by Sarah Dalton
“My father. He is planning something—an attack of some sort. He wants the throne all to himself, and I am in the way. So is Mother.”
“But… Why would he get rid of his heir? He needs an heir to the throne. There would be war if he died without an heir.”
“There would be Lyndon,” I remind her.
“No one would ever take Lyndon seriously,” she says. “The people would revolt.”
“They take my father seriously. Besides, who says he has any intention of dying.”
“What do you—?”
But Ellen is cut off by the heart-wrenchingly low moan that travels up through the winding passageway. A jolt runs up my spine, and I am sprinting forward, forgetting all about my surroundings, and all about Ellen. I must find out if that noise came from my mother.
The first face I am met with is Clara’s. Her mousy hair is slick with sweat and there is a waxiness to her skin. Her eyes are wide with fear. She blocks my path.
“What has happened?” I demand. I reach for her shoulder to hurry her words. Her mouth is gaping open and shut, stupid and flapping. “Speak!”
“Casimir.” The voice is not from Clara, but it is a wretched sound. It is a hoarse whisper. A dying breath.
No.
I step around Clara to find my mother slumped against the wall. Her skin is a nauseous green. Her lips are so dry they are cracked and bleeding. Her head hangs to the left, and her crusted eyes are barely open. I kneel by her side, the breath knocked out of my body, all warmth gone from my skin. I am cold. I cannot speak.
“Casimir. If I could shed one last tear of joy I would. I hoped I would see you again.” She sucks in a ragged breath.
“Do not speak, Your Majesty,” Clara interjects. “You will tire yourself.”
“I must,” she says. “I must speak. There is much… much to say and no… no time. Cas, your father knows I have been spying. He interrogated my trust… trusted advisors.” She blinks and attempts to compose herself. I am still a frozen cold statue. Shocked to my core. I long to hold her hand, and yet I cannot move a muscle. “Poison. I never saw… I should have… Where is he?”
I try to open my lips. Blood thuds in my ears.
“No time, Casimir. No… time…”
“He’s gone,” I whisper. My throat is dry. My pulse pounds. “The guards don’t know.”
“He waits for you. Laid a trap… at the bell tower. Two accidents in one day. Bold. No doubt someone would throw my body off the tower, faking my suicide, and you would trip trying… to save me.” She inhales a raspy breath. “You must leave. I will die here. He will not know then.” Another breath. It tears my chest open with its rasping, grating sound. “He will not know where my body is. Aegunlund will not know. No funeral. No proof to the people. Clara must go with—”
“I’m staying with you,” Clara says. Her eyes are firm. The mouse has strength after all. “Someone needs to make sure Casimir gets out alive.”
Mother concedes. “Yes. You’re right. The king will interrogate you.”
She shakes her head. “He won’t. I have no intention of leaving this passageway.”
Mother turns to me. Her hand finds mine. I don’t feel her touch. I am numb. I am a lump of nothingness; misshapen blood and bone. “Clara got word to the stables. There are horses… waiting. Go now, Cas. Find Mae. Only she can save us now. Only… craft-born.” As her eyes begin to close, my thumping blood finally delivers enough warmth to wake me, and as I wake inside, the pain of grief pushes through.
“No! You cannot leave me.” I squeeze her hand tight. “Mother.”
“I raised you right,” she mumbles. “My only regret is Lyndon. Should have taken him away… from the king.”
“I know.” I put her hand to my lips. “Don’t leave.”
“I would never leave. But my choice has been taken. My time… has come… go now… Casimir, you are loved.”
As Mother’s head slumps forward I am vaguely aware of hands pulling me from her body. Clara and Ellen force me back. I stumble. The world is a blur. The torch is on the stone floor, then it is in front of my eyes, held by Ellen. She speaks. The words are a wave of the sea. The sea. I told Mae I would take her to the sea. Mother would have liked me to love Mae.
Steps. One after the other, and a door we push through. There is a dank stench and Ellen pulls me forward. I must stop thinking of her body on the ground, left in a tunnel to rot. No royal funeral, no procession or flowers. No flames.
