The Essence (21 page)

I felt myself being dragged beneath the water as I searched for something to reach for. But all I could see were the flowers, too delicate and insubstantial to keep me from going under. I kicked as hard as I could with my other leg, but it was too late. I came up once, gasping for air. Already the water choked me, filling my lungs. And already blood replaced water in the river around me.

My sister’s screams must have alerted the others, the guards who’d been standing watch on the hill above us, making sure the queen’s daughters weren’t disturbed. I saw them advancing even as I was pulled down once more, until water was all that surrounded me, and pain sliced through my leg.

I didn’t remember the jaws releasing me, didn’t remember being dragged to the shore, but I remembered hearing my sister’s voice: “Please, take me. Take me instead. . . .” The words were repeated, whispered against my ear, over and over again as she rocked me, clutching me tightly. “Take me instead. . . .”

She hadn’t understood at the time, but her whispered plea had changed everything.

This time I awoke not startled but spent.

A deep-down kind of fatigue kept me from stirring right away. Kept my gaze unfocused and my breathing shallow.

I hated that I couldn’t find peace from Sabara when I closed my eyes.

I reached for my neck, rubbing the cramp in it, surprised that I’d managed to sleep at all. I wondered when I’d finally yielded, when I’d finally leaned my back against the scraggly dead log and let my eyes drift closed.

And then a thought ripped through me like a shot, scalding every crevice, electrifying every fissure and nook of my awareness.

He’s here
.

Inconspicuously, I searched for him. I didn’t want to be caught if he saw me there, awake. I watched as soldiers and Scablanders worked together to break down camp: rolling blankets and picking horse’s hooves and tightening saddle straps. The smell of wood and burnt meat filled the crisp air and I pulled the scratchy blanket up to my lips, breathing into it to warm my lips.

Nowhere did I see Niko.

Zafir spotted me then and took two giant strides in my direction before he halted, his gaze focused on someone over my shoulder.

I turned and found him there—Niko, his golden eyes staring back at me. He held a mug out to me, steam drifting upward.

“Sleep well, Your Majesty?”

I accepted the ceramic mug and wrapped my cold fingers around its rough surface. “Charlie,” I answered.

He smiled crookedly as he squatted beside me. My stomach dipped, a reaction I immediately regretted. These weren’t my feelings to feel.

“Charlie, then. Sleep well, Charlie?”

I avoided his gaze by sniffing the coffee in my hands. It wasn’t a smell I normally cared for, but this morning my nose tingled from the sharp scent. “I didn’t sleep much, but I’m ready to get going.” My gaze drifted to his shoulder. “Are you . . .
better
today?”

“Glad the arrow’s gone.” He rolled his shoulder, as if proving his point, and I grimaced. “Grateful to your man for fixing me up.”

I hated the way my insides quivered whenever he was near, and the way my outsides felt wound too tightly, like I might snap from all the tension. I hated it more that I wanted to touch him.

That a part of me could imagine what it felt like to have his hands on my hips. His lips on mine.

Searching for an excuse to get away from him, I lurched to my feet. “I—I . . . have to—”

Then I froze. From somewhere deep within, Sabara’s panic unfurled. The same type of panic she’d known as a little girl on the river’s edge: gut-wrenching fear.

He rose too, studying me, his eyes finding me as I battled with myself—with her.

No,
she begged me.
Stay.
And I was suddenly filled with a sensation so close to tenderness it was hard to imagine it was Sabara’s at all.

I can’t,
I argued back. But I did as she asked, unable to leave.

I glanced back up at him, avoiding his honey-colored eyes. “Did—did you come through the Capitol on your way through Ludania? Did you stop at the palace?” I didn’t ask the questions I really wanted to:
How was Max? Does he long for me the way I do for him?

He shook his head. “We stayed on the train line most of the way. It wasn’t until we heard tell of the slaughtered soldiers at one of our stops that we realized there might be trouble. That we realized . . .” His voice trailed off, and he studied me even more closely—too closely—then. His attention was my undoing, and a tremor coursed through my body while Sabara tugged at me, willing me to move closer. “They didn’t hurt you?” he asked, his voice husky and low.

This time I shook my head, slowly. Timidly.

His eyes narrowed, but he nodded and leaned away from me, allowing me to breathe once more.

Allowing me to find my voice again. “Where is the rest of your party? Shouldn’t Queen Vespaire be joining you for the summit?”

“That’s why we’re here. She can’t make it. I’m to deliver the message personally to Queen Neva, sending my queen’s regrets.” Zafir joined us then, and Niko took a step back, smiling wryly. “Mostly,” he said, looking at me, “she’s sorry she won’t get the chance to meet you.”

He nodded at Zafir and left us.

And Sabara, who had been quiet for more than a day before his arrival, raged, her shrieks echoing hollowly inside my head.

PART III

brooklynn

The air on the docks was filled with the smell of fish and body odor and wet dog and dirty snow, none of which Brook cared for. She also didn’t care for the crowds awaiting the incoming ferry or not feeling in control. Mostly, though, she hated being unarmed.

“Stop complaining, Brook. Queen Neva did it for everyone’s good.” Aron reached for her arm, forcing her to halt as an old woman crossed the path in front of them.

Aron nodded at the stooped woman, and she smiled back at him, a wide, toothless grin.

Brook rolled her eyes, ignoring the geriatric flirtation. “How is it in my best interest to be weaponless? I’m completely defenseless. How is
that
in Charlie’s best interest?”

She watched as two stray dogs fought over a scrap of meat on the ground, near a pile of rotting garbage. They were growling at each other, their hackles raised and their teeth bared. If it had been a sword there, lying on the cobbled pavers, rather than a piece of rancid meat, Brooklynn would have joined the fray.

