The Orphan Queen

by Jodi Meadows

  The Peacock Inn wasn’t much to look at. The brick building boasted deteriorating columns and fading peacock feathers painted on the shutters. The windows here were just holes, no glass, so the patrons’ shouts and laughter and boasting fell from the inn like punches. Along its western face, the required mirrors were cracked, their reflections distorted.

  I checked the rooftops one last time as we ducked inside the hot, noisy taproom. The stench of smoke and stale beer made my stomach roll as we wove through the crowd. A man’s hand strayed toward my leg, but retreated when I flicked my dagger from its sheath.

  “I hate coming in this way,” Melanie muttered as we made our way to the stairwell at the back of the taproom.

  “Me too.” Besides a few battered weapons and trinkets, there wasn’t even anything good to steal. But with Black Knife out there, we needed to stick to the ground. We needed not to draw attention to ourselves.

  The stairs groaned and creaked as we ascended. A heavy, musty scent huddled on the top floor, all dust and disuse; lots of people didn’t stay the night here, but came for the cheap beer and general camaraderie.

  Weariness tugged at me as I knocked in a quick pattern, then pushed open the door.

  A single candle lit the room: Patrick studied a stack of papers by its light, the knifelike planes of his face made sharper in the shadows, while Theresa and Connor dozed sitting up on the bed. Tattered blankets and old clothes covered them.

  “I wasn’t expecting you for a few more hours.” Patrick didn’t even look up from his work. We’d receive his attention only when necessary.

  “We both went to the drop,” Melanie said. “We came right over.”

  “It takes two of you to deliver a report now?” Patrick shoved his papers to the other end of the desk and looked up at us, palm flat up and waiting.

  Theresa and Connor yawned and sat straight at the sound of voices. Theresa’s eyes were bloodshot, and the skin around them puffy and irritated. She’d been crying. Connor had, too.

  A chill swept through me as I dropped the report into Patrick’s hand. “What’s wrong? Why did you send for us?”

  “There’s been some news.” He cracked the report seal and began reading, ignoring the curious way Melanie looked at him. Whatever his news was, we wouldn’t hear any more about it until he was finished with our report. It was bad, though, whatever it was. Undercurrents of unease flowed from all of us—except Patrick. He was as stoic as ever.

  I lit a few more candles and checked that the window shutters were fastened, then took my perch on the windowsill. Theresa looked stricken as Connor scurried over to stand beside me. His curly hair was too long, and rumpled from sleep. Red splotched his face.

  “Hey,” I murmured, slipping him the folded letter I’d written earlier. It seemed so pointless now. “Are you all right?”

  He shook his head, and his voice was rough with threatening tears. “Patrick said not to say anything until he was ready.”

  Because only Patrick got to make announcements.

  I pressed my hand onto his bony shoulder, the only measure of comfort I could offer now.

  Melanie and I exchanged glances as she dropped to the bed beside Theresa. Before, they’d looked as though they could be sisters, with their lean bodies hardened from work and a constant hunger that was never sated. Now, the difference between them was startling. Melanie’s skin was clean of the ever-present grime that covered the Ospreys, and her face and arms were filling out, thanks to regular meals. In contrast, Theresa’s collarbone stood sharp and shelflike.

  We waited in tense silence while Patrick flipped pages and sighed. Finally, he pushed the report away and looked from Melanie to me, disappointment clear in his expression. “That’s it? You didn’t find anything about the resistance groups?”

  My stomach dropped. In my annoyance over the summons and catching Black Knife spying on me, I’d forgotten that I changed the report.

  “What?” Melanie surged up from the bed, shock written on her face. “We did find the resistance groups. Rather, I did.”

  Everyone stared at me. Seconds stretched.

  “What did you do?” Melanie grabbed for the paper. Her mouth hung open as she skimmed through the letter written in her handwriting. The pages fluttered to the ground. “Wilhelmina. Did you change my report?”

  I lifted my chin. “Yes.” There was no denying it, and trying to explain would accomplish nothing. It would make me look weak. Heart hammering, I faced Patrick. “I wasn’t ready for you to know about the groups.”

