The Reluctant Queen

by Sarah Beth Durst

  “I need you to look at a dead body. Actually, several.”

  That wasn’t a request he heard every day.

  “Can you call a guard to watch Naelin?”

  Pivoting, he called, “Bayn? Guard Naelin.”

  Uncurling his body, the wolf stretched and then ambled over to Naelin. He drank from the fountain and then lay down at Naelin’s feet. She absently scratched Bayn behind the ears before continuing to direct the spirits. Ven thought about telling her to remember to rest, but decided she wouldn’t appreciate his mothering. He followed Hamon out of the gardens.

  Hamon led the way to the palace morgue. Created out of stone, the morgue was tucked behind the treasure pavilion. It had been shrouded in vines so it would blend in with the trees, but the walls themselves were the kind of rock found deep within the ground. Legend said that an ancient queen had summoned it from the bowels of the earth and it had risen, a hollow chamber with a funeral bier inside, after the death of her husband. She’d housed his body inside for forty-one days, until she could lay his killer beside him. Only then did she allow him to be buried. The chamber still stank of ancient death. Ven wasn’t fond of it.

  Two guards nodded to them as they passed, but Hamon didn’t even seem to see them. His hands were shaking as he opened the door. “Brace yourself.” He handed Ven a face mask of soft cotton and strapped one on his own face.

  Inside, Ven’s eyes immediately watered. The chamber reeked of incense and thick, heavy flowery smells that were trying—and failing—to cover the smell of decaying flesh and old, sour blood. This wasn’t ancient death; this was new.

  On the tables were bodies. All were uncovered. All were young women—girls, in truth—in varying states of decay. Ven carefully shoved all his emotions away and ignored the part of him that wanted to march out the door and seal it behind him. “You have been digging up corpses,” he said evenly.

  “It was my mother’s idea.” Hamon held up a hand to forestall any response. “I know I shouldn’t listen to her ideas, but in this case . . . She thought there was a possibility that the poisoner experimented on other victims before attempting to kill the queen. Other victims whose deaths could easily be attributed to another cause. If the poisoner killed before, there might be a clue to his or her identity . . . or a clue to the poison itself.”

  “Did you find any such clues?” Ven asked.

  “Unfortunately no. And in the process of looking at these recent deaths, I discovered something unsettling.”

  Ven thought that everything about examining dead bodies was unsettling. There were six total. Most had been ripped open—a rib cage exposed, a leg that looked as if it had been savaged, flesh peeled back . . . “These weren’t killed by poison. They were killed by spirits.” He’d seen this kind of damage far too often to doubt it.

  “Yes, I know. Except . . . not.” Hamon moved between the bodies. “This one, she died of blunt trauma to the head. And this, her throat was slit. Here, three wounds beneath her rib cage. Another, the back.” He beckoned to Ven to come closer to one, one of the freshest.

  Ven glanced at her face and then wished he hadn’t—he knew this one, the redheaded girl he’d considered at the academy, the one whom Piriandra had chosen. Beilena. He swore and then looked at the other faces. He recognized another—Esiella, Havtru’s candidate.

  “Are they all candidates?” Ven asked.

  “Forget what you’re thinking, who they were, what could have or should have happened. Just look here, at this wound. Look at the precision of it, the cleanness of the slice . . . And if you look inside”—pulling on gloves, Hamon spread open Beilena’s wound, to show the sliced muscles and bone—“see how it’s cut, with a twist? And the depth of it? It nicked the bone. See that?”

  Ven was not a doctor. He had seen—and caused—his share of violence. But Hamon casually peeling back the skin of dead girls . . . “So if I were to be sick . . . ?”

  “Bucket is under the table. Don’t think of them as people. Think of them as puzzles. And tell me: ignoring the circumstances in which they were found, ignoring what you know of who they were and what they were doing, what made this cut?”

  “Knife,” he said instantly.

  “How are you sure?”

  He pointed. “The slice on the bone.”

  “Could have been a claw. Or a tooth.”

  “It’s not a bite,” Ven said. “It’s only one slice.”

  “Single claw? Single talon?” Hamon was watching him intently. Ven felt as if he were taking an exam. He bent over the body, trying to focus only on the wound, not on the girl’s face, not on the thought of how young she was or how scared she must have been. I know wounds like this, Ven thought. I’ve made wounds like this.

