“It happens from time to time. Someone’s twin dies, and the other either follows or is overtaken by grief and fury for a time. We have retreats in the country where those who need the space may take the time to act out their grief before rejoining society. Perhaps one in a thousand becomes...” She searched for the word in Alskader, then finally shrugged and said in Denorian, “...a drægoner?”
“Diminished?” I asked.
“No. When a person becomes violent with grief. We call them drægoner. Like the stories about dragons.”
The cat reappeared in Nori’s lap, and she absently fed it a bit of fish from her spoon. “For you in Alskad, it is more of a problem, yes? You have your—What are they called? Shriven?”
I nodded. “The Shriven are an arm of the temple, and by extension, the Suzerain. They control the population of the diminished in Alskad, though many of them are themselves among the diminished. In the last six months, I’ve learned that the Suzerain have been experimenting with the properties of various plants for nearly a hundred years, looking to find something that will trigger, as you call it, the drægoner response in the diminished. They’ve only recently discovered something that consistently works, and they’re using it to slowly gain control of the Alskader population.”
The queen leaned forward, her eyes locked on me. “You say that the Suzerain have some sort of poison that triggers a violent impulse in the diminished?”
“Not just in the diminished,” Swinton cut in. “The effects of the drug are the same on anyone.”
“But why?” she asked.
“It’s a power grab,” I explained, unable to keep the disgust from my voice. “They want control of the people, so they’ve found a way to control what makes them afraid as well as the force that keeps them safe. Alskaders are turning more and more toward the temple and the Suzerain for guidance and safety, and away from the monarchy. Now they’ve managed to put a fanatical regent on the throne. Rylain has called for all of the diminished in the capital to be brought to the temple ‘for the safety of the people.’” My hands were shaking with fury, with fear, and, I realized, a deep sense of responsibility for the well-being of the people of Alskad.
I looked up from my trembling hands and directly into Noriava’s shrewd, cool eyes. “I came to you because I need help. Will Denor stand behind the king of Alskad and help me win back my throne?”
The servants reappeared, whisking my soup away untouched, and replacing it with a salad of tender young greens, sprouts and shaved ribbons of bright carrots and beets. Noriava regarded me silently, sipping her wine as the servants bustled around the room. Swinton’s mouth was stuck in an amused half smile, but there was a telltale hint of furrow between his brows. At last, a servant carried a large platter to each of our seats and piled slices of red, rare meat on top of the salad, drizzled it all with a bright green dressing and disappeared once more.
“Why not approach the Samirians?” Noriava asked. “Their army is larger, and they have something to gain from an alliance with Alskad.”
“What’s that?” I asked, curious. To my knowledge, apart from some fur and smoked fish, Alskad didn’t have very much export trade with either Denor or Samiria.
“Ships, of course. Alskad’s shipbuilding technology is the most advanced in the world, and you’ve the mines and ore to make shipbuilding into a lucrative business. Runa, of course, was opposed to sharing technology and trade in general, but if it’s an army you need, Samiria would have been the wiser choice by a long shot, even with the difficulty of getting an audience with Abet and Jax. With the right offering, even the Samirian Symposium might have seen fit to open their doors to your pleas.” Noriava studied me intently. “So, I’ll ask you again. Why Denor?”
I knew I had to tell her, but the idea of revealing such a dangerous secret to a woman I didn’t trust at all made my skin crawl. I looked at Swinton for support, and he nodded and gave me a tight, encouraging smile.
“While I am the true heir to the Alskad throne, there is a slight barrier to my asking for assistance from Samiria,” I began hesitantly. “Are you a religious woman, Noriava?”
She narrowed her eyes at me, petting the cat in her lap. “I believe in science. I believe in the ability of science to teach us about the world in which we live, and its many complexities. I, myself, don’t ascribe to the temple’s blind faith in a higher power that is at once forgiving and vengeful. I believe in my own power, in the power of the mind, and in proof. I see no proof in the temple—only willful ignorance. What you’ve told me today about your problem with the diminished only stands as further proof of that ignorance.”
