Treacherous Witch

—and crashes into the gravel.

Every breath is a battle, choked up by smoke and pain. She drags herself up. If she can only get out, past the burning tree, past the corpses strewn across the courtyard, then she can fix the wound.

The blade pierces her back like ice. She can’t. She can’t get up. Nostrils full of blood. Her body knows before her mind accepts the truth—

*

She didn’t meet Markus immediately. Lord Avon departed, leaving Valerie alone in the dark, hungry, thirsty and bone-tired. She smelled cooking spices and roasting meat in the kitchens above, which only made her stomach rumble more.

Eventually, someone did remember her: a guard came down with a kitchen maid, who handed her a cup of water and crust of buttered bread.

Valerie scoffed it down, then told them bluntly that she needed to relieve herself. The kitchen maid fetched a chamber pot. She squatted over it, the guard’s cold eyes on her the entire time, and allowed herself to feel the tiniest scrap of satisfaction that he had to deal with cleaning this up.

As the guard locked the cage door, as the maid retreated with the chamber pot, neither of them spoke to her. She sensed that same terror as when she’d woken up, as though she were a ghoul come back to life. Something to be feared or shunned.

She’d take fear, for now. It was the only thing keeping her alive.

Valerie sat down on the straw-strewn stone, hugging her knees. She was going to see Markus. Her fellow rebel, friend from the north, and ex-lover. How miserable he must be, caught by the Empire with no hope of escape.

Could she do anything to help him? To set him free?

Only if Avon believed that she was Valerie and not the queen. She had to convince him of that first. Markus would back her up.

After that… With the prince dead and the resistance crushed, she had no easy way out. Should she have trusted in Shikra’s grand plan? The queen had shown her a way out of this place, a way to restore everything they had lost. The silvertrees, the war, the throne, even her family. With the power of the goldentree, they could rewind the clock and make things right.

So the queen had promised.

But Valerie had refused. She couldn’t blindly put her faith in the queen with no understanding of what she might be walking into.

I’ll save Maskamere myself.

But how?

Lost in her reverie, Valerie blinked when light spilled down into the cellar again. Captain Doryn descended the steps towards her. He was Avon’s loyal captain of the guard, another man who owed her his life. His craggy face betrayed not a flicker; he was the picture of stoicism.

“Doryn,” she said, scrambling up. “Hey.”

He was carrying a bundle of grey material over one arm. He unlocked the cage, then thrust the bundle at her.

“Put this on.”

He turned his back on her, stiff and formal. Valerie unfolded the grey bundle. It was a plain linen dress, more of a smock really—the same uniform that all the maid servants in the palace wore, minus the apron, and a pair of matching plimsolls. Of course they wouldn’t give back her own clothes. This would have been taken from a maid’s wardrobe.

She changed. Anything was better than wearing a sack.

When she’d finished, Doryn cuffed her hands and marched her up through the servants’ quarters. The place was dark and virtually deserted.

“Where is everyone?”

He didn’t answer. They exited via the servants’ entrance, where Valerie shivered as a cold wind buffeted her. The sun had set, and clouds obscured the moon. In the dark courtyard, a carriage awaited them, the black-liveried guards blending into the background. The horses stamped their hooves, restless.

Guards ushered her into the carriage, which was small enough that her knees knocked against Doryn’s. Still he said not a word.

The horses kicked forward, Valerie bumping against Doryn’s leg. She settled her cuffed hands on her lap.

“Do you really have nothing to say?”

He’d shifted so they weren’t touching, staring out of the window.

“Doryn? Does everyone know? I mean, that I died and came back?”

His eyes narrowed. All that armour couldn’t be comfortable. The imperial guards wore helmets and body armour. Some carried muskets, others more traditional blades. Doryn’s hand stayed on the hilt of his sword.

“The Chancellor has ordered that you be kept out of sight,” he answered.

“I’m not a ghost,” she said. “I’m here, Doryn. Why won’t you look at me?”

He still wouldn’t meet her eyes.

“You don’t trust me.” She kept her tone gentle, nonthreatening. “I get it, I wouldn’t either. You don’t even know if it’s really me. But for what it’s worth, if you’re wondering about what happened in the temple… Why I saved you… It’s because you were kind to me. We’re both outsiders. Both living at the Empire’s mercy. And you don’t deserve to die for them.”

She watched him carefully as she spoke. His knuckles dug into his palms, his mouth a grim line. But then he turned his head, finally meeting her gaze, and his eyes flickered with some emotion she couldn’t quite interpret.

“I mourned you.” His voice was matter-of-fact. “It’s a strange feeling to be in the midst of grief and guilt and to have it all swept away.”

She said nothing. Getting him to admit any emotion at all was difficult enough.

