“You know of the school?” Aurelia edged into the room.
“I sponsored it.” Her mother clipped the stem.
Aurelia caught herself at the curved end of the bedpost, startled. The idea made sense. The former queen had been well known for her passion for education, but that had been ... before.
Lady Margaret tied the twine around the severed stem and retrieved another strand of blossoms. Then the shears wavered in the air, and her voice faltered. “Did ... did you like the room?”
“What?” asked Aurelia, unable to follow the sudden shift in the conversation.
“The room that the Rienthurs vacated.”
Until today, the family Aurelia had helped move had been living in a large corner room on the second floor of the Fortress. An open, airy space with buttercup walls and yellow coverlets, the aura far superior to her own dark, vine-covered quarters. “Y-yes.” She furrowed her brow, uncertain why her mother had changed the conversation.
Still the shears wavered. “I thought ... you might prefer it.”
“Oh! Yes! It’s ... beautiful!”
A faint, but genuine smile appeared on her mother’s lips. “Of course, we would have given you the room earlier, but His Lordship did not wish to displace an entire family.”
Bolstered by the smile, Aurelia allowed herself to approach the overflowing basket, crouch down, and inhale the delicate, sweet scent.
Her mother edged away, compelling her daughter to retreat back to the bedpost.
“The ... the Fortress is entirely full, isn’t it?” Aurelia queried.
“I believe so,” said Lady Margaret, then reached hesitantly for the twine. “The room you have occupied was the only one available upon your arrival, except for the basement, which is not fit for guests, as the rooms have no hearths. His Lordship offers every space he can to newcomers to the estate, those who do not yet have the means to provide for their own lodging.”
“But where do all these people come from? And how can there be so many who even know about this place? Enough to keep this entire Fortress full as they wait for new homes to be built?”
The knot Lady Margaret was trying to tie came apart. “Many are family to those already here.”
But that was only half an answer. “Why do they come in the first place?”
There was a long pause. And for a moment Aurelia feared they had reached another unknown precipice. Again the knot came undone, and her mother’s hands shook as they wrestled with the twine. “His Lordship ... forgives all debts ... all former crimes. He asks only for loyalty and service.... None of the young are bound to pay for their parents’ failures. ...” Lady Margaret looked up, gazing once more out the window. “All are welcome, and all have the chance to stay if they respect His Lordship’s wishes.”
And if they do not? Aurelia suspected Lord Lester’s justice was swift and final. But clearly the man’s offer to forgive past wrongs held appeal.
“All these people are fugitives or family members of those who have broken the law?”
Another long pause. Lady Margaret lowered her head, and her response came in a soft whisper. “The king’s law.”
And only then did Aurelia realize her mother had included herself in her daughter’s assessment. That perhaps she, as Lord Lester had implied, had spent the past weeks dreading her visitor’s judgment. “Then this place—the entire village—is ...” Aurelia thought about all the people she had met: the townspeople, the Rienthur family, even the soldiers at His Lordship’s table. “A sanctuary.”
Her mother’s eyes fluttered up, meeting her daughter’s gaze, their brown depths filled with ... relief.
Lord Lester’s offer to provide Aurelia with a place at the Fortress haunted Robert for five weeks. Like a gray blanket that gave off the impression of solace and then split in half and twisted itself into a rope to strangle him.
Because he knew he would have to leave her.
She was safe here. Safe. Her stepfather’s contacts in Transcontina had sent word that a group of His Majesty’s guards were, in fact, in the city. Lying in wait. But here she was shrouded in secrecy. Surrounded by armed men who were free from her stepsister’s influence. And she had her mother. A figure who had reigned just below the highest position of Tyralian power and foremost in the hearts of the kingdom’s people but had, somehow, forgone that love. And the love of her own daughter. Robert knew it would be good for Aurelia if she could find it in her heart to forgive that betrayal and heal its damage.
