When She Reigns

by Jodi Meadows

  LaLa looked at me, then scrambled up to butt her head against my knuckles. As I petted her, the knot of frustration eased.

  “While we were out,” Hristo said, “I found it interesting how unconcerned people were about martial law. I got the sense that it’s a regular occurrence, sometimes after protests or labor strikes. People are confident this one will end soon—a couple of days at worst.”

  “Aren’t they worried about the explosions?” Zara asked. “If they haven’t caught whoever planted the explosives, it could happen again. It could happen here.” She gestured around the room.

  “I wouldn’t worry about it happening here.” Ilina’s expression grew hard. “Plenty of people are blaming it on anarchists who’ve apparently done things like this before, but others are suspicious of the guards. They think the guards occasionally set explosives to give themselves more power and control in the city.”

  “That’s . . .” I shuddered. “That’s horrible.”

  “That’s Anahera,” she said. “At least the leadership.” Uncomfortable quiet dropped through the room, and then she said, “I told you my father escaped Anahera. And that I was told never to come here.”

  “Yes.” I was dying to know what had happened, but I didn’t want to press.

  “People usually have two thoughts when it comes to Anahera: it’s either an island of manipulative schemers, or an island of crafters. The truth is that it’s both.” Ilina took a steadying breath. “My father grew up here, in Flamecrest, working with dragons. He showed a rare talent, and eventually, Minister Paorah—now High Magistrate Paorah—took notice.”

  Zara scowled. “But doesn’t your father have a Daminan name?”

  Hristo glanced at her, one eyebrow raised. “I have a Daminan name.”

  My sister’s face darkened. “I know that.”

  Ilina kept her tone even. “My father changed his name when he left Anahera, but you’re making me skip ahead.”

  Zara hunched her shoulders. “Sorry.”

  “Paorah was obsessed with dragons. He wanted the best sanctuary in the Fallen Isles, and he was incredibly selective in who he decided to elevate. It was a huge honor that he chose my father.” She looked down, scratching at Crystal’s chin. “Father went to three of the best universities on Anahera in order to study, and when he came back to Flamecrest, he was put in charge of a breeding program that focused on Drakontos sols.”

  I’d never seen a Drakontos sol in real life, not even during my visits to various Anaheran sanctuaries. They were desert dragons, able to absorb sunlight and convert it to fire energy. But because they didn’t need to eat as often in order to maintain their fire, occasionally they starved to death.

  Like all dragons, they were at risk for extinction, and they were only found in the Anaheran deserts, so a breeding program made sense.

  “Unfortunately, Paorah was more focused on the numbers than he was on the dragons’ health. He encouraged inbreeding, which might have temporarily increased the number of sols in the sanctuary, but my father was concerned about the long-term effects.” She curled her lip. “Plus, dragons don’t usually mate just because a human tells them to. They have standards.”

  “So your father said no?” I asked.

  “He said no.” Ilina straightened her spine. “They threatened him, and his family, but he was firm. He thought the work they wanted was unethical, so he fled to Damina. He walked all the way down to Crescent Prominence, and when he got there, he offered his services to the Luminary Department of Drakontos Examination in exchange for asylum.”

  “That was brave,” I said.

  She nodded. “They helped him change his name so it would be more difficult for regular people to find him. Of course, Paorah became the high magistrate a few years after Father fled, and it wouldn’t have taken much effort to find Father, but the Luminary Council was protecting him. I suppose when the dragons in the ruins started getting sick, the council didn’t mind letting Anahera take him—and my mother—again, in order to treat them. And if I’d been there . . .”

  She would have been taken, too, because if the high magistrate wanted dragon people, he wouldn’t have just left Ilina. He’d have put her to work in those ruins. Or worse: kept her as leverage against her parents.

  “He wanted the dragons to make sure Anahera will be the last to rise,” I whispered. “He thinks if he collects them here, it might save him the pain of what just happened to Idris.”

