Chapter Thirteen #2
“If you continue on like this, you’ll find yourself sharing the sickbed with our lord. Take a rest.”
I sighed. “Do the healers have something that can keep me alert and awake?”
She pressed her lips together tight.
“You don’t want to say, but the rule-follower in you won’t let you lie to your queen,” I said, smiling. “Go on. You can tell me.”
“Fine.” She sniffed. “They do have such an aid, but do you know what would be even better? Proper rest, food, and sleep.”
“No.” I was beginning to understand Alisdair and his abruptness. Why waste time with pleas, excuses, and explanations when an entire sentence was already contained in one word? “Fetch the aid for me, please, Aeris. Thank you so much.”
Aeris stormed out, mumbling something about obstinate, pain-in-the-ass queens, and it was all I could do not to giggle. The stress of Alisdair’s situation was getting to everyone if the prim-and-proper Aeris was finally breaking decorum.
I glanced at Alisdair, and the urge to laugh vanished immediately.
It had been days, and there’d been no noticeable improvement.
Healer Soulstitcher said at some point, Alisdair needed to find the will to summon the magic needed to heal him the rest of the way.
If that was true, he hadn’t found that will. He wasn’t summoning that magic.
“She calls me the pain in the ass, but you’re the pain in the ass.
” I bent over and dropped a kiss on his nose, the only part of his face free of the bandages.
“All you have to do is wake up, but you’re stubbornly refusing because you can never give me what I want without torturing me a little first.” My smile was soft as I slipped my hand under his.
“The joke is on you, because I’ll wait as long as it takes. ”
I’d be waiting a long time was Alisdair’s silent reply.
A week passed, and then two. My husband didn’t open his eyes.
“Conn obviously didn’t learn from his predecessor Lorcan. The basks only have the right of the territory I give them,” I said. “Tell him he and his people return to the northern marsh, or I’ll have his throat ripped out and replace him with a leader who listens.”
“Yes, ma’am,” the soldier replied, bowing out of the room.
I was already done with her and fixing on Foalan. “I want you to increase the guard presence in the village, Bevin, and the other outlying towns. Reassign the palace guards if necessary. Attackers can’t invade the palace if they never get past the village.”
“Yes, my lady.”
“Aeris,” I continued. “Round up the palace staff and begin clearing out and preparing all the empty rooms. Evacuate the families in the villages beyond Hathal and bring them here to shelter until the threat has passed.”
“If they leave their homes, their plants and crops will wither and die,” Aeris replied. “They’ll return home to no food.”
“Precisely why I hired five more traveling merchants this morning. Riordan will have company when he sets out within the next few days. Two of them are traveling to Quatassa—much closer than Lyrica.” I shook my head.
“It has to be this way, Aeris. We’ll spread our forces too thin if we try to cover every single village.
When the threat has passed, we’ll provide food assistance until they are able to revive their resources. ”
“Yes, Lady Ana.” She set out without another word, ready and able to carry out my will.
Holding court in my bedchamber wasn’t ideal, but I wasn’t leaving Alisdair’s side and there was a kingdom to rule.
Especially because the morning after the wolves attacked, Foalan returned to the scene and found four corpses—the three wolves who aided Meallan, and the lone guard who went back alone after I dragged Alisdair away.
The only trace left of Meallan was his severed hand.
Somehow the loathsome rat survived and scuttled off. Foalan had enough time to order the wolves living in Lumenfell out before the rest attacked Bevin, Gibarden, Lutran, and a bunch of innocent people—heeding the orders of their vengeful, humiliated alpha.
The attacks continued for days until they were driven out to the darkest, coldest part of the forest where only the best trackers with senses better or equal to the wolves could follow.
What Meallan hoped to achieve with these attacks, I had no idea. If his plan was to piss off and enrage the citizens so much they overthrow me and Alisdair, and hand him the throne, it wasn’t working.
“What about the other war we’re waging?” I asked when it was only the three of us in the room.
I eyed the babies sleeping, cooing, nursing, and slung on her back. Actually, the nine of us. “Were you able to find Mahoun’s heirs?”
Treasa walked past the baby cots I had brought up for her as if they were cacti, and not comfort for her and her babies. “So far we’ve found one,” she replied. “As you know, there’s no point killing one if we can’t find the rest.”
