The Defiant Heir

by Melissa Caruso

  “That’s all I ask,” he said, and bowed with graceful precision.

  It took a full glass of beer before I was ready to dive back into my duties at the reception. But I was here to reassure the leadership of Callamorne of the Serene Empire’s commitment to defend their country, and now that Kathe and Marcello were done disrupting my evening, I was going to do that, by the Grace of Majesty.

  I circulated through the party, talking with as many people as I could. Yes, the Empire was dedicated to the defense of Callamorne. Naturally I would ensure that Raverra kept its promises, as a Lochaver myself. Of course Zaira would unleash her balefire if Vaskandar tried to push through one of the mountain passes. I had seen it, in fact, and it was as effective as the legends said. Why, yes, I was courting a Witch Lord. It was all part of the plan. Everything would turn out well.

  As I leaned against the cool stone wall, glass in hand, taking a brief break before plunging back into the diplomatic fray, Roland approached. He let out a long sigh and put his back against the wall beside me, raising his own glass to his lips.

  “Crowd getting to you?” I asked him, a sympathetic smile pulling at the corner of my mouth.

  “A bit,” he admitted. “But some of us are working hard anyway.” He glanced meaningfully across the great hall at Bree, who stood on a bench, reaching up with great showmanship to balance an overflowing tankard on her head. A crowd gathered around her laughed and cheered; I spotted Zaira among them, her arm over Terika’s shoulders.

  “Yes, well, that’s Bree for you.”

  “She does everything she can to destroy her own royal dignity.” An edge of envy crept into Roland’s voice. “But it doesn’t matter. She can get away with anything, because she’s not the heir. She makes a clown of herself like this, and the people love her.”

  I thought of Zaira, and how she always had a great crowd around her at parties. “I don’t think sober responsibility is the most charismatic of personality traits, alas. She’s doing her part in her own way.”

  Bree now hopped on one foot, the tankard sloshing over her hair but remaining upright on her head thus far, while the crowd around her clapped. The older and more conservative members of the Callamornish court gave her a wide space, but they shook their heads with affection, not disapproval.

  “Do you know who her patron Grace is?” Roland asked, irony suffusing his voice.

  In Callamorne, at a baby’s naming ceremony, they performed a ritual where the parents carried the baby around in a circle past shrines of the Nine Graces until some sign occurred—the baby laughing, a bird singing, the sun coming out from behind a cloud, anything really—to indicate which Grace would be the child’s patron for life. Bree had taken great delight in telling me that my sign had been making a grab for the candle at the shrine of the Grace of Wisdom, and suggested that such an unwise act shouldn’t have counted.

  “She never told me,” I admitted. “I know yours is Courage, but I don’t know Bree’s.”

  Roland snorted. “That’s because she’s embarrassed, and rightly so. Guess.”

  I ran through the Graces in my head. “Bounty?” She might be unwilling to admit that, given that Callamornish folklore said the chosen of the Grace of Bounty had large numbers of children, among other assets and advantages best not discussed in public.

  “Majesty.” Roland gestured grandly across the room. “Just look at her. Absolutely majestic.”

  The tankard had fallen off Bree’s head, drenching her. Someone was passing her another one.

  “Oh, dear.” I frowned. “That’s a bit awkward as a patron for a younger sister, isn’t it? You’re the heir.”

  “Thank the Graces. Can you see her as a queen?” He shook his head, but there was admiration in his tone when he continued. “I think the Graces got us mixed up. She’s braver than a cornered badger.”

  The queen murmured a word to one of her attendants, who nodded and crossed the hall toward Bree, a look of determination on her face.

  Roland straightened from the wall, grimacing. “Back to work for us. It’s time for the speeches, unless I miss my guess.”

  Of course there were speeches, because this was Callamorne, and there had to be speeches before there could be dancing. I’d prepared something brief; making speeches was far from my favorite part of politics, but I told myself that after having to do so in front of a council of Ardentine nobles who thought I was a murderer, a friendly Callamornish audience should be easy.

