The Hollow Queen by Elizabeth Haydon Page A

safe most of the time. Even though I did have to sing you back to life once back then.”
    She grimaced. “I beg you not to remind me. My body recovered, but my eardrums never did.”
    Achmed’s expression grew even more solemn.
    â€œYou have used your only chit given to you by the house for free,” he said seriously. “You have tricked Fate one too many times; you have no fixes left. Now everything counts, especially when you are not with Grunthor or me. We have been in truly dangerous situations together, but now you are more or less alone and in the center of a continent at war, as well as being the mother of a child that is the sole obsession of a soulless man who rules the sea, and a good deal of the continent. We Three are spread more thinly than we have ever been before; if you recall, all our greatest victories in and out of battle have been together, not apart. All I am asking is that you try to remember not to take risks. You’ve never been especially good at it, but now you are working, quite literally, with one hand tied behind your back.”
    â€œActually, it’s in front of my chest.”
    â€œWell, there is little enough difference in the topography of those places on your anatomy that one can be forgiven for not noticing the arm placement. One day, one hideous and eventual day, we face the possibility that the Three will become Two, or even One. I just don’t want that day to be any time soon.”
    Rhapsody shrugged with her one good shoulder.
    â€œYou are a believer in the myth that we may live forever,” she said. “Until this moment, I’ve never even heard you entertain the notion that we Three might die. I didn’t realize it was an option.”
    â€œIt’s not. Especially not for you. You are, after all, someone’s mother now. Even if he is irritating and smells bad. And even if you don’t remember him.” He exhaled deeply, as he often did when words were difficult. “I apologize for being unduly offensive about him.”
    Rhapsody shrugged. “No need. I feel no insult anymore, if I ever did. It’s amazing how little I feel at all.” A thought occurred to her, and she opened her pack, pulling forth the box of Black Ivory given to her by Faedryth, the Nain king, and containing strange, translucent strips of a filmy material, burnt at the edges, that she had not been able to identify. “Does the name Werinatha mean anything to you, by any chance?”
    The Bolg king, a man who was almost impossible to surprise, blinked in astonishment.
    â€œYes,” he said tersely. “Why?”
    Rhapsody shrugged. “Anwyn said something to me in the broken vault of Kurimah Milani, when I followed her down and killed her some months ago. It has been nagging at me, and has something to do with this strange substance that Faedryth unearthed in the mines of the Nain kingdom.”
    The Bolg king looked over his shoulder, listening for the approach of the liverymen, then silently motioned for her to continue.
    â€œShe told me that history, Time itself, had been altered for me. She made reference to a figure I have mentioned to you that I had seen in the realm of the Lord and Lady Rowan, behind the Veil of Hoen—the Weaver, the manifestation of Time in history. She said that there was a flaw of some sort in the Weaver’s tapestry, where the threads of Time had been cut and rewoven—a thread removed that affected all of the rest of history. And that, for some reason, it was done to improve my lot in life in the Past—though she had no idea by whom or why. She said it had something to do with my grisly death in childbirth that was unnatural.”
    â€œAs in the prophecy Manwyn threw at you in Yarim?”
    â€œPerhaps. Anwyn said that this filmy substance was the only record of it.”
    Achmed glanced into the Black Ivory box, then shook his head. “Go on.”
    â€œApparently she heard