Though it hurt to know he would lose her to this shadow of a queen.
In truth, the loss had already begun. Initially, after he had been transferred from the Fortress to Daria and Thomas’s modest cottage, Aurelia had visited often, but he had not known how to talk to her—to tell her, first, that he loved her, and second, that he had informed her stepfather about her situation.
What could Robert say? That despite what he felt for her, which had somehow strengthened in the midst of all the arguments, trauma, and danger they had been through, his feelings did not matter? Because in the end, there remained three facts: She was a princess, her life was in danger, and he could not protect her.
Instead, he hid behind Daria, pretending his silence might allow the two friends time to talk. But Daria had too many questions, and the visits from Aurelia had grown more rare. At one point, he had gone to see her and had been informed, by a Fortress guard, that he needed an appointment. An appointment!
It had become an excuse. A reason to keep himself from seeing her. Because doing so hurt too much. It was easier to bury himself in work, down by the stables or helping Thomas, than to witness her dark brown eyes struggling with his silence, and to know that any day, any minute, he might receive word from Transcontina that the guards had vacated the city, leaving Robert free to return to the frontier and a future he could not envision. In which he would never see her again.
He knew the Fortress’s sanctuary could not be his own. He could not bear to stay here, isolated from his country. And from her. Watching her from a distance.
Though he would never be free of her eyes. They haunted him, even as he bent low in the dimness of the estate’s stables to inspect the health of Horizon’s hooves.
“What are you doing?” Thomas Solier appeared over the rim of the stall.
Robert jumped, though he knew by now that Daria’s husband tended to move like smoke, silent and subtle.
The stallion gave a swift kick, and Robert dodged into a corner. “Risking my life, I suppose, checking Horizon’s hooves.”
“Why?”
After more than a month under this man’s roof, Robert knew better than to obfuscate and receive a second why. “For when I need to leave.”
Thomas arched an eyebrow. He had the perfect look and demeanor for a spy. Nondescript hair. Vacant gray eyes. Voice, expressionless. Robert did not doubt that this man’s role as Lord Lester’s liaison to the palace had involved far more than the tasks of a simple courier.
“I have a wheel that needs setting on a cart,” said Daria’s husband. “Could you lend a hand?”
Robert nodded, gave the stallion a slap on the rump as a caution for the recent kick, and exited the stall to the sound of a powerful hoof thudding against the back wall.
Thomas led the way down the stable’s central aisle to the far end where the scent of horse manure faded under the pungency of pork grease. A cart with a light body of splintered and worn wood sat tilted at an irregular angle, the left axle, its spindle already greased, propped up on a dusty barrel. A clutter of nails, tools, and semibroken objects graced the nearby shadows, but a sturdy, twelve-spoked wheel with a brand new frame rested against the end stall.
Robert headed for the wheel.
The other man’s hand stopped him, taking his wrist, then placing a thin scrap of paper into his palm. “From His Lordship,” said Thomas. The man’s face was buried in shadow.
Robert flipped over the scrap and moved his hand into a thin stream of light by a crac
k in the stable wall.
His Majesty’s guards have vacated the city.
A fierce, hard knot tied itself in Robert’s gut. Time then. Tonight.
“I haven’t heard anything about Her Highness wishing to renew her expedition.” Thomas reached for the propped wheel and began to roll it to the cart. Was that it then? No discussion of what the man knew or didn’t know.
“Neither have I,” Robert replied, too fiercely.
“You’re planning on heading out alone then?”
Ah. So there was to be a discussion. Robert set his grip on the side of the wheel. He did not bother to reply—did not trust himself.
“And you haven’t yet told Her Highness.” Thomas secured his own grip. “Do you think that is wise?”
“She doesn’t need me.” Robert strained to lift the wheel.
“That’s disputable.” The other side lifted as well.
