The Impostor Queen

  “Don’t bother,” Sig says, staring at me.

  Tuuli’s shoulders sag as she returns to her cooking, but Sig looks more intrigued than disappointed. “Only someone with balanced magic could withstand fire and ice like that,” he says, moving closer once more. “But why don’t you strike at us?”

  I’m saved from answering by the whinny of a few horses just beyond the dunes. Sig had said he was camping at the oak bluffs, a stretch of high cliffs over the Motherlake on the northwestern shore of the peninsula. The city must be only an hour’s ride from here, northeast through the woods. If I can escape, perhaps steal a horse—

  “Oy! Sig!” comes a gruff voice.

  “Here,” calls Sig.

  A short, stocky man with a thick beard and coppery hair jogs between the dunes. “They’ve found the Saadella,” he huffs, planting his palms on his thighs. “The herald announced it in the square this morning. Discovered her last night, apparently, as her parents tried to sneak her out of the city. And the temple just announced that the coronation of the Valtia will be at sunset. She’s agreed to end her mourning and appear.”

  Sig’s eyes narrow. “But . . . Usko, I thought you told me they were searching for the Valtia.” He glances at me and then back to the new arrival.

  Usko scratches at his beard and nods. “That’s what I’d heard from a constable, but the priests’ official stance has always been that she was in mourning.”

  Jouni scoffs. “Then why did seven of them—including an elder—show up at the caverns this morning, looking for her?”

  Usko pauses mid-scratch. “They did?” He looks me over. “Um . . . who are you?”

  “Who do you think she is, idiot?” says Jouni, rolling his eyes.

  Sig arches a golden eyebrow as he squats next to me. “So who are they crowning at sunset, Elli?”

  My heart pounds against my breast. Could the elders have found the true Valtia, the one who always should have been there, the one whose place I stole? Is she the one in charge now, like Oskar and I suspected this morning? Do the priests want to kill me in order to silence me, or have they realized what I am and decided I’m their enemy? Would the true Valtia welcome me as her sister—or will Aleksi and the others poison her against me?

  Anger at the elders burns inside me, and Sig must sense the heat, because his eyes snap to mine. He tilts his head, then offers me his hand. “Come with me.”

  When I hesitate, he wiggles his fingers, pure impatience. “I promise I won’t hurt you. Not yet, at least.”

  Honestly, what choice do I have? I slide my palm over his, and his long fingers close around my hand. He grasps my elbow and helps me to my feet, then holds me as I sway.

  “Tuuli, a cloth, please,” he says. After she obeys, he presses it to the side of my head, and it comes away smeared with red. “This way,” he murmurs, leading me away from his friends. None of them question it. In fact, as we walk between the dunes, they strike up a conversation about everything Usko and the others saw in the city.

  Sig and I slowly hike to where the snow has been blown into stiff, icy peaks, lying over the sand like spiky armor. Sig kicks off a chunk, captures it within the cloth, and offers it to me, nodding at the bump on the side of my head. “I’m wondering if I’ve been a bit of an arse.”

  I laugh, then gasp as my head throbs. I press the cloth-wrapped ice to my temple. “A bit of an arse? You hit me in the head and tried to burn me to death.”

  He offers a sheepish smile. “Well, in my defense, I thought you were the Valtia and would defend yourself. I’m still thinking you might be her.”

  I sigh. “Sig, if I were the Valtia, you’d be a pile of bones and ash right now.”

  “If you’re not the Valtia, then what are you?” He turns to me, taking my face in his hands. His scent is sharp and hot in my nose. My free hand rises to push him away, but his grasp is firm. “Don’t lie. I know many ways to hurt a person that don’t involve magic.”

  My mind whirls as I weigh the need to keep my secret with my need to convince Sig I’m not the Valtia. I focus on the feel of his palms on my cheeks, wondering why I don’t sense the fiery maelstrom of his magic infusing my skin, gathering in my hollow chest. “I’m . . . something else. I’m not sure exactly.” I decide on the truth—but only the half that will work in my favor. “Sometimes I . . . absorb magic.”

  His hands jerk away from me like he’s been burned. “What?” He wipes his palms on his trousers.

