At Midnight, I Become the Queen Who Executed Me

The Body She Took Back

By evening, Northglass had discovered that exemption from taxes meant the grain wagon wasn't coming back.

The baker shut her door before her shelves were empty. The ferrymen tied their boats together beneath the bridge. People who had laughed at the missing royal sign in the morning were asking whether the army would still defend the road.

Maelin sat at Joren's kitchen table, eating fish from a chipped plate. He had offered her the only unbroken cup. She had taken it automatically, then looked at Ilyra and put it between them.

"Keep it," the mapmaker said. "Your Majesty might dissolve if the tea touches a crack."

Joren made a warning sound. Ilyra ignored him.

They had told him about the exchange. He believed enough to be frightened, not enough to stop looking at his sister as though she might be feverish. Maelin didn't blame him. The story sounded worse when spoken in a kitchen where nothing had ever turned back a day.

Corven arrived with a summons from the council.

He put it beside the fish bones. "They want you in the palace before night council."

"Of course they do," Maelin said.

"Orias plans to fire the river warehouses when the retreat reaches Drift Bridge. He says enemy riders can shelter behind them."

Joren's hand tightened around his cup. "People shelter behind them."

"He says everyone will be moved."

"With our boats?" Joren asked.

Corven nodded.

"They're requisitioning us to bring the retreat across. They can't load us with refugees at the same time."

Maelin moved the plates aside and drew the river with the wet tip of a finger. She asked how many boats could make two trips before the current turned. Joren answered reluctantly, correcting her landing point. For a few minutes they worked without arguing. She knew how many wounded men the regiments were bringing. He knew which ramps a stretcher could reach.

The figures wouldn't fit.

Maelin wiped the water away with her sleeve. She had wanted the problem to become smaller on a kitchen table. It remained too large, even with the fish bones moved aside.

"The army has to use the bridge," she said. "And the boats stay here for the families. I need Orias to move his rear guard forward before he withdraws. He's leaving the bridge commander to do it with boys."

Corven looked at her. He knew she was right about the men. That was what made the summons difficult: the queen still knew things the rest of them needed.

Ilyra looked at Corven. He didn't defend the claim.

Maelin read the summons. Aderic had placed his seal beneath the general's, confirming that no occupied royal district would be damaged. On the map, that was true. On Joren's street, a woman was hanging nappies between two windows.

"I'll go," the queen said.

Ilyra put her fork down. "If it happens again at midnight, you take me with you."

"I'll be back before then."

"You don't know that."

"We can't leave an army order unanswered."

"Send one. You still have a seal."

Maelin touched the summons. "He's disputing whether I'm fit to use it. If I hide here, he says I've abandoned the city. If I send a paper, he says the prisoner wrote it."

"And if you go, he shuts the door."

Corven stood between the table and the wall, looking as though he would have preferred a battlefield with recognizable sides.

Maelin rose. "I spent the morning forcing open a grain store. One store. There are regiments out there. I have to try to turn them."

"You mean make them obey you again."

"Yes."

Ilyra stared at her. The honest answer was harder to dismiss.

"I want my throne," Maelin said. "I also want these houses standing tomorrow. I'm not going to pretend the first desire disappears because the second sounds better."

She picked up the summons. Ilyra caught her wrist.

"Don't put my life in a room you wouldn't stay in yourself."

Maelin looked at the hand gripping her. This morning it had been chained because of her. Tomorrow it might be again.

"I won't."

She pulled on her riding boots beneath the green court skirt and left with two guards. Corven stayed at Ilyra's insistence. If the queen was delayed, someone had to be outside the palace who knew what might happen. Maelin hated leaving him. She didn't ask him to choose her.

***

At the council chamber, Aderic offered her a chair and a cup of wine.

She sat. She didn't drink.

General Orias spread his field orders across the table. The river warehouses were marked in red. He talked about denying cover, clearing approaches, protecting the gate. Maelin listened until he reached the line about evacuation, then asked where the people would go.

"Westbank will take them."

"Westbank has closed its gates."

"For the night."

"You intend to burn their houses before dawn."

He pushed the paper toward her. "The enemy won't wait for accommodation."

Maelin thought of the chipped plate in Joren's kitchen. Of Ressa telling her not to make a ceremony out of bread. She had expected the council to argue with her anger. She hadn't expected how little her anger mattered to men who had already arranged the alternatives.

"No fires," she said.

Orias leaned back. Aderic sighed, gently, as he had at Ilyra's trial.

"Then countermand it before the full council. They convene at eleven."

"Convene them now."

"Several members are still at supper."

She stood. The guards by the doors moved together.

There it was. The room Ilyra had warned her about.

Maelin drew the little knife from her sleeve. Orias laughed, assuming she meant to threaten him. Instead she cut through the cord tied around the field orders and threw the loose sheets into the brazier.

The general surged up. Aderic caught his arm.

"Copies," the surveyor said. "We have copies."

Maelin watched the paper blacken. It had been a childish thing to do. For three heartbeats she enjoyed it anyway.

At eleven, they brought the remaining councilors. Orias sent a runner to hold the rear guard until the council settled his orders. Maelin told him the delay would put the retreat at Drift Bridge near dawn, two hours later than planned. He said she could end the delay by signing.

At half past, they required testimony from a bridge officer who had mysteriously been sent to another gate. At a quarter to midnight, Maelin tried to leave again.

This time the guard took her elbow.

She hit him in the throat and nearly reached the door. A second man caught her from behind. Her knife fell. By the time she stopped struggling, her hair had come down and her sleeve was torn.

Aderic watched without pleasure.

"You cannot govern a war as if it were an apology," he said.

"And you cannot keep borrowing my face to hide what you've done."

His gaze moved to the clock.

Maelin went cold.

***

In Northglass, Ilyra sat beside the stove, watching a candle burn toward a notch Joren had cut in its side. She had waited through too many promised returns. Her father from a river trip. Her apprentice from a fever. A queen from a room full of men who preferred her obedient.

Corven stood when the far bells began to ring.

"Ilyra?"

She reached for the table. The kitchen pulled away.

Maelin landed in Ilyra's body with a gasp. She felt the bruised ankle, the rough hands, the air of a place where the crown could not find her.

She was safe.

In the palace, Ilyra opened the queen's eyes beneath Aderic's patient smile.

"Welcome back," he said.