by Janeal Falor
What’s going on? Where are we?
I can feel Androlla’s curiosity, though she keeps up the screaming. Nash wheels me into the room. A passage is open in the far wall. He goes into the dark passage, slowing as he goes, but not taking his hand off my mouth.
After a brief moment, the darkness deepens as someone closes the door to the passage. We travel a ways. Androlla stops screaming, but Nash won’t be fooled a second time. He keeps right on blocking her from speaking.
I continue struggling, though I don’t know what good it does. It seems like whenever I gain govern of my body again it’s because she loses control, not because of anything I do.
A faint light appears and grows as we continue on. We come to the end of the path with a door that has light shining through its edges. Nash reaches over me and shoves the door open. He pushes my chair into a room lit with candles, like it was waiting for us. And then I see why—Julina steps out from the shadows.
“What’s going on? Are you covering Ryn’s mouth?” she asks.
“I’m afraid Ryn isn’t herself,” Jaku says from behind us.
“So you’re restraining her?” Julina takes a step closer to me, rage filling her expression.
Nash pulls my chair back. “I promise you this isn’t what it looks like.”
She folds her arms. “Then what is it? Because from my vantage point, it seems like you’re kidnapping the queen and having me help you do so.”
I hope they can get her to understand. I should have told her sooner. She’s close enough to me she might have accepted that I’m not crazy. Now, though, things look bad.
“Ryn is inhabited by an ancient queen, bent on taking over every queen’s body and ruling the country,” Nash says.
“R—right.” She takes a step toward the door across the room from us. The room is bigger than I first thought, but Jaku beats her to the door, blocking her way out.
“It’s true,” he says. “I know it sounds crazy. I know magic seems far out there, but that’s what’s happening. The Mortum Tura causes this and has for a thousand years. Think about it. The queens always end up ruling with a cunning and harshness that doesn’t always mirror how they first act.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. The queens are women who have drunk the Mortum Tura and lived. They don’t get some entity in them through magic, just the glowing power that makes it known they’re the queen.”
“That’s what this evil queen wants you to think. But it’s her, not Ryn. I swear to you on my life and on Ryn’s life that what I say is true,” Jaku says.
“And I add my word to his.” Nash’s hand is still over my mouth.
“As do I.” Venda steps out of the passage we went through and shuts the door.
Nash takes his hand off my mouth, but the First Queen doesn’t do anything. She just sits there.
“Is this true, Ryn?” Julina asks.
“Of course not.” Androlla’s words make me cringe.
Julina takes a step closer, and Nash wheels me into the corner, by a table with a lit candelabra on it. He steps in front of me and says, “I know this is hard to believe, but think about Ryn’s behavior recently. Think about the lighter color of her hair and the green of her eyes. She’s done and said things very un-Ryn-like. She wouldn’t do anything like send me and Jaku to the dungeons. And if she did, why would she turn around and let us back out? Why would she appoint someone she doesn’t know to be her Head Advisor? A man who tried to kill her? It makes no sense, unless you know someone else is behind these actions.”
“All right.” Julina takes a step back and grab the door handle. “I need to run and get something. I’ll be right back.”
Nash, Venda, and Jaku jump at her. They’re fighting against her, struggling to restrain her with their hands. I want to tell them to stop fighting each other—that we’re going to have to get along to defeat this. I want to tell Julina the story myself. If she hears it from me, she may change her mind. But I can’t. I’m stuck in my own body more than I was ever stuck in this chair.
Androlla stretches my arm, fighting against the weakness, while the others try to subdue Julina. What is she doing?
She snatches the candelabra off the table and tips it onto my lap. My arm slouches to the side after the hard job. I scream at her to pick the candelabra up. To get it off my lap. To tell someone what happened.
She doesn’t.
The material of my skirt goes up in flames.
She’s trying to kill me.
And it’s going to work.
If only one of the others would look my way…They don’t, though. They’re so absorbed with stopping Julina. Androlla uses my other hand to shove the candelabra to the side, where the flames tickle my chair until it too lights up.
I’m going to burn alive.
I don’t feel pain yet, but then, I don’t have control of my body. The fire licks up my chair, and soon the whole corner is on fire. Nash notices. He races toward me, but hands reach out to stop him.
I can tell they’re talking, but I can’t hear what they’re saying over the crackle of the fire. Venda rushes to a stand that holds a water jug, several cups, and a platter of food, grabs the jug, and throws the water on me. It barely douses the flames, which grow bigger, now taking up half the room.
Jaku pulls off his cape and throws it on me, though he has to step inside the flames to do so. Nash follows suit, and they both try to put out the fire while being engulfed themselves.
Venda pulls them back, swatting at Jaku’s sleeve that’s been lit up.
“Can’t we use magic?” Nash yells.
“I don’t have any anti-fire enchantments,” she says.
“We can’t just leave her.”
The room above their heads and to their sides has now caught. The wall of flames is thick between us.
They won’t be able to reach me.
Androlla has won.
“We have to go,” Jaku yells.
“I won’t leave Ryn,” Nash hollers back.
