The True Queen

  “As will I,” says Raimo. “But first we need to see what we can do with Oskar’s hand.”

  As he moves toward the table, he leans heavily on his walking stick, and his gnarled hands grip it tightly, the veins sticking out blue beneath spotted, papery skin. I tuck my arm under his and help him the rest of the way. “How are you feeling?”

  “Like I’ve swallowed two dozen snakes.”

  I blink at him. “That sounds rather awful.”

  “The magic is unstable, Elli. And I think it’s only going to get worse.”

  I find myself staring at Oskar’s face, and his look does nothing to reassure me. “Are you feeling this way as well?”

  He clears his throat. “The truth?”

  “Oskar.”

  “Worse.” He turns to gaze out the window, where the Motherlake undulates beneath the hazy sky. “Elli, I don’t know how long I can hold on to it.”

  I bite my lip, because I feel like crying but I know I can’t. It won’t help anything. “What if I try to siphon some of the magic?”

  “That might help.”

  And so I do, laying my palms on his cheeks and bowing my head over him as I pull his icy suffering into my own body, where it dances a gusty snowfall through my thoughts. My forehead touches his, and he sighs. “I could stay like this forever,” he whispers.

  “Me too.”

  “But we have other things to do,” Raimo says. “Elli, that’s enough. Let’s see if we can work on his hand.”

  Reluctantly, I let go of Oskar, though I can still feel his cold power inside me. “Tell me what to do.”

  “You have to strike a perfect balance of the two extremes,” says Raimo, moving in behind me. “And you have to direct it to just the right place.”

  I look down at Oskar’s hand. It is bloodless and unmoving. “Does it hurt?” I ask him.

  “Not right now.”

  “Will it hurt?” I ask Raimo.

  He shrugs. “Would it be any worse than it is now?”

  “Nothing is worse than this,” says Oskar. “Please, Elli. For me.”

  I could never deny him. I hold out my palms over his hand as Raimo lays his own tremulous palms around my neck. Instantly, I feel the unsteadiness, the shocks of hot and cold. This is why Raimo doesn’t want to heal him directly. But as the two magics combine inside me, they settle and meld. I lean over Oskar’s hand and focus on the gray veins beneath his skin. A living thing needs blood to quench its thirst, to feed it and cleanse it. Blood is the answer.

  Oskar gasps and then clenches his teeth to hold in a moan. “Don’t stop,” he says, his lips barely moving. He is sweating now, glistening beads that freeze on his temples and forehead.

  “Focus, Elli,” Raimo snaps.

  “Valtia!” a voice cries out from down the hall.

  Oskar snatches his hand away with a stifled cry of pain.

  “Did I hurt you?” I ask as he turns away. My fingers are dripping ice and fire, and I ball them into fists.

  Oskar doesn’t answer my question—he has gotten to his feet and is standing between me and the doorway. “Come any closer and I’ll freeze you where you stand.”

  “Try,” says a shaky, familiar voice.

  I step from behind Oskar to see Sig leaning against the door frame, looking like he’s been trampled by a herd of wild horses. His white-blond hair is standing on end, and his face is covered in scratches and scars. Ugly, weeping blisters trail across his forearms and bare chest, which shines with sweat that evaporates in steamy clouds as he walks forward.

  Raimo hobbles over to stand on my other side. “Where have you been?”

  Sig’s brown eyes slide over the three of us. “Here and there. What you should be more interested in is who I’ve been with. I’ll tell you if you fix me.”

  “Fix you,” Raimo says.

  Sig nods. He holds up his hands, palms lousy with more blisters and charred spots. His face twitches as he looks at them, either with pain or disgust. “I was gone from Kupari, but when I crossed the border . . .”

  “Yesterday?” asks Oskar.

  “Yes. Something started to happen with me.” He glares at Raimo. “I need you to fix me. I feel as if I’m about to burn from the inside out.”

  “It’s happening to all of us,” says Oskar. “Every wielder in the land feels it.”

  “Not like this,” says Sig, though he gives Oskar an appraising look. His gaze lands on Oskar’s white hand. “But maybe like that.”

