House of Rage and Sorrow

by Sangu Mandanna

  “Really?” I look at the king. He’s leaning back in his chair, arms draped across the armrests, and he looks amused. “And what’s that?”

  “Elba’s army and space fleet will remain in my kingdom at all times,” Yann says, “to defend Elba from whatever retribution Alexi Rey sees fit to send our way for helping you. I will, however, pledge ten percent of my gold reserves to your war, to do with as you wish. As I’m sure you’d prefer my gold to my armies anyway, I assume you have no problem with that?”

  “None at all,” Elvar replies. He shows none of the jittery anxiety we would be seeing if we were in private. He cares far too much about what other people think of him to make that mistake. “And what would you ask in return for this generosity?”

  Yann lifts a shoulder in a lazy shrug, drawing the moment out, a gesture that can’t possibly be for Elvar or Guinne’s benefit considering they can’t see him. It’s for Max. The scapegoat he wants to throw all his bitterness over an ancient rejection at.

  I’m not surprised when he says, “I need a wife.”

  “A wife?” Grandmother barks a laugh. “How exactly do you expect us to help you with that? We are not in the business of plucking women out of the kingdom and marrying them off without their consent.”

  “Queen Cassela, I do wish you would give me a little credit,” King Yann says. “Of course I don’t intend to marry anyone without their consent. I’d like to marry Princess Esmae, and it is entirely her choice whether she accepts or not.”

  I feel Max’s entire body tense in the seat next to mine, and I clamp my hand down on his thigh under the table to keep him in place.

  “Esmae?” Elvar says incredulously. “You want us to trade Esmae for gold?”

  “No,” Guinne says at once. Her voice is sharp, almost panicked, and she puts her hand over Elvar’s. “Elvar, no.”

  “No,” says Elvar.

  It’s unexpectedly touching, but it’s also unnecessary.

  “I decline your offer, King Yann,” I say, “And, frankly, if you want to keep your freedom and your life, it would be in your best interests to stop talking and start listening.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Stunned silence. Every head at the table whips around in my direction.

  “What did you say?” Yann snaps, his amusement gone in the blink of an eye.

  I look steadily back at him. “Juniper?”

  With a bounce in her step, one of the guards flanking the high table steps out of position and comes to my side.

  She smiles at King Yann, who takes notice of her for the first time. “This is Juniper,” I say. “She and her brothers have spent the past few days in your palace in Elba, making friends with your servants. I was a servant once, you know. And the thing I remember most about it was how invisible I was to all the important people around me. Like your servants are invisible in your palace. Like Juniper, Jemsy, and Henry were when I sent them there.”

  “And servants,” adds Juniper, with a big grin, “talk.”

  “Your servants talked quite a lot about a queen who married a king,” I tell Yann, “who remained married to him for a few years and had a child or two, and then died in a most unfortunate accident. So, the king married a second girl, and would you believe it? The same thing happened to her. And so, the bereft, heartbroken king married for the third time and, well, I think you know where this is going.”

  “Whatever you’re implying,” King Yann says, through gritted teeth, “you are gravely mistaken.”

  “Am I? Juniper?”

  Juniper reaches into her hair and pulls out a hairpin. When she flicks it, it snaps open, and a tiny data chip falls out into my palm.

  “Your servants didn’t just talk, King Yann,” I say. “They gave us footage from tech hidden all over your palace, and on this footage is your third wife’s murder. They could not save any of your wives, but they made sure they put that tech up after the second queen died and they held onto the footage to make sure there would never, ever be a fourth one.”

  “Wait,” Elvar says in horror. “Yann, is this true? The rumors all these years … Did you really kill them?”

  Yann doesn’t answer. As the silence drags on, Elvar’s lips press into a tight, angry line.

  “Here’s what I propose, King Yann,” I say. “You transfer ten percent of your gold reserves to our account immediately. As soon as we have it, I’ll destroy this chip.”

  “And then what?” Max demands. “We just let him get away with what he’s done?”