I took a deep breath. “I came to you rather than the Samirians because I am a twin, and I want my sister to rule alongside me with equal power. But I think that Alskad might have some trouble adjusting to the idea, and the support of a singleborn ruler would go a long way. Runa knew, and we were trying to find a way for my sister and me to sit on the throne together. But Runa was murdered, and now, here I am.” I looked Noriava straight in the eye. “I need the Denorian army to fight for me. But more than that, I need the Denorian scientists to find a way to stop the temple’s poison. I need your help, because Samiria can’t give me what you can—the support of a singleborn monarch, and the brains of your brightest scientists.”
Noriava pinched a piece of meat between her fingers and brought it to her mouth, leaving her fingers smeared with blood. She let the cat lick her fingers as she chewed.
“A twin.” She chuckled, a small, private sound. “Leave it to Runa to put a twin in line to rule Alskad.” She shook her head ruefully. “You’re right in thinking the Samirians wouldn’t help you. They’d murder you outright before they’d allow a pair of twins to ascend the Alskad throne. Abet and Jax are only in power because there were no royal singleborn left in Samiria—and because they’ve convinced the Samirian people that they both hold some sort of amalgam magic.”
A regretful expression crossed Noriava’s face. “But though I would very much like to help you, Bo, I’m not sure I can. My courtiers may be more liberal than the Alskaders, but they would never agree to stand so firmly against the Suzerain. Even the small tendrils of influence the Suzerain enjoy here are more powerful than you might think, and I cannot risk my throne or the safety of my people on a venture that’s so likely to fail. I’m so very sorry, Bo.”
My heart sank as she spoke, and I looked down, trying to keep the tears from my eyes.
“You’re welcome to stay here as long as you like, naturally,” she continued. “In fact, perhaps that would be best. It wouldn’t be unprecedented for a dethroned ruler to spend his exile in the court of another country. Your sister could join you. You could be happy here, I think.”
It was tempting. The idea of living in this gorgeous country, safe, with Vi by my side. But I couldn’t just think about what I wanted, what would make me happy. I had all of the people of Alskad to consider.
“I thank you, Your Majesty, but no. I have a duty to my people. Though if you don’t mind, I would love to accept your hospitality for a few days while my ship is resupplied, and I try to formulate a new plan.”
Noriava nodded. “Of course. I truly am sorry I can’t do more.” Then she smiled at me and reached for her wineglass. “For now, let’s talk of more pleasant things. Perhaps you can tell me about your time in Ilor. I hear that it’s the loveliest land.”
Swinton smiled and began to charm Noriava with tales of his childhood in Ilor. As they talked, I stared into my wineglass, thoughts swirling with the possibility—the probability—of failure without the help of the Denorian army.
My throne felt a little further away with each passing moment.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Vi
“Healing is exhausting, Bo. It makes me feel outside myself, like a stranger in my own body. I’m so ready to leave this bed, this room. I want to be out in the w
orld, doing things, rather than cooped up here with my thoughts and my memories and all the ghosts of my mistakes.”
—from Vi to Bo
At my request, the painting of the goddesses was removed from my room, but sunlight had faded the paint on the wall around it. Now, a square of cerulean watched me from a sea of pale blue, a reminder of my abandoned faith. The healers tried their best to ply me with medicines to make me sleep, but my dreams were full of the Shriven’s screams and Lei’s bloodied hands. At least if I stayed awake, I could force myself to think of something other than my failures. Or, at the very least, I could try.
I needed a distraction. So every time the healers saw fit to leave me alone, I hauled myself out of bed and forced my body through the training exercises I’d learned from Curlin. I hated the way I wobbled around, as unsteady as a newborn lamb, but not even the healers’ admonishments about the temple’s poison and my body’s need to heal could keep me in bed.
Sweat dripped from my forehead and landed in fat drops on the wooden floor as I ground through a final set of push-ups. The squeak of a loose floorboard outside my room sent me scrambling back to the bed. I hastily wiped the sweat from my face with a sheet as the door swung open.
