Four Dead Queens

by Astrid Scholte

  “Why would I leave?” He squared his shoulders. “I’ve been invited to remain in the palace by my dear friend Queen Arebella. I will be her royal confidant.”

  I shook my head. I’d never heard her name before I met her this morning.

  “Oh yes,” he said, reading the confusion on my face. “We’ve been friends for many years.” He gripped two of the bars, his hands unbandaged. And healed. I gasped.

  “Oh, you noticed?” He wiggled his fingers at me. “I was granted permission by our lovely new queen to use a dose of HIDRA. This year’s dose. Aren’t I lucky?” He grinned.

  I fought the urge to scream. My father was on the verge of death, Varin would be killed at thirty for going blind, and Mackiel was granted a precious dose of HIDRA? It wasn’t right.

  “Do you want to know a secret?” he asked. “You’re stuck here, not long till your hanging, so why not?” He shrugged his narrow shoulders.

  I pressed my lips together. I didn’t want to know anything Mackiel offered willingly. It would only be a trick.

  “Do you know why HIDRA is so rare?”

  I didn’t reply.

  “HIDRA was once a woman. But she wasn’t only a woman, she was a doctor. A tweaked doctor.”

  A woman? If a doctor could cure every injury and disease, why didn’t she help more than one person a year?

  When I said nothing, he fluttered a hand at me. “I know what you’re thinking, like my henchmen, but no. She was something else.” He grinned. “She was tweaked so she could work with the sick and diseased but never fall ill. One day, she helped remove a shard of glass from someone’s abdomen, but it sliced her hand open in the process. Her blood dripped into the patient’s wound. And bam”—he clapped his hands together—“the wound began to heal.” His smile was as slow as my prison days were long.

  I gritted my teeth. I wouldn’t respond. I wouldn’t let him see how his words hurt me.

  “Sadly,” he said without any sadness, “she died many years ago. But before she was buried, her blood was drained.” He studied his hands. “They tried replicating it, but all tests failed. Instead, they diluted her blood to create more doses. But few treatments remain, and I doubt they’ll help a criminal and an assassin.”

  My back hit the far wall of the cell as I scrambled away from him.

  “Nice outfit, by the way,” he commented on my rags. “Though I can’t say the color does much for your complexion.”

  “Leave me alone,” I said. “I have more important things to do today.”

  “I suppose you do.” He sighed, then tugged at his collar. “My lovely Kera, how I wish everything had turned out differently.”

  “Differently?” I snarled. “You framed me! You were behind all of this, and your henchmen did the dirty work, as they always do. Today I’ll die instead of you.”

  “Me?” He pointed a ringed finger at his chest. “Oh no, I didn’t kill the queens. Neither did the henchmen. They’re back in Toria minding the auction house while I’m here. I thought we’d worked this out? I’ll be clearer. You”—he pointed at me—“murdered the queens.”

  “No one’s here, Mackiel. Cut the bullshit.”

  “Darlin’, you’re wrong. On many levels. And I do wish everything had turned out differently; I never planned for you to be caught. That was your boyfriend’s fault.” His eyes turned steely at the word. Hatred slithered under his skin, close to being exposed, the true Mackiel hiding below the charming surface. “He’d told the inspector about you before I arrived. I had to change my plans.”

  “You admit it, then?” Finally, someone was speaking the truth. “You planned this? You bribed Varin?”

  “Yes and no.” He tilted his head; his bowler hat had been replaced with a golden top hat—it didn’t suit him. “I was involved, but I didn’t bribe Varin. And I really didn’t want you to be caught. I’ve invested far too much time and money in you to watch you die. Even after our little squabble.” He twisted his hands in the low light as though he was checking for imperfections.

  “I . . .” My legs threatened to fold. “What do you mean?”

  “Kera.” I wished he would stop saying my name. I didn’t want him to be the last person to say it. Anyone but him.

  “You were good, too good, at your job,” he said. “Sadly, running away was never something you did well.” He held out a hand. “I always tried to teach you . . .”

  Get in quick. Get out quicker.

