The True Queen

by Sarah Fine

  His smile dies and he steps back quickly, speaking in rapid, urgent tones to Sig, who lies limp and weak beside me. Sig lets out a rattling laugh. “He can feel the ice growing inside you, Ansa.”

  “Then let him be afraid.”

  “We’re not your enemy. He’s out there, blowing the fire toward us. He’ll use the flames to burn our shadows into this wall.”

  Oskar takes a few steps beyond us, facing the oncoming flames. The lean wielder who carried me on his horse stands in the same manner a few yards away. Both of them lift their hands—Oskar only lifts one—and the trees rattle with the force of the wind they produce. Oskar shivers and shakes as the magic pours from him. Just ice. No fire at all. The opposite of Sig. Ice is Oskar’s weapon—and his nemesis.

  Now I know how to kill him.

  A female wielder with dark hair and wild eyes runs between the ice wielders and the rest of us huddled against the wall. She ducks under the hanging vines and begins to bang on the door and shout. I assume she’s calling for help, but no one comes.

  Sig coughs and cries out in pain as fire begins to eat at the trees to our right and left. We’re surrounded, and the two ice wielders have only kept the fire in front of us away. Flames find a way, though. There’s no escape now.

  I never thought I would die like this. I chuckle. I seem to have that thought every time I’m about to die.

  Oskar falls to his knees, but his hand is still outstretched as the blizzard billows from his palm. He’s far more powerful than the lean one, yet somehow also weaker. I know that feeling so well.

  “I wouldn’t have thought Kauko would kill the Valtia so readily,” Sig comments. His voice is so quiet that I’d believe he was talking to himself, except he’s speaking Krigere. “Usually he wants to control the magic, but once it leaves you, it’ll still be out of his reach.”

  My throat goes tight. No, it won’t. He has that little girl with the copper hair and the blue eyes and the spirit that calls out to mine. I am nothing to him now. Worse than nothing. “He wants me to die,” I murmur.

  The female wielder is banging on the door and coughing, and some of the other wielders, including the skinny little girl with fire at her fingertips, run over to add their voices and fists. Despite the ice wielders’ efforts, the air is getting hotter. Sig is sweating rivers as his blisters ooze. The air is choking all of us. My ears are ringing and I don’t know if the sound is actual bells or my body telling me I don’t have enough air.

  If I really end up on the heavenly battlefield today, would Thyra send me away as she did in my dream, or would she welcome me with open arms? Would she stab me or kiss me? Would she forgive me for failing her, for not avenging her?

  I look around for a weapon. At the very least, I can die trying. Sig has a small knife sheathed at his belt, and his arms are limp at his sides. If I can’t kill the impostor queen, at the very least I can kill her wolf, the one she sent to cut my beating heart from my chest. I pitch myself to the side, and with clammy fingers I grope for Sig’s knife.

  Sig realizes my plan as I grab the hilt and yank. With a cry, he grasps my wrist—just as I try to jam the blade into his stomach. I am grim and determined. I do not enjoy this. I thought Sig was my friend once. It is hard to hate him. But his betrayal is unforgivable.

  “Stop,” Sig gasps as the tip of the knife inches closer to his gut.

  “She died in pain,” I say through gritted teeth. “Burned and frozen and ruined.”

  “I—I didn’t—I didn’t—”

  I am weak, but Sig is weaker. The blade pierces the fabric of his shirt. I feel his flesh give.

  He screams, and Oskar whirls around on his knees. The wielders by the door cry out too, and all tumble away toward the fiery woods. Oskar lunges for me.

  The door to the city bursts open in a blast of frigid air.

  All of us go still.

  Through the door walks a girl, no older than I am but dressed in a gauzy gown, with sparkling pendants in her coppery hair. She turns as soon as her slippers touch the rotting leaves of the forest floor. Her eyes find mine like she hears my heartbeat. As wielders plunge through the doorway she opened to escape the oncoming flames, she comes toward me. That heartbeat of mine bangs louder, faster.

  I know who she is. I know exactly who she is. The impostor is steps away from me.

