“No,” he said. “You will not.”
She pouted playfully. “So serious. So stubborn. So foolish. I can be whatever I wish, Kjell of Jeru. King Kjell of Caarn,” she mocked. “I was the little brown mare you purchased in Enoch. I was the gull who stirred the Volgar. I was the black adder in the grass, the wolf in the Corvar Mountains, the squid in the sea.” Her eyes flashed with temper. “I didn’t want you to die, but you almost killed me. I could have tossed you all into the sea.”
“Why didn’t you?” he asked, easing to his feet. She stepped back again, and moonlight pooled around her.
“I didn’t want you to die. I wanted you to be afraid,” she said. “You are afraid of me, Kjell. And fear is even better than love.”
“And you will make Caarn fear you as well?”
“If I must. I have been following you for a long time, Kjell. Years. Waiting for the things the Star Maker showed me to come to pass. Then you found her. And I realized that she was the Seer who’d seen visions of you becoming a king.
“I tried to toss her over the cliffs so you could not heal her, to strike her in her sleep so you didn’t know she lay dying, to attack when she was alone. But she is never alone. You’ve kept her so close and you care so deeply. Do I mean nothing to you?”
He was silent, and her eyes narrowed with irritation.
“I have been made an outcast in my own country. But in Dendar . . . I can have everything I want. Even you. Imagine my surprise when there was no one here.” She laughed, incredulous. “What good is a kingdom if there is no one to bow down before you? If there is no one to rule?”
“So you’ve continued to wait.”
“Daughter, daughter, Jeru’s daughter, wait for him, his heart is true,” she sang, parroting the old tune. “You’ve brought them all back for me. You’ve defeated the Volgar. And I don’t have to wait any longer.”
An arrow, straight and long, pierced the air and sank into her shoulder, knocking her forward. Kjell lunged, drawing his blade as he closed the distance between them. An angry scream tore from her throat and became the shriek of a falcon, flapping and rising into the sky. The arrow fell as she climbed, insulted but uninjured, and Kjell could only watch her go with a frustrated bellow, his knife in his hand, the Changer shrouded by the night.
Jerick joined him a moment later, breathless, clutching his bow. “I missed, Captain. I’m sorry. She stepped back, and I had a clean shot.”
“You didn’t miss, Lieutenant.” Kjell swore. “She is simply hard to kill.” Fear billowed in his chest, and his legs quaked, a delayed reaction to the Changer’s presence. His eyes found the light of Sasha’s window, needing to reassure himself she was unharmed. He realized suddenly that no one stood watch on the ramparts.
“I need to see the queen,” he clipped.
Jerick nodded, not questioning Kjell’s request, but he gave a report as they walked. “Isak is on duty outside her chamber. Her window is closed, Kjell. The Changer did not enter. All is well.”
They pounded up the broad stairs and through the corridors, but Isak was not at the queen’s door. Instead, he stood outside Aren’s old chamber, watching them approach with dawning confusion.
“Captain?” he queried. He looked at the heavy door at his back as if it had beguiled him. He rapped on it sharply.
“Majesty?” he called.
“Why are you standing guard over the king’s chamber, Isak?” Jerick asked, his voice uncharacteristically sharp.
“The queen went inside and closed the door, Majesty,” Isak explained. “I’ve stood guard here since.”
Kjell pushed into the room. The door was unbarred and the chamber beyond was empty. He rushed to the bathing chamber, to the wardrobe, to the narrow staircase that led to the king’s private wine cellar. Kjell stared at the steps with growing horror.
“She never left this room, and no one went in,” Isak insisted behind him.
“Kjell, there is a man at every entrance. Everyone is accounted for,” Jerick reasoned.
“Everyone but the queen,” Kjell said, trying desperately not to shout. “Did you ever leave the door, Isak?”
“No. I was here the entire time. I thought she was with you, Captain. I . . . was . . .” Isak stuttered. “I was trying to . . . respect your . . . privacy.”
“She went through the tunnels in the cellar. She left the castle through the tunnels Jedah made before the battle,” Kjell breathed, fisting his hands in his hair.
“Why would she do that, Captain?” Isak cried, incredulous.
“Isak,” Jerick moaned. “You know why.”
Sasha, who never let Kjell’s men take him for granted, who threw herself over him to shield him from Volgar talons, who conspired to drug him and leave him in Brisson to protect him, who worried about the cost of his gift and her inability to spare him from suffering. Sasha would walk into the forest calling Lady Firi’s name if she thought she could save him. Of that he had no doubt.
“How long? How long has it been since anyone saw her?” Kjell whispered, angrier at himself than the trembling guard. Kjell had stayed away to give her clarity, to give her time, to shield her from his impatience and his longing. And she’d slipped away.
“An hour, Captain,” Isak answered, his lips tight, his eyes pleading for forgiveness.
“Find her,” Kjell begged.
Isak descended the wine cellar stairs to enter the tunnels, his hands glowing and his feet quick, but Kjell did not follow. He knew where the tunnels led, and crawling through them on his hands and knees would take too long. Kjell ran from the castle keep, Jerick and a dozen of his men at his heels, but they separated at the edge of the woods, his men fanning out into the forest. Kjell hesitated, knowing he could not run in blind terror and hope to find her. He breathed, closing his eyes and pressing his hands to the bark of the watchful trees, petitioning them for their guidance and their direction. For a heartbeat his legs buckled and his head bowed.
“I am Kjell of Koorah. I carry the blood of Caarn. Please . . . help me find the queen.”
The tree beneath his hands trembled, or maybe it simply moved with him, shuddering in dread and fear, but a long thin branch lowered and stretched, a skeletal finger pointing deeper into the grove. Kjell ran, not questioning the wisdom or instruction of the woods, and after several steps, he realized where he was.
Maybe Sasha had simply gone to sit beneath the bows of Aren’s tree, making peace with what had passed. But the hour was late, and Kjell’s instincts screamed that solace and silence among the trees was not the queen’s design; Sasha had not slipped into the wood to kneel in remembrance in a sacred grove.
A twig snapped and a soft wind stirred, and for a moment he was certain he had found her, the gossamer spill of her dress like silver moth wings, dancing in and out of the light. He breathed her name, quickening his pace, but something made him hold his tongue.