The True Queen

  CHAPTER TWO

  Elli

  The first day of new spring brings new fears—but so have the many days leading up to it, and so that doesn’t make it special. It happens to be the birthday of my Saadella and heir, though, which makes it very special indeed. I will do everything within my meager power to keep my own cares from touching Lahja.

  I rise early and dress myself. On ceremony days I allow my handmaiden, Helka, to assist, but most of the time I take pride in doing everything alone. It is not how things have traditionally been done, but I am not a traditional queen.

  Technically, I am not the queen at all. But only me, Raimo, and Oskar are in on the secret.

  I am in Lahja’s chambers, enjoying a midmorning feast of sweet buns with jam and butter, laughing as she licks her sticky fingers, when Raimo pokes his grizzled head in. I know he’s there before I see him, because Lahja jumps up and runs to him, jammy hands waving. “I want the dancing fire,” she calls.

  I rise from the cushions, grinning as Janeka, her handmaiden and older sister, hooks an arm around Lahja’s middle just before she collides with the old man. “You must clean your hands,” she clucks. “Remember who you are!”

  Lahja frowns, her coppery curls bouncing around her face. “I never forget. I’m the Saadella, which means people must do as I want.”

  “Oh, darling,” I murmur as I reach her. “It really means you must do what the people need.” I kneel next to her and stroke my hand down her back. “But today?” I lean forward and kiss her freckled nose. “Today it definitely means we must all do as you want.”

  Still smiling, I look up at Raimo, but as soon as I see his expression, concern rides a cold trail up my back. “Are you ill?”

  On his best day, Raimo is a stooped old man with a long scraggly beard, tufty hair around his ears, a spotty dome of bald head, stringy arms, and knobby hands that always clutch a walking stick—but he is nevertheless spry and hardy. Today, though, he blinks as if his eyes sting, and his mouth works as if he’s swallowed a bite of tainted meat.

  When Lahja peers up at him, though, his face splits into a wrinkled smile. “Not at all.” He holds out his upturned palm, and a flame immediately appears, twirling and undulating in a shape that resembles a dancing child. My Saadella shrieks with joy and matches the movements of the flame, spinning in a circle while her skirt flaps around her ankles and knees.

  She doesn’t notice Raimo sweating and shaking, and that is a good thing. I step between them and scoop her into my arms. “You look so lovely when you dance! How would you like it if Kaisa came in and played you a tune on her kantele?”

  “Oh! Yes! She must do that!” Lahja is a giggling ball of sweetness as I carry her deeper into her rooms.

  I give Janeka a steady, commanding look as I hand the serious young woman her wriggling younger sister. “I will send for Kaisa. Will you entertain Lahja until then?”

  She casts a glance toward the corridor, where Raimo leans against the stone wall, then nods and pulls a silly smile onto her face. For a moment, my heart twists—she reminds me of Mim, who would have done anything to keep me happy and warm and healthy during all the years she took care of me. I swallow back the sudden sorrow of missing her, the poignant memory of her beautiful face, as it looked when she stood right where Janeka stands now. So when she says, “Of course, my Valtia,” I merely wave and turn away so she will not see the glaze of tears in my eyes.

  “I will be back later to dance with you,” I call over my shoulder to Lahja, my voice strained but brisk.

  “You must do what I say today too!” Lahja replies.

  “Yes, I must,” I say, smiling once more. “Because today you are the queen!”

  And with that I walk quickly to Raimo, the cares of the world dropping onto my shoulders once again. “Tell me,” I say as I take his arm and guide him into the hallway. As I do, I feel the tingle of ice and fire along my palms, and it does nothing to allay my fear—he’s usually in complete control of his magic.

  “I’m just a little off today,” he says. “But given my age, I believe I have a right to be.”

  I chuckle. He’s hundreds of years old and has cheated time like a street thief. “Like few others do.” And as for those others . . . two are dead now, and one lurks in places unknown, probably planning his next attack.

  Still holding Raimo by the arm, I walk slowly down the corridor. “Where is Kaisa? Shouldn’t she be with you?”

