Fortissima Read online

  When our tea is long finished I realize it’s already lunchtime and I’d better get home. I hug my godmother and assure her we’ll all be back in a few hours.

  I’m lying in bed after dinner, watching the almost-full moon rise slowly up through the treetops. My belly is stuffed full of golden harp. Tonight was another wonderful evening spent around Miss Lilith’s wooden table. The fish was definitely the best I’ve ever had. Along with the buttered sweet potatoes, fresh green beans, and one of Mum’s famous berry pies, it might have been my favorite dinner ever. After we’d eaten, we slid the table toward the wall and danced to the notes of Mum’s wood flute, the one Papa carved and gave to her for their wedding.

  I can’t stop smiling as I remember our night together, my little family and I. I don’t want to forget any details of it. The moon slowly slips up and over the roof of my treehome and my small room grows darker. My eyes finally close and I sleep.

  And then comes the dream that will destroy my life forever.

  There is water. It is warm and I’m swimming in it. Or more like floating. I try to move my arms and legs, but they are held down somehow. Each effort is met with the resistance of soft, watery walls. I can’t see anything. It is dark. Every now and then I am startled by a dim light and everything is blurry. I can’t make anything out. Voices reach my ears, but I’m not able to understand the words. Everything is muffled.

  For hours I dream of this watery world. Then the feeling like I am being squeezed, like my whole world is giving me a hug. Then tighter. Pressure. I can’t breathe. I start to panic. But then there is air and I take a long, deep, delicious breath. I can see now. I can hear. My eyes clear and a face is there. The most beautiful face I’ve ever seen. It’s like my own, with clear blue eyes. Wild, glossy black hair. I love this face with my entire being. I am cold, terribly cold, but I don’t care as long as I can look into the face that is smiling at me now.

  Blackness again. And warmth. I am being moved somewhere. A new face. Wait, I know this one. It’s Miss Lilith. She is smiling at me and offering me something warm to drink.

  I wake up, stunned and shaking. A beam of sunlight reaches my eyes, but I can’t move my head. I just let it blind me for a few seconds.

  I feel as if my world has been split in two. But it doesn’t make any sense—it was just a dream.

  “Raven, are you okay?” I finally look away from the sunlight to find Mum’s concerned face. Her warm brown eyes are just above mine. “You were crying out.”

  “I … I think so. I just had a dream. I think. It was very … vivid.”

  “Do you want to tell me about it?” Her voice is a little unsteady.

  “No. It’s hard to remember now.” This is the first time ever I’ve lied to my mother. I can recall each second of the dream as clear as day. “I just need a few minutes, then I’ll come in for breakfast.”

  Mum gives me a hug and goes back to the kitchen. The scent of coffee reaches my nose.

  I try to put myself back together, but I can’t move for a long time. I stare out the window again at the green leaves. Minutes tick by. Still in a haze, I get dressed and go out to the breakfast table. I appear calm on the outside, but inside I’m completely shaken. I eat quickly with Mum and Papa then excuse myself. There’s only one person I can tell what I know now to be true.

  Miss Lilith is already out watering her plants when I come bounding across her swingway. “Why, hello Raven! It’s been so long since I’ve seen you!” she jokes. But then her face falls serious as she senses my mood.

  I can’t keep it inside for one second longer, and everything spills over. “I had a dream. Who is … where is my mother?”

  I realize I must sound like a crazy girl.

  But Miss Lilith’s face tells me she knows exactly what I’m talking about.

  “Come inside, dear. I’ll put the kettle on.” Her voice is calm, but sure.

  She doesn’t say anything as she prepares the tea and fills a plate with rosemary biscuits. I sit patiently at her table. I know Miss Lilith will tell me the story, in time.

  At last she sets the steaming teapot down on the table and sits down across from me. She leans over, takes both of my hands in hers and begins.

  “Raven. I promised your mother that when the time came, I would tell you the truth, but the most important thing for you to know is that the truth is very dangerous. The truth is deadly. You must take the utmost of care with what you learn today. But your—our—survival depends on your knowing this at the same time. Do you understand what I am telling you?” Her eyes burn with sincerity. I understand completely, and nod.

