The Resistant Queen, page 19
“What do you think, Highness?”
The question pulled her out of her thoughts as her head popped back up. “Think about what?”
Belle shook her head. “Have you not been listening? This is a vital discussion. How much of our provisions and food stores do you think we should ration out? If we use too much, we put ourselves at risk.”
“And the refugees brought no food of their own?” Maggie asked.
“Most were driven from their homes in a rush,” Helena said. “They only had enough time to grab their families and flee.”
Maggie stood and paced the hall. “We mustn’t let them starve. How much do we have?”
“Enough for the inhabitants of Priama to survive the winter. The witches who live here know how to fend for themselves and prepare well in advance. Each witch should have enough to feed themselves and their families for most of the winter. We rarely deplete the reserves. If needed, we can ration what we have to stretch it.”
“How many refugees have come?”
“At our last count, two hundred and forty-three,” Belle said. “And we expect more as the winter wall continues to approach the city.”
“Can we feed that many?” Maggie asked.
“Not for the entire winter,” Belle said. “If we try, our reserves will be gone in weeks, not months.”
Maggie stopped pacing and faced Belle. “It isn’t fair that some witches will eat and others will go without. We will ration what we have, both in the reserves and what each witch has managed to save and give some to everyone.”
“And when it runs out?” Helena asked.
“We deal with that when the time comes,” Maggie said.
Helena frowned at her. “We cannot do that, Highness. If we are going to risk our own survival, we have to have a plan to recover what we have lost.”
A sigh escaped Maggie’s lips as she slumped back to her throne. “Helena, I don’t even know what I’m doing. What do you think we should do? Have the witches ever been in a situation like this before?”
“Like this? Never,” Helena said. “When I was younger, a drought ravaged the land, but I was only a child. I don’t remember what solution they came up with.”
“Give me some time to think it over,” Maggie said as she walked to the door. She slipped into her coat and stepped outside. Neither Belle nor Helena tried to stop her.
Night had fallen hours ago and stars glimmered in the darkness. It was a beautifully clear night but Maggie knew it would not last. Hardships were coming that she could not prevent. She stepped onto the hard and frozen snow and walked towards her yurt. She had a lot to think about. When she reached her door, her hand gripped the handle but she hesitated. If she went inside, the first thing she would do is lay on her bed. She was not ready for sleep yet. Too many problems floated around her head which needed to be put in order first. To do that, she needed help. Help from someone who was not going to push her one way or another.
She worked her way around the inner city, skirting past the makeshift tent communities that had been erected then slipped out the northern gate. Pulling her collar tighter around her neck, Maggie left the beaten path and walked towards a thick grove of trees. On the far side, she found a small, earthen hovel with a green door. A flickering candle burned in the window as if to welcome her. She kicked the mud and snow from her boots and knocked gently on the door. A moment later, Sarah opened it.
“Maggie?” she asked, surprised to see her. “What are you doing out this late?”
“You sound like my mother. Can I come in?”
“Of course,” Sarah said as she pulled the door open wide enough to let her pass.
Maggie knew that Sarah had been given a small home but she had never visited before. It was smaller than her yurt but looked comfortable. A large bed filled most of the space but it left enough room for a squat table with two stools and a narrow, waist-high stove. Maggie smiled as she sat down.
“How have you been?” Maggie asked.
Sarah quickly saw through her question. “I don’t believe you came here for small talk. The look on your face says it all. What’s going on?”
With a heavy moan, Maggie explained her dilemma.
“I don’t know what to do,” Maggie conceded when she finished. “Everyone is looking to me for answers that I don’t have. I mean, I’m still only fifteen. I don’t want anyone to starve but how do I give away the food that we need to survive?”
Sarah sat down on her bed and pulled a blanket over her legs. She glanced over at Maggie a few times like she wanted to say something, but shook her head. After five minutes, Maggie could not take the silence any longer.
“Just say it.”
“If you really want to unite the witches, you have to give the food away. They have to know that you care more about them than you do for yourself.”
“What about us?”
The smile on Sarah’s face was wistful and sad. “Do you know what Loravain would say?”
“What?’
“If you do what you know is right, everything else will fall into place. Helping the refugees is the right thing to do.”
Now it was Maggie’s turn to open and close her mouth. She knew Sarah was right but she knew how others might react to this judgment. Unable to find her voice, she only nodded.
“We will be okay,” Sarah promised as she hugged Maggie.
They walked to the door together, but Maggie hesitated before leaving. She knew what waited for her back in the city. Once she entered, she would be the queen again. Here, in Sarah’s home, she was just Maggie, the girl.
“Can I stay here tonight?” Maggie asked.
Sarah’s face brightened at the question. “Of course. I would love that. We can finally talk about girl stuff.”
The tightness Maggie had been feeling in her chest vanished.
