Daughters of Ruin

by K. D. Castner

  Rhea returned from her memory to the table, the central chamber, midnight before the Revels Ten. The candles guttering outside. The guards clapping their heels on the stone.

  “No,” she said.

  “You were staring at me,” said Iren.

  “Sorry,” said Rhea.

  “Nervous?”

  “No,” said Rhea. She hated them to know her weaknesses.

  “We could have Cooky send up mulled cocoa.”

  “No, thanks,” said Rhea, smiling at the coincidence of old Cogburn in her musing.

  “After the last time, it’s natural to be nervous,” said Iren. She paused from her packing to look up. It wasn’t a warm expression, but it might have been the best Iren could muster. Only she could be so blunt in her caregiving. Rhea didn’t respond.

  “You missed one,” said Iren. She pointed with a glass grinder at Rhea’s left ear. Rhea reached up and felt a hairpin still in her hair.

  “Thanks,” she said. Will I forever feel like the sloppy pig slumped before the emira of Corent?

  “I was serious about speaking to the king about admitting Endrit,” said Rhea. Iren stacked the glass pieces from largest to smallest, arranged by color.

  Finally, she said, “Ismata, go kiss the future queen.”

  The shinhound sprang around the table and licked Rhea’s outraised palms. Rhea laughed. It felt wonderful to laugh. It was a small gesture, but Iren’s favor came in tiny doses, and Rhea was relieved to have it.

  “For your kindness, Your Majesty,” said Iren.

  Rhea walked down the wide stone corridor of Meridan Keep as she always did—as her father taught her—with a weapon hidden in her palm. The hairpin was sharp enough to suture a crocodile’s maw. “Pray you never need it,” her father had whispered, “but some in the castle will never love us. Some think I killed my friend Kendrick and hid his heir in the dungeons.”

  But such was always the way—Rhea knew—with royal clamor. Rumor and conspiracy rarely bothered with the truth. Rhea had watched her father weep for good King Kendrick, his bosom friend, every year. She had seen the dungeons, which Declan had emptied of prisoners and showed to disbelieving nobles.

  “All this room,” he had said, standing in the basement floor. “I suppose Meridan Keep will boast the largest wine cellar in all of Pelgard.”

  He had no heart for dungeons and no interest in rumors.

  “Meet rumors with quiet, my love.”

  When Rhea was younger and felt her sisters hush whenever she entered a chamber, that was his coda. Meet rumor with quiet. But he was no fool, for as she got older, he told her of the discontented nobles who would fare better under some mocked-up heir to Kendrick—a puppet they would name Taylin, after Kendrick’s misbegotten babe. He told her of the Findish rebels. And he added to their code: “Meet rumor with quiet, treason with cunning.”

  Rhea followed the shinhound Iren had secretly named Ismata toward Hiram’s study, where she would likely find her father as well. The magister was cunning enough for all of them.

  His shinhounds carried secret messages throughout the palace and the spy networks of Meridan.

  No treason would match the young magister’s cunning.

  Rhea wondered if he knew of Iren naming the hounds and training them to her command.

  As she climbed the tower to the magister’s study, matching the hound’s pace, Rhea noted the soreness in her thighs. Perhaps she’d worked too hard before the Revels.

  She paused on the landing, outside the candlelight of the study to compose her breath. From the room, she heard Hiram’s voice. “Ah. Good boy, Ismata.”

  Rhea smiled. Of course the magister knows. Perhaps he was charmed by her childish attempt to give pet names to war dogs.

  “Is there a return message?”

  The voice was her father’s.

  A rustle of parchment.

  “No. The king commands. The children listen.”

  Her father made a mocking sound. Do they know I am here?

  The scrabbling of the shinhound must have covered her footfalls. Rhea felt a momentary thrill at the illicit idea of spying on the two great men of Meridan.

  Iren, in all her properness, would have surely disapproved of queens skulking in dark hallways.

  Rhea eased forward along the wall to the edge of the entry and listened.

  “Very well, then. They’re likely cursing my name,” said Declan.

  “Good,” said Hiram. “Those who complain for want of handsome dancing partners lack real dangers to speak of.”

