The Queen of Nothing Read online

  “Oh, no?” she counters, sniffing the air. Probably catching the scent of my blood. I should have warned Vivi about her when I had the chance, but however she has come to be here, I am glad of it. “I am out of work, and it seems the High Court is in need of a general.”

  Madoc looks momentarily confused, not realizing that she has traveled here with Cardan himself. But then he sees his opportunity. “My daughters are out of favor with the High Court, but I have work for you, Grima Mog. I will heap you with rewards, and you will help me win a throne. Just bring my girls to me.” The last was a growl, not actually in my direction but at the lot of us. His betraying daughters.

  Grima Mog looks past him, toward where the mass of his army is assembled. There’s a wistful expression on her face, probably thinking of her own troops.

  “Have you cleared that offer with the Court of Teeth?” I spit out with a backward glance at him.

  Grima Mog’s expression hardens.

  Madoc sends an annoyed look in my direction that turns to something else, something with a bit more sorrow in it. “Perhaps you’d prefer revenge to reward. But I could give you both. Just help me.”

  I knew he didn’t like Nore and Jarel.

  But Grima Mog shakes her head. “Your daughters paid me in gold to protect them and fight for them. And I mean to do just that, Madoc. I have long wondered which one of us would prevail in battle. Shall we find out?”

  He hesitates, looking at Grima Mog’s sword, at Vivi’s large black bow, at Taryn and Nightfell. Finally, he looks at me.

  “Let me take you back to the camp, Jude,” Madoc says. “You’re dying.”

  I shake my head. “I’m staying here.”

  “Good-bye, then, daughter,” Madoc says. “You would have made a good redcap.”

  With that, he withdraws through the snow, never turning his back to us. I watch him, too relieved at his retreat to be angry that he’s the reason I am in so much pain. I am too tired for anger. All around me the snow looks soft, like heaped-up feather beds. I imagine lying down on it and closing my eyes.

  “Come on,” Vivi says to me. She sounds a little like she’s begging. “We’ve got to get you back to our camp, where the rest of the horses are. It’s not far.”

  My side is on fire. But I have to move. “Sew me up,” I say, trying to shake off the creeping lethargy. “Sew me up here.”

  “She’s bleeding,” says Taryn. “A lot.”

  I am struck with a dull certainty that if I don’t do something now, nothing will be left to do. Madoc is right. I will die here, in the snow, in front of my sisters. I will die here, and no one will ever know there was once a mortal Queen of Faerie.

  “Pack the wound with earth and leaves and then stitch it,” I say. My voice sounds as though it’s coming from far away, and I’m not sure I am making any sense. But I remember the Bomb talking about how the High King is tied to the land, how Cardan had to draw on it to heal himself. I remember she made him take a mouthful of clay.

  Maybe I can heal myself, too.

  “You’ll get an infection,” Taryn says. “Jude—”

  “I’m not sure it will work. I’m not magic,” I tell her. I know I am leaving out parts. I know I am not explaining this the right way, but everything has become a little unmoored. “Even if I am the true queen, the land might not have anything to do with me.”

  “The true queen?” Taryn echoes.

  “Because she married Cardan,” Vivi says, sounding frustrated. “That’s what she’s talking about.”

  “What?” Taryn says, astonished. “No.”

  Then Grima Mog’s voice comes. Rough and scratchy. “Go on. You heard her. Although she must be the most foolish child ever born to get herself in this fix.”

  “I don’t understand,” Taryn says.

  “It’s not for us to question, is it?” Grima Mog says. “If the High Queen of Elfhame gives us an order, we do it.”

  I grab for Taryn’s hand.

  “You’re good at needlework,” I say with a groan. “Stitch me up. Please.”

  She nods, looking a bit wild-eyed.

  I can do nothing but hope as Grima Mog takes the cape from her own shoulders and spreads it out on the snow. I lie down on it and try not to wince as they rip my dress to expose my side.

  I hear someone draw a sharp breath.

