If you must ask who the ruler of the Nunait are in my stead, well. I was half a season pregnant when I lost my first child. It was mere weeks along when I lost my second. I didn't have the heart to lose another one. Besides, I reminded Panuk, we don't have to have a child to pass on the queendom. Besides, I said to her, if we must scrounge for the good, it was much harder to switch places with my stomach beginning to bulge, with me vomiting near every day.

Besides, I whispered to my pillow, there is a not-so distant war, and what kind of parents would we be if that war ever came here? No child should witness that. We have no army, a decentralized populace, little bartering power. What kind of queendom would we be?

We buried them both in the tunnel under the palace. Two tiny boxes, beside their grandfather and grandmother.

And we moved on. Palaces don't run themselves. Aid needed sent to the towns suffering with late-summer mumps. The equinox festival was coming, and preparations had to be made, for he food, the costumes, the cleaning of the city. I had to travel to the coast to visit with a royal family of islanders, seeking refuge we could only temporarily offer. Word travels fast, if this warlord conqueror wanted these refugees dead, they wouldn't be safe with us. No army. Scattered populace across largely empty land. Little bartering power.

What kind of queendom would we be, I said to my trekking boots on the way home, if we brought children into our palace, and the warlord conqueror ever came to conquer us; to grind our city, our people, we its rulers into the dirt? No child deserved death at the hands of a warlord.

We buried our lost children in the busyness of running a queendom. What else were we to do?

If you must ask who the ruler of the Nunait are in my stead, well, their name is Uyagaq.

***

Let me tell you a story of our palace, before continuing. Let me tell you a story of the winter solstice festival, more peculiar than the other festivals, since the people who made the trek through the ice-cast tundra, totally in darkness, were rarely eager for parties and dancing. It's difficult to party, anyway, in a city glittering with slick ice and silent with the snow.

So each midwinter we cleared out the second story of the palace, guided the visitors up through the darkness and winding corridors of the palace to the dancing room. Colloquially named, despite how most of the year it contained the odds and ends and dust of miscellanea. No other home but the dancing room, Kanaq used to say of anything lost or without place.

We lit the place with lanterns full of bright insects, set a fire in the hearth with a chimney window piping out invisible smoke. We fed warm meals in steaming bowls to the bundled people who came, gave them soft rugs to sit on. We let them chatter over the crackles of fire.

The first three years, Panuk did not understand why the people came. Was it really worth it to travel across a tundra coated in depths of snow and ice? Was it really worth the shoddy campfire meal for these people who could have made it themselves, no trip, no cold, no feet aching in oversized snowshoes?

The fourth year, his understanding dawned--something clicked for him about this time, about the particular way the travelers pushed the soft rugs into a wide ring this year, their red fingers freed from mittens clasping hands of sisters, sons, strangers. They swayed to the humming of a woman, her skin thick as wood, coiled hair whiter than bright snow. I sat beside a serious-eyed child, humming softly to herself, her palm steady as moss on my three fingers.

Panuk sat by my other side, silently gaping at these people he had never met building the hums up into a waving rhythm, using the crackles from the hearth like erratic drums, eyes closed as the notes imposed midwinter warmth. I guided him, across my crossed legs and hips, in the rolls of our shoulders, swaying lines of our spines. Tugged his palm along with me in the motions, following the intuitive movements of a child.

The summer solstice was always the most wild. No sunset, no reminder of sleep, the party in the city could last for days. Panuk lived for those.

The winter solstice was always the strangest. In the dark, these people clung together as embering notes, huddled as families laughing over steaming bowls, children with red cheeks flitted about like glowing insects freed from jars. The dancing room, informally named, for no other home was quite odd enough for the dust and ends only a winter solstice could awaken within us.

***

I killed the Jani empress.

Take a step back, reader, you must know I died doing so. There is no doubt in my mind what must happen. I will kill the Jani empress.

I will kill the Jani empress.

I will kill the Jani empress.

I, the queen of the Nunait, in declaration of war, will kill the Jani empress. Then I will die, to sate her people's revenge from retaliating upon my continent.

Readers, these words keep me awake through a summer solstice with no party, no Panuk, no palace but a canvas tent.

I will kill the Jani empress.

It cannot be the death mage, no, a murder by a mage will only add fuel to a fire. We are trying to preserve the capital wrought by mage hands, the frost orchards suffused with magic.

Can one burn down the frost orchards? Or will they grow back? I only traveled through them twice in my life, and never witnessed the mythical glowing. I wonder what that looks like.

Distractions. These are the sun-sick thoughts piercing my eyes all through the solstice, you, readers, must know I have grown weary too.

What will become of twin tiny boxes in a burial tunnel if the palace is reduced to rubble?

I will kill the Jani empress.

I have set a fire within my own ribs that will consume me. I am fine with that. What more do I have to lose? If I can give you peace by giving up my skin to slay a warlord, I will give you peace. If I can save another woman's children from dying to a conqueror by giving up my head, I will save those children.

I will kill the Jani empress.

***

Uyagaq: don't read this part to anybody else. Rip out the pages, if you have to.

I must tell you I am terrified.

Dead people don't have control of their consequences. The consequences of their actions. I'm giving up control to you, and I trust you, but I must tell you I am terrified. How ready are you for the consequences of my actions? A Jani empress dead, a land likely still besieged?

But what if...what if I do fail? I've never heard such dreadful words. What if... What if I get caught, have my weapon stripped from me before I get close enough? Goodness, what if I don't even recognize her? What if Aqtilik and I were not the first to come up with decoys? What if I merely kill somebody's Aqtilik?

Such dreadful words.

Uyagaq, if I fail, this book means nothing. The Nunait may well be no more. I'm sorry I can't give you a better kingdom. You do deserve it. There's no one better. This people deserves somebody as good as you.

I cannot tell you how to rule. Study the histories in the palace, they'll help you more than anything I could say. My scant advice lies with this: get capable people to help you. Show mercy, when you can. And when you can't, you witness the justice for yourself. That'll keep you humble, if you are anything like me.

Uyagaq...I am terrified. More so than anything else, this keeps me awake. Keeps me moving. I am not sure if it is this cold terror coiling around my heart or some word called "courage" that ceaselessly pushes me onward, ever forward to some obliterating fate I have picked out for myself...I am terrified.

But I am the queen. And I will witness this justice for myself. The Jani empress declared war here, and I intend to end it.

While you're at it. You get that slimy man who calls himself king here now. He doesn't deserve it. Fool am I for believing in justice. I should have had him thrown out the moment I saw him.

And that's all. Leave the rest of the pages in. My--our--people should know what happened.