by Marie Lu
I give him a smile back. “It should work,” I say, leaning forward in my seat to peer more closely at Sergio’s calculations. I’m impressed with the way he has split up the rest of our men. “We’ll surprise the Tamourans in their own home.”
Sergio’s eyes sweep once over the festivities, out of habit. I follow his gaze. Off in the corner, a path is being cut through the crowd, causing cheers and taunts to go up. The entertainment has arrived. “We’ll do more than surprise them,” Sergio replies. “We’ll defeat them so soundly that their Golden Triad will soon be mopping your marble floors.”
Our conversation pauses as the procession makes its way to the main clearing. It’s led by two young Inquisitors who now gleefully shove forward several people with bound arms. They stumble and fall, then crouch into some resemblance of a bow in my direction. All around them, the crowd cheers. Wine spills out of goblets.
“Your Majesty!” one of the Inquisitors calls up to me. His hair shines in the light, revealing a glimmer of scarlet red against the black. “Found these four in the streets and brought them in for you. I overheard one using the word malfetto. Another was trying to pass as one of us with false markings.”
At that, the crowd—all of whom are marked—starts to shout curses at the people tied up on the ground. I peer at them to get a closer look. One is an old man, while another is an aging woman. The third is a boy, barely out of childhood, while the fourth is a girl newly wedded, still wearing double bands around one of her fingers. I can tell the girl is the one who was trying to wear false markings—the color in her hair and against her skin looks disturbed, where an Inquisitor must have smeared his hand across it.
“Burn them all!” someone yells, and this is met with a thunderous cheer.
“Let’s have some fun!” another shouts.
Over by the archway, Magiano’s eyes meet my own. He isn’t smiling anymore. Their fear and hatred fill this place. The whispers chitter again, fully awake now, and the terror wafting off the four prisoners fills my senses, feeding me. I take them in and feel little pity. After all, not much time has passed since they once stood by and watched as the marked were dragged through the streets and set ablaze, saw our families stoned to death by crowds of enthusiastic onlookers. We used to be the ones to sneak powders and potions from apothecaries, desperate to hide our markings. How quickly our former enemies have tried to adopt our appearance—how eagerly they smear colors on themselves in an attempt to be more like us.
Why shouldn’t we cheer their punishment now?
Beside me, Sergio has gone silent too. I look on as an Inquisitor lights a torch from one of the lanterns, then glances expectantly at me. So does everyone else. The noise fades as they wait for my command.
I am their queen. The malfettos, the malformed, the marked. I give them what they want, and they give me their loyalty. It is what I want too. My gaze turns to the trembling prisoners on the ground. I stop on the youngest, the boy. He stares back at me with vacant eyes. Beside him, the old man lifts his tear-stained face long enough for me to see the blinding hatred in them. Demon queen, I know he’s thinking.
The whispers in my head build to a dull rumble. I bow my head and close my eye, trying in vain to shut them out. On another night, I would be more ruthless—in the past year I’ve ordered prisoners executed before me, so this would be nothing new. But tonight, my heart feels heavy with the weight of Raffaele’s message. Visions of Violetta continue to crowd my thoughts.
One glance in Magiano’s direction is enough. He gives me the subtlest shake of his head, and his words return to my mind, as if whispered in my ear. Perhaps he is drawing on my power. Let the people love you a little, mi Adelinetta.
“Release them,” I hear myself saying as I rub my temples. “And get on with the celebrations.”
The crowd’s raucous cheers fade away as they gradually understand what I’ve said. The prisoners stare at me in stunned silence, as do my Inquisitors.
“Was I not clear?” I call out, my voice ringing in the chamber. The corners of the space turn dark, and a haunting wail whips through the air. The crowd lets loose a round of frightened gasps as they edge away from the encroaching blackness. My soldiers jump to action now, untying the ropes that bind the prisoners’ arms and forcing them to their knees so that they can thank me. They sway, blinking away confusion, and I look on, wondering how my sister has the power to influence my decisions even when she’s not here.