  It’s hard to hide my smile. “I can’t help it. I’m immune to fire and ice magic, and if I touch a wielder, sometimes I siphon it off.”

  He’s looking at me like I’m poisonous. “Did Oskar know? Has he known this whole time?” Then he laughs, bitter and hard. “Oh, let me guess. Did he beg you to drain away all his magic? You must have been an answer to all his desperate prayers.”

  “You seem awfully interested in a man you think is a coward.”

  Sig kicks at the sand, the toe of his boot leaving a deep divot. “He’s wasting his gift! And he won’t lift a finger to fight for himself.”

  I pull the ice pack from my temple. “But he’ll fight for others. I’d be dead if he hadn’t fought for me.” I toss the bloodstained cloth to the ground and thrust my hand into my pocket. My hand closes around the wooden dove. “You might know him, but you don’t understand him.”

  Sig’s face crumples and he turns away quickly, leaving me to stare at the silver lash marks on his back. “He’s my brother,” he says quietly. “Not by blood, but by magic and circumstance. He seems to have forgotten that, but I never will.” He takes my elbow again and leads me forward until we reach the stony expanse of the bluffs. Beyond it stretches the frozen Motherlake, her winter ice glittering under the afternoon sun. “Did he tell you anything about me?”

  “Oskar’s not the most talkative person.”

  He lets out a short, amused breath. “True.” There is the faintest spark of longing in his deep-brown eyes. I was so wrong. He doesn’t hate Oskar. He misses him. Something we have in common.

  “Would you like to tell me about yourself, Sig?”

  He gives me a cautious look, then conceals it with a grin. “Why not? Perhaps that’ll make things easier.” His smile turns fierce. “And maybe we’ll find we have a common enemy.”

  He holds his palm over a broad patch of crusty snow, and it melts away instantly. The melt-off boils, then turns to steam. Sig doesn’t stop until the sand beneath is dry. He guides me to sit down, and I feel its vague warmth seep through my gown.

  “When I was fourteen, I was an apprentice to my father—he was a locksmith. My mother died when I was a little boy.”

  His pale fingers trace the outline of a key in the sand. “The priests called my father to the temple one day, to install a new lock for one of their chambers. He invited me along. Said it was a great honor. He joked that maybe we’d see the Valtia. Or perhaps the Saadella. She would have been about eleven at that time.” He leans in and whispers, “Which could make her about sixteen now.”

  My cheeks burn and he chuckles. “I thought so. You were the Saadella. Let me guess—did they torture you when you turned out to be a magical dud?”

  I clench my teeth. “I thought you were going to tell me about you.”

  His mirth melts away. “Fine. I didn’t want to go to the temple. I tried to get out of it. I was terrified.”

  “You knew you had magic.”

  He nods, still tracing that key in the sand. “But I’d managed to keep it hidden. A year before, my friend Armo accidentally froze water in a pump right outside the city council building. The priests came that night and took him, and I remember thinking it was as if he had died.”

  “Armo is an apprentice now,” I say, deciding not to mention that he’s the person who whipped me. “One day he’ll be a priest.”

  “How nice.” Sig lets a stream of white-gold sand spiral from his closed fist. “That was the last thing I wanted to be. And I figured, as long as I could conceal the magic
, I could live just fine. I suppose it was arrogant to think that would work.” He sighs. “It was one of the elders who escorted us into the temple. As my father worked, the elder asked me about my studies. I tried to be polite. He offered to show me some of the star texts, and I went with him.”

  “Do you know which elder?”

  He shrugs. “Dark eyes. Dark shadow of hair on his shaved head. Round belly.”

  “Aleksi. Or . . . Kauko, maybe.” Both are dark. “They’re distinguishable only by their actions.”

  “Which one is crueler, then?” he whispers as he looks out on the Motherlake. He shudders, shaking off a cold memory. “When we entered the domed chamber, he asked me how I slept at night.”

  “And did you tell him about your fiery nightmares?” As powerful as Sig is, I can’t imagine his dreams are peaceful.

