The Reluctant Queen

by Sarah Beth Durst

“Enter!” a voice rang out. “Especially if you are brawny and nude!”

  The guard swung the door open, and Arin carried the cake inside.

  “Oh, even better, that looks like food. Come, bring it here, child.” Following her voice, Arin carried the cake across the bedroom and then laid it on a table beside two chairs. Hamon’s mother moved a microscope so the cake could fit. “Guards, you may leave us.” In a conspiratorial voice, Hamon’s mother said, “I don’t like to share. Come now, open it. Let’s see what feast you’ve brought for me.”

  “Your cake.” With a flourish, Arin lifted the lid and was rewarded with a gasp and a clap.

  “Oh, you delightful child! This is magnificent!” Hamon’s mother circled the cake, admiring it from all angles. “You made this for me? I’m so delighted I could kiss you.”

  Remembering what Hamon had said about his mother’s lipstick, Arin took a step backward. Now that the cake was delivered, she should leave. She hadn’t meant to be away from Daleina for so long—it was only that she’d been absorbed in the baking. For the first time since she’d come to the palace, she’d felt like herself again. She’d felt useful and appreciated, instead of the horrible, drowning helplessness she felt when she thought about her sister’s illness. “Enjoy,” she said, and added a curtsy.

  “Tell me the truth now,” his mother said. “Did you do this, or merely deliver it?”

  “I’m a baker. I like to decorate.”

  “You have a steady hand. Useful.” Circling around Arin, Hamon’s mother examined her. “Yes, yes, I think you will do nicely. I am in need of an assistant. My Hamon has delivered to me an intriguing puzzle, and the work would go faster with a set of young, steady hands.”

  She felt as if a warning bell were chiming in the back of her mind. She knew she wasn’t supposed to stay and spend time with Hamon’s mother. He might be angry as it was, but she’d wanted to deliver the cake while it was still fresh. Stale cake made no friends. “I am sorry, ma’am, but I already have a position at the palace.” She was supposed to be watching her sister, even though Daleina kept sending her away.

  “Not one more important than this.” All trace of the flighty, overblown personality had vanished, wiped clean as if with a washcloth. “Make no mistake: my son wouldn’t have called me here for anything less than the gravest of emergencies. He’s a fool if he thinks I haven’t guessed whose blood he wants me to test, or to think that I can’t read the fear in his eyes. You will help me, because it is necessary.”

  All excellent points, but she should check with—

  Without waiting for Arin to speak any objections out loud, Hamon’s mother beamed at her and clapped her on the shoulder. “Be a good girl and borrow something sharp from one of those guards. Let’s cut the cake, and then dive into work, shall we?”

  She hesitated again. Bringing a weapon anywhere near Hamon’s mother did not sound like the best idea.

  “Do you think I am going to slit your throat and make a run for it?” The woman smiled. “I wouldn’t have come if I’d wanted to run. I’m here to see how this turns out. But if you won’t ask a guard, then I’ll simply do it myself.”

  Arin tensed, but Hamon’s mother picked up a plate and used it to slice a wedge out of the cake. “See? Messy but effective. Don’t be so untrusting.” Hamon’s mother handed Arin the first slice and took a second piece for herself.

  Biting into the cake, Arin watched Hamon’s mother. She dived into the cake with gusto, inhaling chunks of it as if she hadn’t eaten in days. Arin nibbled at her slice. It was, Arin admitted, excellent cake. The hint of nutmeg was what turned it from merely good to great, and the frosting . . . Odd that it should have a tang to it. She hadn’t remembered adding that flavor. She had an excellent memory for tastes.

  Arin blinked as the cake blurred in front of her for a moment.

  “Are you all right, child?” Hamon’s mother asked.

  Shaking her head, she cleared the blurriness. Everything snapped back into focus. Looking at Hamon’s mother, she realized how kind a smile she had. Anyone who smiled like that couldn’t mean any harm, and of course it was important to help her. Arin felt silly for resisting. She wanted to help this woman. “I’m happy to help you any way I can.”

  “Of course you are, my child. And you won’t leave me when I need you, will you?”

  She’s beautiful, Arin thought. And brilliant and kind. “Never.”

