But that wouldn’t do. Looking the brave girl in the face was the victim’s due. As she sucked away the pearl dust and withered the ermine softness of the girl’s countenance; as she crumpled the fluting heartsong and hacked with age’s heavy blade; the smallest recompense she could muster was an eye unblinking and a mind unforgetting.
She paced around the throne room floor, a tic her servants hadn’t heretofore seen. In muttering tones, she chastised herself. Why fear that which she’d made a profession of? Like the times in hundreds before, this would start and end the same. She’d grow pretty, the girl would fall grim, and Qummukarpoq would have his game.
It was, she knew, because the more she evaded change, the more she ensured that she could never change. To the strong came yet more strength. From the helpless was taken what little strength they had.
No, this wasn’t evasion. This was one final farewell. The duty she owed to the folk of the ice. She’d take from the willing to furnish with peace. She’d safeguard the clans with a decadent shield. And when she’d discharged this duty she held, she’d slacken her grip and welcome the fall.
Qummukarpoq entered the hall.
She steadied on her feet, a gentle hand on the throne’s white back, a leaping heart within her breast.
“Orluvoq.”
“Husband.”
“I trust you’re ready?”
She dropped her chin in a nod. “You’ll hear no complaints from me.”
The king turned and called through the doorway. “Come.”
Orluvoq’s glove tightened on the chair back as a girl stepped through the door, her footfalls scraping up to the queen’s ears.
“What is the meaning of this?” Orluvoq demanded, eyebrows reaching for each other. “She should not be here.”
“Being a ruler isn’t easy.”
The girl came to stand beside him, eyes pointed at the floor.
“We agreed on a willing participant. You can’t convince me that she’s had a change of mind.”
Qummukarpoq turned a fraction of his gaze to Kukkujuits, the girl he’d brought two days before. “Her? No. She’s just here to remind you what could have been had you had a change of mind. Or, more appropriately, had you not had a change of mind.”
Orluvoq’s cheeks bunched around her eyes in bemusement. “What?”
The king turned once more to the doorway. “Come.”
The doorway darkened. A girl stepped through. Within Orluvoq, revolt broke out against ribs.
Qaffanngilaq.
“No.” The word grated out like the raking of bones across tundral crust. Her empty stomach seized like a sack of drying rawhide.
Qaffa, garbed in a new white parka, walked forth to stand beside Kukkujuits and the king. “Mother.”
“Qaffa. You shouldn’t be here.” Orluvoq’s speech ran quick across her tongue.
“Why not?” A certain defiance underlined Qaffa’s chin.
“Because you are my daughter, and I say so.” Orluvoq knew the injunction came across trite, but the moment didn’t permit her to think of anything truer. The scene that had played behind her eyes for eighteen years manifested in corporeal horror. The little needle of pathos that always prodded her to ask, ‘What if this was my daughter?’ She stared at the girl—the woman—before her. There was no longer place for ‘what if’.
“Am I not also his daughter?” Qaffa pointed to the king.
“What have you promised her?” Oluvoq asked Qummukarpoq.
“He hasn’t promised me anything,” said Qaffa.
“What threat—”
“And he hasn’t threatened me either,” she broke in again. “He asked.”
Orluvoq’s world reeled and yawed. Love never went far without pain following. She placed another hand on the throne to levy more of her weight. There lurked a lie behind it all. A bait and switch? Angakkuq emotion manipulation? If she chewed, she would bite the bitter core devised by Qummukarpoq.
“And you agreed?” Orluvoq asked.
“I did.”
“Qaffanngilaq, how could you agree?” Orluvoq knew that at some point her shock would render into anger and fuel her with convictions. She could only hope the transition would snap in the next minutes, not days.
“How could anyone agree? You seem to have been perfectly content to take anyone these past twenty years. Which means you’ll accept anyone, even when they don’t want it, but you’ll reject your own daughter when she gives herself freely. Yes?”
