Royal Bastards

by Andrew Shvarts

  “Our Rings,” Archmatron Marlena said, gesturing toward a table along the wall without looking up. “Get the rest of our Rings.”

  “On it!” I said, and ran over. Sure enough, there they were on a small round table, a pile of Rings stacked up like treasures in a storybook, shimmering green and blue and turquoise like the surface of a rushing creek. I realized as I got to the table that I had no idea how they actually worked. Did certain Rings go to certain mages? Or could they just sort of trade them around? And what the frozen hell had Lyriana meant back in the tower when she’d said that “true-blood” mages didn’t even need them?

  A flicker caught my eye, from just by the table’s side. A thick cloth sack lay there, and inside, something was pulsing and flickering. My stomach tightened, and the hairs on my neck stood on end. These were the other Rings, the ones from the Sisters the mercenaries had already tortured, the ones they were going to turn into mage-killers. My hand shook a little as I pried open the sack to look inside. There were at least two dozen Rings. While the ones on the table glowed solid colors, these changed and turned, the light inside them throbbing and twisting like trapped lightning storms. Just looking at them felt wrong, dangerous.

  “Halt!” a man’s voice screamed. Not one of ours. I jerked up, shocked, and through the hall’s open door I saw pretty much the worst possible thing I could imagine. A dozen men, Kent men, were racing toward us across the courtyard, crossbows in hand and leveled our way. They must have heard the commotion and come running.

  Leading them, with an expression somewhere between stunned and outraged, was my father.

  That was the second time today he’d surprised me on that courtyard. And this time, he looked a lot less inclined to save my life.

  Lyriana acted first, and quickly. She threw up her hands and the doors to the courtyard swung shut with a heavy thud. Not a moment too soon. I heard crossbows twang, and the doors shook with the impact of their bolts. Lyriana flicked her hands, again and again, hurling the hall’s two remaining big tables across the room. They slammed against the doors, frames cracking, but made a halfway-decent barricade.

  Not good enough. “We have to go,” Lyriana said. “They’ll break through that in a minute.” She turned to Galen. “Lord Reza. Can you get us to the stables?”

  Galen knelt down, looping an arm under Zell’s and lifting him to his feet. Zell’s face was pale, his eyes lidded. I couldn’t bear to look at him. “Yes,” Galen grunted. “Yes, I think so. But—”

  He was cut off by thundering footsteps. On the other side of the doors, I heard the shouting of men, the banging of fists. And then…the crunch of blades on wood.

  “Shit,” Galen hissed. “They’re going to break through that in a second. We’re not going to make it in time.”

  I knew he was right. Fifteen stunned Sisters, Zell barely conscious, Galen limping…there was no way we’d be able to run and get seated and riding, not before my father and his men caught up with us. The sound of hacking got louder and louder. The doors buckled and trembled.

  I felt fear….

  And then I felt it again. The same thing I’d felt back in the tower, when I’d committed to save the Sisters in the first place. That certainty. That strength. That resolve. I knew exactly what I had to do.

  We hadn’t come this far just to give up now. Jax hadn’t died for that.

  “You all go,” I said, and okay, even I was kind of surprised at how calm I sounded. “I’ll stay and hold them off.”

  “What?” Lyriana gaped. “No. We’re not leaving you.”

  “You have to,” I said. “Look. I know my father. I know how to stall him.” I wasn’t sure my plan would work, didn’t even know if it was likely, but I had to try. “Go. Get the Sisters to safety. Make this worth it. Make this count.”

  She stared at me, her eyes glistening, and a single golden tear streaked down her cheek like a shooting star. I could tell she knew what I was thinking and was trying to find a way to talk me out of it, so I grabbed her in a hug instead and held her close. “Go,” I whispered. “Go.”

  She nodded and pulled away, sniffling. “Thank you, Tilla. For everything.” She turned to Archmatron Marlena, who was slipping her Rings back onto her fingers. “Lead the Sisters out the northern door. We need to move.”

  The doors to the courtyard trembled as the first blade cut through them, a glistening ax head smashing through with a spray of splinters. The Sisters rushed out, led by Archmatron Marlena. The last to go was Lyriana, who was twirling her hands delicately to keep a Lift going, raising Zell’s prone form just enough so that Galen could ease him onto his shoulder.

