[2018] Reign of Queens

by Melissa Wright

  She threw the stack to the floor, where it landed soundlessly on plush beige carpeting. “And they found them with Council. Do you know what that means? Do you?”

  I stared at her. I had a feeling my idea of what it meant and her idea of what it meant were on two different planes.

  She took a step toward me, a threat in her voice. “It means your people did this, Aern. Not the Division. Council, the ones we’re supposed to trust.”

  My instincts told me to back slowly away, but my mouth had other ideas. “You know they aren’t to be trusted now. You heard the report. Morgan has figured out a way to sway our own kind—”

  “No,” Emily said. “Not now. This isn’t a new report. My mother, our mother, was taken before Morgan got this sway—”

  Emily suddenly grabbed her middle as if she’d been punched in the gut. “Oh no,” she groaned, shaking her head.

  I reached for her and she put up a hand between us. “No. No, Aern, I… Oh no.”

  “For the last time, what is it?” I was hovering over her where she hunched forward, my hands helplessly waiting.

  “Nothing,” she said, waving the hand she’d held up. “Nothing, I, I have to…”

  Her words were lost to me as she leaned over to pick up the papers. She was wearing clothes Brianna had gotten for her, clothes I presumed were Emily’s usual style, and the hem of the fitted Henley that had rested at her waist rode up to reveal the skin of her lower back.

  “Christ,” I said. “Oh, Christ.”

  Emily’s head turned to find me, momentarily distracted from her own agitation. She opened her mouth to ask “What?” and then her eyes, her wide, sea-glass-green eyes, followed mine and she realized what I’d seen.

  My stomach turned. “Tell me it’s only a tattoo.”

  She straightened, face pale despite having just righted herself.

  I stepped closer. “Emily, tell me. Tell me you got a tattoo. Tell me you stayed out late, fell in with the wrong crowd, made some bad decisions, tell me you woke up with this and have no idea how it got there.”

  Her cheeks flushed. “Ancient blood rite symbols? I don’t think so, Aern.”

  I could see that she was embarrassed at my reaction, but I couldn’t stop myself. I grabbed her waist, spun her around, and moved her shirt aside to bare the top of an inked design on her lower left side.

  She glanced back at me over her shoulder. “It’s not, it wasn’t like that, Aern. My mother. She… I told you about her. You know.” She was mortified now, having to explain her crazy mother’s ideas. “She did it when I was too young to argue with her.”

  But her mother wasn’t crazy. She was a prophet. I swallowed hard before running my thumb over the design.

  The words were stuck in my throat, choking me. All of it, the whole ordeal would have spilled out, but something like a single weak cough was all I could manage.

  Emily turned slowly toward me, the gravity of my reaction sinking in. This wasn’t about some tattoo. This was something else. Something about the ancient symbols. Something about Brianna. “What?” she whispered, half afraid to find out more.

  My hands were still at her hips, frozen there, my thumbs resting on the bare skin above her jeans. The bare skin of the chosen.

  I fell to my knees in front of her, pulling her down to face me. Her mouth hung slightly open, unsure whether to brace for hurt or anger or fear. I had trusted my room was secure. I had trusted we had privacy. I’d said anything I’d needed to say here freely, but not this. Not these words.

  My right hand freed her waist to curve gently around the base of her neck. I pulled her in, the image of those same symbols carved into Brianna’s wrists clear in my mind as I pressed my cheek to Emily’s and whispered the words that could never be taken back. The words that would ruin her.

  “Brianna is a decoy.”

  Emily stiffened under my hand, but I held her there, my lips moving swiftly, my voice all but silent.

  “Your mother hid your mark. You were born with the symbol, I can feel it on your skin. The tattoo is only a cover. Brianna’s are as well. She put them on the inside of her wrists so they would find them. So they would stop looking before they came to you. There’s a curve beneath the symbol of the serpent that spirals up and right. She traced the ink to the left and down. It’s a small change, but that’s all she needed. She marked you as merely Brianna’s blood, but she knew they’d find her first. She knew Brianna would be their target.”

