The Queen and the Cure

by Amy Harmon

  “Arrows!” Kjell yelled, and the villagers shielded their ears with bloodied palms, preparing for Boom to repeat the word.

  “Arrows,” Boom repeated, the word reverberating over the wall and down into the trees. The archers obeyed.

  The eager screeching became desperate confusion as birdmen fell and others teetered, abandoning the exposure on the ramparts for the blood below. Bodies began to collide with the vines, and the people of Caarn began the coordinated slaughter of hundreds of Volgar birdmen.

  “Lances—”

  “Scatter!”

  “Circle—”

  “Attack!”

  Kill and repeat. Jab and retreat. One by one, the Volgar fell beneath the onslaught, ensnared and skewered or trapped in the vines beneath the bodies of the dead and dying. The volley from the forest continued, urging the birdmen to drop from the wall into the nets below.

  The Volgar were not the only ones to fall. A birdman broke through, his talons extended, and sunk his beak into the back of the Sea Changer before being brought down by a dozen lances.

  Kjell dragged the man to a barrel of ale and stuffed him inside, commanding that he change. The wounded man became a silvery trout an instant before Kjell plucked him out again and tossed him to the ground. The Changer morphed immediately, dripping and naked, but completely healed. He donned his sopping clothes and took up his spear.

  Each time the Volgar would break through, a skirmish ensued, circling villagers with upraised spears facing the talons and beaks of enraged birdmen, and more often than not, bringing them down.

  When the net began to bulge and break, the edges snapping like frayed rigging in a hurricane, Kjell gave the warning to abandon the bailey.

  “Gate!” Kjell shouted.

  “Gate!” Boom repeated, and the villagers in the courtyard ran for the entrance, pressing themselves against the castle walls as they filed out beneath the hastily-raised gate.

  “Burn it down, Isak,” Kjell commanded, making sure the bailey was clear.

  Isak began to pummel the air, his fire-filled fists swinging left and right, releasing flames that billowed upward, engulfing the center of the enormous net in fire.

  The archers had heard the signal and were waiting to provide cover. As the people began to spill out the castle gate, the Volgar who’d resisted the lure of fresh blood and avoided the arrows of the archers in the trees, began to dive from the ramparts, desperate to snatch supper from the chaos. One woman was seconds from being swept up when suddenly she was the size of a small mouse. She scurried away, unscathed as the birdman above her collided with the ground and was instantly surrounded and impaled.

  Some birdmen tried to fly, their wings on fire, only to tumble to the earth, unable to continue. But when the winds chased the fire, and the rain chased the flames, the remaining birdmen took to the sky, their numbers a tattered fraction of what they’d been before.

  ***

  Kjell began to move through the villagers, closing the oozing cuts across their palms, seeking out the wounded and the dead. The villagers clutched his hands in thanks, their eyes heavy with gratitude.

  “Do you think they will return, Captain?” they asked, hopeful and hesitant.

  “If they do, we will destroy them,” he reassured, and they nodded, believing him.

  So many had been destroyed. The smoldering pile of Volgar remains tinged the air with a green haze. Bits of flotsam floated and flurried, causing the people of Caarn to cover their mouths and cough as they found each other amid the smoke. Tiras had changed and now circled the skies above Caarn, keeping watch in case of an unexpected return.

  “Is everyone accounted for?” Kjell pressed, his eyes on the triumphant archers flooding the bailey from the woods, embracing each other and recounting the battle from where they’d stood.

  His question was met with blank stares and furrowed brows, as one man questioned another, unable to give him a response.

  “Is everyone accounted for?” Kjell raised his voice above the din. “Where are your wounded?”

  “The kitchen, Captain. The queen, the midwife, and Tess are providing aid, water, and bandages there,” Jerick answered, pushing through the bailey toward him.

  “And King Aren?”

  “He was in the rear with me. We almost lost Gaspar, but His Majesty was able to briefly spin and give him cover. The birdman got a beakful of green leaves before we took him down. The king was shaken but unharmed, and Gaspar has a broken arm. He might appreciate a Healer in the kitchen, although the queen might not.”