  No one spoke for a moment, and I wished I knew what they were thinking. Maybe it was the same thing that kept running through my head: how selfish. Instead of working to ensure we were all safe, instead of looking for wiser methods of raising the dragon population, instead of truly embracing the Mira Treaty . . . he’d tried to take everything. The islands’ sovereignty, the dragons, and our futures.

  At least we had denied him the dragons.

  I dropped my eyes back to LaLa, letting my thoughts work while I petted her.

  “We still have to get into the Red Hall,” I said after a few minutes. “And if posing as a servant isn’t an option, that leaves the invitations. I’ll find a way to disguise myself.”

  Gerel sighed, but I couldn’t tell whether it was in agreement or resignation. “The second invitation should go to someone who can protect you.”

  “I can protect myself, in case you’ve forgotten.” At once, all fifteen noorestones in the parlor brightened, and then stretched tendrils of fire toward me. Beads of hot energy spilled toward my waiting fingers, and a white-blue nimbus flickered around my hands. “I can control it now.” I released the light, sending it back to the crystals with a flick of my wrist. “Where there’s a noorestone, I’m safe. And there are noorestones everywhere.”

  “Mira, please.” Hristo gazed at me imploringly. “None of us go anywhere alone. You know that.”

  “I’m just saying I don’t need to be protected.”

  “Then I should get to go.” Zara sat up straight. “Because Mother will be there and I should get to help save her.” She stared at me, as though daring me to suggest that rescuing Mother wasn’t a possibility.

  “If I can free Mother,” I said, “then I will. But you should stay here. She expects me to protect you, not let you go prancing straight into the halls of our enemies.”

  “That’s stupid. I wouldn’t be prancing, and you don’t let me do anything—”

  “I’ll go.”

  My heart lurched.

  Everyone went silent.

  One by one, we turned toward the window where Aaru stood, still looking outside. He hadn’t moved, but the words had been his.

  He’d been so quiet, practically invisible while he listened to the rest of us plot and bicker. The others had probably forgotten he was there; it was so easy for people to overlook him, as quiet as he was. Even I hadn’t realized he’d been paying attention, because for the last six days he’d been a shell of the boy I’d known before, locked away in his room, caught up in his unending sadness. But here he was, not just listening, but participating in the conversation. He wanted to be the one to go.

  That was when I realized.

  He hadn’t said it in the quiet code.

  He’d spoken aloud.

  “Aaru,” I whispered. I stood, pulling LaLa up to my shoulder. “Aaru.”

  He turned his head, and light shone bright around the contours of his profile. I followed the line down his forehead, his sharp nose, and full lips. It was so hard to believe that after decans of no sound passing those lips . . .

  Even when he’d wanted to speak out loud.

  Even when he’d tried.

  Nothing. Until now.

  Aaru reached up and pulled the curtains all the way closed. Then he turned fully and met my eyes. Again, his voice came, soft and careful. “For the memorial.”

  Of course. Of course he should go to the memorial for his people. I should have thought about that first. I should have invited him—

  “You can talk?” Zara’s words were pier
cing in the quiet parlor.

  “Shut up, Zara,” I muttered, unable to rip my gaze from Aaru, his lips, the place on his throat that must have vibrated with his voice.

  His voice.

  I stepped forward, like I might be able to catch his words in my hands. I’d missed his voice, the careful, deliberate way he spoke, the thoughtful softness of it, but mostly I’d thought about it because he clearly thought about it. Whether or not he ever spoke aloud again—that didn’t affect the way I loved him, because it didn’t affect who he was. He was Aaru. That was all that mattered.

  But now he could speak aloud again, after so much effort.

  Now he could speak aloud again. Because . . .

  I stopped moving, letting my hands drop to my sides as I thought about that evening on the Chance Encounter, right before we’d kissed, and he’d tried to say my name aloud.

  There’d been a part of me—a deep, secret part of me I’d never wanted to acknowledge—that had thought if he ever used his voice again, it would be because of our love. I’d believed, somewhere in my selfish depths, that the first time he used his voice again, it would be to declare that he loved me, or to speak my name, or something else silly and romantic.

