Foretold (15 page)

The news came before she was entirely ready to go, but as soon as she heard it from the mouth of the traveling minstrel at the tavern in Pine Rest, Essylt left to pack her supplies. The Anvarran king had discovered that his island-born wife had been drinking a concoction she had brought from Nawharla’al to prevent herself from conceiving a child. This, King Radek said, was treason. He sentenced Sadiya to die by beheading on the first day of summer, which gave his people time to travel from their villages to witness her public execution.

When this news reached Pine Rest, the last of the winter snow had barely melted, even though the first day of summer was less than one month away. Essylt decided to ride directly through the Black Forest to Anvarra instead of following the highway south. It was dangerous, but it would cut two weeks from her journey.

“There are wolves,” objected Nell, worried.

“They didn’t kill me before,” Essylt said. “They won’t kill me now.”

Bowen and Petra wanted to go with her, but she refused to allow them to come.

“It is my task, and my choice,” she told them. They relented, for they saw the determination in her eyes.

She departed at dawn, riding Markus’s white mare—a horse he insisted she take—with her saddlebags full of food that Nell had prepared. The forest was quiet as she rode
south, with only the sound of her horse’s passage to accompany her. Petra’s armor sat lightly on her shoulders, and already she was so familiar with her sword that when she slept, she rested her hands upon it. She did not feel threatened by the wolves she glimpsed sometimes at night, their eyes reflecting the light from her campfire. They saw her weapons, and they left her alone.

She emerged from the Black Forest two weeks later, and struck out on the hard-packed dirt road that led southeast toward Anvarra City. At first she was alone on the highway, but as she drew closer to Anvarra City, other travelers joined her, all on their way to the execution. At night, she camped as far from the other travelers as she could. She kept her armor covered with her long brown cloak, and she did not remove her helm in the daylight. She could not reveal who she was, for the Princess Essylt was supposed to be dead.

She arrived on the eve of the execution, and though she could have ridden into the city and bought herself a room at an inn, she could not bring herself to pass through the gates. In the distance she saw the West Tower—her old home—and now she recognized it as a prison. She wondered what had happened to Auda, and her gut wrenched, for though Auda had always maintained a certain formal distance from her, she was the one who had raised her.

All night, Essylt lay awake beneath a spreading oak tree on the side of the highway, watching the silhouette of the castle on the hill. When dawn broke, Essylt was already mounted on her horse and waiting outside the city gates. Hundreds of other people surged around her, eager to view the death of the traitorous foreign queen. Their jubilation made Essylt sick with rage, and her fingers trembled as she curled them into fists on her thighs.

A stage had been erected at the northern edge of the central square, and on that stage the executioner’s block was waiting. Essylt rode into the square, surrounded by the crowd and unnoticed by the soldiers who stood guard along the perimeter. She found a place near the stage, beside a fountain that shot cool water up into the warm summer morning. The scent of snowbell blossoms hung thick in the air, sweet and cloying. The people in the square chattered about the coming event, but Essylt paid no attention to them. Her entire body was tense and alert, her heart beating a war drum in her chest. She could sense Sadiya approaching—as if they were connected, flesh and bone drawn together—and when the murmur of the crowd crescendoed, she looked to the north and saw the king riding into the square on a black stallion.

He was flanked by soldiers and followed by a wagon with a cage strapped onto it—the same kind of cage that Essylt herself had been locked into. Within the cage, Sadiya was seated with her hands bound behind her back.

The crowd exclaimed at its first glimpse of her: hair loose and tangled, a rough sackcloth dress draped over her body, her face bruised but defiant.

Essylt felt as if an arrow had torn into her belly. She had to suck in the muggy air to calm herself down, for her mare sensed her nerves and began to prance in place. Essylt wanted to rush forward at that very moment and seize Sadiya from the soldiers, but she remembered what Bowen had taught her, and she forced herself to wait.