“Get out of my sight,” I snap to the kneeling prisoners. “Before I change my mind.”
They need no second bidding. The girl scrambles to her feet first, then rushes over to the old man and pulls him to his feet. The old woman follows. The boy lingers the longest, puzzling over my expression before he, too, hurries after the others. The crowd’s eyes turn from me to them, and as the musicians try to strike up the songs again, scattered singing begins to puncture the awkward silence.
My focus shifts back up to the archway, but Magiano is no longer there.
His absence cuts through the rising tide of darkness in my chest, leaving me exhausted—in this moment, all I want is to get away from here and find him. I weave an illusion of invisibility around myself while the crowd tries to resume celebrating. Only Sergio realizes that I’ve gone, although he doesn’t call out to stop me.
I shake my head in disgust as I walk. All this dwelling on Violetta has turned me soft tonight.
I make my way out of the gardens and into a dark hall. There are crowds of new nobility here too, marked people to whom I’d handed aristocratic titles after stripping them from their unmarked masters. I push through them. One of the nobles spills her wine as I shove by. I rush down the hall until I come to a winding staircase guarded by Inquisitors, and then I head up to an empty floor. Finally, peace.
I stop and lean my head against the wall. The whispers whirl in a cloud around me, and their fury adds to the dizziness in my head. I try to steady myself. “Magiano,” I call out, wondering if he might be nearby, but my voice just echoes down the hall.
You shouldn’t have let them go, the whispers say. They always respond when no one else does.
“Why not?” I retort through gritted teeth.
The harmless grow up to become the bringers of wrath. You know this better than anyone, you fool.
“An old couple and a pair of children,” I murmur with a sneer. “They can’t hurt me.” I close my eye, and in the darkness, the whispers lurch forward, flashing their naked grins at me.
Oh? How arrogant you’ve grown, little wolf. My anger flares at their use of my old nickname, and in response, the whispers clap in delight. Yes. That makes you furious, doesn’t it? You are arrogant, my queen. Why, look. The boy has already come back for you.
I open my eye again and glance around. There, standing in the hall right before me, is the boy with his grave eyes. He looks at me without a word.
My anger ignites again, and the ghosts of illusions flicker in the corner of my consciousness. “I thought I told you to get out.”
The boy doesn’t answer. Instead, he takes a step closer. Are those tears of blood coming from his eyes? The blood fever. My anger shifts to uncertainty. Then the boy emits a shriek and lunges at me with a knife.
I scream, stumble backward, and throw my arms instinctively across my face. Through my haze of thoughts, I see the boy vanish. He is replaced by a hulking beast. Black boils cover his hunched back, and his long claws click against the floor. He jerks toward me, his fangs stretching all the way around his head. The incarnation of my whispers.
What’s the matter, Your Majesty? Afraid of your own halls?
He charges at me with arms outstretched, mouth extended. He is an illusion, just an illusion. He’s not really there. Raffaele’s note has distracted me, disturbing my energy, so I’ve lost control again. That’s all this is. If only I stand still, he will disappear in a cloud of dust when he r
eaches me. He cannot hurt me.
But I can’t make myself stop. I am in danger. I need to run. So I do. I run as the monster pursues me, his claws tearing up the floor’s stone. I can feel his hot breath on my back. The hall stretches endlessly before me, like a gaping mouth, and when I blink, arms tear out from each of the corridor’s walls, reaching for me.
Wake up, I scream at myself as I run. Wake up. Wake up!
I stumble. I try to catch myself, but instead I fall to my hands and knees. The monster reaches me and I look up at him in horror.
But he is no longer a beast. I see my father’s face, contorted into a picture of rage. He seizes my wrist and yanks me forward, dragging me along the floor. “Where have you put your sister, mi Adelinetta?” he asks in his eerie, quiet voice even as I try to pull free. “What have you done with her?”
She left me. It wasn’t my fault. She left me behind, of her own free will.
