Queen of the Conquered

by Kacen Callender

  Malthe jumps from his seat to pull the boat onto the sandy shore of Rose Helle. I hold my sandals in my hand as I step into the water, dress ballooning around my legs, becoming sheer as I wade, feet sinking into the wet sand. Water foams around my ankles as I stand before the ruins of my childhood home. My mother’s house is the same as I last saw it. The entrance I have memories of, chasing after a laughing Ellinor as we returned from the groves or the shore. Windows are shattered and glass is scattered on the ground. The door splinters from its hinges. Black dirt covers the hallway floor, and porcelain bells are smashed across the marble. The only thing not touched is my mother’s rug, glowing gold and hanging on the wall because my mother didn’t want to get it dirty. She’d told me that the rug had been the only thing her own mother had kept as a slave. She took the rug from the slaves’ quarters where her mother kept the rug on Lund Helle, before the woman caught the storm sickness and died, returned to the sea. I used to catch my mother touching the rug sometimes, tracing the edges of patterns as though she were touching her dead mother’s hand.

  I move through the sections of the house that still stand. The air feels sucked in, as if the walls were holding their breath. In the kitchen, red sunlight used to bounce off copper pots and pans. It was a room stuffed full of heat and grease from boiled banana and goat-meat stew, with big flies zooming around everyone’s heads as Ellinor laughed too loud. Now it’s full of blue shadow, with pots and pans covering the floor, and stains of red on the walls showing where the Jannik guards cut everyone down.

  I step into what had once been the sitting room. Stone walls, blackened with ash, crumble into rocks. I walk into the sunlight. The garden sprouts flowers of red and pink and orange, and grass covers the ground where my family screamed for mercy. Jannik sent the guards, but each family was involved in the planning. Each family had a hand in their deaths. Now I’ll have a hand in theirs. Once Konge Valdemar chooses my husband as the next regent, I’ll cut his neck and take the throne for the Rose. The guards of Hans Lollik Helle will be at my disposal, and the Fjern of these islands under my rule. I’ll be slow in my plans—enjoy pitting the kongelig against one another, tearing each family apart until none are left standing. I’ll have the power to kill them all. It’s what I promised my mother I would do when I returned to these islands. It’s what I promise her now.

  Malthe stands behind me in the water, hand still on the boat, and when I turn, I see his eyes fastened on mine. He thinks no thoughts, but I can feel the emotion vibrating through him. His suspicion. His distrust.

  He says nothing. I walk back to the boat, and we continue on.

  Malthe and I make the initial crossing to Hans Lollik Helle. Marieke and my prisoner will follow after with my belongings. Lund Helle will be without its Elskerinde for the storm season, a tradition of the kongelig that has been met with ire by the people of Hans Lollik for generations. We set sail from the bay of Lund Helle, through the churning waters of the sea, rougher as the winds grow stronger, past the dozens of islands the Fjern have claimed. We sail for a full two days, until finally the royal island is on the horizon, glimmering as though a jewel in the rising sun, sitting in the center of the islands under its rule.

  Hans Lollik Helle is its own private island, guards lining the beaches as though it’s a fortress that must keep the enemies of the poor and sick out, a place for the noble families to celebrate themselves while their own people starve and succumb to disease around them. I suppose I can’t complain. I play the part of a kongelig well.

  The ship anchors, and before long a boat paddles out to bring me ashore. The salty breeze cools my neck, my cheeks, in the early morning before the sun rises and all the island falls to its mercy. My guardsmen will stay on the ship and return to Lund Helle—bringing them onto the royal island would only be seen as an invasion, an insult—but Malthe will escort me as my personal guard until I’m able to appoint a new one and he can return to his usual duties. The heads of the guards of the kongelig make up the guardsmen of the island, keeping watch on the shores and relaying any information of threats to their masters. Malthe climbs down the rope ladder first and onto the awaiting boat and helps me down the last few steps.

