by R. J. Price
When described in such a manner, yes, it did seem a foolish thing to do.
“It’s actually quite common,” Danya said, turning and motioning to the door of the sickroom. “If you are feeling adventurous one day, I could show you how to skate. Most who I’ve seen have skated. Many seem to enjoy it, except when they fall. That’s not much fun.”
“Falling on ice with knives on your shoes, that you dance with?” Aren asked. The queen shook her head as she walked past Danya. “I can barely dance on my actual feet, let alone on the edge of a blade.”
“We’ll just go for a walk, then,” Danya responded.
She closed the door behind them and led Aren out of the healing house. On the porch, Aren shivered and drew the cloak closer. The village proper was empty. Danya caught a child gazing out from behind a curtain across the way, and gave the barest shake of her head. The child ducked back down, out of sight.
Aren noticed the absence of life to the village, as all queens before her had. She did not ask, or comment, on the emptiness.
Danya stepped off the porch. Aren was a step behind as Danya led the way out of the village and down the little path that led towards the lake. Once it had been pretty, but now the dead branches stretched overhead as bitter and cold as Danya’s heart.
“Something is bothering you,” Aren said at the edge of the lake.
The queen looked out over the ice, calm for the first time since she awoke. Danya watched the change and wondered what manner of creature had found them. The others gave orders, simply assumed a role. Yet here Aren was, relaxing where others would put their noses in the air.
“No,” Danya lied.
Aren gave Danya a look, then focused on the ice. She tested it with her foot even though it was solid enough to hold her weight. The queen ventured out just far enough to be out of reach. She looked at peace. On the ice, surrounded by white of the snow and the greys of the dead trees, somehow Aren looked like she belonged.
Magic drifted off of Aren, soaking into the ice at her feet, leaking outward. Danya stepped onto the ice as Aren’s magic met the shore.
“No, nothing?” Aren asked Danya.
What was it her mother had once said? Most queens were simply women. A rank was a person. Their hearts could be broken, their will to go on crushed, but much like one found those few in the world to call friend, one could find a queen to whom they called so strongly that all else was ignored.
There had been a constant sadness to Aren. A past that haunted her, perhaps, one that she did not necessarily share with Danya. Impossible for Danya to miss, like called to like.
Danya shrugged to Aren’s question. “I’ve never quite felt at peace in this village. Recently it’s become worse.”
“Perhaps that’s because everyone else is a commoner?” Aren asked, and yet stated at the same time.
“Perhaps,” Danya said with a sigh. “Or because they’re all related to me, or the fact that we are cut off from the rest of the world. I’m over thirty and I’ve never met a man from outside the village.”
Aren made a face. “They aren’t all they’re rumoured to be. You hear stories of warriors and expect they will come and save you, riding a bright, white horse. All you need to be is a queen, and—like magic—a warrior will appear who loves you more than he loves himself.”
“That’s not the way it happens?” Danya asked.
“I didn’t formally meet a warrior until I was seventeen and went to court to be finished off,” Aren said. She shook her head as she moved away from Danya. “My parents didn’t know what I was, but warriors are not as plentiful as the palace claims. Around the palace, certainly, but ranks have always been born around the throne. I had seen them before. One once offered to find me one of his own to protect me. I turned him down.”
“Why?” Danya asked.
“I was only eleven,” Aren said.
The queen’s magic infused with the ice, trickling through and into the water. In response, the ice hardened. Danya felt the shift in the balance of nature but made no comment on the change. Aren was not changing the ice on purpose, it was an instinctual reaction.
Much like how Danya could not turn away an injured person.
“I still thought at the time that my parents loved me. Perhaps I foolishly thought that I was not what I knew I was.” Aren stopped walking and turned to Danya. “The last to sit the throne attempted to have me killed when she discovered what I was. I didn’t even want the throne. I just wanted to be left alone. Not that I was to get what I wanted, not in the end.”
“I always wanted a puppy,” Danya offered up.
“I wanted a house on a lake.” Aren sighed, “Just me, and perhaps a puppy also. I didn’t care about having a warrior or a man of any sort out there with me. I simply wanted… I don’t know.”
Danya thought about what she wanted from life. “Control,” she said finally. “Over yourself, over what you do, how you dress, who you see, what you eat. The ability to dictate your life. You don’t actually care if you have a house on a lake. It’s just the only place where you can see yourself with a choice.”
“I don’t know about that,” Aren said. “You’ve not seen palace lands. The lakes are amazing. Large or small, you can have your choice. And your choice of how populated the lake, and the area around, is. You can build your home to the south of the lake, and have a view of the mountains behind the palace or,” —Aren turned suddenly, motioning in the other direction— “build on the north end and see nothing but hills of green, or just the trees.”
“Green hills?” Danya asked.
She had never seen such a thing.
“Yes, absolutely, hills filled with trees and the lake is much like this,” Aren said, motioning around her. “Surrounded by trees. Though the ones on palace land tend to be more brown, less grey. It’s gorgeous out there. Perhaps when I return there, you can visit me and I will take you on a tour.”
“Certainly,” Danya said.
