The Traitor's Daughter

by Claire Robyns

  “I have people here I trust and confide in, Rose. It’s a very short list, but they know everything and they have my instructions to carry out in an emergency or as a last resort.”

  “General Sunderland.”

  “He is one of them,” Nathanial said. “Devon would have had his own inside circle sworn to secrecy.”

  I wrapped a hand around the back of my neck, rolled out the knots of tension. If my father had an inside circle, it would have been me and Markus and… Of course. I ruled out me and Markus, he’d never have kept this from me.

  “Jarvis and Lennard,” I said. That would explain a lot. I tipped my glass at Nathanial, a bitter twist on my lips. “Congratulations, you executed my contingency plan.”

  Nathanial didn’t seem too concerned. “You’ll make a new one. You’ll have time to work it all out, once the shield is reset.”

  “When is it due to be reset?”

  “Five weeks, two days.” Nathanial smiled, a sober smile without a trace of humour. “Yes, I’ve been counting.”

  “Well, I’m here, you made sure of that.” I shrugged carelessly, my thoughts still on Jarvis and Lennard. “And it’s not like I’d refuse to reset it.”

  They’d known all along, about the shield, about my father being the key, and then me, and one day my heir. And what of the assassination plot? Had that been their grab for power? Or my father’s last instruction to be carried out posthumous?

  Dear Lord. I shook them out of my head to make place for all the other shocks I’d learnt this evening.

  Nathanial scraped his chair back to square one leg over the other, his brow pinching as he studied me in silence. As if he had to think about what I’d said, as if…what? I had no idea. I was no expert at reading Nathanial.

  I peered beneath a silver cover on the trolley and found a wedge of apple crumble with a dollop of thick cream. My appetite returned as my mind churned through everything Nathanial had told me. The puzzle of our written laws fell into place one by one. Why I needed a blood heir to succeed me. Why the King was replaceable and not me.

  It should have made me feel important, all powerful. Instead it left me feeling rather small, as if the full measure of my worth was the blood that flowed inside my veins. I didn’t need to be a great leader. I didn’t need to be strong or wise. I just needed to keep breathing. My heart just needed to keep pumping that blood through my veins. I was just a key.

  And Nathanial was still looking at me.

  “What?” I said as I spooned apple crumble into my mouth.

  “There’s more,” he dragged through his teeth like a reluctant confession. “The last time the shield had to be reset, Devon refused.”

  The timeline wasn’t lost on me. Ten years ago, my mother died in the tower. Ten years ago, my father killed the King and fled the castle. The bite of apple and pastry soured on the way down my throat.

  “Why would he refuse?” I snapped, resenting the slur on his name. I dropped the spoon into the bowl with a clang. “And even if he did, clearly he changed his mind.”

  “My father changed it for him,” Nathanial said. “Devon insisted it was safe to bring the shield down and leave the kingdom. My father disagreed.”

  “Because he thought it wasn’t safe?” I slumped in my chair, rubbed my brow. “Or because he didn’t want to give up his power? If we could leave, go out into the world, there’d be no kingdom for him to rule over.”

  “Knowing my father, it was probably a bit of both,” Nathanial admitted. “The shield was never meant to trap us here forever. It was originally determined, by Henry Welsh, that after a hundred and fifty years the toxic fallout would have cleared from the atmosphere and the world would have started to heal. My father thought it was foolhardy and unnecessary to bring the shield down ten years early. He locked your mother in the tower and threatened to execute her if the shield wasn’t reset before the deadline.”

  My blood ran cold. “The King used her to blackmail my father and then he killed her anyway.”

  “My father misjudged the situation. Your mother was more committed to bringing the shield down than he realized. She knew Devon would never risk her life, that he would eventually give in to the King’s demands, so she took the choice out of his hands. Two weeks before the deadline, she hung herself in the tower.”

  “No!”

  “Rose, I’m sorry.”