“Taking the healers’ advice seriously, I see.”
I gave Quill a wry smile and patted the bed. “They’re overly cautious ninnies. I’m fine.”
Quill sat down next to me and reached out to rest his hand on my knee. When I flinched, he pulled back, looking stung.
“I’m sorry,” I said, staring down at his hand, as if the words I needed were clenched between his fingers.
“Why are you sorry?” he asked. “You’ve done nothing wrong.”
“Nothing wrong?” I spit, astonished. “Lei is dead because of me. And we’ve got nothing to show for that fight. We accomplished nothing. Nothing except death.”
“That’s not true,” Quill countered. “We got our people off the mountain. We lost fewer than the Shriven. Lives were saved, Vi.”
Elbows on my knees, I held my head in my hands. “I don’t know if I can do this, Quill. I don’t know if I can live with the guilt and the grief and the horror of it all.”
Quill put a tentative hand between my shoulder blades, just above the bandaged wound that was my constant, aching reminder of how badly I’d failed. “You’ve lived with much worse for far longer. You’re stronger than you know. And, what’s more, you’re a natural leader. Those brats would walk through fire for you, and the rest of our folks aren’t far behind. We need you, Vi. I need you.”
I scrubbed my hands over my face. “I don’t know if I can be the person you need. I don’t know if I’m enough.”
The bed shifted as Quill moved to kneel on the worn planks of the floor before me. Gently, he lifted my chin and fixed me in his amber gaze. “I’ve never once felt like I was enough to face the challenges set before me, but I’ve always managed. The most anyone can ever ask of you is that you try.”
“But these are people’s lives, Quill! Your life. There has to be someone else. Someone better.”
“Vi, I worked so hard to keep you out of this fight, but I was wrong. We need you. Not someone else. You.”
I swallowed hard, feeling tears sting my eyes. “I feel broken, Quill. I don’t know how to find my way back to myself.”
Quill climbed onto the bed, pulled me into his arms and held me close against his chest. I froze there, stiff and swollen with tears held back, until finally, I gave in and cried. I wept and wept, shedding tears for Lei, for everyone we’d lost. For the part of me that’d died in that battle. And for our terrifying and uncertain future.
As I cried, Quill rubbed my back, careful to avoid the bandaged wound, and murmured softly in my ear. When I’d at last cried all the tears I could, Quill handed me a handkerchief.
After I blew my nose, I looked into his kind, compassionate eyes, my heart aching. “I don’t know how you can love a wreck like me.”
Quill traced my jaw with his finger and leaned in, kissing the skin just below my mouth, my eyelids, my cheekbones. “I wish you could see the version of you that I see. You’re fierce and empathetic and giving, and I’ve never met anyone like you. So long as you hold on to those things, you’ll never be a wreck. And even if you don’t, I’ll still love you.”
I flung my arms around his neck and squeezed, ignoring the pain shooting up my back as my wound protested. “I love you, too, Quill. You know that, right?”
Quill nodded, and we collapsed back onto the bed, our fingers laced together and our legs entwined. I kissed him, desperate to sink into the deep abyss of pleasure and freedom that coursed through our bodies like a river, the current pulling us together. I tugged at his shirt, wanting his skin against mine. He pulled my nightdress over my head, and his long, elegant fingers traced my hips, my rib cage, my collarbone. He laid a row of kisses down my stomach and wrapped his arms around my waist.
I lost myself in his touch. Melted into him like so many candles burning through the night. Over and over, he asked, “Is this all right? This?”
And over and over, I breathed the word “Yes.”
His fingers trailed up my thighs, and he whispered, “May I?”
In his arms, the pain and the fear and the looming knowledge that I was not, nor would I ever be, enough—everything disappeared. It was just Quill and me, and our skin and our lips and the endless insistence of our need. I took his face in my hands, looked deep into his eyes and kissed him, my yes rising and swelling like a wave, flooding us with lust and impatience and desire.
