The True Queen

by Sarah Fine

  Veikko grins. “I’ve got an absolutely fantastic idea about how to do that, if I may say so myself. But . . . why would I actually do something so risky?”

  “Because,” I say, “I need you to help me kidnap our Valtia and bring her home.”

  “You?” Oskar shakes his head. “Elli, if the Soturi have you, it’s over for us.”

  “He’s right,” says Raimo. “This could play right into their hands.”

  “She needs me.”

  “We all need you,” barks Oskar. Maarika lays her hand on her son’s arm, and he winces.

  “We can get her by ourselves,” says Freya, giving her big brother a worried look before turning her gaze to me. “You are needed here.”

  My hands clench, sending satisfying pain up my left arm. Ansa isn’t the only reason I want to venture out—if Lahja’s parents took her beyond the city wall and into the north woods. . . . “Very well. But I’ll need a signal too. I need to know that all of you are well, and that you have her.”

  As Freya begins to explain her system to me, the ground begins to shake again.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Ansa

  I awaken as the earth starts to move. I don’t feel it in my bones as I have before. Now I have no warning when the branches start to crack and fall onto our camp. All I can do is watch their leaves waving and pray that one falls on me.

  I’m chained to a cot once again.

  Not that it would matter, because I don’t think I’d try to run if I could. I’m floating in a sea of soul-deep exhaustion, and I don’t care what happens to me now. I lie here and shake until a bunch of dark-robed priests grab me, shouting to each other in Kupari. They heft me up and run with my cot. We bounce off trees and they drop me twice. Somewhere to my left, I hear Jaspar call out some kind of order. A priest holding onto the foot of my cot cries out as blisters appear on his forehead. He falls away as the others keep stumbling along.

  It’s almost funny. I wish I could laugh.

  After what feels like a lifetime, they set me down. The ground is still churning, but it’s not so bad. More like the rolling of waves of the Torden on a spring day. I look up and see the stars bright above me, framed on one side by the black shadows of trees. The priests have carried me to the perimeter of the wood, and there are warriors further out in the meadow that bounds the forest. I can hear them talking to each other as the earth settles and goes back to sleep.

  Kauko appears next to me. A young priest holds a torch so they can see me, and their faces look ghastly in its light. There are streaks of red and black along the elder’s cheeks, as well as a crust of white blisters on his nose, but he still manages to look vigorous and healthy. The cuff of Astia glints just beneath his sleeve, and I stare at it as if it could save me.

  Really, though, nothing can save me now.

  Kauko lays a heavy, clammy palm on my forehead. “You need more broth.” He asks the priest a question in Kupari, and the young man answers quickly. He looks pained and out of breath but does not bear any blisters or frostbite like the old man, perhaps because it seems like the most powerful wielders suffer the most. The elder was all right—but now he has drunk so much of my blood that I’m surprised he’s not sick with it.

  He shoos the young priest away after taking the torch from him. “You are weak, my Valtia.”

  I don’t bother replying. It doesn’t matter what I say. I’m not going to drink any broth.

  “Kauko!” Jaspar’s voice is a snarl as he approaches, carrying a torch of his own. Lines of worry bracket his mouth, and his eyes are red. I think he has been crying for Carina. They probably buried her this afternoon, her sword on her chest. I wonder if there are still berries in her pockets. “What did I feel just now?”

  “Chieftain, this one was not as bad—”

  “You’re a dirty liar, old man,” Jaspar says. “You promised us that when the Valtia entered the land, it would settle.” He gestures grandly at me, trussed to this cot and too weak to move. “And here she is. Maybe we should have poured her blood over the earth instead of into your fat mouth!”

  The elder smiles at him blandly. “Perhaps the evil of the impostor runs deeper than I guessed. Once we take over the temple, we will check the temple stores of copper. Those precious bars are the source of the magic in the land. If she’s used them for her own wealth, it could perhaps explain the instability.”

  “One explanation after another, and all serve your ends,” Jaspar says. “How convenient.”

  “If you have a better explanation, my wise young chieftain, perhaps you could offer it to this foolish old man.”