The flames burning Mae’s father. I gave her a coin, what did she think of me? Rich and pompous. Have I lost them both?
We reach a door and Ellen struggles with a lever. I reach out to help her and almost fall over myself. How does Father think he can get away with this? I should kill him. I should go to the bell tower and kill him myself.
“He won’t be there,” Ellen says. “It will be his guards. You will achieve nothing.”
That’s when I realise I have been mumbling aloud. The world begins to come into focus again. The sharp smell of the sewers brings me a dose of reality. I clutch the lever and pull it back. A door opens and sunlight floods into the sewers.
“This tunnel brings us out behind the stables,” I say. “I remember from when I was little. Mother brought me. Taught me how to escape. This way.”
I keep my head down as we head to the stables. The world is still a blur, and my heart aches so hard I think I might break. Yet I force myself on. I don’t need anyone else to die because of my family. I have Ellen to protect and that gives me a reason to carry on.
I am, of course, recognisable, yet my presence is not something out of the ordinary. It’s the guards I wish to avoid, or anyone who could go to the king and tell him of my escape. We work our way around the back of the stables, and I hope that there are no guards milling around the courtyard.
Now I know how Mae must have felt in those moments when she found the body of her father. I know her pain. I know the rawness. I know how the world has changed forevermore. As we turn the corner to the front of the stables, I cannot help but clasp the structure for support. A stable boy eyes me. I know him. I know his name.
“Your Highness, I have prepared the horses.”
My trusted steed, Gwen, lowers her nose and nudges me in the chest. She knows. She knows a heart scraped raw resides in there.
“Thank you,” I croak.
“Wait, there are two of yer,” the boy I now remember is called Treowe says.
“You have saddled two horses,” I reply.
“Yeah, one for me and one for you,” he says.
“You are coming with us?”
“I can’t stay here,” he says. “Here. Take these cloaks and cover yourself. I’ll saddle a mare as fast as I can.”
I pass one to Ellen and wrap the other around me. I glance up at the sky. The morning sun is warming. Soon it will be noon, and word will get to my father that I have not been killed as planned.
It is only a few moments after I have helped Ellen onto her horse—and after I have pulled myself onto Gwen—that Treowe emerges on a grey mare. We nod at each other before riding towards the gate.
“Put yer hoods up,” Treowe commands. “We’ll not have any trouble getting through the gate as long as they don’t know the crown prince is leaving. I am sorry about yer mother. I was loyal to her to the last.”
“She would thank you for your loyalty.” I speak, yet am disconnected from every word.
“Keep yer head down, both of you. Your eyes are too much of a giveaway.”
Treowe rides ahead with us following behind. My heartbeat quickens and Gwen senses the tension in my body, lifting her knees high and shaking her head. The gate opens and I ride on. As Gwen steps over the boundary and out of Cyne, I feel a tear run down my body. I have abandoned her. My mother is left in the dirty tunnels and there is nothing I can do about it. The worst has happened. She is dead, and somehow I have to go on without her. I have to go on with the knowledge that I am
no longer a son, I am merely a man.
Chapter Seven – The Call of the Waerg Woods
Casimir
Treowe leads the way, riding hard. Ellen is next to me, her head bent over her bay gelding, her cape billowing out behind her. I am aware of myself clutching Gwen’s reins, but my mind is elsewhere, lost in the mud of grief.
When the stable boy asked us where we were going there was only one place I thought Mae would head to—the Waerg Woods. And so we ride, avoiding the major roads and small settlements along the way, keeping our distance from the river Sverne. We ride towards that thorny place, and as we get closer I long to be lost amongst its branches, for the Waerg Woods feel like a place other than this world. Perhaps my pain will seem less real if I am out of the real world.
