The Caged Queen

by Kristen Ciccarelli

  Leaving Essie behind.

  Back in the palace stables, Roa told Lirabel to go on ahead of her. The stable girl tried to take the horse, but Roa insisted on untacking it herself. She wasn’t ready to face whatever was waiting for her inside the palace.

  Alone with her tumultuous thoughts, Roa took her time undoing the buckles of the horse’s halter, listening to the swish of tails and the whuff of horse sighs, when suddenly the stall door swung open.

  “What have you done?”

  Startled, Roa looked up to find Dax stepping inside the stall. His gold tunic, soaked with rain, clung to his chest and shoulders, and his damp curls stuck to his forehead. As if he’d raced through the storm to get here.

  Roa stepped away from the scowling king, deeper into the stall.

  “What did you give her?” Dax’s voice was thunderous.

  She shook her head. “I didn’t give her anything.”

  “That’s a lie.” His cheeks were wet and his eyelashes clustered together like dark stars. “Under no circumstances would Bekah just let Torwin go.”

  Roa tried to hold his furious gaze and failed.

  “You’ve been bought,” he said as he stepped in closer, trapping her in the corner of the stall. “Haven’t you?”

  It was strange, but in his voice Roa thought she heard a quavering fear.

  “Torwin’s free, isn’t he? You have what you want. Who cares how you got it?”

  His gaze on her face was a dark, hard thing.

  What right did he have to be angry? Roa had marched an army across the desert for this boy. Captured Darmoor for him. Helped throw a revolt with him. Broke off her betrothal and caused a rift between Song and Sky . . . all for him.

  And how had he repaid her?

  First he’d broken Lirabel’s heart. Then he broke every one of his treaty promises without a care. And tonight, while she saved Torwin, while Essie was forced into a cage, he’d been openly flirting with Rebekah’s dinner guests and drinking with abandon.

  “Things could be worse,” she said bitterly. “You could be the one married to a drunken whore.”

  Dax blinked at her, as if surprised.

  “Me?” he finally said. “I’m the whore?”

  Roa lifted her chin, glaring up at him, thinking of the woman in the yellow kaftan tonight. The way Dax drank in the sight of her.

  Oh, how she hated him.

  “Tonight?” he said, as if seeing the thoughts in her head. “Tonight was just business.”

  She locked her gaze with his, thinking of Lirabel. “Just business?” How many other girls had he left pregnant, terrified, and crying all alone? “Is it just business when you warm every other bed in Firgaard but your wife’s?”

  She regretted the words the moment they were out of her mouth.

  That wasn’t what she meant to say. She didn’t want him warming her bed.

  Dax stepped in closer, taking up all her air. “Are you my wife?” Soaked as he was, she could see all of him. The hard knot of his shoulders, the smooth curve of his chest. “Do you sleep in my bed or my enemy’s?”

  She remembered the last time they were alone in a stable—the day she’d lost a race to him. She still owed him something from that race.

  “It’s true,” she whispered, holding his gaze. “I prefer less crowded beds than yours.”

  They stood for several heartbeats glaring at each other, their chests rising and falling with their synchronized breaths.

  “I never should have married you,” he said.

  “I don’t remember you having a choice.”

  His fists clenched as he scowled at her.

  “It’s too bad you’re such a terrible swordsman,” she went on, gaze locked with his. “Otherwise, you could rid yourself of me right here.” Well and truly angry now, she thought of the seal she’d found in Sirin’s pocket. “You could finish the job you paid someone else to do!”

  At those words, the thunder went out of his eyes. “What?”

  She motioned to the empty stable. “We’re alone. No one would hear. You could do it now and be through with me.”

  Dax stared at her. “What are you talking about?”

  Maybe it was her grief over Essie. Or maybe it was more than that. But something was burning in Roa, and she couldn’t stop until it was all burned out.

  “I found your seal in Sirin’s pocket. Right after he tried to kill me.”