From my mouth, Androlla’s tinkling laugh fills the room with the crackling fire.
Nash continues to fight against them, but Jaku pushes a pressure point on his neck, and Nash falls to the ground. Jaku scoops him up and yells my way, “I’m sorry, Ryn. I promise we’ll find a way to defeat her.”
They are out the door, and I’m left alone. Burning.
Chapter 36
I blink against the raging light and realize Androlla has given me back my body. To feel the burn for myself, no doubt. Except I don’t feel much of anything. Just a slight tickling. And my finger… it’s cold. Really cold, now that I think about it.
I glance down to see the wooden ring I took out of the treasury all those months ago lit up but not with fire. A blue-hued light is emanating from it. It wraps around the ring and moves along my body in a fainter pattern. It must be the magic saving my life.
Inside, the First Queen howls at her foiled plan. I smile. I have to wait out this fire and hope someone comes back to get me.
Something cracks beneath me. My chair. It doesn’t seem to be receiving the same protection my body is getting; it’s going up fast. I try to scoot off it, avoid being injured when it falls, but the thing breaks beneath me, dropping me to the ground, and I hit the back of my head on the wall.
The ache is nothing more than I’m used to—the pain of the First Queen being ever present. But now it seems muted, as if she’s not trying hard enough to get through my mental barriers because of her failure. I’m all right with that, even if I’m sitting on a half-broken chair that’s going up in flames. As long as I survive this, I can do anything.
Except maybe get rid of the Androlla for good.
As soon as this is over, I’m not wasting any more time. I’m going to defeat her once and for all. My friends have been taken care of. It will be fine, even if I fail.
I wait what seems like an eternity before the flames have scorched everything in their path next to me. The fire still crac
kles in other parts of the room, but here, it’s nothing but coals. The stone wall behind me held in place, but the floor is a mixture of dirt and ash.
I’m filthy, my clothes covered in soot. Why aren't my clothes burnt? How did they survive and not my chair? Doesn't matter. Better dirty than dead. I’ve got to get out of here. I let myself slump so my arms are stretched out in front of me. I use them to pull myself forward. My legs are tangled in the wreckage that was my chair and aren’t budging. I don’t have the strength to do this.
I try again and again, screaming for help. Hours pass. My eyelids grow heavy. I let them close, and I’m off to a dream, where I can run and dance and mock Androlla.
Something wet nudges my hand. I open my eyes to find Puneah pushing up against me. “Hi, girl.” My voice is a little raspy, but otherwise I feel fine.
Puneah licks my hand.
“How did you get here? Is anyone else coming?” I ask.
She sits back on her haunches and stares at me. Last I saw of her was in my room, before the meeting.
“Go get Nash or Jaku. All right, Puneah?”
She stares a moment longer, then gets up and strolls away like she has all the time in the world.
“Can you go a little faster, please?” I say.
Surprisingly, she speeds up to a lope.
Time passes. It’s difficult to tell how much. It feels like a lot, but must be less than I think. People should come back and make certain the fire didn't spread. There’s a noise in the distance that grows closer.
“Darned cat. Are you taking me to see Ryn? I’m not certain it’s safe to move her remains yet.” There’s no life to Nash’s voice.
What is better—to have him see me alive or hear me? Hearing me may be less startling. “Nash?” The word comes out croaked.
“Ryn?” The word is filled with disbelief.
“Nash, I’m here.”
The footsteps grow louder and faster. He enters the room with Puneah behind him.
“Good girl, Puneah. Good girl.” I look up at Nash, grateful to see he’s unharmed, though he is covered in dirt and soot too. He even has a smudge of it on his jaw.
He stares at me. “I’m dreaming.”
“Fortunately, no. I’m quite alive and really uncomfortable.”
He rushes to my side and pulls me into his arms.
I sigh. “That’s better.”
“I can’t believe you’re alive. How did this happen? Last I saw, you were engulfed in flames.”
I lift my hand and wiggle the finger with the ring on it, before dropping it back to my lap. “Magic ring, I think. It kept me from burning.”
“That can’t be.”
“But it is.”
He buries his face in my hair. His body shakes. Is he… sobbing? I let him and enjoy the feel of him. He’s much more comfortable than the ground, and though my head still hurts, it’s nothing to what I could be like. His chest plate is hard against my side, as are his arm muscles, yet they’re better than any pillow I’ve ever felt.
Puneah bumps her head against my shoulder. “That’s a good girl, Puneah. Good, good girl,” I say.
Nash lifts his head from my hair. His eyes are wet, but he’s smiling. I grin back. He leans down and brushes a kiss across my lips, light and feathery. Perfect for making me want more.
“We should get you to the others. They were going to come looking when the heat died down, but Puneah here decided I needed to show up sooner.”
“It’s still hot? Did you burn yourself? Can you breathe all right?” I’d hate for something to happen to him.
“I’m fine.”
He stands and lifts me with him, an impressive display of muscles. I lean my head against his shoulder, and Puneah follows us out.
We travel through a blackened hall, the sky visible through the roof as Nash makes his way across the debris. “Where are we?” I ask.
