A Kingdom for a Stage

by Heidi Heilig

“My father.” She sighs, putting her elbow on the altar and her chin in her hand. “He always resented the fact that his half-brother got the crown and he got a military commission. Not that he wrote that down, either. But his life’s work was to see his own children on a throne. Or the children he acknowledged, anyway. Isn’t it funny? He was a bastard himself, and yet.”

  I shift on my chair, not knowing how to respond. “How would giving me the throne help with that?”

  “Xavier will marry someday. And wives are even easier to dispose of than husbands,” she adds primly. I recoil, but why am I surprised? Legarde had been willing to assassinate the king after the wedding. The general would have had me killed just as readily.

  “Did you know?” I ask then, unsure if she will answer. “Did the general tell you the plan was to kill the Boy King after your wedding?”

  “Not at the time.” Theodora shakes her head, her curls gently bouncing. “Not that I expect you to believe me. But Raik would have been happy as a figurehead, as long as he had money and champagne. And I could have been happy too, with the royal coffers funding my work. My father struck a good bargain . . . if he’d only stuck to it. There is much more of him in Leo than either of them admitted,” she adds then, the ghost of a smile crossing her lips.

  The thought strikes a spot I hadn’t known was tender. How would Leo feel, hearing what Theodora had said? But there was truth in it. The general had maneuvered on the political field just as much as in battle. And Leo was always most comfortable bridging the gap between wanting and getting. Then again, the two of them had their differences: Leo hadn’t been willing to shoot his father, even when the general had his own son in his sights. Then I frown. “Raik? Why did he need to bargain with the general? He was the last living prince. The throne was his by right.”

  “Rights are little more than wishful thinking without the might to enforce them,” Theodora replies. Then she waves one manicured hand, as though clearing the words out of the air. Picking up her notebook, she turns to a page marked with a ribbon. “Speaking of which. Tell me what you know about Le Trépas.”

  “Bien,” I say, flexing my fingers in their gloves. But where to start? The first thing that comes to mind is Maman’s own fear. Not that she ever mentioned him directly. But I had felt her horror when my own powers had started to manifest—her heartbreak the night I’d learned that Papa was not the man whose blood ran through my veins. Still, it is not my place to share Maman’s feelings with La Fleur.

  What else, then? The story of La Victoire—but everyone knows it, not least the daughter of the man who starred as the hero. Indeed, Theodora’s own research must contain more than I ever knew about the man who sired me. “There isn’t much,” I say at last. “Superstitions about n’akela, and stories the older children might have made up to scare us. He was like a shadow—we knew the shape of him, but not the features.”

  Theodora frowns as she takes notes, her golden curls slipping over her eyes. “N’akela?”

  “Spirits that want vengeance,” I say softly, though there are no souls at all to hear me in Hell’s Court. The words summon the memory like a spell: the grit of ash, the smell of blood. The charred remains of a village, and a yawning pit where bodies lie, too pale, too still. And n’akela as blue as her eyes, drifting through the ruins of Dar Som. “The armée made quite a few in their march through Le Verdu.”

  My accusation is pointed, but Theodora doesn’t look up. “Your father did as well, or so I imagine.”

  I tense. “He’s not my father.”

  “What is he then?” she says distantly, as though talking to herself.

  “A monster. Like Xavier says.” Like he thinks I am, I do not add. I stare at the papers on the altar, tapping the recherche on my thigh until the spirit inside rustles, protesting. “Or don’t you agree?”

  “Le Trépas himself claimed he was a god reborn, but he seemed human to me.” Theodora finishes a line and tucks her hair behind her ear. “Of course, all people are capable of monstrous things.”

  “Seemed . . . human?” My eyebrows shoot up. “You’ve met him?”

  “I have,” she says, and though it shouldn’t, the admission stuns me. She must see it in my face. “Do you hope to?”

  “No!” I say immediately.

  “Why not?”

  “Why should I?”

  “To ask questions, perhaps.”

