Then I think of Karsi. Karsi is the one who’s loyalty to Shar I’ve most doubted. I’ve always sensed that Karsi is nine-tenths animal, more a natural predator like a wolf than a trained warrior. I believe that his loyalty to me, like his clear physical attraction, is instinctive and elemental. Surely Karsi can sense my presence?
Then Johan. I imagine that Johan is the one most disgusted with himself, believing that he’s been tricked by some sorceress into abandoning his loyalty to the queen. I know that Johan values honor above all things, that he will be deeply ashamed of what he will no doubt believe to be his own failure. Poor Johan. In my mind I urge him to forgive himself, to trust in his instincts as I have learned to do.
And then there’s Eirik. I can barely bring myself to think of Eirik. I can only think of him in parts - his soft mouth, the hard muscles of his arms, the bronzed perfection of his smooth skin. My mistake was in my hunger for Eirik - that was the deep longing that made me careless tonight. I have no idea what the conscious Eirik will make of everything that’s happened tonight. In this world, in this time, I only understand Eirik when he’s half asleep, when his arms instinctively reach out to embrace me.
These thoughts keep me occupied until a guard unlocks the door.
I am led out of the cell in chains.
I cannot believe it. Ever since I have been in this castle I have gradually started to remember what it was like to grow up here, how I have never lived without the knowledge that this place would one day be my kingdom. The feeling of the chains clamped around my wrists and ankles is almost more than I can bear. I am a caged thing, led by a guard to the same courtyard that I came to on my first day here, on the day that Lara mistook me for a handmaiden.
This time, the crowd parts for me - I cannot possibly blend in. I am pushed and manhandled across the courtyard to a set of wooden steps, which lead up to a platform where Shar stands, flanked by two Warriors on either side. Johan. Karsi. Haki. Eirik. All surveying me with cold eyes.
My heart seems to shrink, but I keep my head high. If this is what I think it is, then there is no point in pretending that I am not the rightful queen. I have nothing to lose right now.
Shar is wearing a blood-red dress, covered with a cloak of silvery fur. A silver circlet, studded with rubies, encircles her forehead.
I smile at her, because I know that it’ll drive her mad. Yeah, I think. Maybe if you keep dressing up like that then you’ll actually manage to kid yourself that you’re the real queen.
She dismisses the guard with a wave of her hand, and I am left standing on the wooden platform in chains. The heavy iron drags down my hands, but I force my shoulders back and look my sister straight in the eye. I sense that if it weren’t for our audience, she would actually scream in frustration at my defiance.
“My people!” Her voice rings out through the courtyard. I let my mouth fall into a little smirk. They’ll never really be your people, Shar, I think to myself.
“My people! The girl you see before you may look like a simple handmaiden, may have deceived you into believing that she was a simple handmaiden, may have manipulated the court into believing that she was a true servant to me. But she is a liar!”
A hush falls over the whole crowd. There is not a single eye that isn’t fixed on me.
“But what you see before you…” Shar’s voice turns ice-cold. “Is in fact an enchantress. A traitor.”
Takes one to know one, Shar.
It’s weird how I know rationally that something terrible is going to happen, yet I don’t feel afraid. Everyone’s staring at me, but I know that these are my people and I am their queen. They can stare at me if they want to. I can take it. I’m here for them, after all.
Shar continues. “This witch has used every enchantment and power at her disposal to attempt to seduce the queen’s own beloved Warriors. This is treason, for which the penalty is death.”
A hum breaks out into the crowd, like a burst of raw energy. I am calm. I know that the only reason I’m here is because I want to be here.
Shar smiles at me, and says very softly under her breath, “This is what I should have done all along, sister. Forgive my sentimentality, it only made this unpleasantness go on for longer than it needed to.”
I smile back. My skin feels charged, electric, but there is something at the core of me that is pure calm, as solid as an ancient tree.
“Oh, I forgive you, Shar,” I reply, equally softly. This is for her ears only. “I only hope that you will forgive me when I defeat you.”
