The War Queen

by Jane Merkley

  Renewed frustration and embarrassment slammed into her. He was in her room – she kicked herself for not locking the door, but she never locked it because Kyree was always in and out.

  “Might as well have a seat,” he said. “I’m not leaving until I’m done.”

  She hesitated, but it was clear that he would not be leaving and there was no way to make him, short of slicing his head off with her shorns beside her bed, which she briefly considered. She could care less about the obvious consequence, but she would feel bad for Kyree who would inevitably clean up the mess. So she settled herself on the chair opposite him, gathering her robe tightly about her knees. “Out with it.”

  He rested his good leg over his bad and clasped his hands behind his head as he leaned back. “Why you kissed me, to start.”

  “Why did you act like you enjoyed it?” she asked, trying to push the blame on him.

  “Act?” He raised both eyebrows. “There was no acting about it. Now answer my question.”

  “No.”

  He stared at her, slow and pressing.

  “We are going to be here all night,” she snapped. “Longer, if you choose. I have endless patience and they will bring my food to me.”

  “They will probably feed me as well.”

  They would, too. “I’ll answer that question last,” Altarn said, though hoped to the gods he’d forget about it and she’d never have to answer it… to anyone.

  He narrowed his eyes a little, but seemed willing at least to make that concession.

  “Why have you been avoiding me the whole time I’ve been here?” he finally asked.

  Altarn’s stomach clenched with anger; an emotion that could still find room to burn in a knotted mess of others. “I didn’t want to hear your threats about stealing Blindvar after I saved your life.”

  “So are you finally going to tell me why you saved my life?”

  She looked away, hating being interrogated in her own state, her own house… in her own room. She considered again chopping his head off but an image of Kyree came to the rescue. Now that she thought about it again, Kyree didn’t like Byrone anymore than she did. She might not mind cleaning up the blood.

  Altarn broke a little and put her thumb and forefinger in the inner corners of her eyes. She put her mind elsewhere as she answered. “I rescued you because your people love you. Who am I to take that from them?”

  This stalled him for a moment. “That’s it?”

  “I saw you fall and almost walked away because then there would not be anyone to take my land. But I saw Torren trying to murder Huilian's entire army by himself trying to get to you. And I thought of all those servants you had employed in your house to get them off the streets, and how my people would be destitute if you had not harbored us in your state. I…” Altarn hugged her arms to her and curled her bare legs together to retain their warmth in the chill room. “… I could not be so thankless and leave you to die, even though that meant that my land was in peril by you. I had a moment of selflessness.”

  “You still think I’m taking your land?”

  Altarn’s laughter came out abnormally shriekish and foreign. Incredulously, she stared at him. “Huilian broke your leg, not your head. Don’t pretend to deny the hundred threats you made. We both know that is why you are here.”

  He closed his eyes and leaned back against the couch with a sigh that was too heavy to match what Altarn expected from him. After a solid moment, Byrone stood with his cane and walked passed her toward the window. He caught sight of her desk with familiar paper on the top. He invited himself over to it and glanced at the top most paper.

  “At least when I barged into your room, I didn’t snoop around,” she snapped.

  He looked at her. “Why do you keep the letters I sent?”

  She quirked an eyebrow at him. Maybe Huilian did break his head. “For the very reason why a soldier sharpens his sword.”

  Byrone looked sideways at her for a moment before completing the distance to the window.

  “There will be no easy way to threaten me again with taking my land so just say it.” She stood from her chair and faced his back, her arms tightly crossed, and it wasn’t because of the cold. Her skin was burning with anger and no longer felt the chill. “Furthermore, you can expect Blindvar to not give up without a fight. They still remember their last king and they will not allow another –”

  “I don’t want Blindvar.” Byrone spun toward her, the tail of his coat whirling around. “I want you.”

  Altarn sucked in a breath so sharp she choked, bending over briefly to catch her breath. She stood, wiping tears from her eyes. A steady termer began in her hands. “You want...”

  He watched her in a cool, measured manner. “You saved my life, Altarn. I cannot take your land when it is because of you that I am alive to do it.”

  A dark, wicked laugh clawed its way up her throat as if her emotions had turned into a monster eager for release. She wheezed with the sound until her whole body shook. “Is this another tactic to steal my land? Claim that you have some misplaced infatuation with me so you can slide in behind me and take my land without any resistance from me?”

  “Altarn –”

  “And you think I’m foolish enough to fall for it? You staged two attacks on me so you could come to my rescue.” Altarn was so numb with every emotion known to man battling inside her that her tone came out flat, careless even. Finally worn threadbare.

  “Altarn, I know –”

  “I have a stack of letters from you –”

  “Dammit, let me talk!”

  Altarn wanted to continue to release all the hate and anger Byrone had put there, but a small curiosity wanted to know what more he would say. She waited.

  She watched Byrone prepared himself, as if readying to climb a mountain. He started his journey with a deep breath. “I know what I’ve done – what I’ve said, what I’ve written... and I can’t explain it, but what started as false flirtation in Luthsinia to get you on my side to spy on... you, turned into a very small, real attraction toward… you. I was furious when the truth finally came out.”

