The Breaker Queen Read online

  “I did not call thee to my bower. Avant.” Nyx spoke in her True Voice, which could summon Deep Lords from the depths of the sea, bringing their storms with them. Behind her, she heard Elliot catch his breath.

  But Susurra of the Night Hags was youngest daughter to the Goblin King, twelfth in line to the Bone Throne of Bana, and she was not so easily dismissed.

  “Forgive me, Your Majesty,” she said, widening her nightshade-purple eyes. “But you are all alone here, without your servants, without your loyal court of magicians and knights to protect you. And this mortal is very large.”

  Susurra cocked her head and grinned. She had an attractive grin, in the way of all goblin girls. Her lips shone black as berries. Her teeth were sharp and many. “Very large,” she repeated. “And shaggy. I cannot think to leave you here, vulnerable to his brutish impulses. He might overpower you.”

  Nyx thought, I wish, before narrowing her eyes upon the goblin girl’s new gambit.

  Susurra’s right hand unfurled from the sweeping silver cobwebs of her sleeve. Each five-jointed, willow-wand-long finger was lovely and learned and individually maneuverable. The lacquered scimitars of her nails were the bruised purple of plums, filigreed in copper lace delicate as an insect’s wing. She reached past Nyx to stroke her fingers lightly down Elliot’s forearm.

  Nyx stood still.

  Her awareness reached out for the erratic magic that was Dark Breakers: the ancient walls, the veering rooms, the ceilings painted with scenes that changed with the seasons. She gathered the deep magic to her. The quicksilver currents in the floor changed direction. All rushed toward a single nexus. This, the place where the Breaker Queen stood. Susurra did not notice.

  “She’s old,” she told Elliot with a droll wink. “There is nothing our Great Queen has not seen or done. You will bore her. She dried up long ago. I, on the other hand, would find you tolerably fresh sport. I am young. Just berry-bursting with Gentry juices, my lad. And—you’ll find—entirely flexible.”

  This was flagrant business indeed.

  The floor roiled beneath Nyx’s feet. And her blood roiled too.

  She should throttle the girl for her impudence—goblin princess or no goblin princess. Never mind that Susurra had once been her own favored fosterling, the darling of her dark court, the daughter of her oldest ally and friend. . .

  . . .But it wouldn’t do.

  The Breaker Queen’s core was ice. Her heart was the midnight moon in the dead of winter. She was deadly as a wave, fleeting as the foam. Nothing could touch her. Susurra was right about one thing; Nyx was old. Too old to let a strutting upstart goad her into folly.

  It wouldn’t do.

  Susurra’s seeking fingernails left deep red scratches on Elliot’s arm. These welled at once and began to bleed. His face was pale, his lips pinched together. He made no sound. He looked down at Nyx, awaiting her cue. He did not want to disgrace her, she perceived, or hasten catastrophe by acting inappropriately in this strange realm.

  Nyx discovered she was not at all cold anymore.

  It wouldn’t do, she thought, to let the little hag get away with it either.

  Her fingers snapped around Susurra’s throat. She lifted the goblin princess up, up, up, away from Elliot Howell, and carried her a few steps towards the large raised bed. This was no great work. The girl was young yet, barely substantial, mere fume and suggestion—a confection of tissue paper, twigs and cobwebs. Nyx was old, and ice. Moonlight. A destroying wave. And when they were clear of the bleeding mortal—my bleeding mortal, Nyx thought—she dashed Susurra down upon the quicksilver floor.

  Susurra landed lightly, on fingertip and toe-tip, like a spider blown from her web by a wind.

  “Every mark thou hast made upon him,” said the Breaker Queen, in her True Voice, “is one bar more on thy cage.”

  Even before she finished speaking, pikes began to rise up from the floor all around Susurra. Each was tall as the ceiling, each the color of gleaming mercury, clustered close together like pine saplings growing in a circle. Susurra stood quickly. Her silvery skin flushed like burning jade. A choker of emerald bruises ringed her throat. “Nyx!” she shouted, rattling her bars. “Unfair!”

  Anger gave the girl gravity. The bars even bent slightly. Nyx cocked her head. The little hag was powerful, for all her wispy looks and sly, slithering ways. One had to admire her. To a point.

