The Impostor Queen

by Sarah Fine

  “No!” I shout, ripping my sleeve from Sig’s sweaty grasp before Oskar has a chance to. “We’re going there to destroy the elders and take back the temple. But I won’t help with anything else. The acolytes and apprentices are innocent. The Saadella is a child. And the Kupari people need protection, especially now! Destroying the temple will destroy them—their hope, their will—and with the Soturi at our borders, I won’t let it happen.” My mouth snaps shut, but my voice is still echoing throughout the cavern. Every cave dweller’s eyes are on me.

  “Spoken like a queen,” Raimo says with amusement. “You hear that, everyone?” He points to me. “If you can wield, come with us. It’s time to reclaim the Temple on the Rock.”

  We set out perhaps an hour later, and by that time my fear and hope are twined so tightly inside me that I’m barely aware of what’s going on around me. Small things filter in, though. Oskar’s loud fight with Freya about whether she can come, and the blast of heat she sends at him as she tries to convince him she can help. Sig’s laughter as he watches, and the way he makes the air around her so hot that her skin turns pink and she starts to cry. Oskar’s grateful look as the two of them walk out of the cavern and leave her behind, safe in her mother’s arms. Maarika’s inscrutable gray eyes, following her son’s tall form as he strides into the winter sunlight. “He’s still got burns all over his back,” she says to me. “He almost died an hour ago.”

  “I’ll do my best to protect him.” I kiss her forehead and turn away, already wondering if I can keep that promise. What if I have to choose between protecting him and protecting the Saadella?

  We have twenty wielders in all. Two Suurin. One tottering, centuries-old man. Sig’s eight wielders, including Usko, Mikko, and Tuuli, lean and wary as they glare at me and Oskar. And nine cavern dwellers—Veikko, Ismael, Aira, and six others—each of them somber and pale as they hug their families and clear bundles of clothes and food off the horses. We’re not moving camp today.

  Instead, we’re going to war. Us against thirty priests and three powerful elders. Thirty apprentices and at least a hundred acolytes who could fight for either side. We might have a better chance now than ever before, but our odds still don’t seem good.

  Oskar, his hair tied back, the circles under his eyes telling me of all he’s been through in the last day, joins me as I stroke the neck of the roan mare. “What will happen if we succeed?” he asks.

  “Isn’t that a question for Raimo?” I murmur.

  He brushes a coppery lock of hair from my brow. “I don’t think so.”

  I look into his eyes. “I’m a weapon in this war. I’m not fooling myself that I’m anything more than that.”

  His lips curve into a half smile. “I think you are fooling yourself.”

  “You said it—I’m no queen.”

  His gaze on my face feels like a caress. “I said you weren’t a queen to me. I don’t get to say what you are to others.”

  I turn away from him, fiddling with the horse’s reins as it nickers softly. “It’s pointless to think about now.”

  Oskar sighs. “Will you ride with me?”

  “No. You need your strength.”

  “I have plenty, Elli. More than I want sometimes.”

  My fingers stray along the horse’s silky, warm neck. “Can you do this, Oskar? You never wanted to be a part of this. You’ve never fought—”

  His cool hand closes over my shoulder. “Stop,” he says quietly. “Raimo says this is what I was made for.”

  “But Sig told me all these things he could do, manifesting versus wielding, blade magic—do you know any of that?”

  “If I told you I’ll learn quickly, would that help?”

  “No,” I say in a choked voice.

  His thumb strokes my shoulder blade. “Then I don’t know what to say, except I’m sorry. I’ve been denying my magic for so long, but I can’t walk away from it or this battle any more than you can now.”

  “But you want to.”

  “No.”

  “Because of me?”

  He gives me a squeeze, and I sway, wanting to feel his fingertips slide along my neck, to lean back and feel his arms around me, to tilt my head up and let his scratchy stubble abrade my cheek.

