The True Queen

by Sarah Fine

  I kneel behind Oskar and bow my head over him. His eyes open as he feels my hands on his throat, tugging his icy magic away from his bones. “Don’t,” he whispers. “I might need it.”

  “It’s hurting you,” I say, pressing my lips to his cool, whiskery cheek.

  “Doesn’t matter,” he says wearily. “You know what’s coming.”

  “All I can do is manage what’s right in front of me, and that’s you.”

  Oskar turns his head, and when he sees me, his brow furrows. “What in the stars has happened to you?”

  I pull away from his trembling right hand, his fingers stretched to touch my face. His hand falls to his chest. “Our Valtia doesn’t know friend from enemy.” I smile as one of our temple wielders offers me a clean, wet rag, which I use to wipe gingerly at the cut on my forehead.

  “I felt that keenly,” he says. “She would have killed me.”

  “I’ll get through to her.”

  “I remember her so well.” Oskar closes his eyes. “She was faster than I was even though her legs were half as long. She was tougher than I was even though she was half my size. She would follow me around and do whatever I was doing, but she always wanted it to be a race, or a fight. She was such a pest.”

  “So you didn’t get along?”

  “No, not at all. I couldn’t stand her. Until the day we were climbing a tree, and a branch snapped under my weight. I fell and landed hard. Hit my head on a rock.”

  “How old were you?”

  “Only six or so. Ansa was only four. It was the summer before she was taken.”

  “Were you seriously hurt?”

  He shrugs, then grimaces. “I came to as Ansa was dragging me back to her parents’ cottage. It was a mile away, and she’d gotten me halfway there by the time our mothers saw us and came running.”

  “Did that change things between you?”

  “It seemed to. We stayed by the shore for a week as I recovered. She refused to leave my side. My mother started calling her my guard dog.”

  “Do you think she felt guilty about what happened to you?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe? But from then on, she was so protective of me. This baby of a girl, walking ahead of me and shooing the chickens out of my path, pushing me further from the fire in the evenings—which I badly needed, by the way, because I was always so close that sparks would burn holes in my clothes.”

  “Because you were cold,” I say quietly.

  He sighs. “Always.” His smile is pained, and it makes my chest hurt. “She would bring me blankets when she saw me shivering. Soup and tea as well. She’d grab the bowl from her mother and bring it to me herself. I don’t know what exactly happened between us that day I fell, but somehow it changed things for her.”

  “You went from being a challenger, someone she had to fight, to being someone she needed to protect.” I stroke his cheek. “I wish she felt that way now, but it doesn’t seem like she remembers you.”

  “It’s funny—for a moment, I thought she did. But it was just a flash, and then it was gone.”

  And then she tried to kill him.

  “I cried when my mother told me she was gone,” he whispers. “I never forgot her. I think I’ve always wished that I could have protected her the way she protected me. But now she thinks I’m her enemy.”

  “It’s what Kauko wanted,” Sig mutters. He’s obviously been listening the whole time, though his eyes are still closed and he’s completely limp as Freya lays bandages soaked in cold water over the burns on his arms. “He needed to poison Ansa against us, and he had the perfect strategy.”

  My throat tightens. “We’ll get her back. She’ll come around.”

  “Yes. All you have to do is fall out of a tree and nearly die.” Sig groans as Freya tries to dab a greasy tincture onto some of the blisters on his chest. “It’s pointless, Freya. Don’t bother.”

  “Shut up, Sig,” she says, intent on her work. “Drink some of that tea.” She nods toward a mug she’s set next to his head.

  Oskar lets out a quiet laugh. “Mother always said Freya reminded her of Ansa.”

  “She told me that as well.” I raise my head and find Maarika staring at me from across the room. She’s helping Kaisa cut and tear old priests’ robes for use as bandages and slings for our people and the townsfolk. I smile, and she gives me a quick nod. Her somber gray eyes light on her son for an instant, and then she quickly looks away.

  “Well, I wouldn’t try to kill every single person who tried to help me,” Freya says, all sass. Her braid hangs down, and the tip of it has become covered in the tincture, so now it decorates Sig’s chest with ointment like a dainty paintbrush. “So I don’t think we’re alike at all.”

