When She Reigns

by Jodi Meadows

  I introduced Nine to my sister and the rest of my friends, and then we took turns telling her how the high magistrate’s soldiers were moving through the streets to take people.

  Nine sighed. “All right. I’ll add it to my report. But what do you want from me? Why do you have all your worldly possessions with you?”

  “We can’t go back to the Fire Rose. It’s only a matter of time before Paorah starts looking for Aaru and me.”

  “All right.” Nine crossed her arms. “And?”

  I clicked for LaLa and held her steady with the tips of my fingers. “And,” I said, “we’re in trouble. We have few allies, and even fewer friends. Our governments are against us, and our gods are ready to abandon us. We need options—better options than a few people getting saved and the rest being left to die.”

  “We aren’t friends,” Nine said. “Not even allies.”

  “I know.” My breath shivered on its way in. “But I need to ask for your help anyway.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Spit it out.”

  I should have talked to the others first. I should have given them a chance to offer other options, but back in Harta, Chenda had insisted that I needed to take charge. She was right: I was the Hopebearer, the Dragonhearted, and the living symbol of the Mira Treaty, even if Elbena had tried to bleed it out of me, and Paorah had killed another girl to destroy it.

  We couldn’t stay in Flamecrest. I knew that now. And the dragon dreams had been telling me what to do—where to go—ever since the Great Abandonment began. This whole time, some immense and fiery part of my soul had been telling me how to save everyone, but I hadn’t understood.

  Not until now.

  So I just said it:

  “I want you to take me to the Algotti Empire. I want to meet with your empress.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  THE PROTESTS ERUPTED IMMEDIATELY:

  “What is wrong with you, Fancy?” Gerel surged to her feet and glared down at me. “We don’t meet our enemies on their own land. Not if we can help it.”

  And from Hristo: “You know I’d follow you anywhere, but this is beyond reasonable.”

  “I’m not going!” Zara was already on her feet and marching toward the hatch, but Hristo stood in the way. “You can’t make me. I’ll tell Mother.”

  LaLa stared at me, and a warmth spread through my chest. She knew what we had to do.

  “I’m glad everyone else hates that plan,” Nine said after a minute. “Because it’s not happening. I’m not taking you anywhere. You can stay here tonight, but then it’s over. I’m not doing anything else for you.”

  “Please think about it.” I looked around at everyone. They were all standing now, though Chenda and Hristo had their heads ducked thanks to the low ceiling. “Paorah isn’t just gathering up the skilled or wealthy people; he’s putting armies on these ships. He’s not going to the empire to make friends with the empress. He intends to take her land, and he has the giant noorestones to do it. With ten of them—that we know of—he can devastate a city and still have some to threaten her with if she tries to resist.”

  Nine crossed her arms and frowned. “All right, he has ten giant noorestones. Perhaps a few more, if he has control over the Star-Touched and the Great Mace, but that’s still a limited number, and our empress can count. When he’s out of your deadly noorestones, she’ll return with a bigger army and crush him.”

  “At the cost of a city?” I asked. “Two cities? Armies?”

  “Our empress has many cities. The temporary loss of one or two will be but an annoyance. Although,” she allowed, “Sunder is her favorite, and where the high magistrate is most likely to land.”

  “I have power over noorestones.” I held my hands in front of me, palms up. “You’ve seen only a small example of what I am capable of, but if I wanted, I could prevent the high magistrate from using any of the noorestones against the Algotti Empire.”

  Gerel’s mouth dropped open. Chenda stared at me, disgusted. The others, too, looked confused. Even Aaru.

  “I know how it sounds.” I straightened my shoulders. “I’m offering to help our enemies—to protect them from our own people. I know it sounds wrong.

  “The world has seen enough destruction, hasn’t it? Our people have done so much to hurt one another, but what if we took all that effort and put it into helping? Maybe then we could be proud of the world we live in, not scared of it. But someone has to end the old cycle and begin a new one. That can be us.

