Misfit Princess

by Nadia Jacques

  “You can better honor me by doing the job you’ve been training to do since you were two. Stones, you couldn’t pay me to be queen.” Galvanized by what she considered a threat, she pushed up to her feet again. “And now, Mr. Future-King William, we both have a job to do.”

  He grinned broadly at her, and she followed him out of the room.

  She walked out of the manse with a light heart. There was work to be done and she was doing it. The cobbled streets and packed-dirt alleys felt like home under her boots. Hope swam through her blood.

  It didn’t occur to her that Derrick might not be back from Arrosa until she was halfway through the city on her way to his workshop.

  Walking along the streets of her city felt too good to turn back and ask. Besides, it would be quicker to see for herself.

  Bracing herself for Derrick to have stayed in Arrosa, she pushed open the door of his workshop. The sound of raised voices rewarded her. She recognized Derrick’s voice.

  He was scolding a skinny youth wearing, Grace realized, all black, adorned with scarves of blue and green. His presence was the only thing that kept her from tackling Derrick into a hug. She lounged against the door frame, waiting for Derrick to pause for breath.

  Derrick cut off the tirade mid-word when he saw her. “Grace!”

  Before Grace knew what had happened, Derrick swept her up in a hug. “When did you get back? How did you get back?”

  Tears stung the corner of Grace’s eyes. “Long story,” she said.

  “I’m forgetting my manners,” said Derrick. “This is my new apprentice, Leon. He showed some promise during the workshops, so I brought him home with me. He’d show some promise here, too, if only he’d pay attention to basic safety procedures.” He affixed Leon with a fearsome glare.

  The boy quailed under the weight of the stare and looked abashed.

  “OK, kid, I need to step out with my friend. Clean the workshop while I’m gone. If things are neat and tidy when I get back, then maybe we can talk about detail carving again.”

  Leon nodded and scurried for a bucket and rag.

  Derrick kept a the stern face on until he shut the door behind him. “Ha! So what do you two need?”

  “Two?” asked Grace. “I didn’t--”

  She felt a tap on her shoulder and turned to find Alex behind her.

  “What are you doing?” asked Grace, pleased to see her but surprised.

  “Where else would I be? You didn’t give me an assignment.” The words came out glossed with typical Alex bravado, but Grace thought she detected a hint of uncertainty, like Alex thought she was trespassing.

  “I thought you’d be relaxing,” said Grace. “You’ve done so much.”

  “So have you,” Alex pointed out with a tilt of her head. “And I’ll be there to have your back.”

  “It sounds like you have a story to tell,” said Derrick. “Walk and talk?”

  Grace shook her head. “If you want all of it, we should probably go somewhere private.”

  Derrick’s house was tiny and next door to the workshop, and he crossed to the door and unlocked it. “What are you waiting for, then?”

  Once outside, they crossed the yard. The walk was short and silent. By the time they had reached his door, the mood had shifted from reunion to serious business.

  Inside Derrick’s house, they gathered around the rough hewn wood table in the kitchen. “I’ll put on some water for tea while you tell me what’s going on,” said Derrick as Alex and Grace settled into chairs. “I didn’t know when I’d see you back in Coura again, Grace. Are your parents still angry?”

  Grace took a deep breath. “No,” she said, and laid it out for him as succinctly as she could manage. There was a lot of ground to cover: the prisoners, the strange and frightening weapons, the need to raise the army to free the rest of them.

  Sometime during the middle of it, Derrick put the pot of tea in the middle of the table and poured steaming liquid into thick mugs. They sat untouched as Grace explained.

  “Of course I’ll help,” said Derrick once Grace had run out of words.

  Grace twisted the mug on the table. “I didn’t even ask yet.”

  “You don’t have to. Besides, what would you do without me?” Derrick took a deep swig of his tea, which was now cool enough to drink. “I can have Leon watch the shop for me. Now, I have some ideas.”

