The Orphan Queen

by Jodi Meadows

  They were glowmen.

  TWENTY-TWO

  I MOVED AS quietly as possible, shimmying down the side of the tree opposite from where the glowmen were approaching. My belongings were already in my bag, and I hadn’t unsaddled Ferguson the whole way. If I could get down, tighten the girth, and adjust the bridle without being spotted . . .

  My toes breezed over the ground. I felt around for a heartbeat to make sure I didn’t do something stupid like step on a twig and alert the whole wraithland to my presence. But my footing was good, and I lowered myself from the tree and crept around the trunk.

  Torchlight silhouetted my horse. Metal clanked on his bridle as he swung his head around to look at me.

  “Hush,” I whispered, running my palms over his sweat-dampened neck. Reins snaked around my fingers, alive.

  Strangling a gasp, I jerked back my hands and stared hard at the leather straps, but they hung against Ferguson’s withers, inanimate again. Maybe the motion had been my imagination.

  Even if it had been real, I had to hurry.

  “I heard something!” The crashing of glowmen was louder and nearer.

  Quickly, I tightened the bridle and girth, but just as I hooked my bag onto the saddle, enormous hands grabbed me from behind and lifted.

  “Got it!” The giant hands squeezed my torso.

  Air whooshed from my lungs. I flailed, blindly groping for the saddle, as though I could still pull myself onto the horse, but Ferguson was straining against his tether, fighting to get away from the glowman.

  “Hold it still. We want to see.” The rest of the pack crashed through the woods, waving their torch around as though they didn’t care about setting the whole place ablaze.

  I kicked backward, but I couldn’t reach him. I was high above my horse—almost as high as I’d been in the tree. These glowmen were bigger than the ones I’d fought in Skyvale, probably from being out here in the wraith so long. Already, dizziness buzzed in my head. The giant’s grip tightened, making my ribs ache.

  “It squirms.” His voice was like thunder, vibrating through my bones.

  Blackness swarmed in my vision. My breaths were shallow gasps.

  The others came nearer and peered at me, their huge, malformed faces gaping. The stink of sour breath rolled over me. I couldn’t reach the weapons at my hip.

  “Let me see it.” One of the others grabbed for me. The fingers around my waist loosened and I sucked in a lungful of air as I was passed from one monstrosity to the next. But it wasn’t enough. My ribs ached, making every breath like fire. “It has no face. Only eyes.”

  “I want to look.” Another glowman plucked me from the other’s grip, this time by my elbow.

  Torchlight burned my eyes as I swung through the air, but finally I could breathe and had one arm free.

  With a hacking cough, I drew my sword and sliced open the glowman’s wrist. Blood sprayed and I dropped, my knees and knuckles slamming into the ground. But I kept my grip on my sword. Nothing could make me drop it.

  “You’re so stupid!” One of the glowmen shoved the one who’d dropped me. “You have to hold on to them.”

  I scrambled to my feet, out of the way of grasping hands, and drove my sword deep into a giant foot.

  The glowman yowled and staggered into the others, knocking over some. One reached for me, but I was faster. I stabbed another in the knee. Blood oozed down the length of my sword.

  The ground shuddered and brush cracked. The night was chaos: glowmen fighting one another, grabbing for me, and the sudden howling of a beast nearby. It had scented blood.

  I swung my blade high once more, slicing knees and calves. The nearest glowman tried to bat me into the woods, but I lifted my sword at the last second; his fingers came off.

  The baying of beasts grew closer. I spun and ran for Ferguson. The poor thing shied, but there was nowhere for him to go. Already the rope stretched and creaked.

  I heaved myself onto the saddle and cut the tether. We snapped away, galloping at full speed as an enormous, bear-shaped shadow descended on the pack of glowmen. Screams chased us down the road, but I kept myself low over Ferguson’s neck as his body stretched and folded in a panicked run.

  We didn’t stop when droplets of horse sweat misted across my face. We didn’t stop when the sounds of the dying glowmen faded into the distance. We didn’t stop when the sun lifted into the violet sky.

