by Rebecca Ross
He cast my corset back to the floor and said, “I was about to empathize, for society dictating that you wear a cage like that. Not anymore.”
I smiled as he walked to the desk, rummaging through his leather satchel. My eyes half-closed, I watched as he brought forth a pouch of herbs, as he sprinkled them into a goblet of water.
“Drink this. It’ll help with the pain,” he said, easing me up so I could drink.
I spluttered after the first sip. “This tastes like dirt, Cartier.”
“Drink it.”
I glared at him. He returned the glare, until he ensured that I had swallowed three more mouthfuls. Then he swept the goblet from me and I lay back down so he could clean my wound.
“Tell me,” he said, kneeling at my side, threading his needle. “Who did this to you, Brienna?”
“Does it matter who did it?”
Cartier’s anger kindled, his gaze like the blue heart of a flame. That Maevan lord had returned; I saw it in the set of his jaw, in the taut muscles of his posture, in the vengeance that gathered about him as shadows. In my mind’s eye, I could see him standing in his reclaimed hall with a circlet of gold upon his head, walking through morning light, and beyond the windows his green meadows flourished, brightened by the Corogan flower. . . .
“It matters,” he said, breaking my vision. “Who stabbed you? And why did they do it?”
“If I tell you, you must swear not to retaliate,” I said.
“Brienna . . .”
“You will make it worse,” I hissed impatiently.
He dabbed the blood from my skin and began to stitch me. My body went rigid at the bite of the needle, at the pull of my flesh as he brought me back together.
“I swear I will not do anything,” he promised. “Until this mission is over.”
I snorted. It was suddenly difficult to picture him holding a sword, returning the favor to Rian. Until I remembered that day in the library, when Cartier and I had stood on chairs with books on our heads. He had bled through his shirt.
It might have been the shock, or the northern air, or the fact that he and I were reunited. But I lifted my hand and traced my fingertip down the sleeve of his upper arm, where he had once bled. He stilled as if I had charmed him, pausing halfway through the stitching, and I realized this was the first time I had ever touched him. It was wickedly delicate; it was fleeting, a star moving over night. Only when my hand returned to the quilt did he finish his stitches and cut the thread.
“Tell me your secrets,” I whispered.
“Which one?”
“Why did you bleed that day?”
He rose and took the needle and spool of thread to his desk. Then he wiped the blood from his fingers and drew a chair to the bedside. He sat down, folded his hands, and looked at me. I wondered what crossed his mind at the sight of me lying in his bed, my hair spread out over his pillow as I wore his pants and his stitches.
“I cut my arm,” he answered. “During a spar.”
“Spar?” I repeated. “Tell me more.”
He chuckled. “Well, long ago, I made a pact with my father. He would let me study to become a passion as long as I also took sword lessons. I continued that promise, even after he died.”
“So you must be very proficient with a blade.”
“I am very proficient,” he agreed. “Even so, I still get cut from time to time.”
We both fell quiet, listening to the crackle and pop as the fire burned in the hearth. My wound had gone numb beneath his careful stitches; I hardly felt the pain anymore, and my head was beginning to feel airy, as if I had breathed in a cloud.
“So . . . how did you not know that I was Amadine?” I finally asked; it was the foremost question that continued to sift through my thoughts. “And why were you absent for the first planning meeting?”
“I missed the first planning meeting because of you, Brienna,” he said. “I had just discovered your disappearance. I forced myself to wait all summer, I forced myself to stay away, thinking you did not want to see me after my letters began to go unanswered. But I finally roused the courage to go to Magnalia, believing that I had time before I needed to be in Beaumont for the meeting. The Dowager informed me you were gone, that you had left with a patron, that you were safe. She wouldn’t tell me anything more, and I spent the next week searching Théophile, thinking you were there since it’s the closest city to Magnalia. It obviously made me late.”
I stared at him, my heart twisting in my chest. “Cartier . . .”
