Bitterblue

His fever lingered; seemed to improve; then flared up again worse than it had been before. Sometimes when she checked in on him, he shivered and thrashed and said the strangest things, things that made no sense whatsoever. 'He's hallucinating,' Madlen told her once when Po had grabbed Bitterblue's arm and cried out that the bridges were growing and the river was swimming with the dead.

'I wish his hallucinations could be as pleasant as his dreams,' she whispered, touching Po's forehead, stroking his sweaty hair, trying to shush him. And she wished for Raffin and Bann, who were better at sickbeds than she. She wished for Katsa, who would surely lose her anger if she saw Po like this. But Katsa was in a tunnel somewhere, and Raffin and Bann were en route to Sunder.

'It was Randa's order,' Po cried, bundled under blankets this time, violently shivering. 'Randa sent Raffin to Sunder to marry Murgon's daughter. He will come back with a wife and babies and grandbabies.'

'Raffin marry the Sunderan king's daughter?' Bitterblue exclaimed. 'Not in a million years.'

A tsk came from the table where Madlen was mixing one of the vile concoctions she liked to make Po gag down. 'Let's ask him about it again when he's not raving, Lady Queen.'

'When will that be, Madlen?'

Madlen added a sour-smelling paste to the bowl, mashed it in with the rest, and didn't answer.

HELDA, IN THE meantime, had employed Ornik the smith to make a replica crown. He did this so effectively that Bitterblue's heart surged with relief the first moment she saw it, thinking that the real crown had returned— until she realized that it lacked the solidness and the luster of the true crown, and that the jewels were painted glass.

'Oh,' Bitterblue said. 'Goodness, Ornik is good at his job. He must have seen the crown before.'

'He hadn't, Lady Queen, but Fox has, of course, and Fox described it to him.'

'And so we've pulled Fox into this fiasco?'

'She saw Saf, of course, Lady Queen, on the day of the theft, and went to finish polishing the crown again the day after. Remember? There was no way not to involve her. And she's useful as a spy. I'm using her to locate this Spook character who supposedly has the crown.'

'And what have we learned?'

'Spook specializes in royal contraband, Lady Queen, all kinds of noble treasure. It's been his family's business for generations. Right now, he's keeping silent on the matter of the crown. It's said that no one but his subordinates know the location of this cave he lives in. Good for our own need for silence; bad for our need to locate him and figure out what the hills is going on.'

'Saf will know what's going on,' said Bitterblue grudgingly, watching as Helda covered the fake crown with a cloth. 'What's the punishment for royal theft, Helda?'

Sighing shortly, Helda said, 'Lady Queen, perhaps it has not occurred to you that stealing a monarch's crown is more than royal theft. The crown isn't just an ornament; it's the physical manifestation of your power. Stealing it is treason.'

Treason?

Death was the punishment for treason. 'That's ridiculous,' Bitterblue hissed. 'I would never let the High Court condemn Saf to death for stealing a crown.'

'For treason, you mean, Lady Queen,' said Helda. 'And you know as well as I do that even your own rulings may be overturned by a unanimous vote from your judges.'

Yes. It was another of Ror's funny provisions, this one to put a check on the monarch's absolute power. 'I'll replace my judges,' she said. 'I'll make you a judge.'

'A person Middluns-born cannot be a judge on the Monsean High Court, Lady Queen. I don't need to tell you that the requirements for such an appointment are particular and extreme.'

'Find Spook,' Bitterblue said. 'Find him, Helda.'

'We are doing the best we can, Lady Queen.'

'Do more,' she said. 'And I'll go to Saf, soon, and—I don't know—beg. Perhaps he'll give it back when he understands the implications.'

'Do you really think he hasn't worked it out, Lady Queen?' asked Helda soberly. 'He's a professional thief. He's reckless, but he's not actually stupid. He may even be enjoying this bind he's put you in.'

HE ENJOYS PUTTING me in a bind.

Why am I so afraid of going to see him?

In bed that same night, Bitterblue reached for paper and pen and began a letter to Giddon. It was a letter she had no intention of ever actually showing Giddon. It was only to straighten her thoughts, and it was only addressed to him because he was the person she told the truth to, and because whenever she imagined him listening and asking questions, his questions were less worried, less fraught than anyone else's.

Is it because you're in love with him? Giddon asked.

Oh, balls. How can I even begin to think about that, she wrote, with all that's on my mind?

It is a rather simple question, actually, he said crisply.

Well, I don't know, she wrote impatiently. Does that mean I'm not? I liked kissing him an awful lot. I liked going out into the city with him and the way we trusted each other without trusting each other at all. I would like to be his friend again. I would like him to remember that we got along, and to realize that he knows my truths now.

Giddon said, You told me once that you sat on a roof with him, hiding from killers. And now you've told me about the kissing. Can't you imagine how much trouble a townsman could get into if he were caught involving the queen in such things?

No trouble, if I forbade it, she wrote. I would never allow him to be blamed for a thing he did in innocence, not knowing who I was. Frankly, I don't intend him to be blamed for stealing the crown either, and he is not innocent of that crime.

Then, Giddon said, isn't it possible that a person who thought you a commoner might feel betrayed to learn that you have so much power over his fate?

Bitterblue didn't write anything for a while. Finally, the pen held tight and the letters small, as if she were whispering, she wrote: I have been thinking about power a great deal lately. Po says that one of the privileges of wealth is that you don't need to think about it. I think it's the same with power. I feel powerless more often than I feel powerful. But I am powerful, aren't I? I have the power to hurt my advisers with words and my friends with lies.

Those are your examples? said Giddon, with a small touch of amusement.

Why? she wrote. What's wrong with those examples?

Well, he said, you risked the well-being of every citizen in your kingdom when you invited the Council to use your city as a base for the overthrow of the Estillan king. Then you sent King Ror a letter asking him for the support of the Lienid Navy in the case of war. You do recognize these things for what they are, don't you? They are power in the extreme!

Do you mean you think I shouldn't have done it?

Well, perhaps you shouldn't have done it so lightly.

I did not do it lightly!

You did it so your friends would stay near! Giddon said. And you have not seen war, Lady Queen. Could you have understood the decision you made? Did you truly comprehend its implications?

Why are you telling me this now? You were at that meeting, she wrote. You were practically in charge of that meeting! You could have objected!

But this is a conversation you're having with yourself, Lady Queen, Giddon said. I'm not actually here, am I? I'm not the one objecting.

And Giddon faded away. Bitterblue was left with herself again, holding her strange letter to the fire, wound up in too many different kinds of confusion. Knowing that in the end, she needed Saf's help finding out who was targeting truthseekers, whether or not he could ever forgive her abuses of power.

Ashen had made bad choices because of Leck's fog. Bitterblue didn't have that excuse; her bad choices were all her own doing.