CHARLIE
Iwould have left for Maethalia instantly, but a few small problems stood in my way. I had no money. No ID. No clothes that fit properly. And no transportation out to the farm where my plane waited.
If any of Kitty’s intelligence agent buddies or anyone from the Air Force spotted me out on the streets, God only knew what might happen. They thought I was dead, but when they found out I was alive, I would technically be away without leave—an offense that could land me back in the brig.
And then there was the blood hunger, like an unending scream in my mind, clamoring to be satisfied.
So, with nowhere else to go, I spent another restless night in Auggie’s flat, sleeping on the couch despite Kitty’s half-mocking invitation to share her bed—and her blood.
I awoke feeling even worse than when I’d gone to sleep.
I could hear Kitty’s muffled voice from the bedroom, talking with someone on the phone, I guessed. Head pounding, I rose to my feet, opened the bedroom door, and peered in, rubbing my bleary eyes.
Kitty snapped her makeup compact shut and turned to me as I entered, giving me a big, fake smile. I looked from her to the phone, which sat far away, on the nightstand. Nobody else was in the room.
“Who were you just talking to?” I asked, confused.
“One of my contacts. I have an article to write today. And the news from Maethalia is very interesting. “
I slumped into a chair near the door, too exhausted and blood hungry to wonder how she was talking to her contact without using the phone.
“Yeah? What’s the news?”
“Well, first of all, your princess has turned up.”
I sat up straight. Kitty suddenly had my full attention. “Turned up? Where?”
“Leading an attack on Charcain. It didn’t go well.”
My heart turned to lead in my chest. “Is she…?”
“She’s fine,” Kitty waved off my concern, lighting a cigarette. “Well, she’s not dead, anyway. Kortoi, Lord Natath, and all those guys have her.”
I was on my feet now, hands trembling. “What are they going to do to her?”
“Make her queen, assuming she goes along with it,” Kitty shrugged. “But you know what that means.” Her tone sounded ominous.
I shook my head. “What?”
“The bydrune,” she prompted, eyebrows raised.
The word meant nothing to me. “What’s that?”
She puffed out a big lungful of smoke. “Really? You don’t know what the bydrune is? Didn’t they teach you anything in officer’s school or whatever?”
“I never went to any academy. I got my rank because I’m good at shooting down dragons. And that’s the only thing they taught me: how to shoot down dragons. Now what the hell is a bydrune?”
“Gosh, this is awkward...” she paused, biting her lower lip. “Did Essa ever tell you about her father?”
I frowned, thinking. “I asked her about him once. Her answer was sort of vague. Seemed like she didn’t know him.”
“Right. Well,” Kitty said. “There’s a reason for that. The bydrune is a ceremony. You see, in Maethalia, like a million years ago, they had this great leader called Aulucia the White. A great queen, unified the nation, blah, blah, blah.”
“I’ve heard of her,” I said, gesturing for her to keep going.
“Well, as the story goes, Aulucia had five daughters. After she died, there was a lot of intrigue over what would happen to the crown, because there was no male heir. The loyalists to the crown thought it should go to the eldest daughter. Obviously, right? But some thought it should go to a more distant male descendant. The nobility was split over it, and soon, three or four factions of rival nobles were embroiled in a bloody civil war. It was proposed that the daughter should marry one of the noble sons—but which one? The factions now hated each other, so if she picked one of the sons, the other families would all rebel. The war would have gotten even worse. There were other factors at play, too, at the time. Factions of wizards and—”
“Kitty…” I growled.
She snubbed out her cigarette, excited now.
“Okay, anyway. The head Torouman at the time came up with an idea for how to unify the kingdom. The queen’s eldest daughter would lie,” she made quotation marks with her fingers.
“Lie with the sons of all the prominent noble families. A hundred of them. If she conceived an heir, nobody would know whose it was, so they would all proceed as if the child was theirs. They’d be loyal.
And it worked! She banged all those guys, conceived, the war ended, and ever since then, every queen of Maethalia goes through the bydrune before their coronation. ”
I stared at Kitty, blinking. Numb.
“So not to be crass,” Kitty concluded, “but your girlfriend is about to—”
I held up a hand. “I understand.”
“… with a hundred men,” she finished with a shrug.
So that was it. That was why Essa had never mentioned a father. That was why princesses in Maethalia were supposed to remain “pure.” So they wouldn’t get pregnant before. Before…
I shook my head. “Essa would never…”
But my words trailed off as I thought about it.
Essa thought I was dead. She had no reason to be loyal to me. And she’d risked her body—her life—countless times defending her people. What would this bydrune be except one more heroic sacrifice?
It made me sick to think about her with all those men. I boiled with rage, horror, disgust. But a guy doesn’t become an ace without the ability to think rationally about difficult things. And the truth was the truth. I wanted to think Essa wouldn’t do it…
But if it would end the war? Bring peace? Save her people? Then she would do anything. In a heartbeat. Because that’s who she was.
She would absolutely do it—unless I could get to her first.
I rubbed a hand over my aching forehead. Blood hunger buzzed in my ears like static from a radio. My hands were shaking.
“If she does it, you think that will fix things? You think they’ll give the crown to her? End the civil war?”
Kitty flicked her lighter open and shut thoughtfully.
“Honestly? They might keep her around as a figurehead as long as she cooperates. But if I were to guess, I’d say they’ll bydrune her, crown her—so they can convince the people she was on their side— then, they’ll kill her.
Because that’s what all this has been about, right?
They want to break the power of the Skrathan.
They want the era of queens to end. They want the power for themselves. And—”
I was on my feet.
“Charlie,” Kitty sighed. “You can’t just—”
But I was already out the door.