Royal Bastards

by Andrew Shvarts

  “Don’t you remember?” Miles asked. “It was at the Harvest Feast, when we were, what, seven years old? My mother and I were visiting Castle Waverly, and you’d had this big fight with your Headmaiden, so we decided to run away. We snuck out the South Gate and made it all the way to Harken’s Beach with a knapsack full of bellberries and scones.” He paused, waiting to see if I’d remember. “We hid on the beach all day, talking about how we were gonna be vagabonds and travel around robbing people and never have to have parents again. It was such a good day.” He looked out at the water, a wistful glaze in his eyes. “But then you ate all the bellberries and wanted more, and we ended up just going back. Our parents hadn’t even noticed we were gone. You remember that, right?”

  Kind of, sort of, maybe? Not really? But obviously this was like a hugely significant memory for Miles, so I felt guilty and nodded. “Oh yeah. Yeah. That day. That was great.”

  “Yeah, it was,” Miles said, still staring out. Maybe it was the moonlight, but he looked totally different, nothing like the soft, chubby boy who’d sat down opposite me at the Bastard Table. Our time on the road had changed him. His features looked harder, stronger, and I had to admit the layer of blond stubble lining his chin looked pretty good on him. He looked like he’d lost ten pounds. “You think about what Lyriana said? About the new lives we’d have in Lightspire?”

  “Thinking about nothing else,” I replied, trying to sound more upbeat than I really was. “It’s like a fairy tale, right? You save the Princess, and then she takes you to her castle, and then you never have to worry about anything again.”

  “Yeah, it is.” Miles sighed. “I just wish this were the other kind of fairy tale, the one where everything went back to normal at the end.”

  I cocked my head to the side. It was weird to hear him say it out loud, the thought my conscious brain beat down every time it dared surface. What if my father took me back? What if he forgave me? What if my life could just go back to the way it was?

  I shoved the thought down, deep in the ocean of my consciousness. I didn’t want to think about it. I turned to Miles to chastise him, but then I saw how exhausted his eyes looked, how worn and broken. He wasn’t as sad as I was. He was way worse.

  “Miles.” I reached out and put my hand on his shoulder, giving him a light squeeze. He actually startled. I guess it was weird for us to touch, not something that happened often, but he just looked so broken. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t being sensitive. You lost so much more than I did….”

  “Did I?”

  “Well, yeah. I mean, you were actually close with your mother. And she was going to legitimize you at some point, right? You were going to be the Lord of House Hampstedt. That’s a hell of a thing to look forward to.” I shrugged. “What did I have to look forward to? That great rainy day when my father finally decided to disown me, so I could accept my lot in life as a servant once and for all?”

  A silence hung over us. Miles looked at me with an odd expression. “You don’t know,” he said softly. “You really have no idea.”

  “Don’t know what?”

  Miles shook his head. He looked sad still, but it was a different kind of sad, one I couldn’t read. “You weren’t going to be a servant, Tilla. That was never their plan for you.”

  I pulled my hand back. The mood had changed in an instant. “What are you talking about, Miles? Whose plan? Our parents’?”

  Miles closed his eyes. When he spoke, it was stilted, choppy, like he was struggling with each word. “I heard them talking. A few years ago. Mother made me swear not to tell a soul. She said it would jeopardize everything if I did.”

  I could tell this was hard for him, like he was on the cusp of revealing something that had been eating at him for ages. But I was impatient, and his slow roll was pissing me off. “Miles, what the hell are you talking about?”

  “No point keeping a secret for a woman who wants me dead, right?” Miles laughed, a brittle, bitter laugh that sounded wrong coming from him. “You’re right, Tilla. I was going to get legitimized. But Mother got tremendous leverage out of not having an heir, of men thinking they actually had a shot at wooing her and fathering the child who would lead the House. It was politics, plain and simple. On the day before my eighteenth birthday, I was to become the heir to House Hampstedt.” He paused for an intolerably long time before finally getting it out. “And you were to be my wife.”

  “What?” I jerked away. “Don’t screw with me, Miles. Don’t make things up.”

