Queen of the Conquered

by Kacen Callender

  I ask her, Did Aksel know what you and his father did to my family?

  And Aksel’s memory rushes forth: a child, hearing the adults speak on topics they don’t think he’ll understand—and he doesn’t, not yet. But years later, when he remembers the way they spoke of sending the guards to Rose Helle, when he thinks on the night the news arrived that everyone within Mirjam Rose’s manor had been slaughtered, he realizes what his mother and father had done. He knows, too, that this is the reality of Hans Lollik.

  I leave him in his room, door shutting heavily behind me—and for a moment, in the shadowed halls, I see Freja Jannik standing by an open window, skin even paler in death, hair glowing white in the night. But I blink my eye, and the hall is as empty as it was before.

  CHAPTER NINE

  The sky, normally so blue, turns gray—and by the end of the morning, the trade-winds breeze turns to a wind that lashes rain upon the islands, blackened storm clouds rolling over the hills and waves crashing into the cliffs of Hans Lollik Helle. The roar of the wind vibrates through me, and I worry that the house will be blown from the cliffs and into the sea. The roof rattles as though it means to be taken. I sit alone beside my closed balcony door, watching the storm as it continues for a full day and into the night, candles flickering until they’re blown out as the wind rushes through the cracks in the house’s walls. It’s not until the following afternoon that the winds finally slow, and the storm has passed.

  Marieke receives a letter that informs me of the damages to the groves on the Lund plantation of Herregård Dronnigen—scores of mango and banana trees pushed over by the wind, saltwater from the mangroves leaking into the sugarcane soil. I ask her to keep watch over the slaves as they plant new trees to replace the old, and she sets off that day. I ask Malthe to collect information on both Lund and Jannik island’s damages, which he leaves to do as well.

  Aksel left at some point in the early morning following our wedding. Days later, and I still don’t know where he is—if he stays with Beata Larsen or one of the other kongelig, if he’s left the royal island for Jannik Helle, or if he’d gone to roam the groves with his guavaberry rum and was killed in the storm. With Aksel having disappeared altogether, and without anything to do but wait for Konge Valdemar to call on me and the rest of the kongelig, I find myself alone in my chambers with nothing but my spiraling thoughts. The expressions of the kongelig, their smiles and widened eyes, pale faces turning away as they sip their wine; the fear that lives and breathes inside me, the continuous waiting for any of the kongelig to take my life. The emptiness of the king and his thunderous laugh, his cold eyes that laugh at me. The gleaming white of Freja Jannik’s hair, the maggots that crawl across her rotting skin. The hardness in Løren Jannik’s eyes. That image comes to me time and again. I busy myself with the duties of the Elskerinde, fussing over decoration and curtains and rugs, more out of a need for distraction than genuine care.

  I leave the house in the early evening, sky a deep red, stir-crazy from seeing the same walls and their paper, the same furniture, the same views of the sea. I step into the heavy heat of the island and walk along the path that cuts through the groves, where slaves are busy replacing the fallen trees. The path takes me to the shoreline. I give the slaves a wide berth, just as I do whenever I’m able, shame crawling through me. My heels sink into the soft dirt still damp from the rains. Part of the beach has been washed away by the high tides of the storm, and brown seaweed straggles across the gray sand. I take off my sandals, toes sinking into the grains, and bend over to pick up the pink shells as I see them. I’d once heard a song when I was a child, sung by Inga as she plaited my hair, a song about a girl who spends a lifetime picking up the prettiest pink shells on the beach—hundreds of thousands of shells—and on the day she is to leave this world, an old woman with death in her soul, she releases all of the shells back into the sea so that another little girl may walk along and find them on the beach.

  When I come to the edge of the bay, the jagged rocks sticking from the sea beneath the cliffs, I see him. Løren stands on the rocks that crumble into the water, staring out at the ocean, as though he’s replaced my ghost. The sea is still rough from the passed storm, and waves rush around him, threatening to pull him beneath. Perhaps this is why he stands there, waiting.

