Queen's Crown

by Anne Wheeler

  Laurent had done this.

  Tears welled up as I remembered those last hours in that room in Windersay. He’d promised to make me the queen of Meirdre, and his vow had saved me—for whatever magic flooded our kingdom now saw me as worthy of its protection as Laurent was. Had he known the power he was giving me when we said goodbye?

  Damir backed toward the archway that led to the front of the inn, his right hand curled as though he still held the sword that lay in a million pieces next to the fountain. Eyes wide and wild, he muttered a prayer—or maybe a curse. I gasped for air, and then, finding my hands free, pulled myself to my feet with the help of the stone wall. I could barely move to defend myself, but the soldiers had already disappeared, too afraid, apparently, of the power I’d finally demonstrated.

  The sun’s rays crested the roof of the inn while Damir and I stared at each other, and as I shook off the headache, shouts and the whinnies of horses replaced the sound of my labored breathing. Outside the courtyard, figures hollered at both each other and nothingness. Laurent and his men? Or simply bandits who would kill all of us if they had the chance? Though I’d suggested it to Damir, I wasn’t nearly educated enough about Vassian to know if there was a common threat on this road as it was in parts of Meirdre.

  The shouts turned to musket shots. Bellowing for a new sword, Damir took off running. I backed to the other side of the fountain and slid to the ground, praying it hid me from whomever had arrived. If I was lucky, they would take what they wanted and simply head off down the road.

  My eyes threatened to close out of sheer fatigue, but my heart refused to cooperate as I slumped over. A dreadful quiet overtook the courtyard, then the slamming of doors and windows overtook it. No voices joined the sound, so I pressed myself against the ground and dragged a finger through what remained of Damir’s sword. The rising sun illuminated some of the courtyard but left the rest shrouded in deep shadows, enough that I hoped whoever had arrived would give up and go away before finding me—for I was now certain that it wasn’t Laurent.

  I lay motionless as the voice shouted for me, though I didn’t know why. Whoever they were, they knew who I was and that I was here. Had they tortured someone for the information? There was no way to know. The one thing I did know was this: if it was one of Laurent’s men, there was no threat. If it was one of Damir’s men—or Thomas—well, how many times could I rely on that magic? Possibly an infinite amount, though I had no desire to test that prediction.

  “Where the hell is that girl?” the voice continued when I didn’t reply. “They said she was here in the inn—how hard could she possibly be to find? If I found out Damir’s men lied—”

  My heart skipped a beat. I tried to pull myself upright, but the headache hadn’t faded in the least, and my strength seemed to have disappeared along with that dreadful sword. Not caring any longer how disheveled I appeared when they found me, I collapsed back into the sand and sobbed in relief.

  It wasn’t Damir coming back for me.

  Or Thomas.

  It was King Marius of Iraela.

  Chapter Seventeen

  “Laurent is perhaps a half-day behind us,” Marius told me as I leaned against the archway in the garden behind the inn. The rising sun cut through the early chill, so I didn’t argue about his chosen place for this discussion. He hadn’t removed his palm from the pommel of his sword since they’d found me behind the fountain, and I knew the anxiety of battle would take more than an hour to dissipate—especially since more was likely to come. “But his wounds are likely slowing him, so we will stay until he reaches us.”

  “And I appreciate that protection, my lord. But Damir—”

  “Fled south toward Heosta. My men caught him before he reached the river. He should have not tried to make a stand there—the animals will take care of his body.”

  “And Thomas Wennink?” My knees shook as I spoke. I couldn’t celebrate Damir’s death, but I hadn’t known relief could make one so weak.

  “I don’t know the name.” He shrugged off my question. “Likely escaped with the rest of them who separated from Damir. None of them will get far.”

  I wasn’t so certain about that, but I gave him a respectful nod and wandered back inside, intent on that bath I’d scorned last night. If nothing else, Laurent would appreciate the scent of clean skin instead of horse. The inn’s owner and servants had gone missing as soon as the army of Iraela had appeared, so I lugged a few buckets of hot water into the washing room off the main kitchen and stripped my grimy clothing off. The only soap I could locate was cheap kitchen lye, but I ran it through my hair. It was better than nothing.

