Nameless Queen

by Rebecca McLaughlin

  Then she comes to me, and her aura is like a force that almost pushes me. She extends her left hand, and I see her grip on her sword tighten.

  “Your Highness,” she says, with a downward tilt of her head. “That display was…as inexplicable and impossible as you are. And it certainly sounded like the truth.” She reaches out to take my hand the same way she did the first time I met her at the Royal Council. This time, however, she won’t catch me off guard. I’ve been practicing with Esther. I can do this.

  But then, as I reach out to take her hand, preparing for the onslaught of fear and anger from her touch, everything goes wrong at once.

  “If I cannot have your crown…,” Belrosa whispers, trailing off. There’s a sharp movement, and people start screaming. My heart drops, and I wonder if this is the signal to her army to start slaughtering people. But then I see the shine of her sword as she reaches sideways and doesn’t do a single thing to harm me, but instead stabs Esther.

  CHAPTER 23

  The crowd surges in outrage, and the entire Royal Council is on their feet in alarm.

  “Then I will have your crown,” Belrosa says to Esther.

  Simple confusion fills Esther’s aura. She pulls her arm to her body as Belrosa withdraws the blade, and then she falls to her knees.

  Glenquartz is in front of us in an instant, and I’ve never seen him with such spitting rage. Belrosa staggers as she parries Glenquartz’s forceful swings, and Esther’s tattoo has already started to fade from her arm and transfer to Belrosa.

  “Esther!” I cry, collapsing to my knees as she falls into my arms.

  I hear Hat’s voice as she calls my name and races toward us, trying to push her way through but getting caught behind a surge of angry spectators.

  I press down hard. It’s the only thing I know to do. I pull off her jacket, which is the cleanest cloth I can see, and I bundle it against her wound. Blood seeps through.

  Esther’s hand goes up to her arm, where I’ve exposed her crown tattoo.

  “It’s a bit late for that,” I say, my voice heavy and raw. Of course Belrosa knew about Esther’s tattoo. She tortured Esther’s father for years. He would have told her.

  Rising above the yells of the crowd are Glenquartz’s and Belrosa’s voices as they fight each other.

  Glenquartz, all rage and fury: “You are a disgrace to your position! You are a murderer!”

  Belrosa shouts something in response, but all I can hear is my heartbeat pounding in my ears.

  “Esther, Esther,” I say, as she searches the sky somewhere above me. “Come on, Esther.”

  Esther’s tattoo fades to gray on her arm, and I grab her hand. “Stay with me.”

  She shakes her head. “You need to take it.” She brings her hand up to her chest.

  “Take what?” I ask.

  She shifts to the side, turning her left arm upward to show me the fading ink of the tattoo.

  “I need you to have this,” she says. She almost laughs. “It didn’t even occur to me that I’d be vulnerable today, just like you. But it makes sense, I guess, since our abilities are tied together. I wonder if Father knew when I first got the tattoo. Why didn’t he have me give him my tattoo? Or why wouldn’t he give me his? But now I see. It’s because we need this.”

  I shake my head. “What we need to do is stop this bleeding.”

  Esther says weakly, “You can’t let Belrosa get this tattoo from me. I’d speak your name if I knew it. Do this peacefully, if I could. But I can’t. The only way I can give it to you is if you’re the one to kill me.”

  I shake my head. “Absolutely not.”

  “If I’m dying anyway,” Esther says, “where’s the harm? I’m much too spiteful to let Belrosa be the one who kills me. Do me the courtesy of letting it be you, instead? After all, you could use some practice being courteous. You are meant to have this. It has to be you.”

  “You are not going to die,” I command.

  “I’ll do my best, Your Highness,” she says. “I believe in you, Coin. I know that sounds like on-my-deathbed nonsense, but it’s true. You’re my sister. And I love you. I don’t care if you don’t have a name. You are worthy of the crown, and you are strong enough to hold its weight.”

  Hat arrives, and she skids to her knees beside Esther.

  “How bad is it?” Hat asks me.

  I fumble for words. “It’s really bad. But she’s talking and moving. That’s good, right? She’s…fading. Tell me you can do something, please.”

