The Mirror King (Orphan Queen) (18 page)

THE BELLS BEGAN
pealing at dawn.

Even in my chambers where I prepared for the wedding, I could almost hear the words that rode on the constant ringing.
King Tobiah will save us. The Mirror King will drive away the wraith. King Tobiah and Queen Meredith
. . .

I resisted the urge to cover my ears while a maid plaited my hair into an intricate knot, with tendrils softening the harsh lines of my face. She used cosmetics to conceal the circles under my eyes, and shadow the lids. When she used another powder to highlight my cheekbones she said something about me looking beautiful, but in the mirror, all I saw was my face. And the wraith boy’s face.

Morning light shifted, and a small lunch was served.

“Aren’t you hungry?” Theresa asked. Her plate was already clean.

I glanced at mine, still full, and slid it across the table to her.

With a suspicious frown, she cleaned my plate, too. I turned my attention out the window, toward the clear sky and the seemingly endless forest behind the palace. Evergreens twisted between the cold, bare trees. The mountains were deep blue, with wisps of clouds washing down between them.

“Try to have fun,” Theresa said. “I wish the rest of us could go.”

“I’d send you in my place, if I could.” Since the cathedral was a pile of rubble, the wedding guest list had been slashed. I’d made the cut, but the rest of the Ospreys hadn’t.

With Sergeant Ferris in close attendance, I made my way to the palace’s glorious chapel. It had the typical dragon regalia, with unicorns added for Meredith. Blooms of blue and violet and ivory dripped from balconies and banisters, with verdant highlights. The scent of perfume and anticipation danced through the room as the guests were seated.

The memorial had been grand and stately and solemn; the wedding was smaller, but filled with life and hope for the future.

A footman guided me to a bench near the front. I waited as the chamber began to fill with rustling gowns and coats, and murmuring voices. Next to me, a foreign countess took her seat, keeping a large space between us. A string quartet played by the altar. A bubble of hushed voices formed around me.

“The wedding was meant to be held in the cathedral,” someone whispered. “But you know what happened to
that
.”

“I can’t believe she was invited.”

I kept my mouth in a line. What would I say to them? That I deserved to be here? That the cathedral collapse wasn’t my fault?

The last thing I needed to do today was cause a scene.

“She’s a curse on this kingdom,” someone muttered. “And she’ll curse this wedding.”

“Don’t say that!”

Surely they knew I could hear, even over the gentle strings playing nearby, which meant they
wanted
me to know what they said.

I glanced over. One of the speakers was Lady Chey, who wore a splendid red gown and a smug expression. A few other ladies I recognized from the solar sat near her, though most of them avoided meeting my eyes.

Tobiah’s aunts and uncles and mother sat in the row in front of me. The queen mother held herself stiffly, and if she showed any emotion for her son’s wedding day, I couldn’t see it from here. Meredith’s family sat in the opposite row, all of them with their fine blond hair and bright smiles, visible whenever they turned their faces toward the altar.

They were so happy. Happy for Meredith. Happy for their family. And if they were as nice as Meredith, they were happy for the kingdom as well.

I wanted to sink deeper into my seat. Vanish. Stop feeling at all. It would be easier to be numb than to think.

It wasn’t long before priests flowed through the chapel, their robes fanning behind them. A handful of bodyguards moved toward the front of the chamber. James caught my eye and offered a pale smile, but it was only a moment before he resumed scanning the room for danger.

It seemed like the person James
should
be watching was me.

The music shifted, everyone stood, and Tobiah came forward, dark eyed and proud. He wore a suit of deep indigo with
gold edging, and long tailcoats that fluttered with his every step down the aisle. Even his hair had been wrestled into submission. A small, plain crown rested on his head, golden contrast to the dark strands.

At the altar, he took his place and turned his attention down the aisle to wait for Meredith.

Instead, his eyes locked with mine.

My breath tripped and I was back in the moment we’d met in his father’s office, when I’d come in wearing Lady Julianna’s personality like a mask. Me, knowing him from the One-Night War. Him, knowing me from his nights as Black Knife. Neither of us saying anything for long heartbeats, waiting to see if the other recognized . . .