  “I’m not making anything up.” He actually sounded kind of indignant. “Our parents had it all planned out. Your father cared about you, Tilla. He couldn’t legitimize you, of course, not without causing a huge scandal. But this way, he’d ensure you were the Lady of a noble House, his most loyal ally. And I’d be with someone my mother trusted.” He said it so casually, like this was no big deal, just some business thing, and not the most important turning point of our whole damn lives. “It was their way of merging our families, I guess. Looking out for both of us.”

  “Looking out for us.” I stood up and turned away. My stomach roiled. I felt like I was going to pass out. Too many thoughts spun through my head at once, colliding against one another. This was proof of what I’d hoped for so desperately all along: that my father actually cared about me, that he thought about me, that he wanted me to stay in his life, one way or another, even after I turned eighteen. He’d had a plan for me, and that plan was giving me exactly what I wanted. I was going to be a noblewoman, officially, with a title and a castle and a last name….

  Except that name was going to be Hampstedt, not Kent. And I’d be with Miles—Miles, of all people—forever, as his wife. Second to him. Sleeping with him. Having his kids. And my father had apparently just decided this years ago, and hadn’t ever bothered to tell me. Like my thoughts on it didn’t matter? Like I was just a pawn, to be handed off to another House? And how much of this was just politics, anyway, a handy way of keeping our two Houses together? Was this even about me at all?

  “Tilla,” Miles called out, “I…I didn’t mean to upset you. I just…I thought you should know….”

  “And my father?” I shot back. “When the hell was he planning to tell me? Did I even get a say in this?”

  Miles looked stunned, like the thought of having a say never even occurred to him. “Would it have mattered?” A familiar hurt look settled on his face. “Am I that pathetic to you? That you’d sooner stay a bastard than marry me?”

  “What? No! It has nothing to do with that!” I felt bad for insulting him, because, yeah, that was kind of a harsh blow. But then that just made me madder. Of all things right now, with this insane revelation dropped on me, I was supposed to worry about his feelings?

  Then it hit me. Miles had known about this. All this time we’d spent together over the last few years, he’d known this, had this secret hidden away like a card up his sleeve. I’d known he had a crush on me, of course. But I’d thought it was harmless, a childhood puppy-dog crush that never went away. But that wasn’t it at all. All this time, he’d just been…what? Biding his time? Waiting patiently? Like I was the dessert he got for finishing his vegetables? “You knew….You knew all along, and you didn’t tell me anything?”

  The color drained from Miles’s face. “I just assumed that you knew, too…that it was, I don’t know, an open secret….” He took a step toward me, and I sharply pulled away. “I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything.”

  “No, Miles. You should have said something. A long time ago.” I stomped off down the coast, not even caring where I was going. “You can keep your stupid berries.”

  My head spun as I walked. I could hear Miles behind me, calling himself stupid, clasping his head in his hands. And honestly? I didn’t give a shit. He deserved to feel bad, at least for a little while. I kicked at a stone in my way, knocking it into the river, and for some reason, that made me angry, too.

  “Tilla!” a voice called from somewhere ahead. I j
erked up to see Jax, Miles, and Lyriana creeping on foot from the forest. Jax led the way. “We found an abandoned bridge, perfect to cross. Go get the horses, and we’ll…” He stopped, seeing my expression. “Are you okay?”

  I didn’t even begin to know how to answer, how to sum up everything that had happened into one emotion. But before I could try, Zell stepped in front of Jax and flicked his arm toward me in an impossibly fast blur.

  I acted on pure instinct. My hand jerked up in front of my face, even as I ducked back and winced. I felt a hard impact. But nothing hit me. I opened my eyes, just barely, and realized there was a smooth, round rock clenched in my hand.

  “What is wrong with you?” Jax yelled.

  “She caught it, didn’t she?” Zell shrugged. “I knew she would.”

  I had. A Zitochi warrior had just hurled a rock at my head….

  And I’d caught it midair. Me. I’d just done that. Something totally badass and amazing.

  You know what? Screw Miles and my father and their plans. Screw Lightspire and titles and being a noblewoman. Right now the only thing I cared about was the stone in my hand.

  “Are you okay?” Jax asked.

  “Yeah,” I replied, and I couldn’t hold back my smile. “I’m just fine.”

