“Around your father,” Cameria finished gently.
“Yes.”
“Have you visited him lately, Majesty? I know it vexes you to do so, but . . .” Cameria shook her head. “I know not why I continue to suggest it.”
Braith looked away. “I saw him two days past. He was unchanged. The only word he says to me is traitor.”
“I am sorry, my lady.”
Braith shrugged. “My troubles with my father must be left in the past. At present, the peasant riots throughout the empire are more pressing.”
“Indeed.”
“And perhaps there is no hope there, either. Perhaps they will never accept me on the throne of Tir. I am my father’s daughter, after all.”
“In name, not practice.” Cameria paused. “My lady, would you forgive a very forward suggestion from me?”
“Really, Cameria.” Her faithful Meridioni maid never would dispense with formality, it seemed.
“Majesty, I believe it’s time you hold your first official council meeting. You have appointed your councilors at last. It’s been nearly a moon since your father fell. It is time. Perhaps this return to the normal order would ease the peasants’ ire and make them feel as though Tir is once again under firm control.”
“I’m not sure the rioters will feel fully settled until they see my head on a pike alongside my father’s. But I believe you are right. It is time I start acting like a queen, even if I don’t much feel like one.”
A small smile broke across Cameria’s face. “And perhaps make it to the royal table for breakfast tomorrow morning?”
“Yes.” Braith laughed. “I suppose I can manage it.”
A knock sounded at the outer chamber door.
Cameria rose. “I sent the other servants down to dine. I’ll answer it.”
Braith tidied her place setting, then rose. She brushed her hip-length hair from her shoulders and sighed. She would have to take Cameria’s advice about hiring new beauticians soon, since Trini and her assistants, along with half the servants, had fled the palace when Gareth was deposed.
“My lord!” Cameria’s voice, surprise evident, floated back to Braith.
Braith recognized the man’s soft, raspy tone.
“Forgive me.” His speech was getting easier and freer with each day that passed, but a few weeks couldn’t undo thirteen years spent hidden in secret passageways within the palace walls. Yestin Bo-Arthio, former First General of Tir.
“My lord, what are you doing here?” Cameria’s voice had risen to a scandalized pitch. “Her Majesty is not yet dressed!”
“Forgive me. This could not wait.”
“My lord?”
“We received news. Royal table.” He cleared his throat. “At breakfast.”
Braith hurried into the outer chamber. “News? What news, Sir Yestin?”
At the sight of Braith, Yestin turned away. “Forgive me, Your Majesty.”
Braith glanced down at her nightclothes and dressing gown. “Please don’t trouble yourself over my state of dress if there is urgent news, Sir Yestin. I should have been dressed hours ago.”
“Yes, Majesty.” He turned back to Braith, and his eyes brimmed with sympathy. “Majesty. I’m sorry to be the one.”
“The one?”
“To deliver such news.”
Braith gripped the back of a chair and braced herself. “Please do so quickly.”
Yestin drew a full breath. He seemed also to be bracing himself. “Your father.”
“Yes?”
“He was found dead in his cell this morning.”
Braith’s knees buckled beneath her.
The others rushed to the queen’s side. “Your Majesty!” Cameria cried.
Yestin looped his arm around Braith’s waist and held her as she swayed on her feet. “Shall I take you to your room?”
“No.” Braith swallowed hard. “I’ll just . . . sit here.”
Yestin eased her into the chair, then crouched before her and took her hand. “My deepest sympathies, Majesty.”
“Did he . . . I mean, how did . . .” Her words faltered.
“I don’t know, Majesty. The night guard swears he did not sleep. No disturbances, except the usual muttering. The morning guard found him.”
“Was he . . . was he murdered?”
“There’s no way to say yet, Majesty.”
Braith drew a deep breath and steadied her voice. “Cameria, please order the finest colormasters you can find to examine the cell.”
Yestin’s face registered surprise. “As in the days of Caradoc?”