  “Tilla,” he moaned, so softly I could barely hear him. He was hanging on to the ragged edge of consciousness, too weak to do anything but whisper. “No…”

  The doors buckled now. Dozens of ax heads had chopped through them. They’d be down any second. “It’s okay,” I told Zell, even though he probably wasn’t awake enough to hear me.

  “Tilla…” he rasped.

  I leaned forward and ran my hand along his way-too-cold cheek. “You’ve protected me this whole journey,” I whispered. “Now it’s my turn to protect you.” Then I leaned in and kissed him, and I felt his lips, and his breath, and his skin against mine, and now it took every ounce of strength I had to break it off, like I was ripping away my own skin. “We’ll meet again,” I said. “And when we do, I’m never leaving your side.”

  Zell was too weak to respond, too weak to even open his eyes. I was grateful for that. Galen shot me a quick nod and then turned across the room, hurrying after the Sisters with Zell slumped over his shoulder and Lyriana trailing after. They rushed out the back doors, to the Servants’ Quarters and the passage to the stables. To freedom.

  Alone in the hall, I fought back my tears and choked down my fear. I balled my hands into fists. I needed anger now. I needed grit.

  The doors to the courtyard finally shattered, collapsing in with a decisive burst and knocking away the tables. I sprinted forward across the room even as my father’s men rushed in, crossbows leveled at me, and I dove for the table with the mage-killers even as a few crossbows twanged.

  I hit the ground in a roll and the bolts whizzed over me, collided harmlessly with the wall, and I was right where I wanted to be. My father threw up his hand, stopping his men, maybe because he wanted to spare me, maybe because he wanted to see what I was doing. Right then, I didn’t care.

  I stood up to face the mob of soldiers and I held out my hand, and my palm burned with the impossible, sizzling heat of a trapped mage’s power. One of the Rings from the bag, a big, shiny crimson one, hung in my outstretched fist, its dancing light streaking out from my fingers like sunlight through a row of trees. The men recoiled, startled, as if I were holding a fire-breathing dragon. Even my father looked surprised.

  “Yeah.” I grinned. “That’s right. Put your weapons down now. Or I blow us all to hell.”

  MY FATHER’S MEN LOOKED BACK and forth at one another and then at him, desperately hoping for an order. But he didn’t give one. He just stared at me through his narrow eyes, my eyes, analyzing, considering. It was like he was seeing me for the first time.

  “Well, aren’t you a brave little bastard,” a cold female voice said. Lady Robin Hampstedt pushed her way forward from the back of the crowd, and her scowl was so hateful it had its own scowl. Miles walked behind her, pale, speechless, looking way less confident than he had back in the tower. I shot him a glare that would’ve made a Titan tremble.

  “You can threaten all you want, but you can’t actually hurt us,” Lady Hampstedt said. “That’s just a tainted Ring without a shell. Without a spark, you won’t be able to set it off.”

  I wasn’t a scientific genius like her, but even I knew she was full of shit. This Ring in my hand radiated power, pulsed with it. It was scorching hot and freezing cold at the same time. I felt its energy run through my whole body, like I’d kissed a lightning bolt. My vision throbbed; my bones hummed. A
voice whispered in my brain, soft and seductive, in a language I couldn’t understand. There was so much power in this Ring, desperate to break free, straining against the gem that trapped it. The case and the spark might have made it a convenient weapon, but they weren’t necessary. One good crack, and this thing would go boom.

  “You sure about that, Robin?” I shouted back. “Why don’t I throw it at your face and we’ll test it out?”

  Lady Hampstedt actually growled. She ripped a crossbow out of the hands of the baffled soldier next to her and aimed it directly at my face. “How about we do a different test? I’m a crack shot, you know. And you’ll have an awful hard time throwing with a bolt through your eye. What do you think is faster…your arm? Or my finger?”

  “Don’t shoot her, Mother!” Miles begged, and I decided I’d throw it at him instead. “You promised you wouldn’t hurt her!”

