Summerfall Read Online Free Page A

get on. The queen is waiting, and she is most perturbed at your tardiness.”
    A ripple of confusion went through the faery delegation. Rinka said, dismayed, “Do you mean they’re awaiting us, at court?”
    “Yes,” the mage said, with an air of exasperated relief. “Now if you’ll follow me—”
    Garen dismounted, frowning. “Our summons from the king said we were to meet him and the queen on the evening of our arrival. They were to feast us in welcome. He included nothing about meeting them prior to that.”
    The mage paused, and Rinka saw on her face something of anger—not at the faeries, but at the queen?
    “Well,” the mage said smoothly, “I’m sure, then, that the misunderstanding will be cleared up at once.”
    But the mage’s words did nothing to settle anyone’s mood, and as they climbed the high, twisting road to Wahlkraft, Rinka’s dismay shifted into foreboding.
    This was not the reception she had dreamed of.
    She quashed her distress, and pressed closer to their mage guide. “What is your name? I was rude not to ask before.”
    “Not to worry, Countess,” said the mage briskly. “I’m a mere apprentice here. I’m used to rudeness from all quarters.”
    “Please, I insist.”
    After a pause, the mage said, “Very well. My name is Leska, Countess.”
    Rinka started to say more—How long had Leska been in the capital? What did a mage apprenticeship involve?—but then glanced ahead and fell silent. A glittering courtyard awaited them, lined with soldiers in ceremonial finery. Past that, a set of tall, narrow doors opened to reveal an entrance hall of curling staircases, gleaming floors, and a chandelier that seemed woven of stars.
    Not even their company’s strange reception could diminish Rinka’s shiver of excitement.
    The palace of the king.
    Wahlkraft.
    *    *    *
    Leska, the girl mage, led Rinka, Garen, and the others into the throne room, where Queen Liane was holding court. It was a room heavy with opulence—tall, pointed windows shot through with colored glass, and a high glass ceiling through which the sun threw beams of heat; painted pillars inlaid with jewels, walls covered in elaborate murals; and the throne itself, high and white . . . and empty.
    Where was King Alban?
    The faeries fell into a line before the queen, who sat beside the throne, and Leska bowed low before her.
    “Your Majesty,” she said, her clear voice ringing in this immaculate room of marble and glass, “I present to you the chosen seven delegates of the faery lands, as selected by the faery Council, as summoned by His Majesty the High King Alban Somerhart.”
    Silence, then, as the faeries bowed. A few scattered coughs and whispers from the assembled courtiers on the sides of the room and in the high gallery, above. Rinka could feel their gazes upon her—searching, critical, curious. A bead of sweat slid down her temple into the folds of her cloak. Her cloak. Oh, blessed salt of the seas. They had not had time to change. They were dusty and rumpled, tracking mud across the king’s white floors.
    Rinka dared an embarrassed look up at the queen—a young, beautiful woman, fair-haired in a gown of green and gold, with an intelligent light in her eyes and an unreadable twist to her mouth. Rinka had known the queen was only eighteen years old—roughly the same age as Rinka, in human years—but to see her youth in person, and how comfortably she wore her title even so, was startling.
    “Welcome, my brothers and sisters of the south,” the queen said. The golden dragon at her neck—the sigil of the queen’s birth family, the Drachstelle family—glinted like a third, mischievous eye. “You cannot imagine my delight that you have decided to join us at last.”
    Laughter rippled through the courtiers, who whispered to each other and hid their faces behind ornamental fans. They feigned boredom, but their eyes were keen on Rinka and her companions.
    “My queen.” Garen went down on one knee