“I know. But I couldn’t rest if I didn’t at least try to find you. I originally worried that your grandfather had come for you, and so I went to him. But he had no inkling of your whereabouts, and that only quickened my fears. There were so many nights that I thought the worst had befallen you, and the Dowager was merely trying to shield me from such a blow. All the while, she kept insisting that you would contact me when you were ready.”
“And so you finally gave up the search, and came to Beaumont for the second meeting,” I murmured.
“Yes. And Jourdain sat across the table from me and said he had adopted a daughter, a young woman named Amadine, who had passioned beneath Augustin House, who had inherited the memories we needed to find the stone. I was so worn and vexed, I took it all for truth, not once suspecting he was feeding me your alias.”
“But I still don’t understand,” I softly argued. “Why wouldn’t Jourdain tell you who I was, where I came from?”
Cartier sighed and leaned deeper in the chair. “All I can figure is Jourdain didn’t wholly trust me. And I don’t blame him. I had evaded him for the past seven years. He had no idea I had taken the name Cartier Évariste and was teaching at Magnalia. And when I missed the first planning meeting . . . I think he worried I might bolt on the mission. So when the plans were divulged to me, I volunteered to be the one to infiltrate Damhan under pretense of the hunt. It was supposed to be Luc, but I offered myself, to show my commitment.”
I thought on what he had just told me, the pieces finally coming together. Slowly, I sat up, propping myself on the pillows, and eased my chemise down, covering my stomach and wound.
“Now,” Cartier said, “tell me your side of the story.”
I told him everything. I told him about each of my shifts, I told him about the Dowager’s decision to contact Jourdain, of arriving to Beaumont and desperately trying to force another bond. Of my discovery of who Jourdain was, of the planning meeting, of my fever and my crossing of the channel. Of recovering the stone.
He didn’t say a word, his gaze not once straying from me. He could have been carved from marble until he suddenly leaned forward, his brows pulling in a frown, his fingers brushing over his jaw.
“You tried to tell me,” he whispered. “You tried to tell me about the first shift. The last day of lessons. The Book of Hours.”
I nodded.
“Brienna . . . I am sorry. For not listening to you.”
“There is nothing to be sorry over,” I said. “I didn’t exactly give you details.”
He remained quiet, staring down at the floor.
“Besides,” I whispered, drawing his eyes back to mine, “it no longer matters. You and I are here now.”
“And you have found the Stone of Eventide.”
The corner of my mouth curved with a smile. “Don’t you want to see it?”
A mirthful glimmer returned to his gaze as he stood to retrieve the stone. Then he came to sit beside me on the bed, his thumb opening the locket. The stone writhed with gold, with ripples of blue and petals of silver that wilted to red. We both watched it, mesmerized, until Cartier shut the locket with a graceful snap, gently easing it over my head. It came to rest above my heart, the stone thrumming with contentment through the wood, warming my chest.
“Jourdain should arrive to Lyonesse tomorrow morning,” Cartier said quietly, his shoulder nearly touching mine against the headboard. At once, the mood shifted in the room, as if winter had chewed through the
walls, coating us in ice. “I have a feeling that Allenach may keep you here. If he does, you need to ride with me to Mistwood, in three nights.”
“Yes, I know,” I whispered, my fingers tracing the locket. “Cartier . . . what is the story behind Mistwood?”
“It was where the three rebelling lords gathered with their forces twenty-five years ago,” he explained. “They emerged from the forest to ride across the field, to reach the back castle gates. But they never made it to the gates. That field is where the massacre occurred.”
“Do you think it foolish that we are planning to ride out from the same place?” I questioned. “That it might be unwise for us to meet there before we storm the castle?” I knew it was the superstitious Valenian speaking in me, yet I couldn’t wash away the worry I felt over this arrangement, that we were storming from a cursed forest.
“No. Because Mistwood is more than the ground where we first failed and bled. It used to be a magical forest where the coronations for the Kavanagh queens were held.”
“They were crowned in the woods?” I asked, intrigued.
