I know that marriage is a side effect of royalty. So many things are. Obstacles to content, so cleverly masked as duties. Trials made out to be solutions and burdens tailored for only the least willing to bear them. All of them, nothing more than a series of consequences that stem from being heir to a kingdom. Yukiko is Elian’s side effect, as the Flesh-Eater was mine. He traded the map for himself in a noble attempt to salvage his mission by sacrificing his pride. Things like this are expected. Predictable. But they’re also vexing.
I don’t know what I expected to achieve when I confronted Elian in the palace, but it wasn’t weeks of terse silence. I’m not sure why I even asked about Yukiko; it wasn’t why I waited for him while he dealt with the Págese royals. But I couldn’t help myself. Lately it has seemed impossible to try. Maybe that turned out in my favor, because my original reason to talk with him – to ask, maybe, if he’d ever considered an alliance – wasn’t much better. It was stupid to think I could just walk right up to him and ask if he was willing to forge a peace between our kind. I won’t kill you if you don’t kill me. It’s ridiculous. It’s simple for me to consider making a deal with someone who’s shown me nothing but loyalty and a way to walk a path I hadn’t thought possible before. Free from the shadows of my mother’s reign, a new era not determined by death. A delicate peace, even. But how can I expect Elian to do the same when he doesn’t even know who I am? When I murdered his friend and countless other princes? When I plotted to murder him?
I climb with Elian’s back to me, but his face is clear in my mind. As the sky fades to darkness and then the sun climbs higher again, we carry on that way. The farther we get up the mountain, the more I begin to drive myself crazy with thinking. Replaying conversations and actions and opportunities. Wondering when I began to feel so utterly human.
The sky turns to so many shades of blue that I lose count. It’s a quilt of color, blending perfectly through the clouds. Painting itself like a backdrop for the white glow of the moon and its guiding starlight.
“We have to move faster!” Yukiko yells. I can barely hear her voice above the ice winds. “Our next camp is two hours ahead, and we need to make it before sundown.”
Elian pauses and holds out the map, and the storm batters it in his grasp. The edges are crisp with winter, and when his fingers clasp the parchment tighter, trying to keep hold as the wind gathers strength, it splinters.
“Sundown is in an hour!” Elian yells back.
Yukiko’s breath clouds between them. “Hence, we need to move faster.”
The wind muffles their voices, but even I can hear the sound of Elian’s sigh. His shoulders slump a little and he casts a quick glance to check that we’re all still behind him.
“It’s doable,” he calls over to us, though I’m not sure if he’s telling us or trying to convince himself.
“I’m not sure I can walk without my toes,” Kye says.
“Madrid will carry you.”
“I don’t have toes either. Or fingers, actually.” Madrid holds up her gloved hands and whimpers. “I think I lost a few yesterday.”
“At least they’ll be well preserved then.” Kye presses his boot into the snow for emphasis. “If we pick them up on the way down, a healer should be able to stitch them right back on.”
Though I can only make out Madrid’s eyes, I’m sure she grimaces.
“We don’t have time for this,” Yukiko says. “Stop wasting your energy and move.”
Madrid sticks a snow pole into the ground and pulls her fur mask down. Frost gathers on her lips. “Is that a royal command?” she asks.
Yukiko throws back her headdress and it’s like the weather parts for her. She commands the cold like I once did. “You are in my kingdom.”
“But not in your court,” Madrid says. She wipes her tattooed cheek, where the wind has begun to blister it, and nods to Elian. “Our king is right there.”
“You’re forgetting something, aren’t you? He’s not a king yet.”
If the air hadn’t already been frozen, I’m sure that last comment would have done it. Kye stiffens and I see his hand twitch by his side. Quickly, Elian shoots him a sharp glance, and reluctantly, Kye lets his posture relax. Still, his hands keep twitching.
I notice that mine do too.
Torik grunts. He doesn’t seem to be able to translate Elian’s expressions as well as Kye can, and no sooner does Elian slump in hesitant submission does his first mate lurch violently forward. As Torik approaches Yukiko, I see the threat of his large frame for the first time. No longer is he the gentle giant who watches over the Saad. He advances toward the princess, kicking the snow with each heavy footstep.
“You little—”
“Enough.”
Elian’s voice cuts into Torik’s path. He holds out an arm and Torik stops short.
“Captain,” he says.
“I said that’s enough,” Elian repeats. As usual, his voice betrays nothing but what he wants it to. Perfect calm and indifference. But even from here, I can see his eyes blinking against the storm, like fierce gateways into his heart.
“Are we finished now?” Yukiko asks.
With every second her blue lips inch higher, mine turn to a snarl beneath my mask. I step forward and pull the cloth from my face. The air bites.
“Not yet,” I say.
Yukiko turns her steel gaze to mine. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Elian go suddenly rigid. When Yukiko takes a step toward me, his hand moves slowly to his side. To the knife I know is hidden there.
“Is there something else?” Yukiko asks.
Many things, I think.
The way she looks at Elian being the worst, like she’s better than him. Manipulating a prince to get her hands on his kingdom, just as my mother manipulated me to steal mine and extend her reign. Just like I fell into the Sea Queen’s trap, Elian is going to fall into Yukiko’s. Maybe it was different once, but now I know there’s no way I can steal the eye and let my kingdom rise while Elian’s crumbles beneath his debt to her. There has to be a way for us both to win this battle.
We are not na?ve little heirs to be molded as they wish. We are warriors. We are rulers.
“Elian may not be a king,” I tell her,“but you’re not a queen, either. Not unless you kill your brothers.”
“Who has time for murder these days?” Yukiko says. “Better to just take another kingdom than wait around for this one.”
The insinuation is not lost. She thinks she can goad me with the deal she and Elian made. And I suppose she can. Because I can’t help but hate seeing him stand submissively by her, not giving him a choice in his own future. Using him for her devious plans, just like I intended to. It’s too much of a reminder of my life before the Saad. Before Elian made me realize what it was like to be free. The very person who gave me a glimpse of hope is now so willing to sacrifice his own.
“You should be careful,” I tell Yukiko. “The thing about taking something that’s not yours is that there will always be someone out there ready to take it back.”
“I suppose I’ll have to watch my back, then.”
“No need,” I tell her. “I can see it perfectly.”