Rebecca Ross - The Queen’s Rising

I squeezed her fingers in silent gratitude. And now it was my turn to ask after her passion. “How is your latest composition coming? I heard a bit from the Art Studio …”

Merei dropped my fingers and groaned. I knew from the sound that she felt as I did … overwhelmed and worried. She turned and walked back to her bed and sat, propping her chin in her palm.

“It’s horrible, Bri.”

“It sounded lovely to me,” I said, remembering how her music had trickled down the halls.

“It’s horrible,” she insisted. “Mistress Evelina wants me to have it ready in time for the solstice. I don’t think it’s possible …”

I knew from my seven years of rooming with Merei that she was a perfectionist when it came to her music. Every note had to be exquisitely placed, every song must be played with fervor and rapture. If her fingers or bow so much as let a screech slip over the strings, she was irritated by her performance.

“Do you know what this means?” I asked, smiling as I reached for the elaborately carved box on one of her shelves.

Merei lay back on her bed, overly dramatic as she claimed, “I am too tired to play.”

“We have a pact,” I reminded her as I opened the box on our communal table, drawing forth the checkered board and the marble pawns.

Her father had sent this game of cheques and marques for both of us, a game Merei adored and had grown up playing on the island of Bascune. As the years had gone by at Magnalia, as Merei and I had become progressively more preoccupied with our impassionment, we hardly had time to play anymore. Save for the evenings when we were both overwhelmed and worried. We had vowed to bring forth the game then, as a way to remind ourselves that the impending solstice wasn’t everything.

“All right.” She relented, as I knew she would. She rose from the bed and walked to our table, gathering a few loose sheets of music and setting them aside.

We sat across from each other, our colorful pawns gleaming as I lit the candles and Merei flipped a ducat to see who had the first move.

“You start, Bri,” she said.

I stared at my pawns, lined up obediently. Cheques and marques was a game of strategy, the goal being to remove all three of the opponent’s red pawns. I decided to begin on the edge, shifting my yellow pawn forward to the first marque.

We always started the game quietly, granting ourselves time to adjust to moving in rhythm with each other. I tended to make the bold moves, Merei the cautious moves. Our pawns were scattered all over the board when Merei broke our silence by asking, “Have you heard from your grandfather?”

I claimed her first red pawn, one she had defiantly floating toward our line of impact. “Yes. I’ll have to let you read it later.”

She began to shift toward one of my red pieces. “Did he tell you a name?”

“No name. The usual response.”

“That your father is unworthy to note?”

“Yes, those very words.” I watched as she swiped one of my red pawns. She also had me blocked with her yellow pieces. I began to weave between them … “What about your father?”

“He wrote a few days ago. He says hello, and that he hopes you come with me to visit him after the solstice.”

I watched her jump over my blue pawns, landing in the middle of my territory. A bold move from her always baffled me; she tended to play so carefully. I retaliated, mirroring her, and asked, “Would you rather have a very handsome patron who had bad breath, or a very ugly patron who always smelled good?”

Merei laughed. “Nice try, Bri. I am not that easily distracted.”

“I am not distracting you,” I insisted, trying to hide a smile. “These are very important things to think about.”

“Mm-hmm.” She swiped my second red pawn. “I would have to go with the ugly patron, then.”

“Same,” I responded, trying to break through yet another ring of her yellow pawns.

“If we are going to play this game, then you have to answer a question.” She moved her black pawn to an odd marque. “Would you rather fall in love with your master or your patron?”

“Both are horrible, foolish choices,” I muttered.

“You must answer.”

I stared at the board, trying to see a way out of the knot she had me in. “Fine, then. I would rather fall in love with my patron.” My face warmed, but I kept my eyes on the marques. I was almost to her second red pawn …

“I have to say I would go with the master.”

I glanced up, surprised at her answer. She smiled; her eyes locked with mine as she effortlessly claimed my final red pawn.

“You always beat me at this game,” I lamented.

“You lose because you never protect your side, Bri. It’s your one weakness. I beat you with an oblique move.” She waggled my defeated red pawn. “Shall we play again?”

I made a noise of objection, but she knew that I wanted to. We reset our pawns on their origin marques, and then I waited for Merei to move first.

We asked no questions this round; I was too focused on trying to outwit her, by employing this oblique tactic she always championed me with. So when she cleared her throat, I looked up, startled to see she was about to claim my last red pawn.

“Now,” Merei said. “On to a very important question.”

“And what is that?”

She paused, trying to hold back her laughter as she defeated me yet again. “What are you going to tell Master Cartier when he asks why your face is stained blue?”

I was the first one to reach the library Monday morning, waiting for Ciri and Cartier to arrive for the lesson. Despite Merei’s faithful scrubbing and a dose of Oriana’s turpentine, I still had a faint shadow of blue paint on my face. So I decided to leave my hair unbound and drawn to the front; it spilled down my chest, long and ornery, the color of mahogany, but it felt like a shield for me to hide behind, to guard my face and the lingering memory of war paint.

Ciri arrived next and took her seat across from me, on the other side of our table. “I can still see the paint,” she murmured. “But maybe he won’t notice.”

Master Cartier entered not two breaths after that. I pretended to pick at my nails as he set his books down on the table, my hair falling forward even more. I realized my mistake only when I felt his eyes rest on me, his hands go still. Of course he would notice my hair was loose. I always bound it in a braid for lessons, to keep it out of my eyes.

I heard him walk about the table, to Ciri’s side, so he could get a full look at me.

“Brienna?”

I silently swore. And then relented to lift my face and meet his gaze. “Master?”

“May I ask why … it looks as if you painted half of your face blue?”

My eyes shifted to Ciri, who was pressing her lips together, trying not to giggle.

“You may ask, Master,” I responded, kicking Ciri beneath the table. “I sat for a portrait. Oriana decided to, ah, paint my face.”

“It was because we dressed her as a Maevan queen, Master,” Ciri rushed to explain, and then I watched, mortified, as she leafed through the history book to find the illustration of Liadan Kavanagh. “Here, this is the one.”

Cartier turned the book around so he could get a closer look at it. He stared at Liadan Kavanagh, and then he stared at me. I couldn’t tell what he was thinking, if he thought this was humorous or offensive—if he thought I was bold or childish.

He gently pushed the book back to Ciri and said, “Tell me about Liadan Kavanagh, then.”

“What about her?” Ciri was quick to respond, always eager to answer everything before me.

“Who was she?”

“The first queen of Maevana.”

“And how did she become queen?” He walked about the table, his voice settling into that deep, rich cadence that made me think of a summer night crowded with stars. It was the sort of voice a storyteller might harbor.