The silence lingered.

Then Doryn sighed, shaking his head. “If it is you, my lady, know that I risk my life to prove your innocence. I do not consider my debt repaid.”

She was quiet for a moment. “Thank you for telling me.”

After that, the silence in the carriage didn’t seem quite so tense. They stopped at a place that Valerie unfortunately knew well: the fortress that stood guard over Jairah, the capital of Maskamere. Overlooking the coastline, it was intended to be the last line of defence outside the city. Today, it was occupied by Drakonian soldiers and used as a barracks.

She had been here twice before. The first time had been after their attempted assassination of the Chancellor, Lord Avon. She and Markus had been caught and thrown in the dungeon. The second time had followed a second attempt on the Chancellor’s life. She and another rebel, Iora, had attempted to poison him.

Both times she had escaped with her life because Avon needed her magic. That was no longer the case. If the queen lurked in the temple chamber, he wouldn’t want to face her again. Her utility to him was rapidly fading.

Outside in the chilly air, she contemplated fleeing. She could probably distract Doryn and run. But what use would that be? She’d be hunted down.

No, it was better to co-operate. The sooner Avon believed her, the sooner she could win back her freedom.

When Doryn and his guards took her down the steps into the dungeon, Valerie began to shiver. The place stank of sweat and fear, the light from the fire braziers only making the shadows seem blacker. She had been tortured here, dunked into a water trough until she gasped for mercy.

Hollow-eyed men stared at her from behind the bars. Prisoners of the Empire.

Rebels, she thought. Survivors from Prince Bakra’s ill-fated resistance.

“Valerie?”

She flinched, glancing sideways before looking away. The voice was scratchier than Markus. And the face looked familiar, one of the Sun family, but she didn’t remember his name. Her stomach churned.

Doryn hurried her on.

There was nothing she could do for these men. They were here for Markus.

Finally, they descended into the deepest part of the dungeon. Her heart jumped. There, behind the bars, Markus was slumped on the ground, a chain around his ankle. Dirt smudged his face, but he didn’t appear to be injured.

Doryn stopped a few feet away and nodded at her.

Valerie glanced at him. “Will you believe him if he says it’s me?”

Doryn didn’t reply. He simply watched, hand resting on the hilt of his sword. A horrible suspicion stole over her, that Avon hadn’t sent her to speak with Markus, that in fact it had all been a ploy to get her into the dungeon where they could lock her up indefinitely…

“Val?”

Markus got to his feet, his eyes wide. No choice, she thought. She had to play the hand she’d been dealt.

Valerie rushed to the cell. “Markus! Are you okay? Are you hurt?”

His gaze swept over her, frowning at her attire. “I’m fine, but…”

“Me too.” She smiled. “Look at us. Back in the dungeon. People will start to think we’re making a habit of it.”

“What’s going on?” He indicated Doryn. She couldn’t blame him for being suspicious.

“I asked to see you.” She reached out through the bars, and to her relief he took her hands. “Listen, I can get you out of here. But I need your help first.”

He stared at her. “We had a chance to kill him, Val. We had a chance, and you didn’t take it.”

Her stomach clenched. He hadn’t forgotten what she’d done in the temple, then. And he wouldn’t understand the truth, so…

“I needed him to get the crown jewels. So I could open the chamber and find out what was in there.” She lowered her voice to a whisper, conscious of Doryn nearby. “And I did—what I found in there... it changes everything.”

That it does.

Her throat closed up. She froze, pinned by fear.

And as easily as slipping a loose tunic over her head, Shikra took over.

She felt the queen’s will take control of her hands, clasped around Markus’s. Her stance, shifting ever so slightly towards him. And her mouth—

“I found the queen,” Shikra whispered. “She isn’t dead, Markus. She’s alive. We can bring her back.”

“The queen?”

Shock flared in Markus’s eyes, but also hope. He wanted to believe her.

“Listen,” said Shikra, a note of urgency entering her voice. “Do you trust me?”

Markus nodded.

Valerie’s mind whirled in a storm of panic that her body failed to express. Had the queen been here all along? Watching, waiting, deciding when to make her move—

Doryn is right behind us, she sent furiously, aiming the thought at the other mind occupying her body. Shikra hadn’t looked back once; she had the vague sensation of the captain’s gaze on the pair of them, but she couldn’t see what he was doing.

Watch and learn.

“Okay,” said Shikra. “I can save you, but you have to do exactly as I tell you. Do you promise?”

What are you going to do with him? Stop it!

Markus, the poor, love struck idiot, she knew what he was going to say before he said it.

He nodded, breathless. “I promise.”

The next words that came out of her mouth were so soft and so sad, they left a crushing weight on Valerie’s heart:

“Then die.”