  “Already?” Grace picked up her tea for the first time and leaned in to listen.

  Chapter 16

  It took two full days of non-stop action to get everything they could together. Time was against them, though: any force she could imagine opposing them. She powered through meeting after meeting, coordinated the movements of goods and everything.

  At night she fell into bed, completely exhausted.

  Every morning, Alex was there when she woke up, which was intriguing. She had no time to explore the concept. She had lists of people to rally, things to pack, operations to coordinate.

  On the morning of the third day, Grace figured they were as ready as they were likely to get. It was a sorry company she headed up: less than two hundred in all. Some of them carried bespoke staves, but most waved hoes and pitchforks. William had come through and promised a Geneanan delegation would join them, but she didn’t want to count on it.

  She had no idea how many the Arrosans had at their disposal. More than there were here, she was sure, and she was even more certain they were better-equipped.

  As they were about to start their march from the gates of the city, there was a frantic scuffling noise nearby.

  “Wait!” Dylan came darting out of a side street. “Don’t tell Petra I’m here. I’m going with you.” He hefted a metal, electrified baton that Grace recognized.

  She side-eyed him hard, but it was hard to argue with another body, especially one that came with its own gear. She tried anyway. “You want to take action against your own country?”

  He drooped like a deflated walrus. “It’s my fault, isn’t it? And this is the best chance I have to make it right.”

  Looking him over, Grace said, “How’s it your fault?”

  “I should have been paying more attention. Instead I was-- well.” He smiled sheepishly at her. “Paying attention to other things.”

  She couldn’t think of another argument. “Keep up, then.”

  He astonished her when he shook her warmly by the hand. “Thank you,” he said.

  “Don’t thank me,” she advised him, as she looked over the assemblage for the last time. “Okay, people, let’s get going.”

  To Grace’s great impatience it took another half an hour to get her motley crew in motion. “We’re definitely not stopping until lunchtime,” muttered Grace to Derrick, who was at the head of the column with her, “no matter how tired they say they are.”

  There was an outbreak of mutinous muttering around mid-morning, and everyone was very glad when they did finally stop for lunch.

  With a bit of practice, they got into motion much more smoothly after the break and Grace relented around four. The days were getting longer again, so when they’d finished another meal she suggested and there was enough support that they got another few miles in.

  They made good time through Geneana, picking up people and supplies.

  Derrick went to Grace as they neared the mountains again. She stared into the fire and pretended not to notice him.

  “It’s going to be all right,” he told her.

  “It’s taking so long,” she said, very quietly. “I keep thinking of all the things that could go wrong.”

  “It’s the dreaded middle,” he said. “One foot in front of the other. We’ll get there.”

  One foot in front of the other led them directly to the tunnel through the mountain. With so many people, Grace had thought it might be even more claustrophobic.

  It wasn’t. People filled the space. Light pooled over the floor from torches in front of her, torches behind her. A party-like atmosphere had taken root, and laug
hter echoed off the walls. No one shushed anyone else. It felt like power.

  “It’ll be further than it was before,” she said to Alex once they emerged into the sunlight.

  “It will,” said Alex. “But now we don’t have to hide.”

  They stopped once they reached the mine where they’d found Marie. It was a known place they could set up a base of operations.

  The food was gone. The room where they’d locked the guards was empty, and the bar that had held the door shut had left char marks on the door as it burned.

  Grace was glad not to see corpses.

  “You have no faith,” said Alex, behind her and very close to her ear. “I gave one of them a knife and set a slow-burning fire. Easy as pie.”

  A shiver passed down Grace’s spine, running from her ear to the place Alex had reached out to touch her waist.

  “We should head to bed.” Grace rolled her shoulders back “Long day tomorrow.” She started moving toward the common room, where most of the party was already curled into sleep sacks and bedrolls. No one had wanted to stay in the bunk rooms where the Arrosans had kept prisoners.

  “Mmmmm.” Alex caught Grace’s hand in her own. “Bed could be fun.”