“Yes. At dusk, just when light and darkness are equal. There would be lanterns hovering in the branches, magical flowers and birds and creatures. And all of Maevana would gather in the woods, woods that seemed to never end, and watch as the queen was crowned first with stone, then with silver, and last with cloak.” His voice trailed off. “Of course, that was long ago.”
“But perhaps not as distant as we think,” I reminded him.
He smiled. “Let us hope.”
“So when we gather in Mistwood in three nights . . .”
“We gather on ancient ground, a place of magic and queens and sacrifice,” he finished. “Others who want to join our rebellion will inherently know to meet there. When you spoke MacQuinn’s name at the royal hearing, you began to stir not only his House, but mine, and what little remains of Kavanagh. You stirred people beyond our Houses. I don’t know how many will appear to join us in the fight, but Mistwood will undeniably draw them, especially when you bring the stone there.”
I wanted to ask more—I wanted him to tell me of those ancient, magical days. But I was exhausted, as was he, each of us feeling the weight of the days to come. I shifted on the bed until the breeches tried to slip farther down my waist.
“Let me return your pants, and then you can escort me to my room,” I said, and Cartier rose to angle his back to me. I removed the breeches, refastened my dirk, and carefully set my feet on the floor, my chemise tumbling back down to my knees. Those herbs he had given me must have spread into my blood, for the pain was but a dull itch in my side.
We gathered the pieces of my gown, and then Cartier took a candelabra and I led him through the winding inner passages, showing him the way to the unicorn chamber. Only when I had opened the hidden door to my room did he say, “And how did you discover these doors and secret paths?”
I turned to look at him through the candlelight, one foot in my chamber, one foot in the inner passage, billows of my gown crumpled to my chest. “There are many secret doors around us, in plain sight. We just don’t take the time to find and open them.”
He smiled at that, suddenly looking worn and tired, as if he needed sleep.
“Now you know where to find me, should you need to,” I whispered. “Good night, Theo.”
“Good night, Amadine.”
I closed the inner door, smoothed the wrinkles from the tapestry. I changed into my night shift, hid my bloodied clothes at the bottom of my trunk, and crawled into bed, the Stone of Eventide still about my neck. I watched as the fire in my hearth began to fade, flame by flame, and thought of Jourdain.
Tomorrow.
Tomorrow he would return home.
I closed my eyes and prayed, prayed that Lannon still had a merciful bone in his body.
But all my dreams were consumed with one chilling image I could not break: Jourdain kneeling at the footstool of the throne, his neck being severed by an axe.
TWENTY-SEVEN
THAT WHICH CANNOT BE
Allenach was absent the next morning.
I felt it when I entered the hall, the lord’s absence like a gaping hole in the floor. And there were Rian and Sean, sitting in their usual places at the table on the dais, mopping their porridge up with clumps of bread, too hungry for spoons, as Allenach’s grand chair sat empty between them.
Rian saw me first, his eyes going at once to my bodice, as if he hoped that I might bleed through the fabric. “Ah, good morning, Amadine. I trust you had a good night?”
I sat in the chair beside Sean, smiling gracefully at the servant who brought my bowl of porridge and sliced plums.
“The best sleep I have had in a while, Rian,” I responded. “Thank you for asking.”
Sean said nothing, but he was stiff as a board as the tension between me and his older brother grew taut.
“You have noticed that my father is away,” Rian continued, glancing down the table at me.
“Yes. I see that.”
“He has gone to Lyonesse, to bring MacQuinn before the king.”
I was just raising a spoonful of porridge to my mouth. And my stomach clenched so violently I thought I might heave. But somehow, I swallowed the porridge, felt it clog all the way down my throat to my roiling stomach.
Rian was smiling at me, watching me struggle to eat. “You know what the king likes to do to traitors, Amadine? He cuts off their hands first. Then their feet. Then he gouges out their tongues and eyes. Last, he severs their heads.”
“Enough, Rian,” Sean hissed.