  Susurra’s voice went from shrill to syrupy. “Queen Nyx. Your Majesty. You know I have immunity in your court. If you would punish me, you must extradite me back to Breakers Beyond, where father will mete out his own justice, according to the laws of Bana. He will take my imprisonment in Dark Breakers as a great affront. Do not so lightly cast aside your ancient alliance with the Bone World. Release me at once and I’ll never speak of it again.”

  “Iron,” said Nyx, again in her True Voice. Even speaking the word was like regurgitating a broadsword point first.

  Susurra cowered, covering her ears. “You wouldn’t! You couldn’t!”

  “Iron,” Nyx said again, and the soft tissues of her throat felt grated and pulped. A thick smell of rust rushed into the air. Nyx found it terrible to breathe, but knew Susurra would find it worse. This was satisfying.

  “You can’t call that here!” Susurra was huddled on the floor now, her long fingers wrapped whitely around the quicksilver bars. “It would murder you to try!”

  “Iron,” said the Breaker Queen for the third and final time, and the gleaming cage imprisoning the goblin princess turned dull and gray. Susurra snatched her hands back from the bars, but not before they began to blacken. “Susurra of the Night Hags,” pronounced the Breaker Queen, “thou hast trespassed upon the hospitality of Dark Breakers and maltreated a guest at my table. For this thou wilt endure imprisonment in iron until such time as I see fit to release thee. Thou’lt be granted no audience, no remission, no parole. Thou art young. But old enough to know to harm not that which is mine.”

  “Nyx,” Susurra whispered.

  “Oubliette,” said Nyx, with a sharp flick of her fingers.

  “No!” Susurra howled. “No! Please! Nyx! No!”

  Then the floor gaped open to swallow her, iron cage and all.

  ***

  Nyx stood still, waiting for the rage to leave her. It clawed at her throat. It tasted of blood. The smell of iron raked at the air. She turned her head and spat, trying to clear her mouth.

  That was when she saw Elliot Howell, slumped against the table. She saw him, and remembered the reason for her wrath. But wrath vanished in an instant, replaced by searing concern. His arm was still bleeding, but the scratches themselves were now green-black as goblin ichor. He listed dangerously where he stood, his face beaded with perspiration, his skin the color of dirty dishwater.

  “Elliot Howell,” Nyx said sharply, calling his attention. “Look at me.”

  His eyes, when they met hers, were sheened in a sick purplish oil slick.

  Poison.

  “Mistress,” he said, “I fear I am. . .”

  He fainted, but she had already moved in to catch him. And though this mortal boy was heavier by far than a Gentry giant, and stank of sweat and Susurra’s sabotage, she heaved him over her shoulder and carried him to her bed, dumping him onto the furs there. She leapt up lightly after him and took his arm onto her lap, tracing the wounds.

  It was fast acting, this poison. She’d have to move even faster to save him. Her thoughts raced.

  Susurra. Insurrection. Why now?

  Why—of course!—because the Breaker Queen had, for the first time in generations, taken a mortal lover through the Veil. Nothing she did went unnoticed. In the short span of time between the breaking hour and Susurra’s entrance, had the rumors already begun flying through the court? Might Nyx mean, at last, to get an heir by a mortal, as used to be the custom in the Valwode? A half-mortal babe to wear the antler crown? If so, what of all her courtiers, waiting these years in the shadows, laying plans for her eventual abdication or de
ath? What of Susurra, Nyx’s fosterling, whom everyone thought would be named Breaker Queen in her place?

  Indeed, Nyx had long considered it. But she had thought to let the girl grow a little wiser, a little less wild and improvident. . .

  Perhaps she had waited too long. And Susurra, grown impatient had. . .panicked. The strutting arrogance had to have been a show. A distraction. The poison was the purpose. If Nyx did heal him—especially after that business calling the iron—it would weaken her. Leave her defenseless. Had an army of Susurra’s supporters gathered outside the boundaries of Dark Breakers, awaiting a sign from their chosen pretender to storm the gates?

  What if that sign never came?

  What if the silence itself was a sign?