  I look up at the dawn sky and wonder whether the Ghost has made it to the Palace of Elfhame. I recall the taste of Cardan’s fingers pressed against my mouth as fresh pain blooms at my side. I bite back a scream and then another as the needle digs into the wound. Clouds blow by overhead.

  “Jude?” Taryn’s voice sounds like she’s trying to fight back tears. “You’re going to be okay, Jude. I think it’s working.”

  But if it’s working, why does she sound like that?

  “Not…” I get the word out. I make myself smile. “Worried.”

  “Oh, Jude,” she says. I feel a hand against my brow. It’s so warm, which makes me think I must be very cold.

  “In all my days, I have seen naught the like of this,” Grima Mog says in a hushed voice.

  “Hey,” Vivi says, her voice wavering. She doesn’t sound like herself. “Wound’s closed. How are you feeling? Because some strange stuff is going on.”

  My skin has the sensation of being stung all over with nettles, but the fresh, hot pain is gone. I can move. I roll onto my good side and then up onto my knees. The wool beneath me is soaked through with blood. Way more blood than I am ready to believe came from me.

  And around the edges of the cloak, I spot tiny white flowers pushing through the snow, most of them still buds, but a few opening as I look. I stare, not sure what I am seeing.

  And then when I do understand, I can’t quite take it in.

  Baphen’s words about the High King come to me: When his blood falls, things grow.

  Grima Mog goes to one knee. “My queen,” she says. “Command me.”

  I can’t believe she is speaking those words to me. I can’t believe the land chose me.

  I had half-convinced myself I was faking being the High Queen, the way I faked my way through being the seneschal.

  A moment later, everything else comes roaring back. I push myself to standing. If I don’t move now, I will never get there in time. “I’ve got to get to the palace. Can you watch over my sisters?”

  Vivi fixes me with a stern look. “You can barely stand.”

  “I’ll take the ragwort pony.” I nod toward it. “You follow with the horses you have at the campsite.”

  “Where’s Cardan? What happened to that goblin he was traveling with?” Vivi looks ready to scream. “They were supposed to take care of you.”

  “The goblin called himself the Roach,” Taryn reminds her.

  “He was poisoned,” I say, taking a few steps. My dress is open on the side, the wind blowing snow against my bare skin. I force myself to go to the horse, to touch its lacy mane. “And Cardan had to rush him to the antidote. But he doesn’t know that Madoc sent the Ghost after him.”

  “The Ghost,” Taryn echoes.

  “It’s ridiculous the way everyone acts like killing a king is going to make someone better at being one,” Vivi says. “Imagine if, in the mortal world, a lawyer passed the bar by killing another lawyer.”

  I have no idea what my sister is talking about. Grima Mog gives me a sympathetic glance and reaches into her jacket, drawing out a small stoppered flask. “Take a slug of this,” she says to me. “It’ll help you keep going.”

  I don’t even bother asking her what it is. I am far beyond that. I just toss back a long swallow. The liquid scalds all the way down my throat, making me cough. With it burning in my belly, I heave myself up onto the back of the horse.

  “Jude,” Taryn says, putting her hand on my leg. “You have to be careful not to pull your stitches.” When I nod, she unclasps the sheath from around her waist, then passes it to me. “Take Nightfell,” she says.

  I feel better already with a w
eapon in my hand.

  “We’ll see you there,” Vivi warns. “Don’t fall off the horse.”

  “Thank you,” I say, reaching out my hands. Vivi takes one, and then Taryn clasps the other. I squeeze.

  As the pony kicks its way into the frigid air, I see the mountains below me, along with Madoc’s army. I look down at my sisters, hurrying through the snow. My sisters, who, despite everything, came for me.

  The sky warms as I fly toward Elfhame. Holding on to the mane of the ragwort horse, I drink in great gulps of salt-spray air and watch the waves peak and roll below me. Although the land kept me from death, I am not entirely whole. When I shift my weight, my side hurts. I feel the stitches holding me together as though I am a rag doll with stuffing trying to leak out.

  And the closer I get, the more panicked I become.

  Wouldn’t it be better if he took an arrow through the heart in his own hall?

