Queen of the Struggle

by Nik Korpon

  “Are we still in Ardu Oéann? What country is this?” I don’t ask anyone in particular, more a question to the universe, a query as to whether we’re still in the same reality or if I finally watched too many memories and have now fallen into one. “Where are we?”

  “We haven’t left the country. This is barely two hundred miles from Eitan,” the man says. “You should really expand your horizons.”

  I walk toward the water, my hand instinctively reaching out for Donael and Cobb. Several men work on the boat, tightening lines and shouting to each other in a foreign tongue.

  We pass the beginning of the dock and the ground abruptly turns from grass to sand. I kneel down near the edge, scoop a handful of sand and let it slip through my fingers. I take two steps, the water lapping against the toes of my boots, and run my fingers through it. It’s cold on my skin, and it is wonderful, an explosion of sensation. After not having water for so long, I want to stick my face in it and drink, but even in Eitan we know you can’t drink salt water. I stick my whole hand in, cupping it then pouring it back. Such a simple thing, yet so significant.

  “I’m sorry to break this up, but we need to leave,” Slåtann says behind me. “The tide is going out and we’ll be stranded for hours if we miss it.”

  I swirl my hand in the water one last time, then stand, rub some across my face. It’s like waking for the first time. If this is true, that there are oceans and green land, then that means anything can be true.

  Slåtann leads us up to the dock, nodding toward the boat.

  “We’re getting on there?” I say.

  “Härskare Äsyr needs your advisement in Vårgmannskjør, so you’re going there one way or another.” He adjusts the bandoleer wrapped around his chest. “And I’m guessing you’re not much of a swimmer.”

  I take the boys’ hands and lead us down the dock, the pilings shifting beneath us as we walk across the wood planks suspended over the water. When we get to the boat, I glance back before helping the boys over the threshold. The surface is white like the rest of the boat, but textured and gritty to avoid slipping. Tools line the underside of the walls. Slåtann shows us to a door.

  We enter a surprisingly large room. Four bunks hang from the wall, held up by chains at either end so they can be folded back into the wall for space. Beneath them are formed benches, much like those in the transport vehicle but more comfortable looking. On the far side is a U-shaped blue vinyl booth ringing around a white table. There’s a narrow door in the corner that probably leads to a bathroom. And hanging by the door are three heavy coats with fur-rimmed hoods, one large and two mediums.

  I let out a little laugh and nod at them. “Really?”

  “You may think it funny now,” Slåtann says, “but I would wager in a couple days you won’t.”

  “Why won’t I find it funny?”

  I glance out the window and see we’re already several hundred meters from shore. I didn’t even feel us take off.

  Slåtann tips his imaginary hat then says he’s headed to the bridge to see the captain, leaving us alone as the shore slowly recedes into the distance. I stand with my palms pressed against the glass, as if I could project myself across the distance and contact Emeríann, let her know we’re alive, ask her where she is. The boys come up beside me, and we watch our homeland grow smaller and smaller, until it’s eventually overtaken by the water.

  6.

  EMERÍANN

  I’m lying on the hard mattress with one arm draped across my eyes when I hear the door creak open. I tighten my grip on the knife I keep strapped against my calf, now hidden under my back. Someone steps inside my cell. I wait for them to approach me, get close enough that I can jump to my feet and slice their throat all in one motion. But they stay near the door.

  “If that’s your knife you’ve got behind your back,” that cunt Brighid says, “know that there are three armed soldiers right behind me. You’ll be ribbons before you can stand.”

  I debate calling her bluff and charging her, but I can hear other feet scrabbling near my cell.

  “What do you want?” I say, not bothering to move my arm.

  “To apologize for the condition of the cell. We’re preparing better accommodations for you, but they’re not ready yet.”

  I let go of my knife and pop up to my feet, blood pounding inside my fists. I quickly see she wasn’t joking: the three soldiers point their rifles at me. I stay in place, jaw clenched, wanting so bad to just hit something.

  “That is what you want to apologize for? This cell?” I gesture out, my hands needing something, anything, to occupy them. “What about what happened out there? Beheading your father. Destroying our chance at being free. Ruining all the work we’ve done the last six months, making all the people who died for us to live freely die for nothing.” My voice rises with every word, and despite the soldiers’ fingers getting twitchier as I shout at Brighid, I can’t get myself to stop. “Hell, what about riding in here like our savior and fighting alongside us when you were lying to us the entire time? How about you apologize for any of that? That’s what I’m upset about, not how hard my goddamned mattress is.”

  Brighid stares at me for a long minute, and with every tick I expect her to give the signal for them to execute me. I could have died a number of times during the uprising but skirted around it at each pass. At least this way it will be quick and painless.

  She raises her hand. I close my eyes.

  “She’s just upset,” Brighid says to the soldiers. “Understandably so.”

  I inhale through my nose, breathe out my lips.

  “Lower your weapons,” she says.

  I open my eyes and no longer have a target on my chest.

  “Leave us a minute.” She says it without looking at them.

  “Ma’am,” one of the soldiers starts.

  “I said leave.”

  “Ma’am, she’s armed.”

  Still Brighid won’t break eye contact with me.

