A small cry escaped my lips.
“No,” I whispered.
The single word echoed, so loud within the empty cavern of my throat that I coughed.
“Did you just…?” Vaneesi’s pressure on my wrist eased.
I closed my eyes, focusing, chasing the feeling of a word on my tongue, a cry on my lips. As I breathed out, I tried again to form the shape. My mouth rounded. My lips parted. As I opened my throat and released the air, I imagined the sound escaping my body, a hollow: ‘o.’
Nothing came.
Vaneesi’s mouth drew up in a smirk. “Can you actually talk? All these weeks of Ashiril boasting the virtues of her mute sentinel… and Roakiev believes her, too.” She laughed. “He’ll be rather upset when I tell him. Ashiril has always annoyed me. I’ll be glad to see her knocked down.”
I shook my head, frantic. Once again, I screwed my eyes shut and imagined the shape of the word.
“No,” I said. This time, there was an ever-so-slight hint of voice behind it. A sound like air blown through a hollow reed.
Vaneesi released my wrist. I staggered. When the backs of my knees hit her bunk, I folded and landed on her covers.
She stared at me, torn between confusion and annoyance.
“It’s—” I coughed. “Sorry.” With each word, I felt as if a blockage tore free from the inside of my throat. The words burned as they pulled the flesh, leaving it raw, but for the first time in ten years, my voice slipped past the barrier.
“Save your apologies for Ashiril,” she said. “You’ll need them. Now, get off my bunk.”
Coughing, I tried to stand, but my knees were too weak. I swallowed, tried again, and finally gained my feet.
“Vaneesi,” I said. “The figurine…”
My throat seared with every whispered phrase, and my eyes stung with unshed tears. Loosed with the words that had been trapped for so many years, memories bubbled from the black murk deep inside my mind. I clenched my fists, fought with all my strength to shove the recollections back down. Not yet.
Vaneesi’s stamped toward me. “Rot! First you don’t speak, now you can’t clap shut.”
“Check… Please.”
Glaring, Vaneesi unhooked the latch on her trunk and pulled the lid open. Her eyes widened.
“Roakiev,” I said.
She shook her head. “You little thieving…”
Once again, I swallowed, coughed. “They will kill you.”
“What?” Her voice reached a shriek. “Get. Out.”
Another moment from my past shoved around my attempts to keep it confined. My father lay on the floor. Something was wrong with his neck… his throat was caved in where the large knot of cartilage used to bob as he spoke. Mother huddled in the corner, a red mark on her face where the soldiers had slapped her. Rough men taunted her, saying if not for her little songbird of a daughter, they wouldn’t have found us. They’d said something about a gallows, hard to hear over the roaring in my head. I’d hidden in the bin where we stored our oatmeal.
The smell of oats and blood. I understood now.
“Are you deaf now, instead?” Vaneesi asked.
“It’s… truth,” I said, pleading with my eyes.
“Oh really,” she said, brows raised in mock surprise, “after convincing everyone you were mute when you can clearly speak, now you want me to believe you’re trustworthy?”
At once, my chest hurt so badly I couldn’t breathe. My mother and father. Murdered because I hadn’t kept quiet like they asked.
“What’s your name again?” Vaneesi asked. “It will be easier to explain this to the Ulstats when I have it.”
I tried to answer. Leesa. But I’d had a name before, too. Different than what they called me in the kitchens. Memories of my mother flooded me, her arms around me, her rhymes whispered in my ear. She’d kissed my hair, wished me good night. Called me the name she’d given me at birth. But I couldn’t remember. That name was lost. I’d thrown it away with my voice.
Vaneesi’s slippered feet stopped in front of me. “What is wrong with you?”
“Why… Why would I lie?” I finally managed.
“Because you stole my figurine.”
Even as she spoke, I spotted uncertainty in her eyes. Her heart was given to Roakiev, but she’d seen enough of him to doubt.
“Ashiril…” I said.
“Ashiril what?” she said, crouching before me, brows drawing together.
