Queen Yavara

ADRIANNA

The woman's name was 'Hannah,' and she was a scout in Esmerelda Giana's rebellion. The force was made up primarily of women and the elderly, which had undoubtedly been laughable to the nobles of the Feractianas province when they'd first heard of it. They weren't laughing anymore. Esmerelda's army had swallowed entire swaths of the southern Highlands, moving untouched through estates that would've been armed to the teeth in peacetime. If the gentry of Feractianas had thought that an army of women could not be brutal, they were now dissuaded of that notion. Esmerelda was carving a name for herself.

I poked at the morning fire with a stick. The rolling hills of Feractianas shown like glitter in the dew-frost, catching the dawning sun in a trillion spectacular fractals. I hugged my knees beneath my robe, wishing for the first time in months that I had more clothes on. Hannah stirred in her sleeping bag. We were camped a few hundred yards off the road, deep in the brush so that no one could see our fire. It felt like ages since I'd last made one, but Thomas Adarian's old skills came back to me readily, and there was no smoke to signal our position.

As I tended the heat, I watched Hannah pretend to sleep, and I wondered what I was getting myself into with her. I could tell by the looks she stole, that she was more than just curious about me, but she never said anything, and I didn't press. Lesbianism wasn't as scorned in the Highlands as male homosexuality, but it was still a mark that would stick on her if she was ever caught, and I got the feeling that Hannah wasn't really gay; she just hadn't been with a man in quite a long time—if ever—and she was in the full bloom of her womanhood. She'd made little noises in her faux-slumber last night, soft moans and hushed gasps that weren't quite quiet enough for me to be ignorant of what was going on in her sleeping bag. It had made it damned hard to sleep myself, and I'd had to bite into my pillow and cure myself of insomnia with a few practiced caresses between my legs. I was much quieter than she was. She had tried to conceal her orgasm with a cough, while I played the veteran move, and ruffled my sleeping bag loudly to muffle the breathy hiss. Even afterward, neither of us slept the entire night. I didn't know what plagued her mind, but all I could see behind my waking eyes, were the faces of those I'd betrayed. I wondered if they'd ever let me sleep again.

"You're not fooling me, you know." I said.

She opened one eye. "Are you watching me?"

"Yes."

She scooched deeper in her sleeping bag, and rolled herself into a sitting position. The frost hung from her blonde hair, making it twinkle in the fire and sunlight. She assessed me with a critical eye. "Have you thought about what we talked about last night?"

"I have."

"And...?"

I prodded at the fire some more, nursing the flames back to life. "I told you, Hannah, I'm a traitor. The Dark Queen didn't send me here to help you. She doesn't even know your rebellion exists, or if she does, she doesn't care."

"But you—"

"There's nothing I can do for you." I said resolutely.

She sniffed, and scooched herself down the log to get nearer to the fire. We stared into the flames for minutes before she next spoke. "I heard..." she said pensively, "I heard that... there was rumor, anyway, that Thomas Adarian was captured by the Dark Queen, and... changed. That estate we were in... it was his by birthright."

I nodded.

"It's just strange that you were sent back to his estate, you know." Her eyes flicked to me.

"Thomas Adarian is dead, Hannah. Whatever rumors you heard were just rumors."

"You expect me to believe that?"

I smiled at her. "I don't really care what you believe."

She screwed up her lips. "I know who you are."

"You know nothing."

She bundled herself tighter in her sleeping bag, and glared at me from across the fire. "You think you're so much better than me, don't you?"

"Should I lie to you?"

She spat into the fire. "That's how I know you're Thomas Adarian! That undeserved sense of superiority that nobles have; why would it change just because your race did?" She leaned toward me, "Maybe you are better than me, Alkandran, but a hybrid of earthly means would still see me as an equal!"

"What do you know about hybrids?"

"I know about people!" She snapped, "Everyone thinks high-elves are all pompous peacocks, but it's just you nobles! The rest of us are humble folk, but the world doesn't know about us because we're tending the earth while you gallivant around and make us all look bad! And now that the screws are in, where are our allies? Nowhere to be found, because nobody likes us! So superior is our race, oh, yes-yes-yes, so pure, and elegant, and wise, and high-minded we are. That's why the poor starve while the rich are fat! That's why most of us have to scrape and claw while the few of us lounge and moan! Oh, I know exactly who you are,

Adrianna.

