Exiled Queen, The

by Cinda Williams Chima

  “You’re the one that doesn’t know anything,” Han said. “Forgive me for being a cynic, but I know how people are treated outside of the castle close.”

  “What makes you think I don’t?” Rebecca said, her voice rising. “I was in Southbridge Guardhouse, remember? I saw how you’d been beaten. I saw what happened to your friends. But you can’t think the queen had any—”

  Han plowed right over her words. “The queen has had everything to do with every bad thing that’s happened to me in the past year.”

  Raisa sat frozen, her green eyes fixed on his face, speechless for once.

  Why are you telling her this, Alister? Han thought. Just shut it. Not the way to follow up on flowers. But he opened his mouth and the story came pouring out.

  “Me and my mam and little sister lived over a stable in Ragmarket,” he said. “My mam did washing for the queen until she was dismissed for ruining one of her dresses. I’d given up thieving, so we had no money at all. That was the start of it.”

  Rebecca leaned forward, lacing her fingers together. “I never realized that your mother worked for the queen,” she said. “Perhaps — perhaps there’s a way to get her reinstated. I — know some people and —”

  Han shook his head. “Don’t try and fix this. It’s not fixable. Just listen. The queen’s responsible for public works, right? For the water supply and like that. Well, the wells went bad in Ragmarket, and my sister, Mari, caught the fever. While I was out trying to get the money to buy some medicine for her, the bluejackets came looking for me, thinking I was the one hushed the Southies that died. When they didn’t find me, they set fire to the stable with Mam and Mari inside.”

  “What?” Rebecca whispered, her face now gone ashen.

  “They burnt to death, Rebecca,” Han said, his voice low and fierce. “And the bluejackets did it, on the queen’s orders. Mari was seven years old.”

  She stared at him, shaking her head. “Oh, no,” she whispered. “No. That can’t be true.” Her mouth formed the word no even when no sound came out.

  “You said the queen’s in charge.” Han knew he should stop, but he’d had this stuffed up in his heart so long that it was like the floodgates had opened. “After that, somebody came back and murdered the Raggers and the Southies. Some of them were lytlings, too. The ones you saved from Southbridge Guardhouse—they’re all dead.”

  Tears pooled in Rebecca’s eyes. “So — Sarie and Velvet and Flinn are —”

  “All dead, far as I know,” Han said. “Cat’s the only one that escaped.”

  “It was all just a waste?” Rebecca’s voice wavered. “Why didn’t you tell me? About your family and — and everything?”

  “You never asked,” Han said. “People die in Ragmarket and Southbridge every day. They don’t count in the blueblood world. It’s just one more sad story.”

  “But — we’re not all like that,” she said, her lower lip trembling.

  “’Course not.” He snorted. “Her bloody Highness the princess heir tosses her pin money our way and we’re supposed to get down on our knees and thank her.”

  “That’s not what she wants,” Rebecca whispered, looking stricken. “She’s not looking for gratitude. She just—”

  “Of course you’d stick up for her,” Han said. “Bluebloods always stick together.”

  This time, Rebecca didn’t try to respond. She sat, twisting a gold ring on her forefinger, staring straight ahead, her face as pale as scribes’ paper.

  As silence grew between them, guilt crept over Han. Of course she’d defend them. She’d grown up in the court, and her friends were bluebloods. She wasn’t the enemy.

  “Look, I’m sorry,” Han said. “I didn’t mean to jump all over you. You may be a blueblood, but you’re not to blame for what happened.” He closed his hand over hers.

  None of what he said seemed to make her feel any better.

  It wasn’t her fault that his life was a disaster. He was trying to figure out a way to say that when she slammed her chair back, nearly toppling it, and stood.

  “I have to go.” She snatched up her bag. “Please accept my — sincere — condolences at the loss of your family,” she said, voice hitching. “I am — so very sorry.”

  She flung herself out the door as if she were being chased by demons, leaving her flowers behind. He heard her banging down the steps. Then nothing.

  Han sat frozen with surprise for a moment. “Rebecca,” he shouted. “Wait!”

