The Queen's Rising

by Rebecca Ross

  Merei stood a breath longer, her dark eyes steady over mine. But she knew arguing with me was futile. She left without another word, and I listened to the sound of her descending the stairs, the front doors latching with a shudder.

  I stood and walked to our window, which overlooked the front courtyard. I watched my arden-sisters gather into one of the open coaches, laughing as their entourage traveled down the drive, disappearing beneath the boughs of the oaks.

  Only then did I grab The Book of Hours and rush down the stairs in a tumble. I nearly collided with Cartier in the foyer; his cloak was draped over his arm, his satchel in hand as he prepared to depart.

  “I thought you had left,” Cartier stated.

  “No, Master.”

  We stood and stared at each other, the house unusually quiet, as if the walls were watching us. It felt like I was taking in a breath, about to plunge into deep waters.

  “May I request an afternoon lesson?”

  He shifted his satchel and snorted. “I dismiss you from one, and now you want another?”

  A smile warmed my lips as I held up his book. “Perhaps we can discuss this?”

  His gaze flickered to the book, then back to me and my soft, repentant eyes. “Very well. If you agree to act as yourself.”

  We walked into the library. As he began to set down his things, I stood at my chair, sliding The Book of Hours onto the table.

  “I wanted you to dismiss me,” I confessed.

  Cartier glanced up, one eyebrow cocked. “So I concluded. Why?”

  I pulled out my chair and sat, lacing my fingers as an obedient arden. “Because Ciri thinks you favor me.”

  He took Ciri’s chair, sitting directly across from me. Propping his elbows on the table, he rested his chin on the valley of his palm, his eyes half-lidded with poorly concealed mirth. “What makes her think that?”

  “I don’t know.”

  He was quiet, but his gaze touched every line and curve of my face. I remembered how easily he could see through me, that my face was like a poem he could read. So I tried to keep from smiling, or frowning, but he still insisted, “You do know. Why?”

  “I think it is because of the things we talk about. Yesterday, she felt left out.”

  “When we talk of Maevana?”

  “Yes.” I wasn’t about to tell him of the suspected smile. “And I think she is worried about the patrons, about . . . competing with me.” This is what I was most worried about—that Ciri and I would inevitably turn the solstice into a competition, that we would want the same patron.

  His gaze sharpened. Any glimmer of mirth faded, and he straightened in the chair. “There should be no need for you and her to compete. You have your strengths, she has hers.”

  “What would you call my strengths?” I tentatively asked.

  “Well, I would claim you are similar to me. You are naturally a historian, attracted to things of the past.”

  I could hardly believe his words, how he had just opened the door to what I was anxious to talk about. Gently, I unwrapped The Book of Hours and set it between us.

  “Speaking of the past,” I began, clearing my throat, “where did you come by such a book?”

  “Where I come by most of my books,” he smartly replied. “The bookseller.”

  “Did you purchase it in Maevana?”

  He was quiet, and then he said, “No.”

  “So you do not know who owned it before you?”

  “These are strange questions, Brienna.”

  “I am merely curious.”

  “Then no, I do not know who owned it before me.” He leaned back in the chair, that half-lidded expression returning. But he did not fool me; I saw the gleam in his eyes.

  “Have you ever . . . seen or felt things when you read this book?”

  “Every book makes me see and feel things, Brienna.”

  He made me sound foolish. I began to mentally retreat, slightly stung by his sarcasm, and he must have sensed it, because he instantly softened, his voice like honey.

  “Did you enjoy reading about the Stone of Eventide?”

  “Yes, Master. But . . .”

  He waited, encouraging me to speak my mind.

  “Whatever happened to it?” I finished.

  “No one knows,” Cartier answered. “It went missing in 1430, the year of the last Maevan queen.”

  1430. The year I had somehow stepped into. I swallowed, my mouth suddenly dry, my pulse skipping. I remembered what the princess had said, what the man had said.

  Bring me the Stone of Eventide.

  “The last Maevan queen?” I echoed.

