Nameless Queen

by Rebecca McLaughlin

  “Highness!” Esther scolds, on her feet, her aura sharp with alarm.

  Glenquartz’s smooth, supportive aura is buried by the rising auras of shock, fear, and anger from the rest of the room. Belrosa hobbles to her feet.

  Silver Watch appeals to the council members. “She is obviously not suited for this.”

  “Obviously?” I question.

  “You are, as far as I’m concerned, a magical fluke and a Nameless cretin who is prone to violence,” he says. “I don’t know what you did to get that tattoo, but we will not sit here as an illegal Nameless takes the throne.”

  “So stand. Face me,” I command, and he doesn’t move a muscle. Silver Watch chews his lip as he considers my words.

  This is all a game. A con. These are the players, the marks. They’ll do anything to put me down. Silver Watch with his threats, Pearl with her snide insults, Belrosa with her cruel thoughts. At least on the streets, when someone has a problem with me, they just take a swing at my jaw. Here, everything hovers above the skin, like flies above a corpse. No punches, no swings, only a building buzz of energy.

  The room waits for Silver Watch to speak, to rise or respond. Belrosa gets to her feet, giving an apologetic gesture to the room. I almost snarl. She’s pretending to forgive me, as if it was an accident that I shoved her to the floor.

  “There’s a reason you haven’t killed me yet,” I say. “Two, actually. One: I’m Nameless, and you have no idea what that means for magic. If I die, maybe the crown disappears forever. Maybe Seriden’s magic vanishes entirely. And the second reason you haven’t killed me is that I am Nameless.” I pull the blade from my sleeve and stab it into the table. “Go ahead and try.” If they’re accustomed to polite Royals and formality, they won’t get it.

  I remember my promise to Glenquartz. Be a lady. Well. The general is still clutching a sprained wrist, there’s a knife sticking out of the table, and everyone’s gaping at me. If I can’t show restraint, I’ll show strength.

  I square my shoulders, stand up straight, nod pleasantly to the room, and stride out through the doors just as gracefully and as ladylike as I entered.

  Let that be their first impression of me.

  CHAPTER 7

  I stomp down the hall in my boots. I’ve made them afraid of me—which is great—but I’m terrified too. And angry.

  Hurried, heavy footsteps catch up to me at an even jog. I sense who it is before I see him: Glenquartz. He matches my stride.

  “Aren’t you going to say anything?” I stop short and turn on him.

  His leather boots squeak against the marble floor as he comes to a sharp stop. “Why would I, Your Highness?”

  “Because I screwed up Royally in there.” I pace the corridor. “Make a good impression, you said. Be a lady, you said. I failed on every count.”

  Glenquartz doesn’t say anything for a while, watching me pace, and even his aura is patient. “If you don’t mind my forwardness, we might need to work on how you express anger, my lady.”

  “I swear by everything Nameless,” I say, stopping in front of him and pointing in his face, “that if you call me Highness or my lady one more spetzing time, I’m going to punch you right in your excellently bearded face.” I pause, collecting myself. “And I mean that…in a…not violent way? Yeah, I’ll work on it.”

  Glenquartz’s grin compresses into an uneasy grimace. “At least you got them to agree to release Hat from the prison.”

  Her name crawls into my chest and burns. Everything in my body—the tremulous ache of my heart, the twitching of my legs—wants me to run to her. “They better. I meant what I said in there. This crown on my arm might as well be a noose around my neck. At some point, I may die because of it, but I will not let Hat die. Let me be blunt: if she becomes a martyr, I become a soldier. And I don’t think the Royal Council wants a soldier as queen, do you?” I back off, realizing I’ve essentially just threatened him.

  He blinks a couple of times, spinning a button on the cuff of his long red sleeve. “I understand. You can be scary when you want to be. You can be strong. That’s good. You’ll have to be strong if you’re going to survive Eldritch’s infamous etiquette class.” He tries to give a good-natured laugh. Then, more seriously, he adds, “You will have to get along with the general if you’re going to win over the council.”