  Disappointment washed through me, hot with the shame of my greed. My throat and cheeks burned as I looked up at him. “You and I will go.”

  He gave a single, small nod, and then walked into the bedroom. The door shut. And a moment later, we all heard a long, grief-stricken scream.

  CHAPTER SIX

  THREE MORNINGS LATER, ALTAN WAS GONE.

  It started with a shout.

  At first, I thought it was just noise from the streets below. Every morning, the city sprang awake like this might be the last dawn, and the cacophony never ceased to amaze me. Carts rattled, people yelled, bells pealed, and horsecarres clattered. And today, being the day of the memorial and ball, pushed even more urgency into the clamor below. I caught a few hacking coughs, someone hollering for another person to hurry it up, and also the chime of laughter.

  Then the shout again: “Everyone get in here!”

  I startled up from my sliver of Zara’s bed. That had come from inside the suite.

  “Where is he?” Ilina’s words came as a snarl now.

  Adrenaline jumped through my chest as I kicked a blanket free from my ankle and stumbled through the parlor. LaLa careened through the room to land on my shoulder with a soft thump.

  Chenda and Gerel were already running toward the boys’ room. I followed, rubbing sleep from my eyes.

  From behind my friends, I couldn’t see much besides Hristo standing near the washroom door, a towel crumpled at his feet. (He was dressed, thank all the gods.) Aaru stood beside him, expression half watchful, half cringing from all the yelling.

  “How did this happen?” Anger steamed off Ilina in hot waves.

  “What?” The closet door was open, but it still blocked my view of the interior. “What’s happening?”

  “Look.” Her voice went low. Dangerous.

  Dread filled my stomach as I slipped around the foot of the bed and looked over Ilina’s shoulder. Inside the closet, there was:

  A pile of blankets.

  One noorestone.

  An empty water bladder.

  Nothing else. No one else.

  Hristo and Gerel didn’t waste time. They left the hotel without a word, knives and daggers tucked into their waistbands.

  I rested my fingers on LaLa’s back. “I should go with them. I should help.” But the words were just that: words. I didn’t know how to find him. I couldn’t guess where he’d gone.

  “No.” Chenda shut the closet door. “You have other duties today. If you go running after this enemy, then you won’t be ready to visit the Red Hall this evening.”

  “I know him best.” A weak argument.

  “No.” Chenda’s tone was steel. “Gerel knows him best. She will hunt him. She will capture him.”

  I sighed. She was right. But still, I felt like I should be doing more than getting dressed up for a ball.

  “Let the others do their parts. Make sure you do yours. Don’t allow yourself to be distracted by things that you cannot control. Focus on the things you can affect.”

  This was why Chenda was a better political leader than I would ever be. She weighed her problems. She allowed herself to delegate. She didn’t feel the need to do everything because she trusted the people around her to do their jobs.

  “All right.” I hated to concede, but she had a point.

  Ilina hadn’t taken her glare off the closet. “Maybe I—”

  “No.” Chenda touched Ilina’s shoulder. “You will be more useful here.”

  The tension in Ilina’s shoulders didn’t exactly ease, but after a moment, she nodded and looked at me. “Fine. We’ll get Mira ready. Just know that I’m mad about it.”

  “Noted.” A faint smile turned up the corner of Chenda’s mouth.

  “Who will help Aaru get ready?” I shifted my gaze to my silent friend, but he was just looking out the window, as somber as ever. If he felt anything about Altan’s escape, he didn’t show it.

  “It won’t take Aaru all day to get ready, and Hristo will return in time.” Chenda strode toward the bedroom door. “Let’s go.”

  Ilina set her jaw. “When they do get back with him, we’re wrapping a chain around the closet doorknobs. He won’t escape again.”

  “Flawless plan.” I was still furious at Altan for escaping, but Chenda was right. What could I do besides get in Hristo and Gerel’s way? They were good at what they did, and I needed to trust them.

