The Exalted

by Kaitlyn Sage Patterson

  Then Aphra laid cool hands on either side of my face and gently moved my head to look at her. She was a blur of red and gold, freckles and milk-pale skin, green and violet eyes. Just as I was nothing, she was nothing. My darkness seeped into her, pushing, emptying.

  “Listen to me,” Aphra said, and for a moment, she almost seemed to glow. “Hear me. You will not disappear into despair. We’ve held off the Shriven for the time being. According to our people, they’ve retreated to the temples to regroup. We have very little time to act, but we think we’ve come up with a plan that will allow us something of an advantage. And we need you, Vi. Don’t let your brother’s death stop you from doing what you’d both set out to accomplish. Bo wouldn’t want that. He went back to Alskad because standing up to injustice and hate was more important to him than anything—even you. Don’t let his sacrifice be for nothing. Find your fight. Find your anger.”

  As Aphra spoke, that strange golden light slipped from her fingertips, from her eyes and from her mouth, weaving a picture of Bo, sitting on a faraway throne, fire and fight in his eyes, a crown on his head. He reached out, offering me a knife. Asking me to fight.

  The golden image faded, leaving me staring at Aphra. She smiled sadly at me and said, “We have too much work to do to lose you to grief, Vi.”

  Curlin put her hand on Aphra’s shoulder and squeezed. “We talked about this, Aphra. Not too much. Not too often. It’s manipulative to use your magic that way.”

  Aphra nodded. “You’re right, of course.”

  I tried to gather my thoughts, but thinking was harder than running headlong into the surf. The darkness was gone, but left in its wake was confusion and gutting, heart-wrenching anger.

  “Listen to me. Hear me. Come back to yourself, Vi.”

  The world snapped back into focus. The anger was still there, as was the sadness, but it wasn’t all-consuming. It didn’t break me the way it had moments ago.

  “What have you done to me?”

  Aphra and Curlin traded looks. Curlin pulled a chair across the room and settled it next to the bed. “Aphra finally found her magic. The magic of the amalgam. She’s...” Curlin gave Aphra a wry smile. “...still learning how to use it appropriately. After the bridge collapsed, we, along with Quill’s rebels, found our way back to one another. Quill brought us here, and we sent someone to fetch the folks who were left in our camp.”

  I breathed a sigh of relief. Quill was safe. “Slow down. So what exactly did this so-called magic of Aphra’s do to me?”

  I wasn’t sure I believed in magic, despite the golden light that flooded from her mouth, or my own inexplicable behavior after the fight with the Shriven.

  “When I say those words, in that order,” Aphra began, “listen, hear, the whole bit—something happens to me. I can paint pictures with my words, and people do just as I say. Well, not just as I say, but their interpretation of it. After that Shriven nearly brained you, I told you to get to safety. I didn’t know a way around it. Just now, I saw your grief consuming you, so I tried to get you to focus on something other than Bo and Lei, but I didn’t think carefully about my words.” She looked sheepish, an expression I’d never thought to see on her face. “I’m still not entirely sure how it all works.”

  I digested that for a moment, then took a breath and moved on. “Magic aside, where are we? I feel like I’ve asked a thousand times.”

  “Oh,” Curlin said. “Of course. Quill brought us to Williford so that you could be tended by a healer, but he couldn’t find a way to get us into his house without being noticed. Mal knew a pair of sisters who had a few rooms to spare and owed him a favor. They brought in the healers, and thank Dzallie they did. You wouldn’t have stood a chance without their help.”

  The way my body felt now, I didn’t doubt it for a moment.

  “I am so sorry about your brother,” Aphra said. “He would have made a good king.”

  Something niggled at me. The small, distant thrum that had always been in the back of my head, the cord that tied me to Bo...it was still there. It hadn’t severed. The thinnest line of connection still ran between us, like a strand of a spiderweb across an ocean. It was still there, and I trusted that more than I trusted anything else.

  “Bo isn’t dead,” I said, my voice calm.

