The Ash Queen

Queen Iyabo of the Ashen Kingdom had the kind of beauty that made people forget they were afraid, right up until the moment they remembered.

She received the princess in the Hall of Embers, a vast circular chamber with a floor of black glass and a ceiling lost in smoke. Braziers burned in the corners. A throne of fused iron sat on a dais. The Queen did not sit on it. She stood beside it, in a gown of silver-grey silk, her white hair braided in a crown around her head, her hands folded in front of her like a priestess.

"Daughter," she said. "Welcome."

"Queen Mother." Adunni knelt, as protocol demanded. "I am honoured."

"You are not. But you are polite, and that will do." The Queen's voice was pitched low and sweet. "Stand. Let me look at you."

She looked for a long time. Her eyes were the same colour as her son's, grey as river-stones, but there was nothing in them at all. They did not warm or cool. They only measured.

"You have your mother's mouth," said the Queen.

Adunni's heart skipped. "You knew my mother?"

"We met once. A long time ago. At a funeral." The Queen smiled. "She was a brave woman. She wore white. It was the last time she wore it."

Silence stretched. In the corner, a brazier popped.

"Mother," said Kolade, from the doorway. "The princess is tired."

"The princess is a guest. I will ask what I like." The Queen did not look at him. "Tell me, Adunni of Ile Omi. What do you know of our history?"

"That we've been at war for a century."

"And how did it begin?"

"With the death of a bride."

"Who killed her?"

"The Ashen Kingdom," said Adunni carefully. "She was found with her throat cut."

"Ah." The Queen tilted her head. "That is the version your people tell. Would you like to hear ours?"

"Mother," said Kolade again, with warning.

"In our version, the bride was not murdered by the groom's family. She killed herself. She took a blade of river-glass from her own sleeve and opened her own throat, on the night of her wedding, rather than lie beside the man her father had sold her to." The soft voice did not waver. "And her father blamed the groom for it. And the groom's family blamed her father for the sale. And a hundred years of children have died for a quarrel over a girl who wanted only to be free."

Adunni's breath stopped.

River-glass. A blade of river-glass, hidden in a sleeve.

She felt, against her ribs, the cold press of the knife.

"You are very quiet," observed the Queen.

"I did not know that version."

"No. They never teach it." Queen Iyabo stepped down from the dais. She walked a slow circle round the girl. Her skirts whispered on the glass. "I will give you the same warning I gave her. You are an instrument. You were sent here by a man who wants my son dead. I know it. I have known for weeks. My spies are better than his."

"I came to marry your son."

"You came with a blade in your bodice."

Adunni did not move. The room seemed to tilt.

"I don't intend to take it from you," said the Queen. "I don't intend to stop you. Do you know why?"

"No."

"Because I want it done." She smiled, and for the first time something moved behind the grey. "You think I love this war? I have buried a husband and two daughters. I would burn this kingdom to ash, and myself with it, if it meant my last child would live to see forty." She leaned close. "But the war is not what you think it is. The war is a lock. And my son, God help him, is the key."

"I don't understand."

"You will." The Queen straightened. "Rest tonight. Tomorrow you will be married. And on the wedding night, my son will place the Crown of Ash on his head, and you will do what you came to do."

"You want me to kill him?"

"I want you to try."

She turned away. Her skirts rustled across the black glass, past the braziers, to the great iron door. At the threshold she paused, without looking back.

"Princess. If you are wise, you will listen to him. He is the only honest man in this kingdom. It is the reason he is so very hard to love."

The door closed behind her. The embers shifted in their iron cages. And Prince Kolade, who had been standing in the doorway the whole time, came forward very slowly, and said, in a voice stripped of all its calm:

"Adunni. We have to talk. Before tonight."