Blessed be the wicked, p.16
Blessed be the Wicked, page 16
“My Queen—”
“Your Grace—”
The calls began at once, but it was Axe that spoke the loudest. “What’s all this jabberin’ about? Can’t you lot see this is black magic?”
The room fell silent once more, taking in the firedrake that was not real, the girl that could see the truth, the hand at work, and the Queen who watched and weighed them all.
Quinn made the illusion throw back its head and roar once. The sound would have reverberated off the stone walls and through the ground itself, had it been real. As it was, the image disintegrated into black dust like ash, left to drift to the ground and disappear entirely.
“No,” Quinn said, “they can’t, but you can.”
“What is the meaning of this?” Imogen asked. She didn’t comment on Quinn’s near-perfect speech in Ilvan.
“To show you that should I have wanted you dead—they would have never known. I could make them see and feel whatever I want. I could make myself invisible to all. I could kill you now, and not one of them could stop me,” she said. Imogen’s lips pinched together.
“Is that a threat?”
“No,” Quinn answered. “It’s simply the truth. If I, or Lord Fierté, wanted you dead, you would be. And they certainly would not have caught me.” The court quieted for a moment, sensing that not all was as it seemed. Axe coughed, and the tension broke.
“Those are dangerous words to speak in my court,” Imogen said, switching back to Norcastan. “You’re either very brave or very stupid, and I can’t quite decide which.”
“Both,” Draeven muttered lowly.
The Queen’s lips quirked as she fought a grin.
“They are the truth,” Quinn said, following her switch in tongue with ease. “Neither I nor my lord are so dumb as to be caught. We have the power to do as we wish, but we also have no reason to cause you harm. Lord Fierté came here to be granted an audience with you. He is seeking an alliance. To commit a shoddy attempt at murder would be stupid.”
“Stupid?” the Queen repeated. Quinn nodded, the back of her neck damp with perspiration. “Very well. You’ve made your point, but you’ve yet to explain how my advisor is at fault.”
“As I was saying, while I was locked away, I thought about who would have the most to gain by this play. Your advisor, Zorel, hails from Norcasta.” She gave Zorel a pointed look, and the man gnashed his teeth, clearly wanting to speak the closer Quinn got to the truth. “Lazarus, as you already know, is fighting his own war with the noble heirs. It is not a stretch to think that the timing of you being poisoned was an act meant to drive a wedge between you and Lord Fierté—as it already has—and prevent any alliance from happening.”
“You believe it to be the work of Claudius’ blood heirs?” Imogen asked, her expression unreadable.
“I do.”
It was a bold proclamation. Spoken to the wrong monarch, it would be death. Quinn took a gamble that Imogen was a smarter woman than she was prideful.
Silence spanned the length of the marble throne room while they waited for her response.
“Lord Fierté,” she said eventually.
“Yes, Your Grace?”
“Do you believe there to be any truth to this claim?” the Queen asked. Quinn didn’t move an inch, nor did she allow her muscles to tense while she listened.
“I believe there”—she felt his eyes on her back, boring into her with that shadowy dark gaze—“to be a possibility, if you will. I cannot say for certain, but Quinn is not alone in her musings.”
“That’s what they want you to think, Your Highness,” Zorel interrupted harshly. “These people are foreigners—outsiders—and they speak nothing but lies.”
“You forget, Zorel,” Imogen said, ice in her tone. “You too were once a foreigner, as the N’skari girl has so nicely pointed out.” Zorel choked but didn’t respond. Quinn let out a breath, her chest falling as her eyes rose. Imogen was staring at her. “Do you have more than musings to back up this claim?” the Queen asked. “Do you,” she looked at her daughter, “do either of you have any proof?”
“Your Grace, Lorraine—my fellow vassal—was afflicted with a similar illness a few days ago,” Quinn said. “She collapsed the same way you did. I told Axe as much when she broke into the dungeon I was being kept in, and when I broke free, we both set out to find my companion and see what she knew. Instead, I found your healer. I interrogated her and learned the truth.” Quinn looked to healer Maji as she trembled before her audience.
