The queen called her name, but she pretended not to hear, leaving the table and walking along the side of the room. Where had Nathaniel disappeared to? For a moment, she’d thought he was on her side. But, he could never really be on her side completely. That was Brax’s duty.
Two doors opened to a balcony overlooking the courtyard. Valoria breathed the fresh air with relief, closing the door behind her. The glass muted the din of the party, but it could not mute the sore ache in her chest.
She walked to the edge and placed her hands on the cold stone railing. The cobblestone streets of Ebonvale spread out before her. The city was three times the size of her minstrel village. Gabled roofs of inns, taverns, and shops cluttered the horizon in a complicated jumble.
So many people called Ebonvale their home. Was it her duty to protect them? As strong and noble as the Royal Guard was, it had been the minstrel’s song that stilled the wyverns so the warriors could get close enough to deliver the fatal blow. When the next threat arose, would it take both sides once again to defeat it? Would only her and Brax’s union ensure the safety of these people and her own?
Maybe Brax was right. Maybe Ebonvale didn’t need the minstrels after all. A lot of time had passed between the last war with the wyverns, and the fire worms had yet to return. It would be a convenient truth.
The door opened behind her, and the queen stepped onto the balcony. The wind threw up her honey-blond hair. She wore a sumptuous gown, but her body moved like a warrior’s. The soft fabric could not conceal the sinewy muscles in her arms, or the fierceness in her eyes. She was gorgeous, and for a moment Valoria understood why her father could not take his heart back. But, her mother had had a soft kindness the queen lacked. In Valoria’s esteem, gentleness counted more than beauty.
“Forgive me, am I intruding?”
Valoria bowed her head. “No, your majesty. I needed fresh air.”
“As do I.” Queen Thoridian joined her, standing on the balcony’s edge and gazing at the city below with certainty and pride. “These dinners can be tiresome.”
Valoria glanced away, afraid the queen would see the repulsion on her face. “I am thankful for your kindness.”
“It is I who should thank you.” The sincerity in her tone made Valoria snap her gaze back on her.
Queen Thoridian pursed her lips. In the moonlight, her pearls shone like underwater treasures. Valoria had heard a tale sung about the Sapphire Isles, where a king had tricked a mermaid and stolen the five pearls of wisdom. Were they the same?
The queen turned toward her. “You know of the history between your father and me?”
Anxiety crept up Valoria’s spine. At her home, this subject was taboo. “He does not speak often of it, but I am aware of your broken betrothal.”
Queen Thoridian nodded, and a sad reluctance settled in her sharp features. “I highly regard him. He is a great and noble man and he treated me well—better than I deserved. But, I did not love him. You see, I am very much like my mother before me even though it pains me to admit it.” She shrugged as if she could do nothing about it. “My heart rules my mind. I loved Bron—I still do—more than anything in the world. There is no shame in that. But because of my choice, the future of both kingdoms falls to you, and to Brax.”
Great pressure fell on Valoria’s shoulders. She struggled to breathe. Her chin trembled as she struggled to hold her tears back. Uniting the kingdoms by marrying Brax seemed so impossible. “I do not think he cares for me.”
“Brax is a noble man, but it takes time to win his regard. Once you do, he’ll love you more deeply than anyone else could. If you have any of the virtues of your father—some of which I’ve already seen in you—then, in time, he will.”
The queen moved toward her and took Valoria’s hands in her own. Her meadow-green eyes pleaded. “It is unfair of me—of anyone—to ask you to choose against your heart. But, who knows what threats lurk on the horizon, and how much of an alliance our kingdoms truly have? Do me this one favor. Be patient. Give Brax time.”
Words would not come. Valoria stood frozen with the queen squeezing the blood from her hands. She asked so much of her. But, Danika Thoridian wouldn’t have come out and spoken so honestly if she didn’t think the cause was worthy. Valoria’s own father had asked the same of her since she could talk. Could she disregard all of their hopes after one dinner party?
Valoria nodded slowly. “I’ll try.”
