The Orphan Queen (26 page)

As far as I could see, there was nothing but long-legged bugs covering the ground. They half buried the houses and stores, all the remnants of this town. The lake, too, was spotted with patches of bugs floating on the surface, obscuring the reflection of morning sunlight.

Morning
sunlight. It had been afternoon when the swarm descended, but now it was morning. How long had I been unconscious? Where was my horse?

My breath grew short as I scrambled to my feet, shaking grasshoppers from my clothes and hair. Something scraped
my throat when I inhaled—and my stomach flipped. I gagged and spat grasshopper legs until there was nothing left and my mouth was raw.

“What did I do?” The words tasted sour. This was wrong. All wrong.

Adrenaline buzzed through my limbs as I dropped back to my knees, bugs crunching beneath me. Ferguson was missing, and at least one night had gone by.

I'd done this. I'd shouted for the air to save me, and it had, but now there was nothing to touch, nothing to put back to sleep. The wind had done as I'd bidden, and now it was gone, leaving behind thousands of dead locusts.

And me. Alone.

“Oh, saints.” I'd never prayed much before, but this seemed like a good time to start, with the mountains standing in the distance, so far away now that I'd lost my horse.

Strange, though. The mountains were sharply defined with sunrise and shadows in the contours; yesterday they'd been obscured by the wraith. The sky, too, was bright and empty, and a lovely shade of blue. The haze was gone.

The
wraith
was gone.

The whole village was like the reflection of Mirror Lake: as normal as the Indigo Kingdom.

Frantically, I dug through the grasshoppers at my feet, finding my notebook and other things I'd been carrying. With everything tucked into pockets or my belt, I waded through the drifts until I found the house where the people had been trapped. The door was blocked, but the windows were still uncovered. I peered inside.

Everyone lay dead on the floor.

Released from their prison, they'd dropped into broken heaps; if they hadn't truly been dead before, they were now. Even the woman who'd blinked at me—maybe—had that stillness of lifelessness.

I wanted to be sick again, but there was nothing left in me.

It was time to go. The information I'd already gathered would have to be enough. With a horse, the trek had taken six days. Without, it would take much longer, especially considering I had no food or water—which I'd left hooked into a ring on the saddle—or even a change of clothes. If I didn't reach West Pass Watch and meet up with the caravan again, I'd never make it back to Skyvale in time to keep Melanie from following me out here.

Clutching my few belongings, I stumbled through the dead insects and aimed myself at the mountains.

The wraithland was different now, at least this part, and it was certainly because of what I'd done, though my brain was too sluggish to sift through the facts.

I just had to stick to what I knew: if I didn't get back to the Indigo Kingdom, Melanie would come after me, the Ospreys would erupt in chaos, and Aecor would have no queen.

If I didn't make it out of the wraithland—even this seemingly tamed wraithland—everything I cared about would be lost.

I pushed myself to walk through the near-freezing night, stopping to rest only when the quarter moon set and I had to wait for daybreak or risk losing track of the road. I shivered inside my jacket, which was suddenly too thin for this journey. I'd never be warm again.

My feet throbbed and my hips stiffened. My stomach felt hollow and my mouth was so dry that my lips cracked. When I finally stumbled over a stream, I didn't even worry about whether it was wraith polluted; I just stuck my head in the fast-moving water, gasped at the cold, and sucked up as much liquid as I could.

A few minutes later, I vomited up all the water I'd just drunk.

I tried again, this time slower, and my head began to clear.

Everything hurt, and any time I closed my eyes, the prickling sensation of locusts returned. I scratched at my arms and neck, rubbed my face red, but the memory never abated. There was no way I'd sleep, maybe ever again, so I drank my fill of water and returned to the road. I had to keep moving to stay warm.

The mountains grew in the distance, but not quickly enough. Though I walked through the night, using a small branch to help me keep my balance, I never seemed to get closer to my destination.

With luck, mostly, I caught a squirrel my second day out of the locusts. Its fur was of a normal color and it seemed to be a normal size.

I gathered up a small pile of twigs and peeling bark, then speared the squirrel with another stick.

I had matches in my pocket. There were only two, but I needed to eat
now
. Carefully, to keep from spoiling it, I struck the match and lit a curl of paper on fire, then laid it across the twigs to let them catch. I cupped my freezing hands around the fire, pulling in its warmth until it was big enough to cook with.

The squirrel was the best thing I'd ever eaten. It was gone by the time I realized I should have saved some for later, but I felt stronger, so I fed the fire more wood and went hunting.

Any real hunter would have laughed at my methods, but I managed to catch two trout and snare a few rabbits—a miracle, as far as I was concerned. After checking to make sure they weren't visibly contaminated with wraith, I cooked them all and hovered by the heat of the fire before pulling myself up and throwing dirt over the embers. Sitting in the meager heat and marveling over the thought of food wouldn't get me back to West Pass Watch.

The days blurred as I pushed east. I drank from the stream, ate tiny bites from the meat I'd cooked, and rested only when it was too dark to see. Once more I lit a fire, and then I was out of matches. A third fire would have to be started with magic, and I couldn't use that. Not after what I'd seen. Anyway, I wasn't sure I had the strength.

Mostly, as I walked, I thought about Melanie and what she'd do if I didn't come back. I thought about Connor carrying the burden of his secret alone. I even thought about Black Knife and that last conversation we shared. If I died out here, would he care?

Maybe. After all, he wasn't the nightmare I'd originally believed. I owed him for saving Connor's life, and not turning me in for magic use. He'd even chased down the truth about what became of flashers. He'd taken me fighting with him, and trusted me with secrets. He'd been an unexpected ally, even though I was a thief and he was a vigilante. And the way he'd touched my arm . . .