  My grandmother’s speech came first, delivered in a great ringing voice to a rapt audience. She welcomed me formally back to Callamorne and spoke of the strong bond her son had forged between his own country and the Serene Empire. It was novel hearing the alliance phrased as my father’s political coup, rather than my mother’s, and I wished with a pang that I could ask him for his side of the story.

  The queen gathered momentum to a stirring conclusion. “We stand now in the face of a storm we have weathered many times before.” Her voice reverberated in the very bones of her listeners, with a power that had cut across the chaos of battlefields. “You know the legends that say when the Witchwall Mountains turn red at sunset, it is with the blood of our mothers and fathers and grandparents: all those who laid down their lives to stop the Witch Lords in the passes. Again and again, through great sacrifice we have prevailed—barely.” She held up a hand. “But this time, at last, we do not fight alone.”

  It took a while for the wild, enthusiastic cheering to die down. Roland went next, reading his dry speech from handwritten notes, sweat beading on his temples. They applauded him anyway, and he smiled out over the crowd, but when he returned to my side at the back of the royal dais, he groaned, “I think I’m going to throw up.”

  Bree led the hall in a rousing rendition of the Ballad of Ironblood Bridge instead of a speech, which my grandmother suffered through with admirable composure, though her jaw twitched at the more extravagant descriptions of her heroism. And then finally it was my turn.

  Raverran politics tended more toward backroom deals, so I hadn’t had to make formal speeches often. But my mother had told me that the shortest speech was always popular. I’d scribbled out a few lines earlier in the day, when Roland had warned me I wouldn’t escape the tradition; after seeing Roland’s lukewarm reading, however, I decided to say something from the heart instead. It might not be very Raverran, but after all, I was here because I was Callamornish, too.

  I stepped to the front of the dais. A sea of faces looked up at me, expectant, anxious, hopeful. Waiting to see what the Empire had to say.

  I took a breath and pushed my voice out from deep in my belly. “You know me as Amalia Cornaro. But I am here today as a Lochaver.”

  Enthusiastic cheers rose up at once from the crowd. My grandmother’s popularity ensured that the mere mention of the name Lochaver was enough to start most Callamornish folk waving flags. I swallowed, emboldened, and continued. “Twenty years ago, Callamorne honored the Serene Empire with a great trust, by placing its future in Raverra’s hands. Today, I am here to repay that trust.” More cheering. A warm, giddy feeling rushed up within me. “The Falcons stand with you, with their cunning and their fury.” Wild cheers. “The Serene Navy sails with you, with all its speed and power. The imperial army stands with you, with its might and muskets. And I stand with you.” The cheering swelled to a roar.

  I was ready to go on, but my grandmother caught my arm. “That will do,” she murmured. “Let’s let them move on to the drinking and dancing.”

  When the cheering began to die down, my grandmother lifted her hands to quiet the hall. Bree and Roland stepped up beside her, and we smiled out over the sea of eager faces, everyone waiting for her to call an end to formalities and command the festivities to begin in earnest.

  In a far corner of the hall, I spotted Kathe, returned from whatever business had drawn him away. A swirl of winter air might as well surround him, given how people drew back as he made his way through the crowd. He caught my eye, determi
nation on his face, and mouthed something disturbingly like Look out.

  The queen drew in a breath. But before she could make her declaration, a herald’s voice cut across the crowd, faltering in the middle and coming to a hoarse finish.

  “Announcing the Lady of Thorns, Witch Lord of Sevaeth.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Every head in the hall swiveled to stare at the Lady of Thorns. She stood framed in the archway beside the herald, an aloof smile curving her lips. She wore a robe of emerald velvet, trimmed with traditionally jagged Vaskandran embroidery in black and gold; its long train flowed behind her as she descended the steps, like a fall of water. Her eyes fixed on the queen, mage mark shining with poisonous virulence.

