The Queen of Stone_ Thorn of Breland - Keith Baker [33]
The darkness was a blessing, but Thorn’s thoughts were troubled. The campfire spat and crackled, and the sounds mingled with images of the battle with the harpies—the crushed corpses at the bottom of the gorge and the smell of blood. Thorn tried to push the thoughts away, but the charnel stench grew stronger with each moment. She heard moans, sobs, and distant cries of pain. She was certain it was all in her imagination; it was too distant, too faint, and she’d heard no sounds of battle.
Then she heard the sound of a steel blade shifting in a mailed fist, the rasping noise of armor plates brushing against one another. A soldier in full plate mail, and only a few steps away from her. Thorn threw aside the blanket and rose to her feet, reaching for Steel.
But Steel wasn’t at her side. And she wasn’t in the camp anymore. Wagons, tents, even the others who had been sleeping around her—were nowhere to be seen. She couldn’t even say if it was still night, because the sky was filled with thick clouds of smoke, reflecting the light from fires burning across the land before her.
She saw that she was dressed in a gown of red and black glamerweave, better suited to the ballroom than the battlefield. Illusions had been woven into the cloth, giving the red pigments the liquid intensity of fresh blood. Red leather covered her arms and legs: thigh-high boots stretched up beneath her skirts, and gloves rose past her elbows. The fingertips of the gloves were open, revealing long, curved nails painted with black enamel. The only familiar aspect of the scene was the pain at the base of her skull; the upper gem was throbbing against her flesh.
Everything was different, yet somehow it was familiar. Had she been here before?
She’d been right about the sound. The man was wearing full armor, and he clutched a longsword in his outstretched right hand. But he was sprawled on the ground, his beautiful armor covered with mud and ash. The sound of the sword was the man’s effort to maintain his grip on the hilt, not a preparation for attack. He coughed, and Thorn could smell the blood in his mouth. He was broken inside, and he wouldn’t last much longer. “Why?” he croaked.
Thorn wanted to help him, to ask him what had happened … but she couldn’t move. Her body betrayed her, acting with a mind of its own. Instead of assisting the injured man, she found herself laughing at him, her lips twisted in a cruel smirk.
“Because it amuses me.” Thorn could feel her mouth shaping the words, but she didn’t stop them; she was an observer in her own body—if this was her body. She walked toward the fallen soldier, and Thorn could see details beneath the mud and grime. The seal of old Galifar was engraved on the soldier’s breastplate, along with the rising sun emblem of the goddess Dol Arrah. It was a princely suit of armor, the raiment of a general or lord.
As she drew closer, the man forced himself up on one elbow—an impressive feat, given his injuries and the weight of his armor. He swung his blade in a low arc, putting all his remaining strength into the blow. Thorn’s instinct was to leap back, but her body had other ideas. A surge of energy flowed through her and she dropped down and caught the blade with her hand. Despite the force of the blow and the razor edge of the sword, there was no pain and no blood. Thorn felt the steel against her skin, but the stroke didn’t even cut the fine leather of her glove. She felt as if her muscles were on fire, burning with a power she could scarcely contain, and her hand closed around the blade and tore it from the grip of the weakened soldier.
“This isn’t about you, little prince.” She placed the heel of her boot against the knight