  Was he lying? Why would he? He didn’t have to tell me any of this.

  “Why would she go to such extremes?” My mouth was dry as grit, my tongue sticking to my lips. Why couldn’t she just have given in and lived here beneath the shield, lived here with me and my father for another ten years. “Why?”

  “I honestly don’t know why she felt so strongly about it that she sacrificed herself.” His jaw worked, his gaze softening into mine. He went on in a quiet voice, “My father kept her death hidden. He never told Devon or you. A few days later, Devon reset the shield and demanded her release and…well, you know the rest. My father could be ruthless, but he wouldn’t take a life without just cause or purpose and if the shield had come down, there wouldn’t have been anything to gain by executing her after the fact. He didn’t kill your mother, he never intended to, but he was responsible for her death.”

  “She died for nothing,” I said bitterly. She’d died because she was too impatient to just wait another ten years. She’d died because the old King was too stubborn to give up his kingdom before Henry Welsh had apparently determined he’d have to. Now they were all dead. My mother. My father. The old King.

  I’d kicked my chair back, shoved to my feet before it hit me. “It’s 152 NC, a hundred and fifty-two years after the global nuclear war.”

  “The shield can be reset at any time, so long as it’s before the end of the next ten year period. At the very beginning, Henry Welsh wanted to test the recalibrations of the biometric lock when he imprinted his son. He reset the shield three years into a cycle and there’ve been other variances over the years, resetting the shield a couple of weeks early each cycle.”

  That was not the point I’d been making.

  I scowled down on him. “We’re beyond the hundred and fifty years, Nathanial. From what you’ve said, it’s safe to bring the shield down. So why am I here? Why are you asking me to reset it?” My heart raced at the enormity of what I was saying, what I was thinking. I couldn’t even begin to process the full impact of what this meant, the shield coming down, the entire world opening up to us. “Are you asking me to reset it?”

  “I am asking,” he said solemnly, meeting my frown with a steady look. “But don’t answer yet, not before you see what I have to show you.”

  “Then show me!”

  “It’s a three hour hike, Rose.” He spread his palms on the table, pushed to his feet. “We’ll leave at first light. You should get a good night’s sleep.”

  I didn’t stay and argue. I seriously didn’t know what was what anymore. I’d come into this room tonight prepared to push our past aside, but that wasn’t what this intimate dinner had been about at all. I spun about and walked away from Nathanial, my head crammed with answers to questions I’d stopped asking long ago and a fresh slew of questions I’d never thought to ask.

  - 23 -

  We didn’t leave at first light. I overslept and Nathanial let me. The sky was overcast, drizzling a fine mist that would eventually soak through my shirt if it kept up. Not ideal for an all-day stroll, three hours there and three hours back, but neither of us suggested it could wait for better weather.

  Our hike started with a climb up the gorge that cut into the mountain behind the castle. The steep, rocky trail was not unfamiliar to me. I’d scrambled up this gorge often as a child, many times with Nathanial. It was a little trickier for him with the pack carrying our food and water on his back, but I didn’t feel too bad when I smirked and overtook him.

  At the top, I shook my hands out and stared out over the cresting hills and lush forest.

  There were two valleys
rolled between the stretch of hills and the third slope rose above our currently eye level. Standing here, it seemed like this rich, verdant vista could stretch on forever without ever hitting wasteland.

  I remembered thinking as a child that I could run and run to the ends of the earth if I were brave enough to crash through all that forest and scale all those hills. I’d never left this perch at the top of the gorge, though, never took more than a few hesitant steps down the gentle valley slope. The wasteland was there, even if I couldn’t see it. The shield was there, an invisible monster that would burn the flesh from my bones if I ever got too close. As I grew older, of course, I learnt that even though the shield was invisible, you couldn’t accidentally stumble into it. The poison from outside, and maybe even the shield itself, strangled any form of vegetation to form a barren band inside the perimeter that was easily a mile in width.

