At Midnight, I Become the Queen Who Executed Me

She Came Back

For one breath, Maelin let herself remain beside the stove.

The room smelled of fish and wood smoke. Joren had left a blanket over the chair. The crown mark was cool on Ilyra's wrist. Maelin could stay until dawn and let Corven try to free her own body before she returned to it. For the next few hours, Ilyra would face Aderic while she sat beside a warm stove.

At first light she would inherit whatever had been done to her body. Going back was also self-preservation; she knew that. But she could go now, while Ilyra was still the one trapped inside it.

She hated how reasonable waiting had begun to sound.

"Get the boat," she told Joren.

"Where's my sister?"

"In the council chamber. They kept me until midnight."

He swore and went for his coat. Corven caught Maelin's arm before she reached the door.

"You can scarcely walk."

"Then I shouldn't have had her ankle injured."

"An answer won't get you up the palace stairs."

"Will you?"

He looked at her in Ilyra's face. She had asked him for a hundred things while pretending she had only issued orders. This request sounded worse because she couldn't pretend he owed her the answer.

He picked up his sword.

Ressa was waiting on the quay. Her sister had found her a coat too large for her. She carried a packet of bread and the famous blue cup wrapped in cloth.

"Heard you moving," she told Joren. "Going somewhere stupid?"

"The palace."

She looked at Maelin, then at the captain. "Thought so."

She gave them the bread. Maelin tried to thank her. Ressa waved it away and told Joren she'd hold the landing for his return.

The boat slipped beneath Drift Bridge. Above, the city prepared for a battle that had already killed people only two women remembered. Maelin sat between coils of wet rope. Ilyra's hands were too sore to tie the line properly when Joren asked for help. He took it from her without comment, which made her ashamed in a way no insult could.

"She tied that knot when she was eight," he said after a while.

Maelin looked down.

"I keep thinking you're her. Then you move wrong. You hold your shoulders like you're waiting for someone to put a cloak on them."

She lowered them, which only made him angrier.

"Don't practice being her. Just bring her back."

The water struck the bow. Maelin had no way to promise what he wanted. She took the loose line again and asked him to show her. He nearly refused. Then he guided the rope through her fingers, impatiently, as he might have done with his sister years before.

When the knot held, he pulled it tight and turned back to the tiller.

Maelin watched his hands. She had known Ilyra as a name in a file and a woman whose anger needed managing. Here was somebody who remembered teaching her a knot. The life she'd nearly spent had been crowded with people she had never thought to imagine.

Corven knew the palace river stair. He had used it years ago when Maelin wanted him to come to her without passing the chamberlain. She watched recognition tighten his jaw as the familiar arch emerged from the dark.

"I'm sorry," she said.

"For which part?"

"Making even this useful against you."

He didn't answer. He tied the boat to the lowest ring and climbed.

***

In the council chamber, Ilyra was learning how little a crown could accomplish when every door had a guard.

Aderic had dismissed the others. Only Orias remained, examining his burned copies as though he could reconstruct obedience from their ashes.

"Your queen tried to burn these," he told Ilyra. "Have you inherited the habit?"

"No. I'd have chosen the curtains."

Orias looked toward the hanging cloth before he could stop himself. Ilyra smiled. It was a small pleasure. She took it.

Aderic placed a map before her. Northglass was blank. A fresh line waited along its edge, blue and wet.

"I can put it back," he said.

Ilyra looked at her old teacher. He had taught her to find north in cloud and fog, to measure a river without crossing it, to admit when the figures disagreed. She wanted to strike the careful hand resting beside the map.

"What do you want?"

"The queen's assent to the campaign. Your own confession after dawn. One life at noon, and the city returns to its proper shape."

"Mine."

"You were always quick."

"You killed Maelin yesterday."

For the first time his eyes changed. He knew the exchange. He knew what the crown could do. He had not known she remembered a death.

Ilyra saw the gap and kept silent about everything else.

"Grief produces strange dreams," he said.

"Then you won't mind if I sleep on your offer."

He left her with two guards and the general. At the door he paused, looking back as if reconsidering the capacity of a tool he had once discarded.

Ilyra watched until he was gone. Then she crossed to the window.

The river lay far below. A narrow stair ran along the outer wall, hidden by the angle of the buttress. She had measured it once. Twelve steps to the ledge, eight to the little door used by boatmen. She had never known who used it after dark.

Now Corven climbed into view.

Ilyra kept her face blank. Her heart didn't cooperate. She gripped the sill hard enough to hurt.

Behind her, Orias called her away from the glass.

She picked up the wine pitcher and threw it through the window.

The sound filled the room. Orias lunged for her. Ilyra grabbed a chair and drove it into his knees. He fell against the table, bringing the inkpot down with him.

Corven came through the broken window with his sword drawn. The guards shouted. One fled to the corridor. The other rushed him and met the edge of the table instead when Ilyra shoved it sideways.

Maelin appeared on the ledge behind Corven, white-faced and breathing through her teeth.

Ilyra saw her and almost dropped the chair.

"You came back."

"You're in my boots. I want them."

It was a dreadful joke. Ilyra laughed anyway, one wild breath, and climbed through the window.

Maelin's borrowed ankle failed as she stepped down. Corven caught her by the back of the coat. Below them the river moved black and fast. Ilyra seized Maelin's wrist. For a moment each woman held the body she would return to at dawn, and neither could afford to let go.

They got her onto the stair. Above, Orias shouted for the gate watch. A crossbow bolt struck the stone beside Corven's shoulder.

Joren pushed the boat away before they were properly aboard. Maelin fell between the benches. Ilyra landed on top of her. They lay tangled in wet rope, both furious, both alive.

Corven jumped last. Blood ran down his arm from the glass.

The boat passed under the arch and out of sight.

***

Only then did Maelin begin to shake. She had come back. She had done the thing she had promised. It did not make the first death disappear, or the temptation beside the stove, or the woman she had used as bait.

Ilyra sat up and looked at her.

"He offered to restore Northglass if I confessed."

"And?"

"I wanted you to tell me whether that would work."

Maelin wiped river water from her mouth. "I don't know."

Ilyra nodded. It was the first answer from the queen she had wanted to hear twice.