“What will you do if I don’t?” Theo rose, taller and stronger than Dax. His eyes glittered, but he didn’t smile. There was a gutting knife in his hand, too. “You don’t like me talking about Roa that way? Why not? Everyone knows it’s the truth. Everyone knows how you feel about her.”
Those words hit like a punch. All the air emptied out of Roa’s lungs and without realizing it, she dropped her net.
The hum buzzed in her blood. Beside her, Essie’s face had gone stony.
“They’re just friends,” said Lirabel softly from the boat beside them.
Roa felt hot, suddenly. Like she was burning from the inside out. She looked to her sister, knowing she felt it, too. Essie glared at Theo like she wanted him to disappear.
Theo smirked. He shoved Dax, who grappled for his balance—arms swinging wildly—as the boat he stood in floated back toward Jas.
“Go back to where you came from, sandeater.”
The hum rose to a roar inside Roa. Essie’s eyes were slits as her gaze narrowed. Roa stared at the son of the king, willing him to fight back. To defend himself.
But Dax simply turned away and did as Theo said: he climbed back into Jas’s boat.
Suddenly, Roa saw white as the hum seared through her. She squeezed Essie’s hand and nearly cried out as it surged one final time.
There was a startled yelp and then a huge splash as Theo’s boat capsized, throwing him overboard. For one sweet moment, the bulbous reedy hull bobbed above the surface, like the belly of a giant fish.
Silence.
And then Theo came up spluttering and thrashing.
The hum quieted within Roa. She looked to her twin, who’d just picked up her net. Essie kept her eyes on her fingers, working through a knot.
As Theo cursed and struggled to get his boat upright, Essie glanced up, catching Roa’s gaze and grinning triumphantly. Just for her.
Roa looked back to her own net, grinning, too.
Twelve
Roa spent her first morning back in Firgaard searching the skies and calling her sister’s name. But just like the first time, there was no sign of Essie. And when Roa called, only silence answered her.
She longed for Essie’s familiar weight perched on her shoulder. For the feel of her soul, warm and close. For the normally bright hum of their bond.
What if she didn’t come back?
What if they’d run out of time?
But beneath these questions, growing like a root in the darkness, was another: what if everything Theo said was true? What if the Skyweaver’s knife not only existed, but really was right here in Firgaard?
Ever since their conversation in the garden, Roa couldn’t stop thinking about the knife. The more days that passed, the stronger her urge was to see it. To hold it in her hands. To decide for herself if it and the stories were real.
Theo’s words had unearthed something in Roa. A yearning she thought she’d buried for good, years ago. It made her realize that, more than anything—more than her people’s freedom from tyranny—she wanted Essie back. Not as a bird. As her sister.
She wanted Essie to walk barefoot down the roads of Song again. Wanted to fight with her, and then apologize for fighting with her. Wanted to sit in the kitchen after all the dishes were put away, talking with their mother deep into the night, just like they used to do. She wanted to watch her jump from the cliffs, then watch her shake the water from her curls. Wanted her to fall in love and raise children and grow old and live a whole, full, happy life.
None of these things were possible with her soul trapped as it was. And once the Relinquishing took her for good, they would never be possible.
Which was how Roa found herself asking the question: If there really was a chance to give Essie her life back, could Roa truly say she wouldn’t take it?
A few days later, Roa sat in the Assembly hall—a huge circular room with a copper-domed roof in the heart of the city. Her ornate marble chair chilled her to the bone.
Dax sat to her right, looking half-asleep in a throne that matched his queen’s. His curls were a wild tangle and his jaw was still flecked with stubble. As if he’d rolled out of bed and come straight here.
On the other side sat Safire, Dax’s new commandant and his closest confidante. Her fingers drummed the arm of her chair as her blue eyes scanned and rescanned the room.
The three of them sat on a raised, semicircular dais. Before them sat the eleven members of the king’s council who were already entrenched in heated debate.
