Queen & Conqueror (The Queens Red Guard Book 1), page 36
“I, too, can say cunt, my lord, for you are a prince of nothing. And from my cunt you didn’t slither, so that makes you a lord, not a prince,” Almira hissed.
He looked at her in near admiration and then slowly, he smiled, connivingly. “Do you think your frail little king will last long against the might of Norr? Look at us!” He flexed his arms and they bulged enormously, straining against his tunic. “We’ll cut his army to shreds! We won’t fight him head on, none of those polite tactical behaviors your first husband employed. We’ll wait until he’s asleep, dreaming of you, perhaps yanking his thin cock, and then we’ll pounce on his tent and bleed him dry!”
Almira’s stomach tightened and she fisted her hands. He’d pulled her fears from the caverns of her mind and laid them out. She leaned into him with determination. “You’ll provide me information of High Lord Dag’s plans—”
He laughed and cocked his head. “You think I’ll speak? Come now, they call you cunning, a fire-breather. You know that if you want information from me, you’ll have to kill me and read it from my entrails.”
Delara pulled out her ruby blade and he stumbled back. Almira said her name in warning then turned to Ivar.
“Why would I do that? You’re far more valuable as a prisoner. I’ve tortured prisoners before,” she said in a deliberate tone.
“On certain days I don’t mind a bit of torture. Especially if her majesty is gracious enough to be the assailant.” He smiled and bit his lip.
There would be no getting through to him. Almira walked around him and then looked to Ley Wallace. “How many knights did Lord Ivar kill?”
“Three,” Lord Ivar said and spat out blood on the floor.
Almira smiled. “Three it is then. For that is the number of years you will spend in my dungeons, Lord Ivar of House Benici. Lady Delara, take the Norrian to a cell, and there, let him rot.”
Delara grabbed his arm and she and the soldiers dragged him through the throne room. He yelled and kicked and growled like a bucking horse. He yanked at his captors and slid to the floor. Almira watched with mounting horror as his screams, curses, and struggles intensified. She would break him, she just needed time. He wouldn’t like his idle imprisonment long.
“Kill me! Slit my throat you southern bitch!”
“No.” She squared to face him. “I won’t make of you a martyr. You’ll spend the war locked in my castle day after day, year after year until all possibility of battle glory is gone. You may starve yourself if you wish but a man like you desires death by steel. You’ll not find that here. At the end of the three years, I’ll release you, and the ‘creature,’ as you called her, that holds you captive, will escort you back home. You’ll arrive in chains. A broken, useless man.”
His lips pulled back in a snarl of hate and Almira lifted her chin.
“That is my sentence,” Almira said.
Delara lifted him and turned him to face her. When their eyes met, Almira thought Delara would kill him. Perhaps he might force her, but he didn’t. With a firm grip on his arm, she and the soldiers dragged him. But Lord Arrigo entered the atrium and Ivar stopped.
“You!” Ivar snarled.
Arrigo, dressed in his green Norrian finery of silver threads and supple leather boots, smiled. He looked nothing like the other man. One was chaos and the other, treachery.
“Cousin! I always knew you’d end up in irons.” Arrigo pushed back his emerald cloak.
Ivar made to lunge at him, but Delara held him tight. “You blood traitor! You coward!”
“Take him away!” Almira screamed above the tumult.
Arrigo laughed in delight and antagonized him with a satirical wave of his hand. “Enjoy the dungeons, cousin!”
Ivar nearly got loose but two more castle guards grabbed the chains and yanked him back. Ivar was wild. Almira had never seen a man behave as such. His torso bucked and he roared, biting and shaking, he kicked and slid as he fruitlessly attempted to reach Arrigo. Delara reeled him in by the chain around his neck and still she struggled.
“I’ll hunt you down, I will skin your bones!”
The guards kicked Ivar’s legs and he fell on the ground with a loud thump. He let out a pitiful cry of despair.
“You murderer! You killed her! You killed–”
Delara’s boot came down hard on Ivar’s face and his head cracked on the stone. He was out cold. Almira felt tension release from her shoulders. She took a shaking breath and held her stomach in relief. They hefted Ivar up and carried him down to the dungeons.
