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CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Fenlia

C ieli is much, much older than Cat. She is just as thin as he was when he first came to Kreuzfurt, and the mark on her face makes Fen’s fingers twitch in discomfort. Cieli had stayed perfectly still when Marina bound her wrists, but Fen keeps expecting her to move again. To do whatever she had done when Fen first tried to stop her. Cieli does none of that. She stays loose and pliant as Cat murmurs to her in soft Lunae. Too soft for Fen to make out, too smooth for her to identify.

Aliamon and Calissia don robes and request that their antechamber be used to discuss the present business. Guards shuffle this way and that as they try to determine how many of them are required for the task of monitoring the assassin in their midst. Marina resolves the situation well enough. With the King’s permission, she starts giving directives. Patrols are organized and sent out to look for any more intruders. From what Cieli and Cat say, there will be none. But it is possible. Anything is possible.

Fen stands awkwardly amongst them all, shivering even though the room is not cold. Calissia notices. She fetches a spare robe from her boudoir and wraps it around Fen’s body. ‘It was incredibly foolish of you to do what you did tonight,’ the Queen tells her softly. She strokes the tangled coils of Fen’s hair. In the fuss and the chaos, some of the locks have sprung free from their braids. Fen will need to redo them. She shivers again, and Calissia sighs and pulls her close. She holds Fen as Fen’s teeth start to chatter. It isn’t cold. She shouldn’t be cold. But she is. ‘Come,’ Calissia murmurs. ‘Let’s get you to bed, yes? It is late.’

‘No,’ Fen replies. She shakes her head against the comforting warmth of the Queen’s body, the familiar safety and relief her touch provides. ‘No, I need to stay. I need to be a part of . . . this.’

‘Fen . . .’

‘It was my choice – to search the embassy,’ Fen says. She speaks loudly, loud enough to draw the King’s attention towards her. For Cat to turn as well, his sea-green eyes almost glowing in the firelight. ‘It was my decision to break in there. And if we hadn’t gone—’ She glances towards their Reaper prisoner. ‘We wouldn’t have known and . . . no one had even noticed she was here until we said something.’ She takes a deep breath in. She steps back from Calissia and tries to stand as tall and proud as her brother would have. ‘I will be a part of this discussion,’ she says. ‘I deserve to be a part of this discussion.’

Aliamon’s expression doesn’t falter. He looks just as stone-faced and unflappable as before. But he looks to Calissia, who dips her head. Then he looks to Cat, who directs his attention to the floor. ‘Tell me why,’ Aliamon says at long last. ‘Why did you ignore every order, every command, every rule that was set in front of you that forbade you from doing what you did tonight?’

Fen’s stomach hurts. Her fingers tremble at her sides. She shivers. ‘I swore an oath, Your Majesty,’ she says. ‘When you adopted me and called me “daughter”, I swore an oath to this family that I would do all in my power to protect it and its future. I swore an oath to Elician too. And no one was doing anything .’

‘No one was telling you anything,’ Aliamon corrects. ‘There is a difference.’

‘And I found an assassin. We found an assassin.’ Fen points to Cat, who still will not look at her. ‘You didn’t have to adopt me, sire,’ she continues. ‘You did not have to take me in. You swore to protect me after my father died and you could have done it without making me a part of your family. But you did, and you have, and I am here. And if I am a part of this family then I want to serve this family. Not Kreuzfurt, not the people clambering for Givers to heal them. But this family . The way my father served you .’

‘Your father trained for years before attempting anything close to what you two did tonight.’

‘Then train me in what my father did for years, instead of giving me “life lessons” at Kreuzfurt,’ Fen argues. Her cheeks flush with sudden rage. ‘We did everything right. We took precautions, we had a plan, it all worked , and in the end, we saved your life because of what we did!’

Aliamon shakes his head repeatedly. ‘You are still a child.’

‘I will be sixteen soon. If soldiers can be recruited at sixteen then I can be recruited for this now. I want to help my brother. I want to serve this crown; let me serve it. Elician believed in me. You can too.’ She swallows thickly. Her stomach squeezes tight with coiled anxiety and warring emotions she could not hope to name. ‘Unlike my father, I will not die.’

Cat flinches at the claim. The Reaper behind him makes a noise, a hissing sound that is wordless, formless, just noise. Cat repeats it back at her, slower and quieter. Aliamon glances at them both from the corner of his eye before murmuring, ‘There are things worse than death, Fen.’