  I call to him, and he looks at me, startled. Shells clink in my hand as I watch him hesitate, then walk over the rocks. They’re jagged, sharp, the sides wet with algae that has to make them too slippery to walk on, yet he moves effortlessly, as though he were raised by the rocks themselves, until he jumps from the last one and into the shallows, walking across the sand toward me. As he comes closer, I feel the same block, an invisible wall raised around him, and I think again how senseless it is, how reckless, that I’d willingly stand before the one person I have no defense against.

  He stops before me, silent, his dark eyes staring. He wears the same loose-fitting shirt and pants as the slaves of Hans Lollik Helle, but he doesn’t bow. I can see that a new bruise blossoms across his cheek. It’s clear from his empty expression that he’s waiting for me to speak, and so I do.

  “Why’re you outside of the library?” I ask him. “Who let you free?”

  “Aksel Jannik,” he tells me.

  “Your brother, you mean?”

  If he’s surprised I know the truth about him, he doesn’t show it.

  “Why is my kraft blocked by you?” I ask him, and it strikes me how comical this could be, that my concern for my kraft overpowers concern for my life.

  He only stands, chin raised, peering at me. His dark-brown eyes are the same color as his hair, curling and sticking to his face in the heat. His skin is a golden brown, brighter here under the setting sun. I can see now that they have the same brow, the brothers—but one, born in freedom, is higher than the other in its arrogance.

  “You’re a slave of the Jannik household,” I tell him, “and as your Elskerinde, you should answer me when I’ve asked you a question.”

  The hatred he holds for me is clear. He stares at me evenly, still not speaking. He reminds me of the woman I’d encountered in the fields of Lund Helle as I ordered the girl executed—watching me, wanting me to know that she isn’t afraid.

  I eye him, feeling my heart speed with anger, frustration growing inside me. “There’s plenty of work to be done after the storm,” I tell him. “You shouldn’t be standing here idly staring at the sea.”

  Finally, he looks away—but only back to the water that swells, rising onto the sand. What have I done for this man—for any of the slaves of Hans Lollik—to hate me the way they do? Shouldn’t they be glad to see one of their own free and among the kongelig, to gain the power to potentially release us all from the Fjern? I’ve sacrificed myself for this—my freedom, my peace, perhaps even my life—and rather than meeting me with thanks and love, I’m met with such hatred.

  “Return to your work,” I tell him, frustration leaking into my voice.

  He looks back to me again, and his mouth twitches into the familiar smile he’s given me before—one that somehow manages to fill me with shame. There’s a split in the wall between us, a crack—and suddenly a memory comes to me unbidden: Løren was a boy, brown hair stuck to his face as he ran out of the pale-blue manor. He tripped and fell, scraping the skin from his elbows and knees, but he barely felt the sting. He tried to scramble to his feet, but Herre Engel Jannik appeared on the steps.

  Løren was barely off the ground before Engel Jannik strode to him with three long steps. He reached down and grabbed the boy by his hair, ripping him from the ground and to his feet.

  The slaves working the nearby grove wouldn’t look at Løren, who clutched at Herre Engel Jannik’s hand. Løren hated the slaves who wouldn’t look. He hated that they ignored his pain, and for what? Their own fear? The slaves could have easily left that grove. Left the grove with their machetes and descended upon Engel Jannik, tearing him apart, chopping off his limbs and head until the man was nothing but a
torso of pale skin and ribs. But they did nothing. They left Løren to be beaten by their master.

  Engel Jannik’s fist swung, and Løren went flying, mouth filled with blood. Engel Jannik’s foot caught the boy in the stomach hard enough that he gasped, bile burning his throat. He looked up to see Aksel Jannik standing on the house’s porch, watching with wide eyes.

  Løren hadn’t stolen the tart. It had been taken from the kitchen, and he’d been hiding in the library all day, reading books he wasn’t supposed to read. There’d been an older slave, a woman who had known and loved Løren’s mother. She’d taught the boy the written words of the Fjern, and though he was so young, Løren took to reading so easily that he began to pick up the largest of volumes he could find. Løren enjoyed reading. He could escape into the lands of the Fjern, could escape into the bodies of people who weren’t his own, and learn—for one blessed moment—what it might have felt like to be free.