“Defenseless? You?” Aron laughed, drawing the attention of several people around them. “You’re the least defenseless person I know. Besides, you’re forgetting that
everyone
at the summit is unarmed, not just you.
That’s
why it’s in Charlie’s best interest.”

Brook had to bite back her smile. She liked that Aron didn’t consider her helpless.

If only she didn’t
feel
helpless at the moment.

It wasn’t just that they’d had to forfeit their weapons when they’d arrived at Queen Neva’s palace, although that had definitely stung. Brook had complained louder than any of her soldiers, but it hadn’t stopped her from surrendering both firearms and blades from her personal arsenal. Despite her grumblings, though, she understood the need for the security precaution: the fewer weapons available, the less likely someone could be harmed.

Namely, one of the monarchs in attendance.

More specifically, at least as far as Brooklynn was concerned, Charlie.

And after what had happened that first night they’d camped, Brook trusted no one. Not even her own men. It was a sickening feeling, and one she wasn’t accustomed to.

She had handpicked that soldier—Caden Evans—just as she had all of them. She was responsible for every last woman and man in her army. So to find Evans like that, his throat ripped apart, mauled by an attacker out in the rocky hills of the Scablands, made her blood boil.

The trick hadn’t fooled her, of course. She’d seen right through the shoddy attempt to make it look as if an animal had savaged her soldier. She wasn’t stupid.

Unarmed, yes. Stupid, never.

The killer had made a grievous mistake. He—or she—had overlooked the other injury, the stab wound in Caden’s gut. It was sloppy and amateurish, and made Brook realize that whomever she was up against wasn’t as experienced as he or she thought they were.

Yet here they were, two days later and she still didn’t know who that person was.

But she was sure of one thing.

That whoever was responsible for her soldier’s death was here with them, in Caldera.

And Brook had every intention of finding the killer.

xv

When Vannova, Queen Neva’s palace, finally came into view, my breath caught in the back of my throat. Not because Vannova was the storybook palace little girls imagined as they poured tea for their dollies and sang nursery rhymes.

It was the opposite, in fact. Stark and harsh, a daunting fortress of towers and turrets and spires, all dusted in ice and rising above a thick layer of frozen fog that made it appear as if it was the only thing that existed on the entire snowbound isle. As if the palace itself were crafted from the great glacier that rose from the water.

Clearly, we were no longer in the Scablands, no longer in Ludania at all. We hadn’t been since midafternoon, shortly after we’d first boarded the ferry, the massive passenger transport that bridged the arctic waters between the mainland and the glistening, frost-covered island. Yet even before leaving my country, the landscape had begun to change dramatically, becoming more and more wintry. Harsher. And infinitely more treacherous.

Snow had started falling continuously sometime late yesterday, while we’d been riding. It had made the footing perilous in spots, and the sound of horse hooves grating against the icy rocks filled the air. I’d almost been relieved when the frozen waters had finally come into view, when we’d bid Floss and his riders good-bye, offering assurances that they would be rewarded for delivering us safely.

Promises we meant to keep.

But as we rode the ferry, we realized that travel by boat was nearly as dangerous. The nose of the barge carved its way through a thick sheet of ice that crusted the water’s surface. I worried that we’d reach a point where the vessel could become incapacitated in the frozen waters.

“Will you miss them?” I had asked Avonlea when we’d stood at the back of the ship, watching the shoreline disappear.

Avonlea had clutched the ragged wool throw around her thin shoulders. “No.”

I’d tried to imagine what it must be like for her, to live a life without family. “Are you lonely, Avonlea?”

She’d cocked her head, just enough so she could look at me. “How could I be lonely?” she’d asked. “I’m here with you.”

“No . . . that’s . . .” My voice trailed away. How could I explain it to her? How could I make her miss something she’d never had. “I’m glad you agreed to come with me,” I’d said instead.

At that, Avonlea grinned, enthusiasm rippling the skin at the corners of her eyes. “I’m so glad you asked me, Your Majest—Charlie.” She’d corrected herself, remembering my insistence that she call me by my first name.

I thought of the way Floss had reacted to my proposition, like a child who’d just lost his favorite toy. Sadly, I think that’s how he felt about me taking the girl, like I’d stolen some piece of personal property from him.

I was determined to give Avonlea a place in this world, to make her feel wanted. Special.

I’d watched her shiver, with only the blanket to ward away the bitter chill. “Please. Take my cloak.” I reached for the top button, but her hand had stopped me, her fingers firm and cold over my own.

“N-no . . .” Her teeth had chattered. “I won’t take it. And it won’t do any good for you to insist. . . . I won’t take it. It’s one thing to accompany the queen,” she maintained, her hand moving back to draw her blanket tighter again. “It’s another thing to take the coat off your back.”

I shook my head, wishing she’d change her mind, but knowing she wouldn’t.

We’d have to get her something more suitable when we arrived. I told myself. Something warmer . . . and cleaner.

Something new.

Despite my initial misgivings about the beauty of the castle’s structure, I had to admit it was magnificent in its own intimidating way. It looked solid, fortified by iron-spiked gates and tall, invulnerable walls. At the very least, I felt safe at the idea of being there, in relative isolation, for as long as the summit lasted.

Now I shivered, rubbing my elbows beneath my heavy wool cloak.

“I can’t believe we made it,” I breathed, puffs of air punctuating my every word.

“We almost didn’t. At least not today.” Zafir reminded me, and I eyed him suspiciously, wondering how it was that he
never seemed to be cold. He wore the same thin jacket
he always had, his hands clasped behind his back as he stood with me at the railing, watching the palace come into view.

He was right, though. The ferryman hadn’t wanted to make this last run of the day, warning us that a storm was brewing, that it wasn’t safe for anyone to be out tonight.