“But we have no choice in the matter!” someone cried. “They never asked us.”
“You always have a choice. You made a choice today.” She walked a few steps away from Bain, staring into the eyes of the people in her audience, gauging what they felt from their expressions. “I need to fight,” she said. “I would rather face our enemies, the men who wrestle sharks, than be subjugated by our so-called allies!”
“Liberate us, Sapphyra,” a woman begged. “We have prayed and prayed for your return.”
“Tell us what to do,” a man said, saluting. “Command us, Dead Queen.”
Aazuria nodded, gesturing out to the water. “Burn those ships. Make sure they’re fully evacuated first, then sink them. We’re returning home to live in Adlivun.”
“Sedna praise her!” a woman cried.
Ignoring the odd profusion of religious phrases, Aazuria glared at the men who had been responsible for starting the riot. “Send all of the American soldiers home to Alaska on the lifeboats. Our business with them is done.”
“Even the one who killed Bain?” a man asked gruffly.
“No,” Aazuria answered. “He’s mine. I’m going to rip his throat out in about ten seconds.”
Many people murmured approvingly. “So, miss… are we on strike?” one of the women asked feebly.
Aazuria released a laugh from deep in her chest, reaching down to dig the bullets out of her Kevlar vest with her fingernails. “If it’s within my power, none of you will ever touch this bridge again. If it’s within my power, the damn thing will be melted down with the boiling waters of Sedna’s own grave, sinking to the bottom of the sea evermore. I guess we’ll just have to find out if it’s within my power. Now, I do believe ten seconds have passed…”
She began walking toward the soldier who had shot Bain, looking directly into his terrified eyes. Once, she might have had a trial for such a crime. Once, she would have done things the proper way. But now, she felt as dead inside as everyone believed her to be. After killing King Kyrosed for his tyranny, and after murdering Prince Zalcan Hamnil for kidnapping her when she was pregnant, Aazuria felt that this American soldier was nothing of consequence.
Yet when her fingers reached out to connect with the man’s neck, and she knew that his life was about to end, she was filled with a sudden pleasure. She would enjoy this more than any of her previous assassinations—this was not carefully planned and executed, but emotional and immediate. She had no time to mull over the consequences, but she knew from experience that she would be able to face them. The gratification she gained from the look in his eyes was intoxicating, and she feared that she would somehow grow addicted to this manslaughter. The only remnant of her past self that remained was the stony lack of expression on her face as her fingernails slashed through the man’s neck, digging for his aorta.
Aazuria burst into the closet-like cabin she had shared with her daughter, moving to the bed.
“Varia, wake up,” she said firmly, touching the girl’s shoulder.
The child, who had been trained to be alert, was instantly wide awake and observing her environment. “Mother, your wig!”
“I stuffed it in my satchel,” Aazuria said as she lifted Varia off the bed. She flipped the mattress over, revealing a small arsenal of weapons. “Are you wearing your vest, darling?”
“Yes, of course,” Varia said nervously. “What’s wrong?”
“We have to move quickly,” Aazuria said, handing Varia a gun that was almost as tall as her body, in addition to several knives. As the young girl hurried to shove the knives into various concealed places in her body, Aazuria replaced her wig.
“Mother!” Varia noticed suddenly, her eyes having adjusted to the darkness. “Your blouse… the blood…”
“I was shot with an automatic weapon,” Aazuria explained, “but I’m perfectly fine. I need you to tell me the number on the bracelet of that boy in your class.”
“What boy?” Varia said awkwardly.
Aazuria sighed, closing her eyes. “Please, Varia. Tell me where I can find Glais.”
Varia diverted her eyes stubbornly. “I don’t know anything about him.”
“Varia!” Aazuria said sharply, with a warning in her tone.
“Four-seven-nine-two-zero,” she rattled off rapidly.
Aazuria leaned forward to kiss her daughter’s forehead. “You have a mind like a steel trap. You have never seen any numbers anywhere that you didn’t memorize instantaneously. Let’s go. There’s no time to waste.”