  “You’re not convincing me.”

  “But despite my efforts to prison you in that room, to try to order your army for you, to do everything I knew how to make you seem less than what I knew you were, I still could not erase that small bead of... of…” He turned to the window again, as if he needed an escape as much as she did. “Of want. I can’t erase what I did. But coming that close to death rewired my needs.” His voice was dark and sincere at the same time. “I cannot shrug off what it was like holding you in my saddle while you slept.”

  She watched him dangerously, curling her cold toes into the rug beneath her.

  He continued. “Did you know my people have done nothing but praise your name every day since you left?” He laughed. “I imagine you were jealous when your people worshiped me when I arrived. I had more than one reason coming to Blindvar. In Ruidenthall, you wouldn’t even believe I existed because of how they chanted your name. I was jealous of you. They built a statue of you.” He paused, as if unwilling to say more. He did, but it came out halting, as if he were trying to rein back in every word. “And it is carrying me over your shoulders.”

  There was a rattling sound at the door just then, and Kyree’s voice muffled its way through. “Lady Altarn, are you alright?” The alarm was in her voice. The rattling sound again. Byrone had locked the door. Altarn never locked the door. She didn’t even know it was capable of locking.

  She shot Byrone a look. He raised his shoulders and splayed out his hands. “You wanted her to barge in on us?” he asked softly.

  If Altarn answered, Kyree would wonder why she had locked herself in. If she didn’t answer, maybe Kyree would believe Altarn had locked it by mistake and gone elsewhere.

  They waited several tense moments in silence. Finally, Altarn tiptoed to the door and Byrone relocated behind the dressing screen. Altarn put her ear to the wood to listen, t
hen opened the door slowly. Kyree had left. She closed the door again.

  She faced the room. Byrone stepped out of the screen and slowly began to move about the room.

  “If you are done with your interrogation, you are free to leave. Now. The hallway is clear.”

  They watched each other for a tense moment. Altarn opened the door again to double check the hallway. She jerked when a large callused hand slid over her shoulder from behind. Byrone had moved directly behind her. Her body tensed and a shiver prickled up her spine.

  A well of everything that made who she was surged up and wrestled for domination. Was she lonely? Was she perseverant? Desperate? Relentless? Her essences fought and fought to be the one to speak.

  Everything from Byrone’s first letter to this moment played again for her and it was so conflicting that she felt as if she were muddling through a haze of lies and truth.

  Perseverance conquered. The dominating factor was how many and how often Byrone threatened. She would not give in just because a few soft words made her feel soft inside.

  She closed the door abruptly and faced him, pulling her robe tighter around her. “You have a sadistic mind if you are trying to fashion a romance between us because I saved your life. I’m sorry the kiss was confusing. I did it for selfish reasons that had nothing to do with you.” She wasn’t sure if that was a lie or not. “I vomited right after if that helps uncomplicated matters. You already told me you want to make yourself King of Endendre. You only want me because I come with Blindvar. Please escort yourself out of my room, warlord. I will see to it that you have provisions for the road in the morning.”

  Byrone dropped his hand which was still suspended in the air from where he had it rested on her shoulder. He looked directly at her who dared to connect the glance. That same, hot blue wave. He limped passed her toward the door. She moved aside. He opened the door and closed it quietly behind him.

  “Lord Byrone?” The voice in the hallway was a strangled breath of shock.

  And it belonged to Kyree.

  “Evening, Kyree,” Byrone’s faded voice responded.

  Blood freezing panic surged through Altarn. She dashed barefoot to the door and threw it open. Kyree was already hustling down the hallway.

  “K –” Altarn began but stopped, strangled to silence by the horror of what Kyree must be thinking, and presenting herself in her robe would not convince her otherwise. A haze of emotionally exhausted numbness blurred over her eyes. Altarn stepped back into the room and slammed the door so hard, a picture painted on glass fell and shattered over her couch.

  Altarn dug her fingers into her hair and released a jaw clenched scream, leaning against the door and sliding down the wood. She had just effectively lost the only human in the world who could comfort her stress, imagined or no. The only person who could convince Altarn she had done right even if she had done wrong.

  The only person out of two who would miss her if she left.

  Everything of the night compacted into a spiked mass of chaos and burst out of her. She was simply too small to contain it all.

  She realized she wasn’t breathing. She took a forced breath, her forearms tingling. She thought she had broken already, but she had been nowhere close to now. She was so distressed that tears wouldn’t even come at her beckon, though her body wracked back and forth as if they were coming out in a surge. She was overwhelmed, like trying to drink a lake full of water before she drowned in it.

  She didn’t know how long she sat there, how long she shivered uncontrollably. She finally stopped because her body grew weary of her drama and ceased to encourage her restless rocking. After her body gave up, it left her numb and eerily silent… dangerously silent. She was too exhausted to even muster the energy to pack a bag, get dressed, and crawl down the rope ladder out her window to escape.

  She wanted to sleep. Her mind had given up on her, too. Very slowly, because her backside was numb, she rolled to her left to begin the long journey to her feet.

  Her eyes fell on the table beside the door there, to the object laying on its polished surface, and something savage punched her heart.

