Legacy and the Queen - Annie Matthew Legacy and the Queen

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lines, tending it every day until one day he—or she—stopped?

      At the drooping net, Legacy paused. Her eyes were drawn to the place where a referee chair would have stood, in pictures she’d seen of the academy courts. In its place, however, there was a gargantuan tree. Its trunk seemed to be built of five thick, braided strands. Its branches drooped down, swaying gently in the breeze. And its leaves—though spare and somewhat tattered—hung from its branches like shredded green banners.

      Stunned, Legacy walked across the court. All the drammus trees were said to have burned. They’d gone extinct in the fire. There wasn’t a living one left in the republic.

      And yet, there it was. She could hear the whispering of its long, graceful branches swaying slightly in the breeze. It almost sounded as if they were speaking to her softly, beckoning her to come closer.

      At the base of the tree, she found a place to sit among the thick, knotted roots. Then she closed her eyes and breathed in. That scent—she was sure she remembered it. It was sweet, like honey, and green as grass. It made her heart grow warm in her chest. She’d almost placed it when one of the branches brushed her cheek.

      Its leaves were soft as the finest silk. And the whispering of its branches almost sounded like those strange morals from the book of stories: Anger fed is quickly dead. A dream come to life is the end of all strife.

      Then, keeping her eyes closed, listening to that whispering voice, feeling the gentle touch of those leaves, Legacy heard her mother.

      “Go,” her mother whispered. “Go to the trials.”

      Legacy’s eyes startled open. She looked around. And already, tears were starting to prick.

      Because of course it hadn’t been her mother’s voice.

      Her mother hadn’t come back. Legacy was alone in the clearing.

      But it was her mother’s scent she was smelling. She knew that as surely as she knew that she was alone. That was her mother’s scent, from back in those days in the garden, when they’d all played together, laughing and hugging one another.

      For several more hours, Legacy remained by the side of the old court, under the canopy of the drammus. It was hard for her to pull herself away. By the time she finally made her way out to the edge of the forest, it was already evening.

      In the garden, the cycapress trees twisted into the sky like daggers. The kitchen was full of hulking dark shapes.

      When Legacy climbed the stairs to the attic, she found Van in one of his nests. He was eating a corn cake and reading a thick book entitled Metium Mining Mechanics.

      For a moment, before he looked up, Legacy watched him. His nose was buried deep in his book on mechanics, but she saw that the book on his lap was deep green. Its cover was made of thick cloth, with an embroidered gold leaf at the center.

      “A drammus leaf,” she said, pointing to the green book, but Van gave her an odd look.

      “Where?” he said, glancing down. He picked up the green book and flipped through a few pages. His brow was furrowed in confusion. “It’s just a blank book,” he said.

      Legacy stared at him. Even from across the attic, she could see writing on the pages. But before she could protest, Van had closed the book and stood up.

      “Bud,” he said. “I’m sorry. I know you can’t go. I just—”

      “No,” Legacy said, cutting him short. “I’m going.”

      Van blinked at her through his crooked glasses.

      “Tomorrow,” Legacy said. “I’m going to play in those trials.”

      CHAPTER THREE

ornament

      FURNACE FLAMES

      It was still dark when Legacy snuck out of the orphanage carrying nothing but her racket, an extra roll of bark grip, and a few corn cakes stuffed into a flour sack.

      On her way out, she kissed each of the littles. Van had promised to be gentle when he combed Zaza’s hair and to listen when Leo woke from one of his nightmares. She’d drilled him on which stories to read to them before bed and how to wash pots without scratching the surface.

      But even so, when she closed the door to their bedroom, it was difficult for her to swallow her guilt. As she made her way down the hall, she paused in front of her father’s door. She and Van had weighed a thousand ways for her to tell him she was leaving, but they both knew that no matter what she said, he wouldn’t let her walk out the door. So Legacy didn’t say goodbye. She passed his bedroom and snuck out the front door.

      Walking down the long driveway, it was hard for her to shake the idea that maybe this was how her mother had felt on the day she left. Maybe she, too, felt her stomach tie itself into knots, thinking about how her father would feel when he realized she’d abandoned him.

      Realizing that, Legacy almost turned and ran back. But just then she heard the wheels of a cart approaching the driveway, and then she was running behind it. She’d heard of other provi kids catching cart rides into the city and never imagined that she, too, would take a deep breath, squeeze her eyes shut, and leap onto the hay-scattered bed. She found a seat between a few cages of chickens.

      Noticing her intrusion, the chickens began squawking and indignantly flapping their wings, their eyes bulging out of their faces. After a few moments, they settled down, but in the darkness, she could still see the whites of the chickens’ eyes. They seemed to be watching her nervously, as if assessing whether or not she was a threat.

      She wished that she could comfort them. Or open their cages and let them all out before they became some city dweller’s dinner. But she didn’t dare lose her ride, so she settled on humming one of the songs she sometimes sang to the littles, until finally the chickens seemed to calm down.

      By then, they’d left Agricio. It was so much smaller, really, than Legacy had imagined. Somehow, her whole life, she’d believed that those hillsides covered with olive trees must stretch on forever. Van had told her that she’d leave them behind and move through the mining district, Minori, on her way to the trials, which would be held just outside the city gates. But she hadn’t thought she’d leave the landscape of her childhood behind her so quickly. Already, off in the distance, Legacy could make out the fires from smokestacks in the factories.

      On clear days, you could see them from the orphanage. And she’d seen pictures in the Nova Times, describing the declining conditions of the mines and the refineries. They’d been damaged in the Great Fire, and despite Silla’s efforts, they’d never been fully repaired. Still, as the cart came closer, Legacy could smell oily smoke pouring out of the smokestacks. She saw flames leaping from the furnaces.

      Now, in their reddish light, Legacy could see the enormous, rust-red gashes of metium mines in the distance. She could see the glittering gray craters of the prosite mines. Carts heaped with ore crawled out of the cavities. And beyond them, factories heaved up into the sky: dark, ugly buildings with chimneys belching black smoke.

      Legacy shivered. She felt tiny and powerless before the colossal structures rising before her. In every direction around the factories, scrap-metal shacks sprawled into the distance. Van had shown her a picture of these and explained to Legacy that they were built by workers who came from other provinces in the wake of the Great Fire. Even when production in the other provinces had shut down, the mines and the refineries remained open, so workers had flooded in. Some left their families behind, abandoning them at places like the orphanage. Some brought their children along. Even now, three years since Silla managed to extinguish the fire, it almost seemed to Legacy as if half the country must live in those ramshackle scrap-metal cities.

      Those, Legacy realized, were the shacks where Van would live if he went to

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