‘Then train me to face that .’ He shakes his head. She presses on. ‘I will outlive you. I will outlive Adalei, and all the members of your bloodline save Elician. I will live for maybe hundreds of years, and you adopted me into this family for a reason. Let this be my reason. I don’t need to know how to heal people, others can do that. I need to know how to keep this family safe. To keep myself safe too when things go wrong. Please. Tell me what’s going on.’

Calissia steps closer. She places a cool hand against Fen’s cheek, then kisses her brow. When she pulls away, she slides her arm around Fen’s back. ‘Tell her,’ Calissia requests. Aliamon sighs again and shakes his head. Pinches the bridge of his nose. Then, strangely, he looks towards Cat.

Cat looks back at him. His head ducks a little. His long hair has slipped from its tie in the rush of the night, and it falls into his face even as his shoulders hunch. As Fen watches, a strange hush seems to fall over the room as they wait for Cat to speak. ‘My name is Alest, son of Queen Alenée of Alelune.’

Fen’s breath catches in her throat. No, she thinks. That’s not possible.

Cat keeps speaking, slow and steady, still refusing to meet her eyes. ‘I was sent here, to Soleb, to kill your family, starting with Elician. But someone in your family is the only one who could have set up the opportunity, to make it worthwhile for my queen to send me in the first place. And only two people could have orchestrated what followed: the King or Lord Anslian.’

‘Lord Anslian—’ Fen exclaims, and twists, but Adalei is not in the room. She is not in the room, and she should be. Adalei is always in the room when there are discussions of matters of state. But here, now, her father is being accused of treason, and she is nowhere to be seen. Fen finally manages a half-hitching inhale, but it is not enough. Not truly.

‘What you don’t realize,’ Aliamon says, ‘is that I have known for some time that my brother orchestrated Elician’s abduction, which was successful, and my death, which . . . was not.’ He smiles a little at Cat, who does not share his joviality. Cat – Alest – remains hunched over and uncomfortable. Fen’s eyes fall to the Reaper prisoner. Cieli. The one who had immediately fallen to her knees the moment her crown prince told her to stop.

‘You . . . No, that . . . You can’t be a prince . You can barely read,’ Fen says, shaking her head as she tries to imagine Cat in Alelunen finery: sharp white and silvers, glittering blues, a white-gold circlet on his head, black trousers with a shimmering moon above his heart.

‘I hadn’t had a chance to read in nearly twelve years,’ Cat – Alest – corrects. ‘I forgot . . . a lot.’

‘But you memorize everything!’

He shakes his head. ‘I taught myself how after I died.’ He motions to the Reaper they have caught. ‘Cieli taught me Soleben, Brielle taught me history and mathematics, Chisenia taught me science. Any voice that could reach me, taught me. I learned. I had endless time to learn. And when all I had was my memory . . . I depended on that more than anything that came before.’ He lists the names like they should mean something to her, but she does not recognize them. Does not understand the point or purpose. She shakes her head, trying to clear the roar of thoughts rising to a crescendo too loud to make sense of.

‘But . . . your mother put you in those cells? Your mother took Elician?’

‘I did not know Elician would be taken,’ Alest continues. ‘I was supposed to kill him. That’s all I was told. If there were other plans . . . it is not in my queen’s custom to consult me on decisions she makes.’

His queen. The possessive burns. Fen’s fingers clench at the sleeves of her robes. ‘That’s why you refused to swear an oath of fealty to Elician,’ Fen breathes out. ‘You – you couldn’t ! Because you’re a prince yourself. But why didn’t you complete your mission . . . ? You could have killed everybody . It was your duty!’

And duty must always be followed.

Alest scowls at the ground. ‘My duty is to my people. Killing everyone I was sent to kill . . . I do not see how that will help my people.’ He had asked Aliamon to leave the Reaper assassin unharmed. Fen glances at her and swallows at the look of pure devotion on her face.

‘That’s not an answer,’ Fen tells him anyway.

‘Isn’t it?’ he breathes out quietly. She waits for him to say more. She waits, and it seems Aliamon is waiting too. And the Queen. And Marina, who stands guard, vigilant and quiet behind her prisoner’s back. They wait, and Alest does not bother to look up to see how they watch him. He keeps his focus on the ground. He keeps his words quiet when he does finally speak but makes no other token of respect to exhausted company. ‘Your brother is kind. He is . . . the kindest man I have ever known. And I did not want to repay that kindness by harming those he – unknowingly – put in danger by entrusting me to their care.’