  “She’s my new apprentice, not my nursemaid,” he says, his mouth working again, his face drawn into a grimace.

  I wave at a passing acolyte and tell the boy to fetch Kaisa from wherever she might be tucked away today. She’s grown stronger and more confident in her magic, but she’s a quiet, gentle soul who prefers to practice her skills when no one is watching—whether it be her ability to wield ice and fire or her gifts for playing chiming tunes on the kantele. Raimo acts like he resents having an apprentice, but he usually finds it hard not to smile when she’s around.

  We reach the magnificent domed chamber of our Temple on the Rock. “Oskar will be here soon,” Raimo says.

  “What?” It comes out of me as a kind of surprised yelp. My hand strays to my hair.

  Raimo laughs. “Elli, you do realize Oskar has seen you on the verge of death, yes? I can say with certainty that you look much better now. Besides, the boy is so utterly besotted that he will hardly care that your hair is in dire need of Helka’s special brand of magic.”

  I give him a sour look. “That doesn’t make me feel more confident.”

  “Do you really fear he will be disappointed by how you look? He’s been in the outlands for two weeks, among bears and outlaws. Even on your worst day, you smell a lot better than either.”

  He’s right. It’s just that I see Oskar far more rarely than I would like, and therefore would prefer to look my best during those times. “You are full of compliments. Do you know if he brings news?”

  “Not yet. He simply sent word that he was coming.” Raimo glances down the massive steps of the temple and into the white plaza, which is still pockmarked and scarred from the battle that took place here two months ago. “But the news of a few days ago still troubles him. It troubles me, too, if I am honest.”

  My eyes stray to the copper inlay that winds through the walls of our grand temple. “Are they sure it is the last?”

  “We’ve known the copper was running out. Mine after mine has turned up nothing. The Pimea mine was the last one giving up any ore at all. They will continue to dig and scrape, but they’ve found nothing for nearly a month, and now the snowmelt and ground water is running into the empty veins. The miners had to clear out.”

  “What does this mean for us?” My fingers run over the coppery thread that gilds my dress. For Kupari without magic, the copper we have steadily mined for the last few hundred years is our wealth, our leverage, our safety. Everyone knows it. But few know the other half of the truth—for those with magic, copper is the source, the beating heart, the origin of that power.

  “We have ton upon ton of smelted bars in the catacombs,” Raimo says. “Enough to give us time, I hope.”

  “And to make us a more tempting target, perhaps. For desperate Kupari and invaders alike.”

  He squeezes my hand, letting me feel the tremor in his fingers. “Which is why all of them must continue to believe you are the true Valtia.”

  I hold my head high, though the weight of my secrets threatens to crush me. It’s not that I mind the responsibility—I will bear anything if it means my people can be safe and happy. It’s the constant pretense, the constant fear of discovery. It’s the fear that whenever Raimo or Oskar are elsewhere, I have no one who can even help me cast the illusion that I have any magic at all, let alone infinite amounts of it. “But Kauko, wherever he is, knows the truth. So does Sig.”

  There was a time when I thought Sig might become a friend, or at least an ally. But after what I did to him, and how I left him in the hands of the man who had
already tortured him and sipped at his blood, I would not be surprised if he hates me more than Kauko does.

  “But perhaps they are dealing with their own travails now. It’s possible they didn’t even survive after escaping the rubble.” Raimo reads my skepticism and shrugs. “Yes, I don’t believe it either. Sorry.”

  I gesture out over the plaza, toward the town square. “I’m finding it grimly amusing that Kauko and Sig are the least of our problems right now. Since we don’t have the Valtia’s magic to ensure the food supply, we’ve got to figure out how to store up for next winter, and that might be particularly difficult if the Soturi decide to invade.”

  “Strange rumors from Vasterut these days.”

  “We should have cultivated our relationship with the Vasterutians when we had the chance.”

  “We? Ha! We had no chance at all, thanks to the elders. They thought we’d be fine, an island unto ourselves.”