  “What questions?” I look at her askance, but when she doesn’t say, they come on their own. Why? and How could you? are crowded out by How? and Who are you? Others follow: Do the dead look the same to you? What do you know that I don’t? What can you do that I can’t—and how did you learn? “No,” I say firmly, shaking them out of my head. But my eyes are drawn back to the papers on her desk. Do they contain the answers? “But I . . . I want to know about what I can do.”

  “Ah.” Theodora smiles, glancing down at my hands. “So do I.”

  I follow her gaze to the battered recherche. When had I crushed it? Trying to gather my thoughts, I smooth the paper across my thigh, folding it once more along the creases. Holding it by the center, I let the crude fantouche flap its paper wings. “This is it.”

  Theodora reaches out, taking the fantouche between her thumb and forefinger. Then, to my surprise, she tosses it up in the air. We both watch it rise, and she grins as it circles above our heads. “It’s a good place to start.”

  HOW THE GODS LEARNED TO DIE

  In the days when our ancestors were young, the gods still walked in Chakrana. And while everything else was born, grew old, and died, the gods went on.

  The Keeper of Knowledge grew curious first. They went to the King and the Maiden and asked, “Are gods dead or alive?”

  The King answered first. “We must be dead, for we never change.”

  The Maiden disagreed. “We don’t rot like bodies, or fade like souls. Certainly we’re alive.”

  “Maybe we’re something else,” the Keeper mused. They went away to consider it, and thought for a long time. What are life and death and being? The Keeper watched the living in all their forms, and listened to the stories of spirits as they shone and faded. But some time later, the Keeper returned to the King and the Maiden and said “I need to live and die to know more.”

  Curious, the King agreed to free the Keeper’s soul, and the Maiden agreed to put it back in a new body. But without someone to record the Keeper’s history, the deity feared all their knowledge would be lost. So the Keeper gathered their worshippers to build a temple to their knowledge, and chip their own stories into stone. Only then was the Keeper ready to die and to live. And when they did, they realized how much they had been missing.

  The Keeper shared their stories—of feasting and famine, love and pain, hope and fear and all the things that make up life and death—and the King and the Maiden became curious too. But neither could die and live without the other. So instead, each took half of their own soul and put the pieces into human bodies, to live and die for them.

  Some say that splitting their souls made the gods weaker. Others say it made them more understanding. But one day the gods will make their souls whole again, and that is when peace will return to Chakrana.

  Chapter Seven

  La Fleur and I begin with the most basic information: the types of souls—vana, arvana, akela, n’akela—the blood offering, the symbol of life. At first it is strangely thrilling; I have never before had the chance to speak so openly about what had been forbidden. But as the night wears on, the questions go deeper. “Why do the souls of birds fly?” she asks.

  I answer as I’ve always believed. “Because it’s in their nature.”

  “Is it?” She looks delighted. “Do dead dogs chase the souls of cats? Do the spirits of fish still live in streams?” At my nod, she grins. “What about the arvana of snakes? Can they poison?”

  I frown. “I don’t know. I’ve never checked.”

  “Why not?”

  “Why would I?” I ask. “I was a performer, not
an assassin.”

  She raises an eyebrow, but whatever she’s thinking, she makes a note rather than saying it out loud. Then she stares into the middle distance, tapping the pen on the page. Is she wondering about snakes now, as I am? The idea is dizzying—I can see why La Fleur’s workshop is so prolific. Can the souls of bees sting? Would the spirit of a chameleon change the color of its own fantouche? The next thought brings me up short: will my own soul feel malheur?

  “Can they act against their nature?”

  Her question pulls me back to our conversation. “What do you mean?”

  She cocks her head, looking up at the fantouche. “Could you give her an order to do something she wouldn’t do naturally? Swim, for example?”

  “I suppose,” I say slowly. “My old fantouches used to perform in shadow plays. But I doubt she’d be much good at swimming.”

  “But she’d try if you ordered her to.”

  The question unsettles me; I watch the fantouche, but think of Akra, hiding in the reeds. “Yes.”

  La Fleur makes another note. “What if you ordered her to follow the commands of someone else?”

  I narrow my eyes. “Why would I do something like that?”