  Sig bows his head. “No. I don’t like to talk about them. But I think the elder sensed my magic anyway. Because as I was peering at the star chart, he grabbed my arm. The sharpest pain flashed through me, hot and then cold.” He grimaces. “And I couldn’t help it.”

  “Your magic rose up,” I say quietly. It protects its wielder—until it destroys him.

  His face is still tense with the memory. “The star chart caught fire. The elder’s robes burst into flames. The copper inlay below my feet melted. I couldn’t control it at all. And then I passed out from the heat.” He rubs his hands over his eyes. “When I woke up, I was in a cell in the catacombs, and my head had been shaved. One of the others told me we would be initiated in the morning.”

  My brow furrows. “And your father?”

  “I imagine the elder told him about the fire magic and paid him off.” And I can tell by the flames in Sig’s eyes that he’s never forgiven his father for it.

  “What did you do?”

  “I tried to escape. The first time, they caught me, and that dark elder personally oversaw my whipping.”

  “Didn’t you . . . I don’t know, melt the chains or something?”

  “He used ice to counteract my magic,” he says, an edge to his voice. “He wields both, like all the elders do. And I think he wanted me to suffer. He wanted me to bleed. He . . . I actually think he . . . did something to my wounds. . . .” Sig squirms and swipes at his shoulder blades. “Stars, I don’t know. I wasn’t in my right mind. I have the strangest memories of that night.”

  Goose bumps ripple across my skin. I’m betting the dark elder was Aleksi. I wouldn’t put any sort of cruelty past him. “But obviously you escaped.”

  Sig turns to me, heat rolling off him in deadly waves, sweat beading his brow. “I’m the son of a locksmith.” He sweeps his hand over the key shape, turning the sand smooth. “When the elder was done with me, he put me in a cell. He was excited. He said he couldn’t believe I’d gone so long without revealing myself. And he said that if I existed, there was another like me that they hadn’t found yet.”

  “Oskar,” I murmur. “He knew you were a Suurin.”

  Sig leans back, looking surprised. “Oskar actually told you what he was.” His gaze darts to my pocket, where the dove hides. “I didn’t know what the elder was talking about at the time. I just knew they had something terrible planned for me. But they didn’t realize that I know how to open doors, no matter which side of them I’m on. The one gift my father left me with. As soon as the elder left to get the others, I escaped the cell. I found my way out to the temple dock and swam for my life. I sneaked out of the city and ended up finding the camp.” He snorts. “Well. Oskar ended up finding me, if I’m honest.”

  I smile. “He found me, too.”

  Sig is quiet for a few moments. “Oskar told me I should never show the others how powerful I was, so that no one would ever be tempted to sell that information to the priests. He said I would be safer if the elders thought I was dead. And I tried. For so long.” He stares at a patch of sand, and before my eyes, it melts into glass. “But now I’m done hiding.”

  I wonder if his hatred makes the fire burn hotter. “Now you want to take down the priests before the Valtia is in control again.”

  He lets out a humorless grunt of laughter. “I’ve wanted that for years. Give me one good reason why they should remain in power. Explain why they geld and shave and torture just to bend young wielders to their will. Explain why they keep the Saadella and the Valtia from mingling with the people. Explain why they use the Valtia until her body is destroyed, while they live long, long lives. And then,” he says, his voice a flame unto itself, “tell me why magic wielders can’t choose the lives they want. Tell me why we, of all people, are made into slaves.”

  I frown. “The apprentices and acolytes seem happy enough with their fates, and so do the priests.”

  Sig’s fingers burrow into the sand. “Then explain why there are exactly thirty priests, all of them men, and exactly thirty apprentices to replace them—and yet there are a hundred or more acolytes at any one time, with more being brought to the temple every month. Have you ever seen an old acolyte?”

  The winter wind buffets my back. “No, but they’re cloistered after a certain age. They live in quarters within the catacombs.”

  “Mmm. Just a different kind of cave dweller, then.” His eyes narrow. “And how many of them do you think there are now? Five hundred? A thousand? More than that? How do that many people live in complete isolation? How much food would be required to feed them all? Do you really believe that’s what happens to them?”

  A chill rattles in my chest, and it has nothing to do with the cold breeze. “What do you believe?”

