The Forgotten Sisters (20 page)

The king flinched.

“You are not privy to the particulars,” said the chief
delegate, rubbing his chin as if making sure his tiny beard stayed oiled to a point. “You are in no position to—”

“She wanted her babies, but you forced her to give them away,” Miri interrupted. “Shame on you. SHAME ON YOU!”

Her voice was not loud enough to please her. She picked up an empty vase and flung it at the wall, shattering the glass.

The king did not even flinch. His head bowed, and he mumbled down into his beard. “A girl child was born first—”

“Your Highness!” the chief delegate shouted. Clearly the fact that Astrid was older than Steffan was a secret he'd meant to keep.

The king looked too tired to care as he went on. “Since Katarina, only a man can rule. We couldn't allow the chance that the girl would one day challenge her brother for the throne. We couldn't risk another civil war. The kingdom needs stability.”

“The kingdom is
people
, Your Highness. People like a baby girl and people like her mother and people like me. And you. And your ridiculous crew of advisers. You don't even make sense! Queens since Katarina have raised girls in this palace who managed not to start bloody wars—oh! Astrid and Steffan are twins, aren't they?”

No one answered.

“And a girl twin was so frightening that she had to be cast far away and her younger sisters too for good measure? The princesses. They
are
the princesses. I probably should have guessed months ago, but I never knew that people such as you truly existed, like the horrid villains in old tales, willing to destroy whatever they—”

“Enough,” said the chief delegate. “We have more important matters—”

“Are you so afraid of a baby girl?” Miri said, leaning toward him across the table. “How about me? Do I terrify you too? Watch out, I wear a dress and don't grow a beard, and if you don't keep me in check, I'll steal all your power!”

One of the ministers laughed. Others glared at him.

“Sorry,” he said, pressing the smile out of his mouth. “It's kind of funny when you think about it.”

“Leave,” said the chief delegate.

Miri straightened. “You
are
afraid of me.”

The chief delegate grabbed Miri by her wrist and twisted his hand. “You think we have time to indulge your little tantrum? By the creator god, this palace is under siege! If you won't leave, I'll throw you out.”

His hand against her wrist seemed to burn, that pressure spreading through her, anger boiling. She pressed
her feet against the linder floor and let out a silent quarry-shout:
No!

The ground beneath them vibrated. The chief delegate took a step back but did not let go.

Miri could shout again, her quarry-speech ripping through the linder stone, up the wall, cracking the stones in the ceiling, pulling them down over his head. Crushing him beneath the weight of a palace once cut from Mount Eskel.

She'd done that before. Confronted with an assassin who had shot Peder, who tried to kill Britta, Miri's quarry-shout had shaken loose the very stones holding up the palace. At the time, she had not known what would happen, only that she needed to stop him. And she had.

This time, she knew. She would be choosing to crush this man to death. She wanted to do it, and the want made her afraid.

“Miri … ,” Katar said with warning.

Miri gritted her teeth and said as calmly as she could, “Let go of me.”

“Leave her alone,” the king said wearily. “I rather think this is something worth shouting about.”

The chief delegate's grip squeezed momentarily harder before he released her.

“The queen has met them,” Miri said, rubbing her wrist.

“Met whom?” the king asked, but he straightened in his chair, his eyes wide with comprehension.

“They're here,” said Miri. “And she's … she's weeping like she'll fall apart. Maybe Danland deserves to be torn to pieces by Stora, I don't know. But I do know that even ill and dying, my mother wouldn't have let you take me. And that's the kind of person I want to be, the one who's holding on, fierce, fighting for life. You ripped out your own hearts the first time you stole a baby from her weeping mother's arms. You've been living heartless ever since. I should have noticed before. I don't know how any of you are still left breathing.”

Miri left and slammed the door behind her. Maybe they'd throw her in a dungeon for a tirade like that. Just then she did not care.

When the door opened, only Katar came out into the hall.

