Текст книги "Queen of Shadows"
Автор книги: Sarah J. Maas
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Текущая страница: 9 (всего у книги 38 страниц)
15 
Aedion Ashryver was ready to die.
Against his will, he’d recovered over the past two days, the fever breaking after sunset last night. He was strong enough to walk—albeit slowly—as they escorted him to the dungeon’s washroom, where they chained him down to wash and scrub him, and even risked shaving him, despite his best efforts to slit his own throat on the razor.
It appeared that they wanted him presentable for the court when they cut off his head with his own blade, the Sword of Orynth.
After cleaning his wounds, they shoved him into pants and a loose white shirt, yanked back his hair, and dragged him up the stairs. Guards with dark uniforms flanked him three deep on both sides, four in front and behind, and every door and exit had one of the bastards posted by it.
He was too drained from dressing to provoke them into putting a sword through him, so he let them lead him through the towering doors into the ballroom. Red and gold banners hung from the rafters, springtime blossoms covered every table, and an archway of hothouse roses had been crafted over the dais from which the royal family would watch the festivities before his execution. The windows and doors beyond the platform where he would be killed opened onto one of the gardens, a guard stationed every other foot, others positioned in the garden itself. If the king wanted to set a trap for Aelin, he certainly hadn’t bothered to be very subtle about it.
It was civilized of them, Aedion realized as he was shoved up the wooden steps of the platform, to give him a stool to sit on. At least he wouldn’t have to lounge on the floor like a dog while he watched them all pretend that they weren’t here just to see his head roll. And a stool, he realized with grim satisfaction, would make a good-enough weapon when the time came.
So Aedion let them chain him in the shackles anchored to the floor of the platform. Let them put the Sword of Orynth on display a few feet behind him, its scarred bone pommel glinting in the morning light.
It was just a matter of finding the right moment to meet the end of his own choosing.
16
The demon made him sit on a dais, on a throne beside a crowned woman who had not noticed that the thing using his mouth wasn’t the person who had been born of her flesh. To his other side lounged the man who controlled the demon inside him. And in front of him, the ballroom was full of tittering nobility who could not see that he was still in here, still screaming.
The demon had broken a little farther through the barrier today, and it now looked through his eyes with an ancient, glittering malice. It was starved for this world.
Perhaps the world deserved to be devoured by the thing.
Maybe it was that traitorous thought alone that had caused such a hole to rip in the barrier between them. Maybe it was winning. Maybe it had already won.
So he was forced to sit on that throne, and speak with words that were not his own, and share his eyes with something from another realm, who gazed at his sunny world with ravenous, eternal hunger.
The costume itched like hell. The paint all over her didn’t help.
Most of the important guests had arrived in the days preceding the party, but those who dwelled inside the city or in the outlying foothills now formed a glittering line stretching through the massive front doors. Guards were posted there, checking invitations, asking questions, peering into faces none too keen to be interrogated. The entertainers, vendors, and help, however, were ordered to use one of the side entrances.
That was where Aelin had found Madam Florine and her troupe of dancers, clad in costumes of black tulle and silk and lace, like liquid night in the midmorning sun.
Shoulders back, core tight, arms loose at her sides, Aelin eased into the middle of the flock. With her hair dyed a ruddy shade of brown and her face coated in the heavy cosmetics the dancers all wore, she blended in well enough that none of the others looked her way.
She focused entirely on her role of trembling novice, on looking more interested in how the other dancers perceived her than in the six guards stationed at the small wooden door in the side of the stone wall. The castle hallway beyond was narrow—good for daggers, bad for swords, and deadly for these dancers if she got into trouble.
If Arobynn had indeed betrayed her.
Head down, Aelin subtly monitored the first test of trust.
The chestnut-haired Florine walked along her line of dancers like an admiral aboard a ship.
Aging but beautiful, Florine’s every movement was layered with a grace that Aelin herself had never been able to replicate, no matter how many lessons she’d had with her while growing up. The woman had been the most celebrated dancer in the empire—and since her retirement, she remained its most valued teacher. Instructor Overlord, Aelin had called her in the years that she’d trained under the woman, learning the most fashionable dances and ways to move and hone her body.