  “We can make peace with the empire by warning them of a betrayal. We can learn the truth about who they are, not just believe everything our ancestors told us. And we can try to find a temporary place for our people to stay until we reach a new home. Our gods are abandoning us. Do we really want to go to war with the Algotti Empire on top of that?”

  My friends shook their heads.

  “We don’t want to belong to the empire, either, Mira.” Hristo spoke softly. “And if we go there—if we try to take over whatever deal the high magistrate made with the empress—then we risk selling ourselves to them, and I can’t be part of that.”

  “I know.” I touched his arm. “I’m not willing to bargain away our sovereignty. Still, we must consider our survival. Not just us. Not just those wealthy enough to buy their way onto one of the high magistrate’s ships. But everyone. Farmers, weavers, bakers, maids, tailors, cooks—”

  “Repair people,” Aaru said quietly, “and girls forbidden to work.”

  Hristo closed his eyes. “Gardeners.”

  “Doctors.” Zara bit her lip and stared at the floor.

  “Revolutionaries,” Chenda murmured.

  “Dragon trainers,” Ilina said.

  “Dishonored.” Gerel took a long breath and glanced westward. “All right. It’s wonderful that we all agree that people deserve to live, but how do we do that without swearing ourselves to an empress we don’t want? We have information about the high magistrate, which Nine is already going to impart, and we have two people”—she nodded at Aaru and me—“who can prevent a noorestone attack, but as Nine already said, it’s one or two cities out of many—an acceptable loss to someone as powerful as the empress.”

  “You’re assuming she even wants you.” Nine studied everyone’s faces as she spoke. “Besides, what gives any of you the authority to strike a deal with our empress? What makes you more acceptable than Paorah?”

  No one spoke for a long moment, and then Ilina said, “You think your empress would rather work with Paorah than Mira?”

  Nine narrowed her eyes. “I am but our empress’s eyes and ears. It isn’t my place to judge who she forms partnerships with.”

  I looked at her askance. “You were judging her earlier. In the chamber.”

  “I was surprised.”

  “You were horrified.” I kept my tone gentle. “And you were right to be. We’ve all felt that way about those who were elected or appointed. They’re people we thought we could trust. Every single one of us has been betrayed like that.”

  Her frown eased, and she sighed. “Your argument is compelling, but I can only ask that you be allowed to speak with our empress. I cannot take you from the Fallen Isles without permission from my superiors.”

  “We don’t have a lot of time.” I motioned west, where the sun had already set behind the folded figure of Idris.

  “You can wait an hour.” She sighed and started toward the hatch. “But before I do yet another favor for you, you need to tell me how Seven died.”

  I glanced at Gerel and Chenda, and the latter said only, “Friendships are not forged by keeping secrets.” Her frown belied the encouraging words.

  I agreed, but the truth didn’t make us look good. Even so, I told Nine about seeing the black ship outside Val fa Merce, noticing Seven in the First Harta Dragon Sanctuary.

  “His jacket was too small,” I said. “But you have those devices. . . .”

  Nine shrugged. “Our weavers can hold only a few patterns. He probably thought it was easie
r to borrow a uniform, rather than make an imprint of it, if he didn’t plan to go back there.”

  “All right.” I told her the rest of the story of capturing Seven, and then: “When we saw the skimmer from a distance, we didn’t know it was friendly. Hush sensed my fear and decided to protect me.”

  “You named a dragon Hush?” Nine’s lip curled.

  “I personally didn’t name her Hush, but I can only assume the name was chosen as some sort of plea.”

  “I can confirm that,” Ilina said. “She loves to roar, especially first thing in the morning.”

  Nine snorted. “Fine. So Hush set fire to the skimmer and then . . .”

  “Gerel rescued Chenda, then Seven, but by then it was too late. He’d been badly burned and was unconscious in our infirmary for hours. He awakened long enough to pass on the truth about Anahera, and then he was gone.”

  Nine closed her eyes and sighed. “That isn’t how any of us expect to go.”

  “How . . . ,” Aaru started, then thought better of it.

  “Poisoned in our sleep,” she said. “By a rival seeking our positions.”

  “Oh.”

