Daughters of Ruin

by K. D. Castner

  Rhea had just the writing desk, her bed, and some bureaus. It had two doors—one to the balcony and one to her real home, the training room downstairs. Rhea spent most of her time down there anyway. She didn’t need baubles and dolls.

  The door closed. She walked to the looking glass beside her balcony and gave herself three full sobs—wet and twisted and ugly.

  She swallowed the rest.

  The breeze on the balcony was as cool as well water. The night was full of stars. The city below was full of torches and revelers. The full moon presided over them. Cicadas sang to accompany the minstrels. Laughter all around.

  That night, even the orphans of Walltown would sleep with full bellies. Rhea could barely distinguish the fires on the distant city wall from the light of fireflies much closer on. Beyond them both was all of Pelgard—all the people of three kingdoms not her own.

  It would be an easy and lasting peace if all the nights could be likewise beautiful. Rhea felt the gnaw of hunger. She hadn’t eaten.

  Perhaps she would swing by the kitchens for a secret meal. She hated for people to watch her chew. She would give Cooky a kiss on the cheek for his year’s labor. His cheek would be greasy, but it would be everything he talked about until the next year’s Revels. Then she would return to the ball. Without so much as a nod to Lazlo, she would have that dance with Endrit. She might even kiss two men in one night.

  As she planned her course, Rhea half consciously noted the figures prowling across the bridge below. Some moved under it, across the gulley. They stayed away from the firelight, noticeable only as darker shapes sliding in the shadows. Rhea thought, Isn’t it strange for revelers to sneak away from the festival grounds?

  She pushed off the balcony to return to her room with little more thought. Is it a hiding game? she mused as she crossed the Protectorate hall, around the oaken table, to the door that led to the kitchens. Rhea turned the knob and pulled. It stayed fast.

  The door was never locked.

  Rhea wasn’t even certain who owned a key. She walked over to the other door, which led back to the ballroom, and pulled it open. The guardswoman stood before her, sword at the ready.

  Rhea stated the obvious, “You’re in my way.”

  With a hint of apology, the guard said, “Begging pardon, Majesty.”

  “Then get out of my way,” said Rhea.

  “The king said you might be crying in there and to ask you to—uh—”

  It must have been awkward to deliver such patronizing commands. “—to clean yourself up, if necessary, so that others won’t be—uh—”

  “So others won’t be what? Subjected to my emotions?”

  “Satisfied by the sight of a weak queen, Your Majesty.”

  Rhea opened her eyes wide. “Look, no tears. I’m fine. Now stand aside or I’ll put you down, guardswoman.”

  The guard seemed to like a queen willing to bloody her knuckles a bit. She bowed and stepped aside.

  Rhea stepped through. They walked together, down the hall, back toward the ballroom.

  “There is more to do tonight than babysit me, I hope,” said Rhea.

  “It’s my honor,” said the guard.

  “Besides,” said Rhea over her shoulder, “there are revelers playing a sneak game. They could drown in the gulley.”

  “What did you say?” said the guard. But before she could finish the question, Rhea opened the door to the banquet hall and an explosion shattered the west wall.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Cadis

  Cadis recognized the explosive ballista instantly, the signature cannonade of the Findain naval arsenal.

  All around her were screams of nobles in utter chaos and guards shouting. Dust and smoke scratched at her eyes and burned her lungs. The smell of death—burnt hair, singed skin—already filled the giant hall.

  Another explosion rocked the floor. The ballista must have arced downward and hit lower on the keep wall.

  A moment ago she had been standing with a flock of suitors and the Findish envoy before her. They had contrived some political debate for her benefit, to impress, to cajole, to influence. She was used to the mixture—flirting, fawning, manipulation.

  The marquis of an old Meridan outpost at the Tasan border clucked like a peacock about the need for the presence of troops in each of the three, ahem, disorderly kingdoms. Not only did the soldiers bring order, but also, they taught the locals all the latest techniques in farming.

