Havenfall

by Sara Holland

  I slip behind the bar and pour myself a glass of wine, figuring I might as well get started on that whole courage thing, when—

  “Maddie!”

  My uncle’s voice to my left. I stop and turn as he emerges out of the crowd—the Heiress at his side.

  Despite the press of the crowded room, I can almost see the distance between them, like a block of glass. Marcus is short and trim with an easy manner, curly black hair and beard, and kind eyes. He’s always gotten along with everyone, especially the Heiress, despite how mismatched they look at the moment—him in his outdated suit and her dressed like some kind of a dispossessed dowager empress. Tonight the Heiress wears a velvet gown. Her silver braid circles her head like a crown. Her expression is especially cool and untouchable. By contrast, Marcus’s hair sticks up especially high, and I know that means he’s been nervously running his hands through it.

  “Maddie,” Marcus says again, giving me a side hug, which is all he has room for in the crowded room. “I just talked to your dad on the phone. I’m so sorry for not picking you up, I completely missed your text—”

  “No problem,” I interrupt, hugging him back. “Someone gave me a ride.” I pull back and smile at him. “Thanks for letting me stay.”

  One side of his mouth quirks up. “Well, you’re always welcome.”

  I know he probably feels a little guilty for enabling my truancy, but Marcus understands that Havenfall is my world. That, at least, I can count on.

  We part and I turn to the Heiress, not sure what to say or how to act. Should I ignore the obvious tension between them? Should I just pretend everything is normal?

  “Madeline.” The Heiress greets me by my full name as always, giving me a smile that’s as warm as ever despite the chilliness between her and Marcus.

  So I guess that’s where we’re at.

  “Just the woman I was hoping to see,” she says kindly.

  “Lady Heiress.” I pull a wineglass from the cupboard behind me, making sure to get one of the fancy ones with the gold rims. “May I make you a drink?”

  “Why, my dear girl, I haven’t seen you in far too long. We have much to catch up on.” She clasps my arm briefly, her plump hand dry and warm. “But, yes, a spot of champagne, if you please.”

  The Heiress claims that she’s writing a history of Havenfall. Every year she invites people from all three worlds up to her suite for tea and pastries and long, meticulous interviews. She must have an encyclopedia’s worth of material by now. But no one’s read any of her supposed epic, and there are whispers that it’s all nonsense, that the notes she takes are air and fluff.

  If she’s not writing, though, what is she doing here, in our world? And why did she come back to Havenfall?

  As the trio of musicians kicks into a faster number, I hide the disappointment that Brekken’s still not here and I pass her the champagne.

  “How’s the book coming?” I try to sound casual and pretend I don’t notice anything wrong between her and Marcus.

  She gives the same answer she always gives, an elegant shrug and a little sigh. But then, just when I’ve opened my mouth to reply, she goes on.

  “There are so many worlds that have been closed off forever,” she says sadly. “How am I to write about all the Adjacent Realms when their citizens aren’t here for me to speak to?”

  A chill settles over my skin. The Heiress told me once how beautiful the Solarian delegates were said to have been, whether in human form to parley with everyone else at the summit, or in their beast forms, running through the mountains under the moonlight. She said the Solarians were the most free of all the peoples, and I’ll never forgot the raw curiosity I heard in her voice.

  “But some worlds are better closed off,” I point out. “You don’t have to speak to Solarians to know why their door was destroyed …”

  Because the victims—Fiorden, Byrnisian, human—remember. I remember.

  Marcus stiffens beside us. He casts me a wary look that warns, Watch what you say.

  The Heiress flaps her hand, like it goes without saying, as a Byrnisian couple in chainmail-like silver tunics pass close by. It’s frowned upon even to speak of Solaria here at Havenfall, as if putting the word out in the air will summon the real monsters. So I have to keep my true thoughts at bay, even when I will never—can never—forget my brother died at the claws of someone from that cursed world. I wonder again how many there are still on Earth, hidden shapeshifters, preying on human souls.

