The Queen's Price

FIFTY-SIX

The next morning, Saetien and Eileen helped Kildare, Ryder, and Kieran with the morning chores before Ryder hitched up the pony cart while Kieran and Kildare saddled horses. They weren’t the only ones who rode over to Butler’s cottage. Word had spread through the village that something was going to be revealed, and aristos and shopkeepers alike were waiting for them. Except . . .

Saetien couldn’t see what the people were staring at, but she recognized fear in all those pale faces as they turned toward the Warlord of Maghre.

“There are letters on the gate,” a Warlord said. “One addressed to the young Lady and one for you.”

“Stay here,” Kieran said quietly as he dismounted to fetch the letters.

The people jostled one another until they opened a clear path to what had captured their attention.

Her box of sticks. She recognized it by the one stick that leaned a bit. But it wasn’t just one box. The land beyond the cottage’s fence was covered in boxes exactly like the one she’d made, snugged together so there was no space between. Box upon box, each with five hundred sticks, stretching over the land as far as she could see.

“Saetien.” Kieran held out a letter. “This one is for you.”

She looked at the letter, then looked at the boxes that must have been created by an illusion spell. Then she looked at Kieran. “Could you read it?”

“Lord Kieran?” someone in the crowd asked. “What is this? What’s it for?”

Kieran broke the seal, opened the letter, scanned the page—and shuddered. He took a deep breath and began to read.

What you see is the price of the purge that cleansed the Realms of the High Priestess of Hayll’s taint. These are the Blood who were completely destroyed by the unleashing of the Queen of Ebon Askavi’s power.

Witch looked into a tangled web of dreams and visions and saw the war that was coming—a war that would have killed all of Kaeleer’s Queens, all of the Warlord Princes. Everyone in the Dark Court’s First Circle. Kaeleer would have won that war against Terreille, but there would have been no one left to rule the Territories, no one left to keep the human and kindred Blood united.

But that tangled web showed another path—a path that would save all the Queens and Warlord Princes by sacrificing just one Queen.

Witch chose that path, telling no one what the price would be. She unleashed her full power against the tainted Blood, cleansing the Realms.

Look upon this accounting. Each stick represents one of the Blood who was sent to the final death. There was no war in the way we usually think of such things, only one Queen determined to protect everyone she loved and give them a future she didn’t expect to see.

Only one Queen shouldered the weight of all of these dead.

Her name was Jaenelle Angelline.

Kieran folded the letter and handed it to Saetien, but her fingers wouldn’t work right and the paper fell to the floor of the cart.

“I’ll hold on to it for you,” Eileen said, retrieving the letter.

Kieran opened the letter addressed to him. He cleared his throat. “ ‘The illusion will last until tomorrow’s sunrise. Anyone who wants to stand witness should do so before then.’ ” He folded the letter and vanished it.

“I want to see,” Saetien said before anyone could suggest that she return to the house. “I want to see.”

Kieran mounted his horse and led the way, Ryder and Kildare riding behind the pony cart and the other people who had assembled at the cottage scrambling into their various conveyances or mounting their horses to follow.

Over pastures and fields and crops. A sea of the dead that stretched to the horizon no matter which way she looked. Five hundred sticks per box. How many boxes? Saetien didn’t know, felt too sick to try to count them.

Finally—finally—they reached land that had no boxes. No one else had come all the way with them.

“Mother Night,” Kildare said softly.

“And may the Darkness be merciful,” Kieran replied just as softly.

Eileen hugged Saetien and whispered, “How has she lived with this all these years?”

Saetien rested her head on Eileen’s shoulder and wondered the same thing.

Kieran leaned against the desk in his study and waited for his father and brother. His mother would seek him out later for whatever she needed to say.

Kildare and Ryder walked into the room. Kildare closed the door and turned the lock.

“There was more to the letter Butler left for you,” Kildare said. “More than you told the others.”

Kieran nodded. “He didn’t supply a number, but he wrote that the purge sent forty percent of the Blood in Terreille to the final death. Another thirty percent were tainted enough to be broken back to basic Craft.” He scrubbed his hands over his face. “I keep thinking that none of us would be here if Jaenelle Angelline hadn’t done what she did, but Mother Night!”

“We might be here,” Kildare said. “Morghann and Khardeen had a child before . . . that day.”

“Who would have been left to raise that child?” Kieran countered. “Assuming anyone from their bloodline would have been allowed to live?”

“There will be talk,” Ryder said. “Especially since everyone knows the Lady is still at the Keep. Or has returned to the Keep.”

“Do you think Daemon Sadi knows?” Kildare asked.

“Someone did a tally of the dead,” Kieran replied. “If not Sadi, then the previous High Lord of Hell. So yes, I think they, and Lucivar Yaslana, understood the nature of their Queen and the choice she made. But I don’t think any of them would have let her pay that price if they could have stopped her.”

“Our Brenda is living at the Hall.”

“I know.” Sadi was powerful and lethal and everything that should be feared. But until he saw that tally of the dead, Kieran hadn’t appreciated how dangerous Sadi could be. To be Consort and husband to the Queen who could do that? What other man would embrace such a Queen with so much joy?

Understanding that, he shared Kildare’s concern about Brenda living at the Hall—and he had a new understanding of why Saetien couldn’t live with a father she loved.

“Come in.” Saetien adjusted the heavy shawl, grateful that Eileen had added a warming spell to the wool, because she kept fumbling every bit of Craft she’d tried to do since returning from that . . . accounting.

“A message from Butler,” Kieran said, coming into the room but leaving the door open halfway. “He said not to come tonight.”

She nodded. She wasn’t sure what she could say to him after seeing . . . “When Butler said all the Warlord Princes would have died, he didn’t mean all the Warlord Princes. Did he?”

“He did, yes. Your father and your uncle would have fought till their last breath and beyond. Would have kept fighting until they used up the last drop of reserve power in their Jewels. And maybe that would have been the difference between Kaeleer winning and losing the war. But they would have been gone. Demon-dead for a little while, maybe. But you wouldn’t be here. Neither would I. Neither would so many of the people you know.”

“They survived because she loved them,” Saetien whispered. “Do you think she expected her spell to destroy her too?”

“I don’t know. You’ll have to ask Butler tomorrow.”

She nodded.

“Do you want a tray in your room?”

“No, I’ll come down for supper.” She offered a wobbly smile and opened the shawl, revealing the puppy in her lap. “Besides, Shelby and I need to go out for walkies.”

*Walkies!* Shelby said.

“Kieran? My father still serves her. Do you . . . Do you still like him after seeing . . . ?”

“I do, but I imagine there are many who couldn’t. He is who and what he is, Saetien—and so was the Queen.”

“So is the Queen.”

“Yes.”

Saetien took Shelby out for walkies, had dinner with Kieran and his family, then retreated to her room. She didn’t want to talk, didn’t want to read any more journals. She just sat on the window seat thinking about all those sticks and boxes—and she wondered what else Butler was going to tell her.