The Born Queen - J. Gregory Keyes [132]
But then she had learned things. She had seen a letter from him that made him responsible for the unholy slaughter in Dunmrogh. He had colluded with Robert against her mother and tortured Cavaor Ackenzal, the court composwer, nearly to death. He’d left Eslen before Anne’s forces had recaptured it and hadn’t been seen or heard from since.
And now he wanted to talk. It didn’t make sense. The Church had turned its bloody resacaratum into a holy war against her, and now suddenly Hespero wanted to be friends and help her claim the power the Church so vehemently named shinecraft?
She closed her eyes and tried to find Hespero out in the sedos realm, to see where he was and what he was about, to find some inkling of the consequences of meeting him.
But as with the Hellrune, all she found was a quiet, dark place.
And then she knew.
“It’s him,” she told Nerenai later that day. The Sefry was weaving a shawl, and Anne was pacing in her quarters.
“The man who attacked me in the wood of the Faiths, the one who threatens me. It was Hespero all along.”
“How can you be sure?”
“He has power like me, like the Hellrune. Only someone with art like that can go within the sedos unsummoned. Who else could it be? I thought once it might be the Briar King, but from everything I’ve heard about him, I no longer believe so.”
“What will you do? Will you see him?”
“He tried to attack me,” Anne said. “I’m certain he was at least partly responsible for the murders of my sisters and father and the other attempts on me. Yes, I will see him, and I will find out what he knows, and then he will pay.”
CHAPTER NINE
TWO REASONS
NEIL STARED at Brinna for a long few breaths before responding. He felt as if he were somehow outside of the world, looking in from a great distance away.
“Why would you say that?” he finally managed.
“The world is poisoned, Sir Neil,” she said. “Poisoned by two thousand years of unchecked use of the sedoi. That’s what ultimately made breaking the law of death possible. Were the world in better health…” She looked away. “But it wasn’t. The monsters—the greffyns and such—those are all symptoms of that coming death, of a very ancient being trying to reclaim the world, but without the power to heal it. Then there is—was—the Briar King, who did have the power to restore it but who is now dead. That leaves your queen and two others to fight over the sedos power, to take it when it reaches its peak. But that power, you see, can’t be used to mend anything. It can only corrupt. And in this moment coming very soon, the sedos power will be so strong that all other puissance in the world will fail before it. Life and death will cease to have meaning, as will chaos and order. It will all become the dream—the Black Mary—of the one who takes the power.”
“Anne won’t misuse it.”
“She does so already. She drains the life from our warriors. She boils them in their skins. Soon she will do far worse. And of the three who seek the sedos throne, she is favored to win. And so my people fight and die, and I use my visions as best I can to help them. But I am too far away now, and she has become too strong. To be of any use I need to leave here, but that isn’t allowed. It’s never been allowed, and after my earlier escape, my father is doubly committed to the ancient way. He doesn’t really understand what’s going on. He twists what I tell him and tells his men that Anne is evil, that our war is just and holy.”
“Isn’t that what you just told me?”
“No. I chose to take the fight to Anne because I know where she is. The others I cannot find. But they must seek her out, too, and they will, because they cannot see each other. Anne is queen of Crotheny—she is in Crotheny. Prescience can’t find her, but spies can. She’s visible every day.”
“But if Anne knew,” Neil said. “If she knew, she would not do—not seize this throne you speak of.”
“She won’t have a choice when the time comes. She will have to take the power