  Jerick grinned as if it had all been a marvelous adventure, as if he enjoyed irritated females and the smell of Volgar flesh. Kjell found himself grinning back. If Sasha’s irritation was the worst he would suffer this day, he would count himself a lucky man. She had not been pleased when Kjell had ringed her with his men. She’d clutched her sharpened stick with annoyance and sliced her palm alongside the others, but she’d been shadowed and preempted with every parry and thrust. Kjell had known exactly where she was every second of the conflict.

  He moved through the corridors to the kitchen, taking stock and counting heads as he went. When he saw her, the pressure in his chest and the ache in his belly eased. Her nose was smudged with soot and a few curls twined around her cheeks, but she was whole. Well. Busy. Kjell looked around for Gaspar and immediately located the watchman, curled in the corner. Gaspar’s face was pale with suffering, his arm clutched against his abdomen, his cat-eyes glittering with pain. Kjell crouched in front of him and touched his thrumming heart, listening for the tone that would ease his suffering. Gaspar had come to Caarn after the border had opened. It would take no effort to heal him.

  Gaspar’s healing sound was more like a purr—cats were not famed for their song—and Kjell pulled the rattling vibrations into himself, setting the broken bone and quelling Gaspar’s pain with an ease that had him stepping away and looking for someone else to assist.

  “The king is still in the woods, Captain,” Gaspar exhaled, his relief so great his words were slurred and his eyes fluttered closed. “He wanted a moment by himself, but you should see to him. He was . . . troubled.”

  The king was not hard to find. He stood propped against the gate that led to the western wood, his eyes on the queen’s garden, a hand pressed to his heart as though lost in pleasant remembrance. It was a peaceful spot, and Kjell could not fault the man for needing a chance to collect himself.

  “We’ve defeated them, Captain,” Aren said as Kjell approached. He remained slumped, his eyes still clinging to his own thoughts.

  “Yes. For now. Maybe forever. But some of the villagers were injured. Some were lost, Majesty,” Kjell answered.

  “Most were saved,” Aren replied, and his gaze shifted from the queen’s garden and rested on Kjell. He pushed himself away from the wall with the hand that had rested on his chest.

  “You’re wounded,” Kjell gasped. The king’s hand was slick and scarlet with blood. Kjell yanked the king’s cloak aside, revealing a saturated tunic and Aren’s arm tucked firmly against his body, attempting to stem the flow.

  The king staggered, and Kjell took his weight, easing him to the ground.

  “You are the son of Koorah, Captain. Of that I have no doubt. I can see her in you. Like you, she was convinced she had nothing to offer. She never wanted to be queen. But she would have been a good queen. And you will be a good king,” Aren reassured.

  “Cease speaking, Aren,” Kjell bellowed, and pressed his hands to the king’s side, searching for the source of the blood.

  “Tiras!” Kjell shouted. “Sasha, help me!”

  “You cannot heal me again, Captain,” the king said, his voice strained but his face serene.

  Kjell groaned, helpless, and bore down, pressing his hands to the king’s sodden tunic, demanding submission from his gift. He would heal Aren’s wounds, just like he’d healed the Volgar slashes on Sasha’s back. He just needed time. He gritted his teeth and closed his eyes, refusing
to meet the king’s gaze, denying his inability to save him.

  “There isn’t time,” the king said, reading Kjell’s desperation. “I don’t want to die here. Help me stand.”

  “I can heal you!”

  “Help me stand, Captain!” the king bellowed, adamant. He pushed up to his knees and found his feet, swaying as he took a step. Kjell was there to brace him, and they began to stagger toward the trees, Kjell bearing much of Aren’s weight, the king focused on the tallest of the wooded sentries bordering the rise behind the castle.

  “Take me to the glade,” the king urged. “There’s a spot there for me.”

  Then they weren’t alone. Villagers were streaming behind them, responding to Kjell’s call. Gaspar and Sasha weren’t far behind, Padrig on her heels. Tiras, bare-chested and shoeless but with his sword in hand, was just beyond them. King Aren ignored them all, pushing forward, his teeth gritted, his face set, determined to reach the grove.

  “Here, Healer,” he groaned as the woods opened up into a small clearing. “This is the place.” Kjell tried to ease the king to the forest floor, but Aren insisted on standing, bracing himself on Kjell’s shoulders.