  A chill crashed over her, turning her bones to ice. The antler crown receded back into her skull, absorbed by bone. The silver thorns and chains vanished from her arms and hair, leaving just her robes. There. Easier to work now. Where had this cold calm been when she needed it most? When she should have laughed at Susurra’s antics, boxed her smartly on her ears, and sent her scurrying from Dark Breakers, whose walls were only too happy to eject those its queen repudiated?

  Elliot moaned and burned on her bed. Nyx wished he did so to a different purpose. She wished the arm lying limply on her thigh crushed her close to him instead. She might let him die here as she watched. She might save her power for whatever lie ahead. Yes. What did one mortal matter, more or less?

  “Nixie.”

  He whispered her Day Breakers name. Her icy resolve splintered.

  “Hush, beloved.” Why had she brought him here? Hadn’t she learned this lesson years ago? No good came from mingling with mortals. Never had. Never would. And yet. . . “My feet are a thousand yards from my eyes.”

  “Human measurements in a Gentry house,” Nyx scoffed, leaning over him to stroke the sweaty hair from his forehead. “Not pertinent.”

  The silver walls of the room bulged inward, absorbing some silent impact. She heard the boom on the inside of her head only, a concussion that vibrated down to her toes. Attack.

  “All right,” said Nyx. “Very well.” She glared at the walls. They quivered to a standstill, seemed to come to attention. “Fortifications,” she said. “Concentrate on this room only. Open thy gates to mine enemies, O House. Into thy labyrinthine corridors, let them charge and be swallowed. Make thy halls be all of mirrors, where these intruders shall chase themselves to untimely graves. If it’s entertainment they’ve come for, let us give it them. But lock these doors.”

  The words spoken, the room sealed itself. Even the hairline cracks between door and lintel, window and sill were seamed in silver. The window glass turned opaque as a knight’s shield.

  Nyx bent her head over Elliot’s arm and began to lick his wounds. He cried out once, like a small child, then fell silent. She thought perhaps he’d fainted again, but when she glanced up to check on him, he was watching her from the glittering slits of his eyes. “Your tongue is rough,” he said. “Like a cat’s.”

  “Not always.” Her lips felt numb and swollen, and tasted of softly rotting grapes. “But it must be so now, to abrade the poisoned flesh and draw the goblin venom from your wounds.”

  “I like it.”

  Nyx blinked, blushing like she hadn’t in how many uncounted years? And ducked her head again, dragging her tongue along a particularly deep scrape that seeped dark green matter. She gagged, spat, but lapped again, laving up the thing that would kill this boy.

  The walls shook again, silently. The bed trembled.

  Elliot sighed, and continued, in a dreamy, feverish tone: “They call me the Monk, you know, at Uni. Not because I don’t like women. I do. It’s just. . .Ana says I’m fastidious. I wrote that in a letter to mother, and she replied she doesn’t know how any son of hers developed niceties, we’re all such savages back home, but she supposed I always did like to make things difficult for myself. Chose the arts for a career, after all. Mother says painters are notorious lovers of women, and that everyone will expect me to seduce my models and smoke opium, and that I’ll disappoint my public if I live too quietly. I tried going to parties. Not to please her, she loves me whatever I do, even if she does worry about where my rent will come from. But because I was lonely. A painter should live in the world, I thought. Be of it. So I went to parties, and whom did I meet but Analise and Gideon? My best friends. The Hick and the Stick, that’s what they were called. Mostly they confine themselves to their two garret rooms like anchorites in a monastery. Ana’d rather write than drink—although a writer’s supposed to do both, they say. And Gideon would rather. . .I don’t know. Not do what he does. But he must. I think he knows about this place. Have you met him, Nixie?”

  By now Nyx was as febrile as he was. His words washed over her, pounding away at her coherence like surf upon the sand. As she weakened, the intensity of the attacks outside mounted. Just—one—more—lick—and. . .

  “Done,” she whispered raggedly. She sat back from him. “Elliot. Rest now. I must too.”

  He caught her by the arm, dragged her against his chest. She collapsed there, burrowing her head against his shoulder. He smelled like himself again. Without that poisoned perfume stink of goblin treachery.