  It was Byrone’s belldew flower necklace.

  Battle Dance

  Kyree didn’t even knock in the morning to see why Altarn was not at Byrone’s departure. Maybe Kyree had left. How does one repair such a blind assault at loyalty? Altarn knew why Byrone was in her room, but appearances were everything.

  Another servant knocked. Altarn didn’t know there was even a key to her door but the servant had acquired one – disturbing even as that thought was – and the door opened. Altarn immediately dismissed her, saying she was too ill to make an appearance. And told her to leave the key.

  It was immature and weak to not be outside for Byrone’s parting, but she couldn’t bring herself to stand before him again. She knew she should be bold and stand down there to show him he had not swayed her, that she was resilient to the end. But resilient against what anymore? She did not know. Perseth would represent her house in her absence, but that bothered her little anymore.

  She knew, she knew, that it was all once again an elaborate tactic to take her land with minor resistance. After all, she had been right about him wanting her land in the first place even though no one else believed. He might have even declared a love to her in front of her house had she been down there. Her house would have been convinced and Byrone’s schemes would have been set.

  So why did he leave his necklace?

  Altarn watched from the window as Byrone’s entourage galloped off down the muddy road, the rain falling on their backs and wondered – but understood – why they didn’t wait for the weather to clear.

  Altarn barricaded herself in her room for four days. She claimed a constant illness, so her meals were brought to her, though the servants guessed at a possible truth, one that Kyree might have fed them before she left because it wasn’t Kyree bringing in Altarn’s food. She wouldn’t even allow anyone to bring her water to bathe.

  Byrone’s necklace still laid prettily on the table, untouched and unforgotten. She couldn’t bear to go look at it closer, or even to touch it. Was it a demented plan to get her to vow herself to him so he could steal Blindvar, or… or… She took a deep breath and dared herself a second to think, to pretend, to believe that Byrone was telling the truth about wanting her. That he left his necklace to prove it. The giving of the belldew flower necklace was a serious pledge of one’s love. The meaning was taken in different ways: to hold one’s life literally in one’s hands, to love someone so much that that love could bring them back to life, to name a few. However construed, the results were the same.

  That thought alone gave her anxiety and she shut it down again.

  She woke on the fifth morning to a continuation of the rainstorm from yesterday – appropriate, she believed – and Kyree was the first thing on her mind. She wanted to talk to Kyree, to explain why and how Byrone was in her room. Locking herself in her room for the past few days probably confirmed Kyree’s accusations. But Altarn was not ready to tell Kyree. Would never be ready to describe for her the web her and the Lord of Ruidenthall had tied unknowingly.

  Gathering a grip on herself and picking up answers to all the possible questions on the way out, Altarn left for the first time in five days. There was a chance Kyree was no longer in her house. But she had to check anyway.

  She went to Kyree’s room. She hadn’t bathed and looked like a mess but, emboldening herself, Altarn knocked.

  There was no answer, so Altarn tried the knob. It was locked.

  “Kyree?” Altarn called through the wood. “I want to speak with you.” She looked down the hallway to see if anyone was prying, hesitant to divulge anymore to the blank door in such a public place. “Please?”

  No response. Kyree never locked her door, either. Many a night, a sad Lady of Blindvar had been found in that room seeking comforts that only an old friend can give.

  Altarn became furious. Of course it looked bad see
ing Byrone coming out of her room, but Altarn couldn’t believe that Kyree would accept everything she saw for blind truth.

  “Byrone and I were just talking.” That sounded worse, like a confession between the truths.

  Altarn stormed angrily down the hall. Servants either tried very hard to pretend she was not there, or dared to eye her with some degree of disgust. She doubted that Kyree had gossiped about what she saw, but could her anger have pushed her that far?

  When she reached the armory, she asked for her training shorns. These shorns were exact duplicates of her fighting shorns, except chipped and scratched and in desperate need of sharpening.

  As she left, she called for a violinist to join her in the training hard.

  Standing in its center, she began the battle dance prematurely before the violinist had even joined her. Her slicing was wild and too harsh and the now joined violinist knew it too but did not say anything as he played. He even faced away from her while he played so if she fell out of step he could not be blamed for watching her and messing up.

  The violin was merely screeching background noise to blare forbidden thoughts out of her heart; of violence toward Kyree’s ignorance, of her own desperate, selfish need that she had made Byrone fill, and the thought that maybe Byrone was telling the truth about… wanting… her.

  He said that he could not shrug off what it felt to hold her in his saddle, which reminded her how much she wanted to be held again in that saddle…

  She whirled, slicing the rain so the water screamed as it flew off her blades. She stomped and sent water flying. Her breath misted in front of her and the sodden violin strings began to moan heavy. She threw her arms up, leaving the steps of the song and made her own, allowing the music to give her wind to fly.

  The more she danced, the more clarity she was allowed. She wanted to exhaust herself so she could start over.

  The violinist realized she was not following the battle song and fell into a generic fighting tone.

  Rain drenched her, rushed under her clothes and still she danced. The rain soaked into her soul and drowned everything forbidden there.