Page 12 of Bloodwitch
Vivia shoved open the entrance doors. A groan of hinges and wood that the crowds’ din swallowed whole. Then she stepped inside, and thanked Noden that the hallway was empty.
Because this way, no one could see her cry.
Vivia led the way into the under-city. The family behind her, a mother and two sons, uttered not a word the entire way through Pin’s Keep, nor into the cellar, nor down the tunnel leading underground. Torches flickered, smokeless and Firewitched. An expense Vivia had insisted on in a space where smoke could be deadly.
She wished the family would speak. Somehow, the silence was worse than the crowd’s cacophony outside.
This morning, when Vivia had imagined this moment, triumph had foamed in her chest. She’d felt so full with happiness and pride that she’d wanted to laugh into her breakfast. Shehadlaughed into her breakfast.
Now, her chest felt bludgeoned. Over and over, a staccato explosion that made her lungs billow double-time. That crushed her ribs in a vise and made her heart feel so heavy, so flattened it was hard to breathe.
She wanted to break something. She wanted to scream. She wanted to curl in a ball and cry. But this wasn’t rage. This wasn’t grief. It was something skittery and aflame. Something shameful and unforgiving.
One should not need credit,she shouted inwardly.One should not need credit!She wasn’t even fully Queen, yet already she was a terrible one, exactly what her mother had trained hernotto be.
And an unfaithful daughter too.
It didn’t help that her left shoulder ached. The gash from a raider blade two weeks ago had healed well thanks to salves and tonics. Time in the underground lake had helped too, but the wound wasn’t fully gone yet.
When at last Vivia reached the tunnel’s end, six faces framed a doorway hewn from the limestone: the Hagfishes, smoothed away by time and foxfire.
Two weeks ago, Vivia had come here with Stix. For the first time, she had pushed this door wide and discovered the forgotten under-city—just as her mother had always described it would be. Now, when Vivia shoved back the limestone, light rumbled over her. Laughter too, from her volunteers and soldiers.
She wished it would all go away.
“Welcome,” Vivia wheezed without glancing at the family. She needed to leave here. She needed to go somewhere alone and face this bludgeoning in private.
The mother crept into the under-city first, eyes as wide as her two boys’. “Thank you, Your Majesty,” she said, hesitant but real.
“NotYour Majesty,” Vivia gruffed out. “JustYour Highness.” Instantly she wished she hadn’t said that. Rude, rude, rude—sheknewshe was being rude, yet rather than apologize or simply sayYou’re welcome,like a normal human would do, Vivia kept staring into the middle distance.
Then Varrmin—thank the Hagfishes—appeared. He worked in the Pin’s Keep kitchens, jovial, warm, and all the things Vivia had never been. The instant he was near enough for Vivia to see the gray scruff in his beard, she spun on her heel and fled.
There was another exit from the under-city that fed into the Cisterns, and she aimed for that. She wanted to feel the Tidewitched waters of those tunnels—and she wanted to reach them before any guards could form rank around her.
She wasn’t fast enough to evade Stix, though. Vivia didn’t know where the woman came from, but suddenly she was there, falling into step beside Vivia, her long legs easily keeping Vivia’s frantic pace.
“How is it,” Stix asked, “that men always seem to claim victory over the triumphs earned by women?”
Vivia didn’t answer that question. She hadn’t answered it two months before, either, when Merik had been appointed Admiral with absolutely no qualifications to recommend him except his gender.
Instead, Vivia stomped faster. The empty, lantern-lit houses she had worked so hard to clean now glowered down at her.
“I’m sorry he did that,” Stix went on. “I know you wrote that speech.”
“One should not need credit,” Vivia murmured, “as long as it gets the job done.”
“Wait.” Stix reached for her. “Your Highness.”
Your Highness.No more calling herSirorVivia. For two weeks, it had been this way, and Vivia didn’t know if it was because of thekiss or her new title. Either way, she hated it. She wanted the old Stix back.
“Please,” Vivia said at last, wishing her voice wasn’t so shrill. “Please, just call me ‘Viv.’”
No reaction. Instead, Stix offered a rolled-up missive stamped with the Royal Voicewitch seal. “This came for you, but I didn’t think… That is to say, I thought you should see it before your father did.”
Vivia knew she ought to reprimand Stix for hiding this from Serafin. He might not be King or King Regent, but he was still Vivia’s first and foremost adviser. She said nothing, though, because for the first time since leaving the crowds outside Pin’s Keep, Vivia’s heart felt a bit less flattened. Her lungs felt a bit less crushed.
She slowed at an intersection and unfurled the message. Foxfire flared brighter than lamps here, casting the paper in green.