* * *
The next morning, when the healers burst into my room, they found Quill and me tangled up in my sheets—me blushing hot as the sun itself, him all smiles and easy confidence. The healers’ eyebrows soared up their foreheads as they eyed the pair of us. I reached for my nightdress, hanging off the narrow bed’s wooden frame, but one of the healers clucked her tongue and the other shook her head.
“If you’re well enough to do that,” she said, “I feel confident that you’re beyond need of our help. Both of you be sure to drink your contraceptive daily, hear?”
“But don’t push yourself too hard,” the other healer admonished. “You lot tend to get so antsy to be healed and on your feet that you wind up back in bed because you refuse to take it slow.”
Before I could ask what, exactly, she meant by “you lot,” they’d vanished back the way they came. I’d spent my whole life judged and feared for being one of the diminished, but now everyone—at least, all of the rebels—knew about Bo, and all of them believed that he was dead. Once more, I’d been cast back into the role of the diminished, despite what I knew in my gut to be true.
Then again, the healers might’ve only meant that I was one of the rebels. There was no reason for me to get my hackles up.
I pulled my nightdress over my head and glanced at Quill. “Breakfast?”
Laughing, he pulled me back into his arms and kissed me. “Myself, I was hoping they’d tell you to stay in bed another week.”
I swatted at his arm, unable to keep my own grin off my face. “If I don’t get out of bed soon, Aphra and Curlin are going to take over the government of Ilor without me. I can’t let them have all the fun, now can I?”
Quill flashed me a ridiculously exaggerated frown as he hauled himself out of bed. “Fine,” he said, “but you are going to listen to the healers, aren’t you? You’ll take it easy?”
Rolling my eyes, I found a robe and a pair of slippers and put them on. “I’ll take care of myself. Promise.”
His stomach growled, audible from halfway across the small room, and I quirked an eyebrow at him. “Looks like you’re just as ready for something to eat as I am.”
We found Mal and Hepsy together at the kitchen table, poring over a thick ledger, their chipped cups of tea and plates of toast forgotten. Hepsy looked up as we ent
ered the room and started. “You’re supposed to be in bed!”
“They said I’m well enough to get up. What’re the two of you working on?”
Mal and Quill exchanged a look heavy with meaning and understanding before Mal turned his dazzling smile on me. “Hepsy here was kind enough to volunteer her knowledge of the intimate household workings of some of the wealthier Ilorian families, so that I can decide who should bear the financial burden of my brother’s revolution—your revolution.”
I plucked a piece of toast from one of the platters and smeared a thick coating of butter onto the browned bread. “So, what?” I asked, leaning against a counter. “You’re going to rob them?”
Hepsy glowered at me. “Of course not. Don’t be ridiculous.”
“We’re just going to sell them things they don’t really need at incredibly high markups,” Mal said mischievously. “As I’m sure we’re all aware, Hepsy isn’t exactly suited to the whole ‘battle thing’ any more than I am. So we’ve decided to do what we do best.”
“Pander to rich idiots?” Myrna’s voice came from the doorway behind me, and I spun around and flew into her arms, nearly losing hold of my toast in the process. Myrna hugged me gently, and over her shoulder, I saw Curlin and Aphra waiting in the hall, grinning.
“I hardly think it’s pandering,” Hepsy protested with a pout. “What’re you doing here, anyway? I thought you lot were going to the Whipplestons’ warehouse or some such thing.”
“We thought, with most of the Shriven out of the city, that we might make a little stop at the bank beforehand.” Aphra plunked a large purse onto the table, coins clinking inside. “And it’s terribly dangerous to travel with this kind of wealth on your person. You know that.”
Grins spread like wildfire through the room, and Hepsy leaned back in her chair, hands covering her face. “We can feed everyone. Good glory, Aphra. We can afford to feed everyone.”
“That and more,” Aphra replied with a hearty laugh. “As soon as it’s safe, we’ll rebuild the estate, get the young people teachers, make sure everyone is well taken care of.”
The Exalted Page 18
