by Janeal Falor
“I'm certain you can find ways to make yourself useful.” I slip on the blue dress that is high on my neck with a decorated “V.” It comes to my knees. I place on a double brown belt across my waist. It has a strap that goes over one shoulder as well. A fourth belt is slung across my hips with a sheath. I place some of my daggers in the belt. My dress is short enough I can reach the daggers strapped to my thighs. This is great. “Who designed this?”
“I helped our lead seamstress with it.”
“You did?” I raise my eyebrows at her.
She blushes. “Yes.”
I glance in the mirror. The outfit is striking. What I described I wanted and more. I don't know how to tell her that, though. The words want to come to my lips, but I fall awkwardly silent.
I'm saved by a knock on the sitting room door. Inkga answers it and comes back with a tray. She sets it on the vanity next to the other one.
“Let's drink to my new outfits,” I say.
“But you haven't seen them all.”
“If they're anything like this, I'm more than pleased with them.” I pick up the closest cup.
After hesitating but a moment, Inkga raises the other.
“To a wonderful new wardrobe.” One that will make it much easier to climb out of my rooms whenever I want. And to keep weapons on me at all times. I put my cup to my lips. As I'm about to drink, I smell something metallic.
I react before I know what I'm doing. I drop my glass and smack Inkga's away from her face. She wrinkles her eyebrows at me. “Is there something wrong, My Queen?”
“My drink was poisoned, I wasn't sure if yours was as well. Did you drink any?” I bend down to pick up the cup. There are remnants of the liquid in it.
“I did.” Her face is deathly pale.
Hoping she's so white because of my words, I lift the cup to my nose and take a good whiff. Poisoned, like mine.
“Sit,” I say as I scramble for the packet of poisons I keep on me at all times. Usually I use them to dress up my daggers, but there are also a couple of antidotes in there.
Inkga slumps over and falls to the floor before I can catch her. Blast.
“Guards,” I yell.
I keep my movements sure and steady as I reach for the pouch hanging about my neck like a necklace. The door to the sitting room bursts open, and Wilric and another guard I don't recognize crash into my room, swords drawn.
“She's been poisoned, though I'm certain it was meant for me.” As I talk, I loosen the strings of the pouch and rummage around until I find the right antidote. “I’m in no immediate danger, but I want you to question who made these trays of food.”
I force the antidote into Inkga's mouth and roll her onto her back to help her swallow it. I watch her throat as Wilric says, “We can't leave you when your life might be in danger.”
“I can take care of myself,” I say.
“Yes, Your Highness, but I insist on staying with you.”
“Then send the other guard.”
Inkga finally swallows. Did I get it to her in time? It's a brutal, quick-working poison. I roll her onto her side. “Get me—”
Before I can finish, she vomits all over my new pants. Better that than her dying.
“Too late. Go find the culprit before they escape,” I say when the guards continue to stare at me. “And send a healer.”
The guard I don't recognize runs from the room. Thankfully. Inkga heaves again. Wilric keeps glancing about the room, his sword at the ready. Despite not trusting him, part of me does feel safer, though I keep my wits about me.
Inkga's eyes flutter. A tension I didn't know was there falls out of me.
“What happened?” Her words are slurred.
“You were poisoned.”
She groans. Having been poisoned by Daros with this exact same one, I know how she feels. It's a venom I never built an immunity to because it’s not possible to do so. And you must work quickly against it if you're to live. Daros said I had to know what it was like when I failed to kill my first rat.
I shove the unbidden thoughts away. They'll do no good now.
I grab the closest piece of cloth from my bed, not caring that it's one of my new tunics, and help clean Inkga up with it. She groans again.
“I need some untainted water for her to drink.” I cup the back of her head.
“Sorry, Your Majesty, but I can't leave you,” Wilric says.
I huff. “Surely you don't want Inkga to die.”
“Of course not, but I can't leave you either.”
Thankfully, a servant comes running in. “What's happened?”
“Bring me a glass of water. Make sure you get it fresh from the tap and hurry as fast as you can,” I say hoping she’s trustworthy. I have no other choice.
She scurries from the room.
“How are you feeling?” I ask Inkga.
She moans.
“It's going to get better.” I hope.
After a moment, she leans over and vomits again until she's dry heaving. I wish I knew more of how to help her. I only know the basics of healing.
A woman strides in the room. “What am I needed for?”
“Who are you?” Can't be too careful. I haven’t seen her before.
“I'm the healer, Your Majesty.”
“This woman has been poisoned with Argula. I've administered the antidote, and a servant is bringing water.”
The healer's eyes grow wide. “How did you have the antidote?”
I scowl. “There are more important things going on.”
“Of course, Your Highness.” She hurries over and takes my position in front of Inkga, comforting her better than I could through her dry heaving.