  “We think it’s the copper,” says Raimo. “The last of it was pulled from the earth a few weeks ago. And now the land is rebelling. I’m still searching for the way to calm it.”

  “Work fast,” says Sig, “because you may have other problems.”

  “The Soturi?”

  A small smile plays across Sig’s scarred face. “Yes and no. This is where things get interesting. This is where I can help.”

  “Stop playing games,” Oskar snaps. “Tell us what you know.”

  Sig’s eyes meet mine. “The Valtia. I know who she is. I know where she is. And I can take you to her.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Ansa

  I have no idea how long I’ve been holding my hands to the sky, letting the vast magic inside me shield us from the hell that pounds on us from above, but I ache to my very bones. Bertel and Preben have gathered the warriors and horses around me to ensure each is protected. The middle ring tends the animals, keeping them calm with blankets around their heads, their ears muffled against the sound of splintering wood and wailing wind, against the crackle of ice and fire. The outer ring has weapons drawn.

  The inner ring does too. But they face me. I know this not because I see it, but because I feel it. I am a warrior too, and I know when a sword hangs over my head. If I lose control, one of them will drive a blade through my heart, and I will let it happen. There are moments when I believe that it would be a relief.

  The cuff around my wrist does not hum right now. I believe it has what it wants at the moment—enough power to freeze the world solid and to burn it down, all at once. It spreads that magic like a shield over us, and with my watering eyes, I watch it battle the enemy for me.

  Eventually, my arms begin to shake. My body begins to give out. My thoughts are ground like meal on a stone. Only instinct and duty keep me upright. I will remain here until magic of one kind or another devours me where I stand.

  “Ansa,” shouts Bertel. “It’s stopped.”

  I open my eyes. He and Preben are poised on either side of me, but Preben’s eyes are on the canopy as my magic flies upward and outward, meeting no resistance. I realize I can see the sky, stars smeared with smoke.

  Night has fallen.

  I let my arms drop to my sides as I inhale, calling the power back into my body. The cuff sends vibrations up my arm, as if in protest. But I push it aside—I have only one thought. “Has Thyra come back?” I crane my neck, trying to peer through the crowd around me, but I can’t see past the horses.

  Preben shakes his head. “And we should move camp. We’re bait here.”

  “We can’t move,” I say. “We don’t even know where we are or which direction to go, and she won’t know how to find us.”

  “She’s well able to track, and we’re not exactly stealthy,” says Bertel.

  “I’m her war counselor,” I say. “And I say we stay until she returns.”

  “Might be never,” says Preben, wiping sweat from his weather-beaten brow.

  Bertel looks down at the weapon in his hand, a short sword he has carried for years. “Maybe we should send a group after her.”

  “And how would they know where to go?” Preben asks. “She’s one warrior, quicker than all of us, and unlikely to have left much of a trail.” He shakes his head. “Better to let her find us than to send more warriors blundering off into the darkness.”

  As much as I hate what he’s saying, I cannot disagree. Instead, I am opening my mouth to suggest that I go after her alone when my words are sl
iced away from me.

  By an arrow. It punches into my arm in an explosion of searing agony, and as I stare down at it protruding from my shoulder, the shouts of the others engulf me. There is a strange, echoing detachment as I watch my fingers, dripping fire, close around the shaft of the enemy arrow. The pain is so intense that I cannot tell if it is magic or mortal; all I know is that it burns me. When I tear it from my body, my blood sprinkles my tunic, black and wet. There is chaos around me again, stomping horse hooves and scattering warriors seeking shelter from the arrows that now rain down.

  But me, I am still and dazed, staring down at the arrow in my hand. I hold it close to my eyes. I do not recognize the markings on the shaft. It is not of Krigere make. Nor of Vasterutian. Hatred boils inside me. It must be Kupari. The fraud-queen must have learned of our presence here, and now she is trying to crush us.

  “Are you insane? Get to cover,” shouts Bertel. He holds me under his arm like a bundle of blankets as he hauls me toward a thick cluster of trees behind which several other warriors have taken shelter. One, a stout woman named Tomine who bears kill marks along both arms and has silver hair she keeps cropped close to her head, has an arrowhead embedded deep in her thigh. She has broken off the shaft and is poised against a tangle of roots with her daggers drawn. Her face shines with sweat under moonlight when she looks to us for orders. I have the impulse to lean down and kiss her for wordlessly reminding me who we are.

