The Forever War (The Queen Trials Book 4), page 13
“I didn’t feel it was appropriate for any man besides King Ergondy to be sending me tokens like that.”
Blaylock’s muscles stiffen. “This again.”
I don’t want to continue this conversation any further. This man is a liar – I just can’t tell about what. Maybe everything. “General Blaylock, you might be pleased to know that I don’t trust anyone in this situation. Not King Ergondy, not Prince Relicant, not my retinue, and not you.”
I take a couple of steps so that I’m close enough to Snow’s bed to put a hand on top of her coverlet. “The only person I have complete confidence in is this girl right here, which is why I left the dance in order to find her. I was not looking for you, and I don’t care to discuss this with you any further.”
Blaylock’s eyes narrow, but I think what I read in his expression, in addition to annoyance, might possibly be a bit of respect. He bows stiffly, one hand across his waist, and stalks to the exit. Before he opens the door, he turns with a final, parting shot. “Relicant may be in charge of your little expedition, but it’s my war. Sleep well. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
See you tomorrow? Blaylock is going to the front too? That’s the last thing I wanted. I was trying to keep him from dragging Shellor off to war. Now they’ll both be there? And with the feelings I think Shellor has for the general, combined with Shellor’s newfound, glistening-powder-inspired confidence, that’s a recipe for disaster.
And sleep well? What? Is Blaylock going to attempt to invade my dreams tonight too? Not if I have anything to say about it.
I don’t ask anyone’s permission for what I do next. I pull back the covers on Snow’s bed and hold out my hand. “Come on. We’re getting out of here.”
Snow puts her fingers in mine very carefully and moves painfully slowly, as though she’s balancing a priceless and extremely fragile artifact on her head, but she climbs from bed and follows me without question or argument.
Of course I didn’t expect any pushback from Snow. We’ve both saved the other’s lives, more than once. We’d travel to the ends of the Earth for each other, and it wouldn’t matter who led or who followed.
General Blaylock stands at the wall opposite the door to the medical ward, but he only stares stonily ahead, as if he’s looking right through us, when we exit. Snow seems to pick up a little speed as soon as we step across the threshold, so I strike off in the opposite direction of the ballroom. I can’t linger around here. I’m not sure of the exact path to get back to my quarters, but I know it’s better to appear purposeful than to wander around obviously lost.
I can’t allow a Rotunda official to discover us outside of the dance or official princess quarters. Who knows what might happen if we were reported to the wrong person? We’re at risk out in the open like this. Right now, everyone is the enemy.
I take a hallway at random, then another. The corridors grow less busy the farther we get from the ballroom and the medical ward, but it doesn’t take me long to realize that we’ve become hopelessly lost.
A man hurries past in a yellow server’s uniform, keeping his eyes downcast, and I suck in my breath. He’s not my enemy. At least, he wasn’t earlier, when he asked me if I was feeling all right as he set down my dessert.
“Excuse me,” I call after my former servant when he’s only a step or two away.
His pace falters, but he keeps moving forward.
“I’m sorry, I don’t know your name. I’m Princess Clio, you served me at dinner earlier. Can you help me, please?”
Now the man does stop. His shoulders slump forward just a bit, but he turns around. He can’t refuse a direct order from a princess, but I know that he doesn’t want the attention I’m drawing to him. I don’t blame him. I don’t want Rotunda attention, either, but I can’t ever seem to get away from it.
I feel a bit as if I’m peeking past a curtain even though I’m just standing here, lost, with Snow in tow.
The servant acts startled to see me when he raises his subservient gaze and our eyes finally meet, like I was lying to him about who I was. “Yes, my lady?” he asks, a barely controlled quaver in his voice.
“My friend isn’t feeling well,” I say, indicating Snow. I don’t need to implicate this poor man in anything untoward. He doesn’t need to know that I’m running away from the dance and doing my best to hide from anyone and everyone until I leave for the front lines tomorrow. “I’d like to take her back to my quarters so I can keep an eye on her myself, but I’m a bit lost. I’m staying in Queen Vonita’s old quarters. Could you show us the way?”