  A purple fog crept into her periphery. Long, weirdly jointed fingers reached out for her. Whispers and cackles crackled and huffed just out of hearing range.

  Hallucinations, Nyx thought. Probably. She licked her dry lips and reached to tug his face down to hers. His face was a purple smear. She had to warn him.

  “Do not wake me. Do not leave the room. I will return you to Day Breakers when I am recovered. My word on it.”

  “Recovered?” Alarmed, Elliot began to sit up. Nyx was pleased to hear the strength returning to his voice. She wished she could see him, but her vision was now totally dark. But there was his breath on her face, sweet as strawberries still.

  “You won’t be forgotten,” she whispered. “I’ll take you back through. Your own time. Your own world. Day Breakers. My word on it. My word. Do not. . .”

  “I won’t,” Elliot Howell promised, stroking her hair. “Hush, Nixie. Rest. Rest now.”

  ***

  Nyx awoke to an ache in her head that was fit to split her skull. She wondered grumpily if she had slept in her antler crown again, as she was used to do in her young days, waking sore and tangled with her pillows.

  No.

  Her eyes bleared open. A low, steady rumbling came from the walls around her. Below the bed, the banquet table had fallen onto its side. Dishes spilled everywhere. Crystal lay broken in shining shards upon the floor. The floor was still, a brittle, frozen silver.

  “They are almost through,” she whispered.

  A soft crackle near the foot of the bed. Nyx raised herself on her elbows and looked over. Elliot Howell, cross-legged, his back against a poster, notebook on his knee, was at work. His little wooden box was near him, though not open. He was sketching so quickly his hand was a blur.

  Nyx could not help it. She burst out laughing. “Are you having fun, boy? How lucky I am to have brought you. Dark Breakers falls to the foe, practically around our heads, and here I have an artist to capture it!”

  “Who is your foe?” Elliot asked, his fingers black with charcoal, his blue eyes steady on her face.

  Nyx shrugged. “I do not know. I do not care. Ought I?”

  “It seems…” He hesitated. “It seems perhaps you ought.”

  “Surprising as this may sound, this is not my first coup.” Nyx started laughing again. “Although it might well be the first to succeed. I haven’t made my mind up to it yet. Should I ride out tonight and die in battle glorious, and let them tear each other to shreds over the antler crown? It seems meet enough punishment for their harebrained valor. It is what they expect. And such a dramatic exit.”

  His hand stilled at last. “Mistress…”

  Nyx snorted. “You may as well call me by my name.”

  His breath
caught on the syllables. He stuttered, “Queen Nyx… Please. Do not.”

  “Do not what?”

  The look he gave her was so pained. The sweet, earnest agony of him. Nyx folded her arms across her chest, shaking her head. Mortals. She could wake, bruised, battered, sore, half-dead of poison, and within five minutes she was feeling fickle and ticklish, glowing like a gas lamp, vibrating like a tuning fork. Did she have time for this?

  Yes.

  Nyx was eternal, more or less, but this interlude would end at dawn. And Elliot Howell would go on without her, safe in Athe, at his University at Seafall, among his friends, until his beating heart gave out, years and years from now. A moment from now.

  “Well, I do not know what I shall do.” She looked away from him. “I haven’t decided. In the meantime, before I whisk you back to your world, you did promise to paint me.”

  Elliot began flipping through his notebook. “I’ve enough material to paint you for the rest of my life!” he said with a frown. “But to do you honor, I need time…”

  Poor boy. That frown did not suit him. He had a gleeful forehead. Astonishment would suit it better than anxiety. Nyx crawled over the furs to him and knocked his notebook aside. He stared at her, astonished.

  That’s better, she thought.

  She took his face between her hands, climbed into his lap, and kissed him on the bridge of his nose. “No,” Nyx whispered. “You must paint me.”

  Elliot’s eyes widened. She dreamed her red robes away, and they melted to nothing. Wrapping her bare legs around his waist, she pressed herself hard against him. His smock was rough against her inner thighs. His heart, his heart, his heart went wild when her breasts grazed his skin. Nyx reached for his wooden box, flipped the latch then the lid. A tumble of paint tubes and oil pastels spilled out, as bright as jewels in a treasure trove.