The Queen's Blade (Book 1)

Chapter 1

Queen Minna-Satu stood and gazed at the gathered advisors for a moment before flicking aside her heavy, gold-patterned silver cloak and sinking onto the curved golden bench that was her throne. The advisors remained standing, each clad in the robes of his or her office, the colour varying according to their beast, some with their familiars. Many wore skins or feathers from their beast kin, but most shunned the out-dated practice and made do with rich cloth. Behind them, gaudily clad lords, ladies and courtiers lined the walls, their aristocratic faces set in expressions of haughty reverence well-practised over the years. Their rich garb, most picked out with silver and gold, glittered as they shifted under the Queen’s gaze.

The massive golden audience chamber gleamed in the light of many torches and candles. Each gilded surface lighted others with its glow, reflecting the radiance into every corner, so that the very air seemed to shimmer. An occasional pale glitter of silver relieved the endless gold, but this was rare, for silver required polishing and the queens had ever disliked it. The taxes gleaned from her people, paid in gold, had, over the years, clad almost every inch of this vast building, there being no other use for it. The opulence of the surroundings was lost upon those who dwelt within the palace, well used to treading golden floors and eating with jewel-encrusted cutlery. The silence hung leaden upon the air, unbroken save for the flaring torches’ hiss and the occasional scrape of a shifting foot.

Queen Minna-Satu raised her six-foot sceptre and brought it down with a dull clink. On cue, her mother’s chief advisor, Mendal of the snakes, stepped forward and prostrated himself. She waited a full minute before allowing him to rise, and he did so red-faced.

“My Queen.”

“Snake, you may speak.”

The tiny green adder that coiled about his neck hissed, and he stroked it. “You must retract your earlier promise of ending the war, My Queen. Your people wonder at it, as do we. It cannot be taken seriously, and is unwise to even speak of -”

“Enough.” Minna rose and released the sceptre, which a hovering attendant caught. Shucking the heavy cloak, she stepped down from the dais. Over her floor-sweeping gown of sheer indigo satin trimmed with gold, she wore a form-hugging sheath of golden mail, so finely woven as to be as malleable as cloth. She strolled closer to the old man.

Diamonds dripped from her midnight hair like frosted spider webs; pearls nestled in the hollow of her throat and hung in gleaming drops from her delicate earlobes. Mendal’s wrinkled features remained impassive, but his cold eyes watched her as a cobra might eye an approaching rat. She stopped before him, an equal in height, and met his faded green gaze with a stare of profound chill.

“Do not presume to tell me what to do.” Her soft words whispered around the chamber, and the adder wriggled down Mendal’s back, taking refuge in his oiled snakeskin robe.

“You may have been my mother’s favourite,” Minna-Satu went on, “but you are not mine. You and she were kindred spirits, snakes both, as close as twined vipers. But you shall not find such intimacy with me, or such favour. I am no snake, but of cat kind I claim kin. No friend of snakes. Do not presume that your aged mien and former position holds any merit with me now. You advised my mother ill, and through you, many a young man found his death.”

She addressed the assembly. “Mendal is no longer chief advisor. Those who would petition for the position may step forward now to be considered.”

A dozen advisors stepped from the ranks and prostrated themselves with a rustle of robes. A flick of the Queen’s fingers made them rise, and she approached the nearest, casting a considering eye over his handsome, muscled person clad mostly in feathers.

“Jasham of the eagles; I wish to stop the Endless War, advise me.”

For a full minute he stared at her, speechless, and, as he opened his mouth, she waved him back.