  “You already know a lot of it. You remember all the stories I would tell you at bedtime when you were a little girl, about the ancient Woman Kings who ruled the Old World?”

  “Yes, I remember. When the firstborn daughters were the rightful heirs to the throne—the true Kings of Nadir. They were the ones that ruled our kingdom. Those were the days before war, and famine. When there was freedom.”

  “I never told you what happened to them, why there are no more Woman Kings.” Miss Lilith sets my hands down gently and leans back in her chair. Both of us take a sip of tea.

  “No,” I say, “but I have wondered why not. It seems like the world was a much more peaceful place then.” I think of the trouble I have heard about, far away at the Bastion. The rumors of commoner protests in response to the scarce food rations and tyrannical landlords. The trade and travel rules the King makes more of every year. Mum and Papa try to keep this sort of news from me, but I hear about these things anyway, even if they are only whispered. “We could use a Woman King now,” I muse aloud.

  The corners of Miss Lilith’s mouth rise in a small smile. “Her Majesty King Sione Quelline was the last, over a thousand years ago. At the time of her rule, the kingdom was the most peaceful and prosperous it had ever been. Decades had passed since the mere threat of war. Much of our music and art comes from that time. Peace and full bellies leave room for the muses and imagination.

  “Her brother, Prince Quelline was not happy with the situation, however. He felt King Sione was giving away the kingdom’s riches to the peasants, which she was, I suppose. She believed it was best when everyone in Nadir prospered, as all Woman Kings did. Her brother disagreed, wanting to keep riches under his control. He organized a coup, overthrowing King Sione. Quelline declared himself King and took the throne. But he destroyed the sapphire crown and Fortissima, the sword held by every Woman King in our history. He made sure those were gone forever.

  “Despite this, King Quelline had no power over the Diuturnal Law that sets out the line of succession, naming a firstborn daughter as heir apparent. It is literally carved in stone by the ancient ones and cannot be altered. He did something far worse: he decreed that there would be no firstborn royal daughters.”

  “But how did he do—” I start to ask. Immediately, I’m sure I don’t want to know the answer.

  “It’s time I told you the rest of it,” Miss Lilith continues. “When a Queen knows she is with child, she tells only her closest maids and the royal midwives. Eventually the King and his advisors are notified. The Queen is hidden away in the last months of her pregnancy, tended to lavishly in her private suite of rooms. Life in the Bastion continues as it always has, the kingdom unaware of the coming child.

  “When the firstborn arrives at last—if it’s a son—trumpets sound throughout the capital. With great fanfare and flourish, the announcement is made that an heir has been born. Celebrations commence soon after, with parades by day and night after night of feasting and dancing and music. When the baby is strong enough, the opulent Naming Ceremony is performed with the unveiling of the new Prince of Nadir.”

  “And if it’s a girl?” I can barely breathe the words.

  “If the firstborn is a girl, the baby is put to death.”

  Miss Lilith and I sit in silence for a while. I can only stare at the half-eaten biscuit on my plate, at my tea, cold in its mug. I can see
why this part was left out of the bedtime tales Miss Lilith told me when I was younger; stories about the kind yet powerful rulers of ancient paradise. The reason there had been no Woman Kings since Quelline was because no first daughters of the Kings had survived. I’m horrified at this. Tears spring to my eyes and my stomach starts to tie itself into knots.

  “Raven.” Miss Lilith’s gentle voice startles me back to the present. I look up at her again. Her eyes focus intently on mine. “I do know of one firstborn royal daughter who survived. Is surviving. Nearly thirteen years ago, Queen Seraphine gave birth to a baby girl. In secret. I was there, just myself and the midwife. The Queen entrusted me, her loyal maid since she was a baby, with her own child. I took her far away from the Bastion, so that she could live.” Miss Lilith pauses, as if to let all that sink in.