  “Yes. There was a bloody battle, a magical battle. As you already know from reading about Liadan, the Kavanaghs’ magic in war turned wild and corrupt. The queen was slain, the stone lost, and so came the end of an era.” He tapped his fingers on the table, gazing at nothing in particular, as if his thoughts ran as deep and troubled as mine.

  “But we still call Maevana the queen’s realm,” I said. “We do not call her a ‘kingdom.’”

  “King Lannon hopes to change that soon, though.”

  Ah, King Lannon. There were three things I thought of at the sound of his name: greed, power, and steel. Greed because he had already minted Maevan coins with his profile. Power because he heavily restricted travel between Maevana and Valenia. And steel, because he settled most opposition by the sword.

  But Maevana had not always been so dark and dangerous.

  “What are you thinking?” Cartier asked.

  “I am thinking of King Lannon.”

  “Is there that much to think of when he comes to mind?”

  I gave him a playful look. “Yes, Master Cartier. There’s a man on Maevana’s throne when there should be a queen.”

  “Who says there is supposed to be a queen?” And here came the banter; he was challenging me to flex my knowledge as well as my articulation.

  “Liadan Kavanagh said so.”

  “But Liadan Kavanagh has been dead two hundred and fifty years.”

  “She may be dead,” I said, “but her words are not.”

  “What words, Brienna?”

  “The Queen’s Canon.”

  Cartier leaned forward, as if the table cast too much distance between us. And I found myself leaning closer too, to meet him in the middle of the oak, the wood that had witnessed all my lessons. “And what is the Queen’s Canon?” he asked.

  “Liadan’s law. A law that declares Maevana should be ruled only by a queen, never a king.”

  “Where is proof of this law?” he asked, his voice dropping low and dark.

  “Missing.”

  “The Stone of Eventide, lost. The Queen’s Canon, lost. And so Maevana is lost.” He leaned away, settling back into his chair. “The Canon is the law that keeps the power from kings, granting the throne and the crown to the noble daughters of Maevana. So when the Canon went missing in 1430, right after the Stone of Eventide was lost, Maevana found herself on the brink of civil war until the king of Valenia decided to step in. You know the story.”

  I did know it. Valenia and Maevana had always been allies, a brother and a sister, a kingdom and a queen’s realm. But Maevana, suddenly void of a queen and magic, became a divided land, the fourteen Houses threatening to splinter off into clans again. Yet the Valenian king was no fool; from the other side of the channel, he watched the Maevan lords fight and squabble over the throne, over who should rise to power. And so the Valenian king came to Maevana, told each of the fourteen northern lords to paint their House sigil on a stone and to toss their stones into a cask, that he would draw who should rule the north. The lords agreed—each of them was hindered by pride, believing he had the right to rule—and anxiously watched as the Valenian king’s hand descended into the cask, his fingers shifting the stones. It was Lannon’s stone that he drew forth, a stone graced with a lynx.

  “The king of Valenia put the Lannon men on the throne,” I whispered, regret and anger entwining in my hea
rt whenever I thought of it.

  Cartier nodded, but there was a spark of anger in his eyes as he said, “I understand the Valenian king’s intentions: he thought what he was doing was right, that he was saving Maevana from a civil war. But he should have stayed out of it; he should have let Maevana come to her own conclusions. Because Valenia is ruled by a king, he believed Maevana should also embrace a kingdom. And so the noble sons of Lannon believe they are worthy of Maevana’s throne.”

  It wasn’t lost on me that Cartier would probably lose his head if loyal Maevans heard him speak such treason. I shivered, let the fear gnaw on my bones before I reassured myself that we were tucked into the deep pocket of Valenia, far from Lannon’s tyrannical grip.

  “You sound like the Grim Quill, Master,” I stated. The Grim Quill was a quarterly pamphlet that was published in Valenia, paper inked with bold beliefs and stories written by an anonymous hand that loved to poke at the Maevan king. Cartier used to bring the pamphlets for me and Ciri to read; we had laughed, blushed, and argued over the belligerent claims.