Florine’s hazel eyes were on the guards ahead as she paused beside Aelin, a frown on her thin lips. “You still need to work on your posture,” the woman said.
Aelin met Florine’s sidelong gaze. “It’s an honor to be an understudy for you, Madam. I do hope Gillyan soon recovers from her illness.”
The guards waved through what looked to be a troupe of jugglers, and they inched forward.
“You look in good-enough spirits,” Florine murmured.
Aelin made a show of ducking her head, curling in her shoulders, and willing a blush to rise to her cheeks—the new understudy, bashful at the compliments of her mistress. “Considering where I was ten months ago?”
Florine sniffed, and her gaze lingered on the thin bands of scars across Aelin’s wrists that even the painted whorls couldn’t conceal. They’d raised the top of the dancers’ open-backed costumes, but even so, and even with the body paint, the upper ends of her tattoo-covered scars peeked through.
“If you think I had anything to do with the events that led up to that—”
Aelin’s words were barely louder than the crunch of silk shoes on gravel as she said, “You’d already be dead if you had.” It wasn’t a bluff. When she’d written her plans on that ship, Florine’s name had been one that she’d written down—and then crossed out, after careful consideration.
Aelin continued, “I trust you made the proper adjustments?” Not just the slight change in the costumes to accommodate the weapons and supplies Aelin would need to smuggle in—all paid for by Arobynn, of course. No, the big surprises would come later.
“A bit late to be asking that, isn’t it?” Madam Florine purred, the dark jewels at her neck and ears glimmering. “You must trust me a great deal to have even appeared.”
“I trust that you like getting paid more than you like the king.” Arobynn had given a massive sum to pay off Florine. She kept an eye on the guards as she said, “And since the Royal Theater was shut down by His Imperial Majesty, I trust we both agree that what was done to those musicians was a crime as unforgivable as the massacres of the slaves in Endovier and Calaculla.”
She knew she’d gambled correctly when she saw agony flicker in Florine’s eyes.
“Pytor was my friend,” Florine whispered, the color leeching from her tan cheeks. “There was no finer conductor, no greater ear. He made my career. He helped me establish all this.” She waved a hand to encompass the dancers, the castle, the prestige she’d acquired. “I miss him.”
There was nothing calculated, nothing cold, when Aelin put a hand over her own heart. “I will miss going to hear him conduct the Stygian Suite every autumn. I will spend the rest of my life knowing that I may never again hear finer music, never again experience a shred of what I felt sitting in that theater while he conducted.”
Madam Florine wrapped her arms around herself. Despite the guards ahead, despite the task that neared with every tick of the clock, it took Aelin a moment to be able to speak again.
But that hadn’t been what made Aelin agree to Arobynn’s plan—to trust Florine.
Two years ago, finally free of Arobynn’s leash but nearly beggared thanks to paying her debts, Aelin had continued to take lessons with Florine not only to keep current with the popular dances for her work but also to keep flexible and fit. Florine had refused to take her money.
Moreover, after each lesson Florine had allowed Aelin to sit at the pianoforte by the window and play until her fingers were sore, since she had been forced to leave her beloved instrument at the Assassins’ Keep. Florine had never mentioned it, never made her feel like it was charity. But it had been a kindness when Aelin had desperately needed one.
Aelin said under her breath, “You’ve memorized the preparations for you and your girls?”
“Those who wish to flee may come on the ship Arobynn hired. I have made space for all, just in case. If they’re stupid enough to stay in Rifthold, then they deserve their fate.”
Aelin hadn’t risked being seen meeting with Florine until now, and Florine hadn’t even dared to pack her belongings for fear of being discovered. She would take only what she could carry with her to the performance—money, jewels—and flee to the docks the moment chaos erupted. There was a good chance she wouldn’t make it out of the palace—and neither would her girls, despite the escape plans provided by Chaol and Brullo and the cooperation of the kinder guards.
