Warsinger by James Baldwin (most important books of all time txt) 📕

“He was?” Ignas arched an iron-gray brow.

“Well, yeah. You said he's an emissary. He's not a prince or a king or anything, is he?”

“No, nothing like that. That's Moon Juk-Song. He is a diplomat, the younger son of a provincial warlord. It's customary for Jeun nobles to place their excess children into the civil service.”

“Then yeah, he was insulting you. He bowed to you like you were his dad or something. You're a king, and this is your government's home. He should have gone all the way down at the waist.” I shrugged.

Ignas' thin mouth twitched up in a wry smile. “That wouldn't surprise me. Ambassador Moon is the first diplomat to attend the capital in nearly five years since my brother's grab for power. They still believe Andrik's wild fantasies.”

“About the Meewfolk sword dancer?” Suri asked.

“Indeed. Sordid nonsense.” Ignas chuckled, and dropped his voice. “So, what I told Ambassador Moon just before is the truth. We cannot wait for Queen Aslan any longer. I must order the Speaker to seat these people and go fetch Rutha.”

“How is she?” I asked, dropping my voice.

“Fragile.” The smile faded, and Ignas’ pale eyes flicked down. “Come with me, Hector. My apologies, Lady Suri, but she requested that no one else but I or Hector be admitted to speak with her in private. She is physically delicate, and has little energy for meeting new people.”

Suri flashed him a small, brittle smile. “I understand. Well, give her my regards.”

“I will.” I offered Suri a small round-the-waist hug, which she accepted and leaned into.

The Volod gave a short nod, then beckoned me and swept off through the crowd, out a door, and down the wide marble hall. I followed him, stomach twisting nervously. I could hardly believe it was Rutha – the Rutha, the woman I’d met when I first incarnated in Archemi. On the one hand, I desperately wanted to see her, make sure she was okay, comfort her if she wasn’t. But on the other… I had a whole lot of questions that needed answering. Why had she given me the Spear? How much had she known about Ororgael's plan to hijack a Starborn player character to achieve his goals? After my half-remembered encounters with Violetta, I had to admit that I was worried. Violetta was a player - she could respawn, and was theoretically more psychologically resilient than any NPC could be. It was possible that Rutha was now a shadow of the vibrant, intelligent, willful woman I had met when starting out in the game. Even worse - she could be Void-touched. Insane, twisted, or worse.

We turned the corner, approaching an ornate door guarded by a pair of knights. They saluted smartly, and the Volod inclined his head to them before he rapped the wood with a knuckle, then let himself inside. I followed warily.

The parlor inside was almost as large as a San Francisco apartment, set up with multiple round tables, elegant sofas, rugs and bookshelves. The storm had broken, and sunlight streamed in through a row of tall gothic windows, spilling columns of pale white light across the floor. Rutha sat beside one of them, staring out at the river with her hands in her lap. She rested in a luxurious wheelchair, a sleek device with a stuffed leather seat and big brass-framed wheels. My throat clotted up a little. Rutha had never been a big woman, slight and small-breasted, but now she seemed hardly bigger than a china doll. Her long ears drooped, and she was still malnourished, her cheekbones sharp enough to cut paper. The chair dwarfed her.

“Lady Rutha.” Ignas gave her a courtly bow as we drew closer. “Please excuse us for your meditations once again, but I brought someone you might want to see.”

Rutha slowly turned her head. When she saw me, her lips parted in a small 'o' of surprise. Then, to my great relief, her beautiful freckled face flooded with a smile. She sat up straighter, her fingers twisting in the blanket on her lap. “Hector?”

I smiled back. “Hey.”

“ My goodness... It really is you! I can't believe it.” Her voice was still crisp and eloquent, but scratchy. She turned the chair around with a small lever. It hummed softly as it pivoted to face us. “You're looking so well. You've filled out, you look... amazing. But what happened to your teeth?”

“Close encounters with vampire-kind.” I hung back out of the patch of sunlight. Even from where I was standing, I could almost hear the sizzling sound it would make when it hit my skin. It wouldn't kill me or even suck my HP, but it was definitely uncomfortable.

“I never thought I’d see you again,” she said. “So many hopefuls would go to the Eyrie and never return.”

“Yeah, it was rougher than I expected. I didn’t join the Skyrdon, but I did get a dragon. Usta’s last Queen, Karalti.”

Rutha's violet eyes misted, and when she spoke, her voice shook. “I heard. Believe me, I heard. Ororgael… Baldr… still likes to rant on about it. I’m so glad you escaped with her: you got out of that awful place just in time. The Eyrie, Ilia… my country is unrecognizable, Hector. No one should live there. No one.”

The edge of a sob touched her voice. I went to her as she spread her arms and bent down to carefully, gently hug her. She felt so thin I thought she'd snap in my arms. “I'm sorry I wasn't there to stop him from hurting you.”

“There’s nothing you could have done. None of us knew.” She wrapped her thin arms around my waist. “You had to protect the last Queen of Lirenian’s line. And from everything I've heard from Ignas here, you're doing a bloody good job of it. Your dragon will be everything that Usta should have been, and was never allowed to become.”

My eyes began to sting. Damn onions. I hesitated, then clumsily pressed