  OUR LUCK RAN OUT THE next day.

  We’d crossed the Markson via a rickety, half-collapsed bridge and rode hard to get south the next day. We were starting to brush up against the foothills of the Frostkiss Mountains, and the terrain here was rockier, hillier, than on the other side. Trees and grass gave way to stony pits and sheer cliffs. Riding out here was riskier: the steep hills meant we couldn’t get as far from the big roads as we were used to. That meant we had to ride quietly, no games or jokes now. I didn’t mind. It was as good an excuse as any to avoid talking to Miles.

  That morning, when the very first rays of the sun started painting the sky a rosy hue, we were in a narrow valley between two sloping hills. Right as we wove between a pair of oak trees, Zell sharply reared his horse and raised his fist in the air. The rest of us froze behind him. I tightened my grip on my reins. Zell looked back up the hill intently, his eyes narrowed.

  There was a distant twang and a whooshing sound, and then the shaft of an arrow appeared in the trunk of a tree a few inches from Zell’s head.

  “Ride!” he screamed.

  After that, it was all chaos.

  I spurred Muriel as hard as I could, and she took off in a bolt, galloping through the dim light, leaping over stones and roots. Lyriana clutched me, shrieking, as our horse jostled us painfully up and down. Branches whipped by our heads. We were moving too fast to see clearly, but I could hear the thundering of hooves around me and make out the faintest glimpses of the other horses. I heard Miles cry out and Zell scream to keep riding. And I heard more hooves behind us, closing in fast.

  They’d found us. Razz and his men. And they were hot on our heels.

  Muriel raced forward, rounding the valley’s corner, nearly tripping. Something whistled right by my ear. An arrow. Lyriana gasped. The world was a dark blur. I knew this was dangerous, that my horse could trip and fall, that I could fly off and break my neck. That’d probably be a hundred times better than getting caught.

  “There!” Zell yelled from just ahead of me. He was pointing toward something in the cliff wall: wooden posts framing a dark opening. A mineshaft’s narrow entrance. I had no idea why this would be good for us, but I didn’t have time to think. Zell rode right up to it, effortlessly hopped off his horse, hit the ground with a roll, and ran in. I glanced to the side to see where Miles and Jax were, and then all at once Muriel let out an agonized whinny and tripped, flying forward and hitting the ground on her side.

  The world spun. My body screamed. I flew off the saddle and slid hard across the stony dirt. I felt my sleeve tear, and my skin underneath it scraping open along the ground. Lyriana slid with me, too shocked to even scream, rolling like a hurled doll. A thick cloud of dust kicked up around us, but I could see my horse through the dust, flailing her legs. The shaft of an arrow jutted out of her flank. And our pursuers thundered toward us, louder and louder.

  “Come on!” Jax yelled, and I felt his firm hands jerk me to my feet. He was off his horse, apparently, and so was Miles, who helped Lyriana up in front of me. She was breathing, thank the Old Kings, and didn’t look to have anything broken, but her eyes were glazed and distant, a thousand miles away. In front of me, the dust cleared, and now I got my first good look at the men chasing us: three Zitochi mercenaries, astride dark stallions, streaking down the valley. A scouting patrol. Razz wasn’t with them, but that was a small comfort. The two men on the sides had axes out, and the one in the middle held a bow even as he rode, sliding another arrow into the string.

  “Into the shaft! Go!” Zell yelled.

  “Muriel!” Lyriana cried, but Miles and Jax were on her and pulled her into the dark opening. They vanished instantly in the shadows, but Zell stayed just past the entrance, his sword unsheathed. I stopped by him. He whipped his shoulder to the side, and an arrow whistled by right where he’d been standing. Was he going to fight? Was this some doomed last-stand sort of thing?

  Then Zell turned and slammed his sword into the wooden post holding up the shaft’s entrance, like a lumberjack felling a tree. It cut through and stuck halfway. The post was rotten, crumbling. This mine must have been abandoned a long time ago. Up ahead, the mercenaries were almost upon us, and I could see the one in front slide both legs to one side of his horse, preparing to jump.

