Ally

by Anna Banks

If Tarik cares to discover where I am.

  Tarik. I wonder, endlessly wonder, what he must be thinking. What he must have surmised happened. Does he think I’ve run away? What else could he possibly be thinking? What else is he to assume, except that I’m too ashamed to face my parents with the news of our broken engagement and that I’ve fled for good this time. I push that thought aside and try to think of other, less selfish things. What of the guards outside my door back in the Theorian palace? What must my parents be thinking? Are they worried, or do they, too, assume I’ve run away?

  Still, my mind strays back to the Falcon King. Will he marry Tulle after all? Rashidi will almost certainly have talked him into it by now. And if so … if so, then what is it to me? The Falcon King and Theoria are no longer my business. He made that abundantly clear the night I was taken. So what, then, will become of me, if I am to escape Pelusia?

  Will I return to Serubel, a tarnished princess whom no one will wish to marry? If I’m cured of Forging, will I even have a place in the Serubelan castle, or will Father disown me altogether? And what of Mother? Blast it all, but I have no time to be a prisoner!

  “You took me at a most inconvenient time,” I tell Bayla as I stand so she can make my bed, tucking the corners tightly in place. “And all for nothing. Your treatments are not working.” As I say this, I produce a ball of spectorium in my hand, allowing it to float between my palms and light up the room. Once it cools, I walk it to the mantel and set it there, basking in the glow of white illuminating the chamber.

  Bayla is not impressed. She shakes her head and beats upon my pillow until it takes shape once more. “It will work. Have patience.”

  This is how each of our tiffs begins. “I don’t want it to work. You’d think me fighting you each and every night would be proof enough of that.” I’ve tried to reason with Bayla. I’ve tried to tell her of the Quiet Plague, of the need for spectorium so that Tarik can protect his kingdom against Hemut. For her part, she acts sympathetic. But each night, she has me tied to the bed and injected with a burning liquid as I scream in pain.

  And each morning, I wake up and Forge her a brand-new figurine made of fresh spectorium. This morning it was of herself. Right down to the apron she wears. She ignored it as she tended to my room. I have never been so infuriated by politeness in all my blasted life.

  It is almost time for treatment, I can tell. I seat myself at the table and lift the bowl of soup to my mouth, not caring to use the spoon. Bayla is right; the soup is delicious. Yet I know the food is laced with a sedative and something for pain; Bayla has told me as much. But the coward in me takes it anyway, because on the nights that I don’t, the agony of treatment is far worse.

  Tonight, though, Bayla does not make the usual tsking sound at my manners at the table as I gulp down my water and tear the bread apart with my teeth. In fact, she has grown eerily quiet, taking a seat on my bed and watching me closely from across the room. She folds her hands in her lap, her shoulders squared, as if she’s waiting for me to make the first move.

  What the first move should be, I haven’t a clue.

  Curiosity gets the better of me. Curiosity, and the overwhelming feeling that I should run. Bayla is never silent. “You’re pleasantly quiet this evening,” I tell her around a bite of bread. “To what do I owe the peace?”

  She grimaces and I’m instantly sorry for my insult. Bayla is not my enemy. King Graylin is. She is just my keeper. She is just following orders. I could be more kind. I recall how soothing her voice is when she’s trying to comfort me during the pain. She doesn’t want to hurt me. She thinks she’s helping me. She thinks she’s being a good servant.

  I hate feeling any sort of amity toward her, though. It seems wrong, yet it feels worse to treat her badly. I try to think of what Mother would do in this situation.

  I couldn’t fathom Mother being in this situation.

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “That was unkind.”

  She gives me a rueful smile, one that makes me feel like a swine. “Think nothing of it, Princess Magar. I know you’ve become impatient during your stay with us.”

  There she goes again, implying that I’m a guest. Is she a simpleton, or just intensely loyal? Either way, I throw my hands up in frustration. “There is no talking to you.”

  She sighs. Patting the bed space beside her, she gives me a meaningful look. “Come sit, Princess. King Graylin has decided it is time you know why you are here.”