  “When you’ve been through what she has, we can talk again,” says Oskar.

  “Oskar, she froze your heart!” Freya wails. “Veikko told me. He was just coming through the doorway and saw it happen. I’m glad Aira hit her over the head!”

  Sig lets out a snarl and shoves her hand away from his chest. “Careful!”

  Her eyes fill with tears that overflow and stream down her cheeks. “This isn’t fair. Why is all of this happening? Do the stars hate us? Does our own land hate us?”

  I think it might. I lay my cheek against Oskar’s and think of a cottage by the shore, of watching him stride from the woods, whole and happy. I cling to it as long as I can, letting everything else drop away for a few minutes.

  Oskar murmurs that he loves me. He sounds like he’s lived a thousand years in the space of this day. I whisper my adoration into his ear, and then I stand up. I walk over to Aira, who has a bandaged burn on her arm but otherwise looks whole. “Where’s our captive?” I ask. “I need to go see her, assuming she’s still alive. You hit her pretty hard.”

  “Mad dogs need to be put down,” Aira snaps.

  “That mad dog is the key to our survival,” I tell her. “And she has suffered more than any of us.”

  “What about Oskar?” she asks in a choked voice. “Hasn’t he suffered enough?”

  I swallow the lump in my throat. “If I could spare Oskar more suffering, I would. But he’ll do what he needs to in order to protect Kupari.”

  “To protect you, you mean.” Her pretty face is twisted with bitterness.

  I shake my head. “No, Aira. If Oskar only wanted to protect me, we wouldn’t even be standing here.” He and I would be tucked into that cottage, wrapped in each other, not thinking of anyone else. “Now, please tell me where I can find Ansa.”

  She points toward the Saadella’s wing. “They took her to the catacombs through the kitchen tunnel, because it’s one of the few that hasn’t collapsed.”

  “The catacombs?” Stars. She must be terrified.

  Veikko hears my desperate tone and stops next to Aira with a few waterskins hanging from his shoulder. “We had to contain her somehow, Elli. You’ll see.”

  With my heart beating hard, I cross the domed chamber. Raimo rises and joins me. “Veikko told me where she is,” he says, sounding grim. “And that she’s now awake. We can’t keep her down there, Elli. It’s not safe if there’s another quake.” The tremor in his voice is like a promise of more disaster to come.

  I divert from my path to snag two stale loaves of bread and a waterskin. “I’ll take care of her. Stay here.”

  He puts a hand on my arm. “She could hurt you, Elli. She already has. And if our Valtia kills our Astia . . .”

  “Oh, was that also mentioned in one of those prophecies?” I ask airily.

  “No,” he says, sounding troubled. “But I’m questioning everything these days.”

  “I thought you were a strong believer in your own brilliance.”

  “I was. I am.” And it looks like it has made him completely miserable.

  I don’t want to hear another ominous word from his mouth. “I’ll check in after I’ve talked to Ansa.”

  “She doesn’t speak Kupari.”

  “I’m certain she understood me, Raim
o.” The comprehension in her eyes was as clear as the rage. “And I know I’ll be able to understand her. It’s not something I can explain, though.”

  A bemused smile lifts his sagging features. “Maybe it’ll be all right,” he murmurs. His eyes meet mine. “You can’t speak a word of her language, and she doesn’t seem to understand ours. But somehow, you can communicate. You share a bond.”

  “I could have told you that. Now, if you’ll excuse me.” I hold up the bread and water. “I have some work to do.”

  Raimo bows his head and steps aside, and I head down the hall toward the stairs to the kitchens. I have always known I shared a bond with the true Valtia. I felt it with Sofia, and the mere thought of another queen warms my heart. But as I think of Ansa above me, her hands wrapped around my throat, her teeth bared, I have to wonder.

  What if our bond isn’t enough?

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Ansa

  I don’t know how long I scream and claw and curse and kick, but in the end it all bleeds together in the darkness. I am buried and suffocating; I can’t breathe, I can’t move, I can’t think. Nothing makes sense.