  The blood drained from Curlin’s face, leaving her cheeks ashen. “Vi. It’s true. Quill’s uncle Hamlin had it from his wife. She was in the park when it happened. She heard the shots.”

  “He’s not dead.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I’d know if he was dead, and he’s not. I would feel it.”

  Curlin’s sigh held a note of exasperation. “They’ve appointed a regent. They’ve had funerals. The news is in every paper and letter written since the day it happened. The whole world is talking about it.”

  “The whole world is mistaken.”

  “Vi—”

  I cut Curlin off. “Look, I lived most of my wretched life thinking that my twin was dead. I felt that connection, and I thought it was to my dead twin, that she was trying to pull me into the halls of the gods. And I’ve seen people whose twins have died. I know what it looks like when the tie is severed. So trust me when I tell you—Bo isn’t dead. We’ll be hearing from him soon enough.”

  Aphra studied the bedspread, jaw tight.

  “Trust me. Bo’s not dead.”

  “And if you’re wrong?” Curlin asked. Neither of them would meet my eyes. “If he is dead? What then? Doesn’t that change everything?”

  “I’m not wrong.”

  Curlin’s hands knotted into fists at her sides.

  “But say you’re right. Say Bo’s dead.” Even knowing they were blatantly false, the words felt like ash in my mouth. “Does his death actually change anything? I don’t think it does. The way laborers are treated here is still deplorable, and it has to change. The temple is still using the fruit of this land to control the people of the Alskad Empire, and I still think that we can put a stop to it. So I’ll stick to the plan, no matter what happens. I’m going to leave this world a better place than I found it.”

  Curlin sighed and shrugged. “Believe whatever you need to believe. Just know that denial will only make the grief stronger when you finally let yourself feel it.”

  “So what’s next?” I asked, brushing Curlin’s comment aside. “What do we do now?”

  Curlin and Aphra exchanged a look.

  “We talked to Biz and Neve and Quill, and we came up with a plan. We’re going to take over the government.”

  I stared at them, baffled. I couldn’t tell if the pain was addling my wits, or if I’d simply misunderstood. “Ilor is a colony of Alskad,” I said slowly. “How the hell do you plan to take control of the government of an empire?”

  Aphra laughed. “No one is taking control of an entire empire. Just Ilor.”

  Curlin rolled her eyes, but couldn’t control the smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. “She’s going to use her magic on the governor. That’s how.”

  I lay back on the pillows and studied the ceiling, thinking through all the dangers and problems with their plan. There was no part of me that thought Bo was actually dead, and he wouldn’t be pleased about losing a whole colony when he found out. But if everyone else believed the news, the colony would be in chaos, and that would make a coup just that much easier.

  Finally, decided, I looked at Aphra.

  “Well, you won’t be doing it without me.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Bo

  “Denor is like something out of a fairy tale. It’s the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen. I don’t know if its most striking feature is the carefully planned streets and promenades, or all of the incredible, shocking green, or the fact that it seems to preside over the harbor like the home of some formidable giant.”

  —from Bo to Vi
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  Where the outside of Noriava’s palace was all elegant lines and black stone, the interior was bright with warm, gilded wood and sleekly designed and polished furniture. It was breathtaking and overwhelming and somehow immediately comfortable. A pair of white-coated guards led us through the maze of halls, finally stopping in front of a pair of vast bronze doors.

  From a pocket deep inside his jacket, Swinton produced the Circlet of Alskad and placed it gently on my head. He swept a few loose curls to the side and gave me a solemn nod and a wink.

  “You’re a king, meeting a queen to warn her of a threat to you both,” he whispered. “Despite her advantage, you must remember that you’re equals.”

  I squeezed Swinton’s hand and managed to give him a pale imitation of a smile as he resumed his place by my left shoulder. A panel just to the side of the doors slid open, and a round, bearded face appeared in the window. A moment later, the doors swung open, and the guards stepped aside. Just like we’d planned, I entered first, followed by Swinton and then the girls.

