"Very good, Samuel," she cooed. "Very good."
Samuel looked like a hound that was getting scratched behind the ears. "Thank you, Mistress."
"And you brought the rest of it?"
He nodded eagerly. A smile warmed his face. Rachel had thought him a cold-looking man, maybe because of his strange, golden eyes, but when he smiled it seemed to mask his nature. With that smile he was a better-looking man than most, although to Rachel he was, and always would be, a monster. A warm smile wasn't going to change what he had done.
Samuel seemed suddenly in a good mood. Rachel hadn't ever seen him this happy. Although much of the time she'd been in a sack, tied over the back of his horse, so she supposed that she didn't really know if he'd been in a good mood or not. She didn't really care.
She just wanted him dead. He had killed Chase, the best thing that had ever happened in Rachel's entire life. Chase was the best man who had ever lived. Chase had taken her in after she'd escaped from Queen Milena, the castle at Tamarang, and that terrible Princess Violet. Chase had loved her and had taken care of her. He taught her things about taking care of herself. He had a family he loved and who loved and needed him.
But now they had all lost him.
Chase was so big and so good with his weapons that Rachel hadn't thought that anyone could ever defeat him, especially not a man by himself. But Samuel had appeared like a ghost and run Chase through while he slept, run him through with that beautiful sword that Rachel just knew couldn't belong to him. She hated to think of how he had gotten that sword and who else he'd hurt with it.
Samuel stood looking like an idiot, his arms hanging, his shoulders slumped, as the woman ran her fingers back through his hair, whispering comforting, fawning words. It seemed completely unlike him. Up until then Samuel had always seemed confident and sure of himself. He always made it clear to Rachel that he was in charge. He always knew exactly what he wanted. In the presence of this woman, though, he was different. Rachel half expected his tongue to hang out and for him to start drooling.
"You said you brought the rest of it, Samuel," she said in her hissy voice.
"Yes." He lifted an arm back toward the light. "It's on the horse."
"Well, don't leave it out there," the woman said, her voice taking on an impatient edge. "Go and get it."
"Yes… yes, right away." He seemed only too eager to do her bidding and scurried off.
Rachel watched him rushing back through the cave, making his way over rocks that lay in his path, sometimes using his hands on the ground for balance, hurrying past the creepy gallery of drawings and toward the cave entrance. She noticed then light flickering on the dark walls. When she heard the sputtering sizzle she realized that it was light from a torch. She turned back around to see someone else, carrying a torch, appearing out of the darkness.
Rachel's jaw dropped.
It was Princess Violet.
"Well, well, if it isn't the orphan Rachel come back to us," Violet said as she stuck the torch in a bracket on the rock wall before taking up a place beside the woman in black.
Rachel's eyes felt like they might pop out of her head. She couldn't seem to make her mouth close. Her voice had fled down into the pit of her stomach.
"Why, Violet, dear, I do believe you've scared the little thing witless. Lose your tongue, little one?"
Princess Violet was the one who had lost her tongue. But now it was back. Somehow, as impossible as it seemed, it was back.
"Princess Violet…"
Violet's back stiffened as she straightened her broad shoulders. She seemed to be half again as big as the last time Rachel had seen her. She was meatier-looking. Older-looking.
"Queen Violet, now."
Rachel blinked in astonishment. "Queen… ?"
Violet smiled in a way that could have frozen a bonfire.
"Yes, that's right. Queen. My mother, you see, was murdered when that man, Richard, escaped. It was his doing. He is responsible for my mother's death, for the death of our beloved former queen. He brought us all nothing but grief and terrible times." She heaved a sigh. "Things have changed. I am queen now."
Rachel couldn't make it work in her head. Queen. It all seemed impossible. Mostly, though, it was dumbfounding that Violet could again speak after having lost her tongue.
A humorless smile spread on Violet's lips as her brow drew down. "Kneel before your queen."
Rachel couldn't seem to make sense of the words.
Violet's hand came out of nowhere, striking Rachel so hard that it knocked her sprawling. "Kneel before your queen!"
