Thorn Queen (Dark Swan, #2)(69)

The village I'd passed earlier was called Marmant, and I had to get directions from Maiwenn's guards to make sure I didn't accidentally take some twisted Otherworldly path in my attempt to return. I rode there with troubled feelings, still replaying the events with Kiyo and trying to decide if our assorted arguments today had qualified as true fights. I soothed myself a little by reaching out and manipulating the air, creating gusts and eddies and attempting to see how big a blast I could make. At one point, I made a scrubby tree bend pretty far, but it tired me out. I had to practice more to sustain true gale-force winds, and lightning still remained out of my grasp.

The people of Marmant greeted me with that same mix of fear and awe I had come to expect. Word of the changes being wrought in the land was getting around, so they were grateful and allowing themselves optimism at last. Yet, my fearsome reputation always lurked on the horizon, so they spoke gingerly around me, fearful of enraging the dangerous monarch who had forced this dangerous land upon them.

"How is everything?" I asked, hoping I seemed concerned and nonthreatening. Rather than a mayor, this town had a council of five that made decisions, and they'd invited me inside for a private meeting. They were ordinary-looking men and women-still with that peasant feel so common in the Otherworld-but there was an air of competence around them. "You've got water and food now?"

"Yes, your majesty," said a middle-aged woman who seemed to be the speaker of the group. "Thank you, your majesty."

"Good. I'm sorry it's been so hard on you. Things should be better now." There was a brief silence in the group, one heavy with unspoken meaning. I looked from face to face. "What?"

"We don't want to trouble your majesty..."

"Trouble away. It's what I'm here for."

This got another round of exchanged looks. It was still apparently an odd concept for these people.

"Well," began the woman, "near the outskirts of our town's boundaries, there have been some attacks."

"What kind?"

"Bandits, your majesty."

"Son of a bitch," I said. We'd known the group had moved, but they'd been quiet thus far, allowing me to hope I could take Kiyo up on his offer and deal with them before they caused more trouble.

"We actually have many fighters and strong magic users," she said with some pride. "But we could not stand against their monsters."

"You mean demons."

She gave a nervous nod.

"Son of a bitch," I said again. This had to be dealt with, and at this point, I really was willing to be a bastard and hold a gun to Jasmine's head. "Don't worry. They're going to be taken care of. Soon. Very soon."

The woman looked startled at the menacing tone in my voice, but her words were grateful. "Thank you, your majesty."

"Anything else I should know about?"

This time, it was a man who spoke up. "We don't want to trouble you..."

I groaned. "Just tell me what it is."

"We heard your majesty has been seeking missing girls."

I straightened up. "Yes. What about it?"

"One of ours disappeared two days ago. My neighbor's daughter, Markelle." A small, wry smile crossed his lips. "She's a wild one, often wandering off where she shouldn't. But she hasn't come back...and she always does...."

I felt my fists clenching and forcibly relaxed them. I didn't need to scare these people any further. "Aside from the bandits, have you seen anyone else lurking around? Humans, maybe?"

He seemed even more afraid to discuss this topic. "We see humans sometimes, your majesty." I think he thought mentioning my own kind would anger me. "It's not uncommon. Often there are humans who...ah, give chase to some of the denizens of this world." Shamans like me, he meant. "Usually, they leave us alone once they've found their quarry."

I thought back to Jasmine. "Any soldiers or warriors of the gent-shining ones?"

"Occasionally. I presume they're deserters from King Aeson." Not a bad theory, actually. "But we see none of them regularly. There's no one in particular who keeps returning."

I leaned forward, some part of me feeling like everything was about to fall together. "But there is a human you keep seeing, isn't there? Especially since the girls began disappearing?"

He nodded.

It was here. Everything was here. "A man, right? A man with a red snake tattoo?"

"No, your majesty."

"I-what?" I froze for a moment. "Then who?"

"A woman, your majesty. A woman with graying hair that she wears in a long braid."

I stared at him for several seconds, and then I laughed. This seemed to scare them all more than if I had burst into a rage.

"Abigail," I said at last, more to myself than them.

"Your majesty?"

I waved a hand at them. "Never mind."

Abigail. Fucking Abigail and Art. Working together to...what? Abduct gentry girls? But why? I'd toyed with the idea of Art as some kind of sick rapist, but where did Abigail fit in with this? Surely that would hold no interest for her. With a sigh, I pushed the questions to a small box in my mind, needing to wrap this up and get back to the human world. I needed to have that talk with Roland.