  When I dressed in a new gown—pilfered from the carriage Damir had left—and reentered the kitchen, the soldiers who’d been filling their stomachs earlier were gone. I could see them outside in the courtyard, laughing and cleaning their swords and muskets. I couldn’t help a smile at the ordinariness of it all, despite the shards of metal that still lay in the dust.

  I began to hum as I dug through the cupboards for some spare bread, anything to stave off my growing hunger. Even though they’d run off, I was sure the owner and his staff would be back, and I didn’t want to take much from them, even if they were Vassian. Elternow was too recent in my memories, and I knew how sacred food could be in a remote place like this. Finding a pomegranate, I polished it with my skirt and headed to the courtyard to watch the soldiers spar with each other.

  The rear stairwell creaked as I approached, and the hair on my arms stood up. It was likely nothing, just another soldier coming downstairs, but my chest grew tight as I backed into the kitchen, the only place I could think to hide. Marius’s men made noise. They didn’t slip silently around an inn they now controlled.

  Footsteps resonated down the stairs and just outside the kitchen, and I gasped for air as they came closer.

  As the fire behind me, untended for hours, gave a dying gasp.

  As a gleeful shout echoed outside, an Iraelan battle cry of victory.

  As Thomas slipped in the kitchen with a broad grin and a sword in his hand.

  The apple fell to the floor.

  “You’d best run, Thomas,” I said, swallowing hard. “They will not treat you kindly if they find you in here. And they will.”

  “Unlikely.” He glanced down at the sword, then back at me. “The fools are celebrating their success, too stupid to realize they’ve been too hasty in their festivities.”

  “And what? You think killing me will solve anything?” If you’re even able to. “You think it will prevent Marius and his army from taking the castle at Heosta and making sure no one replaces Damir?”

  “Maybe not.” Thomas shrugged. “But solutions aren’t my goal at this point—revenge is.”

  I backed against the stone wall, ash coating the bottom of my skirts. Thomas hadn’t cared about Damir and Vassian after all. They were a means to an end.

  “Your argument is with me,” I said. “Not Laurent. Leave him out of it.”

  “It’s with both of you.” He took a step toward me. “You’ve taken everything from me.”

  “You didn’t even want me,” I whispered. I’d have shouted it, but I didn’t trust him to not run me through with that sword if I let the soldiers outside hear me. “And he did!”

  “And you didn’t mind turning your back on Elternow, did you?”

  Right before I died was a strange time to bring up my supposed sins, but I couldn’t let him criticize that decision. I wouldn’t let him speak of my marriage like that. And though I could be silent around Laurent when protocol demanded it of me, Thomas had earned no such respect.

  “You turned your back on Elternow,” I ground out. “I protected Mama and Papa, especially after you destroyed their home. I gave them a life. A future. I sacrificed everything to protect Meirdre!”

  “It’s hardly a sacrifice if you parade around Lochfeld in pretty gowns on the arm of a tyrant, is it?” He glanced at my current attire as he stepped even closer. “Though I
suppose even a queen has to give up the pretty gowns and beg for charity eventually.”

  “I would back off if I were you, Thomas.” I slid against the wall toward the fireplace, wondering if I could climb up the chimney. “Unless you want to see for yourself exactly what happened here earlier this morning. You do not want to cross Lochfeld’s magic.”

  By the look on his face, I realized he had been there, somewhere in the background.

  “Then maybe I won’t try to kill you. Or maybe I’ll wait until your power fades one day.” His lip curled up. “Right now, I was more thinking I’d sample Laurent’s goods before I destroy his life—I’ve always wondered what he saw in you. The fire pit isn’t ideal, but it will do.”

  “Leave me alone,” I whispered. “Go away and leave me alone.”

  He grinned. “I don’t think I will.”

  “You will do what she says, Wennink.”

