A Poison Dark and Drowning (Kingdom on Fire #2)(3)
“Be seated,” he said, and we all obeyed in a whisper of silk. “To business. I shall be brief.” He paused, as if gathering his words. Then, “There has been an attack on the queen.”
He said it so matter-of-factly. Sharp cries sounded throughout the room, echoing off the high walls. Blackwood, Dee, and I looked at each other with horror. Whitechurch cleared his throat, restoring silence.
“Her Majesty is well. She herself has not been assaulted, but a message was found in the queen’s bedroom,” Whitechurch continued. He took something from his robes and held it up for all of us to see. It looked an ordinary type of letter. “From R’hlem.”
Holy hell. The Skinless Man, the most fearsome, the most intelligent, the most ruthless of the Seven Ancients, left a message in the queen’s bedroom? This time, there was no outcry. The room, as one, held its breath.
Finally, one young man in front of us stood. “How can we be certain it’s from him, sir?”
“The message was found,” Whitechurch said, unfolding the paper, “pinned to the body of one of Her Majesty’s footmen.” My stomach tightened to think about it. “A shadow Familiar was found painting on the walls with the poor man’s blood.”
I unsheathed Porridge and held it in my lap. I swore that the stave warmed in my hand, as if giving me comfort.
A shadow Familiar, he’d said. Could it have been Gwen? I recalled her the night of our commendation, laughing wildly as she pulled Agrippa away into the air. My heart twisted. Even now, the thought of Agrippa hurt. He’d welcomed me into his home, trained me. He’d been the first to believe in me. True, he had also betrayed me, but that part didn’t seem to matter any longer.
“What became of the Familiar?” someone else called out. Blackwood was right: Order meetings were quite informal.
“We burnt the thing. It did not return to its master.” Whitechurch turned his eyes down to the paper in his hand.
A cold sweat broke out along the back of my neck. It was as if I’d gone back to that night months before, when I’d come face to face with the Skinless Man. It had been an illusion, and a damned good one. The monster had caught me by the throat and nearly choked me to death. Thinking about that one burning yellow eye in the center of his forehead, the bloodied stretch of his muscles, the…I nearly vomited.
The worst part of all this was that if one of R’hlem’s agents had gained access to the palace and the queen’s bedroom, then we were not nearly as safe as we’d hoped. After the ward came down, we’d erected barriers all around the edges of the city, barriers patrolled day and night. But clearly it hadn’t been enough.
At least the queen was unharmed. At least he hadn’t succeeded in attacking her. Unless it was R’hlem’s plan to instill fear in us.
I knew from experience that fear could lead people to do terrible things.
Whitechurch began reading, “?‘My dear Imperator, I pray you’ll excuse the messy delivery of this salutation. One must always make an impression.’?” Even though Whitechurch spoke those words, I could hear R’hlem’s voice saying them, his tone deep and soft and sinister on the edges. “?‘It has been rather a dull summer, wouldn’t you agree? I admit that my dear Korozoth’s destruction was a bit of a puzzle to me. But if there is anything I enjoy in this life, it is a challenge.
“?‘I’ve decided to give you fair warning: I am preparing an onslaught to bring your Order to its knees. I will show you horror, my dear Imperator. I will give you the very taste of fear. And you know that I am a man of my word.’?”
I scoffed at that; R’hlem was hardly a man.
Whitechurch continued, “?‘There is one measure that you may take to spare yourself, your queen, and your loyal sorcerers from this coming apocalypse. Give me what I ask, and I shall perhaps not crush you beneath my boot. Be assured that if you refuse me, nothing can prevent your destruction.’?”
Without thinking, I rested my hand on top of Blackwood’s. He slipped his fingers through mine for an instant.
Whitechurch glanced out at the room. “?‘I asked my servant to leave behind my demand.’?”
With that, Whitechurch spun his stave and swept up the water from the elemental pit into a ball. He flattened it out into a thin, shimmering square and touched his stave to it. The surface rippled, and an image appeared. Agrippa had shown us this once—a way of looking into other locations, like a scrying mirror.
Again, I wished Agrippa were here now.
The image settled upon the queen’s room. I could see the foot of her canopied bed. A great splattering of blood covered the floor and sprayed up onto the pale walls, still fresh enough to be dripping. I imagined a shadowy demon slicing the poor footman’s throat, the servant’s life bleeding away. Monster.
Whitechurch expanded the image. Above the mess, the Familiar had used the gore to write a few crude words:
Give me Henrietta Howel
When I was a very little girl, my aunt Agnes took me to the seaside. I raced through the waves, my head filled with the pounding surf. It was like that now as I looked on the horrible words. Were people talking? Arguing? Shouting? I’d no idea. All I heard was the pulse of blood in my ears.
Why? Why did he want me?
Several months ago, R’hlem had wished to take me for one of his personal Familiars, to “train me for great power.” But he couldn’t want that now, not when I’d destroyed Korozoth. His intentions had to be grisly. Had to be punishment.