“Are they throwing me in the dungeon?” Miri asked, pacing, the fire in her burning too hot to stand still.

Katar shrugged. She folded her arms, the usual light in her eyes dim.

“My ma died having me too,” she said. “But I don't know if she wanted me or not. My pa never said anything.”

“I bet she did,” said Miri. “And what if the chief delegate came and took you out of her arms?”

Katar was not listening. “A ma would have been a nice thing to have. Or any parent who loves you something fierce. But that idea always seemed like true love or magic fish—something caught only in tales.” Katar was facing the wall, staring at a painting. “I figured out who the princesses were, not till after you left for Lesser Alva. Once I realized I wrote to you, but I didn't yell at anyone. I just thought, well, that's how things go, don't they?”

“But they shouldn't.”

“I don't know, Miri. Maybe the princesses were better off in Lesser Alva with a woman they thought was their mother, if she loved them.”

“Maybe they were,” said Miri. She was still trembling, her body tight, as if retching against the injustice of it all, but she stopped pacing and joined Katar to see what she was staring at.

A painting of a red-haired woman in a heavy gold collar and green brocade gown.

“Queen Radisha,” said Katar. “She was always my favorite because we have the same color hair. She was luckier than Queen Sabet. Radisha only bore sons.”

Or so the history books record, Miri thought. But the linder house in the swamp carried the memory of twin girls with the same red hair and intense eyes. She
shivered. Radisha had married King Klas's son. She would have been the first queen after the civil war. If she birthed daughters—twins even—the reminder of Katarina would have still been fresh. Likely it'd been for her daughters that a chief delegate first ordered a linder house built in Lesser Alva.

“You know, I thought you were here when you weren't,” Katar said suddenly.

“What?”

“This winter,” said Katar. “Twice I heard you quarry-speak to me. The first time I decided it had been a daydream. The second time was harder to dismiss. It was as if you were quarry-speaking, ‘Hello!' Or at least, the memory it nudged in me was the time we returned from the princess academy and ran into the village and everyone came out running and shouting. It made me certain you were all right, even when we hadn't received letters from you for ages.”

“But I only arrived in Asland yesterday,” said Miri, “and entered the palace early this morning.”

“I know. It was silly, never mind,” said Katar. “I'll go find Britta. She'll want to see you.”

Katar left. Miri turned back the other way and nearly ran into the queen. Again Miri sensed that faint sorrow, heaving and giddy like a memory of seasickness.

The queen was nearly void of expression. “I don't blame you,” the queen said.

“For what?”

“For hating me. I've hated myself for a long time.”

Did she hate the queen? Anger and sorrow beat at each other inside Miri till her heart felt bruised. She had to clench her fists to keep from shouting again.

“I know they're a bunch of bullies and ignorant tyrants,” said Miri, “but couldn't you have stopped them? If you wanted your daughters, couldn't you have just refused to give them up? And then you stayed away. You stopped caring.”

The queen shook her head. “Numbness comes after caring too much.”

Miri's voice softened to a hush. “You said I make things better. How am I supposed to fix this?”

“You can't.”

The queen continued down the hall, running her hand against the stones as if fearing she would fall over.

Miri leaned against the wall herself and shut her eyes. It took effort to slow the angry beats of her heart and remember how to listen to the linder. She exhaled the struggle and allowed herself to open and flow into the images. So few people had lived in the little linder house, but the palace stone was crowded with
memories. Guards and servants and people hurrying, up and down the corridors, up and down. Like a gray shadow in the midst of it all, year after year an image of the queen walked, shimmering in solitude, slow with pain.

A castle of defense, a bastion of might

A fort where the wise teach the young to fight

An armory of weapons, sharp as hooks

Are wrapped in leather and shelved as books

Miri was so full of the linder's memories she felt half ghost herself, sad and afraid, wandering down the corridor as if through a tale that ends in tragedy.

She entered the queen's apartment and found the sisters staring at Britta and Steffan.