“Yes. It is time to reinstate the weavers to their former positions,” Braith said firmly. “If any remain. My father’s regime sent most of them into hiding, but I believe he kept a few weavers in his employ. See if you can find them or any others who might still be around, and have them do this task. At least two of them, Cameria. Four or five, if you can manage it.”
Braith turned to Yestin. “Sir, I have a favor to ask of you.”
“Anything, Majesty.”
“The young captain who requested a ship from my naval fleet.”
“Mor Bo-Lidere.”
“Yes. He has quite a quest marked out, I understand.”
“Yes. The four corners of the world.”
“Accompany him. Bring this news of my father’s death to the outlying areas of the Empire—Haribi, Meridione, Minasimet, and the Spice Islands. Act as my official envoy, and bring a letter marked with my seal informing our neighbors that I now sit on the throne of Tir.”
“Of course, Majesty.”
“And also this—tell them they are once again our neighbors and no longer our subjects. As my first official act as queen, I am reestablishing the sovereignty of these nations.”
Yestin stared. “Majesty, I . . .” His words trailed off, unfinished.
“My lady.” Cameria dropped to her knees before Braith’s chair. “Do you mean this? Freedom for my people and the others enslaved under Gareth?”
“I have never meant anything more in my life.”
Cameria’s response was swallowed in a teary sob.
Braith squeezed her friend’s hand. “This isn’t how I wanted to tell you. I wanted a joyous celebration and a grand announcement. But this will have to do.”
Cameria paused, and a shadow crossed her face. She glanced at the window. The sound of peasants shouting only just carried into the room from the palace gates.
“Ah, yes,” Braith said. “The peasants.”
“The riots will double,” Cameria said. “Triple, perhaps, if you give back all the land your father conquered.”
“Yes, I expect they will.”
Yestin rose and collected himself. “I’ll leave you now. I must prepare.” He bowed. “Majesty. Lady Cameria.”
Cameria saw him to the door. Braith stared at the wall until the sound of the heavy latch dropping back into place caused her to jump.
Cameria hurried over to her. “Majesty, please, let me help you. Do you wish to lie down? More tea, perhaps?”
“My mother used to believe tea could solve everything.” Braith’s tone was bitter. “I wonder where she is now. If she lives, she will hear of her husband’s death with the rest of Tir, I suppose.”
“One never knows, Majesty,” Cameria replied. “Perhaps she cannot return to the palace. We do not have to assume the worst of Lady Frenhin.”
“We knew her well, so we might always assume the worst.” Braith sighed. “Forgive me. That was unkind. I’m . . . upset.”
“Understandably.” Cameria helped Braith to her feet. “Do you require some water? Something to eat?”
“No. I shall ready myself for the oncoming storm.” Braith smiled wryly. “Or at least for council. Please send messengers with the news that we shall hold an evening council. Today. It’s unorthodox, to be sure, but what isn’t these days?”
“Very well, Majesty. I’ll prepare your gown, if you wish.”
“Thank you, Cameria.”
<
br /> With Cameria’s worried gaze still fixed on her, Braith retreated to her private bedroom. She closed the door behind herself and leaned against it, staring up at the ceiling beams.
And then Braith wept.
CHAPTER FOUR
TANWEN
“I don’t care what you agreed to. I ain’t lettin’ you go, Tannie!”
“Letting me? Letting me!” My voice carried all the way down the palace hallway, and I cared less than a hathberry in a hailstorm. “Since when do you have that sort of say over me, Brac Bo-Bradwir? Letting me, as if you were my . . . my . . .”
“Your father?” Brac folded his arms across his chest, triumph scribbled all over his handsome, sunburned, stupid, bearded face. “Aye, that’s an idea. Let’s ask your father what he thinks about this whole thing. I doubt he’s keen to let his daughter go gallivanting around the globe with a pirate.”
“He’s not a pirate! He’s the captain of a ship!”
“Well, now you’re just sorting sniffler fur.”
“There’s an enormous difference between a pirate and a ship captain. When was the last time you captained anything except a wax-bean cart down a Pembroni alley?”