Violet's shriek echoed back and forth in blackness.
Gasping in pain and shock, Rachel held one hand to the side of her face as she struggled to her knees. She felt warm blood running down her chin. Violet was a lot stronger than before.
The painful slap was like her past slamming right back down on her, as if everything had been a dream and she was waking again to the nightmare of her former life. She was all alone again, with no Giller, no Richard, no Chase to help her. She was again helpless before Violet without a friend in the world.
Violet's smile had vanished. As she stared down at Rachel kneeling before her, her eyes narrowed in a way that made Rachel have to swallow.
"He attacked me, you know. Back when he was Seeker, Richard attacked me, hurt me, for no reason." She planted her fists on her hips. "He hurt me bad. Attacked and hurt a child! My jaw was broken. My teeth were shattered. My tongue was severed, just as he had once promised to do. I was left mute."
Her voice lowered into a growl that chilled Rachel to the bone. "But that was the least of my suffering."
Violet took a breath to calm herself. With the palms of her hands she smoothed down her pink satin dress at the hips.
"None of my mother's advisors were any help. They were bumbling fools when it came down to doing anything worthwhile. They offered endless potions and poultices and aromas and incantations. They said prayers and made offerings to the good spirits. They applied leeches and hot jars. None of it worked. My mother was buried without me there. I was unconscious at the time.
"Not even the stars had anything to say about my condition or chances. The advisors mostly stood around wringing their hands—and probably plotting who would steal the crown when I finally died. I suspect that if it wasn't soon then one of them would have helped me along into the afterlife with my mother. I heard their worried whispers about me becoming queen."
Violet took another calming breath. "In the middle of my nightmare of pain and suffering, of anguish and grief, of my growing concern about being murdered, Six arrived and helped me." She gestured up at the woman standing beside her. "Just when I needed it most, Six came along and helped save me, helped save the crown and Tamarang itself, when no one else could or would."
"But, but," Rachel stammered, "you're not old enough to be a queen."
She knew it was a mistake the instant the words had left her tongue, before her better judgment had time to stop them. Violet's other hand whipped around, slapping Rachel across the other cheek. Violet seized her by the hair and roughly pulled her back up onto her knees. Rachel cupped a hand to the new throbbing ache and with the other hand wiped blood from her mouth.
Violet shrugged, indifferent to the pain and blood she had caused. "Anyway, I grew up in the last few years. I'm no longer the child I was back then, the child you still think of me being, back when you lived here, enjoying our kindness and generosity."
Rachel didn't think that Violet had grown up enough to be a queen, but she knew better than to say so again. She also knew better than to think of enslavement as "kindness."
"Six helped me as I recovered. She saved me."
Rachel stared up at the pale, smiling face. "I offered my services. Violet welcomed me into the castle. Her mother's advisors certainly weren't doing her any good.
"Six used her power to heal my broken and grossly infected jaw. I had grown weak from only being able to sip a thin broth. With
Six's help I was at last able to begin to eat again and recover my strength. New teeth even came in. I don't suppose that anyone ever grew a third set of teeth before, yet I did.
"But still I could not speak, so when I was well enough, strong enough, Six used her remarkable powers to grow me a new tongue." Her fists tightened at her sides. "The tongue that I lost because of the Seeker."
"The former Seeker," Six corrected, under her breath.
"The former Seeker," Violet acknowledged, considerably calmer.
A smug smile returned to Violet's plump face. It was a smile that Rachel knew all too well. "And now you have been brought back." Her tone expressed a threat that her words hadn't named.
"What about all the others?" Rachel asked, trying to buy time to think. "All the queen's advisors?"
"I am the queen!" It seemed that, along with the rest of her, Violet's temper had gotten bigger as well.
A gentle touch on the back from Six brought a brief glance up and a smile to Violet's face. She again took a calming breath, almost as if she had been reminded to watch her manners.
She finally answered Rachel's question. "I have no need for my mother's advisors. They were, after all, worthless. Six fills that role now, and does so much better than any of those fools.
