Read Winter Queen Page 67


  Jezzel stepped up beside Nelay. “He’s alive. Can we go look for our friends now?”

  “Not yet.” Nelay followed him and watched as he paused in front of the hastily built gate. This close, she could see the gaps between the boards. She crouched before a chunk of broken gate, stunned at the carnage. Four feet of solid wood reinforced with sheets of metal had been broken to bits as small as her fingers. “How did they do this?”

  Zatal bent down, sorting through pieces. He tossed one her way. “See for yourself.”

  Nelay nearly dropped it. It was cold, so cold it burned her skin. She stepped in closer and felt cold radiating from the remnants of the door. She caught sight of a dead man half-buried in debris. His body was blue and ringed with what looked like jagged fur.

  “Fire and ashes,” Jezzel breathed. “What is that?”

  “I’m told it’s called hoarfrost,” Zatal said.

  Jezzel asked, “Is it a weapon?”

  The king rubbed his bald head. “They pour a liquid on the gates. It looks like water, but it freezes so hard the Clansmen can shatter a gate with one swing of their battering rams.”

  Nelay looked up only to find Nos beating the air before her. “They did this,” the fairy said. “Ilyenna’s fairies.”

  “You’re lying,” Nelay retorted.

  “You dare accuse me of lying,” Zatal barked.

  Jezzel stepped up beside Nelay. “She’s not talking to you. She’s talking to a fairy.”

  Nelay felt a rush of affection for her friend. Both of them knew not to attract the attention of fairies, but Jezzel wasn’t letting Nelay face this alone.

  The fairy looked at Jezzel, who expertly kept her emotions hidden from the creature.

  “You will see, Nelay,” Nos said dryly. “I have forever to wait. You have until your city falls.” She beat her wings hard and was gone from sight in an instant.

  “What did the creature say?” Zatal asked.

  Jezzel rested her hand on Nelay’s arm. “You know you can’t trust them. They’re just trying to manipulate you for their own purposes.”

  “But what if we’re wrong?”

  Jezzel tightened her grip. “We’re not.”

  Nelay turned to face Zatal. “What has Suka told you?”

  He kicked at some of the broken gate. “The high priestess believes the Clansmen are using the Goddess of Winter’s powers.”

  Nelay was incredulous. “And you believe her.”

  “You don’t?” Zatal said. “You’re the priestess.”

  “Not anymore.”

  Zatal gestured to the gate. “At each of our cities it has been the same. The gates explode and the Clansmen come pouring in, and my Immortals and soldiers die holding them back. Every few days this happens, until I don’t have the soldiers to hold the gates. Then we are forced to abandon the city.”

  His shoulders hunched. “I have commanded armies since I was thirteen years old. Whatever is driving these Clansmen, it isn’t natural.”

  “What else did Suka tell you?” Nelay said quietly.

  He looked at her then, his gaze sad, and Nelay realized he knew everything. “More I will not say. Not out in the open like this.”

  Jezzel came level with Nelay and remarked under her breath, “But after Thanjavar, we don’t have anywhere else to retreat.”

  Another sliver of doubt pierced Nelay’s resolve. But even if the high priestess was right and Ilyenna was aiding the Clansmen, turning to the fairies would only make things worse. Nelay knew that for certain.

  Zatal grunted and rose to his feet, but he swayed, his face suddenly ashen. Nelay saw blood seeping around his scale armor. “What—”

  He turned away. “Leave it.”

  She hurried to his side. “You need a healer.”

  “I’ve already had one.” He moved away from her to speak with one of his generals. The two conversed briefly before the man took off at a jog.

  “Why is the Goddess of Fire allowing this to happen?” Jezzel asked, her voice sounding small.

  Nelay had a sudden urge to break a few of the glass idols in the temple herself. “I don’t know.”

  Though Zatal was surrounded by Immortal commanders, Nelay realized he wasn’t moving with his usual purposefulness as he started toward the stairs. He was hunched over, his back curving around pain. Nelay followed him, a terrible knowing growing within her. He stood looking out over their enemy. Just as she reached his side, the man gate opened and a boy slipped through carrying a pristine white flag edged in gold. Across the no man’s land between the city walls and the enemy army, the boy strode across the field of dead and paused. Nelay’s gaze swept over the massive armies of the Clansmen.