Nothing would lock together in Orluvoq’s brain. Why would Qaffa agree to anything approaching this? She wouldn’t.
Correct?
Or had Orluvoq crafted a paradigm in her head over two decades that couldn’t hold up under the friction brought by a daughter raised by foreign hands? She needed to distract the conversation so she could churn through the mess. She swung a hopeless gesture at Kukkujuits.
“You’ve kept this girl and brought her in just so you can taunt me. Is that the sort of action fit for a king? You’ve brought her to watch our family contend, then to spread word of it to her clan and all the ice.”
“Firstly,” the king’s voice cut in, “there is none but I who can decide which actions befit a king. Secondly, do you really believe I’d let her watch the royal drama then return home with her memories intact?”
Kukkujuits’ eyes widened.
“No,” said Orluvoq. “I don’t suppose you would.”
“She is here to illustrate the price of duty. Had you observed your obligation two days ago, the price would have been her. Delaying duty till today has incurred a debt.”
Words pooled on her tongue to ask Kukkujuits if she wouldn’t reconsider. Deeper down wound the darksome urge to fall upon the girl unwarned. Qummukarpoq had come blowing war upon his trump. She could sidestep his careering and lame him in one swoop. One last unexpected, rapine act.
Unless.
A nightwind chill percolated through her stomach. Unless that was the exact stratagem he drove. Present the choice she’d passed on, juxtapose a more daunting choice, and force her into frantic action to reclaim the choice she’d rebuffed.
It was all a calculation to erase any progress she’d made absolutely. To shush her in her stirrings from feigned slumber. She couldn’t burgle this terrified girl. But neither could she accept the offered beauty from her own daughter.
It was all so… ugly.
“Orluvoq,” said the king. “Not many days hence, Sulluliaq will close, and we won’t have a moai. You gave your word. Now uphold it.” He put a hand on Qaffa’s shoulder and moved her forward.
Whatever plan the king had laid, he’d cued Qaffa in on at least some of it. Orluvoq doubted the king would bat an eye if she did as he said and laid into Qaffa. He’d already taken that into account. But how would their daughter feel if Orluvoq really chose to drain her instead of a stranger?
She opened her mouth. “I…”
“Mother, get it over with. My nerves aren’t exactly quiet right now. We can chat after all this stupid tension is gone.”
Mouth still ajar, Orluvoq’s eyes wandered to Kukkujuits, who looked up. Something cognizant registered in the girl’s face. Kukkujuits wrapped her arms around herself and threw her gaze to the floor. She knew.
Integrity dictated that Orluvoq stride forth and reduce her own daughter to a jagged shambles. Nature howled against duty, demanding she march to the stranger and suck her dry of pulchritude. Her gut told her to vomit so the pain would pass for now. Either would do. Both would do. Anything to make it pass.
Her hand slipped toward the candle in her pocket.
Addicted to tuuaaq at eight years old. Slave to beauty at eighteen. Never a season in her life where she could rise in her own strength. Always the itch. Always the worry. Always failing. Always broken. Always hiding. Always waiting. Waiting for a better path to find her. Waiting for a master puzzler to arrive and banish her chaos. Waiting, because the veil of helplessness convinced her she could do nothing greater.
&n
bsp; Her hand stopped.
“Orluvoq,” said the king.
“Mother,” said Qaffa.
Daughter and father spoke in unison, a demand and an entreaty. Orluvoq answered both the same.
“No.” Once again, the word grated out. “I will be beautiful no more.”
29
Qaffanngilaq
No? Had her mother really just said that? After a spell of confusion, Qaffa’s insides bubbled with unexpected warmth. She didn’t want the warmth. She’d come to this hall to see a vendetta fulfilled.
“You won’t do your duty?” asked the king “You will leave the Nuktipik unguarded?”.
“A duty you created then imposed upon me?” asked the queen. “You fulfill it.”
