Page 4

CHAPTER 4

M ildly uncomfortable though it was, the stage bumped along without incident until they reached the crossroads that led directly into the city proper. There it stopped, waiting. To the east and down a short rise, the sea sparkled beneath a cerulean sky, the puffed clouds floating like sheep’s wool above the waves.

The sight was familiar enough to squeeze Laena’s heart with longing. Seated by the window for the first time on the journey, she wished she could open it so she might breathe in the salty-sweet tang of the sea. As the delay stretched, she found herself debating the possible outcomes of opening the window, or perhaps even the door. She was desperate for fresh air, the relief of a sea breeze.

Just as she was considering making the move, the old woman opened her eyes and looked around, then rapped her fist on the ceiling of the coach. “What’s the holdup?” she called.

The coachman hopped down from his perch to open the door, letting in a gusty breath of sea air. “Royal procession coming up from the harbor,” he said gruffly. “Road’s closed till they pass. ”

The woman rapped on the ceiling again, though the coachman was no longer seated up there. “We could’ve passed three times since we’ve been stopped.”

The coachman glared at her, clearly just as annoyed at the delay. “If you want to convince the King’s Guard to let us pass, be my guest.”

The woman got to her feet and heaved herself out of the coach, sending the whole thing rocking on its dubious springs. “At least let us stretch our legs.”

“Be my guest.” The coachman drew a cigarette out of his pocket and struck a match on the side of the coach. “But I ain’t counting heads. If you’re not inside, I’m leaving you behind.”

The woman snorted a laugh. “There are only two of us, you dolt.”

Laena followed the woman gratefully out of the coach, her back popping as she set her bag at her feet and stretched her arms toward the sky. The landscape of her childhood stretched out before her, tall grasses sloping gently down as if running for the loving arms of the sea, interrupted only by occasional knots of boulders. She knew every one of them intimately; during her youth, they’d been fortresses and pirate ships, lookouts and towers.

And indeed, a royal procession was making its way up from the harbor, where an enormous ship was moored just offshore. It was a flagship, if she wasn’t mistaken, and not an Etran one; no, that ship flew a flag of cornflower blue set with a royal purple seal. Aglyean colors.

“That little sneak,” Laena muttered.

The procession wasn’t flying King Hawk’s banner, which had to mean they’d come to escort Etra’s emissary into Aglye. The countryside with its rocky coastline could be treacherous, and Etra was a small nation. If Silerith really was threatening the realm, they’d need to keep their sparse military here.

But that also meant that Katrina had summoned this delegation before she’d come to speak to Laena. It took a good fortnight to travel here from Vunmore, the capital. And though this delegation might not include King Hawk, they would not have sent just any soldiers to escort a royal emissary.

That was the famed King’s Guard, and make no mistake. When Laena squinted toward the head of the procession, it was not her still-silent magic that sent a chill up her spine, but the sight of the domineering leader who rode at the head of the party.

Callum Farrow. The famed Aglyean captain, known for enforcing Aglye’s magic bans with ruthless efficiency. Though Etra enforced similar laws, they were remote enough, small enough, that occurrences were fairly rare.

It was said that Callum Farrow could smell a den of magic from leagues away. It was said he broke down doors with his fists, and the tight fit of his Aglyean blue uniform suggested he had the power to do it. It was said he dragged magic users away from their families, impervious to their repentant pleas.

It was also said that he had murdered magic users out of hand, on more than one occasion.

They would have been heart-tithers, she reminded herself. The pain they caused was worthy of imprisonment—though she could not condone any murder. But Laena did not doubt the man’s famed hatred of magic would extend to any and all such powers. Including hers.

Although she’d never met him, she’d heard tales of his massive height, his broad shoulders. His size indeed struck her now as the stuff of legends, making it a wonder that even his warhorse could carry him so easily. But it was the curl of his dark hair that captured her attention, the way it brushed along the curve of his jaw. It was the ice-blue cut of his gaze as he looked out over the Etran countryside that made her throat go dry, and not only out of fear.

As a young woman hearing tales of his exploits, he’d seemed a hero. But what would he do to her, if he discovered her power?

Nothing good.

“Who’s a little sneak?” Laena startled as the old woman from the coach spoke from her elbow. She was looking up at Laena with shrewd dark eyes, her wispy hair stirring in the breeze.

“Oh,” Laena said. “No one.”