“Is this true, Tesora?” the Queen asked her daughter in Ilvan.
“Yes, Madara.” Axe nodded.
“Helping her escape was reckless. If she’d killed me for my throne, she might have killed you too . . .” Imogen’s words trailed off, a painful expression briefly flitting across her features.
“But she didn’t,” Axe pointed out stubbornly.
“But she didn’t.” The Pirate Queen nodded, looking away for a moment before turning back to the healer before her and the matter at hand. “Harrietta,” the Pirate Queen called. “What is the truth that she speaks of?”
“I-I didn’t know, Your Highness,” she stuttered in Ilvan. “I’m so sorry. I had no . . . the poison . . . it was . . .” The healer broke down, sobbing uncontrollably as she fell to the floor under the weighted stare of the members in the court.
“Lorraine didn’t collapse because she reopened her wound,” Quinn said with an irritated glare at the healer, speaking in Norcastan for her own house’s benefit, namely Lazarus. “She was poisoned.”
Imogen looked to the healer. “Is this true?”
Harrietta nodded, and through her sobs, answered, “I w-was given a vial, Your Highness. I was asked to add it to the t-tonic. After the woman’s collapse, I approached—” She broke off, her weeping overpowering her for a moment. “I t-thought it was by your command, my Queen. I swear it.” She lamented, bowing low over the stairs of the throne.
Quinn looked down at her scuffed boots and grit her teeth. She was beginning to grow tired of her wails.
“And who gave you this vial?” Imogen asked.
“Your a-advisor, my Queen,” Harrietta cried.
The Pirate Queen stood, appearing stronger despite her pale face and shallow features. The dark circles beneath her eyes didn’t pull so tightly at her skin as she descended the steps of her throne, using the sword in its sheath as a cane until she stood before the shaking Zorel.
“Do you have anything to say to this, Zorel?” the Queen inquired.
When the man stubbornly kept his mouth shut, Quinn stepped forward. “May I?” she asked. Tendrils of darkness slid from beneath her skin, racing down her arms and dropping from her fingertips before reaching for the advisor, but Quinn held them at bay, waiting for Imogen’s response.
“What will you do to him?” the Queen asked curiously.
Quinn let a hint of the darkness creep into her voice as she said, “I’ll make him tell you the truth.”
“But you’re not a truth spinner,” Imogen replied. It wasn't a question, but a statement.
“No,” Quinn said, “I’m much worse. I’ll prey on his fears, and he’ll spill his every thought just for me to stop.”
“If I hadn’t seen the illusion of the firedrake I might not believe you,” Imogen said. “But I did. Show me, Quinn of N’skara, vassal of House Fierté. Show me what you can do.”
“Gladly,” Quinn whispered, knowing that she would finally be able to deliver his treatment of her in kind.
Zorel gasped as the tendrils touched him, and he jerked in their grip as his eyes grew large. Throwing his head back, he cried out. Veins began to pop at the top of his forehead as Quinn forced her power into his mind and cracked it open. She sought the truth, and he would tell them.
“Did you poison the Queen?” Quinn asked quietly. She whispered intimately, like she would to a lover.
“Yes,” he choked. “Yes—I poisoned the bitch—Gods above—make them stop.” He scratched at his arms, his chest, his face. Blood welled on his skin and crimson quickly soaked the beds of his fingernails. Imogen watched Quinn with interest before flipping her scrutiny to the man writhing on the ground at her feet.
“Why?” Imogen asked. “Why did you poison me?”
“I was told—” He choked up, his hands wrapping around his own throat. “I was told . . .” he repeated, weaker than before. He was trying to get the words out, but something prevented him. Quinn set a flicker of fear free, and it broke apart, slithering across his skin like an inchworm. It encircled his wrists and pulled them down and behind him. The black tendrils locked together behind his back, and Zorel bent forward, sobbing into the marble steps.
“Why did you poison me?” Imogen repeated.
“B-because”—he paused, breathing heavily—“because I was told to.”