  “That was when she was locked safely in a dungeon.” Lady Hampstedt squinted one eye. Was she actually enjoying this? “Not threatening me with a mage-killer.”

  “Please! Don’t shoot her!”

  “No one’s shooting anyone,” my father said sternly, like an adult finally tiring of the children’s bickering. Every head in the room turned to his. Every head except Lady Hampstedt’s, which remained as aimed at me as her crossbow. “I mean it, Robin. Don’t pull that trigger.”

  She shot my father an annoyed look, but nodded. She knew better than to talk back to him. She released her finger off the crossbow’s trigger but kept it pointed at me. “If she makes a move, I’ll shoot.”

  “She won’t,” my father said. He took a step forward, and even in the dim moonlight his eyes were burning right through me. “Will you, Tillandra?”

  “I don’t know!” I shouted back, and I was trying to make it sound tough, but I honestly didn’t know. My brilliant plan had been: step one, threaten them with a Ring; step two, figure out step two. All I could really do was stall for time.

  My father knew that. “Come on, Tillandra. Put the Ring down.” I thought he’d be angry, but his voice was soft and kind, the voice he’d used when I was a little girl to comfort me over a skinned knee. “I’m amazed you made it this far. Really, truly amazed. But this is over. There’s no stopping progress. All that’s left is to stand by my side and join me as I return glory and freedom to the West.”

  Join him? Stand at his side? I shook my head. “It’s too late.”

  “Of course it’s not.” He took a step forward. “We still have more than enough time to round up your friends and finish making the rest of the bombs. And then…Picture it. Picture it! The mages will hasten through Pioneer’s Pass tomorrow night. I have a hundred archers hidden in the mountains, each with a mage-killer on the end of his arrow. The mages stop at a checkpoint at the Pass’s narrowest point, none the wiser. And then…” My father raised one hand and snapped his long fingers. “It’ll be over in a heartbeat. The Knights of Lazan, the best and brightest of the warrior mages, wiped out. The Volaris Dynasty’s reign of terror will be over. The era of mages will die out in one thunderous burst.” The corners of his mouth twitched, hinting at a smile. “And the West will be a free Kingdom once more.”

  I wasn’t smiling. A month ago, I couldn’t have fathomed the idea of talking back to my father, but now I couldn’t hold back. “You make it sound so good, so important. But what you’re really talking about is murder. The murder of hundreds of people!”

  Lady Hampstedt rolled her eyes. “Be still my bleeding heart….”

  My father shot her a glare that could melt stone. “They are not people, Tillandra. They’re mages. Knights of Lazan. Brutal killers, every last one. Do you know how they learn their craft, at that sickening Academy in Lightspire? By practicing on prisoners, half of whom are innocent to begin with. They turn men inside out, boil their blood within them, melt their brains so all that’s left is a drooling husk….” He shook his head. “Those are not people. They’re monsters. And they need to be stopped.”

  I thought of that boy in the creek, the screaming statue. And then I thought of the Sister in the chair, the one with the hollow, glassy eyes, the one lying under a cloth just a few feet away from me. “It’s not just the mages,” I said. “What about all the innocent people who’ll get caught in the crossfire of the war? What about the Sisters you plan to torture to death? What about the people who’ve already been killed?”

  “Wars have casualties,” he said.

  “You started this war!” I yelled back. “Maybe we weren’t free before, but we had peace….Wasn’t that good enough?”

  “Peace,” my father sneered. “This isn’t peace. This is oppression. This is bending down to lick the boots of the men who beat you. You want to talk about innocents killed? Do you know what the mages did in the Great War? Have you heard what happened at Orstulk and New Kendletown? Can you imagine an entire village murdered, their flayed corpses mounted on the roofs of their homes?” His eyes burned with righteous passion. “Do you know what they did to my grandfather?”

  “No,” I whispered.

  That seemed to shake him. His hard expression softened, and a look I’d never seen before crossed his face. “No,” he repeated quietly, and stepped back. “No, you wouldn’t. Because I never told you.”

  Never told me what? What the hell did they do to his grandfather? What was happening here?

