THE REFORGED TRILOGY: BOOK 3 — HAMMER OF TIME
Chapter 8: A’Shae
“Don’t play if you’re not willing to lose.”
– Duaal Sinnay (233 PA)
“Go get dressed,” Duaal said.
“I am dressed,” Maeve answered.
“You can’t seriously be thinking of wearing that!”
“What is wrong with it?”
Maeve was in the middle of reaching for the airlock handle, but stopped. She had showered, combed out her hair and dressed in a fresh pair of black spacer’s pants with a plain blue shirt. Duaal had changed clothes, too, donning a pair of his favorite leather leggings and a red velvet vest with gold edging. He inspected his folded cuffs and then his polished boots.
“If you’re going to be a queen,” he said, “then you better look the part. Right now you just look like the galaxy’s prettiest maintenance worker. Appearances matter. Come on, Maeve… I’ll help you get dressed.”
Duaal took Maeve’s arm and hauled her up the stairs.
“Do I have any say in this matter?” she asked.
“None,” Duaal answered cheerfully. “You may have royal blood, Maeve, but you’ve got a soldier’s sense of style.”
“I was a knight. I can dress myself!”
Panna trotted up behind them. “Well, it can’t hurt to let him try. If you’re going to be queen, then you need to get used to letting other people help you.”
Maeve scowled at the other Arcadian as Duaal shoved her into her room and to the closet. After forcing her to try on everything inside, Duaal finally settled on a long skirt of golden cloth. One of the seams was frayed, but the intricately cross-tied crimson shirt he selected covered the poor repair. He found a pair of high-heeled sandals buried at the back of her closet.
“To make you just a bit taller,” he told Maeve. “You’re not exactly a towering woman.”
Panna chose a scarf woven with threads of gold and used it to tie back Maeve’s thick black hair.
“It looks like a crown,” she said. “This will have to do until we can get the real thing.”
“A crown…?” Maeve asked. “But this is all just a ruse… I do not need a crown!”
Duaal had already grabbed her wrist, though, and was towing Maeve across the bunkroom. He pushed her down into the chair.
“Now time for some makeup,” Duaal said.
“I have none,” Maeve answered truthfully. She had never seen much need for it and tended to sweat it right off.
“I’ve got a little,” Panna offered.
Duaal waved a dark hand dismissively.
“Go get the blue case from my room,” he said. “Not the gray one — the blue.”
Panna returned a moment later with a large blue box. The Blue Phoenix’s captain flipped it open and applied powder and blush, eyeliner and shadow. Duaal held Maeve’s chin firmly as he applied a glossy red paint to her lips.
“You need to stop chewing these,” he told her. “Your nails, too.”
“I do not chew my nails!”
Duaal raised an eyebrow. “Then you must be using a hack saw to trim them. Stop it, princess.”
“We should start calling her a’shae or Queen Maeve,” Panna said.
“Why not Queen Cavainna?” Duaal asked. “I wish we had some jewelry for you, Queen Cavainna.”
“Every single king or queen for ten thousand years has been a Cavainna,” Panna reminded him. She perched on the edge of the desk, pinning up Maeve’s black hair. “Including Xartasia.”
Maeve felt like a pet being groomed for show. “Maybe it would lend an air of legitimacy to this… endeavor. I would not be opposed to simply using the Cavainna name–”
“No!” Duaal and Panna answered together.
Maeve snarled and stood, shook out her wings and then seized her spear from where it leaned in the doorway.
“Enough!” she said. “I do not need to paint my face in order to lead my people.”
“Then you still have a lot to learn about leading,” Duaal said.
But he and Panna followed their irritated creation as she stalked through the Blue Phoenix. Maeve staggered when one of her heels caught between the deckplates, then hissed an oath and wrenched her foot free. In the cargo bay, she swung her legs over the catwalk railing and jumped, gliding down to the ground. There was no way she was going to navigate the stairs in these ridiculous shoes. Why did she still have them at all?