  The hands Emily had braced against my arms curled tighter as we stayed there. When I’d said all I could say, my head fell forward, resting an inch above her shoulder. Not touching, not now.

  Everything had changed. In one instant, the constant we’d lived with our entire lives was gone, swept from beneath us in a heartbeat. It was Emily. Emily.

  A long moment passed before I noticed her mouth moving silently beside me. I’d been lost in my own revelations, been shifting my own realities. I carefully eased my head back to see her, and caught the forms of several ancient words. Another prophecy.

  She was repeating back her mother’s teachings, aligning them to her situation. Finding her truth.

  Her lips stilled and she looked at me. But she didn’t see me. Her green eyes were hollow, a vacant stare from someone lost and misled.

  “I need to see Brianna,” she whispered, her voice hoarse.

  I nodded, helped her to her feet. There was nothing I could say. Nothing to be done. This was a blow that could not be softened. This one shouldn’t be eased.

  Secrets

  Brianna was waiting for us. She stepped aside the open doorway as we brushed past, and brusquely latched the door behind us when we entered the small sitting area outside her bedroom.

  Emily spun, the tension that vibrated through her visible on every feature, and Brianna gestured for us to sit. “The room is secure, we can say whatever needs saying.”

  Neither of us sat.

  When Emily finally let loose, it became very clear that she had suspected, and suspected correctly, that Brianna had known all along.

  Brianna’s voice was steady. “I will explain, just please—”

  She moved toward Emily, hand outstretched, and I found myself shifting from foot to foot, hand running over my jaw. How exactly did one handle a girl fight?

  “No,” Emily shot out, “don’t touch me. You’re not going to take this from me. Not this time.”

  My fidgeting ceased.

  “I wasn’t,” Brianna said. “I wouldn’t. But please, just sit down and let me say what I need to say.”

  Something in Brianna’s subdued tone wasn’t right. Something about Emily’s words.

  Emily chewed her lip. “Say it. Say it, then. Make it all right that you both lied to me my whole life, Brianna.”

  Brianna waited, and Emily finally dropped onto a chair, but she stayed forward, elbows posted taut above her knees.

  “You know why I couldn’t tell you,” Brianna said. “She made me keep it from you. To make you safe.”

  As Brianna laid out the explanations to her sister, the reality of our situation came crashing down. Emily was the chosen. Not Brianna. Emily, who’d followed me to Morgan’s warehouse, who’d hunted me down for stealing her sister. Emily, who was only here because of us.

  I turned away from them, facing nothing in that windowless room, and wiped the dampness from my palms. I’d brought her here. She was safe, no one had even known she existed, and I’d brought her among us, thrust her into the middle of our war, and nearly gotten her killed in the process. I could see the car again, smashing into brick just shy of her legs as she ran down the alleyway. I could see her sneaker slipping from the iron railing ten stories up the side of a building. I could see her now, in the hands of the Division. The Division her mother had always warned her would be the death of Brianna…

  I was suddenly moving, leaving the room without so much as a word to either of them.

  The chaos of my thoughts had aligned, given me a purpos
e. I had made it to the library, was sifting through papers, when Brendan’s voice cut through my resolve.

  “Looking for something particular?”

  My hand stilled. I took a steadying breath before I glanced up, the picture of ease. “Just hoping we missed something.” I closed the folder in front of me. “What brings you out this evening?”

  Brendan’s chin tilted down but his eyes never left me. “We need to talk, Aern.”

  “Isn’t that what we’re doing?”

  He crossed his arms loosely in front of his chest. “Word spread about what happened with Eric this morning.”

  I stiffened despite myself.

  “There’ve been whispers,” Brendan said casually, as if it weren’t a warning.

  “I know how you hate whispers.”