  “She won’t use it,” she says to them, then to me, “will she?”

  I don’t give any response, which I guess is a response in itself. The soldiers don’t like it, but after a moment they relent and leave us. Brighid steps forward. My fingers curl behind my back, like they’re seeking out the knife. It’s tempting, but before I could grab it, she would likely jump me and gut me with my own knife or call for the soldiers.

  “I do apologize for those things too,” Brighid says. “Just so you know.”

  “You’ll understand if your word means shit to me, right? You sold us out. You betrayed us.”

  “I can see why you feel that way. But you have to understand where I’m coming from.”

  “Hell?”

  She smirks. “It really was a privilege fighting with you. I wasn’t lying about that.”

  “I guess that’s the only thing,” I spit. “Where is Henraek? Is he alive? Is he safe?”

  “He’s very alive and very safe. Donael and Cobb are with him.”

  “Where are they? I need to see them.”

  “Henraek was needed for important business in Vårgmannskjør.”

  “In Vårgmannskjør? What business?”

  She cocks her head. “The important kind.”

  “You should’ve come to Eitan earlier,” I tell her. “You were born to be a politician.”

  “No, I was born to be a savior, to save Eitan from Daghda,” she says, her voice dead serious. “There are so many things you don’t understand about my father. I spent years following him, moving from small villages to enormous cities. I’ve traveled across every continent, through more countries than I can remember. I’ve seen palaces with rooms people have never even entered, and I’ve crept through slums where children skewer rats and roast them over the smoldering rubble of a bombed house.”

  “Why are you telling me this? You think you know tragedy better than we do?”

  “Our destinies rode on the wind and took us to whatever political leader, businessman, warlord, or g
angster would pay my father the most money to kill someone. If you asked me how many heads I’ve seen explode from one of his bullets, I couldn’t even tell you. I’ve lost count. And you know what I learned through all that?” She takes a step toward me. “There are only two people my father thinks about.”

  “Who, you and him?”

  “No,” she says. “Himself. And Fannae Morrigan.”

  I’m surprised by the name.

  “He never forgave her. After all he did to save Eitan from those vulture resource companies, she tossed him aside, discarded like garbage, the same thing the companies would do to the land once it had been fully harvested. He didn’t kill for money, he killed to salve his wounds. The only thing that let him wake up every morning was the possibility of revenge.”

  “I’d want to kill her too if I was him.”

  Brighid breathes out something like a laugh. “Not revenge on her. He wanted revenge on Eitan. For abandoning him. For not avenging him.” She pulls closer to me. “For forgetting him.”

  I swallow hard and realize my hands are shaking.

  “We were in the far east when he heard there was a defector from the Tathadann meeting with Ødven. We took three boats and traveled for a week to get to Vårgmannskjør so we could meet the defector in person.” She shakes her head. “He was creepy, only had one eye.”

  That description sounds familiar but I can’t place it. I wonder if Henraek knows him.

  “My father aligned himself with Ragjarøn because they had the firepower and the numbers to crush Eitan. His plan was to return, destroy Fannae and the Tathadann, then burn the city to the ground. Payback for what he saw as slighting him.” She throws her hands out to the side. “That was your savior. A weak and petty man.”

  “So why didn’t he?”

  “Because Ødven and I stopped him. Ødven’s more of a…” She gestures absently. “He’s a forward thinker. He sees possibilities where others see restrictions. The way we looked at it, we could draw on the resources and technology in Vårgmannskjør to get Eitan back on its feet. Before Ardu Oéann can be autonomous, we need to be stable. This region is volatile enough. We need a steady hand here, and Ødven’s providing that.”

  “We’re supposed to venerate him now?”

  “No, just thank him.” She gives a smile that could cut glass. “So yes, I am sorry for the condition of the cell. But no, I’m not the least bit sorry for the patricide.”

  She turns to leave but I can’t help myself.

  “I don’t care about your daddy issues. You betrayed us,” I say. “But I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. All the Morrigans do is lie and steal.”

  She whirls around and stomps toward me, then before I even see her hand move there’s a sharp crack and my face is on fire. She whips her hand again and backhands me across the other side of my face. I don’t press my hand against it, refusing to give her the satisfaction. I taste blood in my mouth and spit it on the ground.

  “Let’s get something sorted right now because you will never make that mistake again. I will gut you before you blaspheme me with that name.” Her hand shoots out and grapples my throat, tight enough that I feel the blood pound in my temples but not so tight that I can’t breathe. “My mother was a Tobeigh. I am a Tobeigh. My father’s name is a mark of shame but one I will bear witness to. I am not a Morrigan. I am a Tobeigh.”

  She pushes me to the back of my cell, the imprints of her fingers still throbbing on my neck.

  “By the time we’re done with our work here, every nation will know the name Tobeigh. They will respect it. And that starts right here,” she says, pointing at the ground. “And right now.”

  7.

  HENRAEK

  If I were a different sort of person, I would look on this as some kind of dramatic comedy. The one thing we sought for years in Eitan, we are currently surrounded by; yet that one thing is the source of all our pain and suffering.

