Untethered

by KayLynn Flanders

  “I wonder what sort of tales they have to tell the council,” I said, tilting my head and pushing up to stand, my hands covered in blood, red and brown smears that would take ages to scrub away. “You want to accuse me of anything?” I asked the guard who had knifed me. He shook his head so hard his hair fell into his face, but he never took his eyes off his newly healed leg.

  I turned to the captain. “I trust you can handle arresting these men, Isarr, and”—I pointed to the man and woman at her side—“those two?”

  He nodded once, touching his fist to his shoulder.

  No one said anything as the guards took hold of Isarr and her friends. Her simpering, lust-filled facade was completely gone now. Only rage remained. Rage that she’d been caught.

  How many more in the castle watched and waited for their chance to dethrone me? How many more would bow to me as their king, only to light my boots on fire?

  Guards moved to lift the assassins into the hall, and courtiers moved to get a closer look at their healed wounds. So many people. Shuffling feet and crunching gravel and whispers.

  I wiped my forehead with my mostly clean sleeve and jerked my arm back to my side. “And, Captain, get everyone out of here!” I said, my voice rising to a shout at the end. Another wave of dizziness passed over me. “This is a crypt, not a gallery!”

  My parents’ tombs rested still and ever silent behind me. Watching all of it. Everything. All around me, broken stems and mangled orange petals lay scattered and crushed into the dusty floor.

  Space. I needed space.

  Bodies pressed against me as I pushed toward the exit. Dresses and shoulders too close. And why in all the glaciers was it so blasted warm down here?

  My guard, Kaldur, pushed his way against the crowd.

  I blinked and his hand gripped my elbow. “Your Majesty?”

  I’d snuck away because I didn’t need protection. And I didn’t—I needed a witness. But if I ever wanted to keep the sliver of freedom I still had, he couldn’t see my trembling hands.

  “Kaldur, it’s barely fall,” I said, my lips twisted into some semblance of a smile as my stomach heaved and swirled. “Tell the castle steward we don’t need fireplaces lit at dinner just yet. I’ve been abominably warm all evening.”

  Kaldur clenched his jaw and took several calming breaths before answering. “Sire, you really should allow me to accompany you when you decide to visit the crypt.”

  I didn’t have a witty response to that, because he was right. I should have. I thought I’d be safe here, that the hallowed ground would be respected. But just like so many other things, other people, I was wrong.

  I allowed Kaldur to escort me back to my chambers, more to assuage his fears than mine. My enemies would regroup after tonight. I cursed myself again for showing my hand.

  Kaldur checked everywhere, even behind the long blue drapes and under my bed, before taking position beside my door.

  “You are not standing there all night,” I said with a frown.

  He straightened. “Yes, I am.”

  My chest tightened and my breaths came faster. Wait, hold it in a bit longer.

  I stalked over to him. “No, you’re not.” I took his arm and shoved him out the door, then locked it behind him. He took up position outside, grumbling curses I couldn’t decipher.

  I rested my back against the door. Kaldur could grumble all he wanted, but he wasn’t staying in here while I was asleep. No one was.

  For good measure, I slid a side table in front of the door and perched a vase on its edge. A warning before the next knife came for me.

  They’d been so close. Had I turned a half second later…

  My stomach squeezed. I stumbled to my bathing chamber and retched into an empty bucket. I wiped my mouth on my sleeve and braced my hands on the edge of the bucket. The servants would have to remove the mess tomorrow—no one was coming into this room tonight.

  There had definitely been something in my cider. But the question remained: Was it part of Isarr’s play against me? Or were others plotting to kill me?

  I left the foul-smelling bathing chamber, yanked off my dress jacket, and fell into the chair next to the empty fireplace. The jacket had been embroidered with painstaking detail, and the buttons carefully sewn in two neat rows down the front. Now it was torn and smeared with blood and dust, with three buttons missing. I tossed it in the corner, then used an almost-clean patch of my tunic to wipe away the red caked on my torso, then tossed it as well. The last of the skin on my stomach knit together as I watched, leaving only a tiny pale scar.