Qaffa’s jaw dropped. Whose mother was this? Surely not hers. She cast a quick eye to her father, searching for a hint at the next step. He’d alluded to this possibility when he’d debriefed her last night but had only supplied vague instructions. Qaffa hadn’t given the idea much credence anyway.
“If you forsake this duty, then its honor is no longer yours.”
Honor? No honor pertained to her mother’s position.
“Why does duty look so much like evil?” said Orluvoq.
The king’s hand brushed the pocket where he stowed his candles. “Never have I warped your emotions to the tusk. Always has it been your choice to take. You would do well to remember that such is not assumed, but permitted.”
Orluvoq’s lips thinned, and her hand hovered over her own candle pocket. “Try it.”
Qaffa’s jaw opened and didn’t close. Was this indeed her mother? The monster Orluvoq? The weak-willed instrument of the king who sucked beauty as readily as breath? This woman beside the ice throne stank of none of that. This woman was… strong.
His hand drifted to his side. “No. I am fed full with your snivels and mewls. The honor shall be given to another.”
“Another may take my place.”
“You mistake me, Orluvoq.” The calm ice in her father’s voice shivered Qaffa. “There is no time for another to simply take your place. They must also take the honor endemic to your station.”
At this her mother hesitated, a single line of worry creasing her flawless face. “What does that mean?”
“Sulluliaq can only be opened and stay so if Arsarneq’s light is channeled through a perfect vessel, as we have discovered. Anything less and the construct will break. We lack time, and the world lacks talent for another to rise up and do as you’ve done. Except for one, that I know of.” He turned to Qaffa, and she briefly met his eye. “Qaffanngilaq. You must become the perfect vessel.”
The world contracted to a very small point, grabbing all things hither and thither and rolling them into one. Steal beauty. The king had just commanded her to steal beauty. And not just any beauty. Her mother’s. Steal her mother’s beauty. Take from the maw of the fatted beast. Her breaths plumed quickly, limned by rays from the morning sun cutting through the hall’s high windows.
To steal what had been stolen once. Did that undo the wrongs, or did it just make you twice the thief?
“But you’d have to be married to me to keep Sulluliaq open. The most beautiful woman married to the most powerful angakkuq.” Qaffa took a step aside. “I can’t marry my father.”
Qummukarpoq gave a single shake of the head. “That was just the slogan to make it more enticing. I reasoned it would prove far simpler to keep a wife by my side for decades than some capricious woman. The only requirements are my strength and your lack of blemish.”
“But…” Why was she hesitating? Was this not the woman who had gruesified hundreds? Had she not earned a humbling? Had Qaffa not spoken feuds of blood against this very woman? Where now the fire? Where the javelin in the furled fist?
The picture her father had painted last night had stained itself too deeply on her mind. Primarily, trick the queen to take from the village girl. Prove that she couldn’t change for all her preaching.
Failing that, force her to take from her own daughter. Oblige her to live what she had done to countless others. After being leeched from, Qaffa would leave the room, take beauty from the village girl, then skywalk back to Rapai’i.
Failing that, the king had bidden Qaffa follow his lead and asked if she would obey his command. She had agreed, not imagining any such thing would actually come to pass.
Qaffa couldn’t quite say which she’d preferred. The first supplied that Qaffa herself didn’t have to do any leeching, while the second would likely hurt her mother on a more personal grade. Neither mattered now. Only the third existed, and it torqued a gray fear into her.
“Is it really a daughter’s place to correct her mother? Could I not just take from her?” Qaffa motioned to Kukkujuits.
“You are not ugly,” said the king. “But this girl doesn’t have enough external perfection to take you to the pinnacle. Drink where the snow is clearest. You’ll likely need both though.”
“Qummukarpoq, this is insanity.” Orluvoq strode down from the dais, hand in her pocket. “You can’t force her to work the blue flame, especially not on her own mother.”
Chill streamed over Qaffa, and a blue flame flickered in the king’s hand where no candle had been seconds before.
“I have already told you. Nothing I do today includes forcing our daughter. She’s here by agreement.”