  “The war comes first,” I reply. “If Yann goes to prison, we don’t get our gold. I have the chip, I decide what to do with it.” I turn back to Yann, whose face is white with anger, and say, “Once I’ve destroyed the chip, you have our word that we will never use this information. You can go back to your throne and enjoy the rest of your life.”

  “How can I know you’ll keep your word?”

  “You can’t,” I shrug. “But it’s a better chance than what you’ve got now, isn’t it?”

  He stares at me for a moment or two, then nods. “Give me a tablet and I’ll make the transfer,” he says.

  And so it’s done. Once the gold is in the kingdom’s account, I snap the data chip in two and drop it into King Yann’s wine goblet for good measure. Yann storms out, presumably to return to Elba and join the long line of people who want me dead.

  “It would be very poor form to break our word and share what we know with the rest of the star system,” my great-grandmother says to me, a note of censure in her voice.

  “I don’t break my promises, Grandmother. I won’t tell anyone there’s proof he murdered his wives.”

  “Then you’re willing to let him get away with three murders?” she persists, cocking her head at me like she’s trying to solve a puzzle. “You’d trade justice for gold?”

  “I’ll trade whatever I have to for this war,” I tell her, and that, at least, is the truth. “And when we win, I doubt any of you will be sorry about the way we did it.”

  I get up and walk away.

  My slippers are soundless on the floor of the corridors as I leave the Hall and music and chatter behind. Outside, down the steep hill of Erys, I can hear more music and laughter, the sounds of the festivities in the streets. I leave it all behind and go to the tall, spiky tower at the far side of the palace. It’s deserted. I take the elevator up to Max’s room, the one he keeps secret from his parents.

  The door is unlocked, so I go in. It’s dark, but I don’t turn on any of the lamps. Around me are worktables, bookshelves, the shadows and silhouettes of toys, models, miniatures, and books. It smells like wood, paper, and lavender in here. I just want to stand here and breathe, but I can’t.

  There’s work to be done.

  Max comes to the tower to find me an hour later. I’m perched on an arched windowsill and he stands between my knees, hands on the windowsill on either side of me, and waits.

  “What?” I ask.

  He narrows his eyes, unimpressed with the innocent expression on my face. “Haven’t you heard the news? Yann is dead.”

  “That’s terrible.”

  “Yes, you sound devastated,” Max says wryly. “His ship was attacked and boarded shortly after he left Kali. He was killed, but his crew was unharmed.”

  “Who did it?”

  “His crew says the starship was just like the ones Alex uses. And the assassin who killed him wore a hood and a masquerade mask. Quite a theatrical touch.” Max considers me. “The theory is Alex found out about our alliance with Elba and tried to put an end to it by killing Yann. Personally, I think his spies must be very close to have found out about our alliance so quickly.”

  “That’s very worrying. We should be more careful.”

  Max shakes his head. “You could at least try to sound serious.”

  “Which part should I be serious about?”

  “The assassination of a king?”

  “He murdered three women. I don’t feel particularly sad about his
absence from the world.”

  “And what about what his death means for the people of Elba?”

  “I looked into it. His oldest daughter has already been more or less running the kingdom for him. She does her best for the people. She’ll be a good queen.”

  “And the part where you framed your brother for the assassination of the previously mentioned king?”

  “I enjoyed that part,” I reply.

  A sound escapes him that sounds suspiciously like a laugh. “The data chip? Was that real?”

  “Of course not. My whole performance in the Hall was a bluff. I never sent Jemsy, Henry, and Juniper to Elba. Their secret mission was getting me a ship that looks like the ones Alexi’s been using lately.”

  “Who was the assassin?”

  I curl my nails into my palms. Don’t think about it. “I may have become a monster, but I’m a monster who does her own dirty work.”

  That genuinely startles him. He glances at me, still in my beautiful dress, exactly as he last saw me. No, not exactly. For the first time, he notices my hair is slightly damp, like I’ve been in the shower. Like I’ve had to wash blood off me. Don’t think about it, Esmae. Don’t look.