Sunlight streamed in through the tall windows on the western side of the circular Assembly. The light gleamed on the lime-washed walls, reflected off the sheen of the copper dome above, then alighted on the crowd inside the room.
Roa’s gaze skimmed the colorful silk tunics and intricately sewn kaftans of the wealthy spectators, here to watch the king’s council make or change laws in response to their grievances.
What could your grievances possibly be? she wondered as their gold bands and jewel-encrusted rings flickered in the sunlight. Roa’s mother had sold off all their gold and jewels in order to keep people fed. How many of you became wealthy while my people suffered?
And yet, instead of discussing those very injustices and how to right them, they were debating some law regulating dragons, of all things.
After the coronation, Dax outlawed dragon hunting and sanctioned the Rift mountains as grounds for studying and training the beasts.
The council, it seemed to Roa, wanted to turn the sanctuary grounds into profit centers. If the dragons could be controlled, they argued, the beasts could be sold to the highest bidder. Dax thought it exploitative and wanted no such thing.
Roa didn’t care about dragons. She cared about people. Her people. Firgaard’s sanctions were still starving them. She cared, too, that conditions for the recently freed skral—who’d been slaves in Firgaard for several decades before Dax overthrew his father—did not seem to be improving.
She wanted Dax to fulfill his treaty promises.
Once he lifted the sanctions, scrublanders would be allowed to trade openly again and receive loans for food until the blight ran its course and their crops recovered. Her people would stop going hungry. They wouldn’t need to leave their homes and seek work across the sea. Families would be reunited. They could begin to thrive again.
Roa was about to interrupt the debate and turn the session to the treaty when Dax jolted to attention in his chair. Roa and Safire both glanced at him to find his gaze fixed on the councillor who’d risen from her seat. She was a tall young woman, probably close to Roa’s nineteen years of age, and draped in swaths of indigo. Her hair was bound up in an embroidered skarf, and around her throat hung a gold pendant bearing Dax’s emblem: a black dragon with a red heart of flame—the same pendant worn by all eleven of the king’s council members.
“This matter is settled. Do you have something new to put forward, my king?” the young woman asked Dax, clearly also tired of this discussion.
She didn’t once look at Roa.
“A few things, actually,” said Dax who, until a few heartbeats ago, seemed on the verge of sleep.
Roa watched him motion to Lirabel, who stood with Jas along the wall. She wore a mulberry kaftan with creamy jasmine flowers embroidered up the sleeves, and her black curls were pinned up with ivory combs. Her hands gripped a scroll with acacia handles, each carved with the symbol of the House of Song.
It was the treaty they’d negotiated in the scrublands.
Roa’s grip loosened as she stared at Dax. Deep down, she hadn’t believed he would really do it—hadn’t believed he would uphold his promises.
Lirabel handed the scroll to the young councillor, who gave the king’s emissary a quick, dismissive look before taking it.
“What is this?” she asked, unrolling it.
“My treaty with the five Great Houses of the scrublands.”
The councillor stopped unrolling. Roa watched her hands tighten, ever so slightly, around the handles.
/> “It states three things,” Dax went on, leaning back in his chair. That strange sudden alertness left his body, replaced by the lazy slouch. “First, the sanctions will be lifted as of the end of this Assembly.”
A sharp, startled murmur rippled through the crowd. On Dax’s other side, Safire’s back went sword straight and her eyes narrowed.
“Second,” Dax went on, ignoring the chatter, “as of the next Assembly, my council will be equally representative of the kingdom to ensure it can adequately make decisions in favor of all—draksors, scrublanders, and skral alike.”
The startled murmurs turned to exclamations of outrage. A restructuring of the council meant more than half the councillors—currently all draksors—would lose their positions.
But such a move was necessary if the skral, who were still vulnerable in the wake of the revolt, were to find equal footing among their former masters in Firgaard.
Roa’s heart quickened. This was more than she had hoped for—
“And third,” Dax continued, not bothering to raise his voice above the din, “the law against regicide will be struck down.”
