Queen of Ruin (Grace and Fury)

by Tracy Banghart

  Serina shook her gently. “You can already read and write, Nomi. You know the real history of this country. You are educated, intelligent.… You’re what Graces should have been all along—the perfect example of all a woman can be.”

  “But…” She faltered.

  “Marry him,” Serina said, her heart full. “Be the queen this country needs. Side by side with Malachi, so there will be no doubt of your legitimacy and no need to deny your heart.”

  “What about you, Serina?” Nomi asked, sounding for an instant like the little girl she’d once been, curled into her big sister’s arms.

  Serina smiled. “I’ll be here in the palazzo with you. There will be threats—I will protect you. I know how to do that now. This is what I want. What I’ve always wanted.”

  Nomi stared at her hands. “You want me to ask Malachi to marry me. You want me to be queen.”

  “Yes,” Serina said simply. “But it’s your choice. That’s all you have ever wanted, baby sister, to choose your future. Don’t be afraid.”

  FORTY

  NOMI

  DO I WANT to be queen?

  Nomi thought about the queens in Malachi’s history book. The warrior and her daughters. The thoroughness with which their enemies had erased them. The price the women of Viridia had paid over the past two hundred years. She thought about Asa and his father. All the Graces who’d lived in this palazzo, all the women like her mother who were never given a choice about anything. She thought about Serina, sent to Mount Ruin to die for reading, a crime she didn’t even commit.

  Yes. Nomi wanted to be queen. As long as Serina was here with her.

  She hugged her sister tightly. “Tell our fighters at the door they can stand down. Get some more food from Ines. Rest, Serina. You deserve it.”

  Nomi returned to her old bedroom, where Malachi waited for her.

  He was sitting on the edge of the bed. He’d removed his heavy armor now that the threat of battle had passed. The tight breeches and thin shirt he wore beneath clung to his muscular frame.

  When she entered the room, he stood up. “Serina will need to organize a formal event,” he said. “Invite all the magistrates. She’ll set out Asa’s crimes, make a show of force with her army, augmented by Dante’s regiment, and then she’ll take command. I’ll disappear.… We don’t want any perceived threats to her rule—”

  “Malachi, wait.” Nomi took his hands.

  He paused and raised an eyebrow. She studied his face. Somehow in the past few weeks it had changed in her eyes. He still had the same intensity, but she couldn’t find the cruel set of his mouth she’d been convinced she’d seen… and she couldn’t find the haughty dismissal she knew she’d seen. She remembered the day at the beach when he’d swum with her, holding her up when the water had scared her. That was the day he’d told her he was the one who’d left her the book about Viridia’s secret history. He’d played at rebellion before that too… when he’d chosen her instead of Serina, defying his father and the magistrates.

  She thought about how willing he’d been to give up his birthright to Serina. It was an honorable move, yes, but was that the only reason for it? Could he be afraid?

  “What is it?” Malachi asked, bringing her back to herself.

  Nomi took a deep breath. Well, if he was afraid, he wasn’t the only one.

  “Malachi,” she said, and paused, and knew she was stalling. “Malachi,” she repeated, more firmly. “You have a responsibility to this country. You can’t give Viridia to us and leave it to us to fix it alone.” It was easier to start here. To start with responsibility. Her feelings… those would be harder to discuss.

  His eyes narrowed, and a flash of the old Malachi, the gruff, inscrutable one, returned. “I thought this is what you wanted. A queen. I was trying to fix this.… It was your idea—”

  “I know,” she said. “I know. But Serina doesn’t want to be queen.”

  “So what’s the solution?” He crossed his arms over his chest. “We go back to the old system? The one you hated so much?”

  Nomi took another steadying breath. Maybe she’d started in the wrong place after all. He was defensive now, and what she had to say, what she had to ask him…

  It all came out in a big rush.

  “You should be the Superior, and I should be your queen. Ruling together as equals. We should get married.” She gasped in a breath. “Will you… will you marry me?”

  He backed up a step, bumped into the bed, and sat down. Seated, they were almost on a level. She closed the distance between them. There was something in his shell-shocked expression that made her feel powerful. She’d surprised him. Genuinely shocked him.

