Aqtilik, not I, greeted the next messenger. She was the servant, I was the queen, I ditched my sleeping guard outside the aviary and snuck down to the kitchens to gather supplies to scatter throughout the city. Mid-morning, the kitchens loomed typically silent, the chefs and scrubbing children busy in the dining hall the madman took his meals in. By dining hall, I mean the madman claimed a corner of the third level--the bedrooms of palace guides never to return--and called it a dining hall.

I took no escort outside, wandering the jade green city ring where Aqtilik had told me the night before she would be, if I could get free. It wasn't long before I found an open building, a large gray-feathered bird tethered to a table propped sideways in the doorway. Setting my sacks outside the bird's reach, I knocked loudly on the doorframe.

Aqtilik appeared, sliding the table clear and guiding the bird inside so I could enter the dim building. She shut the door, motioning with shifting eyes toward a tied-up figure in the far corner, who squirmed in the blue cast of a glimmer insect jar tipped sideways on the dark couch. I coughed at the reek of vomit.

In hushed tones, Aqtilik told how she'd encountered the messenger strolling through our streets. Aqtilik knew what the tall bird with the saddle meant, knew this was a messenger, had no cause to think of the messenger as anything but an enemy. Hence, the tied-up messenger writhing in the blue glow of glimmer insects.

The scent of vomit was because Aqtilik told the messenger the cloth strip muffling her had been torn off Aqtilik's socks.

We dug through the messenger's saddlepacks and took the parchment rolls, the messenger continuing to squirm from her helpless position tied to a table's leg--weighed down by a round table with stubby legs, weighed down by another table. She panted and sniffled and screamed in muffled consonants.

Aqtilik and I read through the bundles of parchment under blue light, skimming details about how the army and reinforcing soldiers were marching a couple days ahead of schedule, grimacing at paragraphs of the grandness of the empire the madman and Empress would forge together in the union of their peoples.

It was easy to pretend I was not angry, with a sniffling, squirming messenger in the room to remind me of my dignity. It was easy to pretend I was not drowning in dread at the days--not a week--we had before the army came to our city; with a writhing, helpless messenger on the floor beside us.

We left the messenger there, because what else were we to do with her? Let her go? To this day, I do not know what happened to her. We took her saddle-less bird to the edge of the city, though, and pushed them onto the muddy slope until they ran off on their own. We were probably dooming that bird, a stranger to our tundra and sleepless summer days. But what else were we to do? Bring them into the aviary?

We didn't have time to question the messenger before returning to the palace, the necessity came first of continuing to act out our usual routine--taking meals in our rooms, visiting the king's coffin, doing our evening sweep of the aviary--plus scrambling to plan for the days left we had before an army arrived at our city. We considered writing fake letters from the Empress. But how would we believably deliver them to the madman? Ask our tied up prisoner to do it for us?

Our scrambled plan: we spread rumors. When I entered our rooms at noon, the guard had changed--the solemn-faced man, bruised on his temple, said he had happily relieved the sleeping guard outside the aviary and would cover for me if I needed. So I snuck him a stolen letter. The most damaging one from the messenger's bags, an estimate of how soon the army would be camped around our city. Aqtilik gave one to the kitchen chefs, about the Empress and king's future union. Aqtilik left some with her glimmer insect jars for the children to find, about the Empress burning our continent, and I dropped one down the hallway away from the aviary, detailing supply chains coming across the sea, as if the Nunait were already hers.

The people came to the king for the perks. Many didn't want a Jani Empress anymore than Aqtilik or I or Panuk. By the next morning, the solemn-faced guard handed me a list of names, a meeting place, the tunnel by the body of the king. Whispered about waiting until the sky tinged gray with twilight.

Wait we did. And that evening, the smoking trail of an army arrived, clouding out the burning fire of a sunset, overcasting our city.

***

Throwing caution to the wind, Aqtilik and I didn't bother planning for the event that the meeting was a ruse to capture us. What more could we lose, if it were? We already weren't free to maneuver around our own palace. There was already an army plowing towards our city.

Of all the things gone wrong, at least this meeting wasn't immediately one of them.

The burial tunnel crowded with people, nearly out the sloping hallway to the first level. Aqtilik and I hardly dared speak lest we ruin the silence of the dead there, so we handed out notes; whispered while we worked our way down the line of hooded people. We wanted to arrest the king and charge him for crimes against the Nunait. Yes, we were aware half the palace might resist us. Did a numbers game make him any less guilty?

The question that gave us pause, whispered from a cloak wafting yeast and flour, was how could we afford a power struggle in the palace as an army approached our city?