  I hear but do not see Jaspar slide his dagger from its sheath, and I watch without blinking as he presses it to the elder’s throat.

  And then drops it with a yelp as it glows red hot. Jaspar leaps back as the blade lands in the grass next to my cot. I can feel its heat emanating up from the ground. Jaspar shakes his hand and looks down at his palm, where angry blisters have erupted. “You will pay for that,” he says in a low voice.

  Kauko shakes his head. “I will defend myself if threatened. You would do the same. And remember that Kupari is not like any other land you’ve tried to subjugate. You may have iron, but we have ice and fire.” He blows a glitter of frost from between his thick rosy lips. “You cannot conquer it without my help.”

  Jaspar’s jaw clenches and he looks down at me. Or through me, really. But I’ve said I was sorry for Carina and I have no energy left to repeat the apology. “What of Ansa? Will she live out the night?”

  “I know how much blood to take, and when it is too much.”

  “So that means yes?” Jaspar has handed off his torch and is wrapping a loose cloth around his injured hand.

  “Yes,” says the elder. “We will give her bone broth to restore her, and then I will take more.”

  “She’ll run out eventually. Of blood, if not of magic.”

  Kauko nods. “We will prolong her life as long as possible. Then I will take it all.” His voice trembles slightly as he says this, perhaps with eagerness.

  Jaspar looks faintly disgusted, but that is all. He seems to feel nothing for me now that I am no longer under his control, no longer a useful ally to help him achieve his goals. Now I am just a wineskin for an evil old sorcerer. “Will you have all her magic, then?”

  Kauko shakes his head. “As you said, magic is infinite even when the vessel is not. When she dies, it flows into the Saadella. And that little girl is in the possession of the impostor. This is why we must keep this Valtia alive until we take the temple.”

  “You can have some of our broth if you need it to keep her alive.”

  Kauko inclines his head in apparent gratitude, then looks at Jaspar’s hand with a shrewd glint in his eye. “And I will heal that for you if you promise not to behave like a naughty child.”

  The look Jaspar gives him is pure hatred, simple, hot, and sure. But all he says is, “You would have my gratitude.”

  The elder grins, and I see blood between his teeth. “We can sit over there to do it.”

  A shriek splits the relative quiet as the clank of weapons and the stomping of boots reaches me from the woods. “Chieftain, we have something for you!”

  Jaspar squints and holds up his torch. “Ho! Did you find some spies?”

  One of the warriors laughs. “I doubt she’s a spy.”

  “Mama!” screams a little girl.

  The sound sets my heart beating again. Somehow, I find the strength to raise my head. Near the foot of my cot is a group of warriors. One holds a woman, her head a mass of blood that drips from her brown curls. And the other holds a girl.

  A little copper-haired girl. I know her eyes are blue like mine even though the darkness hides the color. She is struggling against the big warrior, reaching for the dead woman.

  “This one got crushed under a branch,” says the warrior holding the woman. “We killed a man who was with them. He’d been trying to pull the girl free.”

 
; “She was snagged by the dress but unhurt,” says the one holding the girl. “They must have been camping in the woods. Not sure if there are more—we’ve got a squad looking.”

  Jaspar tilts his head as I begin to breathe and see in color, everything bright and sharp. “She’s a feisty little thing. A fine raid prize.”

  Kauko is staring at the girl with wide eyes. His hands are trembling. “Saadella.”

  When she hears his voice, the little girl wheels around, and her mouth becomes a perfect circle of terror. The scream that comes from her vibrates along my bones and draws tears to my eyes. This is her. This is the one who will inherit the magic that hides inside my marrow. She is tiny and exquisite, too pretty to be real.

  “Mine,” I whisper.

  No one heeds me.

  “She’s mine,” I say, louder.

  The girl’s screams falter as her eyes fall to me on the cot. Her little brow squinches up. And then she starts to cry, too destroyed to even struggle against the warrior who awkwardly holds her. He doesn’t look sure whether to shake her or stroke her hair, so he merely lets her sag from his arms, her little body shuddering.