"

I opened my mouth, then closed it. Hannah's piercing blue gaze cut right through the fire, and I suddenly found it very difficult to meet it. "I uh... I'm sorry, Hannah." I muttered, "I didn't mean to be a bitch. You're right, on all accounts."

"So?" She asked sharply, "Are you going to help us make it right?"

"Make what right?" I asked, splaying my hands hopelessly, "What good will come of this? You tear down the structures of society, and then...? You think you'll get freedom, but you'll just get anarchy. Your rebellion isn't unjust, but it is misguided. Also, the whole part about Esmeralda chopping off the cocks of her prisoners is—"

"Lies by our enemies!" Hannah snapped.

"Even so, you see my point."

"The structures of society have already been destroyed. The new king abolished the Noble Court, and sends his army—our own sons, brothers and fathers—to kill us! If we don't stop him, all of us will be put under his heel. Esmerelda knew it was coming. She knew it was only a matter of time before those with most of the power took away what little the people had left. If you have any love at all for your country, you'll help us."

I put my head in my hands. "Why am I always called to duty? Even when I'm convicted of treason, I'm guilted with my loyalty!"

"Maybe someone up there is just giving you second chances." Hannah said, "You have a chance to do it right this time."

I sighed, and kneaded my brow. "I told you, there's nothing I can do."

"You know that's not true, Adrianna." She said softly.

I closed my eyes, and took one breath, then another. I let them both out, and they steamed in the cold air, and joined the scant smoke that billowed whitely from the fire. "Fine then. Take me to Esmerelda."

SHERMAN HUNTIATA

Catherine Jonias guided me into a warehouse she owned. It was off the docks of the merchant district, and since wartime rationing, it looked like the place hadn't gotten much use. She lit an oil lamp, and directed me through the dank corridors until we came upon a cellar door. Water dripped freely from cracks in the ceiling, and rats scurried away from the light. Huge spiders made webs in the corners, their many eyes glinting, their shadows forming large arachnid nightmares.

"This doesn't seem like your kind of place." I muttered behind her.

"How would you know what my kind of place is, Sherman?" she asked, and opened the door. Green light spilled out from the staircase, and she walked deftly down it, ignoring the centipedes and roaches that scurried underfoot. She turned her lamp off when we came into a large chamber. And there, in the middle of it, lay Elena Straltaira. Eight thick tubes were inserted into her every orifice, and scores of smaller-gauged tubes were pierced into her veins and arteries, the clear capillaries filled with dark blood. A pump and pinwheel served as the dynamic parts of a contraption that seemed to force her chest to rise as though breathing. Her flesh was pallid and tinted blue, her eyes were milky and rolled back, and the inside of her mouth was black. She was as dead as dead could be.

"What the fuck?" I gasped.

"I saw her fall from the high tower and crash into the bay. I had my manservant fish her out of the water, and I checked for a pulse. When I found one, I had her rushed here. I secured her necklace and gave it to Lucas as proof of her death."

"I mean what the fuck are you doing to her?"

"My mage is not very skilled in healing, so we had to employ... different methods." She said, "Elena fell hundreds of feet and hit the water on her back. Six vertebrae were broken, all her limbs were shattered, and several organs were damaged, but her brain only suffered a concussion."

"She's dead."

"Very-much so." Catherine nodded, "We had to stop her heart to fix her. This is an artificial heart. It mimics the pumping of blood to keep her organs fresh so that necrosis doesn't occur, but everything is shut down except for her brain. Javi—that's my house mage—he's devoting all his energy to keeping her brain alive." She gestured to the corner, where a little bald man was sitting cross-legged, his eyes rolled back and alight with magic, the astral stone on his forehead illuminated, sending a faint beam from his head to Elena's.

I walked over to the table Elena was laid out upon, and watched Catherine's hands move deftly across the corpse, magic illuminating from her fingertips.

"You're a mage?" I asked.

"I was always astute in academics; it's people that I struggle with. Even so, I am but a novice at magic. If she had a broken arm, perhaps I could heal it, but her body has been destroyed. Living tissue is very hard to fix with magic, but dead tissue is just meat. As long as we keep the rot away, all we'll have to do when I'm done is restart her heart, and wait for the body to wake up."

"It can't be that easy."

She snorted. "Nothing about this is easy. If it works, it will be because I'm very lucky, not because I'm very good."

