The Mirror King (The Orphan Queen, #2)(86)

“Indigo must go! No more Indigo!” The cries were faint, barely perceptible.

My heart thrummed. Patrick had told them to let Indigo Kingdom soldiers out, but protest the ones who were still here. And now, as the former prisoners rolled down the cliff path toward the bridge, protesting was exactly what the Red Militia was doing.

No, not protesting. Rioting.

It was hard to see from this angle but there seemed to be people throwing themselves against the gate of the castle’s inner wall. Or pushing others. Right now it was just a mass of bodies shoving and straining, but soon they’d move in time with one another. They’d get a battering ram.

“No more Indigo! Indigo must go!”

James shook my elbow. “This is my job,” he said. “I’ll stop this. Trust me to do my job.”

“Fine. Go.”





THIRTY


JAMES DISAPPEARED INTO the stairwell with a handful of guards, shouting orders as he went.

I turned my attention back to the riot, praying the violence would calm.

It grew worse. People banged on the wall with their clubs and pipes, chanting the same phrases. With the rush and roar of the fires, their words grew hard to hear, but I knew what they wanted.

We all knew.

Surrounded by his blue-clad guards, Prince Colin stood straight, his arms over his chest. A deep frown creased his face. “This is your fault.” He didn’t look at me, but there was no question where his comment was aimed. “They’re doing this because you’re here.”

“They’re doing this because you’re here with me.”

He moved away, along the edge of the overlook.

“What kind of queen hides in her castle while her people are in trouble?” I whispered to Melanie. James would be down the stairs by now. He’d tell his men where to go and what to do, and I’d watch all of it unfold from up here.

She pulled her cloak tight over her shoulders. “The kind who stays alive to help them on the other side of trouble. You can’t personally handle every situation.”

I could try. “I managed last night and the night before.”

“You had the wraith boy. Do you really want to involve him again?”

The memory of the wedding welled up like beading blood from a cut. The king and duchess, on the verge of kissing. The wraith boy, striding down the aisle with terrifying intent in his eyes.

He was still a monster. And unless I wanted to bring the castle to life—and risk killing myself with the effort—I couldn’t stop the fighting.

This was what Tobiah had meant the night I yelled about the Skyvale police: letting other people do their job didn’t mean I did nothing. “Tell me about the Red Militia. Everything you know.” Understanding the enemy was the first step to stopping it.

“It’s complicated,” she said after a minute. The wind and shrieks and thuds almost swallowed her voice, but she leaned close enough for me to hear. “The Red Militia is both an army and resistance. In addition to gathering a force large enough to move through Aecor, Patrick sent spies here to wait for his arrival.”

“Patrick wanted people on the inside to fight, too.”

She nodded. “Otherwise the Indigo regiment could keep the city for weeks, and Patrick’s army wouldn’t be able to keep up a siege for that long.”

“Everything happened so quickly.” Patrick’s plan—and mine, until a few months ago—had been to go to Aecor in the autumn and quietly raise our army until the spring, when we’d march on Aecor City and wrest it back. We’d wanted to make a statement by moving on the anniversary of the One-Night War. Instead Patrick had taken the city months early. “It’s an amazing feat.”

“You know Patrick,” she murmured. “He always manages somehow.”

I did.

“The majority of the Militia dispersed into the city once we took it. He kept enough people to move across Snowhaven Bridge, but most received orders to go into hiding until the goal was achieved.”

“And that is?” Dread coiled like a snake inside me.

“You and Patrick running the kingdom together.”

That plan hadn’t changed, then. “So these”—I motioned below—“are the people he sent here early, or sent out when the city was his.”

“That’s right.”

“Do you know any of them? From the march south?”

“Some. Patrick worked hard to keep everyone as separate as possible. I knew the people he kept close and the small group I led. No one else. It was an army of hundreds of tiny divisions, none permitted to interact with others.”

That sounded like Patrick. He didn’t care about unity—not at that scale, and not with plans as big and elaborate as his, with so many variables and contingencies. He’d always been paranoid; even with the Ospreys, he’d concealed the identities of his contacts in Aecor. He’d done his best to keep us isolated in the old palace.

“We’re searching for the people we know. We are. But most are in hiding, and this is an old city with a lot of forgotten places. Our limited numbers won’t make the search any easier.”

“We must find them.”

“We will. But it won’t happen overnight.” She pointed down. “Look.”

Fires still blazed, but the crowd had thinned. There were fewer red jackets than moments before. Had James even had time to begin stopping the riot? My angle to see into the courtyard wasn’t great, but it looked as though James’s people were just now moving for the rampart.