“
Recognize this now
,” I wanted to say.
“Recognize that I love you and when you do this, there’s a part of me that will never recover
.
”

He lowered his eyes as the music built, and a shower of ivory rose petals burst from the ceiling, making the small crowd gasp with awe.

The petals floated like snow, catching in hair and on gowns and in children’s cupped palms. Another gasp rippled through the room as Meredith stepped down the aisle and everyone turned to look.

From my aisle seat in the front, my view was partially obstructed by those in the back who leaned outward, but I saw her soon enough.

Meredith was resplendent. Luminous. A glittering net of diamonds rested over her golden hair, while twists and curls spiraled down to her waist. She held her chin high, every part the
duchess bride—soon to be queen.

The lengths and folds of her gown hugged her body in shimmering ivory silk, and lace across the bodice. Seed pearls and tiny diamonds had been stitched into outlines of unicorns all around the collar and shoulders, and around the hems of her open sleeves. When she walked, a short train rustled against the floor and the petals strewn there.

Never once did she look away from Tobiah, as if she didn’t notice a young girl and boy tossing petals into the air, blowing them toward her. As if she didn’t notice her mother and the queen mother clasping their hands to their hearts. As if she didn’t notice the music soaring through the room like triumph.

Just Tobiah. Always Tobiah.

At last she took her place beside him, light to his shadow, and the priest began the first of nine saints’ blessings. Everyone sat again.

While the priest spoke of love, then joy, then peace, Meredith gazed up at Tobiah, her face soft and lit with happiness. But he looked dull and bored. Cold and distant. What everyone expected him to be, even now.

A knot of agony built in my chest while the priest moved on to the patience blessing, then kindness. Watching Tobiah obey duty, not his heart—I couldn’t breathe, and my eyes felt swollen with tears.

Finally, the priest reached the last of the blessings. I bit my cheeks and squeezed my hands together, as if that could hold back the expanding tangle of sorrow.

The words of Tobiah’s first letter to me came rushing back as the priest completed the final blessing.
Please forgive me for
what I’m about to do; know that it is duty and honor that compel me to act against my true feelings
.

This was what it had been like for Melanie with Patrick, the aching and longing to be close to someone you weren’t supposed to have feelings for. This was why she’d sneaked around for weeks. This was what she’d felt when Patrick had announced his intention to marry me after we reclaimed Aecor.

I wished she were here so I could tell her I understood now, and I didn’t blame her. I wished she were here because most of all, I needed my best friend.

At the altar, the priest joined Tobiah’s and Meredith’s hands, and people all around were crying with happiness. But anguish filled my chest and throat. I was going to explode with it.

Thunder clapped and a boy appeared at the back of the chapel. Everyone turned as he strode down the aisle with dark purpose. My hair, my face, my eyes—Patrick’s movements.

The wraith boy.

It happened so quickly:

People yelped and rushed deeper into the seats.

Someone shouted my name.

The priest stopped mid-sentence and pressed his hands to his chest.

Tobiah stepped in front of Meredith.

Across the aisle, the queen mother reached for her son, even as a guard pulled her back. The duchess’s mother and father struggled against their guards, too. Prince Herman seemed confused, while Crown Prince Colin wore a strange expression somewhere between horror and triumph.

And I—I was rooted in place.

The wraith boy reached the altar and shoved Tobiah aside. Everyone was shouting, rushing in, and guards moved to intercept the wraith boy, but they were too slow. He was too fast.

He yanked Meredith to him—her eyes went wide—and he snapped her neck.

She dropped to the floor, dead.

“What Queen Wilhelmina wants is the only thing that matters,” he announced as the duchess’s ivory gown settled around her, and her hair flowed over the floor like a river of gold. Then the wraith boy turned to me, lifted one hand toward Tobiah, and bowed low. “He is yours now, my queen.”

THE SCREAMING STARTED
immediately.

Guards threw themselves onto the wraith boy, tackling him to the floor. Others snatched Tobiah and the priest, dragging them from the chaos at the altar, but the king wrenched himself away and ran for Meredith.