“Wait—what happened, Mama?” Varia whispered, paralyzed in sudden fear. “Whose blood is this?”
Pausing for a second, Aazuria turned to look at the young girl. “I need to tell you something. It’s going to be the most difficult thing I’ve ever told you. Can you be strong for me? Can you keep it together until we know that we’re safe?”
Varia nodded slowly, a bit afraid of the regal, businesslike tone in the true queen’s voice.
“Promise me,” Aazuria demanded. “Promise me you will try your best not to be overwhelmed with emotion—you will not allow yourself to feel anything until it’s safe to feel something. Is that understood?”
“Yes, Mother.”
“Glais’ dad was just killed. He died in my arms. I ordered all of these ships destroyed.”
“But his mom is gone too,” Varia said softly.
“I know, darling.” Aazuria reached for her daughter’s hand. “We’ll keep him with us from now on. Let’s go to his cabin.”
Varia followed her mother, moving quickly and efficiently, but with a mind that was numb and empty. The rows of doors in the corridor blurred together in her vision as she imagined her classmate’s face. No, she said internally. I hardly know Glais, but he loved his father more than anything. As much as I love Mother! I would rather my own father have been killed instead! No, I don’t wish that—no one nice should die except for bad people like Prince Zalcan Hamnil. This just is not right. I can’t think. My mind isn’t working. I mustn’t cry. I must be strong like Mother said.
Before Varia realized what was happening, Aazuria was banging on the cabin door. When there was no answer, the woman used her knee to force the flimsy door open violently, breaking it off its hinges. Glais had been in the small bed with his pajamas on, but he hopped out in surprise.
“What’s going on? Pearl and Miss Undina?” he said with alarm, rubbing his sleepy eyes so that they would fully open.
“Wear this,” Aazuria said, handing the boy some lightweight Kevlar armor. “We have to go, Glais.”
“Okay,” the boy said, pulling the vest over his head compliantly.
In the second it took him to do this, Aazuria could not help glancing around the small room for signs of Bain. Now that he was beyond her reach, she felt the desire to know more about him, and to see evidence of his existence—she wanted to touch some small, meaningful residue of his life in this world. She saw his clothes folded neatly in the corner, and she realized that she had never noticed that he was a neat person. She had never had the chance to know whether he was messy or neat.
“Where are we going?” Glais asked. “My dad is supposed to come home anytime.”
Aazuria immediately cast all thoughts out of her mind except for what she needed to do. “Glais, listen to me. This ship will be burned and sunk to the bottom of the Bering Strait within the next twenty minutes. We have to get out of here and I will explain everything.”
The boy seemed hesitant and confused. “I’m not going anywhere without my dad. Where is he?”
Varia tried to reason with her schoolmate, but she was unable to speak as persuasively as she wished. “Please, Glais. My mother is just trying to keep us safe.”
Aazuria’s eyes became fixated on a waterproof picture frame that hung on a nail in the cabin. It was a wedding painting of Bain and his wife; both were dressed beautifully in traditional, green Adluvian formalwear. They were smiling, and obviously very in love. When she felt tears prick the back o
f her eyes, she drew a ragged breath. You will keep yourself together, Queen Aazuria Vellamo! You will be strong for the children. Marching across the room, she pulled the photograph from the wall, and handed it to Glais.
“You’re going to want to keep that with you,” she said. “It’s time to go.”
Taking the picture, the boy looked at it for a second before turning to glare at both women. “I’m twelve years old!” Glais said angrily. “Don’t treat me like a baby. Tell me what happened to him!”
Aazuria could not look into the boy’s amber eyes without feeling her misery turn back into rage. She filled her lungs several times before turning impulsively and smashing her fist into the wood separating the small cabins. The wall crumbled under her anger, but she was able to regain some of her focus. She turned back to Glais, trying her best to keep from breaking down.
