The Fallen Queen

by Jane Kindred

  you wish, miss. If you’re in need of company. But… ” She came closer,

  with a conspiratorial look, and my heart leapt at the possibility she

  might help me escape. “I suppose it won’t matter if I tell you now.

  There’s a strike this evening.”

  “Strike?” I didn’t know what this meant.

  “The workers from the queen’s new projects—the correctional

  house and the renewals—they’re organizing a protest. They’re going

  to refuse to work until the queen hears their complaints. I don’t want to be out past curfew.” She pulled on her coat, a black and red pentacle visible on the sleeve. “In case there’s trouble.”

  “I hope there is trouble,” I said bitterly. “Not for you, but for the

  queen.”

  “Well, there’s always trouble for her lot, of course,” said Inga,

  buttoning up. “Has been for years, ever since the old principality—”

  She stopped short. “I’m sorry, miss. I wasn’t thinking.”

  “Ever since what?”

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  She reddened and glanced at the door once more.

  “Please, Inga. It can’t matter to tell me now.”

  Inga sighed in resignation. “Ever since the old principality, may he

  rest in peace, went back on his promise to liberate the Fallen workers.”

  “Liberate? From what?”

  Her face registered disbelief. “Come, now, miss. Of course you

  know.”

  I shook my head.

  “The Service Mandate? The Penitence Act?”

  When I continued to stare blankly, she seemed incredulous.

  “It’s not as if we’re free to choose our own lot. The Fallen are either born into service or sentenced to it for crimes against the Host. The

  queen pledged to review the Liberation Decree once her projects are

  complete, but we all know how that goes. And now she’s been rounding

  up the unindentured and detaining them in her camps. Says they must

  be thieves if they aren’t making what she calls an ‘honest living’ in

  service to the Host.” Inga regarded me with pity. “But it doesn’t matter now, does it, miss? I shouldn’t have gone on. This isn’t what you want to hear.”

  She went to the door and her eyes welled with tears. “Oh, miss.”

  She clutched her coat. “If they were all like you, I’m truly sorry now.

  Some said they got what was coming to ’em, but you can’t be to blame

  for what you don’t even know.” Inga put her hand to her mouth. “And

  I was so cruel to you when the baby was coming.” Darting to the bed,

  she gave me a fleeting hug as if I would break at her touch. “You close your eyes when the blade comes,” she whispered, “and it’ll be like

  going to sleep.” She broke into a sob and ran from the room.

  I stared out the window at the sun disappearing behind the

  palace. What else had I been oblivious to in my brief life as a grand

  duchess of the House of Arkhangel’sk? What else had my father kept

  from us? I remembered the troubled look he’d worn so often when

  we approached him in his study. Mama had told us not to bother

  him, saying the burdens of the principality were too great for us to

  understand, and I’d been only too happy to remain ignorant of them.

  Had my sisters been as simple as I?

  The youngest of the four, I had wanted only adventure, as if life

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  were a game. I spent my time thinking only of myself—or Azel, on

  occasion. And Azel? Born to take the throne someday, he’d spent

  more time in stuffy schoolrooms than we four, more time learning

  what my father did. Perhaps his illness wasn’t the only reason for his serious demeanor. And even his illness I’d made into a game, seeing

  how much we could get away with in defying my mother’s strictness

  toward him.

  No wonder Belphagor and Vasily had hated me.

  Vasily. My heart twisted with anguish at the thought that I’d never see him again. Who would comfort him when Belphagor didn’t return?

  It wasn’t fair. He should have Belphagor. They’d both be together and

  happy if it weren’t for me.

  I kicked at the table, struggling, and knocked the pitcher to the

  floor. There was no sound from the Ophanim. I supposed they didn’t

  care what damage I might do myself, and escape was impossible.

  I stared into the darkness, waiting for morning. Waiting for the

  end. I thought of that other grand duchess nearly one hundred years

  distant and a world away, being wakened in the night to be led unaware to her death, executed for the crime of being born the daughter of a

  prince with burdens too great for any of them to understand. Close my

  eyes, Inga had said, and it would feel like going to sleep. But I’d always been asleep.

  Despite my determination, my head nodded. I jerked upright,

  realizing time had passed. The sky had the pale glow of imminent

  morning. I heard sounds of a distant commotion, voices shouting in

  unison, and remembered the strike Inga had spoken of. The protesters

  must be in the square. I reached between the bars to open the window

  what little I was able, but I couldn’t make out the words of their chants.

  A crash came from below—a brick thrown through glass. The

  sounds become more chaotic. Heavy footsteps pounded down the

  hallway—the Ophanim must have been called to quell the strikers—

  followed by shouting from within. There was something else my tired

  senses took a moment to place: the smell of smoke. The palace was

  burning.

  My room began to fill with smoke. In a panic, I yanked at my

  shackle. There was no budging it. The way the frame was constructed,

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  it would take a saw to loose the shackles from it.