Aren must have sensed Danya’s hesitation. Suddenly, the queen’s undivided attention was on Danya. Unsettling to say the least, Danya couldn’t seem to avoid the probing look. Others who had come before her didn’t bother with the look. What they had wanted to say, they said with words.
“I don’t like the man who keeps visiting you, asking after me,” Aren said.
Meaning Rewel. Danya hadn’t even been aware that Aren knew Rewel was visiting. She had foolishly hoped that if she could keep Rewel from seeing Aren while the young woman was awake and well, she could keep them from bonding.
“Why not?” Danya asked.
Aren looked pointedly over Danya’s shoulder. Danya turned to the lakeshore, where Rewel stood, looking rather sheepish. He had snuck up, meaning to spy on them. Rewel was the only one who would know when a queen was using her magic, and of course Danya should have known that he would be drawn to the lake, to inspect what Aren was doing. To assess the damage.
To see if she had detected the lines.
“I did find you and bring you to safety,” Rewel said, raising his voice across the distance of ice. “I believe it is my duty to ensure that no ill has befallen you since I last saved you. If you’re in need of rescuing, I’d be pleased to assist you again.”
Aren’s comfort bled away. Her face shifted, ever so subtly. From a living face to nothingness.
“No, I don’t need saving.”
“Perhaps we should head back in,” Danya said to Aren quietly.
The temperature was dropping. Surely Aren would notice the change, notice the cold was biting worse now, nipping at their fingers and noses. Threatening to seep through the boots.
Danya offered her hand to Aren. The queen reached out and took it gently, as if half expecting it not to be there when their hands met. Brown eyes travelled from Aren’s arm, to Danya’s hand, then up into the healer’s eyes.
That terrible feeling of something else staring out at her prickled up Danya’s back.
The throne could take control for
moments in time. A flash here, a splash there. Riding a queen’s body when the one who sat the throne flew into a rage. Not pop in here and there, and all over for the sake of a look-see.
“Perhaps it’s time I headed in,” Aren said to Danya.
She released Danya’s hand and walked past. A tremble ran through Danya as she looked at her cousin. She watched his easy laugh. Rooted in place, Danya tried not to cry out when Rewel offered his hand to the queen, and she took it.
Danya couldn’t separate her concern for Aren from her concern for her cousin.
Who was the danger to whom?
Chapter Thirteen
Telm watched Laeder, for the third time, visit the archivist. The records keeper had been around for longer than Telm could recall. Had he been there when she first arrived at court, or had he come later?
Due to the conversation between herself and Jer shortly before he left, she had begun watching Laeder. Being a bedfellow of Jer, the scribe would do as he was asked.
She waited for Laeder to leave, then walked into the archives as if she hadn’t a care in the world. Looking over the greeting room, the smallest room of the archives, Telm finally settled on the archivist himself. He had given up his name when he agreed to take the position. Without recalling the name, Telm found it difficult to place the man.
“Laeder was just here,” she said to the archivist. “What did he want?”
“Jer opened the archives to Laeder,” the archivist said in that tone, the one that meant he wasn’t interested in sharing.
“Yes, but what was Leader looking for?” Telm asked.
“He has been looking at maps of palace lands now, and what they once were,” the archivist said, motioning to the table before him. “He is trying to find roads Av might take in spring, he says, to look for Lady Aren.”
On the newer map, still older than Telm, but new enough to show the south separated, there was an inkblot on the upper left corner. Some careless fool had damaged a palace map. She tapped by the blot gently.
“Aren will not accept this,” she said, “She will want a full survey done, especially of this area, which has been covered.”
“And I will tell her why I damaged the map,” the archivist said with a groan, standing to retrieve the map from Telm. “Then why we will not be going there.”
“There?” Telm asked.
“There,” the archivist responded.
Cold washed over Telm. Was the archivist still aware? He was more than old enough, but the man had to keep a great deal of information inside that head of his. Things became jumbled and lost. That was why the archives still remained on paper, as well as inside his head.
“And what is there?” Telm asked, needing to know if he knew. “That it would be erased from the map?”
The archivist frowned at her. “Surely you are old enough to recall. You look younger than you are, but I remember you as a young woman when I came to the palace.”
Telm finally placed the man’s arrival. After the incident, not before. After a queen was erased from the records and the archivist released to prevent him from passing on the information to another. That had been a disturbing time for everyone involved, yet so little information was given to those not involved.
She wondered how much the archivist knew. He wasn’t supposed to know anything, never to be taught that information. If he knew what happened, he knew how, and if he told a young queen, she might figure out how to repeat the magic that had been used.
Who could Telm go to about her suspicions? The steward? The man was learning, but dark matters long before he was born were beyond his skill.
There was only her. Only the archivist. No one else of the old staff remained. The older lords were considered doddering fools, their minds were beginning to fade away.
“As you might recall, not everyone was told everything,” Telm responded. “If Aren is headed northwest and your ink is in the northwest, you could very well be covering where she is headed. There are few of us left from that time, archivist.”
“The archivist before me was put to the sword for telling her how,” was the growled response. “I will not put my life on the line, so soon to having my apprentice trained, simply to feed your morbid curiosity. Why don’t you go ask the throne what happened?”