  Dax’s mouth flattened into a hard line and his eyes went black. “What?”

  Roa had never seen him look like that. The edge in his voice made whatever was burning in her flicker.

  She stepped back.

  Dax came toward her, closing the gap, tense with fury. “Speak plainly. What are you telling me?”

  “Sirin cornered me in an alley,” she said. “He told me he’d been paid to rid the king of his problem.” She shook now from the memory of it. “I found your seal in his pocket.”

  For a moment, Dax was silent, remembering the night previous. When she’d run straight into him, alone, without her guards.

  “And so,” he said, voice bitter, gaze never leaving her face, “you think I’m the one who gave the order.”

  Roa’s voice came out like a whisper. “What else am I to think?”

  “That seal was a fake.” Dax’s jaw hardened. “Someone forged it.”

  Roa wanted to laugh. “Easy to say.”

  He didn’t move away. Just stood there, studying her.

  “I made you a promise, Roa.” His voice softened. “The night I married you.”

  The memory of it glimmered in his eyes: the two of them lying side by side in his tent, in the middle of the war camp.

  He lifted his hand and, to Roa’s surprise, gently brushed his thumb across her jaw. “I would never hurt you.”

  Roa stared up at him, immobilized.

  But you hurt me every day.

  She hadn’t meant to say it aloud.

  Dax looked stricken, his hand immediately retreating as he stepped back. Roa felt the world rush in, separating them.

  “Do I?” he whispered. When Roa didn’t answer, he said, “Then I won’t impose on you any longer.”

  Without another word, he turned and walked out of the stall.

  The moment he was gone, Roa fell back against the wall. Whatever had been burning in her vanished. She slid down into the hay and pressed her palms against her eyes, trying to numb herself to the storm of confusion within her. Trying to will away the fear.

  In the dark and the silence, it was Torwin she saw. His hands bound behind his back as he stared down Rebekah. Love burned out all his fear. As if he’d stared death in the face so many times, Rebekah was nothing more than a mere annoyance.

  Roa knew what it felt like to love someone like that.

  Reaching for the Skyweaver’s knife, she slid the blade from its sheath hidden beneath her hem. It glowed in the darkness, and Roa felt its strange chill sink into her bones. As she studied its sharp edge and the unknown symbols in its hilt, she thought of a white hawk trapped in a cage.

  She loved her sister more than anything or anyone. She would do whatever it took to free her.

  Even if it meant killing a king.

  A Corrupted Spirit

  Once there was a dog who loved her master very much. When the master worked late, the dog waited for him at the front door. When the master went to bed, the dog lay at his feet. When the master grew very sick, the dog never left his side. Until one day the master fell asleep and didn’t wake up.

  The dog whimpered as the family gathered round the pyre. The dog howled as they said good-bye.

  For years afterward, the dog would sit staring at the front door. Her ears perking at every noise, listening for her master’s footsteps. Certain he was coming home.

  For seven long years, the family shook their heads sadly and ignored her. They knew how to let go; the dog did not.

  And every year on the Relinquishing, it would get worse.

  Just after sundow
n, the dog would start to bark.

  And bark. And bark.

  Every year, the family stopped eating dinner and looked to the windows. But the night was ink black and they couldn’t see out.

  When the dog started to howl and scratch at the door, they lit a candle, illuminating the path to the house. But there was no one there.

  Finally, on the night of the eighth Relinquishing, when the dog was old and nearing death, the son of the master took pity on her. “Let her out,” he said. So the children opened the door.

  The dog ran out, wagging her tail.

  Something else slipped in, wearing her master’s face.

  The next morning, when a neighbor came by, the door hung open, beckoning her inside.

  She smelled the blood before she saw it. Felt the chill of death before she even stepped across the threshold.

  The family was dead. The man’s corrupted spirit had slaughtered them all, leaving only his dog alive.

  This was the cost of unrelinquishing.