He recoiled. “Oh, so that’s it, is it? You think he’s better than me.”
Oops.
“That is not what I said, Brac.”
“You didn’t have to. It’s there, plain as pie on your face.”
I rubbed my eyes and sighed. “Can we talk about this later?” I glanced around the hallway. “I’m sure we’re disturbing . . . someone important.”
“No, we’ll talk about this now, and I don’t give a flying fluff-hopper who we’re disturbing. You wouldn’t talk to me in your private chambers, and I practically had to chase you out the door, you left so fast.”
Aye, that had rather been the point of leaving. To avoid this conversation.
I took off down the hall again. “Don’t you have to report for guard duty, or something?”
“On medical leave until next week, earliest. I was stabbed in the gut, you’ll remember. Guess you would have liked to see that job finished, eh?”
“Oh, shove it. If I’d wanted to, I could have poisoned or maimed you just about every day of your life. I knew exactly where you slept, you’ll remember. And I still do, so how about you mind your nibbles and nackles?”
In spite of everything, Brac chuckled.
But I didn’t want matters to get confused with warmth and nostalgia. “There’s nothing you can say to change my mind, Brac. I’m going with Mor and the others, and that’s the end of it.”
He flared right back up. “It ain’t the end of nothin’!” His Tirian got worse when he was angry. “I’m your betrothed, and I have some say here if anyone does.”
“Aye, about that . . .” But my objection stopped in my throat. I eyed that blasted spot on Brac’s tunic, under which his bandages had been just a few days before. Was he ready to have that conversation yet? Would he ever be healed enough for me to tell him I didn’t love him like a wife should love her husband?
Blazes. How had I gotten myself into this mess?
Because he was dying. I had thought I was giving him a final moment of joy and peace before he slipped from this life. Instead, Warmil and Karlith saved him, and now we were engaged. I was glad they had saved him, of course. My heart would break to lose my best friend in the world since as far back as I could remember. But my acceptance of his proposal hadn’t been genuine. It had been borne of pity—rash and foolish.
And if I ever told him so, I didn’t think he’d recover from it.
“Tannie! You listening?”
I jumped. “Oh. Not really.”
He rolled his eyes. “Figured.” He stepped toward me, grabbed my hands, and looked into my eyes in a way that wouldn’t have made my skin crawl a couple moons ago. But now I felt like I was covered in scuttlebugs. Everything was so mixed up.
“Tannie, ain’t no one has loved you better than me your whole life. Ain’t that true?”
I thought of Father. He had loved me, truly, but he’d been locked away for so many years. Cut off from everyone, including me. I hardly knew the man.
Brac had been there. Always.
“Aye, Brac. I know.” I glared steel at him. “But that doesn’t mean you get to make my choices for me.”
An image of Brac hog-tying me and plunking me before an altar popped into my head.
Creator preserve me.
He sighed, but it by no means signaled defeat. “Tannie, honestly. You’re the most impossible lass who ever breathed. If I don’t have say over your life, who does?”
“Me, possibly,” a new voice intruded.
Father. And the sound of his voice nearly sent me jumping from my skin. I whirled around to see him leaning against the stone wall of the hallway, all gray-bearded and solemn.
“Father. What are you doing here?”
“Coming to see you. But I heard you a league off.”
Heat rose in my face. “Just having a discussion with Brac.”
“So I heard.”
Hotter heat. Why did his piercing gaze make me squirm? “Having a bit of a disagreement.”
“Aye, that’s right,” Brac cut in. “Maybe you can talk some sense into her about that pirate, sir. We respect your thoughts on everything, o’ course.”
I spun around and glowered at Brac. Kissing up to my father? The sniveling, dirty tactic didn’t suit him.
Father didn’t respond directly. “Tanwen, Bo-Bradwir. I have dark news.”
I turned back to him. “Dark news? What’s happened?”
“Gareth was found dead in his cell this morning.”
“Dead?” I stared at him, sure I had misheard. “Dead-dead? As in, no longer living?”