  Then all the air and the life and the world comes back at once—the door to my prison opens from the top and there’s the impostor, with a swollen gash on her forehead and a horrified look in her eye lit by the torches that line the dripping walls.

  “I can’t believe they put you in here!” she shrieks, plunging her arms into my box and scooping me up. She stumbles as she hefts my weight, and we both end up on the floor, at the base of a metal box laid on a stone slab. I am cold and hot and cannot make my body obey me. She clutches me close, her breaths coming harsh from her mouth. “I let them do this to me once. The priests. I thought being enclosed in a copper coffin would draw out the magic.” She laughs, and it sounds like she’s got something caught in her throat. “I had no idea you had all of it this whole time.”

  I understand the words, but not what she’s saying. I didn’t know that was possible. “Let me go,” I croak, every part of me hurting.

  She loosens her grip on me but doesn’t release my body. I’m still pressed against hers, and she’s soft and she smells good and she’s warm and I hate her and I love her. I push weakly against her stomach, trying to create my own pocket in which to think.

  “I shouldn’t have taken my eyes off you,” she continues. “I shouldn’t have let them hurt you. I swear, I had no idea they would do this to you.”

  I turn my head and look up at the copper box in which I was imprisoned. It is the size of a weapons trunk. My magic was nothing to it. The power simmers inside me now, though, waiting for release. I’m still weak, but the ice and fire inside me rages. I wonder if I could melt the impostor’s bones.

  The fire spirals inside, excited by the thought. Searing heat streaks along my arms, painful and unstoppable. Before I can decide if I want to hurt her or if I don’t, she cries out. The fire is loose, bursting from my palms with terrible force. She slaps at her dress and rolls away from me.

  I lie where she dropped me and wait for her to fall like Aksel did, like Carina did. But she merely stands there, her back to me, looking down at her stomach. I wonder if she’s too paralyzed with horror to cry, if she’s staring at her own entrails, cooked by the fire I forced on her.

  But then she laughs. “Ah, well. Another dress ruined.”

  She turns around. The entire center of her gown is burned away, revealing a stretch of bare skin, pale and smooth. I stare at her belly button.

  She lifts her arms, a mischievous look on her irritatingly lovely face. “If you feel particularly vengeful, I suppose you could burn away the rest. Care to try?”

  My eyes narrow. “What sort of game is this?”

  “Depends. What kind do you like to play?”

  The teasing note in her voice makes me dream of murder. I glance around me, looking for any sharp object. She takes a quick step back, her hands outstretched. Now she’s scared. “Ansa, I don’t mean you any harm.”

  “The lies are so easy for you, aren’t they?” I spit on the ground. Or, I try, but my mouth is so dry that the thin string of drool just hangs from my bottom lip. I quickly wipe it on my shoulder.

  She’s watching me with concern, or maybe pity. “I don’t know what you’ve been told about me. But if Elder Kauko was the messenger, I imagine it was quite bad. And quite false.” She takes a cautious step closer. “He was never your ally, Ansa.”

  “Stop calling me by my name as if you know me!” I shout.

  She drops quickly to one knee and bows her head. “Shall I call you by your title, then?” She raises her gaze to mine. “My Valtia.”

  For some reason, that dredges up a wave of sick that curls my body in on itself. I shove her away as she reaches for me, even though the feel of her hands on my cheeks was a brush of heaven. I stare at the pitted rock beneath me, watching the flames flicker lazily in their damp recesses. “I didn’t know what I was,” I tell her. “I didn’t know until he told me.”

  “I thought I knew exactly what I was,” she replies. “Until the time came for me to be that thing. And then I wasn’t.”

  I look up at her. “You’re a pretender. A fraud. You hold this throne with a lie.”

  “Yes,” she says, her blue eyes, so similar to Thyra’s, so similar to mine. “But I do it to keep others safe.”

  “You do it for power, like everyone else.”

  “You don’t know me, my Valtia,” she says in a small voice. “You could if you wanted to, though.”

  The suggestion stirs something inside me that I don’t understand. “We are strangers,” I say. “You are not like me.”