  “No,” I whispered. “I didn’t do it.” But the look on his face confirmed it. He wasn’t lying.

  He grinned. “I needed an assassin, but it’s not easy to hire one. Not without having to share my plan with a stranger—someone who could easily betray me. About a year ago, I realized I already had the perfect assassin.” A year ago . . . when Mackiel started acting strangely toward me. Distant. “I already had someone with the skills to get in and out without anyone noticing. My sweet little Kera. My best dipper. I’d trained you well.”

  “But I didn’t kill them.” I couldn’t. Wouldn’t. It wasn’t possible.

  “You did, darlin’. You just don’t remember. Do these look familiar?” He held something out in his palm.

  “Comm chips,” I muttered.

  Mackiel shook his head. “They’re more than that.”

  “What are they?” I didn’t want him to answer.

  “Amazing little things.” He picked up one of the chips and held it to his eye. “They’re a new kind of comm chip, more evolved. And illegal, as they have a few unwanted side effects.” He shrugged. “But you know my friends on the wall?” Friends was hardly the word I’d have used for the wall guards Mackiel blackmailed. “They were happy to inform me of the latest shipment of this banned Eonist tech. The chips were to be delivered to a Ludist official to see if they could be used for entertainment purposes. All I had to do was intercept the delivery.”

  Then he had been telling the truth about the original recipient of the comm chips being dead.

  “You did well stealing these from the messenger and ensuring I didn’t get my hands on them by ingesting them. Ingenious of you, really. I was planning to force-feed them to you or hide them in your food, but it was best you didn’t know my involvement.”

  “I don’t understand,” I said.

  “Poor Kera. Don’t you see? It was the chips that contained the plans to murder the queens. My plans. Before you stole them for me, the chips were blank. Harmless. But things get interesting when you record thoughts onto them.” He flashed his canine teeth and my stomach turned. “When I learned you were trying to redeliver the chips at the House of Concord, I paid you a visit to ensure you were going to head to the palace,” he said. “You thought your decision to come here was your own. You thought your mind was your own.”

  I’d stolen the chips for Mackiel. I’d ingested them to prevent Mackiel from getting his hands on them.

  Mackiel. Mackiel. Mackiel. It had always been him.

  “What do they do?” My voice was barely audible, the truth pressing down on me.

  “They’re a form of control.” His deep-set kohl-lined eyes watched me closely. “Once they’ve been ingested, you only need to set off three little triggers.” He tossed the chip into the air and caught it in his other hand. “Touch the murder weapon.” He ran a finger around his bare wrist. “Enter the palace.” He gestured to our surroundings. “See the queens.” He grinned, wiggling four fingers at me. “Then nothing will stop you from enacting the plan—my plan.” He knocked a finger down one at a time. “You, my perfect assassin.”

  Control.

  I stared at my hands. They were shaking. “One of your games, Mackiel?”

  His face softened for a moment. “I’m afraid not.”

  “Then I did kill them?”

  “Yes. I know it’s hard to understand, as you don’t remember, but you did, and all the evid
ence proves you did. In fact, the inspector found traces of each and every queen’s DNA on your dipper bracelet. They even found your hair on Queen Stessa’s drowned body. That’s what they were waiting for—concrete evidence—before you could be sentenced.”

  I remembered holding the knife in my hand as I sliced Queen Iris’s throat, but that was the comm chips. I didn’t feel the handle turn slick and warm as blood coated the blade. I didn’t smell the rust of blood.

  Not me. It couldn’t have been me.

  Only, Mackiel was saying the comm chips weren’t merely instructions for the assassin, but controlled the assassin’s body as well as their senses. And I couldn’t deny what my bracelet could turn into. I’d been carrying a deadly weapon while I was in the palace. I’d had the weapon for months, made complete when Mackiel gave me the locket for successfully stealing the comm case. This was his plan all along, set in motion a year ago.

  I began shaking my head wildly. “No, no, no, no, no.”