  In spite of the situation, it was a tempting offer. Reluctantly, Grace pulled her hand out of Alex’s. “We’ll need the sleep.”

  “What, you think I won’t stop if I get my hands on you?”

  “Maybe I won’t stop.”

  “Is that a promise?” Alex tilted her head. The speculative look she offered made warmth kindle somewhere low in Grace’s belly.

  “Sure,” said Grace. She found she couldn’t quite look away as Alex began to lay out her own sleeping gear.

  Looking entirely too pleased with herself, Alex laughed. The sound was low and smoky, and it sizzled over Grace’s skin. She almost missed it when Alex said, “I brought you a present.”

  Grace busied herself with the laying out of her bedroll. “Oh?”

  “I remembered that lock-picking isn’t in your repertoire yet.” Alex stretched out on her bedroll to reach into her pack. Her tunic pulled tight over her hips, displaying miles of curves.

  Grace settled onto the ground to watch. Knowing Alex, the show was deliberate. “I wasn’t planning on learning that particular skill now.”

  “And I don’t have enough time to teach you,” said Alex, pulling a small vacuum-sealed flask with a tiny spout out of her pack and handing it over. “But I thought you might need to get into a locked room while you’re here, so I got you this.”

  Grace turned the little flask over. It fit completely into the palm of her hand. Brown ink scrawled a warning label over the side of the flask, but Grace couldn’t read it in the low light of the camp. She decided against trying to open it. “What is it?”

  “Liquid nitrogen. Don’t open it until you need it, and there’s not very much of it, but if you use it, you should be able to freeze a lock until it’s brittle enough to smash. It’s not very subtle.” Mischief lit Alex’s eyes. “I thought it would suit you.”

  “Thank you,” said Grace, tucking it carefully into the front pocket of her bag so it wouldn’t get crushed. “I think it might.”

  She woke before the sun and left Alex sleeping.

  “We’ll go through the tunnels,” she told the assemblage. “It’s worked well before.”

  Splitting the group into smaller parties to explore the tunnels took longer than Grace liked. Once everyone had a direction, though, they moved together like they’d practiced for months instead of weeks.

  Walking along the tunnels was long and surprisingly boring. It was almost a relief when Grace heard the sound of yelling. She took off immediately and group followed her, immediately and easily.

  As she’d feared, the security in the mines had been increased, but it wasn’t a match for the ferocity of the combined Couran and Geneanan squads. They had gained an advantage when Grace’s group appeared, surprising the guards.

  Unsurprisingly, there was Marie at the center of the fight, surrounded by a ring of fallen guards.

  Had they put the abandoned mine Grace had left behind down to a simple escape?

  There was a door set into the wall of the tunnel. Grace shoved it open. The room beyond the door was full of children. Glancing around, Grace saw a familiar limp. Even though the little room was far from the streets of the Couran bazaar, Grace recognized him immediately.

  “Pook!” she called, and the boy turned.

  He had grown, Grace thought dizzily, since she’d last seen him. Her feet hit the stone floor of the room, one after another, and then she’d scooped him up and he was in her arms.

  “Get off me,” he said, cross. Once she’d let him go, not quite able to stop touching him, he went on: “I’m glad you’re here. Can we leave?”

  “Yes,” said Grace. For a single horrible moment she was annoyed that they’d found the children first: that they’d have to waste so many of the people they’d brought to see that the children were safe.

  But that was obviously wrong: the children were free, so now it was just an exercise in getting the adults out.

  Unless there were more children.

  “Maybe,” said Alex, materializing by Grace’s shoulder. “If there are more children, it won’t change how we move forward. Don’t overthink it.”

  Grace leaned back against her and was about to say something else when Dylan walked up.

  Bile rose to Grace’s throat and she shoved it down. “What’s up?” she asked.

  “I think I found something.” His face was pale, paler than Grace had seen him go.

  She turned to Alex. “Can you get the children to safety?”

