I stopped in front of him, my hands clenched in fists at my side. “What are you saying, Talin? That there might have been female heirs who were murdered in their cradles?”
“I hope they were sent away to live in a village somewhere, but there’s no way of knowing for certain,” he said, spreading his hands helplessly. “Still, Ceren didn’t want to take any chances. He stabbed my mother and dumped her body in the underground lake, thinking she was already dead, and the monster would take care of her remains. But her healing abilities kept her alive. She was gravely injured, but she managed to make it across the lake despite her wounds, and escaped the same way you did.”
Ceren had described Talia as delicate as a flower, but she was far stronger than I could have imagined. “Lady Melina told me about the route. Are you saying she knew Talia was alive?”
Talin nodded. “My mother made contact with me several months after the assassination attempt. Despite their difficult relationship, Mother asked me to enlist Melina as an ally, knowing no one else in the mountain could be trusted. Ceren was young, but his will was already much stronger than my father’s. If one of Ceren’s spies found out she was alive, my mother would have been hunted down and murdered.”
“So when Melina said ‘long live the queen’...”
“She meant my mother, the rightful heir to the throne, now that my father is dead.”
All the pieces were finally falling into place. “Because Ceren is not yet twenty-one.”
Talin smiled. “She’s been in the South all these years, amassing an army. My father’s death was the call to arms. Remember when I met with Lord Clifton on the way to the market? I didn’t ask the mercenaries to fight for Ilara. I convinced them to join forces with my mother and fight against Ceren, to reinstate the queendom and restore our land to what it once was. They are marching as we speak.”
“But why did Melina get herself arrested if she knew Ceren wouldn’t kill me?” I asked.
“To tell you how to escape, since she didn’t know when I would be back. Ceren was doing everything in his power to keep me away from New Castle in case Father died. He was the one who sent the men after us on our way back from the port market. When they failed to kill me, he used it as an excuse to send me away again. If it hadn’t been for your maid’s message, I wouldn’t have made it back in time to challenge Ceren. Melina believed you needed to be the one to convince the Varenians, and the Galethians, to fight with my mother’s army when the time came.”
Melina didn’t realize how little trust my own people had in me. Fortunately, that didn’t matter now. “With Ceren dead, there will be no one left to contest the throne,” I said. “There won’t be a war. And your mother will be the woman king.”
“Not exactly,” he said with a smile. “My mother is the queen regent. Her daughter is the woman king. Or she will be, once she turns twenty-one.” He laughed at the look of shock on my face. “That’s right, Nor. I have a little sister, Zoi. I haven’t gotten to meet her yet, but she’ll be here soon.”
I grinned, imagining a little girl with Talin’s eyes. “I can’t believe it.”
He reached for my hands and pulled me into his lap. “I know that taking Ceren’s life pains you, but you spared thousands of others,” he said quietly. “This queendom owes you everything. Will you stay here, Nor? With me?”
I stared at him for a moment, hardly daring to believe this was real. I was battered and bruised, weak from being trapped in the dungeon, the bleedings, and the weight of all my fear. But as he traced my jawline with his fingertips, the exhaustion and guilt began to melt away.
This time, I kissed him. His lips were warm and tender on mine, and each gentle touch seemed to heal the wounds the past weeks had left on me. His fingers found the bare skin under my tunic, leaving blazing trails wherever they explored. I freed his shirt from the waist of his breeches and sighed as I finally touched the hard muscles of his chest and back. I straddled him, wrapping my legs around his waist to bring him closer. He inhaled sharply and caught my lower lip gently between his teeth.
“Nor,” he said, his voice low.
I opened my eyes and found him staring at me, his hands cupping my face. He stroked the sensitive spot on my cheek with his thumb. I realized that I had forgotten the stain in my room, and I knew then I would never wear it again.
“I do want to be with you, Talin. But first I need to make sure my family is all right. Things were bad when I left, and they only got worse, according to Sami. Besides, who will tell them that Ceren is dead if I don’t go?”
He nodded. “I’ll take you. The port market is in two days.”
I couldn’t believe so much time had passed since I saw Sami, even though I had spent what felt like an eternity in that dungeon, weak and worthless while my family no doubt suffered.
The idea of having Talin with me, taking me safely to the market, perhaps even spending the night together on the road, was so tempting, I almost said yes. But the prince and the king were both dead, and the queen regent wouldn’t arrive for several days.
Right now, Talin’s people needed him, just as mine needed me.
“Thank you,” I said softly. “It means everything to me that you would offer to leave Ilara now. But your place is here, at least until your mother is on the throne.”
He pulled me closer. “I can’t let you go alone, Nor. The road is too dangerous.”
“I’ll take a weapon. You can give me enough money to pay for a new horse when I need it. And when the time is right, I know you’ll come for me.”
I loved that he wanted to protect me, and that he didn’t argue when I told him no. He lowered his face to mine and kissed me long and slow, without urgency, a promise that he would come for me as soon as he could, that we would be together again.
“Are you sure you have to leave immediately?” he asked when we finally broke apart. “My guards won’t touch you. I’ll make sure you are pardoned for Ceren’s death. You could wait until dawn and still make it to the market. You need time to rest and heal.”