  Sig shoves me away and says something to her in Kupari. I am heedless of the man I was trying to murder mere seconds ago. His knife is still in my fist, and its tip is red with his blood. My fingers spasm around it as I lie on my back and watch her float toward me, her gown billowing around her in swirls of searing, bitter-cold wind, the marriage of Oskar’s magic with Kauko’s.

  “Ansa?” she asks, her voice shaking.

  She is the enemy. She is the cause of so much of my suffering. She holds my throne. She sent her wolves to kill my love.

  “I have been searching everywhere for you,” she says.

  She is speaking Kupari. But I understand her. Only her. The others trill away nonsensically, but her? Every word is written clearly in my thoughts.

  She holds out her hands. “We have so much to talk about.” She sniffles and wipes away a tear. “But first we have to get you to safety.”

  Sig says something to her, and she chuckles and nods. “Yes, you too, Sig.”

  I have to kill her. If I do, her tyranny is over, and I will rest knowing that our warriors have a home.

  Will they? It’s Thyra, whispering to me from beyond. Will they really?

  I shake my head, confused at the cascade of voices around me and inside me. I am sweating now. Wielders race past me and roll Sig onto a blanket, and then they pick him up like a corpse in a sling and lug him toward the doorway to the city. Oskar and the other ice wielder are still fighting to keep the oncoming flames from eating us alive.

  “Can you walk?” the impostor asks me.

  She is coming closer. Another step or two and I could bury my blade in her chest. I could burn her flesh off her soft, smooth face with my hands. I can feel the magic coiling inside me like a snake. I knew it wouldn’t abandon me for long.

  I don’t know why my fingers are loosening around the hilt of my weapon. I fight the impulse to drop it and take her hand. The impostor looks at Oskar and the other wielder and yells something in Kupari. The lean one lets his arm fall to his side and runs toward the doorway to safety, but Oskar keeps his hand out. He’s on his knees, his head hanging. The impostor strides over to him and slides her palm beneath his hair, onto the back of his neck.

  He throws his head back and takes a gasping breath as the impostor sinks down next to him, her other hand rising to cup his jaw. That is all I can see through the smoky haze that hangs between us, but I can tell he is more to her than all the others. He is her love. Her wolf and her love.

  Like I was, to Thyra.

  After a few moments, the impostor rises. Oskar slowly gets to his feet as well. They both come toward me, looking worried but certain. I look down at the knife in my grip.

  For some reason, I cannot bring myself to drive this blade into her body. I know this feeling—I felt the same way toward the witch queen in the midst of the storm. I had a weapon in my hand but couldn’t strike. Now I am weak with the loss of blood. My magic has only just returned.

  But it has returned.

  As the two of them come near, power spirals from my chest and along my arm, building as it encircles the knife. I lift the blade.

  And I aim it at Oskar’s chest.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Elli

  Oskar falls backward, landing hard. His head smacks against a tree, a sound I hear even over the crackling roar of the inferno that’s slowly moving toward us. I know Ansa is holding a knife, but I have no mind for her now—all I care about is Oskar. I drop to my knees and shove my hands up his tunic, pressing both into his chest.

  That was where she aimed. Right for his heart. He’s not offering his magic now. He’s still and cold. But I don’t nee
d him to give me his power, not anymore. I’m strong enough to take it without help. I focus my energy and pull with all my might, summoning the ice inside him, commanding it to come to me, to submit. It comes like an obedient dog, flashing eagerly along my palms and scurrying up my arms.

  Oskar’s heart beats once, twice, then picks up a hungry rhythm, and I sag with relief. “Come help us!” I shout over my shoulder. I had told them to leave us, but now I realize something I hadn’t really believed could be true.

  Ansa is perfectly willing to kill us.

  Anger and devotion twist inside me. They are not easy lovers, and I wince at how much it hurts. Then I remind myself how the world might look from where she lies.

  I turn to face her.

  The deadly magic she just hurled at Oskar seems to have drained her strength for the moment. She’s pale as the moon and sweating. Her eyes are wide and full of wariness, but the knife has slipped from her fingers. I take two quick steps and kick it away, and too late her scrabbling hands reach for it. She lets out a cry of frustration as her head falls back. I can feel the heat of magic fire against my skin. I could walk through it without losing anything but my dress, but Oskar and Ansa will lose their lives if I don’t act now.