  And then it all starts to make sense. My head begins to swim as my understanding swallows me up. I know who that black-haired woman in my dream was. Our Queen, Her Majesty Seraphine Araroa. There had been a picture of her in one of my history schoolbooks. Now I realize why her image startled me the first time I saw it. Tall. Raven-haired. Clear blue eyes. She looked just like me.

  “It’s me,” I whisper. I can barely make out the words. My throat feels as if it’s choking on dust. My entire body is shivering and my heart is pounding.

  “Yes. You are Raven Araroa. The firstborn daughter of King and Queen Araroa of Nadir. The forbidden heir to the throne.” Miss Lilith says this quietly but firmly, as if she wants to make sure I understand each and every word clearly.

  And I do.

  I was eight when I helped catch my very first fish.

  That night, at dinner, I’d told Mum about it. Papa was away at Greenhollow, trading.

  “How was school today, Raven?” Mum had asked. “I heard you kids got to have a little fishing lesson this afternoon with Mr. Chum. How did that go? Catch anything?”

  “Yeah, we did. It was a really pretty fish.”

  I sighed. How was I going to explain what really happened that afternoon? That it was the most beautiful creature I’d ever seen? It had a bright turquoise body with brilliant yellow stripes all painted in the most intricate lacy pattern of purples and greens. It was so lovely I couldn’t stop looking at it, panting there in the grass. Trying to get a breath in our alien world.

  Then Mr. Chum whacked the fish on its head and it went still. The glorious colors flashed bright, then dimmer, then bright again, over and over. Blue. Yellow. Purple. Silver. Then right before my eyes the fish turned a pale mottled gray. How could I explain that I turned into a crybaby at the sight of the beautiful colorless dead fish? How I couldn’t stop the tears falling down my cheeks onto the soft grass? I was devastated. My face grew hot. My chest was tight. I had no idea what came over me.

  But that’s the thing about my mum, I can tell her anything. “I was really sad to see it die,” I finally told her.

  “Yes, that can be really hard. That’s why your papa always trades his carvings for fish in the village. Cooking and eating them is a lot easier than catching them. And killing them.”

  I had so many questions in my head. It was all very confusing. Finally I said, “Where do they go? The colors? They just disappeared.”

  Mum tilted her head before she answered. Maybe I’d finally stumped her. “I think the colors go into you, when you eat the fish. They leave the fish. But they are still here.”

  I thought about that for a moment. Then her answer gave me an idea. “Is it like the sunrise, maybe? How the sky changes? Maybe the colors don’t really disappear, but we just can’t see them until tomorrow?”

  “I think your fish is very much like the sunrise,” she agreed.

  Our answers comforted me a little.

  But right now, as I wait for Miss Lilith to return with Mum and Papa, I can’t get the image of those flashing colors out of my head.

  And the dead gray of the fish against the brilliant green grass.

  It’s only a few minutes before Mum and Papa come rushing into Miss Lilith’s cabin. They don’t say anything at first, they simply grab hold of me in a tight hug.

  Finally, Mum holds me away from her and looks into my face.

  A growing anger starts to well up inside. The realization that I’ve been lied to for all these years. About who I am, who my family really is—it’s all too much. “How could you? How could you not tell me?” I hiss at her.

  She shakes her head. “We were always going to tell you, Raven. I swear it. We just didn’t know when the right time would be. But I suppose that time has come and we must all talk about what that means.”

  I look at Papa. He’s standing stone-faced. “But, you’re not even my parents!”

  Papa puts his hand on my shoulder. “You are my daughter, Raven. You’ve always been and always will be. Even if you arrived from somewhere else.” Papa’s sad, worried eyes make my heart crack a little. I know he’s telling the truth.

  Miss Lilith beckons for us all to sit down, grabbing another two teacups from her cupboard. I don’t know what else to do, so I sit down again.

  “What does this all mean?” I ask. “What’s going to happen?”

  “Nothing’s going to happen, Raven. Nothing has changed,” Mum says consolingly.

  But she’s wrong: everything has changed. My entire life has turned upside down in the space of an hour. My real parents are the Queen and King of Nadir. I am their firstborn child, their true heir to the throne. If it was a thousand years ago, I would be a Woman King one day. It’s all so absurd, I can’t help but laugh out loud. “This can’t be true,” I say.

