by Rey Balor
The Queen spoke again, “We’ve made an arrangement, but it is you and I that have certain business. She’ll help me elicit the response I’m looking for.” The fair-faced Queen waved the serving girl forward. She carried scrolls in her arms, and it amazed Illias how young she was — and to be here, of all places. Illias knew what was coming; he wondered if she did. She stumbled slightly as she moved, and the Queen offered a gentle smile as she helped her to her feet. “I have devised a list of questions that I need answers to. None will cause you or those you love harm, but I had a feeling you would have difficulty in answering them all the same, my darling. Should you prove difficult, as I expect, the Lady will intervene. All of you wolflings are similar in this regard, and it is positively exhausting. With your beloved birthmate nearing, I have no time for it.”
The Lady of the Pillared Lands pressed her lips together into a tight line, and Illias could tell that she grew as sick of the woman’s words as he did.
“Are you going to ask then, or continue spouting about?” he responded.
“I have always wondered… When you hurt, does your birthmate feel such pain?”
With a nod to the Lady, the work began.
If there was one thing that Illias was learning in his time with the Lady of the Pillared Lands, it was that the people of the Citadel certainly enjoyed their talking. Between every question she asked him,78 she spewed half-finished stories and complaints. It was inconsequential information to her, but it gave him something to focus on — to push past the pain and hold onto this one real thing. He returned her half-finished stories and complaints with ones of his own, equally unimportant information that would only serve to confuse her. The Queen had left, but the serving girl scrawled down everything he said.
In their hours together, he learned many useful things and many useless things. He knew that the Lady understood what she was doing, but every time her stories faltered, she rubbed her bandaged leg and pressed on with red-tinted eyes and a conspirator’s whisper. It was clear that she was there of her own choosing, but not her own desire.
“The Queen of — the Queen — has never even stepped foot in the old cities, lovely,” the Lady whispered as she cupped his jaw in her hand. She seemed to enjoy rubbing his stubbled beard. His heartbeat had not been stable in the last hour, but it seemed to stop a moment at her touches. They were never a pleasant thing. He remained strapped to a chair, and the claustrophobic feeling was returning. Her hand relaxed. “Pretty, pale, blonde, and adored. I’ve done her dirty work for years, and I’m known as this horrific shadow. I should have been the one to act, not her.”
She moved her hand until her nails dug into his chest, leaving crescent moon scars above his heart. His skin had grown numb to the pain, to the many crescent moon scars, and he closed his eyes, drifting between unconsciousness and reality. His attempts to sleep were met with a quick slap, and the Lady fidgeted with her dark glasses in annoyance. The smell of alcohol she exuded made him dizzy; the constant hitting, tapping, and scratching certainly did not help.
“I missed the question that time,” he spat.
“They’ll rip you apart one day, you stupid wolf. Maybe it’ll be sooner and less painful if you just tell me your first memory. Did it involve your spica?” Disgust at the request reflected on both of their faces. “Maybe you’ll last longer if we forget that question altogether, and you just tell me when your little savage friends mean to strike the Citadel.”
The serving girl paused in her writing.
Strangely enough, he hoped it would be a long while before his people came to the city. They needed time and information, and the only one that could give that was him. Even Hops, whom he had sent so long ago, did not carry all the information needed. They didn’t know they faced a Queen who spurred on the image of Erie-folk evilness while casting her own image as that of a savior. They didn’t know she desired a war. They didn’t know how strangely intrigued she was by the relations of spicas. It was a side to the story that would change their tactics, and only he could warn them. He had to stall, to live, to do what he could.
His head throbbed, and he scowled to answer her.
She tried again, “When you’re destroyed, what happens to your birthmate?”
“I was more curious as to why you’re helping a Queen who mangled your leg and treats you like shit.” Ignoring how muted his own voice had become, he cleared his throat and pressed on. “The Erie-folk fight against that tyranny. Aye, you’ll have to answer your sins one day, but if you help me—”
Her grin widened, and she motioned for him to continue. There was not madness or fear in her eyes, as he had expected. A part of her still enjoyed the connection that pain forged between them, just as a part of him still flinched every time she neared.
“If you help me, it’s the first step to independence,” he finished.
Their time together came to a close, and he was returned to his cell without any comments. He did not truly believe she would suddenly change her ways and support a group so unlike herself, but he could not wholly abandon his belief in others. He refused to let them take that faith. They tortured him, but he forced himself to see beyond that. They tortured him, but he forced himself to forgive — not the Queens, but the ones who could help who ruled them. Every citizen, every servant, every person who had suffered by the hands of the Queens… The Queens would die, and he would burn their Citadel — but the servants, the guards, and the people would live. They tortured him, but he understood that they were simply frightened of the idea he carried. The people were ready for a revolution; they would have to be.
That did not stop his anger from growing. Rarely before had he experienced these flashes of helplessness. He punched the wall of his cell, and his already-injured hand throbbed at the contact. You have the hands of an artist, Illias, not the hands of a warrior. The pain helped him focus, and in a moment of delirium, he imagined this was how those grand outer planets felt: too far away from the sun to feel its warmth, but always, always being teased by a glimpse of it in the day.