  A short, uncomfortable silence passes, and then the Heiress sighs again and looks out over the crowd. “Of course,” she says. “The less said of Solarians, the better.”

  I still feel cold. I want to go find Brekken, but you can’t just walk away from the Heiress, not without being dismissed.

  “What happened last summer?” I blurt out. “Why did you leave?”

  Even though he’s pretending not to listen, Marcus frowns, and the woman turns her steely eyes on me. It takes effort to stand still and not apologize or walk back my question.

  “Madeline,” she says evenly. Her face is blank, her voice inflectionless, but what she says next sends a current of apprehension through me. “Much like Solarians, sometimes the past is better kept locked away.”

  4

  The Heiress’s stern presence seems to have kept people away from the bar—but once she retires to her room for the night, delegates flock toward me, calling out the names of different wines and spirits. I like this work—it keeps my hands busy and the conversations I overhear are interesting, giving me plenty of details to tuck away and smuggle to Willow. Quickly, my muscles grow accustomed to the task of pouring wine and champagne.

  The great thing about Havenfall—well, one of them—is that I’m the least remarkable person here. The Fiordens and Byrnisians come with stories straight out of soap operas—every summer, every summit, there’s new gossip about a Fiorden duchess falling in love with a lowborn knight, or a lone Byrnisian soldier fending off a lightning storm that threatened Oasis. Fiordenkill has ice storms that white out the whole world, and Byrn has been so ravaged by magical storms that almost everyone there has been backed into the one city standing. Amidst all that, no one gives a shit if I live in a mobile home, or if I have short hair, or if I like guys and girls both, or if my mom’s in prison.

  Marcus sits at one end of the long, polished counter, talking to two delegates I vaguely know—Lonan, a yellow-haired Byrn man who married a fellow delegate here last year, and Nessa, a Fiorden woman in a daring green gown. I listen in. Nessa is fretting about one of the Fiordens’ favorite gossip topics: Enetta, the beautiful but feckless princess of a Fiorden island country who is, unthinkably, late to the summit.

  “It doesn’t matter when she arrives,” I jump in, taking the carafe to refill Nessa’s glass.

  Marcus raises his eyebrows at me, and I smile back. Look. I can play the room too. You can trust me.

  “Havenfall is always open to her,” I say to Nessa. “I look forward to meeting the princess whenever she gets here.”

  I don’t fully understand the magic governing the doorways, but I know they’re more stable during the summer—every year on the solstice, all the Realms come into some sort of alignment. We have our longest day of the year; Byrn has a lunar eclipse of all three of their moons; Fiordenkill has a spectacular shower of shooting stars. Some thread runs through all the worlds on the solstice that allows large numbers of people to pass through the doorways. At other times, they’re less safe—people crossing through can cause strange charges in the air of Haven, or make the ground tremble.

  Marcus and Willow carefully plan a schedule of departures from the inn at the end of the summit—the rulers of the Realms leave after two weeks, while the lesser ones stay longer, hashing out the details of the broad-strokes agreements made by their higher-ups. It’s not ideal that the princess is late, but one person passing through after the solstice isn’t enough of a risk to keep her away and squander the goodwill of the Fiorden de
legation.

  I wave a hand, as if to send the political topic away. “Lonan, where is your lovely bride this year?”

  The Byrnisian man looks momentarily surprised to be addressed by me, but then he smiles, and his too-many teeth betray him as not being human. I wonder what he would look like in his home world. “She is with child,” he says, jovially, “and you know it’s not our way to travel in her present condition.”

  “May the earth bear her up,” I say, remembering just in time that Lonan and his wife possess earth magic. I busy myself straightening the rows of goblets on the back counter, hoping to hear more about the wild princess, but Nessa throws a glance at Lonan and excuses herself. She shouldn’t have spoken ill about royalty in front of a Byrn delegate, I realize. But everyone trusts Marcus. Could I ever fill that role, hearing out the troubles of a world I will never see, soothing anxieties and balancing egos with a few well-chosen words?