  But, with my fingers curled around the rim of the toilet and my face hovering inches above a fine glaze of bile and coffee floating on the surface of the water, I’m not of a mind to look at this philosophically.

  The first few hours passed nicely. Cobb, Donael, and I sat on the bench and stared out the window at the sea, the scenery never quite the same but still never really different. I kept returning to the thought that someone could jump off a dock a few hundred miles from Eitan and create a wave that traveled across the ocean, and that same wave would crash on a beach near a child who has never even heard of Eitan or Westhell or the Tathadann and whose language doesn’t even have the sounds to properly enunciate those words. The vastness and simultaneous connectedness fascinated me.

  After dinner – light by their standards but on par with what we had at home – Slåtann brought the boys and me up to the bridge so they could steer the ship and look at all the navigation devices. The captain let Cobb pull the rope that unleashed the horn, and I thought he’d sprain his mouth he clicked so hard with glee.

  Later, Slåtann showed me how to strap the boys into their bunks so they wouldn’t be pitched out in the middle of the night. The trip had been so calm, the sea so placid, that I actually laughed at him.

  Then the winds picked up.

  The boys were already dead asleep and nothing short of a bomb set off in our enclosed room would wake them, so they hadn’t noticed the constant rocking and shifting. I’ve always thought of myself as pretty resilient after all I’d endured during the Struggle, then my double life under the Tathadann, then the uprising. But this is a sensation unlike anything I’ve ever felt. It’s not even as if we’re barreling through gale force winds. Hell, some of the soldiers are standing outside smoking cigarettes and laughing as they hold on to the rails. Meanwhile, I’ve puked so many times that nothing’s coming out anymore. By this point I’m praying for a quick death or at least a large wave to slam my head against the toilet and knock me unconscious for a few hours.

  When the sky begins to lighten over the horizon the winds die down, and after an hour I no longer feel like I’m stuck inside a centrifuge. I make my way around the room, creeping along the walls as much for stability as to avoid waking the boys. I ease the door closed and step onto the deck. One of the soldiers rests against the railing, a cigarette perched between his fingers. He glances over at me, gives a slight nod, then returns his gaze to the ocean.

  Standing here now, looking at the water shifting between variations of blue, the waves constantly morphing and changing in a way that is never jagged or inorganic like so many things in Eitan, I can see why so many poems have been written about the sea. I am calmer than I should be after getting yanked from my homeland and thrust toward an uncertain future in a distant land.

  Which immediately triggers the reptile part of my brain that assesses every situation for possible attack. They could be shipping us out into the ocean only to throw us overboard. But why wouldn’t they just have shot us back in Eitan? They could be transporting us up to Vårgmannskjør to torture us or conduct experiments on us. Maybe Doctor Mebeth fled to Vårgmannskjør. But he was also a large part of the Tathadann and I’d be surprised to see Ødven Äsyr overlooking that. And again, they could’ve just killed us after Daghda.

  That leaves Slåtann’s assertion that Äsyr needs my counsel, but what on earth could I advise him on? How to lose a revolution? How to destroy a family? How to murder your best friend?

  As I’m mulling over the different ways in which I’ve failed, something flashes in my eyes, so bright it actually hurts. I shield myself with my hand, ducking down by instinct as if it was a sniper’s laser. I glance around and catch the soldier looking at me like I’m hallucinating. I move my hand and it catches me again in the side of my eye, but this time not as intense. I squint my eyes and look out over the water.

  And sitting on the horizon, casting a yellow sheen over the water, is the sun, rising above the curve of the earth. It’s only a yellow ball floating above a blue sea but is more beautiful than I’d ever thought it co
uld be. I wish Emeríann were here to see it with me. Part of me wants to go grab the boys, but I don’t think they’d have quite the same appreciation at their age. Then after a second I have to squint and look away, blink hard to remove the pale yellow dots from my vision. I’d always thought the phrase “staring at the sun” was metaphorical. Apparently not.

  My vision cleared, I glance over at the soldier, who is again looking at me like I’m insane. He shakes his head then chains another cigarette from the one in his mouth and flicks the old one into the water.

  “Do you know how much longer we have?” I say to him.

  He shrugs, never looking at me. “Scheduled to dock tomorrow evening. If no storms, maybe tomorrow afternoon. If storms, next day, day after.”

  “Tomorrow evening?” I feel my stomach get queasy just thinking about another night aboard. “Are you serious?”

  Now he looks at me, his pale blue eyes and angular face seemingly designed to cut through another person without touching. “If no storms. If storms, next day, day after.”

  He flicks his cigarette into the ocean and walks away.

  I remain on the deck with my eyes closed, focusing on the feeling of the sun shining on my face. Then I hear Donael say, “Holy shit.”

  He comes up next to me, but I don’t bother to correct his language. This is too nice a feeling.

  “I always thought that was a story,” he says.

  I don’t have much response other than to wrap my arm around him, hold him close. We stand on the deck, the boat shifting side to side as it crests over the waves. After a few minutes, his body language changes.

  “What’s up?” I say.

  “Nothing.”

  “Donael.” I look down at him. I have a good idea what it is but am not ready to bring it up first. “What’s up?”