Oh shit.
I forgot to ask Kjiersten how she knew to find us in the forest.
It feels like the walls are closing in on me but I tell myself it’s just the hangover as I walk closer to the dais and bow deeply to the Queen. I hold the bow and then rise, since she hasn’t said anything and she isn’t my Queen.
Trained as I am in the Guild traditions I then turn and bow almost as deeply to the Priestess.
Her gold paint curls up her face and her lips are painted black. Her sky-blue robe is edged in gold and, as always, her hood is pulled up over her head. As a child I used to wonder if she had hair under that hood.
I notice her eyes are gold. She stares at me impassively. Kjiersten bows to the Queen only and walks up to stand at her left hand, facing me as well. No one has spoken and yet I feel like I’m on trial.
“You are Alinya,” the Queen states.
“Yes, your Majesty,” I respond.
“The Assassin,” the Priestess clarifies.
The Queen looks at her sideways. “I will not be corrected in my own home, Priestess.”
The Priestess ignores her and continues watching me.
“It’s not too late, Assassin. You can still kill him and end this. All will be forgiven, and we can all go back to normal. We can go home.”
I shake my head, staring into her gold eyes. “I will not kill him.”
“Do you have her in your control, prince?” she asks Zair, casually.
“No. Never again.” He looks repulsed.
The Priestess turns back to me and I get a feeling that I remember hating. Her eyes bore into me. “Kill the Prince of the Air, my Assassin. Do it now.”
I draw my knife and throw it. Smoother than silk, Kjiersten has her bow out and she shoots the knife out of the air. I don’t care. I have eyes only for the Prince. I have to kill him. I can’t not kill him. I find another knife and start to throw it and then Kjiersten is there, holding my arms behind me. I struggle but not with my full strength. I don’t really want to kill Zair but I have to. I try to fight the compulsion and then Zair is here too, next to me.
“Alinya, friend, you don’t have to listen to her,” he tells me. “You can fight it.” My eyes are watering and I’m struggling with Kjiersten but I don’t want to hurt her. I don’t want to hurt anyone. The Priestess is watching us with a detachment I don’t understand. “Listen, Alinya. Listen.”
And then he begins to sing. It’s in another language and it’s beautiful. He sings and I relax, listening to the melody, straining to understand the words, and it goes on and on until all thoughts of killing him leave me and I relax.
“I’m ok,” I tell Kjiersten, looking at the Prince, the Prince who promised never to control me again and who didn’t, even to save his own life. He nods at her and she lets me go. “Thank you,” I say to both of them, and then I draw one of my new knives and I throw it at the Priestess. She tries to dodge and it gouges her cheek and then I’m racing up the steps of the dais trying to get to her. Her hands are in the pockets of her robe and she waits until I am close, just two steps away.
“You will understand one day,” she tells me, and then she shimmers and vanishes. An empty transport spell lies on the ground. It looks just like the one the eldest Master gave me; the one that can be used anywhere, to get anywhere.
I slam my fists on the marble and Alexsi looks at us, compassion on his face as his mother, the queen, claps her hands.
“Time for a break,” she announces. “I can’t wait to see what you have prepared for Act 2. For now, go get cleaned up; you all reek like you’ve had a three week bender in a whorehouse. After that we’ll have lunch and you’ll explain to me why I shouldn’t have you all killed.”
Pages take us to the baths, which are communal here. Kjiersten joins us and I avert my eyes respectfully as she strips down. Zair, always in character, leers at both of us before Alexsi jokingly punches him in the shoulder. We all sink gratefully into the hot bath; the bathing pool could hold 12 people and I wonder if this is the custom for everyone here or just the royalty.
There’s an awkwardness in the air and I want to clear it. “I’m sorry I tried to kill you...again,” I say to Zair. He smiles at me wanly.
“I don’t think you really tried anyway,” he says.
The air is still murky so I try again to clear it.