Which was not the truth of the matter, though it was likely the tale the new archivist was told to prevent him from doing just that.
“The way I was told, the throne had nothing to do with it,” Telm said.
“Way I was told, the throne is a better archivist than I am, only its memory hasn’t got holes in it like cheese,” the archivist said.
“It can speak, somewhat,” Telm said. “Though not about anything specific. Certainly not with the clarity you are capable of, only really warnings.”
“Mirmae knew,” the archivist said. The man was silent, watching Telm stiffen. “She came to me asking questions, said the throne told her all about what happened.”
“What did you tell her?” Telm asked.
“I gave her the information I had pieced together up until that point. She referred me to several scholars who might have been able to fill in the gaps in my knowledge. She wanted to know how and why this happened, to prevent it from ever happening again.”
“Did you figure out the how?” Telm asked.
“Yes,” the archivist said.
The man had to die. He had to be erased before his mind slid and he told someone the wrong thing. No knowledge of what happened could be passed on.
“Did you tell Mirmae?” Telm asked.
She had to know. Did the woman she dared call friend know, and not tell her? Even if the name had been erased from the archives, Mirmae should have come to see her.
“Of course, she did not understand the instructions,” the archivist said. “I did, though. I told her as much, I also told her that if someone were to ask, I would give them the wrong instructions. What they would do, then, would be to do what was done, only onto themselves. Three have been removed in such a manner, those who intended to consume the palace for petty argument.”
Missing queens. Telm was certain that if she sat down and made a list of the missing queens, she would be able to pinpoint who had wanted to destroy the palace and whose disappearance was a bit more mysterious than others.
“I thought it was your duty to pass on information,” Telm said.
“Yes, and no. It is my duty to maintain a working knowledge of all the history I can keep inside my head or on scrolls, vellum, and paper. Odds and ends, really,” the archivist said, pausing to cough. “But at the same time, I must not be a blind book when I give over the information that I have. Not just anyone who has access to my services can have access to anything in the archives.”
“And Mirmae approved of your possibly killing ranks?” Telm asked.
“She was the one who suggested the spell actually kill them, rather than make a light show,” the archivist said. “For anyone laying that spell is not doing so to aid themselves. If they are trying to undo what was done, writing the spell will not help. The one who did it, she hadn’t needed the spell. It was only afterwards that we wrote it out, a way to explain what she had done and how to do it once more. In order to prevent it from happening again. In order that, should one with magic see what she had done and do it themselves, we would know it was not her.”
“She’s dead,” Telm said.
“She did what the unranked are said to do: she walks amongst the dead, is what the stories say. The queen’s not dead, Telm. Mirmae knew that as well.”
“Did she tell you where to find this woman?” Telm asked. “For the sake of the land, we should have eyes on her.”
“Queens want to watch her for signs of rebellion. Warriors want to swoop in and save her. Trainers want to know about the man who betrayed her and healers just want to know why, in their feeling of the land, there is an inkblot in the northwest. Commoners want to know in order to be snide, to punish the ranks. The poor woma
n simply wants to be left alone.”
“You’ve spoken with her?” Telm asked.
“Mirmae did,” the archivist said. “She wanted me to note, if I were to have this conversation with another person, that she considered doing the one responsible a mercy. Yet she did not specify if it was the queen, or the warrior, she would be doing a mercy.”
“He’s dead,” Telm said sternly. “He died a long time ago.”
“Spoken like a queen who has suffered the pain of a warrior’s betrayal.” The archivist almost chuckled, but caught himself. “If he were dead, the spell would no longer be in our world, it would be tugged to the realm of the spirits, along with him.”
“No, he’s dead,” Telm insisted.
“Unless you pulled his heart out with your own hand,” the archivist started, then stopped, staring up at Telm. “Are you aware of what this spell does?”
“How did the story go?” Telm asked herself, looking up as if trying to recall. “It saps the magic of the one who laid it in order to further the curse.”
The archivist opened his mouth, then closed it. He blinked clouded eyes at Telm, considering.
“Spoken like a queen who has unleashed a rage,” the archivist said quietly. “Strange, none of my records ever mention one by the name of Telm falling into the queen’s rage.”
“I am wrong?” Telm asked.
“Absolutely, when a queen falls into a rage she tends to weave a spell, not of her own doing, not of her will.” The archivist paused to think. “When Aren’s father sat her down with Ervam, Av, and Jer, to explain to her that the arranged mating would happen, she became angry and the table top bubbled before her. If you were to ask her how to do that, do you know what she would say?”
“I don’t know,” Telm said.
“Exactly what she did say. Then she babbled something about magic and needing something else to absorb the magic because if it came back into her, that is what it would do to her flesh. An angry queen pours magic outward and instinct crafts it into a spell. If the queen brings the magic back, the spell latches and then unleashes onto her. You could no more control what your magic did during the rage than…” the archivist paused in thought, “than a man could help deliver a baby. He knows the basics, he knows how it’s supposed to work, but then he’s there trying to help and he forgets how to breathe and suddenly he’s passed out on the floor and simply in the way.”