  “You want to marry me?” he echoed.

  “No Graces,” she said. “Only me. And we rule together, equal partners. We change this country. We open our borders, we teach women to read, we allow them to choose their own futures. Serina will stay in the palazzo as a sort of, well, a guard for me, I suppose. She says she wants to protect me. We’ll—we’ll call her an advisor. She’ll help us navigate the hazards.”

  “I never wanted any Graces, not after you.… You want to marry me?” he asked again, in wonder.

  She hit his shoulder. “What is wrong with you? This isn’t just about that. It’s—”

  He grabbed her around the waist and kissed her, his mouth urgent and hot and sweet. She melted into the embrace, soft and warm as candle wax. Their tongues slid together, and her hands slid around his neck, up into his silken hair.

  When he drew away, all his sharpness, all his intensity, had disappeared, replaced by a lovesick grin. “You love me. You must, if you’re willing to marry me. This wouldn’t be your choice if it were just for Viridia. You wouldn’t do that to yourself.”

  She smiled, feeling a little spacey herself. “You’re right.” She kissed him again. “I wouldn’t.”

  “Then I accept your proposal,” he said. “And your partnership.” He kissed her, and heat flared between them. He pulled her slowly down to him, until they were both lying on the bed, their arms and legs entwined.

  A strange mix of emotions flowed through Nomi. Love, happiness…

  Hope.

  She was going to marry Malachi. She was going to be queen. She was choosing her future. And she knew, deep in her soul, she was choosing the right one.

  FORTY-ONE

  SERINA

  SERINA SMOOTHED HER hands down her sparkling black-and-silver gown. It shone like a night filled with stars, and she loved the way it accentuated her curves. She drew up the hem and slipped the dagger hidden at her calf from its sheath. The twisted silver hilt fit her hand perfectly. It was a beautiful weapon, but just as sharp and deadly as the ugly, handmade knives she’d used on Mount Ruin.

  “See? A warrior and a princess,” Val said, his gaze lingering on her exposed calf.

  She returned the blade to its hiding place and fixed her dress. Looking him up and down in his silver velvet coat and black breeches, she grinned. “And you look like a prince.”

  He bowed gallantly. “I suppose I am one now? As the paramour of the queen’s sister…”

  “Soon-to-be queen,” Serina corrected. She moved closer, close enough to kiss him. He pressed into her, sending delicious shivers down her back.

  When she pulled away, his eyes were dark and hot.

  “Do you think there will be trouble?” she asked, slipping into silver sandals. She’d decided against the precarious heels of her prospective Grace days.… Couldn’t run in those.

  “All the magistrates accepted Malachi’s invitation. The rest of Asa’s army has fallen in line.” Val used a thumb to wipe away her smudged lip stain. “I think Asa’s short but brutal reign opened a lot of eyes. Most Viridians seem ready for change.”

  “I hope you’re right,” Serina said.

  She kissed him once more, then fixed her makeup. Val opened their door for her and followed her into the hall. A swirl of color and light greeted them.

  In the weeks s
ince the Superior’s death, the Graces’ chambers had become a place of refuge for many of the former prisoners of Mount Ruin. The laws hadn’t changed yet, and many of these women couldn’t return to their families without the risk of being forced into service or marriage. Serina and Nomi had agreed that they should stay at the palazzo until it was safe for them to rejoin Viridian life. Until they could choose their own fates.

  In the meantime, Malachi had been working on bringing the female relatives of some of the women to the safety of the palazzo: like Mirror’s and Anika’s sisters. And Blaze’s daughter, who had been harder to find.

  Anika saw Serina and did a little spin, her red dress belling out around her glowing brown skin.

  Serina laughed. “You look ready for your first ball.”

  Anika rolled her eyes. “I feel like a peacock.” Her expression softened. “But you should see my sisters and my mother. They’re beside themselves.”

  While Anika hadn’t lost her sarcastic humor, the defiance had disappeared almost entirely from her eyes. Now that her sisters and mother were here with her, safe, and she no longer had to fight for survival, she’d become this strangely cheerful person who Serina loved even more.