CHAPTER 15
Time passed quickly for Maggie. The longer she was queen, the more duties she took on. With the threat of the winter wall looming over her and the rest of Priama, she hardly had a second for herself. Days turned into weeks, and weeks turned into months, and they all blurred together into an anxious haze. Most nights, Maggie fell onto her bed, mentally and physically exhausted because Astrid and Belle had increased the intensity of her training. There were benefits to it though. Her proficiency with ice magic had improved and she was able to defend herself with a variety of weapons. Though she was not as able as most of the other witches around her, Maggie was starting to feel more at home in her body.
When she was not training, she either met with the witch council or oversaw the distribution of aid to the refugees who sought protection within the walls of Priama. She had taken Sarah’s advice to share all they had. There was not much to go around, but they were still managing to scrape by.
With the influx of witches and humans, Loravain had been out of sorts. Thanatos had not returned like Loravain had hoped and being without him was wearing on his nerves. It got so bad at times that Maggie avoided him. There were good days though when he would come train with her but she thought it was more to distract himself than to be with her. He disliked the crowds and with each passing day, more and more humans arrived. Even though he was one of them, or had been before becoming a mage, the thought of dealing with them left a bad taste in his mouth. It was because of humans that he had done much of what he had while in the service to the Dark One. They had been the ones who had demanded he take lives and his service to the demon held him to it. At least the promise of freedom held him to it. Until he met Maggie, he never dreamed of walking away of his own free will.
The one thing Maggie watched with interest through the cold, snowy months of winter was the budding romance between Loravain and Sarah. Whether it was because Thanatos was gone, the crowded city, or his own desires, the mage sought out Sarah wherever he could. When Maggie did have a moment to herself, which was not often, she spent time with them walking around the farms and fields that stretched on for miles. She took note of Loravain reaching for Sarah’s hand while they walked ahead of her. She smiled to herself when they stole kisses when they thought no one was watching. And she tried not to blush when she tuned out the world and overheard their conversations from afar. It made her happy to see them enjoying each other's company.
Her time, on the other hand, was not happy. The most pressing parts of her day had become the morning report about the winter wall. She would enter the assembly hall and crowd around the map of Priama with Belle, Helena, and a handful of others. They would outline the areas Belle’s guards had encountered the wall. After a few weeks of tracking it, they discovered a pattern. It was taking villages and cities one at a time. In the beginning, the wall stayed, as if to hold claim on what it had won, but when the attacks became more frequent, it vanished after each one, never to return. Even though the winter wall had departed, the witches and humans who had taken refuge in Priama were reluctant to return home. There was even talk of leaving Priama behind for the warmer climates of the south where the winter wall could not reach them. In fact, a handful of witches and humans had already left. Maggie did not blame them. She had brought up the idea of leaving with Belle on a number of occasions.
“I think we should leave Priama while we can,” Maggie would say. “We can come back once winter is over.”
Belle’s answer was always the same. “This is our home.”
“That’s what they said in Lia’s village,” Maggie said, remembering her conversation with Duncan. “Staying only brought death. We might risk the same.”
“There are some things you still do not understand, Highness,” Belle said. “There is more than land and memories here to be protected. Some things cannot be moved and must not be allowed to fall into the hands of the Dark One. We will only leave if all else is lost.”
“Why?” Maggie would ask, pressing for an answer. “What do we risk losing if we leave?”
“I’ll tell you soon, once there are fewer strangers, I promise. We can’t risk some information falling into the wrong hands.” Maggie was still waiting for that time to arrive.
That was another thing that bothered Maggie about being the queen. There was still so much she did not know about Priama. She assumed Belle was talking about the underground repository of magical weapons and artifacts, but she had the feeling that something else was out there as well. If they turned tail and retreated now, she may never know what it is. For now, they would continue to monitor the wall and prepare the city. So far, they had raised the wall by adding sharp spikes and brambles to the top and dug a trench around the outside, though each time Maggie looked at it, she doubted that it would be enough.
After a particularly heated debate with Belle about the need for more warriors and how to find them, Maggie trudged home through waist-deep snow. Maggie insisted that Belle needed to increase her guard but Belle thought her maidens would be able to manage the situation. Belle had eventually conceded and promised to train any witch who wanted to learn the basics, though she refused to train the human refugees, regardless of Maggie’s prodding.
When she reached her yurt, she found the stairs cleared of fresh, powdery snow. Being queen did have a few perks, one being that she never had to take a turn shoveling. Pushing through the door, she was surprised to find Corina sitting on her bed. At the sight of Maggie, Corina jumped up and apologized for being where she should not have been.
“It’s okay, Corina,” Maggie said with a laugh. “I don’t mind.”
After what seemed like twenty minutes of apologies and assurances, Corina finally calmed down. Maggie sliced them each a portion of cake and put a kettle on to boil.
“I finally did it,” Corina said, careful not to drop any crumbs on the table or floor.