“In a safe house outside the palace walls.”
“What are we doing here?”
“Keeping you safe from Androlla’s outbursts.”
“That’s a good idea. How long have you been preparing for something like this?” They must have planned this out.
“Almost since we first found out she was taking you over.”
That’s wonderful. I can’t believe I’m in love with someone so thoughtful. Well… I can, but it’s still amazing. “Who else knows I was in the fire?”
“Just the few of us that were there. Jaku, Venda, Julina, and I.”
“How is Julina taking this?”
He winces. “We had to tie her up so she wouldn’t go raving about how we were all crazy. We didn’t want to get banned when we were going to try and take out the First Queen.”
I grin. “You’re the best.”
“I still can’t believe you’re alive. The others won’t believe it either.”
We’ve left the building and are headed toward a small house. When we get there, Nash kicks the door with his foot to knock.
“It’s I,” Nash says, “and I’ve got a surprise.”
The door opens, and Jaku pokes his face out. He stares at me, his mouth dropping. “But that’s impossible.”
Nash pushes past him and brings me into a large room, where Julina is tied to a chair, a gag on her mouth. In the corner, Venda doesn’t look nearly as surprised to see me as the others but still has wide eyes.
“Magic?” she asks.
Nash sets me on the couch.
I say, “I’m getting everything filthy.”
“Doesn’t matter. It’s just stuff,” he says and turns to Venda. “She thinks it was her wooden ring, the one Puneah detected as magic.”
“Ah. I see.”
I focus on Julina. “Are you all right?”
She shrugs, her arms not moving much since she’s tied up.
“We should let her go,” I say.
“I still can’t believe you’re here,” Jaku says.
We have a lot to do and little time left to do it. “We should let Julina go,” I say again.
“That’s like you, to worry about someone else when you were almost burned alive,” Nash says.
“As much as I’d like to take the time to deal with it, Androlla’s power over me is stronger than ever. We need to get to work. Venda, I’m glad you’re here. We must gather supplies to make the golem.”
“We gathered them at the house that burned down. I’ll see what I can recover and get the rest.”
She leaves, and I turn my attention to Nash and Jaku. “We need to let Julina go,” I say for the third time.
“She will tell on us. Tell people you’ve gone crazy. That we all have.”
I purse my lips. We can’t have that. “Can you at least take the tie off of her mouth so I can talk to her?”
Nash and Jaku exchange a look. From what I gather, the two have become so close they’re like an old married couple, able to read each other at a glance.
Nash goes to Julina. “I’m going to let you talk, but you have to promise not to scream. All right?”
She nods.
“Good. If we have any problems, I’m going to put it back in place.” He unties it.
She looks right at me. “How are you alive? Last I saw, you were burning in an inferno.”
“Like Nash said—my ring. It’s magic and protected me.”
“That’s impossible.”
“So is my being here,” I say.
She stares at me, gaze searching.
“It’s true. You have to believe me. Everything—from me living through the fire to the First Queen’s trying to take me over—is all true. Why else would I have set myself on fire? I wouldn’t do that.”
“No, you wouldn’t. But why would someone inhabiting your body want you dead?”
“Because I’m stuck in this body. She wants freedom, not—well—this.”
“That makes sense, but I’m still not sure I believe it. It’s too farfetched. Too out there. It doesn’t come together.”
“Just
because we didn’t grow up knowing about magic and its possibilities doesn’t make it impossible.”
Her forehead creases. “Say I do believe you. Not saying I do, but pretend it is so. What’s the next step?”
“We’re going to try to get the First Queen’s soul out of my body and into a golem made of clay. Then Nash and Jaku will destroy it. This will happen, whether or not you believe us.”
“How do I know you’re not crazy?”
I think about that a moment. How do we know that, other than by Androlla’s saying and doing things I never would? I explain Androlla's words to her. “But even if I am crazy, would it hurt to try?”
She sighs. “No, it wouldn’t.”
“I’m glad you agree. I’m willing to let you go if you promise to give this a chance and not go running to the council and telling them you think I’m incompetent.”
She bites her bottom lip. “I promise. Whether you’re crazy or not, I don’t want anything to happen to you. You’re my friend, even if you’ve lost touch with reality.”
I give her a small smile. “I’m glad. Let’s see what we can do. Nash, will you help Venda gather supplies? I don’t want to wait longer than we have to.”
I’d ask them all to help her, but they won’t want to leave me unprotected and Julina free to tell the council.
“I can do that.” Nash heads out.
Puneah settles down in a ball next to me. Once this is all over, I’m making sure she gets the dinner of her life.
Chapter 37
It takes a while to get all the supplies, but we get them in the end, and we put together a golem made of clay. It looks rather lumpy and sloppy, but it will do the job.
Even Julina helps, despite her disbelief.
Venda comes over to me. “Are you ready?”
“Is it ready for me?” I’m suddenly worried this isn’t the right thing to do. That it’s not going to work. That we’re doing something wrong.
Probably because we’re doing dark magic.
Who am I going to lose as part of the consequences of this spell? I hope the rumors were false and there are no consequence beyond the usual ones.