  “I’ll do what I can,” she says, scanning the crowd. “Where’s Dr. Rhana?”

  I try to give Hat space, but Esther reaches out and grabs my sleeve.

  “Coin, I need you to do me a favor,” Esther says. And despite everything—the blood pooling up through Hat’s fingers and the colorless wash of her skin—she smiles. “Go kick the general’s ass, would you?”

  It’s as if the tattoo knows its other half. As Esther lets go of me, pain stabs into my shoulder at my tattoo. Ink flows from Esther’s arm, down across her fingers, and onto my skin like a snake. The ink flows up my arm to my crisp black crown tattoo, and suddenly the tattoo is darker and burning with heat. The surge of energy courses through me. It is fire at my feet, as though I could scorch the earth with every step. Her tattoo has reunited with mine.

  Impossible. Esther didn’t speak my name. I didn’t kill her. How can this happen?

  Esther’s hand falls limp against the cold stones. Hat doesn’t look at me, but she works more quickly at Esther’s wound, and I feel Esther’s aura fading, overwhelmed and drowned out—emptied—by the anger of the crowd surrounding us.

  I rise slowly to my feet and turn on a heel toward the open arena, where Glenquartz and Belrosa are still fighting.

  I walk toward them.

  Belrosa seems to have the upper hand over Glenquartz. He’s starting to slow down. I pick up the sword that Esther dropped, and its hilt warms quickly in my grasp.

  “Glenquartz!” I shout, and I will my voice to reverberate through the air like a clap of thunder. He falters in his fight, and Belrosa herself staggers sideways, searching her arm as if the ink has crawled under her sleeve to hide from her.

  In my periphery, I see Hat gesture for Glenquartz to help her. One look between Glenquartz and me, and he rushes past me, heading for Hat. I fix my sight on Belrosa.

  Esther’s tattoo has fused with mine. I would be surprised or confused, except that everything about me and my life—about this tattoo and magic itself—is impossible. What’s one more impossible thing?

  “Then it’s you,” Belrosa says, wielding her sword.

  Every fragment of me that has ever felt fragile is like steel now, fiercer and sharper than the tempered blade in my hand.

  I haven’t felt certainty like this in a long time. The strength of both tattoos fuels me. I thought I knew power before. I thought I knew strength. It was nothing as wild and untamed as what I feel now. Everything is different. I feel it in my bones. I stretch my arms, and the blade is like air, light and quick.

  Belrosa advances.

  As Glenquartz trained me, I know the stances expected of me now for a proper duel. I know the etiquette. But we are far past etiquette, and we are far past kindness and mercy.

  I fight to have a steady voice, though I hear it shake with rage when I speak.

  “General Belrosa Demure,” I say to her. “I speak as the sovereign of Seriden, queen of this city, commander of all that it rules, and a Nameless wretch in your court. You have broken every faith this city has placed in you, undermined its laws and treaties, and betrayed those who needed your protection most.”

  Belrosa is stalking toward me now, as though she doesn’t want to give me the satisfaction of a long, drawn-out speech. So I meet her in battle.

  This fight is nothing like the duel we had befo
re. I swing with every ounce of strength I have.

  “If it is you I must kill, so be it,” Belrosa says. “You do not deserve that power.”

  One touch is all I need, or one touch will destroy me.

  Occasionally, she reaches for me or takes a swing at my face. When she sees me flinch, her face lights up. My fear has given her a target, and suddenly I know that if she had a pistol or a rifle with her, this would all be over. A violent parry sends us both reeling backward, and Belrosa takes stock of the crowd as if to remind me that she has an army out there.

  My mind is too tangled with anger to make any sense of consequences.

  I know the Nameless soldiers won’t see any illusion I create, but the crowd is growing restless, and I don’t want them to interfere, so I imagine a wall surrounding us made of solid white stone.

  Belrosa’s eyes dart behind me as my fake wall surrounds us. I swing my sword, and she barely has enough time to dodge it.

  She grabs for my arm and gets a brief hold over me. A hollow ache of fear makes its way up to my shoulder before I spin out of her reach. She chuckles maniacally as if finally seizing my weakness. She lunges for me again, arm outstretched.