  Marcello and Lienne moved to position themselves between the Lady of Thorns and their Falcons, hands near weapons; the royal guard shifted to close around the dais where we stood. A current ran through the crowd, like the receding tide drawing the water away by any channel it could reach, as the Lady of Thorns swept toward us. Callamornish dignitaries drew back from her with pale faces and stony stares. The force of her presence ran before and around her like a great wave, the pressure of it almost unbearable. Her boots rang sharply in the silence.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Roland clasp Bree’s hand. Ancient, animal instincts screamed at me to flee from the malevolent intensity of the Witch Lord’s gaze as she stopped before us, but I held my ground.

  “You are bold, Lady, to arrive here without notice or invitation when your armies are camped on my border.” My grandmother’s voice rang out, cold and forbidding.

  The dais, her own height, and the crown sitting upon her pinned-up braids placed her above the Witch Lord of Sevaeth, and the radiance of the lamps and luminaries struck gleams from the metal accents set into her armorlike bodice. But the sheer malevolent energy pouring off the Lady of Thorns made her seem more real, somehow, more solid and sharp and dangerous, and I was suddenly afraid for my grandmother.

  The Lady of Thorns spread her arms wide. “Consider this a day of great fortune, Galanthe Lochaver.” Her voice held a silken sweetness but carried a power and menace that smothered the room. “For I am moved with uncommon mercy. I come to you with an offer of peace.”

  I found myself rather skeptical of both the supposed mercy and the offered peace. My grandmother must have felt the same, because her eyes narrowed. Murmurs ran through the crowd. Whatever they had expected, it wasn’t this.

  “If you wish peace,” the queen said in a voice of iron, “all you need to do is refrain from invading us.”

  The Lady of Thorns smiled. “Such restraint does not come without a price.” She held out an open hand, the motion rippling the fine dark velvet of her sleeve. “I will withdraw my forces from your border and leave your country alone. Even the occasional raiding parties and wandering chimeras to which you are accustomed will cease. But in return, you must cede to me the northern quarter of your domain, along the Sevaeth border.”

  I glanced at Roland, shocked. What kind of arrogance brought her all the way to Callamorne with an offer like that? He shook his head, face stiff with anger.

  “Will you.” The queen’s hand rested on the pommel of the entirely serviceable sword strapped to her side.

  “I will make this offer once.” The Lady of Thorns’ smile broadened, her eyes gleaming, as if she knew a secret. “Reject it at your peril, Queen of Callamorne. If you do, know that I will take your country anyway—but I’ll destroy your family, first.”

  The muttering in the crowd took on an edge of anger, but no one dared raise a voice or take a step toward the Lady of Thorns. She stood with an insolent unconcern, holding in contempt the very idea that she should offer deference to her enemy while standing alone within her seat of power.

  I glanced from the Lady of Thorns’ serene smirk to my grandmother’s face, hard as granite. She had to say no. I couldn’t imagine her entertaining such an insulting offer. But the moment stretched on, dragging my nerves tighter with it.

  At my side, Bree stared murder at the Lady of Thorns, her fists half-raised. Roland put on an impassive face, but the faint sound of his teeth grinding reached my ears.

  “You dare,” the queen said, her voice soft as death. “You dare come before me and make threats against my family in my own castle.”

  “Do you refuse my offer, then?” The Lady of Thorns sounded almost bored.

  “I think so little of your offer I do not deign even to spit on it.” The queen took a step forward, to the edge of the dais. “Callamorne does not fear you. Callamorne has withstood Vaskandran assaults for hundreds of years, and by the strength of our arms and the will of the Graces, we will continue to do so!”

  A ragged cheer rose up from the crowd. Bree muttered, “Damned right we will.”

  “Are you certain that is your answer?” The Lady of Thorns’ voice held a cold edge, like a knife to the throat.

  “I have nothing more to say to you,” my grandmother said.

  “So be it.” Her offering hand swept down with the finality of a scythe blade.

  All the guards in the great hall leveled muskets and pikes at her. But she simply swirled a circle of shimmering green velvet and began stalking away, her three blond braids swinging behind her.

  Then she paused and held out one hand, almost as an afterthought, as if waiting to be helped into a carriage.

  “It’s unfortunate we couldn’t resolve this peacefully,” she said sweetly. “But then, that’s not really why I came.”

  A few tiny black specks dropped from her fingers to the floor.