  “Every spirit I have ever seen attacks to rip apart, not stab—that’s their instinct, to destroy,” Ven said. “They use claws and teeth. There should be multiple wounds, not a single slice. There’s no question this was a knife.” And the spirits don’t use knives. Ven looked up at Hamon. “You think . . .”

  “This is the wound that killed her. All the other wounds, including the icicles that supposedly stabbed her throat, were inflicted after death.”

  “She was stabbed and then . . .” Left for the spirits? Given to them? Mutilated to look as if it were spirits? He straightened and looked at the other bodies. “What about the others?”

  “Some were clearly killed by spirits. But not all.” He led Ven around the morgue, pointing out the injuries. In the worst, the candidate had her extremities frozen—an ice spirit—but it was again a knife thrust that had killed her. It was hard to see, Hamon explained, but once he’d known what to look for . . . He showed Ven her wounds, as well as the wounds on three other girls. Finishing, they left the morgue and stripped off their face masks.

  Ven sucked in the sweet outside air. He walked away from the morgue toward the treasure pavilion, not looking back.

  “Am I right?” Hamon asked.

  “Yes,” Ven said. “Someone is murdering candidates.” And I have left Naelin alone. He broke into a run. His feet pounded over the paths, crushing the delicate flowers that grew between them. He vaulted over one of the tree roots and scrambled up another, running along it, leaping over the decorative statues and vines.

  He reached the garden—

  The wolf rose and trotted over to him. He was wagging his tail. Naelin was standing on top of her new fountain, and the water spirits were swirling around her, casting rain on all the flower beds but nowhere else. Naelin’s eyes were closed, and she was smiling, just slightly, only the corners of her lips turned up.

  “You guard her,” Ven told Bayn. “Every second that I’m not near her, you are.” Kneeling down, he looked the wolf directly in the eyes. “Can you understand me?”

  The wolf regarded him evenly and then—clearly, deliberately—nodded.

  “Thank you,” Ven said gravely. Someday he would need to ask Daleina what she knew of the wolf—where he’d come from, why he was so intelligent—but later, once she was well. For now, it was enough that Bayn would do as he asked.

  Rising, Ven crossed to Naelin.

  She wouldn’t be like one of those girls in the morgue. She was powerful and intelligent and fierce . . . As he reached her, she opened her eyes. Seeing him, she smiled. “Aren’t I doing well?” she asked. “And yes, I’m fishing for praise. So go ahead, tell me I’m amazing, and I’ll blush and deny it, but inwardly I’ll agree, because this . . . I never thought I could do this.”

  He wanted to take her in his arms and tell her she truly was amazing.

  But she wasn’t finished. “Galling to admit that Renet might have been right. I suppose this means I owe him an apology.”

  “He still endangered you and your children,” Ven pointed out. Her former husband was unworthy of her. But that wasn’t the conversation he intended to have. “I need you to be careful—”

  “You think I’m not careful enough?”

  Out of the corner of his eye
, he saw the spirits disperse. Earth spirits dove into the soil, air spirits spiraled up toward the clouds, tree spirits skittered along the branches. He put his hands on her shoulders. “Hear me out, before you decide to be furious at me. You’re already careful with spirits. I need you to be careful of humans.” And he told her what Hamon had showed him, what he’d seen, leaving out the details. As he talked, he felt her sag.

  And then she straightened and looked him in the eye. “All right then. Spirits want to kill me. People want to kill me. Anything else?”

  He wanted to kiss her.

  But he didn’t. Instead, he pulled out one of his knives, the short dagger he kept tucked in his boot, and said, “I’m going to teach you how to survive this.”

  Chapter 26

  For three days, Naelin trained. She worked with Queen Daleina as often as the queen could manage, and with Ven every other waking hour. She learned to stretch her mind to control multiple spirits at once, and she learned to push her body to react to an attack.

  “You don’t need to know how to kill,” Ven had told her. “You need to know how to not be killed. Slight but important distinction.” He made her repeat the same maneuvers over and over: how to break a hold, how to dodge a knife thrust, how to twist so that a knife would only hit something nonvital. “Your mind doesn’t need to memorize this; your body does.” And so she practiced, because he’d described the murdered girls in enough detail that she didn’t need to hear any more.

