“So sorry, Your Highness,” Stix murmured, hurrying into position on Vivia’s left side. “A message came in that needed immediate processing. But,” she added, glancing at Serafin, “I wasn’t sure he should see it.”
“What could be—”
Stix waved her off. “We can deal with it after this.”
Right. This. The unveiling of Vivia’s under-city. The reason all these hundreds of families had lined up, and these thousands of people had piled into the Skulks to ogle her.
And the reason Vivia’s guts had punched holes through her other organs.
“Vivia,” her father declared, a bass boom that could silence an entire city—and did. It was good to hear him so strong after months of fragile whispers. It was, it was. “Shall we begin?” Serafin moved to Vivia’s other side.
“Hye,” she breathed, and hastily, she tapped once more at the edges of her face. Yes, Mother, it’s on. Then she sucked in her breath, matched her father’s fierce expression, and—
“The empires,” Serafin bellowed, “have resumed the war.”
Vivia’s teeth clacked shut.
“We did not ask for this, and we never have.”
Her father was speaking. Why was he speaking?
“Always, they try to cow us and displace us. Always they try to crush us beneath their boot heels, and always, Nubrevna has stood strong.”
What was her father doing? This was supposed to be her speech. Vivia had spent three days writing it.
“This city and its people have stood for centuries.” He opened his arms wide, body hale and voice relentless. “And we will stand for centuries more. Today marks a new era for us. A new beginning that we will not let the empires steal away.”
He pumped a fist to the sky, and the crowds broke loose like a thunderstorm. Noise slammed against Vivia, charged and alive.
“Today,” he went on, somehow pitching his voice even louder, “we open the Lovats under-city and begin moving families into its homes—we begin moving you. We have worked hard for two weeks to prepare this space. We have worked hard for you.”
More stamping, more screaming, and Vivia knew she should be stamping and screaming too. Not just because the under-city was ready, but because this was the Serafin she remembered. This was the force she had grown up with, the ruler she’d tried to be.
But she was too stunned to do anything. He was saying her speech before the people she had worked to house. Hye, he had always told her, Share the glory, share the blame. But this … this felt bigger than that.
A hand gripped Vivia’s forearm. She stiffened, knowing Stix meant only to comfort her. Or maybe her friend meant it as a sign of solidarity—a sign that someone else in this rapturous mayhem knew Serafin was claiming glory he hadn’t earned.
As he trumpeted on, reciting words Vivia had written and words Vivia had practiced in the mirror, she found her shoulders rising toward her ears. Found her fingers curling into aching, throbbing fists at her sides.
One should not need credit, Jana always used to say, so long as the job gets done. And the job was getting done. It was getting done well—Vivia had seen to that. And her father looked healthier than he had in ages. She should be happy. She should be happy.
“And today,” her father finished, “we prove to ourselves and to the empires that though we cannot always see the blessing in the loss…”
“Strength is the gift of our Lady Baile,” finished the people, a refrain to shake the city’s ancient stones, “and she will never abandon us.”
“Vivia?” Serafin turned to his daughter, beaming and victorious. “Open the doors.”
And Vivia’s throat closed up. Tears seared along the backs of her eyeballs, for of course, those were supposed to be her words. She was supposed to turn to Stix and say them. Captain? Open the doors.
Instead, her father had said them. Instead, the Queen-in-Waiting was the one turning toward the entrance. And instead, the Queen-in-Waiting, who had failed thoroughly to be a bear or a Nihar or anything impressive at all, was the one laying gloved hands upon an iron latch while her father basked in the city’s love.
Behind Vivia, the entire city of Lovats quaked with joy, with excitement, with anticipation—and all of it was focused on Serafin Nihar. A man who had never even set foot in the under-city.
Vivia shoved open the entrance doors. A groan of hinges and wood that the crowds’ din swallowed whole. Then she stepped inside, and thanked Noden that the hallway was empty.
Because this way, no one could see her cry.