A separate pinch of cold and a pop of azure burst to life in Orluvoq’s hand. “I know about your invitations and agreements.”
Qaffa found her hand grasping a candle. Kukkujuits broke into tears. The two attendants ran to a corner and crouched down, arms around each other. The thick castle walls ate more light than a normal igloo, so even at this, one of the brightest points of the day, enough darkness abounded for the king’s and queen’s breath to be tainted blue from below.
“What game shall we play, wife, you and I with candles blue?”
An arm’s length separated the two. “We play the game where I leave, and you don’t see me again.”
“Qaffanngilaq,” said the king. “Light your candle after the manner of the tirigusuusik.”
Qaffa did as she was commanded, nibbling on a flake of tuuaaq and waiting for her flame to cool.
“You two can have your Sulluliaq,” said Orluvoq. “You can stay and wrangle helpless thousands. Dine with a different island king each night of the week and stroke your moai together. As for myself, I am finished.”
A measure of indignation mingled with Qaffa’s head havoc. How could her mother think to just drop her duty and leave the land to fall? To close off the only route to Qaffa’s true home? To abandon her just moments after choosing her?
Then a plan began to simmer and swirl in her head. Perhaps duty was not always a straight line one must walk.
Orluvoq turned to her. “I’m sorry I haven’t been a better mother. When these times are past, I’ll seek you again and see what amends I can make.”
The queen windwalked out the room.
Or, she tried to. The king hadn’t made a move, yet she went sprawling across the slick floor. He turned and slowly took the eleven steps to stand over her while she twitched and gagged. Qaffa wanted to be uplifted by an air of satisfaction, seeing her mother in the same position she’d been put in just a week prior. All that stirred within her was revulsion.
“Qaffanngilaq. Come here.”
She did. The space between her and her mother could have been leagues.
“Now,” said the king. “Take your mother’s beauty.”
Her mouth went dry like sand in a fire. “I’ve never actually tried on anything but animals.”
“It’s not so different. Perhaps a little more resistance at the start.”
Qaffa looked down at the beautiful, struggling form of her mother. “Can you show me? Maybe do just a tiny piece?”
The king stared at his daughter. “Whatever I take could endanger our entire purpose.”
“Right, sorry.” She tried to keep her breathing in check
. “Um, then maybe just take it to the point right before and hold it there so I can see how you did it?” She really didn’t think her heart should be beating so quickly.
“That is reasonable enough.” Qummukarpoq turned his attention to his spasm-wrought wife and levered his will inside of her face.
Qaffa took a step back and watched the ghastliness. A turn-sick vapor floated through her head and chest. Instinct goaded her to intercept the king with her own act of candles. But as Nalor had taught the day before, not every problem requires a tirigusuusik solution.
Trying to summon every tip she’d ever been given by a matatoa, Qaffa swung her free hand like a stone from a volcano and slammed it into the back of her father’s head.
The king of all the world let out a concussive grunt, stumbled over his tortured wife, dropped his candle, and crunched against the ground. Qaffa stabbed out with her angakkuq threads and set to draining him of consciousness. He struggled to his hands twice before one final collapse.
She shuddered. Now they were going to have to steal Kukkujuits’ memories for certain.
30
Orluvoq
Orluvoq’s face slapped her in the face, then she turned and watched her daughter drain her husband into a heap on the floor. She blinked. That was one to remember for certain. A quiet moment hung in the hall. She looked to Qaffa.
“Did you… kill him?”
Qaffa’s grip wouldn’t stop shifting on her taper. “No. No, just consciousness. A lot of it. I'm not an expert, but he should be out for days.”
Orluvoq staggered to her feet and stumped toward her candle. “I’ll admit, you had me deceived. What exactly was your plan after incapacitating your father?”
“We need to flee to Rapai’i. Hide with Ariki Haka’atu. He and his matatoa will protect us until Sulluliaq closes. I think I can even convince him to not give father the moai.”
Orluvoq Page 32