  Twenty-Two

  Roa paced her rooms. Her slippers hushed gently against the floor tiles, a sharp contrast to her clenched jaw and furrowed brow.

  She needed to find the passageway. Yet she remained heavily guarded. And losing her guards when they’d been assigned to her by none other than Safire was a near-impossible task.

  The only time eyes weren’t trained on her like arrows was when she was alone in her rooms. And she couldn’t exactly search for a way out while confined there.

  It was already midafternoon. Roa walked to the archway of her terrace, letting out a frustrated growl.

  And then she stopped pacing.

  Directly across the garden, opposite her balcony, were the king’s quarters. Dax was supposed to be in a meeting now—or so he’d told Roa at lunch—but there was movement inside his room.

  Her curtains billowed in the breeze, obscuring her view, and Roa grabbed them, pushing them back so she could see.

  The king had just entered the bedroom across the garden. Roa watched him loosen the laces of his tunic.

  Had he lied to her about the meeting?

  Suddenly, Dax walked out onto his balcony. Roa’s heart hammered as she withdrew behind her curtains, trying to keep out of sight. When she dared a glance back, she found Dax leaning over his balustrade, studying the gardens that separated Roa’s quarters from his.

  The palms rustled in the breeze. The bees hummed in the lavender. And still, Dax stared below. As if he were waiting for something.

  Or someone, Roa thought.

  If this was the case, she didn’t want to watch. She was about to retreat into her room when Dax hoisted himself up and over his balcony, hung from the balustrade for several heartbeats, then dropped to the earth below.

  Roa stopped breathing. She waited a moment, then stepped out onto her own balcony to see him striding off toward the north end of the gardens.

  Where are you going?

  Intending to find out, she kicked off her slippers and climbed over her own balcony. Like Dax, she let herself hang for a moment, closed her eyes, and let go.

  The ground rushed up to meet her. Pain spiked in her ankles, making her wince. Quickly, Roa glanced up to the balcony level, but there was no one to see her. Her guards would still be in the hall, watching the doors to her room.

  Hiking up the hem of her dress, Roa ran after the king.

  These were the former dragon queen’s gardens and they smelled like the scrublands. Roa breathed in the scent of jacaranda and date palms as she followed from a safe distance.

  But Dax, clearly confident no one was following him, didn’t look back. After all, it was only him and Roa in the royal quarters, and therefore, its gardens.

  When he stepped off the path and waded into a patch of tall esparto grass, Roa darted after him, stopping behind a eucalyptus tree when he paused in front of the garden wall. From her hiding place, Roa watched him press both hands to the cracked, yellowing plaster.

  He pushed.

  The wall moved.

  Roa’s mouth fell open.

  It wasn’t a wall, but a door. In the widening crack beyond, Roa saw only darkness. When Dax disappeared inside, the wall moved back, shutting him in and Roa out.

  She dropped the hem of her dress. Roa walked through the hibiscus bushes, their leaves gently brushing against her skin. She touched the wall, tracing the very fine line she never would have seen if she’d been walking by.

  A hidden door.

  A hopeful feeling flooded her.

  To ensure Dax wouldn’t hear her, Roa waited several heartbeats, then several more. Finally, she pushed the door open.

  It was damp and dark inside and Roa had to keep one hand on the wall to know where she was going. She’d lost all sight of Dax, but it didn’t matter. She cared less about where he was headed and more about where this passage led.

  But instead of heading out of the palace, it seemed to go deeper in, and then up. She climbed two sets of stairs, then ran right into a door.

  She sucked in a breath. Fearing it might be locked, she reached for the knob. But when she turned it, the door clicked open. Roa swung it in toward her.

  Instead of opening into sunlight, it opened onto . . . fabric.

  Roa touched the tangled, colored threads of the back of a tapestry. Stepping closer, she listened. But no sound came from the other side. So, holding her breath, Roa pushed the tapestry aside and stepped into the room beyond.

  Bright sunlight splashed across the mosaicked floor and lit up the motes of dust floating through the air.