  “I’ve heard that Taylin is handsome,” said her father in a playful tone.

  “Oh, I’m sure he’s quite the beauty. Grown ten feet in every direction.”

  Her father laughed. It must have been great relief, when every day the nobles spread rumors against him, as if the dead heir would arise to take the throne and give them back their ill-gotten lands.

  Her father sighed heavily.

  “Old friend, I fear the Findish use the myth to court our own banners away from us. They claim he captains a galleon and a crew of rivermen who pledge his return.”

  “Rumormongering to stir discord. The Findish revolt isn’t nearly so illustrious,” said Hiram.

  “I know. The poor child is dead. But these river rats pirated far too inland for my liking. I think we’ll have to buy their loyalty.”

  Rhea had never heard her father speak of corruption. She thought of retracing her steps back down but feared the shinhound would hear and reveal her.

  “Oh?” said Hiram. “But they have money.”

  “And I hear they eat scum snails dredged from the river,” said Declan. “The only choice is to give them a bride.”

  “Pity the bride to such beasts,” said Hiram.

  “Pity my daughter, then,” said Declan. “I’ve given them Rhea.”

  Rhea bit back a gasp. Will he really? Are the Findish rivermen so important? Am I? Has he lost so much faith in me after the last Revels? Has he given me up? Really?

  She gripped the jewel of the bladed hairpin so hard that it imprinted into her palm. She imagined guards charging up the stairs at that very moment to deliver her into the grasp of ravenous pirates.

  Rhea’s mind raced with improbable thoughts as she stood with her back to the stone wall, until she heard the giggling of the two men in the study.

  “You may enter now, daughter mine.”

  I should have known. Rhea stood frozen for a second longer, feeling sheep-headed for having been taken in by the foolishness. She knew she would have to show herself—a child pulled from a hiding place.

  Hiram cleared his throat and the shinhound trotted out into the hall to herd her in. It was cruel to threaten her life with a joke, but she deserved no better for spying, she supposed.

  Rhea patted the dog, exhaled, and stepped into the doorway. Both men wore insufferable grins. Rhea knew they could read the credulity on her face.

  “Check her teeth,” said Hiram. “The river rats will want a deck maid who can bite through the scum line if it gets caught.”

  He barely finished before both of them broke off into peals of laughter. Rhea was once again a child. But even so, seeing her father smile—rare as it was these past ten years—was a welcome joy.

  Hiram’s private study was warmly lit by sconces inset into stone, caged to keep sparks from the many shelves of scrolls and codices. Cabinets full of curiosities—natural and unnatural—lined the back wall.

  Declan and Hiram sat in pinned leather chairs. The reading table between them held a map of the four kingdoms of Pelgard, a few volumes of poetry, and a snifter of plum brandy from Tasan’s plantation archipelago.

  Both had cups in hand.

  Her father had a tin box of ice, which must have been raced upstairs by shinhound from the sunken domes along the outer wall of Meridan Keep.

  Rhea waited.

  “Tell me, good spy, what did you hear?” said her father.

  “Nothing but doddering and fooli
shness, Father.” The insult had the opposite intended effect. Rhea continued. “I’ve come about the ball.”

  “Of course you have,” said Declan.

  “The Findain threat is real, domina. Don’t let our joking numb you.”

  “I know,” said Rhea, “but we’d like to bring guests, at least.”

  Her father sat up and placed his cup on the table. “Marta and her son?” he said, his face familiarly grave.

  “Yes. Not only them,” said Rhea. “Other servants, the cadets competing in the Revel games.”

  “Boys,” said Hiram.

  “Kings and magisters, practically, compared to the river rats.”

  Hiram gave a conceding bow and smiled. He liked a sharp riposte.

  Her father stared at the figurines situated on the map. She could see his concerns. What if some cadets were Findain sympathizers? What if they attacked at the ball? All the “what if” possibilities that necessitated her training in the grimwaltz.

  Rhea added to her cause. “It would mean a great deal to us, especially to Suki. . . .”

  Her father turned his attention. “And why especially for the little queen?”