The crowd erupted. Safire rose to her feet, communicating wordlessly with every soldat in the room, who immediately formed a strong, steadfast line between the now-outraged spectators and the king’s council.
The law against regicide was the oldest law in Firgaard. For centuries, kings rose and fell, but the law against regicide was ancient and unbreakable.
It was the reason Dax’s sister, Asha, was on the run for her life.
“If you cannot control yourselves”—Safire’s voice cut through the noise like a sharply honed knife—“my soldats will escort you all out.”
Her eyes glittered dangerously and her fingers tapped the smooth, simple hilts of her throwing knives—Saf’s weapons of choice.
The crowd fell into silence.
Roa couldn’t help it. A flame of admiration flared in her heart.
And then, shattering the moment: someone laughed. It was a beautiful laugh. Like bells chiming. It echoed through the Assembly.
All the eyes in the domed room fell on the young councillor. Despite her laugh, the girl’s eyes were cold and hard as Roa’s marble chair.
“Surely you’re joking, my king.”
Dax sighed. “I’m afraid it’s no joke, Councillor Silva.”
Silva. Where had Roa heard that name?
She smiled sweetly. Too sweetly. “We’ve discussed this before, my king. Your revolt and subsequent succession has already caused this city and its people considerable strife. What you propose—the abolition of the sanctions—will weaken Firgaard’s already damaged economy. It’s something that needs to be done carefully and gradually. By experts.”
Resting his cheek against his fist, Dax listened as Councillor Silva went on.
“As for your second motion: since the council is voted on, not appointed, that treaty promise was not for you to make. Your people determine the men and women who sit on your council.”
The crowd murmured its assent, nodding their heads. Roa waited for Dax to cut in, to refute her. But he didn’t.
“As for the law against regicide”—her smile turned piteous—“we all know why you want it struck down. And we sympathize.”
The council remained quiet, their eyes on the king, thinking, Roa assumed, of Asha escaping the city on the morning before her beheading.
Everyone assumed it was Dax who helped her.
But they were wrong.
“You can’t amend an ancient law purely for your own benefit.” Councillor Silva lowered her voice and stepped closer to Dax. “It’s no way to begin an already fragile reign.”
Their gazes locked as some silent battle waged between the king and his councillor, unseen by everyone else in the room.
Roa stared at Dax, willing him to assert himself. He was king. And these were promises encoded in a treaty. He didn’t have a choice. He needed to uphold them.
Instead, he buckled.
Looking away from his councillor, he said, “Then I expect to speak with these experts, so we can decide how the sanctions can best be dismantled.”
Councillor Silva smiled a slow, victorious smile.
Roa stared at Dax, who watched his councillor return to her seat.
“What are you doing?” Roa demanded, leaning in toward him. She would not let it end like this. “Command that the sanctions be lifted.”
He didn’t look at her. “She’s right. Reckless action will bring chaos.” He said it so calmly. As if this was what he expected to happen all along. “And I can’t force my will on my people.”
“You can and should.” Roa’s hands shook with anger. “You’re king, Dax.”
He met her angry gaze. “But not a tyrant.”
“There are worse things to be.”
“Truly?” he asked, his full attention on her. “You would prefer a tyrant?”
“Over a puppet who dances on his council’s strings? Yes.”
Councillor Silva had taken her seat and an older man with hunching shoulders and white hair—a man Dax earlier referred to as Councillor Barek—was moving things along. Roa could tell by the stirring crowd that the session was coming to an end.
“You say you don’t want to force your will on your people.” She kept her voice low, holding his gaze. “But the will of your people has been forced on mine for decades. And if you think this is a democratic solution”—she gestured to the wealthy draksor council and the even wealthier draksor crowd beyond it—“you’re a fool.”
Dax leaned in so close, Roa could feel the warmth of him. “If I’m a fool”—his gaze hooked into hers—“what does that make the one who married me?”