“The figurine… Power.” My throat hurt so badly, but it was nothing compared to the pain in my heart. While I tried to convince her, my memories battered me.
A strange look came over Vaneesi’s face. Planting a hand, she lowered herself to a cross-legged seat on the ground. “After I found the statue, it was easier to call the nightstrands. But power?”
“You trust Roakiev,” I said. “A mistake.”
A dark flash crossed her delicate features, but she covered it quickly. Maybe I’d pushed her too hard. But I couldn’t waste time. Roakiev could arrive at any moment.
“Most traders would have you punished for daring to question their judgment. You’re not stupid. Why tell me all this?”
I licked my lips, a flicker of hope joining the ache in my chest. “Because I’m not a monster.”
Vaneesi’s face grew abruptly hard. “You’re saying Roakiev is?”
“I couldn’t let him kill you. That’s all.” The unfamiliar vibration in my throat shook loose a cough. “And the figurine. Dangerous.”
Vaneesi tugged at the fabric of her trousers, pulling it first one way then another while she considered my words. When she looked up at me, I saw acceptance in her eyes.
“When?” she asked.
“I don’t know. Soon.”
A tear slipped down her cheek. “I thought he cared for me.”
It wasn’t my job to console her. I doubted I had the strength, anyway. Not while under assault by my own excruciating memories. “They can’t find me here,” I said, the words coming more easily now.
I stepped around her, pushed aside the tent flap and slipped into the perpetual night. Vaneesi didn’t bother to thank me as I left, but I hadn’t expected that much from a trader.
While my eyes adjusted, I stood silently, alert for signs that someone had been listening in. But the area surrounding Vaneesi’s tent was empty. Undisturbed. As I hurried away from the shelter, I folded my arms across my chest to hold together my shattering heart.
4.
I CARRIED NO lantern as I ran into the dark, out and away from the encampment. Only the ruddy glow of the volcano lit the path ahead. I focused on the trail, the steady pounding of my feet that jarred my hip sockets. I wanted to understand the figurine. It was important, and my best hope for answers was investigating the building Vaneesi had found. I could deal with my returned memories and recovered voice later.
But once I reached the frozen lava flow, I couldn’t hold the recollections back any longer. They roared over me in a landslide.
I’d killed my parents.
Mother had been so stern with her warnings. I was not allowed to go outside our hiding place, a small room at the back of a metalworker’s shop. No matter how tempted I might be to peer out the window, I could not even approach it. And I absolutely had to be quiet. No singing for the next few days.
The hardened lava was warm beneath my hands, stringy like pulled taffy. I clutched rounded ribs and wedged my toes into crevices as I clambered onto the flow. The black ribbon stretched from the sea to the mountain’s smoldering peak. It was like my guilt, a black stain across my soul.
I trudged across the stone river, remembering those long-ago nights before the soldiers came, how my mother had cried in my father’s arms. Father had only stolen from the Ulstats because they had more than they needed. Because my cheeks were sunken and my belly hollow.
He’d stopped breathing when the men took Mother away. After throwing around spare tools stored by the metalworker, and needlessly ripping and stomping on our spar
e clothing, the soldier had found me hiding in the oats. Laughing, my captor had held my face close to my father’s. Dull eyes looked back at me, already filming over. Father had smelled wrong, both sour and sweet.
As the moon rose, silver over the ocean, I remembered the sound my mother’s neck made when it snapped. Trader Ulstat had sat beside me for the hanging, forcing me to watch before sending me back to the kitchens.
As I neared the edge of the lava flow, I crept forward, alert to movement and sound. I didn’t expect to run into the Ulstats out here, but if I was wrong and they caught me, I would disappear. The rest of the expedition would never know what had happened to me.
The angle of the moon sent silver rays into the ancient structure. I shivered as I entered. I traced a few of the runes with my finger. The edges of the individual chisel marks were sharp, as if the hammer strikes were made in anger. In greed. In jealousy.
Ashiril’s words came back to me. Fire… burning within. Power, Roakiev.
I jerked my hand away.