I missed my Ospreys. I missed Black Knife, too.

My thoughts wandered, never settling anywhere for more than a minute. Or an hour. Time was fuzzy and meaningless when I hadn't truly slept since waking in the locust field.

Though all this land I walked through had been filled with wraith before, now the forest seemed almost normal. Not poisoned. Too late, I wished I'd looked around the town more, after I'd awakened. I should have looked at the floating road, and the upside-down tree.

I'd used a lot of magic and I didn't know what the consequences would be. Especially since I hadn't been able to put anything back to sleep.

Over a week after the locusts, Ferguson found me. Or I found him.

Too thirsty to be picky, I was drinking from a suspect-looking stream when I heard the slurp of a horse sucking up water. And there he was.

His saddle and bags were still on, though they'd been twisted, and twigs and pine needles had caught in the tack, evidence of his rubbing against trees.

“You poor creature. I'm sorry.” Once he was hitched to a tree, I liberated some oats and let him feast. He allowed me to unsaddle him without complaint. I brushed him down as best I could, then devoured half of the rations I'd left in my bag, eating until my stomach ached with being so full.

When we were both finished eating and drinking, I wanted so much to saddle him again and gallop all the way back to the castle, but that wouldn't be fair to Ferguson. I settled for resting the saddle and tack on him, and leading him up the mountain.

Only after he'd had a good night of rest did I tighten the straps and let him carry me. Not walking was bliss.

It wasn't long before we reached the railroad tracks that had
once run between the Indigo Kingdom and Liadia.

“Wilhelmina?”
The voice came from behind me, and I spun.

Only trees and dirt and birds waited.

“Wilhelmina.”

Ferguson's ears twitched; he heard it, too.

We'd left the wraithland—the
changed
wraithland—behind before climbing the mountains. Nevertheless, the feeling of something watching me grew stronger in the woods.

“Wilhelmina.”
It sounded like the wind, all breathy and suggestive, but there shouldn't
be
anything here.

“The wraithland is back there!” Like reminding it of its place would do any good. I kicked Ferguson into a gallop up the twisting mountain road.

“Wilhemina!”

“Go back to sleep! Go to sleep, whatever you are!” I cried. If the command had any effect, I couldn't tell.

I hunched over Ferguson's neck to make myself smaller as he worked into a gallop. The stench of wraith pushed at us from behind, making my stomach roll in time with the steady rhythm of hoofbeats.

“Wilhelmina!”
The voice chased us faster. Sweat on Ferguson's flanks grew into a stinking lather. He panted; I could feel the expansion of his ribs beneath my legs.

We ran. Whenever I peeked up, I caught glimpses of a castle rising above the trees. The road cut its way upward. All we had to do was get there.

“Wilhelmina!”

I kicked Ferguson harder, but it wasn't necessary. He gave another burst of speed at the blast of wraith stench. A finger of
white mist crept behind us, relentless as it filled the width of the road and navigated the curves with ease. Steel screeched: the railroad tracks bent where the wraith touched.

Light flared ahead as the sun began to set behind me. The wraith screamed and called out my name again, but when I looked over my shoulder, the mist was retreating down the mountainside, leaving only the twisted metal of railroad tracks to mark where it had been.

What had scared it? What
could
scare wraith?

Above, the light flared again, and I laughed.

Mirrors.

A hundred mirrors hung on West Pass Watch; the setting sun had made them glow like fire.

Giddy, weary, and aching all over, I urged Ferguson to slow as we approached the castle. I traded Black Knife's mask for the cap to hide my braids, still piled up on top of my head from the night I left Skyvale.

Skyvale. I'd see Melanie again. The other Ospreys. I'd get a
bath
. A delirious giggle escaped me. I'd made it out of the wraithland.

As my horse trotted into the lower bailey, several men in Indigo Army uniforms came out to meet me.

One glanced at a sheet of paper. “Will? William Cole?”

“Yes, sir.” I dismounted when Ferguson came to a stop. “Where's the caravan?”

The lead man was tall, sharp featured, and vaguely familiar, though I was certain I hadn't seen him before.

“The caravan is gone, son. They left four days ago.”

I let my shoulders slump. Now I'd have to walk by myself,
without the protection the caravan offered.

“I'm Herman Pierce, House of the Dragon, Lord of West Pass Watch.” He didn't offer his hand. Of course. I was just a lowly hired guard. “You will address me with ‘Your Highness.' Is that clear?”

He was one of the king's younger brothers—Tobiah's uncle.

“Yes, Your Highness.” I dropped my face, taking note of the number of men surrounding us, the fading sunlight, and a silhouetted figure in the doorway to the barracks. My heart thumped. Was
he
here? Had he come?

“I'm going to take you where we can talk about what happened, why you went down the mountains, and why you came running back up like the very wraith itself was chasing you.”

Hadn't he heard the voice?

“I'm also sending a letter to the caravan master requesting that you never work another job,” he said. “And when I send requests, they're taken as orders.”

I heaved a sigh as though I actually cared. “Yes, Your Highness.”

“Your employer sent someone to collect you. He got here mighty fast. I'd have let you stew here for a while.”

I glanced toward the silhouette in the doorway again. The slim figure wasn't tall enough to be Black Knife. My heart sank.

He strode toward us, mountain lion grace and mountain lion eyes.

Patrick Lien.

HIS HIGHNESS HERMAN
Pierce had dragged me into an interrogation room, Patrick marching along behind us, and then he proceeded to question me for hours about my disappearance into the wraithland. The king's brother was the kind of man who enjoyed watching people squirm, and I hated giving him the satisfaction. But young William Cole, who'd never been faced with royalty before, wouldn't have been able to stand up to the prince.