The True Queen

by Sarah Fine

  She’s thinking of the witch-made storm on the Torden, I know it. The one that killed her father and nearly all our best and strongest. “I didn’t do this,” I say in a low voice.

  “Ansa, look at me.”

  I raise my head at the authoritative voice of my chieftain to find her giving me a hard look.

  “I know,” she says.

  “I . . . don’t think it was quite as bad out here,” Bertel says, caution in his deep voice. “We could see the ground moving and the entire forest pitching, but out here it was more of a rumble. We could stay on our feet.”

  We all look toward the forest. I can see damage there. Large swaths of trees leaning, as if all of them snapped at once, but the woods are so dense that many of them had nowhere to fall. To the northwest, I see a curl of black smoke, but it is dozens of miles away. The air feels heavy, laced with uncertainty. My magic burns inside, and I am still breathing, breathing, breathing as I slowly sit back.

  Just inside the trees, something moves. A few warriors shout a warning, and I glance over to see a few draw their hunting bows. But as soon as I see the flash of white blond in the light, I shout, “It’s Sig!”

  He walks as if he’s had far too much mead, and the air around him bends with heat. His lanky form is loose as he approaches. He is wearing pants and boots and nothing else.

  “Ansa,” Thyra says, her voice low. “He doesn’t look good.”

  I wipe my face against my sleeve and squint at him. “He looks like I feel.” My voice cracks. My mouth is so dry. I wonder if the hot breeze I’m now feeling against my cheeks is coming from him or from me.

  “Ansa,” Sig calls, his voice shredded.

  I rise, waving off Thyra’s assistance. Focusing on each step, I walk toward Sig. He has scrapes and cuts along his bare arms and the side of his scarred face, and sweat pours from his body.

  “Ansa,” he says, this time more quietly, and the uncertainty in his voice strikes a jangling chord inside me.

  Two steps nearer, and I realize his eyes are glowing. “Sig.”

  His head tilts back as he looks up at the sky. His chest is heaving. His hands rise from his sides. I yelp as two enormous balls of flame sprout from his palms. The sound that explodes from his throat is agony and rage and horror all in one. It stabs into my ears, making them pop with pressure. Instantly, my magic rises to protect me, but my eyes clamp shut immediately against the wave of heat.

  I open them again as I hear crackling.

  And then a scream. “The woods!”

  They are on fire. Smoke blocks out the sun.

  Sig has collapsed in a circle of blackened grass, his skin steaming. I lunge toward him, drawing on my ice magic and wishing for a cool wind to keep his brain from cooking inside his skull, assuming it’s not too late. As a searing wind spirals around us, it carries the panicked voices of our warriors to me once more, and I turn to see the flames creeping toward them as they frantically pull their clothes and tents from the ground.

  No. Begging the ice inside me to take over, I act on instinct, throwing my arms out and harnessing the air around me. Icy flakes of snow melt on my brow. Crystalline shards of white creep along the grass like an army of ants.

  “Ansa, stop,” Thyra calls.

  I flinch and cough as I inhale a lungful of smoke. As if reacting to the fiery pain inside my body, the ice pushes outward again, and now everyone is shouting and screaming. A body plows into mine, breaking my focus on the ice and the cold. I catch a whiff of Thyra’s warm scent, and terror cuts through me. “Get off!”

  “Calm down,” she shouts. “You’re about to freeze us all where we stand!” Her whole body is shaking and her teeth chatter.

  “Get off me,” I yell, bucking beneath her. Doesn’t she remember I’ve killed this way before? Even the cuff of Astia on my wrist can’t fully harness this magic—but it is the only thing protecting her from me now.

  Her warm, steady hands slide under my tunic. I hold so still, scared to exhale, scared to move lest I harm her. She lies across me, curled around me, and my heart rattles in its cage as she kisses my cheek. “Don’t,” I whisper.

  “I’m going to let go of you now.”

  “It cannot be soon enough.”

  She releases me, and I can breathe again. As I rise, I look over at Sig, who is slowly sitting up. Behind him, the still-smoking forest is glittered with frost, no flames to be seen.