I step back, watching the scene while still keeping an eye on my surroundings. Moments later, the servant returns with a glass of water. The healer directs Inkga to drink it, only to have it come back up again.
“More water,” the healer barks at the servant.
Confident the situation is under control and that Inkga will live after going through a tough couple of hours, I head out of the room. Wilric follows close at my heel. Before we get very far, the guard who left to check on things comes running up the hallway, his face pale and Nash at his side.
When he gets to us, I ask, “What is it?”
Nash looks me over, but stays silent.
“Your Majesty.” The guard bows. “I'm afraid the culprit is dead.”
“What?” How can that be?
“He killed himself before we could get to him.”
“How?”
“He hung himself in his room. His roommate found him moments ago after he disappeared from the kitchens.”
I narrow my eyes. “And how do you know he was the culprit?”
“He left this note.” He hands me a parchment with a bow.
I read it, struggling through the words and sloppy penmanship.
I refuse to live under such a queen. With her dead, someone new and better can reign. Tell my family I love them.
I thrust the note back at the guard trying not to think of the words about me. “See to it his family gets this.”
“I'm glad you're safe, My Queen,” Nash says.
I give him a curt nod, and I storm back to my room to check on Inkga. Even knowing she'll be fine, I can't help but worry about her. I worry about myself too. I want to know who's coming after me. Mostly, though, I hate that Inkga's life was put at risk because of me.
Chapter 28
The palace seems smaller than when I first came. It's still huge, but less of a maze and more of a giant building. I wander through it as my guards follow until I come to a new room. A library. Perfect. Just the place to learn about the first queen.
I point at the entrance. “Stay here,” I say to my guards, Eldim and a familiar woman I don’t know the name of.
“Let me make certain it's safe first, My Lady,” Eldim says.
“I'm perfectly safe going in myself.” I make my words crisp.
“But I must insist on checking it first.”
Hmm. No coward then. Plus, Inkga was poisoned. It doesn't hurt to have someone else look. Unless it’s a trap he’s setting up. I can handle myself if it is, though, and if it will appease him… “Very well. But make it quick.”
It only takes him a minute to comb through the library and return. “The room is empty. There are still windows that could be used for an attack, though. I think it best that we remain with you.”
“You will remain here.” I leave them without another word. There's bravery, and then there's just plain being annoying.
The library smells very old. Musty, and like books. I savor the scent I've not had many chances to come across but always associated with happy memories. I may have found a new place to hide out if I can get away from learning things long enough.
I wish Nash was here to tell me more about the library since the librarian desk is empty. Sometimes I forget he used to only be a guard. Maybe he knows nothing of this place. I'll have to remember to ask him next time I see him. If we can get over the fight we just had, that is.
I run my hands across the books at my height, though the shelves fill the walls all the way to the ceiling. There's a ladder to reach the top books, but I go around it. What secrets do these books hold? Is there anything like mine? Or are they common knowledge to everyone but me?
I know so little about this country I'm the leader of. It wasn’t in my training. Nothing was, except imitating, obeying, and killing. Perhaps becoming a shadow too. I learned plenty of things, but not outside of what Daros wanted me to know.
I move through books and books and more books, searching the titles for… I don't know what. Something about a history of the country. Perhaps the founding of Valcora. Anything that would hint at the first queen.
I come across a section of books that deal with the history of this land. I wonder if any of them contain information on the Mortum Tura and its chalice. Where it came from? How it works? Information to back up what the first queen told me, if she is the first queen.
Though if the answer was in a book, I suppose it would already be known. If someone read it. Maybe it's here and it hasn't been read in so long, everyone forgot it. I hope for the latter.
I skim through book after book, wishing reading came to me more easily. It would make this process go a lot faster.
I find nothing useful. A book on how all of Valcora is in a large valley. How pure mountain water gets to Valcora's lands. When the last invasion was—which I glance at, to find it was over five hundred years ago, when this book was written. It doesn't tell me about the first queen, though.
More books fly through my hands. History of Economics. History of Farming. The history of our language. More and more books, but nothing that looks just right.
Then I find an old, tattered book. Something the likes of which is unlike anything else around it. I'm afraid I'm going to break it just by opening it, but I do so anyway. There's no reward with out taking a chance.
Inside, the very first thing I see is a picture of her. The First Queen. She's not as crisp as she is in my dreams, but it's definitely her. Even the green dress is the same.
She's real then.
And with the fact that I haven’t seen this image before makes it all the more real. It's numbing. Terrifying. All too real.
But I must press on.
I search the text before and after her picture, hoping to find something that will tell me more about her. Let me know her name. Something. But there's nothing there. Nothing at all.
Instead, the book talks about the forming of Valcora. How travelers came long ago from some distance and found this land that was shielded by the mountains and decided to make it their home. It speaks of them and what they were like. How they struggled to make the land into a country they could live in. That their families could belong to.
“There you are,” Ranen says, walking into the library as if he owns the place, startling me from the book.