Shar looks at me incredulously. I know she’s expecting me to break down, to beg, or at least to be frightened. She’s always loved the idea that she’s the strong sister and I’m the weak one.
“Defeat you?” She gives a mirthless giggle, and then turns to Eirik, who is standing on her near right flank. “Do it.”
My Eirik. Of course. Of course she wanted it to be him.
Eirik rises from bent knee, bowing to Shar and taking his broadsword between his two hands. A hush descends over the crowd.
“Wait a moment,” Shar says dispassionately, and for a second I think she’s called the whole thing as a spectacle, that she doesn’t intend to hurt me after all. But she simply picks up the edge of her skirt with her hand and steps a few feet away, to a throne under a dais. She sits slowly, and then waves her hand. “I didn’t want any of her blood on me. Continue.”
Eirik nods, and approaches me slowly. What am I supposed to do? Kneel?
I’d rather die, I think. But then two masked figures grab me by either arm, forcing me to my knees.
I can hear a few people chanting in a steady rhythm, trying to whip the crowd into a murderous frenzy. But most of them are deadly quiet. Perhaps it’s their instinct - they know that something terribly wrong is about to happen.
I kneel there upright, facing out to the crowd. Eirik is standing behind me. I don’t know what he’s doing - readying his sword?
I know that if I want to I can make the fire come over my eyes. I can get away from here.
But I’m not going to.
It’s an act of faith.
The thin chant builds to a climax. I can hear Eirik take in a long breath, steadying himself for what he’s about to do. He’s settling his weight onto the balls of his feet - I can hear the floorboards of the wooden platform squeaking slightly with the movement.
I look down. My hands are shaking. Why? I’m not afraid, I tell myself. I’m not afraid.
There’s a swish of air as the sword is raised.
Then it falls.
I close my eyes and the world stops. It’s as if I live in that space for centuries - the moments of the huge broadsword moving toward my throat, ready to tear my life away. I take in a breath, accepting that it could be my last, and think one word.
Eirik.
The impact doesn’t come.
I breathe in. The air pours down my throat. I still have a neck. That fact, which had never even occurred to me before, feels like a miracle now.
I open my eyes.
The blade is hovering half an inch, at most, from my throat. I don’t look at it though. I only look at Eirik, focus all my attention on him. I transmit with my gaze that I’m not afraid, and nor am I angry. It’s a look of pure love, from my soul to his.
The blade moves away from my throat with such swiftness that it’s almost as if it disappears.
Eirik has fallen to his knees.
“Dróttning,” he says, his eyes on the floor. He is trembling from head to foot. “Forgive me, dróttning.”
Shar has risen from her canopied chair and is standing up straight, her face dead-white and her eyes huge. Her fists are clenched so tightly that it’s as if she wants to screw the world into a ball with them.
“What is going on?” she demands.
What do you think? I wonder. But she doesn’t want to believe what she can clearly see with her eyes. Wasn’t that always Shar’s way? “Continue, Eirik!”
Eirik keeps his bac
k turned to her, as if she isn’t even worth replying to.
“I forgive you Eirik,” I say quietly. “Please stand up.”
“Eirik!”
“He won’t do it, Shar,” I say quietly. “You know that. Surely you’ve known that all along.”
“Bitch!” She’s lost all control now. She turns around and gestures at Johan. “Do it! Do what your fool brother-warrior will not! Kill the enchantress!”
Johan does not even look at her. He’s staring at the sword held between his hands as if it’s of great interest to him, as if it alone will tell him where his allegiance should fall.
“Get on with it!” Shar screams. Her face is so white that she hardly even looks human - more like a skull with a layer of papery skin stretched over. “Do it now!”
Johan does not look at her. With his head still down, he simply strides across the platform to stand beside me, on my left hand side. Eirik is on my right.
Two Warriors with me, two Warriors with Shar. It’s a fair fight now.
Karsi does not even wait for Shar to demand his allegiance. Instead he simply moves across the platform with elegant, catlike grace, as if the action were nothing at all.
