The Impostor Queen

  Beyond the marsh, to my right, is a patch of trees, the northernmost tip of the woods that divide the east and west of our peninsula. The mud sucks at my ankles as I pause to stare at it. Now that the rain has stopped, a cold wind has taken its place. I’ll die of chill if I stay out here like this. I need shelter. But no one lives in the outlands, not really. The city takes up the entire northern quarter of the peninsula. The farmers have their homesteads along the shores. The miners descend into the craggy hills to the southeast. But the area in the center, all the way down to the border of the Loputon Forest, belongs to the thieves and beggars, the ones who’ve been banished.

  I need to get off this road.

  When I reach a hill that slopes over the marshland, I climb it with hands and feet and then trudge along its crest toward the woods. By the time I reach the shelter of the trees, I am staggering and senseless, yet stupidly defiant. I refuse to give Elder Aleksi the satisfaction of my death, especially since it would do no good—I’m a fraud. I’ve never been the real Saadella, and I could never be the Valtia. I should have been left with my parents to live a normal life.

  I didn’t choose to be chosen, and I will not choose to die.

  Brambles tear at my cloak and hands and cheeks. My skin is hot enough to singe. My feet are bricks of pain fastened to my ankles. My mouth is an ash pit. I press the edge of my hood between my lips and try to suck the rainwater from it, but it’s not nearly enough to satisfy. I manage to keep walking until I reach a small clearing with a little pond at its edge. Whimpering with thirst, I throw myself down and scoop the bitter water into my mouth. By the time I sit up, I feel sloshy and dizzy, but vaguely triumphant. I can take care of myself. Mim will be proud of me when I tell her about this, and her smile will make it all worthwhile. When I see the starlit shimmer of red at the base of a tree nearby, I can scarcely withhold my joy.

  A pile of berries. I crawl forward. I have no idea why a pile of ripe berries would be sitting out in the open, but I barely care. There’s no one around to see me take them. I reach out to scoop them up.

  Too late do I see the glint of something else—metal ridges, poking from the pine needles. I yank my hand back as the berries fly into the air and wicked bronze teeth slam shut with a shrieking clash. I land on my side, my whole body buzzing with alarm. Almost caught in a hunter’s trap. I let out a gasping chuckle and reach up to wipe pine needles from my cheek.

  My palm is covered with blood.

  My ears ring as sticky crimson streams down my wrist and into the sleeve of my dress. I stare at my hand. The shape is not right. My fingers . . .

  A strangled cry falls from my lips, and the darkness claims me.

  CHAPTER 8

  Pain has taken me in its monstrous arms, laid me on its table, and now it’s eating me alive.

  I feel the movements of its mouth. Every time its teeth close around me, the hot agony pulses from my shoulders to my toes. It’s rhythmic and steady and endless.

  It grunts. “Stars, you’re heavy.”

  My eyes snap open, but I’m surrounded by darkness. I’m curled into a ball, imprisoned in a cocoon of scratchy material that reeks of blood and animal musk. I squirm feebly against its stiff walls. My damp gown is bunched about my legs. My cloak is gone. My hair is tangled around my neck and face. My left side is mashed against something hard and cool and unyielding, and I’m held in place by a tight binding that presses against my hips and shoulders. I try to raise my head, but I’m completely enclosed. I try to tear at the fabric, but a grinding wave of searing heat scorches its way down my arm. I scream.

  Pain stops chewing. And then he curses.

  The binding around my hips loosens, followed by the release of the tension at my shoulders. The world spins and I’m falling, but my collision with the ground is surprisingly gentle. Something pokes at my head, and then the scratchy material is pulled away from my face. I wince as daylight jabs at my eyeballs. The blurry green-orange-yellow blobs around me slowly become trees. The wind gusts, and a few colorful leaves spiral down. The air is filled with a scent I can only describe as green. In the temple gardens, there were a few trees, but nothing like this.

  Someone leans over me. I blink, trying to bring him into focus. A young man, perhaps a few years older than I am. Granite-gray eyes and dark-brown hair pulled back into a tail at the base of his neck. A few strands have worked their way loose and hang around his face. He has deeply tanned skin and some of the broadest shoulders I’ve ever seen.

