Melina Marchetta - Quintana of Charyn

‘I sent for you, Tesadora, but you mustn’t have received my notes.’

‘Circumstances have been strange here since …’

Tesadora sighed, looking at Lucian.

Since Phaedra. Since Vestie travelled down a mountain on her own in the early hours of the morning. Since a strange, savage girl took up residence in their valley.

‘I wanted to talk to you about the sleep,’ Isaboe said.

Tesadora looked perplexed. ‘You still walk the sleep? But you’ve not bled. And I’ve not walked it with you.’

‘It’s odd,’ Isaboe admitted. ‘Vestie walks it, too. Not alongside me. It’s as if we walk our own.’

Tesadora was unnerved by the news, her beautiful face creased with worry.

‘I’ll come up the mountain with you tonight and we’ll make a strong brew to ease those jitters,’ she promised.

Tesadora extinguished the fire under her pot and Lucian helped her pack up.

‘I want to meet the girl, Tesadora,’ Lucian heard Isaboe say. He watched Tesadora freeze.

‘Vestie says she’s a Charynite with no place to go,’ Isaboe continued. ‘That she’s frightened of her own people.’

‘She’s no one,’ Lucian said. ‘Just a stray who doesn’t want to be in the presence of Donashe and his cutthroats, if you ask me.’

Tesadora covered the pot. ‘They’re arriving from all over these days,’ she said dismissively. ‘Ever since the events in their capital. The girl can look after herself. You three,’ she said to the guards, pointing to her pots and jars. ‘Make yourselves useful and put these in my tent.’

‘And what if she can’t look after herself, Tesadora?’ Isaboe continued. ‘What if there’s something I can do for her? All those people in the valley, waiting for my permission to climb this mountain. Perhaps she’s the one. She is on her own with no kin. Take me to her, Tesadora. We’ll ease her fear.’

Lucian looked at Tesadora. As strange as the girl was, perhaps it was the first step. He liked the idea, but suddenly preferred that the conversation take place on the mountain and not down here in the valley.

‘Let’s get this over and done with,’ he said finally. ‘I want us all in Yata ’s house by the time the sun disappears. Lead the way, Tesadora.’

Tesadora was reluctant, but finally she agreed.

‘I don’t want the girl frightened,’ she said, looking at the Guard. ‘Lucian and Aldron only. The others can stay here.’

They travelled half a mile downstream. It made Lucian wonder how much contact Tesadora had made with the mad girl since they had encountered her the morning Vestie went missing.

‘We don’t even know her name, Tesadora,’ Aldron muttered. ‘If I get a blasting from Finn and Trevanion and Perri over this, I’ll blame you.’

‘Yes, well, I’m trembling at the thought,’ Tesadora said, but Lucian could hear the strangeness in her voice.

They passed the tree where they first found the girl with Vestie. Further downstream, shafts of light forced their way between tall pines. It was here that they found the girl on her haunches, close to one of the trees, with a blanket wrapped around her body that Lucian recognised as one of Tesadora’s. She was scrounging for something in the dirt and he could see that at least she was eating well, looking rounded and full-figured. When she heard the crunch of the pine needles under their feet, she stumbled to stand, her eyes wide with alarm.

Tesadora stepped forward, holding out a hand to quell her fears, but the girl’s eyes fastened on Isaboe. Lucian saw a snarl curling her lips and then heard the bloodcurdling sound. Aldron stepped forward, a hand to his sword.

‘We won’t hurt you,’ Tesadora called out meaningfully, for Aldron’s ears as much as the girl’s. ‘Step back, Aldron. You’re frightening her.’

Aldron refused to move. The girl seemed poised to lunge.

‘Step back, Aldron.’ Isaboe repeated Tesadora’s words. Reluctantly, Aldron did as he was told. Isaboe approached slowly, tentatively, and the girl stumbled back.

‘Your Majesty!’ Aldron warned. Isaboe held up a hand, stepping closer and closer to the girl. Neither spoke, but there was a tension in the air that unnerved Lucian. He looked at Tesadora and when she refused to meet his eye, he knew something was wrong. And then it happened quickly, the speed of it stunning them all. Isaboe’s hand snaked out and pushed the girl against the closest trunk, her fingers clenched around the Charynite’s throat.

‘Give me your sword, Aldron,’ his queen ordered, her voice so cold.

‘Isaboe,’ Tesadora hissed. ‘Let her go. You’re hurting her.’

‘Aldron,’ Isaboe repeated. ‘Give me your sword.’

‘What’s happening here?’ Lucian demanded. Aldron unsheathed his weapon and placed it in Isaboe’s hand. In an instant his cousin had the blade pressed under the girl’s chin.

‘Isaboe, let her go!’ Tesadora cried, stepping forward, but Aldron held her back.

Lucian couldn’t see Isaboe’s face, but he saw the girl’s expression. With the blade to her neck, she was petrified. He reached out a hand to Isaboe’s shoulder, but she shrugged it away.

‘I was one of five children,’ she said, speaking Charyn to the girl. ‘I want you to know that before you die. I want you to know their names. Evestalina. Rosemond. Jasmina. Balthazar. My mother’s name was Tilda. My father’s name was Carles. On the day he died, my brother Balthazar got in trouble for lying about breaking a vase in the reading room. My father said he was ashamed of him and so my brother went to his death thinking he had lost the King’s respect.’

Lucian heard her voice break.

‘My sister Rosemond … we called her Rosie, she carved her name on the cherry-tree trunk in my mother’s garden, declaring her love for one of my father’s guards who later died in the prison mines of Sorel. I want you to think of them when you’re choking on your own blood, Quintana of Charyn.’

Lucian’s pulse pounded to hear the name. Aldron stared at him, having no idea of the Queen’s plan.

‘Isaboe!’ Tesadora said, her voice desolate. ‘Do not do this. It will break your spirit.’

With her hand still pressed against the girl’s throat and the weapon still in place, Isaboe looked back at Tesadora.

‘My spirit was broken long ago, Tesadora. And it was broken again yesterday when Vestie told me about your deceit. While I was begging you to come spend time with me, you were playing nursemaid to the daughter of the man who ordered my family’s slaughter.’

Isaboe turned back to the girl. ‘Did you think you could find refuge in my valley, filthy Charynite?’

Tesadora struggled in Aldron’s arms. Lucian knew that nothing would stop the Queen. Wasn’t this exactly what Finnikin and Trevanion and Perri were doing in Charyn? Wasn’t this something they all had sanctioned?

But it was horror Lucian felt when he saw Isaboe raise the blade to strike. The girl’s scream was hoarse and full of rage and fear. The sound of it would ring in Lucian’s ears for days to come. And just as Isaboe went to use the sword, something came flying out at them from the copse of trees.

‘ No! ’

The voice made his knees almost buckle.

Phaedra?

Lucian watched, stunned, as Phaedra threw herself at Isaboe. And then it all happened so fast and he did what he was taught to do in battle … when his queen was under attack. He acted on instinct. Lucian didn’t hesitate. Not for a single moment. His father’s sword was in his hand, pressed against the throat of his wife. He knew he’d kill anyone who was a threat to his queen. He knew he would kill Phaedra of Alonso. But Phaedra was on her knees gripping the blade of Isaboe’s sword and pressing it to her own chest. Lucian could see its sharpness cutting into his wife’s hands. Until they dripped with blood.