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Chapter 1 ~ The Summons

Rígan

It was a shame it was impossible to set paper on fire with a look.

Still, I willed it, staring at the letter in Lou’s hand, the elegant script taunting me, wishing we’d never gotten it in the first place. Not that I needed to read it again; I’d memorized the damn thing.

Lou Ferrin,

I’ve heard much about you from my sister, who speaks only high praise of you. Through your conversations, she gleaned the talents of your companions and fellow sellswords, Maya Ekundayo and Morrígan Feighlí. It’s because of the praise my sister puts on you, and the praise you put on your friends, that I’m reaching out with an opportunity. While I wish I could discuss the matter at hand in a letter, I’m afraid the information is best conveyed in person. As such, I request your presence at Bailanín tomorrow midmorning. Forgive me for being vague; I will explain what I can when we’re face-to-face.

Your servant,

Dàibhid Leanbhríon, King of Cunlaran

My teeth clenched as Lou, Maya, and I huddled together, all of us rereading the letter in the bustling, humid city guards’ barracks. Maya’s mouth twisted in a frown, still uncomfortable with the thought of working for the king given her past experiences with royalty.

My hesitation was of an entirely different nature.

When Lou had handed me the letter the day before, a grin on their face, my stomach had dropped at the sight of the seal. The royal crest—a sheaf of wheat crossed over a sword—wasn’t something I’d ever expected to see in a personal manner. My fingers had tightened around the paper, threatening a papercut, the only outward indication it set me on edge. I’d resisted the urge to wipe my palms on my thighs, a sheen of sweat breaking out. Maya had voiced her skepticism at the summons seemingly on instinct. But despite her current tenseness, I was sure Maya’s skepticism could be quelled. And Lou was on board with the idea, only rereading the letter because we were, already knowing the godsforsaken princess, a fact they’d been convinced Maya and I had been aware of. But just because they’d taken a short job without us last year at the Stone Fortress and become friends with someone they’d casually referred to as Brí didn’t mean we’d automatically think Ah, yes, Brí, Princess Bríghid of Cunlaran. That Brí. I loved Lou, but by the Faith, their logic was something to contend with sometimes.

This was likely the type of opportunity I’d dreamed about for years. What else would the king want sellswords for if not the greater good of his country? It might be an opportunity to truly do something of importance, protect people in a big way that mattered. It was an important calling for my best friends, too. Despite that, I kept staring at the summons like I could make it catch fire any second now.

I’d banked on never seeing King Dàibhid again. I didn’t want to contemplate what would happen if he recognized me.

I shook the thought away, bringing my focus back to the barracks filled with guards and sellswords, the smell of sweat and steel and leather intermingling. Our morning shift had just ended, the trade-off taking longer than usual. For while Lou, Maya, and I were rereading the letter we’d need to get into our meeting with the king, those around us were preoccupied with something else. Something that sent pricks down my spine and made alarm bells ring.

“Those poor farmers,” one guard—Deirdre, I thought—said. “The destruction alone . . .”

“Maybe we need to take it as a wake-up call,” another guard, Gavin, said from down the room. If you didn’t want eavesdroppers, this wasn’t the place to talk.

“For what?” Deirdre said. “More guards outside the gates? I agree we need more numbers—”

“Not for that.” Gavin’s pink face was set in a scowl. “It’s a wake-up call about the king.”

I bristled, biting my tongue and hoping his next words weren’t the ones I feared they would be. The ones hiding violence that some citizens had come to utter outright.

I wasn’t so lucky.

“The Exiles have been attacking the country for months now,” he said. “Sure, it’s been manageable, but that doesn’t matter. It’s still happening. It’s still a sort of strength we haven’t returned. They claim King Dàibhid isn’t good at his job? Maybe they have a point. Maybe he is weak.”

A few gasps rose around us. It was worrisome enough when an average citizen laid such a claim—you could never tell who was going to be swayed by the Exiles and end up joining their cause—but it was downright unheard of for a guard to do it. It wasn’t like it was treason, but despite my and Maya’s hesitation about the summons, the king was a good man. A penchant for diplomacy and peace was by no means a sign that someone wasn’t fit to rule. In my book, that made them a good choice, even if I had personal problems with the person.

“And those farmers are all on the king’s side, you know,” Gavin said. “All weak like him.”

“Are you saying they deserved it?” I said, low and smooth.

Gavin stiffened and spared me a glance, as though he forgot it was more than him and Deirdre in the room. Or perhaps it was the silent threat lurking in my tone. Lou shifted from foot to foot, ready to jump to my defense as he’d done before. Or to tear me off Gavin. Likely the latter. Maya, though, took a step closer to me, her fingers twitching, prepared to back me up with a punch or two.