I bit my tongue so the words of a months-long "power struggle" couldn't scream from my lungs. I forced the question to simmer in my thoughts. I handed out notes to the people huddled there, we wanted to arrest the king for crimes against the Nunait.

Could we afford a power struggle in the palace as an army set up camp around our streets?

Aqtilik then voiced the question for all the huddled people in the tunnel to hear, disturbing the fluttering insects casting spiky shadows up the chiseled walls. Shuffling cloth, quiet coughs--they went silent at her words. By a raise of arms we cast votes: imprison the king now and try to fend off an army, or wait until after the king surrendered and the army (hopefully) left us, to try him for his crimes.

A mounting panic in my throat nearly caused me to stumble against an old coffin. The ground spinning, I gripped Aqtilik's shoulder. The hammering of my ribs was not at the votes, but at a realization of our choices. We could brave certain destruction--army, flames, cannons, soldiers--when the king was imprisoned and couldn't surrender, or we could risk near certain destruction after the king did surrender: he would surrender, but would the army leave? The king would surrender, but would any of us retain our positions, or would enemy soldiers flood our corridors? Would we have any chances then to arrest the king who invited our enemies here?

But the votes agreed with the reasons of my thoughts. Certain destruction, or near certain destruction. We should wait until the army left. Then bring the king to justice.

Then bring the king to justice.

Then, bring the king to justice.

The idea brought quivers to my knees, somehow Aqtilik and I held each other up in the shifting glows of insects, the silence of the dead. We whispered our gratitude for the belief of the people to come here. The courage to risk near certain destruction.

My tongue burned with a months-long "power struggle," a poison simmered in confinement and shadows, impatient to be poured from me. It is nearly over, I reminded myself. It is nearly over. Aqtilik suggested a meeting for the next day, after twilight, in the dancing hall, and the hooded heads nodded. Another meeting. If the army gave us until the next twilight. Though no one spoke that question aloud.

***

I was the servant, she was the queen. A day like a taut instrument string, the fingers of time hesitating over the notes to shatter stone. Silence all day. A silence bustling with activity, palace guards preparing for war, only half of them serious, but the stairs and halls vibrated with running footsteps all the same. Aqtilik and I tried to stay invisible. We visited our birds. Read children's stories in our rooms, forcing laughter at the ignorance of fictional children.

Late evening. I entered the kitchen with an empty sack--if the bustling silence continued we wanted to leave our rooms as little as possible, stay out of the way. Take all our meals inside.

I entered the smoky kitchen to a gathering of people around a pale blue table, beside the dark window, a fire embered in a stone hearth. I asked what was wrong.

The crowd simply parted, their eyes darting, hands flitting like wind-swept leaves. The table contained a body. Blood pooled from the chest, down an arm, dripping to the worn-smooth floor.

Stone solid, I stepped closer. I recognized the face. One of the king's advisors. Nose bent, eyes closed, a dull scar etched from his forehead back into braid-rich hair.

I met the eyes of those around me. How long, I asked, has he been here? Shrugs. Shuffling boots. One of them jumped away, finger pointing at me. I frowned, but he just shouted "the queen's servant is a murderer!"

The kitchen air hung thick around his shouts. Silent, confused. "It was the queen's servant!" he roared, darting out the doorway.

His cloak bore the dark blue emblem of the madman--of course everyone's did--a ship breaking over waves. He ran, the cloth rippling after him, as if over water. "The queen's servant is a murderer! Fight for your lives!"

The hall echoed with his shouts, and distantly others: "the queen's servant is a murderer, murderer, murderer!"

"What?" I managed to whisper, those in the kitchen took up the cry, "fight for your lives!" and the crowd around the table flooded into the hall, kitchen knives shining like flag-standards. "For the queen!"

I ran after them. Except I fled. Turned left when the kitchen knife crowd turned right. I bolted for the stairs. In my wake chaos erupted, shouts of "the queen's servant is a murderer!" "No she is not, he's a liar!" spurring me on, through corridors, up the stairs past the bustling palace guards who hadn't yet heard, "our palace is falling to pieces."

Out of breath, I stumbled into the guard outside our door, shoved him aside with my empty sack and shouted for Aqtilik. Yanking the door open, I told her there was fighting on the lower levels, some for us, some against. Wordlessly, she rose from the bed and disappeared into the bathroom. Returned with pairs of knives. I slammed the door shut on the spluttering guard and shed my restricting outer parka, coiled my braids up and took Aqtilik's proffered knives. "The birds?" I asked.

"The birds," she agreed.

The fighting and shouts were only in a small pocket of the palace, contained to the third level, near the kitchens. We thought we had time.