I looked levelly at her until her eyes could not avoid mine. "Catherine..."

Her eyes shot down. "I'm sorry for deceiving you, Sherman, but you would make as terrible a king as I would make a queen. Elena, on the other hand, has all the prerequisites."

"She's a dark-blood."

"A hybrid."

"Our people won't see the difference."

Catherine nodded, and whispered an incantation under her breath. She touched Elena's brow, and Elena turned red, then purple, then green with yellow polka-dots. She turned her back to her normal color, and gave me a frank look.

"That doesn't change what's inside." I said.

"You know all about what's inside, don't you, Sherman?" She smirked. "And it's what's on the inside that I'm after. I believed that the war could be won because Lucas told me to believe it. Well, the war is lost. It was always lost. As the decades roll by, more and more of Elena's kind will come into the world. Have you not heard the stories that come out of Alkandra? Have you not seen it with your own eyes? These hybrids are a different kind of elf. They're smarter than us, faster than us, and they're ageless. Need I say more?"

"They fuck better than us." I grumbled.

She rolled her eyes. "They're just better than us, Sherman, and they're going to be everywhere. We have a chance now to get ahead of the curve. They're still half-high-blood; who's to say they can't be Highlanders?"

"Catherine," I said cautiously, "you hate Elena, you hate Yavara, and you hate Alkandra and everything it stands for."

"Yes, I do." She swallowed; her face become paler. "But I hate Lucas Ternias too, and I still would marry him if he offered it to me. I know what must be done to save my country and my family."

I looked back down at Elena. "She belongs in Alkandra."

"Dispel that notion, Sherman. Elena Straltaira is a born noblewoman and second-in-line behind a despot. She belongs on the throne."

"She doesn't want it."

"We'll just have to ask her ourselves." Catherine said, then looked to her mage, "Javi, is she ready?"

"If we wait any longer, the rot may set in," he answered, his eyes still rolled back.

"Sherman, when I tell you to, I want you to turn off that pump. Once these tubes drain, we'll need to take them out as fast as we can. Ready?"

"Hold on. How do you turn this off?"

"Twist the knob to the left. Ready?"

I grabbed the knob. "Ready," and twisted it.

The blood-filled tubes slowly emptied, and color returned to Elena's body. When the red receded completely, I started yanking the tubes out of her. I was worried at first, for the holes the tubes made were large, and they were connected to arteries, but Elena's heart could not pump the blood out, and so there were only circular orifices left in their wake. Catherine healed them as fast as I exposed them, and less than a minute later, Elena looked like her old self. Catherine laid her hand over Elena's heart, and cast a spell. There was an electric jolt, and Elena's body spasmed. Catherine placed her ear to Elena's chest, frowned, then cast the spell again. Another electric jolt, and another spasm, and this time, I saw Elena's pulse move down the veins of her body like an internal wave. The next heartbeat was less violent, only showing in her wrists, throat, and the veins at her temples, and the third was subtler still. Catherine nodded, then removed the tube from Elena's mouth. For a moment, nothing happened. Then there was a faint wheezing sound, and Elena's chest rose with her first breath. Catherine clapped her hands and squealed delightedly, then turned to Javi, and made a 'kill' gesture with her hand. Javi's eyes rolled forward, and the ethereal connection between he and Elena broke.

Elena's blue irises rolled into place, and focused. She blinked, then rolled her eyes to me.

"Lady Straltaira," I smiled down at her.

She opened her mouth, and a steady stream of red vomit flowed out.

"It's normal!" Catherine insisted, and pushed the tube back into Elena's mouth, "Her stomach just restarted, and her esophagus doesn't work yet. I suggest you don't look at the other end." The red bile flowed up the tube for an alarmingly long time before it was completely drained, and Catherine took it out. Elena coughed painfully, which Catherine took as a good sign. "Good," she said, nodding to herself.

"Her skin is turning yellow." I said.

"Fantastic! Her kidneys just restarted, and they're very stressed." Catherine said, and prodded at a vein in Elena's arm, "She needs a lot of fluids, and her stomach isn't ready for them yet. Sherman, hand me that syringe, and that saline bag. It's the bladder with an 'S' written on it."