“I’m sorry I tried to kiss you last night,” I say to Kjiersten. She blushes and the boys look intrigued.
“It’s ok,” she says. “I can see why you did; the dancing, the fairy fire, the moons. It’s ok.”
“Fairy fire?” Alexsi asks, finally and truly shocked. “You don’t even drink!”
“I know, I know, I don’t know what happened.” I shake my head; the bath is helping to dissipate the last of the ache.
“She got hammered, that’s what happened!” Kjiersten says, laughing and shaking her head. “You should have seen her.” I splash her and she turns pink.
“Alexsi, what happened with your mother?” I ask. I’ve finally hit on the source of the tension. He sighs.
“My mother is complicated,” he says, and then stops. We all look at him. I pretend to use the soap while I wait. “The Priestess has been waiting here for days; she suspected we would come here and she told my mother that the two of you were fugitives, that the gods have ordered your death. I spent all evening convincing her not to have you killed, and I kept explaining what actually happened. She didn’t want to believe me. The last time she saw me I was a young and fairly stupid child, so it was quite a stretch for her to believe that I knew what I was talking about.”
“But, did you talk about anything else? Anything, you know about...you guys?” he stares at me and shakes his head, slowly. Zair looks down and pretends to use the soap as well. Kjiersten fusses with her hair.
“Alinya, I don’t think you quite understand. My mother is the queen. We talk about duty, and lessons, and responsibility, and politics, not feelings or relationships.”
I slam my hands down, angry, and soapy water goes everywhere. “I may be just a peasant, as Zair keeps reminding me,” I hiss, “but let me tell you, as someone who was stolen away from her parents as a child, you guys are doing this wrong. Your parents may be queens or whatever,” and I slam my hand down again, for emphasis, getting bubbles on all of us, “but your parents love you, and I will never, ever see my parents again, and I would do anything, anything to tell them I love them, and you are all fools for acting like you don’t care when you do, I know you do!” and I’m shouting now, and standing in the water with my hands on my hips. “So tell your parents, even if they are bloody queens, tell them you love them and tell them to stop acting like they don’t have feelings too because they do!”
And then the pain surges up inside me and I sit down in the and put my head in my hands and sob, for the first time ever, I sob into my hands and I cry for the parents I lost and the family I’ll never have. I don’t know where this is coming from but it hurts, it hurts all the way through me and down to my toes and into my bones.
They let me cry it out and then they are all hugging me, my friends, even Kjiersten, and no one cares how awkward it is to be hugging in a giant bathtub. “I’ll talk to her,” Alexsi murmurs into my shoulder.
“I will help you find your parents,” Zair says, and squeezes my hand.
“I’ll kill anyone who tries to take you away again,” Kjiersten says fiercely.
This is my new family.
CHAPTER 18
They certainly eat a lot of small animals and nuts here. Lunch is just as lavish as at the Winter Palace but here the dishes are grains and nuts with tiny bits of meats mixed in and heavily spiced; we are all drinking glass after glass of water. There are also leaves wrapped around crunchy things and tiny little haunches of roasted meat. Kjiersten takes pity on me and whispers to the steward, who returns with a platter of flatbread.
The Queen picks at her food and looks offended when the flatbread comes. “Who ordered the
baby food?” she asks waspishly.
Kjiersten looks at her steadily. “I did, my Queen. The princes and the Assassin and I need our strength.”
“You are all so very physical,” the Queen agrees. It is not a compliment. I look at her more closely; she is tiny, shorter even than I am, and she has a small frame like a bird, and no fat anywhere on her. She barely has any muscle either; a light breeze could carry her away. I wonder what her power is. I wonder why the Priestess had the same power as the royal family of Hinshalla.
“Why does the Priestess always look the same?” I ask suddenly. The Queen doesn’t look at me.
“What do you mean?” Zair asks. He’s grown up with her; I wonder if he ever noticed.
