A Little Fate

by Nora Roberts

  early in the day for his comfort. “Strong sons, Owen. So you must choose a woman who will be more than a pretty vessel. Have any here found your favor?”

  “One or two.” Owen shrugged. “The latest arrival interests me. She has a bold look in her eye.”

  “Her dowry would be rich,” Lorcan considered. “And her father’s lands are valuable. She has beauty enough, and youth. It might do.”

  “The match would tie the west to us, and as Ute’s land runs north along the hills, such positioning would be strategic.”

  “Yes, yes.” Lorcan rested his chin on his fist and considered. “The Realm of Magicks still thrives in pockets of the west, and too many men run tame there who preach of Draco’s spell and the True One. It’s time to look to the far west and north, and smother any small embers of treason before they flare.”

  “The Lady Aurora’s father, it seems, is unwell.” Owen took another bite of his plum. “If we were wed, he might sicken and die—with a bit of help. And so his lands, his fortifications, his wealth would come to me.”

  “It might do,” Lorcan repeated. “I’ll take a closer look at this one. If I approve, your betrothal will be announced at week’s end at the masque. And you will be pledged the following morning.”

  Owen raised a brow. “So quickly?”

  “With the wedding ceremony to take place at the end of a fortnight—by which time every man in the world must render a token to mark the events—the masque and the wedding. The shepherd must render his finest rams, the farmer one quarter of his crop, the miller a quarter of his grain, and so on, so as to provide their prince and his bride with the stores for their household.”

  Lorcan stretched his booted feet toward the fire. “If the man has no ram, no crop, no grain, he must render his oldest son or if he has no son, his oldest daughter, to serve the royal couple. Craftsmen and artisans will bequeath a year of their time so that your home can be built on the western border and furnished as befits your rank.”

  “Some will not give willingly,” Owen pointed out.

  “No. And the business of persuading them to do their duty to their king will bury all mutterings of the True One, scatter rebellious forces, and forge our hold on the west. Yes.” He lifted his goblet in toast. “I think it may do.”

  UNDER the guise of serving his mistress, Rohan walked with his head humbly bowed. His heart was full of rage edged in fear. He kept his eyes lowered as he moved past guards and into the sitting room where Aurora gathered with the women to take rose tea and chatter about gowns and the upcoming masque.

  “Your pardon, my lady.”

  Knowing her part, Aurora spared him a single disinterested glance. “I am occupied.”

  “I beg your pardon, my lady, but the lace you requested has arrived.”

  “A full day late.” She set her cup aside and shook her head at the women who sat closest to her as she rose. “It will probably be inferior, but we’ll see what can be done with it. Have it sent to my chambers. I’ll come now.”

  She walked out behind him, careful not to speak to him or to Rhiann, who followed in her wake, until they were behind doors again.

  “Lace.” She sighed heavily, and poured ale to rid her mouth of the oversweet taste of the rose tea. “How I am lowered.”

  “Lorcan’s envoys returned today with taxes levied against the four points.”

  Aurora’s mouth thinned. “He will not keep them for long.”

  “They brought also six prisoners.”

  “Prisoners? What prisoners are these?”

  “They say they are rebels, but four are only farmers, and one of them is aged and near crippled, while another is no more than a boy. The other two must have been set upon and taken while scouting. One of them is Eton.”

  Aurora lowered herself slowly to a chair as Rhiann bit back a cry. “Out Eton? Cyra’s betrothed?”

  “Eton was wounded, and all are being kept in the dungeons.” He curled his hands helplessly into fists. “They’re to be questioned by the tribunal.”

  “Tortured,” Aurora whispered.

  “It’s said they’ll be executed for treason within the week. Flogged and branded, then hanged.”

  “Compose yourself, Rhiann,” Aurora ordered when the woman began to weep. “It will not happen. Why were they taken, Rohan? How are they charged with treason?”

  “I can’t say. There’s word among the servants that rebellion is brewing, that the True One is coming.”

  “So Lorcan strikes before he is struck.” She pushed to her feet to pace as she brought the positioning of the dungeons into her mind. “We must get them out, and we will. We have a week.”

  “You can’t leave them there for a week.” Rhiann struggled against fresh tears. “To be tortured and starved.”

  “I have no choice but to leave them until we are ready to attack. If we try to free them now, we could fail, and even if we succeed, such a move would put Lorcan on alert.”

  “Eton may be dead in a week,” Rhiann snapped. “Or worse than dead. Is this how you honor your family?”

  “This is how I rule, and it is bitter to me. Eton is like my own brother. Would you have me risk all to spare him?”

  “No.” Rohan answered before Rhiann could speak. “It would not honor him if you spared him pain, or even his life, and Lorcan continued to rule.”