  “You didn’t see what I saw when Belrosa touched my hand,” I say. “What she was thinking about the Nameless and about me! Murder by the hundreds. It was awful. She’s awful. And she knew what she was doing. She showed that to me.”

  “Her family—the Demures—held the crown as recently as three generations ago,” he says. “It stands to reason that she’d be unhappy that you have it now. She’d want to undermine you in front of the council. To all appearances, though, she was on your side. Even after what you did to her. It didn’t look too bad, though. I’m sure Med Ward will patch her up.”

  “What am I supposed to do for nearly six weeks? Tell me straight. Is Hat alive? Or were you just conning me into attending that meeting?”

  “What I said is true,” Glenquartz says. “She’s in the prison, and she’s alive. I wasn’t lying to you.”

  I take a shaky breath and lean against the wall. I point down the hall toward the assembly room. “That was terrifying.” I trace a pattern on the wallpaper with an idle hand, trying to calm my heart.

  Glenquartz looks at me, puzzled. “You didn’t seem scared when you were talking to them.”

  “That’s part of the grift,” I say. “How you make people see you isn’t necessarily how you really are.” I shake my hands, loosening the tension in my body, almost laughing. Glenquartz’s aura is in pieces like a puzzle—part curious, part confused, part amused. No anger or annoyance. Of all the people on the council, if I have to trust one person, it’s Glenquartz.

  “You’re terrified, but you’re laughing?” he asks.

  I shrug as if it’s the most normal thing in the world.

  “You’ll make a great queen,” he says. “Now, I know you told the council you don’t know how you got the tattoo….Is that true?” He starts down the corridor, and I follow at a dragging pace.

  “I understand this as little as anyone else,” I say. “Because, believe me, if I knew why I was here, I wouldn’t be here. If I’d had any say in this, I would’ve said no. But I wasn’t given a vote. I was given a magical crown tattoo that gives me weird illusion and mind-reading abilities! And in the course of discovering that, I ended up in a palace dungeon, and I lost my…” I stop. My what? My friend? My best and only friend? My responsibility. My failure.

  I don’t know how to put what she is to me into words that make sense.

  “Hat,” Glenquartz says. “You mean your friend?”

  I sigh sharply. “ ‘Friend’ isn’t the right word. I don’t even know what to call her. What do you call the most important person in your life? The person you promised to protect but refused to take responsibility for. And what do you call it when that person is dragged away from you in handcuffs after nearly being executed in front of you? When that person is on the edge of disappearing, and you can’t do a single thing to save them?”

  “I don’t know,” he says. “That sounds…difficult. Impossible, even. One of those terrible things we have to live with, where living isn’t quite the same as surviving. It’s heartbreaking, and painful, and…I guess there isn’t quite a name for it.” His aura prickles as he shakes off his own painful memories.

  I scoff. “How poetic. Everything about us is Nameless, even our tragedies.”

  * * *

  I consider it a dazzling success that I haven’t been killed yet. As Glenquartz leads me through the palace, we’re quiet. Exhaustion sets in, my feet dragging and head clouding with fog. He opens a set of burnished red doors, revealing an extravagant room. All the drapes are orange and gold, making the
room seem bright even though the only light comes from the oil lamps in the hall.

  “These are the guest sleeping quarters,” Glenquartz explains, “where we house foreign dignitaries, queens, kings, and ambassadors when they visit. It should suit you.”

  Six ample beds are separated by individual wardrobes and bedside tables with oil lanterns. There is a trunk at the foot of each bed, presumably for storing travel items and clothes, but they definitely look big enough to hold a body. The beds all have comforters with gold-thread embroidered designs. I choose the bed that has a design of constellations and rests beneath a skylight.

  Glenquartz is still standing in the doorway as if he isn’t allowed to enter, and he points up at the skylight. “If it gets too hot, you can open it.”

  I wave my hand dismissively as though I’m not concerned about the heat, when I know full well that he has just pointed me to my best avenue of escape.

