She pleads again. The crowd watches me.
No, says my old self. You can’t do this.
But Other Nirrim was always too kind. She should understand that the god of thieves did her a service by stealing her heart. I must show her that. I want to pass the crowd’s test, to impress them and make them loyal to me, but most of all I want to let myself feel how good it is not to forgive. Other Nirrim always explained away the harm that people caused. I will never make that mistake.
A watchful quiet grows over the crowd like a sheet of ice. The woman’s cries echo against the stone walls of the buildings that surround the agora. The Half Kith watch me. They know what I am, but not what I am capable of. What will be the limits of what I will do for them? they wonder. If I am to be their leader, what work will I do on their behalf?
I motion for the men to press the woman’s neck against the wooden block. They hold her down. A rusty stain has made the rings in the wood sharply clear. The tree rings circle the woman’s flattened face. The ax handle is slippery. Her eyes squeeze shut.
It takes me a few tries for the ax blade to bite deep enough, but my arm is strong from a life of hard work, and eventually I cut through.
I am not sure how much time passes, but the sun has shifted in the sky, so bright it eats a hole into my vision, when the Elysium bird trills, swooping over the agora. I had shut the door of Sid’s home behind me, locking it in. It must have gotten out through the open balcony doors. Pestering thing. But I enjoy its loyalty to me, and lift my bloody fist for a perch.
A leader must have icons. A queen cannot be everywhere at once. Symbols of power must take her place sometimes. We will make a new flag for Herrath, I decide, one that shows my bird in pink and red and green. The bird’s talons bite into my knuckles and it hops discontentedly to my shoulder, clucking at me like a glamorous chicken. It did not like being left alone. It takes my earlobe gently in its beak, just above my starlike earring, and gives me a scolding nibble.
The sharpness shakes me out of a daze. The executions, taken over by others in the crowd, the ax handed from one to another, have grown monotonous, and then they end. The High-Kith tithe of ten percent of its people has been paid. I worry that the crowd might grow bored, but a murmur runs through it, and I notice that something different is happening.
The person brought wriggling to the block is not High Kith. He wears Middling clothes. He is the first Middling to be brought out for death. I lift a staying hand. “No.” Other Nirrim agrees silently inside me, though our reasons are different. She would excuse everyone from a just punishment. I, on the other hand, have a vision based on strategy, not syrupy emotion. A queen, after all, must show mercy sometimes. The satisfaction of punishment can grow tedious, and everyone likes the thought that someone’s sins might be forgiven, that a person could be born anew, their crimes forgotten. It makes for a good story. Stories, too, will help me rule. “The Middlings will be spared.”
“They lorded over us!” someone shouts.
“They served the High Kith!”
“Yes,” I say, “but they know what it was like to be forced to do the High Kith’s bidding. We must open our hands to them. The old gods left this city long ago. We are the new gods, and must show our divinity. Let us offer the Middlings the chance to prove themselves, and join us.”
The crowd does not like this. I wonder if my power is strong enough to push a false memory into everyone’s mind, and make them do what I want. I was able to make the entire city remember its past, but it was a true memory, not a false one. It takes more of an effort to bend a memory out of shape and turn it into a lie. Anyway, I find that I do not want to force them to do what I will. I want them to choose what I want because they want it. They should admire me, and count themselves lucky that I rule. An idea occurs to me, one that I enjoy. “The Middlings shall live … all but one.”
The dullness of the crowd, how easily they adapted to the repeated executions and even grew bored, sharpens with interest.
“You know who I mean,” I say. “The one who lived among us. Who pretended to be our friend. Did you trust her, like I once trusted her? She stole from you. She milked you like a goat. It is high time that you show her your teeth.”
Someone calls her name. Then another person. It grows into a chant, and follows us as we abandon the agora, and the Middling man who wavers on his feet with relief.
Chanting fills the air.
Raven. Raven. Raven.
My people break through her freshly painted green door, tearing the splintered wood off its hinges. They wiggle loose stones from her sweet garden wall. They survey her Middling home, decorated with the finest touches a Middling was allowed—nice but not too elegant, not too luxurious. Raven, though, made sure to have the best she could. All the time I forged passports for Half Kith to appear Middling and escape beyond the wall, I risked my life believing that it was for something pure and good. Raven led me to believe she was helping people, that we gave our work freely to them.
She took their money, and enriched herself, and made me a fool. Rage flickers in my throat. It burns in my belly.
Half Kith funnel into the house as I wait outside. Muffled screams split the darkening sky.
Raven is dragged from the house. Her dress, made from good, dark green cloth with a grosgrain belt and touches of embroidery, tangles about her legs as she stumbles forward, her gray hair spilling wildly out of what was once an elegant hairstyle. I catch the glint of a familiar necklace around her neck, its pendant tucked beneath the bodice of her dress. Her eyes dart everywhere. Only when someone shoves her to her knees before me does she glance into my face. Shocked recognition flashes.
“Nirrim!” she says. “Darling girl! Help me, please. Everyone has gone mad!”
“Have they?” I say coolly. “Or have they finally come to their senses?”
“The entire Ward knows what I did for them. You and I, Nirrim. We helped them. Explain it.”
“They already know exactly how you helped them.”
Understanding wriggles across her expression. It looks just like fear. I see her realize that she must look guilty. I see her hide the guilt behind her fear, which she decides to perform for all she is worth. Her fingers tremble. I am impressed. I truly cannot tell, now, how much of her fear is real and how much is layered on, like icing on a cake. “Nirrim, they said—in my house, my very own home, which I have worked so hard to have, saved every bit of gold to make a nice home for you and me to share—they said that I must beg their queen for mercy.”
“Correct.”
“You—you—are their queen?” She gives a breathy, disbelieving laugh.
“All true.” I nod at the people holding her. They release their grips. She gets to her feet, wobbles a little, then regains her balance, brushing at her skirts.
“Well, you have come up in the world.” Her tone is approving, yet laced with something snide. More certain of herself, she settles calmly into her bones. “I always knew you would.” She examines my torn, bloodied clothes. “Not quite the outfit I would wear, were I queen. Never worry, my lamb. I will help you choose all the right ensembles.”
I feel the habit of listening to her. I remember excusing her cruelties. Every time she showed me affection again, I believed that the real Raven had returned. She had a temper, true, but she was a good person, one who gave me a home when I had none, and caressed my forehead when I worried. If I were her true daughter, wouldn’t I forgive the sting of her slap? The unkind words?