Queen of the Struggle

by Nik Korpon

  “We had reports that a group of ändes were set loose in a village one hour north of you. There are no known operatives there. What do you make of that?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe someone forgot to lock the gate.”

  “Or ripped the lock open.”

  “Or that. Sure.”

  “Then I will ask you again, and for the last time.” He pauses, making sure I understand the situation. “What do you have on Nyväg?”

  I hear Dyvik and Lyxzä’s words in my ears, see the ändes inside my head, feel the rush of freeing them pounding through my veins. But I also hear Emeríann’s voice, see the look on Donael’s face while running free across the grass, feel the roughness of Cobb’s skin.

  “Nothing yet, Ødven,” I say. “But I’m listening.”

  “You do not want to disappoint me.”

  “I understand that, but you’ve set me up in a place I know nothing about to surveil a group I know nothing about who speaks a language I don’t speak, so when I say I’m trying–”

  The quality on the other end of the line changes, and I realize he hung up after he said his piece. Asshole.

  I hang up the phone and return to the table. Donael jumps on me as soon as I sit.

  “Is it right that Ødven is basically killing these people? For what, towels folded into fish shapes or something?”

  “He’s not killing them.” I try not to sound too exasperated, trying to keep the balance in my head, somewhere between supporting Nyväg and their call for freedom, making sure Ødven is happy, and keeping Donael from joining a revolution, without sounding like I’m favoring one faction over the other. “Exploiting them, yes, but not killing them.”

  Donael leans forward, his head drooping though his eyes not leaving me. “Are you defending him?”

  “No, I’m not defending him, but I am aware that people here have a much higher standard of living than we did in Eitan.” Donael starts to speak but I hold up my hand to stop him. “And I don’t know what it was like for you two at Walleus’s. He never brought me into his place for reasons that are now obvious. But I can damn well guarantee that the rest of Eitan did not live like you all did. Emeríann did wonders to our apartment to even make it that nice for you.”

  “It wasn’t that nice,” he says, in a tone somewhere between reassuring and a cheap shot.

  “Exactly. Even we had it better than a lot of people. And look around here? Look at this house, at everything we saw in Vårgmannskjør. For shit’s sake, Donael, they have places to warm up and places to sleep if you’re homeless. And they don’t even call them homeless, they call them goddamned guests.” I take a breath to rein in my voice, realizing I’m getting angrier the more I talk. “You know what they call homeless people in Eitan?”

  “Homeless?”

  “Target practice.”

  “Are you jealous because you’re not in charge?” he says.

  My shoulders slump, mouth actually hangs open. The singer yelps, her voice swirling in wild circles. “Are you serious?”

  “It’s a real question. I’ve heard stories about you during the Struggle. People in school used to talk about you, tell us stories their parents told them. I know you and Emeríann started the uprising that took out the Tathadann.” His eyes examine me for a moment. “So are you jealous of Magnus?”

  I force myself to take three breaths, concentrating on the air coming in, the air flowing out, letting the anger out with it because my arms are nearly trembling. If this were Walleus, if this were Dyvik, if this were anyone else other than my son, I would punch them in the throat.

  “No. I am not jealous.” I let the words out slowly, carefully, then clear my throat and tell the music to turn off. It doesn’t listen, mocking me. “And Dyvik was the one who came to me asking for help, not Magnus. I didn’t ask to be involved, but I will sure as hell help them, because that’s what I’ve spent my life doing: fighting for people who need it. That includes Eitan and that includes you two.”

  “We can take care of ourselves.”

  “Not yet, you can’t. And that’s my job as a parent, to look out for you and let you fall as far as you need so you can learn how to take care of yourself completely.”

  “Then why are you arguing with me? You act like I did something wrong.”

  “I never said that, Donael.” I shout at the music to turn off again. It doesn’t.

  “Then why are you arguing with me?”

  “Because I don’t want you to become me!”