  “Thirsty?” he asks, his voice deep but hushed.

  What? My lips move, but no sound comes out. My captor loosens the top of my cocoon and pulls it wide. Horror wells up as my gaze rakes from his leather boots to the knives at his belt, one a straight blade, one curved with a sharp barb at its end.

  When he reaches for me, I slap at his face with all my strength. But since I have almost none, he easily catches my flapping arms and holds me by the wrists. “Cut it out,” he snaps. “You’ll start bleeding again.”

  “What—what—what—,” I stammer, my voice so dry and hoarse that it sounds more like the squawks of a crow.

  “Relax,” he says, looking down at my right hand and frowning. “I’ll get you some water.”

  I glance down at my hand as it throbs with hot, fresh pain. It’s tightly wrapped in crimson-stained wool. “No,” I moan. Because I remember.

  “Two fingers. Clean off at the knuckles,” the young man says, pulling a water skin from his satchel, along with several strips of dried . . . something. “You were lucky you didn’t lose the whole hand.” He scoots back over to me. “Either you were stupid with hunger, or you’re just stupid. Elk stick?”

  “Elk . . . stick?”

  He holds up a shriveled stick of brownish-red meat. When I hesitate, he pokes my lips with it. “Come on. It’s pretty tasty. And obviously you make terrible decisions when you’re hungry.” He grins as I open my mouth and tear off a piece of the dried meat with my teeth. It’s salty and chewy and greasy, and stars, I could eat a mountain of it. He feeds me half the stick, bit by bit, and then tugs the last section away as I try to snap my jaws over it. “Slow down. I don’t want to make you sicker than you already are. Especially not while you’re in my game bag.”

  Game bag? Fear prickles across my skin, cold and sharp.

  He cups his hand behind the back of my head and lifts me a few inches, pouring a tiny splash of water between my parted lips. I swallow, and he lets out a low chuckle as he gives me a little more. “Was it your trap?” I ask in a gargly voice.

  He scratches at the dark stubble along his jaw. “No. I never use that kind. More?” He holds up the water skin.

  I shake my head. “Why am I in a game bag?”

  “Because you’re too weak to escape it, I imagine,” he says, then takes a few long pulls from the water skin. He lowers it from his lips and wipes his mouth with the back of his worn woolen sleeve. I look again at the material around my destroyed hand and then back at him. There’s a large swath missing from the side of his tunic. I can see the hard ridges of his ribs and stomach through the hole. Three slashing, silver-pink scars mar his side. He sees me looking and tugs at the fraying fabric as if he’s embarrassed. “I had to stop the bleeding somehow.”

  “Thank you,” I murmur, closing my eyes.

  “Don’t thank me yet,” he replies. “We’ve got a few miles to go.”

  “Where are we going?” I whisper. I barely care if he cooks me over a fire and eats me for supper. The longer I’m awake, the more it hurts.

  A rough fingertip nudges my cheek. “Hey. Hey. Don’t go anywhere.”

  “Hmm?”

  “Don’t die. If I have to stop to bury you, I won’t make it home by sundown, and it gets cold out here at night.” He tugs the scratchy material over my shoulders, but when he tries to pull it over my head, I begin to thrash, and he pauses. “Your head was lolling around back there and I started to get scared I was going to break your neck on the uneven terrain. If you pro
mise to stay awake, we can leave your head out of the bag.”

  “I promise.” I’ll do anything not to be encased in that smelly material.

  His smile softens the hard edge of his jaw and makes the corners of his eyes crinkle. “Good girl.”

  “Who are you?”

  His dark, slashing eyebrows rise. “Me? I’m nobody. But you can call me Oskar. You?”

  I let out a wheezy, bitter laugh and tell the truth. “I’m nobody too. But you can call me Elli.”

  His gray eyes roam my face. “Done. And now that we know each other well, it’s time to get going.” He takes me by the shoulders and pulls me up so I’m sitting with my arms wrapped around my knees. I must look ridiculous, a lumpy burlap bag with a head sticking out of the top. Oskar picks up a length of thick rope lying on the ground next to me. “This is going to hurt.”

  “Everything hurts.”

  He stares at the ground for a moment, then gazes into my eyes. “The wounds on your back bled through the bandages. And your dress. Also, your wrists . . .”