  “Well.” She gives me a helpless gesture with her pen. “You must understand the value of the proposal.”

  The face I make is bitter. “War machines.”

  “Any machines! Transport. Manufacture. Automation. But of course the value is limited if there’s only one person in command of the mechanism.”

  “Depends on what you value,” I say pointedly. “I for one prefer that my power remain in my own hands.”

  “So does everyone in power,” she says.

  I blink at her, taken aback. How can this pale and privileged princess think that I’m the one in power? “There is a difference between being dangerous and being powerful,” I say, but she only shrugs.

  “There was an interview done with your father—I’m sorry,” she corrects herself at my look. “With Le Trépas. In it, he confessed to killing his children. Do you know why?”

  “To create disciples,” I say immediately. “To force souls to do his bidding.”

  “That may have been a side effect,” she says, making a face. “But he could have killed anyone for that. He told the questioneurs he didn’t want his blood to fall into the wrong hands. Do you think he meant someone like you, or someone like me?”

  I open my mouth—close it again. “What do you mean by that?”

  “I mean, was he trying to prevent other nécromanciens? Or was he trying to limit the sources of blood, so no one else could take it and make their own fantouches?”

  “I don’t know,” I say, drawing back. The curiosity in her eyes is perilously close to hunger. “Why are you asking?”

  Theodora hesitates, and for a moment my muscles tense. Does she mean to try it? And if she did, would La Fleur’s creatures obey her instead of me? But she only turns back to her notebook. “I suppose it’s in my nature to ask questions. To be curious,” she says as she writes. “Know your enemy as you know yourself, and you have nothing to fear, they say.”

  “Know your enemy and know yourself,” I say; the proverb is a Chakran one. But she only smiles a little.

  “And do you?”

  I narrow my eyes; the question stings. “I know my enemy, at least.”

  Her smile falls; she opens her mouth as though to protest, but then thinks better of it. “That still leaves us with one major area of inquiry,” she says drily.

  “Do you think I’m the same as he is?” The question tumbles out, too quick to stop. I brace myself for the answer, but she only frowns absently.

  “As who?”

  I grit my teeth. “As the man you keep calling my father.”

  “Ah.” She cocks her head, her curls bouncing. “Isn’t that what we’re trying to discover? But let me ask you a question. Why do you keep insisting he isn’t? Your father, I mean.”

  My eyebrows go up. How can she ask such a thing? Even if she doesn’t understand about Papa, Le Trépas is evil. A murderer. A nécromancien. But my own sins stuff the words back down my throat, for I am a murderer and a nécromancien too. “Because I want to be different than he is,” I say at last, and to my surprise, her face softens.

  “Now that I understand,” she says, glancing again at the trunk beside her desk. The admission surprises me, but when she catches my look, she makes a face. “I won’t be threatening Leo to make you hand over your blood, if that’s what you’re wondering about.”

  I turn away so she will not see the relief in my eyes. Then I hesitate. Is it too obvious to ask? “Where is Leo, anyway?”

  By her sly smile, I can tell she doesn’t know the real reason I’m asking. Or at least, not the entire reason. “He’s staying at an inn by the docks. But he comes by nearly every day.”

  “To work?”

  “Or talk. Or play the violin.” Her smile is wistful—the thought tugs at my own heart. It had been so long since I’d heard music. La Fleur stands then, stretching; at the sight, my own body aches. What time is it? “I’m tired of questions,” she says then. “Aren’t you?”

  “It is late,” I say, but she only tucks her pen behind her ear and the book under her arm. Then she pulls a ring of keys from under a stack of papers and slips it into one of her many pockets.

  “Come on,” she says, and I stand, curious.

  “Where?”

  “To find some souls,” she says, as though it was obvious. Then she starts across the sanctuary, beckoning when she realizes I’m not following. So I join her, stepping over the carcan, still discarded on the stone floor.

  “Are you sure you trust me not to kill you?”

  “You’re so insistent that you and Le Trépas are different,” La Fleur says with a sidelong look. “Don’t disappoint the both of us.”