Only Haki left now.
He too is staring at the floor, as if he doesn’t know what to say. Then, he raises his head and looks at Shar. He shrugs.
“I’m sorry,” he says. Not ‘I’m sorry, my queen’. Just ‘I’m sorry.’
Then he takes his place at my side, next to Johan.
Shar seems to have barely realized what is happening. She strides to the front of the platform and starts screaming in a kind of frenzy.
“Do you now see what is happening, my people? Do you now see how far the powers of this whore reach? Do you see that even at the moment of her judgement, the moment when she ought to be repenting and begging mercy, she instead casts her spells on my own beloved Warriors. Can you not see that such a dangerous woman cannot be allowed to live! Rise up! Rise up in the name of your queen! Take them all.”
There’s a dead silence. No one in the crowd speaks.
Then there’s a voice, a miraculously familiar voice. It talks slowly, calmly.
“I’m not so sure that she’s an enchantress after all.”
It’s Lara. Good, kind, lovely Lara. She’s never been afraid to speak her mind. I feel so honored that she’s speaking up for me that for the first time I almost feel like crying.
“And who asked you?” Shar spat. “Another lowly handmaiden. I suppose you’re working in cahoots with her! I suppose that you too think you can get away with treason.”
I feel sick. Is she going to order someone to hurt Lara? I flex my fingers reflexively, stopping myself from making a wild movement to protect her. As if he has felt the movement of my body himself, Johan steps up to my side.
“We will not let any harm come to her, my lady,” he whispers. His sword is still resting between his hands, but I can sense the coiled strength in him, the power that would come if he were to raise it and let the force of his powerful body loose.
“Seize her!” Shar points at Lara, her whole arm shaking with rage and fear. Nobody moves.
Then another voice -
“Now hold on. Lara’s a good woman. She’s always truthful, and I’d like to hear what she has to say.”
“How dare you defy your queen?” Shar screams. An angry murmur breaks out somewhere near the back. I hear a shout. “Where’s your sense of loyalty?”
“Why should we have any loyalty to her?” pipes up another voice. “What has she ever done for us? Our children are dying and suffering in these twelve years’ winter, and all she’s ever done is sit around feasting and making merry while her people starve outside!”
“How dare you speak so disrespectfully of your own queen!” Another voice, at the other corner of the crowd.
“Who says she is my queen? There’s always been something not right about her. Perhaps she’s the imposter after all!”
“Treason!” another voice howls. “You’re clearly a lowly dog, with no sense of honor at all.”
“Where’s your sense of honor? You would have seen this woman executed!”
Scuffles start to break out. Someone gets punched, I have no idea who. The crowd starts to break apart and swirl together in perfect chaos. I’m still on the platform, with my Warriors at my side. Shar is still staring at me, deathly silent. Then, in a quiet, fluid motion, she reaches to her belt and draws out a tiny, silver dagger, almost as thin as a needle. A smile spreads across her face as she moves across the platform. It’s not me she’s heading for. She’s far more sadistic than that. She’s got the knife and she’s moving straight towards Haki, who is looking out at the crowd and not at her.
That’s too much.
We need to get away from here.
I take Johan and Eirik by the hands, praying that that will be enough, and screw my mind towards what I need to do with all my might and power.
Just as Shar darts across the platform with her dagger raised, the fire sweeps over my eyes and we are all gone.
We lie on the hillside, winded and dazed. I can feel the four of them all around me in the dark, but it’s pitch-black, in the middle of the night. There’s a sliver of moon to light us, but nothing more.
I reach out and grab a hand. I know by the quality of the touch, by the sensation that it fills me with, that the hand belongs to Johan. I wonder if I’ll get even better at telling them apart without seeing or hearing them. There’s an energy that they emit, different colors, different shapes, different sizes, but still similar. I wonder if Shar felt it too or if it’s something that just exists amongst us. A secret only we share, or perhaps a secret I have solely for myself.