  I have never felt this way before. All I want to do is tear off my shackles and hold the small creature, rock her, smell her hair, and kiss her cheek. I am reeling with this need. This love.

  “I’m confused,” Jaspar says flatly.

  “Chieftain, this must have been ordained by the stars,” Kauko says in an awed voice. “This is the girl. This is the princess!”

  “You said the impostor had her. Why would the princess be in the woods?”

  “Perhaps her mother felt the evil of that fraud and tried to escape with her! And the stars have brought her straight to us!”

  “Too late for this one, though,” says the warrior holding the girl’s dead mother.

  “Bury her,” says Jaspar. “Do it quickly.”

  The warrior and two companions tromp off to do the deed. The warrior holding my girl grasps her under her armpits and holds her out like a sack of grain. She hangs there, limp and whimpering.

  “What do we do with her?” Jaspar asks. “Does she have magic too?”

  “No,” says Kauko. “But she will.” He is grinning again.

  “How do we do that?”

  “We allow the girl to rest. I can brew a sleeping draught that will give her peaceful sleep and allow her to recover. I will send my priests to find other herbs to loosen her muscles and steal her fight. I will need to keep her in a very docile and obedient state for the foreseeable future if this is to work.”

  “If what is to work?” Jaspar looks slightly ill at ease. “Will you bleed her as well?”

  “No. She must be calm for the passing and containment of the magic.” The elder glances down at me. “We will bleed this one again,” he says. “Almost to the point of death.” He kneels and touches my cheek, and I feel the burn of my power inside him. “And in the morning, we will kill her, and a new Valtia will rise.”

  I open my eyes and know I have made it. A warm breeze ruffles my hair as I turn my face to the sun. All around me are sounds I recognize and love—the scrape of a blade against a hide, the shuffle of boots in dirt, the grunts as grapplers collide, the clanging of a hammer on an anvil, the laughter and joking that only come with comradery earned through years of training, raiding, swapping stories by a fire under stars.

  My heart aches with joy as I see Sander, his dark hair short, his dark eyes alive with intelligence, circling a sparring opponent while Hilma, his mate, holds their child propped on her hip. And nearby are Einar and Jes, the fathers who chose me, who taught me to be what I was at my very best—a true warrior, a loyal wolf. Jes is queuing Einar’s shaggy hair while Einar sharpens his favorite dagger. They are arguing over which of them must check the traps tonight in the way only destined mates can.

  In a happy, floaty haze, I drift past my lost brothers and sisters, the ones taken by illness, the ones snatched away by the witch-made storm. My breath catches when I see Aksel training with a group of younger warriors on a patch of torn up earth, but when he sees me he merely waves and goes back to his maneuvers, as if he doesn’t care at all that I gave him an utterly agonizing death.

  Up ahead is a tent, and within I see the broad shoulders and scarred arms of Lars. He sits at a table, a cup of ale at his elbow, plotting some sort of strategy . . . with his brother. Nisse is here too, and as I near he gives his brother a good-natured punch on the arm, and the two of them laugh as if they are boys once more.

  All is forgiven here, I suppose. Wrongs have been erased, mistakes forgiven. I feel as if I am weightless, free of the guilt that has nestled poisonous and oily in my gut—the people I have killed, all the pain I caused. It’s behind me now, and all I have is an eternal future.

  “Ansa,” Thyra calls, and I spin around. She’s walking away from Carina, who smiles and lifts her hand to greet me. Thyra is whole and perfect and so lovely that a tear streaks down my cheek. Her skin is smooth and tanned, her eyes that radiant blue, her short hair messy and framing her exquisite face, her lean arms revealing the taut curves of her muscles.

  “I have missed you so much,” I manage to say.

  She stops in front of me and tilts her head. “What are you doing here?”

  “I’ve died,” I say.

  A tiny line forms between her brows. “You don’t belong here.”

  I laugh. “Yes, I do. I did my best, but my life ended a few hours ago.” And I’m relieved. I don’t miss that body at all. Now I feel well and free and simple, no need to fight the fire and ice magic that had knitted itself into my skin and bones and soul. I reach out to touch her cheek, but for some reason, I can’t quite lift my arm. It’s not obeying me.