  He shakes his head. “I couldn’t say, but I will tell you that I wandered that underground maze for hours, looking for a way out. I saw chamber after chamber filled with copper ore and bars, baubles and coins, but I never once came upon a single cloistered acolyte, let alone quarters meant to house hundreds of them.”

  I cross my arms over my chest and rub my hands up and down my sleeves. Sig starts to scoot closer, but I put my hands out to stop him. His eyebrow arches. “Just offering a bit of warmth.”

  I roll my eyes. “I’m fine.”

  “I’m trying to be nice. Don’t flatter yourself.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of it.” I’m actually relieved to hear the disinterest in his voice. “And no matter your complaint against the priests, the Valtia is the one person who could change anything. She’s the one—”

  “Since when has any Valtia lifted a finger to help the acolytes—or any magic wielders?” Sig barks.

  “Maybe she doesn’t know what’s happening!” I surely didn’t.

  “Or maybe she’s a puppet.” He stands up, dusting sand from his trousers. “If she’s truly in charge, why aren’t there female priests? Why would a woman with such power allow other women to be shaved and shut away?” He offers his hand.

  I knock it aside and get up on my own. My head’s still aching, but I’m so angry I barely notice it. “The Valtia is not a puppet,” I snarl.

  “So she’s evil, then? That’s the only other explanation I can think of. Either she’s under the control of the elders, or she’s as bad as they are.”

  My hands become fists. “How dare you.” I’m trying to find my words within a forest of new doubts that have sprouted in my mind. “The Valtia is a queen willing to sacrifice everything for the good of her people. And if they’ve found her, you’d be wise to drop your plans to attack the temple.”

  Sig grins down at me, his short, pale-blond hair ruffled by the wind, the fire in his eyes once more. “Fair enough,” he says, his voice shaking with a strange, manic energy. “If they’ve found her, I’ll do exactly that.” He offers his arm. “Elli, would you care to attend the royal coronation with me?”

  If I go, I could see the Valtia for myself. Maybe I could find a way to talk to her. Raimo said she’d be powerful, but that the stars created me to keep the balance. She might have risen up to lead the Kupari, but perhaps she needs me. What if I could save her from Sofia’s fate? Will she li
sten to what I have to say?

  Even if she won’t, even if the elders drag me away and cut my throat, it will be worth it—they won’t have any reason to send more priests to the caverns in search of the lost Valtia. Oskar will be safer, as will all the cavern dwellers. He’ll have the peace he craves, and I want that as much as I want to help the true Valtia.

  Either way, my journey ends where it began.

  I take Sig’s arm. “When do we leave?”

  CHAPTER 19

  By the time Sig and I return to the camp, several more wielders have arrived on stolen horses. A tall, gaunt boy named Mikko, who has a beak of a nose and a long, dark plait down his back, has brought hunting gear and garb. He holds up a game bag and a bear trap, much like the one that took my fingers. “You said you needed another disguise,” he says to Sig as I shudder.

  And so we set forth, hunters returning to the city from a long day in the woods. Sig makes me ride with him, and I wrap my arms around his lean waist as he spurs his horse onward. He’s wearing his cloak again, sparing me the uncomfortable intimacy of being pressed to his bare, scarred back.

  We follow a trail through the skeletal woods. There’s no snow on the ground; it all melted off this morning as the priests came through, and so it’s easy to believe spring is here, even though it’s not due to arrive for weeks. I watch the ground for the little pool that marks the spot where Oskar found me, where he made the decision to save me. This close to Sig, it’s hard not to wish for the cool blessing of Oskar’s skin, the solid, reassuring feel of his body. For a moment this morning, I had that, and then I tossed it away.

  Because I wanted his heart.

  The forest floor becomes a brown blur as I will away my tears. I shouldn’t mourn what I never had, and I must turn my thoughts to what lies ahead.

  “When we get to the city, you’ll keep your hood low,” Sig says as we exit the woods and enter the marshlands that lead to the northern road. “If you call attention to yourself, I’ll—”

  “If I call attention to myself, the priests will take me into the catacombs and kill me. The threats aren’t necessary.”