  My cheeks blaze and I look away. My wrists are scabby and stinging from the wounds left by the shackles.

  “It’s all right,” he says quietly. “No one out here’s had an easy time of it.”

  Oskar sits with his back to me and slides the thick straps of the hunting bag over his muscular shoulders, snugging me up against his body. Then he grabs either end of the rope and pulls it tight against my hips. He loops it around his waist and ties it across his middle. He winds the second section of rope around my shoulders and knots it over his chest.

  “Up we go.” He leans forward, and I grit my teeth as he rises to his feet with his satchel in his hand. He slings it over one shoulder. I breathe slowly, trying to wish the pain away, but it’s still there, doing its work. As he begins to walk, I notice how high off the ground I am and realize Oskar must be well over six feet tall. The motion of his body as he moves over the rough ground makes me feel dizzy again. I lean my head against his shoulder blade and close my eyes. His hair, pulled to the side so the straps don’t tug at it, tickles my cheek. He smells like wood smoke, thankfully, and not like the inside of his game bag, which counts as a definite improvement.

  As he hikes, I listen to the sounds of the forest, the crunch of his boots over twigs and newly fallen leaves, the twittering of birds above our heads, the rustle and dash of small creatures bolting up trees or into burrows. It reminds me a little of the hours I used to spend in the enclosed garden that contained the temple menagerie and aviary. I loved to run my hands over the silken fur of the gray rabbits and to watch the ferrets and badgers running in circles around their pens. I would sit so still, my hand held out to offer seeds and crumbs, and some of the blue jays and black-capped chickadees would come down and peck at my palm. We also had a grumpy crow and one majestic, silent eagle that had a cage all to itself. So did old Nectarhand, the grizzly bear, who used to loll, lazy and fat, in the beams of sun that came at midday. I used to toss him berries dipped in honey and watch his thick pink tongue slide out to capture them. His massive claws were so long that he could barely walk.

  Something tells me the bears in this forest move a lot faster.

  My eyes pop open. “Is it safe out here?” I whisper.

  “Mmm?”

  “The animals? Bears? Wolves?”

  Oskar laughs. “Well, I’ve already claimed you, so the other predators are out of luck.”

  The humor in his voice pushes fear out of reach. Or maybe the raging fever that’s eating my bones makes it impossible to care either way. “And are you planning to feed your family with my carcass?”

  My cheek vibrates with his silent amusement. “Nah. Truth be told, you’re a bit too skinny.”

  “I am not!”

  He laughs again, and it’s a sound so free and happy that I actually smile. “Well, all right,” he says, “you’ve a nice heft to you, and I’m sure you’d be very tender with a delicate yet satisfying taste, but . . .” He trails off. “No, I’m not going to eat you. I’m taking you to a medicine man, because I’m fairly sure you’re going to die if I don’t get you some help in the very near future.”

  Someone had mercy. It’s an island of relief in a vast lake of horror. I clear my throat, and it makes me wince. “Why are you helping me?”

  Oskar’s steps are rock steady as he negotiates a steep downhill and then picks up a trail at the bottom. “No one else was there to do it,” he says, as if it should be obvious.

  The trail leads out of the woods and across a stretch of grassland, strands of gold waving in the cool breeze. I’ve never seen such a wide-open space. It’s like looking out over the Motherlake, only instead of water, there’s land. No walls, no buildings. Oskar hikes like he carries people on his back all the time, frequently turning his face to the bright sun. He doesn’t offer any information about himself, and neither do I. Even though we’re not in the city, I would never tell anyone who I am.

  Or really: who I was.

  I’m so ashamed that I wish there was a way to remove my blood-flame mark, to scrub it from my skin. It’s been a point of pride for so long, but now even the thought of it makes me cringe. Have I deprived the people of their true Valtia? Will the Kupari fall because of me? It doesn’t matter that I didn’t have a part in this fraud; I still feel responsible.

  Something else I feel responsible for: Mim. Did she make it to our meeting spot and find me gone? Is she looking for me, worried out of her mind? Or worse . . . was she caught somehow?