  I held my head down to the window, breathing the fresh air, and

  screamed for help, though it would only delay my fate. But I feared

  for Ola. The nursery was in the west wing, away from the flames, but I had no idea what was happening in the palace. I jerked on the shackle

  again and nearly broke my wrist.

  The smoke was thick now, and tears that were an equal mixture of

  acrid irritation and despair streamed from my eyes. Burning to death

  would not be like going to sleep.

  With a loud crack, the door splintered and fell open, and I shrieked.

  “Nenny!” My cousin stood in the doorway, a cloth held over his

  nose and mouth. “Come quickly. The palace is on fire.”

  “I can’t!” I rattled my shackle against the frame.

  Kae came to the bed. It was clear he didn’t have the key. He

  slammed his boot against the camp bed frame, wrenching my arm as

  he rocked the bed, but didn’t break the wood. He kicked again and

  the wood snapped, but on the wrong side. With his third kick, the

  bed crashed to the floor, and I fell with it. I began to cough, and Kae handed me the damp cloth he was holding.

  “Breathe into it.” He yanked the piece of wood holding the

  shackle back and forth with great force, trying to dislodge it, and I

  sobbed as it tore at my arm. “Do it, Nazkia! Over your mouth!”

  I held the cloth to my face, coughing wretchedly, and he stomped

  once more on the piece of bed frame. At last it snapped in two.

  Kae ran with me, the splintered wood clattering from the shackle

  still fixed to my
wrist. Black smoke billowed overhead, and the heat

  was like an oven. He took off his dressing robe and held it over our

  heads while we ran. He wore only pants and boots he must have

  thrown on when the noise woke him, with his sword strapped about

  his waist. Kae pulled me toward the grand staircase, but I resisted.

  “I have to save Ola!”

  “Ola,” said Kae sadly. “I couldn’t find her.”

  “What do you mean?” I grabbed his arm. “Isn’t she in the nursery?”

  “Why would your sister be in the nursery?” His watering eyes

  were dazed.

  “Not my sister. The baby! The baby, Kae!” I shook him. “Where

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  is she?”

  “The baby.” He paused, trying to remember. “The queen has the

  baby. The baby’s fine.”

  “Aeval has her? Where? Where is Aeval?”

  Fear flashed in Kae’s eyes. “Aeval,” he whispered. “She can call

  the elements. Even blood.” He was raving again. He grabbed my wrist.

  “Do you feel it?”

  “Feel what?” I pulled back. “Let go. Your hands are cold.” Even in

  the heat, his skin was like ice.

  He took my hand and placed it on his bare chest, and I recoiled in

  horror. All of him was cold. It was not poor circulation. His heart still beat within his chest, but far too slowly.

  “She called my blood.” Tears that weren’t from the smoke ran

  down his cheeks. “I couldn’t stop her. She kissed me and called my

  blood. Please help me, Nenny.”

  I didn’t understand what he meant. I couldn’t stop to try to

  understand. I had to make sure Ola was safe.

  I ran from him, my cousin who had killed me once and now

  rescued me from a burning room on the eve of my second execution.

  I ran toward danger, and my daughter.

  She was there in the nursery, the queen who was not of this

  Heaven, the one who’d taken everything from me. She held my baby

  in her arms.

  Aeval smiled, rocking Ola, who was sound asleep. “Isn’t she

  darling?” Behind the queen stood two of her Seraphim Guard. They

  came forward to flank her, and I had to shield my eyes.

  “The palace is on fire,” I said. “We have to get out.”

  “Our Seraphim were overzealous. But all will be well.”

  A loud crash came from the bottom of the staircase at the end

  of the hall. Shouting and the ring of clashing metal burst into the

  building; the door had been kicked in.

  Aeval frowned. “Ungrateful peasants. We shall retire to my sitting

  room until their booze has worn off.” She moved to pass me, her

  Seraphim moving with her, but I stepped in front of her.

  “Give me my baby.”

  Aeval laughed, the high titter that was like music. I reached for

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  Ola, and the Seraphim blazed forth, their radiance striking me with

  the heat of a furnace door thrown open. Gasping, I stumbled back.

  Aeval waved her Seraphim away. With Ola cradled in one arm,

  she cupped her palm before her. Something silvery and slick, wriggling and sparkling like worms made of liquid crystal moved in her hand.

  She drew her fingers into a fist, and water began to pour from it as

  though squeezed from a bladder. Something tugged at me—not as

  Helga’s callstone had from the outside, but a horrible pulling from

  within. I thought I would be sick.

  Aeval smiled and watched the water pour onto the tile while I

  reeled against the doorframe. “Such simple creatures, you celestials.

  You haven’t a clue how to use your own strengths—limited as they are.

  It’s remarkable you managed to vanquish my Seraphim at all.”

  The nauseating pull grew stronger, and I doubled over, moaning

  and hugging my stomach. Wetness trickled onto my lip. I brought my

  hand up and wiped away blood.