  I traced my finger along it, hating and loving my magic. My body healed itself without a thought, yet two people I loved dearly lay in the crypt beneath my feet. My magic hadn’t prevented my best friend from betraying me. I shoved away any thought of Cris, lacing my fingers together until they stopped shaking.

  I tilted my head back against the chair, exhaustion from healing the two men and myself finally claiming me.

  A searing heat flashed against my chest, hotter than I’d ever felt. I snatched the Medallion away from my skin, expecting to see a brand mark where it had rested. But my skin remained unmarred. I ran my finger over the tiny notches and bumps on the Medallion’s back, over the intricate runes carved into its front.

  Had my father known a mage was coming after him? Coming after the key to the Black Library? Is that why he’d given me the Medallion before I’d left for North Watch?

  Foreboding trickled along my skin. The Medallion remained hot.

  “Oh, sure, now you warn me,” I muttered into the empty room.

  Chiara

  I shook out one of my nicest dresses—nice enough to wear to a Riigan royal wedding—and lined up the embroidered seams so it wouldn’t wrinkle in my trunk alongside the rest of the clothes I’d need while away for the four weeks leading to the nuptials.

  I didn’t want to go to Riiga. The only two Riigans I’d been personally acquainted with had both attacked me, so I wasn’t eager to surround myself with potential enemies. But going anywhere was an improvement on being kept within the palace for another month. These walls had ghosts now. Enough memories to keep me out of my favorite garden, and to make me take the long way to my room.

  The truth was, the entire palace had been drowning in silence ever since Ren returned to his kingdom three months ago.

  It might have been the strain between the nobility and council after Lord Hallen’s betrayal, when Jenna discovered he’d been working with the mages. Or the fathers, brothers, and sons we lost to Hálendi’s soldiers and traitorous general. Even Riiga remained a looming threat after its ambassador, Koranth, had taken the palace hostage and then disappeared with a black shade blade.

  Ren had done his duty—he’d found his sister and stopped the war between our kingdom and his. He’d even stayed two extra weeks in Turia, but his return to Hálendi had been inevitable.

  Now, tensions simmered in every corner, waiting to boil over. Would the mages attack again? Would Hálendi’s council abide by the treaty?

  So while maybe it wasn’t Ren’s absence in particular that left the palace in shadows, the shadows were undeniable.

  But I was finally getting out. Away from the ghosts and silence—if, that is, I could convince my father that I could be of service in Riiga.

  I’d stayed up last night packing but decided last minute that I needed a more elaborate dress, so I had to repack to make room for the addition. Now I was late.

  I shoved the lid closed and latched it, then dug my fingers under the handle on one side, but I couldn’t reach the other handle even though it was my smallest trunk. I huffed, blowing a stray hair that had fallen out of the twist at the back of my neck. I used both hands on one side, lifting and dragging the trunk out of my closet and to the door of my rooms.

  Navigating the door was trickier, but aft
er a bumped elbow, I managed. My fingers slipped and the trunk landed with a thud, barely missing my foot. I set my hands on my hips and kicked the offending luggage.

  “Excuse me, Princess Chiara,” a quiet voice said. “Did you need help with that?”

  A boy stared, wide-eyed, from two paces down the hall. Based on his livery, he worked in the kitchens. From the size of his arms, I wasn’t sure he’d do much better than I was.

  But I nodded with all the grace my tutors had drilled into me. Might as well let him try.

  He leveraged his arms around the awkward trunk, hefted it onto one hip, and started lugging it down the hall. The tiniest sigh escaped me. Even this scrawny boy from the kitchens could accomplish the simple task.

  I followed him, swallowing back my stomach every time it jumped up. I’d tried to speak with my father about this, about letting me accompany him to Riiga to attend King Janiis’s wedding, but he’d been in constant meetings, and I’d never been able to catch him alone.

