The king gave a quiet chuckle. He had been on the receiving end of her magic before, as one of the unwitting participants in the weave that had plunged the heads of Celieria’s noble Houses into seven bells of unrelenting, magic-driven mating. “I would be honored to accept your offer of healing once we’re through.” His humor faded as he added, “Though the same cannot be said for all the members of my court. I’m sure you noticed the tension outside when you arrived.”
They had reached the king’s private offices. Guards liveried in hues of Celierian blue and gold pushed open the tall, gilded double doors to admit them into the spacious room. Rain waited for the doors to close and Ellysetta’s quintet to spin a five-fold privacy weave before he said, “I take it your troubles with those who would discredit the Fey have not ended?”
“Would that they had.” Dorian sighed and paced across the room to the windows overlooking the palace gardens, with their array of spectacular fountains. “Once we began building up our military presence along the borders, the murmurs began. First it was the cost, then the loss of commerce when we ceased trade with merchants known to service the Eld; then the conspiracy rumors began, whispering about how the attack on the cathedral this summer was staged by the Fey to draw us into an unprovoked war against their old enemies, the Eld.”
“And when the news came about Teleon and Orest?”
Dorian turned back from the window, his eyes weary. “You mean when the news came that the Fey armies massing in Orest and Teleon forced the Eld to launch a preemptive strike out of self-defense?” He grimaced. “The Eld have been wily; you must give them that. Not once have they attacked a target unrelated to the Fey. That has not escaped the notice of the lords who supported the Eld Trade Agreement this summer. Now they claim the attacks on Orest and Teleon merely prove this is a dispute between the Eld and the Fey—and that we should not allow ourselves to be drawn into your war. They remain convinced that once the Eld are no longer threatened by Fey aggression, there will be peace.”
“Peace.” Rain gave a harsh laugh. “Oh,aiyah, there will be peace. The cost will be misery and enslavement, but your subjects will get their peace.” He spun on a booted heel and stalked to the opposite side of the room.
Ellysetta’s silk skirts rustled as she took a step towards Dorian. “Forgive me, Your Majesty, but have you considered the possibility that one or more of the lords leading the opposition might be Mage-claimed?”
Dorian’s mouth set in grim lines. “I have considered the possibility, yes. And I pray daily that it is not so.” He turned a bleak gaze towards the portrait of his beautiful, silver-blond wife, Annoura, which dominated the wall across from his desk. His shoulders slumped in weary despair. “Because one of the strongest voices against this war belongs to my queen.”
“Merciful gods!” Queen Annoura of Celieria groaned in misery as the painful clench of her belly sent her racing to the garderobe for the third time in the last bell. She reached it just as the contents of her stomach spewed out in a series of racking heaves. She retched again and again until nothing came up but bile, and even then the nausea lay upon her like a foul blanket. Her arms and legs trembled as she dragged herself up to her feet and stood there on the cold stone tile floor, swaying and feeling faint.
whatever illness was sweeping through her court seemed to have found its way to her. A full score of the court’s highest-ranked ladies had fallen ill in the last two days, and now she could count herself among them. She’d been retching since before daybreak and showed no signs of stopping anytime soon.
Poison was the first thought that had sprung to her mind. But what miserable excuse for a poisons master would leave dozens of women ill and none dead? Besides, Annoura’s food taster hadn’t fallen ill, and she used his services religiously. She had too much wily, suspicious Capellan in her ever to give up that protection.
“Your Majesty?” The timid voice of one of Annoura’s newest young Dazzles—a sixteen-year-old featherhead with more breasts than brains—called from outside the garderobe door. “Are you all right?”
“Oh, yes, I couldn’t be better,” Annoura snapped. She snatched open the door and stalked into her bedroom, ruining the effect of her regal ire when her knees gave out and she nearly tumbled face-first onto the floor.
The Dazzle—Mairi? Miranda? What the Darkness did Annoura care what the little slut’s name was?—caught and steadied her. Annoura checked the urge to smack the girl’s cheek for witnessing her queen’s near-humiliation.
“Help me to my bed, then get out,” she snapped. “And find out what in the name of the Seven flaming Hells is taking the physician so long.”
The girl helped Annoura back into bed before tucking the covers around her. “Are you sure I can’t get you something, Your Majesty? Maybe a nice porridge?”
Porridge? Annoura’s eyes bulged. Just the sound of the word made her stomach clench. She leapt from the bed and raced for the garderobe yet again.
This time, when she was finished, the little Dazzle stood there with eyes as big as dinner plates.
Now Annoura did smack her. “I heave my insides out and you ask me if I wantporridge? Idiot! Ninnywit! Would you offer fire to a burning man? Get out!” She flung a hand towards the door and glared at the other Dazzles gathered in the suite. “All of you, get out now. And the next person to walk through that door had best have a brain between her ears.”
The buxom Dazzle burst into tears and fled out the door. The rest of the morning attendants scuttled after her.
Annoura staggered back to her bed and lowered herself gingerly to the mattress. Good, sweet Lord of Light, she felt terrible. She hadn’t felt this bad since…well, she couldn’t remember.
She put a hand over her eyes to block the weak sunlight streaming in from the draped windows. Gods. Even that made her feel like retching. She flopped back into her mountain of pillows, scowling and feeling frighteningly close to tears.
Where was Dorian? Why wasn’t he here? The few times in their married life that she’d been ill, he’d always come to her bedside and stayed there, holding her hand, stroking her brow, weaving cool webs of Spirit to soothe her discomfort until the physician’s remedies took effect. Where was he? Surely by now one of the yammer-mouths who called themselves her ladies-in-waiting would have whispered the news of his wife’s illness into his ear.
Surely he would not be so coldhearted as to continue their estrangement when she was in ill health?
A knock sounded, and the heavy door to her bedroom swung inward. Annoura looked up, a surge of hope lifting her spirits. “Dorian?”
But the feet that stepped over the threshold did not belong to her husband. Annoura sank against her pillows, blinking back tears. Well, at least it wasn’t that useless Dazzle or another idiot just like her. The woman walking through the bedroom door did indeed have a brain between her ears—and a face nearly as pale as Annoura’s own.
Jiarine Montevero dropped a graceful curtsy to her sovereign as she entered, then approached the bed. “Mirianna said you were taken ill, Your Majesty.”
Mirianna. That was the dim-skull Dazzle’s name.
“If by ill you mean that I’ve been retching until my intestines nearly saw daylight, then yes, I suppose I am,” Annoura snapped. She hated being sick. The loss of control that came with illness was an agony to her, and she had never borne it graciously or well. “Fetch a cold compress at once.”
“Of course, Your Majesty.” Without the tiniest blink of hesitation, Jiarine made her way to the nearby nightstand, where a bowl, a stack of scented towels, and a ewer of fresh water had been laid out earlier. Moments later, she laid a damp cloth over Annoura’s forehead and eyes.