  “Get word to him if you can. Tell him he must hold on until we can find a way. Send a dispatch to Gwayne. It’s time. They are to travel in secret. They must not be seen. How long will it take them? Three days?”

  “Three—or four.”

  “It will take three,” Aurora said firmly. “I will meet him in the forest, near the tunnel, at midnight when he arrives. I’ll know what must be done.”

  “Cyra.” Rhiann grieved for her daughter. “How will we keep this from her?”

  “We won’t. She has a right to know. I’ll tell her. She should hear it from me.”

  She went out in search of her friend, hoping she would have the right words, and met Owen as she stepped into the courtyard.

  “Lady Aurora.” He took her hand, bowed over it. “I was about to send word for you.”

  “I am at your pleasure, my lord prince.”

  “Then you’ll honor me by riding out with me. I’ve been busy with matters of state all morning, and wish for a brisk gallop and your lovely company.”

  “I would enjoy nothing more. May I meet you in an hour, my lord, so I might find my maid and change into proper attire?”

  “I’ll wait. Impatiently.”

  She curtsied, tipping her face up with a saucy smile before rising and hurrying away. She found Cyra in the kitchens, her eyes bright and round with gossip.

  “I require you,” Aurora said coolly, then turned away so that Cyra had to rush after her.

  “I’ve learned all about—”

  “Not now,” Aurora said under her breath. “I’m riding out with the prince,” she said in a clear voice. “I’ll want my red riding habit, and be quick about it.”

  “Yes, my lady.”

  Only Aurora heard Cyra’s muffled giggle as the girl rushed ahead to the bedchamber. And only Aurora hoped she would hear Cyra’s laughter again.

  “And be quick about it,” Cyra mimicked with another giggle as soon as Aurora closed the door behind her. “I had to bite my lip to keep from laughing. Oh, Aurora, I’ve learned all manner of things. The kitchens are fertile ground.”

  “Cyra, sit down. I must speak with you.”

  The tone had Cyra stopping to look at Aurora as she lifted up the red habit. “Do you not ride out with Owen, then?”

  “No. Yes, that is—yes.” Aurora pushed at her hair. “Yes, within the hour.”

  “It’ll take nearly that long to get this done. A lady of your station would have her hair dressed differently for riding. It has to suit the hat, you know. We’ll get started and exchange our news. Oh, Aurora, mine is so romantic.”

  “Cyra.” Aurora took the habit and tossed i
t aside so she could grasp Cyra’s hand. “I have word of Eton.”

  “Eton? What of Eton? He’s in the north, scouting for Gwayne.” The rosy flush was dying on her cheeks as she spoke, and her fingers trembled in Aurora’s. “Is he dead? Is he dead?”

  “No. But he’s hurt.”

  “I’ll go to him. I have to go to him.”

  “You can’t. Cyra.” She pushed her friend into a chair, then crouched at her feet. “Eton and five others were taken by Lorcan’s soldiers. He was wounded. I don’t know how badly. He was brought here, to the dungeons.”

  “He’s here, in the castle? Now? And he lives?”

  “Yes. They will question him. Do you know what that means?”

  “They will torture him. Oh.” Cyra squeezed her eyes shut. “Oh, my love.”

  “I can do nothing for him yet. If I try . . . all could be lost, so I can do nothing yet. I’m sorry.”

  “I need to see him.”

  “It isn’t safe.”

  “I need to see him. They send food down to the jailers, to the tribunal, and slop to the prisoners. One of the kitchen maids will let me take her place. If he sees me, he’ll know there’s hope. It will make him stronger. He would never betray you, Aurora, and neither will I. He’s proud to serve you, and so am I.”

  Tears swam into Aurora’s eyes, then she pressed her face into Cyra’s lap. “It hurts to think of him there.”

  “Then you must not think of it.” She stroked Aurora’s hair and knew that she herself would think of little else. “I will pray for him. You’ll be a good queen because you can cry for one man when so much depends on you.”

  Aurora lifted her head. “I’m so afraid. It comes close now, and I’m so afraid that I’ll fail. That I’ll die. That others will die for me.”

  “If you weren’t afraid, you’d be like Lorcan.”

  Aurora wiped her eyes. “How?”

  “He isn’t afraid because he doesn’t love. To cause such pain you can’t love or fear, but only crave.”

  “Cyra, my sister.” Aurora lifted Cyra’s hand and pressed it to her cheek. “You’ve become wise.”

  “I believe in you, and it makes me strong. You must change or you’ll be late and annoy Owen. You need to keep him happy. It will make his death at your hands all the sweeter.”

  Aurora’s eyes widened. “You talk easily of killing.”

  “So will you, when I tell you what I’ve learned. Hurry. This will take some time.”