  I was the assassin. Mackiel’s assassin. Varin had been right; he’d seen me with the bottle of poison because I had poisoned Queen Marguerite. My hair had been wet and perfumed because I’d drowned Queen Stessa. And my dress, splattered in blood—I’d thought it was from my split knee, but now I realized the truth. It was Queen Iris’s blood. And I couldn’t deny I’d been right there when Queen Corra had been consumed by smoke and ash.

  I crumpled to the floor, wiping my hands frantically on my rags. “It can’t be.”

  I couldn’t have murdered the queens that violently, that thoughtlessly. I had my own mind. I was not a weapon. I never meant to bring any pain, shed any blood.

  But I did. I broke things. I ruined them. Like I’d broken my father.

  “That’s one of the benefits of these little darlings.” He twirled a chip around. “You dismiss the memories of the murders as the visions you saw. Because you carried them out in the exact same way. Who could tell the difference?” He winked at me. “Certainly not you.”

  I clutched my stomach. I was going to be sick.

  What had I been thinking in those moments? When I’d killed each and every queen with my own hands? Had I any thoughts of my own? Or was I an empty vessel, ready for the taking? To be used by someone like Mackiel. The perfect assassin, he’d said.

  A doll, that was all I was to him. Something to play with. Something to use. How long had he been grooming me for this, the worst possible act?

  “Why?” I moaned.

  “Now, now,” Mackiel cooed as I trembled. “Don’t fall apart. That’s not the Kera I know.”

  No wonder Varin had turned me in. He’d seen what I’d done. He’d seen the truth.

  Only it wasn’t true—not the truth I held in my heart. Yes, I was selfish. Greedy. Vicious, even—at times. But I wasn’t an assassin. Even Mackiel couldn’t turn me into that.

  For a moment, I was able to push back the disgust, the tumbling of my stomach at the sight of my hands, and remember that Mackiel had said he didn’t want me to be caught.

  “You’re here to free me?” I asked, voice trembling. I could explain. I could tell the inspector I wasn’t in control of my actions. That had to count for something, right?

  He frowned. “I’m afraid not, darlin’.”

  “But you said—”

  “I know.” He held out his healed hands. “Believe me, I didn’t want it to end this way. As I said, you were supposed to escape. The comm chips told you to leave after Queen Marguerite’s murder, but your mind was torn. Instead, you returned to that blasted Eonist. He’s what got you caught. And I had such grand plans for you—”

  “More murders?” I sprung to my feet. “How dare you use me! How dare you make me kill the queens! Kill anyone! I thought you cared about me?”

  “I do,” he said, leaning forward, gripping the prison bars. “Don’t you see, darlin’? I would never entrust such an important job to anyone other than you.” His grin turned venomous. “But you were the one who turned from me first. You trusted that useless Eonist instead of your closest friend. You cared that he would suffer if he didn’t deliver his comm case. I was meant to come to the palace with you. You weren’t meant to care about anyone but me!” His eyes flashed, a storm breaking. “You forced my hand.”

  “I forced your hand? You forced me to kill!” Fury moved my body forward. I reveled in it. I wanted to forget what I’d done. “I wish we’d never met! You took everything from me!”

  He tilted his head. “I suppose I did, seeing your final hours are almost up.”

  “Why did you come here if not to free me? Was it merely to gloat?”

  He looked uncertain for a moment. “I wanted to say good-bye, I suppose.”

  “Good-bye?” I spat in his face. Everyone wanted their good-bye. They’d decided who I was, what I’d done and how I’d be punished.

  Who do you want to be?

  Well, I wasn’t done. Not yet. “I reject your good-bye.”

  “Reject it?” He laughed. “You can’t reject a good-bye. You can only receive it, darlin’.”

  “Really?” I asked. “Well, this is my good-bye.” I grabbed his lapel and rammed his face into the bars. He let out a gasp. I struck a fist through the bars and into his stomach. He buckled forward, his coat opening.

  My hands darted into the shadows of his coat pockets.

  “Good, Kera,” he said, wheezing. “Fight to the end.” Then he grabbed my wrist. “But I’ll be needing this.” He pried his lock pick blade from my right hand. “Nice try, though.”