  His eyes meet mine, and in them I see the grim realization. Together, we might have killed every person within a mile. That we didn’t seems more a result of luck than anything else. He winces as he clumsily gets up. His trembling fingers run along the slick skin of his arms, and he looks down at his palms as if trying to read a message there.

  “What just happened?” I ask him.

  “I don’t know,” he mumbles. “Something is . . . I can’t . . . I have to . . .” The muscles of his arms and back go tense, and for a moment I think he’s going to be sick, but then he starts to run toward the woods.

  “Sig,” I shout, starting to jog after him. “Wait!”

  “Let him go, Ansa,” Thyra snaps. Her fingers close around my arm and she points to the ground, where a line of fiery footsteps marks his path. His pale form disappears back into the trees again a few seconds later, leaving me with my hands outstretched.

  Thyra stomps out a few wisps of flame. “He’s out of control.”

  I glance at the melting ice that stretches across the space between me and the Krigere warriors, who remain huddled some distance away, shuffling uneasily through the tall meadow grass. “And me?”

  “You have the cuff,” she says briskly.

  Our eyes meet. We both know it isn’t enough. “You tackled me to get it to stop.”

  “I did what was necessary.”

  “You understand I could have killed you?”

  Her gaze is so steady. “Our warriors were about to be consumed with fire and ice. I preferred not to leave another two hundred widows in Vasterut.” Her jaw clenches when she sees mutiny in my expression. “Ansa, I told you. Warriors before chieftain. Before me.”

  I flatten my palm over the deep hum I still feel in the copper cuff. “Something is wrong,” I murmur. “Sig was trying to tell me as much.” I search the tree line for him, but as white as his skin is, he’s still hidden well by darkness.

  “When the earth shakes, everything is wrong,” Thyra says. “There may be other temblors. We have to be ready.”

  I laugh. “Ready? How do you propose we ready ourselves for the moment the earth turns to water beneath our feet?”

  “We stay out of the trees for the night, for one. We’ll march through tomorrow, quick as we can.” She nods toward the warriors. “Let’s go build our fire. I’ll get a few of the others to gather kindling.”

  I turn toward our warriors, who look jittery and worried, especially when they glance my way. “No.”

  “What?”

  “I’ll sleep by myself tonight.” I point to a clump of bushes a few hundred yards to the south.

  “Don’t be stupid.”

  My fists clench around magic trying to burst from my palms. “I don’t know why, but I’m not right today. Sig wasn’t either. And both of us are dangerous. I’m guessing that’s why he ran—he didn’t want to hurt any of us.”

  “He’s never struck me as the selfless type. But there seems to be no question that he’s dangerous and out of control, and we’re better off without an unstable warrior.”

  I bite the inside of my cheek. “Sig has seemed saner in recent weeks than I’ve ever known him to be.”

  “But now we’re almost back in Kupari, the place where he was scarred and burned by the impostor queen and her helpers. Who knows what it’s doing to his mind?”

  A warm breeze ruffles my hair, matching the unsteady flutter of fire inside me. “And who knows what it’s doing to me? I’m just as dangerous as he is, if not more so—cuff or no cuff.”

  Anger flashes across Thyra’s face, and she st
rides forward. She takes my face in her hands before I can escape, and then her lips are on mine, just for a moment, hard and cool. She doesn’t seem to care that the others could see us if they cared to look. She doesn’t even glance in their direction. When she releases me, her brows are low and her mouth is tight. “I won’t order you to sleep next to me tonight.” She takes a few steps back. “But you know where to find me if you get chilled.”

  She pivots and walks toward the hillock where Bertel and Preben have seated themselves, keeping a watchful eye on the forest. I am aching to follow her, but instead I head in the other direction. I need to put distance between us in case I lose control again. Turning my focus outward, toward managing the basic needs of my body, I snap twigs off the bush and gather more wood from the outer edges of the forest, careful not to stray too close to the dripping, charred mess. The smell of smoke fills my nose and turns my stomach.

  My first footsteps into the land of my birth were met with its efforts to tear itself to shreds. I know it was an unhappy coincidence, but I can’t help but feel like I’m not wanted there, like something deep inside the earth feels my presence and is howling. It preys on all my fears—perhaps Kauko was wrong. Perhaps I was never meant to rule here. Perhaps I shouldn’t be here at all.