  I eye her suspiciously. Is this a ruse to get me to the bed so that my treatment will begin? If I sit, will the guards immediately rush in and overtake me, tethering me to the posts? She must read my thoughts, because she says, “There will be no treatment tonight, Princess. You have my word.”

  Her word. I mull that over for a moment. She hasn’t led me to believe she’s a liar. She tells me when I’ll be receiving treatment. Even when she knows I’ll lead the guards on a chase around the chamber, gouging and kicking and screaming and Forging scalding bombs of spectorium to throw at them, she still gives me warning when it’s time for treatment. She waits patiently while I thrash about on the bed until I succumb to the sedative, if I’ve chosen to take it. With supreme gentleness, she tells me when the needle will go in, and she coos words of comfort when I writhe in pain. I do not have to be a Lingot to know that when Bayla speaks, she means what she says. It’s just that she’s never offered to speak of why I’m here before.

  I slowly take the seat next to her on the bed.

  She grasps my hand and pulls it into her lap, gently rubbing it consolingly. I wonder if she does this to her grandson when he’s on the verge of a tantrum. I wonder if I am on the verge of a tantrum. I suppose it depends upon her explanation, though I can’t imagine anything will justify kidnapping me and keeping me hidden from the people who love me.

  So I don’t expect it when she says, “Your mother arranged for your escape from Theoria, Princess Magar.”

  “Mother did this?” I’m not so sure I can trust Bayla after all. Mother would risk a war between her beloved Pelusia and Theoria? The Falcon King would not, could not, let this go without retaliation. Perhaps I am no longer to wed him, but Mother does not know that. It would be his obligation to avenge his name. No, Mother would never risk that. Bayla must be lying.

  Yet she nods enthusiastically. “She wished to save you from your unwanted marriage, and to protect you from your father’s reach. To protect the spectorium from your father’s reach.”

  My father’s reach. The spectorium. An unwanted marriage. I close my eyes against the striking realization that what Bayla is saying makes perfect sense. Because she knows too much about my mother’s intentions to be making it up. Mother sent me away from Serubel in the first place to protect the spectorium from my father’s reach. Of course, she’d never imagined how badly I could manage to jumble things up.

  “Why did she not tell me of her plans?” Because this is a new behavior on Mother’s part. She always tells me, guides me, on what to do next. Abducting me without warning seems out of nature for her.

  Bayla pats my hand once more. “She knew you were determined to help your Falcon King, that you had resigned yourself to becoming his queen. She knew you wouldn’t come willingly. She knew you would Forge for him eventually. She couldn’t let that happen. Not with your father in such close proximity.”

  Tears sting at my eyes. She knew you would Forge for him eventually. Was it not exactly what I’d promised Tarik just moments before he called off our engagement? It hurts that she had no confidence in me. But it pains me much worse that she had no cause to. And Mother has been in control of the situation the entire time. It must have taken her weeks to make these arrangements, to convince King Graylin to be her accomplice. And she didn’t trust me with the plans. She didn’t trust me with the truth. She didn’t trust my ability to make the right decision.

  Even after I had fled my home kingdom and sacrificed so much at her request.

  But is this the right decision? Shouldn’t
my own choices be left up to my decision? Because as it stands right now, Mother has treated me as a pawn just as the two kings did in arranging my marriage in the first place.

  Rage seeps through me, burning hotter than any treatment ever could. Bayla tenses beside me. “You mustn’t be angry with her,” she says gently. “She was only thinking of you.”

  “She could have told me. She could have made me privy to her schemes. She should have consulted me before having me beaten, stolen from my bed, and kept captive in a dank and solitary holding cell.”

  “If you would behave, you could be moved to a proper guest chamber.”

  “Why did she have me taken so brutally?”

  “She had to make it look like a proper kidnapping. She had to make it look authentic to the Falcon King. And, of course, to your father.” A proper kidnapping. No, Tarik does not think I’ve run away from my circumstances yet again. He thinks I’ve been taken.

