A Star Shall Fall Read Online Free PDF Page A

tall, copper-paneled doors. Members of the Onyx Guard, both of them, and as such they owed salutes to only two people in the whole of the court.
    They saluted the young man at her side. “Lord Galen.”
    Lord — Too late, Irrith realized the bows on the way here had not been for her. Of course they hadn’t—how long since she’d been in the Onyx Hall? And who would recognize her beneath the drying shell of mud? Turning to the gentleman, she said accusingly, “You’re the Prince of the Stone!”
    He blushed charmingly and muttered something half-intelligible about having forgotten his manners. More likely, Irrith thought, he was too self-conscious to bring it up. New, no doubt. Yes, she remembered hearing something about a new Prince. The Queen’s mortal consorts came and went, as mortals so often did, and this one clearly hadn’t been in his position long enough to grow accustomed to anyone calling him “Lord.” She pitied him a little. To be consort to a faerie queen, living proof of her pledge to exist in harmony with the mortal world, was no small burden.
    “Irrith?” That came from the guard on the right. Dame Segraine peered at her, pike drifting to one side.
    “Yes.” Irrith shifted uncomfortably. If Segraine and Sir Thrandin were on watch at this door, then it meant the Queen was on the other side of it. Irrith couldn’t remember what room lay beyond, but it wasn’t Lune’s chambers, where she’d have some hope of a private audience, or at least one with only a few ladies in attendance. Common sense said she should wait.
    Common sense, however, was for hobs and other such careful creatures. “I have something for the Queen—two things, in truth. Both of them important. The Prince, being a gentleman, offered to escort me.”
    Segraine eyed her dubiously. The lady knight had always been one of Irrith’s closest friends among the fae of the Onyx Court, but she cared more about propriety than the sprite bothered to. “You’ll ruin the carpet,” she said.
    Which was, Irrith had to admit, more than a simple matter of propriety. In the Vale, the “carpets” were of ground ivy and wild strawberries, which did not mind a little dirt. Here, they were likely to be embroidered with seed pearls or some other foolishness. She settled the matter by stripping off her coat and wringing the last of the water from her hair onto the damp heap of cloth. “Give me a handkerchief to wipe my feet, and I’ll be safe enough.”
    Galen averted his eyes with another furious blush, and Segraine’s fellow guard was staring. Irrith had to admit she’d done it on purpose; she had a reputation in the court for being at best half-civilized, and it amused her to live up to it.
    Or down to it, one might rather say.
    Standing barefoot on the marble, in nothing more than a damp pair of knee breeches and a linen shirt, she had to struggle not to shiver. Then a square of white lace appeared in her vision: a handkerchief, offered by the Prince, who still would not look directly at her. Irrith dried her feet, looked ruefully at the dirty lace, and scrubbed a little at the bottoms of her breeches to discourage further dripping. The Prince was hardly going to take the handkerchief back after that, so she deposited it gently atop her filthy coat and said, “I’m sure someone can return that after it’s been cleaned. May I see the Queen now?”
    “You’d best,” Segraine said, “before you scandalize Lord Galen any further.” She knocked at the door. After a moment, it cracked open, and she conferred in a brief whisper with someone beyond. Irrith could hear noise: the lively murmur of conversation, and a clinking she couldn’t identify. Then Segraine nodded and swung the door wider, and the usher on the other side announced, “The Prince of the Stone, and Dame Irrith of the Vale!”
    Galen offered his arm, and together they went in.
    Irrith cursed her choice the moment she walked inside. What purpose that chamber had served