  Her heart sank, pulling her hopes down with it. There was no escape for her, no way to reach Rycus. Would she ever see him again? Ever feel his touch, listen to his stories? Ever enjoy the peace of his arms?

  “How bad is your wound?” Nelay asked Zatal.

  His gaze flicked to the growing bloodstain before he stiffened and pointed across the field. “They’re coming.”

  Another white-flag-bearing man separated himself from the Clansmen armies, the flag snapping smartly in the wind. The air tasted of baked sand, for the ovat would be upon them soon. Nelay wondered how it could possibly be after midday when she had left the palace shortly after sunrise.

  The boy and the Clansman conversed, and the Clansman headed back to his lines. The boy ran back toward the city.

  “What are you doing, Zatal?” Nelay asked.

  “Requesting a parlay.”

  Nelay’s mouth parted in shock. “Why? You can’t mean to surrender.”

  The king rested his hands atop the wall, his head bowed. “We lost upwards of ten thousand men today, and the Clansmen already outnumbered us five to one.”

  “But we have the city wall. We—”

  “They breached our wall in one day, Nelay. One day.” His gaze met hers and she saw the hopelessness sitting like a stone in his eyes.

  A man jogged up the stairs. “They’ve agreed to meet,” he said breathlessly.

  Zatal straightened his shoulders. “Then we go.” He turned away from Nelay without another word.

  She exchanged a glance with Jezzel before running after him. “You mean to go yourself.”

  “The Clansmen are honorable fighters. I’ll be fine.”

  “If they’re so honorable, I’ll go with you.”

  He frowned at her before his gaze fell to her guards trailing beside her. “If the queen crosses the wall, I’ll crucify all three of you.”

  Nelay felt them take a step closer to her, but his words had stopped her as surely as if he’d bound her. She wouldn’t forfeit any of their lives, especially not Jezzel’s.

  “I think he means it,” Jezzel said.

  Nelay didn’t bother responding. Zatal donned his king’s robe, and the phoenix mantle was settled over his chest. She considered telling him to be careful, but with no love between them, such sentiment would be false.

  He barked a command and ten Immortals surrounded him. Nelay leaned over the wall, watching as they emerged, one by one from the man door, the king last of all. He strode across the field of dead, diverting his path only to circumvent a cluster of bodies. A similar-sized contingent of Clansmen strode out to meet them, their tunics in ten different colors.

  Nelay watched as they spoke, desperately wishing she could hear what they said. The ovat began as a low wail, whipping the flag to stand at attention. The Idarans reached for their veils and covered their faces, their headscarves already providing some protection. The Clansmen had no such covering. They tipped their heads and turned their backs to the wind.

  Nelay imagined how they would breathe in the sand and cough. How gritty their hair would feel, left in the open like that. How the sand would coat their skin and sift down their strange boots that gaped at the top instead of being tied closed.

  “They don’t belong here,” she ground out.

  “No,” Jezze
l agreed.

  Finally, the two groups turned away from each other, and Nelay rushed down the steps two at a time. Zatal was the first one through the man door. He glanced at Nelay before speaking to his generals. “I have given the Clansmen permission to collect their dead. We will not fire upon them as they do so.”

  He called for his horse. Nelay asked Jezzel with a meaningful shift of her eyes to fetch their horses. With an exasperated sigh, she moved to obey.

  Nelay stepped closer to the king. “Why did you go out there?”

  Ignoring her, Zatal mounted the horse, his gritted jaw the only sign of his pain. Jez brought the horses, and Nelay swung up beside the king, a well of dread spilling over inside her. “You didn’t surrender, but you offered them something.”

  He turned weary eyes to her. “You’re a clever woman—I don’t think I like that about you.”

  Affronted, she straightened.

  He gave a low laugh and said under his breath, “I wanted to know their terms of surrender.”