  “It is your birthright, Kjell of Caarn. Don’t squander it,” King Aren said, his face grey. With bloodied hands, he lifted the crown from his head and placed it on Kjell’s.

  Aren swayed, and Kjell braced his legs, keeping the king upright, ignoring the crown on his head as he continued to plead with his gift, magnifying the song that emanated from the king’s spirit. But the melody did not mend, the blood did not abate, and the king was dying in his arms.

  “Sasha,” Kjell called out to her. “Help me heal him. Help me.”

  Sasha rushed to his side, but it was not Kjell’s hand she took. With streaming eyes and trembling lips, she clasped Aren’s large palm between both of hers and gave him the strength he needed to spin one last time. Forever.

  “I’ll be close to Grandfather Tree. Just as I planned,” the king said, his eyes on hers. “Be happy, Saoirse,” he whispered. Clinging to her hand, he closed his eyes.

  The king’s beard changed first. Then the hair on his head became writhing leaves, green and glossy, carrying the scent of earth and rain. The ground began to tremble, and the boots Aren wore became burrowing roots, snaking through the dirt and sinking deep beneath their feet. Sasha stepped back as the king let go, lifting his arms to the heavens, branches sprouting from his fingertips, thickening even as they extended and spread. Aren’s body, supported by Kjell’s arms, became the trunk of a towering oak, shooting upward beneath burgeoning branches and multiplying leaves. Then it was done, the change complete, and Kjell stepped back, his arms empty, his heart heavy. Around him, the grove was sacred and silent, as if the spirit of the passing king whispered through the wood.

  Kjell knew if he pressed his hands to the bark, he would not feel the breathless fear of the hidden or the repellant push of a false veneer. This tree did not camouflage a Spinner with a beating heart, waiting to be reawakened. It was not a man, but a memorial. A monument of resurrection and remembrance.

  “Farewell King Aren, son of Gideon,” Padrig called, his voice shaking, his eyes wet, and he knelt at the base of the tree, bowing his head, folding his old bones to pay homage.

  The villagers began to kneel too, their glowing triumph at the Volgar defeat becoming tearful lamentations. Where their tears fell, a flower grew, springing up on the forest floor, tiny petals and green shoots, dedicated to the man they mourned. Kjell withdrew his sword, a sign of his own fealty, and with a roar, stabbed it into the soft ground. He could not make flowers grow, but he could honor a good man.

  Tiras did not kneel and he did not bow. He gripped the hilt of his sword, gaping at the scaled bark and the pointed leaves, at the lofty heights and sturdy roots, his shoulders squared and his legs braced, absorbing the wonder of what he’d seen. Astonishment lined his features and hardened his jaw, and when his eyes met Kjell’s he bowed his head slowly, never lowering his gaze.

  “Hail King Kjell, son of Jeru,” he roared, and jabbed his sword into the air.

  Padrig was the first to raise his head and join his voice with Tiras’s.

  “Long live King Kjell, son of Koorah,” Padrig cried, still kneeling, still weeping.

  The people had seen their king place his crown on Kjell’s head. They’d watched Aren leave one life for another, becoming reborn, taking his place beside his grandfather’s tree in the grove of his ancestors. But Padrig’s words stunned them, and Koorah’s name fell from their lips in wonder and awe as they realized what it all meant. One by one, they lifted their voices with Padrig’s, recognizing the loss of one king and heralding the ascension of another.

  “Long live King Kjell, son of Koorah,” they cried, and the leaves shimmered and shook above their heads, raining softly upon the kneeling assembly.

  Kjell wanted to reject them.

  He wanted to hurl the crown into the trees and leave the glade.

  But he could not.

  The crown resting on his brow belonged to him, and he could not renounce it any more than he could deny the gift that flowed from his hands, his allegiance to his brother, or his love for the queen. The assurance rested on him like light, the knowledge pulsed in his blood, and in that moment he accepted the call, for that is what it was, and he could not forsake it.