“No one deserves that,” Maya said. “No matter what side of this fucked up political debate they’re on.”

“And King Dàibhid is doing what he can,” Lou said. “We’ve all seen it.”

“Maybe it isn’t enough,” a petite guard muttered, likely hoping no one heard her.

“What do you think he should do?” I said, shifting my focus away from Gavin. Her eyes widened as heat built up my chest, red and scalding. “Start a damn war? Have people die at the hands of someone who wants power over people’s well-being?”

She opened her mouth—to say what, I didn’t know—but our lieutenant commander stepped between us all, cutting through the tension.

“That’s enough. Either get to your post or get going.”

Gavin smirked before walking away with the petite guard. Everyone watched them go, some shaking their heads. One or two looked torn, as though Gavin had struck a chord. They avoided looking at me. Smart choice; I was still seething.

“Do we need to keep an eye on Gavin?” I asked Maya and Lou. Monitoring for Exile and rebel—Cunlarans who’d joined the Exiles’ cause—activity was our main task at the southern gate.

“Could be worth it,” Maya said.

“He’s allowed to have those opinions, even if we don’t like them.” Lou’s grim tone didn’t match his words.

I tapped my foot. “I know that. But did you see his face? The man wants to stir trouble.”

“Maybe that’s all he wants to do,” Lou said. “Get you riled up.”

“I hate to admit it, Rígan,” Maya said. “But Lou may have a point.”

I blew a strand of hair that had found its way from my ponytail out of my face. I hated to admit it, too, but there were plenty of guards and sellswords alike who enjoyed stirring shit up. Starting rumors. Seeing what they could get away with simply because they were bored.

But what Gavin had said didn’t sit well. “What if he lets someone slip inside the city who should be questioned?”

“Leave my underlings to me,” our lieutenant commander said. She was as bad an eavesdropper as the rest of the rumor mill; she was just better at keeping it to herself. “And last I checked, you’re my underlings, too. So paws off.”

I held back from rolling my eyes. The comment was meant as an endearment, as strange as it was.

“Don’t you three have somewhere to be?”

Right.

I pulled a supple leather vest over my loose tunic, doing up the laces as Lou held the door open, their fingers tapping an excited rhythm on the wood.

“It’s almost like you’re looking forward to this, Lou,” I teased, trying to dispel my unease.

“Please, don’t tell me you aren’t a little bit curious.”

I smirked. “Maybe.”

I hadn’t made my stance clear to either of them, other than being hesitant. But I wasn’t curious. I wasn’t.

We passed through the lower district, filled with smaller, compact homes a street up from the southern gate. Smoke from stoves, dirt from the streets, and the scent of passing horses filled the air. Our house was close by, one of many in tight, compact rows, but we weren’t heading there like we often would after a shift to get cleaned up. We’d done that at the barracks, not wanting to be late for our meeting.

While the attack on the farms a little outside the western gate was stirring up worries about increased hostilities, most citizens within the city itself were fine when it came to day-to-day attitudes. On edge, thanks to rising crimes like thefts and assaults, but most interactions hadn’t changed. Especially once you crossed into the center district, with larger, popular shops and markets, and the upper district, with high-end homes and luxury businesses closer to the castle. People still waved and gave friendly hellos. If they felt they could keep living a relatively normal life despite the rising tensions, my job was halfway done.

In the center district—cobbled streets less dusty, more people mingling on stoops, and a diversity of food wafting about—Maya wove an arm through mine, easy and familiar. It had taken time for her to get comfortable doing so; then again, it was hard for her to get comfortable with anyone quickly. She guarded her heart fiercely.

“This will go well,” she said. Her steely gaze was forced.

“And if it doesn’t,” I said, “we can get consolation goodies from The Crown Bakery afterward.”

Lou threaded their arm through mine on the other side. Where Maya was slow to trust, Lou made easy friends with just about everyone, but Maya and I were lucky enough to be considered family. “And if it does go well, we can get celebratory goodies from The Crown afterward.”

I laughed. “I like the way you think.”

My mood soured when a guard walked past, people hastily darting out of the way, a man bound in front of them. I made eye contact with the guard, who recognized me and said, “Latest rebel find. Tried to steal from a blacksmith.”

“Weaponry?” Lou asked.

They nodded. “This one’s not going to steal in Balor’s name for a while yet, I imagine.”

“Did you hear the arguments in the city square yesterday?” Maya asked as we kept on, the guard and their charge far ahead. “It was like the one in the barracks. Some said King Dàibhid should hand the throne over to the Exiles, let Balor rule.”