  “Don’t you realize what she’s done?” I say, standing. “She’s made it look as though the kingdom of Hemut has taken me!” What else is Tarik to assume? With the way Lady Gita stormed out of the palace in the wake of Sethos’s outburst, it all but reeks of a retaliation from the ice nation.

  Bayla shakes her head. “Your mother is wise. She would not let that happen. I’m sure of it.”

  I peer down at her, really looking at her for the first time. Her eyes are too confident for a mere servant. “You know my mother?”

  “Very well, Princess Magar. I attended her when she was but a child.”

  “Why is King Graylin helping her?”

  She shrugs. “They are fast friends. And he doesn’t want a war between all the five kingdoms any more than she does. Taking you was the only way.”

  I rub a hand down my face. “Does King Graylin know that there is a plague in Theoria? That only spectorium can cure it? Or did my mother fail to disclose that to him?”

  Bayla nods solemnly. “He does, Princess. And he has found an alternative treatment for it as well.”

  Treatment. I am so very sick of that word. “The same way you’ve treated me for Forging? I do hope you jest.” I fling the words at her like daggers. She takes them in stride, standing to pace about the room. She wrings her hands. I’ve shaken her composure, but what did she expect? That I would take this news with joy and relief? That I would suddenly stop caring about the people of Theoria? That I would believe in Graylin’s ability to help when Theoria’s brightest citizens remain helpless in healing their own kingdom? “Besides,” I tell Bayla, “if there is such a treatment, why has he not offered it to the Falcon King already?”

  “He will exchange it for your freedom, Princess Magar.”

  “Exchange it for my freedom?”

  “It will be an offer the Falcon King cannot refuse. Release you from your vow to wed him in exchange for the means to save his people.”

  Release me from my vow to wed Tarik? Ha! King Graylin has a merry surprise awaiting him, then. I’m just about to inform Bayla that our vow has already been broken but think better of it just before the words leave my mouth. Tarik may not want me anymore. But his people still need the cure for the plague. I cannot ruin that for him. But I’ll not take Bayla’s word for another thing. “I demand to speak with my mother at once.”

  “I’m afraid that’s not possible. She is still in Theoria helping to prevent war with Hemut.”

  “How noble of her,” I spit.

  Bayla takes a seat on the bed again and peers up at me. “You’re angry that she didn’t involve you in her plans. But she only wants what is best for you, Magar. You must understand that. She doesn’t want you to be trapped in a loveless marriage the way she was. She doesn’t want your father to start a war with all the kingdoms. She wants only your safety and your happiness.”

  “And who says mine would be a loveless marriage?”

  The servant cocks her head at me. “You care for the Falcon King?”

  “And what if I do?” What if? Tarik and I have our differences. But to deny that I love him still would be a lie.

  “I find it odd that you would, after all he has done to you. Kept you as a servant, vowed to wed another while making you believe he had feelings for you. Jumped at the chance to have your spectorium as soon as your father attempted to make amends.”

  Oh, how I long to lunge at this woman who knows so much, this woman who is so confident. And of course she would see things in that light. After all, I had thought the very same thing.

  “Your mother says the Falcon King is a Lingot, that he can discern a truth from a lie. Yet, that does not stop him from lying himself, Princess Magar. Surely you must realize all he has to gain from wedding you. And what do you gain? Where is the benefit for you?”

  Oh yes, Tarik has all this to gain from marrying me. Except that he has no use for me as a queen now that he has the other Forgers. And he has no use for me as a wife if he can’t trust me. There is nothing I can do to change those things now.

  Is there?

  This woman may know my mother, but she has no idea of me. What’s more, she has no idea what has truly passed between Tarik and me. Even my mother could not know. Bayla only knows what my mother has told her.

  Yet her words are far-reaching, for they play on my own fears. Have I truly lost Tarik for good this time? Does evidence of my broken heart appear on my face even as I try to stifle the anguish within me?

  Where is there benefit for you? A loving husband who will treat me with respect, for one. I know that if I had been honest, he would have been a kind and thoughtful husband. What else? A kingdom that seems to hold a measure of adoration for me. And? A chance to prove myself as capable a queen as my mother.