“I’m already healed,” I said gently. “And I can’t tell you how tempting it is to stay here in your arms. But it’s like I can hear my sister calling for me. She’s out there, very likely suffering, and every day that we’re apart is a day I’ll never get back, Talin.”
He nodded and handed me a small leather bag full of coins. “Promise me you’ll be careful.”
“I promise.” I started toward the mare’s stall, but he stayed me with his hand.
“You’ll never make it on that mare,” he said. “I want you to take Xander.”
“Talin, I can’t,” I protested. “He’s your favorite horse.”
“He’s also my fastest, most loyal horse. He’ll take care of you in my stead. I need to know that you’ll make it back to Varenia safely. There will be other horses, but there will never be another you, Nor.”
For my entire life, I had been told that there was another me, and that she was better in every way that mattered. But from the moment Talin had met me in the governor’s house, soaking wet and arguing with Sami, he had seen me. Not just Zadie’s twin, but me: impetuous, stubborn, silly, competitive, flawed, loyal, determined, and yes, beautiful.
I kissed him one last time, breathing in his scent, trying to memorize it. “Thank you, Talin. For everything.”
I saddled Xander while Talin went to the Old Castle storerooms for provisions. When he returned, he loaded the saddlebags with some bread, apples, hard cheese, and two water skins.
Last, he handed me a rolled parchment scroll. “A map, in case you can’t remember the way. Xander will get you as far as the second inn we stayed at if you ride through the rest of the night and all day tomorrow. You’ll be able to spend the night there—tell the innkeeper I sent you—and that will give you enough time to get to the market by Friday afternoon. I’ll send word to you as soon as I’m
able.”
“Thank you,” I said, pressing one last, fervent kiss to his lips.
Talin checked the girth a final time before boosting me onto Xander’s back. The stallion felt even larger without Talin’s steadying arms around me, and for a moment I began to feel the fear creep back in. I pushed it out with all the strength I had. There was no time for fear now, no place for doubt.
Between Old Castle and Varenia were miles of road and countless possible dangers, but at the end of it would be Zadie. I would ride through fire to get to her.
I waved goodbye at the road, and then Xander and I were off, galloping from the dawn that chased us like a golden wave. The farther I rode, the freer I felt, and I knew Varenia would look even more beautiful for having left it.
My people had a saying about home, as they did about so many of the important things in life: a Varenian can never be lost at sea, because he calls the entire ocean home. But they were wrong, I realized now. Home was not a house, or a village, or a sea. It was family, and love, and the space where your soul could roost, like a seabird safe from a storm.
I pressed my calves into Xander’s sides, leaning into the warmth of his sweat-drenched neck, and flew.
* * *
I made it to the inn late on Thursday night, exhausted in a way I’d never before experienced. I’d been stopped by soldiers at the border—Riv was nowhere to be found, thank Thalos—and had paid them off with a bribe. No one recognized me anyway; I was unwashed and too thin. My clothing was worn and frayed, and with my hair tucked away in the crude cloak from Sami, I looked like a poor boy, not the once–future queen of Ilara.
I knew as soon as I went to the stable on Friday morning that Xander could not make the rest of the journey. Even when he’d been trembling with exhaustion yesterday, he had continued on, and I wouldn’t push him farther. I paid the innkeeper to look after him until he could return him to Talin, and paid for the use of a shaggy brown pony, so lazy he would barely trot.
As the hours passed by, I knew that my odds of reaching the market before closing were slipping away. If I didn’t make it to Sami, I would still find a way to get to Varenia, but the idea of missing him by hours, possibly minutes, made me frantic as I thumped the pony’s sides with my legs, begging him to move faster.
Finally, when I could just see the tents of the market up ahead, I slid off the pony’s back and ran. My feet were destroyed from being stuffed inside the wet boots; I could feel the skin peeling away with each step. But I ran, and I ran, and I didn’t stop until I was outside the market gates.
“Sorry, boy,” said a man taking down his stall near the entrance. “Market’s closing.”
I shook my head, too breathless to speak, and ran past him. All around me were disassembled stalls, merchants hawking the last of their goods. Bruised apples and spotty cabbages were being sold for a tenth of their prices that morning. I hurtled past them all, my gaze slipping constantly to the sky, praying to see the swoop and dip of a kite above the remaining canopies. But there was nothing.
By the time I reached the center of the market, it was empty, aside from a few merchants trading their remaining goods with each other. The kite seller and Sami were nowhere to be found. I had missed him. I dropped down onto a pile of broken crates, burying my head in my hands. I had come so far, and I had missed Sami, and all I wanted was for someone to take care of me for once, to take me home.
“Nor?”
I would have known that voice anywhere. It was the sweetest sound in the world, and now I was hallucinating it in my desperation. I kept my head down, until a small hand landed hesitantly on my back.
“Nor, is that you?”
Slowly, slowly, I looked up. And there, clad in a rough tunic and trousers, her beauty no less radiant because of it, stood my sister.
“Zadie?” I gasped.
We came together like we were falling into our reflections in the water, two mirror images colliding. How foolish I’d been, I realized, to spend so many years worrying over the ways we were different, instead of cherishing all the ways we were the same.
