SSCS 04: Installment 15 of 34
The Heart of the Gull Queen’s Huntress
This is Installment 15 of this year’s SSCS. If you want to start at the beginning of ‘The Heart of the Gull Queen’s Huntress’, go here! If you want to know what the heck an SSCS is, go here!
(And the character list is here.)
Previously…
Then, because they were watching for it, Ki and Du saw what happened next, even if most of the crowd saw only the blind-seeming Queen turn and sketch a benediction at the retreating backs of her two servants. A line of silver flashed between her right hand and the hand of the man now departing. A sharp, taut, momentary light, that tore at something deep in the back of Du’s mind to see it.
Ki’s hand tightened on the back of his neck, one nail pressing to draw a single pin-prick of blood. Then: “Go below. San and I will be following them. Stay with this crowd as long as you can.”
…The Heart of the Gull Queen’s Huntress
Installment 15: 22.0706
***
Fortunately for Du, the crowd of petitioners swarming before the Moth Queen’s altar space did not linger for very much longer after the two bold petitioners had left it.
It had been easy to join their ranks. Though there was movement in the crowd, there seemed to be no clear order to it, and not once did eyes flicker Du’s way in consternation—or even acknowledgment—as he joined the haphazard flow. And it had been easy—too easy—to fall into the same pattern of almost musical whispers as those that had surrounded him. The movements were random, but there was a tide in those whispers, and for the short time that Du swam among them yet he was quickly able to pick out who would next step forward in petition, and then who next. He did not feel himself among the queue, but feared that was only a matter of time. The Moth Queen’s blind-folded gaze would turn to him in time, should he simply wait long enough for it.
But not tonight. No more than three or four petitioners had been met since Du had slipped into the crowd when the Moth Queen, moving swift and sure back and forth across her altar space, simply stopped. After the pause had stretched too long, she clasped her hands, one over the other, in front of her, bowed her head briefly (low enough to seem rather more performance than grace), then lifted her hands to the white cloth that covered her eyes. And, as one, the crowd turned its back on her.
The effect was so complete that Du found himself doing the same, even as he wished to stay and watch what she would do next, even as he saw that all the onlookers in the gallery above had done likewise, only their backs and the fall of their robes now visible, and those growing fewer as they filed out. The effect was so complete that Du peeked at his hands, at his wrist where his sleeve had fallen back, to see if he might catch the flash of a binding thread, directing him without his conscious will.
If it was there, it was hidden. And, as Du found himself also filing up the stairs, up out of the grotto, he risked a look back over his shoulder. What was it that such enamored supplicants must leave behind, must not see? He was answered with the Moth Queen’s own direct gaze into his, her eyes—too pale, like sand under moonlight—uncovered and weeping blood. They did not look like eyes that had been smothered over with linen for the past hour. They looked like eyes crumbling just a bit at the edges, dusty and grateful to have been placed back into their owner’s head.
Du wondered if he should feel fear at this discovery. But the thing that had been half-tugging at his mind was quiet now. And the tilt of the Moth Queen’s head, as she returned his gaze with her own, showed pride but no retribution. Here was one who knew what it meant to walk a path much longer than was necessarily owed, than was necessarily wise. But she continued to walk it, and would not be gainsaid. And this was perhaps why the Gull Queen had not come to her in search of her Huntress’ missing heart: She had known that this one’s path was set and, for or against, she would not change it merely for some petition from a sister Queen.
One of the night-blooming flowers, from the vines twining down the granite walls all around, brushed Du’s cheek as he turned away again, releasing a faint burst of its sweet, peppery perfume, and setting again the taste of it on the back of Du’s tongue. That other taste, that had built up with the crowd and the whispers like music, was fast fading. If it had not been linked to something almost music, Du would have believed he had imagined it. But as it was, he would keep it close, and know it again should it come to that.
And so, Du let himself be drained away with the rest of the crowd, turning his eyes now to watch for flashes of silver that he was both grateful and vexed not to find. Most of the petitioners did not leave the way Du and his companions had come, but enough did that he was able to retrace his path, back up to the granite and wrought-silver labyrinth above that was called a garden.
The stars, when he could look up and see the sky again, showed barely an hour had passed below, and then that it was barely a quarter hour more before the Moth Queen herself ascended the steps up to the labyrinth as he had done, making an entrance, along with six armed guard, calculated to display wealth and arrogance and decadence. Though her eyes, now kohl rimmed, still showed too pale, there was no more hint remaining of the simple, purposeful priestess she had been when below—and Du realized that many here in the night garden above did not even know such priestess did exist. And yet the labyrinth hinted at it, that the domain the Moth Queen maintained would never be less intricate than domain within domain within…
And he thought for a moment that her eyes caught his, once more, only for a half-flutter before she turned herself back to the sweeping, sudden press of her glittering courtiers. He thought he felt the press also of a sort of glamor—an imagined look, yet real enough to hold an invitation—one Du was very sure he should not answer, especially not on this night, especially not in this life.