His wrinkled forehead smooths, and he blurts out a question. “You two. You really are friends? That wasn’t an act?”
I put my arm around Snow. She shrinks away from me just a bit at the pressure of my hand on her waist, which doesn’t help my case at all, but then she seems to relax and mold to my side. I don’t understand why she was so startled by my touch, but I guess anyone would be jumpy after what we’ve been through.
I shake my head. “It wasn’t an act. I love her. She is my sister and I need to take care of her.”
The servant presses his lips together, looks around nervously, then tips his head in the opposite direction to the one I’d been heading. “Follow me. Stay close.”
I memorize the route back to my quarters this time. I’m determined that I’ll never find myself lost in this castle ever again. Strangely, we aren’t trailed by any camera drones. Maybe they have such a low level of interest in anyone dressed in the yellow of the servant class that they mostly ignore that color? Perhaps none of the camera operators noticed that that two princesses were basically sneaking around the castle? It’s a theory, but I know it’s a pretty weak one.
“Vonita’s quarters,” the servant whispers when we arrive at a set of double doors that I recognize. He has an anguished look on his face and sweat beads along his hairline. He glances around the area, no doubt silently confirming for the hundredth time that there aren’t any cameras following us, and I realize something important.
“There may not be cameras out here in the halls, but there will be at least one waiting for me inside my quarters,” I say. “You should go before I open the doors. Thank you for helping us. I know it was a risk.”
The servant’s face clears like the sun peeking out from behind a dense cloud cover. He turns to scurry away, but before he takes a step, he pivots back to face me, and the look on his face is intense. “I didn’t realize soldiers came from localities besides the servant exchange satellites.”
I have literally no idea what that means, and the look of confusion on my face must be apparent because the servant continues in a rapid whisper, and I try to make sense of everything he says as his words barrel at me. “They require us to be less than three feet tall when they accept us from the localities in an exchange transfer. I know they don’t think I can remember. But I was small for my age. I remember everything. My mother wouldn’t have had to give me away if my father hadn’t died in the war. She had to in order to settle his debt of service.”
My blood runs cold as I process exactly what that all means. Children. They take children from some of the localities to function as their serving class. They’re used as payment for supposed debts. This isn’t something we do in Fourteen. We’re all crushed by the Rotunda, but this is the first time that I realized they use different techniques in different localities, some of which may be even worse than my own. Maybe, wherever this servant is from, they already have enough water, and they have to find other, even crueler ways to control the populace.
“Where are you from?” I whisper back.
“Eight,” he says, but he holds his hand up. “I can’t say any more. I’ve been gone too long already and…” He trails off, like he doesn’t want to finish that thought. He glances around again, I assume confirming there are still no cameras patrolling the hall or monitoring our conversation. “I just wanted you to know…” He glances around again. “I hope your wish comes true. Are you honestly going to try? Do you truly mean it?”
If I’d had any doubt, if there’d been any wavering in my commitment to this path that I chose when I wrote my wish with my fingertip on my bonded page, that doubt has vanished completely.
“I didn’t come here to marry the king,” I say, my voice like steel. “I came here to change the world.” I may not have known that, back in Fourteen, when all I could think about was getting out before my brother and I were punished for what I’d done to a derigueur in the mines. But as the words exit my lips, I know that nothing I’ve ever said in my life has rung truer.
“I believe you.”
With that, the slender man dressed in his head-to-toe yellow serving garb whirls and sprints away.
CHAPTER 14
I open the right side of the double doors that lead into my quarters, the ones that I inherited from Queen Vonita, the final woman to die from King Ergondy’s last set of six wives.
I don’t want to push Snow into the room ahead of me just in case trouble awaits us over the threshold, but I also don’t want to leave her in the hall for even the barest moment, so I squeeze her hand and I angle my body so we can both step through the doorway at the same time.