  Hamon’s mother smiled at her, and Arin took another bite of cake.

  Chapter 15

  The academy twisted, as if unscrewed by a giant hand, and cracks shot up the walls, splitting into a dozen more cracks. Naelin scrambled to keep her feet beneath her as the ground writhed and rolled. She caught Ven’s arm, and he yanked her out of the loose, sandlike soil that filled her shoes and pulled on her ankles, and toward the stairs. They fell onto the steps as he herded the headmistress in front of them. The other masters swarmed around their headmistress, helping her to higher stairs.

  “Focus,” the headmistress ordered them. “Act, don’t react.”

  Above, the students were screaming. Pressed against the windows, they clung to the sills as the tower shifted and shook. Naelin tried to see her children—Which window? She couldn’t see them, but they must have woken, must be scared, and she wasn’t there.

  “Send it back, Naelin,” Ven told her, gripping her arm. “You can do it.”

  “Erian and Llor—” She had to reach them! She had to—

  “You have to do this for them!”

  Yes. Yes, she did.

  He was right.

  She’d called this monster; she had to stop it. Turning, she stumbled down the steps toward the roiling earth. Acting on instinct, she knelt on the last step and thrust her hands into the shifting sand. You will not hurt them. You will STOP.

  She felt the earth kraken shudder and recoil—its presence was overwhelming, like falling into a bottomless lake, murky water all around you, clingy mud beneath your bare feet. She felt its hostility crawling over her skin, and then she felt its curiosity.

  “Fill it with yourself,” Ven said behind her. “Your strength.”

  “Your thoughts,” the headmistress added. “Your emotions. Your fear. Your love.”

  Go, she told it. Into the command, she shoved all her fear and love for her children, every shred of hope she had for them and their future, every wish for their happiness, every memory of late-night worrying while one of them lay sick beside her, every time she’d patched a scrape, every tear she’d kissed away, every tear she’d caused, saying stop, don’t do that, no!

  It withdrew. Curling its tentacles with it, it sank into the soil. The ground heaved as it departed, and Naelin kept her mind in the sand and stone beneath until the feel of the kraken vanished like a storm cloud dispersing in the wind.

  Shaking, she sank against the stairs, and then she heaved herself up and pushed past the masters and the students—up to where she’d left her children. She burst into the room.

  “Mama!” Launching himself across the room, Llor threw his small, quivering body at her. Erian followed. Her face was streaked with tears, and her hair was matted on her cheek. Naelin gathered them both in her arms.

  “I’m sorry,” she said into their hair. “I’m so sorry.”

  “You saved them,” a voice said behind her—Ven. “You sent it away. You, alone and untrained.”

  Muffled, she said without looking at him, “I also called it. It was my fault.” You told me to, she wanted to say. It was his fault too, pushing her to do what she didn’t want to do, what her instincts told her was too dangerous. But she could pin her anger on him only for a moment before it turned back to herself. She was the one who had summoned more than a single, weak spirit. She’d endangered everyone.

  “Think what you could accomplish with training!”

  She held Erian and Llor tighter, breathed them in, felt their own breath in their warm bodies as they shook against her, silently crying, still scared. “Yo
u can’t train me. I’m a danger. To them. To everyone.”

  “Next time, it might come on its own. Or another like it. Don’t you want to know how to keep your children safe always? Don’t you want to keep all the children safe? As a trained heir, you could do that. As queen, you could do more.” The hope in his voice, the belief in her, was heady.

  “You’re trying to manipulate me.”

  “Yes. Is it working?”

  She stroked her children’s hair and felt as if her heart were shattering into a thousand shards. She couldn’t risk them living through what she’d lived through, watching their mother draw too-powerful spirits, listening to her die. But was it already too late?

  “She can’t be trained here,” the headmistress said.

  Ven’s head shot up. “But she—”

  “You have to take her to the queen. She’s the only one with enough power to handle things if Naelin summons spirits she can’t control.”

  “This isn’t the time—”

  The headmistress cut him off. “It is precisely the time. There is, in fact, no time to waste. She needs the queen . . . and the queen needs her.”

  Slowly, Ven nodded.