It tilted wildly. “She seems happy here,” Robert lied as he fought to regain balance. Happiness was too much to expect after what she had been through, but she did seem to be returning to a semblance of a normal life. Based on the frenzied talk he had heard about her visits to the village, which seemed to have grown longer and more frequent over the past weeks, she was gaining the same awe and respect she had garnered in Sterling. And Tyralt City.
The wheel steadied.
“She’s found her mother and is building a relationship with her,” Thomas said, guiding the large hub toward the inclined end of the axle. “That takes time.”
The wheel had gone too far in the wrong direction. “I’m glad for her.” Robert shifted his grip and pulled.
“My.” Thomas tugged back. “Such enthusiasm.”
How is it a man with no expression can master sarcasm? Robert’s arms strained. “Either help me with this or lose the help!” he snapped.
Finally the wheel scraped into place. Thomas did not react to the sharp comment. Instead, he slid a thin metal ring over the end of the spindle and then slowly twisted the nut onto the threaded bolt. The silence was painful.
“She’s safe here,” Robert said at last, giving the one reason that surpassed all argument.
“I suppose.” The other man straightened. For the first time, those gray eyes settled on Robert—clear, nothing vacant in them now. “As safe as any of us are in this kingdom.”
The back of Robert’s mind churned. Since when had Thomas become a voice of politics?
Though he was right. As Drew had been back in Sterling. None of them would truly be safe if Melony took the throne. But Robert could not shake the memory of the smoke, the dense clogging odor that had filled the air around the rising ashes of Aurelia’s burning tent.
“Risking her life on an expedition won’t save Tyralt,” he said.
Thomas tested the wheel. It spun with a swift, smooth turn, the sanded grains of the new frame blurring together. “It seems to me she made that choice.”
That had been before—before the smoke, before the scream in the forest that had ripped Robert apart and brought her back to him. He found himself staring into the clutter-filled shadows.
“She knew it was not safe to defy her father’s wishes,” Thomas continued.
“She doesn’t care about being safe.”
“Ah. Then it’s you who wants her to stay here.”
No, he definitely did not. But he could not protect her. Her stepfather could. “This is best.”
“The end of the crown it is.”
Robert’s eyes widened at the foul language.
“She should finish the expedition,” Thomas said. “You know it, and I know it. You’ve lived on the frontier, Robert. You know the divisions that have been building. From what I hear, there’s talk the north does not even need a monarch. I can’t believe you rode all the way back to the palace without at least some thought of saving this country.”
Robert pulled away. This was not about politics. He headed toward the stalls.
“You should tell her how you feel.” The voice stopped him. “Tell her what you want, Robert. If you don’t, you’ll regret it.”
He closed his eyes, leaning up against the corner of the end stall. He could not tell her. What he wanted was selfish and unsafe and not the best thing for either her or Tyralt. He flexed his hand. The scrap of paper must have fallen when he lifted the wheel, but the written words still burned in his head. The ashes of reality settled upon him.
There had been men, for well over a month, waiting in that town to kill her.
And there had been no word, as far as he knew, about any search parties or efforts on the part of the palace to find her. Even if the king believed rumors that she had run off on a romantic whim, surely, at the very least, he should have made an effort to investigate. Unless he, like her sister, now desired her death.
“Robert!” The female voice slammed into his thoughts so forcefully that for a moment, he thought she had risen up from his own imagination to scold him for accusing her father. But the figure speeding down the stable aisle in a green blur was no illusion. Though the fury on her face fit the image well enough.
“Yes?” Robert glanced behind him. There was no sign of Daria’s husband.
“You told Lord Lester about the assassination plot and the attack in the forest,” Aurelia accused.
Robert sighed. So she had found out. Even this he was not to be spared. “He already knew there was more to the plot than what your father had claimed to the public.”
She froze in her tracks. Gone were the rags from her journey, in their place an elegant forest green gown, the gown of a lady. Clearly, she had not planned on this trip to the stables. “Do you think Daria told him what she knew?”
