“First, you were a servant,” Kosika said under her breath. “Then, you were a king.”
Beyond, and below, the river glowed. The Sijlt had thawed with Holland’s reign, but it still ran pale. Mist clung to the surface, and the water itself emitted a soft silvery light, not unlike frost, that Kosika finally understood was not a sign of sickness, but strength. A place where magic gathered. Where it flowed. It was the first place to suffer, and the first to heal.
Her eyes dropped to the waiting basin.
So much sacrifice. And yet, in truth, it was only a few drops. A few drops from each and every soul in London. We all must bleed a little … she thought, drawing the blade across her skin a second time.
A second time Kosika touched the side of the basin, and said the ritual words, and a second time the walls of the altar shattered, and the blood cascaded down into the river below, a moment of deep blooming red before it dissolved in the tide. People stood downstream, and watched as the ribbons vanished in the current, but her gaze lingered on the statue, the bottom hem of its cloak dripping blood, just like hers.
Kosika turned back to the plaza, where Nasi stood waiting with a cup of cider wine and—
She felt the blade sing toward her.
The whistle of metal, the glint of steel, but Kosika was already drawing the air tight on instinct, the way someone else might suck in a breath, wrapping it into a shield the moment before the dagger struck, and clattered, useless, at her feet.
Shouts went up, a strangled cry, and then Nasi was there beside her, her own weapons ready. The Vir drew in like a wall, and then the guards were on the would-be killer, forcing him out of the crowd and onto his knees. He fought, until a gauntlet collided with his face, a sword slicing toward his throat.
“Wait.”
The excitement had bled out of the plaza, taking the sounds of celebration with it. Only the distant drums beat on, unaware of the incident, so Kosika’s voice rang out through the square.
The guards stilled. The man fought like a mouse in the grip of a snake.
Kosika looked down at the weapon on the pier.
It was not the first time someone had tried to kill her. And on a Saint’s Day—but she supposed that was the point. There were those who wanted her dead because she was queen, and those who wanted her dead because she was Antari. Because they believed the power of Holland’s life lay only in his sacrifice.
And sure enough, the man was ranting on under his breath.
“Och vil nach rest,” he said, again and again, as soft and swiftly as a prayer.
In death, you set us free.
Kosika stepped over the blade, and crossed the square to the four soldiers, and the man on his knees, his face swelling from the gauntlet blow. And as she neared, she saw that his hands were unwrapped. Unmarked.
“You have not tithed,” she said.
The man looked up at her with venom in his eyes. “The world does not want our blood,” he hissed. “Only yours.”
The queen considered her fingers, stained with her offering. “Is that so?” She brought her hand to his shoulder. “Shall we ask the world what it wants from you?”
He tried to recoil from her touch, but the guards held him fast. Kosika closed her eyes and waited for the words. That was the way of the Antari spells. They came as she needed them, whispered through her head, and shaped themselves on her lips.
So she waited, and the guards waited, and the citizens and soldiers in the square all waited, and the moment drew long and still, and in that stillness, a new word rose to meet her, and she gave it voice.
“As Orense,” she said, and the spell’s meaning echoed through her as she spoke it.
Open.
A strange spell, and not the one she would have chosen, but it had been chosen for her, and as she said it, the man’s eyes went wide and his mouth yawned, and his skin split, as if held together by a hundred invisible seams that all gave way at once, and his blood poured forth—not the drops he would have given in the tithe, but all of it, every crimson ounce, came spilling out into the pier.
He did not scream.
No one did.
It was London, after all. They had seen horrors.
And it was horrible.
But it was also right. It was the world’s answer to the man’s claim that only she should bleed.
The guards let go, and what was left of the man’s body fell like wet rocks into the spreading pool that had been his life. But Kosika would not waste it. She reached out, and the blood rose and flowed in a ribbon across the square and over the river’s edge, before vanishing into the Sijlt with the rest of the sacrifice.
And with that, the second tithe was done.
* * *
SIX YEARS AGO
Kosika held a hand over Nasi’s face, to make sure she was breathing.
She could see the steady rise and fall of the other girl’s chest, but it still amazed her, the way Nasi slept—as if there was no danger in it.
Kosika didn’t know how to sleep like that.
Her mother used to sleep like a star, her limbs flung out to every side, so if Kosika wanted to join her in the narrow bed, she had to fold herself into the empty spaces, and even then, she only skimmed the surface of sleep. Her skin had always been awake, her ears pricked for trouble. Now and then, she’d sink deep enough to dream, but even those crumbled as soon as her mother stirred.
Now Kosika sat up, eight years old and wide awake in the massive bed, marveling at Nasi’s steady breath, how lost she was to the world. She gave a testing bounce, but the other girl didn’t so much as murmur.
She huffed. The least Nasi could do was keep her company. She considered shaking the girl awake, forcing her to play a game of kol-kot, or tell her a story, but Nasi would probably punish her by telling a scary one, full of shadows and teeth, and then she’d have the nerve to fall right back asleep.
Instead, Kosika slipped down from the bed.
Her nightgown whispered around her ankles, silver and white. Her feet were cold, and she eyed a pair of slippered boots, almost left them—it was easier to sneak around without the shuffle of shoes—before remembering she didn’t have to be quiet anymore. This was her castle. This was her home. She could be as loud as she liked.
Kosika stepped into the shoes and padded to the window.
Beyond, the moon was a white hangnail in the sky, and the river had taken on a pearly glow. At midday, you might not notice, but when the sun went down, it gave off a silvery shine, like starlight.
The first year, the whole castle had seemed to hold its breath, the soldiers waiting, hands on weapons, for the inevitable fight. But there hadn’t been any fighting. Kosika was presented to the city, and the city accepted her like a gift. Their Little Queen. No one had come forward to challenge her claim. At least, not that she knew of. If there had been stealthy attempts, they hadn’t gotten very far.
People accepted her, she knew, because London was changing faster now, magic rushing back. Nasi could conjure water, and did so every chance she got (Kosika hoped magic wasn’t the kind of thing that could run out, or Nasi wouldn’t have any left by the time she turned twelve). And it wasn’t just the children.
Some of the grown-ups were getting magic, too.
Every day, there were more of them, adults now able to conjure fire or wind, water or earth. And they all said it was connected, to the old king, and to her. And it had to be, didn’t it? After all, she was the one who’d found him in the Silver Wood, even if nobody knew it. She was the one with the black eye, the mark of magic.