The Caged Queen

by Kristen Ciccarelli

  She’d thought it was about Essie. But then, at the end, that echo . . . it seemed like something else.

  Someone banged on her door, scattering her thoughts. “My queen?”

  Roa looked to find the sun high in the sky. She sat up . . . and groaned. Her whole body ached and it took her several heartbeats to remember why: she’d spent half the night dueling with Dax.

  Roa fell back into the pillows, thinking of last night. Of a wounded Dax, gleaming with sweat.

  The wound slowed him down, she knew. But even taking it into account, Dax was a worse swordsman than she’d thought. He favors his left and leaves both sides exposed when he lunges. He hadn’t even come close to beating her.

  If it was true that people tried to train him with a sword, either they hadn’t tried very hard, or he hadn’t. It was pathetic how terrible he was—especially since his enemies would be crawling through the palace in two nights’ time.

  Once that happened, Roa needed to be careful. She didn’t trust Rebekah. And she could no longer afford to trust Theo. It was up to her to keep Dax safe from their men long enough to make the exchange.

  Before any of that could happen, though, Roa needed to find the way out and report to Rebekah before midnight tonight—in exchange for Essie’s freedom.

  Roa chafed at that. She was at Rebekah’s mercy. But soon this would be over.

  “My queen.” Celeste’s voice came again from the other side of the door. “You’re late for the security meeting!”

  Roa got up. She was tired and sore—out of practice and out of shape. Putting her hands on her hips, she stretched her back, shoulders, and neck. As she dressed, donning a scrublander dress of finely spun pink linen, she glanced quickly at the hidden door Dax had shown her last night.

  She was tempted to feign illness and skip the meeting to explore the hidden passage. But if security measures were being discussed, Roa needed to be privy to them in case they interfered with her plans.

  Opening her doors, Roa found Celeste, Tati, and Saba looking expectantly back at her from the other side.

  “Please, Queen Roa, if you could hurry . . . we’re already quite late.”

  They took her to Dax’s rooms. His four guards stood outside the door, chins up, morions gleaming. They nodded to Roa’s guards as Celeste led the queen inside, and then to the door of Dax’s salon. “We’ll be right outside this door. Call for us if you need anything.”

  Roa nodded, stepping inside.

  Safire sprawled out on a low-lying sofa, tossing an elegant throwing knife in the air and catching it, over and over while she talked. Jas sat across from platters full of food, pouring tea for everyone. He would be here for just a few more days, helping Dax plan for the Relinquishing. Lirabel stood near the window, her eyes clouded as she gripped one of her arrows in both hands, bending it as if she intended to break it in half. Roa waited for the snap, but it never came.

  As Roa sat down next to Dax, her shoulder bumped his bad one and he winced. Roa withdrew, thinking of his knife wound. She shouldn’t have pushed him so hard last night.

  When she looked up to ask him how he was feeling, the words halted on her tongue.

  He looked . . . different.

  His hair had been cut. His curls were no longer so wild or tangled. And no hint of any stubble remained on his cheeks.

  He shaved, she thought.

  The sight of it made her realize she’d been getting used to his disheveled state.

  Dax’s gaze flickered across her face.

  “What is it?” he said, looking down at himself and straightening.

  Roa frowned at his smooth cheeks. “Nothing.”

  Dax reached one hand to rub his jaw.

  “You don’t like it.”

  Roa looked immediately away. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  Dax smiled a little, then leaned back, planting his hand behind her. Leaning in, he whispered against her shoulder, “Good to know.”

  At the brush of his lips, Roa felt something inside her start to unravel.

  What am I doing?

  She couldn’t let herself unravel. She had a task to perform.

  But the more she tried to focus on her purpose, the more her thoughts trailed back to Dax. To the memory of him lying beneath her last night, content to be at her mercy.

  By finding Rebekah the way in, Roa was betraying not only him but all of Firgaard—proving they were right to mistrust her. And by plotting to take his life . . .