  “I think I was supposed to save you,” he says. “How could that have happened by accident? It seems like the stars fated us to meet. Even then, I was yours—your sword, your shield—as much as you’ve been mine. As for how I feel about you—” He places a cool kiss on the top of my head. “That feels . . . separate. I want to tuck it away and keep it for myself. It’s not the reason I won’t walk away. Now that I know what’s happening in the temple with those acolytes, I can’t. I want you to stop feeling guilty, Elli. I need to help them.”

  I laugh, but it’s strangled by my tears. “Because no one else is there to do it,” I whisper, echoing his words from weeks ago—the reason he said he saved me. I want to tuck him away until everything is safe. “You know why I can’t ride with you. I’m scared to touch your skin now.” Though I want to. Stars, I want to.

  His hand slides off my shoulder. “Fair enough. You won’t ride with me. But do you even know how to ride a horse?” he asks, his voice teasing.

  I press my lips together. Honestly, I have no idea. “If I told you I’ll learn quickly, would that help?”

  He lets out a bark of laughter as I mimic his words. “Knowing you, I don’t doubt that you would. But it would be a tragedy if you broke your neck before we even reached the city gates.”

  “Elli will ride with me,” calls Raimo. “Oskar, your weight alone is enough to break that poor mare’s back.” And then comes that cackle, and this time, it makes me smile. I step around Oskar, but as I do, I close my fingers over his sleeve. His powerful muscles tense at my touch. It’s difficult to let go.

  Raimo’s in the saddle of a black gelding that’s impatiently stamping its front hooves. Ismael comes over and offers me his knee. I take his calloused hand, which pulses with warmth, and let him boost me up behind the old man, whose musty smell wrinkles my nose.

  “Elli,” Raimo whispers, “what did you do to Oskar?”

  I glance over to see Oskar standing next to the roan, looking at me in a way I feel low in my belly like a long, slow pull. “You told me to stick close to him.”

  “I never told you to take the boy’s heart—or to offer him yours.”

  “It just happened,” I mumble. It happened so deeply and thoroughly that I’m having trouble thinking around my worry for him, even though he told me not to.

  “You’ll regret this love,” Raimo warns, kicking lightly at the horse’s flank. “Best to smother it now, while it’s still kindling. Trust me on that.”

  My hands tighten around his scrawny waist as the horse trots toward the trail to the marshlands. “Will you tell me why?”

  He shakes his head, his tufts of white hair waving in the cold wind that gusts down the narrow path. Behind us come the clomps and clacks of hooves as the others follow. “Sometimes knowing the future is a curse.”

  It feels like I’ve been kicked in the gut. I focus on breathing, on the trail ahead of us, winding through tufts of pale-brown marsh grass, once again frozen stiff and rustling by the merciless cold. Oskar must be chilled. He’s bundled in his furs, but I know how winter makes him ache.

  I push the thought of him away, at least for now. I have to keep my mind on what we must do—and how we must do it. “How are we going to take the temple?”

  “Let the Suurin use you to project their power. Together, with you to amplify their magic, they are as strong as a Valtia wearing the cuff of Astia.”

  That’s what Sig said as well. “But they barely speak to each other.” I look over my shoulder to see them riding side by side, Sig with a light cloak thrown over his bare shoulders, his white-gold hair shining under the sun, and Oskar, dark, grim, and drawn-looking, his broad shoulders hunched against the chill. Neither of them acknowledges the other.

  “They�
�ll work together when the time comes. Deep inside, they recognize that they need each other, and they know they share the same fate. Their bond isn’t an easy one to break, no matter how badly both might wish for it sometimes.”

  It seems like a flimsy foundation on which to build a war. “How can the two of them work together that well, though? The Valtia is one person who controls both extremes.”

  “The Astia is no different.”

  My eyebrows shoot up. It sounds like what Oskar said, about letting me wield his magic as my own, about being my sword instead of me being his. And it makes no sense. “I couldn’t be more different! The Valtia wields her magic with absolute control, and me—” My frustration is choking me. “Other people wield me.”

  “Only because you allow it, stupid girl. You and Oskar make the same mistake, thinking you can’t control things when you actually can.”

  I grit my teeth. “When Oskar or Sig want to withhold their magic, they can. Both of them have done it to me. And when they decide to offer it, they do. But I can’t withhold anything. When Sig touched me in that square, he took the power from me, even though I never would have hurt Mim.”