When the silence was palpable, Almira turned to Arrigo who watched his cousin being dragged. There was such maniacal delight painted on his face that she almost hit him.
“I somehow doubt the brute was lying,” Almira said with controlled rage.
Arrigo realized he was being studied and conjured that charming smile. “My queen, you do look a sight.”
She swallowed. Damn what she looked like! Damn them all! Alton was somewhere out there battling, her castle was attacked, her guard hurt, and now she held a madman in her dungeons.
She steadied her frame. “Who did you kill? What woman?”
He sighed theatrically and shrugged. “He believes I killed his little sister, my queen.”
She kept her face neutral but her stomach froze. In that moment, she knew he had. “And did you? Did you kill the young Lady Benici?”
“It was an accident. We were children, nothing more. My cousin has kept it in his mind that it was I that killed her. Majesty, you must rest, look at you.” He bit his lip and his eyes brightened.
An accident. Murder was never an accident, and the lack of remorse on his face told her all she needed to know. “He feels strong about this claim.”
He fixed his cape and continued his insouciant stare. “It’s a lie which was used to murder my father and keep me from my rightful place as High Lord of Norr, my queen.”
With that he turned and left.
She watched him leave and her thoughts swirled into oblivion. She was so tired. She was pregnant, she carried the heir, her husband was gone, her castle smelled rank with blood, and the man she watched leave was a loose cannon. She missed her father. She missed security. For a mad moment, she didn’t want to be queen.
It was a delicate play. Arrigo knew where she held Ivar. That would have to change.
Almira beckoned Ley Wallace. “Move Lord Ivar from the dungeons. Somewhere secret and safe.”
Ley Wallace nodded. “I know the place.”
Chapter Forty-Five
ALMIRA
The War of the North entered its third month and Almira’s ache for Alton descended to madness. She never said more than necessary but the tension was beyond her control to conceal. The army was a hard seven-day ride to the east, thus news was delivered a week behind. Alton was victorious in the first battle but lost 2,700 men in the second. It was a brutal defeat. There was a rumor of a siege at Castle Livian, Lord Orion’s residence, and another courier came with news of a possible meeting with High Lord Dag in the Valley of Henders.
During her marriage to Edgar, the news always trickled in, revealing the number of lost soldiers, and one day she feared a night rider would arrive, carrying news of Alton’s death. She missed her father and desperately wished for his counsel, but that time of her life was over, and she had to make do with his past lessons. She paced the rooms and snapped at council members. Nothing satisfied her, and the Red Guard walked on eggshells, unsure when or where her next outburst would occur. Her pregnancy remained a secret, known only to a few.
At the end of the week, Almira sat restless in her rooms. Nanai quietly sewed a small blanket for the secret babe as Hester sorted her ribbons into boxes. Sanaa stood quietly by the window, her watchful eyes on the ground below. They eagerly waited for a messenger to report on the outcome of Henders. Hira tried to distract Almira, but to no avail. It was at the point that any wrongfully placed word made the queen lash out in brittle anger.
Almira thought she’d fallen into a dream because her rooms went suddenly cold and dark. She looked up as the hairs on her skin prickled.
Sanaa instantly moved next to the queen and Hira stood, drawing her ruby blade.
Then a low, guttural laughter sounded in the room. It was ominous, especially when the pressure in the area shifted. A strong presence was there.
“Witch!” Sanaa snarled and unsheathed her sword.
“Almira!” Nanai cried in fright.
But the queen stood perfectly still as the fire in the hearth grew larger, the ambers blazing and dancing. Hira placed herself before Almira.
“She meant us no harm before,” Almira said, her eyes were trained on the fire as she pushed Hira away. Her breath came short, and she clasped her belly protectively.
From the burning logs came a bare foot and Hester gasped. Almira felt the blood drain from her face, but she held her chin up. Weapons couldn’t harm a witch, so it would have to be diplomatic words.
The foot became a leg, a leg became a skirt, and from the fire emerged a hooded figure. It was not the same witch they met in the market.