Imogen’s features revealed nothing. Her face was void of emotion, but her anger—Quinn didn’t need eyes to see and feel that. She was made legendary for her wrath. Traitors were eviscerated in her court. Their corpses strung up in the streets for the crows to pick at and for all to see.
“Who told you to?” the Queen asked.
Zorel shook with fear. A wet spot appeared on his trousers and spread, dampening the floor. Quinn wrinkled her nose at the smell of piss, eyeing him like a bug beneath her boot.
“I can’t say,” he moaned. Imogen leaned forward, and though she hid the wince well, Quinn could tell she was in pain.
“Who told you to poison me?” she asked again. “Anyone in the closest circle of my court knows that poisons do not affect me as they do others,” Imogen said, staring down at the top of Zorel’s head as he bent at her bare feet. “It would not have killed me. You know that. Yet you did it anyways, and I can’t help wonder who would dare infiltrate my court in such a bold and foolish manner.” Her voice was little more than a hiss of air between her teeth by the end of it. Zorel would not answer, though. He would not say any names.
“I can’t tell you,” he moaned. “He forbade it.”
“He?” Imogen asked, her flat gaze sweeping up to Quinn. “Who is he talking about?”
Quinn looked down at the advisor that dared frame her. Her fingers curled slowly, the joints tightening as her fingers contorted. She pulled on that power in her veins and looked deep into his mind.
“I see a man,” Quinn started. “A man . . . with a cane.” She frowned, because this wasn’t the first time she’d seen his face. It had been well over a month, but on a dark road in the middle of the night, she saw a brief flash in another man’s mind. A mind that had been consumed by fear as Lazarus killed him for attacking them in a carriage bound for Shallowyn.
“Can you get his name?” Imogen asked.
A phantom laugh rang in her ears—more viscous, more mad than anyone she had ever seen.
“No,” Quinn said, trying and failing to search for more. “But I can tell you what he looks like.”
“Do it,” Imogen demanded.
The words spilled forth from Quinn’s lips.
“His hair is silver, not like mine—but from age. One eye is brown and the other, clear. He has a scar running down the left side of his face that looks like—” Quinn broke off, pulling away from the vision in the man’s mind.
“Looks like what?” Imogen asked.
Quinn turned and regarded Lazarus. His expression was closed off. His eyes burning with dark flame. She wondered what would happen to the world when he turned those eyes to it. Would it catch fire as her blood often did? Would it withstand? Or—would it all simply go up in smoke?
She shook her head and looked away.
“It looked like someone had cut him. I don’t think he has use of his eye.” On the floor between her and the Queen, Zorel descended into a blubbering mess of madness, causing Quinn to draw back her power before it completely broke his mind. He closed his arms around his shoulders, rocking back and forth as she wondered if she already had.
“I see,” Imogen said, looking between Quinn and Lazarus. Axe stepped forward; her pointed chin turned upward.
“He’s confessed, Madara,” Axe said. “Surely, this is proof enough.”
Imogen nodded quietly, contemplating her next actions. “I never got a name out of him, but it doesn’t matter, I suppose. We deal with all traitors the same.” With one hand holding the sword by the scabbard and the other firmly around the hilt, she slid the blade from its resting place.
“Can we roast him?” Axe asked. It was enough to pull Imogen from whatever ghost Quinn had sworn was haunting the Queen’s eyes.
Imogen shot her daughter an amused but reproachful glance. “We’re pirates, Tesora, not cannibals.”
Quinn frowned as Axe crossed her arms, turning to face Zorel alongside her mother. She pouted even now, sullen at the idea of not getting to eat him. What a strange child . . .
Imogen stuck the very tip of the blade under his chin. Zorel blanched, his face leached of all color as he tilted his chin back further to avoid the dangerous edge.
“Zorel of Ilvas, you have confessed and been found guilty of treason against your queen,” she announced. “Do you have any last words?”