“Aye.” Father made to reach out to me, then hesitated and pulled his hand back.
A hundred questions tumbled through my mind. “Was he murdered? Who did it? Does the queen know? She must. Is she all right?”
Father shook his head as if my questions buzzed around him like flies. I forgot. He wasn’t used to human company yet, let alone my league-a-minute rambling.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“Quite all right.” But he didn’t look all right. He looked like he was sifting through my questions with effort. “Not sure what happened. Guards saw nothing. Queen Braith has her people investigating.”
“And the queen . . . is she . . . ?”
“Not well. She is pretending, though.”
And there it was. That was why Father’s piercing gaze made me so uncomfortable. Because the man didn’t just look at you. He looked right through you. There was no hiding anything from him.
Which was why I cringed at his next question.
“Tannie, what’s the trouble with Mor?”
Truly, I had much to hide. How could I say two words about Mor without Father seeing my feelings for him ran deeper than mere friendship? Father had probably already guessed I didn’t harbor a shred of romance in my heart for Brac.
“Nothing is the trouble with Mor,” I said. “It’s Mor’s ship. Brac doesn’t think I should go with the other weavers.”
“I see no reason for it,” Brac added. “It ain’t safe. And it’s all for the sickly one, ain’t it?”
“Gryfelle.” I gritted my teeth. “Her name is Gryfelle. And Mor knows what he’s doing. His father ran a shipping company, and Mor was practically raised on a ship.”
“I don’t care if Cethor herself is captaining the ship. It ain’t safe to go to the four corners of the world, no matter who’s at the helm!”
Brac invoking the name of a goddess. That was rich.
“Mor has captained ships before.”
“Pirated, you mean.”
“Forced into it by Gareth!” I felt like I’d aged twenty years since Brac and I first started having this conversation. “How many times do I have to remind you of that? A lot of decent people were pushed into indecent situations by that tyrant. Mor was ju
st trying to survive.” I turned to Father. “Tell him I can go. Please.”
“Well.” Father looked at us both. “I am going.”
My mouth fell open. “What?”
“The queen has commissioned me as her royal envoy.”
Hope blossomed inside me. “So . . . if you’re going, then of course I’ll go. Right?”
“Well, I—”
“It’s safe. It is. Warmil will be there. He’s a former king’s guard captain. And you don’t really know Aeron yet, but her skill with a blade would make the swordiest swordsman blush. And Dylun will be there in case we need to fend off anyone with a book. And Mor wouldn’t let anything happen to me.” Heat flushed my cheeks again. Because that statement was true enough, but unless I was totally daft, Mor wasn’t only about friendship with me, either.
Brac huffed. “I can’t believe you’re trying to make this sound reasonable. You ain’t that pirate’s first priority, Tannie. He’ll be about that sick lass, you know. You’re extra window dressing, far as he’s concerned.”
“Gryfelle. Her name is Gryfelle!”
“Aye, so you’ve said. Whatever her name is, that’s who Mor will be paying attention to. Not you.”
I could have thrown him out the palace window.
“Are my ears burning?” A fourth voice, and not a welcome one at this exact moment.
At least not in front of Father and Brac. For the fourth voice belonged to none other than the smirky captain in question.
Brac crossed his arms. “Burning your ears?” he muttered under his breath. “That could be arranged.”
I shot him a look, then turned to face Mor. My stomach tightened at the sight of him—cropped dark hair, twinkling blue eyes, the scruffy smatterings of a beard, a gold ring punched through his ear. I didn’t know quite what to say with him standing there, in the flesh.
And then my gift betrayed me. A silky red ribbon poured from one of my hands and curled through the air toward Mor. One heartbeat of pure mortification stuttered in my chest, then I lunged for the strand. I waved the ribbon into mist. And just in time, too. Fry me if the blasted thing wasn’t about to curl itself into a heart right around Mor’s head.
I steeled my will and determined no more strands would come streaming out of me in front of these three. “We were just talking about the trip,” I said quickly to fill the awkward silence.
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