  “How?” he asks.

  “Henry piloted the starship. He flew it here, to this tower out of the way, where no one would notice. I came here an hour ago to wait for him. He picked me up outside this window and dropped me off again afterward.”

  “You are a monster,” he says, but he doesn’t say it like it’s a bad thing. “A beautiful, brilliant monster.”

  I fidget with the top button of his shirt. He makes a sound in his throat that’s part want, part laugh. I look up at him. “Why aren’t you horrified?”

  “I’m in no position to be horrified by anyone else,” he says, and then there’s a smile in his voice as he adds, “And I know you. I know that no matter what you do, you never punch down.”

  I don’t know how to tell him what it means to be believed in, even as I fall further and deeper into the dark, so I say nothing at all.

  “This looks good on you,” he says, fingers tracing the circlet of gold vines on my forehead.

  I tug on the lapels of his jacket, and he leans in and kisses me. I sigh against his mouth. He tastes like mulberries and home. I kiss him harder. It feels as vital and necessary as breathing. I stroke the back of his neck and lock my legs around him.

  He breaks the kiss and looks down at me, his eyes dark and his face so naked that I can’t breathe. No one’s ever looked at me like this. I see everything. So I look back and I don’t flinch. I don’t hide. I let him see me, too. All my desire, my rage, my grief, the guilt. I let him see that the war isn’t just out there; it’s in me, too, and if he wants to escape it, he should run.

  And he sees it all, and doesn’t run. He says, “Bed?”

  “Bed’s too far away,” I say and kiss him again.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Titania

  There is one other thing I never told Esmae. You see, thirty-six days after the duel that killed Rama, Esmae almost died, too.

  It has been many weeks since that day, but I will never forget it. Esmae had become obsessed with getting into Arcadia. The war council assumed it was because she wanted to kill Alexi, but I knew she didn’t. I knew she wanted to do worse. What good would it do to kill him and see him remembered as a tragic hero? No, she wanted to ruin his armies, punish everyone who had taken his side, and shatter the myth that he had become. She wanted the world to see the monster she had glimpsed behind the mask of their golden prince.

  So I knew getting into Arcadia was not about an assassination attempt. She told me she wanted to be able to place spies in Alexi’s city, which had so far been impenetrable, and I have no doubt that was true. I also think she wanted to be able to get to her mother. She never said so, but I know she never stopped longing to see her again.

  Whatever her reasons, Arcadia was why she and I flew to Shloka that day. The architect who had built Arcadia for Alexi lived there, and Esmae wanted to see what she could persuade him to tell us.

  Elsewhere, Max, Sybilla, and a handful of the Hundred and One were in a starship of their own. They had been watching Leila Saka for a few days, since Kali’s spies had sent word that she had handpicked mercenaries for a task the rest of Alexi’s army did not seem to be aware of. On that day, they saw her leave Arcadia and followed her in what looked like a nondescript supply ship from Winter.

  They arrived in Shloka with no idea why General Saka and her two dozen mercenaries were there. Imagine their horror, then, when they saw the trail of blood and realized she had come to hunt Esmae.

  I’m telling this out of order. Let me go back to Esmae. We landed in Shloka in the afternoon, and the capital city’s brightly colored markets, theaters, and taverns had just started to stir. All my data on the architect, Maya Sura, suggested he could often be found in a tavern just off one of the textile markets. Esmae went there to find him while I hovered above the city skyline some distance away. We were not expecting any trouble, but Esmae still had the good sense to be armed. She never left Kali without the Black Bow and a handful of arrows anymore.

  Locals gawked up at me as they passed, unjustly suspicious, and I tested Esmae’s new earpiece by grumbling about it to her. She was not especially sympathetic.

  When the architect eventually arrived, she didn’t waste any time. “You built Arcadia,” she said.

  “I did,” he replied, and then he recognized her. “Oh. You’re Prince Alexi’s sister.”