  The woman who had taught Løren to read had passed away years ago, and Løren paid respect to her every time he dared to open a book, even though he knew he might lose an eye. If anything, reading in the library should have been the reason Løren was punished, but instead he was accused of stealing a tart from the kitchens. The kitchen staff promised it wasn’t any worry at all—they would simply bake a new one in time for dinner, it would take no more than an hour—but Aksel had blamed Løren. This wasn’t something Herre Engel Jannik could simply overlook. And so, Engel took a whip and beat the boy on his back and legs until he bled.

  Løren had been beaten many times before, for offenses even greater than this—for spitting at the feet of a visiting Fjern who commented that Løren had a little too much defiance in his eyes, and once for hitting Aksel after Aksel had hit him—but for whatever reason, this stolen tart had sent Engel Jannik into a frenzy. He beat Løren without stopping. Løren was afraid he would die.

  But Engel Jannik did stop. The boy was left bleeding in the dirt. Herre Jannik reminded him to know his place. Løren wasn’t a kongelig, no matter his blood.

  Usually, when I choose to slip in and out of the thoughts and minds of those around me, it can feel like slipping in and out of my own daydreams, memories coming and going as they please. But when Løren’s memory is finished, I feel the jarring sensation of being snapped back to reality, as though he had suddenly pushed me from his body. Løren stands before me, a man. The wall is between us once more. He speaks. “Is that all, Elskerinde Jannik?”

  He’s mocking me. He knows that he’s managed to block my kraft, and that he knows, too, how much my inability to control him enrages me. He shares with me this piece of his past—not for pity, but to show that he has no reason to fear me. He has survived Engel Jannik, and there’s no one on this royal island who is worse than the person his father had been. Certainly not me.

  “Yes,” I say, “that’s all.”

  He doesn’t wait for me to finish speaking. He dismisses himself, turning his back to me and leaving me to stand alone by the sea.

  As the sun begins to fall, I lie down on my bed, still in my dress, my hair curling out of the bun atop my head, allowing my thoughts to race freely: thoughts on the slave and his hatred of me, the kongelig, and the regent. The silence that swarms Konge Valdemar, like witnessing an animated corpse. The king’s kraft allows him to see and speak to the dead. Is it possible that his kraft has evolved somehow? Allowed his ghost to remain, perhaps without even realizing that he’s already gone? Sun burns against my cheeks and eyelids, and gnats stick to the sweat on the back of my neck. I’m lying in the grass. I think vaguely on how strange this is, given that I’d been in my bed only a moment ago. Green blades crunch and fold beneath me, marking my white dress, as does the wet dirt sinking beneath my fingers. I look up, blinking at the sun, which is shining yellow through the green leaves that sway in the breeze, the branches of the mahogany tree that stands in the center of the garden. I used to sit here in the shade with Ellinor, picking at the grass with a book in her lap. Inga’s voice reaches my ears as she sings—high and clear, like the sound of a bell tinkling in the early morning.

  Ellinor isn’t here. I don’t see Inga, either. And I have to remind myself that they’re dead—but then what am I doing here, in the old gardens of the Rose manor? The gardens look as they did before: flowers of all colors bursting in the sunlight, hummingbirds and bees flitting from one petal to the next, pruned hedges of the maze inviting me. I walk across the grass, warm rocks digging into the undersides of my bare feet, and slip into the shadows of the maze. The hedges were taller when I was younger—now they only reach the top of my head, but I walk as I did when I was a child, turning left and right and then right again, toward the center, where I knew my mother would be waiting sitting on a bench with a smile on her face…

  I jolt. I’m standing on solid ground, but I feel as though it’s falling out from under me, something sharp scratching my foot all the way to my knee, biting the backs of my legs—I blink, and the scene has changed. Rocks dig into my back, my elbows and shoulders, blood rising from cuts across my skin. I’m on the cliffs behind the Jannik house. I’ve slipped, clinging to the ledge, but a few feet more, and I would’ve fallen off completely—over the rocks that crumble and fall sharply into the sea, which foams and crashes beneath me.