  Brendan’s mouth moved, but it wasn’t exactly a smile. “They’re saying I should keep the two of you apart,” he said. “They think maybe she’s the reason you’re refusing the union.”

  He was wrong. So, so wrong.

  Brendan’s eyes shifted in a “well?” gesture. “Don’t be absurd,” I said, glancing down to arrange the papers lying over the desk.

  Brendan stepped forward. “I don’t have an answer for them, Aern. Because, by all accounts, you are too close to the girl.” When I didn’t respond, he shifted uncomfortably, lowered his voice. “I’ve seen the way you look at her. She matters to you.”

  The last folder slammed a little harder than I intended onto the stack. “So they would abandon her to Morgan then? To keep her away from me?”

  Brendan’s brows rose.

  I sighed. “Of course she matters. She’s Brianna’s sister. She should matter to all of them.” I put the folders under my arm and stepped around the desk. “She’s the only thing Brianna has left. Morgan would use her like he used Aiden.”

  It was a low blow, I knew. But there was no way I was backing down now, not after what I’d learned.

  “Aiden is the reason I’m here,” Brendan said.

  “And Brianna is the reason I am,” I said on my way past him toward the door.

  He didn’t stop me, but Kara had been listening from the hallway. She spun to follow me, the pound of her heels punctuating her angry whispers. “How could you? How dare you? I can’t even—” She picked up her stride, rushing to overtake mine. “Aern. Look at me.”

  I glanced at her, not bothering to slow my pace.

  “His brother? After all that, you would bring up his brother?”

  I did stop then. In heels, she was nearly as tall as I, and her momentum left us too close. “Maybe that’s what he needs to be reminded of, Kara. Maybe that’s what you all need to be reminded of, the reason we’re here. The reason he broke from Morgan. This isn’t a game.” I leaned toward her, my voice low. “He’s a monster. A killer. I’ve seen it with my own eyes, and there is no one to stop him but me. His blood. His brother.”

  She backed off, breathless and speechless.

  “I will do what I have to to save us. You can tell them that.”

  Her face fell and she raised a hand, readying her apology, but I waved it off.

  She nodded, shamefaced, and turned to go, but I stopped her. “Kara?” She glanced over her shoulder. “Tell them anyone who touches her dies.”

  I didn’t wait for her reaction, but I knew she understood. Emily was off limits, or their savior was gone.

  As I sat alone in my room, Brendan’s constant warnings swam through my head. It needs to be now. You are our only chance. You know what needs to be done.

  I could understand him, could understand all of them. I felt the urgency. I knew the prophecy. But I hadn’t acted. Something, all along, something had held me back.

  And now, I had a secret. Only three of us knew the truth about the chosen. Only one of us knew the rest. I would have to tell Emily the reason Morgan wanted Brianna. I would have to tell her his intentions.

  Or I would have to meet Logan and the others in little more than a day, and take care of Morgan forever.

  My door swung open and Emily stepped in, hair pulled back, white Henley and jeans, as if she were headed to a baseball game, not the girl who held the fate of the world. I glanced at the door and she turned to close it behind her, sliding the deadbolt home before pacing the center of the room.

  Gods, she was beautiful. Even frustrated and trapped and alone. And she was going to hate us for what we’d kept from her.

  She chewed her thumbnail until the realization of what she was doing sank in, and then she dropped it, tracing a finger over the end before looking at me.

  “She was keeping it from me,” she said. “All these years.”

  My mouth pulled tight in one of those sympathetic, “I’m not sure what to say” gestures.

  “And do you know what the worst part is?” she continued. “Do you?”

  I remained silent, because I was pretty sure it was a rhetorical question. And because I was pretty sure you should never offer your opinion to an angry woman.

  She flopped down on the bed beside me, arms falling lifelessly to the sides. “The worst part is that I can’t even be mad at her. I can’t even hate them for it because I was doing the same thing. My mother played us both, and neither of us were willing to admit it.”