The answer to that stood on the lowered cargo ramp, waiting with mismatched hands thrust into the pockets of a long gray coat. Logan’s pale eyes went wide when he saw Maeve. He strode up into the bay, wrapped one arm around Maeve’s waist and kissed her. Her hunter still tasted like his unsweetened black coffee.
“Hey, don’t mess up her lipstick!” Duaal shouted as he bounded down the stairs.
Panna laughed. “Come on, it’s time to go. I promised Ferris we’d be there in thirty minutes.”
Logan eventually released Maeve. Duaal checked her makeup, sighed but let the princess go. Panna and Logan fell into step beside her as Duaal waved from the cargo bay and closed the Blue Phoenix behind them. Maeve wobbled a little and looked at Panna.
“Ferris?” she asked.
The blonde girl nodded. “Duke Ferris Verridian. That’s who Sir Calathan came to speak to, but he never got the chance. He was a noble back in the White Kingdom and is the oldest Arcadian in the New Hennor camp. Duke Ferris’ daughter just went to prison. Xal picked her up and he couldn’t pay the fine. So…”
Panna shrugged, but her tightly clenched jaw undermined the casual gesture. Maeve didn’t know what to say, so she just nodded. Panna was right, but what could be done about it? Maeve struggled during Xal’s investigation to keep herself out of prison, too.
These were hardly the thoughts of a proper queen… But Maeve wasn’t a queen. Not really.
It was a short walk to the Arcadian settlement. Or a short flight, in Maeve’s case. The hard ground was pitted and the cracked foundations of long-collapsed or unfinished buildings lurked in the saw-toothed yellow weeds.
The Arcadians must have seen them approaching. The fairies — far fewer than those who had circled the Oslain’ii, perhaps twenty in total now — stood silent and still on the common hall’s warped porch. Feathered wings rustled as Maeve landed.
Panna and Logan took up flanking positions on either side and Maeve wondered what they were doing. Protecting her? Supporting her? Advising her, maybe? Whatever it was, Maeve was simply glad not to have to do this alone.
As they walked into the old common hall’s shadow, one of the Arcadians stepped slowly down from the porch. He was far older than Maeve, with deep worry lines creasing his brow and cheeks. His clothes were many times mended but the fabrics were fluid and flowing — a knotted skirt of green material and a long, stained silver tunic.
That had to be Ferris. The duke’s back was straight and the long braid that fell between his wings was still the same golden blond as Panna’s, but shot through with coarse gray. He fixed brown eyes on first Logan, then Panna, and the lines around his mouth deepened as he frowned.
Finally, Ferris turned to Maeve. She felt like a child again, sent to see a stern and disapproving uncle. Ferris took in her clothes and black hair, then nodded once. The duke spread his wings out to either side and turned them down in the Arcadian version of a bow.
“A’cer,” Ferris said. It was a general honorific, used for princesses and queens alike. Anyone with a drop of royal blood in her veins. “It is a pleasure to receive one of Cavain’s daughters.”
One of. Maeve glanced at Panna, who shrugged in reply. Maeve swallowed a sigh and inclined her head.
“Duke Ferris,” she greeted him. “It is an honor.”
“Sua an eru, a’cer?” Ferris asked. Why are you here, Highness?
“I…” Maeve chewed her lip. Where to begin? She couldn’t seem to sort out her own tumbling thoughts. “I am… Xartasia, Princess Titania. I am not her, I mean, but my cousin has made an alliance… and is summoning our people. But her plan — which we know so little about — is too dangerous to… So I…”
Maeve trailed off, her throat as dry as the red Stray desert. Duke Ferris pursed his lips, unimpressed. Maeve’s hands curled into angry, impotent fists and she squeezed her eyes shut until she heard blood rushing in her ears. She was still holding her spear, Maeve realized. She was a knight, not a queen.
