Page 3

CHAPTER 3

L aena woke the next morning to a sharp pain in her ear.

She sat up, rubbing at it and looking around until Brin came scurrying out of her hair and down the blankets, chirping madly. Laena stared at her in bleary confusion. The little shimmerling had never made such a sound before, had never made any sound, and she’d certainly never made her way into the house, preferring to wait for Laena outside. She would have expected the lizard to have done so long ago, if she had any inclination.

“Crazy thing. Did you find a mouse hole to sneak through?” Laena reached out a finger to stroke Brin’s back, but Brin skittered away from her touch. Trust her to choose this morning to act strangely. Laena had spent the night tossing and turning, fuming over Katrina’s visit and thinking of all the things she wished she’d said. The accusations she should have leveled, the defenses she should have made, the speeches she should have given.

Each of which the Kat of her imagination countered easily. Because even the Kat of her imagination was superior in every way .

Now, her eyes were sandy with lack of sleep, and Brin was here to wake her, as if Laena had slept past her usual waking time. But she wasn’t late to her chores. Brin ran down the blanket and spiraled her way down the bedpost, her long tail shining in the blue pre-dawn light. If anything, it was earlier than usual.

Brin paused at the door, skipping back and forth until Laena set her feet on the floor.

“All right, I’m coming. But I can hardly go out there undressed, can I? The villagers already have enough to say about me.”

Though it was amusing to imagine the look on old Mrs. Corrigan’s face, should she pass by to find Laena working in nothing but her shift. The thought made her chuckle as she tugged on her sturdiest woolen dress. The woman would hurry off to the market with the best gossip of the week. Of the year, even.

When she reached the front porch, though, the laughter died on her lips.

The stench hit her first, so potent that she couldn’t fathom why it hadn’t leaked into her bedroom. The death and rot was thick enough that every neighbor in the village should be lined up on her street demanding to know what she was doing, and why.

But it wasn’t the pungent air that made her choke in a gasp of disbelief as she stared at the yard that had once housed her garden.

The garden was gone. In its place was a stinking mess of rotten mud, with nothing but a few stick-like stalks left to suggest it had ever been anything but a putrid swamp. The few remaining leaves had shriveled, like love letters tossed in a fire. Not a hint of green in the whole place.

Every vegetable she’d spent the spring and summer cultivating was gone. Every zucchini, carrot, tomato, and pumpkin. Only yesterday, the berry bushes at the far end of the garden had been bursting with green, promising a winter full of jams. Today, they were lumpy husks.

And it was not merely the bushes and the vegetables. The trees that lined the side of her property were peppered with ink-black moss, their leaves beginning to show spots of decay. What would happen if it inched toward the house? Would it stain the walls? Kill everything inside?

Laena pressed her lips together. Queen or commoner, there was one truth life held firm: that standing around would give her no answers or solutions.

She went back inside, ignoring Brin’s squeak of dismay, and retrieved a handkerchief from her kitchen drawer, which she tied around her nose and mouth to protect against the smell. She grabbed her gloves from her bucket, trying to calm the shaking of her hand, and stepped back out into the barren wasteland that, only yesterday, had been her beautiful garden and the source of all her sustenance.

Though the summer sun was already warming the skin on her neck, the chill of winter was all too alive in Laena’s memory. She would never forget the persistent pain of hunger in her belly, or the way her clothing had hung off her body, her ribs protruding alarmingly. She would never forget how heavy Ben’s boots had become as her muscles wasted away.

She’d put them on anyway. She’d taught herself to survive. That had been her second winter here, and the first without Ben; the next had had a full larder and pantries stuffed with provisions she’d provided for herself, as had the following two. All but the flour, which she’d traveled to another village to have ground.

She could not endure another winter like that first one without Ben. She would not.

Laena pulled on her gloves and stepped down into the garden, pausing when Brin once again nipped her on the ear. “I have to investigate. You know I do.”

Brin nipped her again, drawing blood, then scurried up to hide in Laena’s hair.

Taking care to stay on the path, Laena knelt beside her ruined garden, poking a tentative finger into the soil. She half expected the soup-like soil to dissolve her glove and burn her hand. When the fabric held, she pushed farther, until her whole fist was buried in the stinking pit of earth.

