Page 14 of Quicksilver
She’d struck me hard, but notthathard. I shouldn’t have been hearing things. It seemed that I was, though, because for the life of me, it sounded like she’d just said, ‘the Fae.’“I don’t know what you mean.” I glanced at Harron, trying to decipher from the look on his face if she was playing some kind of game with me, but his expression was blank. Unreadable.
“What isn’t there to understand?” The queen’s sharp words dripping with ice.
“I’ve heard stories. But…” I wasn’t quite sure what to say. Was she mad? Did she believe in unicorns, too? Lost lands that existed millenia ago, swallowed by the desert? Ghosts, and the forgotten gods? None of it was real.
As if reading my mind, the queen adopted a slow smirk. “The Fae were warmongers. Cannibals. Beastly creatures with no temperance, sense of morality, nor any notion of mercy. The eldest Immortals visited their wrath upon the land with an iron fist, leaving a path of chaos and destruction in their wake. The seven cities rejoiced when I cast them out. And now they have sent you to try and kill me?”
“I assure you, no one has sent me to do anything of the sort.”
Madra dismissed me with a bored tut. “They want this land, I assume. Tell me, what will they do if I don't return these arid, worthless, barren sand dunes to them?” she asked skeptically.
“I’ve already told you—”
“STOP…lying,” the queen barked. “Just answer the question. The Fae wish to come and take these lands from me. What do you think they will have to do in order to seize my throne from me?”
This felt like a leading question. One I knew better than to answer. But I had to tell her something. She was clearly unhinged, and choosing to protest my innocence on this front clearly wouldn’t get me anywhere. “Kill you,” I said.
“And how do they plan on doing that?” She seemed genuinely interested in how I’d answerthisquestion.
“I—I don't know. I'm not sure.”
“Hmm.” Madra nodded, still pacing, appearing to think very deeply. “It strikes me that the Fae haven’t really thought about how they might destroy an immortal, Saeris. It seems that the Fae are foolhardy and are ill-prepared to deal with the likes of me.” Her vivid skirts rustled as she approached. “I will say that the ruckus you caused todaywasa little exciting. I felt a frisson of...” She looked up at the crenelated archways above, frowning. It was as though she were grasping for a word that eluded her. She shrugged, lowering her gaze. “I suppose I'm justbored,” she said. “So long in power. No real threat to the throne. Nothing to do but drink wine and slaughter peasants for fun. For one second, you had me wondering...” Even the broad, cold smirk she wore didn't mar her beauty. Maybe if the women of the Third were given the same luxuries Madra had enjoyed, they'd look just as pretty as her, but as it stood, even spiteful and cold, she was still the loveliest creature I'd ever laid eyes on.
She spun around suddenly, opening up her arms and laughing dryly as she gestured to the room about her. “That'swhy we met here, of course. I had to see for myself if this place remained untouched. The banished Fae can't return so long as all remains the same here, you see. Iknewnothing would have changed, but I do have a nasty habit of letting paranoia get the better of me.”
She sobered. A fine young thing in a fancy gown, spoiled and over-indulged—but something ancient and malicious lurked behind her bright blue eyes. “I should know better by now than to indulge the riffraff, Harron.” She addressed the captain, but her eyes drilled intome.
“Riffraff indeed, Majesty,” Harron said stiffly. “It is a queen's duty to protect her people, though. It's only right that you investigate threats against Zilvaren.”
Boot-licking, flattering, fawning sycophant. The Harron I met in the streets of the Third was nowhere to be seen, nor was the man who dragged me up from the dungeons, kicking and screaming. This version of the captain was meek and diminished. Afraid for reasons I couldn't discern.
Madra didn't seem all that impressed by his simpering, either. Her mouth twitched at either corner, lifting just a fraction. “Deal with her, Harron. When you're done, head back to where you found her and root out the rest of her people.”
My people.
She didn't mean...
A wave of panic took me. “No. My brother...I told you. He had nothing to do with the gauntlet. I swear—”
The queen's face was blank as she reached out and ran an index finger down my cheek. I was slick with sweat. The air stank with my fear, yet the woman before me was impervious. Her skin, perfect and so very pale, bore no perspiration whatsoever. “You are a rat,” she said simply. “Rats are an eternal bane upon a city, it's true. You can kill one, but it will already be too late. It will have spurned ten more before it found its way to you. Tenmore grotesque, fat rats, gnawing away on grain that does not belong to them, tainting water that it has no right to drink. The only way to deal with a rat's nest is to hunt it down and smoke out its occupants. Even if there are no Fae in the Silver City, somebody trained you. Somebody showed you how to hurt and kill my men. Do you think we'd leave a form of rebellion that insidious to fester? Oh no.” She bared her teeth, gripping hold of my jaw, her nails suddenly too sharp, too long, gouging into my skin.
“Youtooksomething of mine, girl, and I am not in the business of letting theft slide. So, I will take from you. First, your life. Then, I’ll make a column of greasy smoke out of those who matter to you, and when they're gone, I will tear the Third Ward to the ground. For the next one hundred years, anyone foolish enough to think twice about stealing from me will remember the black day Saeris Fane offended the Zilvaren crown and a hundred thousand people paid the price.”
5
HERETIC
An entire wardput to the torch because of me. A hundred thousand people turned to ash and bones. She wasn’t serious. Elroy told me how they slaughtered cows once. They hit them in the forehead with a piercing bolt, taking them by surprise. That’s how my guilt came at me on the heels of the Queen’s promise: out of nowhere. Right between the eyes.
Queen Madra spun around, her dress rustling, the color shifting like the sheen atop an oil slick, and began to walk across the vast hall, her feet silent as she went. “Make her sing, Harron. I want to hear her music echoing from the dungeons to the towers. It's been too long since we heard something sweet.”
Sick. Twisted. That's what she was. Madra's fair face had fooled many, but a dark, ugly pit roiled away behind the mask she wore. I saw it. I felt it in her words. The countless horrors this woman had commanded in that sweet, lilting voice...
Harron's eyes were glassy as he reached for his sword. The sound of the blade scraping against its sheath filled the air as he drew the weapon free. He wore no remorse. No regret. Whatever sympathy he might have felt for me as he dragged me up here from the cells was gone now, replaced with...nothing.
When he came for me, he came quick and quiet.
It would be over the same way, then. My life, gone in a heartbeat, my cry severed in my throat before it could meet the air. But Madrawantedmy screams to flood the palace. She'd said so, and Harron was her creature to the end. I was helpless to stop him when he grabbed me. With my wrists still bound, I had no way of fending him off. I aimed a kick at his stomach, throwing my weight behind it, but he deflected the blow, twisting away, wearing a look of bored contempt.