  She lay there for a long while, finally glancing over at where I sat, waiting for some kind of response.

  I ran a hand over my jeans, trying tenuously for some sort of comforting words, all the while certain this conversation would come back to bite me in the ass when she found out the secrets I’d been keeping. “You know, your mother was a prophet.” I shifted toward her. “I’m sure she would have had good reason to lead you both as such.”

  Her eyes went to the ceiling and she stretched an arm over her head. I looked away, searching for anything else to focus on.

  “I know,” she murmured. “I know.”

  We sat wordlessly for ten minutes, and I nearly told her about Morgan, about the prophecy, at least as many times. I’d finally decided to get it over with when she slid the toe of one shoe under the heel of the other and kicked off her right sneaker. The other one followed, and I looked back in time to see her slide toward me, push me backward and lean into my chest.

  “It feels like this is the only place I have anymore,” she whispered, and the words were so low I had to strain to hear them. I was certain she’d feel the tension in my chest, though, the way my heart rate changed, and know I was hiding something.

  Her fingers curled to trace small circles on my tee shirt over my breastbone.

  My right hand reached over and grabbed her wrist, gently but in earnest. I had to tell her. I had to tell her now.

  She looked up at me, not taking her cheek from its place.

  How had things gone so far off track? It was only a night ago we’d lain like this talking of her sister. When Emily’s biggest worry was her mother’s warning of the Division. And the thought stopped me.

  Something was wrong. Their mother had known, she’d hidden Emily and used Brianna as a distraction. So why was the prophecy so important, why did she caution her against the Division more than any other danger?

  “What is it?” Emily asked.

  I leaned forward, keeping her close as we sat up together. “The prophecy,” I said, “the one about the Taken, the Division.”

  Her expression unclouded, suddenly aware of my concern.

  “Tell me.”

  She nodded. “I always had trouble remembering… It was, ‘the Taken will die at the hands…’ no, wait.”

  “In the old language,” I said. “Tell me how she told you.”

  And she did. And then she was gasping and grappling for her footing as I pulled her off the bed.

  “What are you doing?”

  “We should go,” I said. “Now.”

  She bent to grab her shoes, following as I dragged her behind me to gather my own things. “Why, Aern? What did it say?”

  “It doesn’t mean what you think, Emily
. It means we should leave. It means you were right, we should never have come here.”

  She yanked her arm hard to bring me around to face her, jaw tight. It was evident from her stance she didn’t intend to move until I’d explained further.

  “It doesn’t mean she will die at the hands of the Division. It says she will die in Division’s hands.”

  She waited.

  “‘As the prophet is revealed, so die the others.’”

  Emily’s face went pale. She’d heard the words before, she knew I was right. She was sick, and I could only imagine her thoughts centered on what was about to happen, what it was probably too late to stop. What she could have prevented if she’d believed her mother, if she’d acted on her gut, if she’d only done one thing differently. And then I wondered if they were her worries or my own.

  “I should have listened to you,” I said. “I should have known.”

  She swallowed hard, and then moved to open the door so we could find Brianna.

  All Hell

  We stepped into the hallway to find Brianna and Brendan running toward us.

  “The hall,” Brendan called, and I knew what he meant, turning with Emily to reach the safe room they’d dubbed the hall before it was too late.

  She didn’t question me, only ran alongside until the thin red line of flashers lit up the corridor. Her hand squeezed tight in mine and I glanced at her, not surprised by the ‘it’s too late’ expression. I tightened my grip on her and pressed against the wall to check the corner to the next hall. I felt Brendan and Brianna behind us, but could hear no others when we crossed to the entrance and punched in the code. In a matter of seconds, we’d made it to this place, and already I’d heard the first shots from the floor below.

  “There,” Brendan said, pushing us across the room to a dark-paneled wall. He ripped the painting from its hook and threw it aside, revealing another keypad, another passcode. “Inside,” he demanded as soon as the panel started shifting.