The wind slaps my cheeks. Hooves thunder against hard mud. We stop for food and drink. Our supplies are meagre. Treowe packed for two travellers. Soon we will have to hunt. We will need to find water to drink. Fast riding can get us to the Waerg Woods in little more than a day, but once we are there, we may have difficulty locating the Borgan camp, where I believe Mae will travel. She left Cyne alone with an injured stag. She needs her friends to help her. She needs Sasha. But Sasha always said that the camp moves around to protect itself. What if Mae doesn’t find it? What if we’re doomed to ride the Waerg Woods forevermore, never meeting each other?
We ride again. Fine rain leaves dew drops on my tunic and a cool tingle on my skin. But it does not last long, and then the sun beams down on us. Gwen’s withers dry; the steam of her sweat turning to patches of salt.
Three silent travellers and our horses. Beating hooves the one sound between us. We all grieve for Aegunlund’s woman. Mother to us all. Queen. What will happen without her? Will there be civil war? If the people suspect my father, they may revolt. But they have been through their own hardships. Will they have enough fight left in them? Will they expect me to force the throne from my father?
What will become of us all?
Another stop. This time Treowe makes a campfire and shoots a hare. We chew on rubbery meat as the horses graze the sparse grass. Ellen rubs her hands in front of the fire, and then her upper arms, shivering against the cool breeze. The flames dance in her eyes. When Treowe leaves to collect more wood, she faces me.
“It was never your fault,” she says. “I… I have no desire for men.” Her skin turns scarlet and her eyes drop to the ground. “I thought you should know that. It was never about you. I… I have eyes for another… gender.”
Through my foggy, pain-addled mind, it takes me a few moments to understand her words. “Oh, I had no idea.” Father once told me that such desires were a sin against the Gods. However, I had always known that my most trusted bodyguard had preferred the company of men, and I liked him much more than Father, so I decided to ignore the king. “You should have said something sooner. I would never have made you marry me.”
“We all should have talked sooner,” she says. “Secrets seem so infantile now.”
I nod. “They do.”
Treowe returns with an armful of wood. “We’ll keep the fire going for a few more hours, get some rest, and then continue. There are guards searching for Mae, if they find yer here, they’ll take yer back to the Red Palace.” He nods at me. “We can’t let that happen. The king will know you’ve escaped by now.”
A shudder of rage runs down my spine. The king. My mother’s murderer. No longer my father. Never again my father.
“Do you think he will have found the queen?” Ellen asks in a small voice.
I grip hold of my cloak as I answer. “As far as I know, the king has no idea that Mother has access to that passageway. But what I do not know is whether the king has access to it or not. I wouldn’t like to guess. I think it has given us some much needed time, though. And it ruins his plans of making her death seem an accident. If there is any suspicion of foul play it will destroy his chances of keeping Aegunlund on his side.”
“Are yer going to challenge his rule?” Treowe asks.
I stare at the fire with such wide eyes that the heat causes them to become stinging and watery. The pain is a welcome distraction from the pain in my heart. “I don’t know yet.”
“Well, no offence or anything, I know you’ve lost yer mum and that, but you’ve got the country to think about,” he continues. “You’re not going to keep a murderer on the throne are yer?”
The ball of my cape gets tighter and tighter in my fist.
“Leave him be,” Ellen snaps.
“He’s the crown prince. He has a calling,” Treowe insists.
“I will do everything I can to take him down,” I say, the words spoken through my teeth. There’s a feeling deep in my belly, something I’ve never felt before. It’s ugly. It’s sickening. This is my first experience of real hate. Oh, I’ve used the word before. I’ve said how I hate my brother and hate my father, but I’ve never really meant it before. Mother always taught me how to love them even when they were beastly to me. “I will take them both down. Lyndon will not survive this. Neither of them will.”
Both Treowe and Ellen remain silent for the rest of our break. We sleep in shifts and only for a brief time. We leave after we’re refreshed, stamping the fire into the dirt. The fire inside me continues to smoulder.
*
Mae
Anta stretches out his neck and gallops on. He clears a low wall as I grip on with my legs. My stomach almost drops to my knees as he lands, and my heard pounds so hard I can hear the blood thumping in my ears. There is the sound of hooves behind us but they are not at a gallop. They have not seen us yet, but I think they can hear us. There is shouting, as though they are trying to determine which way we are heading. I turn Anta to the left and head through a valley. I don’t know this area. I have been trying to get us back to the Waerg Woods, but every field looks the same.