  It was a library.

  The room was musty and warm and the shelves were full of scrolls and old tomes, some recently bound, others fraying with age. When the shelf space ran out, chests were filled and stacked on top.

  The shelves twisted and coiled, like a complicated labyrinth, drawing Roa in.

  But if someone was here . . .

  When she stopped to listen, she heard nothing but silence.

  Roa looked back to the tapestry she’d emerged from. It was a woven image of the mythical goddess Iskari and her twin, Namsara. Iskari was rendered in dark blues with a moon on her chest; Namsara was woven in gold with a sun. There were other tapestries too, full of the imagery of the old stories. Of Kozu and the sacred flame. Of healing flowers and heroes that took their name from Namsara.

  Roa walked along the curving wall. But as far as she could see, there were just more tapestries. The sunlight came from a glass dome in the roof above. And when she finally found a door that wasn’t hidden, it was locked.

  A secret library?

  She didn’t need a secret library. She needed a secret way out.

  Still, she’d found a passageway. Now that she knew what to look for, she could find others.

  Roa stepped between the shelves, wanting to cut across to the passage she’d come through. But the shelves really were labyrinthine. They kept turning her about. She hit two dead ends before finding herself in the very middle of the room.

  A circular ebony table was set with eleven chairs and stacked with books, inkwells, and quills. Roa looked past it, turning in circles, studying the twisting shelves.

  Which way was out? They all looked the same.

  Just pick one.

  Stepping into the rows and rows of tomes, she turned the corner and stopped sharp.

  There, leaning with his back to the shelf, was the king.

  His knee was bent, his arms were crossed, and the back of his head rested against the spines, as if deep in thought.

  At the sight of her, Dax’s arms fell to his sides and his foot lowered to the floor. His gaze flickered over her, eyes wide with surprise. “What in all the skies are you doing here?”

  “Me?” she squeaked. “Aren’t you supposed to be in a meeting?”

  A sudden sound made them both freeze: the soft snick of a door latch, followed by voices. Dax pushed away from the shelves. Roa’s heart clanged in her chest.

  “He replaced al
l of them?” someone said in the distance. “Can he do that?”

  “He made a scrublander queen against our advice. He’s the dragon king. He can do what he wants.”

  She recognized those voices. They belonged to the council.

  “But how did he find out?”

  “Obviously she told him.”

  Dax reached for her wrist.

  Roa panicked, twisted away, and fled back through the shelves, trying to find her way out before the voices found their way in, trapping her here. But the farther she went, the closer they came, until there was only a single shelf between her and one of the men.

  “Who do you think cut his throat and left him to die? Her? Or the king?”

  Roa ducked down. Between the top of the tomes and the bottom of the shelf ledge, she could see the silks of their clothes.

  Suddenly, from behind her, Dax grabbed Roa hard around the waist, clamping a hand over her mouth and hauling her back with him.

  Stunned by his strength, Roa didn’t fight. Dax held on, carrying her now as he doubled back to that ebony table, then down another twisting aisle that culminated in a dead end.

  That’s where he dropped her, running frustrated fingers through his curls as he stared at the shelf blocking his way. As if he’d expected something else.

  Roa was about to run, when a voice came down the aisle connecting their dead end to the center of this maze.

  “Her new guards are loyal. I doubt they can be bought.”

  She heard the slow scrape of chairs. Heard them all sit down at the table.

  Trapped. She was trapped.

  Fear twisted in her belly. Roa backed up, straight into Dax. He reached for her wrist—gently this time—and tapped the bone with his thumb. Twice.

  And in that moment, Roa remembered: Essie’s code.

  She’d taught it to Dax when they were children playing gods and monsters.

  Pay attention, it meant.

  He was trying to warn her.

  Her mind flashed back to the day of the Assembly and how afterward, as she spoke with Rebekah, he’d done the same thing: reached for her wrist and tapped the bone twice.