  Theodora leads me deeper into Hell’s Court, this time down the east hall, still marked by the devastation of my last time here. The tall carved pillars rise proudly, only to end in ruin; between the crumbled top of the wall and the new canvas roof, I can see a sliver of starry sky. The doors are shut to keep out the breeze; the backs of the old cells have collapsed into the garden. In the bright glow of the electric light, I cannot even tell which one had been mine.

  Which one had been his?

  I do not ask as we pass them by. Soon enough, the hallway opens into what used to be a huge dining room where two hundred monks could eat their daily meals. The scarred wooden tables remain, but they’ve been pushed to the side to leave a wide-open workshop. Now, the fanciful carvings of the King of Death that adorn the walls look down approvingly on the mechanization of war.

  An enormous gun mounted on a cart and fired by a hand crank. A long band of bullets dangles beneath it, waiting to be fed through the machine. There is another weapon on one of the tables, like a rifle with six barrels and a cylinder as big around as a melon. Even a flying machine, akin to the one I had stolen, though sleeker. More graceful.

  But there—something I do not recognize. A half-built rig, a bit like a wheelbarrow, though instead of the shaft, it has an arm like a crooked spear, or the beak of a crane. Beside it, another mysterious machine in progress, with rotating blades on the front that look like they could reduce a body to soup.

  “A mud plow,” Theodora says when she notices my stare. “For rice paddies. That one next to it is an automated planter.”

  Surprised, I touch the arm of the contraption. Was the metal beak delicate enough to cradle a green shoot? “Does the armée plant much rice?”

  “They’re Camreon’s design,” she says, unable to hide the pride in her voice. But where had I heard the name? Theodora sees my confusion. “I think you two met briefly this morning.”

  “The Chakran boy,” I say, thinking back. Was that only today? La Fleur nods, but I still don’t quite understand. “These are for agriculture?”

  “The rebellion came on in earnest after the last famine,” she says, as
though I could forget the Hungry Year—the year we lost Akra to the armée. “Automation could help prevent another. If we ever have time to finish them.”

  “The last famine came on because the Aquitans took all the best fields for sugar,” I retort. “Not because there was no one to work them.”

  “Well.” Theodora presses her lips together. “After the atrocities in La Verdu, the next one might be. Xavier tells me the fields are empty—the farmers fled. Or killed. Besides . . . it’s poetic, isn’t it? Swords into plowshares.”

  I frown, not understanding. “What’s that?”

  “Oh.” She waves a hand as though to clear the air. “Just something one of the prophets said. Our prophets, I mean. It used to be one of Xavier’s favorite quotes.”

  “I thought all you made was weaponry,” I mutter.

  “Have you already forgotten the elixir?” She gives me a look, and I drop my eyes. But she sighs, turning toward a table where shiny steel combines with leather and polished wood in shapes where the organic meets the mechanical. A cane . . . a brace . . . a graceful sleeve that ends in a carved wooden hand. And beside the table—a chair that glides on rubberized wheels. “These are also my work. Though I suppose if I made fewer weapons, I could make fewer aides à la mobilité. Can you can see my interest in practical applications here? Imagine replacing a missing hand with one manufactured not only in form, but in function.”

  For a moment, I do imagine it—Papa’s twisted legs strengthened with braces that respond to his own commands. Hope rises in me, only to fall. She thinks Papa is dead—at least, that’s what Leo implied. I’d have to be a fool to tell her otherwise. Instead, I clench my jaw. “There’s a lot of need for them among the refugees.”

  “I know,” she says softly. “The latest supply ship was spotted this afternoon. I’m hoping for enough extra steel for new braces. Someday the fighting will be over, and we’ll finally have time to heal.”

  “We?” The sleeve is still unfinished, but the wood is already painted, pale as Aquitan skin. “Or you?”

  “We’ll see when the ship comes in,” she says. Then she lays the hand back on the table and leads me toward the back wall, where a little doorway has been fitted with an iron grate that opens out into the garden. But in the rear corner of the hall, a squat, square structure catches my eye. It’s clearly recently built—likely raised when Theodora set up shop here—and completely out of place, made of Aquitan brick with a steel door studded with rivets.