“Gods of the sea, protect us,” Sanaa whispered.
“Identify yourself!” Almira said in a commanding tone despite her fright.
The figure laughed and the air in the room smelled like smoking trees, a forest fire.
“Mighty, mighty queen,” the witch said and slowly revealed her face.
This witch was not disfigured. She was a beautiful woman in what seemed like her fiftieth year, gray hair elegantly styled. Her skin was pale, lips painted black, and her eyes seemed almost violet in color.
“Who are you and why have you come to me this way?” Almira asked and desperately wished her voice didn’t shake.
The witch glanced around the room, an amused look on her face. She studied each of the women until she turned back to Almira.
“You’d think I would be greeted with open arms rather than hostile words, and…” The witch studied Hira in appreciation. “Swords.”
“You cannot blame them.” Almira stepped forward and Sanaa hissed her name. She wouldn’t be afraid in her own castle, not of a conjurer. She wouldn’t falter to theatrics. “You come unannounced and greet me as such.”
The witch looked her over. “I didn’t have to come. I could’ve waited until the messenger arrived, but he had some trouble on the road and the screams of the dying men irked me.”
Almira heard screams of men, as if a battlefield was enacted in her chambers. Sanaa moved around the room, her eyes wild. She heard them too. The smell of fire and burning bodies almost made Almira gag.
“What madness is this?” Sanaa asked.
“The sounds that have plagued my ears these past two nights,” the witch snapped, her eyes darkened, and she glared at the queen.
“If you don’t go to him and stop his begging, I’ll go mad and kill him myself,” the witch said. She opened her hand and fire erupted within it.
“Who is begging?” Almira held her fingers to her mouth. The scent of burning flesh reminded her of the dungeons, of the man she tortured and killed. She would be sick before all to see.
The witch smiled as if amused. “You don’t know? You don’t feel it? You may look Suidian, mighty queen, but you’re cynical and detached from the earth like Istokians.”
Almira gasped as the smell became overwhelming and the cries of ghostly men filled the area. Their voices lived in her ears and a part of Almira swore she knew the men.
“Stop this!” Sanaa cried.
“Who are they, what is happening? You will provide me answers, witch.” Almira stared at the woman, anger getting the better of her.
The witch smiled as the fire in her hand morphed into a green light. “See for yourself, mighty queen.”
The green light turned into a moving painting, like a water mirror, a theater, as if Almira were inside the place, seeing the people and hearing their moans. It was a battlefield, a horrific scene, men dead and dying, slit bellies, limbs severed, they reached out to her. Almira clutched her chest. These were her men. Ouesteners she sent to die at the border.
“A few words from your pretty mouth and look at the death it has caused,” the witch said bitterly. “Look at the suffering! Feel their fingers, sense their desperation. Their death is on your crown.”
“Stop, please,” Almira begged. It was like she was there, on the battlefield with them, seeing their contorted bodies, smelling their rotting flesh. They grasped her dress as they begged for help. She tried to help them but more and more came.
“But you don’t care about them,” the witch said within Almira’s mind.
“I do!” Almira tugged her skirts away from their bloodied fingers. Young men with slashed faces gaped at her, barely of age.
“No, you don’t. Don’t make yourself to be a liar! You’re not the one who must listen to their cries in the middle of the night! I show you only a taste of what those who feel the earth see, smell, and hear!”
Then the scene changed, and Almira walked inside a tent, a tent she instantly knew to be Alton’s. She pushed aside the canvas flap and stopped as she beheld the figure on the cot. It was Alton. He arched off the bed as medics tried to treat his wounds. His belly was slit open, and he grimaced and panted as he called her name.
“Almira!”
She rushed to him and, as she grasped his fingers and felt the heat of his body, the vision left the room. She stumbled back into Hira who caught her and held her tightly.
Sanaa was coughing in the corner; she’d vomited against the curtains, and Nanai sobbed as Hester hugged her.
“Oh, my poor Alton!” Nanai cried.
The witch stared at Almira with unforgiving eyes. “He doesn’t have long, and I have little patience. Long live Almira, the Queen of New Verden.”