  An older slave, a man with a white beard and brown skin, begins to row. He knows better than to look at me or to speak as he paddles, the boat rising and falling with every wave. As the man rows, the water is clear enough for me to see the shine of the rising sun reflect against the white sand on the seafloor, the silver flashes of fish as they weave between the coral, green seaweed swaying back and forth with every wave. The island has jutting rocks and sheer cliffs, leafy groves beyond the shorelines, and a single, sloping hill. At the very top of the hill is Herregård Constantjin, shining white. This is the main house. Its smaller houses, the homes of the kongelig families for the storm season, are placed about the island. I can see one now, standing on the cliffs on the far side of the island; the others must be hidden among the trees, or perhaps on the opposite shores.

  We come closer, and the mangrove trees with their spiraling roots weave through the water and line the east side of the island’s shore, blocking view of the main manor. We enter the mangroves, water still and smooth, branches reaching out to snag my hair and the collar of my dress. I use my hand to block the salty leaves from brushing my face until we reach land.

  I step out of the boat, my feet sinking into the warm, clear water, sand settling like dust beneath the waves. In the time it has taken to paddle across the sea, the sun has risen higher, bright light reflecting on the white of the sand and forcing me to raise a hand to shield my eyes. I slip off my sandals, clutching them to my side, toes sinking into the dry grains that are as soft as powder, still only warm so early in the morning, though I know they will be as hot as embers by the time afternoon comes. The breeze pushes against us as we walk, the front of my dress clinging to me while the back whips in the wind. We reach the grass and the entrance to the groves, tall coconut trees with their bladed leaves shimmering in the light. A slave, a woman with scars wrapped around her hands, greets us before leading the way down the dirt path, which becomes cooler, firmer, as it cuts through a shaded grove of coconut and palm trees, which then become neat rows of banana and guava and mango trees. It seems the worked groves wrap around the base of the hill that holds Herregård Constantjin on its pedestal. Men, their skin as brown as mine, are careful not to look at me as they collect green bananas. A Fjernman sits atop his horse as they work, whip firmly in his hand. His head turns to watch me pass. He’d heard that I, an islander, would be joining the kongelig for the storm season, but he had hoped it’d been the joke of his friends as they shared guavaberry rum. He wonders now what has become of these islands.

  The islands of Hans Lollik had been the pinnacle of the territories of Koninkrijk in his youth—islands of unimaginable beauty and unending opportunity. Everyone in the streets of his small waterside town had been desperate to smuggle themselves onto a ship that was headed for the islands of Hans Lollik. And now? Most of the islands are in ruin, and even the islands of the kongelig families aren’t what they once were. And here I am—an islander, who should be a slave, wearing a dress of white. These islands have fallen, he thinks. He grips his whip. I can feel how he wants to lash my back. Remind me that I was born of these islands, and that there isn’t much that keeps me on the other side of the fields.

  I’ve kept the slaves of my household, knowing that they’d been promised their freedom, but never have I forced my people to endure what so many others on these islands do. I see the horrors marked across the bodies of my people. Their limbs, missing. Eyes and noses and lips and tongues, gone. The scars write the past across their skin. It’s a past that I’ve never experienced. The scars are what tie my people together—but since my skin is unmarked, perhaps this means they aren’t my people after all. I would never whip a slave of my household, or punish them for attempting to escape, if any ever tried. I tell myself that in this, at least, I’m not like the Fj
ern, who take such pleasure in torturing the people of these islands. I try to ignore the fear that this is only a lie I tell myself so that I can fall asleep at night.

  The path climbs toward the cliffs on the southern end of the island. The Jannik house awaits at the top of the path. The house isn’t impressive. It’s two stories and has a porch of white trim, with creaking wooden shingles and panels that threaten to blow from the foundation in the morning breeze. The slave bows and leaves us, and I look over what will be my home for the next coming weeks—possibly the last home I’ll ever know.

