ᴛʜᴇ ɢʀᴀᴠᴇʏᴀʀᴅ ǫᴜᴇᴇɴ | ᴸᵒⁿᵍ ᵐᵃʸ ˢʰᵉ ʳᵉⁱᵍⁿ | Chapter Two 12/31

PART ONE: HER RISE

 

 “Someone could call themselves a hero and still walk around killing dozens.”
-V.E. Schwab, Vicious 

 

 

--

There are some stories of queens that start with life and hope and happiness.


This is not one of those stories.


This story starts with death, and with blood, and with fear.


-


Mira is two moons old when she watches her parents die.


There are several ways to describe why it’s happening.


Acts of treason.


Conspiring against the king.


Traitors to the throne.


They all lead to the same thing. To death.


Mira is two moons old, and she and Amory watch as their parents are executed in front of the watching kingdom. Amory cries and shouts and screams, fighting to get to their parents. She twists in the grip of those holding her back, wailing like a wild creature. But Mira doesn't fight. She watches. She doesn’t look away as the soldiers march her parents up, doesn’t look away as they’re forced to their knees.


Amory looks away. Amory buries her face in someone’s chest and doesn’t watch. But Mira can’t take her eyes away.


Mira doesn’t look away as soldiers slash claws against tender skin. Her parents die choking on blood, bleeding out onto the cold, frozen ground, and Mira can’t take her eyes away.


-


They go home with Flint.


Mira knows Flint only vaguely, from hazy memories of a few fever ridden nights as a moon old kit. Amory doesn’t know him at all, but with their parents gone, they have no one left.


Flint volunteered to take them. Even though they’re kits, even though they have no connection to their parents crimes. Cats are still nervous, nervous enough to turn their back on the two tiny she-cats shivering out in the cold.


Flint takes pity on them. If he hadn't, they would have frozen there, alone.


Amory is still shivering, even though Flint’s little cave is warm and dry. It's stuffed full of herbs, giving the air the sharp, green smell that Flint carries on his fur. Amory curls up in a nest that Flint hurriedly makes for the two of them to share, and Mira can feel her trembling.


Amory is silent and cold with shock, but Mira is the opposite.


“Why did the soldiers kill them?” Mira asks, and Flint freezes. He’s been digging around for something to help the two kits sleep, a poppy seed or two. He turns to face Mira, not quite meeting her eyes.


“Do you know what treason is?” Flint asks carefully, sitting down and sweeping his fluffy tail over white front paws.


“No,” Mira says, brow furrowing at the unknown word. Flint hesitates, thinking over his words before he says them.


“Treason means to try to overthrow those in charge,” Flint says.


“Your parents didn’t want the king and queen to be king and queen anymore. They tried to get them off the throne. Or they were planning to. And that’s against the law. It’s one of the heaviest crimes you can commit.”


“So they killed them?”


Amory’s voice is small, smaller even than her usual peeping voice, a tremor hiding in the corners. Mira curls up closer to her sister, and Amory instinctively snuggles closer into Mira’s soft fur.


“Yes,” Flint says, voice laced with an emotion that Mira can’t quite place. “They did.”


-


Flint is a good adoptive father, Mira supposes. Sure he’s a bit scattered, and sure he might sometimes forget to feed them because he’s with a patient. And sure, he doesn’t really understand kits in the first place, but he’s nice enough. And he always answers Mira’s questions honestly, no matter what she asks.


She learns a lot about the kingdom over the next few moons.


She learns about treason and rebellion and the costs of both. She learns that the soldiers use force to keep the kingdom in check. About how it’s always better to step back and lower your head rather than argue with them. She learns that to argue means to cause problems, no matter how trivial it may be. She learns about things that no kit should ever know, and she stores them away, tucking them in the back of her mind.


But Flint isn’t always around, pulled away by one patient or another, so Mira and Amory are often left alone. Flint’s den is interesting for the first couple of days, piled with herbs both fresh and dried. Moss creeps up the walls, providing both playthings for the two sisters as well as bedding. And there’s always food.