  If he let me accompany him, there was a chance, however slim, that I could do something instead of sitting quietly out of the way. Do something to ease the tensions between the Plateaus’ kingdoms. To fight the mages who had almost destroyed my home.

  The back of my neck prickled as the memory of Koranth’s arms coming around me, using me as a shield between him and Jenna, threatened to resurface.

  My father had to let me come. He’d always seen what I needed, seen me.

  When we got to the long stairway, I almost offered to help the boy carry my trunk—I didn’t want him falling on my account—but he would only have refused. Everyone always refused when I offered to help.

  Instead, I followed sedately, every step as graceful as my dancing tutor demanded. “Take it to the courtyard, please,” I said, my voice dropping to a whisper. The boy looked at me a beat too long, then readjusted the trunk on his hip, and led the way.

  As the doors opened, a cacophony of shouts and laughter slammed into me. The loudest the palace had been in months. I paused on the threshold, taking in the movement, the excitement and anxiousness bubbling over the courtyard’s expanse.

  Riiga’s borders into the capital city of Vera would be open for four weeks. My father would have to negotiate some kind of alliance between the kingdoms before the borders were closed again after the wedding. Even though Riiga had attempted to invade our southern border only months ago, all the kingdoms would have to work together—Jenna had defeated Graymere, but there were still two mages unaccounted for.

  A nondescript carriage waited in the middle of the chaos. Horses stamped and nickered, puffs of dust rising up with every step. Servants and soldiers ran from horse to horse, from pack to pack, readying everything for the journey.

  Despite the anticipation that soaked the yard, I’d frozen on the first step.

  A thunk next to my feet startled me into jumping a half step back. My trunk. Several heads turned my way, masks of confusion and, worse, pity, as they surveyed my traveling cloak. The boy dipped his head, keeping his eyes on the ground, then ran back into the palace.

  I swallowed, hiding my hands in the folds of my cloak. Then I stepped down the three stairs, careful not to trip, and approached my father. He spoke with an advisor who was thrusting papers into his hands. On the top paper, a large rectangle like a serving tray filled with a checkerboard of small squares had been drawn, with straight lines going up from their corners.

  “They offered to show the apparatus. The farmers all support it—” The advisor broke off when she noticed me.

  “Good morning,” I said. My father tipped his head, and the advisor scurried off to bother someone else. The grooves on my father’s forehead had deepened since I’d last seen him. Was there more gray at his temples?

  My hands, the traitors, started shaking when my father’s gaze turned my way. He let out a breath and the skin by his eyes crinkled as he smiled down at me. “I was hoping you’d come to say goodbye.”

  I straightened my already straight shoulders. “Of course, I wouldn’t miss it.” I tapped one finger against my leg. “But I want to come with you. To Vera,” I added, then internally kicked myself for stating the obvious. I’d hoped that asking him in front of everyone might get him to say yes, and pushed ahead. “King Janiis invited the whole family to the capital.”

  I didn’t trust any Riigans, and while I knew full well I couldn’t protect my father from a physical threat—I had no magic or fighting skills—I could be an extra set of eyes, an extra layer of protection at King Janiis’s court.

  His mouth opened and shut, no sound coming out. It had been months since we’d spent time together like we used to, before the mages attacked, before there was a wedding to plan for Enzo and Jenna that would help convince our people of Hálendi’s support and true intentions toward Turia. But surely my father knew, surely he would see the value of bringing me to Riiga’s court.

  Those closest to us quieted—their stares burned into me more than the sun’s meager fall rays.

  “I’m packed and ready to go,” I said in a quieter voice when he didn’t respond.

  His small sigh, one of defeat, raised my hopes. But then he shook his head. “I’m sorry, Chiara, but I cannot allow you to accompany me.”

  Someone behind me coughed. The courtyard had gone almost completely silent. There was no shouting to cover my humiliation now, no chaos to prevent everyone from seeing my hot cheeks.