  Cartier snorted, obviously amused by my likening. “Do I, now? ‘How shall I describe a northern king? By humble words on paper? Or perhaps by all the blood he spills, by all the coins he gilds, by all the wives and daughters he kills?’”

  We stared at each other, the Grim Quill’s bold words settling between us.

  “No, I am not that brave to write such things,” he finally confessed. “Or that foolish.”

  “Even so, Master Cartier . . . surely the Maevan people remember what the Queen’s Canon says?” I argued.

  “The Queen’s Canon was authored by Liadan, and there is only one of them,” he explained. “She carved the law magically into a stone tablet. That tablet, which cannot be destroyed, has been missing for one hundred and thirty-six years. And words, even laws, are easily forgotten, eaten by dust, if they are not passed from one generation to the next. But who is to say a Maevan won’t inherit their ancestor’s memories, and remember these powers of the past?”

  “Ancestral memories?” I echoed.

  “An odd phenomenon,” he explained. “But a passion of knowledge did extensive research on the matter, concluding that all of us carry them in our minds, these select memories of our ancestors, but we never know of them because they lie dormant. That being said, they can still manifest in some of us, based on the connections we make.”

  “So maybe Liadan’s will be inherited one day?” I asked, only to taste the hope of the words.

  The gleam in his eyes told me it was wishful thinking.

  I mulled on that. After a while, my thoughts circled back to Lannon, and I said, “But there must be a way to protect the Maevan throne from . . . such a king.”

  “It’s not so simple, Brienna.”

  He paused and I waited.

  “Twenty-five years ago, three lords tried to dethrone Lannon,” he began. I knew this cold, bloody story, and yet I did not have the heart to tell Cartier to stop speaking. “Lord MacQuinn. Lord Morgane. Lord Kavanagh. They wanted to put Lord Kavanagh’s eldest daughter on the throne. But without the Stone of Eventide and without the Queen’s Canon, the other lords would not follow them. The plan fell to ashes. Lannon retaliated by slaughtering Lady MacQuinn, Lady Morgane, and Lady Kavanagh. He also killed their daughters, some who were mere children, because a Maevan king will always fear women while Liadan’s Queen’s Canon lies waiting to be rediscovered.”

  The story made my heart feel heavy. My chest ached, because half of my heritage came from such a land, a beautiful, proud people that had been driven into darkness.

  “Brienna.”

  I blinked away the sadness, the fear, and looked at him.

  “One day, a queen will rise,” he whispered, as if the books had ears to eavesdrop. “Perhaps it will be in our lifetime, perhaps the one to follow us. But Maevana will remember who she is and unite for a great purpose.”

  I smiled, but that emptiness didn’t fade. It perched on my shoulders, roosted in my chest.

  “Now then,” Cartier said, tapping his knuckles on the table. “You and I are easily distracted. Let us talk of the solstice, how I can best prepare you.”

  I thought back on his suggestions of the three patrons, of what I needed to have prepared. “My royal lineage is still lacking.”

  “Then let us begin there. Pick a noble as far back as you can, and recite the line through the inheriting son.”

  This time, I did not have Grandpapa’s letter sitting in my pocket to distract me. All the same, I got several sons into my recitation before I felt a yawn creep up my throat. Cartier was listening to me, his gaze focused on the wall. But he forgave my yawn, let it pass by unacknowledged. Until it came again, and I finally resolved to take a hardback book from the table and stand on my chair with a swirl of my skirts.

  He glanced up at me, startled. “What are you doing?”

  “I need a moment to revive my mind. Come, Master. Join me,” I invited as I balanced the book on my head. “I shall continue my recitations, but the first one whose book falls from their head loses.”

  I only did it because I was weary, and I wanted to feel a jolt of risk. I only did it because I wanted to challenge him—challenge him after he had challenged me these three years. I only did it because we had nothing to lose.

  I never thought he would actually do it.

  So when he grabbed The Book of Hours and stood on his chair, I was pleasantly surprised. And when he balanced the book on his head, I grinned at him. He no longer seemed so old, so infinite, with his sharp, crisp edges and infuriating depth of knowledge. No, he was far younger than I’d once believed.