  “Damnation,” my grandmother whispered, the color draining from her face.

  Seeds. Hell of Disaster. Those were seeds.

  The Lady of Thorns resumed walking. Behind her, green-black tendrils shot up from the floor, a whipping nest of bramble vines unfurling with terrifying speed. Stone buckled as the thorn tree put down roots, and barbed branches reached hungrily toward the dais where we stood.

  I scuttled backward with a yelp, clutching instinctively at my flare locket. Guards leaped forward, hacking at the rapidly growing thorns with their pikes. My grandmother drew her sword and stepped up to meet the writhing branches, cutting a couple off with capable ease.

  “Zaira?” I asked sharply.

  She shook her head in clear frustration. “With that thing flailing around, I’d light up the whole room and everyone in it.”

  The desperate energy of fear and anger pounded through my blood, demanding action, but there was nothing I could do. My flare locket was useless against an enemy with no eyes, and I didn’t have the skill with weapons to help fight off the swelling tangle of vicious black briars.

  Bree and Roland had joined the fray, and I could see across the hall that Lienne and Marcello had backed into a corner with Terika and Istrella, the better to keep them safe; Istrella was pointing at the runic wards circling the hall windows and yelling something, trying to get her brother’s attention, but he had his hands full deflecting branches with his rapier. The Lady of Thorns had vanished in the confusion. The bulk of the proliferating thorns reached for the royal dais, building above and around us like a breaking black wave of a thousand arboreal claws. It was huge, and horrifyingly wrong, and everything in my sensible Raverran soul rebelled against it in shocked disbelief.

  One snaking tendril arced toward me over the guards’ heads, dagger-sized thorns whistling as they cut the air. I flinched from it, raising my arms in a futile effort to protect my face.

  Kathe hopped up on the dais, lightly as a landing bird, and reached casually for the oncoming branch. He looked nearly bored; he might as well have been getting a jar of jam down off a shelf.

  All it took was a brush of his fingertips. The branch withered to a crumpled nothing, coming to rest at my feet.

  I stared at its curling brown emptiness, then up at Kathe, my heart still racing painfully in my chest. He shrugged, feathers rustling.

  “I came to warn you that
the Lady of Thorns had gotten into the castle, but I see you already know.”

  His words fell into an unexpected silence, where a moment ago there had been yelling and crashing and the clang of weapons. Past his shoulder, the great thorn tree had gone suddenly still. Then, with a tremendous clattering like a spill of bones, it shuddered and collapsed all at once. Its sprawling tendrils covered half the hall.

  The crowd stared, for a moment, harsh breaths scraping at the silence. Then a few guards stabbed at the branches with their halberds. It didn’t move.

  “Did you kill it?” I asked Kathe. It came out half a gasp. I realized I was clutching Zaira’s sleeve, and let her go.

  “The Lady of Thorns declined to keep it alive. She got what she came for,” he said ominously.

  “What, to piss on the queen’s floor?” Zaira snorted her contempt.

  “No.” Kathe’s gaze slid sideways, to where my grandmother wiped sap off her sword with the corner of a velvet drape.

  Bree and Roland stood with her, faces grim; the guard captain reached toward a cut on the queen’s cheek, but she twitched out of the way as if avoiding an annoying fly.

  “The cut … it’s not poisoned?” I turned desperately to Kathe, already running through alchemical antidotes in my mind.

  But he shook his head. “She needed a taste of Lochaver blood. Like giving a scent to hounds. Now she can set every living thing in her domain against your grandmother and her heirs.”

  The queen heard that and came striding over, drawing Bree and Roland with her. Meanwhile, the other Falcons and Falconers had hurried to the dais; Lienne still had her sword out, while Istrella shook her head in something like disgust.

  “I’m grateful for your assistance, Crow Lord,” my grandmother said, her curt tone suggesting a certain grudging quality to her gratitude. “What can we expect?”

  “Oh, some manner of mayhem, I presume.” He shrugged. “Suffice to say I wouldn’t get too close to the Sevaeth border if I were a Lochaver. Everything from wasps to wolves will try to murder you.”