  Last summer, I studied Adjacent Realms politics from books I “borrowed” from Marcus’s study. So when the Elemental Orchestra kicks up a faster song and delegates fly from the bar to dance, I take the opportunity to lean across the marble toward my uncle. “Is this the year you’re finally going to let me sit in on council meetings?”

  “Not yet. Maybe next year.”

  His smile is thin, but I scarcely notice. Because just then someone appears on the stairs across the room.

  Broad shoulders, copper penny hair, and features sharp as a knife.

  Brekken.

  I feel a smile spread across my face.

  He looks different somehow. It takes me a moment to realize why, but then it hits me all at once. He’s dressed like a soldier, a cloak of fur fastened at his throat. His hair is combed back and tucked behind his jeweled ears—red for his family—and his tunic is embroidered with a pattern of leaves and swords. Brekken came of age this year and joined the High Court’s army. It was everything he’d been dreaming of since we were children.

  And then, finally, he sees me. Brekken catches my eye as if our gazes have their own gravitational field. His face breaks into a broad smile as he waves. In an instant I forget all the formality. Almost without meaning to, I take a step toward the stairs.

  “I need you for a moment longer, Maddie.”

  Marcus’s voice snaps me out of the reverie. Brekken has to wait. Marcus and Havenfall are supposed to come first. I turn to see Marcus’s worried expression. His eyes follow my trajectory over to Brekken on the stairs. But in a flash, his smile returns.

  “Can you go get a bottle of the Fiordenkill champagne from my office?” he asks.

  Disappointment and impatience flare through me. “Of course. Just give me a minute.” I take a step away, but Marcus’s hand on my shoulder stops me.

  “Brekken’s a soldier now, Maddie,” Marcus says, his voice low and serious.

  “Okaaay.” I draw out the word. “So what? What are you getting at?”

  “So he’s bound to the High Court.”

  “All the more reason to go congratulate him.” There’s a beat of awkwardness. “Isn’t that the proper thing to do? I’ll get the bubbly after I say hello.”

  My confusion must show on my face, because my uncle hurries to add, “Yes, but … just … don’t spend all your time together. You know how people talk.”

  “No, I don’t know.” My voice comes out sharp and I can’t help it. “What will people say?”

  And why should I care?

  “We are the portal-keepers. We have to stay neutral, Maddie. No one can think we’re showing favoritism between the Realms. That is our job. Our responsibility. That is, if you want to run Havenfall one day.”

  “Of course I want that,” I say, waspish. “You know that. More than anything.”

  Anything except maybe Brekken.

  What Marcus is saying makes sense, but he’s talking to me like I’m a kid, and it rankles me.

  “You’re married to a Fiorden,” I point out.

  “Graylin was never a soldier.”

  I swallow, trying to stay calm even though it feels like the bottom of my stomach has dropped out. The horrible thing is that Marcus’s right; I know how careful he is to split his time evenly between Fiordens and Byrnisians. The whole point of Havenfall and the peace summit is to provide a neutral zone for the Adjacent Realms. Fiordenkill and Byrn are the only two left, making it more important than ever to sustain the peace.

  But my stupid brain never connected that with Brekken. We can’t be together. And now my eyes are burning.

  I clench my fist tight. I cannot, I will not, cry in front of Marcus and the delegates and everyone. I know Havenfall isn’t perfect, but it’s supposed to be mine, the summer refuge that makes up for the shitty rest of the year. Strange that a place with so many rigid rules, regulations, and protocols would have, all this time, felt to me like freedom.

  “What we do here is dangerous, Maddie,” Marcus is saying. He smiles at me, gently, but his eyes are serious. “We need to be all things to everyone to maintain the balance. This place, what happens here, is important and I wouldn’t trade it for the world, but I don’t want to see you hurt again.”