  I sink into a squat in front of the little pile of wood nestled into a hollow I carved into the dirt. As soon as I wish for flame, it springs to life, and I hold my breath in an effort to avoid setting the entire meadow on fire. I stare at the results of my magic and wonder if I should do what Sig did—run far and fast, before I kill someone accidentally. I had thought I’d moved past it, but today has raised my fears and doubts like swells in an early winter storm.

  A gust of breeze carries the sound of laughter to me. Now that the darkness has fallen, all I can see of my fellow Krigere is the glow of their fires a few hundred yards away, but I can hear their voices if I strain. I hear worry. But I also hear hope.

  Two hundred of them marched away from their andeners and children this morning, only because of that hope—for a new homeland for our people, a safe place to rest our heads and raise our young ones. Our kind have been decimated. Our entire way of life has changed. All we have left now is this plea to heaven that there is a future for us in Kupari.

  And I seem to be the key to securing it, if it is to be had at all.

  “I can’t run,” I whisper. I can’t go anywhere until I’ve done everything I can for them. I promised Thyra, and she needs this from me.

  I tuck my trembling hands into my armpits, holding everything still. I have to rest. I have to sleep. In the morning, surely this shaky uncertainty will have passed, and I will be right again.

  I cannot bear to think of what will happen if I’m not.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Elli

  Oskar’s arms clamp around me and we’re falling as a roar fills my ears. I scream and cling to him, my hands finding the skin of his throat. His body shudders as chunks of the ceiling pummel his back. Rage and horror flood my lungs as I hear him gasp with pain.

  I will not let this happen.

  With Oskar braced above me, I pull on his magic with all my strength, directing it outward. Panic bites at my focus, shredding its edges, but I fight to control the ice as it pours through me with the chaotic force of an avalanche. My head snaps back as I feel it burst from me as a blizzard. I fight to channel its fury and have the fleeting thought that Oskar has grown more powerful—and his magic has grown sharper, an edge that kills with precision as well as strength. It’s fighting to wrest itself from my grip as the floor beneath us cracks and buckles. Oskar curses and holds me so tightly that I cannot breathe. Spots float beneath my closed eyelids, bursts of white and yellow on black black black. . . .

  “Elli, please!” Oskar’s voice rings with need and pain.

  I claw my way toward the sound of it, swimming up through a frigid ocean of icebergs and frozen slush that fills my ears and mouth. The magic shivers, vibrations that roll along my bones. When I finally reach the surface, I arch and cough. My eyes blink open. Oskar is above me, his face framed with white. His body shakes like he’s having a fit. His teeth are gritted. “Please,” he gasps. “Stop.”

  My eyes focus on our surroundings. We’re surrounded by ice, pristine and smooth. I am crushed beneath his weight and do not feel cold at all. But Oskar’s face is ashen, and pain is etched into the line of his clenched jaw.

  He is freezing to death.

  Terror jars my heart, sending it into a gallop. I wriggle to free my hands, but it’s not easy—Oskar weighs twice as much as I do and his full weight is on me as ice presses to his back. His scent makes me ache even now, wood smoke and earth and pine. He is past talking; even his eyes are mute with pain. He has no fire inside him to warm his skin, no heat to keep his blood from freezing. The certainty of his agony pulses into my muscles, and I wrench my left hand free. My scars shine silver in the gleam of sunlight on ice as I press my hand against our icy coffin.

  I don’t know if this will work, and if it doesn’t, my love is going to die on top of me, possibly killing me slowly with his weight. I close my eyes again, but this time it is a different kind of pull, like taking a giant breath. This time, I don’t try to shove the magic out around me—this time I inhale it, sucking it into the vast empty space inside me. The three remaining fingers of my hand dig into the frigid walls, feeling it give way to my power, oblivious to the cold. It’s made from magic, and I am immune to it.

  “Oskar, I need you,” I say, my voice barely a wheeze. “Can you push up, maybe get to your knees?”

  My clothes are soaked with the melt, but my skin merely tingles. It doesn’t even raise goose bumps. But Oskar’s breath fogs as his muscles tense, as he tries to do as I’ve asked. I whisper encouragement in his ear as I continue to siphon the deadly magic into my body and hold it there, keeping him safe. His skin is gray, and a terrible moan escapes his mouth as he arches his back.