  Serina hugged her.

  “Dancing is like fighting,” Serina said. “Without the kicking and biting.”

  Anika laughed. But she sobered a moment later, lifting her hem to show her own leather sheath, her own dagger. “I hope all we’ll be doing is dancing.”

  “Me too,” Serina replied, her own smile fading.

  Many of the women here had spent years fighting—it wasn’t so easy to let go of that drive for survival, and the fear of danger around the next corner. It had been Nomi’s idea to let the women of Mount Ruin continue to train, if they chose. They’d become a sort of protective detail for her, led by Serina, more effective because no one knew they were anything but well-dressed courtiers.

  Hopefully, it would stay that way.

  The Queen’s Graces.

  That’s what Nomi affectionately called them. The thought made Serina smile.

  She and Val headed for the circular central room. A lot of the women were already waiting. Maris and Helena sat on the cream divan in the middle of the room. They both wore green gowns, Maris’s a shade darker than Helena’s. Helena’s hair had grown out a bit; she’d pinned it into little spikes with sparkling silver clips. Maris’s black hair curled in a braid to her shoulder, silver ribbons threaded through it.

  “It’s almost time,” Serina said. “Can you believe it?”

  “No,” Maris said, laughing. “But for the first time in my life, I’m actually looking forward to a ball.”

  Serina left the chambers, Val just behind her, and headed down the carpeted hall toward Malachi’s room. When they reached the door with the carved fish, she paused. “You mind waiting out here for a moment?”

  “Of course not,” he said. He had his own weapons, a firearm and a dagger, strapped to his waist. He pivoted and stood with his back to the wall beside the door, like the guard he’d once been. He still had the straight shoulders and stiff bearing when he wanted to. It made her feel safe, knowing he was here.

  She knocked on the door. Malachi opened it, resplendent in a white suit threaded with gold. “There you are. She’s been waiting for you.”

  Serina patted his arm. “I forgot how long this getup takes,” she said, gesturing to her dress. She headed for the large dressing room off the bedroom. She could hear Nomi humming.

  There’d been no discussion about Nomi and Malachi moving into the Superior’s chambers; Nomi couldn’t forget the memory of Asa’s body tumbling off the balcony, and Malachi was more comfortable in his rooms than in the opulence of the Superior’s.

  “Nomi?” Serina called as she entered the dressing room.

  Nomi sat on a little stool, her huge periwinkle pouf of skirts surrounding it, as Angeline worked on her hair.

  “Serina!” Nomi cried, meeting her eyes in the mirror.

  “I’m sorry I’m late,” Serina said. “My dress wouldn’t cooperate.”

  “You look beautiful,” Nomi said.

  Serina smiled at her sister’s reflection. “So do you.”

  Angeline slipped a sparkling pin into the twist of Nomi’s hair. “All done,” she said. “Should I wait outside?”

  “Yes, please,” Nomi said. “Thank you, Angeline.”

  Angeline had agreed to stay on as Nomi’s handmaiden, her face flushing a brilliant shade of red when Nomi explained that she would be paid wages for her work. Ria and all the rest of Asa’s unwilling Graces had gone home to their families. Cassia was still here—she hoped to catch the eye of one of Malachi’s wealthy merchant friends.

  “Are you ready?” Serina asked. She put her hands on Nomi’s shoulders and stared at their joined reflection, remembering a moment long ago, when she’d studied their reflections just like this, wondering how Nomi had been chosen as a Grace and she had not.

  “No,” Nomi said, with a rueful grin. “But I won’t ever be. Once Malachi announces me as queen, there may be riots and rebellion—it may feel, at first, like we’re breaking the country apart. But there’ll be no going back.”

  “No matter what happens, I’ll be here with you,” Serina said, grateful as she was every day that she’d survived this long, that she could be at Nomi’s side.

  Footsteps echoed behind them, and another reflection joined theirs in the mirror.

  “And so will I,” Renzo said, with his lazy grin. He looked so grown-up in his velvet jacket. Serina could hardly believe that he was her little brother, that her little sister was about to become queen.