  Framed drawings of Seriden cover the walls. Hanging in the middle is a document. I can’t read it, but the page is filled with small blocky letters surrounded by a series of handwritten squiggles.

  “What’s this?” I ask, picking my way between the beds to get a closer look.

  “That is a copy of the City-State Peace Treaties,” Glenquartz says proudly. “It outlines the trade agreements and alliances between Seriden and the other cities. The border holds the signatures of the original fourteen sovereigns.”

  I’m impressed. “Of course they’d hang it here in the guest quarters to remind foreign officials of their pacts. Clever. I appreciate a well-framed manipulation.” I hold my hands up in a frame shape, studying how the diagrams of the city surround and support the treaty.

  Glenquartz regards the treaty apprehensively, as if he hasn’t considered it before.

  I remove my jacket and set it on the bedside table. The surface of the table is polished and dusted, but the lantern’s wick is hardened, and there’s a layer of dust on the curved glass. The room has been maintained, but no one has used it recently.

  “When’s the last time anyone stayed here?” I ask.

  “It has been a while,” Glenquartz says. “King Fallow was dealing with some political…difficulties. We haven’t hosted our neighbors in quite some time.”

  I observe the five empty beds. Hat would love it here. I inhale the dust of unfamiliar fabric, trying to summon the scent of cinnamon and salt, dirt and sweat.

  I throw a half glance at Glenquartz. He’s watching me.

  “How exactly do I get to the prison?” I ask. “It’s one of the only buildings outside the city, right? It’s to the west, but then what? North? South? It has to be close by.”

  Suddenly I wish I’d paid attention to all the times that a Nameless was dragged off to prison. Mostly, I was busy getting as far away as I could.

  “I can’t think of any reason you’d want to know that,” Glenquartz says, entering the room and fiddling with the lantern on the nearest table, “unless you were planning on going there. The prison is no place for the queen. The guards stationed there are not kind toward the Nameless, but I do have one friend who has agreed to watch over Hat as best she can. I wouldn’t be able to guarantee your safety if you went to the prison, let alone Hat’s. General Belrosa has agreed in front of the council to issue a command for her release.”

  “Not a command. A request. She promised to ask for Hat to be released,” I say. “I need you to make sure they actually do it.”

  Glenquartz agrees. “Of course, my lady.”

  “Call me Coin,” I say with an incline of my head.

  “Coin.” He says my name gently, almost reverently. “I’ll do everything in my power. Just remember that even though you do have some leverage as the heir, you’ll have to make concessions to the council and fulfill your role until the Assassins’ Festival.”

  I sit on the foot of a bed. I peel off my outer green shirt with its torn sleeve to reveal a short-sleeved, once-white shirt. It has a few torn ruffles—it was once a dress shirt belonging to a Legal—and a few huge streaks of black. To prevent the Nameless from filching discarded clothes and pretending to be Legals, a lot of people either burn their old clothes or stain them with black dye.

  Glenquartz blushes and busies himself organizing a stack of books, looking anywhere but at my face.

  “Such a gentleman,” I say. “Do I offend your modesty? So, why do they call it the Assassins’ Festival, anyway? That doesn’t sound very good. Not for me, anyway.”

  “The Assassins’ Festival used to be a weeklong festival, but now it’s only a day,” he explains. “Throughout the day, you duel the highest-ranked challengers. Like the council explained, if any of them wins, you pass the tattoo to them willingly.”

  “Then why don’t they call it the Dueling Festival?” I say, glaring at him.

  His lips pinch together. “Historically, the duels were to the death, and a lot of times the sovereign was assassinated before the duels could be completed.”

  “When’s the last time a sovereign was assassinated?” I ask.

  “Four generations ago, I think,” Glenquartz says. “Fallow got the crown from his parents, who got it from the Demure family. Three generations would’ve been the longest time the crown has been in one family. I mean, until now.” He catches himself and winces apologetically, as if I’m supposed to feel bad for breaking their streak. I sigh in frustration.