Aelin found herself saying, “Thank you.”
Florine’s mouth quirked to the side. “Now there’s something you never learned from your master.”
The dancers at the front of the line reached the guards, and Florine sighed loudly and strutted toward them, bracing her hands on her narrow hips, power and grace lining every step closer to the black-uniformed guard studying a long list.
One by one, he looked over the dancers, comparing them with the list he bore. Checking rosters—detailed ones.
But thanks to Ress having broken into the barracks last night and adding a fake name along with her description, Aelin would be on the list.
They inched closer, Aelin keeping toward the back of the group to buy time to note details.
Gods, this castle—the same in every possible way, but different. Or maybe it was she who was different.
One by one the dancers were allowed between the blank-faced guards and hurried down the narrow castle hallway, giggling and whispering to one another.
Aelin rose up onto her toes to study the guards at the doors, no more than the novice scrunching her face in impatient curiosity.
Then she saw them.
Written across the threshold stones in dark paint were Wyrdmarks. They’d been beautifully rendered, as though merely decorative, but—
They must be at every door, every entrance.
Sure enough, even the windows a level up had small, dark symbols on them, no doubt keyed to Aelin Galathynius, to alert the king to her presence or to trap her in place long enough to be captured.
A dancer elbowed Aelin in the stomach to get her to stop leaning on her shoulder to peer over their heads. Aelin gaped at the girl—and then let out an oomph of pain.
The dancer glared over her shoulder, mouthing to shut up.
Aelin burst into tears.
Loud, blubbering, hu-hu-hu tears. The dancers froze, the one ahead of her stepping back, glancing to either side.
“T-that hurt,” Aelin said, clutching her stomach.
“I didn’t do anything,” the woman hissed.
Aelin kept crying.
Ahead, Florine ordered her dancers to step aside, and then her face was in Aelin’s. “What in the name of every god in the realm is this nonsense about?”
Aelin pointed a shaking finger at the dancer. “She h-hit me.”
Florine whirled on the wide-eyed dancer who was already proclaiming her innocence. Then followed a series of accusations, insults, and more tears—now from the dancer, weeping over her surely ruined career.
“W-water,” Aelin blubbered to Florine. “I need a glass of waaater.” The guards had begun pushing toward them. Aelin squeezed Florine’s arm hard. “N-now.”
Florine’s eyes sparked, and she faced the guards who approached, barking her demands. Aelin held her breath, waiting for the strike, the slap … but there was one of Ress’s friends—one of Chaol’s friends, wearing a red flower pinned to his breast, as she’d asked—running off to get water. Exactly where Chaol had said he’d be, just in case something went wrong. Aelin clung to Florine until the water appeared—a bucket and ladle, the best the man could come up with. He wisely didn’t meet her gaze.
With a little sob of thanks, Aelin grabbed both from his hands. They were shaking slightly.
She gave Florine a subtle nudge with her foot, urging her forward.
“Come with me,” seethed Florine, dragging her to the front of the line. “I’ve had enough of this idiocy, and you’ve nearly wrecked your makeup.”
Careful not to spill the water, Aelin allowed Florine to pull her to the stone-faced guard at the doors. “My foolish, useless understudy, Dianna,” she said to the guard with flawless steel in her voice, unfazed by the black-eyed demon looking out at her.
The man studied the list in his hands, scanning, scanning—
And crossed off a name.
Aelin took a shivering sip of water from the ladle, and then dunked it back into the bucket.
The guard looked once more at Aelin—and she willed her lower lip to wobble, the tears to well again as the demon inside devoured her with his eyes. As if all these lovely dancers were dessert.
“Get in,” the man grunted, jerking his chin to the hall behind him.
With a silent prayer, Aelin stepped toward the Wyrdmarks written over the threshold stones.
And tripped, sending the bucket of water spraying over the marks.
She wailed as she hit the ground, knees barking in genuine pain, and Florine was instantly upon her, demanding she stop being so clumsy and such a crybaby, and then shoving her in—shoving her over the ruined marks.