  I scramble back up the ledge, rocks slipping down to the ocean, until I’m on the grass again, running to the back door of the house. Air wheezes from my throat. My blood is heavy in my legs, my hands cold and shaking. I’d been in my room one moment, in the gardens of the Rose manor the next, walking through the maze—and then I was behind my new home on the Herregård Constantjin estate, inches away from my death.

  I look around me, peering through the brush of the gardens, searching for a presence with murder on its mind, for the feeling of someone with kraft pulsing through their veins—but I feel nothing, see no one.

  Sleep doesn’t come to me for days. When I do sleep, my eyes too heavy to keep open, I hear tangled whispers, see flashes of the blue sky from beneath rippling waves, listen to a soft melody, feel blood dripping onto my hands. I wake, skin cold in the trade-winds breeze, sheets wet with sweat, my bones too heavy to lift. My mother begs, Ellinor smiles over her shoulder at me as laughter echoes through the halls, a woman with yellow hair and blue eyes stares at me through the mangrove trees. A hand pats my head, soft cloth wipes sweat from my neck. Marieke forces me to sit up, to drink the lemongrass tea and sip the chicken-bone broth. She tells me I’m lucky that I’m alive. She found me like this, fever on my skin and in my eyes.

  “Was it poison?” I ask her.

  “No,” she tells me, dipping the cloth into a bucket and wringing it out, bringing it back to my shoulders, my neck, my cheeks. “Just a storm-season sickness and a good amount of stress.”

  I’ve almost managed to kill myself before anyone else on the island could. This is funny, so I laugh. Marieke smiles down at me. There’s a sound she hasn’t heard in a while. There’d been a time, once, when she thought I would never laugh again. Sailing with me to the north, she thought that my spirit had been taken over by grief. It was a year before she could coax a smile from my face. Even longer before I outright laughed. It was a sound that had shocked both her and myself. I remember the very moment: While we were traveling in the north, a Fjern who didn’t like the dark of our skin told us we wouldn’t be able to stay at her inn because we couldn’t afford such a thing. At that exact moment, a northern acquaintance of Bernhand Lund happened to be passing through the city. He called upon us, shocked that we would ever think to stay in such an inn when we should be inside a manor. The woman, learning of the coin we had to spend, tried to convince us to stay, but it was too late as we left with this acquaintance. Marieke and I had looked to each other and laughed.

  “You aren’t in my head again, are you?” she asks me, and I tell her that I’m sorry; the kraft tends to overpower me whenever I’m weak. She tells me to rest. I close my eyes again, and I let sleep take me, knowi
ng that at least Marieke is here to watch if I try to get to my feet and walk over the cliffs. In my sleep, I find Løren standing on the shore again, roots winding around his feet, trapping him to this island of Hans Lollik Helle, refusing to let him escape into the sea.

  When I ask Løren, his eyes answer me. His mother was already dead when he was cut from her stomach. A knife was put to his wailing throat, but his own eyes were too much like his father’s, brown and steady. He should’ve died. The slave should’ve died a thousand times. When he spat at a kongelig’s feet and when he dared to hit his brother across the face and when he tried to run, only to be caught the next morning, and most of all when his gift had been found. The Fjern believe that this gift isn’t meant for slaves. They say it’s a divine right, an offering from the gods above. Kraft is a rare trait, seen only in those who are revered, generations of people who have ruled empires and led armies; the gifts aren’t meant for savages. Any islander who dares to have a divine gift is a trickster who has managed to steal the power that isn’t rightfully theirs.

  This slave had such a power, and finally he was meant to be hung from his neck.

  I wake up, tongue stuck to the back of my throat, breeze rustling the curtains of my bed’s canopy, streaks of yellow sunlight falling across the walls. My limbs are heavy with disuse, my joints creaking as I pull off the sheets and get to my feet. It’s hard to know how much time has passed. Memories of my dreams feel as real as memories of waking: a young brown-skinned boy running across the rocky shoreline, the bottoms of his pink feet bleeding; blue eyes fastened on me through the trees of the groves; listening to an old song as I walk through the green maze; opening my eyes to find myself on the edge of a cliff, only a few feet away from my death.