“Tonight, your father stood up to an American soldier who was trying to take advantage of him. Bain was shot and killed. There was nothing I could do. He died honorably and heroically. With his final words he requested that I take care of you.” Aazuria paused, staring into the boy’s amber irises to seek comprehension. “So I’m going to take care of you.”
Glais stood statue-still and unblinking. A potent silence forced its way into all of their ears, thundering through the ship’s brig with its heaviness. “But he said he was going to come home tonight,” the boy whispered.
Aazuria glanced at Varia, her insides aching for the pain that she knew the child was feeling. The pain from which she should have been able to shield the girl. Although Varia’s face was expressionless, she could feel the anguish radiating from her sensitive core. She returned her gaze to the twelve-year-old. She reached out to squeeze his shoulder firmly. “Your father was the bravest, sweetest man I’ve ever met.”
The young boy catapulted himself forward into Aazuria’s chest, burying his large, gasping sobs in her bulletproofed torso. Aazuria instantly wrapped her arms around him, whispering soothing words and rubbing the back of his head.
“It’s not fair!” Glais screamed. “It’s not fair!”
Feeling his sorrow under her hands, Aazuria struggled to regain her composure. She knew that they needed to leave the boat, but she just wanted to hold the boy until all his tears had gone. She wanted to hold him until his pain went away, even if it took a lifetime. She supposed this was some sort of developed maternal tendency—her new handicap.
“Glais,” Varia said in a voice that was surprisingly firm. She stepped forward, surprising Aazuria with her strength and composure. “We have to go.” When the boy ignored her and continued crying, hiding his face in her mother’s bullet-ridden blouse, she reached out to touch his arm.
He turned to her, his amber eyes reddened and brimming with liquid. “I’m coming,” Glais said, wiping his nose and sniffling. “Just give me one second. Just one second.” Moving away from Aazuria, he seemed to be making a visible effort to toughen himself up as he looked up at the older woman. “What happened to the man who shot my father?”
She was startled by the question, but she knew that he deserved the truth. “I avenged Bain by killing the soldier who shot him in an appropriately horrific way. Now, I have ordered all of these ships burned, and there will be no more work on the bridge—not by Adlivun.”
“Thank you,” Glais said. “I would have liked to… do it myself. But I don’t think I could have…”
Varia extended her hand to clasp his, squeezing it gently. She was surprised when he returned the pressure with excessive force. Her hand actually hurt under the power of his grip. “It’s going to be fine, Glais. We’ll stick together from now on,” she told him.
“Thank you, Pearl,” he said quietly.
She flinched. The false name sounded so filthy that she did not look to her mother for permission before correcting him. “Varia. That’s my real name.”
“I was hoping that you would be my sister,” Glais admitted to her with a sniffle. “’Cause my dad said that he found your mom really pretty and he was trying to get her to have coffee with him.”
“Oh, no. That would have been so nice.” Varia’s head turned to look at her mother with pain in her eyes. “You didn’t tell me about that!”
“Enough!” Aazuria wanted to smash another wall at the mention of the coffee. The simple word sent poison-tipped spears slashing through her chest. She exhaled shakily and fell to her knees in front of her daughter and her new, inherited son. “Okay, kids,” Aazuria said, pulling her knife out of her boot. She moved to the connection of her daughter’s hand with the young boy, and she gently sliced little cuts into each of their palms. Neither of the kids complained or even flinched at the pain. They were too overwhelmed with their emotional hurts to even notice Aazuria’s knife slicing their flesh.
“Do you see this blood?” she asked, squeezing their hands so that a little extra would bleed out of the shallow cuts. She mashed their hands together. “It mixes in each of your bodies, making you blood brother and sister. This means that you two have to look out for each other, and take care of each other from now on. Is that clear?”
They both nodded, staring at their bloody palms with forlorn eyes.
“We’ll be family,” Varia told him. She had grown up without any real family other than her mother, and she felt the need to take care of Glais and make him feel better.
An explosion shook the boat, lurching them all off-balance. The children looked at each other with terrified eyes. “Come on,” Aazuria told them, replacing her knife in her belt. “We have to go.”