And into the glass castle.
17
Once Florine and the rest of the dancers were allowed in, they were all stuffed down a narrow servants’ hallway. In a matter of moments, the door at the far end would open into the side of the ballroom and they would flutter out like butterflies. Black, glittering butterflies, here to perform the “Handmaidens of Death” dance from one of the more popular symphonies.
They weren’t stopped or questioned by anyone else, though the guards in every hall watched them like hawks. And not the shape-shifting Fae Prince kind.
So few of Chaol’s men were present. No sign of Ress or Brullo. But everyone was where Chaol had promised they would be, based on Ress and Brullo’s information.
A platter of honey-roasted ham with crackling sage was carried past on a servant’s shoulder, and Aelin tried not to appreciate it, to savor the scents of the food of her enemy. Even if it was damn fine food.
Platter after platter went by, hauled by red-faced servants, no doubt winded from the trek up from the kitchens. Trout with hazelnuts, crisped asparagus, tubs of freshly whipped cream, pear tarts, meat pies—
Aelin cocked her head, watching the line of servants. A half smile grew on her face. She waited for the servants to return with empty hands, on their return journey to the kitchens. Finally the door opened again, and a slim servant in a crisp white apron filed into the dim hall, the loose strands of her inky hair falling out of her braid as she hurried to retrieve the next tray of pear tarts from the kitchen.
Aelin kept her face blank, disinterested, as Nesryn Faliq glanced her way.
Those dark, upturned eyes narrowed slightly—surprise or nerves, Aelin couldn’t tell. But before she could decide how to deal with it, one of the guards signaled to Florine that it was time.
Aelin kept her head down, even as she felt the demon within the man rake its attention over her and the others. Nesryn was gone—vanished down the stairs—when Aelin turned back.
Florine strode down the line of dancers waiting by the door, her hands clasped behind her. “Backs straight, shoulders back, necks uplifted. You are light, you are air, you are grace. Do not disappoint me.”
Florine took up the basket of black glass flowers she’d had her steadiest dancer carry in, each exquisite bloom flickering like an ebony diamond in the dim hall light. “If you break these before it is time to throw them down, you are finished. They cost more than you’re worth, and there are no extras.”
One by one, she handed the flowers down the line, each of them sturdy enough not to snap in the next few minutes.
Florine reached Aelin, the basket empty. “Watch them, and learn,” she said loud enough for the demon guard to hear, and put a hand on Aelin’s shoulder, ever the consoling teacher. The other dancers, now shifting on their feet, rolling their heads and shoulders, didn’t look in her direction.
Aelin nodded demurely, as if trying to hide bitter tears of disappointment, and ducked out of line to stand at Florine’s side.
Trumpets blasted in through the cracks around the door, and the crowd cheered loud enough to make the floor rumble.
“I peeked into the Great Hall,” Florine said so quietly Aelin could barely hear her. “To see how the general is faring. He is gaunt and pale, but alert. Ready—for you.”
Aelin went still.
“I always wondered where Arobynn found you,” Florine murmured, staring at the door as if she could see through it. “Why he took such pains to break you to his will, more so than all the others.” The woman closed her eyes for a moment, and when she opened them, steel gleamed there. “When you shatter the chains of this world and forge the next, remember that art is as vital as food to a kingdom. Without it, a kingdom is nothing, and will be forgotten by time. I have amassed enough money in my miserable life to not need any more—so you will understand me clearly when I say that wherever you set your throne, no matter how long it takes, I will come to you, and I will bring music and dancing.”
Aelin swallowed hard. Before she could say anything, Florine left her standing at the back of the line and strolled to the door. She paused before it, looking down the line at each dancer. She spoke only when her eyes met Aelin’s. “Give our king the performance he deserves.”
Florine opened the door, flooding the hallway with light and music and the scent of roasted meats.
The other dancers sucked in a collective breath and sprang forward, one by one, waving those dark glass flowers overhead.