  This time, I let her.

  Her cold fingers wrap around my wrist. If I can’t do this, then she wins. It’s as if a wall of ice builds between us. Both of us press against it, waiting to see which way it will shatter.

  It shatters inward.

  Belrosa grips my wrist and crushes it, feeling the bones crack. Angry triumph fills her, and she brings her sword forward through a thick layer of armor and then through my body and blood.

  “Your power is mine,” Belrosa shouts. The smooth black ink of the tattoo materializes on her arm. The wall disintegrates, and the crowd gapes in shock and silence. Then she feels the pain of the tattoo—like needles jabbing into her arm. Auras burst like fireworks around her—a concoction of light and fear. She rises to her feet and violently withdraws her blade from the body of the dead queen, the Nameless wretch.

  “She thought she could steal our city!” Belrosa shouts to the crowd. “Rest easy under my leadership. Your Nameless queen is dead!” She raises an arm, and a spear of earth rises up from the ground, taking the form of the towers of Seriden’s palace.

  “I can make Seriden the conqueror of magic and of all cities,” Belrosa says. “Do you stand with me?”

  The crowd stirs but remains silent. There is no rallying cry. She does not see obedience or faith. She sees hatred. Soldiers from the Nameless army emerge from the audience into the edge of the arena, their sleek gray uniforms slowly turning to black.

  The Royal Council stands together, their horror transmuting into anger.

  The soldiers, one by one, slowly advance. Then the Royal guards.

  “What are you doing?” Belrosa demands in disbelief. “You have to follow me! I will lead you in battle like no sovereign has done for Seriden in two hundred years!”

  “How could you!” the redheaded girl screams from where Esther lies dead. Her young face is etched with fury. “You killed them!” With angry tears on her face and Esther’s blood on her hands, she races forward. The loyal lieutenant joins her.

  Then, the crowd.

  Fear fills Belrosa’s veins—a deep and abiding pain as she realizes they’ve turned on her. The city she has done everything to protect is after her blood.

  “No!” Belrosa shouts as they advance.

  The crowd closes in.

  “You don’t understand!” Belrosa says. “I’m protecting you! I’m protecting you!”

  But she knows in her heart that they don’t believe her, that they’re coming to tear her limb from limb. The city she killed to protect is killing her. Her own screams echo in her ears as the first hand seizes her from behind.

  Everything shatters inward.

  I blink, letting go of Belrosa’s wrist. We’re still standing in the center of the arena. Belrosa thought she overpowered me—she thought she killed me—but instead I went inside her mind and walked her through her greatest fear. And, like turning a key, I’ve locked the door on my way out.

  General Belrosa falls to the ground at my feet, staring blankly at the sky. She’s trapped inside her own mind, reliving her worst fear over and over again: gaining power over the city and being rejected and betrayed by those most loyal to her.

  The crowd is still firmly rooted outside the arena. Glenquartz and Hat still hover at Esther’s side. The Royal Council still perches in their gilded viewing box.

  The world is silent around me, and I crouch down to place my hand on Belrosa’s forehead, feeling the icy chill of her constant fear.

  My whole body is filled with energy, and I feel like I could take on a hundred duelers.

  I search the crowd, and as I watch, five, then ten, then twenty Nameless push to the front. I tense. Belrosa’s fail-safe: her Nameless army.

  No one moves. I hardly breathe.

  “I accept you,” I say to them tentatively. “No matter what you’ve done or been made to do. No matter what life you’ve lived or the person you’ve become to survive. If you want a life here in Seriden, one not wrapped up in an obligation of fighting and serving someone else, you can stay here. You can stay.”

  Most of them don’t react. But in a few of them I sense a glimmer of hope. Their hope is like spirals of light inside a dense fog; it’s like sparks against my skin, electric. It rises and rises, like a fire climbing higher.

  Marcher steps forward. For the first time, I see him as he really is. He’s wearing all black, comfortable and strong.

  He joins me in the arena as the crowd watches my every movement.