  “I’d forgotten how beautiful this was,” I said as Nathanial joined me.

  He peaked a hand over his brow and pointed. “The shield lies beyond that last hill.”

  “Is that where we’re going?”

  “Yes,” he said and got moving.

  I followed, nervous excitement humming in my veins. I’d been feeling this mix of thrill and trepidation since last night. I was surprised I’d slept at all, but my body had finally given out on me. If the shield came down, when the shield came down, everything I’d ever known or envisioned about my life and future would come down with it.

  “It feels so surreal,” I said as we descended the slope into the thick woodland. “I used to think that if I could run through these forests and never stop, I could run to the ends of the earth. And now…in a few short weeks, maybe I can.”

  He glanced at me. “Would you?”

  “I’ve had less than twenty-four hours to think about,” I said with a laugh. “Ask me again in five weeks.”

  He didn’t share in my laughter. “When the time is right and the shield comes down, the kingdom will still need you.”

  The time is right now, I wanted to snort, not when you finally tire of playing King. I bit my tongue, though. He had something to show me, and I’d already decided to sit on my arguments and accusations until I’d seen. Last night had taught me the one thing my father never had—knowledge was more powerful than strength, skill and wit combined.

  “Why would the kingdom need either of us?” I asked.

  “There are families here, children and elderly folk. We have structure, shelter, safety, resources. Most people won’t just flee off into the unknown because they can. The plan has always been for the kingdom to remain as our base.”

  My brow shot up. “There’s a plan?”

  “A long term strategy.” Nathanial sent me another unamused look. “We’d send scouting parties out initially to get the lay of the land. Then we’d start sending smaller groups to settle and build communities in a network of villages that would, hopefully, spread out farther and farther. Some people may strike out on their own, but most will seek the safety and companionship of communities. It’s human nature.”

  “That sounds like a strategy to expand your empire.”

  He didn’t shrink from my frosty tone. “This is Glamorgan land and I intend to rule here until it’s wrested from my bloodied hands, but I don’t aspire to anything beyond these borders.” His gaze lifted through the canopies. “The intention is for the new villages to form their own leadership councils.”

  We fell into silence after that, plunging through an endless tangle of shrouded branches. Every breath I drew was filled with rich earth and the minty scent of greenery. The sky above was glimpses of mottled grey and the forest blocked any view of where we’d come from or where we were going. I only knew we’d crossed one valley and were headed down the other side of the opposite hill because of the slant of the land.

  It felt like we’d been walking for hours, my mind stewing, when I couldn’t hold it in anymore. “My mother sacrificed herself to bring the shield down. My father never told me anything about my birth right or the shield. He always said the past cannot be undone, we had to look to the future. He meant to walk away from here. He was committed to honouring my mother’s sacrifice. That is why he had to die, isn’t it? He would never have considered resetting the shield and you had to remove his influence over me before you asked me to do exactly that.”

  Nathanial slowed his pace, slung the pack off his back to dig inside.

  “My father, your mother, Devon, they’re all dead because of this damned shield.” He tossed me an apple. “Glamorgan men have made a habit out of creating bad traditions. This is why I was so hell-bent on this marriage, so that your child and my child won’t have to make these same choices over and over again.”

  I rolled the apple in my hand as I watched him sip from the flask of water. “If you want me to reset the shield so badly, why did you say anything at all last night? I would never have known my parents were so opposed. I wouldn’t even have known the world was healing and I had a choice.”

  “Why?” He gave a dry laugh. “I almost didn’t. But I don’t want to do this on my own anymore. God knows—I certainly don’t—whether I’ve done more right than wrong. You and I were always meant to make the challenging decisions for this kingdom together, Rose, and in order to do that we need to be coming from the same place. You needed to know what I know.”

  He dragged another sip of water from the flask before holding it out to me.

  I shook my head and bit into the apple.