  “If we’re not good enough to prevent it, then we’re not good enough to keep our position.” She waved away more questions and started up the ladder.

  “You’re not mad?” I would have been furious if someone had taken a friend from me like that.

  “What good does anger do at this point? Your dragon defended you. Seven sent you to me. Now I’m going to ask if it’s worth bringing all of you to the empire. I’ll come back down in an hour, so make yourselves comfortable, but not too comfortable. I’m still hoping you’ll go away.” When she was up, she closed the hatch after her.

  Chenda faced me, glowering. “How could you make that kind of decision for all of us?”

  I closed my eyes and breathed out. “I’m sorry. I meant to say something before. I was trying, but we had to leave the hotel. . . .”

  Ilina slumped down to the floor. “Is that why you were asking about eclipses?”

  I nodded. “Ever since the earthquake, I’ve been having these dreams where I’m flying. I look down and I see my shadow on the water, or over the land, and it’s a huge dragon. I feel”—I dragged my palms down my ribs and stomach and hips—“separate from myself. Like Mira, but more.”

  “That doesn’t make sense,” Hristo said.

  Maybe not, but that didn’t change what I felt. “There’s an eclipse—or one coming—and I know I have to do something by then, but I don’t know what. Only that it’s important.”

  The others—except Aaru—just looked at me, uncertainty written clearly all over their expressions.

  “I know how it sounds, and I’m sorry I didn’t tell you all sooner, but I had my doubts, too, until Ilina confirmed the eclipse.” My heart pounded with the words. “I don’t know what else is true—if anything is—but I need to follow these instincts.”

  “And they’re telling you to go to the empire?” Chenda looked dubious. “I thought you were against leaving everyone in the Fallen Isles to die.”

  “I am.” I pressed my fist against my heart, like I could crush its pounding into submission. “But I think to save the Fallen Isles, I need to leave. For now. I’ll return.”

  “When?” Zara asked.

  “Before the eclipse.” I closed my eyes. “If I can find something and bring it back, then I think we might have a chance. The Fallen Gods might be appeased. They might stay.”

  Everyone was quiet a moment.

  “What about Idris?” Aaru asked softly.

  “I wish I knew.” My dreams were only dreams. They didn’t tell me if the islands would return to normal, or if the Great Abandonment would just stop, with the evidence of our near extinction looming on the horizon. The god shadow. Maybe shadows by then, if I didn’t move quickly enough.

  “What do you think you need to get?” Hristo asked. “What could the empire have that’s so important to us?”

  I glanced upward, as though I might be able to see Nine through the solid metal of the ship.

  ::I have silence around us,:: Aaru tapped. ::She can’t hear you.::

  “Bones.” I swallowed hard. “Dragon bones. From the first dragon.”

  No one said a word.

  Haltingly, I told them my dream about the Fall, and how the first dragon burst from the bones of the gods, and led the war for the Fallen Isles. With the exception of Zara, they all knew the story of the Celestial Warriors, who’d gone to the mainland to burn away the strongholds of our enemies, but they hadn’t known—couldn’t have known—that the first dragon had led them.

  And she was the one we needed to bring home.

  “That’s—” Ilina stopped. Blew out a breath. Frowned. “I’ve never heard of the first dragon before. Are you sure?”

  “No.” It was the honest answer. “But you’re the one who said there’s an eclipse coming. If the eclipse with both moons is real, why can’t the bones of the first dragon be real, too?”

  “We’re talking about going to the Algotti Empire based on your dream.” Zara looked exasperated. “Didn’t you dream that you were a fish once? And you couldn’t find your skirt, so it started to storm?”

  “I was ten,” I said. “And everyone has strange dreams like that. Right?”

  Everyone was suddenly very interested in the dragons, who’d gone back to playing with the light symbols. Light. Dark. Light. Dark.

  “All right,” I said. “But I know the difference between those dreams. I know that one is silly and forgettable to everyone but Zara, because she loves holding things over my head for seven years, and that one feels like fire in my soul. Like wings. Like stars.” No, they couldn’t understand that. I tried again: “Like a memory.”