  “But—” I started.

  “No,” he said again. He took me by the elbow, guiding me farther from the crowd to the steps leading back to the palace, back to where my pitiful trunk lay forgotten by the door. “It is a risk to go at all. One I would not expose you to.”

  “If it’s such a risk, you shouldn’t go either.” I folded my arms, my fists so tight my fingernails bit into my palms. “I don’t trust Riiga. No runners have returned with any information on the mages’ location. No one has found Koranth.” Half of the courtyard was openly staring at us, and my stomach churned with a breakfast I now regretted.

  My father edged between me and the crowd, and it must have been a signal, because the shouting started up again, everyone going about their business.

  “Janiis would see it as a slight if I did not attend his wedding myself. This invitation is a gift, a chance to strengthen our alliance with Riiga,” he said.

  I heard what he didn’t say, felt the threat he didn’t mention. We’d need everyone—including Riiga—in a fight against magic.

  “And if you can’t form an alliance with them?” I asked. Koranth had resisted any policy that didn’t elevate Riiga’s power over Turia, and Lord Sennor—I clenched my teeth, unwilling to relive the memories from the maze garden.

  Father folded the papers from the advisor and tapped them against his hand. “Then I’ll have done my best.” He sighed and nodded to his guard, who’d come to tell him they were ready to leave. “You’ll have your mother, Mari, Enzo, and Jenna to keep you company.”

  I dug the toe of my shoe into the dirt. As if all I needed was company. “I could be an asset in Riiga. I can move freely through any social circle, and hear things—”

  “I’m sorry, Chiara,” he said. “But my answer is no. Your place is here in Turiana.” He reached for my hand, but I shied away, almost tripping up a step.

  I pressed my lips together, afraid I’d say something I would later regret. I didn’t bid him farewell or safe journey or any of the other platitudes our kingdom was famous for. Instead, I turned away, my skirts brushing the steps. I left my trunk where it lay. I thought I heard a faint goodbye before I pushed the doors closed.

  My eyes stung and my ribs pressed against my lungs and heart like a cage that grew tighter with every passing day I stayed in the palace. Smiling, laughing, wearing whichever dress my maids told me to wear, attending the dinners and functions my mother asked me to attend,
dancing with the boys my father approved of.

  Quiet. Unseen. My father, who’d always noticed me when no one else did, had completely missed the point. I wasn’t lonely; I was restless. Powerless.

  I wiped my nose on the back of my hand and set my jaw. Make it back to your room, then you can fall apart.

  When I turned the first corner, I almost ran into Jenna.

  “What happened?” she asked, eyes flashing, hand on her sword. Her braid curved over her shoulder, and the gold band of betrothal winked from her wrist. It was the first time in a long time I’d seen her without Enzo by her side. I didn’t begrudge them their happiness—I was happy for them and to be getting Jenna as another sister. But things were just…different now.

  It took two tries for me to speak. “Nothing” was all I could get out. I looked past her shoulder. It was bad enough my humiliation would be spread all over the palace by nightfall. I wouldn’t be a whimpering mess in the hall as well.

  “Try again,” she said, slightly out of breath. “Something happened, something strong enough for me to feel it all the way in the library.”

  I sighed. The tethers. Magic from her Hálendian bloodline that allowed her to feel what those closest to her were feeling. When she’d told me she was starting to develop a tether with Enzo, Mari, my parents, and me, I thought it sounded wonderful. But now that she was prying into feelings I’d rather cry out alone, it felt less so.

  I pursed my lips and shrugged. “I asked if I could go with my father.”

  “Ah,” she said with a nod. “And he said no.”

  “He said no—in front of the entire courtyard.”

  She squeezed one eye shut and winced. “Sounds like you need to hit something.”

  I choked out a sound between a laugh and sob. “Practice ring?”

  Her eyes flashed and she rubbed her hands together. “Practice ring.”