“I see you haven't gotten to this room yet. These chairs are horrid.” Not that I really care, it's just the first thing that comes to mind when I spot them.
“If I'd have known the Queen has a perchance for reading, I'd have covered this room sooner.”
“I'm certain you'll remedy that.”
“Yes, whatever I can do to help my Queen.” Though the words are fine, the way he says them like he not only thinks me a child but wants me out of his way leaves me feeling like pulling out my poisoned dagger. I don't even know why.
“What is it you want?”
“I just wanted to check in and see how my work is going for you. Clearly there's more room for improvement, but I'd like to think I'm making it to your liking.”
I shrug. “What work you have done is fine.”
“I thought then perhaps we could speak about a change of position. Or even having me work as the Furniture Master while I'm also assisting you in another way. You'll find I'm capable of taking a lot on. I have a lot to offer you as Head Advisor.”
“That may be, but I have no further use for you than as a Furniture Master.”
“My skills are much more suited to something else.”
I narrow my eyes at him. “I know what your skills are good for.” Scheming.
He takes a step closer. Slowly, I reach for one of my daggers. All my senses are on alert, but I try to keep him from realizing it. I don't think he'll do anything to me; he's too sniveling for that. That doesn't mean he won't have someone else stab me in the back while he has my attention, though.
“You know nothing about me.”
“I know enough.”
He bares his teeth at me. “You don't understand who I am. What I can do to you.”
“Is that a threat?”
“Of course not, Your Majesty,” he spits out. “I wouldn’t threaten you.”
“Good, because I can get rid of you any time I want.”
“You will not get rid of me. I have powerful people on my side.” His voice is low, but ominous.
I mimic his tone. “I will do what I want to do.”
“Then you will have consequences of my choosing.” As loud as he is, I expect the guards to come running in, but they don't.
I can do without them anyway. I flick the tassel of his hat. “Nothing you can do will hurt me.”
“It's dou—”
“No. Any further outburst will be settled by having you dismissed. Don't think I can't get someone else to do your job. It's easy enough and you're not even excelling at it.”
His lips thin. “Very well. If that is all, My Lady.”
“That is all.”
He gives a bow and hurries from the room. Why do I feel like the best option just then would have been to stab him?
Chapter 29
Nash enters my sitting room without knocking and slams the door behind him. “I heard you threatened Ranen.”
“Threatened? More like told him he needs to be doing his job.”
He pinches the bridge of his nose. “Why do you have to make things so hard?”
“I'm not making anything hard. It's everyone else that appears to have a problem with me.”
“You certainly are meant to be queen.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” I demand.
He sighs. “Nothing.”
“No. Really. Tell me what you mean. Inquiring minds are dying to know.”
“Fine. You want to know? I'll tell you. You seem to believe the world revolves around you.”
The words sting, but I don't let the hurt show. Instead, I find an excuse. “It does. I am the queen.”
He shakes his head. “Exactly what I mean.”
“And this is a problem?”
He sits on one of the chairs furthest from me. “No. I suppose not.”
I want to scurry over to the chair next to his, to be closer, but I won't let myself show that sort of weakness. One shouldn’t let themselves get attached to a person. Especially a person who coul
d be gone any moment.
The thought of him being gone makes my stomach roil. I don't want him to leave me. I think back on our conversation. On anything other than him going away.
“What if I didn't want the world to revolve around me? How would things be different?”
He looks up at me, eyes wide. “Well, for starters, you would think of people besides yourself. You'd realize other people in this world have feelings and thoughts.”
“Don't I listen to your thoughts?”
“Only because it gets you what you want.”
“And what is it I want?”
He leans back into his chair. “You know, I'm not sure. I just know there's something.”
“Well, that clears things right up.”
“Hey. It's your life, not mine.” He sits up straight again. “But truthfully you should be careful with Ranen. I know you're strong, but he's cunning.”
“Are you saying I'm not cunning?”
“This what I'm talking about—you think everything revolves around you.”
“But it does on this. You're speaking of Ranen having cunning plans concerning me.”
“Which they do, but you’re comparing your wits to his, instead of worrying about him.”
“Ranen is harmless.”
Nash scowls. “You need to worry about him more.”
“Give me an example. What should I be worried about?”
He lowers his voice. “Did you know the last Queen was murdered?”
“I did.” I force out the words.
His brows wrinkle together. “How? It's not common knowledge.”
“I know more than you think.” Though less than I should. Where is this conversation going?
He leans closer. “There's speculation that Ranen was the one behind it.”
I laugh. I can't help it. That fool couldn't have anyone murdered. He's too weak to do anything.
He growls. “I wish you had a name, so I could curse it.”
That sobers me up. “You have no right.”
“And you have no right to take your life so casually. You are the queen of Valcora now. You have a responsibility to your people.”
“You think I don't know that?”