  The farther we go, the more the grass gives way to craggy stone capped with wigs of scraggly weeds. Soon our path is bounded on either side with walls of rock, and we seem to be descending deeper into the earth. Even through the haze of pain, I feel a twinge of anxiety. “Where is this medicine man?” I finally ask.

  “Where no one can threaten or harass him,” Oskar says in a hard voice. “Same as the rest of us.”

  His tone, so different from his casual, joking words before, shuts me up. After several more minutes on an increasingly narrow trail, he stops, his feet skidding in loose rock. “I think this’ll go more smoothly if we pull the sack over your head. It’s not a great time to bring a stranger here. Sorry.”

  Without waiting for my approval, he reaches back and pulls the edges of the sack up, then ties it over the top of my head. I tense as darkness engulfs me.

  Oskar begins walking again, and only a few minutes later, I hear someone shout his name. “Oy, Jouni,” Oskar calls out in response. “Any trouble?”

  “None,” says a deep buzz of a voice from somewhere above us. “We’ve been on watch all day. I expected the new Valtia to be at our doorstep by now.” He chuckles. “Or at least a horde of constables.”

  My anxiety grows into a stab of fear.

  Oskar lets out a growl of displeasure and begins to walk again. “Don’t let down your guard. Sig’s actions will bear consequences.”

  There’s a grunt as boots impact stone, and then footsteps shuffle right next to Oskar’s. “I’m thinking the elders and city council are dealing with other troubles now,” Jouni says. “Between the Soturi threat and the fall of the Valtia, the death of a few miners seems a petty concern.”

  “Now a human life is a petty concern?” Oskar mutters something about hypocrisy, and his pace quickens.

  My arm throbs with pain, but my head throbs with knowledge: Oskar has brought me to the thieves’ caverns. And he’s talking to this other man like he belongs here.

  I must squirm, because Jouni makes a sound of surprise. “What did you bag today? Beaver?”

  Oskar snorts. “Wolverine.”

  Jouni laughs. “And you’re carrying it on your back while it’s still alive? I’m all in favor of fresh meat, but . . .” I hear the hum of metal being freed from a sheath. “Do you want me to put it out of its mis—”

  Oskar pivots suddenly, swinging me away from the sound of Jouni and his knife. “No,” he says sharply. “It’s not necessary,” he adds, gent
ly this time. “The creature is mostly dead anyway.”

  “Let me know if you need help skinning it,” says Jouni. “I’ll check in later.”

  His voice is already fading as Oskar continues on his way. “Hey,” he says in a hushed voice. “Keep still until I tell you to move.”

  “These are the thieves’ caverns,” I hiss, out of patience and plagued by hurt.

  “I’m terribly sorry,” he says evenly. “You would have preferred to bleed to death honorably in the woods?”

  I have nothing to say to that, so I huddle within his bag. Wherever he’s brought me, it’s getting colder. Oskar shivers, and his footsteps falter for a moment—but only for a moment. The needle pricks of daylight that reach me through the bag grow dim and gray, then disappear, replaced by the dull glow of several small fires. All around me, I hear people, laughing, arguing, discussing how best to season the stew, who’s next up for guard duty, who would like to join a game of Ristikontra, who’s stolen the only complete deck of playing cards . . . so many conversations . . . and the laughter of children. Children—in the thieves’ caverns! And their mothers, who scold them for straying too far!

  Several people greet Oskar by name as he passes them by. A few joke with him about what’s in his bag. He gives a different answer every time—a wild pig, a few dozen squirrels, a coyote, a nice fat goose—and I stay very still and play dead so no one else offers to turn my pretend into a reality. One high-pitched voice, that of a child, asks him when he’ll be home, and Oskar says he’s not sure yet. A woman asks him where he’s going, and he says he’s taking his kill to Raimo because the man’s too skinny for his own good. I hear so many things, but I don’t learn much. Especially because my head is pounding, and my eyeballs are so hot that it feels like they’re going to burst like cherry tomatoes held over an open fire.

  The voices fade after a while, and Oskar is hiking a dark, slippery path. Water plinks and thunks into puddles. Oskar shivers and curses and splashes and growls. He sounds a bit like old Nectarhand the bear in a bad mood. It makes sense—Oskar’s nearly the size of a grizzly too.