Elestrine

  “Your Excellency! Urgent message from Everglace!”

  I put down my copy of Hansard, tearing my attention away from the tedious bickering of long-dead parliamentarians. “My mother, I assume?”

  “Yes, Excellency,” the page replies. “She—”

  “You may hand me the crystal directly.”

  “Well, that’s just it, Excellency—there is no crystal! Her Majesty the Winter Queen has personally assumed control of the mirror and demands to speak with you immediately!”

  I sigh. I should have expected this degree of melodrama from the old tyrant.

  “I shall be along in a moment,” I say. “Thank you for bringing me this news.”

  The page looks at me anxiously.

  “You may go.”

  I pass another few minutes making my way through the stilted dialogue of the parliamentarians. Just imagine living for only eighty years and spending so much of it arguing about taxation policy. Indeed, it’s a wonder the Shift didn’t occur centuries ago.

  At last, I rise to my feet, leaving the book behind, and walk at a leisurely pace toward what the humans, for some obscure historical reason, call the “Tent Room” of Rideau Hall.

  “Your daughter arrives, your Majesty!” the page announces grandly as I enter. He then—only too happily—bows and leaves us alone.

  I approach the mirror at the far side of the room. Ordinarily, it is occluded by heavy black curtains so that the ghost haunting it can rest when not delivering messages; now, however, the curtains have been swept aside and the ghost, evidently, has been hijacked by my mother’s consciousness. It is her face—which she has arranged to appear as a construct of ice and snow—that glares at me through the glass.

  I kneel before her. “Your Majesty.”

  “Get up girl! Your false supplication turns my stomach!”

  I shrug, pleased to have an excuse to stand. “To what do I owe this honour, mother?”

  “Do not play stupid, daughter; the role ill becomes you.”

  “Indeed,” I agree. “I assume, then, that you have come calling about that rather embarrassing mix-up with Audan? Now, I’ve offered him penance in the form of a lieutenant-governorship and, while he has yet to respond to the offer, I have no doubt that—”

  “Enough!” my mother roars. “You have already brought sufficient disgrace upon this Kingdom without piling this ludicrous pantomime on top of it! You know full well what you have done, you selfish ingenue!”

  “What I have done, mother,” I say, shedding my pretence, “is to wriggle off that hook upon which you so unwisely sought to catch Audan.”

  “You presume to tell me what is wise, you mewling little welp? You have jeopardized our entire project with your entitled schemes—”

  “Entitled!?” I exclaim, a hair too shrilly. “Do you imagine that I rejected the General purely for his coarse mannerisms and insufferable arrogance? I rejected him because he is a violent imbecile and everyone at court knows it! A man such as that should never be placed in anything approaching a position of power, regardless of what title he accrues—indeed, most especially not now, when our very future hangs in the balance!”

  “And I suppose your human pet should?”

  “Charles is…a work in progress,” I concede. “But whatever his deficiencies, I would sooner have him than ten thousand Audans.”

  “Because you wish to be adored,” she replies. “That is what draws you to him, no? Pathetic.”

  “What ‘draws’ me is his utility,” I retort. “We can rule by fear, as you would have me do, but would it not be better to hold the people’s very soul in the palm of our hand and shape it as we see fit? That is Charles’s value! Don’t you see? He is the key!”

  “If he is, it is only because you have made him such,” my mother replies. “Oh, my daughter! So clever, but such a fool! Never should I have let you hear those empty-headed human tales of the last Great Age! Would that I had drowned that ridiculous servant—”

  “You may cast your imprecations as you please, mother,” I interrupt, wrath welling up within me. “But all that I have said is true; my marriage is now a fact on the ground, and to dissolve it would court disaster. You may have played a cunning game, but it is I who have won.”

  My mother’s features contort with such anger that—though I know her to be far away—I reflexively steel myself against her assault.

  But then she laughs, a bitter cackle such as I heard only rarely growing up. “You have outsmarted only yourself, girl! Did you not understand that you were the price I paid to Audan in exchange for his mercenaries’ conquest of that wretched land? Do you imagine that he will defend it, now that you’ve humiliated him? Who will hold it for me now, daughter? You? Your simpering wench, Awyrel? Your pet human? Gloriana is already eying your colony enviously! Oberon and Baba Yaga too, if I know my kin!”

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  “Audan will hold it,” I reply. “You see, mother, once again I’ve outthought you. Audan swore allegiance to you when he was created Duke of Ottawa! He’s now bound by that oath—notwithstanding any sleazy backroom deals to which you may have come concerning my hand in matrimony. Do you not understand? He is our creature now! And we need not pay him a thing in recompense.”

  The Winter Queen glares at me. “You are playing a dangerous game, daughter.”

  I smile. “You are wrong again, mother. This is not a game. Not anymore.”

  My mother sneers at this pronouncement. “I spoke too soon, daughter; you truly are stupid. I shall venture to Earth in four days to soothe matters with Audan and clean up your mess. Then I shall decide what will become of you. Prepare for my arrival!”

  With that, her image fades from the mirror, leaving behind only my reflection. Tiend! I slam my fist against the wall.

  “Ah yes, that will help,” says the ghost in the mirror.

  I throw the curtains shut and take to pacing the room. The fact remains that I have won—no matter her posturing. She will not be able to dissolve my marriage, nor depose me—not without inflaming the humans. Surely, she wouldn’t—just to spite me?

  There comes a polite knock upon the door.

  “Enter.”

  I turn to see the page once again—and beside him, somewhat to my surprise, my physician.

  “Calamyr,” I greet. “This is most unexpected. Why are you—”

  “Excellency,” he says with an urgent nod. “I apologize for my impropriety, but time is of the essence. If you leave immediately, you can still intervene.”