I sighed, gazing at Alisdair. He was impatient for this war. Emiana was impatient for this war. I was impatient for a better life for my mother and my sisters, so impatient, I gave them both the key to bringing about their blood-soaked victories.
But is this truly the only way? Just because Alisdair believes change can’t come without blood and slaughter, doesn’t mean I can’t prove him wrong.
“There’s nothing that can be done,” I finally said. “When Mahoun dies, they’ll swear in the new king, everyone will come out of hiding, and our spies can kill them then. That will give us a few months to think of something better.”
“Better?” Treasa bounced up and down, burping two fussy babies and rocking the other four.
“My lady, the plan you chose is as wise as it is creative as it is merciful. You found the path of minimal and only necessary bloodshed. No messy war. No collateral damage,” she said kindly.
“I don’t believe there is another way. Certainly not a better one. ”
“But that’s just it, Treasa.” I talked while I picked up Alisdair’s broth and began the slow, gentle process of feeding him.
“To assume there will be no messy war or unnecessary bloodshed is to assume we can create a power vacuum, appoint ourselves the rulers to fill it, and everyone in Elva will simply fall in line.
“Of course they’re going to fight back,” I cried. “They’ve been raised their whole lives to believe faeriken are evil, bloodthirsty beasts. They will not take kindly to one slaughtering their kings and forcing them under his rule.”
She inclined her head. “There will be rebellion, yes, but those would be easily quashed if you proceeded with developing a weapon with the siren’s voice.”
“Excuse me? You can’t possibly be suggesting I torture an innocent, beautiful creature to create a weapon of genocide!”
She appraised me calmly. “It is not for me to suggest, my queen. Merely to inform you of the resources at your disposal, and how they can be used. The decision is only yours.”
“No one touches the siren.” A thought occurred to me. “And if I ever say otherwise. If I rant and scream and order you to hurt that poor creature, ignore me. Matter of fact, tell me to shut my horrible fucking mouth up.”
She laughed. “What an odd request. But your point is made. You will not step on the throat of the innocent to ascend the ladder of power. It’s what makes you a good queen, my lady,” Treasa said, surprising me. “Maybe even a great one.”
The barest smile tugged my lips, and I deflated—slumping next to Alisdair. “A great queen would have another solution except the obvious one. One Alisdair said himself all those days ago.”
She gave me a look like she already knew, but needed me to say it out loud.
“The curse has to take Elva,” I rasped. “All of it. Everyone.”
“Why?”
Again I had the sense she knew the answer, but wanted to hear me say it.
“There will be rebellion. There will be attacks and war from those who want Elva to stay exactly how it is, but those of us who have been stepped on so others could ascend the ladder of power... they’ll fight beside us because our kingdom is the only kingdom that wants them to be free.”
“Free and changed?” she reminded. “Living in a land without sun or warmth. Forever cut off from the forests. Some things are worse than that to a summer fae, but not much.”
“The worst is having your magic bound,” I flung back. “It’s screaming and crying and begging with the trapped power inside of you to save the people you love. But you can’t. Because it’s just as trapped and useless as you are.”
I tossed my head. “The women of Elva have to be free, and the curse is the only way to free them. Even if there is rebellion. Even if there is war, it’ll be put down and stamped down quickly, because thirteen million faewomen are not going back to the way things are now.”
“Is it your wish, then, to wait until after the change takes Elva to enact our plan?”
“No.” There was no hesitation. “That would take centuries. We must claim the seats of power now. Start the process of change now. If only to get monsters like Salman off the throne. The things that he’s done.
Atrocities that he planned, carried out, and then blamed on faeriken—knowing that no one would question him, and executing anyone who dared to anyway.
” I shook my head. “He’s a monster the likes of which would sicken a worthless piece of shit like Meallan.
“The throne of Lyrica never belonged to him. He’s not going to sit on it for another day past his due.”
“What is your decision, then, my queen?”
I opened my mouth, and asked the question that sealed my fate. “Is there a way to spread the curse faster and wider? As in within the next few months while we wait for Mahoun to pass?”
“There is,” she replied, smiling enigmatically. “But of course I cannot tell you. The cursed can’t speak of their affliction.”
“You don’t have to speak it if you can do it. Can you do this, Treasa? And can you do it quickly?”