Flint is the royal healer, and so he does not have to pay the tithe. The monthly requirement of fresh prey given to the rulers, is the reason for the hunger of many in the kingdom. He's often also thanked for his healing services with prey, so there's always enough. Mira has her first bite of solid food in Flint’s cave, and she instantly adores the meaty, wild flavor. It takes Amory a few days to warm up to it, though, still longing for her mother's milk.


But after a few days, even Flint’s den is boring, and they’ve been expressly forbidden to step outside. They're also forbidden to touch the stacks of herbs, the only two rules Flint has. Mira obeys the second rule. The first she ignores.


Outside, the winter chill steals prey from cat’s bellies and warmth from their dens. The first time Mira goes outside, plump from Flint’s prey she gets envious looks from those who see her. She doesn’t let that stop her, though. It takes Amory, always a rule follower, a few days to follow Mira out but when she does they travel even farther.


Today when they leave, Mira knows where she wants to go. She had not gone yet, not wanting to see it without her sister beside her.


Their old den has fallen into a state of disarray in the half moon since their parent's death. Amory immedietely climbs into their parents nest, burying her nose in the moss in a desperate attempt to draw out any traces of their scent. Mira knows it’s a lost cause. The entire den smells like winter chill, and the nest will be no different. She stands in the middle of the den, closing her eyes.


Soldiers crashing in


Mother and father being dragged from their nests


screaming all of them screaming Mother and Father and Amory right in Mira’s ear


Mira opens her eyes, and for a second, she thinks that the screaming is still echoing around the den from the memory. But Amory’s head has shot up, her entire form stiffening, and Mira realizes that the screaming comes from outside the den.


Mira creeps out, keeping low to the ground, peering around a half withered fern. She watches as two soldiers drag a tom from his den, only a few strides away. He’s screaming, not words, a long sound of rage and fear, twisting in the soldier’s grips. Blood trickles down his ear, the color bright and jarring against the tan of his fur.


claws in Mira’s fur and blood on the dirt floor and leering soldier looking down at her


kicking her away when she tries to fight


There are heads popping up around the small clearing. Everyone is watching without speaking a word, too afraid to draw the soldier’s attention to them.


The tom fights, and the soldiers fall on him with a grim delight, claws glinting, teeth bared in feral snarls. No one is coming to help him, even as he curls on the ground in a desperate attempt to protect himself. Everyone is watching, but no one is helping, even as he bleeds and his cries turns to whimpers.


No one is helping him. Even though they all know this is wrong.


-


It’s always been Mira and Amory against the world, since they opened their eyes.


And that’s more true now than ever.


They watch the soldiers drag the tom away as he hangs limp between them. And while they do, Mira makes a promise, one that settles into her bones with a finality that sits heavy in her rib cage.


She will protect Amory without hesitation. No matter the cost.


She will protect her own.

“I want you to train me.”


Flint blinks down at Mira, his expression mirroring that of a mouse suddenly realizing it had been caught under a hunter’s claws.


“You want me to train you?” He echoes, carefully setting down the little bundle of herbs. “Train you to do what, exactly?”


Mira rolls her eyes. She knows he is very well aware of what she is requesting, but repeats it anyways, clarifying what she doesn’t need to clarify.


“I want to become a healer,” she says, sitting down and sweeping her tail over paws in a move she hopes makes her seem mature. “I want to be your apprentice.”


She’s been thinking about it a lot the last couple of moons. Amory had been musing over it as they slowly started reaching the ages in which kits got apprenticed, should they catch someone’s eye. But while Amory had eventually decided against asking their foster father to teach the healing arts, something about it had caught in Mira’s mind.


Flint doesn’t answer, instead resuming his careful sorting of herbs for storage, and so Mira takes that as an opportunity to keep talking.


