‘You presume wrong,’ the Queen whispered. ‘My war is over.’ Her voice was broken, a faint quaver. Through her veil her eyes, pale as ice, watched him. She seemed bent, even bowed.
‘Over?’ He glanced at the Pretender. The boy who had claimed to be Giles stood grimly before the empty hearth, his right arm still bandaged, his fine armour tarnishing even as they watched. ‘What do you mean?’
‘She means it’s finished.’ Jared came forward and stood before the Queen and Finn was shocked at how she had shrunk. Jared’s voice was gentle. ‘I’m sorry this has happened to you,’ he said.
‘Are you?’ Sia whispered. ‘Maybe you are, Master Jared.
Maybe only you can know something of what I feel. I once taunted you with your own death. You would be justified now in doing the same to me.’ He shook his head.
‘I thought you said the Queen was young?’ Keiro muttered in Finn’s ear.
‘She is.’ But then her fingers caught at Jared’s sleeve, and Finn swallowed a gasp because they were the fingers of an ancient woman, mottled and sagging with wrinkled skin, the nails dry and splintered.
‘After all, of us both I will be the one now to die first.’ She glanced aside, with a trace of her old coquettish manner. ‘Let me show you death, Jared. Not these young boys. Only you, Master, will see what Sia really is.’ Hands trembling, she moved before him and raised her veil. Over her shoulder, Finn saw how Jared was caught between horror and pity; how he gazed silently on the Queen’s ruined beauty without lowering his eyes.
The room was silent. Keiro glanced back at Medlicote, standing humbly inside the door.
Sia dropped her veil. She said, ‘Whatever else I was, I have been a Queen. Let me die like a Queen.’ Jared bowed. He said, ‘Ralph. Light a fire in the red bedroom. Do the best you can.’ Uncertain, the steward nodded. He took the old woman’s arm, and helped her out.
The dove will rise above destruction With a white rose in her beak.
Over storm Over tempest.
Over time and the ages.
And the petals will fall to the ground like snow.
SAPPHIQUE’S PROPHECY OF THE WORLD’S END
As soon as the door closed Keiro said, ‘I don’t get it.’
‘She tried to preserve her youth.’ Jared sat, as if the moment had weakened him. ‘They called her a witch, but she almost certainly used skinwands and some sort of ongoing genetic implants. Now all her stolen years have come crashing down on her at once.’
‘It sounds like one of Rix’s fairtytales,’ Keiro said calmly.
‘So she’ll die?’
‘Very soon.’
‘Fine. That just leaves him.’ Keiro jabbed his injured hand at the Pretender.
Finn lifted his head and he and the Pretender gazed at each other. ‘You don’t look so much like me now,’ Finn said.
The boy’s appearance had altered too, his lips thinner, nose longer, hair too dark. There was still a resemblance but it had no real substance any more. It had died with the Era.
‘Look,’ the Pretender said. ‘It wasn’t my idea. They found me. They offered me a kingdom! You would have done it — anyone would! They promised my family enough gold to keep my six brothers fed for years. I had no choice.’ He drew himself up. ‘And I was good, Finn. You have to admit it. I had everyone fooled. Maybe I even fooled you.’ He glanced down at his wrist, where the eagle tattoo had vanished. ‘Another piece of Protocol,’ he murmured.
Keiro found a chair and lounged in it. ‘I think we should put him in that tiny cube you call the Prison.’
‘No. He writes a confession and admits publicly that he was an imposter. That the Queen and Caspar were behind a plot to place a false Giles on the throne. And then we let him go Finn looked at Jared. ‘He’s no threat to us now’ Jared nodded. ‘I agree.’ Keiro looked less than convinced, but Finn stood. ‘Take him away.’ But as the Pretender reached the door Finn said softly, ‘Claudia never believed in you.’ The Pretender stopped and laughed. ‘No?’ he whispered.
He turned his head and gazed back at Finn. ‘I think she believed in me more than she ever believed in you.’ The words stabbed Finn; a breathtaking pain. He whipped his sword out and advanced on the Pretender, wanting only to run him through, to destroy this venomous infuriating image of all he had never been. But Jared was in his way, and the Sapient’s green gaze held him still.
Without turning, Jared said, ‘Get him out,’ and the guards hustled the Pretender away.
Finn threw the sword down on the wrecked floor.
‘So we’ve won.’ Keiro picked it up and examined the blade.
‘A ruined kingdom, maybe, but all ours. We’re Winglords at last, brother.’
‘There’s a greater enemy than the Queen.’ Finn stared at Jared, still sore. ‘There always was. We have to save ourselves and Claudia from the Prison.’
‘And Attia.’ Keiro looked up. ‘Don’t forget your little dog-
slave.’
‘You mean you’re concerned about her?’ Keiro shrugged. ‘She was a pain. But I got used to her.’
‘Where’s the Glove?’ Finn snapped.
Jared drew it from his coat. ‘But I told you, Finn, I don’t understand. . .‘ Finn came and took it. ‘This hasn’t changed.’ His fingers crumpled the soft skin. ‘Not at all, while everything around falls into dust. It brought Keiro Out and Incarceron wants it more than anything in the Realm. It’s our only hope now.’
‘Sire Finn turned. He had forgotten Medlicote was there. The thin man had stood just inside the door all this time, his slightly stooping posture more obvious in his faded coat.
‘Might I suggest that it is also our only danger?’
‘What do you mean?’ The secretary came forward, hesitant. ‘It’s clear the Prison will destroy us all if it can’t have this object. And if we hand it over then Incarceron will leave its Prison and all the Inmates will be left to die. It is a terrible choice you face.’ Finn frowned.
Jared said, ‘But you have a suggestion?’
‘I do. A radical one, but it might work. Destroy the Glove.’
‘No.’ Finn and Keiro said it together.
‘Sirs, listen to me.’ He seemed scared, Finn thought, and not of them. ‘Master Jared admits he is puzzled by this device. And have you thought, that it might be the very presence of the Glove here that is draining the Realm of its power? You only believe that to be caused by the Prison’s malice. You do not truly know’ Finn frowned. He turned the Glove over, then glanced at Jared. ‘Do you think he’s right?’
‘No, I don’t. We need the Glove.’
‘But you said—’
‘Give me time.’ Jared rose and came over. ‘Give me time and I’ll work it out.’
‘We don’t have time.’ Finn looked at the Sapient’s frail face.
‘You don’t, and neither do those in the Prison.’ Medlicote said, ‘You are the King, sire. No one — not even the Privy Council — will doubt that now. Destroy it. This is what the Warden would want us to do.’ Jared said sharply, ‘You can’t know that.’