The Queen's Mage

Chapter 111: No Shadow at the Queen’s Hand

A messenger entered the chamber at a near-run and stopped only when Daravan turned his head.

The boy bowed so quickly his satchel slapped his thigh. “Majesty. Reports from the market reading.”

“Already?” Daravan said.

The boy swallowed. “Yes, Captain.”

Allandra turned. “Speak.”

“The proclamation was heard without violence. Some shouting. Two arrests for disorder after one man threw a cabbage at the herald.”

Daravan closed his eyes.

Verya asked, “Was the herald injured?”

“No, my lady. The cabbage was old.”

“Relevance?”

“It came apart before impact.”

“Continue,” Allandra said.

“A woman from the spice stalls gave testimony that the mage intervened to stop Baren Thool from striking a girl. Several others agreed. There was argument from two watchmen that foreign magic should not be rewarded. One vendor shouted that if the watch had handled Baren years ago, the Night woman would have had no cause to embarrass them.”

Daravan’s mouth twitched.

Allandra looked at him.

He looked blankly ahead.

The messenger continued. “Harbor reading drew heavier objection. More Night Fae rumors there. Someone claimed Lyehira has sent three ships of shadow assassins.”

“Creative,” Verya murmured.

“Temple stairs were quiet,” the messenger said. “The priests of Solarys asked for a copy to read again at evening light.”

That surprised Allandra.

Verya noticed.

“The temple dislikes rumor without ritual containment,” she said. “This gives them language.”

“Useful?” Daravan asked.

“Potentially.”

“Dangerous?”

“Also potentially.”

The messenger glanced between them, wisely said nothing, and waited.

Allandra said, “Send copies of all witness statements to Lady Verya, Captain Daravan, and my office. Harrek is to proceed with the watch review by tomorrow morning. No delay.”

“Yes, Majesty.”

“And the girl from the market?”

The messenger blinked. “Majesty?”

“The civilian Serali defended. Has she been identified?”

Daravan’s gaze moved to Allandra, then away.

The messenger nodded. “Yes. Tessa Marrin. Apprentice seamstress.”

“Has she been troubled?”

“I do not know.”

“Find out. Quietly. If she or her household are harassed, I want it stopped before it becomes another proclamation.”

The boy bowed. “Yes, Majesty.”

He fled.

Verya looked at Allandra.

“What?” Allandra said.

“Nothing.”

“That was not nothing.”

“It was approval. I dislike displaying it.”

Daravan murmured, “How tragic.”

Verya ignored him.

Allandra turned back to the screen.

At the far edge of the courtyard, a cluster of young pages huddled together. One of them lifted both hands dramatically, fingers splayed, and made what was obviously meant to be a frightening magical gesture. Another page threw himself backward, clutching his chest. A third laughed so hard he had to sit on the steps.

Children turned terror into play very quickly.

Adults preferred politics.

Allandra wondered what version of the proclamation would reach Serali first.

Officially, Mara had been instructed to inform her after the public readings began, not before. Serali deserved not to be ambushed by the sound of her own name carried through the city. Unofficially, Allandra suspected Mara had already told her exactly when the announcement would be made, what wording was likely, and which tart best fortified a person against becoming public property.

Good.

Allandra’s chest tightened.

Would Serali hear protection or possession?

Would she hear Royal Mage or traitor?

Would she imagine Lyehira hearing it too?

She would. Of course she would.

Serali thought in consequences. She would already be standing at the center of the web, counting each line as it tightened.

Foreign mage.

Crown protection.

Royal Mage of Avalusia.

No mention of Lyehira. No mention of Vulmar. No mention of Cillian.

Allandra had kept her secrets.

She had also made Serali visible.

A hard, necessary cruelty.

Verya’s voice cut into her thoughts. “There will be unrest.”

“I know.”

“Possibly demonstrations near the watch houses.”

“I know.”

“Pamphlets within two days, if not sooner.”

“I know.”

“Someone will claim she bewitched you.”

Allandra looked at her.

Verya did not soften.

“I know,” Allandra said.

Daravan’s jaw tightened.

Verya continued, “You should prepare a response that does not sound defensive.”

“There will be no response to that.”

“Good. That is usually best.”

Allandra’s eyes narrowed. “Then why say it?”

“To ensure you did not intend to murder the first person who phrases it cleverly.”

Daravan made a sound.

Allandra ignored him.

“I do not murder people for clever phrasing.”

“No,” Verya said. “Only for treason, assassination, and occasionally interrupting your daughter.”