  Only when Ferguson had run himself out did we slow to a shaky-legged walk while he caught his breath.

  I could have died. My horse, too. We could have died, and no one would have known where I’d gone, except Melanie and Black Knife. She had threatened to come after me if I didn’t return on time, and he . . . I didn’t know.

  But they’d been right to worry, right to be afraid for me. What happened if I died? What would happen to the Ospreys, especially the ones with secrets they didn’t understand? Or Aecor? I’d been so flip when I told Melanie that Patrick would figure out something to do.

  It was midmorning by the time I halted Ferguson at a stream and let him drink. I trembled all over as I freed him from his tack and set about rinsing the blood and sweat that covered both of us. The work steadied my thoughts, if not my body, and by the time we were on the move again, walking toward the setting sun, I knew one thing for sure:

  I would do anything to survive out here. Anything to get back to the people I cared about.

  I moved deeper into the wraithland over the next few days, stopping to draw and catalogue the things I saw and heard: a rosebush with thorns for petals; whispers in the wind, urging one another to run and hide; grass with serrated blades so sharp Ferguson whinnied and had to go around; and the distant rumble of wraith creatures—dogs and hawks and all manner of other beasts turned sour by magical waste.

  At night, I slept in trees to avoid the glowmen that roamed the woods, and the mice as big as cats. Not that trees meant safety, as I’d already discovered, but they were still the best option and I trained myself to doze for only a few hours before moving a league down the road to doze again.

  Once, a tree began to nibble at my shoulder in the middle of the night, and I tumbled to the ground. No, the trees weren’t safe.

  My sixth day out of West Pass Watch, I reached the village I’d set out to find. Or what was left of it.

  The buildings rose out of the dust like a giant’s toys. They stood haphazardly, where they stood at all. Bricks had toppled over under the siege of storms, or something worse. If scorpions and cats grew to horrendous proportions when affected by wraith, what about larger predators?

  I swallowed hard as Ferguson clip-clopped over the dry dirt road and stopped. The road ahead lifted into the air, curling around like a ribbon, with nothing supporting it before it dove back into the earth. It didn’t look safe, and if my horse didn’t want to put his hooves on it, I wouldn’t make him.

  Still, I needed to look, because according to my map, the mysterious lake was nearby. Indeed, a liquid glimmer shone beyond the shops and houses, near the high brick walls of a nobleman’s country estate.

  This was what I’d come to see.

  Gathering my nerves, I nudged Ferguson to walk closer to the shops and houses, away from the road.

  The buildings were stone, but many had the texture of wood. They’d been petrified. Glass windows had melted and run down the walls like tears, freezing that way.

  I peered inside the first building we reached.

  Faces stared back out at me: grotesque, horrified faces of the dead, like insects in amber. They grasped for windows and doorways, never reaching safety. Whatever they were trapped in, it was transparent, so every detail of their death was unsettlingly preserved, but it was also solid and hard, and sheered off at the windows or doors, as though it had known where it reached the boundary of the building.

  One of the women trapped inside blinked.

  I yelped, causing Ferguson to scramble away, but when I guided him toward the window again, the woman looked as dead as eve
r. I’d imagined it. Maybe.

  Trying not to heave, I moved on, following the gleam of the lake behind the far buildings. My goal was so close; if there was anything out here that might give insight to a way to stop the wraith rather than simply mitigate the effects, I would find it.

  Unseasonably bright green leaves sprouted from a tree in the center of the village, but its trunk was twisted and bent so that the top branches dug into the ground; the roots reached up through the earth to touch the pale sunlight. It was strange; even though there were no clouds, a thick haze obscured everything. Even the mountains in the distance were lost to the fog of wraith.

  It was as though the world ended with that fog. There was nothing beyond. I was alone on an island of wraith and horror.

  But the lake was close by.

  Halfway through the village, I dismounted Ferguson and collected my weapons and writing utensils. It was hard to say what information might turn out useful when I returned to Skyvale, especially information from around the rumor-rich Mirror Lake.