  7

  “BRYNN was one of your mother’s women, and her friend,” Cyra began.

  “I know this. Now she sits as queen. Though not happily, by all appearances.” Aurora turned so Cyra could unhook her gown.

  “She—Brynn—was widowed in the great battle. Thane was but three. In the year that followed, Lorcan decided to take a new wife. It’s said—whispered—that she refused him but that he gave her the choice between giving herself to him and her son’s life.”

  “He would murder a child to win a wife?”

  “He wanted Brynn, because she was closes to the queen, in spirit and in blood.” Cyra helped Aurora into the riding habit and began to fasten it. “I only know it’s said that Brynn wept to another of the handmaidens—the mother of the kitchen girl who spoke to me. She swore her allegiance, and gave herself to Lorcan for his promise to spare her son’s life.”

  Aurora sat at the dressing table, staring at her own face, and asked herself what she would have done. What any woman would have done. “She had no choice.”

  “Thane was sent to the stables, to work, and was not allowed inside the castle from that day, nor to speak a single word to his mother.”

  “Hard, hard and cold. He could have taken Brynn by force and killed the boy. He kept him alive, kept Thane alive and within her reach, never to touch or speak. To make them both suffer, to cause pain for the sake of it. Payment,” Aurora said aloud as she let herself drift into the nightmare of Lorcan’s mind. “Payment for her first refusal of him.”

  “This is his way,” Cyra agreed. “A way of vengeance and retribution. Brynn married Lorcan, and twice miscarried his child before she gave birth to a daughter, who was Leia. Three years after, she bore Dira.”

  “She had no choice, but Thane . . . he’s no longer a child.”

  “Wait, there’s more.” Cyra brushed out Aurora’s hair and began to braid it. “When Thane was but seven, he ran away—to join the rebels, it’s said. He and a young friend. They were caught and brought back. The other boy, the brother of the maid who told me, was hanged.”

  The horror of it cut through her heart. “By Draco, he hanged a half-grown boy?”

  “And forced Thane to watch it done. Thane was beaten and told that if he insulted the king again, another would die in his place. And still he ran away, less than a year later. He was captured, brought back, beaten, and another boy his age was hanged.”

  “This is beyond evil.” Aurora bowed her head. “Beyond madness.”

  “And more yet. Lorcan took the baby, Dira, his own daughter and half sister to Thane, to the stables where Thane was shackled. She was only days old. And he put his own dagger at the baby’s throat. If Thane ran again, if he spoke ill of Lorcan or Owen, if he disobeyed any law or displeased the king in any way, Dira would die for it, then Leia, then Brynn herself. If he did not submit, any and all who shared his blood would be put to death.”

  “Could he kill his own?” Struggling to see it, Aurora rubbed a hand over her troubled heart. “Yes, yes, he could do it. She is only a female child, after all,” she said bitterly. “And how could a brother, a boy, a man, risk it? He could run, and now he could escape, but he could never forfeit his sisters’ lives, risk his mother’s.”

  She thought of what she’d seen in the crystal. The wolf walking like a tame dog, while his mother and sister were chained to the throne. And the ghost of another sister stood trapped behind glass. “No, he could not run, he could not fight. Not even for his own freedom.”

  “He never did so again,” Cyra confirmed as she rolled the braid into a thick knot at the base of Aurora’s neck. “He speaks little to others, stays among the horses.”

  “He makes no friends,” Aurora said quietly, “except a girl in a vision and an aged faerie. Because to make friends puts them at risk. So he’s always alone.”

  “It breaks my heart.” Cyra dashed a tear from her cheek. “They think he’s beaten—Lorcan, Owen, everyone. But I don’t believe this is so.”

  “No.” She remembered how he’d looked in the forest with a sword in his hand and the cold fire of battle in his eyes. “It is not so. He has buried his pride and given more than half his life to the waiting, but he is not beaten.” She reached back to take Cyra’s hand. “Thank you for telling me.”

  “A man who would humble himself to save another is a great man, greater perhaps than one who fights.”

  “Stronger. Truer. I misjudged him because I didn’t look beyond my own eyes, into my heart. This wolf is not tamed. He stalks. I have fresh hope.” She got to her feet, turned. “Go see your man, but take care. Take great care. Tell him, if you can, it won’t be long. Three days, no more than four, and we will bring a flood to the City of Stars. I swear on my life, Lorcan will drown in it.”

  She stepped in front of the looking glass, and her smile was a warrior’s smile. “Now we’ll go flutter and preen for the son of the devil, and see what use he is to us.”

  Aurora hurried to the stables, hoping for a moment alone with Thane. Her horse and Owen’s were already saddled. Owen’s personal guard stood at the riding gelding’s head.

  She moved to her own mount as if inspecting the horse and the tack.