The wraith boy threw off the guards. Bodies flew back, some caught by their comrades, while others slammed into benches or the altar. Another layer of guards hurled themselves onto the wraith boy, grabbing for his hands and feet and hair.

“Your Highness!”

I blinked away my stupor, finally registering that Sergeant Ferris was pushing his way between the benches to get to me. Like the wraith boy might attack me.

But he’d
killed
Meredith. For me. He’d
murdered
her.

I surged toward the altar, where the guards still struggled to subdue the wraith boy. He threw them off every time.

The corner of a bench caught my dress. I jerked it free, ripping the fabric. And like a ruined gown was the worst of my problems, the wraith boy shoved toward me. “My queen! Your dress!”

“Take it back!” I screamed. “Fix her!”

As guards moved to block the wraith boy’s path to Tobiah, I caught sight of the broken duchess lying before the altar, her gown spread around her like ivory wings.

“Fix her,” I rasped. “She can’t be dead.”

“But you wanted him.” The wraith boy pointed at Tobiah, who was bent over his bride.

“No!” I gripped the nearest bench for balance. “I didn’t want her to die. Now fix this. Take it back. Undo it.”

He shook his head, not quite sadly. “I don’t fix things; I break them.”

My knees buckled.

James and a handful of other guards grabbed for Tobiah, but he shook them away. Tears streaked down his face as he touched Meredith’s white skin. Her cheeks, her throat, her closed eyes. I couldn’t hear him over the cacophony, but his mouth formed her name over and over.

“You have to bring her back.” I couldn’t look away from Meredith.

“This is what you wanted, my queen.” The wraith boy smiled, a sly little thing like he believed that and thought I protested merely for the benefit of others.

The scent of crushed rose petals and the sound of stomping boots saturated the air as more guards poured into the chapel, and someone grabbed my shoulders from behind.

“No!” Tobiah lurched to his feet, reaching for me. “Stop!”

It was too late. The wraith boy was already ripping the guards away from me; bones snapped and men screamed. One landed against the altar and didn’t move again.

“Stop!” My shout tore through the chapel. “Wraith boy—Chrysalis!”

The wraith boy halted just as he broke a guard’s wrist. He let the guard fall to the floor, and turned toward me, awe spreading over his face. “You called me by my name.”

Other guards moved in, but Tobiah held up a hand to halt them. James stuck by his cousin’s side. Both of them watched me as the remaining guards fell back, dragging their injured with them.

My breath heaved in and out, too heavy. I turned my glare on the wraith boy. “Don’t hurt anyone else.”

“I was protecting you,” the wraith boy whispered. “They were
touching
you.”

A high, panicked laugh came out of me. “They were trying to protect me from you.” True or not, that was what he needed to believe. “You just killed a woman and a handful of guards. They thought you were going to kill me, too.”

His mouth fell open. “I would
never
.”

Meredith’s body filled the corner of my vision. Then there was Tobiah, braced between James and a bench. Indigo-coated guards fanned around them. All eyes were on the wraith boy, waiting.

“All you do is break things,” I said. “That’s all you are. Destruction. Chaos.”

“I wouldn’t hurt
you
, my qu—”

“No!” I advanced on the wraith boy, as though I had any power to hurt him. “You said that what I want is the only thing that matters. How dare you presume to know what I want?”

“I felt what you wanted. On the balcony, when those men grabbed you, you were terrified.” The wraith boy’s eyes were wide and pleading. “You wanted to be safe, and I made sure they wouldn’t hurt you. And now you want him”—he pointed at Tobiah—“and I thought it was my duty to make sure you could. You were sad, weren’t you? Now you don’t have to be. What you want is the only thing that matters to me, and you don’t even have to tell me what it is, because I know, my queen. I already know.”

“What do I want now?” I stopped only a pace away from him. He was exactly my height, and again I had the strange feeling of looking into a warped mirror.

“You want me to go back to my room.” His voice was small.

“
Go
,” I hissed. “Don’t come out again unless I tell you.”