  Alex nodded. “Go,” she said.

  Grace could already see Marie rounding up children, deputizing the older ones to help. She went.

  The door Dylan had found was locked. It had an ornate handle, which was completely unlike the other handles in the warren of rooms.

  Dylan fumbled through the keyring, feverishly trying one after another. Finally, he shook his head. “None of them work.”

  “Pity,” said Grace, not meaning it at all. Kneeling by the door, she poured a bit of the liquid into the keyhole, careful to keep it away from her hands. Alex had said it wasn’t very subtle, but Grace had a feeling the time for subtlety had passed.

  Once the knob had frozen, she reared back and kicked it. It shattered, and she pushed the door in.

  The room was richly furnished. Bookshelves lined the walls, lined end to end with thick leather-bound volumes. A gold-plated letter opener lay on an ornately-carved desk next to a pile of correspondence, blade glinting sharp under the electric torch she carried.

  She crossed the room and lifted a book off of a shelf. Inside, she found a ledger: money flowing out, money flowing in. She knew these numbers. She’d seen them before.

  She turned a page, trying to remember when she’d seen the numbers like this. Dylan was across the room, rummaging through the desk. She turned another page and found a map. A column of figures accompanied it, and she realized that the figures represented human beings. They were labeled “Assets”. She ripped out the page and stuffed it into her tunic pocket.

  An overhead light flicked on, and Grace looked up at Dylan. “You found the switch?”

  Dylan’s face was white. Grace’s mouth went dry. Someone had caught up with them.

  “You?” Dylan said. “I thought you were my friend.”

  Rudy closed the door behind them, heedless of its ruined handle. “I see,” he said. “So you’re the irritant that’s been disrupting my profits.”

  Dylan looked stricken. “Rudy?”

  “I’m so sad to see you chose the wrong side in this, Dylan,” Rudy said, shaking his head and tsking like a teacher reprimanding a student instead of the evil power-hungry leader of a slavery ring. He held an electrified baton with filigree on the handle. It was the largest of its kind Grace had ever seen, and when Rudy used it to gesture, it crackl
ed like the crunch of broken glass. “You were such a good goat.”

  “When I said I wanted to bring prosperity to Arrosa,” Dylan replied, drawing himself up with dignity, “I did not mean that you should do it on the backs of our neighbors.”

  “You were happy enough to look the other way.” Drawing close to Dylan, Rudy struck out like a snake, sure and deadly. Dylan fell with a loud thump. He did not get up.

  Rudy stepped over Dylan’s body. “How tiresome.”

  Grace gaped.

  “You Courans,” Rudy went on, sneering. “All of you southlanders are so soft.”

  Grace had never heard the term before, but she knew an insult when she heard one.

  Rudy went on. “Not using you for my own profit would be like leaving grapes on the vine. So sweet and so easy to pluck. It would be a crime to let you go on like that, benefiting no one of consequence.”

  He was crazy, Grace thought. She took a step in.

  “Even now, you can’t hurt me. You’re too busy living in each other’s heads, too wrapped in anguish when anyone gets hurt.”

  “That is a drawback,” Grace said placidly as fury churned in her gut. She took another step in. The end of the letter opener dug into her palm. She knew her knuckles were white, and she hoped it came across as impotent rage. She had learned well that people saw what they expected to see.

  He was so close she could practically feel his breath on her cheek in the stale, still air. “I think I’ll make you watch as I slaughter your pathetic resistance.”

  Grace inclined her head, as if considering. “No,” she said. “I think not.” She drove the blade with all the force of her carefully-concealed anger into the soft flesh of his belly.

  He crumpled. “How--?”

  “There’s a reason you don’t make a Couran angry,” Grace hissed. “Because right now, I can’t feel anything else.” She drew the blade back and pushed him away from her, leaving a hole gaping in his abdomen. Shoving him back, she went to Dylan.

  She couldn’t find a pulse.