* * *
Vivia led the way into the under-city. The family behind her, a mother and two sons, uttered not a word the entire way through Pin’s Keep, nor into the cellar, nor down the tunnel leading underground. Torches flickered, smokeless and Firewitched. An expense Vivia had insisted on in a space where smoke could be deadly.
She wished the family would speak. Somehow, the silence was worse than the crowd’s cacophony outside.
This morning, when Vivia had imagined this moment, triumph had foamed in her chest. She’d felt so full with happiness and pride that she’d wanted to laugh into her breakfast. She had laughed into her breakfast.
Now, her chest felt bludgeoned. Over and over, a staccato explosion that made her lungs billow double-time. That crushed her ribs in a vise and made her heart feel so heavy, so flattened it was hard to breathe.
She wanted to break something. She wanted to scream. She wanted to curl in a ball and cry. But this wasn’t rage. This wasn’t grief. It was something skittery and aflame. Something shameful and unforgiving.
One should not need credit, she shouted inwardly. One should not need credit! She wasn’t even fully Queen, yet already she was a terrible one, exactly what her mother had trained her not to be.
And an unfaithful daughter too.
It didn’t help that her left shoulder ached. The gash from a raider blade two weeks ago had healed well thanks to salves and tonics. Time in the underground lake had helped too, but the wound wasn’t fully gone yet.
When at last Vivia reached the tunnel’s end, six faces framed a doorway hewn from the limestone: the Hagfishes, smoothed away by time and foxfire.
Two weeks ago, Vivia had come here with Stix. For the first time, she had pushed this door wide and discovered the forgotten under-city—just as her mother had always described it would be. Now, when Vivia shoved back the limestone, light rumbled over her. Laughter too, from her volunteers and soldiers.
She wished it would all go away.
“Welcome,” Vivia wheezed without glancing at the family. She needed to leave here. She needed to go somewhere alone and face this bludgeoning in private.
The mother crept into the under-city first, eyes as wide as her two boys’. “Thank you, Your Majesty,” she said, hesitant but real.
“Not Your Majesty,” Vivia gruffed out. “Just Your Highness.” Instantly she wished she hadn’t said that. Rude, rude, rude—she knew she was being rude, yet rather than apologize or simply say You’re welcome, like a normal human would do, Vivia kept staring into the middle distance.
Then Varrmin—thank the Hagfishes—appeared. He worked in the Pin’s Keep kitchens, jovial, warm, and all the things Vivia had never been. The instant he was near enough for Vivia to see the gray scruff in his beard, she spun on her heel and fled.
There was another exit from the under-city that fed into the Cisterns, and she aimed for that. She wanted to feel the Tidewitched waters of those tunnels—and she wanted to reach them before any guards could form rank around her.
She wasn’t fast enough to evade Stix, though. Vivia didn’t know where the woman came from, but suddenly she was there, falling into step beside Vivia, her long legs easily keeping Vivia’s frantic pace.
“How is it,” Stix asked, “that men always seem to claim victory over the triumphs earned by women?”
Vivia didn’t answer that question. She hadn’t answered it two months before, either, when Merik had been appointed Admira
l with absolutely no qualifications to recommend him except his gender.
Instead, Vivia stomped faster. The empty, lantern-lit houses she had worked so hard to clean now glowered down at her.
“I’m sorry he did that,” Stix went on. “I know you wrote that speech.”
“One should not need credit,” Vivia murmured, “as long as it gets the job done.”
“Wait.” Stix reached for her. “Your Highness.”
Your Highness. No more calling her Sir or Vivia. For two weeks, it had been this way, and Vivia didn’t know if it was because of the kiss or her new title. Either way, she hated it. She wanted the old Stix back.
“Please,” Vivia said at last, wishing her voice wasn’t so shrill. “Please, just call me ‘Viv.’”
No reaction. Instead, Stix offered a rolled-up missive stamped with the Royal Voicewitch seal. “This came for you, but I didn’t think … That is to say, I thought you should see it before your father did.”