  “You thought I wouldn’t find out?” His face showed no trace of his emotions, but his eyes revealed the calculated way he studied and reevaluated me.

  “I knew you would find out.” I slipped off the windowsill and linked my hands behind my back. “I’ve even done all the work to ensure the Indigo Kingdom will no longer pursue them.”

  “So you simply didn’t want me to know.” He stood. “It isn’t your decision whether to withhold information. If I’m to resurrect Aecor—”

  “I do get to decide.” My voice trembled, but only just. “I do get to decide, because I’m going to be queen. Aecor is my kingdom.”

  Patrick turned to Melanie. “Do you have the list?” He was so calm, as though I hadn’t just betrayed him, betrayed Melanie, and betrayed the Ospreys.

  “Not with me. I’ll include it in the next drop.” Her shoulders were tense, and her voice tight. Normally, she was one of the best at disguising her feelings, but around Patrick, she was transparent. She worshipped him. They all did. And I . . . I wasn’t sure what I’d just done.

  He was angry. He wouldn’t show it, but there was a hardness about him. More hardness than usual.

  I put aside that worry for now, but didn’t relax my posture. “What is the news you mentioned earlier?”

  Patrick leveled his gaze on me. “Later. I have further instructions for you regarding your time in the palace.”

  Further instructions? Did he not hear me say that I was going to be queen? Not him?

  “I want you to kill—”

  “No.” There was so much force behind the word that I hardly recognized my own voice. “I will not kill anyone. I’ve told you before: Ospreys are not murderers.”

  The room was silent again. Connor was back on the bed, sitting close to Theresa, who just looked on with red eyes.

  “I will be Queen of Aecor. Infiltrating Skyvale Palace is one thing. Because of what Melanie and I have done there, Aecorian soldiers will be returned to their families. Resistance groups will be safe while the Indigo Army searches incorrect locations.”

  Patrick’s stare was piercing. “You’ve done well. But that does not mean your work is finished.”

  No, it wasn’t finished. Not even close.

  “I won’t kill anyone.”

  Patrick bowed his head. “I can see you will not.” He stepped forward, his voice low and clipped and menacing. “But before you decide you no longer need my help, I want you to remember who freed you all from the orphanage nine years ago. When we return to Aecor and you sit on the vermilion throne, who will fight the war to keep you there?”

  My jaw ached from clenching it.

  “I will fight your war, Wilhelmina, just as I swore to you years ago. And if you are as wise as you think you are, you’ll take me as your king so that Aecor will have at least one strong leader.”

  What?

  He stood before me, his eyes level with mine. “One true heir, lost in the heat of the One-Night War. A queen risen again. The kind of triumphant return that shines in the history books. And at her side, a hero of the Aecorian Revolution.”

  “You will not be my king.”

  His eyes narrowed. On the bed, Theresa and Connor held deathly still.

  “You will be my general. My adviser. Perhaps even my friend. But never my king.”

  Drunks shouted downstairs. Wind howled outside. Dogs barked in the distance. But the room was an island of tense, smothering silence.

&nbs
p; I stood my ground, my jaw clenched so tight it ached.

  Patrick’s expression remained hard. “We shall see, Wilhelmina.”

  The rustle of paper broke our stare. Connor was looking at the note I’d written for him.

  “Tell me why you summoned us here tonight.” I motioned at Theresa and Connor. “Why have they been crying?”

  “They were the ones who wanted you here for the news.” Patrick held himself straighter, as though he’d won. “I’ve received word from Ronald regarding the supply caravan mission.”

  “Quinn’s assignment.” The words were a breath.

  “The mission was a success. The supplies have been captured and hidden.” Patrick’s tone betrayed no emotion. “Unfortunately, Quinn and Ezra are dead.”

  FIFTEEN

  “WHAT DO YOU mean they’re dead?” The words sounded hollow in the small room. Cold crept through the cracks around the window, hardening me. Connor and Theresa both looked at their folded hands.

