Page 69 of Queen Demon
Light shone on an interior that was surprisingly orderly, with a pile of richly colored blankets marking the sleeping place, a few small baskets and leather saddle bags for belongings. The Doyen lay in the center, on the square-patterned ground mat. Face down, the white-handled knife still stuck in her back. The pool of blood soaking the mat was rust-colored, a contrast to the brighter red of the fabric.
Nightjar sat on the other side of the tent, staring at nothing, limp as if she could barely hold herself up. Her veil was crumpled in one hand.
Kai hooked the flap over the peg on the tentpole to hold it open, and stepped inside. He moved to the Doyen, circling her to keep the body between himself and Nightjar. She wore no veil, and he crouched to lift away the hair curtaining her face. She was dead,it was no trick. It had probably happened sometime in the night, to judge by the flies and the stench of the body.
He looked up to see Nightjar watching him with dull eyes. She wet her lips and said, “Where’s Hawkmoth?” Her voice was the rasp of someone who hadn’t spoken in hours.
“At our encampment.” Amabel’s family were acting as Hawkmoth’s wardens, which in her current state had meant a calming herb and date syrup drink and having her lie down in a dark tent with a damp compress on her forehead.It’s like she has been under a geas, a fugue, like someone trapped in darkness trying to face daylight again,Mother Hiraga had said. “Why did you kill the Doyen?”
Nightjar shifted and winced, as if she hadn’t moved in a long time. “You took Arkat away.”
Arkat,Kai thought.The other hostage, the one that still can’t talk or move. “So? You don’t care about mortal lives.”
Nightjar wiped at a smear of dried blood on her forehead. “He was held hostage, to keep me here.”
It was an interesting lie, if it was one. “How long?”
She blinked, as if the concept of time was startling. “Seasons, years. It happened in the Northwest, before we came here.”
Kai was torn between belief and denial, an urge to grab for something that would help Bashasa win, help them all win, and the looming sense that being handed this chance at salvation on a plate was just too convenient to be true. He would have to tell these dustwitches how to fight demons, and the thought still made his stomach try to turn. He had to be sure, as sure as he could be without seeing inside Nightjar’s mind.
He wiped his fingers on the hem of his skirt and stood. “Why send for me? What do you want?”
She looked up at that, the dull expression giving way to a small furrow between her brows. “You said you would help us.”
“I didn’t say that.”
The furrow grew. “You— When I spoke to you—”
“Spoke to me?” Kai corrected pointedly, “You mean when you tried to trap me, and thought you could use my name as a leash like a superstitious mortal. Did the Doyen tell you that would work?”
Her expression darkened to fury. The Doyen had told her that, then. Nightjar must not have had much teaching as a child if she had thought it was true. Or maybe it only worked on dustwitches, or they were so isolated that they thought it did. She snapped, “Then why did you come?”
Kai shrugged as if none of this mattered. “To see what was left of you, to see if this was another lie or another trap.”
Nightjar pointed to the Doyen’s decaying corpse with a grimace. “It’s no trap. I killed her to free myself, free all of us. You said—”
“I asked for you to join us. As Witches, able to fight legionaries.” Kai waved a hand toward the disordered camp. “Not whatever that is.”
Her incredulity turned to outrage and Kai strode out of the tent. Ziede stood nearby, idly examining her fingernails. Some of the less vacant and more surly dustwitches had crept near, though not too close, and had probably heard at least the latter half of the conversation. Neither Kai nor Nightjar had been trying to be quiet. He said to Ziede, “Let’s go. There’s nothing for us here.”
“Good,” Ziede said. But instead of grabbing Kai’s arm and letting her wind-devils sweep them away immediately, she turned toward the path down to the spring. She knew they were bargaining.
Kai thought it could go several ways. He could lose all the dustwitches to Nightjar, who without the Doyen’s powers of persuasion wouldn’t be able to keep the group together. There were probably dozens of festering grudges, smothered by the Doyen’s tight control. His refusal could unite them under Nightjar and they could attack the encampment again as the army was preparing to head for the fort. This could cause even more trouble than before.
Then from behind them, Nightjar said, “Wait.”
Eight
When they came to a hilltop for their first close view of the tor, the light was dimmer but only because gray clouds had drawn in overhead. It lay at the far end of the valley, a tall rounded shape, apparently of rock and dirt overgrown with grass, with flat slabs of stone lining and supporting it at the base. It was bigger than Kai expected, even from the glimpses they had gotten on the way here with the distance glass. He thought it was close to the height of the Temple of Merciful Philosophy, but much wider in circumference, because the outer wall sloped down.
Dahin said quietly, “That’s not a natural rock formation. It’s an attempt to make something look like a natural rock formation. But when you’re close enough to see the base, it’s obvious.”
“Yes,” Kai agreed. It was also almost surrounded by the springy, flowered brush that cloaked most of the shallow valleys in these hills. Unlike bare earth or more delicate grasses, it didn’t show much disturbance from the passage of humans or animals, no matter when they had walked through it.
“The Well wouldn’t be inside a structure,” Arnsterath said.
“How did you know—” Dahin snapped, then bit the words off as if they left a bad taste on his tongue. “Of course. You didn’t know. But you do now.”