  Light. Dark. Light. Dark. LaLa and Crystal continued their game while the others absorbed everything I said. It was hard to blame them for doubting.

  “None of you have to come along,” I said after a few minutes. “None of you are obligated.”

  “Well,” Gerel said. “That’s a dumb thing to say. Obviously, I can’t let you go off to the empire alone.”

  “We all already said we’d go.” Ilina clicked for Crystal, then petted her dragon’s nose. “If Nine says yes. But you know I’ll go anywhere with you, wingsister.”

  “Do you really think you can do it?” Hristo asked. “Save the Fallen Isles, I mean.”

  “I think,” I said slowly, “if we are all together, we have a chance.”

  “‘Hate cannot abide where many stand in love,’” Chenda murmured.

  “Who are we, though?” Ilina asked. “Why should we have more authority than Paorah when it comes to making deals with other lands? Even if it wasn’t a fair election, people voted for him. No one chose us.”

  No one spoke for a few minutes, that thought weighing us down.

  “I was chosen,” I said. “It was a fluke. I happened to be born on the right day to get a treaty named after me. But no one chose any of you.”

  A pout formed on Ilina’s mouth.

  “You chose yourselves.” I met their eyes one at a time: Chenda and Gerel, leaning against the metal bars of the brig and holding hands; Ilina, twisting a braid around her finger; Zara, cleaning under her fingernails like she didn’t care about any of this; Hristo, half sitting on one of the barrels; and Aaru, tilting his head while he looked at me. “Every one of you chose to stand up for something greater than greed or hatred. You made a choice to protect other people at the cost of your own freedom or happiness. Some of you went to prison for it.” I swallowed hard, thinking about all the things my friends had given up.

  Families.

  Freedom.

  Comfort.

  Safety.

  “And yet,” I said, “you chose to be chosen.”

  “I didn’t do anything.” Zara glanced up. “I didn’t choose myself. I’m only here because you’re supposed to protect me, which so far has put me in more danger than I’ve ever been in.
”

  “Sorry.”

  My sister shrugged and tapped the side of her head. “I’m keeping it all in here so I can tell Mother later, assuming we don’t die.”

  I sighed but went back to the point I was trying to make. “Look at us.” I gestured around at everyone. “There are seven islands, and seven of us. And look at your gifts. You’re powerful, all of you. Surely you’ve noticed that your gifts are strong even away from your home islands. We’ve seen the way Chenda wields shadow even so far from Bopha, and how Aaru manipulates silence on the other side of the Fallen Isles from Idris. The way Ilina and Zara talked people in Flamecrest into giving us bargains was nothing short of divine. Gerel, you fought all of Altan’s warriors when they boarded the Chance Encounter. And Hristo—”

  Hristo was amazing. Invaluable. And charming, from all his time on Damina. But if he had a Hartan gift, I didn’t know about it.

  “Hristo made all of the gardens in the dishonored camp grow.” Aaru looked at my protector. “When we were running to the tunnels, all the gardens we passed started to grow. I could hear the roots moving.”

  No one spoke, and the only sound was water rushing against the metal hull.

  “Oh.” Hristo lowered his face, but he couldn’t quite hide the pleased smile. “Well, that’s . . .” He didn’t finish, taking the thought inward instead.

  “Have any of you ever seen that before?” I looked around. “People’s god gifts being that strong, even away from their gods?”

  Everyone shook their head.

  “And not only are you the most powerfully gifted people I’ve ever seen, but there’s a representative here from every island,” I said, but Ilina held up a hand.

  “Excuse me, I do not represent Anahera. I was born on Darina, same as you. And I’m charming, not conniving.”

  I smiled. “You are charming, wingsister. But you’re cunning as well. Unless you disagree that you come up with excellent plans and know how to make twenty lumes stretch into one hundred?”

  Her mouth dropped open. “All right, those things are true. I am exceedingly clever. But it doesn’t change where I was born.”

  Hristo looked at her, his expression gentle and deep with understanding. “You can have both, if you want.”