“What did I do to end up with a daughter like you?” My father shakes his head. We round the corner and enter the cavernous space of our old family home’s kitchen. Here, my father seizes a butcher knife from the counter. No, don’t, please. “You open your mouth, and out spill lies. Who did you learn that from, hmm, Adelina? Was it from one of our stable boys? Or were you born this way?”
“I’m sorry.” Tears spill down my cheek. “I’m so sorry. I’m not lying. I don’t know where Violetta is—” I know I am not a child trapped in my old home. I am in the Estenzian palace, and I am the queen. I want to return to the festivities. Why can’t I wake up?
My father glances down at me. He yanks my arm straight and slams my hand down on the floor. I’m crying so hard that I nearly choke. He positions the butcher knife over my wrist, then brings it back high over his head. I squeeze my eye shut and wait for the blow.
Please let me wake up now, I beg.
The whispers chuckle at my plea. As you wish, Your Majesty.
“Your Majesty? Adelina.”
The hand clutching my arm suddenly loosens its grip. I look up to see that it belongs to Magiano. The kitchen is gone, and I am lying on the floor of the palace’s hall again. Magiano pulls me to him as I continue to sob—even though his expression is concerned, he seems relieved to finally make eye contact with me. I hug him close and cling tightly. My body trembles against him.
“How do you always manage to find the worst hallway to lie down in?” Magiano says, his teasing only halfhearted. He brings his face down to my ear and murmurs something I can barely understand, over and over, until the whispers in my head fade into the shadows.
“I’m fine,” I finally say, nodding against his shoulder.
He pulls away far enough to give me a skeptical look. “You weren’t fine just a few moments ago.”
I take a shuddering breath and wipe my hand across my face. “Why did you come up here, anyway? Did you hear me calling for you? Was it because of what happened outside?”
Magiano blinks. “You were calling for me?” he says, and then shakes his head. His mouth tightens into a thin line. “I’d hoped you would come looking for me.” I search his face, wondering if he is still mocking me, but he seems serious now. For the first time, I realize that there are Inquisitors behind him. There is an entire patrol with him, looking for me.
All of a sudden, I feel tired to my bones. Magiano sees me sag, and he ropes an arm behind me as I do, lifting me effortlessly. I let him. He mutters something to the Inquisitors, and they start to file out. I close my eye after that, content to let Magiano carry me back to my chambers.
Stock—
2 days’ worth black bread
2 days’ worth dried meat
6 days’ worth water
Waste—
12 days’ worth bread, infested
12 days’ worth water, unfit to drink
—From the journal of an unknown soldier during the Battle for Cordonna Isle
Adelina Amouteru
It is for the best that we set sail for Tamoura the next day, under a brilliant blue sky.
The weeks at sea will force me to concentrate on our new mission, to forget about my loss of control over my illusions in the hallway last night. Magiano doesn’t mention it again, either. We go about our business on the ship acting like all is fine; we have strategy meetings with Sergio as if no one remembers my incident. But I know that word of it has spread among my Inquisitors. Now and then, I see them murmuring in the shadows, eyeing me with wariness.
Our queen is going mad, they must be saying.
Sometimes I can’t tell if my madness is what’s conjuring these images, twisting my confidence. So I try to ignore them, as always. What does it matter if I’m mad? I have a hundred ships. Twenty thousand soldiers. My Roses at my side. I am queen.
My new flag is silver and white, of course. In its center is a black, stylized symbol of a wolf, surrounded by flames. I am a creature who was meant to die in fire—but I didn’t, and I want to be reminded of that every time I look at this image. With each passing day at sea, the silver-white flags seem to stand out more and more against the deep, strange gray of the ocean, like a flock of birds heading toward new nesting grounds. One week blends into the next, and then into a third, with stale winds slowing us down and the Falls of Laetes to maneuver around.
At the end of the third week, I stand on the deck of my ship and look back at the sea of ships behind us. Every single one of them flies my pennants. I smile at the sight. The nightmare within nightmares had visited me again last night, this time shifting so that I would wake over and over in my bed on board my ship. It is a relief that my army distracts me from the memory.