  “What will it take for you to tell me everything about that city?”

  “I don’t understand,” he said, startled. “You want me to put a price on that information?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why? Why should I help you?”

  “Whatever my brother paid you to build Arcadia, Kali will pay you the same to tell us about it,” she said, and added gently when he shook his head, “And I can give you a thousand silvers right now, to start. I know you’re in debt. I know you need this.”

  Maya Sura didn’t ask her how she knew so much. Instead, he said, “Do you really believe me so easy to buy?”

  “I don’t know. Are you?”

  In answer, he turned to leave the tavern. Esmae didn’t move. She just waited and, just a few steps away from the door, the architect stopped, turned, and came back. He sighed. “The thousand silvers first, then I talk.”

  Esmae handed him a white data card. He tapped it against his watch, checked that the amount on it was correct, and closed his hand tightly over it.

  He sighed. “They didn’t pay me to build Arcadia.”

  “What?”

  “I built Prince Alexi’s city as a favor to the trickster god.” The care with which Maya Sura said the words made it clear that he didn’t want to say Kirrin’s name out loud. He didn’t want to draw Kirrin’s attention to this conversation. “Years ago, he granted me a boon and I promised him a favor in return.”

  Esmae said nothing, but her hand absently tugged on a lock of her hair, right where her blueflower jewel used to be. I knew she was thinking about how Kirrin seemed to like collecting favors he could call in when he needed them.

  “What does that mean for me?” Maya Sura went on. “You said you would pay me whatever Alexi did.”

  “Don’t worry,” Esmae said, “You’ll still get paid, if you give me information I can use. Does another ten thousand silvers sound fair?”

  He swallowed. “What do you want to know?”

  “Let’s start with how I can get into that city without my brother’s permission or knowledge.”

  “I can’t tell you how to get past any defenses he’s put up since I created the city. That kind of tech isn’t my area of expertise.”

  “What can you tell me, then?”

  Maya Sura did not speak for several moments. When he did, his voice was very low. “It’s not real.”

  Esmae frowned. “What’s not real?”

  “Arcadia
.”

  “What do you mean?” My sensors in her earpiece picked up the way her pulse jumped.

  “It’s a city of illusions. The entire city is one large, intricate illusion. That was what the trickster god and Prince Alexi asked me to build. Not a city. A trick. I built a small, beautiful palace at the heart of it, where he lives and where the generator that controls the illusion is kept. I also built a set of townhouses and barracks outside the city gates for his soldiers and allies. That’s all. The rest is a lie.”

  “That’s impossible.”

  “Think about it. Haven’t you noticed the whole city resembles Erys, the capital of Kali? Your brother wanted it that way. But Arcadia is just over a year old. Do you think a city with a structure like Erys’s can be created in just a matter of months? Do you think the lush, grassy farms and fields could have become so bountiful in a snowy climate? The thriving markets? The thousands of civilians leading full, busy lives? No,” he said again, “That is what is impossible.”

  “But I’ve been there, several times,” Esmae insisted, her voice full of an almost desperate denial.

  Maya Sura looked at her with pity. “Have you? Which part of Arcadia have you visited? The woods with the yellow weeping trees?” When Esmae didn’t reply, her fists tightly clenched on the table, he nodded. “So you see now.”

  “The woods are real, but they’re outside the shield.”

  “Yes. The woods, the townhouses, the barracks. All right outside the shield, where you and everyone else can be tricked into seeing the illusion I constructed. If you got past the shield, you would see the reality. Snow, rock, and a palace. He does not allow anyone but his family, his most trusted generals, and a mere handful of staff beyond the shield. Everyone else is told he wants to keep his city free of the violence of war and so no one is permitted beyond its gates until the war is over. The civilians are illusions. The cottages and smoking chimneys and markets are illusions. There is nothing in Arcadia. Just a prince, his fleet of ships, and his legions of soldiers.”

  I objected. “Tell him I’ve been there, too. I’ve registered heat signatures, heartbeats, all the signs of a real city.”