  It’s the Ghost’s habit to plan an assassination like a trap-door spider, finding a place to strike from and then waiting for his victim to arrive. He took me to the rafters of the Court of Elfhame for my first murder and showed me how to do it. Despite the success of that assassination, nothing about the inside of the cavernous chamber was changed—I know because shortly after is when I came into power, and I’m the one who changed nothing.

  My first impulse is to present myself at the gates and demand to be taken to the High King. Cardan promised to lift my exile, and whatever he intends, at least I could warn him about the Ghost. But I worry that some overeager knight might hasten to decide I should forfeit my life first and he should carry any messages I have second, if at all.

  My second thought is to creep into the palace through Cardan’s mother’s old chamber and the secret passageway to the High King’s rooms. But if Cardan isn’t there, I will be stuck, unable to sneak past the guards who watch over his door. And sneaking back will waste a lot of time. Time I am already short on.

  With the Court of Shadows bombed out and no sense of where they rebuilt, I can’t get in that way, either.

  Which leaves me a single path—walking right into the brugh. A mortal in servant’s livery might normally pass unnoticed, but I am too well known for that trick to work unless I am well disguised. But I have little access to clothes. My rooms, deep in the palace, are impossible to get to. Taryn’s home, formerly Locke’s and with Locke’s servants still around, is too risky. Madoc’s stronghold, though—abandoned, with clothing that used to belong to Taryn and Vivi and me still hanging in forgotten closets…

  That might work.

  I fly low to the tree line, glad to be arriving in the late morning, when most Folk are still abed. I land by the stables and step off the pony. It immediately collapses back into ragwort stalks, the magic already pushed to its full measure. Sore and slow, I head for the house. In my head, my fears and hopes collide in a loop of words playing over and over again:

  Please let the Roach be okay.

  Let Cardan not be shot. Let the Ghost be clumsy.

  Let me get inside easily. Let me stop him.

  I do not pause to ask myself why I am in such a panic to save someone for whom I swore I rooted out every feeling. I will not think about that.

  Inside the estate, much of the furniture is gone. Of what remains, the upholstery is ripped open, as though sprites or squirrels were nesting in it. My steps echo as I go up the familiar stairs, made strange by the emptiness of the rooms. I don’t bother going to my own old chamber. Instead, I go to Vivi’s, where I find that her closets are still full. I suspected she would have left many things behind when she went to live in the human world, and my guess is rewarded.

  I find some stretchy hose in dark gray, pants, and a close-fitting jacket. Good enough. As I am changing, a wave of dizziness hits me, and I have to hang on to the doorframe until it passes and I get my balance again. Pushing up my shirt, I do what I’ve been avoiding thus far—I look at the wound. Dried-blood flecks stick all along the red pucker of where Madoc stabbed me, neat stitching holding the skin together. It’s nice, careful work, and I am grateful to Taryn for it. But just a glance at it gives me a cold, unsteady feeling. Especially the reddest spots, where there are already signs of pulling.

  I leave my sliced and blood-soaked dress in a corner, along with my boots. With trembling fingers, I scrape back my hair into a tight bun, which I cover with a black scarf wound twice around my head. Once I am climbing, I don’t want anything to draw the eye.

  In the main part of the house, I find an out-of-tune lute hanging in Oriana’s parlor, along with pots of makeup. I darken around my eyes dramatically, drawing them out into a wing, with eyebrows to match. Then I take a mask with gargoyle features that I fit over my own.

  In the armory, I find a small bow that breaks down into something I can hide. Regretfully, I leave Nightfell, hidden as best I can among the other swords. I take a piece of paper from Madoc’s old desk and use his quill pen to write a note of warning:

  Expect an assassination attempt, most likely in the great hall. Keep the High King in seclusion.

  If I give that to someone to pass to Baphen or one of Cardan’s personal guard, then perhaps I have a better chance of finding the Ghost before he strikes.

  With lute in hand, I head for the palace on foot. It’s not far, but by the time I arrive, a cold sweat has started on my brow. It’s difficult to guess how hard I can push myself. On one hand, the land healed me, which has made me feel slightly invulnerable. On the other, I nearly died and am still very hurt—and whatever Grima Mog gave me to drink is wearing off.