  I don’t realize I shouted it until I see the look on Cobb’s face. But Donael, he’s impassive, a piece of stone. I see a flash of Forgall, which gives me a different kind of chill. So many ghosts trapped inside my head. How do I say that to him? How do I explain that every person you kill, every time you watch someone die, some part of you dies with them? I’ve seen whole neighborhoods obliterated. I’ve held scores of friends and fellow rebels as their eyes closed one last time. I’ve trained a pistol on my best friend and watched his forehead absorb my bullet. And each time I’ve gone into the moment as one person and emerged a slightly different one, slightly less a person.

  How the hell can I explain that to a twelve year-old who gets doe-eyed at the talk of armed insurrection?

  But before I can even attempt to parse it, Donael stands from the kitchen table and pushes his chair underneath. I think he’s going to stomp off to his room, throw a fit because Daddy won’t let him join the revolution, but instead he comes around the table and behind me, wraps his arms around my chest. I feel my eyes water involuntarily and wonder where that came from. I lay my hands on his forearms, larger and more muscular than I remember; and when the hell did he start becoming such a young man? I press hard on them, keeping him near to me, holding him close where he can’t get hurt, where I can protect him. He rests his cheek against the back of my head and I close my eyes, try to memorize every contour of this moment.

  After a few beats, he clears his throat.

  “I understand that, Dad, and I appreciate it,” he says. “But I’m not you.”

  He squeezes me tight then lets go and walks down the hallway to his room, leaving Cobb and me at the table. Cobb’s head is tilted down but his eyes flit between the fork in his hand and my face.

  “It’s OK,” I tell him. “You can go.”

  He clicks a few times and gets out of his seat, then pauses as he’s turning toward the room. He scrabbles over to me and slams his body against mine, squeezes me once in his version of a hug, then hurries down the hallway to their room.

  I sit at the table in the empty room, the air vibrating with jagged guitars and manic clapping, a woman excoriating herself musically, the sunlight streaming through the windows suddenly oppressive. I could be in Brusandhåv. I could be in Eitan. I could be anywhere in the world or I could be nowhere.

  Donael doesn’t want me to watch out for him, I understand. It’s as inevitable a part of him becoming a man as me fretting about everything is part of being a parent. At points I wonder if I’m overcompensating, if I’m trying to make up for the years we were separated – or the years I chose to be in the field instead of in our house – by cramming all that parenting into the last six months. If my father had been around, would he have tried to stop me from speaking out against the Tathadann? Would he have warned me against fomenting insurrection? Or would he have joined in? Hell, part of the reason I began was because I thought he had been killed. I’m still here, yet Donael still wants to fight. Is it just in our blood? Maybe me constantly warning him away from fighting is only pushing him harder toward it. Maybe sitting back and letting him make his own decision is the best way to keep him from harm. Because when it comes down to it, I can’t force him to do anything. If he wants to go bad enough, he’ll find a way. The same way I did.

  A thump pulls me from the depths of my skull. I look around, the sunlight disorienting me for a moment. Someone knocks on the door again.

  There’s a young man, twenty or so, standing in front of our
lodging. But in normal clothing, not the grey fatigues of Ragjarøn or the severe black wear of Nyväg.

  “Are you Henraek Laersen?” he says.

  “Why? Who’s asking?” My fingers twitch, flexing for the knife at my waist.

  “I have a message for Henraek Laersen,” the young man says. “Are you him?”

  “Message from who?” Ødven just rang. There’s no reason for him to send a message.

  “I don’t know. It was smuggled onto the boat that arrived yesterday. I’m just supposed to deliver.” He hands me a thin plastic tube. “All I know is it came from Ardu Oéann.”

  I snatch it away from the young man and close the door. It’s from home. It’s from Emeríann. She’s OK, she’s alive, she’s written to me. I try to pry off the end but it’s sealed with glue. I rear it back to smash the plastic, then realize I might accidentally rip the message, so I wedge the edge of my knife against the lip of the lid and tap until the seal breaks. I turn it up and a small piece of paper slides out.