  A Findish merchant with long eyelashes and a habit of touching Cadis at the elbow replied, “Oh? Does the good marquis know much about—”

  At that moment, the wall had erupted. A stone the size of a hillock melon smashed the young merchant in the back of the head. Cadis watched him crumple to the floor with his head crushed as the wave of smoke overtook them. For a rueful instant, Cadis thought, Now we’ll never know what the marquis knows about. The marquis, too, was dead on the ground, a jagged rock sticking out of his back.

  Cadis covered her mouth, squinted, and ran perpendicular to the direction of the blast. Running away would be panic. Running directly away would be exactly what the attacker would count on. Cadis ran to the north wall, toward the dais, where the royal musicians had left their instruments to join the roiling river of revelers, all screaming and rushing to the east exit.

  Cadis mounted the stage to get a better view. A soldier had taken three pieces of shrapnel to the chest. She lay bleeding. Cadis kneeled and took the bow and arrows lying next to the dying guard.

  “It’ll be okay,” she said to the guard. It was the best comfort she could think of. When the guard, heaving for breath, saw Cadis, she jerked back. She couldn’t speak with her lungs full of blood, but Cadis knew the intention.

  It’s you who did this. The Findish rebel.

  The guard pawed at Cadis, pushing her away, and Cadis complied. Neither of them had the time for Cadis’s excuse.

  A fresh chorus of terrified screaming came from the clogged door at the east wall. Cadis could see above their heads—a gang of masked assassins swinging curved blades, pirate blades, hacked their way into the room.

  The herd of revelers now worked against itself. The nobles in the front turned back into the ballroom to escape the marauders and were met by the crowd farther back, still fearing for another explosion—pushing, pushing.

  The mob churned. The killers had an easy harvest. The soft backs of horrified lords and ladies.

  East to west, cutthroats and blood.

  West to east, smoke and starlight.

  Cadis took an instant to scan the battlefield. Thank Myrath, the goddess of all changes, death chief among them, that her sisters were not among the dead.

  Iren was nowhere to be found. A good sign. If she wasn’t lying dead on the floor, then perhaps she’d escaped to warn the king’s guard. Rhea stood at the southern door, surrounded by the Meridan guard. Suki stood by the banquet table, out of the throng. She held her head. Blood had washed down her arm and soaked her yellow dress. She looked dizzy. A piece of the wall, or shrapnel from the ballista, must have grazed her scalp.

  But she was fine. And she was well trained. She had grabbed a linen cloth from the table and wrapped it around her head.

  The ballista had torn a giant smoldering gash into the side of the keep. More assassins climbed in through the hole. It seemed strange to Cadis that the Findain resistance could have possibly gained such a foothold, become such a powerful guerilla force. She’d thought they were nothing but a discontented few.

  Cadis watched with ever-increasing horror as the rebels slaughtered men and women—knowing it was only the beginning of an inevitable war.

  A masked man cut down Doyenne Sprolio where she stood and turned toward Suki. Her back was to him. Cadis thought to scream her name but remembered the weapon in her hand.

  She nocked the arrow and loosed.

  The assassin fell, grasping at the skewer in his neck. Cadis had spent a lifetime pulling back arrows, holding her breath, letting go in between t
wo heartbeats, waiting for the arrow to fly and feeling the satisfying thump of hitting the wood billboards at dead center. The sound was an extension of the shot. If ever she missed and it sailed off, it felt incomplete, a hanging breath.

  The sound of her first kill was like nothing Cadis had ever felt before, even in a ballroom full of mayhem and savagery. She’d punctured the assassin’s neck with a wet, echoless smack. And he’d fallen. And Suki was alive. She whipped around, saw the man fall, and grabbed his sword. Suki would be fine.

  Cadis had vantage on the rest of the field. She threw the strap of the quiver over her shoulder, jumped on a musician’s stool to angle her shot line farther, and took aim at another assailant. An arrow sprouted in a rebel’s chest.

  He fell.

  Smack. One in the thigh.

  Smack. Another in her belly. The masked marauder looked down at the arrow as if surprised by a counterattack. She fell.