  The vast hall was practically bare compared to the rest of the palace. Bright, harsh sunlamps hung from the high ceiling at odd intervals. Cylinders of colored liquids bubbled along the walls, lit from beneath. A steel table long enough to seat nearly a hundred people ran the width of the space, flanked on either side not by chairs or benches, but black-cushioned metal stools spaced evenly. And at the very back of the room, an enormous throne of black stone sat framed by the most complex bronze and glass stills I’d ever seen.

  We were nearly a third of the way across the room before I was able to make out the woman seated on the throne. She had long, fiery red hair, skin as pale and wan as skimmed milk and a murderously feline grin. Her simple black silk gown was entirely the wrong color for her complexion. The closer I got to the throne, the more familiar the woman seemed. When we were just a few strides away from the dais, an enormous black cat, seated on her lap, lifted its head and regarded us with wide yellow eyes. In that moment, I knew where I’d seen this woman before.

  “You came to my birthday party,” I blurted out in Alskader. For a moment, I loathed myself—not only had I thrown away any advantage I might have had from speaking first on a thoughtless comment, but I’d started our conversation in Alskader, no less. The least I could’ve done was manage to speak Denorian. I sounded like a child.

  The queen’s condescending, haughty mask fell away for a moment, and she broke into a wide grin.

  “I came as a guest of your cousins, Patrise and Lisette.” Her Alskader held just the slightest hint of the lilting Denorian accent. “I’m surprised you recognized me. It was quite a day for you. Named the heir to the Alskad throne and coming of age, all at the same time. And to lose your mother so soon after, and now poor Runa. I am terribly sorry for the horrible year you’ve had.”

  She ran her fingers along the length of her cat for a moment, pondering its thick, twitching tail. “I must say that I’m shocked to see you here, though, so far from the halls of your own palace.”

  “And alive,” I added.

  Noriava’s smile didn’t touch her green eyes as she inclined her head ever so slightly. “Fair. I’d given more than a little weight to the rumors that you’d been assassinated alongside Runa. What I couldn’t believe was that the council would appoint that boring nobody—Rylain, is it?—as regent. So when your man brought Lisette’s letter this morning, I had it in my mind that the person who walked through those doors would be some sort of scheming impostor.”

  “I may be many things, but I am still the rightful heir to the Alskad throne,” I said solemnly.

  Beside me, Pem giggled, and Still punched her in the arm. I shot them a glare, but neither of them saw my warning look. When Pem pinched Still in retaliation, I grabbed Pem by the collar and pulled her to my other side, separating them. Noriava chuckled, and I felt the heat of a blush creep up my neck. Only the weight of the crown on my head kept me from running my hands through my hair and shattering the last shards of the illusion that I was some kind of capable ruler.

  “Little ones can be so troublesome, can’t they?”

  I inclined my head in response, trying to regain my equilibrium, and gestured toward Swinton. This meeting couldn’t possibly get any worse. Either I could take back control, or I could resign myself to failure—and I couldn’t allow myself to see that as a real option.

  “Queen Noriava, allow me to present to you Swinton, of Ilor. He has been a most thoughtful adviser and guide to me for some time now.”

  Noriava offered Swinton her hand, which he kissed with the slightest bow. As he rose, Swinton winked at the queen. “I’d best warn you now, Majesty, that I’m a dimmy, so if you find yourself frightened by those who’ve survived the most dreadful kind of grief, I’ll take my leave of you.”

  One of Noriava’s perfect eyebrows twitched, and her eyes slid from Swinton to me and back again. Despite the pit of anxiety in my stomach, I kept my eyes locked on hers until she looked down at the cat purring in her lap. “Of course not. Denor doesn’t ascribe to Alskad’s biases against the diminished. You are welcome in my home.”

  “What about us?” Still asked, her voice an octave higher and significantly louder than anyone else in the room.

  Swinton cleared his throat. I struggled for a moment, looking for the right words, but before I could think of a way to dance around the twins’ impropriety without losing any tactical ground with the queen, Noriava stood, unsettling her cat, which gave her a spiteful look and stalked off. Noriava swept past Swinton and me and knelt in front of the girls.