"After all, none of them could grow me a new tongue, now could they?"
Rachel glanced up at Six. The wolf's grin was back. The ghostly blue eyes seemed to be staring right into Rachel's naked soul.
"Such a thing was far beyond their abilities," the woman said in a quiet voice, but one that carried the undertone of profound power. "However, it was well within mine."
Rachel wondered if Violet had ordered all the advisors put to death. The last time Rachel had been at the castle, Violet, at her mother's side, was just beginning to order executions. Now that she was queen, with Six to back her, there would be nothing to restrain Violet's whims.
"Six gave me my tongue back. Gave me my voice back. The Seeker thought he had taken all of that from me, but now I have it back. Tamarang is safely in my hands."
Had it not been so frightening a thought, so horrifying a concept, Rachel might have laughed at the very idea of Violet being queen. Rachel had been Violet's playmate, her companion—really nothing more than her personal slave. Violet's mother, Queen Milena, had gotten Rachel from an orphanage, intending her to be someone upon whom Violet could practice leadership, someone younger whom Violet could easily handle and abuse.
Rachel had not only escaped, she taken Queen Milena's precious box of Orden with her, eventually giving it over to Richard and Zedd and Chase.
That had been a long time back. Violet looked to be about in her middle teens by now, although Rachel wasn't good at guessing older people's ages. She was a lot bigger than the last time Rachel had seen her, that much was for sure. Her dull hair was even longer. Her bones had gotten heavier, thicker. Like the rest of her, her face was still plump, but with those small, dark, calculating eyes, it had lost its childlike quality. Her chest was no longer flat, either, but had grown womanly. She looked like an adult just about to emerge from her cocoon. She had always been much older than Rachel, but now she seemed to have spurted up and widened the gap.
Even so, she didn't seem anywhere near old enough to be a queen.
But queen she was.
Rachel's knees, naked against the rock, were hurting something fierce. She didn't dare to ask to get up, though. Instead, she asked a question.
"Violet—"
Smack.
Before she had time to think, Violet had struck, seemingly out of nowhere, as if she had been waiting for an excuse. Rachel's vision swam sickeningly. It felt like the blow might have knocked teeth loose. Rachel gingerly felt with her tongue before she was sure they were all still in place.
"Queen Violet," Violet growled. "Don't make that mistake again or you will be put to torture as an instigator of treason."
Rachel swallowed back the lump of terror. "Yes, Queen Violet."
Violet smiled at the triumph. She was indeed the queen.
Rachel knew that Violet had a taste for only the most exquisite things, the most elaborate decoration, whether it be draperies or dishes, the most beautiful dresses, and the the most precious jewels. She insisted on surrounding herself with the best of everything—and that had been back when she'd only been a princess. That made it seem all the stranger that she would be in a cave.
"Queen Violet, what are you doing in this awful place?"
Violet stared down at her a moment, then waggled what looked like a piece of chalk before Rachel's face. "My heritage, my inheritance."
Rachel didn't understand. "Your what?"
"My gift." She shrugged offhandedly. "Well, not exactly the gift, but something akin to it. You see, I come from a long line of artists. You remember James? The court artist?"
Rachel nodded. "He had only one hand."
"Yes," Violet drawled. "A man a little too forward for his own good. Just because he was a relative of the queen he thought that he could get away with certain indiscretions. He was wrong."
Rachel blinked. "Relative?"
"Distant cousin, or something like that. He shared some little trace of the royal bloodline. That exceptional bloodline carries a unique gift for… artistry. The family of the rulers of Tamarang still carry the thread of that ancient talent. My mother didn't have the ability, but through that bloodline, it turns out that she did pass it along to me. At the time, though, the only one we knew of who still had that rare talent was James. Thus it came to be that he served as the court artist, served the crown, my mother, Queen Milena.
"The Seeker, the previous Seeker, Richard, before he caused the trouble that resulted in the murder of my mother, also murdered James. Our land was for the first time in history without the services of an artist to protect the crown.
