Chapter Thirty-Two
She woke all at once, with the feeling that someone had spoken her name. The room was awash in sunlight, but as far as she could tell she was alone—no, even as she thought so, the door to her bathing room swung open, and the coverlet was drawn gently back. It could, Becca thought, hardly be any clearer what was expected of her.
On the edge of the bed, her feet swinging above the floor, she glanced 'round again, beguiled by the play of light along the deep green tiles set along the line between ceiling and wall. The curtains, drawn back to admit the buttery rays of the sun, were cleverly woven into the seeming of flowering vines, rustling now as the breeze slipped by them, bearing the scent of flowers and green growing things.
Her combs and brush were laid out on a vanity to the left of the bed, neat and glowing against the carved blond wood.
Becca took a breath.
This was not her room.
Someone patted her lightly on the shoulder; ahead, the door to the bath moved encouragingly. Wherever she was, the Gossamers at least were familiar, and also the insistence that she rise now and have her bath.
Slowly, she did just that, pausing short of the door to spin on a heel and consider the room.
"Where am I?" she asked aloud. The Gossamers could not answer, of course, no more than—"Where is Nancy?"
Silence. Before her, the door waggled impatiently on its hinges.
Sighing, Becca went in to take her bath.
It wasn't as if she had a choice in the matter.
Nancy was waiting for her when she emerged from the bath and quickly got Becca into a dress of silver cloth over the sheerest of petticoats before setting to work on her hair. Becca, sitting docile beneath her maid's tiny, fierce hands, looked at herself in the glass.
The dress, she decided, was a ball gown; the bodice cut low and the sleeves nothing more than a few short fluttering silver ribbons. Despite the lack of a stiff petticoat, the skirt was not binding; she would be able to dance. Altimere living retired in the country as he did, the puzzle was who she might dance with.
And that was, she admitted to herself, a puzzle to which she did not wish to know the answer.
Nancy had rolled her hair and secured it with a silver net; diamonds—or, more likely, cleverly cut pieces of glass—made it glitter and bounce when she moved her head. Between it, and the dress and the diamond collar, Becca thought, she looked a veritable snow queen.
"Thank you," she said, but Nancy was not yet done with her. She zipped off, returning a moment later bearing a pair of square-cut diamond earrings.
Becca shook her head, harder than she had intended—and might as well not have moved at all, for the attention that Nancy paid to her.
The diamond earrings completed the image of ice, and snow—rather a stark contrast to the warmly sunny day outside her window.
Becca sighed. "Where am I?" she asked again.
"Why, you are in the Queen's own city, fair Xandurana." Altimere slipped in from the edge of the glass and stood behind her, smiling at her reflection.
He was dressed in black, with masses of snow-white lace at throat and wrists.
"I don't remember riding here," she said, watching his face in the mirror.
He lifted an eyebrow. "You were sleeping; there was no need to wake you simply to exhaust you with a tedious journey."
"Did we come by coach, then?" she asked.
He laughed softly. "Child, the coach is an abomination of your people, not mine."
"So, I rode," she persisted, even as she wondered why this was so important to her.
"So, you rode," he agreed blandly. "Attend me now, my treasure. Tonight, I host a party, and you shall be my hostess."
She felt ill. "Hostess," she repeated.
"In fact and in action." Altimere smiled at her gently in the glass. "The so-ambitious Zaldore comes to me, to persuade me to align myself with her agenda and lend my countenance and my kest to her bid to unseat Diathen, the upstart Queen."
Altimere, she recalled suddenly, wished to depose the Queen, and so had—She flinched from the memory and met his eyes firmly in the glass.
"So you will join forces with her," she said, keeping her voice even. "And make common cause?"
"For a time, I believe I shall," Altimere said, bending down to nuzzle her ear. Becca shivered with longing, even as she cringed from his touch.
"What is this?" he murmured. "Does my pretty child no longer find pleasure in my attentions?" He kissed her behind the ear, and Becca bit her lip, wanting and not wanting . . .
"I—you give me so easily to others, sir," she said, and her voice was no longer even.
"Nay, nay—those are but necessary sacrifices, to further the goal. I adore you as I have done from the first, and count you the chiefest treasure of my house. It pleases me exceedingly to pleasure you, and I very much hope that you will not deny me."
Deny him? Becca thought. When he directed her every movement, even to causing her hand to—no. She took a hard breath, watching her reflection's bosom strain against the gown as she did. I will not think of that. I will not.
"Certainly," she said unevenly, "your touch does fire me, sir. I am torn, however, between pleasure and fear . . ."
Altimere laughed into her ear, his hands moving slowly, enticingly, down her arms, until his fingers encircled her wrists. She tensed as his grip tightened, aware that he could snap her bones so very easily . . .
"That is the cruelest pleasure of all, is it not?" he whispered. "How the child has grown . . ."
Abruptly, he released her and stepped back. His eyes met hers in the mirror.
"You grow lovelier, Rebecca Beauvelley. I predict that you will make many conquests here in Xandurana."