“I had to get us away,” I say breathlessly. I feel like I need to explain myself to someone. How could I have abandoned that great crowd of my own people, when there was clearly terrible ugliness brewing? What was happening now? Would Lara be safe. Johan squeezes my hand in response, and when he speaks his voice is reassuring.
“You were right to do so, dróttning. Terrible anarchy has been set loose, and you could have been caught up in it. We would have protected you with our last breaths against any crowd, but fighting crowds with four Warriors is no way to win a war. Better to get away and think.”
“I can think here,” I say softly. “And I’ve got help here.”
Ysulte should still be here. Surely she’s still waiting? She wouldn’t have gone anywhere. I’m not sure how this works- how fast or slow times passes when I leave, or if time passes at all.
I can’t see much in the dark, but I can hear the brook bubbling at the bottom of the hill and perhaps even figure out where I am in relation to it. She can’t be too far. I call her name, but there’s no reply.
“Ysulte!” I call again. Surely I’ve been away long enough that she’s had time to recover her strength? I suddenly feel terribly guilty, knowing that I left her in a bad way although I did the best I could. What if she hasn’t had enough water? What if the cold and damp have made her sicker?
“Ysulte!” I call out again. There’s no use blundering about in the dark, so instead I reach out for her presence in my mind.
Yes, there she is. I can feel her. But she’s very far away. So far that it feels I may never be able to reach her again.
“Ysulte!” I call out one more time. I’m back on my feet, tripping over the uneven hill in search of her. Why isn’t she replying to me.
I don’t know whether I really see the mass of her body or just sense it in my mind, but suddenly I am on my knees, and Ysulte’s cold hand is clasped in mine, and I am touching her face and begging her eyes to flutter open under my fingers. I am not ready for…
I am not ready for Ysulte to be gone.
I’m crying. For the first time in all this time, I’m crying.
Someone’s holding me. I think it’s Haki. I can’t tell. I can’t focus long enough on a scent or a color or a thought to know which one of them it is. But wh
at I do know, is that even though so much feels wrong right now, I don’t have to go through it alone. The realization gives me at least a little comfort.
I drift off to sleep. A warrior standing guard and two holding me in their arms. Protecting me from my dreams.
I sleep fitfully through until dawn, and the strange sounds integrate into my dreams until I don’t know what’s real and what I’m just imagining. The sounds of deep thuds, of what seems to be hammering.
When I wake properly at first light, Johan is sitting next to me, staring at the rising sun.
“You’re awake, dróttning.”
“Where’s Ysulte?”
“I’m glad you slept. You’re going to need your strength.”
I ignore him. “Where’s Ysulte?” I say again. Johan nods to the foot of the hill, where I can see the other three Warriors gathered around something.
It’s the first time I’ve seen this hill - this place where there is no time - in proper sunlight. At my back, the glow of the dawn is illuminating a range of snowcapped mountains, bathing them in shades of pink, coral and gold. Between the mountains and us are more hills, covered in a thick pine forest. At the bottom of the hill is the brook that I’ve repeatedly heard but never properly seen and then the turf slopes downward, smoothing out until it miraculously reaches - the sea.
I’ve never seen anything so beautiful in my life.
“Ysulte?”
I hurry down the hill as fast as I can, my bare feet almost slipping on the dew. The three warriors are surrounded by pieces of chopped wood and shavings. I look down at the thing lying between them, and realize that they’ve built a small boat - like a canoe.
Ysulte is lying in the bottom. They’ve lined the boat with heather and placed a bouquet of ivy in her hands.
“We must proceed with your plan of attack,” Johan says. He has followed me down the hill and is now standing behind me. “But before that, before the next battle, we must bury our dead.”
I nod. The four Warriors raise the boat onto their shoulders and in a slow procession, the five of us carry it down to the sea. First the boat, and then me walking behind. Nobody needs to tell me to bow my head. Nobody needs to tell me the ancient words that I murmur over Ysulte’s body. I receive no guidance in pressing my thumb to her forehead to wish her luck for her journey to the afterlife.
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