“All the pictures of the Priestess, all the portraits...she never changes. Her face doesn’t change. Her makeup doesn’t change. Every portrait in the Guild hall, all the official documents...she never changes, Zair. Is she immortal?” We all pause at the implications of that.
The Queen, of all people, breaks the silence.
“The Gods needed someone to enforce order,” she explains. “Each of the cities has their own guardians, set by the gods. Here we have the giant owls, and some of the creatures of the forest as well. In the Winter City, the armored bears and the snow cats. When the humans came to this world the gods split us up into each of these Cities that were already here, waiting.” She waves a hand vaguely, indicating the City in the trees. “We didn’t make these. We weren’t allowed to make anything.
“But the first humans didn’t understand the rules. The gods helped make the wizards, humans who could use the magic that grows in the ground, fed by the twin suns and the three moons. We didn’t have magic where we came from. We had something worse, much worse, and the Gods forbid us to use our own things here. The wizards of the first generation, drunk on magic and filled with nonsense stories of the home world, decided they wanted to make something too, so they ripped an island out of the ocean and set it afloat in the sky.
“The gods were angry, but the first of the Five Families claimed the island as their own. The gods didn’t have a city grand enough for them so they conceded and allowed them to keep the floating island. But they charged a price for that hubris.
“The First Family had two officials on the ship that brought us here. One was the captain, and she became the first Queen of the Air. The other was the first mate. The way I understand it, the first mate kept everything running on the ship and enforced the captain’s orders. Her name is lost now, but she was called by the gods, and changed. The gold markings on her are not paint, or makeup. They are a part of her now.
“The gods took that poor woman and cursed her, and changed her. They left her her beauty but they took away her ability to ever have children, and they branded her with gold markings and gold eyes.”
“Is she still human?” I ask, finally letting myself breathe again.
The Queen shakes her head. “No. She is the Voice of the Gods. She has all her memories, and all of the memories of all the Priestesses who came before her. When she dies, a new one comes forth, completely identical to the first. She is charged with keeping the Order and enforcing the Gods’ will. She is the guardian of the Air, as well as the overseer for all the humans here on this world. Ever since we came to this world she has been the law, cursed by the gods but backed by them as well, keeping us in line generation after generation.”
“Until now,” I say.
“Until now,” my friends echo.
“So why does she want Zair dead?” I want to know. “I know The Joker gave the initial order, but she seems personally invested.” Zair looks at me in surprise. I hadn’t told him about the visit from the eldest Master.
“The only reason the Priestess ever wants anyone dead, even a Prince, is if she believes them to be a threat to the Empire, a threat to the order the Gods have imposed on this world. Each of the Five Families are charged with holding the Empire together but for the Priestess, it is her sacred duty, her raison d’etre. She is incapable of deviating from her programming.”
The Queen lifts a tiny roasted haunch to her mouth and daintily nibbles all the flesh from the bone.
“The Priestess hates change; she cannot allow it. She will kill anyone and everyone to stop it.”
She sets the bone down on her plate.
“So what are the four of you going to do?”
I speak for all of us. “We’re going to change everything.”
“See that you do,” she says, and then she looks at Alexsi and Kjiersten. “And when it is done, you can break your own betrothal.” She dips her hands in the bowl of lemon water set by her plate, rinsing them, and then she pats them dry on a napkin. She stands and I realize she’s done with us.
“Your majesty, please,” I say. “Can you tell us how to find The Undying?”
“I already have,” she answers. “Follow the Archer. She will lead you out of the Hollow World and to the realm of the Undying. He’s her father.”
Kjiersten sets down her flatbread. “Can we get some wine?” she calls out to the page as the Queen leaves, Alexsi trailing behind her.
Zair and I stare at Kjiersten and wait for her wine to arrive, cool and white, before we start in on her.