  “You forced that warmth into Oskar.”

  “Yes, when he was mostly dead and unable to resist.”

  Raimo’s scrawny frame jounces in the saddle as we gallop along. His words come between ragged breaths. “As long as you think like that, you’ll be as brainless and helpless as the actual cuff of Astia. Use your will, Elli, for surely you have one. How else did you survive the torture that nearly killed you? How else did you make it to the woods? How else are you right here, after weeks of winter spent living in a cave, for stars’ sake, looking stronger and healthier than I ever expected? No will, my arse,” he scoffs. “Remember who you are. Realize what you are. Do both those things, or you’ll either be completely useless—or too dangerous to help anyone.”

  My thoughts churn. We’re only an hour from the city, and I have no time to learn how to do the things Raimo says are within my power. But that doesn’t change anything. The Kupari—all the Kupari, not just the citizens of the town, but all the wielders who’ve escaped to the outlands, the acolytes doomed to die in the catacombs, the little Saadella at the mercy of the elders—need to feel safe.

  But is that what we’re doing? Or are we destroying the last shred of safety they have? “Raimo, I think we should try to talk to the elders. If they were desperate enough to try to pass off Mim as the Valtia, they must fear the Soturi. They were trying to put on a show of strength. Maybe—”

  “And, what, are you thinking they’ll agree to stop living off the blood of young wielders, grow weak and old, and die? You think they’ll step down and allow a Valtia to truly rule the land, and that they’ll change the laws and let all wielders walk free—wielders who’ll have children who will grow in strength and magic, enough to challenge the priesthood—just because we ask them nicely? Oh, yes, let’s give that a try.”

  My cheeks burn as we ride along the wide road that leads to the northeast. Up ahead, dark smoke still hangs over the distant city. Within that haze, the massive, pale-green dome of the Temple on the Rock looms high and ominous. “The Soturi will come,” I say. “It’s only a matter of time.”

  “Then perhaps the Kupari need wiser rulers than a group of blood-drinking sorcerers who are more interested in maintaining their positions than protecting their own people—and letting the people protect themselves.”

  Sig and Oskar bring their horses alongside ours. The fire wielder has a wide grin on his face. “Can you see it? Can you feel it?” He lets out a shaky chuckle. “Chaos,” he mouths.

  I glance at Oskar, who nods toward the city gate. “It’s open,” he says. “No one’s guarding it.”

  I squint into the distance and realize he’s right. Every minute brings us closer, and now I can see straight up the eastern road that leads to the square. “What’s happened?” It can’t be the Soturi—we’d surely have seen them on the march.

  “We killed the Valtia, Elli,” calls Sig, every word dripping with triumph. “We’ve turned the world upside down.”

  My heart seizes up like a fist as we reach the threshold of our great Kupari city. Yesterday it looked bad, but today it looks ravaged. The streets are empty, save for debris that litters the streets, the guts of ransacked, looted homes. A few scared faces peer at us from alleys or open doorways, but no one questions why twenty horses just cantered through the city gates. No one tries to stop us. We pass block after block, and signs of mayhem are everywhere. Carts left at the side of the road, their wooden wheels broken. A smear of blood on the stones of the council building. And then—

  “I hear them,” Sig says, kicking his horse into a gallop.

  Raimo curses and does the same, and Oskar and the other wielders follow close behind. I hold on tight to the skinny old man in front of me, both of us puffing with the exertion of trying to stay in the saddle. We’re nearly to the square, and already I can see the crowds, arms waving and hands fisted, all pressing up the northern road that leads to the temple. “It looks like we’re not the only ones who decided to storm the temple,” Oskar calls.

  We ride to the outskirts of the main square, which is full of enraged citizens bearing whatever weapons they’ve been able to find—mostly the tools of their trade, scythes, bows, hammers. The Kupari have never had an army. We’ve never needed it, never wanted it—all because the elders didn’t want anyone challenging their rule, so they convinced us that the Valtia would take care of us forever.