He was gone a moment later, vanished, and the air in the chapel suddenly felt less dense. Less oppressive.

I stood alone in the middle of the aisle, not very far from the body of the duchess. Only vaguely was I aware of the dead guards around me, the wedding guests huddled at the door.

In a corner, Meredith’s parents held each other, sobbing. The queen mother stood by them, her hands on their shoulders. Strands of hair escaped the diamond-studded pins, obscuring her face.

And from behind a wall of guards, Chey and the other young ladies of the solar huddled close to one another and wept. A few prayed.

I couldn’t meet anyone’s eyes.

As much as I wanted to deny it, I understood the wraith boy’s decision to remove a problem in the most direct way possible. He didn’t know. . . . He couldn’t understand what this would do.

Tobiah pulled himself straight, and everyone looked at him. His crown was on the floor, forgotten, and his clothes were torn and askew. His hair, tame just minutes ago, was a disaster. He couldn’t seem to pull his gaze from Meredith.

“Your Majesty?” someone whispered. “What do we do?”

The whole chapel held its breath as the king turned toward me, jaw clenched and eyes hard. Tears shone on his face. “Just go, Wilhelmina.”

I didn’t need to be told again. With a pair of guards trailing me, I left the chapel and went back to my apartments.

For five hours, I listened to the clock ticking like a heartbeat.

Tick tick tick
.

Footsteps outside my door.

Tick tick tick
.

Protesters screaming my name from the opposite side of the palace.

Tick tick tick
.

Memory of the deafening
snap
of Meredith’s neck, and
thud
of her body hitting the floor.

Connor and the Gray brothers had once told me that people rarely died right away from broken necks. It was the suffocation. The restricted blood flow.

Meredith could have been alive and aware for several
seconds, listening to the chaos around her. Alive but unconscious for entire minutes. Maybe she could have been saved, if I’d thought about it, and done away with the wraith boy more quickly, sent for Connor to rescue her.

Tick tick tick
.

A knock sounded on the door, and Tobiah and James entered the sitting room without waiting for me to answer.

Tobiah’s voice was rough, barely recognizable as he glanced down at my dress. “You haven’t changed.”

I hadn’t
moved
since I dropped into a chair at the table in the sitting room. What would I have done anyway? Tidied my quarters? Written a letter? I should have at least lit a fire; now all the rooms were cold.

“Did the injured guards”—I swallowed hard—“did they make it?”

“Connor helped the ones who wouldn’t have otherwise.” Tobiah stood by the door, unmoving, while James prowled the perimeter, checking inside the other rooms. For intruders? For the wraith boy? Finally, he lit a fire, filling the room with the rush and crackle of flame, and then took up a post by the music room door. “A few protested because they wouldn’t be saved by a flasher whose kind had created that
thing
, but I insisted. I told them it wouldn’t make a difference anymore. Not at this point.”

“I’m glad they’re going to live.” The words were thoughtless.
Glad
was an emotion I couldn’t remember anymore, like relief or hope. It was as though that knot of agony watching Tobiah’s wedding had exploded, and now every feeling I’d ever felt lay flat and dead at the soles of my feet. Useless, except to weigh me down. “Prince Colin will use that decision against you, though.”

“He doesn’t know about it.”

Which meant Tobiah’s recovery was still safe. And James’s? Secret because no one had a clue what happened to him.

“There’s been a rider from West Pass Watch.” Tobiah stared westward, as though he could see the wraithland from here. “The wraith is flooding across the mountains, and only a few hours away from West Pass Watch by horse. And in the south, another village has been swallowed.”

I closed my eyes and exhaled. I’d known this was inevitable. “He said it would come faster.”

“He said a lot of things.” Tobiah stepped closer to the table, to me, as though approaching a wild animal. “He said there would be consequences. This was one of those consequences, wasn’t it?” He almost sounded gentle, but a bitter note grew. “Meredith didn’t deserve this. She was a good woman. Kind. Generous. Forgiving.” He choked on the last word.

“I know.” She’d been my friend. Or could have, if I’d let her.