Roa didn’t notice the eyes of the Assembly on them. But Dax did. Something shifted then, and the tension building in him melted away, replaced by that smooth exterior. He flashed Roa that smile of his. As if she weren’t his queen, but rather some silly thing to be charmed and flirted with.
Roa wanted to smack him.
She looked away, furious and humiliated. If it was true—if Dax had expected this outcome all along—then he’d intentionally deceived the Great Houses. By signing that treaty, by swearing to uphold it, he’d made false promises.
Was this truly the man she’d given up everything to marry?
Roa’s anger burned within her. She was sick to death of her people’s powerlessness. Of mothers giving up children they could no longer provide for, then living with the shame of it. Of fathers moving across the desert or sea in search of ways to feed their families, unable to watch their children grow. Of the sickness and weakness and purposelessness that malnourishment bred.
Roa would not abide it any longer.
Fixing her attention on Councillor Silva, she said, “What do you think will happen when my father realizes his treaty is broken?” Her voice rang out through the room, echoing off the dome above. “What do you think will happen when the Great Houses understand they’ve been betrayed?”
Silva’s pretty brown eyes lifted to Roa’s for the first time since she’d entered the room.
“Betrayed? That’s a little . . . dramatic, don’t you think?” Again, that smile lit up Councillor Silva’s face—but not her eyes. “This is how things are done in Firgaard: carefully and meticulously. If you’re going to be our queen, you will need to get used to our ways.”
She turned back to the council, dismissing Roa.
“Your ways are unjust.” Roa’s voice rang out clear in the Assembly.
The air went cold. The room fell to silence.
Dax reached for her wrist in warning. Roa jerked away.
Councillor Silva turned back.
“It’s because of draksors that my people have been slowly starving to death,” Roa continued. “So forgive me if I don’t quite trust the draksor way.”
Councillor Silva looked to Dax. “Is it the scrublander way to blame everyone else for their problems?”
The crowd nodded and mur
mured their assent.
The statement shocked Roa. Is this how they thought of her? Of her people?
“Trust goes both ways, my queen,” Councillor Silva said. “When a scrublander blackmails our king into marrying her, we’d be naïve to think she has anything but her own interests at heart.” She turned back to the council. “This Assembly is finished for today.”
“Actually,” said Dax from beside Roa, “there is one more thing.”
All the councillors now rising from their seats paused halfway to their feet.
Roa glanced at her husband, daring to hope that he’d changed his mind. That he intended to do something.
“This year, as a sign of our goodwill toward the scrublands, Firgaard will celebrate the Relinquishing.”
A confused quiet followed these words.
Even Roa was perplexed.
The Relinquishing was a scrublander holiday. Why would Firgaard celebrate it?
“What this kingdom needs is unity,” Dax went on, smiling as he did. “And what better way to bring us together than a celebration?”
A celebration of what? thought Roa bitterly. How useless you are?
Dax wasn’t interested in goodwill toward scrublanders, nor was he invested in a unified kingdom. He’d just proven this by bending to his council’s demands instead of upholding his promises.
So why celebrate the Relinquishing?
A few councillors spoke quietly amongst themselves, away from the rest of the council. Roa watched them, listening hard.
He loves to indulge in fine things, she heard one of them say. What better way to indulge than with a celebration?
Roa frowned, looking back to the king.
Was that what this was? Was Dax giving the scrublands a token gesture of goodwill, while simultaneously giving himself an excuse to drink expensive wine, seduce pretty women, and distract himself from the things that really mattered?
Roa didn’t want to believe it. But she hadn’t wanted to believe he would buckle under his council’s pressure, either. And he did.
“Draksors don’t celebrate the Relinquishing,” Councillor Silva said, her voice cold and hard as ice, breaking up the clamor.
“We do now,” Dax said, looking to Jas, who nodded from his place against the wall next to Lirabel. “I’ve just declared it. Invitations have been sent to all the Great Houses. The north and south gates will remain open for the next seven days to allow for safe passage into and out of the city.”
The Caged Queen Page 11