As she watched them go, Aelin willed the blood in her veins into black fire. Aedion—her focus was on Aedion, not on the tyrant seated at the front of the room, the man who had murdered her family, murdered Marion, murdered her people. If these were her last moments, then at least she would go down fighting, to the sound of exquisite music.
It was time.
One breath—another.
She was the heir of fire.
She was fire, and light, and ash, and embers. She was Aelin Fireheart, and she bowed for no one and nothing, save the crown that was hers by blood and survival and triumph.
Aelin squared her shoulders and slipped into the bejeweled crowd.
Aedion had been watching the guards in the hours he’d been chained to the stool, and had figured out who best to attack first, who favored a certain side or leg, who might hesitate when faced with the Wolf of the North, and, most importantly, who was impulsive and stupid enough to finally run him through despite the king’s command.
The performances had begun, drawing the attention of the crowd that had been shamelessly gawking at him, and as the two dozen women floated and leaped and twirled into the wide space between the dais and his execution platform, for a moment Aedion felt … bad for interrupting. These women had no cause to be caught up in the bloodshed he was about to unleash.
It did seem fitting, though, that their sparkling costumes were of darkest black, accented with silver—Death’s Handmaidens, he realized. That was who they portrayed.
It was as much a sign as anything. Perhaps the dark-eyed Silba would offer him a kind death instead of a cruel one at the blood-drenched hands of Hellas. Either way, he found himself smiling. Death was death.
The dancers were tossing fistfuls of black powder, coating the floor with it—representing ashes of the fallen, probably. One by one, they made pretty little spins and bowed before the king and his son.
Time to move. The king was distracted by a uniformed guard whispering in his ear; the prince was watching the dancers with bored disinterest, and the queen was chatting with whichever courtier she favored that day.
The crowd clapped and cooed over the unfolding performance. They’d all come in their finery—such careless wealth. The blood of an empire had paid for those jewels and silks. The blood of his people.
An extra dancer was moving through the crowd: some understudy, no doubt trying to get a better view of the performance. And he might not have thought twice about it, had she not been taller than the others—bigger, curvier, her shoulders broader. She moved more heavily, as if somehow rooted innately to the earth. The light hit her, shining through the lace of the costume’s sleeves to reveal swirls and whorls of markings on her skin. Identical to the paint on the dancers’ arms and chests, save for her back, where the paint was a little darker, a little different.
Dancers like that didn’t have tattoos.
Before he could see more, between one breath and the next, as a cluster of ladies in massive ball gowns blocked her from sight, she vanished behind a curtained-off doorway, walking right past the guards with a sheepish smile, as if she were lost.
When she emerged again not a minute later, he only knew it was her from the build, the height. The makeup was gone, and her flowing tulle skirt had disappeared—
No—not disappeared, he realized as she slipped back through the doorway without the guards so much as looking at her. The skirt had been reversed into a silken cape, its hood covering her ruddy brown hair, and she moved … moved like a swaggering man, parading for the ladies around him.
Moved closer to him. To the stage.
The dancers were still tossing their black powder everywhere, circling around and around, flitting their way across the marble floor.
None of the guards noticed the dancer-turned-noble prowling toward him. One of the courtiers did—but not to cry an alarm. Instead, he shouted a name—a man’s name. And the dancer in disguise turned, lifting a hand in greeting toward the man who’d called and giving a cocky grin.
She wasn’t just in disguise. She’d become someone else completely.
Closer and closer she strutted, the music from the gallery orchestra rising into a clashing, vibrant finale, each note higher than the last as the dancers raised their glass roses above their heads: a tribute to the king, to Death.
The disguised dancer stopped outside the ring of guards flanking Aedion’s stage, patting herself down as if checking for a handkerchief that had gone missing, muttering a string of curses.
An ordinary, believable pause—no cause for alarm. The guards went back to watching the dancers.
But the dancer looked up at Aedion beneath lowered brows. Even disguised as an aristo man, there was wicked, vicious triumph in her turquoise-and-gold eyes.
Behind them, across the hall, the dancers shattered their roses on the floor, and Aedion grinned at his queen as the entire world went to hell.