  I grabbed a snack and left some oats for Ferguson, and headed toward the lake and the large country manor beyond, keeping clear of the levitating road.

  Several times, I paused and balanced my notebook on my knee in order to sketch and make notes on the state of the village. How far was I from the lake? Not very far, so if there were any unusual properties to the water, they didn’t extend into the village.

  A low, metal wall ran along the western side of the village, curving around the lakeshore and manor. Once, it had been pieced together in scales, giving the illusion of an immense snake. After the wraith had broken through, huge sections had been flattened against the earth, while others had been pulled off as if by giant hands. Several sections were just gone—tossed into the lake.

  My heart pounded as I made my way toward the lake. Bare, scraggly trees grew around its still surface, though there was something odd about their branches hanging over the water.

  I stepped over rocks and rubble, around brush with twigs that reached like fingers. This shore was covered with brown, brittle grass that crunched under my boots as though coated with frost. The lake spread out before me, motionless even with the breeze that rustled across the rest of the world.

  “How strange,” I whispered as I moved along the edge of the lake.

  Palm-sized scales of metal gleamed in the weak light. I plucked one off the ground. It was silver, tarnished with time, and warm, though not from sunlight. Haze still obscured the sky.

  But when I glanced up, there was a hole in the haze, the exact shape of the lake beneath it.

  The lake was blue, reflecting bright sky. The branches that hung over the water looked healthier—more alive in spite of the oncoming winter. I couldn’t even say what exactly looked different about them, just that they did.

  I pocketed several scales and wandered over to the barrier to inspect it more closely.

  Where it was still intact, the wall was only waist-high and a few scales thick. Most of this area of the barrier lay scattered across the lakeshore, though, or beneath the water. I could almost hear echoes of the panic the refugee maid had described, with people trampling one another to escape the flood of wraith.

  This part of Liadia must have been hit first, and the hardest. It was on the western edge of the country, and right on the barrier. When the barrier failed, there’d have been no warning.

  Some had been trapped. Others had gone mad. Most had likely died.

  Precious few had escaped across the terrifying remains of their kingdom and into the neighboring mountains, only to be forced into refugee camps in the Indigo Kingdom. Dirty. Hungry. But alive.

  I let my gaze follow the length of the barrier, running north. It curved around the manor house and grounds, and then was lost beyond the fog and forest.

  This was what magic use created. This was why Black Knife hunted flashers, and why the Indigo Order was merciless, and why the Wraith Alliance had been written. This was terrible, the worst thing I’d ever seen—and I’d seen so much—so why had my parents refused the treaty? Why had they allowed magic use to continue, if this was the consequence?

  Because they believed magic was acceptable in emergencies, as long as it wasn’t relied upon? That was what I’d always thought, though with little proof, but what if there was more to it than that?

  I returned to the very edge of the lake until the toes of my boots grazed the water. The depths were crystalline, offering a perfect view of fish and plants and barrier scales scattered along the green bottom.

  The water was cold with autumn, but it didn’t feel strange or magical when I dipped my fingers in, then shook off the droplets. The only thing unusual about Mirror Lake was that there was nothing unusual about it. It reflected a clear, unblemished sky, with healthy branches hanging over the water. And these things were normal outside the reflection, too.

  It was as though the wraith didn’t touch the lake. Because of the barrier pieces?

  Maybe my parents had wondered if there was a magical solution to the wraith, and didn’t want the Wraith Alliance to prevent them from pursuing that option. That seemed possible.

  For an hour I roamed around the edge of the lake, pausing to fill pages with notes and drawings of the landscape.

  In the village, Ferguson gave a loud, annoyed snort.

  “Just a minute,” I muttered. Bossy horse.

  Wind picked up as I was sketching the shape of the silver scales. My paper rustled, and the ink dried on my pen. I shivered and found another angle, protecting my work from the wraithy grit that rose, but the wind followed me, twisting around my body like a serpent.

  Run away, the wind whispered. Hide now.