“You saw that Devourer,” Maeve said, eyes still shut. “Fighting here, with a knight in glass that invoked Titania’s name. She killed many to summon our most terrible enemies here! I love my cousin, my own blood, but her pain…”
Maeve was losing it again, the tenuous thread of thought that only barely connected their fragmented information and plan together.
She opened her eyes. The Arcadians on the sagging porch had drawn together, wings rustling and voices murmuring. They were listening. So was Ferris. The duke’s sharp chin had lifted and his eyes narrowed. Maeve’s knees felt like water and her feet were going numb in their ridiculous high heels. She took a deep breath that tasted like burnt cornhusk.
“…But our pain,” Maeve said, “the pain we all share, has twisted Xartasia’s heart and soul until she no longer knows her friends from her enemies, her kin from her oppressors.”
“Xartasia has offered us protection and relief,” Ferris answered in Aver. “The White Queen promises a return to our home. Can she return us to our kingdom, a’cer?”
“I do not know,” Maeve admitted. “But… but even if she can, at what price? The White Kingdom is more than planets–”
“Ja’hirra morrae!” one of the watching Arcadians cried out shrilly. It is just a memory!
“Ja’hir morrae. Ja’hir la tasia!” Maeve sang in reply, shocked at the heat in her own words. It is a memory. It is the dream! “The dream of light and beauty that we all remember every day. But what has been can never be again. What Xartasia builds now, she does upon blood and betrayal. That is not Arcadia!”
Panna elbowed Maeve lightly in the ribs.
“They don’t care,” she hissed quietly. “These people get arrested just because they have nowhere to live. The Alliance hasn’t exactly taken good care of us. They need something else, some hope for a better future. So far, Xartasia’s the only one offering that. Have you noticed how few there are here? It’s not just the ones in prison… more of the fairies have left. They’ve gone to join Xartasia!”
Maeve swallowed. Her tongue felt swollen and heavy. She was no good at this! She was never supposed to ascend to the throne, not even by accident. It was Xartasia who had grown up on Illisem, surrounded by court politics. The throne was hers by right and by experience.
But there was no one else. Maeve looked out at the porch again and counted twenty-one other Arcadians, including Duke Ferris. It wasn’t much of a kingdom, but there were twenty-one of her people here that she might be able to help. If only she knew what to say.
“You understand all this better than I do. Why do you not speak to them?” Maeve asked Panna.
“I don’t have the black hair,” she said. “Just talk!”
The fairies were all losing interest. The knowledge that some of their royal family had survived the White Kingdom’s fall was pale comfort next to the realities of life in the Alliance. Black hair and a few drops of royal blood were not going to win Maeve’s case for her.
“Xartasia will prey upon your need to summon you to her side. Our life here is hard, but we need not be prey,” Maeve said. She felt Logan’s eyes on her. “Together as one people, we can make a life not only of strength and safety, but of honor and dignity.”
It was this last word that made Duke Ferris look up again. Was he thinking of his daughter? After a hundred years as refugees, of being neglected and despised by the people of the core, of having no rights and no protection under CWA law, the chance to live with pride was a nearly impossible dream.
“Xartasia would never ignore you,” Maeve said. She took a step toward Ferris, her hand extended. “But she wants to use you… I do not know for what, but we cannot let Xartasia manipulate and trick us into joining her army of monsters. We are true children of the White Kingdom. Our fate is our own.”
Duke Ferris lowered his graying wings until the tips touched the ground and took Maeve’s hand in his. His skin was as brittle and dry as the dead grass under her feet. He kissed her hand in such an ancient gesture of respect and subservience that Maeve shuddered. Never in her entire life had she ever hoped to be queen, not even of this tiny fraction of her people. Something about it was deeply unsettling, but as she herself and the others kept pointing out, there was nothing else to do.
“Our fate is our own,” Maeve repeated. “But we need not face it alone. We are one people and it is time we were united once more.”