“Everly is very interruptible.”

“She is also four,” Daravan said.

“Exactly.”

Verya looked between them and seemed to decide, wisely, that this was not a legal matter.

Another messenger arrived before the silence settled.

This one was older, wearing the dark blue sash of the city courts.

“Majesty,” she said, bowing. “Report from the plaza.”

Allandra turned.

The woman’s face was composed, but there was tension around her eyes.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

“Speak.”

“The proclamation was read in full. A crowd gathered larger than expected. Most listened. Some objected loudly. One group began chanting against Night Fae presence in the city. Another group shouted them down.”

Allandra’s fingers curled.

“Violence?”

“Minor. Two scuffles. No blades drawn. Court guards separated them.”

“Names?”

“Being collected.”

Verya reached for the report.

The messenger handed it over.

Daravan asked, “What chant?”

The woman hesitated.

Allandra looked at her.

The messenger swallowed. “‘No shadow at the queen’s hand.’”

The chamber went very still.

There it was.

Not as crude as witch.

Worse.

Poetic enough to spread.

Allandra felt the words settle into the room like ash.

No shadow at the queen’s hand.

Serali would hear that too.

Perhaps not today. Perhaps not from Mara. But eventually.

Her jaw tightened.

Verya read the short report once, expression unreadable. “This will move through the noble quarter quickly.”

“Let it,” Allandra said.

Daravan looked at her.

Verya looked at her.

Allandra kept her voice level. “If they object to a shadow at my hand, they may explain why they prefer a knife at my back.”

Verya was silent for one beat.

Then she said, “That should not be your official answer.”

“No.”

“May I write it down anyway?”

“No.”

Daravan’s mouth twitched.

The messenger looked as if she wished she had been sent literally anywhere else.

Allandra dismissed her with instructions to send hourly reports until dusk.

When the door closed again, the chamber felt too quiet.

The proclamation was done.

No recalling it. No smoothing it back into secrecy. No pretending Serali was merely a difficult question kept behind a door in the east wing.

Now she was public.

Now she was named.

Now every person with a grievance against Night Fae, against Lyehira, against the watch, against Allandra, against change itself, had been handed a word to rally around.

Royal Mage.

Allandra stepped away from the screen.

Daravan turned with her. “Where are you going?”

“To my office.”

He gave her a look.

“What?”

“You are not going to your office.”

“I am holding three reports.”

“You hold reports in many locations.”

Verya looked at Daravan with faint interest. “Where is she going?”

“The residence wing,” Daravan said.

Allandra said, “My office is in the residence wing.”

“No, it isn’t.”

“It could be.”

“Majesty.”

Allandra stopped.

The rebuke in his voice was mild. The warning was not.

She closed her eyes briefly.

Serali would know. If Allandra came too soon, too directly, too visibly after the proclamation, Serali would know exactly what it meant: that Allandra could not bear to leave her alone with the consequences.

Worse, others would know.

Mara would know.

Mara already knew too much.

Hagen would definitely know, because Hagen had the instincts of a hawk and the morals of a cat near cream.

Allandra opened her eyes.

“I will wait,” she said.

Daravan looked relieved.

Verya looked approving, which was worse.

“I will send Mara,” Allandra added.

Daravan’s relief became resignation.

Verya said, “Reasonable.”

“I dislike when you say that.”

“I dislike when things are not. We all suffer.”

Allandra almost smiled.

Almost.

She moved to the table and picked up the clean copy of the proclamation. Her name sat at the bottom in formal script. Above it, Serali’s name stood in the middle of the page, surrounded by law and consequence.

Serali.

Allandra let herself look at it for one second longer than necessary.

Then she folded the paper.

“Daravan, increase watch presence near the market and city courts. Quietly. No show of force unless necessary.”

“Already ordered.”

“Harbor?”

“Two patrols.”

“Temple?”

“Priests requested space to manage evening crowd. Granted.”

Allandra nodded.

The machinery was already moving. It would not be enough. It never was. But sometimes rule consisted of making insufficient things move in the right direction before worse ones woke.

She looked once more through the carved screen, down at the courtyard where the herald had spoken Serali’s name into public air.

No shadow at the queen’s hand.

Allandra’s mouth tightened.

Let them say it.

Let them choke on it when Serali became the reason the walls held.

“Majesty?” Daravan said.

Allandra turned from the screen.

For the moment, she did not go to Serali.

For the moment, she did the harder thing.

She went to work.