  Thyra draws her dagger. “I’m sorry, Ansa. You don’t belong here.”

  She moves like lightning, like she always did. Her blade is buried to the hilt in my gut before I even feel the pain. But when it comes, it sears me to the core, as does the cold look in her eye. “You didn’t keep your promise,” she whispers.

  She yanks her blade from my body, and I’m falling, boneless and helpless. The heavenly battlefield refuses to catch me—instead, it opens like a monster’s mouth and swallows me, and Thyra and Carina and Aksel and Nisse and all the others gather to watch my descent. They recede until I lose sight of them, and then I’m plummeting through darkness until I slam onto rock and agony explodes along my limbs.

  Unable to breathe, unable to move, I lie in my new forever-place and know I have endless time to suffer. Thyra, my Thyra, made this her final gift to me. My tribe dwells in their paradise, backs turned to me and hearts closed. They are my heaven, and I . . . am nothing now. Maybe I’ve always been this way. Maybe I’ve only been fooling myself. I have never really been a Krigere.

  I am the real impostor.

  As if this place has been devised to double my pain, I hear the whisper of Kupari, trilling and indecipherable, and the sound reminds me that though I was born to them, I don’t belong there either. I belong nowhere, and that is where I am.

  Cursed, apparently, to listen to that awful language for eternity.

  When I feel the wolves begin to nibble my flesh, I realize the punishment is only just beginning. Pain burns across my wrists and ankles as they tug at my carcass. And then one of them clutches me in its jaws and hefts me up. I’m not strong enough to fight, and my dangling arms swing like bags of sand.

  “Better not be dead,” Sig says against my ear. His breaths are harsh and rasping.

  Sig? Is he here too? He deserves to be, for what he did to Thyra.

  “Can you stand, Ansa?”

  “What?” I whisper. How can he be asking me that? I’m being eaten by wolves.

  He says something in Kupari—and is answered by a deep voice nearby. Fingers prod my cheek. I fight to open my eyes.

  “Aren’t we dead?” I ask.

  “Quiet.”

  My eyes pop open, and confusion nearly drowns me. I’m surrou
nded by black-robed priests—including the one who is carrying me . . . and using Sig’s voice. “Sig?”

  “Quiet!”

  Somewhere to our left, another voice calls out in Kupari—and is answered in Krigere when someone shouts, “What’s wrong?”

  Sig’s arms tighten around me and he starts to run. We’re in the trees, and the priests are spreading out around us. One of them, the biggest, turns his head.

  “It’s you,” I cry, realizing that I’m in the hands of the two men who murdered my love. I want to wrap my hands around Sig’s throat and burn him to ash, but I’m too weak to even lift my arms.

  The big, dark ice wielder asks Sig a question, and Sig trills his answer. I try to struggle as his strides become more urgent.

  Fire bursts among the branches just over our heads. Sig flings me to the ground, and I roll, landing on my side at the base of an aspen. The ice wielder whirls around, and his eyes are black as pitch as he sends a blast of thundering ice in the direction the fireball came from. All of a sudden the wood is alive with wielders, ice and fire swirling and colliding all around me. Hooded figures sprint back and forth, diving for cover, hurling billowing frost, blades of ice, waves of blistering heat, balls of flame. Everyone shouts in Kupari and I understand none of it.

  All I know is that I’m not actually dead, and I’m relieved, because it means I’m not being eaten by wolves in a black pit of forever-despair. That was slightly worse than being alive.

  I recognize the faces of some of the wielders hurling fire and ice—these are the priests who serve Kauko. But the ones with Sig and the dark ice wielder are strangers—until one of them sends a little burst of flame at an oncoming priest, and I recognize her as the girl in the clearing, the one with the older woman.

  The one I saved by killing Carina.

  She looks young and terrified as she throws herself behind a boulder with the big ice wielder. He clutches her skinny shoulders and looks her over while he speaks sternly to her. The other wielders keep fighting, and one of them shouts at the ice wielder. “Oskar,” the woman says as she dodges a fireball hurled by a balding priest.