  “Intervene?” I demand. “Intervene in what?”

  “To save your husband!”

  *

  I stride past the wrought-iron fence of Rideau Hall with my most imperious gait. “Your men have arrested my husband, your Grace; I demand to know why.”

  Duke Audan—none too happy to see me—bows obsequiously. “A thousand apologies, Excellency!” he exclaims. “But my troops have reason to believe your husband is spreading sedition against the realm.”

  My gaze drifts from Audan to Charles—who stares back stonily from where he’s being restrained at spearpoint by a simply ridiculous number of knights. “So many troops to deal with sedition!” I exclaim in English.

  When Audan replies, it is in that same language. “I do not care to take chances with my troops’ lives.”

  “Yes, well, evidently they need all the help they can get if it takes twenty-four of them to seize my husband.”

  A small smile plays across Charles’s lips before he remembers that he’s supposed to dislike me. Audan, for his part, scowls. “I did not command this operation.”

  “Ah.”

  I turn away from him to survey the assembled knights. “And who among you did?”

  There’s a moment of hesitation, and then one of them steps forward. “It was I, Sir Glaenyg,” he announces in careful English, casting an uncertain glance at Audan.

  “And what, precisely, is my husband meant to have done?”

  He apes a confidence he clearly does not feel. “Excellency, your husband assaulted an officer of the crown.”

  I raise both eyebrows. “Was this officer, by any chance, named ‘Audan’, Sir Glaenyg?”

  The knight’s face twitches. “Yes, Excellency.”

  “And are you referring to the assault that took place in my own presence several days ago?” I look at Audan. “Or has this human bested his Grace a second time?”

  A wave of fury contorts Audan’s features. I smile at him.

  “Only the once, Excellency,” Glaenyg replies.

  “As far as you know.”

  “…As far as I know,” he concedes.

  I nod. “Very well. Odd, is it not, that you should choose now to arrest him, given that his identity and whereabouts must have been known to you for at least several days.”

  “He committed a crime, Excellency,” Glaenyg says blankly. “Under their laws and ours. His arrest was lawful, regardless of timing.”

  “And what, may I ask, prompted this flurry of initiative on your part?”

  The knight pays a quick glance at Audan. “His Grace suggested that a firm line against rebellion was warranted under the circumstances.”

  “Circumstances, Sir Glaenyg?”

  He swallows. “Two of our number went missing recently. They were restoring order northwest of the city, and—”

  “You suspect human involvement.”

  “They were in a human settlement, Excellency. And soldiers of the old regime have been spotted nearby—”

  “I see.”

  “His Grace didn’t want to take chances with your Vice Regal personage, Excellency.”

  “No, I imagine he wouldn’t.”

  I keep my gaze lingering on him a moment longer than is absolutely necessary. Then, I turn to my husband. “The Crown hereby pardons Charles James Oakes.”

  Audan steps forward angrily. “Your Excellency—”

  “Yes, yes, you must protest; it’s really quite tiresome. In any case, as you have nothing to charge him with, you are legally obligated to let him go.”

  Sir Glaenyg looks searchingly at the Duke. After a long moment, Audan nods curtly.

  At once, dozens of spears are lifted from my husband’s face. Charles—now free—stumbles to my side, straightening the hood of his parka.

  “Thank you,” he murmurs.

  I lay a hand gently on his upper arm. “Go home,” I bid. “I shall join you shortly.”

  He hesitates for a moment, looking at Audan as if he’s about to say something. Then he nods and turns back toward the gate. The guards watch him coldly as he walks past.

  “I would have a word, your Grace.”

  *

  I lead Audan away from his troops and turn to face him. His face is a mask of scarcely disguised loathing, his arms crossed defiantly across his chest. As for myself, I am quite incandescent with rage and he knows it. This is why it comes as a great surprise to him when the first thing that I say, in my levellest, most inoffensive tone, is: “Tell me about these knights, your Grace.”

  Audan furrows his brow, not understanding, nor even able to come down from his warlike posture quickly enough to seek clarification.

  “The knights,” I repeat, my voice taking on a new edge. “The ones who disappeared. The ones whose disappearance you apparently thought so important that it that merited arresting the Vice Regal Consort—”

  “Sir Glaenyg arrested him!” Audan bursts. “You cannot blame me! Your mother—”

  “I have not given you leave to speak, your Grace.”

  Audan presses his lips into a grotesque sort of smile.

  “Now,” I repeat. “I want a full investigation into the circumstances surrounding your knights’ disappearance. This is an order from your Commander in Chief.”

  Audan barely moves his mouth as he replies, “Yes, Excellency.”

  “Splendid. Now, I realize that you and I have had our…differences,” I say. “But the fact is that—for the time being—you are the Supreme Commander of her Majesty’s forces in this colony, and I will not allow security to be compromised because of your petty little grudge against me. Now, the Winter Queen may not allow me to remove you for that artless little stunt you just pulled with my husband, but I guarantee that she will not forgive outright incompetence. If you or your troops find genuine evidence of a threat to the realm, I am to be informed immediately. Is that clear?”

  “Yes, Excellency.”

  “Oh, and your Grace?”

  Audan keeps his eyes staring glassily forward. “Yes?”

  I shake my head. “Whining to my mother? Really?”

  The Duke finally loses his composure and throws his fists to his side. “It is my right—”

  “Dismissed.”

  Audan freezes, caught between the momentum of a good rant and his duty as a subject.

  “Dismissed.”

  He looks at me, face taught with loathing. And then he bows, spins on his booted heel, and turns sharply away.

  Many are the burdens of rulership, I reflect as I watch him go. But at least you can always have the last word.