  My father, he of the penetrating stare, actually looked down, ashamed. “I’ve made many mistakes, Tillandra. There is so much I’ve done wrong. But there is nothing I regret more than how I treated you. Everything that’s happened to you—all of it—is because of my failure as a father.”

  My mouth went dry, and I felt my hand start to tremble. Even the Ring’s power felt distant, diminished. This had to be a ruse, right? But how? Why? “What are you talking about?”

  “When I came of age, my father took me into his study and he told me his great secret. On the Day of Surrender, the Kents had yielded to the Volaris in name but not in spirit. Albion Kent had made a promise, a promise that was passed to my grandfather, to my father, to me. A promise to be vigilant, to be dedicated, to watch for the moment when the Volaris were weak, and then strike.” My father’s voice was distant, reverent. “I made that promise. I swore I would restore our Kingdom. I spent two decades planning my…our revenge. Everything I’ve done in the last twenty years, every choice I’ve made, was to bring us to this day.”

  “Every choice?” I whispered back, and suddenly, this was very, very personal. “What about ignoring me the second you married Lady Evelyn? Was that for your revenge as well?”

  “Yes! Of course, yes!” he replied, and I couldn’t believe the emotion I was hearing. “I loved your mother, Tillandra. I might have thrown it all away for her, if she hadn’t died. And you remind me so much of her, just looking at you makes my heart ache.” I had no idea my father was even capable of talking like this. Had he bottled it away so deeply for decades? Was this who he really was? “In another life, I might have just raised you as my real daughter from the start, politics be damned. But I couldn’t. I needed House Yrenwood’s loyalty, and that could only be bought through marriage, through legitimate heirs. I had to do it. And I had to distance myself from you, lest it cast our alliance into doubt. It killed me inside to do it. But I had to.”

  And there it was. The words I’d spent almost my entire life dreaming of hearing, the answer I’d so badly hoped for but never really dared to think could be true. Out in the open, just like that. I wanted to be skeptical, to not let it distract me, to focus on the mage-killer in my hand and the crossbow pointed at my face. But I couldn’t. There was just too much weight in his words. “Why didn’t you say something?” I demanded, and tears stung my eyes. “Fine, you couldn’t legitimize me. But you could have told me about your promise! You could have brought me in! You could have let me know!”

  “I didn’t trust you,” my father admitted without a moment’s hesitation. “I thought you were still a child. I thought
you wouldn’t understand, that you’d slip up and compromise my plan. I thought I could just wait until the mages were dead, and then I could bring you in. I didn’t think you needed to know. I was so wrong.” Then he looked up at me, eyes shining with pride. “I wish I had, Tillandra. I wish I’d brought you into my study and told you what my father had told me. Had I known what you were capable of, I would have. You fought for what you believed in, even when it meant defying your own House. You traveled through the entire Province, even with those mercenaries on your heels. Even now, you somehow broke out of the tower, and what did you do? Did you run for your life? No. You marched straight into the heart of danger itself. Because you have a bold heart and the iron will of a true Kent, straight from the line of the Old Kings. I only wish I had given you the upbringing that would have had you fighting by my side. I can only imagine what we could have accomplished.”

  “You’re proud of me…because I defied you?”

  “Yes. There’s no greater courage than defying your own father, than defying your King. In its way, your rebellion was just as courageous as my own. That’s why I’m proud.”

  It’s a trap! my brain screamed. He’s manipulating you! He’s just saying what you want to hear! But my heart refused to listen. “You ordered me dead. You sent mercenaries after me!”

  “And it was the most painful decision I’ve ever made,” my father said. “But I had no choice. This is about more than you, more than me. Tonight is about the freedom and future of every citizen of the West. No one life can outweigh that. Not even yours.” He stepped toward me. “But the Old Kings have smiled on us and given us a second chance. You don’t have to die, and you don’t have to run. Tonight the world changes. And tomorrow you can join me, by my side, as you always should have been. Tomorrow we can live the life we were always meant to.” He smiled, he actually smiled, not a smirk or a hint, but a full, genuine, earnest smile, the smile I’d wanted to see my entire life. “Tillandra Kent. You’re my true daughter. And one day you will rule all these lands as the rightful Queen of the West.”