Ferris turned toward the other Arcadians and raised his wings high over his head.
“Vaeli a’shae!” he sang in a clear, loud voice.
One by one and then all together, the fairies took up the song. “Vaeli a’shae! Eru ilvae Arcadi’na. Vaeli a’shae!”
Logan shot a look at Panna. “What’s that they’re singing? Do we need to get Maeve out of here?”
Panna beamed. “No. They’re agreeing with her. Honor the Night! Vaeli a’shae!”
Maeve floated, wings and arms spread, on the bittersweet tide of her people’s voices. The suns were hot and sweat stung skin cut and abraded in her battle against Calathan. She was tired and hungry and there was makeup itching in her eyes, but Maeve couldn’t bring herself to care. There was so much better and worse to come.
“Vaeli a’shae,” Logan agreed in awkward Arcadian.
Xia went to work examining all of the fairies, cleaning poorly cared for wounds and inoculating them against common diseases.
“Not very much point in bringing them all together only to start spreading rughalla,” she told Maeve. The Ixthian’s tone was matter-of-fact, but she couldn’t conceal the pale green of concern in her compound eyes.
The Blue Phoenix’s kitchen wasn’t well stocked, but it was far better than the few scavenged supplies that were all the Arcadians could offer. Gripper picked everything edible from his garden and carried it to the kitchen, where even Duaal donned an apron and cooked whatever Gripper could bring him. There wasn’t much to make out of the scattered assortment of their remaining cans and vegetables, but by that evening, there were three large pots of soup bubbling away on the stove and filling the Blue Phoenix with their warm, savory smell.
Maeve reported to the kitchen with her sleeves rolled up to the elbow to begin work on the pile of knives and cutting boards that filled the sink, but Panna was already there and stubbornly refused to let Maeve do her usual chore.
“You’re a queen now,” Panna said. She pointed toward the door with wet fingers. “Queens don’t do dishes.”
Maeve shrugged and then left the mess. At least there was one advantage to her new job. Maybe Duaal would stop making fun of her nails if they spent less time scrubbing pots.
Duke Ferris and the other Arcadians arrived just as the sun was setting. They crept together into the Blue Phoenix’s cargo hold in a nervously huddled mass. Gripper and Panna had arranged empty cargo containers into a long row of impromptu tables. Duaal firmly seated Maeve at the head, with Ferris to one side and Panna on the other. Ferris offered so many toasts and praises to the royal line of Cavain that her own name quickly became nonsense in Maeve’s ears.
That night was full of soup and introductions as every single remaining Arcadian of New Hennor presented themselves to their new queen. Maeve sat uncomfortably on her empty water canister and did her best to listen to twenty painful stories of hard life in the core, of friends and family lost to the Devourers, to disease and the hatred of the Alliance species. Was there any way to turn these lost, broken people into an Arcadian kingdom?
There were other introductions to make, too. The fairies had already met Xia, but many of them stared at Gripper. His size and stature were far too reminiscent of the Devourers. Nervous and still anguished by the death of the Oslain’ii’s pilot, Gripper collected the dishes — feeding so many mouths had used every single bowl and bowl-like object on the ship — and he retreated to the kitchen.
“What about the captain?” Ferris asked. He glanced down along the table to where Duaal sat, telling stories. “He is not like most humans.”
“He has been trained in our arts,” Maeve answered. “It was not a pleasant verse of his life, but Duaal has become a powerful spell-singer. His skill surpasses even that of the Ivory Spire adepts.”
Ferris’ eyebrows shot up. He didn’t seem to think that likely. “He must have learned at the wingtips of one of our own. Maybe you were his mentor, my queen?”
“No, it was not me,” Maeve said sharply, then tried again, softening her tone. “I did not teach Duaal our songs. His teacher was another human, Gavriel. He led the Cult of Nihil.”