  Again.

  He pauses, twirling his wineglass in his hands, then looks back up at me. And I know he’s trying to find the words for something he tells me every year, in his roundabout way.

  This is our history. Our legacy. To be Innkeeper requires courage, diplomacy, and the will to carry out the greater good. Not everyone is cut out to do this work. It won’t be easy, but you’re strong.

  The idea fills my head like an oil spill. It triggers the dread that always eats away at the corner of my mind, the fear that with the wrong words or actions, I could lose Havenfall. I could misstep and turn the delegates against me, or let the secret slip and ruin everything. Since I was a child, this place has been the only place that has ever mattered to me—the inn and its people have felt like home all these years. Without it, I’d have nothing.

  Sometimes the past is better kept locked away.

  I clutch my key ring, feeling the metal edges of the cat-ear brass knuckles scrape into my palm, focusing on the minor physical pain to chase the other kind away while I go around to the other side of the bar. I need to get some air. I need to talk to Brekken.

  If I ran into Brekken on my way to the cellar, that could hardly be read as favoritism, could it?

  Anyway, all these delegates have seen us play together as children, weaving through feet in the ballroom, making a mess of the gardens, splashing around in Mirror Lake. It’s hard to think everything has to change now.

  He comes into view and my heart flips, the dark worries of moments ago bubbling down to a low simmer. I want to launch myself at him and throw my arms around his neck, but Fiordens aren’t big huggers, so I stop an arm’s length from him, my heart banging against my ribs. Just as well, as it turns out, because he has two glasses of something sparkling in his hands.

  “Maddie,” he says, and his eyes are the exact shade of indescribable blue as the mountains outside. He’s grinning. “I am so, so glad to see you.”

  “Well, I scarcely recognize you,” I tease, though the effect is a little ruined by the breathless way my voice comes out. “What’s it like being a soldier?”

  Brekken smiles, unmistakable pride lighting his eyes. This is all he’s wanted since we were little kids, since he made me practice sword fighting with him with sticks we found in the garden, or we sat upstairs in my room, playacting battles with my stuffed animals. He passes me one of the glasses, and I take a sip to find it’s sweet. My chest warms.

  “It’s difficult,” he says. “And tedious sometimes, and cold.”

  “What do they have you doing?” I ask curiously. Fiordenkill is at peace as far as I know, both with Haven and Byrn and internally, among the snowbound city-states that make up that world.

  “Oh, you know.” Brekken’s smile widens. He can’t quite hide how proud he is to finally be a soldier. “Nothing too exciting. Colle
cting taxes, protecting trade ports.”

  “Protecting the palace from giant bears?”

  Fiordenkill has a lot of the same animals we do—bears, wolves, deer—but they’re all on a giant scale. Deer the size of horses, bears twice as tall as me, even on all fours. Or so Brekken tells me.

  “Occasionally,” he says. “Not often enough. But it’s an honor to serve the High Court. And look, I have a sword.”

  He reaches down and pulls it a few inches from its leather scabbard before letting it slide back down, and I catch a glimpse of silver and rubies.

  “You’d better get me one too,” I tease. “Or I won’t last long in our garden fights.”

  Brekken grins and starts to say something, but his words die off as he sees something over my shoulder.

  I follow his gaze to see a young Byrnisian man gliding in our direction, someone I’ve never seen before—I know, because I would remember. He looks around our age, maybe a little older, though Byrnisians age slower than humans. He’s tall and broad-shouldered with sharp features and gray eyes, and his pale skin and silvery-blond hair have a weird metallic tint, like he’s been dunked in molten silver and only mostly rinsed off.

  As he reaches us, Brekken bows, and I instinctively do the same. It’s only then that I notice an older man behind him, just as tall but unnaturally thin, dressed in black with bangles of Haven silver stacked around his wrists and throat.

  “No need for that.” The younger man’s voice pulls us back up, deep and resonant. “I’m only a guest here, same as you.”