  And so they turned away any offer of alliance and rejected any pleas for help. Now we have no friends to come to our aid should the Soturi barbarians invade, and it seems almost certain they will. A month or two ago, when Oskar investigated fires along the western lakeshore, he found bands of fighters from Korkea, who were headed east through the Loputon toward Vasterut. And rumors from Vasterut itself indicate the Soturi force left there a few weeks ago. We just don’t know where they are. And we’re too isolated to find out.

  “Perhaps instead of trying to train our own fighters, we should have offered the Korkeans and Ylpesians goods in exchange for protection,” I say. “Maybe we should have tasked Oskar with that instead of sending him to build a militia of wielders.”

  Raimo scoffs. “Magic is still our best weapon for the war that stalks us. The Suurin will fight alongside the Astia to save the Kupari.” He looks down at his tremulous hands. “I know the prophecy was right. I know I was right.”

  He sounds less certain than he ever has, perhaps because one of our Suurin has disappeared. But also—“You never told me what the prophecy said about the Valtia,” I say quietly.

  His watery eyes rise to the domed ceiling of the temple. “Because the stars are veiled when it comes to her fate.”

  “She’s alive, though. And she’s out there somewhere.” Otherwise, surely Lahja would have inherited her magic. “I think she will save us all.”

  He grunts. “At this point, I think we have to conclude she is far from here, and perhaps we will never know what became of her.”

  “I will never conclude that.” Because without her, I am only half of what I am supposed to be. I feel the emptiness inside. It gnaws on me in the darkness as I try to sleep.

  Raimo sways on his feet, and I put my arm around him. “Maybe I should have a rest,” he admits. “Something is not right with me today.”

  I wave over an acolyte, who bustles forward with his head bowed. “Take the elder to his chamber. Do not leave until he is safely in his bed.”

  Raimo grumbles something about being treated like a child but leans gratefully on the unusually peaked-looking acolyte as they begin to walk away. I remain standing in the center of the domed chamber, turning slowly in place, remembering how we fought to wrest this temple from the elders, how we fooled everyone into believing I had a right to it. And yet, I would give it up in an instant if she were to walk up the steps of the white plaza, carrying the magic I was raised to believe would be mine someday.

  The clip-clop of horse hooves draws my eyes downward, and my breath catches as I recognize the broad shoulders of the rider. “Oskar,” I whisper, and it takes all my restraint to keep from flying down the steps to reach him. Instead, I turn and walk to my chambers with my heart hammering. Helka rises from her embroidery as I enter. “The Ice Suurin has arrived,” I tell her. “I will meet with him in here. Please arrange for a meal to be served on my balcony.”

  She glances at my hair. “May I . . . ?”

  Oskar and I are secretive about our relationship. It is a thing we like to keep for ourselves, tucked into this room, away from all our fears and responsibilities. But my handmaiden knows all. It is written in her tender smile as she reaches for me.

  I nod, grateful. “Do what you can, Helka.”

  Within a minute she has me looking less haphazard, and then she’s off to do my bidding. I pace my room in an effort to dispel my nervous energy.

  “Elli.”

  I whirl around at the sound of his voice. And this time, I do run to him, my arms outstretched. His face is smudged with the dust of the road, and long strands of his dark hair have escaped the tie, but to me he is perfect. He gives me a tired smile as I approach.

  As soon as my hands find his skin, I know something is wrong. His cheeks are covered in icy sweat, and he’s shaking. “Oskar—”

  He puts his hands out, reaching, and together we help him get to a chair, which he sinks into. “It was a long ride,” he says.

  I step back from him, eyeing him from head to toe. “Your hands are trembling.” I look out the window, to where the blue water of the Motherlake glints under the sun. “You shouldn’t be this cold.”

  I move to stand between his knees and lay my palms on his cheeks again. He sighs as I draw some of the frigid magic from his body, and leans so his forehead rests on my chest. I wrap my arms around his head and hold him there, letting my power pull on his. He gives it up willingly, as he always does these days. I am his haven and relief. “Tell me what’s going on.”