  I find a small knot of musicians and stick close to them through the gates.

  “That’s a beautiful instrument,” says one of the players, a boy with hair the green of new leaves. He looks at me strangely, as though perhaps we know each other.

  “I’ll give it to you,” I say impulsively. “If you will do something for me.”

  “What is it?” He frowns.

  I take his hand and press the note I wrote into it. “Will you take this to one of the members of the Living Council, preferably Baphen? I promise you won’t get in any trouble.”

  He wavers, uncertain.

  It is at that unfortunate moment that one of the knights stops me. “You. Mortal girl in the mask,” he says. “You smell like blood.”

  I turn. Frustrated and desperate as I am, I blurt out the first thing that comes to me. “Well, I am a mortal. And a girl, sir. We bleed every month, just like moon swells.”

  He waves me on, distaste on his face.

  The musician looks a little horrified, too.

  “Here,” I say to him. “Don’t forget the note.” Not waiting for a response, I shove the lute into his arms. Then I head into the throng. It doesn’t take long before I am swallowed up thoroughly enough by the crowd that I can ditch my mask. I make for a shadowed corner and begin my ascent into the rafters.

  The climb is horrible. I keep to the shadows, moving slowly, all the while trying to see where the Ghost might be hiding, all the while dreading that Cardan might enter the hall and make himself a target. Again and again, I have to stop and get my bearings. Bouts of light-headedness come and go. Halfway up, I am sure one of my stitches rips. I touch my hand to my side, and it comes away red. Hiding in a thicket of roots, I unwind the scarf from my head and wrap it around my waist, tying it as tightly as I can bear.

  I finally make it to a perch high in the curve of the ceiling where several roots converge.

  There I string my bow, arrange arrows, and look across the hollow hill. He may already be here, hidden somewhere close. As the Ghost told me when he taught me how to lie in wait, the tedium is the hardest part. Keeping yourself alert, not getting so bored that you lose focus and stop paying attention to every shift in the shadows. Or, in my case, getting distracted by pain.

  I need to spot the Ghost, and once I do, I need to shoot him. I cannot hesitate. The Ghost himself would tell me I’d already missed my one chance to kill him; I
better not miss again.

  I think of Madoc, who raised me in a house of murder. Madoc, who became so used to war that he killed his wife and would have killed me, too.

  Plunge a heated sword into oil and any small flaw will turn into a crack. But quenched in blood as you were, none of you broke. You were only hardened.

  If I continue the way I am, will I become like Madoc? Or will I break?

  Below me, a few courtiers dance in circles that come together, cross, then part again. Having been swept up in them, they can feel utterly chaotic, but from up here, they are triumphs of geometry. I look down at the banquet tables, piled with platters of fruit, flower-studded cheeses, and decanters of clover wine. My stomach growls as late morning turns to early afternoon and more Folk come to the Court.

  Baphen, the Royal Astrologer, arrives with Lady Asha on his arm. I watch them make their way around the dais, not far from the empty throne. Seven circle dances later, Nicasia comes into the hall with a few companions from the Undersea. Then Cardan enters with his guard around him and the Blood Crown gleaming atop his ink-black curls.

  When I look at him, I feel a dizzy dissonance.

  He does not seem like someone who has been carrying poisoned spies through the snow, someone who has braved an enemy camp. Someone who pushed his magical cloak into my hands. He seems like the person who shoved me into the water and laughed when it closed over my head. Who tricked me.

  That boy is your weakness.

  I watch toasts I can’t hear and see plates heaped with roasted doves on spits, leaf-wrapped sweetmeats, and stuffed plums. I feel strange, light-headed, and when I look, I see that the black scarf is nearly soaked through with blood. I shift my balance.

  And I wait. And wait. And try not to bleed on anyone. My vision gets a little blurry, and I force myself to focus.

  Below, I see Randalin with something in his hand, something he’s waving at Cardan. The note I wrote. The boy must have delivered it after all. I tighten my hand on my crossbow. Finally, they’ll get him out of here and out of danger.