  He scraped together his books and papers and stuffed them into his carry bag, then launched himself down the stairs.

  By the time he reached the common room, Rebecca was gone.

  The patrons stared at Han with greedy interest. He ran out onto Bridge Street, looking both directions, and saw her, head down, striding back toward Wien House and her dormitory.

  He raced after her, dodging students and faculty who strolled the streets, enjoying the spring weather.

  His long legs proved an advantage—that and the fact that Rebecca was crying flat out and probably couldn’t see where she was going. Han caught up with her and took hold of her arm.

  “Rebecca, please, please, don’t run off,” he said. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said the things I did.”

  She just shook her head, her eyes squeezed tightly shut as if she could make him disappear. Tears leaked out of the corners of her eyes and rolled down her cheeks. “Leave me alone. I’m going back to my room.”

  But she made no move to do so, just stood in the middle of the street, fists clenched, while the crowds parted on either side of her, staring and nudging each other.

  “Come on,” he said, sliding an arm around her shoulder and guiding her back toward the bridge. He looked up at the sign that swung over the doorway. The Scholar and Hound. “Let’s go in here.”

  She didn’t say yes, but she didn’t say no, either, so he herded her through the door and into the warmly lit interior. It was crowded, but he spotted two bleary-eyed students leaving a table in the corner. He shouldered his way through the standees and claimed it, staring down a hulking cadet in a beer-stained tunic lurching toward it.

  “The girlie needs to sit down,” Han said. “Back off.”

  The cadet backed off, peppering him with black looks. Han settled Rebecca into a chair facing the corner, to make her tear-stained face less apparent. He sat facing the room, his usual position, and motioned to the server. He held up two fingers and tapped his midsection, and she nodded, moving off toward the kitchen.

  Han looked back at Rebecca; she’d undergone a transformation. She’d wiped the tears from her face, and the ragged quality was gone from her breathing. Even her hair was in better order. Her cheeks and the tip of her nose were still pink, or Han would have never known she’d been crying. She’d tapped into that steel core of hers, pulled herself together, and put on a street face to hide the misery within.

  The girlie’s tough, for a blueblood, Han thought. Maybe tough enough to be with me. But something’s eating at her. Should it worry me that she’s so good at keeping secrets?

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to fall apart like that. I just — I have a lot on my mind already and — it’s just — when I heard about your family and—and the Raggers—I just felt like everything I’d done—or tried to do—was a waste of time.”

  “It ambushes me too,” Han said. “It’s like getting run over by an oxcart.”

  “How do you even stand it?” She studied his face like she really wanted to know.

  “I don’t have much choice, do I?” He shrugged, thinking that, in a way, it helped to share the secret eating at him. It was like lancing a boil—it relieved the pain and pressure. “But I’m not lying down for it. That’s why I’m here. For next time.”

  She frowned, biting her lip. “What do you — ?” She jumped and looked up as the server set mugs of cider in front of them, along with steaming bowls of stew.

  “I hope stew is all right,” Han said. “I haven�
��t had anything to eat all day.”

  “Stew’s good. I haven’t eaten, either.” She stared down at her dinner, but made no move to take a bite.

  Meaning to teach by example, Han spooned up some stew. “It’s good,” he said, with his mouth full. “Sorry,” he said, wiping his mouth with a napkin. Sometimes, when he was tired, he just couldn’t play the blueblood role. “I can’t make you, Rebecca, but you’ll probably feel better if you eat.”

  She nodded mechanically and took a bite, and then another. Once she got started, she finished it off, washing it down with cider until that too was gone.

  “You said you had things on your mind,” Han said, once she’d dropped her spoon into her bowl. “What’s going on?”

  She rubbed her temples with the tips of her fingers. “I just don’t know what to do. I feel like I should go back home. I — my mother needs me.”

  “Why? Is she sick?” Han asked, ordering another cider.

  “Well,” Rebecca said, “not exactly. But she’s not herself. And even when she is herself, she’s —” Her voice trailed off, as if she suddenly realized she’d said too much.

