closed in sleep.
Thorne stared at her for a long moment, feeling his heartbeat slowly return to normal, calm settling over him like a sheet. Once upon a time, he had admired this woman, admired her in spite of what she had done, or perhaps even because of it. He admired will, and the pimps who had bought him must have admired it as well, for they had named him after the old custom: Arlen, Arla’s son. The Queen could have simply had him murdered, or exposed, but she had sold him into the Creche instead, and gotten a good price. Thorne could admire that . . . but it had been a mistake, all the same. Royal blood was royal blood, and there was no telling when it might come back to haunt you.
The child is hidden.
“Brenna,” he murmured, putting a hand on the seer’s shoulder, tugging her upward. She rose from the wall, her eyes bloodshot and unfocused.
“Master?”
“We must act,” he told her. “Right away.”
“Act, master?”
“The baby,” he said. “We must get rid of it.”
Brenna let out a shaky breath but nodded. After a moment she said, “It’s late in the day, master. The Princess is some seven months along, and this is dark magic I will work. They may both die, Elyssa and the child.”
“I will risk that,” Thorne replied, pleased to find his voice level. “We will get the jewel some other way. Just get rid of the baby.”
“Done.”
He gestured toward the two Queen’s Guards, who remained silent and dreaming above the Queen’s bed.
“Let them wake in several minutes. Get back to your place.”
He waited a moment while she wiped her face and straightened her dress. The guards might notice nothing, but it was better not to take chances. When Brenna was together again, he nudged her toward the bed, then went to the door.
“One thing more, Arlen Thorne,” the Queen remarked behind him. Brenna gave a small shriek, and Thorne halted, his hand on the latch. Turning, he saw that Arla was now sitting up in bed, her green eyes fixed upon him.
“You crave certainty, Arlen. I can give it to you, but a single certainty, only one.”
“What certainty?” he croaked.
“You will die screaming. I have seen it.”
Thorne stared at her, momentarily startled out of his fear. All of the long years he had spent in the Creche, bought and sold, touched and degraded . . . it was almost comical, that she thought to frighten him now with words of fear, of pain. He was no longer a child, tethered by a strap of leather to an iron ring; now he was the man who held the leash. For a long moment Thorne hesitated, wanting to tell the woman on the bed about all of it, to make her understand the journey he had undergone . . . but in the end he found himself unable. He turned and fled.
Chapter 30
THE THIRD OPTION
Love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking outward in the same direction.
—Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (pre-Crossing Fr.)
Maura was dying.
They had installed her in the infirmary, which was usually used for guards. But no one was injured right now. Beale, the Queen’s senior medic, had complained bitterly about taking care of a morphia addict, but Christian had dealt with that. Securing a bed for Maura had been easy. Watching her die was not.
“Christian.”
Looking at Maura was not easy either. Christian found himself unable to forgive her, even now. He would never forget his first sight of that room, not if he lived for a hundred more years, and when Maura begged for morphia, pleading, sometimes even screaming at all of them, it was not her wasted face that Christian saw, but the room with the mirrors, the children. Morphia itself might be no great evil, but he could not forgive what morphia had done. What it had allowed.
Beale said that it was the withdrawal that was killing her. Her heart would already be weakened by the drug, Beale said, and she hadn’t seemed to be in good health to begin with. Christian thought of telling the medic that she was a Creche child, then thought better of it. Maura was dying, and the reason didn’t matter.
“Christian.”
He looked down at her.
“Please,” Maura whispered. “Just a little bit of poppy. Just to get me over.”
Christian looked up at the medic, asking a silent question.
“This is the Queen’s Wing,” Beale replied stiffly. “Our morphia is for the Guard only, for medical emergencies.”
“Oh, come