The woman nudged Laena with her elbow. “Come on, darling, I live for the drama. You think I get much drama these days? No. No, I don’t. Half the time I have to make it myself!” She cackled at that, eyes glinting.

“Just my sister,” Laena said. “It’s nothing.”

“I have a sister,” the woman returned. “She’s a wench.”

Laena laughed, stifling it quickly, and turned her gaze pointedly back to the procession. They were already disappearing up the road to the city, no doubt ready to enjoy their royal accommodations.

Who, Laena wondered, would Kat be sending in her place? She didn’t want to care, but she could admit to curiosity, at least. If only to herself. Kat wouldn’t send Declan, would she? The regent would do fine, Laena supposed, but he was needed here. Maybe Lord Graver. Or Cyn Cauthon.

None of them were right. None of them would speak convincingly enough. None of them knew how to sugar their words only to bait their opponent into a bitter bite of their true intentions.

It was no longer Laena’s concern. She was only here to inform Katrina of the threat to Etra: the presence of the blight and the shadow monster. Nothing more.

The old woman sighed, clearly disappointed at the lack of gossip, but Laena left it at that.

At length the procession passed, and the coachman ordered them back into the stage.

The coach dropped its only two passengers in the lower city, and Laena shouldered her bag, happy for a chance to stretch her legs. The city folded around her as it so often had in her dreams, the smell of cedar welcoming her back to the streets like a hug. Vendors fried basilnuts and sausage on the corners, and giggling children darted between buildings. Music played, carts rumbled, and shop assistants moved about with packages and pails of waste.

It was a busy place. A prosperous one. And Laena missed it more than she cared to admit.

Brin poked her head out of Laena’s bodice to look around, her tongue darting as she took in all the new smells. Laena had thought to leave the shimmerling behind, but in the end, she’d given the lizard a small bed in her satchel. No doubt the pesky creature would have hitched a ride, in any case. Might as well be on Laena’s terms.

Besides, she couldn’t bear to leave Brin behind in that rotting garden. It wouldn’t be safe.

Etra carried a strong tradition of connection to its people and its streets and, as the old woman from the coach remembered so well, Laena had been encouraged to walk into the city from a young age. With protection, certainly, but the guards had kept their distance to allow her as true an experience as possible. From her studies, she understood that Aglye’s princess lived a sheltered life. In Etra, they believed in full immersion into their own culture.

Laena had not yet visited the continent, but she couldn’t imagine a more beautiful city than this one. It could not exist.

Had she not abdicated the throne, she’d have embarked on her Queen’s Journey five years ago, touring the country on her own for a time before visiting the continent. Kat would be undertaking the journey next year, assuming the tradition wouldn’t be delayed by war with Silerith.

Laena half expected someone to recognize her, even now. But five years was a long time, and with her hair bound in a kerchief, her skin tanned from days spent in the sun, she blended in with the people more effectively than she ever had. No one even cast a glance her way, except for the shopkeeper who she nearly collided with as she gawked at her own city.

No, it wasn’t her city anymore. Even if memories told her that it was.

Forcing herself to focus on the task at hand, Laena made her way up the hill to the palace. The Aglyean delegation was already inside the gates, making official greetings in the plaza as servants scurried about. The delegation might not have sent King Hawk himself, but Callum Farrow’s presence suggested that things were indeed as dire as Kat had suggested. Aglye certainly seemed as eager as Kat for the delegation to succeed, if they would lend their famed magic hunter as an escort.

When Laena stopped at the guardhouse, it became clear that her anonymity would be a problem. A rather large one, in fact. People on the street glanced at her as she walked straight up to the palace gates.

Suddenly, she was all too aware of how many days she’d gone without washing her plain woolen skirt. Her satchel felt ratty, her hair wispy and out of place after so many days traveling. The guard eyed her warily as she approached, his gaze lingering on the cut on her cheek. She took pains to hold her spine straight and look him in the eye.

Although if his eyebrows became any more overgrown, they’d obscure his vision.

“I’d like to meet with Princess Katrina, please,” she said.

“And I’d like a pet unicorn, miss,” he said. “As it is, you’ll need to wait for Queen’s Day for an audience with the princess and the regent. They’ll attend to your concerns then. ”

He waved her back, gesturing dismissively toward the street, like she was nothing more than a fly. Laena bristled, not only because of her identity but because a palace guard should not be talking to an Etran citizen this way. He should be kind, at least to someone clearly approaching the gates without an attempt to harm.