  Slowly, as if her legs became numb in stages, Sasha sank to her knees, her back bowing, her hands curling into the dirt, her hair caressing the new roots that forked the earth and anchored Aren’s tree. One at a time, the villagers approached and bowed with her, pressing themselves to her side in sympathy and commiseration before rising and letting another take their place. After each one rose, they approached Kjell and kissed his palms before leaving the clearing and the prostrate queen. Kjell didn’t recognize the ritual or his role in it, but he remained beside her, beside the tree, a new crown on his head, a new burden on his shoulders.

  When the last villager left the clearing, Padrig rose as well, staggering as though his legs had lost all feeling. Tiras stepped forward and took his arm, steadying him. Together they moved toward Kjell.

  “We must leave her now, Healer,” Padrig instructed.

  “I can’t,” Kjell refused.

  “She will mourn here in silence for three days.”

  “Then I will mourn with her,” Kjell said.

  “There is much to do, Majesty.”

  The title caused his heart to turn and his stomach to knot, but he accepted that too, his fists balled and his eyes on the Star Maker’s grief-stricken face.

  “Then see that it is done, Spinner. I won’t leave the queen.”

  “The people will expect you to sit on the throne, to tell them what to do now that the battle is done,” Padrig said.

  “I am not that kind of king.” He was not Aren. He was not Tiras. But he would do the best he could.

  “No, you are not,” Padrig whispered, still stricken.

  “Send Jerick to me. Take instruction from him, take advice from Tiras, and let the King’s Council continue as Aren would have wished. Let the villagers put the castle and the countryside to rights. When the three days have passed, I will sit on the bloody throne if I must. But I will stay with the queen.” His jaw was so tight his teeth radiated with pain, and he waited for an argument from the old man.

  None came. Padrig bowed gingerly and began to make his way from the clearing back toward the wall around a kingdom that would never be the same.

  “I will wait for you, brother,” Tiras assured. “And Caarn will wait.”

  Sasha ate only dry bread and sipped water from the carafe Jerick brought each morning. She didn’t speak, and she didn’t raise her eyes to Kjell.

  It rained but the trees bowed above them, sheltering them, and they remained dry. The nights were cold but Isak built a fire of candlenuts that never ceased burning. Two of Kjell’s guard stood watch in the darkest hours, giving Kjell a brief reprieve from Sasha’s silence an
d her downcast eyes. But he always woke with her hand in his. She rose only to relieve herself and slept only when she could not stay awake. She didn’t weep, but he wished she would. Her silence was part of the ritual, but her dry eyes were not.

  When the three days had passed, she stood but could not walk, and he swept her up in his arms and walked for her, entering the castle for the first time as its king.

  In Jeru, death was marked by processions and bells that rang at intervals of seven, marking the period of Penthos—mourning. Monuments were built on the hill behind the palace, pale sepulchers of fallen kings. But in Caarn, many of the monuments were trees, and many villagers had witnessed the royal shifting. In one fell swoop, a king had passed and another took his place. Kjell’s coronation and Aren’s transformation had occurred simultaneously, and the whole village walked in a stupefied reverence superseded only by Kjell’s own shock and awe.

  He was king. Against his will and despite his reservations, Kjell of Jeru had become Kjell of Caarn, King of Dendar, saddled with a land and a kingdom he didn’t understand and a people he barely knew.

  He had been given a kingdom, but the queen was another matter entirely.

  For a week after her vigil ended, Sasha never left her chamber. She was attended by Tess and the blond maid who had once offered to shave Kjell’s beard. The blond was afraid of him and could never look him in the eyes, and Tess kept insisting that Sasha was well, though she clearly was not. Kjell stewed and couldn’t sleep, burdened by her behavior, by his new responsibilities, and by the continual dread that the danger in Caarn had not ended. Tiras stayed by his side, a constant in the chaos, helping Kjell to navigate a position he’d never wanted or aspired to. But it was not until Tiras prepared to leave for Jeru City that Kjell broke down and begged his brother for advice.

  “Tell me what to do, Tiras,” Kjell pled, his confusion and concern teetering on the edge of anger. He needed Sasha, and she was suffering alone.

  Tiras, perusing the kingdom’s holdings and various ventures—none of which Kjell cared about at the moment—looked up at Kjell thoughtfully. He closed the ledgers and rolled the maps on the steward’s desk in silence, clearly stewing over the advice he was about to dispense.