The queen laughed desperately. “Thank Helena and Horred.” She smoothed back Valoria’s hair. “You are such a darling child. Your father must be proud.”
“I want to make him proud.” Valoria smiled, thinking of his long face, his graying hair, and his silver eyes. “He’s spoken of me coming here every day of my life.”
“I’m sure he has.” She glanced away as if the thought of Valoria’s father talking about Ebonvale every day seemed unsettling. “Come, let me find your handmaiden. I will bore you no longer with this dinner feast. You deserve some rest.”
A little stunned, Valoria allowed the queen to lead her back into the room. She kept to her word, and summoned Cadence from the servants’ dining room downstairs. Cadence met them at the door with a smile on her face.
“I trust the dinner was successful.” Cadence took Valoria’s arm as the queen paced back to her table, velvet gown trailing behind her.
“As successful as it could be with a man who ‘does not dance’ because ’tis ‘a fruitless activity.’” Valoria smiled ironically.
“Hush!” Cadence glanced around in case someone overheard. “Leave your spitfire tongue to your room.”
Having Cadence call her a spitfire was quite the compliment to end the night. Valoria pulled Cadence forward. “Shall we embark before my tongue gets the better of me?”
Cadence gave her a stern look. “We shall.”
Valoria moved past one of the servants she’d seen waiting on Nathaniel’s table. “Wait.” She broke free of Cadence’s arm and approached him. “Excuse me.”
“Yes, my lady.” He looked like a mouse caught in a wyvern’s claws.
Valoria smiled to ease his anxiety. “Do you know where Lieutenant Blueborough ran off to?”
He blinked in surprise and then bowed his head. “No, my lady. He left suddenly. I hadn’t even brought him his second course.”
Cadence gave her a hard stare. Valoria waved her hand. “No matter. I had a trivial question about something in my room.”
The servant cleared his throat. “Can I help you, my lady?”
“No, no, no.” Valoria stepped back as if he’d catch her in a trap. “’Tis not important.”
She pulled Cadence away and they retreated down the corridor. He hadn’t even finished his second course. Something must have gone terribly wrong. She wished she knew what it was. He’d been so kind to her, and she longed to repay the favor.
Once they were alone, Cadence shook her head. “You shouldn’t be asking about the lieutenant, my lady.”
Valoria laughed, but it came out brittle and forced. “It was just a matter with my room. That’s all.”
Cadence furrowed her skinny brow. “I saw the way he looked at you back at the battle, when he was helping Echo into the carriage.”
Valoria stopped in the middle of the hallway by a painting of King Thoridian atop a white charger. “Why? How did he look?”
Cadence clucked her tongue in disapproval. “Like you were the Goddess Helena herself, stepped from the Holy Temple in the sky.”
Chapter 6
Raven’s Eye
Nathaniel launched after the red-haired raider. The quarter moon provided limited light as the boy disappeared down an alley by the butcher’s shop and the candlestick maker. When Nathaniel reached the alley, it was empty. He ran alongside the stone buildings, adrenaline pumping in his veins.
Did he truly wish to find the boy?
Who knew what measures Brax would take to get the information he needed? But, Nathan
iel couldn’t have gangs of raiders attacking every caravan departing from the castle. And poor Kent would be punished if the boy wasn’t found. He hadn’t done anything wrong. But this boy certainly had.
Glass shattered, drawing Nathaniel to the dimly lit part of town in the north by the back gate. Nathaniel watched his footing as he ran over the broken cobblestone. A shadow disappeared into a building with a crumbling foundation. Nathaniel picked his way over the remnants of the roof sprawled over the floor. Footsteps creaked on the broken stairway. The boy climbed over a hole in the staircase and pulled himself to the upper floor.
“Wait.” Nathaniel called after him. This part of town was dangerous, not only for the broken glass and deteriorating wood, but thieves hid in the shadows. Besides, there was only one way out, through the back gate and into the moorland with swamps so deep, entire carriages could sink to the bottom and never be found again.
