Free The City in the Lake by Rachel Neumeier

eyes only added character to her face. Her raven’s-wing hair was hardly touched with silver. Her eyes, a remarkable shade of violet, picked up the lavenders and violets of her mourning dress, as though the Queen had been meant all her life to wear those grieving colors.
    “Where is the King?” the Bastard asked her. He saw, now that he was close to her, that the Queen’s stillness was not calm, but a brittle tight control overlying terrible tension. So he asked, out of mingled hope and dread, because he could imagine one reason above all that the King might be absent, “Has the Prince been found?” What he wanted to know, but did not ask aloud, was
Has the Prince been found, and is he dead?
    The Queen shut her eyes, which gave the Bastard a heartbeat to prepare himself before she opened them again and said, in a voice like a shout except it was quiet as a whisper, “What have you done with him?”
    The Bastard gazed at her, wordless with surprise.
    The Queen drew in her breath, rose to her feet, and, moving with sudden violence, seized the nearest plate of cakes and flung it at him. The Bastard barely got a hand up in time to deflect the plate. Syrup dripped down his shoulder and arm where a cake had struck him.
    Servants scattered backward, and several of the guards twitched in startlement and dismay. But as there was no enemy for them to fight, they kept their places. Their captain stood a little straighter, but otherwise did not move.
    “You killed him,” said the Queen. Her voice was deathly, but she did not throw any more plates. She threw words instead, like knives. “You killed him and hid his body, as you did with my son! Murderer! Murderer! How dare you stand in the light of day?” She turned to the guard captain. “Arrest him!” she demanded. “Arrest him!”
    The Bastard lowered his arm wordlessly. Syrup ran down his fingers. He, too, looked at the guard captain.
    The captain met his eyes. None of his men had moved at the Queen’s demands. They looked at their captain, and their captain looked only at the Bastard.
    “The King is gone?” the Bastard asked, his voice quite calm.
    “Yes, Lord Neill,” said the captain. He was a meticulous man, but not without imagination. There was silvery grizzle shot through his pale-wheat hair, barely showing, but his eyes, light blue and holding all the chilly reserve of long experience, showed his age. He had served the King for thirty-six years and been captain of the guard for twenty-two. He knew everything that went on in the Palace and the City. He looked the Bastard in the face and spoke quietly. “He went to his rooms last night as always. His servants say he paced half the night. They were relieved to hear his steps cease. They thought he had gone to his bed at last, as perhaps he had. But he was not there this morning, though his bed had been slept in. No one went into that room past my men; no one came out.”
    “So it was not quite the same as with the Prince.” The Prince had not vanished from a closed room. The Prince had merely gone out riding one fine spring morning and failed to return. Everyone had searched for him. There seemed nowhere, in this, to search for the King. “Have you sent for Trevennen, or Marcos?”
    “No, my lord, not before your order.”
    “Then please do so. Direct the mages to go into the King’s rooms and search there for any hint or echo or intimation that may suggest to them what happened there. Then have them attend upon me in the . . . in my father’s study.”
    “Yes, Lord Neill. Yes, my lord.”
    The Bastard looked back at the Queen. She was silent. Her hands gripped the edge of the table. She looked at him bitterly and said nothing.
    “You are distraught, madam,” the Bastard stated, not unkindly. He said to the guard captain, “Have one of your men escort the Queen to her rooms, so that she may rest undisturbed.”
    “Yes, my lord,” said the captain.
    “Then come to me in my father’s study. And,”