  Laurent’s order echoed through the kitchen. Thomas spun around, but not before I caught the look of horror in his eyes. His sword fell a fraction, then his fingers went rigid on the grip. I didn’t know which one of us was more surprised, but surprised or not, he clearly intended to fight.

  “After all,” Laurent continued, a smile playing about his lips, “she is the Queen of Meirdre. As such, you are subject to her commands.”

  Thomas scoffed. My eyes floated to Laurent’s gaze, but he wasn’t looking at me. His attention was solely on Thomas, and when Thomas lifted his sword, he took a graceful step backward, the picture of a swordsman who’d been accomplished since he was old enough to lift a weapon.

  But I’d seen the whip marks on his back, knew how badly it must hurt to stretch his skin to heft a sword like he was. Thomas followed him out the door, and though Laurent didn’t stumble, his smile faded as he steadied himself on the wood floor of the main room.

  “You’ve been played for a fool.” Thomas snarled the accusation, then darted toward him, tossing a chair out of the way before slamming his sword against Laurent’s. I flinched at the sound, praying it would draw the attention of the soldiers outside. They had to know Laurent was in here, didn’t they?

  Laurent lunged to the side. Thomas dove toward him once more, but Laurent’s feet were too light for him to be caught off-balance. They’d both had plenty of practice in the past few months it seemed, and I flinched each time metal hit metal—and even more when several figures in Iraelan red burst through the back door. Thomas gave them the briefest glance, then thrust at Laurent once more, with a furious scream that time.

  I held my breath. Part of me wanted to plunge right into the middle of it, but Laurent was holding his own, and the soldiers, after a moment’s hesitation, moved in on both. Thomas turned his head at the sound, then twisted back toward Laurent a second too late—one well-placed slice on his upper arm and he stumbled backward. It wasn’t a fatal injury, but the chair in his way took him down as surely as a stab to the lungs.

  Laurent wiped the sweat on his forehead and approached Thomas, his blade landing on his chest. “Fool,” he said calmly, waving away Marius’s soldiers. “Whatever will they say about you once you’re gone? Think of how they’ll mock you—that you died after falling over a chair.”

  Tears filled my eyes. Relief or fear or some misplaced sadness or long-ago loyalty, I couldn’t tell. All I knew was that I didn’t want to see Thomas die. After everything . . . I still couldn’t watch his life leave him.

  Laurent must have sensed my emotion, for he looked toward me with a certain resignation. “Are you going to plead for his life again?” he asked. “Beg me to spare him?”

  “I will not, sire.” I shook my head, and the tears fell harder at the unexpected mercy—if that was in fact what it was. “Not this time.”

  Laurent’s stance grew unyielding, his shoulders square and firm. The tip of his sword slid from Thomas’s heart to his stomach, and there it stopped. I put my hand over my mouth and looked away. A painful, slow death it would be, and I was so tired of death.

  “She may have decided that you are no longer worthy of mercy,” Laurent said, “and I would never blame her for that decision. Your crimes against her are a thousandfold more than the ones you have committed against me.” He forced a swallow, after giving me the briefest of looks. “But I will not become what Damir was. I will not cause more violence hoping to end it.”

  I gaped at him. All this, and Laurent was still willing to show him mercy?

  “Fool?” Thomas asked. He twitched, lying there on his back. “You dare call me a fool?” His hand twitched toward his side, bringing out a dagger I hadn’t seen before. “You have no idea—”

  Laurent’s blade pierced his stomach before the scream left my mouth.

  Chapter Eighteen

  The carriage jolted once more as we hit another rock. Wedged between Laurent and the door, I scarcely shifted on the velvet seat, but my joints were aching more with each hour that passed.

  Laurent reached for my hand. “We’ll stop soon.”

  “It’s still three days back to Lochfeld, though.”

  I let his fingers drift over mine, though I wasn’t as blasé about the remainder of the trip as he seemed to be. I’d thought riding a horse was painful, and perhaps it was, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as riding in a carriage like this. I’d only been on a trip this long once before, on the way to Iraela, and those roads had been smoother.

  “Yes, three days.” His mouth met my ear. “And you can’t leave me this time.”