When there’s no immediate assassination attempt, I throw the door shut behind us. A camera drone, which had been sitting benignly on a side table next to one of the many couches that decorate the room, lifts into the air and hovers over to us. If it were a W.R.E.N. unit, it would be asking us why we’re here and how we feel about it, but it’s not. These camera drones aren’t designed for two-way communication and I’m as sure as I can be that they don’t have artificial intelligence. There’s a camera operator on the other end… I think. Now that I consider that question, I don’t know that anyone ever told me that. I might have just assumed it. Could these drones simply be attracted to movement, or perhaps be coded to recognize us and focus their filming on us whenever we’re around? Someone is watching the footage, I’m certain of that. But are they always doing it in real time? Maybe. But maybe not.
I go ahead and perform for the camera, though. Someone important is either watching this right now or will see it before too long. “Oh, Snow. I know you hoped to go back to the dance, but King Ergondy is gone. The night is over, as far as princesses are concerned. It’s not like we care to dance with any other men, and we have so much to do tomorrow.”
I don’t say anything about basically smuggling her out of the medical ward. No one tried to stop us. Is it my fault that I didn’t see fit to tell anyone what I was doing?
Nobody needs to know that Snow is basically catatonic. She’s still moving around like a zombie. I don’t want anyone trying to step in and say that she can’t go with me tomorrow. I’ll talk enough for both of us and maybe no one will realize that there’s anything wrong with her.
But there is something wrong with her, and I’m growing more and more worried by the second. She doesn’t seem to want to be touched, yet I’m not comfortable letting her go. I have this crazy idea that if I’m not holding her hand, she might float away. I know it’s ridiculous, but my uneasiness is visceral.
“So even though you’re sad about missing the rest of the dance, and I understand that you might not want to talk to me for a little while, I was trying to do what’s best for you. Now, I think the wisest thing for us to do is get some sleep. We have a big day tomorrow. I’m not going to force you to respond to me, but I am going to help you get ready for bed.”
I look around the room. “Hmm. I wonder where my retinue is.”
I always assumed they just hung around here and waited for me when I didn’t need them, but they’re nowhere to be seen.
I pull on Snow’s hand and lead her toward my bedchamber. “You’ll sleep in my room with me.”
Since no one from my retinue is here to give the command, when we reach my bedroom and I close the door behind us, I turn and look at the camera drone severely, then I do my best to mimic the order I’ve heard given before. “Camera drone, per regulation… something or other… you must power down while Snow and I change and prepare for bed.”
Apparently, that’s good enough, because the drone lands and its blue recording light dims, then fades completely away.
As soon as I’m sure the drone is powered down, I take Snow by the shoulders and stare directly into her eyes. “Snow, talk to me. What is going on with you?”
She blinks several times – rapidly – and shivers. “I’m okay. They’re helping me recover my strength.”
I look all around the room. We’re the only ones here.
“‘They’? Who are ‘they’?”
Snow’s eyes seem to clear; it’s almost like I can see an opaque film peel back from her irises. No… not almost like. I swear, that’s exactly what happens.
She blinks again, but this time, her eyes are clearly in focus. “Clio,” she says, as if she’s just now seeing me for the first time. “Where are we? Are these your quarters?”
I feel my eyes widen. “Yes, we walked here together from the medical wing off of the ballroom. Snow, do you remember anything from the last hour or so?”
She shivers again, but it doesn’t take her long to respond. “The last thing I can remember is dancing with King Ergondy.”
“You kind of passed out, but without the fainting part, in the middle of dancing with him. Draken took you away. Snow, I’ve been so worried about you… I’ve been going crazy this past week, not knowing how you were doing. I knew you were alive, but only because of Cartong’s nightly fadeouts.”
