Deathstalker 07 - Deathstalker Return

private dreams. She'd got her money's worth. She was drop-dead gorgeous, now. But for all her dazzling silk dress and elegant makeup, she still moved like the old Anne, striding everywhere and standing like a soldier. She had no style to her, no grace. She might be beautiful now, but she moved as though she didn't really believe it. Being feminine was a new thing for her.
    Douglasstopped at the door to his bedroom, and looked back at her. "Why?" he said abruptly. "You never cared about what you looked like, before. You never cared about what anyone thought of you. So why the makeover? Why give up being you?"
    "Because I chose to," Anne said flatly. "You only thought you knew me. You never knew what I wanted. What I really wanted. And you never cared enough to find out. I was just there to be used, to be useful. Well, I haven't changed, inside. I'm still me, and I've got a job to do. So have you,Douglas .
    We've all indulged your protracted sulk long enough. Your seclusion's over, as of now. And no, you don't get a say in the matter. Finn and I have protected you as long as we could, but now something's come up, and you're needed."
    "Something's happened,"Douglas said slowly. "Have they found Jesamine and Lewis?"
    "No. Not yet. Not everything is about you and them, Douglas."
    "Is it the Terror? Has it reached another planet already?"Douglas tried desperately to work out how much time he'd lost. Had Anne really said two months!
    "No. It's still four months and three days before the Terror is expected to hit Heracles Four. This… is something new. Something unanticipated. It's not anything I can explain. You have to see this for yourself, in person. And you can't do it looking like that. Get dressed! Full kingly apparel, including the crown.
    After so long out of the public eye, you can't afford to appear in front of the cameras looking anything but your best."
    Some time later, King Douglas followed Anne Barclay through the wide, handsomely decorated corridors of the palace, and had to hurry to keep up with her. They were heading for theImperial Court , andDouglas had a really bad feeling about that. He hadn't been in the main court since his Coronation. It seemed to him more and more that all his troubles stemmed from that time. He'd been happy before then, as a Paragon, and Lewis had still been his friend. They would have died for each other, then. Now here he was heading towards the court again, andDouglas felt a strange dread, as though his whole life was about to undergo another irrevocable change.
    He was properly dressed now, in all his kingly robes, with the great cut-diamond crown of the Empire upon his head. He'd bathed and shaved, and even eaten a hot meal under Anne's watchful eye, and he had to admit he felt better and sharper than he had in… ages. He felt almost like himself again. But the bad feeling persisted, and he snatched another sidelong glance at Anne. She still hadn't told him what the hell this was all about—wouldn't tell him anything. In the past, she would have provided him with a full briefing by now, telling him everything he needed to know, along with carefully worked out answers to the press's most probable queries, and even half a dozen different strategies for dealing with all the various ways to salvage the situation if it all went wrong. That was Anne's job, and she'd always taken pride in being very good at it. But now she just ignored his questions and stalked along in front of him, her familiar scowl distorting her new, beautiful face. People they passed fell back hurriedly to get out of her way—her way, not his.Douglas didn't miss that. Just another sign of how much things had changed during his seclusion.
    He could hear the court long before they reached it. From the babble of raised voices up ahead, there had to be a whole army of reporters waiting, and not being at all patient about it. As Douglas and Anne slipped through the back door and approached the great hanging curtains that separated them from the court proper, the sound became actually deafening.Douglas frowned. What the hell could be so important, that didn't involve Lewis or the Terror? It couldn't be the return of the blessed Owen; Anne
    had no reason to keep that from him. But then, what reason could Anne have to keep anything from him?
    Douglasstraightened his shoulders. Whatever it was, the odds were it wasn't going to be good news, so the sooner he faced it, the better. He'd been kept in the dark long