Crouching, I ran my palms over the floor then crawled around the plinth where Vaneesi had found the figurine. I searched for compartments, niches, any hint about the obsidian statuette. Nothing.
As I felt along the bottom edge of the pedestal, examining the seam where the stone met the floor of smooth slabs, a rumble shook the structure.
I stiffened; the few tremors I’d felt since we anchored had been much weaker.
A hint of sulfur wafted into the building as another quake shook the earth. From outside, the patter of falling pumice rat-tatted against the scree and brush.
I sprinted outside and whirled to look at the volcano. Where before the ash cloud had been a low, clinging fog hugging the smoldering cone, it now billowed to twice the height of the peak, shrouding the aurora. Lava arced across the sky. Air-filled stones pelted my head and shoulders, stinging. I flinched and covered my head with my arms. I whirled toward the shrine. Inside, the pedestal had toppled, revealing a hole beneath. But as I bolted for the shelter, a hot gush of air and flare of searing light stopped me short.
Less than two hundred paces uphill, a fresh spurt of lava had broken from the frozen river, jetting out the side and oozing, inexorably, straight for me.
In a minute, maybe less, the shrine would be buried. Entombed.
I sprinted downhill, bound for the still-solid portion of the lava river. My hands slapped the stone. Warm, but not yet hot—I understood now… what looked like a frozen stream was instead a hollow tube carrying molten lava to the sea. Seizing hold of the petrified folds of stone, I vaulted onto the black river and sprinted for the other side. Behind me, fire crackled then roared as the brush leaped into flame ahead of the red-hot flow. Falling stone pummeled my flesh—to one side, a boulder smashed down, ejecting chips that stung, even through my clothing. Ash soon hazed the scene, and acrid steam seared my nostrils.
I leaped from the flow and raced toward the camp, all the while glancing up toward the roaring mountain.
Lit from below, the ash cloud rose higher, spread further.
The paths outside the tents were deserted. Lanterns had toppled, spilling oil in burning pools. As I dashed for my shelter, a boulder smashed down beside it. With a twang, a support rope snapped. The pavilion collapsed, deflating as falling stones battered it. I backpedaled and fell and curled into a ball, arms protecting my head.
The forges. They were my best hope. As I forced myself to a crouch, the growl abruptly quieted. The rain of stones grew lighter then stopped. I remained frozen, irrationally afraid that movement would trigger the volcano’s wrath. Teeth gritted, I waited for another quake or a fresh spray of lava from the peak. Nothing came.
Slowly, the cloud of ash spread wide, veiling the stars and the aurora, but thinning. The sound of waves reached my ears, crashing against the lava reef that defended the island from large ocean swells. After a few minutes, I climbed to my feet gawked at the scene.
Tents and lanterns had fallen. Stacks of supplies were scattered. But those things could be quickly righted. Somehow, the expedition had survived. I closed my eyes, both shocked and relieved.
Moments later, the alarm gong clanged.
I shook my head and grimaced, bewildered by the awful noise. Why raise the alarm after the eruption? The worst was over.
A few, rattled-looking people crawled from their tents. Glancing uphill, I spotted the rest exiting the archways leading into the forges. Led by Trader Yiltak, they descended the slope and filed into the center of the village. Beckoning everyone closer, the trader waited while a sailor pushed a pair of crates together. Vaneesi’s father stepped onto the makeshift platform and glared down at the gathered crowd. The ship’s captain stood to the side of the platform. A woman hardened by years at sea, her face was grim. But she’d have to work much harder to match the severe look on the trader’s face.
This isn’t about the eruption… I thought to Trader Yiltak. Vaneesi told you about the Ulstats plan. Thank the tides.
Finally, Trader Yiltak decided he had sufficient eyes on him. With a slice of his hand, he called for the alarm to be stopped.
The resulting silence roared in my ears.
“I’m afraid I have troubling news,” Trader Yiltak said.
But why are you telling everyone? Did they run once they’d been found out?