  “I am so very sorry to have waited to introduce myself, young ladies. I am Noriava Suchill, Queen of Denor, Duchess of Salemouth and Ladderhorn, Countess of Middlebrookhaven, Baroness of the Riverlands, Protector of the Cascadian Mountains and the Queendom of Denor.”

  Pem’s mouth hung open, just a little, as Noriava offered her a hand. The queen smiled knowingly and added, “I know, it’s a bit of a mouthful. You can call me Nori, if you’d like.”

  Still reached out and took the queen’s hand. “I’m Stillness, and this is my sister, Patience. We’re King Bo’s most trusted valets.”

  I exchanged a horrified glance with Swinton. King Bo? Noriava would certainly know that something was off about my relationship with the girls now.

  “King Bo?” she repeated, a laugh in her voice.

  Pem’s cheeks went bright red, and Still studied her boots.

  “I’ve never really been one for the formalities,” I said, trying to sound nonchalant. “I told them to call me Bo some time ago. I’d be honored if you’d do the same.”

  Noriava stood. “Then you’ll have to call me Nori. I’m not much in favor of formalities, either. Are you hungry? I’ll send for something for us to eat, and you can tell me what’s brought you to my humble queendom. Would your valets like to join us, or would they rather go down to the kitchens to be doted on and spoiled by the cook?” She smiled at the girls. “You didn’t hear it from me, but my cook is particularly impressed with tales of travel and ships. I imagine that she could be persuaded to give you some of her famous steamed sweet buns if you told her about your journey to Denor.”

  The girls’ eyes lit up, and they nodded eagerly. Noriava gestured to a servant in the corner, who waved to the girls and whisked them away through a set of hidden doors. Noriava took a seat on one of the stools in the middle of the table. I sat across from her, and Swinton settled onto a stool beside me. A moment later, a number of servants had silently set our places and poured icy water, bright pink juice and golden Denorian wine into a set of queer glasses. Unlike the stemmed glasses I was accustomed to seeing in Alskad, these were simple crystal cylinders etched with the triangular crest of Denor.

  Noriava raised her wineglass and swirled the golden liquid, studying it in the bright light of the sunlamps. Multihued light played across her face like a miniature kaleid
oscope of rainbows.

  “To the future of Alskad. May it be brighter under your leadership than it has ever been before.”

  “And to the future of Denor,” I replied. “A more capable leader, she couldn’t possibly find.”

  I raised my glass and brought it to my lips, letting the wine lap against them, but not past. There was something in Noriava’s eyes that I didn’t trust, and I wasn’t fool enough to be the first Alskad ruler in three hundred years to be poisoned in the Denorian court. Those sharp green eyes followed my every movement, appraising, calculating. Her small smile as I set my still-full wineglass back on the table was disconcertingly smug, and I blushed.

  Swinton drank deeply from his glass and sighed with pleasure. “It’s been too long since I’ve enjoyed a glass of Denorian wine. I thank you, Your Majesty.”

  “Nori, please,” she said. “Now that we’re comfortable, why don’t you tell me why you’ve come to my humble little queendom.”

  I refused to cede another step of advantage to the queen. I’d come crawling to her court to beg for her help—the least I could do was try to match her bravado and assurance. Under the table, I clenched my hand into a fist to stop its shaking, then lifted the glass of wine to my lips again and drank. The taste was full and round, like grassy meadows and sunshine and sweet summer fruit. As it slid down my throat, I felt the warmth of the alcohol rush through my veins, and I did my best to let it wash away my terror. I reminded myself that I was a king, sitting before a queen, and I had every right to ask for her help.

  “I’m curious about what you said before,” I deflected. “Do you not experience the same level of violence in the diminished here in Denor?”

  A trio of servants appeared carrying steaming glass bowls on wooden platters, which they settled in front of each of us with a flourish. The creamy soup studded with chunks of vegetables and shards of white fish smelled heavenly, but I waited for Nori to respond. She dipped her spoon into her soup and took a bite before shaking her head.