  “We’re surrounded,” Bertel says as he tears off a strip from his tunic and uses it to bind my bleeding arm. “They used the magic as cover so they could get into position, and we obligingly kept still and let it happen.” His disgust bleeds through every word.

  I am ashamed I didn’t consider that. “It’s not Jaspar, though.” I hand him the arrow.

  He glances at the markings on the shaft before handing the arrow to Greger, who is hunched next to Tomine but has his bow in his hand. “Send this back to them with a kiss,” Bertel says to him.

  “Would if I could figure out where they are,” Greger says with a grunt, shoving the arrow into his quiver. “We’ve got it from all directions. This is bad.”

  Bertel touches my shoulder, but cautiously, like he might poke a snake to see whether it’s dead or merely napping in the sun. “Can you do anything?”

  The laugh comes out of me unbidden. He sounds as if he hates the idea. “I don’t know.” My hands tingle with magic, but my muscles ache with exhaustion. It’s me who is tired, not the magic, and one look at Tomine, bleeding but ready to defend herself and the rest of us if necessary, tells me what to do about it. “Wait. Yes. Tell everyone to get down.”

  Bertel shouts the order and the call echoes in the wood as warriors pass it around, as we always do when scattered. The sound of Krigere battle calls stirs inside me. This is like a raid. And we will prevail as we always do. I breathe and breathe as I climb the cluster of roots, bringing myself into the open. But as I do, I summon the magic inside me and let the cuff devour it, growing it in the womb of those red runes carved into its surface. Wind, I think. A gale that no fiend could stand against.

  I bring my hands up, fists clenched, my arms shaking, the wound in my left shoulder screaming. When I spread my fingers, the roar of my power makes my ears pop. I stand in silence as the earth moves around me, as the air is torn from my lungs. When my arms fall to my sides again, the sky is laid out above us, no longer obscured in any way by branches.

  “You can see north,” Bertel shouts, pointing to the winter star. “Make for it and stay close!”

  Before I can think or object, our warriors are moving, the ones at the front sending arrows flying ahead to cut down any enemies between them and the north, where Kupari lies.

  “No,” I bark as he drags me forward. “The arrows are of Kupari make! They could be waiting!”

  “Would you rather us flee deeper into this hellish forest?” He has not slowed, and now the ground is shaking with the impact of boots and hooves. A less disciplined group would have been shredded by the last many hours, but our warriors do not fray. They carry the wounded who cannot walk, but thankfully there seem to be only one or two of those. Most are on their feet—even Tomine, who limps along just in front of me.

  I am struggling to keep up. I try to steady myself, but the ground won’t support my feet. Either my body is giving out, or—

  “Another quake—” Greger gets those final two words out before he is crushed by a falling tree. It smashes to the ground not ten feet in front of me, sending Tomine falling backward onto me and Bertel. The touch of the ground to my back makes my spine feel like it’s shattering piece by piece. I arch to get away from it but can’t go far because a heavy body squirms on top of me.

  Writhes, more like. Tomine’s skin steams and smokes.

  She rolls off me as the earth bucks and roars. I catch a glimpse of Bertel’s horrified eyes and see fire in their depths. I cannot find the steadiness to rise, though. My entire being vibrates with the ground. Others seem able to keep moving, but I can’t. The stench of smoke laces the air, and my stomach twists. “Fire,” is the cry on the air.

  It’s not Tomine—she is being dragged away by Preben and Bertel, but she is not aflame. The forest is, though—our path to the north is now blocked by fire. “It wasn’t me,” I mutter, trying to get my eyes to focus, trying to get my feet beneath me. The ground settles abruptly, and I am finally able to rise.

  “To the east, then,” shouts Bertel, still supporting Tomine. I can see it all clearly now because the fire to the north is so bright and vicious. It rolls toward us at an unhurried but sure pace, confident of our destruction. Bertel throws me a rage-filled glare. “Try not to kill us before we find our chieftain again,” he roars.