I grind my teeth, thinking of how the Rotunda announces the deaths of its princesses. They make a sort of game of it, to play with their viewers, broadcasting pictures of the princesses and letting them fade out one by one, until the only pictures that remain are those of princesses who have died since the last broadcast. We lost three more over this week of inactivity. Two from the Wishing Round, who succumbed to whatever atrocities befell them in the grid, plus one woman who hadn’t changed the color of her bonded page and therefore hadn’t been allowed to participate. I assumed perhaps another princess had killed her, but after what happened to Feckla tonight, now I’m not so sure.
“Glory wouldn’t tell me anything, of course,” I continue. “She barely talked to me at all. She’s furious about my wish. All I did was learn to crochet and take a bunch of extra dance lessons.”
“Minerva wouldn’t tell me anything about you, either. I guess the Rotunda gave some pretty specific threats against giving out too much information, but she wouldn’t say what those threats were.”
Snow has always known more than me since the Queen Trials began. Minerva talks to her in a way that Glory strenuously avoids with me.
“It must have been extreme, to keep Minerva quiet.”
Snow nods, a faint smile lifting her lips for the briefest moment.
“Snow…” I speak carefully. “When we first entered this bedchamber and the camera shut down, you said ‘they’ were helping you. Who were you talking about? Minerva? Your retinue?”
She shakes her head, disengages from me, and walks a few steps away. She holds her arms out to me, wrists up, as if in supplication. “No. I don’t mean Minerva or my retinue. You really can’t see them? Honestly?”
Oh, Hades. Has the Rotunda broken her? Is she seeing people or things that aren’t there? Her eyes go a little unfocused, and I’m afraid I’m about to lose her to catatonia again, but apparently, she’s just wrapped in a memory.
“Ever since the caverns in the Wishing Round, things have been… different. For me.” Snow takes such long pauses between her words that I’m not one hundred percent certain she’s done speaking until she looks up at me, her eyes wet with unshed tears. But she doesn’t seem sad. Quiet and restrained, yes, but not unhappy. I’m not sure what those tears signify. “You heard my wish, at the dinner.”
Her tone makes it a statement, not a question, but I nod anyway. “You told me your wish was stupid, back in the grid. But you were wrong. It wasn’t a stupid wish. I can understand why you wouldn’t want to ever go back to Fourteen.”
Snow shrugs a little, then sits on the edge of the bed. “I didn’t think my wish was dumb when I wrote it, but after I talked to the trees…”
I feel my cheeks flush. “A tree punched you in the face. It broke off your four front teeth and gave you two black eyes.”
“That was a deciduous tree. They’re mean.” She pats the side of the bed next to her, indicating I should sit down. And maybe calm down a bit too. I know she’s right about deciduous trees. Or at least some of them. Apple trees have leaves that change colors and drop, but they seem to be friendly – at least they are with Wendla and Relicant. But then again, I’ve only ever seen that in dreams, so maybe I just made all of that up in my own head.
Snow looks down at her lap as she continues. “The conifers left me alone. I think – because I was so injured – they didn’t see me as a threat.” She swallows, then lifts her head and shifts so that she’s looking me right in the eye. “When I got to the alders, though, well, I don’t know how to say it, but they were… they were my family.”
I close my eyes, remembering my own time with the alders, and how one saved my life, helping me across the river and then using its branches to allow me to pull myself from the rushing rapids when I fell in. “Fourteen is family,” I whisper, then I open my eyes.
Snow’s eyes are huge. “They talked to you too?”
I look at my hands, for once not balled into fists, resting on top of each other in my lap. They knew my mother. Now my eyes fill with tears too, but like Snow, it’s not sadness I’m feeling. It’s gratefulness. I nod silently.
Snow’s voice is choked, as if she’s holding back a sob. “Back in Fourteen, I had no people. My earliest memory is of sleeping outside – and being cold. Can you imagine? Feeling cold in Fourteen? But it happened sometimes, when you were outdoors with nothing but the clothes on your back.” She puckers one side of her mouth and a wrinkle appears on her forehead. She no longer sounds like she’s about to cry; instead, her voice is questioning. “I wonder how I even had clothes? I probably stole them.”