But what could he promise the boy to come back to? He might be better off taking his chances in the moors.
Nathaniel leapt up the stairs and stepped on rotten wood. His foot fell through, and he tumbled forward. An upturned nail sliced his palm.
“Horred’s grave!” He clutched his injured hand against his chest and regained his footing, following the boy to the back room. Pigeons took off from the posts of a sodden bed. Tattered curtains flowed from broken windows. Nathaniel pulled open the closet door, and a bat flew toward his head. He ducked, and pulled out a thick blanket covered in moss. It hung over a chair with only three legs.
No one.
Rats scurried away as he checked under the bed. He turned toward the broken window. A thick clanking resounded from the wall, slow at first, then picking up speed. Chains strained and pulled, and a deep creaking rumbled in his gut.
The gate was opening.
Dread settled in Nathaniel’s stomach. He scrambled down the rotten stairs and ran into the street.
Timber caught up, huffing. Fear and surprise lit his wrinkled face. “Helena’s sword, what does he think he’s doing?”
“Getting away.” Nathaniel tied his handkerchief around his palm and raced ahead. Timber followed, running faster than he should for his age. “Leave this to me.”
“I will not allow you to go alone.” Timber called from behind him.
The gate rose inch by inch as they lurched uphill toward it. Countryside black as soot and endless as the sky stretched out beyond the walls. The dank smell of rot and mold wafted in on a breeze so cool, it settled into his bones.
Nathaniel ran under the gate and stopped abruptly at the edge of the murky water. The spring floods had risen higher than ever before, covering most of the ramp leading to the gate.
The raider had disappeared without even a ripple in the water.
“Would you look at that?” Timber came up behind him. “I cannot even make out the road.”
“Must have been a snowy winter up there.” Nathaniel gestured toward the darkened peaks. He kicked a rock into the water, and the muck swallowed it with a clump. “He couldn’t have gone far.”
“That’s the problem. You don’t have to.” Timber crouched and scanned the surface of the water. Reeds and tall marsh grasses blew in the cold wind. “He wouldn’t be the first one lost in the depths.”
The wind changed direction. Was the howling from a man? He tried not to imagine rowing out there with only a lantern for a light. “We’ll need a boat to continue the search.”
Timber placed a heavy hand on Nathaniel’s shoulder. “Wait until morning.”
“I’ll have to inform Brax.”
“Either way, he’s going to know.”
Nathaniel nodded, promising himself to cover for Kent when he reported back to Brax. Timber spoke with the wisdom and patience of his age. The boy wouldn’t get far. That was if he survived at all.
Only the gods knew why Nathaniel longed to save him, even if it meant crossing the moors.
Just as he turned back to the gate, movement from the dark peaks drew him back. A black mass spread from the highest mountain, thinning into dark specks as it widened over the valley below. A chorus of caws filled the air.
“Crows.” Nathaniel squinted at the sky. “Thousands of them.”
The birds flew in strange patterns, coalescing into spiral shapes and breaking at the top, like tornadoes unleashing darkness upon the land.
Timber pulled his bow from his back along with an arrow. He aimed as the birds flew over their heads.
“What are you doing?”
“Making sure.” He fired, and the arrow pierced a bird, felling it over the gate. They ran back to the city.
The beast lay in the middle of the shambled cobblestone road with the arrow through its heart.
Nathaniel bent over it, as a current of sorrow drifted through his chest. He knew what it felt to be aloft, soaring triumphant and free and to be hit with an arrow through the heart, ending the dream that life once was. “Why did you fell it?”
“Don’t touch it!” Timber crouched beside him and used the tip of his bow to move the wing. He cocked its head to the side. A milky, cataract-covered eye glanced up at them. Bald spots covered its body where the feathers had been plucked, or had fallen out. The blood that oozed from the arrowhead was a black, gelatinous goo.
Nathaniel had never seen anything like this in his lifetime, but he’d heard enough stories. “An undead bird?”