I had forgotten how small she was, how delicate, how familiar her smell was, the smell of home. “What are you doing here?” I asked her finally, smiling through my tears as I touched her cheeks, her lips, her hair. “Where is Sami?”
She cried harder at my question, and for a horrible moment, I was sure he was dead. “He tried to stand up to his father after he talked to you. He even had most of the elders on his side. But a group of villagers revolted, demanding he be banished for conspiring with an attempted murderer.”
“Me?” I asked. “They still think I tried to kill you?”
“It was Alys’s mother. She wouldn’t stop until she’d turned everyone in Varenia against our family.”
And I thought our mother was ruthless. “And Kristos did it? He banished Sami? His own son?”
“No, of course not,” Zadie said. “A group of men from the village did it in the night. They kidnapped him and took him out to sea. They abandoned him out there, Nor.” She sobbed into my shoulder, and I pulled her tighter against me, the fierce need to protect her that had driven me for most of my life burning as bright as flame.
“And you still came?” I asked her, amazed at her strength, the bravery it must have taken for her to come here alone.
“I had to,” she said, her voice breaking. “I couldn’t let you risk your life coming back here over and over when there was no point.”
“Don’t worry,” I said as I stroked her head. “Sami is resourceful. He’ll have found a way to survive. And when we get back to Varenia, I’ll explain everything to the governor.”
She blinked back her tears. “Explain what?”
“Prince Ceren is dead, Zadie. Our struggles are over.”
She stared at me for a moment, her face blank as she tried to make sense of my words. And then I noticed it for the first time: the flower she had dropped as she embraced me.
“Is that...?”
“It’s a rose,” she said, stooping to pick it up. The flower was as red as a blood coral, its head bowed under the weight of so many petals. She pressed it into my hands. “The kite seller gave it to me.”
I held it up to my nose, inhaling the delicate scent. It wasn’t just a flower. It was a symbol of everything I had dreamed about for so long, and everything I’d been willing to give up for that dream.
I looked into Zadie’s warm brown eyes. “You know, it’s not half as beautiful as a seaflower.”
And then, at the exact same moment, we burst into laughter, howling until our tears became tears of joy, and the world made sense once again.
* * *
I told Zadie everything as we headed back to our family’s boat, which she’d hidden in a small cove near the market. We stood on the shore together, looking out over the Alathian Sea, stained gray and orange by the setting sun. Staring out at the horizon, I realized that my world had never been small. It had been as boundless as my love for Zadie, stretching out before me as far as the eye could see and beyond.
Perhaps I had needed to leave to learn how precious it really was.
Talin would come for me, and we would all find Sami together. I would finally get to see the rest of the world like I’d always dreamed, but I wouldn’t take Varenia for granted ever again.
The waves crashed on the sand at my feet, and below the roar, I heard something else, like the murmur of a mother’s voice to her child, and I remembered the verse I had left out when I sang that lullaby for the king—the secret verse sung only by the young and hopeful, by those who believed that Thalos did not choose our destiny any more than a spoiled prince in a faraway kingdom.
I raised my voice and shouted it to the wind, singing the blessing that would carry me home:
Can you hear the ocean humming?
See the blood go sweeping past?
The child of the waves is coming.
To set our people free at last.
* * *
Acknowledgments
Although this is my first published novel, it is far from the first book I’ve written, and I wouldn’t have made it to this point without the love and support of my very own floating village.
First and foremost, to my agent Uwe Stender, who has always championed my writing and knows just how to talk me down from a ledge. Thank you for everything, but most important, for believing in second chances. To Brent Taylor, the best foreign rights agent I could hope for. Knowing my words will be in some of the countries I’ve lived in or visited is a highlight of this journey. I’m so grateful to be a part of Team Triada.
To my editor, Lauren Smulski, thank you for seeing the potential in this story. Your vision has helped make it the book I always hoped it could be. And to everyone at Inkyard Press, thank you for making my dreams come true.
To my critique partners and beta readers, of whom there have been too many to list here, but especially my first true CPs, Elly Blake and Nikki Roberti Miller: thank you for your enthusiasm for this book from day one, for the countless hours of commiseration, and for being such inspired and inspiring writers. To Joan He—the student who always was the master—you are brilliant and way more mature than I’ll ever be. To Kristin Dwyer, thank you for your humor and generosity.
To the whole Pitch Wars crew, especially Brenda Drake and the 2014 Table of Trust, several of whom read early drafts of this book (including RuthAnne Snow, K.A. Reynolds, and Rosalyn Eves), I have learned more from you than any other writing resource. I love you all. To Jenn Leonhard, thank you for being the goth CP I never knew I needed. To Kim Mestre, my forever BFF, thank you for being a true friend. To Lauren Bailey, my biggest cheerleader, thank you for reading my stories and screaming your enthusiasm via text. To my critique group, Pronouns Matter, thank you for the insight and laughter. To the Novel Nineteens, for being such a supportive debut group. And to anyone who has ever read one of my books, from number one to number eleven, thank you. You all encouraged me to keep going even when it seemed impossible.
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