  Ferguson whinnied and yanked at his lead. Whites shone around his eyes and his cries grew more panicked.

  Hands shaking, I wiped off my pen nib, closed the ink bottle, and threw them in their case. Wind tugged at my clothes, dragging everything sideways. With my supplies secured, I scrambled to my feet and adjusted the black mask, scanning the area for anything dangerous—anything the wind might be warning me about.

  There was nothing.

  Ferguson stamped and jerked against his lead as rain hissed all over town. But the sky was still that hazy blue.

  Rain flew upward from the earth, and the sky became a wide, sucking mouth. Clouds shot up from the ground and became teeth.

  I screamed and ran for Ferguson. Water poured up my trouser legs and jacket, caught inside my mouth and nose, even through the silk mask. I grasped around my face, struggling to keep from drowning as I ran toward the edge of town.

  Run away. Hide now, the wind chuckled in my ears.

  Ferguson wrenched himself free from the tree where I’d tied him. Hooves thumped, coming closer, louder and louder as rain drove harder.

  Blackness swarmed in from the west, and the sky went dark—everywhere except directly over the water. Dots of darkness flaked off where they flew too close over Mirror Lake, and then I could see nothing beyond my outstretched arm. Just rain.

  For a moment, the only thing I could hear was my ragged breathing as I ran. My footsteps pounded the wet ground as I reached for Ferguson. He’d been close just a moment ago.

  Then came the buzzing. It was loud, low, and a constant drone that filled my ears completely.

  Something small hit my arm, like a pebble. Another struck my cheek. A lump crunched under my boot and then the swarm descended.

  Bugs—thousands and thousands—hurled themselves onto the village. They flew down in torrents, thudding and beating in the rain. Prickly legs scratched at my hands and forearms, climbed up my jacket and trousers. They caught on the silk of my mask, creeping in through the eye slit to touch my face.

  I screamed and scratched at the bugs, but they poured into my mouth. I spat them out, but I couldn’t breathe against the hard little bodies all trying to crawl up my nose. Their legs pried at my lips. They skittered around to the back of my neck and into my hair.

 
; I turned back and ran for the lake, but the bugs and rain were so dense I’d lost all sense of direction. I slammed into a building, bugs crunching between my body and the wall, long legs pricking at my skin.

  My heart raced as the droning grew deafening. I stomped and kicked, but there were so many bugs and they were everywhere. Panic brought one note of clarity: I would die.

  No.

  I had to do something.

  Anything.

  I coughed, spitting bugs. My voice was garbled. “Air!” I thrust my hands out, though leggy little bugs just caught on my fingers and crawled up my sleeves. “Wake up!”

  Thunder joined the droning. Drumming built inside my head as the bugs crept inside my shirt and into the strip of silk binding down my breasts.

  I clawed the bugs away from my mouth. “Save me!”

  “Wilhelmina!”

  Wind blew from all directions, harder than the rain, more relentless than the bugs. I staggered and fell as the wind shouted my name again and again.

  And then everything went silent.

  TWENTY-THREE

  I AWOKE FLAT on my back with my limbs splayed akimbo, resting on a prickly bed. Sunlight beat into my eyes. My clothes were dry, though I vividly recalled rain. And insects.

  The bugs shifted beneath me when I sat up and pulled off my mask. Small, hard bodies dropped out of the silk.

  As far as I could see, there was nothing but long-legged bugs covering the ground. They half buried the houses and stores, all the remnants of this town. The lake, too, was spotted with patches of bugs floating on the surface, obscuring the reflection of morning sunlight.

  Morning sunlight. It had been afternoon when the swarm descended, but now it was morning. How long had I been unconscious? Where was my horse?

  My breath grew short as I scrambled to my feet, shaking grasshoppers from my clothes and hair. Something scraped my throat when I inhaled—and my stomach flipped. I gagged and spat grasshopper legs until there was nothing left and my mouth was raw.

  “What did I do?” The words tasted sour. This was wrong. All wrong.