  Malthe forces open the front door and steps aside, allowing me to walk into the front hall. The windows have been closed for some time, judging by the heat that seems to emanate from the walls, the wooden floors. The stained and torn wallpaper is a pattern of birds that clashes with the seats of the small entryway greeting room. The floorboards are covered with dust, mud, blades of grass, piles of wood and stone, and burnt pots piled in a corner.

  Malthe releases a heavy sigh. “Marieke will have her work cut out for her.”

  I ignore him and continue walking, floorboards threatening splinters with every step. I find a sitting room through glass doors, one of them cracked. A shadowed hall with candleholders buried in melted wax brings me to a dining room, overwrought chandelier hanging from the ceiling over a table covered in white cloth with no chairs. The adjoining door takes me to the kitchen. There’s an iron stove, ceiling stained with soot, ashes smeared across the floor. A wooden door leads outside. I clutch my sandals as my feet crunch the brittle grass and rocks as I walk into a dead garden.

  The garden behind the house ends with the edge of the cliffs of Hans Lollik Helle. The field of grass crumbles into stones that fall sharply to the sea. I walk toward the edge, water churning into the rocks below. For a moment, I think there’s a woman standing on the rocks—yellow hair, pale skin, one of the many ghosts of Hans Lollik—but when I blink, she’s disappeared.

  A hand claps on my shoulder and I spin around, heart racing, but it’s only Malthe.

  “You don’t want to get too close,” he says, but for a flash I feel how easy it would be for him to push me over the edge. The thought ends, and I can’t be sure if it was me or him who’d imagined it.

  “At least we’ll only need to worry about assassins making their way in through the front door,” I say, glancing back down at the rocks again.

  Inside of the Jannik house, I walk up the creaking wooden stairs. There’re two bedrooms. Malthe will stay in a separate house of barracks with the guards, and Marieke will stay in the island’s slaves’ quarters, so thankfully I won’t have to share my bed with Aksel more than necessary. I don’t know where Aksel is, or if he plans to come to the manor before our wedding.

  I sit on the bed, as hard as the ground itself, and take in a deep, shuddering breath. A whisper within suggests it isn’t too late. I can still leave—can still escape these islands; can live, as my mother had wanted for me.

  But I know those were only the fantasies born of weakness—of fear. Hans Lollik Helle is the only place I can be now.

  CHAPTER SIX

  I tell Malthe I’d like to explore the island, to prove to anyone who might be watching that I’m not afraid, but I don’t argue when he insists he stay by my side. The truth is that fear builds inside of me with every breath. Hans Lollik Helle has long since been known for the murders that mar each storm season, and one of the kongelig has already tried to take my life. I have no way of knowing how long I’ll have until another tries again. I might be killed before I’m even able to meet Konge Valdemar, let alone convince him that I should inherit the title of regent.

  The royal island is small in comparison to the others under Hans Lollik rule, but still large enough that it can accommodate the dozens of houses of the Herregård Constantjin estate and their gardens, along with the groves that seem to feed the island’s guests. Malthe and I walk down sloping hills and through the groves and over rocky dirt. Above us stands the main house of Herregård Constantjin. It rests on the highest point of the island, a house of white stone that seems almost to be a part of the island itself as it dips and curves with the rock at its base, green vines and moss crawling up the walls. This is where the regent himself lives. Konge Valdemar has been king for nearly fifty years now—one of the longest reigns of any regent of Hans Lollik Helle. But the era is coming to an end now: a chance for any of the kongelig to rule over these islands.

  I stop in a grove empty of slaves and pick three golden mangoes. I carry the fruit in the skirts of my dress, yellow juices and sticky sap leaking onto the white fabric—Marieke will be incensed, I can already feel it—and we take a path cutting through the rows of guava trees, deeper into the groves, until the coconut trees end and the groves come to a clearing. There I see a house belonging to another of the kongelig. It’s large—certainly larger than the Jannik house—and is made of stone, painted a faint white. We linger for a moment, mosquitoes biting my legs.

  “Shall we call on the master?” Malthe questions.