She was wrist-deep in the soil when her fingers closed around a thick root, reminiscent of the icicle-like growth she’d unearthed yesterday. She felt her way along it, noting the ridges and the crystalline material. Its heat radiated through the thickness of her gloves.

Brin ventured back down to her shoulder, peering at the soil before quirking her head back toward Laena, looking at her with those sharp, bead-black eyes. And though Laena could not have said how , she understood that Brin wanted her to use her magic.

“I know,” Laena said. “I’m just being careful.”

Brin lay her head on her shoulder as she, very slowly, called for her power.

The power answered. It tingled through her fingertips, like stretching muscles released after long-held tension. It delved into the soil like an extension of her own body, joyful and curious despite the oily stink of the earth around it.

This was not the bloody sacrifice of a heart-tithe but the unbridled joy of a power that belonged to the Vales, wholly and truly. Laena didn’t know how that could be true; in all her studies, she’d never heard so much as a whisper of such a thing. She only knew that it was. That it connected her to this land more fully than any tithe magic could.

Despite what the rest of the Vales might think of magic, it was not fully evil. Not at all. In the years following Ben’s abandonment, she’d no longer feared she might hurt someone with her powers. And she’d come to know how gentle her gift could be.

Her hand delved into the earth, and the crystal shuddered in response. Encouraged, Laena pushed deeper, until the crystalline root changed beneath her touch. It loosened, and she found her finger pushing into it rather than against it.

Perhaps this was the key to destroying the blight; perhaps the power would allow her to tear it apart from the inside.

The crystal tore apart beneath her touch, and the next instant she was airborne, flying back as if something had blasted her off the ground. She hit the path hard, catching her head just before it slammed into the brick steps behind her.

Heat seared her cheeks, but unlike natural heat from the sun or a flame, this warmth felt wrong. It penetrated flesh and blood, seeping inward like poison, and made her feel hollow and sick from within. She stumbled to her feet as the thing that had blasted her out of the garden rose out of the garden, a blighted shadow made real. A phantom. A wraith.

Brin hissed in her ear, and Laena threw up her hands, calling the power more by instinct than intention. Since the incident that had convinced her of her need to flee palace life, Laena had used her gift with care, to preserve food, cool overly hot tea, and, once or twice, to create intricate frost patterns on a window. Small matters, for a small life. Nothing that would hurt anyone. Nothing that would call attention.

And yet, she knew. She always knew there was more waiting for her, an untapped river that was ready and willing to do more.

Now, icy power pulsed out of her hands, dragging her forward a step as though it was physically wrenching itself out of her body. The wraith gave an unearthly howl, collapsing in on itself, the shadows folding into layers upon layers of infinite darkness. She was hurting it—or at least she thought she was— yet still it did not disappear. The monster lunged for her, whipping bands of shadows at her legs as if to drag her into the pit of the garden.

Not today, it wouldn’t. Laena threw up her hands, and again, the power answered, pushing the monster back, shaving her another inch of margin. She’d fought so hard to use the power for gentle work; and despite the damage she’d seen it do, she’d never imagined a battle.

But the power responded anyway. Though unsteady, it stuttered out around her like a protective wall, batting away the poisonous tentacles of shadow. One of the shadow’s whips snaked around her stuttering magic and struck her cheek, but she barely felt it as the power thrummed through her, a cold wash of energy standing against the greedy heat of the shadow creature. If it wasn’t quite made of flame, then she wasn’t quite made of ice, but the disparate powers clashed nonetheless.

Like a well close to emptying, Laena could feel the power in her core melting away, draining like snowmelt down the mountain in spring.

But if there was one thing she knew about snowmelt, it caused the greatest floods.

Once upon a time, her power had blasted through a palace ceiling, nearly wounding a member of her council as shards of ice came raining into the room. Only the fact that it was winter—and that Riles’s position on the coast made the city prone to sudden storms—allowed her to keep her secret.

She’d shattered that room by accident. Surely she could shatter this wraith on purpose.