  Standing in the light near the window, I unfold the paper carefully. One side is slightly tacky, the edges pilled up. Looks like the paper Aífe used to line our cabinets, which I always thought was the most useless invention.

  The paper unfolded, I flip it over and see Emeríann’s scrawled handwriting. Letters tracked out in dark brown, smudges all over. Blood. Her own blood.

  Then I read what she’s written and all the breath rushes from my lungs. My legs disappear and my hands are autonomous hunks of meat. Everything I just said to Dyvik, to Ødven, to Donael, it all comes rushing back.

  They’re in trouble. I have to go back to Eitan.

  But how? Do Dyvik or Magnus know smugglers? Do they have ships capable of getting us there? What will they do about the labor farms? What will I tell the boys?

  I pace the kitchen for what feels like hours, my eyes running over the letter again and again, hoping to glean something more if I look at it from the right angle.

  Dyvik and Magnus talked about pamphlets, a network of revolutionaries. I’m sure they know someone who can take me. And if they don’t, they’ll find one.

  I’ll help them overthrow Ragjarøn and retake Brusandhåv, but they’re going to help me save Eitan first.

  18.

  EMERÍANN

  I have to admit that I’m starting to regret threatening to gut Brighid and strew her innards across the pilings for rats to eat while she watches, because she’s really coming through with this whole rooming thing.

  I snuggle back under the sheets and take in the sensation of my body sinking into a real mattress, not a sack stuffed with old cloths and rags and blankets. This is a different house, the one that Brighid and her top soldiers are living in, but I’m not sure if the house was commandeered or if the owners fled during the uprising. Although it’s still modest, it’s a step up from the last house, and that was miles beyond what I’m used to. This one has one of those hologram televisions I’ve always heard about but could never afford. You can talk to the oven and tell it how to cook your food and it does – and doesn’t even burn it. Hell, even the water feels cleaner. Aside from the hole in the wall in one of the kids’ room and the manacles one of the soldiers found in the main closet, this house is pretty damn sweet.

  It makes me think about Henraek and wonder how he and the boys are doing. If he’s doing OK, if Donael and Cobb are managing, if he’s managing with Cobb. If he’s lying in bed somewhere thinking about me. To be honest, most things make me think of him. Shit, even seeing that dead pigeon on my pillow upset me because it made me think of Silas. I never expected myself to get sentimental about that disgusting little bastard.

  I wish that there were some way to track the letters I sent Henraek, to ensure that he gets the second one – or instead, ensure he doesn’t get the first. He needs to know that my initial read of Brighid wasn’t correct, lest he go full-Henraek, freak out, and launch himself into one of his white-knight escapades. I’m hoping now that there are few rebels remaining who are trying to destroy everything, things will calm down and Henraek will be able to return to Eitan. Assuming he’s done with whatever “advising” he was supposed to do in Brusandhåv.

  Outside my window, I hear soldiers discussing something. I half-expect it to be Brighid planning our next mission with them, given that she’s always up earlier than anyone. But instead, I hear a different woman’s voice – a distinctive, gravelly one.

  I roll out of bed and set my face beside the window, edging back the curtain with my fingertips. The woman faces away from me, her hair twisted up into a bun now, but I’d recognize that voice anywhere. She gestures wildly with her hands but I can’t hear what she’s saying. She definitely looks pissed, though. I press my fingertips against the ledge of the window and hold my breath as I slide it open slowly, willing it to be silent. Mercifully, it complies.

  “That cunt thinks she can do whatever she wants,” the woman says, “like she’s got a mandate from Nahoeg that her word is command because she had a hand in a couple battles. She doesn’t know what we’re capable of.”

  She’s still pissed about Brighid, but I wonder if she knows that I’m the one who caught her friend. I also wonder who these two soldiers are. I’ve never seen them before, but I’ve only been at this location a short time, short enough that the traitor probably doesn’t even know I’m staying here. Does Brighid know about them?

  “Then she thinks she can suck up to Brighid and get a bump in her position, have a nice, soft bed and not feel any peas under the mattress. Thinks she’s Queen of the Struggle.”