Vivia knew she ought to reprimand Stix for hiding this from Serafin. He might not be King or King Regent, but he was still Vivia’s first and foremost adviser. She said nothing, though, because for the first time since leaving the crowds outside Pin’s Keep, Vivia’s heart felt a bit less flattened. Her lungs felt a bit less crushed.
She slowed at an intersection and unfurled the message. Foxfire flared brighter than lamps here, casting the paper in green.
It was from the Empress of Marstok.
Now that true negotiations for trade have begun, I wish to invite you to Azmir. Some decisions are best made face-to-face. As are some apologies, particularly for the treaty terms my ambassadors attempted to make before my return.
I have alerted all soldiers to allow Nubrevnan Wind transport into the city, should you decide to come. All I ask is for several hours’ advance warning.
Vivia blinked. Then read the message again, a new sensation winding through her muscles and lungs. A hot, tightening sensation that was a thousand times preferable to the frenzied panic from before.
On the third read-through, a laugh choked up from her belly. For surely the Empress could not be serious. “Tell Her Majesty,” Vivia said at last, crumpling the missive and shoving it into Stix’s waiting hands, “that she can come to me if she really wants to negotiate. And that all I ask is for ‘several hours’ advance warning.’”
Stix chuckled at that, but it was a taut, nervous sound. And when Vivia launched back into a march, she followed more sedately behind.
“Who the hell-waters does she think she is?” Vivia demanded.
“Well,” Stix said, “she probably thinks she’s the Empress of the Flame Children, Chosen Daughter of the Fire Well, the Most Worshipped of the Marstoks, Destroyer of Kendura Pass—”
“And?”
“And she’s used to people doing her bidding.”
Vivia scoffed. “I could have just as many titles too, if I wanted them.”
“Of course you could, Your Highness.”
Your Highness. There it was again, and just like that, it was too much. Vivia didn’t need Stix’s pity; she didn’t need Stix’s condescension. And above all, she didn’t need credit or titles or the adoration of a city she worked so hard for.
She didn’t, she didn’t.
They were almost to the exit now. The wooden barricade built to keep unsuspecting refugees out of the dangerous tunnels glimmered in the green light, and the waters of the Cisterns rumbled in Vivia’s chest. They called to her magic as they barreled past, uneven and weak since the attack two weeks ago.
Before Vivia could tow out the key that would allow her through the barricade, Stix pushed in front of her. “Wait. Please,” she began. “Just hear me out, Your Highness.”
“Why?” Rude, rude—there she went again, being rude. “What is it you need to say?”
“I think you should go to Azmir.”
It was not what Vivia expected, and it was also not what Vivia wanted.
But Stix wasn’t finished. “Believe it or not, the city will not collapse if you’re gone for a day, and the chance to trade with Marstok … Can we really risk passing that up?”
“I don’t have time,” Vivia snapped. She pulled out the key. “Please move aside, Captain.”
Stix didn’t move. She just folded her arms across her chest, a pose Vivia had seen her make a thousand times, usually relaxed and smiling while her nearsighted eyes squinted.
Now, there was no smile. Now, Stix’s lips were pinched tight. “Why don’t you have time? The operation with the under-city is complete, and you have soldiers across the city to see that it runs smoothly. The High Council doesn’t meet until tomorrow, and you have me to make sure the dam repairs proceed as planned. If anything, today is the perfect day for you to go.”
“But my father,” Vivia began.
“Has nothing to do with you. He stole your speech. He stole the applause and recognition that should have been yours. You are Queen-in-Waiting. Not him. And how many times have we said that Noden and the Hagfishes ought to bend to a woman’s rule?
“Please,” Stix added, straightening off the barricade. “The Hasstrels only sent us that one shipment of grains, and now they aren’t answering our Voicewitches. We need this. So do it for you, and do it for Nubrevna. You might not have all the titles the Empress has, but that doesn’t make you any less than her. And you are Queen-in-Waiting, Viv. Not your father.”
