by Kate Elliott
The yearning hit hard. She and Will had not yet been allowed beyond the border of orderly, peaceful, deadly dull Ardenvale. Out there lay the Realm in all its glory and the Wilds with all its danger, and she wanted to go. She had to go. Lightning sparked again in her fingers. A guard turned, sniffing the air as he caught the scent of ozone. She curled her hands into fists. The pain of the magic biting back into her flesh she could endure, but not the dreary tedium of getting stuck here while all her friends quested forth.
There was no sign of Will on the wall walk.
Where would he go?
Bright horns blew to announce the imminent arrival of the High King and the Queen. The restless onlookers tightened up their disorderly rows.
She abruptly spotted Will’s blond head in one of the gardens planted between the battlements and the inner causeway. He was standing on a little circle of lawn as if he had all the time in the world to contemplate each blade of grass. How like Will.
The horns sang again. The doors into the inner court of the castle opened. High King Algenus Kenrith and his beloved Queen Linden emerged, accompanied by the younger two of their four children. Her mother’s hand was clasped in her father’s, like always. They were so in love even after all these years. It was a little embarrassing. But at the same time their constancy made Rowan feel sheltered and secure—and also stifled! They’d already had their legendary adventures, and hers were evidently never going to start.
Rowan hammered back down the tower steps, brushed past several startled guards on the lower level, and bolted out through an open guard door that led into the garden. She ran down one of the gravel paths, realized she’d gone the wrong way, and raced back with pounding heart and ragged breath past a screen of flowering dog rose. Will stood with his white hands braced on either side of a stone birdbath. He was staring down to where his fingers touched the water.
“Will!” she shouted.
He gave no sign of having heard her as she sprinted up. She slapped a hand on his shoulder. When he didn’t acknowledge her, she glanced down at the shallow pool. Her breath caught.
The surface of the water was skimmed over with a sheet of ice despite the summer heat. Nothing unusual in that, since ice was Will’s magic. But the ice glimmered with a weird, mirror-like sheen. The shadow of a vista shimmered into view beyond the surface, as if she and her brother stood on a high pinnacle and looked onto a place so distant all they could see was a bleak landscape of shifting sand dunes over which glowered a bloated moon
The scene shivered as if a ripple ran through it, and when the surface settled back into stillness they saw
a massive dragon’s skull
and then, as if the pages of a codex were being flipped to a different place,
a figure obscured by shadows crouched on a massive branch
and then
a host of brightly armored knights spreading their shining wings
“Will!” She shook herself free of the alluring visions, grabbed his arms, and yanked him bodily away.
The ice dissolved.
He yelped. “Rowan! Ouch! Let go!”
“Huzzah! Huzzah!” Happy cheers of acclamation rose from beyond the wall.
“They’re leaving! Will! We have to go!”
He stared at her with those big muttonhead eyes. “What? Oh! Why didn’t you say so?”
“Shut up and run!”
She raced back the way she’d come. He followed, keeping pace easily. They’d make it just in time…or so she thought until the guard door to the tower came into view. Ardenvale was an orderly place: Strict adherence to the rules was necessary to combat the threat of the Wilds and its unruly, perilous, lethal denizens who could never live in peace with the Realm. When the gate onto the outer causeway was opened, any interior gates off the inner causeway were closed.
They were locked out of the forecourt and into the garden.
She pounded her fist on the iron-banded door. “Hey!”
Will grabbed her wrist before she could hit the door again. “You’ll just hurt yourself. It’s barred from inside. They won’t open it. We climb the lattice like we always do.”
“It’s too far, we won’t make it.”
“Sure we will,” he said with the annoying optimism he flung around when they’d landed in an impossible situation.