  “I’m afraid it is,” Miss Lilith says. “I was there when you were born. I brought you here to Baldachin, where you could grow up in safety. Your Mum and Papa loved you from the first instant I laid you in your mum’s arms.”

  I need another few minutes to digest all this. I suppose what they did was far better than the alternative. “What happens now?” I ask.

  “The important thing is to tell no one,” Mum says. “If this secret got out, you would be in mortal danger. We all would be, for defying the King.”

  I understand exactly what she is saying. We’d all be considered traitors, and the only punishment for that is death.

  “I will keep silent,” I promise. It’s all I can do.

  Chapter 2

  It's been four years since the day I was finally told the truth about my birth. Today, I'm getting ready to leave for Greenhollow, my first time without Papa. I finish stuffing my clothing in my pack and cinch the top strap tight. My stomach churns.

  Now that I’m sixteen, Tui and I are going together, just the two of us. He’s made the trip all by himself before, so that comforts me a bit. I’ve been looking forward to doing this without Papa for years now, but today my nerves are winning. I’ve been telling myself it’s not dangerous; it’s only a two-day journey along the river. Besides, last time we were in Greenhollow, Papa made arrangements for Tui and me to stay at the inn. We’ll be fine.

  My stomach clenches again.

  “Raven! Are you ready yet?” Tui is outside our treehome.

  I grab my pack and go out to meet him. “All ready! What about the horses?”

  “Saddled and bundled up, set to go.”

  “I’ve got one more package here for trading. Some dried and salted fish. Is there room for it?” I pick up the last bundle from beside the front door.

  “Sure thing. Pearl’s packed pretty light; she can handle a few more pounds.”

  Pearl is my horse. Tui’s is Pango. Two years ago, during a trip to Greenhollow with our fathers, Tui and I came across these two sorry horses for sale. They were undernourished, with bloody sores all over their legs and bald patches in their coats. The horses were both quite young. I fell in love with the light gray one. Her huge chocolate eyes showed me she still had so much life left, despite her sad start.

  Tui felt the same, but nobody in Baldachin had kept horses before. It’s pretty hard to keep a horse i
n a tree. We’ve always traveled with our feet.

  Tui and I plotted for days and finally came up with a plan to build a paddock and small shelter just past the edge of the trees. I could hardly believe it when our parents agreed to let us take in the horses. In the end, everyone thought they’d be a great help in going to Greenhollow for supplies; they could carry goods back and forth, and would also make the trip much faster. Safer.

  It took only a few months to nurse the two horses back to health. They grew fat on the green grass near the river and on the many apples we gave them as treats. Their sores healed. Tui and I brushed them every day. Pearl’s silvery mane grew long and soft, and she whinnied with pleasure when I buried my face in it. The bald patches on Pango’s lush black coat filled in. In no time both horses sparkled in the sun, the most glorious horses we’d ever seen. Pearl shone like her name.

  The horses have made several trips to Greenhollow and back with Tui and me and our fathers. We take turns riding on Pearl and Pango, and they’ve grown used to carrying full loads of supplies. This time, Tui and I will get to ride the whole way.

  Mum and Papa come outside to see us off. Mum hands me a parcel. “Something good for you and Tui to eat tonight. Be careful, Raven.” She smiles warmly, but I can see the worry behind her eyes.

  “I will, Mum. Don’t you fret a bit,” I say. Unconsciously, my hand drifts to the small knife that now lives in my belt. Still there, of course. It was a gift from my father when I turned thirteen. He carved the beautiful bone handle himself, and had the master ironsmith in Greenhollow fabricate the steel blade. The perfect size and weight for me. I’ve spent a good many hours these past few years training with it. Just in case.

  “You’ll be fine, Raven.” Papa’s eyes tell me that he truly believes this. “Just stay on the path along the river. Stop in our normal camp tonight and then you’ll only have a couple more hours of riding in the morning. Be sure to tell everyone hello for me.”

  “I will do that Papa, all of it. And I’ve got the list of things you want.”