her instruments 03 - laisrathera by m c a hogarth Page B

Baniel. This is a command, not a suggestion.”
    “Of course.”
    She watched him go, uneasy. Her enemies hated her, of course, and would lie to her at any opportunity; she did not put it past Araelis to do such. But she began to wonder if Baniel was as much her ally as she’d thought. It had not escaped her that he had preferred to address her as ‘Your Majesty,’ which was a less intimate title than ‘my Lady,’ when traditionally the Queen was everyone’s liege-lady. Was this subtlety a rejection of his relationship with her… and the duties that came attendant?
    Surela sent for Thaniet and a meal and went to sit before the fire and weigh her options. None of them seemed very appealing.
     
    The coat the Tams had supplied Reese with did a good job of insulating her from the chill, but very little to shield her from the strangeness of feeling it outdoors. The Earthrise’s dry, recirculated air, vacuumed clean of any smell, had been artificial, something she could control. It was an entirely different experience to stand outside and know that she couldn’t wish away the weather. That it was moving according to some magical collection of variables that planets had and she didn’t understand well enough to predict. That it had a smell—floral and briny and wild—and a texture—moist and clinging—and that it would continue to have, and be those things no matter what one small human woman decreed.
    Ordinarily, she would have found the idea appalling. But somehow she still liked the Eldritch world. She liked listening to the surf in the distance. She liked the crazy ramble of unlikely-looking roses. She liked the intransigence that seemed bred into the bones of anything that had to do with the species. Her crew would laugh, but it made her feel a little bit related to them; stubbornness, even in the face of approaching disaster, was something she could appreciate. Reese petted one of the flowers, finding the petals silky until the cold numbed her fingers, and then she hid her hands away in her pockets again.
    And then there was the sky.
    What had Hirianthial called it? Io… gev… something. The sacred caul. She stared up at it and wondered where he was, and Liolesa, and the rest of her crew.
    “My Lady is melancholic.”
    “Am I your lady?” she asked, waiting for Val to draw up alongside her.
    “Point,” he said. “I have not offered and you have not accepted. But I like you, Lady Eddings. I haven’t met a human before. You have a presence.”
    “Oh, do I.” She eyed him.
    He laughed. “And you are unconvinced. That’s fine. I don’t expect otherwise.”
    “Are you out here alone?” she said. “Did they really let you wander off like this?”
    “Oh no. Yon tigress is following at what she believes to be a discreet distance.” He smiled crookedly. “Her thoughts are very busy with a fierceness of devotion.”
    Reese smiled at that. “Yeah, I’m not surprised. So why did you follow me out?”
    “To ask you to please make the attempt,” he said, surprising her with his sobriety. “I would very much like to help you.”
    “You have a debt to repay,” she guessed.
    “I do.”
    She looked out over her castle—her castle! And said, “How do you say it? The roses. What are they called?”
    “ Me’enia ,” he said. “Say each vowel separately, Captain… most of our words are that way. Meh eh nee ah. Roses. But these are special. They are lioyasea , white roses, the roses of sacrifice. They bloom only in winter, the cruelest season, and grow only by the coast where there are storms. And it’s said they were born of Elsabet’s blood when she died here.”
    Reese looked at him. “Is it true?”
    He cocked a brow at her.
    “You know. If you’re the reincarnation of Corel. You’d know. Right?”
    He smiled a little and leaned toward the nearest vine. With a twist of his hand he broke the branch off and presented her with the flower. She noticed a drop of blood on the side of one finger