  “Whatever you’re doing with Belrosa,” I say, “it’s over now. They can all stay. You can stay, even.” My throat runs dry, but I hold my stance. If I can’t mean it for him, how can I mean it for everyone else?

  “Little Coin,” he says. “Matching every challenge. Defeating every challenger. How like you. I did well raising you, I think.”

  I grind my teeth, trying very hard to remain cordial. But it’s been forever since I punched him in the face, and it seems like he’s due for another. I remind myself of the army behind him, of the city watching us.

  Marcher leans in, and I grip the hilt of my sword. “You’re right,” Marcher says. “Belrosa is gone. But her plans were never my plans. And I’ve promised them more than that.” He pats my shoulder twice and disappears into the crowd.

  The gray soldiers turn and follow him. But there are a couple—a few, even—who stay behind. They’re wavering in their certainty, but they’re clinging to hope. I feel alive with it. Pride builds in my chest.

  “Coin!” Hat shouts from far behind me, and my pride crumbles in an instant.

  Across the arena, Hat is kneeling over Esther, and her voice is hoarse and tight. “She’s still alive!”

  I rush across the open arena to where Hat and now Dr. Rhana are both frenetically treating Esther’s wound. I reach Esther and collapse to my knees beside her. I grab her hand, and a surge of pain doubles through my system. It’s all I can do to hold on. Esther’s pain is excruciating, her fear mind-numbing.

  “The only time I’ve felt worse,” Esther says with a tight, painful smile, “is when I learned you had the tattoo.” She winces as Hat presses a clean bandage on her wound.

  A heartbroken sob gets trapped in my throat.

  In a calm voice, Rhana says, “We need to get her to Med Ward.” She orders a nearby guard to bring a table so they can carry her; then she discusses the injury with Hat in hushed tones.

  Rhana crouches beside me and speaks with a hand on my shoulder. “I know you’ve been practicing your abilities with Esther in Med Ward. Don’t look at me like that—Esther’s been visiting my ward for years. Of course I knew. The tattoo is yours now, and I don’t know what that means, but
hopefully you can still help her. We’re out of anesthetic since the fires. Her heart is racing, and it’s going to pump too much of her blood out of that wound. When we get to Med Ward, I’ll need to cut into her to help her. So I need you to keep her calm, because it’s going to hurt. I need you to do this for Esther, Coin. Keep her calm. Send her mind someplace else. Let us save her life. Are you ready?”

  Her confidence steadies me. “Yes.”

  “Do it now, okay?” She positions herself behind Esther’s shoulder. Glenquartz positions himself at her feet.

  My eyes are burning. My lungs. My heart. Everything I am is dissolving into fire. Esther’s pain is so great that I don’t know how to touch it. I close my eyes, as we grip each other’s hands, and I focus on soothing her aura.

  “Esther Merelda Fallow,” I whisper like a lullaby into her ear. The sound of the arena drops away, and lights dance in my mind until they coalesce into an image. I don’t know what to show her at first. I don’t know what her happiest place is—the memory of her father, or farther, to the faint memories she has of her mother. I want to show her something beautiful. So I show her Hat, the first time we met.

  Then I show her snowfall in the city. The chill is sharp and harsh against my skin.

  I show her the snow in the alley I slept in—it glistened, untouched by footprints or cart tracks. It’s smooth and frozen and beautiful, and I think hazily that it wouldn’t be the worst place to die. I show a winter storm that came early one year, and I had to unbury myself from two crates and a tarp I was sleeping beneath.

  I show her every moment of my life where the harsh world was beautiful, where laughter won out over everything. The look on a Legal’s face when he opened his door and found his living room empty and bare. Devil’s shelf of collected odds and ends, and her voice saying, “Find me something interesting from the palace.”

  When I first called the tattoo beautiful, Esther said that beauty needed context. So I show her the first time I got caught while pickpocketing. The first execution I saw. Every hurt and injury. The ache in my chest when I stole food from a family who needed it, and the all-consuming hunger that filled my body when I didn’t. I share with her the moments I almost died, the feeling when Marcher told me my friend was dead. The moment I realized there was a tattoo around my arm and that my life would never be the same.