“You have no reason not to take me. You don’t have an apprentice currently, and you’ve been talking about how exhausted and busy you are. And I’m old enough.”


More than old enough, Mira wants to say. Kits get apprenticed as young as four moons old for some of the softer duties, or at least chosen for apprenticeship for when they’re older. At six moons Mira is sure she can handle the duties of being a healer’s apprentice.


Flint sighs. “Mira...”


He doesn’t sound fully convinced, so Mira throws in her last, and most powerful, fact as to why he should choose her.


“Also, I already live with you, so you don’t have to deal with a stranger coming in and living in your den.”


Flint sighs again, but this time it’s more fond than tired. “You really want this?”


“I do,” Mira says, straightening up to as tall as she can get her tiny form. “I want to be a healer.”


Flint looks at her for a few more moments before caving. “Okay, then. I’ll declare you as my apprentice tomorrow.”


He does, and Mira is very pleased.

-


The longer she trains, the more Mira is sure she’s made the right choice. Even young as she is, she has an extraordinary memory, and it takes her days rather than moons to memorize the healing herbs and their usages. To say that Flint is surprised would be an understatement, and he insists on quizzing and teaching her about them even once she’s already learned them all.


Eventually he realizes it’s a waste of time, and moves on to teaching her about herbal mixtures.


Mira absorbs everything, and it enthralls her. The ideas that these herbs can cure and harm in equal measure, and that to heal you need the knowledge on the precise quantities to use, because if you don’t you risk bringing death to the cat you are trying to keep alive.


Foxglove seeds can as easily stop the heart as they can help it. To confuse yarrow and water hemlock would bring on convulsions and vomiting. And even the plants that are familiar, that are used to heal more than they are to hurt have dangerous effects if used in the wrong way. Poppy seeds can ease shock and lure a cat into a restful sleep, but a few too many and the cat will slip into a sleep they will not wake from. Too much yarrow, and the cat will be unable to stop vomiting, leading to severe dehydration.


Flint teaches her about poisons. About their effects and how to combat them. How to help a cat who has eaten deathberries as opposed to been bitten by a snake. How to recognize the symptoms of both if the cat is past being able to tell you what exactly has happened. He shows her the remedies and explains the actions for using them.


Mira files it all away, fascinated. If Flint is worried it, worried about the way his apprentice’s eyes seem to take on a gleam as he shows her a new type of poison, he says nothing.


-


Mira grows, and she learns.


She can list off healing herbs as easily as she breathes, can splint a broken leg and bring down a fever in a coughing kit. She knows where the comfrey grows in the damp dirt down by the river, and where the lavender hides among patches of heather along the sun-warmed stone cliffs on the river’s opposite side. She can find the exact herb she needs from Flint’s store in the pitch black, and knows the quickest routes to the little communities of cats that dot the kingdom.


She’s the perfect healer’s apprentice, and Mira knows that. Which is why it’s confusing her when she sometimes finds Flint watching her with an expression of almost distrust, and when it seems like sometimes she has to prod him for him to give her the information she needs.


He always answers, though, after a small shake of his head as if he’s clearing whatever thought or hesitation was lingering.


There’s one question he’ll never answer, though, no matter how many times she asks.


“I’m old enough,” she argues, even as Flint tries his very hardiest to pretend that he can’t hear her.


They’re on their way back from a patient, following one of the tiny, narrow trails that crisscross the kingdom. They had been up all night with the laboring queen, but while Flint seems to be mostly asleep on his paws, Mira is full of the jittery, uncomfortable energy that comes when you’re so tired that you no longer feel as if you are.


Flint heaves a sigh. “Mira…I’ve told you before.”


“All you’ve ever said is treason.” Mira speeds up so she’s walking beside Flint instead of behind him. “But you’ve never said specifically what the act of treason actually was.”


Flint sighs again. “Mira.”


“I just want to know. I think I deserve to know. They’re my parents!”