  Roa wrapped her arms around herself, suddenly cold.

  Who will I be when all of this is over?

  No. She couldn’t afford to think like that. She needed to think of Essie. Of the ache growing inside her ever since she turned her back on Baron Silva’s home, leaving her sister behind. Alone. Imprisoned in that cage. Surrounded by enemies.

  Who will I be when this is over? I’ll be the girl who sets my sister free.

  “Roa?” interrupted Jas, lifting the teapot. “Tea?”

  Roa jerked forward, away from Dax, nodding. Jas filled a cup and passed it to her.

  “It’s decided, then.” Safire sat up and stretched her neck. “We’re closing the gates to the city. Beginning today, no one is allowed in or out of Firgaard.”

  Roa almost spit out her tea. “What?”

  Everyone turned to stare at her.

  Roa forced herself to be calm. “Isn’t that a little . . . drastic? For a single breach of security?”

  “Yesterday wasn’t a breach of security,” said Safire. She put both boots down on the floor now, leaning over her knees. “It was a mutiny.”

  Roa’s stomach tightened like a fist.

  This would ruin everything. The men and women from Sky were still on their way here. If Firgaard’s gates were shut, they’d all be turned away. And if the Relinquishing was canceled . . .

  Essie was at Rebekah’s mercy. Roa couldn’t afford to let that happen. Not until her sister was saved.

  “You can’t do this,” she said.

  “This is the third plot against you in less than a week,” said Safire. Her glittering blue eyes were cold. “We can’t sit back and do nothing.”

  The third? Do they all know about Sirin, then?

  Roa shook off the question and glanced at Dax. “If you shut the city gates and cancel the Relinquishing, it will be yet another broken promise.”

  “Roa.” Lirabel’s voice was sharp with warning. She’d turned away from the window to stare down at the queen, her arrow clenched in one hand. “It’s for your own safety.”

  Roa ignored her friend and fixed her gaze on Dax. “If you shut the city’s gates, you’ll prove you’re a weak king.”

  “Isn’t a broken promise better than taking another knife for you?!” Lirabel shouted.

  Both Roa and Dax looked up at her.

  “I never asked him to take the first one,” said Roa softly.

  Lirabel trembled with anger. “You,” she said, glaring at Dax, “are an irresponsible king if you don’t do as Safire suggests. And you . . .” Her forehead pinched as she looked to Roa. “I hardly recognize you anymore.”

  Roa felt herself wilt beneath those words.

  “I’ll consider it. I promise,” Dax said. “Secure the palace, question every soldat and member of the staff, and lock the palace gates for now. As for shutting the gates to the city and canceling the Relinquishing . . . let me think on it. I’ll give Safire my answer in the morning.”

  Lirabel didn’t look at the king. “Are we done?” she asked the commandant.

  Safire nodded.

  Picking up her earned bow and quiver full of arrows, Lirabel stormed toward the door and slammed it on her way. A taut silence loomed in her wake. Rising, Jas followed her out, taking his cup of steaming tea with him.

  Safire rose, stretching, then sheathed her knife. “I’m questioning all the palace guards today. If I get so much as a bad feeling—about any of them—they’ll be dismissed. We can’t afford to make any mistakes.”

  A
heartbeat later, she, too, was gone, leaving Dax and Roa alone.

  In the silence, Dax plucked a mango from one of the gleaming golden bowls in front of them.

  “I can’t afford to pretend I’m not losing control,” he said as his hands started to slice, peeling back chunks of yellow flesh, cutting them into cubes. “I don’t like knowing that you’re constantly in danger.”

  “So you’d rather keep me caged.”

  He looked up from slicing. “No. That’s—”

  “Isn’t that what you’re doing—locking me in? It isn’t outsiders who hate me, Dax. It’s Firgaardians. Canceling the Relinquishing won’t make the problem go away.”

  “I can’t just disregard Safire’s advice.”