‘But what about your queen? Your people?’

‘I let them down.’

The prisoner hisses something. Alest glances back towards her and shakes his head.

Fen does not know what else there is to say. She looks to her king, and Aliamon just looks tired. Drawn. He pats Alest’s shoulder, squeezes it, before pulling away. Then Aliamon meets Fen’s eyes.

‘Anslian will try again,’ he says. ‘And you will not be here when he eventually succeeds.’

‘But if I am I could keep anything from happening to you!’

‘It is forbidden for a Giver to resurrect a member of the royal bloodline. When we die, we die. We will have no more kings clinging to power by refusing to know their time is done. One day, in the end, my brother will succeed. And you will not interfere . Nor will I give you the chance to interfere. Not after you and Stello Alest have bungled through every other plan I’ve made. I want you out of this palace. You will leave. Tonight. Your former tutor – Elena – has a practice in Crowen that serves as a cover for a safehouse in the city; you will stay with her there.’

‘Elena goes to Kreuzfurt in the summers,’ Alest says.

‘This summer, she will not. You will go, and you will stay in Crowen. You will continue learning, and you will wait .’

Fen shakes her head. Her fingers curl into fists. ‘If Anslian is the traitor, if you’ve known about it all this time, why are you doing nothing ? Why are you just . . . just letting him kill you?’

‘I don’t owe you every answer you seek, girl. Things have been set in motion, and this whole mess would be resolved far sooner if you simply stopped getting in the way.’

‘You were angry I didn’t kill you before,’ Alest says suddenly. ‘You are angry now.’

‘I know where my son is,’ Aliamon replies. ‘And I know, when Anslian manages to kill me, my son will find his freedom. One will follow the other.’

‘How do you know?’ Alest asks.

‘Because it is my duty to know. Just as it was yours to follow orders.’ The prisoner, Cieli, hisses something sharp and furious. She moves to stand, but Marina forces her back to her knees with a heavy hand to her shoulder.

‘Do not talk to him like that,’ Cieli barks out in strangely precise Soleben.

‘I will talk to him as I like. That is my prerogative,’ Aliamon snaps. Then, to Alest and Fen both, he declares, ‘All either of you has accomplished by delaying the inevitable is ensuring Elician stays imprisoned far longer than he needed to be. You’re the ones who failed him, not me.’ Fen’s breath catches. She shakes her head, trying to find the right words, but he doesn’t give her a chance to think. ‘Elician will be freed after Anslian takes my crown. Afterwards, I’ve made sure Elician will know to go to Crowen. You will meet him there. And perhaps then you will truly understand what it is I have done for you all.’

‘You . . . you want to die?’ Fen asks, struggling to understand.

‘I want you out of the way,’ he repeats, firm and resolute. ‘Once, you might have been a queen in your own right, a proper heir I would have proudly led to the throne. But as a Giver, you are never going to be what I hoped for you.’ Tears spring to her eyes. She bites her lip to keep from saying anything even as grief strangles her heart.

I never wanted to be a Giver, she does not say. I only wanted to serve you faithfully , she cannot say.

‘But that plan will never go through, and so this one must be in its place. You’re right, Fenlia. You will live a long while. And when the time comes, you will ensure Elician succeeds. Yes, you confirmed there is treason. Yes, you stopped an assassin. But it is a treason I was aware of, and a plot I had anticipated. All you have done tonight is prolong an eventuality that could have been resolved far sooner. But you will study. And you will learn. You will do better. You will not fail this crown again. When you are given a command, you will follow it despite your grievances. Swear it.’

With tears still streaking down her cheeks, she takes a swift breath in, puts her hand on her heart, and bows. ‘I swear.’

‘Then go. Both of you, prepare to leave the city. I will speak with you again before you depart. I need time to think.’

Fen takes a few steps back. Alest does not. ‘Cieli,’ he says quietly.

‘Will remain unharmed,’ Aliamon replies. ‘Go. I will speak to you of the future later.’ Alest does not bow. He bends his neck slightly, then follows Fen towards the door.

When it closes behind them, Fen looks into Alest’s face and tries to hold the name in her mind. For a long while, he had just been Cat. But now . . . he looks back at her. His lips part like he wants to say something, but he says nothing. He just turns and walks away.