  She laughs again. “How true. But if what Oskar says is accurate, I feel very fortunate to know you.”

  Oskar. “He isn’t dead, then?”

  Her smile dies. “No,” she says softly. “But he’s not well, either.”

  “Good.” I clamp my mouth shut around the question of how he is exactly, and whether he’s warm enough.

  “He didn’t kill your love. Neither did Sig. It was Kauko who used his evil to kill her—and to trick you into seeking vengeance against the wrong target.”

  “I saw them there, in the woods.”

  “They were trying to protect Thyra—from him.”

  I hate this woman. What she’s saying sounds agonizingly like truth. “Thyra was hit from either side with fire and ice. Fire from Sig’s direction, ice from Oskar’s.”

  “Both of which Kauko, having drunk your blood, was perfectly capable. Oskar and Sig were there as your allies. Kauko is the true enemy, and if you search your heart, I think you will realize that has always been true. Don’t let him continue to use you now. It would be the ultimate betrayal of your Thyra.”

  “Stop saying her name as if you knew her.”

  “I would never claim such a privilege, Valtia. But I believe I know the type of soul she had. Oskar has the same kind of soul. The kind that will give its all to protect those he loves.”

  “Don’t compare them!” It comes out of me weak as I think about him on his knees, trying to keep the fire away from all of us, away from the city.

  Elli reaches for me and I shrink away. “You still care for him,” she says. “Like you used to.”

  “I don’t know him,” I say with a snarl.

  “You’ll remember if you give yourself permission.”

  I can barely remember my own name. Everything inside me is wrong and upside down. Even my magic. It sparks in my marrow, jittery like sudden raindrops in a puddle. I shudder.

  Her brow furrows. “You don’t feel good.”

  There is nothing I can say to that. I feel as I have felt so often in the last many months, unstable and ready to strike like a lightning bolt, hurting and ready to fly apart, raging and ready to burn, needing to run but no legs beneath me. I’ve lost Thyra, I’ve lost my fellow warriors, I’ve lost my tribe, I’ve lost any hope for fulfilling my promises. I have nothing except revenge left
to me, and here I am, alone with the impostor. My trembling fingers flex over the harsh stones beneath me. I can kill her now. The others will try to take me down, and maybe they will succeed, but they can’t save her.

  She was foolish enough to come down here alone.

  With a swift kick, I sweep her legs out from under her, and with a cry she topples to the floor. Before she can roll, I’m on her back, and my arm slides across her throat. She lets out a little helpless yip before I cut off her air. Fire and ice are knives stabbing at me from the inside out as I squeeze the life from her.

  She heaves and bucks, but she’s weak and soft. Prey. I feel the tremors in her body now as it fights to keep life from escaping.

  But then she lays her hand over mine. My mouth drops open as a heavy tingling courses across my skin.

  It’s not magic.

  It’s the opposite of magic. It’s numbness and nothing and I can’t do a thing to resist it. The power peels itself away from my bones and flows to the place where our skin touches. It is irresistible and unstoppable, and I sink into the feeling as my strength leaves me.

  As soon as my grip loosens, she jerks her shoulder up, and I slide off her like a sack of grain. I lie on my back, panting, and say the last thing I want to say.

  “Touch me again.”

  Her face is red as a late summer apple and she is wheezing, but she inches forward to obey. Her hands are soft but sure as they slide across my cheeks, as she sits up and looks down at me, holding my face in her hands. I stare up at her, more captive and chained than I’ve ever been. She closes her eyes and lets her head fall back as my magic pours from me, usually so destructive and hateful, now tame and devoted and certain. All of me is tingling, and I don’t want this feeling to stop.

  It’s the first real relief I’ve felt since the cuff of Astia was taken from me. But this is more complete. It’s truer and righter. It is everything.

  “We are one thing,” she whispers, though I’m not sure she’s speaking to me.

  She might not be speaking to me. She’s an impostor who wants to keep her throne. She’s another person who wants to use me. Like Nisse. Like Jaspar. Like Kauko. Even like Thyra, in a way.