  “You’re king,” she said. “You can do as you wish.”

  His gaze traced her in the sunlight coming through the windows, considering her words. Roa let her own gaze run over the planes of his face, studying those long black lashes, his once dark and stubbled jaw, the crooked bridge of his nose.

  “Safire has good instincts,” he said. “I trust her implicitly.”

  And me not at all, thought Roa. But of course, she couldn’t blame him.

  There was only one thing to do: find the way out and use it to warn Theo.

  Before tonight.

  Alone

  This was what losing her sister felt like . . .

  It was reaching out her hand in the night, only to find the blankets flat and cold and empty.

  It was the story she would never tell and the secret she would never whisper under the covers.

  It was the laugh she no longer heard.

  And the ache that never ceased.

  And the void that could never be filled.

  It was seeing what she’d lost in the eyes of everyone who looked at her.

  It was pretending not to hear her father weeping in the night when he thought no one could hear.

  It was going to the cliffs to see if she could find a trace of her . . . and finding only the chill of the wind and the silence of the still water.

  It was waking from a nightmare and turning to the one who always sang her back to sleep, only to find she was alone in the dark.

  Alone, forever, in the dark.

  That’s what losing her sister felt like.

  Twenty-Eight

  Roa told her guards not to disturb her for the rest of the day.

  And then, lighting a candle, she took it into the passage with her.

  If there was a secret escape route in the palace, it seemed only logical it would be connected to the king and queen’s rooms.

  “It has to be this one,” she murmured, holding her candle flame close to the walls, looking for latches.

  It got cold. And then damp. When her candle nearly burned down to the base, Roa still hadn’t come across any doors other than the ones leading to her and Dax’s rooms.

  And then, just like that, the passageway ended.

  Roa set down her candle and ran her hands across the wall, searching for a thin crack like the one in her room. The plaster was cold and damp against Roa’s palms, but there was no trace of any door.

  No, she thought, wanting to kick it. Why go to the trouble of making a tunnel go this far, and no farther?

  Unless it went somewhere once, thought Roa. And they closed it off.

  But why?

  And if it was the way out she’d been searching for, and it had been filled in, she had nothing to tell Theo.

  Panic squeezed her heart.

  But the longer she stayed, the more her candle burned down, and if she didn’t turn back, she’d be finding her way in utter darkness.

  This time, Roa did kick the door.

  Pain shot through her foot at the same time something clicked. Musty air rushed into her face, following by a soft creeeeeeaaaak. She hissed in pain, grabbing her toe, just as the wall in front of her swung open. Roa slowly lowered her foot, staring into the passage beyond, illuminated by her candle.

  She ignored her throbbing foot and crouched down, examining where she’d kicked the wall. There was a circle impressed into the plaster, close to the floor. She could tell the circle normally sat flush with the wall, but when she’d kicked it, it sank in. And inside the circle was a familiar pattern, though Roa couldn’t remember where she’d seen it before.

  Two knotted dragons.

  Roa ran her fingers over it. Then pushed.

  The door swung closed.

  She pushed again; the door swung open.

  Grabbing her diminished candle, Roa rose, her heart thumping.

  She followed the new passage for a hundred-hundred heartbeats, until she came to a set of steps. These led up to a wrought iron gate. The filigree twisted and coiled in that same knotted dragon pattern. From somewhere beyond it, she heard the rumble of carts and the chatter of voices.

  Roa touched the cold iron. Through the space in the twisting dragons, she could see a wall opposite, maybe five steps away. It wasn’t the reddish gold hue as most sections of the city. This one was washed in green.

  The new quarter. It had been rebuilt and painted after Kozu burned it to the ground.

  She saw no stalls, no passersby. This alley seemed barren. But from somewhere nearby, Roa could hear the clang of a hammer on steel. A blacksmith’s forge.

  She might not know where, exactly, it came out. But she had a rough idea.

  And it was a way out.