Throwing her hands up for the third and final time, Laena called the magic. “Don’t defend.” Her teeth were locked together, the words little more than a breath. She could taste the copper tang of blood as it ran down her cheek, touching her lips. “Attack.”

It would be her last chance .

The power responded, raising goosebumps on her arms as it thrummed out of her, pushing one last wall of cold at the monster. Shards of magic coiled from her hands, and the recoil threw her to the ground.

The monster broke against the wave of Laena’s power. With one last scream, it dissolved into a foul vapor and disappeared into the wind.

Still lying prone on the path, Laena stared at the steaming garden, blinking at the wisps of remaining smoke until they dissipated. Where the creature had spewed mud into the trees the leaves were already shriveling away.

Her body was trembling, as if from a deep chill, and her cheek stung from the shadow’s cut. When she reached a tentative call out for the power, only silence responded. Brin turned a worried circle on her chest, and she gave the shimmerling a comforting stroke on the back.

If she hadn’t heard of Vales-born magic, she certainly had never heard of a shadow creature like the one that had just assaulted her. Had it been formed among the mess of the garden? Or had it infested the garden?

There was no way to be certain. But as the trembling began to subside, there was one thing she did know.

“Well,” she said, her voice scratchy and distant in her ringing ears. “I guess this means we’re going to the palace.”

When one didn’t have access to a royal coach, one journeyed to the capital city of Riles via a network of hired stages. It required an exhausting three days of travel and the majority of Laena’s meager funds. Saved from her palace days mostly, as the villagers were as loath to purchase vegetables from her as they were to sell.

Mercifully, the other coach passengers didn’t appear to recognize her. The interior was cramped, and Laena hugged her traveling bag to her lap, as did the other passengers. On the first day, a young man with exaggeratedly tall hair felt it necessary to practice a speech he was to give at the university, and despite exchanged looks of dismay, no one moved to silence him. Thankfully, a university coach met the professor at the first evening’s stop and whisked him away to practice elsewhere.

In the evenings, the coach stopped at roadside inns, where Laena shared attic accommodations with the other women passengers. The innkeepers had stuffed the rooms with wall-to-wall cots, hoping to capitalize on every possible inch of space. The rooms were stuffy, but clean enough, and the women kept to themselves. Some of them departed on other stages come morning, heading toward the countryside or the mountains, where smaller towns dotted the landscape at intervals. No doubt some would need to walk a distance to reach their destinations.

Every time a new person entered the coach, Laena would tense, certain that this time she’d be recognized. And, if her experience was any indication, thrown bodily from the coach and sneered at. The closer they got to Riles, the more she wanted to bury her face in her cloak.

But it was not until the final leg of the ride, after Laena had spent a blissful two hours riding by herself, that an elderly woman hobbled into the coach, sat directly across from her, and narrowed her eyes.

Laena looked out toward the increasingly familiar roll of the hills, pretending she couldn’t feel the old woman’s gaze on her. But the moment she turned her head, the woman caught her eye. “You’ll forgive me for staring, I hope.”

The woman was wearing a woolen cloak pulled over her shoulders, a tarnished broach clipping it shut at the throat. She clutched a bag to her side, no doubt carrying all the coin she had in the world, and though her back was hunched and her entry into the coach suggested some pain in her back or legs, the sharp gleam in her eye said there was not much that passed by without catching her notice.

Laena blinked, affecting the innocent look she had been planning for the entire trip. She would be surprised. She would deny. And she would run, if she had to. “Of course, my lady,” she said. “I had not noticed.”

The woman laughed. After so many hours of university speeches, polite requests for bench mates to provide more space, and, in several cases, sibling squabbles, it was refreshing to hear someone laugh.

If Laena thought about it, she had not heard another person laugh in her presence—not honestly, not deeply—in some time.

“I’m no lady,” the woman clarified. “And you look so much like our queen. I can’t help but stare.”

Laena swallowed. This close to Riles, she could walk if she had to. It would add time, but not a disastrous amount. “Queen Katrina has golden hair,” she said lightly.

But the old woman was already shaking her head. “No, no. I meant Laena. I meant the real queen.”