  “You’ve seen it. She’s still learning her charms on Endrit.”

  Is it any less so for myself? If anything, it might have been more so.

  “She talks of going home,” said Rhea, “and seems distant, heartsick.”

  Her father seemed genuinely grieved by the notion. “Very well,” he said. “I know this . . . arrangement is difficult.”

  Rhea wished she could dash across the room and hug her father.

  “Wise, my lord,” said Hiram. “We don’t want Suki to end like her sister.”

  Declan acknowledged with a joyless smirk. “Anything else, my blood daughter?”

  Rhea shook her head, no. “Thank you.”

  “Have you prepared this time for the Revels?”

  Rhea was not defending for such a stab.

  She knew he referred to her surrendered loss to Cadis.

  Perhaps it was the reference to Suki’s ignoble sister, Tola, that sent him edge-ward. Tola the soldier who had attempted to murder Declan during peace talks. Tola, who singlehandedly forced Declan’s hand into the Battle of Crimson Fog. Tola, who had inadvertently given Declan his greatest victory at such great cost of lives.

  “Yes, Father,” said Rhea. “I’ve trained.”

  “I’ve heard you train as one who wants only to survive,” he said, still testing her.

  “I meet such silly rumors with quiet, Father, as I was taught. I train only for victory.”

  Her father nodded. “Very well. Let the cadets and the servants dance. If they mean us treachery, then I can always throw Hiram at their feet and run away.”

  Rhea was thankful and ashamed, as she often felt around her father. At once swaggering as heir of the house of Declan and horrified to be its weakest in generations.

  She took the downward stairs in leaps, hoping her sisters would credit her for the news. Knowing them, they would see it as yet another show of favoritism.

  Even though she risked her father’s safety for it, Suki would likely act suspicious and look to Iren and Cadis for some reaction to parrot. Iren, of course, would remain conveniently silent and Cadis, annoyingly pleasant.

  No matter. Endrit would be at the ball.

  She didn’t need sisters of such disloyal quality. She didn’t know if the rumor her father had mentioned had been spoken by one of them, but she knew the sentiment was theirs.

  And she knew what to do.

  Meet rumor with quiet, treason with cunning, and vicious with vicious.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Cadis

  Next came the Fin who dealt everyone false

  Smiled at the others as she plotted their deaths

  Hasty and brutish were just some of her faults

  Broken nose . . . hideous . . . mackerel breath.

  —Children’s nursery rhyme

  The Royal Coliseum roared, like a great beast—hungry for more spectacle. Cadis knew the story by heart.

  The people of Meridan wanted blood. They lived for it. They reveled in it. But they did not want to see themselves wanting blood. Not they who were so just.

  So they told themselves the little story of a festival—a celebration of martial talents—when really, in their hearts, all they truly wanted was to see an accident, a slip and stab in the gut, a cloven hoof and upturned chariot.

  They cheered for sport, but Cadis had stood before an audience since her name-day, and she could see it in their eyes. They wanted death and waste and violence.

  Back in Findain, their celebrations revolved around the grand delivery of histories and the debate of philosophy. Masters each stood on the bows of ships at port—each their own stage—and bellowed into the harbor. Bad bargain comedies, tragic lovelorn tales of the sea, orations on the dignity of man, mummery, puppetry, even shadow plays projected on the unfurled sails of the ships—art, the true human art of stories and performances and song.

  But here in the Revels, Cadis would be lucky to hear a mealymouthed official mumble a few words for the opening ceremony and a few blaring trumpets to announce the next contest.

  And that was all right. Cadis wouldn’t crash against the rocks of their desire. No good salesman or storyteller would. She would be like water—flowing and unstoppable. She would read her audience, and she would give them what they wanted—for a price, even if that price was something as begrudging as their respect. Or, at least, the inability for them to hold their noses up and claim their queen superior, as they always did.

  Cadis was Findish, after all. And if she told the right story, she had to believe they would listen.

  A cadet cut herself on her shield, taking the blowback from an opponent’s mace. The crowd roared its approval once again.