I scoffed. “Do they not see what’s happening?”

“It’s ridiculous,” Lou said. “Balor is all for violence. Who’s to say, should he get the Cunlaran throne, who he’d turn that violence on next? Other islands? The continent?”

“His own people,” I said.

“I wouldn’t be surprised.” Lou rubbed a hand over his closely cropped black coils. “He’s already hurting those who oppose him. Doubt he’d stop. Honestly, why anyone would want a violent powermonger leading a country is beyond me. Whatever he is, King Dàibhid is not that.”

All too soon, we reached the gate to Bailanín in the upper district, a magnificent stone archway leading into the front courtyard. My mood soured further at my proximity to the castle, but I had to admit—it was beautiful. Stunning, even. I’d seen it from the outside, but I’d never gotten too close to the building currently basking in the early summer sun. I was used to smooth white and gray stone in castles, high walls ending in pointed spires with intricate windows, the occasional stained glass giving color to the otherwise monochrome facade. Incredibly tall doors. But here, Bailanín’s stone was a multitude of browns, radiating some of the sun’s warmth back to us. As we were led inside by a royal guard, the colors carried into the interior, where the floors were polished stone, the furnishings various wood tones. The colors made the halls smaller, the ceilings shorter, but it was cozy, inviting. Even those lined with art didn’t feel constricting. The royal portraits even made me uncomfortably wistful. Until we came to one of the current king and my jaw locked, stubbornness bleeding out.

He wasn’t going to be an issue. I was good at blending in. I’d perfected the Cunlaran accent, and had a cover should my harsher Fenwaldan slip through. If I acted like I’d never been anywhere but Cunlaran, who’s to say anyone would question me. Lou and Maya never had in our three years together, and they never would.

Because if they ever discovered the truth of who I was, they would look at me differently, and I’d lose them. I couldn’t stomach that.

As far as they, or anyone, knew, I grew up in Glaochnamara with my parents and older sister, Bryn, where Fenwaldan and Cunlaran traders and travelers interacted regularly. Exchanges of accents and sayings were bound to happen in a port city. Everything would be fine. Everything would remain fine. This meeting wouldn’t jeopardize a single thing.

Maya nudged my shoulder while putting her shoulder-length, springy black curls into a poofy bun, a ray of sunlight from a nearby window making her rich brown skin shimmer as though dusted with golden flakes. “Are you seeing this?”

She pointed to the third major tapestry we’d passed since the portraits. The first tapestry had depicted the two primary Cunlaran deities—Laran, goddess of death, fertility, and the moon, and her husband, Soral, god of life, war, and the sun. They were the island’s main protectors, and their tapestry depicted as much. The second tapestry had depicted their five children—Dérra, Tàs, Firla, Tàlev, and Ebher—helping and guiding the people.

This third, despite not being about a true deity, put the others to shame.

“Wow.” I kept my hands at my sides despite the urge to trace the lines, feel the spun fabric under my fingers and absorb the image into my bones. Queen Danna—who, centuries ago, had become Cunlaran’s first united ruler—stood proudly before her army. When the people of the divided island had needed someone to turn to, they’d chosen Danna, the outspoken daughter of a farmer. Since her reign, she’d grown beyond the confines of a queen into a full-blown legend. Her dark blond hair flew around her, a sword in one hand and a sheaf of wheat in the other. Armies from around Cunlaran knelt behind her. Pinpricks poked my eyes at the sight.

I settled away from Danna’s face to the woman’s behind her. Deep, vivid auburn red hair like mine, similarly lightly tanned, pale skin, but with green eyes instead of brown, the warrior who had inspired my name made the pinpricks in my eyes double. Morrígan stood fast behind Danna, keeping watch at her back and helping her unite Cunlaran. Some people believed Morrígan hadn’t been real—she wasn’t depicted consistently enough to convince everyone of her existence—but I didn’t care. When I’d learned about her, a warrior and protector who looked like me, all I could think was I want to be like her . Somehow, she made me feel seen even though people rarely saw her.

Maya put an arm around my shoulders. She was shorter than me by a hair, forcing her to stretch up ever so slightly. “What a story.”

“Definitely.” I coughed when she looked at me sideways, a small, playful glint in her deep brown eyes. I’d never told her exactly what Morrígan meant to me.

The royal guard motioned for us to keep moving. I stood straighter, calling forth the confidence that usually stood so close to the surface. My hips swung and my feet echoed surely, the confidence made manifest.

Inside, my heart pounded against my ribs.

