THE REMAINS OF Em’s home sat at the bottom of the hill. The Ruina castle was nothing but a pile of stone and dirt, weeds snaking in between the rubble. One wall remained intact, and Em liked to think it was her mother who had made sure of that. Even in death, her mother had made one last stand.
Olivia sucked in a breath as she reached the top of the hill. “I thought there would be more left.”
Em took her sister’s hand. Olivia was taken prisoner before their home was demolished and most of the Ruined exterminated. It was her first time seeing the castle like this.
Olivia squeezed Em’s hand too tightly. “Don’t worry, Em. We’ll make them pay.”
Olivia kept saying things like that. Don’t worry, Em. She still worried. Don’t cry, Em. They will fear us soon enough. She’d said that to Em immediately after killing the Lera queen. Em didn’t tell her sister that she was certain everyone already feared them.
“I thought they might have cleared it away,” Aren said as he stopped beside Em. He was haggard, his handsome face tight with exhaustion. The Olso warriors had been able to spare a couple of horses, but most of the Ruined made the journey on foot, and they all desperately needed a day or ten to rest.
“At least now we can sift through it and see if anything is left,” Olivia said.
“I looked a year ago,” Em said. “All I found was your necklace.”
“Your necklace,” Olivia corrected. “I told you I want you to have it.”
Em smiled, dropping Olivia’s hand and grasping the O pendant.
Olivia pointed to the castle. “Are we setting up camp here? We could put the hunters’ heads on spikes nearby, as a warning to others.”
Em swallowed down a wave of disgust and tried not to let it show on her face. Olivia and Aren had left a trail of dead bodies behind them as they traveled from Lera to Ruina over the past week. Em had convinced them to leave King Casimir and his cousin, Jovita, alive at Fort Victorra, but she hadn’t bothered arguing for the hunters’ lives. There was no point. Perhaps they deserved to die, after exterminating thousands of Ruined.
That’s what she kept telling herself, anyway.
“They know,” Em said. “I don’t think there’s any need.”
“Besides, I don’t want to smell dead-hunter head while I sleep,” Aren said.
“It’s your decision where we set up camp,” Em said.
“Why is it my decision?” Olivia asked.
“Because you’re the queen.”
“They voted to abolish the monarchy after I was taken,” Olivia said. “And their elected leader is dead. So, technically, I’m nothing.”
“They thought you were dead,” Em said. “I’m sure they consider you their queen again.”
Olivia shrugged. “Let’s have a meeting in a few days, when most of the Ruined have found their way back. For now, I say we build a camp right here. Let the Lerans and the hunters know we’re not scared of them anymore.”
“We’re not scared anymore?” Aren asked quietly. A new Ruined mark had appeared on his left hand recently, a white swirl against his dark skin, and he rubbed at it absently.
“Cas promised to leave us alone,” Em said, not for the first time.
Aren and Olivia exchanged a look. Em had insisted they’d be safe, that the war against the Ruined was over. Cas had said he wouldn’t continue the attacks on the Ruined now that he was king. Em believed he would keep his word.
Olivia and Aren were not convinced.
An icy wind blew Em’s coat open. She shoved her hands into the pockets and pulled it tight around her body. She’d taken the coat and the clothes she was wearing from a Ruined killed at the battle of Fort Victorra. She’d needed something other than the blue dress she’d worn to cross the Lera jungle, but the clothes still made her squirm when she thought about it too hard.
Em turned at the sound of laughter and saw a group of about a hundred Ruined emerging from the trees. They were exhausted from the battle at Fort Victorra, and dirty from days of walking, but smiles lit up their faces as they took in the remains of the Ruina castle.
“We’ll set up here,” Olivia confirmed with a nod.
“It’s more brown here than I remembered,” Aren said to no one in particular.
Em had to agree. She and Aren had spent weeks in lush, green Lera, next to the ocean with sparkling clean beaches. Ruina did not look good in comparison. The grass was brown and dead, the sparse trees bare. Past the castle was a giant patch of empty dirt where a cluster of shops used to be. They weren’t much to look at when they were standing anyway.
She stared at the pile of debris that used to be her home. Maybe she should have suggested a different location. How long was this going to be her view? How long would she have to sleep on the ground while staring at the spot where her bedroom used to be?
The room took shape in her head—the bed with piles of pillows, the full-length mirror on the wall where she used to stand and desperately search for Ruined marks when she was younger. The worn green chair in the corner where she curled up to read.
She expected tears to come, but a hollow feeling settled at the bottom of her stomach instead. The girl who had lived in that room was gone, and maybe she was relieved that the room was gone as well. They all needed a fresh start. They could rebuild Ruina to be even better than it was before. Safer than it was before. Em hadn’t slept without a weapon within her grasp in a year. If there was one thing she needed—one thing all the Ruined needed—it was to find a way to feel safe again.
“I’ll check on the wagon,” Em said. She jogged down the hill. The wagon they’d stolen from the Lera soldiers was slowly making its way through the trees, pulled by two tired horses.
They’d mostly piled supplies for tents and extra water in the open-air wagon, but a few children and sick Ruined were inside as well. A young Ruined man named Jacobo walked alongside the horses. Mariana walked on the other side, her black braids moving as she nodded at Em. Both Mariana and Jacobo had Ruined marks on their dark-brown skin, the white lines curling up their necks and even across a cheek, in Jacobo’s case.
“It’s—” Em was about to say “clear,” when a flash of movement caught her eye. The bush to her right rustled.
She drew her sword, catching Jacobo’s eyes and nodding to the bush as she stepped toward it. He walked to the wagon, gesturing for the three children inside to come closer to him. Mariana froze.
Em carefully stepped over a log. Someone sniffed.
She parted the leaves of a bush with her blade. Two men were crouched on the ground. Their clothes were dirty, and one man had so many patches on his coat it was an array of different colors. He had a dagger clenched in his fist, but the other didn’t have a weapon. Neither had any blue pins. They weren’t hunters.
“Who are you?” she asked.
“We’re just trying to get across to Vallos,” the man with the dagger said. He stood slowly. His legs shook beneath him. He was staring straight at her chest.
“That’s not what I asked. Who are you?”
“We’re Vallos laborers working in the Ruina mines,” he said to her chest. “Are you … are you Emelina Flores?” He said her name in a hushed, almost reverent, tone.
She frowned in reply, unsure how he knew that.
“The circle of vengeance. I’ve heard about it.”
“The what?”
“Your necklace. The circle represents vengeance. ‘What goes around comes around,’ as they say.”
Her lips twitched. Did everyone really think that was what her necklace symbolized?
The circle of vengeance. How fitting. Olivia would love it.
The man with the dagger held the weapon in front of him, but it shook in his grasp. The other had his arms pressed to his chest, fear oozing out of his every pore. She’d earned a reputation, it seemed.
“Go,” she said, jerking her head. “Don’t come back.”
They both spun around and sprinted away from her. Everyone ran from her now. People whispered her name, as that man had. They said it with fear.
It was what she had always wanted.
It did not feel as good as she had expected.