“Did what?” Maggie asked.
“I talked to him.”
Maggie’s eyes lit up. “Are you talking about Derek?”
Corina nodded.
“What happened? Tell me.”
“Not much,” Corina admitted, her cheeks blushing. “I said hi, he said hi.”
“That’s it?”
“It didn’t need to be more. His smile. You should have seen his smile.” Corina dropped her head to the table with a sigh.
“So, he said hi and smiled at you? Well, I guess that is more of an encounter than I ever had with Jacob until he tried to kill me.”
“What?” Corina cried. “Someone tried to kill you? Are you okay?”
Maggie laughed. “I told you about him already. The boy I thought I was destined to be with. I was so in love with him but I could never work up the nerve to talk to him. Not until he had the knife in his hand.”
“I can’t believe anyone would try to do that to you.”
“I told you this story already, Corina.”
Corina scrunched up her face as she thought. “Is Jacob the one who was making weapons?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, I remember now.”
“Enough about me, tell me more about Derek. Are you going to see him again?”
Corina rolled her eyes into the back of her head. “I’d be crazy not to. And next time I plan on saying a lot more than just hi.”
“Like what?” Maggie asked, a silly grin on her face.
“How are you?” Corina blushed.
A snort escaped Maggie’s nose as she laughed and Corina spit out the cake she was chewing. Soon they were both laughing.
“I guess I better do what I came here for,” Corina said after she regained her composure.
“And what is that?” Maggie asked.
“You need a checkup. Belle said she has worked you pretty hard lately.”
“Can’t we just keep talking? I like this.”
Corina glanced sideways at the door and smiled. “Okay, but just for a few more minutes. Don’t tell Belle.”
“I DON’T LIKE IT,” BELLE said.
Maggie and Belle walked around the outskirts of the city wall for the fifth time, checking the walls and traps that had so far gone unneeded. The fact that the winter wall had not descended on them yet was troublesome. The weather was something else entirely. The sky was thick with gray clouds and heavy snow fell around them. Spring should have appeared by now but winter refused to give up its hold on the land. Maggie nodded but remained quiet.
“If something does not change soon, we will all starve. We are usually preparing the fields for planting by now. And game is scarce. Our hunters have had minimal success in the north and anything they do get is gone as soon as it is carried through the gates.”
“What about the south? Have they had better luck there?” Maggie asked.
Belle shook her head. “There are too many mouths to feed and the winter is pushing everything away. We would be forced to leave Priama and enter the territory of man to find enough to feed everyone. We will not risk that yet as it would break the truce we have with them.”
“When this is over, if that ever happens, you must bring me up to speed on everything. I had no idea about a truce.”
Belle stepped over a log hidden in the snow. “It will take time but I have no doubt that you will learn all you need to.”
A gust of wind washed over them, shaking the branches of the tree they were walking under. An avalanche of snow cascaded on top of Maggie. Cold wetness dripped down her collar.
“That’s it,” Maggie yelled. “I’m done. This weather has officially gotten on my last nerve.”
Maggie turned around and pushed through the snow towards the northern gate. Her boots had done a good job at keeping her feet dry but her toes were frozen. She needed a hot bath to thaw her frozen limbs.
“Do not forget about the council meeting tonight,” Belle called.
“How could I? You’ve only mentioned it about fifteen times.”
She was sick of meetings. The topic of conversation never veered far from two subjects. The threat of the winter wall and the food shortage. In the beginning, the influx of refugees had been at the forefront of everyone's mind but it had gradually become a way of life. They had all grown accustomed to living in such close quarters with the hundreds of new residents. She smiled as she walked past a group of tents near the gate. A large fire burned brightly and laughter rang out, light on the air. At least some people could find something to be happy about. Times were hard but amidst the suffering, small pockets of joy guided them through.
“Hello, Queen Maggie,” a small voice squeaked from near the fire.
A short blond boy waved at her, a blunt wooden sword held tightly in his fist. Maggie smiled and waved back.
“Hello, Vincent.”
She wished she had the time and energy to chat but the misery she felt pushed her along.
The interior of the city looked completely different than when she had first arrived with Loravain and Sarah. Now it looked like a bustling city. Tight passageways granted access to the market, assembly hall, healer’s tent, and her yurt. The rest of the remaining space had been taken up by tents and makeshift shelters. Keeping her head down, she sped up, knowing that if she made eye contact with anyone, she would be bombarded with questions about food and safety. Even though she gave weekly updates in a city-wide meeting, there were always more questions that she had answers for. She did not have time for that now.
She hurried to where she knew Helena would be. Pushing through a thick tent flap of a small potion shop Helena enjoyed consulting at, she was disappointed to find it empty.
“Hello?” she called. “Helena?”
A young, thin witch stepped out from behind a concealed curtain, staring intently at a vial with dark green liquid sloshing around inside. “Can I help you?”