“We are nearing Tamouran shores,” Sergio says as he comes to stand beside me. He is dressed in full armor this morning, with knives strapped to his chest and daggers crossed on his back, hilts poking out from the tops of both his boots. His hair is slicked back out of the way, and he looks restless, eager for action. “Do you want me to give the order to change pennants?”
I nod. “Do it.” I, too, am dressed for war. My robes have been replaced with armor, and my hair is tied back in a tight series of braids, a Kenettran hairstyle. I’ve left my Tamouran head wraps behind. It was a tempting thought, flying over Alamour looking like a Tamouran girl—but I want them to know what nation is coming for them.
“As you say, Your Majesty,” Sergio replies.
I glance at him. A deep crease has formed between his brows. Is he thinking about Violetta too? “This time, we will succeed,” I say. At conquering Tamoura. At finding my sister.
“We will,” he echoes. He offers me a terse nod, his face expressionless.
The sky above us, startlingly blue when we first left Kenettra, is now a threatening gray. Black clouds streak the horizon in front of us. Sergio gathers his cloak more tightly about him, his eyes trained in concentration on the approaching storm. He has been working on this tempest ever since we set sail, and now it is strong enough that I can sense the sparks in the air, the prickle along my arms.
“Black seas,” Sergio mutters, gesturing down at the dark waters. “A bad omen.”
“Your Majesty!” Magiano’s voice shouts at us from the crow’s nest. We both look skyward. “We’ve sighted land!” His arm emerges from the side of the nest to point toward the horizon, and when I follow it, I see a sliver of gray land emerging underneath a dark sky. Even from this distance, the vague silhouette of a high wall can be seen, fortified by one side that is nothing more than a steep cliff.
An instant later, Magiano drops down next to us. I didn’t even notice him making his way down the main masthead. “That is Alamour, my love,” he says, gesturing toward the cliff and wall.
The last time my forces set our sights on Tamoura, it was to conquer their northwestern territories. Now I am going to set foot in their capital. Thunder rolls across the ocean, and flashes of lightning make the clouds g
low. I wrap my arms around myself and shudder. My mother told me stories of this place, from where my ancestors came, and how many times armies had failed to penetrate its walls.
But I will be different.
If Violetta were here, she would be trembling at the thunder. Is she doing so right now, somewhere in Tamoura?
Sergio rests his hand on the hilt of his sword. “I haven’t heard their bugles sound. But if they haven’t seen us yet, they will soon. Half of our fleet is going to sail into their western bay.” He draws an invisible image in the air, gesturing at the city’s two bays and the cliffs running along its northern border. “The west is their main harbor, difficult to enter because of the narrow passage in. The east is an easier bay to access, but full of sharp rocks. This is where the other half of our fleet—where we ourselves—will enter. We can sail in, but we can’t dock. So we’ll call our baliras instead.” Sergio pauses to look at me. “I hope you feel rested, because we’re going to need you to conjure one vast illusion of invisibility for us.”
I nod. Even if the Tamourans can see a glimpse of our ships right now, they will not be expecting them to all vanish into thin air. Invisibility, despite all my mastery, is still the most difficult of my illusions—making myself invisible in a city usually requires a great deal of concentration, painting over my appearance with whatever is around me, constantly, as I move. But out here in the open ocean, all I need to do is weave an illusion of repeating waves and sky over our ships. Even if I make a few mistakes, the Tamourans will be watching from far away. It should be easy to fool them. If I can weave invisibility across the entire fleet, they won’t know where we are until we are upon them.
“And are the baliras ready?” I ask, stepping closer to the railing to look down at the ocean.
Sergio nods. “They’re ready.” But I sense an immediate unease in him and look up. When he sees my expression, he sighs and shakes his head. “The baliras have been restless all night. I’m not an expert in their behavior, but some of the other crew members tell me that they seem like they’re ill. Something in the water, perhaps.”