  Patrick heaved a sigh as he rifled through a stack of papers. “Here’s Ronald’s report.”

  I snatched it from his hand and moved toward a candle to read. Ezra had been caught stealing supplies, Quinn had run to help, and they had both been killed. Ronald had seen everything from his station, and though he’d tried to save them, he’d been too late. The siblings had already been stabbed through their guts by the time he arrived, and he’d needed to pretend he didn’t care about what happened—that he was part of the caravan guards. . . .

  The paper fluttered to the floor as I turned my glare on Patrick. “You did this. You sent them on that mission. I told you it was too dangerous, and you sent them anyway.”

  “We all take risks—”

  “Yes, I know. ‘Everything we do is a calculated risk.’ Start calculating better, Patrick. We don’t have many Ospreys left.”

  Patrick straightened. “We will need those supplies, and we couldn’t let the Indigo Army have them.”

  “No!” I banged my fist on the desk. “This was a stupid risk for a few supplies the Indigo Army will barely miss. You should have let them take the supplies to Aecor and had our contacts already there steal them. There are a hundred different things you could have done instead—”

  He turned on his heel and left the room. The door slammed behind him.

  Melanie folded her arms across her chest, her shoulders hunched over. “Great. Are you happy? You’ve hurt him.”

  My jaw clenched around the words. “Meanwhile, Quinn and Ezra are dead. Somehow, Patrick’s feelings aren’t that important to me. And you! You voted with him. You’re both responsible.”

  Her eyes went wide, as though I’d hit her, and she spun and left the room after Patrick.

  My heart ached with her betrayal, but I forced myself to stand tall. Theresa and Connor were still here, both of them sitting on the bed and making themselves small.

  I took a long breath and let my posture soften. “I’m sorry, Rees. Connor.”

  Theresa lifted her eyes. “Do you think this is worth it? Is reclaiming the kingdom worth this kind of life?”

  I didn’t know what to say—if there was anything to say. I wasn’t good at comforting others, even when I wanted to try. We’d all seen too much death to believe the pain would ever go away, to believe that these emotional wounds would ever heal. No, for us, there was only revenge.

  “We’ll make it up to them, Rees.” My words tasted sour. Quinn and Ezra were dead. How could I make up for that kind of sacrifice? It wasn’t as if they’d know we succeeded one day. I couldn’t bring them back and give them the life they deserved. “When we take back Aecor, memorials will be built in their honor. There will be weeks of mourning. Annual days of remembrance. We won’t forget them, just like we haven’t forgotten the others.”

  “Maybe if I’d gone with them—” Connor bit his lip. “I could have done something to help.”

  “No.” I squeezed his shoulder, trying not to imagine what could have happened if he’d gone, too.

  “He was my best friend.”

  “I know he was.” Fiercely, I hugged Theresa and Connor. I hated to leave them, but Melanie’s voice sounded outside the door—she was talking to Patrick—and I didn’t want to be here when they returned. I couldn’t look at Patrick right now.

  With a whispered good-bye, I threw myself out the inn window and took to the rooftops.

  My heart and soul and mind grew numb as I wandered through the night. Aimless. Rooftop to rooftop. Quinn and Ezra were dead.

  Dead.

  Because Patrick had sent them on a mission I’d known they couldn’t handle. I’d backed off because of the stupid vote, but I should have pushed. I should have insisted Patrick wait, or send someone more experienced, or not try at all.

  I should have protected them.

  They must have been so terrified as the guards swung down their swords. As the pain cut hot and deep and then stopped hurting altogether. As they held each other in their last moments.

  Patrick had been wrong to send them.

  He was wrong to think I’d allow him to be king alongside me.

  And if he was wrong about those things, what did that mean about our method for taking back Aecor, or even my ability to be queen?

  The uncertainty was a fog, heavy and blinding. I wanted to do what was best for my friends and kingdom, but what was best?

  If only my parents were alive to help me.

  Wearily, I climbed to the highest point in White Flag and listened to the faint notes of a fiddle somewhere below. Quinn had always wanted to learn to play. Thunder rumbled in the west, and a fast, cool wind tugged at my clothes. I closed my eyes and breathed in the scent of the oncoming storm. A thread of wraith wove through the air, enough to mask the putrid odors of White Flag.