It wasn’t long before we arrived at a door with two guards on either side. Our guide opened the heavy wooden door for us before retreating, and we walked into a spacious room with a table large enough to comfortably seat twenty. I ran my fingers along the well-worn wood, watching the shadows shiver under the candlelight from the simple chandelier, the only source of light besides the small, high windows. The smell of paper permeated everything, maps lining the surfaces of the tables along the wall, more tacked upon the walls themselves. The war room, then. It contained fewer decorative weapons than I’d expect—none, to be exact—but I appreciated it. Most war rooms were more shiny than practical. But this room, this one wasn’t showy. This king liked to be prepared, informed, over anything else.

I wandered to the largest map, tacked on the wall across from the door. Instinctually, I found Halkberg first, as though making sure it was still there. From there, I traced a line north, to Doaríc Isle. I sneered at the homeland of the Exiles and wondered whether they were the reason we’d been summoned. The atmosphere in Ardanna may not have changed much since the attacks began, but fear around the country was growing as various places were hit—more thefts, assaults, vandalism. The occasional arson. And while the people of Cunlaran grew more panicked by the day, Balor, Doaríc’s apparent leader, devised more ways to terrorize them all. At least, I imagined so.

What the king would want us for regarding that, though, I had no idea. We were three sellswords; he had an army at his disposal.

Maya caught me staring at the small northern island. “May the bastards all get slow deaths,” she said, a sentiment she’d likely been holding in since we’d left the barracks.

“And their rebel allies, too.”

“Look at this,” Lou said, studying a different map. I wondered if he’d even heard us. His fingers traced the shape of Birrin Isles, his home country in the Western Ocean, slowly, reverently.

“You miss it,” I said, a statement rather than a question.

A ghost of a smile played over their sun-kissed brown face, a few shades lighter than Maya’s. “Every day. I like to think that every time I touch it on a map, my grandmother can feel it.” Their smile turned roguish, warm brown eyes sparkling. “But I’d miss adventure more if I went back.”

Maya snorted. It was half-hearted at best. “Every day, huh?”

Her gaze drifted to a different map, one with Nibari. Her family remained there, but the emperor was a shit piece of a human being, tarnishing a centuries-long streak of revered leaders. Working for him had made Maya miserable, and when she found her then-partner, who also worked for the emperor, willingly talking shit about her with him, she cracked. Maya left Nibari at the first opportunity, but it had meant leaving her family behind.

I wanted to punch that pompous emperor and her sorry-excuse-for-a-human ex in the face. I almost smiled at the vision of their bloody noses, the two men groveling at our feet.

“You miss your boys,” Lou pointed out, referring to her brother and nephew. While she missed her parents, it was the two she could convince to leave Nibari she missed most keenly; her parents were determined to die where they’d been born.

Maya blinked the longing and pain away.

Lou caught the act and changed the subject. “Imagine getting the chance to work here.”

Maya broke away from the Nibari map. “This king seems a better ruler than the one I suffered through. If that is the case, I wouldn’t mind spending more time in this castle. It’s beautiful.”

“It is.” I dragged a chair away from the table and sat. The cushion was well-worn, but comfortable enough. “I wouldn’t mind doing some exploring.” So long as a certain king wasn’t home.

“Think we’d find more tapestries?” Lou asked, following my lead and taking a seat across from me. “The ones we passed were gorgeous.”

“Apparently they’ve got quite a few throughout,” I said, remembering a tidbit I’d learned when I was younger. “Stories from history and legend and such.”

“Gods, the artists they must have hired to make those.” Lou was giddy now, his jumping leg making his torso bounce. “And the masonry of the walls is stunning.”

“I hear the deeper courtyards are beautiful, too,” I added, the information slipping out despite myself. I kept my groan internal. I didn’t need to get excited about exploring. I needed to focus on getting out of the king’s house as soon as possible.

Maya leaned forward in her seat. “More importantly—those goodies we talked about.” Lou raised an eyebrow. “What? It’s past lunchtime, and I’m hungry. I’m thinking—”

Footsteps resounded off the floor in the corridor, growing closer. I shot to my feet, ready to play the part of respectful sellsword who had never met royalty in her life.

I expected some sort of inner recoiling from all the memories tied with him, my palms turning sweaty and the rest of me becoming hyperaware. Perhaps some urge to scream. Instead, my heart skipped before lodging itself in my throat like a traitor as he walked through the door. Maya’s and Lou’s simultaneous kneeling reminded me to do the same.

A guard gave an introduction no one knew I didn’t need.

“The king of Cunlaran, Dàibhid Leanbhríon.”