Laena’s throat went dry. Of all the conversations and accusations she had imagined, this was not among them. She had never been queen—and officially, Katrina was not yet queen—but that had always been a matter of splitting hairs to the people of Etra. If an Etran queen passed, the heir was spoken of as the new queen. Even if she had yet to complete her tour and be coronated.

“Laena was dethroned,” she said carefully.

The old woman leaned in, her expression eager. As if this was a favored subject of hers, whether speaking to a friend or a random stranger who just happened to resemble the abdicated queen. “Have you never wondered why? Laena was so well suited to the role. Well studied. Kind. Smart as a whip when she was a girl, asking questions of everyone she met. She’d walk the streets, and you’d know you were in the presence of greatness.”

Greatness. Laena turned the word around in her mind, unsure of how to respond. She would not have known how to respond even when she had been expecting to take the throne. But perhaps she could have at least stopped her cheeks from reddening.

She was so used to the open hatred of the villagers. Their disdain had carved her confidence away in chunks over the last five years until she hardly recognized the confident woman she’d been. She had not imagined anyone in the realm might think otherwise.

Of course, it was possible that this woman knew who she was. But even if she did, there would be no reason to curry favor. Katrina had made it abundantly clear that Laena was out. Unwelcome in Riles, if not officially exiled.

The old woman sat back. “I always wondered why she’d feel she was forced to abdicate over some love affair. Especially when the man was… well. Destined to be fleeting I’d’ve said. Yes?”

The woman, still craning her neck, leaned forward, as if the subject of their conversation was too juicy to discuss at a distance. Even so close a distance as the interior of a coach. Laena ought to change the subject, to guide it elsewhere, but she found she was interested in what the woman had to say about Ben. Perhaps she represented a thread of opinion in Etra, though she might just as well be an eccentric outlier.

“What makes you say that?” Laena asked.

“I saw him, a time or two.” The woman laughed again, and this time it sounded almost girlish. Like a giggle. “I wouldn’a given up a throne to have him between my legs, is all I’m saying. Not saying I would have minded him there, just… it always seemed…”

The old woman raised her hand, holding her fingers a short width apart, and Laena stared at her, taking a moment to understand her meaning. When she did, she coughed, cheeks flushing with heat beneath the bandages. “How could you possibly guess at the size of his…”

The woman reached out and gave her arm a swat. “Small in character , I thought. Where was your mind, girl?”

Laena opened her mouth, then shut it as the woman laughed again. “Point is,” she continued, “the queen knew what she was about. She spent her life preparing, took the reins with grace after her mother passed so suddenly, poor creature. You could tell the regent was nothing but a formality. And then all of a sudden she was out. Seems like there’s much more to the story than we know.”

A hard lump of cold energy, roiling at her center, demanded to be set free. Powerful and frightening, a secret that could tear the crown apart and bring so-called allies like Aglye storming in for the attack. The stifling air in that council room, the bead of sweat rolling down her spine as her power had chafed to be set free until she could no longer contain it. Until she’d nearly killed her own advisors over a disagreement.

A fear, so deep and brittle that it had driven her to seek comfort in Ben’s arms, to believe the promises he’d whispered in the night. Katrina’s wide-eyed shock when she’d walked in on them together, and the way she’d stayed silent as Declan commanded Laena to choose. Choose now. Just as Laena had counted on him to do.

The old woman sat back on the bench, twisting her back with a grimace. “More than you and I will ever know, I suppose.”

Laena allowed herself a shaky breath. She might be rusty at controlling a conversation, but she still knew an opening when she heard one. “The regent has things well in hand until Queen Katrina comes of age,” she said. “I’m sure.”

The old woman snorted. “A small man, if there ever was one. Character, my dear. I’ve no need to picture his shriveled old…” She shuddered.

“Are we still talking about personality?” Laena asked.

The old woman winked. “Of course.”

“He’s not even that old,” Laena said, but the protest sounded weak even to her own ears.

The woman just shrugged and closed her eyes, the ghost of a smile lingering on her lips. And Laena couldn’t shake the impression that she knew exactly who she’d been talking to.