  “So she’s asked you to come home?”

  “No,” Rebecca said. “She told me to stay away. But she may not be thinking clearly. And it may not be in my best interest to stay away.”

  “Well,” Han said. “Mind, I don’t know anything about your family. But being here at Oden’s Ford—this is a real opportunity for you, isn’t it?”

  She nodded, pushing her empty mug away and pulling Han’s full one toward her.

  Better go easy on that, Han thought. Cider isn’t strong drink, but you’re a small person.

  “Isn’t there anyone else you can talk to and find out what’s going on?” Han asked. “What about your father?”

  “Well, he and my mother don’t always get on,” she said. “And he’s away a lot on business.

  “Brothers and sisters?”

  “I have a sister,” Rebecca said. “But I think she might be part of the problem.” She paused. “I’m afraid I’ll lose everything if I don’t go back now.”

  Han frowned, confused. Then it came to him. Families like Rebecca’s—they had legacies. “You mean they might cut you off? Disinherit you?”

  She nodded. “Maybe. It’s a possibility.”

  Han’s instincts said she wasn’t telling him everything. It was like peering through a keyhole into a room you wanted to break into. You could see some of what was going on, but there might be a nasty surprise waiting in the part of the room you couldn’t see.

  “I don’t know that I can give you advice,” he said. “And I don’t know what you stand to lose.” He reached out and fingered a tendril of her hair. “If you don’t know what your mother wants, you should think about what you want, and the best way to go after it, whether it’s staying here or going back and getting things straight with your mother.”

  Rebecca’s face went all cloudy again. “It’s not about what I want,” she said. “I have a lot of other people depending on me.”

  “Why can’t it be about what you want—sometimes, anyway?” Han said, closing his hand over hers. “You just got to — you just have to claim it. I’ve learned that nobody’s going to hand you anything. You don’t get what you don’t go after.”

  She looked down at their joined hands. “I don’t know whom to trust,” she whispered.

  “Trust me,” he said, leaning across the table and kissing her.

  The fact was, he wanted Rebecca to stay in Oden’s Ford, and it wasn’t just that he was learning things from her he wouldn’t learn anywhere else.

  She was prickly and proud, used to ordering people around and getting her own way. She was smart and opinionated—she could talk the tail off a dog. But she was fiercely kindhearted—she’d cross the street to give a coin to a beggar, and always backed the underdog in any fight. She’d shed tears over Mam and Mari—though she’d never even met them.

  She demanded a lot—but demanded even more from herself.

  He still held her hand within his, rubbing his thumb over her palm. Her hands were remarkably small, but calloused. Hands that weren’t afraid of hard work. She wore a heavy gold ring on her forefinger, engraved with circling wolves.

  Han wanted to see one of those smiles that lit up her eyes. He wanted to see her happy again. He wanted to be the one who made her happy.

  He wanted Rebecca Morley in every way. He’d been living like a dedicate for months.

  In the end, he walked Rebecca all the way back to Grindell Hall. She was stumble-step sleepy more than anything else, and this time he’d make sure she got home all right.

  It wasn’t quite curfew when they arrived at her dormitory. Han meant to deliver Rebecca and take his leave at the door, but the common room was empty.

  “Where’s your dorm master?” he asked. If he’d showed up at Hampton with a girlie on his arm, Blevins would’ve been all over them already.

  “Don’t have one,” Rebecca mumbled, yawning. “Just Amon. I mean Commander Byrne.”

  “Where’s he?”

  Rebecca rubbed her temples with the heel of her hand. “Probably already in bed. Or over at the Temple School, visiting Annamaya.” She said this without emotion.

  The dormitory had a definite military look about it. For one thing, it was much more orderly than Hampton Hall. “Who else stays here?” Han asked.

  “The rest of my triple,” Rebecca said. She took his hand and tugged him toward the stairs. “Come up with me?”

  Han hesitated, his heart hammering out a yes. “Are you sure? I don’t want to get you into trouble.”