Luck is on my side. There is a shallow stream at the bottom of the valley. Anta canters into it and we continue down the stream. It is deep enough to come up to my calf. That should confuse the dogs chasing us. We hurry along, and then cross onto the other side. Without a saddle or a bridle I have had to cling onto Anta with my one hand and my thighs. I am cold, tired, and sore. I have nothing but the small scroll and notebook tucked into my nightdress. My bare legs are grazed from thorny weeds we pass through at a gallop. Anta lets out a disgruntled snort as we continue on at the same fast pace.
“We need rest, boy. I know.”
It isn’t the Waerg Woods, but there is a smaller forest up ahead. We might be able to take some well needed respite. We need food. I need to tend to Anta’s wounds. We have been on the run for an entire day. I cannot put so much strain on my white stag. There are no thundering hooves in the distance. This could be our only chance to take a moment and rest. Yet, I am reluctant. Not only because I long to be as far away from Cyne as possible, and not just because I am being pursued by the king’s guards, but because once I stop, I will have to think about it.
The way I left Cyne. Using my powers in front of the entire court.
In front of Cas.
He knows about me now. He knows who I am, and he knows how I lied to him. I lied to everyone.
And then I threw a fireball at his father.
Anta slows to a walk as we near the woods. I relax my muscles a little for the first time since I was locked in a prison by the king. I place my palm on his coat, feeling the warmth exude from him. I ran him too hard. His breath can barely catch up.
I lean down and put my head on his neck, whispering to my friend, “I’m sorry, boy. They were going to kill us, kill you.” My eye is caught by the sight of an arrow still stuck below Anta’s shoulder. A deep rage rumbles through me.
Together we find a quiet place to stop and reassess. I slide down from Anta, careful not to catch any of his injuries. It’s the first time I have assessed the extent of them. Carefully, I run a hand over his coat, murmuring when he flinches from my touch.
There are fewer than I had thought, and the worst is the arrow to his shoulder. I have to remove it, but the pain will be excruciating for him. Plus, I have only one hand to do it with.
“You’ve got to promise not to bolt, Anta. I know you understand me. Avery told me that you’re magical, that you’re clever. Well now you need to prove it.”
I quickly gather whatever herbs or moss I can find. The options are limited and I have little to work with, but I think I can do enough to at least stop the bleeding.
I grip the arrow with my left hand. Anta lets out a low moan.
“Shh, boy. I’m sorry. But you have to be quiet.” He nips me on the hip in response. “You can bite me all you like if it helps.”
I count to three in my mind before pulling the arrow as hard as I can. Anta tenses up. He lifts his nose in the air and a jet of steamy breath exhales towards the trees. But he is quiet. He remains stolid. I cringe as the arrow scrapes against his flesh on the way out, making the wound bigger and angrier than before. As soon as it is out, I get to work on stopping the bleeding.
“It’s all over, boy,” I say, stroking his neck. He shivers beneath me. “It’s all over now.”
He gently gets down onto his knees and I join him. We need sleep, and I need his warmth. I curl up by his withers and rest my head.
I wake to moisture at the back of my neck. My eyes blink open, expecting to see rain drops falling through the branches above, but the dark night is thick and warm. There is no rain. I feel Anta’s coat and my hand comes away wet. He is sweating and his skin is hot to touch. I examine him, but it’s no use in the dark. I can’t see a thing. I move my head back to the forest floor, and doze until dawn.
It’s then that I wake to find Anta standing with his head low. He breathes heavily, and holds himself in a way that suggests something is wrong. He is tense, afraid. I place a hand on his coat. He is still hot, and still sweating.
“What’s wrong, boy,” I murmur. I examine all along his white coat, which shimmers in the early morning sun. It’s then that I see the tiny thread of black coming from the arrow wound on his shoulder. It’s a thin vein of darkness.