  “The night of the Hunt Ball, you were right,” he said. “A lot of the things I’ve done were done to break you.”

  I didn’t need the confirmation. “You wanted to weaken me.”

  He gave a slow shake of his head, exchanged the flask for his own apple and slung the pack onto his back again. “Not to make you weaker or stronger, just to reach the real you, the person unwrapped by all the layers you just spoke of. I needed you to feel your own feelings, make your own decisions for the good of our kingdom, here and now, and not just regurgitate the decisions your parents made a decade ago. No one is perfect. No one is infallible. Not me. Not Devon. Not my father. Not your mother.”

  A part of me truly appreciated his openness, his honesty. Forcing me into the marriage, demanding I give him an heir who’d be both High Chancellor and King, even removing my father, I understood so much more now, but the facts did not erase the hurt and betrayal. The truth didn’t bring my father back to me or change Nathanial into a man who hadn’t ordered General Sunderland to kill him.

  We reached a plateau and the trees thinned, giving me a view of the valley sweeping into a bowl of brown, cracked ground that rose into another, smaller hill. I wrapped an arm around a tree, the air deflating from my lungs. The brain was such a strange thing when hope was involved. I’d had to hike for hours to see what had been in front of me all the time.

  Nathanial leant against the tree beside me. “Everything okay?”

  “This is what you wanted to show me,” I said, staring out over the desolate stretch of wasteland. “The world hasn’t begun to heal. We can’t survive out there.”

  “The destruction here isn’t typical of general radiation poisoning,” he said softly. “Nial and Henry speculated we must have caught the edge of the firestorm of a direct missile impact. If the blast had been any closer, the shield wouldn’t have saved us. The land around us shrivelled within hours and may never recover, but that’s no indication of the rest of the country or, indeed, the world. Come, we’re almost there.”

  This wasn’t it? That spark of hope flared again.

  We headed west along the plateau, weaving in and out of the sparse tree cover and drizzle. Our vantage point rolled around the side of the barren hill and that’s when I saw it. The sea of canvas.

  I slammed to a dead stop, my heart pounding. “What is this?”

  Nathanial placed a hand on my arm. “Breathe.”

  “Don’t tell me to breathe!” I slapped his hand away, scowling int
o the distance. The men looked like ants, an army of black ants crawling in and around the sea of white canvas.

  “Who are these people? Where did they come from?” There were so many of them. Hundreds. Thousands? My gaze jerked to Nathanial. “Are they outside the shield?”

  “We don’t know who they are or where they came from,” he said in a calming voice. “What we do know is that they’ve been camped there, and yes, they’re outside the shield, for nearly ten months.”

  “We?” I asked sharply.

  “General Sunderland. Four of his most trusted soldiers.” Nathanial slung his pack to the ground and hunched over it while he spoke. “They’ve set up a rotating watch a little farther along the ridge. We have eyes on the camp at all times.”

  “That’s all you’ve done?” I said in disbelief. “Spy on them? Has anyone tried talking to them? Asking them who they are and where they come from? Have they been living out there all this time?”

  “The patrol that came across them tried talking, Rose. Two of them were gunned down.”

  “Gunned down? As in old world guns?”

  “Not only guns.” Nathanial came up with a pair of binoculars and handed them to me, but he didn’t let go. “The bodies are still down there. We can’t get close to retrieve them. As soon as we show ourselves, they start shooting.”

  My voice pitched. “Through the shield?”

  “Yes, through the shield. It would seem high velocity bullets don’t get chewed up the way human flesh does.” He took a deep breath, blew it out. “I tried walking out with a white flag and had to dive back for cover under a hail of bullets. They’re not here to talk.”

  I yanked the binoculars from his grasp and put them to my eyes. The limited view actually improved my focus and brought my thumping, racing heart under control.

  The large, charred circle of a fire pit. Where did they find the logs to burn? I hadn’t seen a single tree on that side of the shield for them to cut down.