They raced around to the back of the garden where they could climb an ivy-covered trellis up to the courtyard of bread ovens and then back through the summer kitchens and then down through a set of linked passages through the oil and grain storerooms and of course, of course, of course they were too late. They ran panting onto the inner causeway as a last fanfare of horn blasts sounded. The procession was gone. The outer gates were closed. Onlookers chatted merrily as they left, too busy to pay any mind to two harried-looking youths dressed in workaday clothing.
Rowan bent over, hands on knees, panting. She would have cried if it could have done her any good, but since it wouldn’t, she didn’t.
Will wasn’t even short of breath.
“We missed them!” he said in his most obnoxiously buoyant voice. Like their father, he had the annoying trait of remaining untrammeled by setbacks. “They even took our ponies with them.”
“You missed them! You did!” she accused him. It was unfair to lay all the blame on him, but she was just so mad. “You made me miss them! How could you?”
He glanced at the sky. “Usually processions don’t leave until midday so in a way they left early. I didn’t want to stand around waiting like we always have to do. And anyway, Ro, I had this…I had a strange feeling like when a wick tries to take a flame and doesn’t quite light, and then I knew if I could make a mirror it would show me something. You saw it. All those places—”
“Yes, I know! Places I will never see because you couldn’t just stand and wait for once.”
“I…I don’t think those places were in the Realm, Ro.”
“Or the Wilds. It doesn’t matter for you. You like Ardenvale. You’re happy here. But I’m not. You know Mother won’t let me go alone, I’m always saddled with you. For once I just wish I could leave you behind, you useless, wool-gathering birdbrain.”
“Birds are very intelligent.”
“Then I take back the comparison!”
“I thought I recognized your voices, children. Do not squabble in public, if it pleases you.”
Rowan straightened, all the air punched out of her lungs by the sound of that dignified voice. She and Will turned as if held on one string to face the serenely august Queen Linden. She was clad in a magnificent silver and white robe whose sleeves were embroidered with the circle-bound flame of Ardenvale, the keyhole of Vantress, the goblet of Locthwain, and the hammers of Garenbrig to mark the courts where she had achieved knighthood.
They both gave a bow, touching right hand to heart, as was customary for younger people greeting their elders. The queen’s right eyebrow nocked to a new height of skepticism and dissatisfaction.
But all she said was, “Attend me.”
Their little brother—not quite four—grasped Rowan’s hand immediately. Erec had his morose face on, thumb in mouth as he sulked the way he always did whenever their father rode off on his kingly duties. Rowan wiggled his hand to get his attention. When he looked up, she tapped her lips as a reminder that thumb-sucking wasn’t to be done in public. With great reluctance he popped the thumb out of his mouth and sighed as if no light would ever again be seen in the world. A tear slid down his face as his lower lip trembled. Rowan picked him up and settled him on her hip.
Their younger sister never suffered in silence or for that matter observed any situation without feeling she needed to remark on it. She fell into step, elbowing Will and pulling a face as she whispered, too loudly, “Why are you two still here?”
“Hazel,” said their mother in her firm, calm voice, “don’t you have obligations at the stables?”
Hazel mouthed, “I bet you’re in trouble,” and glided off with all the pois
e of a confident eleven-year-old.
The queen processed onward in a stately manner, never any hasty or precipitous actions for her. As they climbed the stairs into the entry hall, courtiers and attendants approached bearing urgent reports. Each had to be addressed immediately or put off until next month’s high court tribunal. The nearby hamlet of Wealdrum appealed for aid after their grain crops had been trampled and a farmer mauled by a malicious swarm of redcaps. In the town of Trekell, a massive golden egg had plummeted out of the sky on market day, crushing merchants’ stalls and causing multiple injuries and deaths as it rolled through the central square, and a dispute had broken out over how the proceeds of the calamitous egg should be divided. In a different canton, a steward had accused a villager of theft while the man claimed it was blue faeries, not he, who’d pilfered the keys to the strongbox.