  And apparently she’s talking about me, not Brighid.

  “So we’re going to show her – show both of them – they’re not as bulletproof as they think. We’ve got more reinforcements coming from the east, ready to help us show Eitan how things should really be, not that horseshit Laersen and Daele dealt out.”

  “What’s the deal?” one of the soldiers says.

  “This afternoon, they’re raiding a prism-flower shop in the Straits where some of our people are camped. Lookouts for the armory in that fountain warehouse.” The woman glances around. I move my fingers slightly, enough to keep them from sight but not so much that the whole curtain flutters and draws attention to myself. Seemingly satisfied, she continues. “When the convoy is on the way, someone will crash their car into one parked on the side of the road. The convoy will have to stop, either to help or to move the accident out of the way. Doesn’t matter which.”

  “Because we’ll be right behind them with an arsenal.”

  The woman clucks her tongue and points at the soldier. “They’ll pay for Augie. He was brave and sacrificed himself to protect us. But they’ll pay for him.”

  The soldiers nod and she claps them on the shoulder before striding away.

  I ease the curtain down and sink to my heels, my back against the wall.

  Shit. Shitting shit. What is it going to take to make them stop? Nothing, probably, since they see themselves as carrying on the tradition of the Struggle, but with some massively perverted message that will only end in chaos. And I don’t even know how many members of this faction there are.

  But they are not going to win. No goddamned way.

  I pull on my clothes and head to Brighid’s room. She needs to hear now so we have time to plan accordingly, and so she doesn’t try to murder me. But halfway down the hallway, I pause. They were close enough to my window that I could hear them without being seen. Did they know I was listening? Did they position themselves there for my benefit, letting me hear their plans so I’d report them to Brighid and, when we acted on the ambush, they’d ambush us in a different way? I waver in the hallway, not sure which way to turn. It’s like the thing about someone who lies and someone who always tells the truth. When they say the same thing, how do you know whom to believe?

  No, I need to tell Brighid. Give her the whole picture and we can decide what to do from there. Last time we were lucky we got away unhurt. But I’m not count
ing on our luck lasting.

  “I’ll cut her tongue out.” Brighid paces across the middle of her room, fatigues already on and drinking her third cup of coffee. I’m not sure this woman ever sleeps. “No, I’ll yank it out and tie it to a light pole and leave her for the foerges to pick over.”

  “You could do that,” I say, “and you would make a point. But we could also handle this carefully and take out the rest of the people who are trying to kill us. If they actually are trying to ambush us.”

  “Explain yourself.”

  “Assuming that they were telling the truth, and they didn’t know I was listening, how many of them remain out there?”

  “Their numbers are small, I know that.”

  “Which means this armory is incredibly important to them, right? You might call it essential?”

  She pauses, works her bottom lip between her thumb and index finger a minute, then crosses her arms over her chest. “You’re saying we forego the prism-flower shop today.”

  “Not forego, just postpone. Hit the armory first. Take what we can, because you can never have too many RPGs, then hit the flower shop afterward.”

  “Which might end up being the last target we have to hit.”

  I shrug. “If this armory is as stacked as she said it was, then yes, maybe it is. Unless they’re telling us this to catch us off-guard some other way. A double feint.”

  She considers this for a minute, then nods. Decision made. “Alert the troops. We move in an hour. Get them early, before the rebels are ready.”

  Ninety minutes later, we’re approaching the prism-flower shop, two trucks filled with soldiers trailing us. Everyone’s on high alert after the tire chain incident. My stomach folds in on itself, my head continually scanning the road for anyone watching us too closely, or conspicuously not watching us. The soldiers in the rear truck post up with their rifles at the ready, scanning the cramped neighborhood as we pass through. Looking for cars that seem primed to crash. Evaluating each person on the sidewalk for anyone hanging around too long. My pulse slams against the inside of my skull, anticipating an attack at any second, and after a few minutes I start to develop a tension headache.