  When Roa reached for the tarnished knob, though, it didn’t budge. She tried to turn it, tried to tug, but the gate held firm.

  What is it with draksors and their damn locks?

  Bending down, she looked through the keyhole, trying to memorize the shape of it.

  Roa needed that key.

  Who would hold the key to a door leading straight to the royal quarters?

  Roa paused then, remembering the key Dax kept on a cord around his neck. A key as black and rusted as this door lock.

  Of course he would have it, she thought.

  But the key wasn’t her most pressing concern. Looking through the gate, she caught sight of the late-afternoon sunlight creeping in.

  Roa promised to find Rebekah the way out in three days. Here it was, the third day. And here Roa stood, staring at the way out. Only it was locked. And Theo was halfway across the city. And the palace was impenetrable.

  Roa gripped the iron and pressed her forehead against it, trying to think.

  As she did, her candle flickered out.

  Roa decided to find Theo and Rebekah, tell them she’d found the way out, then ask for more time to obtain the key.

  She made her way to the palace gate and stared up at the four massive bolts—each of them thick as a horse and twice as long—keeping the huge doors buckled tight. The soldats along the gate had been tripled and all of them stood straight as arrows, staring warily at Roa.

  She demanded that they open it for her.

  One of them took pity on her. “The commandant now has authority over the palace gate in states of emergency.”

  “What?” Roa frowned. “What does that mean?”

  “It means we can’t take orders from the king or queen. Only the commandant.”

  Had Dax done this? Handed over complete control to Safire?

  Fool.

  Turning on her heel, she marched straight to the king’s quarters.

  Before

  Roa’s opponent slid his carved ivory skyweaver across the checkered board. He’d only just lifted his fingers from the piece when Roa took it with her corrupted spirit, sighing roughly.

  “Do you have to be so obvious?”

  The eleven-year-old son of the king looked up.

  “How am I being obvious?”

  “You bring out your skyweaver first. You use her to do all your capturing. You obviously favor her.”

  “And that’s a bad thing?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can you explain?”

  Roa breathed in through her nose, then out again. How s
he was going to get through two whole months with this fool of a boy, she had no idea. But her father had instilled in her the importance of teaching a weaker opponent how to improve. Because a better opponent made for a greater challenge.

  Never settle for easy, he would say. Always choose the challenge.

  So Roa said to the boy across from her: “The moment I realize what your favorite piece is, she becomes your weakness.”

  Dax stared at her for a moment, considering this, then looked down to his ivory skyweaver.

  “So, what should I do?”

  “Create decoys.” She touched hers to show him: the corrupted spirit, then the dragon. “Try not to favor any one piece. But if you must, don’t let your opponent know which one it is.”

  “Because as soon as she knows my weakness, she knows how to beat me?”

  Finally, thought Roa. Progress.

  “Never reveal yourself.” She slid her dragon across the chiseled stone board. Carved of polished ebony, it gleamed like a starless night. “It’s the second rule of gods and monsters.” She looked up at him. “Do you remember the first?”

  He moved his piece across the board. When he planted it, he leaned back and said, “Pay attention.”

  “Yes!” Roa smiled. “Very good.”

  “No,” said Dax, tapping her wrist twice. “I mean: pay attention, I’m about to win the game.”

  Roa frowned.

  That couldn’t be right.

  But when she looked, she found her caged queen wide open and undefended. She’d let herself get distracted. And now, if she couldn’t find a way to block him, she would lose her queen and with it, the game.

  Roa looked up from the board, stunned.

  “Want to know the third rule of gods and monsters?” he asked, grinning. “I just made it up.”

  Roa crossed her arms as Dax leaned across the board.

  “Never underestimate a fool.”

  Twenty-Nine

  Roa banged her fist on the door twice before it swung in. Dax stood in the frame, hastily lacing up his shirt, his lips parting with whatever order he intended to use to send the knocker away.

  When he saw her, though, his fingers paused at his throat and the order never came.