“Amadine needs to prepare herself,” Rian countered. “I would hate for her to think this story has a happy ending.”
I looked to the hall, my eyes going right to Cartier. He was sitting in his usual place with a bowl of porridge before him, Valenians chattering about him like birds. But he was solemn and still, his eyes on me. And then they slid to Rian, and he knew. I watched that Maevan stealth and that Valenian elegance merge, watched as Cartier’s gaze marked Rian as a dead man.
“Did you hear me, Amadine? Or has one of the Valenians caught your interest?”
I set down my spoon and looked at Rian again. “What did you say?”
“I said perhaps I could finish the tour you so wanted yesterday,” Rian said, shoving the last of his bread and porridge in his mouth.
“No thank you.”
“Pity,” he spoke through the crumbs, rising from the table. “I would have loved to show you around.”
Sean and I watched as Rian sauntered from the hall. Only then did I breathe, did I let myself sink deeper in the chair.
“I do hope that your father is pardoned,” Sean murmured, and then he rushed to his feet and left, as if he was embarrassed he had made such a confession.
I forced down a few more bites of porridge and then nudged my bowl aside. My eyes rested on Merei, who was sitting at a table with the rest of her consort, their purple cloaks like gemstones in the gentle light. They were laughing, enjoying the morning, nothing dark on their horizon. And I wanted to go to her, the friend of my heart, and I wanted to tell her everything.
She felt my gaze, looked to me.
She would meet me, if I signaled her. She would come right away, no doubt wondering why I hadn’t met her the night before.
But I had promised that I would not risk her safety, not after I had already endangered her with my wild ploy to fetch the stone. And I was so burdened at that moment, I would undoubtedly tell her everything I shouldn’t.
I rose and quitted the hall, leaving Cartier among the Valenians and Merei among her consort. I returned to my room, so overcome with fear and worry that I lay facedown on my bed. At this very moment, Jourdain was being brought before Lannon in the royal hall. And I had wrought this plan. I had strung it together, using Jourdain as the distraction. But what if I had planned wrong? What if Lannon tortured my patron father? What if he cut him into pieces and staked him on the wall? And what of Luc? Would
Lannon punish him too?
It would be my fault. And I could hardly bear it.
My heart beat low and heavy as the hours continued to burn, as morning gave way to afternoon, as afternoon molted into evening. I hardly moved, growing weak with dread and thirst, and then came a knock on my door.
I stood and walked to it, my hand trembling as I swung the door open.
It was Allenach, waiting on my threshold.
I told myself to stand tall, to bear whatever he would say, that no matter what had happened, the mission must continue. We would still storm the castle, with or without Jourdain.
“May I come in?” the lord asked.
I stepped aside so he could enter, shutting the door behind him. He paced to my hearth, stopping only to turn back around, to watch me slowly close the gap between us.
“You look ill,” he stated, his eyes sweeping me.
“Tell me.” I didn’t even try to sound polite or poised.
“Sit down, Amadine.”
No, no, no. My heart was screaming, but I sat, preparing for the worst.
“I won’t lie to you,” he began, gazing down at me. “Your father nearly lost his head.”
My hands were gripping the armrests of the chair, white-knuckled. “He is alive, then?”
Allenach nodded. “The king wanted to behead him. Took the axe up to do it himself. In the throne room.”
“And why didn’t he?”
“Because I stopped him,” the lord replied. “Yes, MacQuinn deserves death for what he did. But I was able to grant him a little more time, to convince the king to give him a proper trial. The lords of Maevana will judge him in two weeks’ time.”
I covered my mouth, but tears began to spill from my eyes. The last thing I desired was to cry, to look weak, but it only brought Allenach to his knees before me, a sight that made the shadows and the light gather close around us.
“Your father and your brother have been taken to a house ten miles from here,” he murmured. “They are on my land, in one of my tenants’ houses. They are guarded and under orders not to leave, but they should rest in safety every night until the trial.”