"At the time we weren't aware that I, in fact, carry the ancient talent." She gestured to the tall woman beside her. "Six saw it in me, though. She told me of my remarkable ability. She has been helping me learn to use it, guiding me in my… art lessons.
"A lot of people were opposed to me becoming queen—some, even, among the crown's highest advisors. Fortunately, Six told me of the covert plots." She lifted the chalk before Rachel's face. "The traitors found drawings of themselves down here on these walls. I made sure that everyone knows what happens to traitors. With that, and with Six's help and counsel, I became queen. People no longer dare oppose me."
When she had lived at the castle before, Rachel had thought that Violet was dangerous in the extreme. She'd had no idea at the time just how much more dangerous she would become. Rachel felt a sense of crushing hopelessness.
Violet and Six glanced up when they heard Samuel rushing back in. Fearing that Violet was liable to whack her again, Rachel decided not to turn and look. She could hear Samuel panting, though, as he got close.
Violet swished her hand, commanding Rachel aside and out of the way. Rachel immediately scrambled to comply, only too happy to be out of the reach of Violet's arm, if not her authority.
Samuel had a leather bag held closed with a drawstring. He set the bag down carefully and opened it. He looked up at Six. She rolled her hand, urging him to get on with it.
It appeared to be a box of some kind. When it came out of the bag, Rachel saw that it was as black as doom itself. She thought that they all very well might be sucked into that black void and vanish into the underworld.
With one hand, Samuel held the sinister thing up to Six. Smiling, she lifted it out of his hand.
"As promised," she said to Violet, "I present you with Queen Violet's box of Orden."
Rachel remembered Queen Milena lifting that same box with the same kind of awed reverence. Except that now it wasn't all covered in the silver, gold, and jewels. Zedd had told Rachel that the real box of Orden had been under those jewels. This had to be that box that had all along been inside when Rachel had spirited it away from the castle just as Wizard Giller had
asked her to do.
Now Giller was dead, Richard no longer had his sword, and Rachel was back in the clutches of Violet. And now Violet had herself a precious box of Orden, just as her mother had.
Violet smirked. "You see, Rachel? What need have I of those old, useless advisors? Could they have accomplished any of what I have accomplished? You see, unlike those weak people you threw in with, I always persevere until I succeed. That's what it takes to be a queen.
"I have the box of Orden back. I have you back." She waggled the chalk again. "And I will have Richard back to face his punishment."
Six sighed. "Enough of this happy reunion. You have what you asked for. Samuel and I need to go have a talk about his next assignment, and you need to get back to your 'art' lesson."
Violet smiled conspiratorially. "Yes, my lesson." She glared down at Rachel. "There is an iron box waiting for you back at the castle. And then there is the matter of your punishment."
Six bowed her head. "I will be off, then, my queen."
Violet flicked her hand in a gesture of dismissal. Six grasped Samuel's upper arm and started away with him. He had to watch his balance to keep his footing as he stepped over and around rocks. Six seemed to glide through the dim light without any trouble at all.
"Come along," Violet said in the kind of pretend cheerful tone that made Rachel's blood run cold. "You can watch me draw."
As Violet grabbed the torch Rachel stood on wobbly legs, then followed her queen, the light of the flagging flame illuminating walls covered with endless drawings of terrible things being done to people. There was not a spot on the walls that didn't have some sort of horrific scene. Rachel missed Chase something fierce, missed his reassurance, his smile when she had done a lesson well, his comforting hand on her shoulder. She loved him so much. And Samuel had killed him, killed all her hopes and dreams. She felt numb despair as she followed Violet deeper into the darkness, deeper into the madness.
* * *
CHAPTER 22
Nicci spotted Richard far off down the long rampart, standing at the crenellated outer wall not far from the base of a soaring tower, gazing out over the deserted city far below. Twilight had muted the colors of the dying day, turning the distant rolling summer-green fields to gray. Cara stood not far from his side, silent but watchful.