Will walked behind their mother in composed silence while Rowan fumed, turning the morning’s disaster over and over in her head. Cerise had been right, of course. She should never have given in to her urge to find out more about Embereth’s tournaments and to flirt with Titus while she was at it. This fiasco was as much her fault as Will’s.
Maybe they could talk their mother round. Other youths were given second chances.
At length they escaped the audience halls and public rooms to enter the privacy of the modest apartments within the castle where the royal family lived. Erec had fallen asleep with his head on her shoulder. She carried him into the cramped bedchamber shared by the two boys, laid him on his bed, and took off his shoes. When he was settled, still fast asleep, she hurried back into the parlor.
Their mother had seated herself in a chair and was patting at her forehead and cheeks with a linen kerchief.
“Does it seem hot to you?” she asked in a mild tone at odds with the sweat beading on her skin.
Rowan shot a disbelieving glance toward Will. It wasn’t a hot day, and anyway the thick stone walls kept the interior cool. He merely gave her a shake of the head, so she went over to unbind the protective amulet that latched the shutters and opened them. The parlor resembled the tidy front room of the farmhouse where young Linden had grown up in the canton of Kenrith. The round table was well worn and painstakingly polished. Cushions on the chairs were the one luxury allowed. A tray bearing a covered pitcher and cups sat on a side table. Will poured out a tisane of rose-hips and took the cup to their mother, who gave him an appreciative nod before drinking.
Rowan craned her neck to look outside. From up here she could see where the outer causeway reached solid ground and the main road. The tail end of the Grand Procession had cleared the causeway, the rear guard’s banners bobbing away. She squinted but couldn’t make out Titus’s distinctive red hair from this distance. A column of wagons was headed up the causeway toward the main gates bearing supplies for the castle.
She turned away from the window. “Mother. We’re really sorry, and we know it was thoughtless of us. But I see supply wagons coming in. If we go right now we can slip out when the gates are opened to let them in. The procession doesn’t move fast so it won’t take us long to catch up. Probably no one will realize we weren’t with them all along.”
“I did not give you leave to speak, Rowan,” the queen said in the same even voice with which she addressed any person of the court.
“But Mother—!”
“What did I say, Rowan?” Setting down the cup, the queen gestured for the twins to stand before her. “Here in the Realm we live according to the reign of the five virtues. Peace and order are secured by loyalty, knowledge, persistence, courage, and strength. We respect and revere the virtues but we do not worship them. We strive to prove our worthiness. As High King, your father is held to an even stricter standard.”
Her gaze slid from Rowan to Will and back to dwell a moment longer on Rowan, her lashes flickering with a flutter of emotion that made Rowan wince.
“For all that we attempt to raise you in an ordinary manner, you are always in the public eye, and your behavior—even commonplace mischief—will be seen as reflecting on our stewardship of the Realm.”
Rowan opened her mouth to protest just as Will, anticipating her, pressed his right foot atop her left to remind her to keep silent.
The queen met her daughter’s gaze to acknowledge the unspoken complaint. “It is nothing you asked for, and is not fair to you, but because you are our children, it is what you must live with. Youths in Ardenvale—indeed in all the courts—claim the right to travel to the other courts on their first quest when they reach eighteen. Not before. As your father and I have impressed upon you two time and again, we cannot favor you and give you opportunities others do not have. Why is that?”
Rowan let Will answer. He never sounded sarcastic or disparaging no matter how many times their mother had given them this lecture.
“Long ago the elves ruled the Realm. They were proud, arrogant, vain, and cruel. Worse, they allowed any sort of unsavory magic to flourish unchecked. They said that those who were too weak to defend themselves could bend their knee to the more powerful in exchange for protection.”
The queen nodded. “All we have ever wanted in the Realm is peace, harmony, and justice. For all that the elves claim we have injured them, they continue to allow any sort of unsavory magic to flourish unchecked in the Wilds no matter who it harms.” She paused to sip at the tisane, voice touched with a sudden hoarseness.