  Nelay gasped. “You can’t. We can brick off the gates. The walls will hold. The men—”

  “The walls will not hold.” Zatal said. “They will fall and the Clansmen will raid our city, and we will be completely at their mercy.”

  Nelay swallowed her retort. “What did you offer them?”

  “Peaceful surrender. They choose their own king. The people stay free.”

  Zatal had offered to step down? That didn’t seem like him. “And they refused?”

  “They want to make slaves of us all. Send us to the lands we occupied as servants to repay the wrongs we committed. Yet they take no responsibility for doing the same to us.” His gaze was haunted. “Curse them and their cursed reparation.” He laughed bitterly. “But after five years, they said we could be free.”

  Nelay grabbed his arm. “You didn’t agree!”

  “No.” His gaze was distant, as if he was looking at something she couldn’t see. “Idara is breaking, crumbling like a palace of sand. I cannot hold it together—not against a goddess-driven army. But I will make them pay for trying to take us.”

  He spurred his horse forward, the animal’s hooves ringing against the flagstones.

  With Jezzel beside her, Nelay passed through the palace gates at the height of the ovat, sweat pouring from her body. Her black horse was covered in dirty foam. She dropped to the ground just behind Zatal, who strode toward the palace almost frantically. Nelay cast a worried look back at Jezzel before rushing after him.

  The guards swung open the heavy doors just enough to let them pass, then pushed them shut again. The cool air of the palace cleared Nelay’s muggy thoughts. She caught sight of Zatal hurrying past the throne and ran after him. He stepped into a side room she’d never been inside of before. She kept the door open with a slap of her palm and slipped through.

  Standing in what appeared to be a council room, Zatal wavered before her—all his hurry collapsing. Sweat dripped from his fingertips.

  “Zatal?” Nelay gasped.

  “I tried to trade myself to save my city. I’d hoped their hatred toward me would be enough. It was the one thing I had left to give.”

  She took a step toward him. “It’s not just you they hate—they despise all of us.”

  He turned his head to the side. Nelay stopped, for his dusky skin looked like old ashes, cut by lines of running sweat. “What’s wrong with you?” she blurted.

  He shuddered, bracing himself over the table. Nelay took a step closer and became aware of a putrid smell. Unconsciously, she lifted her hand to cover her nose as he turned to meet her gaze.

  “I had to get away before my soldiers saw—before the people saw.” He was panting now. “I was so strong. My army, our weapons, our tactics, my rule—all were stronger than any other. But I was wrong.” His haunted gaze met hers. “I meant what I told you the day we met. A good leader is both strong and selfless. You’ll have to learn that fast if you’re to be a better queen than I was a king.”

  She took a step toward him even as his legs folded beneath him. “Guards!” she cried. She wasn’t fast enough to catch him. She knelt beside him as the door shoved open and their personal guards flooded the room.

  “Nelay?” Jezzel sounded frantic.

  “Get the king’s healer. Now!” A guard ran to do as she’d commanded. Nelay didn’t know how to comfort this stranger. She rested her palm awkwardly on his shoulder. “It’s going to be all right.”

  “No,” Zatal said, his voice resigned. “The axe pierced my bowels. I will have an ignoble death.”

  That explained the smell. “You knew,” Nelay said in a whisper. “And still you went out to meet them.”

  He grunted, his lips white. “It would have been a good trade. They didn’t need to know they’d be killing a dying king.”

  Speechless, Nelay stared at Zatal, knowing he was not the monster she’d thought he was.

  The healer came running, her brown robes flaring around her. Her assistants were a step behind, and then there was no more room for Nelay. She stumbled back, her knees aching and numb; she must have dropped harder to the ground than she’d thought. Jezzel was suddenly beside her. Nelay had forgotten she was there at all.

  The king was carried from the room. In a daze, Nelay realized she should follow, but she didn’t want to—didn’t want to watch the man die whom she’d come to grudgingly respect. But Jezzel gave her a little push and her legs seemed to move of their own accord, sending her following after the frantic entourage of a dying king.

