Niviène is said to be the kindliest of Auberon’s three queens; while men who see out Beira often end up decorating her sculpture garden, and those who reach Melusine are eaten by crabs before washing ashore, the Queen of the Well has been known to offer her aid even to lost travelers, from time to time.
* François du Lutetia, A History of Narvonne
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3rd Day of High Summer’s Moon, AC 297
Trist sniffed the steam rising from his cup with some hesitancy. “Is this like what they drink in the Caliphate?” he asked, trying to recall Ismet’s name for it. Something that began with a k, or a q, he thought. Claire would probably know.
“No,” Queen Niviène said. “This is from much farther east, well past broken Elantia and Kimmeria. I believe the Pārsans trade in the leaves, occasionally. It takes me quite a bit of effort to get any brought to Narvonne. Try a sip.”
To Trist, it looked like the cup was filled mostly with hot water, but it smelled of herbs and greenery. At the bottom of the cup, a flower had bloomed from a tightly rolled bud. He tried a sip, and found it slightly bitter, though not unpleasantly so.
“You are seeing better every time we meet,” Niviène observed. “You don’t even have to think about it any longer, do you?”
Trist shook his head. “The hardest part is the change in perspective,” he admitted. “For my entire life, my view of the world has come out of here.” He touched two fingers to the bandage of clean white linen wrapped around his eyes. “But now, it is like I am looking over my own shoulder, instead of actually inside myself. It is taking a lot of work to get to the point that I am comfortable fighting like this.”
“And yet, it is better than being blind for the rest of your life, is it not?” the faerie queen asked him.
“Better, aye,” Trist admitted. “But I do not know that I will be able to live like this when I leave. Seeing is so much easier, here. And what about after I break the gate in Velatessia, and free Acrasia? I doubt that I will still be able to do this then.”
“You may be surprised,” the queen said, taking a sip of her tea. “You are the first true interbreeding of our people and the mortals of this realm. None of us can truly predict what you will be able to do, without the crutch of an Accord. Now, let us begin our lesson again. Start with one of the mortals, it will be easier. But not your wife - someone you have less of a connection to.”
Trist took another sip of the hot water, and then, as Niviène had suggested before they began, let himself simply breathe in the aromatic steam. If he’d still had functioning eyes, he would have closed them in order to focus; as it was, he pictured the king, Lionel. At first, the image was one that he remembered, from the night the two of them sat and talked over a campfire north of Falais. Then, there came a feeling like when the Hunter’s Boon locked onto someone as his target. The image changed, and Trist saw King Lionel mounted on a horse.
“He is still riding north, towards Lutetia,” Trist murmured. “And I still do not see General Ismet, but her troops are there. I want to try her today.”
“It may be more difficult, because she is an Exarch,” Niviène warned him. “Her Angelus will tend to react poorly to a faerie trying to spy upon her.”
“I am not a faerie,” Trist said, trying to place exactly where the army was. South of Havre de Paix, or had they already marched past the fishing village where he’d found Yaél? If his father had brought him to visit the capital when he was younger, he might have a better idea of Lionel’s location.
“That is what the Angelus will assume,” Niviène pointed out. “But very well. You have been making great strides during our lessons. You may attempt the Exarch.”
Trist let the image of King Lionel fade from his mind, and instead called up his memories of Ismet ibnah Salah. The first time he’d seen her, when she leveled her strange, curved southern blade at his face. Riding down out of the mountains, and fighting against Agrat in the pass. Sitting at the feast with Claire at his side, Trist’s wife pointing out the way Ismet leaned in close to Lionel. For a moment, a well appointed room shimmered before him like summer heat rising off rocks, and Trist caught just a glimpse of Claire before he was able to wrench his thoughts back to Ismet. The day he’d asked her to train Yaél. The southern Exarch riding into Rocher de la Garde by darkness, leaping up onto a roof with her bow strung.
With a snap, Trist had it. There was Ismet, a new red veil wound about her head, riding at the head of a column of men across a vast plain, under the stars. Wind whipped dust and pebbles around the feet of their horses.
“I have her,” Trist told the faerie queen. “But she is not with King Lionel. I do not recognize where she is - there is dust blowing all around, and she is at the head of an army. I do not see plants growing anywhere. No water.”
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“The Maghreb,” Queen Niviène said. “Good. That may be the furthest you’ve ever cast your sight. Be careful. The Angelus will-”
Trist didn’t hear the rest. The rustle of bronze wings filled his ears, and he found himself staring into eyes deep as the sea, unable to look away. “Not a faerie at all,” Epinoia said. “I recognize you, Trist du Camaret-à-Arden. Whatever are you doing here?”
“Learning to see,” he said, and the Angelus cocked her head to one side, like a cat.
“You have seen. I do not normally permit my daughter to be spied upon.”
“Spying was not my intent,” Trist said. “But I did not realize she was in the Maghreb. When last I saw her, she was with King Lionel.”