“Mira, drop it!” Flint snaps, and Mira stops, eyes widening. It’s the first time she’s ever heard Flint raise his voice at anyone, first time she’s heard him sound anything close to aggressive. He immedietly looks apologetic.


“Mira, I’m sorry. I don’t know what, specifically, your parents were arrested for. Just treason. Okay?”


“Okay,” Mira says grudgingly, and Flint nods, clearly thinking that the matter is over.


It isn’t. Mira lets it drop for now, but she knows he’s lying. He knows what her parents did to get them arrested. To get them killed.


She’ll find out eventually, though. She always finds out.

-


Amory moves out of Flint’s den, and to Mira, it stings like a betrayal.


It’s been her and Amory against the world, it always has been. And now she’s leaving them, leaving her, for a tom. A tom.


Mira had noticed when Amory started getting all moony-eyed over Jasper, of course she had. Jasper lived in one of the closer settlements to Flint’s den, and his hunting trails led him past the stone den almost every day. It took about a quarter moon for Mira to notice that Amory almost seemed to be waiting for him to come by, and another quarter moon after that for her to notice that Amory always stayed out for long hours, and never came back with much prey.


But once she notices, she can’t stop noticing.


The way that Amory isn’t ever around when Mira has her brief flashes of free time. The way that Amory will always come back dreamy and giggly. The way that Jasper somehow always works his way into every single conversation Mira has with her sister, even though he’s never actually there.


“Jasper loves the scent of peppermint,” Amory says as she watches her sister roll the sharp, clean smelling leaves into neat little bundles.


“When Jasper and I were hunting yesterday, we stumbled unto an entire flock of starlings,” she says when Mira brings one home, a thank you from a patient.


“I’m moving in with Jasper,” Amory says, and Mira jerks upright so quickly that she sends the borage leaves she’s laying out to dry scattering. She makes no move to collect them, instead staring at her sister with something akin to horror,


“You’re what?” She asks, and Amory, her voice bright and happy, repeats herself.


“I’m moving in with Jasper,” she says, nearly bouncing. “He offered this morning. And I agreed!”


“You can’t go,” Mira snaps. “What about Flint? What about me?”


“We’re not kits anymore, Mira,” Amory says, shrugging. “We haven’t been kits for a long time. We’re going to have to go our separate ways eventually.”


“But not now.”


“Mira, I want to move in with him,” Amory says, as if she’s talking to a small kit. “I am grown-“


“You’re ten moons old.”


“I’m grown,” Amory repeats, a bit of heat crawling into her voice. “And as much as I love you and Flint, I can’t stay here forever. Flint agrees with me.”


Mira whips her head around, and Flint freezes. Looking vastly uncomfortable, he coughs awkwardly.


“Well, they do seem enamored with each other, and Jasper’s a nice enough tom. Although it does seem a bit early in this relationship to be making a choice, it is her choice to make, whether we agree or not, which, uh…” he stops, both sisters giving him disgusted looks, although for very different reasons.


“Is really none of my business,” he finishes awkwardly, and Amory sighs before turning back to her sister.


“You can’t talk me out of this. I’ll still live close by, and I’ll come visit every day. I’ll visit so much you’ll have to beg me to stop.”


“So why don’t you just stay?”


“Mira, enough. I’m leaving. You can’t talk me out of it.”


That doesn’t stop Mira from trying. She keeps trying, the feelings of jealousy and betrayal rising in her gut, a snarling creature curling in her ribcage. But Amory still leaves.

-


A moon later, Jasper wrenches his shoulder crossing the river, and when Mira goes to help him, she finds herself thinking about how easy it would be to slip foxglove seeds into his mixture of herbs. He would never even notice, and she could blame it on an undiagnosed illness of the heart.


And then, she could have her sister back.


She doesn’t do it, though. Even though finds herself wanting to.

 

 

 

PART THREE: LONG MAY SHE REIGN

 

 “No one really wishes to be a queen.”
-Kendare Black, Three Dark Crowns

 

 

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