  He also insisted she allow the wolf Bayn to come with her everywhere at all times, which was fine, albeit a little awkward in the bathroom. He usually politely faced the wall. But it was a plus when she had a free moment to visit her children. Llor would forgive any absence in exchange for the chance to play with the “doggie,” and even Erian couldn’t stay angry when Bayn licked her cheek.

  So on the night of the third day, when Ven told her she was done, she looked around Queen Fara’s old chambers for Bayn. He was sitting by the hearth, chewing on the thigh bone of a deer. “Ready to have a small child get sticky fingers in your fur?”

  He thumped his tail and then trotted over to her side.

  “I’ll walk you there as well,” Ven said.

  She didn’t bother to argue that she was safe in the palace, with all the guards who milled through every corridor and a very large wolf by her side. A little paranoia was a fine thing. Admirable, even. She shot him a look as they walked down the spiral stairs in the center of the palace tree. He was scowling beneath his beard, with his forehead crinkled and eyes fierce. “You look under stress,” she said, even though it was an understatement. “Are you getting enough sleep?”

  He quit scowling. “Are you trying to mother me?”

  “The proper word is ‘nag.’ I am trying to nag you into taking care of yourself, not just taking care of me. I’m fine.” In truth, she felt as if she’d been rolled down a set of stairs and then stomped on, but that didn’t bear mentioning. She also had a headache that pounded as if she had tiny drummers trapped inside her skull.

  “I can handle it.”

  “Of course you can. Until you collapse from exhaustion and malnourishment. Look at it this way: I only nag because I care.”

  He stopped for a moment midstep and looked as if he wanted to say something, but then he continued down the stairs without speaking. She thought about asking him if there had been any progress in investigating the murders, or any progress in the search for the poisoner, but if there had been, he wouldn’t look so intense. She wasn’t sure she’d ever had anyone care for her well-being so much. She had to remind herself it was only because he wanted her to be the heir. He valued her for what she could do, not who she was. Not unlike Renet.

  She was still thinking about her former husband when she walked through the door to her and her children’s chambers—and he was there.

  Renet.

  Sitting on a couch, with Erian and Llor on either side of him.

  Looking recently washed, with wet tousled hair, velvet clothes that weren’t his, and a sheepish expression that was one hundred percent his.

  Naelin stopped so abruptly in the doorway that Bayn’s snout bumped against the back of her thighs. The wolf poked his head around her.

  “Doggie!” Llor cried, and shot off the couch.

  She felt Ven’s hand on her shoulder and his breath on her neck as he murmured in her ear, “Do you want me to stay or go?”

  She liked that he asked. “Stay, please,” she murmured back, and stepped inside.

  Bayn pushed past her and bounded over to Llor. Llor threw his arms around the wolf’s neck. “Don’t do that, Llor,” Erian said. “He’s been eating. You’ll get blood on your shirt, and Mama doesn’t have time to wash it out.”

  “I’ll take care of it, Erian,” Renet said. “I can clean stains. Contrary to popular opinion, I’m not useless.” He smiled to soften the words, as if he could charm his way back into her life.

  Naelin felt as if her head were swimming. She wished she could force her headache away. She did not have the energy left to deal with this. “The palace has its own laundry. You know that, Erian. And Renet, you’ve never scrubbed a stain out in your life. But that is far less relevant than the question: What are you doing here?”

  Llor’s eyes went wide. “Uh-oh, Mama’s mad.”

  Yes, she wanted to say. I am. She was about a half second away from screaming, or collapsing into a pile and weeping. She did not need this. She did not want this. She did not deserve this. Clenching and unclenching her hands, she tried to calm her breathing, to speak calmly, to not burst into tears or throw things or walk out the door or scream. “Renet, answer please.”

  “You need me here,” Renet said. “The children need me. They said so.”

  “Father came fast!” Llor said. “Isn’t that great, Mama?” His face was shining, as if he could convince her this was a wonderful thing if only he said it cheerfully enough. Or maybe he was simply happy about it. His father was here. Hooray.