She waited as the executioner mounted the stage, his black cowl hiding his face from the crowd, the sun glinting on the blade of his axe. She waited as the king, resplendent in purple robes, joined the executioner. She waited as the cage door was unlocked and Sadiya was pulled out, barefoot, onto the
cobblestones of the square. She waited as Sadiya was hauled onto the stage by two soldiers who bent her arms back at an angle that made Essylt wince to see it.

She waited until the king said: “For betraying me, and by extension, your people; for dishonoring me, and by extension, your people; for murdering before birth my very own children and heirs; for all this, you are sentenced to death.”

Then—and only then—Essylt threw off her cloak. Her armor shone silver-bright in the sun, and her white horse leapt through the crowd that parted before her, their mouths agape in excitement. Everyone on the stage turned to see a knight riding toward them, sword raised in the air. From the margins of the square, the king’s soldiers raised their bows and shot, their arrows flying toward the rider.

Essylt felt an arrow slam against her back, but Petra’s armor held. Then she was at the edge of the stage and the archers had to stop shooting, because the soldiers were in their line of sight. She pulled herself onto the stage and met the first soldier with her sword raised. She shoved him back with all her strength, her steel blade screaming against his. The soldier stumbled, startled by her assault, but he had a second to back him up, and then Essylt had to fight two of them.

But the soldiers wore standard-issue armor, not nearly as well crafted as hers. She could slice their breastplates off with ease, and beneath that, they weren’t even wearing chain mail. No one had expected an attack at the queen’s execution. Essylt disarmed one and slashed open his side. He yelped and fell off the stage into the crowd. The other came at her with his broadsword, but she used his momentum against him and flipped him onto his back, knocking his weapon out of his hands and tipping the point of her sword against his throat. His eyes bulged up at her and for an instant she hesitated—was she going to kill a man?—but out of the corner
of her eye she saw him pull a dagger from his boot and ready it to throw at her. Before his weapon left his hand, she cut his throat.

She looked up and across the stage, her heart pounding, and called, “Sadiya!”

Sadiya had watched the knight beat back the king’s soldiers with a rising sense of hope, and when she heard the voice behind the helm, she knew who it was, and hope exploded into joy. She tried to run to her, but the king grabbed her arm, yanking her back. He shouted, “Who would dare to act against me?”

Essylt took off her helm. The long braid of her red-gold hair fell out over her shoulder, and she said, “Father, I dare.”

The king’s face was a mask of fury as he beheld his daughter standing before him—his daughter who should be dead, and yet she was alive and breathing, her green eyes glinting like emeralds as she raised a sword against him, and he unarmed.

“Give me a weapon!” the king cried. The executioner stepped forward and handed the king his axe.

The king swung it in an arc, and Essylt met the axe handle with her sword. The thunk of metal meeting wood rang through the square. She jerked the sword back and leapt away as the king advanced, his eyes wild with anger. She parried him again, and this time the handle of the axe broke as the sword cleaved through it. The axe head clattered onto the stage.

“A weapon!” the king shouted again. A soldier in the crowd tried to shove his way through to give the king his sword, but the crowd—riveted by the spectacle before them—would not let him pass.

“I will not kill you unarmed,” Essylt called. “Let us go and you will never see us again.”

“Never,” the king snarled. “You will die. Both of you will die here today.”

Suddenly Sadiya stepped over the body of the dead soldier and said, “She may not kill you unarmed, but I will.” She lunged toward the king and shoved the soldier’s dagger into the king’s chest, thrusting it straight through the rich purple velvet, and the king fell, howling, to the wooden boards of the stage.

Sadiya stood above him, gasping, her hands bloody, and spit on his face.

The crowd roared.