  “I don’t know.” His voice is muffled, but I feel the chill of his breath even through the fabric of my dress. “I’m just off today.”

  I frown. “Off,” I murmur.

  “Yes. I’ve felt a little shaky since I woke up. Dizzy, even. And I . . . I had to walk some of the way because I was afraid of freezing my horse.”

  Something barbed is turning in my chest. A fear I don’t want to rise to the surface. “Raimo is off today too.”

  Oskar leans back so he can look up at my face. “Have you checked with any of the apprentices or acolytes?”

  “Some of them did seem a little more pale than usual. Why?”

  “Because Veikko and Aira felt strange this morning too.” His hands close around my upper arms. “Are you all right?”

  I treasure the concern in his gray eyes. “I am as I always am, Oskar.”

  He smiles. “My Elli.”

  “Yours,” I whisper, leaning down to kiss his cold lips. I inhale his icy breath and savor the frosty sweetness of his mouth. He groans and tilts his chin up, sliding his arms around my waist to pull me closer. I am worried and churning, but being this close to him blankets my thoughts with pristine snowfall, making everything silent and beautiful. My hands rake through his hair as a fire in me burns that has nothing to do with magic at all.

  Oskar gasps and his fingers claw at my back. “What—”

  That is all he has a chance to say before our world splinters.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Ansa

  The shaking doesn’t stop. I have no idea how much time passes before it occurs to me that it might never stop. But as soon as the thought enters my mind, I know I have to get Thyra out from under this legion of wooden spears that waves and cracks over our heads. With the ground rolling like waves beneath my feet, I lurch onto my hands and knees over her, and then shove myself up as I clutch her hand. She’s right there with me, her eyes round and her face white as foam on the Torden, but when I shout that we have to run, she goes in exactly the right direction.

  We stumble and stagger and bounce off swaying tree trunks. When I hear a whistling sound above my head I throw my hand out, sending a blast of wind upward and blowing the toppled pine away as if it were a twig. My fingers sting with magic, and Thyra digs her fingernails into the back of my hand, maybe fighting the pain of it.

  She doesn’t let go, though, not until I feel the tremors of terrible magic inside me and tear my hand from hers. Still, she stays close, as we trip over branches and blunder through brambles while the earth roars its
ferocious displeasure. I nearly sob with relief when waning daylight comes into view between the trees, and we cover the last hundred yards with speed born of desperation and terror. I can hear the horses screaming. I can tell from the grimace on Thyra’s face that she can as well, and that we’re both thinking of our warriors, the few hundred left out of the thousands we had this time last year, and all of them could have been swallowed under a mountain of dirt by now for all we know. She might be the chieftain of an extinct people.

  When we burst into the open, though, tripping over our own faltering feet, our warriors are alive, if not well. And as we stagger toward where they are clustered around the panicking horses, the earth shudders once more and goes quiet, leaving my ears ringing with the contrast.

  I fall to my knees, still feeling the shaking inside my bones. Sweat drips from the tip of my nose and runs down my arms and spine. Sickness curdles inside me and I retch onto the stiff grass.

  “Chieftain,” shouts Bertel.

  I raise my head to see the white-bearded warrior pull Thyra from the ground. Her slender fingers clutch his tunic as he steadies her, but she’s already twisting in his grip. When she sees me, she shoves Bertel away. “I’m fine. Help Ansa.”

  When he moves near, I hold up a trembling hand. With ice and fire spiraling along the bones of my arm, I flinch away from his touch. “D-don’t,” I stammer. “Give me space.”

  He backs off as a deadly heat warps the air around me, stinging my skin. I lower my head and breathe, remember the one useful lesson the evil elder taught me—I will never be steady inside if I don’t breathe.

  “Any wounded?” asks Thyra.

  “No, except one of the horses. Broken leg.”

  “Shame. But I’m thankful that is the extent of it. I’ve never felt anything like that in all my life, except . . .” She sighs.