Page 51 of Queen Demon
Alert at his side, Cimeri watched the tents and dust clouds to the left, wary for anyone trying to flank them. Raihar, one hand still gripping Kai’s coat, had turned all the way around so they were back to back, watching for anyone creeping up behind. This was how borderlanders and Witches had fought the legionaries, in tight units that relied on each other, often with a Saredi demon along. These two had fallen into it like they had done it before and it swayed Kai’s heart more readily than the Doyen’s attempts at manipulation.
“I sent her to free you from the mortals.” The Doyen stepped sideways, slowly, gracefully. Something in her voice still lured him, the way her body moved soothed fear. It just made Kai itch to kill her but it must affect the dustwitches differently. In gentle reproof she said, “Nightjar was supposed to ask you to join us.”
Kai wondered how Nightjar liked being painted as the one who caused all the trouble, but he was too cautious of the Doyen to even flick a glance in her direction. He paced forward as the Doyen moved away, the two Witches moving with him. “I won’t be a Hierarchs’ slave, you think I’ll be yours? Who would you hold hostage against my good behavior?”
“A misunderstanding.” The Doyen shook her head. “Not a slave, not a beast of burden for the mortals. You could fight for us.”
“Fight who? You’re hiding from the legionaries when you should be killing them.” Cimeri squeezed his arm in warning and Kairealized he had stopped without meaning to, letting himself be drawn into an argument. The fight on the other side of the camp was over, more dustwitches were coming this way. Whatever power the Doyen had, it was real. He took another step and it was as if his feet were stuck in mud. He gritted his teeth and forced himself to take another step, and another.
“Prove to Nightjar you are no expositor, then we can talk,” the Doyen urged him.
Kai was mildly horrified that it sounded like a good idea, even though he knew it wasn’t. He pushed forward toward the path downslope and growled, “I can prove I’m a demon. You pick out which of your people you like least.”
Air whipped up, cold and sharp. Ziede landed a few paces away. She was as light as a drifting feather, as menacing as a roll of thunder. Dust blasted away from her, whipping their clothes and hair, laying the campsite bare. Kai took a sharp breath; he hadn’t realized how much dust had collected on him until it was gone. It made it easier to think. The air went abruptly still. Ziede said, “Tell me I’m an expositor.”
The sharp words cut through the Doyen’s haze of benign omniscience. The other dustwitches had fallen silent. Kai hadn’t realized they had been murmuring, like wind stirring leaves, until that moment. It sent a chill through his skin. He took the last few steps, drawing the two Witches up behind Ziede.
The Doyen said, “I will not apologize for caution.” Her gaze went to Kai again. “He uses power like an expositor.”
That was a little stab to the gut. But Ziede seemed to know better than to be drawn into an argument. She said, “Think twice before you speak to imply I’m a liar.”
The Doyen didn’t betray any annoyance or impatience. “We are not here to make enemies.”
“A little late for that,” Kai said.
Raihar whispered, “Kaiisteron said you freed our family?”
Ziede answered, “Yes, they’re safe with our friends.”
“She lies.” Nightjar laughed. “They have an Immortal Marshall with them. They are Hierarch slaves.”
“We offered you an alliance,” Ziede said, ignoring Nightjar as if she didn’t exist. “Before we knew you treated your own people like prisoners, holding their families hostage. Our mortal allies will not treat with thieves who are little better than the Hierarchs.” She added in Saredi, “I can only take two of you and they’ll be on us as soon as I move. Will you use the death intention?”
Kai still didn’t want to, despite everything. There were Witches like Hawkmoth here, barely more than deluded children. He replied in the same language. “I won’t. Take them, I’ll fight my way out.”
Raihar said in Saredi, with possibly the worst accent Kai had ever heard, “Cimeri get us out. Kai fly ahead.”
Cimeri nudged Kai’s arm and nodded.
Kai said, “Ziede, take Raihar. Cimeri, let’s go.”
Ziede wrapped an arm around Raihar’s waist and shot into the air. The dustwitches surged forward but the ground shifted with an alarming rumble and spikes of bedrock broke upward in showers of dust. Cimeri grabbed Kai’s wrist and they ran.
Two dustwitches came at them as they reached the trees just below the camp, and both found out why you don’t try to grab a demon. Kai paused only to rot away the ropes holding the riding animals while Cimeri ran at them waving her arms. As the creatures lowed and bolted in panic, they followed into the scrubland.
Six
Kai leaned on the railing as the ascension raft flew low over Ancartre. It was a cold twilight, and the raft paced a breeze laced with woodsmoke and the occasional scents of peppery fish stew. They were flying far more slowly than anyone wanted, but the Belith authorities did not look fondly on Immortal Blessed anyway, and if they had to be alerted to this situation, the Tescai-lin wanted it to be done by the Enalin ambassador, via the envoy to Belith’s Rising World council. “Not because Immortals are careening wildly around in the air,” the Tescai-lin had stipulated. Dahin had agreed far more readily than Kai had expected.
Tenes leaned on the rail beside Kai, though they had managed to get Sanja to stay behind at the envoy house. Mostly because she had seen Dahin leave his manuscript with the Tescai-lin, and knew he would be back for it. Etem had come with them to point the way and introduce them to the scholars. They clutched the railing next to Tenes, watching the ground below with the fascination of someone who had never flown before.
The new university wasn’t too far from the Enalin envoy house, past the Temple of Moral Philosophy and to the east. Which was a blessing since it didn’t give them much time to argue about who these Immortal Blessed might be. “It has to be the conspirators,” Dahin said scornfully. “When have the Blessed taken an interest in history or anything but their own—”
“Our own,” Tahren corrected with weary patience. She thought it was important never to deny the connection, whether for herself or Dahin or any of their family who had rejected the Blessed Patriarchs’ rule. She had told Kai and Ziede, a long timeago, that rejecting the Blessed and what they stood for did not erase their past. “And they could be Marshalls sent here after Ilhanrun Highsun.”
“Sent after him for what?” Dahin demanded.
Tahren lifted her brows. “Giving anchor stones to mortals?”