He opened his mouth—as if ready to give one last pitiful attempt at defending himself—but she didn’t wait for him to speak. Imogen thrust the blade through the skin of his throat. Zorel’s eyes bulged, and his arms dropped limp to his sides as the sword cut straight through cartilage and bone, the metal tip pointing out the back of his neck. Scarlet dripped from the end of the blade and dribbled down his body, seeping into his tunic. His mouth gaped as he gurgled, clinging to life like a fish struggling to breathe.
Imogen pursed her lips. “Traitors don’t get any last words. You should know that,” she said, placing her foot on his chest and pushing him back. The movement seemed to take all of her strength and as she stepped back, struggling to keep her balance. Axe moved forward, tucking an arm around her mother’s waist to support her weight as the slight tremors of the poison persisted. Zorel fell onto the ground and into the steadily growing pool of liquid surrounding him.
Piss and the tang of copper filled her nostrils as she and House Fierté and all of the Pirate Queen’s court watched Zorel die a traitor’s death.
Sticky streams of blood ran free, staining the marbled floors. Quinn followed those lines to the toe of a black boot. Lifting her head, Quinn met Lazarus’ eyes. His gaze let her know they were not finished here. That no matter what Imogen might declare, she’d seen and done things that day that he wouldn’t forget. For good or bad . . .
“Quinn of N’skara, vassal of House Fierté,” Imogen announced, drawing their attention back. “You are hereby cleared of all accusations.”
She nodded and stepped back as Axe led her mother away from the body. When the Queen passed Lazarus, she paused, and they spoke quietly. Quinn frowned, trying to make out their words. Axe smiled over her mother’s shoulder at Quinn and winked.
In a louder voice, Imogen turned and spoke again to the soldiers gathered. “House Fierté is released from arrest. They are welcome in my palace, to come and go as they please as friends of the crown.” Several of the guards glanced at one another, but then relaxed, sheathing their swords. “We will speak at another time, Lord Fierté.” He nodded and bowed his head respectfully, as did the rest of the room while Axe and the Queen left them.
Something moved in the periphery of her vision. The apple. From the bottom step, it tumbled, rolling through the blood all the way to the edge of Quinn’s boot. Crimson coated its dark red outside, but the bite mark showed the white flesh of the fruit, slowly soaking up the droplets that slipped from the skin downward. Zorel had been an advisor to a Queen and a pawn to another man somewhere on this continent.
In the end, though, the only mark he left in the world was the bite in an apple that would wither and die in the juices of a man that had learned just what it meant to oppose a force of nature.
Something Wicked Comes This Way
“Cautious men are living men. It is the heroes that don’t survive war.”
— Draeven Adelmar, vassal of House Fierté, rage thief
* * *
Sweat beaded on the back of Draeven’s neck as he passed through the corridor. A battalion of palace guards strode by in pairs, many of them straightening at the appearance of the foreigner. Draeven sighed, his steps slowing as he reached back and scrubbed the palm of his hand over the damp nape beneath his hairline. It was unfortunate that the people of Ilvas now feared most of Lazarus’ house, but it was also not surprising. After Quinn’s performance in the throne room, he doubted if there was a soul in the Pirate Queen’s palace that had not heard of House Fierté and the dark Maji that they possessed.
Stopping before Lazarus’ door, Draeven glanced down at his hands and took a breath, unclenching his fists. It would not do to let the stress of circumstance affect him so heavily. He needed to keep a logical head, because sometimes he was the only one trying to do so—ever since Quinn showed up.
Lifting his hand, Draeven knocked three times before he stood back and waited. Within moments, Lazarus’ voice filtered out, strong but emotionless.
“Come in.”
Draeven grimaced at the hard tone that suggested a sour mood, but nonetheless, he twisted the handle and entered. Lazarus sat by the fireplace in one of the twin wing-backed chairs positioned there. Closing the door at his back, Draeven walked farther into the room until he was standing before his master—the man he had chosen to follow and obey, though in the deepest recesses of his heart and soul, he knew it would mean an eternity in the dark realm come his demise. Lazarus was not a man built for good. He was built for power. Draeven realized that fact; acknowledged that following this man was necessary if the ways of the world were going to change. Sacrifices had to be made, and if one of those sacrifices had to be his soul . . .