  Zell hacked at the post again, and it buckled, cracking in half. I helped as much as I could, giving it a few hard kicks. That was enough. The post split in the middle and fell over, blocking the entrance behind us, and taking chunks of the rocky ceiling down with it. A blast of dust sprayed in my face. I coughed and gasped, even as Zell grabbed my arm and pulled me along. “That bought us a minute, maybe two,” he said as we ran into the dark shaft. “We need to move!”

  We only made it a few steps in before rounding a corner and losing even the slightest hints of the sunlight peeking in from the outside. Total blackness enveloped us. The ground felt broken and uneven under my feet. Thick cobwebs clung to my face. I ran into one wall, then another. I could hear the others running, breathing, stumbling through the dark.

  My Sunstone! I had a sudden moment of panic that I’d left it in my pack on the horse, but then I felt it in the pocket of my pants. I fumbled it out, my fingers confused for a moment by the engraved casing before I remembered it was the one Miles had given me. I flicked the little lever, the fire inside sparked to life, and then there was light all around us, bright and warm. I could see where we were now, a tight, claustrophobic shaft barely wide enough for two people shoulder-to-shoulder. Under our feet lay a track, the kind mine carts rolled on, but it was worn and broken. The walls were crumbling and forgotten. In front of me, the shaft stretched out into the distance, with no exit in sight. I could hear a commotion from behind us, men grunting as they shoved at the post and rocks blocking their path. Zell had been right. They’d be through in a minute.

  “In here!” he whispered from just up ahead, then disappeared seemingly into the wall. He’d found a passage, a narrow doorway leading to a side room. The four of us sprinted after him, pushing through the doorway single file. This room was wider than the shaft, at least a little, a circular stone chamber maybe the size of my bedroom. It was empty, cold, with a hole carved in the middle of the floor encircled by stones, like a well, but draped in a shroud of yellowing cobwebs. Some broken mining equipment lay next to it: they must have raised the ore up through the hole from the lower floors. Lyriana collapsed, gasping against the back wall, while the rest of us spread out.

  “It’s a dead end!” Jax yelled. “We’re trapped!”

  “It’s not a dead end,” Zell replied. In the hot white light of the Sunstone, I could see that his face was slick with sweat, but he still somehow sounded calm, calmer than the rest of us, at leas
t. He turned to the doorway, the glistening tip of his sword leveled at the darkness. “It’s where we make our stand.”

  “What?” Miles panted. “No. No, no, no. We can’t…There’s no way…”

  “If we run, they’ll get us,” Zell said. “Here, we’ve got strength in numbers. We’ve got the element of surprise. And we’ve got a good room to fight in. This is our only chance.”

  My heart was thundering in my chest, and my arm hurt like hell. I was in terrible shape to fight, but Zell was right. We didn’t have a choice. I looked across the room and my eyes met his. They looked hard, strong, determined. They made me feel ready. “Give me a knife,” I said.

  He nodded and tossed me the dagger on his sheath, which I caught with my spare hand. “I’ll draw them in here. You get against the wall by the doorway,” Zell barked like a seasoned general. I listened. “When they come in, stab them in the back.” He pulled the dagger out of his boot and threw it to Miles, who fumbled it, then picked it up off the ground. “You get on the other side of the doorway and do the same thing.”

  “I don’t have a weapon,” Jax said.

  “You’re built like an ox. Fight with your hands. And you! Princess! Use your magic to hurl them into that pit!”

  Lyriana looked up, as if snapping out of the trance she’d been in ever since our horse had gone down. “I can’t,” she said. “I’m a Sister of Kaia. I cannot use my magic to take a life.”

  “Are you out of your damn mind?” Jax spun to her in disbelief. “Those men are going to kill us! You need to fight!”

  “I took a sacred vow!” Lyriana yelled back, and before the two could argue anymore, there was a loud crash from the entrance of the shaft, the sound of splintering wood and tumbling stone.

  The mercenaries were in.

  I twisted my Sunstone to kill the flame, and we waited in the dark. I could feel my heart thundering, my breath fast and tense. The dagger trembled in my hands. I struggled to remember my training, the things Zell had taught me, but my mind was a blur. I was about to kill. Or be killed. This was going to happen.