Regardless, now that the Yiltaks understood the level of treachery the Ulstats were capable of, there would be no more alliances. Eron’s group had aimed to undermine the Ulstats’ status, weakening them enough for the commoners to rise up. I’d hoped to continue his work but had never dreamed I’d be so successful. With the Yiltaks against them, Roakiev and Ashiril had no chance of retaining power in Ilaraok.
In front of me, a deckhand from the ship grumbled to his neighbor, “Think he’s going to tell us the volcano erupted? I hadn’t noticed.”
The captain glared at her crewman, silencing him.
“When the eruption began, I sent a boy to summon the nightcaller and acolyte to the forges for safety.”
And once the girls were summoned, your daughter pulled you aside and told you what it happened. I paused as I scanned the crowd for Ashiril. As I’d suspected, she must have fled following Vaneesi’s accusation. Roakiev, too. Or have you already imprisoned them until this can be resolved?
A few crew members shifted, getting bored with the preamble.
Just wait, I thought at them. You’ll be able to entertain your friends for years with your story about a scandal between traders.
“There’s no good way to say this,” Trader Yiltak continued. “Ashiril Ulstat has been murdered.”
5.
MY HEART STOPPED beating. Ashiril? Dead?
Shocked silence followed Trader Yiltak’s words. I tried to back up, but the crowd had closed behind me. I searched the gathered faces for Vaneesi. If I’d known she would turn around and kill Ashiril, I’d have gone to her father instead.
Or did you do it? I thought at him. Were you so furious upon hearing what the Ulstats planned that you took your revenge by murdering her?
Scattered murmurs grew to a confused babble, which in turn swelled to a nervous roar. After a moment, Trader Yiltak raised his hands, asking for silence.
“Until we find Ashiril’s killer, I’m putting the expedition on a strict curfew. All members must return to your tents. For most of you, it will be easy to determine your movements in the hours before the eruption. Once we identify those of you with clear alibis, you’ll be excused to your duties. Until then—” He nodded at the darkened area between tents. “— Captain Rivanei has picked a handful of trusted men and women to enforce the restriction.”
At the trader’s nod, half a dozen deckhands and oarsmen stepped toward the group, hands on makeshift clubs and long fishing knives.
“Any questions?” Trader Yiltak asked.
What are you going to do when Roakiev comes for his own revenge?
As if angry at his words, the volcano rumbled.
; “Actually, Trader… I have a theory.”
What? I whirled on Roakiev, who had spoken from just behind my shoulder. Where had he been hiding? His eyes flicked to me, and he flashed his teeth. A sick feeling flooded my gut. As I stepped away from him, a small hand wrapped my forearm.
Vaneesi squeezed as she stepped close. “Trust me,” she whispered.
What is this? I shook my head as my throat squeezed down over my breath.
“Yes, Heir Ulstat?” Trader Yiltak said, his disgust with Roakiev poorly concealed. Suddenly, I wished I’d done everything I could to understand the situation between the trader families. Maybe it could help me here because I didn’t think much would.
Roakiev’s hand grasped the back of my neck, his nails knifing into the fragile skin beneath my earlobes. With a growl, he shoved me forward.
Vaneesi tried to keep a grip on my arm but failed. I craned my neck to catch her eyes.
Did you and Roakiev work together to kill his sister? Was I too stupid to realize you were far too infatuated to believe me?
Wide eyes watched me pass as I stumbled under Roakiev’s grip. Like his mother, the Ulstat heir was stronger than he looked. Tears leaked from the corners of my eyes as his nails cut my flesh.
“I have no question as to who would want my sister dead,” Roakiev said.
And I’m the perfect scapegoat. I have no alibi because I spent the time before the eruption mourning my parents.
Trader Yiltak looked Roakiev up and down. “As far as I’m concerned, the question of motive is quite open.”
“I’ve watched her since we left Ilaraok,” Roakiev said. “The way she stared at my sister made me nervous. Her envy was… poisonous.”
When I tried to shake my head in protest, Roakiev only dug his nails deeper.
It’s a lie, I thought to everyone watching. The only thing Ashiril saw on my face was obedience. Roakiev knows it.
Silent Queen Page 5