  Yes, we need the queen, Naelin thought. The queen could keep the kraken from ever coming back. She had power over all the spirits. Maybe she could command them to forget me. She could order them to leave me and my children alone, forever.

  Pulling back from Erian and Llor, Naelin caressed her daughter’s cheek, pushing her hair back behind her ear. She smiled at both of them, a trembly smile but the best she could do. “We’re going to the palace. Isn’t that exciting? You’ll need to be very, very good.”

  “I don’t want to!” Llor wailed.

  “The queen will help us.” She patted his back as he wrapped his arms around her neck. “She’ll keep us all safe. From the spirits. From me.” She took a deep breath. “I seem to be . . . more than a hedgewitch.” There was no hiding from that fact. Ven was right. She knew full well that spirits like that didn’t come to a weak, immature power. Whatever was in her . . . it was big, bigger perhaps than her mother’s power had been. Scarier. But if the queen could convince the spirits to ignore the power they’d seen in her . . .

  Llor whimpered. “Are there going to be more monsters?”

  She hugged him tighter and wished with all her heart she could tell him no. “There are always monsters. But I’ll always be here to scare them away.”

  “Will you . . . will you be safe, Mama?” Erian asked. Her lip was trembling but she wasn’t crying anymore. She was trying to be brave.

  “Of course,” Naelin said. “Everything will be fine. You’ll see. We’ll all be together, and that’s what matters.” The queen was more powerful than anyone. She could help Naelin, if she chose to.

  “Promise?” Llor said.

  “Double promise,” Naelin said. They linked pinkies, all three of them, while Ven and the headmistress looked on silently. Smiling, Naelin didn’t let her children see a shred of fear or doubt . . . even as those feelings tried to eat away at her insides.

  Soon—sooner than Naelin would have liked—they were at the palace gate. She stayed with Erian and Llor as Ven spoke with the guards. After a minute, Ven waved them forward, and Naelin shuffled toward the gate with the children clinging to her middle. They all stared at the guards, stiff-backed and armed with swords and staffs with glittering blades on the ends. All the guards stared straight ahead, motionless.

  “Are they statues?” Llor reached out a pudgy finger to poke one, and she caught his wrist.

  “Don’t touch,” Naelin cautioned.

  “Can I tickle them?”

  “How is that not covered by ‘don’t touch’?” She kept a firm grip on his wrist until they were past the guards and through the grand gate.

  Inside, the palace was just as elegant as outside, with polished wood walls and glass globes lit within by either firemoss or fire spirits. Reaching out with her mind, Naelin felt the presence of dozens of spirits, flitting around the palace, more out in the capital, mostly small, harmless spirits, no larger than birds. Earth spirits worked in the garden, and a water spirit bathed in pools that Naelin couldn’t see—she could sense the spirit’s contentment, though, with the water that surrounded it.

  Ven strode ahead of them, nodding at the guards that flanked a vast stairway, and then veered around the stairs toward a door beneath it. Naelin exhaled—she hadn’t been relishing the thought of ascending those stairs, all the guards watching her. Her footfalls felt thunderously loud in the cavernous entrance hall.

  “You’ll have to be prepared the meet the queen,” Ven said. “Don’t be offended. The caretakers have firm ideas about what constitutes ‘presentable.’”

  Before Naelin could ask for specifics, the caretakers descended on them: three coiffed women and two men whisked them through the narrow door, away from Ven. They clucked to one another, chattering so fast that it felt as if they were speaking a different language. One yanked on Naelin’s hair and then sniffed before recoiling. Naelin clutched Erian and Llor closer.

  One of the caretakers bowed to her. “You will bathe now.”

  “Don’t want to,” Llor said.

  “That’s an excellent idea.” Naelin spied steaming baths through a half-open curtain. “Go with the nice man. Mama will be right nearby.” To the caretaker, she said, “Don’t take him farther than I can hear. And don’t listen if he screams when you wash his neck.”

  Llor relinquished her hand and went with the caretaker. “I’m ticklish,” he warned the caretaker. “I bite when I’m tickled.”

  “No biting!” Naelin called after him.

  Erian still clutched Naelin’s hand. “Please don’t make me go with them.”

  “They just want to clean us. Don’t you want to be clean?” She knelt in front of Erian. “You’ll feel better clean. Smell better too. I bet they have lovely smelling baths here.”