But it would have been a lie to say his failure to recognize her didn’t sting. She wouldn’t have expected the people on the street to know who she was; they were busy with their own lives, for starters, and even Kat’s appearance would be a mere asterisk to their days. But a member of the palace guard ought to recognize her face.

She shifted her bag on her shoulder. Her back ached after days of travel, and she was longing for a bath. “I… you don’t know me?”

He narrowed his eyes. “Should I?”

Yes , she thought. But truly, why should he? If he’d joined the guard any time in the past five years, he’d have had no reason to learn her face. She hadn’t returned even once since she’d left the city with Ben. She hadn’t been invited, true, but she might have made an effort.

Laena swallowed, trying to piece together a story without angering the guard—so many were angry at what they saw as her betrayal—and without sounding like she considered herself entitled to an audience. She wasn’t. She’d ceded that right, along with everything else.

Abruptly, she realized that Captain Farrow had broken away from the greetings and was crossing the courtyard to speak to the guard. To ask for assistance or directions, or perhaps to inform him of some crucial Aglyean protocol.

Instead, he leaned one hand on the iron gate—a posture that was distinctly not commander-like—and looked directly at her.

If he had seemed tall from a distance at the cliffs, he was absolutely massive as he stood before her. Laena wasn’t a short woman, and he still towered over her. She’d memorized etchings of his face, along with so many others—an essential point in her studies so as to avoid embarrassing important dignitaries from other realms—and though they had portrayed him as much younger, his identity was unmistakable. He loomed over the guard yet somehow managed not to seem frightening. Or at least he didn’t appear frightening to Laena.

It was a lie. He ought to be frightening. He ought to be very frightening indeed to a magic user.

“Is there a problem here?” Farrow’s voice was deep, though edged with a ragged timbre that might have been the fatigue of a tiring journey from Vunmore. The guard glanced at Captain Farrow, eyebrows raised, as if he’d never expected a visiting King’s Guard member to address him and wasn’t sure how to interact with an officer from another realm’s military.

“No, sir,” the guard said. “No problem. It’s just that this young woman wants an audience, and I cannot grant it.”

Young woman. Laena nearly snorted. She’d stake her lunch on being older than this man.

Scratch that, actually; she hadn’t eaten since breaking her fast on hearty porridge at the inn this morning. She’d stake her cloak on it, then. It wasn’t overly chilly, after all.

Callum Farrow looked her directly in the eye, and her breath caught in her throat. His portraits showed him with blue eyes, and while that wasn’t altogether inaccurate, it certainly wasn’t sufficient, either. The blue that had seemed so icy from afar was nearly the shade of the sea, not cold but warm, inviting her to stare into them at length to determine their exact shade.

If she were a fool, that was. But as she wasn’t, she averted her gaze back to the guard.

“Do you not recognize this lady, officer?” Captain Farrow asked.

The guard glanced at Laena, then back at the captain. “No,” he said. “No… sir? ”

Still clearly uncertain about his place in the chain of command here.

“This is Queen Katrina’s sister. Princess Laena.”

How in all the Vales did he know that ? She supposed he would have educated himself in the same way she had, to avoid embarrassing situations in other realms. But she would not have expected a foreign soldier, even a high-ranked one, to recognize her with this ratty dress.

His gaze went to her cheek, and he frowned. As if the sight of the cut offended him personally.

“Kat’s still a princess, too,” Laena said, cheeks burning. It was bad enough not to be recognized by her own family’s guard. But to have a representative from another realm speak for her? It was humiliating. “Technically.”

Captain Farrow hitched an eyebrow as if to say I’m trying to assist you, Princess . He seemed the type to say her title with a hint of disdain, though so far he’d only spoken respectfully. “ Princess Katrina, then,” he said.

And he was trying to help her. She was caught between the desire to thank him and the screaming in her brain that said this man would throw her in prison if he knew her secret. She should be running. Instead, she wanted to step closer. She had the ridiculous urge to reach through the gate and give one of his curls a tug.

The guard swallowed hard. “I… the one who ran off with the…?” He glanced at Laena, then looked back over his shoulder. “I need to find my superior officer.”

“That would be best,” Captain Farrow agreed. “In the meantime, perhaps we might allow Princess Laena into the plaza? She looks as if she’s journeyed a long way.”

Instead of waiting for a response, he unlatched the gate and swung it open, inviting Laena back into her own home.