“The captain of the caliph’s guards came to arrest her and bring her to Maʿīn,” Epinoia explained. “She took ship south to the Bay of Sands, and is now on her way to meet her father, where she will gather additional troops. The caliph is dead, Isrāfīl is missing or destroyed, and we believe that Agrat is in Maʿīn.”
“I wish I could help,” Trist said. “But I am too far away. In the Ardenwood.” He thought for a moment, and then realized there might be a way he could be of use, after all. “If I look in upon Sir Bors,” he said. “I could passage a message through him, to the king.”
“I would not attempt this with Masheth,” Epinoia advised, “without some prior agreement. Choose a less combative Angelus.”
“Alright,” he said. “But if I find a way to pass word to King Lionel, what should I tell him?”
“That Ismet is safe,” Epinoia said. “Safe, but she cannot return to him until she has defeated Agrat and put the Caliphate back in order. He should not worry himself, I think she would say; allies are coming to aid her, including what Exarchs we can find. She would not, I believe, say how much she misses him, but I feel it nonetheless.”
“He is riding north to Lutetia,” Trist said, “but has not reached it yet. If I can get a message to him, I will come back to speak to you again.”
“Good. Go now; I will tell her tonight, when she has made camp.”
Trist nodded, and the Angelus released him in much the same way Trist had thrown a small fish back into the Rhea when he was a boy. Suddenly, he was back sitting at a table with the faerie queen.
“You understand, now?” Niviène asked him. “Why it is best to be cautious with anyone who is not a mortal?”
“If she had wanted to hold me, or hurt me,” Trist admitted, “I do not think I could have stopped her.”
“I doubt you could have, either. Very well,” Niviène said, with a sigh. “You may look in on your wife again. It is not good practice, because it does not push your limits - but I know that it is who you long to see most.”
Trist breathed in the scent from his cup. The water had cooled, and was no longer steaming. He summoned Claire’s face in his mind. Trist knew her better than either Lionel, or Ismet, and so it was far easier. He knew the scent of her hair, and the feel of his hand on her skin. The connection came so quickly that it was nearly as easy, now, as drawing his sword from its sheath.
Clarisant was still in the same suite of rooms as the last few times he had looked in on her, and he caught glimpses of her companions, as well. Yaél he had expected, and Henry, but she seemed to have brought Dame Etoile as well, and even John Granger. That comforted him, because it confirmed that she had brought the people of Camaret-à-Arden back to Rocher de la Garde after speaking with the Horned Hunter.
He couldn’t place where she was, exactly, but Cern had told him she was going to Raetia on a mission for King Lionel, and the suite of rooms certainly looked like the sort of place where a Raetian prince might host a Narvonnian ambassador.
Now, Claire was wearing one of the green and black dresses she’d brought with her when she came to Falais; he recognized it from the feast thrown by King Lionel. Her black hair was once again bound by a silver circlet, but otherwise uncovered by a veil. She was seated in an armchair, in the sitting room of the suite, with Etoile on one side of her and John Granger on the other. Yaél was at the door, with Henry.
Sitting opposite Claire, in another armchair, was a man dressed in blue and silver. He had dark hair, slightly wild, brushed back from his face, and it fell into unruly spikes and curls. “Prince Conrad apologizes again for not being able to receive you personally,” the man was saying, and Trist recognized that his wife did not look happy.
“But you understand, I am certain, how much time a head of state must dedicate to serving their people,” the man continued.
“I do,” Claire said. “Yet, part of that obligation is to deal with matters foreign, and not merely domestic. The King of Narvonne-”
“Prince,” the dark-haired man said. “We do not take sides in the internal conflicts of other kingdoms. I-” he stopped, suddenly, and turned to look directly at Trist.
Dark scales crashed through salt-waves; fangs the size of swords, black horns falling back from the lizard-like head in a spray. Once again, Trist was dragged through the ocean depths, clinging to the hilt of his sword for his life. He gasped, and pulled himself back to Queen Niviène, where he found he had dropped his cup and was shaking.
“What have you seen?” the faerie queen asked, her voice even and measured.
“Claire,” Trist said. His hands stilled only after he took the time to breathe in and out, slowly. “She is in the same room as Forneus. The Leviathan wears the shape of a man, and he saw me.”
“Then you did good to come back,” Niviène said. “If Epinoia could hold you, Forneus could shred your core to nothing. You might have fought him once in the mortal world, but you are not ready to fight a daemon soul-to-soul.”
“I have to go back,” Trist said. “Claire’s in danger.”
“The more you look in on her, the greater the danger will be,” Niviène countered. “Once, the daemon might overlook. But if it catches you there again, it will be certain that she is someone you care about, and it will use that.”
“They do not have an Exarch there,” Trist protested. “I need to protect her.”
“You can only do that,” the faerie queen said, “If you continue to learn from me. Consider this motivation.”
“What do I do next, then?” Trist asked.
“Something your Acrasia tells me you have already done once before, by mischance,” Niviène said. “You learn to be in two places at once.”