  “I didn’t do this!” I don’t even know if he hears me. The fire is too loud, our horses are too loud, our warriors are too loud. The east, they all cry. Hurry.

  I didn’t create this fire. But someone did. Someone who does not want us to flee north.

  “I’ll find you again,” I yell, but no one heeds me. They are one body, and I am not part of them right now. I can’t be.

  Because I know where Thyra is. She must be there, behind that curtain of fire. She must be. That is where the wielder is, or the army of them, and she would have found them by now. I turn toward the fire and hold out my hand, and the cuff channels a blast of icy wind that cuts through the flames. With my eyes narrowed against the stinging smoke, I run forward, hunched over. I am unsteady again, whether from the quake or the jittery, churning magic lodged inside me.

  I scurry through the gap in the flames, keeping low, and dive into the pit left by a felled tree as soon as I am on the other side. Between me and the rest of the Krigere stretches a wall of fire, but it is moving away from me and toward them. It is too organized, too focused to be natural. Hidden in my hole, I peer into the night on this side. My windy blast to stop the arrows toppled several trees, but there are no bodies here, no fallen enemies, only churned earth. After a moment, I crawl upward and examine a patch of thick mud, where I find a set of boot prints, headed to the north.

  After passing a few more minutes in silence, I decide to go hunting. Somewhere in this wood, there is a powerful magic wielder, maybe more than one. And my chieftain is also here, stalking this enemy. I make my way slowly, not because there is no urgency, but because I can’t manage more than that. It’s been hours since I last ate or rested, and in that time I have called upon my body time and time again, and I was already weak from the shakiness that has descended on me ever since we reached Kupari.

  I try to shove the fear that this place hates me out of my head. Kupari is mine, or it is supposed to be. Surely I will find a home for all of us here.

  Directly in front of me, there is a burst of fire, followed by another. My heart jolts. My hands curl into fists. I weave through the trees, most of which are upright now, saved from the devastating reach of my magic. The only light is the fire, but my skin is cooled by a cold wind. It
blows from the north, the same direction as the flames, and I creep toward them—there’s a clearing up there, and I have a feeling this is where I will find the enemy wielder, or wielders. It doesn’t matter.

  I’m going to kill them all.

  I wish I could move faster. Usually I am swift and quiet in a wood. I know how to hunt prey. But ice and fire swirl angrily inside me, and my muscles tremble. Both betray me, forcing me to slow in order to avoid staggering right into the open. As I near the clearing where the magic plays in bursts of frozen cloud and balls of fire, I imagine what I might find.

  And yet, somehow, I am still surprised.

  Thyra is pinned down near the center of the clearing, behind a wall of dirt formed from east to west as the earth tore at its own flesh. She has her shoulders hiked up around her ears as her head swivels toward the north, the east, the west. The magic seems to come from everywhere, and she is pale and slender and so fragile as her skin is lit by the fire that rains down around her. She is shouting, but I can’t make out the words.

  The other side of the clearing—to the north—is concealed by the black wall of earth. So I peer toward the east, where fire flies out from the trees in a jagged burst of light. And in that moment, I find Sig, pale arms waving, his white-blond hair almost glowing as he flings fire at my chieftain. But as he does, ice bursts from the other side, to the west, and I turn to see a dark figure there, one arm held out, fingers spread.

  In the moment Sig’s fire explodes from the trees, the ice wielder is revealed by its light—tall, clad in furs, massive shoulders, a mess of dark hair and cold magic.

  “Thyra,” I call. She cowers as the ice and fire collide over her head. She doesn’t hear me. Nor does she turn to Sig or the ice wielder, who may be his enemy or his friend. I don’t care. My chieftain is in terrible danger. Rage smolders in my chest as I start to move forward, almost to the edge of the trees.

  It gives me the perfect view of Thyra climbing from her shield of earth. Her movements are fast and sure, and I know her so well that I realize she’s been waiting for this moment. She flings herself over the edge of the ground and runs forward, out of my sight as I stumble out from beneath the canopy of leaves. In front of me is the wall of dirt, and I must climb it to follow her. I stumble as my foot catches on a rock, and when I raise my head again I see an explosion over the other half of the clearing. Thyra screams.