Chapter 112: Corrupted by luxury

The first sign that Serali had become corrupted by luxury was the window latch.

She noticed it before she was fully awake, lying on her side beneath too many blankets in a bed large enough to host a small diplomatic summit. The room was dark except for the faint silver edge of morning at the curtains, and somewhere beyond the glass, winter rain whispered against the balcony stones.

The latch would need oil soon.

It had begun making that soft, dry click when the wind shifted from the harbor, not loud enough to wake someone who slept properly, but enough for Serali. She knew its voice now. Knew the answering groan of the floorboard beside the wardrobe. Knew that if the fire was banked too low, the room cooled first near the study door and last near the bed. Knew that the left-hand drawer of the writing desk stuck unless one lifted before pulling. Knew that the blue chair near the hearth was warmer than the green one because the green one sat in a draft, but the green one had better light for reading.

She knew the room in the dark.

That was unacceptable.

Serali opened her eyes.

The ceiling above her was painted with tiny silver stars on deep blue plaster, an absurd choice for a palace that otherwise insisted the sun should be involved in everything. She had objected to the stars at first. Not aloud. That would have implied she cared. But privately, with severity. They were decorative. Unnecessary. Sentimental.

Now she knew which one had a chip at the edge.

Disgusting.

She sat up.

The robe Mara had bullied her into using lay over the end of the bed, dark and thick and lined with something so soft Serali had threatened to burn it on moral grounds. She had worn it every morning for nine days.

More corruption.

The room was warm. The sheets were clean. Her hair was not tangled in dried blood. No iron scraped at her skin. No guard waited inside the room. The outer door was locked only from her side unless formal security required otherwise. The servants’ passage panel near the wardrobe remained latched, not barred. Her study waited beyond the open door with papers on the desk, ink she preferred, sharpened quills, maps of the north wall, three of Marielle’s increasingly alarming diagrams, and an entire shelf of old romances she had not thrown away despite repeated opportunity.

On the small table near the hearth stood Everly’s latest card.

Serali looked at it.

The card looked back, insofar as a badly drawn pear with furious eyebrows could look at anyone.

This, she thought, was how luxury killed people. Not with softness. With repetition.

It taught the body to expect warmth.

It taught the hand where the cup would be.

It taught a person to wake and notice the window latch instead of the exits.

She still knew the exits, of course. Door, balcony, servants’ passage, window latch, fireplace screen heavy enough to break glass, hairpins on the bedside table, ink bottle if thrown hard enough, curtain cord if one wished to be inventive. She had not become stupid.

But she no longer woke counting them first.

That was the dangerous part.

A knock sounded.

Serali reached for the hairpin beside the bed before she was fully aware of moving.

Then Mara’s voice came through the door. “It’s me.”

Serali released the hairpin.

Slowly.

That, too, was disgusting.

“Enter.”

Mara came in carrying the breakfast tray, a folded cloth over one arm and her hair tucked beneath a cap that had, over the last week, acquired a small embroidered shadow-bird near the hem. Serali had not commented on it. Mara had not commented on Serali not commenting.

The tray smelled of tea, toasted bread, poached pears, and the little savory cakes Serali claimed not to prefer.

Mara crossed to the hearth table and set it down. “You slept late.”

“I did not.”

“The palace bells rang twice.”

“They rang judgmentally. I ignored them.”

“Very healthy.”

“Do not sound pleased.”

Mara adjusted the teapot with unnecessary care. “I am not pleased.”

“You are.”

“I am mildly encouraged.”

“Worse.”

Mara smiled to herself and turned toward the curtains.

Serali narrowed her eyes. “Leave them.”

Mara’s hand paused.

“Closed?” she asked.

“For now.”

“As you wish.”

That, too, was new. A few weeks ago, Mara would have opened the curtains automatically because sunlight was considered medicinal, political, and inevitable in this palace. Now she asked, or waited, or pretended she had been about to do whatever Serali preferred all along.

Small choices. Constant ones.

Poisonous kindness.

Serali swung her legs out of bed and reached for the robe.

Mara looked away while she put it on, because Mara was civilized and therefore dangerous.

“This room is conspiring against me,” Serali said.

Mara poured tea. “By being comfortable?”

“Exactly.”

“That does sound grave.”

“I knew you would understand.”

“I am doing my best.”

Serali sat at the hearth table, took the tea, and wrapped both hands around the cup. Warmth seeped into her fingers. Outside, the rain tapped faintly at the balcony. Winter had thickened over Myrae in the last week, turning the gardens gray and silver, the paths slick, the sea-wind sharp enough to make the windowpanes hum.