  There we were, face-to-face, standing on chairs, books on our heads. A master and his arden. An arden and her master.

  And Cartier smiled at me.

  “So what are you going to give me when you lose?” he teased.

  “Who says I am going to lose?” I countered. “You should have chosen a hardback book, by the way.”

  “Aren’t you supposed to be reciting to me?”

  I held still, my book perfectly balanced, and continued where I left off in the lineage. I misspoke once; he gently corrected me. And as I continued to descend the rungs of noblemen, that smile of his eased, but it never faded.

  I was nearing the end on the lineage when Cartier’s book finally began to slip. His arms flew out, outstretched as a bird, eager to regain his balance. But he had moved too suddenly, and I watched—a wide-eyed victor—as he tripped down from the chair with a tremendous crash, sacrificing his dignity in order to catch The Book of Hours.

  “Master, are you all right?” I asked, trying in vain to control my chuckling.

  He straightened; his hair had fallen loose from his ribbon, spilling around his shoulders as gold. But he looked at me and laughed, a sound I had never heard, a sound that I would yearn to hear again once it faded.

  “Remind me to never play games with you,” he said, his fingers rushing through his hair, refastening his ribbon. “And what must I sacrifice for my loss?”

  I took my book and eased down from my chair. “Hmm . . .” I walked around the table to stand near him, trying to sort through the mayhem that had become my thoughts. What, indeed, should I ask of him?

  “Perhaps I might ask for The Book of Hours,” I breathed, wondering if it was too valuable to request.

  But Cartier only set it into my hands and said, “A wise choice, Brienna.”

  I was about to thank him when I noticed a streak of blood on his sleeve. “Master!” I reached for his arm, completely forgetting that we were not supposed to touch each other. I caught my fingers just in time, before I grazed the soft linen of his shirt. My hand jerked back as I awkwardly said, “You’re . . . you’re bleeding.”

  Cartier glanced down to it, plucking at his sleeve. “Oh, that. Nothing more than a scratch.” And he turned away from me, as if to hide his arm from my gaze.

  I hadn’t seen him hurt himself when he fell from the
chair. And his sleeve had not been ripped, which meant the wound had already been there, reopened from his tumble.

  I watched him begin to gather his things, my heart stumbling over the desire to ask him how he had hurt himself, the desire to ask him to stay longer. But I swallowed those cravings, let them slide down my throat as pebbles.

  “I should go,” Cartier said, easing his satchel over his good shoulder. The blood continued to weep beneath his shirt, slowly spreading.

  “But your arm . . .” I almost reached for him again.

  “It’ll be fine. Come, walk me out.”

  I fell into step beside him, to the foyer, where he gathered his passion cloak. The river of blue concealed his arm, and he seemed to relax once it was hidden.

  “Now then,” he said, all stern and proper again, as if we had never stood on chairs and laughed together. “Remember to have your three approaches prepared for the patrons.”

  “Yes, Master Cartier.” I curtsied, the movement ingrained within me.

  I watched him open the front door; the sunshine and warm air swelled around us, laced with scents of meadows and distant mountains, stirring my hair and my longings.

  He paused on the threshold, half in the sun, half in the shadows. I thought he would turn back around—it seemed like there was more he wanted to say to me. But he was just as good at swallowing words as I was. He continued on his way, passion cloak fluttering, his satchel of books swinging as he moved to the stables to fetch his horse.

  I didn’t watch him ride away.

  But I felt it.

  I felt the distance that widened between us as I stood in the foyer shadows, as he rode recklessly beneath the oaks.

  SEVEN

  EAVESDROPPER

  The summer solstice descended upon us like a storm. The patrons were to lodge in the western quarters of the grand house, and every time one of their coaches pulled into the courtyard, Sibylle shouted for us to rush to her room window so we could catch a glimpse of the guests.

  There were fifteen of them in all—men and women of varying ages, some who were passions, some who were not.

  I became so nervous that I couldn’t bear to watch them arrive. I tried to slip from Sibylle and Abree’s room, but Sibylle caught my hand before I could vanish, drawing me back around to face her.