  “To manipulate the elements, one must have focus, of which you

  seem to have very little. I can only surmise your success was sheer luck, though I’m sure the celestine must have helped.” When she turned her

  wrist about, the pull of my element within her hand increased with

  a spike of pressure, and I cried out. My ring sparkled on her finger;

  it didn’t glow with the natural light the rightful wearer evoked, but

  refracted light as I had never seen it before.

  “The celestine?” I struggled not to succumb to unconsciousness.

  “An object of focus. Especially useful when composed of more

  than one cardinal element itself.”

  Blood dripped onto the tile beneath my hem, and I fell to my

  knees, shrieking. Aeval’s fist seemed to twist inside me.

  Ola woke and began to cry. Out of instinct, I reached up for her

  despite the dizziness and pain. The Seraphim moved swiftly against

  me, but when I touched her, light sparked between us. A violet flare

  blazed from our skin as though a match had been struck, spreading

  like flaming oil across a pond. I’d never seen elemental radiance in

  Heaven, hadn’t even known it existed until I fell, but this was our light, mine and Vasily’s, and it was coming from Ola.

  The Seraphim hissed in their dreadful language and fell back,

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  apparently unable to interfere with this elemental bond.

  Aeval’s eyes flashed with outrage. “You cannot wound my

  Seraphim!” She jerked her fist, and I screamed and nearly lost hold of Ola, but the radiance flared again in a violent arc and struck Aeval’s hand with a bolt of amethyst. She gave a sharp cry and lost her grip on the baby, and I swept Ola from her arms.

  The iron shackle on my wrist cracked and clattered to the floor,

  but something else was spinning against the smooth wood tile—pale

  gold, set with a stone of celestial blue. My signet ring had fallen from Aeval’s finger. I picked it up and put it on, and the gemstone glowed at last, enhancing the glittering outrage in the queen’s eyes.

  I was beyond the harm of the Seraphim now, and beyond Aeval’s,

  it seemed, so long as I held onto Ola, though the effects of Aeval’s

  magic upon me still lingered. I tried to stand, but couldn’t seem to

  make my limbs obey, and my head felt light, as if I were half empty.

  Trying to quell the uncontrollable shaking in my limbs, I pressed my

  lips against Ola’s downy hair.

  Aeval stared at me with eyes no longer silver but dark with fury,

  her hand cradled against her stomach. “That is not Belphagor’s child.”

  “No,” I said. “She’s mine.”

  “Don’t be impertinent.” Aeval took a step toward me, but

  the radiance sparked once more and she fell back with a snarl of

  frustration, hands clenched at her sides.

  I pulled myself up against the doorframe, weak from my depleted

  element. The fire would soon reach this wing, and I had to get Ola out.

  I turned to the corridor, my head swimming, and tried to focus on the

  Ophanim at the end of the wing.

  “You’ll never get past the peasants,” Aeval said from behind me.

  Rioters had breached the stairs from the entrance below, their

  numbers overwhelming the Ophanim despite the angels’ deadly

  blades. I clutched Ola tight against my breast. We couldn’t get out this way. We were in more danger now from the demons than from Aeval.

  I was the l
ast daughter of the House of Arkhangel’sk, an icon for all

  their woes.

  I staggered back toward the rotunda. If I made it to the grand

  staircase, we might get out before the fire blocked it. As I stumbled

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  to the arch, a loud bellow echoed off the rotunda dome. Kae charged

  toward me from the gallery, his sword gripped in both hands above his

  head. I screamed and curled myself around Ola, my eyes shut tight,

  while the blade descended.

  The rush of metal through the air sent shivers down my spine, but

  the blade passed by me instead of through me. At my back came a

  strangled cry, followed by a wet, heavy thud. When I opened my eyes,

  a demon peasant was collapsed in an awkward heap behind me, his

  head tumbling across the corridor into the abandoned schoolroom. I

  hugged Ola, fighting shock and nausea.

  Kae wiped his bloody sword against his pant leg as though merely

  polishing the metal. “And where do you suppose you’re off to?” His

  earlier disorientation appeared to be gone and he gave no indication

  he recalled his words to me.

  I swallowed the bile in my throat and tried to appeal to his

  common sense. “The palace is burning. We need to get out of here.”

  “My queen has everything under control. You need to stop causing

  trouble while I deal with this rabble.”

  My bond with Ola, it seemed, was no protection against Kae.

  Gripping me by the arm with his cold hand, he marched me through

  the enfilade to the one room I’d never wanted to enter again.

  Still dizzy from Aeval’s magic, I tried in vain to pull away from him

  in the doorway. He thrust me over the threshold into the Malachite

  Drawing Room. Hand captured in his, I spun about to face him, our

  arms half lifted between us as if poised in a dance. The blood drained from my face when I looked into his eyes.

  He released my hand and cupped my cheek, and I froze at his

  touch. “How you’ve grown. It seems only yesterday you were just a

  moonfaced child, all knees and elbows at once, nothing in proportion.

  Look at you now. Like a willow, full of supernal grace. But you look

  tired, sweetheart. You must take better care of yourself.”

  He stepped back and pulled the door shut. Too stunned to react in

  time, I couldn’t stop him. The key turned in the lock.

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