Timber nodded, then watched the sky with suspicion.
None of the crows had settled in the city. They’d come and gone so quickly they wouldn’t have noticed if they hadn’t been standing at the back gate.
Timber glanced over his shoulder at the open gate and the moors that lay beyond. “Spies.”
Chapter 7
Dismissal
“I do not understand why they’ll deny the future princess of Ebonvale entrance to her own council chambers.” Valoria collapsed into a velvet seat, staring down the guards on duty as they stood with their spears crossed over the doorway. The one on the right glanced down with a small amount of guilt pulling at the corners of his mouth, but the one on the left stared straight ahead as if the future queen of Ebonvale were not even present.
“Calm down. I’m sure there’s an explanation.” Cadence sat beside her and took her hand. “Perhaps they are planning the wedding and wish to keep it a surprise.”
“I highly doubt it.” If they were planning the wedding, Brax wouldn’t even bother to be there at all. “Everyone who’s important is in there. Everyone except for me.” She’d gone down to breakfast hoping to make headway with her new family only to find the room empty. A servant had tipped her off to where they all were.
“My father would never think to leave me out of meetings.” Father had included her in all aspects of running the House of Song and the outlying village. A sickening wave of melancholy overcame her. She missed his quiet, noble poise more than anything. She could use a measure of it herself.
“Perhaps they do not wish to bother you right before the wedding.” Cadence tapped the back of her hand encouragingly.
“Bother me? They’ve managed to do enough of that already.”
“Shhhh.” Cadence glanced at the guards. “You never know who’s listening.”
“Let them listen. They can teach these warriors proper manners.”
Cadence threw her hands in her lap. “Honestly, I’m not sure what Echo wants me to do. ’Tis like leading a blind goat across a cliff side.”
Valoria narrowed her gaze. “What did he put you up to?”
Her handmaiden pouted, guilt saddening her eyes. “He wanted to make sure you…followed through.”
“Followed through? Who does he think I am? The Queen of Ebonvale?”
“For Helena’s sake, pipe down.”
Guilt panged in her gut. She shouldn’t have spoken ill of her future mother-in-law. Hadn’t she told Nathaniel she didn’t judge others? Valoria behaved better than this. Circumstances had un
raveled her just like the edges of that dusty tapestry of some forgotten king on the far wall.
The guards moved away from the door, and the large slabs of oak opened with a creak. The king and queen burst through, followed by a retinue of advisors. A woman so old, she could have been a ghost drifted past. Her long, white hair trailed to her ankles. Bone thin with wrinkled withered skin, she clung to a young man’s arm as if she’d fall to pieces without his strength.
Was that Sybil, the mother of the queen who’d run away with the minstrel so many years ago? It was hard to believe one waif of an old woman was the source for unending minstrel hatred.
Valoria was here to end that prejudice, to unite the kingdoms, to undo the seed that old woman had sown. If only it hadn’t grown so monumentally large.
Nathaniel emerged next. His uniform was rumpled, and a bloodied bandage wrapped around his right hand. He looked as though he’d been up all night.
Despite Cadence pulling on her arm, Valoria broke free and approached him.
He regarded her with welcome surprise. “Valoria. I did not know you were here.”
All of her frustration melted away. She touched his hand. “You’re hurt. What happened?”
Nathaniel glanced back into the room uneasily. “I am certain Brax will inform you.”
She clutched his arm, refusing to release him. The wool of his uniform felt coarse under her fingers, a barrier she could not cross. “Tell me now.”
Nathaniel sighed as though he knew he was in the wrong but could not deny her. He pulled her aside by the tapestry. “One of the raiders escaped. I cut my hand while chasing after him.”
“Is this why they had a meeting without me?”
“No.” He glanced again at the room. Indecision crossed his amber-brown eyes.
She pulled him closer. “Please.”
Nathaniel leaned down to her, so close their foreheads almost touched, and whispered, “Spies from the north have crossed into our territory. It seems the next threat to Ebonvale is closer than we thought.”
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