Her suite, traitorous thing, had become the warmest place in the palace.

“I should move back to the old room,” Serali said.

Mara set honey beside the cup. Separate, always. “No.”

Serali looked up. “No?”

“No.”

“That was very firm for a maid speaking to a Royal Mage.”

“You would be impossible in the old room now.”

“I was impossible in it then.”

“Yes. But now you have more books.”

Serali glanced toward the study, where the shelves had multiplied their contents like rabbits with legal training.

“I do not have more books. The books are multiplying without authorization.”

“I believe Lady Marielle sent the last six.”

“Those are reports.”

“One was titled A Structural Argument Against Panic.”

“Marielle’s reports are emotional literature.”

Mara’s mouth twitched. “And the south-gallery romances?”

“State research.”

“Of course.”

“Do not shelve them beside the engineering reports again. Marielle will notice.”

“I believe Lady Marielle already noticed.”

Serali froze. “What?”

“She asked whether Bound by Briar and Blood had useful diagrams.”

Serali closed her eyes.

“I told her I did not know,” Mara added.

“You are dismissed.”

“No.”

Serali opened one eye. “Insubordination continues.”

“Yes.”

Mara moved to the sideboard and lifted something from beneath the folded cloth she had carried in. A box.

Serali stared at it.

It was not large, perhaps the length of her forearm and half again as wide, carved from pale wood polished to a soft sheen. Small brass hinges gleamed at the back. The lid was inlaid with blue enamel vines and tiny silver birds. The front had a delicate clasp shaped like a sunburst.

A jewelry box.

A deeply expensive jewelry box.

Mara set it on the table.

“No,” Serali said.

“You say that often.”

“Because people keep doing things like this.” Serali pointed at it. “What is that?”

“A correspondence box.”

“It is a jewelry box that has been lied to.”

“It has been repurposed.”

“It has hinges.”

“Most boxes do.”

“It has enamel.”

“Some boxes do.”

“It has a clasp shaped like a sunburst. It has ambitions.”

Mara’s face remained serene. “The princess’s cards require proper storage.”

Serali looked toward the hearth, where Everly’s pear card stood propped beside the lamp.

“They do not.”

“They are currently in six locations.”

“They are tactically distributed.”

“One was being used to mark a page in The Sun King’s Unwilling Heart.”

Serali went very still.

Mara looked back with dangerous calm.

Serali said, “That was an accident.”

“I assumed.”

“It was not an important page.”

“I did not check.”

“You absolutely checked.”

“I did not read.”

“A distinction with teeth.”

Mara opened the box.

Inside, it was lined in deep blue velvet.

Serali stared at the velvet.

“Absolutely not.”

Mara began collecting cards from around the room.

The first went in: SORRY YOU ARE HURT AND LOCKED.

Then: DO GOOD MAGIC.

Then the drawing of the dragon who looked furious about structural law.

Then the peacock biting Lord Merrow.

Then the pear with eyebrows.

SERALI,

I HAD PEARS TODAY. ONE WAS BAD.

MOTHER SAYS I CANNOT SEND IT TO YOU.

SO I DREW IT.

LOVE, EVERLY.

Then one folded piece of paper that said, in Everly’s determined hand:

SERALI,

MOTHER SAYS I CANNOT SEND YOU A FROG BECAUSE FROGS NEED OUTSIDE.

THIS IS UNFAIR TO FROGS.

LOVE, EVERLY.

Beneath it, in a smaller hand:

No frogs will be delivered. —A

Serali watched each card settle into the velvet like evidence in a trial she was losing.

“This is unnecessary,” she said.

Mara placed the last card inside. “So are most nice things.”

“That is not an argument.”

“It is an observation.”

“I do not need a box for cards.”

“No.”

“I do not care where they are kept.”

“Of course.”

“They are from a child. Children draw things constantly. It would be rude to discard them, that is all.”

Mara lowered the lid with exquisite gentleness. “Yes.”

“You are using your respectful voice.”

“I am being respectful.”

“You are being unbearable.”

“That too.”

Serali looked at the box again.

The cards were safer inside it. Protected from ink, spilled tea, fire sparks, accidental use as bookmarks in morally questionable literature. It was practical. Sensible, even.

Still offensive.

“I hate it,” she said.

Mara smiled. “I know.”

“Put it on the shelf beside the histories. Not the romances.”

“Of course.”

Mara lifted the box and carried it to the study.