Again, she shivered, half in anticipation and half in horror as she rose to face him. "To further the goal, sir?" she asked boldly, and tossed her head.
Altimere chuckled and extended his arm.
"But of course," he murmured. "Everything we do must further the goal."
He stood on the flanks of Mount Morran, elverhawks sporting below him, his breath icing on the thin, cold air. Far out, a league down and many to the east, rose a thick column of blacker-than-pitch smoke, its oily coils half-obscuring the rising sun.
"Xandurana," he breathed, the horror in his belly colder than the arid mountain air. "They're burning the Queen out."
There had been rumors—there were always rumors, and he had not paid any more attention to these than those that had been whispered before. Despite the Mediation and the Queen's Constant, which gave representation to every House and tribe, there were some of the Elders who wished only to have all as it had been.
As if that were possible.
But to burn Xandurana! His heart ached—for the Queen, yes, but moreso for the old trees of the city, soaked in wisdom, who had protected and nourished the Fey since the beginning of the world.
A gout of flame shot high, dazzling Meri on his far-away vantage, and he felt his kest rise, burning with the will to aid the trees.
As if he could do anything from here.
And yet—
Looking toward the sun was always uncomfortable, and sometimes actively dangerous. If he wasn't careful he would bring on a debilitating headache and sickness. Still, he thought he might—he must!—risk it.
He placed pack and bow to hand and settled as carefully as he could with his back against a firmly-rooted ralif tree, then moved the patch from right eye to left, to see what he could see.
He was surprised by the gentle disorientation, which was not nearly as bad as it would have been from the walls of Sea Hold or the mast of a ship at sea, for both of those placed him close to the horizon and distracting waves, birds, and sails. No, this was—
Ranger, there is a fog upon the trees of the city of the Queen, said the ralif tree he was lodged against; and from there are only whispers of dangers, for they mostly drowse who live there. Others seek to wake the world, for this is no storm fire nor careless woodswork you see.
The voice in his mind was a deep presence. At the same time his eye adjusted, hurling him past birds and clouds of fluff, down, down—and there! There was movement around the base of the smoke column.
Ranger, you have trod my roots since nearly you rose this day. I was a seed before the strangeness that ended your war enveloped our seasons.
The minute movement of his jaw as he was trying to frame a reply in his mind was enough to smear the scene before him.
"After," he said aloud, and pressed his head harder into the receptive bark.
It was not, he realized, Xandurana that burned.
No, not Xandurana.
Rishelden Forest was burning.
The oldest forest in the Vaitura, comprised of oak and elitch, absent the City of Trees itself, the wisest entity known to the Fey.
Meri was sobbing as he looked down, down further, to the very base of the trees, to the confusion of Brethren and Fey and horses hitched to—
Drags! Cut of local tree limbs and branches, and . . .
With horror he saw a horse whipped as the drag behind it was set afire. Screaming, the horse plunged into the forest, and there were Brethren, whipped like beasts, unwillingly loading another drag with brush.
Ranger! The charge comes to you, the tree pushed into his mind. End this.
Meri moved his head, the scene so far away jittering in his long sight. He? From here? Impossible.
And yet—the charge had come to him.
Longeye yet uncovered, he groped his way to his feet, found his bow, and set his back against the ralif. His kest rose; he exerted his will, and saw the clouds forming overhead, spinning with unnatural force. He shuddered, knowing that he would pay for such work, later, and yet—the charge had come to him.
The clouds whirled faster, sucking moisture from Morran's snow-peak. Meri left it to do what it would and looked again, down among the burning trees.
Three Fey standing there in the shade of an elitch, unconcerned as trees blazed and died around them.
Even as he watched, a heavy branch split from the tree, crashing down upon the Fey, leaving one writhing, one still, and one hastily retreating, to snatch up a tool—an instrument of some sort, and turning again, released a stream of liquid fire, engulfing elitch and scurrying Brethren alike, destroying . . .
Someone screamed.
Meri raised his bow, reached to his quiver and pulled out the arrow that he never thought to use. The arrow of Gerild Vanglelauf, inherited from his father and his father before him, said to have been first fletched during the war itself.
His father's word was that this arrow would find any target its archer could see.
He drew.
It was the seeing that was hardest now; as he struggled to pull bow and pour into it all the strength of his kest and all the strength of his body—and all of the sight he could.
The cloud he had made boiled down the mountainside, heavy with rain, obscuring—no! There was the target!
Meri released.
The bow flexed, shattering in the aftermath; thunder boomed, wind whipped and rain slapped his face.
Meri screamed, his fingers bleeding, his head afire, but still he watched—watched the arrow find its target, and the rain pour down upon the burning land . . .
He woke, hand fisted in his mouth, face wet with sweat, or tears, and sat up, looking about him at the dark wood, full of the thoughts of trees.
Across from him Sam Moore the Newman slept rolled in his blanket. He shook his head and sat up, putting his back against the tree he had chosen to sleep under.
The trees remember, Meripen Longeye, a voice so deep and resonant that it must, indeed, be the voice of the entire wood.
We remember. And we honor you.