The Hollow Queen by Elizabeth Haydon Page B

one word when scrying into the Forgotten Past, as she called it, though I don’t know if it was connected in any way to that whole ‘death in childbirth’ episode. She said it was a name that connected me to another person in my life, earlier than I had come to know that person in this second iteration of Time. It was the name of someone that this person and I had both cared for, and whose death brought us together. Then she spoke the name—Werinatha—and that was all she said.”
    Silence filled the forest glade.
    â€œI was wondering if that ‘another’ was you.”
    â€œPerhaps,” Achmed said, “since Werinatha was indeed someone I knew.”
    â€œWho was it?”
    The Bolg king lasped into silence again. Rhapsody stood quietly awaiting his answer. Finally he spoke.
    â€œA fellow student at Quieth Keep—the place I met that infernal idiot Jal’asee, from Gaematria.”
    â€œIt sounds like the name of a woman.”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œDid she—did she die in whatever accident happened at Quieth Keep, that you and Jal’asee argued about when he came to Gwydion Navarne’s investiture?”
    The Bolg king was silent again for a long moment. “Yes.”
    â€œHmmm. Well, Anwyn said that supposedly I knew this woman too, or in some way she connected me and someone else who knew her, and who also knew me. So that may indeed have been you. Anwyn was a vicious liar, but she, like her sister Seers, was supposedly unable to lie about the realm that was her domain, the Past, without losing her power to see into it. So while I have no idea what any of this means, at least it is good to know that the prophecy about death in childbirth is something that may have already occurred, in the Past, and that Time, for whatever reason, was altered to spare me from it.”
    Achmed glanced over his shoulder again.
    â€œI hear the liverymen,” he said. “They will be here in a moment, and I don’t wish to be seen.”
    â€œVery well,” the Lirin queen said. She squeezed his arm affectionately. “Be on your way.”
    Achmed looked at her for a long moment. He let his free hand cover hers that encircled his elbow, then took it from himself, raised it, and pressed it to his lips, releasing it a moment later. “Goodbye.”
    Her slight smile returned. “Goodbye. I hope when I see you again we will be celebrating victory.”
    â€œWell, if you are still acting as a Namer, your words of hope may be a good contribution to that. They certainly can’t hurt.”
    He turned and slipped into the shadows that the rising sun was allowing to break into the trees, casting dusty light all around.

 
    14

    SOUTH OF SEPULVARTA, IN THE TEETH, SORBOLD
    Hrarfa was starting to become worried.
    During the course of their journey the Faorina spirit whose host body she was clinging to had grown even more distant and quiet. Hrarfa knew, or at least suspected strongly, that it was still there, still aware; there was a testy, almost hostile mood she could sense in the dark of their walking stone prison.
    The inability to successfully manipulate her demonic co-conspirator was disturbing to Hrarfa. Her most recognizable characteristic throughout the entire history of her time in the upworld, free from the Vault and able to take on human hosts that were weaker than she was, or willing, was the ability to manipulate and deceive even powerful host entities, or their associates, into doing whatever it was she wanted.
    In her last body, that of a beautiful First Generation woman named Portia whom she had caught unaware and had violently overtaken, eating the poor woman’s soul alive in an orgiastic fever of glee, Hrarfa had easily managed to successfully seduce Tristan Steward, a weak man but nonetheless a powerful one, into giving her everything she wished for, the price for which was the repugnant but necessary surrendering of her host body