I dropped my gaze to the table again; my eyes were too dry and swollen, and I didn’t want to meet Tobiah’s. I didn’t want to see the disgust. The disappointment. The hatred.

“She liked you. She told me several times.” He drew a ragged breath. “Saints, Wilhelmina. I wish you had sent him back to the wraithland as soon as he became solid.” As though there were a way to go back in time and change everything.

“I thought we might need him,” I whispered. Heat from the fire pressed at me, suffocating. “I thought we could learn from him. And I felt . . . obligated to him. My magic did something unexpected when it brought him to life, and how could I dismiss him so easily? He was my responsibility.”

Even Meredith would have insisted.

“But you can’t just bring things to life, Wilhelmina. There are always consequences.”

“I didn’t expect it would be this.” My throat constricted and the words came strangled. “I didn’t think he would go this far.”

“Didn’t you?” He dropped to the chair next to me, voice low and urgent. “Don’t tell me you weren’t dreading today. I know you were, because I was, too. But you can’t allow your pet wraith to kill people because you don’t like what they’re doing.”

“I didn’t want him to kill her. I didn’t want him to do
anything
.”

“But he did! And he did it for you. Didn’t you hear? He said that I’m yours now, like I’m a prize to be claimed.”

I shook my head. “No, I—”

“You didn’t want her to be killed. I know. Just like you didn’t want my father to be killed, but Patrick did it anyway. For you. For your kingdom. For your revenge.”

“No!” I slammed my fists on the table. “I didn’t want either of them to kill in my name.”

“But they did. Whether or not you asked, they did it for you, and you let them.”

“I didn’t
let
them do anything.”

“Then how did this happen? Twice!”

Tears burned my eyes. “I can’t help what other people decide to do; if I could, you’d have followed your heart, rather than married someone because you were told.”

He hesitated.

“It wasn’t as if you didn’t already know how I felt. You knew before I did.” My eyes throbbed with grief, and I blinked back
more tears. “It wouldn’t have mattered. You’d already agreed to it, and I was merely a distraction. I knew that. I accepted that.”

“Marrying her was the last thing my father ever asked me to do. Surely you remember; you were eavesdropping.”

“You didn’t
always
do what your father asked. You didn’t
behave
like he wanted you to. Instead you wore that mask as a prince so you could be yourself as Black Knife, because that was more important to you than how other people perceived you.”

His voice shifted low and controlled. Deadly. “You should know better than anyone that promises grow heavier when the person you made them to dies. You become obligated. Surely you know that. How many years did you spend training and arming yourself to take back Aecor because you thought that’s what your parents would want? How many children died for that cause? How many friends? And now, another man has taken Sandcliff Castle in your name. He’s killed hundreds of our soldiers.

“People—things—keep acting in your name, attempting to accomplish your goals no matter the collateral damage. And you keep letting them.”

“I didn’t let them!” I shoved myself up, hunched over the table. At my outburst, James stepped forward, but that was all. A warning. I dropped my voice to a growl. “You have no idea what it’s like when people are willing to go to frightening lengths for you. When you can’t predict their actions. You have no idea what a terrifying burden that is.”

“Believe me, I do. I’ve seen enough well-meaning and untrained people pretend to be Black Knife because they wanted to help. But I stopped them, because I couldn’t allow them to get hurt—or anyone else they came in contact with.” He balled his
fists and leaned forward, so close I could feel the heat of him. “You have to
stop
those people from making mistakes, especially the ones that hurt innocents like Meredith. How will you be a strong queen if you can’t trust your people to make wise decisions?”

Chills crawled over my body. I sat back down and whispered, “I don’t know.”

“You need to figure it out, Wilhelmina. What kind of queen will you be? The kind who allows others to murder in her name, or the kind who makes decisions her conscience can agree with? You might have spent the last nine years as a criminal, doing what you thought was necessary for survival, but you aren’t that girl anymore.”

“Aren’t I?” I fought to keep my voice level. “I’m still a criminal. I’m a flasher. I’ve forged dozens of official documents. Being a princess doesn’t cancel the fact that I impersonated a duchess for weeks. I am
still
that girl.”