  “Do you think Mama and Papa would be proud of us?” Serina asked, because she couldn’t imagine what they would think about this tableau, about where their children had all ended up. Their mother’s one wish was to have a Grace for a daughter. Would she be horrified if she’d lived to see one of her daughters become queen instead?

  “So proud. They always were,” Renzo said softly. His eyes met Serina’s in the mirror. “They were horrified when you were sent to Mount Ruin. Father petitioned the magistrate—he almost got himself arrested fighting to have you freed.”

  Nomi gasped.

  “He did?” Serina’s eyes watered.

  Nomi lunged for a tissue and handed it back to her. Serina closed her eyes and took a shuddering breath, blotting to preserve the kohl liner she’d so carefully applied. She couldn’t break down now. But her heart stitched itself a little more strongly together, knowing her parents had fought for her. She’d always assumed they had been ashamed.

  “I always wondered what they would have done if they’d known I could read,” Nomi whispered. “I wondered if they’d have turned me in.”

  “I wondered too,” Serina said softly. So many of the girls on Mount Ruin had been sent there by their own families.

  “Never.” Renzo shook his head. “Nomi, Father knew. You were never very good at hiding it.”

  “What?” Nomi twisted to look him in the eye without the mirror between them.

  He shrugged. “He and Mama loved us. They wanted us to be happy.”

  Nomi gave a little hiccupping laugh. “I’m so happy you’re both here. That you’re safe. I wish… I wish they could have been here too.”

  Renzo put his hand over Serina’s on Nomi’s shoulder. “There are a lot of people who should be here today. That’s why you’re doing this. To honor them, and to do better going forward.”

  They all shared shaky smiles. A little more of Serina’s serenity returned.

  Nomi stood up, her giant skirt billowing out. “Okay, now I’m ready.”

  Serina and Renzo followed her out of the room to where Malachi waited. When he saw Nomi, dawn broke across his face. Serina cast a sidelong glance at Renzo. He grinned back at her.

  “Today, the people of Viridia will meet their queen,” Malachi said proudly, taking Nomi’s arm.

  But as much joy and hope filled this room, t
here was answering darkness outside it.

  They all knew the battle for Viridia’s soul was just beginning.

  Serina imagined what she would see when they entered the ballroom, the suspicion and disgust the magistrates wouldn’t be able to hide. Even with Malachi and Nomi working together, there were sure to be challenges. Threats.

  That’s why Serina was happy for her dagger, for Val and Renzo, and for the Queen’s Graces. Between them all, they would keep Nomi safe.

  Serina, Val, Renzo, Malachi, and Nomi walked through the quiet corridors to the gallery just outside the ballroom. Ines stood before the big carved wooden doors in a shining violet gown, her back straight and her eyes full of pride. Anika, Mirror, Maris, Helena, and several other women from Mount Ruin stood with her, as graceful in their colorful dresses as their hidden weapons were deadly. Beyond the doors, their guests waited.

  Val and Renzo took their places at the head of the procession as Ines’s escorts. Serina and the rest of the Queen’s Graces fell in line behind them. Serina twisted to catch a glimpse of Malachi and Nomi, their arms linked, their chins high, waiting to enter last.

  For a moment, everyone stood in silence, the only sound the faint rumble of voices from the other room.

  Then, at Malachi’s nod, the liveried sentries swung the double doors wide.

  Serina laughed softly to herself as she entered the brilliant light of the ballroom, flanked by Anika and Mirror. Somehow, she had become a Grace after all.

  FORTY-TWO

  NOMI

  NOMI PAUSED IN the doorway of the ballroom. Musicians were playing a quiet, lilting song, and the chandeliers tinkled in the breeze from the open terrace. The room was full to bursting. Everyone of importance had come to hear Malachi’s announcement.

  Nearly every courtier and magistrate in the room was staring at Nomi.

  Two rows of soldiers formed a clear route across the dance floor to a raised platform adorned with flowers at the far side. Upon the dais sat two chairs instead of one.

  The nearest soldier inclined his head toward Malachi, his mouth set in a thin line. Dante. He didn’t approve of what Nomi and Malachi were about to do.