  And now, without her, we’re helpless.

  “Oy!” Oskar shouts as he reins in his mount near the back of the crowd. “What’s happening?”

  A stout man with curly blond hair and a wind-chapped face gives us a puzzled look. “Where’ve you been in the last day? The priests have locked themselves and our new Valtia inside the temple, and we want to see her! The barbarians are coming one way or the other—overland or by the lake, and we want to know what she’ll do about it!”

  “Let us through,” Sig shouts.

  The red-cheeked man looks at him like he’s crazy. “You think I can magically move thousands of people out of your way?”

  Sig’s eyes glow and he lifts his hand, tongues of flame dripping from his fingertips. “No, but I can.” A ball of flame bursts forth from his palm, and he hurls it over the heads of the mob.

  Oskar lets out a frustrated sound and swipes his arm through the air, his movements in synchrony with Raimo’s. Extinguished by their magic, the fireball disappears just before it lands in the middle of the crowd. “You arse,” Oskar hisses. “You could have killed dozens.”

  Sig’s grin is pure war. “That’s what I came here to do, brother.” His pale arms are tense as he spurs his horse forward. But the crowd merely shouts and heaves, too packed in and confused to move aside. My stomach clenches—if they panic, we’ll have a stampede, and innocent people will die.

  Raimo pulls his walking stick from the back of the horse and pokes the stout man, who is gaping up at Sig in silent terror. “You’re going to help us. Because I have the true Valtia right here. She’ll get the priests to open up.”

  The man tears his eyes from Sig. “What?”

  “What are you doing?” I whisper.

  “You won’t recognize her without her ceremonial makeup, but look closely,” says Raimo, amusement in his voice. “Coppery hair, pale-blue eyes.” He elbows me in the belly. “Show them the mark.”

  A few other people have turned toward us, and the noise of the crowd has quieted a bit. My lips barely move as I speak right into Raimo’s whiskery ear. “You know as well as I do that I’m not—”

  “Ah, she’s a modest thing. Didn’t want be seen without her makeup and fancy dress,” Raimo shouts to the crowd.

  More people are peering at us. I have to look away from Oskar when I see the raw worry in his eyes.

  “Do you want to get through this mob without hurting them, or do you want Sig to burn the wh
ole city down?” Raimo whispers. “Show them the mark, and I’ll take care of the rest.”

  My hands shake as I pull my skirt up and clamp my three fingers over it as I slide my stocking down my left leg. It’s an odd, intimate thing to do in front of a crowd of gawkers, and my heart slams against my breast as my blood-flame mark is revealed. The gasp rolls through the entire square, followed by a flurry of anxious muttering.

  “Was that other Valtia an impostor?”

  “We thought her magic turned on her—but was it all fake?”

  “Who is this girl? Could she really be the lost—”

  “Let us through!” Sig shouts again. “I got your Valtia right here! Let us through!”

  Oskar edges his mount close, like he’s prepared to kill anyone who makes a grab for me. But already the crowd is stepping aside, offering us a path. Waves of bitter cold flow from my ice wielder as we move forward.

  “Keep it up and you’ll kill your horse,” Raimo says to Oskar as we weave our way among the scythe-wielding citizens, all the way to the north end of the square. Atop the Valtia’s platform, the burned remains of her ceremonial paarit remain, copper solidified in oozy dribbles along its sides, riveting it to the stones beneath it. I stare at it to avoid the eyes of the citizens, who are looking at me as if I’m their salvation. It kills me to offer them a second false Valtia in as many days, especially when I hear the jubilant whispers. “It really is her! She’s come back! Stars save us, she’s returned.”

  They chatter about how they recognize me, even though some of them probably kicked mud in my face when I was banished from the city. They wonder aloud where I’ve been, whether I really did go mad as the rumors said. They talk about me as if I can’t hear them, and I’m happy to pretend that’s true.

  Sig is on my right, Oskar on my left. Both of them have set jaws and fierce looks, and the oddest thing is happening around me—the air swirls with wisps of cold and hot, sliding across my face and gusting my hair. “On my signal,” Raimo says quietly.