Ah. Viv. The one thing Vivia had wanted her best friend to say for the last two weeks, and now it was offered alongside a plea.
The bludgeoning returned, twice as strong. Twice as vicious. Vivia had to get away before her chest burst. She had to be alone.
“I’ll consider it,” she said, stunned when the words sounded crisp and normal. Then she pushed past Stix, unlocked the barricade, and hurried into the tunnels beyond as fast as her bungling feet would carry her.
And when the Cistern’s tides barreled toward her, she did not try to stop them. She did not use her magic to take control or ease their impact. Instead, she let the waters of her city drag her down and carry her far away.
SIX
Stacia Sotar ran her fingers over the carvings in the limestone. Her skin glowed green beneath the foxfire. A hundred tiny boxes, each with diagonal lines to intersect, framed a rectangle as tall as she. It was as if someone had intended to build a door here, had even begun the process, and then abandoned it before actually hollowing out a passage.
Or maybe the door only travels one way.
For some reason, Stix kept thinking that this morning. That maybe, somehow, by some magic she did not understand, there was indeed a doorway here.
A doorway that only traveled one way.
Stix’s hand fell away from the carvings. She eased back two steps, head shaking as it did every time she’d come here. The urge to talk to Vivia swelled in her chest. She wanted to ask Vivia what she thought this door might be, tucked off the edge of the under-city, and above all, she wanted to know if Vivia heard the voices that trickled out from the stone.
The truth was, though, that Stix would never … she could never speak of this to Vivia. The Queen-in-Waiting had enough burdens as it was—too many, actually, and Stix refused to add to that heap.
It didn’t help that things had been stretched so thin between her and Vivia since the kiss they never spoke of. It was so odd—had always been so odd—that Stix could be so near to her best friend, yet somehow a thousand leagues away. She caught glimpses of the real Vivia from time to time, but that was all she ever got. Tiny peeks that never seemed to last.
After the kiss, Stix thought she’d finally earned that raw honesty. That she’d earned Vivia’s true face she so adored. But then the promise of the crown had been laid atop Vivia’s head, and with it, a thousand tasks needed to rebuild a city scarred. Vivia had retreated behind her masks and her duties.
Leaving Stix to face the whispers all alone.
Besides, what could Stix even say? I know the underground city too
well, Viv. I find secret corners and hidden streets that I should not be able to find.
Or, I feel anxious every moment I’m away from the city. But as soon as I’m back inside its walls, I feel as if I can breathe again.
Or, the one that scared Stix the most, the one she couldn’t even voice aloud to herself: There are whispers in the back of my skull, Viv. They talk all day, all night, and I am slowly losing my mind to them.
The whispers only spoke when Stix was aboveground, out of the under-city. They only screamed when she was far away from this door. When she was here with it, though, they were quiet.
It had started with dreams two weeks ago. Darkness and screaming and a pain in her neck that woke her in the night. She found her sheets soaked, sweat sliding off her in thick rivulets.
A week after that, the shadows had started coming during the day. Little flickers of movement that made her fear her already weak vision might be getting worse. The shadows only lasted a few days, though. Then they vanished and the whispers began.
The whispers were the worst part yet, because she could never quite hear them. It reminded her of a cadet she’d trained, who, no matter how much she told him to speak up, never got his voice above a squeak. The majority of what he said went forever unheard, forever lost to the din around him.
These whispers were like that.
At times, Stix thought them a hundred different voices speaking inside her brain. Other times she thought them only one, as if all those separate sounds and languages were blended together like a vast orchestra playing a single tune.
One voice or many, it did not change the fact that none of the words made sense. It was a language—or languages—she did not know.
Worse yet, the low, inaudible murmur of the voices never ceased. All day, all night, they followed Stix. Always incomprehensible, always angry, and they expected Stix to do something about it.
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