  “It wasn’t me who named me queen,” I say. “Now. Where’s the bath? Two nights is a long time to spend in a dungeon, and I don’t think you’re standing that far away just because of my temperament.”

  Glenquartz points to the water closet, and I’m already halfway to it when he adds, “There are some clothes in the wardrobes, and it’s a shower, not just a tub.”

  “It’s a what?” I say, and my mouth drops open. I stop with one foot inside the doorway.

  “A shower,” he repeats sagely.

  Running water is common throughout Seriden, and most houses have it now—but it’s usually only installed in two places: a sink for the kitchen and the toilet with a complicated high reservoir and chain. When someone wants to take a bath, they cart water in from the kitchen after boiling it on the stove.

  “Here at the palace, the water is heated,” Glenquartz says.

  “Seriously?”

  Glenquartz’s eyes light up when he sees what must be the biggest smile I’ve ever smiled. “Would you like me to show you how it works?”

  I dash into the room, and he totters in after me. Though the controls aren’t complicated—a valve for the water and a chain for the drain—he enjoys teaching me. He fiddles with the controls, and when he turns around, I’ve already changed out of my clothes and I’m wrapped up in a towel. He bursts out laughing and slips, catching himself on the edge of the tub before he can fall over.

  “You sure work fast,” he says.

  I grin. “Now, Glenquartz, I say this with the utmost care…”

  “I’ll be outside,” he says, and he’s barely containing his laughter.

  * * *

  The next morning, I wake up on the floor. At some point during the night, the bed was too soft and hot, so I dragged a layer of blankets to the floor and curled up between two of the beds. I lift myself onto the edge of a bed, stretching and enjoying the fact that my fingers and toes aren’t stiff from the cold or from clutching a weapon. I yawn lazily and realize that what woke me up was the sound of approaching footsteps. The door handle twists.

  “Wait!” I shout, but it’s too late.

  The door opens, and a small glass bowl falls and shatters. Glenquartz pauses, halfway into the room. He inspects the graveyard of glass shards and twine.

  “What’s this?” he asks.

  I slap a hand to my forehead. “An alarm.” I slide to the edge of the bed. “The glass bowl was netted with twine and looped o
ver the door handle. Open the door, and the glass falls.”

  “Clever,” he says, swallowing uneasily. “You’re an early riser.” He steps carefully inside, boots crunching the glass.

  “Got to be,” I say, “if I want to get to the markets early to scope out marks.”

  Glenquartz shifts uncomfortably, and Esther enters the room behind him. She glares distastefully at the glass on the floor.

  “An irreplaceable, hand-blown vase from the city of Tuvo,” Esther says, appraising the damage. “But as long as you got to sleep soundly…” She sucks at her teeth and turns her glare on me.

  I nod, rising to my feet, doing a smooth curtsy in the bedclothes I scavenged from a wardrobe last night.

  “Can I help you?” I ask in a too-sweet voice.

  “Today will be your first time meeting the Royals en masse,” Esther says, “and your first etiquette lesson with Eldritch Weathers is tomorrow. I’ve brought you some proper clothing. If anything doesn’t fit, the tailor will pay you a visit sometime in the next few days.” She sets down an armful of brightly colored clothes. From the pile, she picks up a vibrant red bundle.

  A small, displeased sigh escapes her lips as she surveys me as if I’m a dusty bag of rice for sale at West Market. I feel an old impulse, like a prodding weight at my back, telling me to simply walk out and leave.

  Esther unfurls the bundle with an overzealous flourish. It’s a dress.

  I give it my darkest glare. Hell, no.

  Despite my profuse complaints, within ten minutes I’m more offensively bright than a red flame.

  “This isn’t a dress. It’s a blanket with sleeves.” I hold up the excess of crimson fabric that hangs at my ankles.

  “This dress is worth one of the sloops in the harbor,” Esther says as I tie the sash at my waist.