I handed Catherine the bladder and the syringe, and she connected the two with a tube before injecting it into Elena's arm. The yellow hue of Elena's skin began to gradually fade. "The heart, lungs, stomach and kidneys are all working," Catherine said, "the liver is a very durable organ, and the spleen and gallbladder should be fine. The intestines, bladder, and colon are obviously working—pardon the smell—and there seems to be no problem with the circulatory system. Lady Straltaira, can you wiggle your toes?"

Elena closed her eyes, and her left big toe moved a fraction. It seemed to take all her will to do it, but it was done.

Catherine sighed in relief. "The spinal column is intact, and the nervous system is functioning. How about that, Javi?"

"Very good, my lady," the bald man said.

"Very good indeed." Catherine smiled proudly to herself.

Elena hadn't taken her eyes off me. They were filled with accusation.

I knelt until we were level. "I didn't know you were up there until too late." I said, "The queen's guard tried to have me arrested, and when I saw that your manor was on fire, I made a connection that wasn't there. Ternias... well, Ternias played us all."

She parted her lips, and struggled to give sound to them. All she could do was push air from her lungs, and breathe, "Leveria?"

I shook my head.

Tears formed in her eyes, and dripped down her cheeks and nose. Her swollen and split lips parted once more, and she breathed, "Tell me."

"You need to rest."

"Tell me!" She screamed silently.

I looked up at Catherine. She just shrugged, ensconced in her work. I took a long breath, and told Elena everything.

ADRIANNA

I kept my face and flesh concealed as I walked beside Hannah onto the derelict farm. Esmerelda's camp was barely large enough to fill the pasture, and her "army" was barely a militia. There were perhaps a few dozen fighters, mostly women, and most of them were barely armed. Repurposed farm tools, hunting bows, and old family swords made up their armaments , and the armor they wore was nothing but thick pelts and dishware. They were ill-fed, poorly-supplied, and horrifically vulnerable. The only security I faced walking into the encampment were two weary guardswomen standing outside the command tent, and the only passcode they needed to let me through was Hannah's nod. They didn't even bother looking under my hood to see my face. A novice assassin could've strolled right to the center of the camp, waltzed into the command tent, and stabbed Esmerelda in the back without so much as having to say a word.

Hannah had told me much about Esmerelda, but I had intuited more about her from the way Hannah spoke of her, than from what Hannah actually had to say. Esmerelda was undoubtedly beautiful. She was likely a savage fighter, skilled and confident with weapons, capable of engendering the awe of people like Hannah, who obviously had little experience with even holding a bow, much less shooting one. She probably was an excellent orator, and could inspire meek and timid people like Hannah, who were easily swept away by bravado. Hannah's talking points about wealth inequality and the power-hoarding of the nobles were most likely regurgitated verbatim from the mouth of Esmerelda.

Yes, I could intuit much about Esmerelda from Hannah, for Hannah was as easy to read as a children's book. She was a country girl in the bloom of her youth, too common to rise above her station, but too pretty to feel comfortable in it. Esmerelda came along with her fierceness and charisma, and Hannah saw in her, not just a means to break the bonds of society—for it was likely that Hannah never thought much about the inequities of feudal monarchies—no, Hannah saw in Esmerelda, a symbol of what Hannah could be herself; living proof that the path set out for her could diverge, and that there was a chance to be part of something truly great. As I looked around the camp, I saw scores of ex-Hannahs; those who had already been disenchanted, and had faces that were gaunt with worry and regret. Hannah was one of the few foolish true-believers left, and I wasn't about to let her rope me into this bullshit.

"What?" Hannah asked, "Why did you stop?"

I eyed the command tent. "Nah... I'm not going in there."

"What?!"

"I was the commander of the rangers, Hannah. I know a doomed cause when I see one. I put down scores of them myself. I'm not getting into this."

"But you said—"

"I said I'd see what I could do. There is

nothing

I can do here." I turned toward her, "If you want my advice, you'll leave now. Take those who you care for, and go back home. By the time you get there, everyone here will have already been massacred."

"I'm not leaving, and neither are you!" she growled, and snatched my arm.

I grabbed her gripping hand, and easily pried her fingers off me. "You know who remembers dead rebels?" I asked, "No one. There's no marker. There's not even a fucking plaque. The only symbol they'll put on your mass grave, will be Esmerelda's mutilated body when they're done raping and torturing her." I yanked my arm away. "Now, I'm sure she's a charismatic and brave woman, and maybe you have a cute lady-crush on her, but she's not worth dying for, Hannah."