  “Damn you!” I wrestled against him.

  “I’m sorry, darlin’. I truly wish I could let you escape. And I will miss you.”

  “Why?” I tore away from him, tears breaking through my resolve and streaking down my face. “Why won’t you help me? After all we’ve been through.” Was there nothing of the old Mackiel left? Nothing that pulled at his heart when he looked at me? Nothing of our childhood on the Jetée?

  He glanced upward, to the palace above. “In the end, one must make the best deals for oneself.” He grinned at me. “You were my ticket to power, and I’m not about to undo it by releasing you.”

  “Queen Arebella,” I said with understanding. “She orchestrated the murders!” Accept the truth. That was what she’d said when she visited, and it had struck me as an odd thing to say to someone you were convinced had killed your mother.

  Not admit the truth, but accept. And now I remembered where I’d seen her before. The girl in the blue bonnet at the auction house that Mackiel had been helping to her seat. She’d been there all along.

  Mackiel raised an eyebrow. “Did she?” he mused. “I guess you’ll never know. But I’ll have more power here as Arebella’s confidant than I ever could’ve achieved back at the Jetée. And I’ll ensure no one will threaten my business again. Not even a queen.” His expression grew intense. “No one will ever forget my name.”

  Infamy. That was what this was about? Mackiel’s father had always said he’d amount to nothing, and he was determined to prove him wrong.

  My tears fell heavier now, blurring my vision. Blurring Mackiel. Blocking the hideous truth. “Get out!”

  This time, he obliged. He tipped his gold top hat and left me sobbing on the prison floor.

  Once his footsteps could no longer be heard, I wiped away the tears with my right hand. In my left was the second blade I’d stolen from Mackiel’s pockets.

  Yes, he’d taught me well.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  Arebella

  Queen of Toria

  Rule thirteen: Only a queen may sit upon the throne. When she takes the throne, she accepts the responsibility to rule the quadrant until her dying day.

  Arebella took her throne, unable to avoid glancing at the empty thrones beside her. A tug lifted the corner of her mouth. Up on the dais, she could sense the power coursing through h
er. The power of ruling a quadrant—soon to be a nation. A nation no longer divided.

  Mackiel had done his job; no living blood relatives could be found. Arebella would soon be named the only living Quadarian with royal blood. The next step was clear: she would become queen of Quadara.

  Once she was seated, the entire palace staff and advisors took their seats opposite her. Some Torians still wore black, their faces covered by veils. It was clear from the advisors’ tight expressions that they were unhappy with only one queen up on the dais. Their system was falling apart.

  Arebella glanced at the Quadarian dial behind her. It was an overcast day; little light shone from the apex of the dome above, down to the golden jewel in the middle of the dial’s face. The Queenly Laws were hardly decipherable in the low light, which was appropriate, Arebella thought, for the start of a new era. She would rewrite all the rules.

  Mackiel grinned at her from the front row. They’d done it. They’d actually done it.

  “You called this meeting,” Arebella said to Jenri. “What’s the agenda?” Act surprised. Act outraged. Make them think this was never my intention. The final act.

  “Yes, Queen Arebella,” Jenri replied. “I’m afraid to say we have failed.” He cleared his throat. “We have failed to find any royal ancestors for Archia, Ludia and Eonia.”

  She raised her chin. “How is that possible? I thought it was part of Queenly Law to ensure the royal line?”

  He exchanged a glance with the other advisors. “We do not know what’s happened, but it appears that all traces of royal relatives have disappeared.”

  “What does that mean for me?” she asked, before realizing her mistake. “What does that mean for the other quadrants? Who will take the thrones?”

  He let out a deep and exhausted sigh. Dark circles rested below his eyes. She doubted he’d slept since he found out about her mother’s passing. But that was not her concern; in fact, it might work in her favor.

  “Well?” she asked. “We can’t leave the quadrants unruled. My Queenly Report is due to be broadcast this evening after the execution. We must act quickly. An unruled nation is a weak nation.”