The Born Queen by Greg Keyes Read Free Book Online Page A

less use than the Faiths,” she said.
    “No, I’m not. Your mother is going to ask to go, anyway; she thinks there is a chance for peace. You’ll know by that that I’m telling you something useful. But further, I’ll tell you this: If you send your mother, the knight, and the assassin to Kaithbaurg, I foresee an excellent chance for them to end the threat of the Hellrune and thus weaken Hansa. If you do not send them, I see you weeping over your mother’s body in Eslen-of-the-Dead.”
    “An ‘excellent chance’? Why can’t you see whether they kill him or not?”
    “Two reasons. The first is that since you haven’t decided to send them, the future is cloudy. But the deeper reason is that as I told you, I am not able to see the Hellrune. But I know the opportunity can arise. Try seeing it yourself.”
    “I can’t direct my visions,” Anne said. “They just come.”
    “You can direct them,” the woman insisted. “Remember how once you had to be summoned
here
? Now you come and go as you please. It’s the same. Everything you need is
here,
especially now that the Faiths aren’t mucking around.”
    “Where is
here
?” Anne asked. “I’ve never understood that.”
    “Why, inside the sedos,” she replied. “This is where the world is moved from, where the power flows from. It is given form only by those who live here. It is your kingdom now, and you can shape it as you want. Hansa, the future, the past—all are here. Grasp the reins of power. You need not take my word for anything I’ve just said. Discover it for yourself.”
    And like a fire blown out by a wind, she flickered and was gone.
    Anne stood there for a moment, looking at the dead faces of the Faiths.
    Was it possible? Could she really free herself from the whims of the forces around her? Could she actually steer them herself, be free of doubt, finally chart her own destiny without the meddling of untrustworthy wights?
    “Why didn’t you tell me any of this?” she asked the Faiths.
    But their whispering was over.
    “Well,” she murmured. “Let’s see if she’s telling the truth.”
    And she saw, and woke with tears streaming on her face, and knew some things had to be done.
    She rose to do them.

CHAPTER TWO
    A N E MBASSY
    W HEN NEIL MEQVREN saw the dragon banner of Hansa, his heart sped and his hand shivered for killing. Pain stitched up his side, and he couldn’t keep back a gasp.
    “Easy, Sir Neil,” Muriele Dare said.
    He tried to smile at her. In the sunlight a bit of her age was showing: wrinkles at the corners of her eyes and on the line of the chin, a few strands of silver in her black hair. Yet he had never seen her look more beautiful than now, in an emerald Safnite riding habit and embroidered black buskins. A simple rose gold circlet settled over her brow told her rank.
    “Sir Neil?” she repeated.
    “Majesty,” he replied.
    “We aren’t here to fight, so stray your hand away from that sword.” Her brow creased. “Perhaps you shouldn’t be here at all.”
    “I’m hale, Majesty.”
    “No, you aren’t,” she retorted. “Your wounds are still fresh.”
    “He’s a MeqVren,” Sir Fail de Liery said. “Like his father and his before. Men stubborn as an iron prow.”
    “I know I can’t fight,” Neil said. “I know I’ll split open at the seams. But I still have eyes. I might see a knife in time.”
    “And
then
split open your seams,” Fail grunted.
    Neil shrugged, and even that hurt.
    “You’re not here to step between me and a knife, Sir Neil,” Muriele said.
    Then why am I here?
he wondered silently. But he felt the tightness in his arms and legs and knew. Like the leics who had tended him, the queen mother believed he might never be able to wield a blade again. She was trying, as it were, to teach him another trade. So now, while the kingdom girded for war, Neil found himself gazing on the faces of the enemy, trying to count them.
    He estimated a full Hanzish wairdu, about a hundred men, on