  “Laurent!” I didn’t quite swat him away, but as one of the soldiers escorting us came into the view out the window, he backed off himself. “I would never, anyway. That carriage ride with that man—it was one of the worst experiences of my life. I much prefer my husband beside me.”

  He did kiss me that time, and I sank against him, all soreness forgotten. Much as he might believe otherwise, I hadn’t lied in the least—and the comfort he now provided, though a surprise, was more than welcome. His fingers stroked my cheek, and I closed my eyes, willing away the roughness of the road.

  “Well, I prefer you here as well.” His gaze grew deeper. “I meant what I said, you know—in the inn. When we return to Lochfeld, the crown will be yours.”

  A single tear welled up, and I brushed it away. Today was not the day for such feelings.

  “I know,” I replied. “The magic of the map knew, too. But I would stay beside you without it, though.”

  “Oh, Riette.” He laughed, and the spell of the moment was broken. “You really haven’t learned.”

  My own laugh burst out in return. Perhaps I hadn’t—or perhaps I had. It was difficult to catch my breath, so long had it been since I’d laughed like this. A strange scent drifted through the carriage as I inhaled, and I sat upright, his wit forgotten.

  “Laurent, that smells like—”

  He interrupted me with a whistle, and the horses came to a stop atop a rolling hill. To the south was undulating farmland, soft and green, with all the trappings of spring in southern Meirdre. In the distance lay a small town I didn’t know the name of—it didn’t seem important enough to be placed on the map.

  I pressed myself against the window as Laurent hopped down from the opposite side of the carriage. Exiting by myself would be improper, and I was learning . . . but patience was another matter. Soon enough though, he opened the door himself and helped me down.

  “There’s something you need to see,” he said cautiously, guiding me off the dirt road and into the grass.

  My slippers sank into the supple dirt, and I clung to his arm, pretending soldiers weren’t surrounding us. Protection they might be, but after Vassian, I had little desire to pay them much attention. Laurent led us around the front of the carriage, and then I saw it—

  Haystacks.

  Haystacks in flames.

  My heart threatened to leap into my throat, and I gripped his arm. Because down the hill, tossing flaming torches onto an entire field’s worth of hay—an entire season’s work for that far
mer—were soldiers in blue Meirdrean uniforms. A single figure in brown stood to the side, likely the farmer, and my cheeks grew hot in the sun as he began to pace.

  Thomas had been right. He’d told me the soldiers had burned the hay.

  Soldiers burned them. Soon as they were stacked. Starve the people and their livestock and they can’t rebel.

  My throat grew tight. I looked up at Laurent. After all this, he’d stopped to let me witness . . . what? It didn’t make any sense that he’d let me watch atrocities as they happened, did it? Not after what we’d been through. I squeezed his arm though I backed away, a question and promise at the same time.

  “They’re helping to destroy the stem rot,” he answered quietly. “Did you really think otherwise?”

  “I—” I couldn’t admit that I had, not now. Nevertheless, by the way his face fell, I could tell he knew my suspicions. “I am sorry, sire.”

  “Apology accepted.” He didn’t make a move toward me. “It had to be done, my dear. The rebels spread the fungus too far and wide, and it must be stopped.”

  “But at what cost?” Too agitated to rein myself in, I took a step away. “You know they can’t afford to replace it!”

  “We certainly can’t let it spread between farms.” He sighed. “That’s a hay merchant down there. If he had sold it, it might have reached throughout the entire region. He’s been compensated for the hay, as well as for the work he did last season that was all for naught.”

  “But—you compensated him? You order the soldiers here?”

  “Guilty.” Laurent lifted a shoulder. “An entire squad—led by Captain Erstad—is crossing the kingdom, carrying coin and burning what needs to be burned. It was the least I could do. And lest you think you had no part in those . . . it was all due to you.”

  I blew out a breath and stepped close to him once more. “I’m sorry I doubted you.”

  “I don’t blame you. I could never blame you for that. Wish that things had been otherwise from the start, yes, that I do.”