  “It’s all right,” she said, her face pinking up a bit. “I room with Hallie and Talia. Talia will be glad to see you—she’s been playing matchmaker, you know. Hallie just got back from the Fells. If she’s still awake, she can tell us the news from home.”

  Well, Han thought, I do want to hear the news.

  They climbed the narrow stairs, still holding hands, up and up, past the snores emanating from the second-floor sleeping quarters, to the third-floor landing.

  Here, there was a small sitting room with a cluster of chairs around a fireplace. An arched doorway led into an adjacent room. It was the kind of place the commander should have. Or the dorm master.

  “This puts Hampton to shame,” Han said, looking around.

  Rebecca laughed. “It’s supposed to be for the dorm master. There are three female cadets in Grindell, so we share it.”

  She pushed open the door to the bedroom, calling, “Hallie? Talia?” Han hoped they weren’t already asleep in there. He hoped they weren’t there at all.

  She motioned him forward. “They’re not here.”

  Han hesitated in the doorway, looking around. Three single beds were lined up against the wall, each made up with military precision, each with a large trunk at the foot of the bed. Three study desks had been jammed in under the window, for the best light.

  Rebecca’s familiar book bag lay on one desk, with her writing implements laid out next to it and the music box centered in a position of honor on the blotter.

  “This is posh,” Han said. So much for the rough life in the military.

  Rebecca’s purple scarf dangled from a hook by the door. She hung her bag next to it and held out her hand for Han’s.

  “You sure I shouldn’t get going?” he said, handing it over. “It’s nearly curfew.”

  What was the matter with him? He was never this well behaved.

  Rebecca sat down on her bed, practically bouncing on the taut coverlet. She patted the bedclothes beside her. He sat down next to her, sliding his arms around her. He kissed her, and she drew back in surprise, pressing her fingers to her lips, eyes wide. “Your lips seem to be—quite potent tonight.”

  “Sorry,” Han said. He took hold of his amulet and allowed power to flow into it. “Let’s try again.” Gingerly, he pressed his lips against hers, eyes open for her reaction.

  “That
’s better,” she said, winding her arms around his neck. She lay back, pulling him down beside her, pressing against him. He kissed her again, then began working at the buttons of her uniform jacket. He was glad he hadn’t joined the army after all. The military was entirely too fond of buttons.

  “You know, I’ve never had a girlie say that to me before,” Han murmured, sliding her jacket from her shoulders and tossing it aside. “That my lips were potent.”

  “I say that to all the wizards I kiss,” she said. “I think you should know.”

  “I see,” he said, trying hard not to wonder what wizards she’d been kissing. Not Micah Bayar, he thought. Don’t let it be Bayar.

  “What’s it like?” he asked.

  “What do you mean, what’s it like?” She squinted at him suspiciously.

  “Being kissed by a wizard.”

  “Why? Haven’t you been?” she asked, looking surprised.

  There was Fiona. Han pushed that out of his mind. “Being kissed by a wizard when you’re not one, I mean.”

  “Hmmm.” Rebecca scrunched up her face, thinking. “It’s kind of a sizzling sting that goes all the way into your throat, like brandy going down.”

  Han pressed his fingers against his own mouth. “Like brandy? Really?”

  “And sometimes it goes to your head and —” Her voice trailed off and her eyes narrowed. “Blood of the demon,” she growled, readjusting her shirt. “Don’t make fun of me.”

  “No, no,” Han said, snorting with laughter. “I want to know. This is fascinating.”

  Picking up her pillow, she smacked him with it. There ensued a wrestling match that destroyed the well-made bed and was nearly Han’s undoing several times. They ended up flushed and laughing, entwined with each other.

  Putting one hand on the back of her neck and the other at her waist, he kissed her again, long and slow, since he’d been a long time between kisses and he didn’t know when he’d get back to it again.

  He planted quick kisses along Rebecca’s jawline, slid her shirt from her shoulders and kissed her bare skin, raising gooseflesh. She wore a silk camisole under the shirt. He couldn’t help noticing the small rose tattooed above her left breast.