  In the sickroom, there was a flurry of motion. The healer and her helpers forced foul-smelling liquids down the king’s throat, even though he commanded them to let him be. Then there was the sweet aroma of opium smoke, and the king stopped commanding anything.

  When they cut into him, Nelay looked away from the flowing blood. Her gorge rose in her throat. The room felt tight and hot, the scent of blood combining with that of the offal. She shoved open the door and spilled into the hall, where she braced her hands on her knees and panted, trying not to pass out.

  “Nelay?” Jezzel had followed her.

  “I don’t belong here. I barely even know the man. They’re butchering his body in hopes of saving him. And it won’t—no one survives a bowel wound.”

  “Does his mistress know?”

  Nelay groaned and pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes. “If she knew, she would be here. What’s her name, anyway?”

  “Ziyid.”

  Nelay took a deep breath and met her friend’s gaze. “Will you tell her?”

  Jezzel nodded and swept past Nelay, who slumped on the floor, imagining how she would feel if it was Rycus in there. A while later, the healer came through the door, wiping blood from her hands onto a rag made from the same brown cloth as her robes. She bowed. “Queen of Queens, we have stitched his bowels together and closed the wound.”

  “Why?” Nelay asked. “Why not just let him die?”

  “Because he is the king,” the woman said simply.

  Nelay pushed past her into the room. Zatal seemed groggy from the smoke, but his gaze sharpened when he saw her. “Did you know?”

  She froze at the accusation in his voice. “Know what?”

  He watched her with sharp intelligence before settling back. “No. I don’t suppose you did.” He reached for a cup of water and took a small sip. “There are others better suited to take my place. But I have seen things—things that cannot be explained any other way but by the Goddess of Winter’s interference. And Suka swore you were the only one who could stop her, that making you my queen was the only way to save Idara.” The king let out a long breath. “So I won’t sign an edict naming someone else to rule in your place, on one condition. Ziyid and my children. You must swear to me that from this day forth she is your sister, my children your niece and nephew.”

  “You forget,” Nelay said softly, “I don’t want to be queen. I never did.”

  “What you want doesn’t matter to me.”
r />   She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Ziyid was your wife. I was your queen. I don’t envy her role, and I doubt she envies mine.”

  “Swear it!” Zatal roared.

  Nelay jumped. “I swear!”

  He sank back down in the bed, and for a moment seemed unable to speak. “I’ve already called for Nashur. He’s the high commander, the best there is. Where he leads, the others will follow. Trust in him.”

  Each of the king’s words fell like a heavy stone on her shoulders. “I don’t know how to fight a war,” she said.

  He grunted. “But you do know how to fight an opponent. Moves and countermoves. This is just a bigger scale.”

  She met the king’s gaze and saw sympathy there. “You’re not what I thought you were,” she said.

  “I was, once. And worse.”

  She didn’t have the strength to argue.

  Zatal chuckled to himself. “When I saw you in the temple, trying to seduce me, I knew you would do whatever it took to save those you love.” His eyes seemed to bore into her soul. “The question is, do you love Idara and her people enough to make those same kind of sacrifices?”

  Nelay thought about it. “Suka’s information is from the fairies—you can’t trust them, and therefore, you can’t trust her,” she finally said. “They don’t care about us.”

  “But do you trust yourself?”

  Her head came up. “This isn’t about me.”

  The king’s expression said he didn’t believe her. “You have to trust yourself—that you can hold on to love. That when the time comes, you won’t lose yourself to apathy. That you will remember who you are and where you came from.”

  She looked away. “And if you’re wrong? If I can’t save anyone, or if this is all a trick and the Clansmen breach our walls?”

  “I would rather have our people live on as legends than as slaves.”

  Nelay sighed. The physician held a pipe to the king’s lips and he inhaled deeply, holding the smoke in his lungs before letting it go slowly.

  Behind them, the door flew open. There stood Zatal’s mistress, her eyes frantic and watery. The guards grabbed her arms, restraining her, then looked at Nelay as if awaiting her instructions. She wasn’t sure why at first, but then it dawned on her. They had heard Zatal’s words, and their allegiance had already shifted from the dying king to her.