  Some wore light armor, but most wore only hardened leather for stealth and ease of climbing the high walls of the keep. To be safe, Cadis aimed for the barest parts. She found she could punch an arrow down at the base of the neck, into the lungs or heart for instant kills. Like an avenging goddess, sending bolts of lightning from above. The collarbone made a morbid target zone, much bigger, actually, than the bull’s-eye Marta set out for her. Even with the swollen eye and dizziness from her bout with Iren, Cadis could hit her marks.

  A quick look around. Rhea had an arsenal dangling around her wrists and two remaining guards. Suki had pushed over a dining table and managed to round up a few nobles. She had them huddled behind it as she defended three sides from all comers.

  They were raised for this, thought Cadis, horrible as it was.

  “Cadis!”

  Cadis looked around for whoever had screamed her name. “Cadis!” It was the chief officer of the Findish envoy, an older woman, rough-hewn from years of caravanning in the badlands. She was hobbled by a broken ankle. Two attendants helped her. Cadis jumped from the dais, pushed past a scrum of Meridan guards. She held an arrow by the shaft like a hunting knife. It was no other use in such close quarters.

  When she reached the ambassador, Cadis asked, “Is this all that remain?”

  The attendants nodded. Nearly a dozen in the Findish envoy slain by their own countrymen.

  “Why would they do this?” said Cadis, swiveling her head so that no one took them by surprise.

  “Who?” said the chief.

  “The rebels.”

  “Rebels? These villains aren’t rebels.”

  Cadis had no time to parse the distinctions. “Get behind me, then,” said Cadis. “I can protect you.”

  The chief of the envoy stopped and turned around. She waited until Cadis looked her in the eye and said, “No. Archana, you misunderstand. We’re here to protect you.”

  An old merchant woman with her two attendants? They were boys her age—probably heir to a guild in the mercantile exchange. Maybe they had come to woo her, but gods, neither could wield a butter knife. The chief put a hand to Cadis’s shoulder. Cadis pulled back as a reflex but looked at the woman once again. She was serious. “You can’t be here when this is over,” said the chief.

  “What are you—”

  But the ambassador interrupted. “You’ll become a prisoner of war. We can’t fight if our queen is theirs.”

  Cadis reeled at the implication of total war and wondered suddenly if the purpose of the envoy all along had been to smuggle her out of Meridan.

  “Did you plan this?” she said.

  The ambassador shook her head. Before Cadis could ask any more, a pair of marauders rushed at the dais. Cadis dashed forward, hoping to distract both from the envoy, but the attendant boys threw themselves at the assailants. Cadis watched while she ducked under the swing of her attacker and stabbed her arrow into his shoulder, then pulled it out and then put it into his neck. She watched the first attendant run belly first into the attacker’s blade and the second scratch at the attacker’s face to nearly no effect. Cadis dragged her arrow across the neck and left it in the unstitched position. By then the other rebel had declawed the second attendant with a dagger.

  As Cadis reached behind her and grabbed another arrow, the rebel pulled his cutlass out of the attendant on the ground and charged. Cadis had no time. She dropped the arrow and lifted the bow, hoping the wood could withstand the blow. The rebel shouted as he swung the sword down with both hands. The cutlass dug deep into the bow.

  But the bow held.

  Cadis kicked the rebel in the chest.

  He stumbled back.

  She reached up, took an arrow from her quiver, and shot in one smooth motion. The rebel fell with a feather in his left eye.

  The chief ambassador sat on the ground, holding her broken ankle. Cadis bent to help her up, but the old woman grabbed her wrist. Cadis was once again staring into the green eyes of a Fin—strange and familiar all at once. “Leave,” said the woman. “Tell no one where you’re going and get home. Do it. Do it now.”

  “They’ll think I’m a traitor,” said Cadis.

  “They already think it. This is their proof. Queen, if you don’t go, Declan will stay our hand even as he murders your people.”

  Cadis knew it was true, that no matter what the reason, this attack would become yet another betrayal by the Findish. No matter the true identity of the killers.

  Cadis pulled her hand out of the grip of the ambassador and kneeled over the masked man she had just killed. He was still warm. She pulled down the sweat-soaked mask that covered his mouth, exposing his neck. Emblazoned on his rough skin was a tattoo—in sailor’s ink made of ship’s pitch. It was the face of a woman with no features, no eyes, no nose. In the place of her mouth was a line of fish, arranged in a wicked smile. It was the sign of the Munnur Myrath. Cadis dropped the body and stood.