  I squat behind Ansa. She’s slender and shorter than I am, but as I loop my arms under hers and start to yank her toward the doorway in the wall, I feel the dense muscles in her shoulders and back. She’s heavier than I expect, and I grunt as I slide her along the ground. She kicks feebly but seems too weak to do more than that, for which I am thankful. Veikko and a few others have run back into the woods to load Oskar into a blanket and carry him into the city. It takes four of them to do it.

  I’m through the doorway with Ansa a moment later, and so relieved to see the door slam shut between us and the flames that I sink to my knees behind her, still holding her tight. She smells of sweat and smoke and the metallic tang of magic, and her coppery hair is soaked and standing on end. I bow my head to her shoulder, so glad to finally have the Valtia that for a moment I forget how dangerous she is.

  And a moment is all it takes for her to remind me. Something hard collides with my head, and the inside of my skull flares with sparkling stars. I lose my sense of up and down and fall backward, my arms flopping to my sides and something wet streaming down my face. A hard body lands on top of me and hands clamp around my throat. I look up into Ansa’s tearstained, soot-streaked face, black on white, vivid blue eyes that radiate confusion and pain. But I love you, I think as my vision clouds with spots.

  Her grip loosens, and then she’s torn off me and my world is a chaos of shouting and shuffling feet. Someone drags me backward, and when I crane my neck I see it’s Kaisa.

  “Are you all right?” she asks in a frantic voice, pressing the sleeve of her robe to my head.

  I gasp with pain. “Did she hit me?”

  “With a rock.” Kaisa looks at Raimo, who is leaning against a wooden post that holds up the partially collapsed roof of a cottage here at the edge of the city.

  Raimo is frowning as he watches something in the street. I turn slowly and cry out when I see what’s happening. Wielders have surrounded Ansa, who is crouched in the dirt, a knife in her hand. Veikko, whose right hand is bleeding—and whose sheath is empty—is holding his arms out and accepting shackles from a constable. Tuuli and Usko have their hands out too, but they’re trying to keep Ansa at bay.

  “Her magic should dwarf theirs,” Kaisa says, sounding puzzled.

  “It does. But she’s been bled near to death,” Raimo says, pointing to a large bloodstain on Ansa’s sleeve. “Look how pale she is. How weak.”

  Kaisa lifts her robe and peers at my scalp. “She didn’t look weak when she nearly caved in Elli’s head with a rock.”

  “Well, she’s Soturi, isn’t she?” he says.

  Ansa sweeps the blade of her knife through the air, holding Tuuli and Usko back. But she doesn’t see Aira behind her. The fire wielder smacks Ansa in the head with a wooden board. I clutch my stomach as I hear the sound of impact. Nausea overtakes me as I watch Ansa collapse into a boneless sprawl on the ground. I retch into the stony scree at my feet.

  When I lift my head, Kaisa offers me her sleeve to wipe my mouth, and with an apologetic look I accept. Ansa is surrounded now, Veikko shackling her, Tuuli with a blanket to wrap around her to further prevent her from moving. “When she comes back to herself, she’ll lash out again,” I say. “And when she regains her strength, she’ll be able to kill everyone.”

  My fingertips rise to my cheeks, which are wet with tears. Despite Sig’s warnings, this is not how I envisioned my first meeting with my Valtia. I’ve been fantasizing about the moment for so long that my dreams were impervious to reality. And now . . .

  I look around, my heart lurching up into my throat. “Where’s Oskar?”

  Kaisa squeezes my arm. “Some constables volunteered to carry him and Sig back to the temple. They know Oskar and the others were trying to fight the fire and they’re grateful.”

  I try to look up the road toward the temple, but all I see is a wall of somber faces and hunched shoulders. The townsfolk have gathered a few blocks away to watch the flames overtake us. But as Kaisa helps me to my feet, I feel the wind shift. Smoke drifts away from us and into the sky, and the air cools.

  Raimo curses under his breath. “That’ll be Kauko.” He chuckles. “But our people will probably think it’s you.”

  Sure enough, our people are cheering and calling for me, waving and crying out their thanks.

  I absently wave back to them as I consider what Raimo’s just said. “It can’t be Kauko. To draw a fire of that size away from the city would take the power of the Valtia.”

