The Caged Queen by Kristen Ciccarelli

Author:Kristen Ciccarelli
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollinsPublishers
Published: 2018-08-23T16:00:00+00:00

An Unexpected Visitor

On the first Relinquishing after her sister died, the girl helped her mother snuff all the lights while her brother bolted the doors and let in only the living.

The Relinquishing was not a time for celebration. You did not wear fancy clothes or eat lavish meals. You didn’t sing or dance.

The rules for relinquishing needed to be carefully observed. Otherwise, the worst could happen.

In the girl’s household, when the sun went down, her family and neighbors put on their masks, gathered in the central pavilion, and told each other stories until sunrise.

Normally, the girl and her sister loved Relinquishing nights. Loved listening to her father tell stories about the Skyweaver and the world beyond this one. Loved the way the heart-fire—the only flame allowed tonight—flickered across their masks, keeping their identities hidden. They even loved the burned bread. Loved to dip it in soured wine.

This year was different.

The girl didn’t want to hear her father’s stories, nor did she want to think about the Skyweaver. She didn’t like the look of the wooden masks painted white, hiding the faces of her loved ones. She had no appetite for scorched bread.

It reminded her of everything she’d lost.

So the girl got up and left.

She didn’t leave the house—she knew better than that. But she left the pavilion and walked the dark, silent halls to the parlor.

It was too dark. With the heart-fire burning on the other side of the house, she couldn’t see a thing. So the girl lit a candle—what harm could a single candle do?—and set it on the window ledge.

The girl stepped onto the table where a gods and monsters board sat, then climbed on the windowsill and looked out. No moon glowed in the sky. Everything was black.

Except her candle, burning bright.

Like a beacon.

It wasn’t long before the door creaked. The girl sucked in a breath and went very still. But the light of her candle couldn’t reach that far, and the door remained in shadow.

She felt the rush of cool air from the hall.

“Who’s there?” she whispered, the hair on the back of her neck rising.

A voice answered from the shadows: “It’s the longest night of the year and you put a candle in the window?”

The girl’s heart hammered. She grabbed the candle and held it out.

“Who are you?” she whispered, her hands shaking, the candle flickering.

She knew, though.

Of course she knew.

The thing behind the door stepped into the light. It wore her sister’s face, her plaited dark hair, and the sky-blue dress she died in—a cotton one that came to her knees.

“Hello, sister.”

The girl swallowed hard from behind her Relinquishing mask, knowing the danger. Knowing that what stood before her could wear the face of her sister but be a twisted version of her.

“Stay back.”

The thing paused, its brow wrinkling, as if puzzled.

“You think I’m corrupted,” it said, looking to where the girl’s hand slid beneath her dress, to where a knife was sheathed at her calf. “A knife is no good against a corruption, silly.

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