  The ice falls away and reveals the truth of what has happened.

  There is sky above me, nothing but blue and white and brilliant sun. I whimper as I turn my head and see the piles of rubble around us, which might have pulverized our bones had the ice not shielded us.

  “Elli, my hand,” mumbles Oskar.

  “What’s wrong?” I glance around, realizing one of his arms is still pinned beneath me. He was cradling me as the temple crumbled, and beneath my spine I feel his hand. I sit, and he groans and draws his arm up, supporting it with his other hand.

  His right hand is white and bloodless, and when he sees it, he pitches to the side as if he is about to be sick. I grab his shoulders, trying to hold him steady as his body heaves, my ears ringing with shock and fear and disbelief. From somewhere in the rubble, or maybe beyond it, I hear voices crying out. I hold Oskar’s head against my chest and call, “Who’s there?”

  No one seems to hear us.

  “What happened?” Oskar asks.

  “I think it was an earthquake,” I say. “I’ve read about them. The bones of the earth shift and move, and it tosses and tears its skin. They . . .” They happen in foreign lands, far from here. “There is no history of earthquakes in Kupari.”

  “Now there is,” he says weakly, pulling his head from my breast to look around. His right hand is hidden in the folds of his tunic now. His face is pale as marble. But his gaze is sharpening with both alarm and determination as he turns to me. “You saved us.”

  “We saved us, Oskar. I would have been crushed without your magic.” I lay my warm palm on his cold cheek. “And your body.”

  He gives me a weary smile. “I told you I was your shield.”

  Tears prick my eyes as I brush my lips over his, feeling the lingering trickle of his magic on my tongue. But then I draw away as I hear another cry, and suddenly I remember—“Lahja!”

  I am on my feet and pulling Oskar to his, my heart a fist pounding on a wall. Without thinking, I lay my hand against Oskar’s throat and pull, and he does not
resist. His winter magic bursts from my palms in a vicious wind that blasts rocks out of our way. My teeth grit and my eyes narrow. My Saadella needs me. I can feel her near and I will not surrender her.

  She is alive. Even the collapse of the world could not take her from me.

  Like a mother wolf surrounded by coyotes, I stalk forward, tearing through a wall of rubble as if it were parchment. It is nothing before my love. Oskar leans on me, close and endless in his power, and we move together until I have cleared a path all the way to the great chamber.

  The massive copper dome is still above us, though the floor is littered with debris, and before me lie more collapsed walls, but I can see that the wing of the Saadella, which is nearer to the front of the temple, is still standing. “Lahja,” I shout.

  “We are here,” Kaisa calls. “She is whole.” Her voice is high and shaky, but loud enough to echo.

  “Raimo,” I murmur, looking around. He had said he was going to his chamber, which is in the catacombs, the maze of caverns beneath the temple. “Oh, stars.”

  “Here he is,” Oskar says.

  Raimo stands in the entrance to the catacombs at the back of the great chamber, his tufty hair dripping, his scrawny body shivering, his face covered in stone dust, his gaze sharp as ever. “The Saadella?”

  “Alive,” Kaisa says as she limps out of Lahja’s chamber. My Saadella is clinging to her, skinny arms around her neck, her little face buried in the folds of Kaisa’s robe. “But her sister is trapped and needs help.”

  “I’ll do it,” Raimo says, his voice hoarse and cracking.

  “I can help,” Oskar says, but as he steps forward, he sways, and I catch his arm as he slowly sinks to his knees. “Or maybe I can’t.”

  “You stay where you are,” I say firmly. “Rest for a minute.”

  He bows his head so I can’t see his expression, and I gently stroke his messy hair before turning back toward Kaisa. She is rubbing Lahja’s back, and I rush forward to meet her at the edge of the chamber. When my hands touch Lahja’s skin, she whimpers and turns, trying to crawl into my arms, and the apprentice releases her to my care. I clutch her trembling body to mine and whisper tender reassurances in her ear as tears slip from my eyes. If I lost her, I’m not sure I would survive it.