Rowan bent her head, her anger ebbing. Their mother rarely drew attention, however obliquely, to the tragic circumstances of Rowan and Will’s birth. She must be more upset than Rowan had realized.
“What lesson have we learned from the past, Rowan?”
“It’s easy to be born on the top floor of the castle and claim you are better than a villager born in a humble farmhouse.” As Rowan repeated the rote words she knew were expected of her, she nevertheless found herself warming to her subject. “But you and father were both born into ordinary families. Yet the Questing Beast chose you two to attempt the High Quest, not any noble’s child. Father became High King because he became a knight at all five courts. And you would have too if—”
The queen raised a hand to halt Rowan’s impassioned speech. “As your mother, I am grateful my children are proud of me. But as your queen, I must admonish you. Favoritism and arrogance go against all we strive to uphold. That is why your father and I must hold our children to a higher standard. That is why—”
She broke off, her voice gone a little ragged, and took another sip of the tea. Will nudged Rowan’s foot and gave her a look, his mouth twisted down to scold her.
She twisted her face in an answering grimace worthy of Hazel. The queen was the strongest person Rowan knew, selflessly ruling beside the man she had once been competing with and might have bested. But her quest had been interrupted by the terrible incident that had caused her to choose to delay and ultimately abstain from the quest for the high throne. If she regretted or resented the turn of events—that her spouse and partner was High King and she merely Queen—she never showed the slightest sign.
The queen raised the handkerchief to her mouth and coughed, then lowered the cloth. “That is why,” she continued in a cool tone, “I perceive you two are still too irresponsible to go.”
“But you promised!” cried Rowan.
“Your father promised. I have always been against it.”
“Yes, you made that clear last year when we first asked. You set the conditions. We’ve done everything you required of us, working in the fields and the stables, training at arms, attending the academy without fault or slip-up for an entire year. So it seems unfair we’re punished without being offered the tiniest bit of forgiveness the one time we make a mistake.”
“Rowan! What other child can beg the queen for an exception to the rules as you have just done? No. You and Will would have gone if you had done as everyone else did and waited patiently in the forecourt instead of wandering off about your own trifling business. Because you thought the rules w
ould be different for you.”
Quite unexpectedly Will stood his ground, chin quivering with rare defiance. “He’s always late. Isn’t he taking advantage when he makes everyone wait on him? Just because he’s the High King and he knows other people will have to clean up the messes he makes?”
“Enough!” Linden snapped.
Rowan flinched at the lash of anger in the tone of a woman famous for never losing her temper.
“I have spoken. You will go on your first quest when you turn eighteen, like everyone else. In the meantime—”
A knocker tapped five times, then the door cracked open as a chatelaine peered in with an apologetic expression. “Your Majesty, I beg your pardon, but there’s an urgent matter, another incident of trampled fields, this time in Wesling Village.”
“This is the third redcap incursion this month. Some malevolent force is stirring them up.” Linden pinched her eyes shut as if she wanted a nap and could not get one. “Thank you, Bryony. I’m coming.”
She rose, and Rowan followed her into the sleeping chamber her parents shared: nothing special, just a bed, a wardrobe, and a chest of drawers.
“Thank you,” Linden said as Rowan helped her shed her ceremonial robes and hang them in the wardrobe. Beneath, the queen wore her preferred garb of simple trousers and a linen shift. She pulled on a tunic, wrapped her tight black curls under a length of cloth, and tucked an extra pair of riding gloves in her belt. Her armor would be waiting down by the stables.
At the door of the parlor she paused to study her older children. “The last rulers of Castle Ardenvale favored their relatives and cronies. They turned their magic to petty, selfish, wicked purposes. They betrayed the virtues they should have upheld. That’s how so many spurs of the Wilds were able to grow back into the countryside where they’d been eradicated long ago. We are still fighting to recover what was lost. We must hold ourselves to a higher standard, so the Wilds can’t devour us because of our own faults and failures.”