With that, the witch took her vision and disappeared. Almira was crying and trembling, and Hira made her sit. The queen stared at the tiled floor, her breathing short, and her heart twisted in panic. Was it real? Was it the truth?
“Bring me Nadim!” Almira said amongst her shaking breaths.
Hira, whose face was pale with fright and worry, nodded and rushed out of the room. Sanaa stumbled to Almira and sat across from her.
“Conjurers,” Sanaa said in a low tone, her eyes a hard blaze. “You sought what you shouldn’t and now, look.”
Almira clutched her hands as the feel of Alton’s skin was still on her palm. If she had the strength, she would gallop a horse straight to him.
“He’s dying,” Almira said the words wedged in her throat.
“It’s war,” Sanaa said.
Almira stared at her. How could she convey what she felt, the blinding torment in her heart?
“I love him,” Almira whispered between whimpers.
Sanaa’s shoulders slumped. She closed her eyes tightly and shook her head. “If he’s dying, we should get you to Suid.”
The thought of running the opposite direction while Alton agonized, holding on in torturous pain and hoping she would come; it was unthinkable.
“You know I can’t. I can’t leave him to die with my name on his lips. Don’t ask it of me, please. I couldn’t save Edgar,” Almira cried in despair.
“Cuzo,” Sanaa shook her head, still denying her.
“Please! I couldn’t say goodbye. I need to go to Alton, if only so he doesn’t die alone. You, who have lost as many as I, you should know. We understand one another, we always have,” Almira pleaded.
Slowly, Sanaa’s shoulders relaxed, and despite the rigidity of her jaw, she nodded. “Very well.”
Almira grasped Sanaa’s hands tightly. “Thank you, my friend.”
“Don’t thank me yet, I still have to get you to him,” Sanaa snapped.
Nadim entered with Hira and the rest of the guard who all looked at the room in disbelief. Their noses turned and Keilly gagged. Ley Wallace stumbled in behind them and gripped the door frame. Good, she had a full audience.
“What is that smell?” Keilly grasped the table and heaved.
“Rotting flesh,” Delara said darkly and smelled deeply the air. “Also... a witch.”
“A witch? Here? How?” M stared at Sanaa for explanation.
Sanaa quickly told Nadim the witch and the vision, and the Keeper slowly sat and stared at Almira. His brown eyes were wide in concern, and he pulled his robes tighter around himself. The Pistians knew of such enchantments. That sort of magic was old and rooted in the ancient ways long banned in Istok.
Ley Wallace paled and took a seat as he dabbed his sweaty head. “Gods of the sea.”
“Tell me, Nadim, can such a vision be manufactured?” Almira asked.
The Keeper rubbed his hands over his knees and slowly shook his head. “A powerful witch can manufacture visions, yes. Smell is easy to duplicate.” He looked around the room. “However, it’s impossible to fabricate touch.”
Almira took a sharp breath as Nanai sat next to her. The women clutched each other’s hands.
“Are you certain you touched him?” Nadim asked.
Almira could still feel the cloth of the canvas, the dying men who grabbed her skirts, and Alton’s fingers. They were warm, like she held them many times.
“I am,” Almira said slowly. “How did she manage it?”
The Keeper took a deep breath. “If you felt him... it was not a vision. It was... a transportation. For a moment you were there in that time and place. It’s very old magic. Ancient, dangerous, and forbidden.”
“I was there?” Almira whispered.
Nadim met her eyes and they communicated more than she was ready for. It was real. Alton was dying. In a flash she saw Bach and her mother. She watched both die without being able to save them. She’d been helpless. She was never able to make it to Edgar. Well, this time she was queen. This time she had power. This time she would make it on time.
“Captain Sanaa, ready the horses. My guard comes with me, we ride east to Henders.”
Ley Wallace shook his head. “Majesty, I highly advise against this! Should you be captured on the road–”
“He’s dying. He might already be dead and if that is the case, I’m your sovereign, me alone, no other. I’ll either have to flee or hope Dag is as merciful as I’ve been to his people.” Her voice trembled.