  “Truthfully I was halfway here already,” he said, using his sheepish expression again.

  “Llor, Erian . . .” She was about to tell them to go into the other room, so she could talk to Renet without them, but she caught the look on Erian’s face. Erian was digging her toe into the wood floor and looking everywhere but at Naelin. “Erian?”

  “Captain Alet said we needed someone to watch us while you’re training,” Erian said in a rush, “and I’m too old for a governess, and we didn’t want some guard that we don’t know. Father said he missed us and he’s really, really sorry.”

  Renet rose, and she knew that look on his face: the penitent puppy-dog look that he’d perfected years ago. It used to make her laugh and forgive whatever ridiculous thing he’d done. He’d swear never to do it again, and she’d kiss him and he’d remember to come home when he said he would instead of lingering out in the woods, or take the rotten food far from the house instead of dumping it at the base of the tree, or fetch Llor from school at the correct time . . . I shouldn’t have had to tell him any of that, she thought. She thought of how she used to nag him, as if she were his mother, as if she had three children instead of two. She thought of how she used to see his absentmindedness, his wild ideas, his enthusiasm for ridiculous risks as charming or even exciting. But she couldn’t see it that way anymore.

  He hadn’t changed.

  She’d changed.

  “Mama, can he stay?” Erian asked.

  “I am truly sorry,” Renet said. “I— Can we talk alone?” He bowed to Champion Ven. “Forgive me, great sir, but my wife—”

  “Former wife,” Ven corrected. “She left you, spoken and witnessed.”

  “I am hoping she will reconsider that,” Renet said.

  Erian moved to Renet’s side and took his hand. “We want to be a family again, Mama.”

  Naelin felt as if she’d been stabbed by one of Ven’s knives. All three of them were looking at her with eager eyes: Erian, Llor, and Renet. It would be
so very easy to say yes. She closed her eyes. She’d been fighting spirits all day, fighting her own body, fighting fate. She didn’t want to fight her family too. “Renet . . .”

  “I swear I will never endanger the children again,” Renet said. “I know what I did was wrong. I was wrong. I didn’t think about consequences. Or at least not about bad consequences. I knew you’d protect them. I thought they’d be fine. I’m an optimist—you know that. I believed everything would work out, if I could just make you see how incredible you are—”

  “Stop. Just stop.” The ache in her head pounded harder. She squeezed her eyes and tried to make it recede so she could think and react in a reasonable way. She felt Ven’s hand, still on her shoulder, and she felt Bayn press against her side, his warm, furry body holding her up, if she needed it to.

  “They’re my children too,” Renet said, “and I love them.”

  If she opened her eyes, she knew what she’d see: Renet, with his arms around Erian and Llor, the picture of the perfect father. And he was a good father to them, mostly. He loved them. Even if he was occasionally scatterbrained and reckless, he did love them. And they adored him. She knew if she opened her eyes, she’d see hope burning bright in her children’s eyes. They were waiting for her to say she forgave him, as she always did.

  “I’ll be the perfect husband,” Renet said. “Give me a chance, Naelin. Please. See, look at me, begging in front of the Queen’s Champion, sacrificing my pride. I will dote on you, adore you, worship you, just give me another chance. I swear I’ll listen to you. I’ll respect your wishes. I’ll do anything you want me to do.”

  She didn’t answer. Couldn’t answer. Couldn’t think. “I didn’t want you to come. I told you not to, and you came anyway. How is that respecting my wishes?”

  “The children needed me.” He sounded wounded, and her instinct was to heal, to soothe, to fix, as she always did.

  She opened her eyes, and the picture was exactly as she’d imagined: Renet with his arms around the children, Erian with tears on her cheeks, Llor with a hopeful smile. And then Erian broke away from Renet and ran to her. Naelin instinctively dropped down on one knee, and Erian launched herself into Naelin’s arms. She buried her face in her mother’s neck. Naelin inhaled the sweet smell of her hair, the faint hint of honeysuckle and lavender. Erian still fit so neatly into her arms. Naelin wondered how much longer that would be true. Erian grew more every year, and soon she wouldn’t want her mother’s comfort like this. “I wrote him,” Erian said in her ear. “I’m sorry, Mama. I asked him to come.”