“Tomorrow,” he vowed. “Tomorrow, I’ll find my way out.”
SPICA:
The Citadel was a cleverly disguised cage. Olena saw the inhabitants of the cage as they could not see themselves: completely drained of their fight, they had strings slipped around their wrists without even noticing who it was that held the other ends. It was a difficult image to behold, and she forced Hops to wait outside the edges of the city with a simple promise.
“If four days pass without hearing from me, you go back to the Erie-folk and tell them to march. Then you go home and rebuild. Stay far away from this place; it’ll be ashes soon enough,” she commanded.
“I can’t let innocent people die, Khalsa. I’ll do what you ask, but if it comes to it, I’ll go into the Citadel after you and get people out before the Erie-folk strike.” It was the one thing he was adamant about, and while she was a firm believer that those who were complacent deserved to suffer with those who did the crime, she was dependent on him. He was uncertain as he slipped his arms around her in a quick embrace. Olena stiffened, but she returned it. “Be safe though. Find Illias. Save what you can. I’ve already become far more involved than I intended.”
“You’ve got the same revolutionary veins as the rest of us, Hops. It seems the stars in your veins really are the stars in mine,” she muttered against his chest. Although she was an average height and strong, he was far taller and far broader, and she felt the last of her safety leave as he pulled away.
He left her with one last gift. “My name is Sander Breman.”
They parted as equals, but now, Olena met the place that had caused her people so much fear, so much suffering, and so much deception with only an enemy by her side. It was obvious that Ranger was as gleeful as Olena to be in the Citadel, and their bet was temporarily forgotten as they walked along the streets. Ranger had a skill of melting into the crowd, but Olena stormed through it, growling at those who got in her way.
<
br /> When she caught sight of someone she believed to be a guard, she pulled out her dagger, grabbed him by the shoulder, shoved him against the wall of a shop, and pressed the blade against the exposed flesh at his neck. If he marched under the Citadel’s flag, she assumed he would know something that could point her in Illias’s direction, but he just seemed as if he was about to piss at the sight of her — not tell her what it was she needed to know. She asked anyways, “Where’s my spica?”
Ranger let out a loud sigh and pinched the bridge of her nose. “Subtle, truly subtle.” She placed her hands over Olena’s grip and tried to pry it loose. “Forgive my birthmate, guard. She’s hit her head one too many times and can’t seem to recall left from right. I’m right here, dearie. Let the nice man go, and we’ll be on our way.”
At the distraction, the guard tried to reach for his own weapon, but Olena dragged her blade across his neck. She had not intended for it to be deep enough to kill, although with how much red appeared, he would not be speaking for the rest of the day. If there was any doubt as to the otherness of the pair, it disappeared in a pop of violence. Now, Olena’s furs carried the sinister gleam of a wolf instead of the tired heaviness of a traveler. People muttered words of xenophobic distrust, but none would meet the gray burn of her eyes.
“They’re hurting him,” was the only thing Olena said. “We have to hurry.”
The nearer they got to the heart of the city, the more agitated she grew. Any guard who came to meet them was quickly dealt with, and her blade, kissed with the blessing of her spica, glowed red with their life-force. Before felling the guards, she demanded each of them to get her an audience with the Queens, and each failed her. For every guard that toppled, her disappointment in the supposed power of the Old Ways grew.
“You’re causing quite a scene. I would be oddly attracted to you right now, if I didn’t believe you would gut me next,” Ranger said, always away from the fight and always casual at the violence. “I could kill those ones you knock down, if you’d like. Honestly, the sooner we arrive, the better. It’s actually exhausting just watching you, and it makes me far too eager for our own fight. These idiots are sad compared to the artwork that will be inspired from us.”
Olena ignored her. Never had she felt such power before. It was electric in the air, transforming her from a woman to a plague. The power was too big to hold in her hands alone, but Illias wasn’t here. He was… He was… Like the nightmares, dark fears flickered inside of her. It was quiet at first, but growing. She could almost sense the cause, but it evaded her. Never had she felt such pain before. It was immediate. She fell to the ground, and the blade she so adored clattered away as it hit the hard road. Clutching onto her head, she had to turn away from the sudden brightness of the gray sky — duller than her eyes but suddenly stronger. It felt as if someone had pierced her skull with their fingers and were trying to haphazardly pull her apart. There was a pounding behind her forehead, strong enough to keep her on her knees.
“Something’s wrong,” Olena hissed.
Ranger did not attempt to help; she stared at the discarded blade instead. Their bet had come alive again, and they both recognized it at the same moment. Olena stumbled forward, unable to fully regain her feet, but Ranger lunged for the weapon. She got there first. It looked wrong in her hands. She was too tall for it and too strange to understand the emotions infused in its core. Olena could hardly see her through squinted eyes, and the pounding washed out all of the woman’s words.
“You think this will inspire artwork?” Olena grunted. There was every possibility she would not survive, but she’d be damned if she didn’t fight. If she had to choose a way to go, she supposed storming the Citadel to find her spica would have to be a damn good way. She said a prayer to the stars and hoped she would find Illias among them. “Try me, Ranger.”
