never occurred to her.
“Anthem, you do not need to do this,” she said.
“I believe in the dream of Kaellisem,” the knight told her. “But there are things I believe in more. You. Titania. If you go to face her, then I will be with you when you do.”
Maeve held Anthem’s glass-gloved hands and nodded slowly. “Fly with us, then.”
Duaal pulled out his com. “Gripper, get two extra rooms ready. Maeve and Anthem are coming with us. Get your big brown butt moving! The Tower isn’t getting any closer on its own.”
Maeve removed her hands from Anthem’s and turned away. She had to collect her armor — she would need it before this was done, Maeve was sure. Logan Coldhand already stood at the door, blue eyes unreadable.
There was no moon that night and all of Kaellisem sank swiftly into darkness. The city was quiet, strangely subdued in the wake of the queen’s announcement. A few fairies moved slowly through the sky and the streets, drifting like snowflakes. They sang softly, if at all. They had what they wanted. They had exiled their own queen for her crimes…
Syle flew low on silent wings, searching through the darkness. His armor was already gone, an unwanted glittering skin peeled away and left not far away from the golden royal tower. The spy and saboteur still carried his spear, however. He would need that.
Maeve Cavainna was leaving Kaellisem. She was going to the Tower in pursuit of the White Queen herself. Even if the new kingdom failed now, Maeve was still a danger to Xartasia. Syle hissed an oath to himself as the cooling desert wind ruffled his feathers. He should have seen this coming, should have known Maeve would fight to the last breath. Even without Kaellisem, the queen would never give up.
There… Out beyond Kaellisem’s glittering edge, the ugly, bulky silhouette loomed up suddenly from the night. The cargo ship was graceless and thorny as a demon. Every piece of ceramic and fibersteel glistened with the faintly iridescent gleam of phenno. Syle landed quietly on the packed red sand next to the Blue Phoenix and began searching for a way inside.