◆◆◆
After lunch Kjiersten escorts us to rooms in the Palace. I am suddenly tired from the rough night and very tense morning and I just want to lie down. Alexsi is still gone but that’s fine, he’ll turn up; I can’t imagine he’s in any danger in his mother’s palace. Zair follows me to my room after Kjiersten leaves and waggles his eyebrows at me and I slam my door in his face. Maybe if he and Alexsi weren’t so close...although Alexsi is much more interesting to me. I remember back to the first time I saw him on the airship and then I firmly close the door on that line of thought entirely.
I’m happy to find that my room has a shower, not just a bath. I’ve gotten spoiled by having both. I take a long hot shower and scrub from my scalp to my toes and I’m very pleased to note when I come back to my bed, towel wrapped around my hair and fluffy white robe on my body, that there are no surprises waiting for me. Sure, most of them have ended up alright, but sometimes a girl just wants to walk into her bedroom and not find any mythic creatures or visitors or cryptic notes.
I sit on the bed and take the box out of my travelsack. Open it one way - assassin’s kit. Open it the other way - crate full of books from the loremasters. I wonder if this box works for anyone or if the Master had it spelled just to me and him. I wonder how common unlocked transport spells are, like the one he gave me, like the one the Priestess used.
My new sharpening stone is right there; I haven’t sharpened my knives since I left the guild hall. I collect all my various edged weapons and start with my two favorite daggers, dragging the edges along the stone again and again until the knives are sharp enough to split a hair lengthwise. I repeat this for every sharp thing I have with me, and the familiar rhythm soothes me and I slip into the hypnotic state the Masters taught us to quiet the mind.
The Masters taught us to set aside emotion, to try to stay in the quiet place as much as possible. Assassins should not feel anger, or guilt, or even love. We act out of dispassionate duty to the Empire, much like the Priestess herself. I’ve been having so many new feelings since I met Zair and left Hinshalla, feelings that aren’t suitable for an assassin.
Last night I wanted to embrace chaos. I wanted to drink and dance and let go, just do what I wanted without telling myself what I should do, should want, shouldn’t feel. I wanted to choose.
That’s what the Masters took away from me when they took me from my parents. They took away my choices. I don’t know if my parents are still alive but if we get back to Hinshalla I will find them. I will not let the gods take everything away from me because someone decided I should join the Guild. I think of what they did to the Priestess and I shudder. That is what the Guild does to us; we can’t have children. We enforce their Order. We are just like the Priestess i
n our own way. She has created us in her image, I realize.
I finish sharpening my weapons and I carefully wipe them and put them away. I clean the sharpening stone and return it to the kit, which I seal back up and place in my travelsack. The quiet place is leaving me, but it has served its purpose. With my mind more calm I saw what I needed to see.
Just as I’m about to take off my robe and crawl into bed my door bursts open.
“I know what my power is,” Alexsi announces, face flushed. He holds out his hands and concentrates. A small twig sprouts from the wooden floor of my room, and then a leaf unfurls from the twig.
“I can make things grow!”
I sit down, amazed.
“She told you?”
“Yes! I opened up to her and she shared things with me, Alinya, things about our family and my power. She really did send me away to keep me safe; she was terrified Kjiersten would murder me after our betrothal. She thought Kjiersten would calm down while I was away. She didn’t know how bad the Night Train would be.” He comes over and hugs me. “I feel so much better. Thank you for making me talk to her.”
I’m happy for him, I really am. But as he holds me in his arms I stare down at the twig and the leaf and I wonder, if this is what he can do, growing something out of the old and tired wood of the floor, what could his mother do with her power? What could she grow, if she wished?
As I fall asleep that night I miss the closeness of the train. We are each in our own rooms again and I feel a loneliness creeping over me. I miss Freyja. I miss the Princes tossing in their sleep. I wish I could understand Kjiersten, even a little bit.
Giant owls fly amongst the trees and the moons, silent for the most part. They flash by the window and I marvel again at this place, at this great tree that holds an entire palace inside. It’s funny, in the Winter City and now here in the Forest of Nevel, the guardians are around us all the time but even though we openly discuss our plans they do nothing to stop us. They only watch.
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