It did not matter that Olena could hardly stand or that the world around her blurred together as wave after wave of pain crashed against her. Distantly, she could imagine hearing Illias’s cries, although she knew such a thing was impossible. The connection of a spica was a red string of fate, constantly bringing them together despite the odds, but it was not a link that was carried into the depths of their minds. Surely, she could not hear him; surely, what she heard was an echo of her own soul, repeating again and again that something was wrong.
She had no blade, so she clutched her hands into loose fists and spit on the ground. Since she was a girl, brawls had come naturally, and she offered a come-and-get-me smirk, swaying under the slight breeze. In a way that Ranger could not begin to understand, in a way no murderer could understand, she had something to fight for.
“You’ll start to feel dizzy soon, I imagine. At least, that’s how it began with us,” Ranger taunted, but Olena could not quite figure out what the words were supposed to mean. They floated before her, and she did the only thing she could in light of them — she attacked.
She swung her arm. She kicked. She punched again. They were chaotic throws, and Ranger sidestepped each one of them. For every time the woman twirled away, she let out a laugh to know how little effort she was putting into the fight. Olena was already sweating, and her head swam with a hundred voices and a flood of emotions that were not wholly her own.
“They must have your spica, I’m sure you’ve gathered. What they do to them is never fun,” Ranger said. A few of the guards approached, but she waved them away. “I belong to the Queen of Stone. You can’t touch me, piggy guards.”
Olena ignored them as well. “What’s happening to me — to us?”
She could not focus on the blade in the other’s hand, but survival instincts kept her gaze fixed onto its blur. She was to die in glory, with the lick of flames from the very beat of her heart inspiring their revolution to continue. Her palms were damp, and every step was filled with needle stabs of pain down her spine. This was not how she was meant to die.
“Hear the sound, see the waves. Can’t be found, we are slaves…” Ranger’s taunts had taken a singsong quality to them, but despite the mockery, she stopped pressing forward on the offensive. There was something frantic in her voice as she continued. “We felt it too, me and Warden. Dizzy first, and you wake up with a terrible headache, no memory of how you’ve gotten there, and pain that makes you want to kill. Oh, he’ll cry — they always cry — but so long as you get what was promised, does it matter? He’ll go quiet in the end. Hush, hush, baby.” Olena wanted to scream that she made no sense. None at all! With her free hand, Ranger pulled harshly at her own hair. She pulled and pulled, and Olena wondered if she meant to rip it out. Ranger talked when Olena could not find her voice to stop her. “Listen, all I want is gold. It’s the only truth that’s real. I’d sell you for gold, and I quite respect you — not that I would ever tell you that, of course. It’s a matter of personal pride. I can’t respect anyone. Don’t you understand?”
The waves of nausea came and went, but Olena’s attention had been captured, not by the rambling woman in front of her but by the guards. Instead of allowing Ranger to take charge, they were carefully moving forward to either side of her, and in time with one another, they grabbed her arms to wrestle the dagger from her grasp. Clearly, Ranger had not been expecting it, and she let out a shriek.
“Don’t touch—!” Her leg connected with the groin of the smaller man, and he grunted as he clutched himself, releasing his hold on her. “I’m the single most important person to the Queen of Stone! If she knows what you’ve done—”
The larger of the two guards hit her with the back of his hand, cutting off her words. “There’s only one Queen, you fucking scout, and neither of you will be getting an audience with her. To the dungeons first, and with any luck, you’ll rot there.”
The two women were shoved beside one another, and the guards secured their wrists together, especially tight around Ranger. The weakness that had washed over Olena’s body was leaving her exhausted, but with such an imminent threat, she tried not to let it show. Remainin
g with a blank expression now was necessary to her very survival — but still, she stumbled, she shook, and she paused once to throw up her breakfast. The weakness was winning.
Ranger had taken the opposite stance. She begged shamelessly, and when that did not work, she threatened ruthlessly. Olena was a formidable silence; Ranger filled every breath with something against their captors. Neither made a difference, and they were still marched toward the looming heart of the Citadel. With every step Olena took, she could feel herself drawing nearer to her spica. It was only that knowledge that made such a walk of shame79 bearable.
Citizens peaked out their windows, and as they saw the fur of the woman that led the guards despite her restraints, they knew what she was without saying the name aloud. It had become bad luck to them, stained by the destruction wrought on the outlying villages. Wolfling. They carried no pity for Olena, just as they had carried no pity for those wolflings that had come before her.80 They feared freedom and all the consequences that came with it; they feared their own guilt, something that would have to be accepted with liberty. Olena hated them.
When the guards entered the Citadel, past those looming walls, they sent a young girl ahead to give the news to the Queen. Olena busied herself with looking at every door they passed and every window that appeared fragile enough to shatter. Escape would come soon, and she could almost smell its offer in the stale warmth of the Citadel. The place was pretty, but it was nothing else. Marble floors felt cold, tall barriers threatened to suffocate, torches hanging cast shadows everywhere, and the cylindrical tower at the center of it all reminded Olena that they valued the prisons they built. There was no life here, no matter how pretty; it was only a place to admire.