Duke Ferris’ expression was blank of recognition. Maeve tried again.
“The group to which Xartasia once belonged,” she told him. She rubbed her hand against the back of her neck. The memories were as heavy as lead weights there. “After Gavriel died — when Xartasia killed him — my cousin sent the coreworlders who remained to be torn apart by Devourers.”
Duke Ferris gave Maeve a long, serious look. “Does the boy pose a danger to you or the kingdom, a’shae?”
Maeve shocked herself by laughing.
“No,” she answered. “Duaal is no enemy. He and I are — though it is strange to say — good friends. Duaal has devoted himself to this endeavor and he has been an invaluable ally.”
Across the makeshift table, Panna grinned. “On Prianus, I really thought you two hated each other.”
“We did,” Maeve admitted, shaking her head. “It took Tiberius’ loss to mend our relationship.”
Panna fell silent, perhaps thinking of the Blue Phoenix’s original captain… or maybe another man lost on Prianus. Maeve had long suspected Panna’s feelings for her teacher, Professor Xen, had been more than a student’s respect. Not unlike her own affection for Orthain, Maeve realized. Xen had protected Panna’s genetic secret in defiance of his own Ixthian culture. It was easy to understand her infatuation.
Infatuation? Maeve wondered at her own thought. Was that fair to Panna? Duke Ferris cleared his throat.
“What of the other human?” he asked. “The man who was with you this afternoon?”
Maeve blinked and looked around the crowded cargo bay for Logan, but he was nowhere to be seen. Where had he gone?
The flat horizon was crimson, as though Sunjarrah itself burned a smokeless scarlet. Brilliant silver stars had already kindled high overhead, especially dense along the glowing line of the galactic plane. The river of stars flowed over the Blue Phoenix, bright and inviting.
“Waited until, by wind’s tempest
I came to the old one’s claim
‘For a summer, I have searched…’”
The note went sour and Logan stopped singing. He frowned down at the guitar.
He sat on top of the Blue Phoenix, between two broken sensor spars. They had snapped off during the flight through Sunjarrah’s autotraffic belt and there was no money left to repair them. The guitar across his lap had been battered and worn even before Logan bought it from one of the Poes Nor students on Tynerion, but now the neck was criss-crossed with deep scars. The wood was splintered in several places and held together with black engine tape. Logan plucked one of the strings and carefully slid his metallic left hand up the neck to tighten it for the seventh time in the last hour. He twisted too hard and the string snapped.
Second one in an hour.
Logan set the instrument aside and took a mylon tangle of spare strings from his pocket. He had bought every one of them that he could find at Poes Nor, but his supply was dwindling swiftly.
Logan unwound the broken string and replaced it, then tried to thread the other end through the tiny hole in the tuning knob, but the guitar slid in his grip and Logan’s fingers tightened reflexively. The wood crunched in his cybernetic grip and one of the fret bars twanged as it snapped free. Logan reached into his pocket again.
He had to glue the fret back down before replacing the string. Logan was tempted to glue the tuning peg into place, too, but knew that guitars didn’t work that way. He examined the battle-scarred instrument as he waited for the glue to dry.
In spite of the damage done by his cybernetics, this guitar was still an improvement over his first one. He had been seven years old, running from another gang of bullies. Young Logan Centra had flung himself into a trash bin to hide. The reek of rot and the sharp pain of something jutting into his back were far better than the beating that awaited him if the older boys found him. Only when their rough voices and words had long since retreated did Logan finally dare to haul himself out of the bin and finally saw what had been spearing his spine — the broken neck of a guitar.
Little Logan had taken the instrument home and painstakingly repaired it. The guitar never really sounded quite right, but he had loved it all the same. There was no money for lessons, so Logan watched every video he could find on the mainstream. The work was even more meticulous and difficult than the repairs, but Logan learned to play.