“Perhaps.” Daria or Thomas. Robert shrugged.
Aurelia’s head was shaking, and her hands were trembling.
It would not be fair to thrust his own guilt on Daria. “I made the choice to tell your stepfather about the attack in the forest,” he admitted.
“Why?” Aurelia sank down onto a wooden crate, showing little regard for her gown’s trailing hem. The green fabric folded itself into the dirt.
Robert quelled a sudden urge to draw closer. “He is your stepfather, Aurelia. He wanted to protect you, and he has taken a great risk housing both you and your mother here.”
She let her head fall back against a stall door, her dark hair drifting past her shoulders. Soft. He longed to touch it. One last time. Her hair, the changeable contours of her face, her arms. The desire to hold her once—just once—without the aura of tragedy stalking them both, gripped his chest so fiercely he had to fight for breath.
“But it was my story to tell,” she said. “Not yours.”
“I think ...” Robert knew if he so much as stepped toward her, he might lose the will to let her go—that he would beg her to come with him, condemning her in the process. “I think your stepfather was trying to spare you that trauma.” It took a lot for Robert to admit, but Daria and Thomas claimed that His Lordship would do anything to spare his wife, and by extension his stepdaughter, pain.
“He’s trying to protect you,” Robert said. “I certainly failed at that.”
“What?” Her back suddenly arched.
“I’m sorry.”
“You are what?”
“Sorry.” His control began to slip. “I am sorry for what you went through in the forest, Aurelia.” He could not help but tell her, though he knew it was his own selfish need for closure that propelled him to mention the dark memory.
She stood up. “You’re sorry?” Her face flared alive, that vivid shift of line and color that he knew would chase him down no matter how far he fled. “You’re sorry for being the only person on the expedition who didn’t want to murder me? For keeping me alive? For bringing a spoiled, thankless princess across the Asyan on foot?! I’m the one who’s sorry. Robert, I’ve been trying to thank you, but every time I see you, you seem so distant I—”
“I’m sorry.”
“Ahh!” She storme
d from the stables.
He stared after her. Unable to take in what had just happened. All he knew was that she had come in, angry with him for doing something wrong, and left, furious with him for apologizing. And his pulse raced with the contradiction.
“Yes,” Thomas Solier’s emotionless voice drifted out of the shadows. “I see how much she doesn’t need you.”
Chapter Eight
THE PRICE OF DESTINY
HE WAS SORRY! AURELIA RUSHED UP THE HILL toward the Fortress. It was her stepfather who should be sorry, drilling Robert about the danger to her life. She should have questioned Lord Lester further about the messenger from Transcontina. But His Lordship had been well into a bottle of heavy red wine, and—she might as well face it—when Robert’s name had come up, she had leaped at the excuse to confront her expedition guide instead.
After all, he had buried himself in his work at the stables. She had scarcely seen him these past weeks. The argument, just now, had been ludicrous, but even more bizarre was the way it made her feel. Humming with the interaction. Her pulse rushed, and her lungs struggled for air within her corset. This dratted dress!
She filled her fists with the heavy fabric and tugged the long skirts above her ankles as she swept through the dirt field of her stepfather’s courtyard. She should never have put on her mother’s gown in the first place. But Aurelia had thought if she accepted the gift, it might somehow strengthen their relationship. Though no number of dresses would heal the cavity within her chest.
It was time, she thought, as she entered the Fortress and climbed the stairs. Time to ask the harder questions.
She tapped gently on the door, then entered the Blue Room. Her observations were now far sharper than they had been on her first visit. She saw not only the sky blue of the walls but the subtle shift from black to navy along the head of the swallow in the painting beside the window. And the way slate blended to midnight blue on the dramatic wing of the heron soaring in the opposing portrait. She noted the thin white crack along the arched neck of the cerulean flower vase and the blue-gray embroidery of a dolphin’s fin among the indigo waves of a nearby tapestry.
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