  Cadis watched from the conductor’s pit as she waited for her archery exhibition. She had warmed up already. By herself, speaking the words that calm, breathing the rhythm she had long ago established to steady herself—the rhythm of a ship at sea, a metered verse, an even fight. The war drum in her chest pounded.

  Cadis felt the beads of sweat forming at the nape of her neck, under her long dreads, the droplets pooling and finally sliding down her back, under the leather breastplate armor.

  She wore crimson and gold, the colors of Meridan, a gesture—maybe futile—toward unity . . . or at the very least, an evasion of the previous year’s insult, when she defeated Meridan’s future queen wearing Findish green.

  Cadis had no intention of being any less proud of her skills, but it might appease the crowd that she salute them in this way, not to mentioned the convenient fact that there would be no rematch with Rhea.

  On the coliseum floor, only two cadets remained standing in the open melee—one lumbering she-bear with double clubs, the other a scout with several open wounds and nothing but a trapper’s knife.

  The people of Meridan cheered on the giant, the obvious favorite. They had no sense of good drama.

  Cadis adjusted the greaves on her forearms, which protected her from the recoil of her bow. She should have had Hannah—her maid—help her tighten the straps, but Cadis had dismissed her a few days ago, when she’d caught Hannah rifling through her private drawers.

  There was nothing to find. Cadis had no part in any Findish rebellion—if such a conspiracy even existed. She was loyal to Declan, though no one believed it. But she wouldn’t tolerate maids spying. It was too close to mutiny to be overlooked. She put the seal of her father’s guild on a promissory banknote and gave it to Hannah before sending her away. Any merchant of Findain would redeem it for a small fortune in dry goods. At least the maid wouldn’t go around claiming the Findish were as pinch-purse as people said.

  Cadis felt a gruff hand clasp her shoulder and another pull at the strap.

  “Where’s Hannah?” said Marta as she adjusted Cadis’s armor.

  “I set her adrift,” said Cadis. And then she
added, “Thank you. What are you doing down here?”

  “I came to help,” said Marta. “You need a squire.” She looked up from the harnesses long enough to catch Cadis’s eye.

  “So you knew,” said Cadis.

  “Of course,” said Marta.

  “Why’d you ask?”

  “I knew that part. Now tell me something else. Why you sent her away.”

  Cadis clenched a bit. It was vaguely shameful to admit. “She was spying on me.”

  “Did she find anything good?” said Marta.

  “No,” said Cadis quickly.

  Marta patted the armor plates. They were secure.

  “Too bad,” said Marta. “When I suspected people were searching my goods, I used to leave a dagger with their name engraved into the blade for them to find.”

  Cadis laughed. “Really? A knife? Really?”

  Marta nodded. Cadis laughed again.

  “They’d run out of my tent, wet in the pants.”

  The giant made short work of the scout. A club to the jaw. A splatter of blood and teeth. Cheering and ecstasy. Blood-mad frenzy.

  Cadis watched the cart drivers take away the scout.

  She mouthed the calming words and breathed the steady rhythm.

  Her bow was ready to sing.

  As the attendants set up three billboards at the center of the coliseum, Cadis stepped out of the dark trench and into the sunlight. When the crowd saw her, there was a mixture of halfhearted claps, a few hisses and curses, and an entire orchestra of full-throated cheers from the oblivious children who had no sense of politics and knew her only as the warrior queen.

  Cadis waved as she walked to her opening position. She thought she heard someone shout, “Rebel!” from the grandstands, but she wasn’t flustered. Cadis was born on a stage—so they said—or rather, a ship deck at a captain’s side, which was nearly the same thing.

  Marta stood at the horse gate. She nodded when Cadis caught her eye, and shifted her stance to cover the magister’s box sitting at her feet, which was filled with bandages, poultices, and various other emergency materials, in case of a horrible accident. Cadis needed no such coddling of insecurities.

  She smiled at her mentor and made the gestures of an arrow hitting her chest. She dangled her tongue from the side of her mouth, as if it were a kill shot. Marta’s eyes narrowed, and she tried to scowl. She made a motion indicating the crowd, who probably thought the gesture was some code to her fellow rebels.