Chapter 6: Ridiculous, Wild Conjecture
“This had better be important,” Elandria said into her cell phone as she balanced it between her shoulder and her ear. She was sitting on the edge of the bed and opening the section of the pillbox marked ‘Thursday.’ “You know my husband is very ill, Naclana, and I don’t have time for—”
“I’m fine!” Trevain protested with a groan, lifting himself to a seated position. “What does he want now?”
“Nothing from you!” Elandria said, pushing his shoulder forcefully, to make the man fall back onto his pillow. She pointed a commanding finger at him. “Down! Sionna said you needed bed rest until she figures out what’s wrong. If it gets any worse we’re sticking you in the healing springs.”
“It’s just a common flu, Elan! Relax and give me the damn phone,” he demanded, holding out his hand.
She placed the pill box on the night table carved from ice and took a few steps away from the bed. “Come and get it!” she said, waving the phone teasingly. Trevain tried to move, but the ache in his head made him dizzy. He raised a hand to lift his gray bangs away from his moist forehead, and Elandria arched her white eyebrows in victory, placing the phone back against her ear. “Yes, Naclana. Please be brief.”
Trevain could do nothing but lie on his side and stare at the small woman’s reaction as her eyes narrowed and darted to him nervously. He saw her hand move to her chest and press against her breastbone before she swiveled around rapidly so that he could not see her betraying expressions.
“A strike?” she asked in a troubled tone. “Permanently? What in Sedna’s name! Naclana, are you pulling my leg? Is this that day of the year that you land-dwellers pull pranks on each other, because you know that I am not in the mood for…”
“That’s in April, honey,” Trevain said with a frown. “Give me the phone.”
“I am not going to let you hear bad news when you’re unwell!” Elandria said, glancing over her shoulder and covering the phone.
“Jesus, lady! I am fine. Come over here and I will show you how fine I am.”
“If one part of you works quite well, it does not mean they all do,” Elandria whispered. “Sionna said it could be the same mysterious disease that killed your mother. Something degenerative and hereditary. Please take your own health more seriously, my love.”
Trevain could never resist her requests when she uttered them with such sweet concern. He nodded and
stretched his arms out to her, and Elandria saw his submission in his green eyes. She moved over to the bed and seated herself beside him as she spoke to Naclana, allowing Trevain to nestle his face against her hip and wrap his arm around her thighs. She was momentarily distracted from the conversation by being self-conscious about her weight. She was aware that she had gained a few pounds in the last decade, and even more in the last four luxurious years of her marriage. Luckily, Trevain did not seem to love her any less or be any less affectionate. He never even seemed to notice the young, slim women who frequently threw themselves at him—his devotion was a blessing for Elandria’s fragile ego.
“What? I’m sorry, Naclana. Can you—could you please repeat that?” she asked, a bit distracted by Trevain nuzzling his face into her hip. “An American soldier shot one of our citizens? Is he alive—oh! Oh, dear. And the American?” Elandria inhaled sharply, her whole body convulsing as though struck with high voltage. “Lynched! Naclana. Please don’t toy with me!”
Trevain’s hand froze on Elandria’s thigh as he looked up at her in alarm. Her lips had parted and she stared down at him in evident distress.
“A… rebellion?” Elandria repeated weakly. “There has never been a true rebellion in the history of Adlivun. Are they moving against us—do they intend us harm? I see. They want to abolish the treaty.”
“I knew this was going to happen. Fuck!” Trevain cursed.
“Shhh, we’ll fix this,” Elandria said softly, looking down at her husband and placing a hand in his gray hair reassuringly. She returned her voice to full volume, speaking into the phone. “We will discuss this further and meet with the appropriate political leaders, Naclana. Feel free to schedule any appointments for me. What? No. Say that again.” The woman swallowed. “Led by someone impersonating my dead sister? Naclana! Where in the vast seas are you getting this rubbish?” The white-haired woman burst into tears, throwing herself down on Trevain’s chest.
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