  I hesitate. I’m curious to see another of the kongelig—to see the men and women whom I have for so long only known through the thoughts and memories of Elskerinde Jannik, her son, and my cousin Bernhand Lund. I never met any of the kongelig when I was a child growing up on Rose Helle. My mother would take me and my sisters and brother to the other islands at times, though she could have easily left us in the comfort of our home. I believe she wanted us to learn a specific lesson that couldn’t be taught in our manor’s library poring over books. I suspect she wanted us to witness for ourselves the hatred in the eyes of the Fjern, their cold dismissal whenever we crossed their paths. We did learn the hatred of the Fjern, but still, the six other kongelig families were never included in these lessons. I’m sure my mother would’ve wanted us to meet the kongelig, but I never saw them on our travels. We weren’t worthy to be invited to their garden parties, and they never visited my mother or attended the balls she invited them to in turn. Before I met Elskerinde Jannik, the members of the kongelig families had always been an amorphous shadow in my imagination. I know each of their names, the kraft that runs in their veins, the strengths and weaknesses of each family—have studied them relentlessly since the moment I decided to return to these islands as a child. It’s almost like reading about characters in books for years, and knowing that any moment now, those characters will walk from the page.

  I hesitate in front of the house of the kongelig. I want to meet, in person, those responsible for the murder of my family. And the perverse curiosity I have—I can’t ignore that, either, this desire to look upon a member of the families that have been so upheld in these islands for generations, the people I have studied religiously as the Fjern study their own gods, even as I can feel fear and hatred pulsing in my veins.

  “No need,” I tell Malthe—but curiosity gets the better of me as I begin to slip closer to the house, mangoes still bundled together in my skirts.

  I walk into the gardens with the flourishing rose mallow surrounding me, breath unsteady. I don’t see any slaves walking the path. The manor’s windows are black. The house might as well be abandoned. It might be, in fact. Not all of the houses on the royal island are occupied, though the houses that are have been passed down from one generation to the next in each kongelig family. My mother never made it onto Hans Lollik Helle. If she had, the regent would’ve offered her one of the houses that now remain empty.

  Just as I’ve decided to return to Malthe, I feel someone’s gaze. I spin around to see a Fjern woman. She’s young, as young as me, with unblemished skin, pale under the sunlight, and yellow hair tied tightly in a bun. She’s what the Fjern would consider a princess: what they declare is beautiful, intelligent, what a person should look like in order to rule the islands of Hans Lollik. She’ll have an easier time convincing Konge Valdemar of her worth in inheriting the title of regent of these islands, while I will not. She doesn’t even want the regency. I can see this, too�
�see how unambitious she is, especially in the face of the kongelig that surround her. She’s the head of the Larsen family, only because it’s her duty; she comes here to Hans Lollik Helle every storm season, only because it’s her responsibility. I’ve had to work for my position, while she does nothing, wants none of this, and still she’s respected more than me. I hate her for it, but I have my other reasons for hating her, too: I’ve seen her before, in Aksel’s thoughts and daydreams.

  “I’m sorry,” she says, her voice a wisp that immediately makes me want to strangle her. Her eyes widen in fear. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

  She knows who I am, knows of my kraft. She looks to the ground, breathing too quickly. She tries to hide her thoughts, but it’s easy to sink into her mind—she’s too open, too vulnerable. I can feel fear, and unmistakable sadness. She’s afraid that I’ll know the truth of her relationship with my betrothed. Not only might I learn her thoughts but I might decide to have my vengeance on her as well: take control of her body, force her to walk into the sea until saltwater fills her lungs.

  “You’re Beata Larsen,” I say, “isn’t that right?”

  She seems surprised that I’ve spoken to her. “Yes, I am. And you’re Elskerinde Lund. No, sorry—Elskerinde Jannik.”

  “I’m not married to the Jannik name yet.” I eye her—the pretty white dress of the kongelig, her trembling fingers. “You shouldn’t apologize to me,” I say. “I’m the one wandering your gardens without permission.”