  “What’s your name?” said Cadis.

  It took a second for the ambassador to understand the question.

  “Birla,” she said.

  “Thank you, Ambassador Birla,” said Cadis. “I will remember you to the scribes.”

  Cadis turned and ran into the havoc.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Suki

  The killer used a sailor’s cutlass (which was obviously Findish (and maybe even too obviously)), but she didn’t know how to use it very well (her slashes were from the wrist and not the shoulder (which no sailor could get away with on any decent ship)), so they were either imposters who had never used slashing swords (Meridan soldiers maybe, who used short broadswords) or they were just incompetent pirates. Either way, it didn’t really matter.

  Suki had the weapon she needed finally (two chair legs) after trying to use a cutlass herself (too brutish, and needed a bigger swing than she could manage) and then a short sword she grabbed from a fallen Meridan guard (better, but didn’t help her any with reach).

  The chair legs, heavy and thick at the ends, reminded her of double clubs used by the night watch in Tasan (but those were beautiful and gnarled bituin branches (each a completely unique twist and curl)). These were just chair legs (she used one to knock the crummy pirate’s sword aside (and the other to shatter her knee)). The pirate fell, screaming.

  Suki was still bleeding (it wasn’t sweat (the bandage was soaked through)). Her arm had a numb sensation.

  Everyone screamed (peals of terror (angry roars (Cadis shouting, “Suki!” (Guards calling out orders to each other)))).

  “Suki!” (This time Cadis’s voice was much closer.) Suki turned. Cadis had a bow and some arrows (not useful).

  “You tore your dress,” said Suki. (Her legs were very exposed (Cadis had cut two long slits in her blue dress for better mobility (and tactical distraction for any boy with eyes))).

  Suki looked around and added, “Have you seen Endrit?”

  “No,” said Cadis, grabbing Suki by the shoulders. “Suki, look at me. Are you okay?” (A dumb question.)

  “Yes.” (Endrit had to be around here somew
here.)

  “Suki. Suki, pay attention. The rebels are starting another war.”

  “They’re terrible with cutlasses.”

  Cadis was checking her over, like Marta after a training accident.

  “You’ve bled a lot.”

  Suki looked down. The entire top of her dress was red now. “I stabbed two of them and hobbled that one,” said Suki. (She didn’t mean it as a brag (only that she felt the need to tell someone what she’d done (but it was in defense of innocent people (and if not innocent, then at least people who weren’t blowing up parties (and interrupting dances)))).)

  “Have you seen him?”

  “Who?”

  “Endrit!” (Why wasn’t Cadis paying attention?)

  “No. Listen to me, Suki. We have to get out of here.”

  “Not without Endrit,” said Suki.

  “I mean for good. We have to escape the castle and go back home.”

  (That would be crazy.)

  “That’s crazy,” said Suki. “They’d think we had something to do with this.” (Did Cadis plan something like this? (why wouldn’t she tell them? (Iren and Suki—not Rhea, of course)).)

  “Have you seen Iren?” said Cadis.

  “I saw her go that way,” said Suki (pointing at the south wall).

  Suki interrupted the swing of a charging rebel (by hitting his elbow with a club and jabbing the other into his abdomen). An arrow whistled by her ear and lodged into the rebel’s chest (he fell).

  “Suki, he’ll use this to declare war,” (Declan) “to invade Findain, maybe Tasan,” (he’d lose if he did) “and if he has us, they won’t resist.”

  It sounded good (but maybe it was idiotic (maybe this was just a tavern brawl, and outside, everything was nice and orderly (and guards on the walls were waiting to catch them (and the next morning they’d be horrible queens who’d tried to use a little attack from local criminals to escape the Protectorate that was the only promise of peace for Pelgard (and even if that was naive—what if Tola was alive somewhere and Declan hurt her because of this (or if she wasn’t alive, he would do the same to Suki (and the empire of Tasan would be ashamed of yet another empress))))))). Even Suki (who only ever wanted to leave) knew that they couldn’t just leave and walk back home.