Essylt saw the hatred in her father’s eyes swept away by fear and bewilderment as his hands scrabbled furiously at the dagger. Sadiya turned to Essylt, wiping her bloodied hands on the ruins of her dress. Essylt reached for her and crushed her into her arms, and Sadiya’s body shook against Essylt’s armor. All around them the crowd murmured. Those who had been close to the stage had heard Essylt declare who she was, and now they passed that knowledge back across the square, until all who had gathered for Sadiya’s execution understood that Princess Essylt was not dead—she was alive—and the words of her naming-day prophecy were repeated until it became a slow and steady hum.

The princess shall grow into a young woman strong and pure, but when she finds her one true love, she shall be the downfall of the king
.

Prophecies, the people said, were not always straightforward, but if they were real, they were true. None who saw the way that Essylt and Sadiya held each other that day could deny the strength of their love. But for many years to come, they debated whether it was Essylt or Sadiya who had been the downfall of the king.

• • •

No one stopped Essylt and Sadiya as they left the city. No soldier lifted a weapon to harm them; no man or woman shouted a curse. They rode as far as they could before stopping to rest their horse. They found a sweet little spring bubbling out of a rocky cleft in a hill near the road, and dismounted to allow the mare to drink.

Then Essylt took off her armor, and Sadiya peeled off her soiled dress, and they waded into the water and scrubbed the dried blood and sweat and dirt from their skin. When they emerged from the spring, naked and wet in the warm evening air, they saw each other as if for the first time: one woman dark and slender; one woman fair and muscular. Essylt took Sadiya’s hands in her own and pulled her close, their breasts and hips sliding together, slick and soft, and her breath caught in her throat as Sadiya whispered, “You are my one true love.”

Essylt wrapped her arms around Sadiya’s waist. Her fingers found the hollow of Sadiya’s lower back, her spine like a string of jewels, and she leaned in, pausing to remember this moment always, and kissed her.

Here is what I said to Ms. Gill: “All you care about is being in charge and pushing us around. I thought school was supposed to be about learning stuff.”

Here is what Ms. Gill had said to make me react that way: “You were told exactly what to read, Tomaso. And, Tomaso, you were told exactly
how
to write the report. I did not give you an F because what you wrote was wrong, Tomaso. I gave you an F, Tomaso, because you didn’t do what I told you to do.”

Notice the way she kept saying “Tomaso”? Like she relished the sound of it. It came spitting out of her lipsticked mouth like it had hard edges and could hurt me. Like she was spitting Tomaso darts at me.

Clearly she started it. Right? Maybe I escalated it. But where did she get off with that “my way or screw you” stuff?

So next—after I’d said the thing about her just wanting
to push me around—she got very pale. I would say that the blood drained out of her face, but that would make it sound more gross than it was. She did not gush blood. She just got very pale. The only color her lips had came from the makeup counter at CVS, and those mean pomegranate (or possibly currant) lips drew back a little, like she wanted to show me her teeth. If the next sound out of her had been “Grrr!” I wouldn’t have been surprised.

“You. Rotten.
Brat
.” Each word sounded like she had just discovered it in her vocabulary list and really, really enjoyed it. Then she did a variation. “You. Rotten.
Arrogant
. Privileged. Narcissistic.
Brat
.”

That last word was like,
bRRRR-at!

And her hands, which were at her sides, clenched and made little half fists. Twitchy, hesitating fists. Fists that wanted to, wanted to oh so badly, but couldn’t.

At this point I escalated things again. Why? Because I’m a passionate lover of fairness, that’s why. Because I believe in justice, that’s why.

Can you already kind of picture me waving a “Don’t Tread on Me” flag? Like one of those guys in the Revolutionary War? Standing up for liberty? No?

Okay, actually, if you want to picture me, just Google Tomaso Hockmeier. Believe me, with that name you’re not going to get a million hits. There are only two. One is a seventy-two-year-old retired plumber from upstate New York, with a white fringe beard. The other is a thirteen-year-old kid with dark, longish hair, sort-of-green eyes, and the amazing body of a star athlete. If by “amazing body” you mean average-sized and completely undistinguished.