  “Which he’ll have, if he’s been drinking as much of Ansa’s blood as I suspect.”

  “If she dies, Lahja . . .” Fear closes like a noose around my throat.

  “If she’s alive, we’ll find her.”

  “She’s alive,” I whisper. “Surely I would feel her loss if she weren’t.”

  “As you said, one thing at a time,” Raimo replies as he gestures for the horses to be brought near.

  A stout constable helps me up onto my mount. “I’ll lead her for you, Valtia,” he says, giving me a worried look.

  As he leads my horse forward, I touch my forehead, which is sticky with blood. “She really tried to kill me.”

  From behind me, Raimo says, “I think, if she were really set on killing you, you’d probably be dead. She seems skilled in the art of violence.”

  I thought I might have seen conflict in her eyes, the war of hate and love. It gives me hope that allows me to lift my chin as we ride through our decimated city and back to the temple. The crowds part and gaze with curiosity as our wielders bundle Ansa along, all wrapped in a blanket. It’s a good thing too, because if they realized she was Soturi, they might tear her to pieces. “I’ll tend to Ansa myself once we’re back in the temple.”

  “You may be the only one who can,” Raimo says drily after the constable releases my horse and waves good-bye to us at the gate of our plaza. “She’s likely to freeze or burn anyone else.”

  As we dismount, we wave to Livius’s crew, who are wheeling a cart of copper bars toward the deep crevasse that divides the plaza and runs up to the steps. We’re on one side and they’re on the other. Livius holds up a bar. “We’re on the third load,” he shouts.

  I kiss my palms and turn them to him, showing my gratitude as I approach the steps. “Our first task is to heal Oskar and Sig.”

  Raimo groans as he slides from his horse. “Elli . . . I’m not sure I can.”

  “Raimo, get up here,” shouts Veikko from the top of the crumbled steps to the domed chamber.

  Kaisa jogs over and slides her arm around the old man. “I’ll help you.”

  I march up the steps ahead of them, tripping once or twice over the edge of my gown, my head pounding the whole way. I know I am a mess, but I don’t care. I’m tired of pretending I�
��m the queen. All I care about is taking care of the people I love.

  Freya greets me at the top of the steps, her eyes wide and pleading. “Can you do something for them?” she asks. Behind her, our grand domed chamber is in disarray. Most of the debris has been swept or carried to the edges of the room, and the dome still stands, although it is dented and twisted from the contortions of the structure beneath it, but there are cracks across the floor and places where the smooth marble has poked spiky fingers into the air. Injured wielders lie on blankets that have been hastily thrown down. I spy Oskar and Sig next to each other—their bodies cover the infinity symbol of the Valtia. Ansa is nowhere to be seen.

  I give Raimo a desperate look as he reaches the top of the steps. He looks like he needs someone to heal him. My heart sinks. “Can you help me tend them?” I ask, turning to rush over to Oskar and Sig.

  “Kaisa, see if you can fetch my herb bag from the library, assuming it hasn’t caved in.” Raimo hobbles along next to me. “My magic is feeble and unsteady now, Elli. I suspect all of us are feeling this way.” He staggers and I catch him. “I’m afraid of what it means.”

  “Another quake? Maybe we can stave it off. Livius and his men are working without rest.”

  “Oh, Elli,” he says sadly.

  I give his hand a sudden squeeze. He gasps at the crush of it. “If I can’t use your magic to heal them, then tell me what to do,” I say in a flat voice.

  I know I am being a brat, and that Raimo doesn’t deserve this harshness. But I can’t help it right now. Oskar is lying at my feet, haggard and pale and sick. His left hand is that of a corpse, and the rest of him shivers and shakes. He’s rolled on his side, his knees curled to his chest as he tries and fails to warm himself. Veikko rushes over and tosses another blanket on his friend’s body. “I used to be jealous of Oskar,” he says quietly to me, then moves away quickly.

  Sig is no better. He lies on his side too, facing Oskar. I feel the heat of his body from here, and shamefully, I hope Oskar does as well. What parts of Sig aren’t covered by blisters are swollen and red. He barely looks like himself. His eyes are closed but I know he can’t possibly be sleeping.