  Yet … Yet. Bayla speaks the words of my mother to me now, I’m sure of it. My mother is a very capable queen. How much of this should I take into consideration?

  “And so, Princess Magar, your mother thinks it’s wise to cure you of Forging. It has no value to you. Your ability carries with it only a burden, one that Queen Hanlyn wishes to relieve you of.”

  It is true that Tarik had much to gain from wedding me. It would be true for any man who approached my parents with the same offer of marriage. That in itself is reason enough to keep my ability to Forge. For without it, and with my new reputation, I will need all the help I can gather in order to wed someone else one day. Of course, Mother could not possibly know all these things, as she didn’t bother to consult me before stealing me away into the Theorian night.

  Still, the people of Theoria need spectorium. But if what Bayla says is also true, that Graylin will give Tarik the cure for the Quiet Plague—and that Father will no longer have the means to create cratorium—why not at least pretend to be willing to give up my ability? Surely I can somehow hide my Forging, let them think I’m being cured. I’ve hidden it before, many times.

  “But your treatment is not working,” I counter, deep in thought. “Perhaps you should try something else.” Something less painful. And hopefully, equally ineffective.

  “No. This treatment is not working, that is true. But there is another way.”

  “What other way?”

  She pulls out a chair at the table, folding her hands upon the smooth wood. “The treatments we have been giving you were meant to weaken the organ that creates the spectorium. Now we know that it doesn’t work that way. The organ must be removed.”

  “Organ?” I think of all the organs Aldon taught me of the body. To my knowledge, none can be removed without consequence. I shudder. It does not go unnoticed by Bayla.

  She nods solemnly. “Our Healers have determined where the spectorium comes from. It is an organ that only Forgers have, that ordinary people do not. We can remove it for you. We can remove your burden, Princess Magar.”

  Is my Forging truly a burden? I have always thought so—until now, when it could be taken from me by force. Nothing else will be taken from me, I swear it. No one will make my decisions for me any longer. Not Tarik, not Mother, nor Fat
her nor King Graylin. Not even the good-natured Bayla. No matter how noble their intentions are, others do not have control over who I am. Tarik may not want me for his wife, but the people of Theoria need a cure. If all the Forgers in the Baseborn Quarters cannot make enough spectorium to keep the plague at bay, then maybe Graylin’s cure can.

  And so I will play along with Bayla. With my mother. With King Graylin. And I will return to Theoria with the cure. After that, I will make my own fate.

  I look at Bayla, who has been studying me closely. I wonder what she sees. “How can I trust that you have the cure for the Quiet Plague?” I ask.

  Bayla stands, striding to my bed and crouching down on her knees, which crack with the action. There is a sharp scraping sound, and she grunts as she pulls something from underneath me. When I see what she has in her hands, I gasp.

  It is the Serpen art from my bedchamber in Theoria. “Your mother sends this as proof of her devotion to your well-being. She said you would understand its meaning upon seeing it.”

  And of course I do. Mother must have removed it herself, because no other servant in the palace would do so, as Tarik’s own beloved mother had it placed there before she died. It is a sign that she approves of my being here. I had only ever spoken to her of the distasteful art, a design we both abhorred because of the horrifying way that the Serpen must have been stripped of its scales. It is a symbol of unity, this art. That Theoria does not fully understand me, but that my mother always will.

  Or, at least, that Mother thinks she fully understands me. But I’ve just begun to understand myself. And I will be a puppet for no one.

  I do not look away from the artwork when I say, “Tell me more about this organ of mine.”

  22

  TARIK

  Tarik does not take comfort in the fact that Cy is without a clue as regards the madness overtaking the kingdom. Each day, there are more and more reports of Strays upturning normal lives, daily routines, the goings-on of a once-functioning Anyar. Tarik walks along with Cy through the courtyard of the Lyceum, full of the less violent strays, and although Tarik has come as the Falcon King this day, heavily guarded, he doubts his face paint hides the disappointed expression he wears when witnessing firsthand what his citizens are becoming.