  Another caretaker bowed. “You can choose your fragrance. Pine, lilac, magnolia.”

  “Ooh, magnolia.” Naelin faked a smile, her eyes still on Erian. “That’s a flower from a tree that only grows where it’s warm, in southern Aratay. I’ve heard it smells sweeter than honeysuckle.” Through the curtain, she heard Llor yelp and water splash and hoped her son wasn’t about to bite a person who worked for the palace. They must have had young visitors before, right? “I’ll be right nearby.” She prayed the caretakers wouldn’t make her break her promise. She was aware of the guards just outside. She couldn’t let her children cause a scene here, not if she wanted them to be allowed to stay with her. “Don’t you want your hair untangled? You have enough snarls that I’m sure birds are using it as a nest. They’ve probably already laid eggs inside.” She pressed her ear against Erian’s hair. “I hear chirping! The eggs are hatching!”

  Erian giggled and then let the caretakers lead her into a bath. Eyes on the curtains, Naelin followed her caretakers toward her own bath. The tub looked to be stone and was cradled against the wall of wood, which glistened with beads of water from the rising steam. She shed her clothes and lowered herself into the water. It smelled sweet, like vanilla, and the bubbles hid her body from the caretakers as they efficiently scrubbed her arms, back, and hair. She told herself she’d birthed two children—she didn’t care about modesty.

  She let them dress her in layered golden skirts and a bodice embroidered with so many tiny beads that it felt like a pebbled floor when she ran her hand over it. They wound her hair into elaborate braids that twisted around one another so tightly that she doubted she’d ever untangle it, and they doused her skin in lotions. One plucked at hairs in her eyebrows. Through it all, she tried to shape what she planned to say to the queen.

  Erian and Llor waited for her back in the polished hall. Llor wore a golden tunic and a sullen expression, while Erian was beaming, all dolled-up like an illustration out of a book. Her hair had been braided with flowers. “I smell gross,” Llor proclaimed.

  “
Maybe the queen likes gross smells,” Naelin said. “Let’s go find out.”

  Taking her children’s hands, she followed the guards that led them up the spiral staircase. Llor was huffing by the time they reached the top, and Naelin was breathing deeply as the guard handed them to a new set of guards, these in armor trimmed with silver, who led them through a curved hallway, covered in mirrors and murals and decorated with sculptures that represented Renthians from Aratay and beyond: woodsmen, courtiers, acrobats, farmers, mountaineers, islanders . . . She wished she could have lingered over each one, carved from various woods and stones and even gems, but the guards didn’t slow. Up ahead, she saw Ven, dressed in his usual green armor, but cleaner with damp hair. She stopped in front of him—his eyes were drinking her in, and she felt a blush warm her cheeks. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d blushed. She was not a blusher.

  “You don’t smell gross,” Llor said, accusingly.

  “If they’d left you unbathed, you’d have scared all the guards,” Ven told him. “They aren’t used to people as fierce as you.”

  Only slightly mollified, Llor took Ven’s hand. Naelin saw Ven’s eyes widen as her son slipped his hand into the champion’s as if he owned it, and she stifled a smile. Ven, she was pleased to see, did not release the boy’s hand. Instead, he held it gently as he led them through a doorway carved with the images of birds and woodland creatures into the throne room.

  Naelin spotted Captain Alet. Standing on guard beside the throne, Alet wore jewel-encrusted green-and-gold armor, and carried a knife sheathed on each arm and each leg. Naelin met her eyes, and Alet nodded a welcome. She then winked at Erian and Llor, who giggled. Naelin felt slightly better. But only slightly.

  On the throne was the queen.

  She was . . . well, she was beautiful, though it was difficult to tell how much of that beauty was due to herself and how much was the richly layered fabrics and jewels. She had gold, orange, and red-streaked hair that shone in the firelight, catching the flames in her curls. Jewels were laid across her neck, sparkling like caught stars, and Naelin stared at them for a moment before she noticed a simple wooden necklace between them, three carved leaves. The queen also had an ordinary knife at her hip, with a battered hilt and a plain leather sheath. But what struck Naelin the most as she progressed forward was: She’s so young!