A cop’s income was better than a schoolboy’s — although not by much. Logan’s second guitar had not been new, either. It came to him third-hand, already dented in places and on its fourth set of strings. But it was a good instrument and Jess had painted a falcon over the largest stain in the varnish. It wasn’t perfect either, but it was beautiful.
Now Logan tilted the guitar up to catch the fading sunlight, inspecting the replaced fret bar. It was hard to see much. A scattering of yellow and green indicators glowed on the Blue Phoenix’s sensors and antennae, but they didn’t help very much. Some glue had bubbled up around the thin line of metal and Logan picked away as much of it as he could with the tip of his knife, then began to play again.
“Two hundred eighty-eight days of light,
Will be desired by a night…”
Panna said that the Lay of Cavain was a piece of history, a story of how Cavain had conquered the pyrads and founded an empire that lasted over ten thousand years. A long and very, very proud history to which Maeve was now the heir.
She never wanted it. Logan knew that much. Maeve didn’t really like being a princess, much less a queen. But Panna was right — there was no other way and no one else who could do it. After one hundred centuries, the Arcadians were used to the rulership of Cavain’s raven-haired descendants. Of course, that meant many of them would go to Xartasia, too.
When the sun finished setting, the night grew quickly cold and Logan’s fingers went numb. He flexed the stiff knuckles and kept playing. His voice echoed quietly through the dark and dilapidated settlement below.
Panna also said that the Lay of Cavain was about more than just history. The fairies of Arcadia believed that their rulers were literally descended from the gods. According to the song, Cavain was the son of the sun goddess, Aes, and an unknown fairy man. As a result, their divine blood entitled House Cavainna — the Nights, a’shae — to the respect and codified admiration of their people.
Now Maeve was a queen. Perhaps she didn’t think of herself as one just yet, but Logan knew she would be a great queen. She was an amazing woman, strong and clever, though she would be the last to say so. There was nothing Maeve Cavainna would not give for her people. Panna and Duke Ferris knew it. Maeve’s speech today had been awkward and unrehearsed. Beautiful and striking as she was — the desire to seize and kiss Maeve was never far away — it wasn’t words that convinced Ferris. Not words alone, at least.
Maeve was down there, in the Blue Phoenix’s cargo bay with her new subjects. It was a sad and shabby sort of court, true, but Maeve would make the best of it. She was more resilient than even Panna realized. Maeve would build up a new kingdom from nothing and Logan would protect her as she did it. He was no longer a bounty hunter, but he still had his Talon-9 and he knew how to fight. Logan Coldhand didn’t know much else — the guitar twanged tunelessly in his hands again — but it all belonged to Maeve.
The Blue Phoenix’s aft hatch clanked and popped open. Logan looked back to the small airlock. A black-haired head emerged from the ship, then white-feathered wings and a pale, lithe body. Maeve kicked the hatch closed behind her and came to sit beside Logan.
“There you are,” she said. “We missed you at dinner.”
“I wasn’t hungry,” Logan said, but then his jaw clenched. He didn’t like to lie to Maeve. “That’s not true. I don’t want to embarrass you, dove.”
“You? Embarrass me?” Maeve asked. She stroked one wingtip along Logan’s spine and smiled. “You stood beside me today as I fell through that terrible speech. You cannot shame me, my enarri.”
“A dinner party is a long way from being a silent bodyguard,” Logan said. “You’re a queen now, Maeve. I’m a… not even a bounty hunter anymore. And that cost us a lot of colour we couldn’t afford this week.”
“You are my hunter,” Maeve told him. Her cheeks were flushed in the starlight. “My enarri. I always want you by my side.”
Logan kissed Maeve, cradling his guitar in one arm. She cupped his face in her small hands and then ran delicate fingertips down his chest and arms to the guitar.
“I do not care much for dinner parties, either,” Maeve admitted with a sly grin. “And am in no hurry to return to it. Will you sing for me, my love?”
Logan kissed her again and began to play.