“Miri!” Britta threw her arms around her. “You're safe! You're here! And you're safe! But how did you get here? I don't care, because you're safe! And here!” Britta pulled back. “But I'm so angry at you! I don't want to forget that.”

“I wrote, I promise I did,” said Miri.

“No, not for that. I feared you'd try to come after me when you should flee to safety instead, and sure enough, here you are, and now we're both stuck in a besieged
palace. You're a very good friend and a very naughty person. And you cut your hair!”

Britta's long, pale hair hung loose as if she had found no reason to do it up. Her white linen dress was wrinkled, and Miri suspected she'd been wearing it for several days. But her cheeks were their usual mottled red and gave her a happy, friendly aspect even in that dark, strange palace.

“So these are the king's cousins,” said Britta, turning to the sisters. “We exchanged names but I haven't heard a word about how you all got here.”

“It's a very long story,” said Miri.

“My mother just left,” Steffan said, his gaze lingering on the door. “She seemed upset.” The prince, in his dark-blue jacket cut at the waist and knee-high boots, looked even taller than Miri remembered.

“You should go after her, Steffan.” Miri was not adept with linder-wisdom, but she thought she'd detected in Queen Sabet the loneliness of someone who does not want to live.

Steffan hesitated as if worried a sudden departure would be impolite, but he nodded.

When he'd gone, Miri said to Astrid. “So, that was your twin brother.”

Britta took a step back. Miri grabbed her arm and
led her to a chair, remembering how her own legs wobbled after realizing the truth.

But the sisters kept their feet. Sus seemed stunned. Felissa was crying so quietly Miri had not noticed before. Astrid's arms were folded, her back slightly turned.

“Do you think we could go somewhere private?” Miri asked Britta. The queen had left, but she might return and perhaps the king too.

Britta led them to a guest bedroom in the interior of the palace. They sat in a circle on a rug, and Miri told Britta what she knew. The telling of the story helped Miri swallow the great, lumpy truth of it all, though it sat now in her belly like a mass of gristle.

“Steffan didn't know,” Britta said, her chin trembling. “I swear he didn't know. Let me go find him—”

“Just give them a little time,” Miri whispered. “I don't think the girls are ready to meet, uh, any more family today.”

Britta did go out to find Peder and brought him back, along with food for the group. All day she insisted on fetching them whatever they needed, as if trying to be one of the servants they were supposed to have had in Lesser Alva.

There were three beds in the room, but when night fell, Astrid, Felissa, and Sus curled up in the same one. Britta shared Miri's bed, Peder bunking on the third.

And when they woke the next morning, they sat on the floor and kept talking. Sleep had stopped Felissa's tears, but her dry-eyed stare and grim mouth worried Miri.

“They so badly didn't want us they hid us as far away as they could,” said Astrid.

“I liked the swamp,” said Sus.

“So the joke's on them, right?” Astrid said with a bitter laugh.

“They sent us away for fear that our mere existence could start a war,” said Sus.

“And now they want you to stop one,” said Peder. “They're not making a lot of sense.”

“Are you sure King Fader knows about us?” Astrid asked Britta.

“Yes,” said Britta. “After Stora invaded Eris, the chief delegate sent a letter. A reply came indicating that the king would accept such an alliance and wished to meet you three. We heard nothing again from Stora for a few months. In the silence, we got worried, and our army marched to our border with Eris, just in case. And then, Stora suddenly took Asland.”

“You're never safe when a king knows your name,” Peder muttered.

“Elin was my ma,” Felissa said. “She always will be.”

Peder began to pace. “The palace is under siege, and no one seems to be doing anything.”

“The king is confident they can outlast Stora,” said Britta. “We have plenty of supplies, and our army should return to Asland any day.”

Astrid stood up. “I'm going to the Queen's Castle to see King Fader. I'll let you know how it goes.”

“Like mud you will,” said Felissa.

“Just stay here, Felissa,” said Astrid. “It'll be better if I meet with him without you two.”