  The fiddle strings screeched, and a scream cut through my fog.

  I stumbled, barely catching myself as a gust of wind almost tore me from the roof, and the scream came again from the street. A high-pitched girl’s scream.

  Desperately, I threw myself downward, into the almost empty streets. A fiddle bow went skidding across the cracked cobbles, just in front of where my feet hit the ground. Some of the hairs had been sliced apart, but the stick was still intact.

  I snatched up the bow and ran toward the screams.

  A wiry man bore down on a girl—a young woman not much older than Quinn had been. “We agreed to thirty. If you give me twenty-five, you still owe me.” He sneered when she staggered backward and her back hit a shop wall.

  “I don’t have more.”

  “What about that?” He nodded at her fiddle, lying on the ground like a discarded toy.

  “But then I can’t work—”

  He slapped her hard across the face. Red welts had already formed from previous blows.

  My footsteps were silent from years of training, so they noticed me only when I peeled from the shadows, fiddle bow in hand like a weapon. I slowed my steps as I came within striking distance. “Leave her alone.” Mine was a stranger’s voice, all deadly calm in the spaces between peals of thunder.

  “What are you going to do?” The man didn’t even look amused, just angry at the intrusion as he glanced from my face to the bow and back. “Another fiddler?”

  “I’ve never tried the fiddle, but I think I’d be good at it.” I smacked the bow across the man’s neck. Wood stung skin with a loud clap. “That was a nice sound. Let me try again.”

  He swore and staggered back a step.

  With long, steady strides, I advanced on the man, striking his cheeks and throat and shoulders in quick succession. He grimaced each time until his hand shot out and he gripped the bow before it hit him again. The wood snapped.

  I tried to jerk back, but he was stronger and yanked the bow out of my grasp.

  “Who are you?”

  I didn’t want to talk. I wanted to fight.

  Wraithy wind gusted through the dark streets, and I pushed aside all thought of consequence and let instin
ct take over. I punched him hard in the jaw. Kicked him in the gut. Shoved him against a building like he’d done to the girl, and brought the heel of my palm against his teeth. Something cracked in his mouth, and blood oozed down his chin.

  He grunted and drew back to hit me, but I grabbed his wrist and shoulder and kneed him between the legs. With a shout, he doubled over, clutching his groin.

  I smirked and scooped up the broken fiddle bow on my way back to the girl. “You’re going to need a new one.” I tossed her the bow parts and the silver bracelet I’d lifted earlier, and she caught everything in fumbling hands. “Now run.”

  “Thank you!” She stopped only to collect her instrument before racing down the street.

  Pain flared across the back of my head, and white flashed in my vision as the man hit me.

  I drew my daggers and spun to face him. Nothing could stop me now.

  The sharp odor of his blood dripped through the street, a contrast to the putrid stench of waste and rot and decay. I left thin slices in his hands and forearms, anywhere I could quickly reach as he struggled to block his throat and face.

  The man had no proper training; he was just a thug who liked intimidating people with the palm of his hand. He didn’t back off, though, even when I laid a gash in his chest. His shirt hung in tatters.

  Harder and harder, I kicked him and sliced him, driving him back against the stone wall of a shop. He was wearing down, gasping and gulping for air. He wouldn’t last much longer. Already he slumped, and blood smeared across his face and soaked his clothes. The copper stink of it filled my nose.

  “Hold him,” I whispered to the wall. “Wake up and hold him.”

  The surface of the stone heated and liquefied. The man howled wordlessly as the wall grew hotter, boiling against his body. The reek of scalding cloth and flesh made my eyes water, but I swallowed the faint nausea as the rock cooled again and became solid, holding him by his shirt and the outer layers of his skin. He groaned, and was unconscious.

  “Sleep,” I told the wall.

  Thunder rattled the street as I drew back my dagger and steeled myself. The tip pointed to his abdomen. All I had to do was thrust.