  Zara, who was leaning on the doorframe, just scowled around the room. “What I want to know is: How did he get out? I didn’t hear anything. Did you?”

  I shook my head. “Nothing but your snoring.”

  She stuck her tongue out at me.

  “Not me,” said Ilina, and Chenda shook her head, too.

  “Aaru?” I looked up.

  He looked at me.

  And I saw it.

  There, buried under the trauma of grief, was the truth: he had heard Altan’s escape, and he hadn’t stopped it.

  But . . . but Aaru was on our side. He wouldn’t.

  He had.

  Why? Why would Aaru, of all people, let Altan escape into a city full of innocent people? Aaru knew what Altan was: a monster. Perhaps, sometimes, a useful monster, but a monster nonetheless.

  He was the man who’d locked me in my cell all by myself, starving me for four days.

  He was the man who’d transferred noorestone fire into Aaru in order to make me talk.

  He was the man who’d pursued us across the Fallen Isles—hurting LaLa, stealing Kelsine, destroying the council house, and threatening to kill Aaru on the Chance Encounter.

  Altan’s effort to free dragons from the ruins above Flamecrest didn’t make him any less of a monster; it just made him into a monster whose goals occasionally aligned with mine.

  Oh.

  Aaru’s chest expanded with a long breath, and my question died in my throat, because I suddenly knew why.

  The two of them—Aaru and Altan—shared a goal. Or at least they had goals that lined up.

  Aaru had a goal that he hadn’t shared with me. But he had shared it with Altan.

  Something inside my chest cracked. I turned back to Chenda. “You’re right. We have a lot to do today.”

  She looked surprised at my sudden reversal, but she just pressed her hand to my free shoulder. “Don’t worry. Gerel and Hristo will find him. He couldn’t have gotten very far yet, and you know Gerel is the best.”

  “At everything.” I forced a smile, but Chenda was underestimating Altan. And we had all underestimated Aaru.

  Before she could drag me out of the room, I shot Aaru one last glance over my shoulder, praying I hadn’t made a mistake: I’d just protected his secret instead of telling anyone—including my best friend—that someone might know where Altan had gone.

  D
ISCOMFORT SURROUNDED ME like a fog while I bathed and washed my hair.

  Carefully, I combed soft oils through the dark strands, letting moisture soak in. In spite of the nightmare of the last decan, it felt good to take care of myself, to focus on making myself clean and pretty. It also felt like an undeserved luxury during a time when gods were rising and governments were falling, and when our enemies were allies and our friends were . . .

  It hurt, thinking about Aaru.

  He’d been present for every meeting in the parlor over the last few days, but if he’d spoken aloud again, it wasn’t within my hearing. Still, he’d been there, tapping in the quiet code like before; I’d interpreted, but a couple of times, Ilina had responded before I finished; she was starting to catch on to his language.

  All three nights, I’d drifted into the parlor, hoping to find him alone once everyone else had gone to sleep. But the first night, after he spoke, after he screamed, I’d perched on the sofa and waited for hours, only to awaken to Ilina poking my nose, LaLa snuggled in the curve of my shoulder, and dawn glowing beyond the curtains.

  The second night, after shopping, planning, and having our papers adjusted, I’d slumped onto the sofa and hoped, but the only thing that happened was a fight with a blanket that wouldn’t lie properly. And I lost.

  The third night was the last night before the memorial, and I’d thought he might want to talk. But he hadn’t come out of his room.

  I’d gone back into mine.

  And then Altan was missing.

  Aaru didn’t owe me any kind of explanation—aside from what happened with Altan—or a doorway into his feelings. But we were in love, weren’t we? Even if he didn’t want to discuss his voice—its absence or its return—shouldn’t he want to be with me? We didn’t have to talk at all, but wasn’t this supposed to be the part of our relationship where we tried to be together all the time?

  He was grieving, yes, but this was something different.

  He wasn’t pulling away from anyone else. It was only after he spoke those five words—only after his anguished scream into his pillow—that he’d pulled away from me specifically, and I couldn’t help but wonder if I had done something wrong.