The Broken Realm

by Sarah M. Cradit

  “What is it now, Correen?” he replied without turning. “Don’t tell me. This is about the court again, isn’t it?”

  “You’re aggravated with me. You wish I would stop bringing this up, that it’s all I ever come to you with.”

  “Yes, you do, and yes, I wish that.”

  “And I will, when you take heed to my counsel. You always followed my wisdom as a boy, and I cannot see why you won’t do it now, for I have lived twice what you have. I remember how things were not only under our father, but our grandfather. What is a king without a court? Without merriment? Without a council?”

  “Merriment is a word that sounds foreign on your tongue. Do you even know the meaning?”

  “If Father were here—”

  Eoghan spun around. “But he is not. And there are no rules that a king must do what those before him did. What good is merriment? What do I care if others around me experience joy? Why should it be incumbent upon me to provide it?” He lowered his hood. “As for council, I would first have to trust enough men to fill one.”

  * * *

  Holden shielded his bleary eyes against the assault of moonlight spilling across his vision intermittently as Gretchen paced his bedchamber. She’d started in on him when he was still half pulled to slumber, but that didn’t mean he’d missed anything, for she was going on and on, echoing the same words over and over in repetition.

  “There. Stand there,” he murmured.

  “What? Do what?” Gretchen demanded. She whipped her gaze back to him.

  “Nothing.” Holden grimaced through closed eyes and propped himself up against the dense wood of this bed. “Sit down. Your pacing has my heart ready for battle.”

  Gretchen could have struck him dead with the look she leveled on him. He was often grateful she didn’t possess that power. He might be a disappointment to her, but he’d live to disappoint her another day.

  In the end, she sat. Agitated. Fidgeting.

  “Start over, my dearest. Slower this time, so that your words may wash over me like a fresh spring morning.”

  “Do I seem as if I’m in the mood for your ill-timed humor?”

  Holden’s attempt at a smile faded. “There was a time when it would calm you.”

  “If there was, my memory is no longer capable of conjuring it.”

  Holden waved a hand. “Fine. What is it that has you so harried at this early hour?”

  “Our allies in the cave have been compromised.”

  “They what? Compromised how?”

  “Their position has been discovered.”

  “By whom?”

  “By the meddling Ravenwoods. Oh, I knew that wasn’t the last we’d seen of that slippery Varinya!”

  Holden was just then grateful that his wife had stopped paying mind to the little changes in him, for she’d certainly missed the flush in his cheeks at the mention of his first love. He’d take the memory of her ivory skin brushing over his to his tomb, and Varinya would never tell another. They’d never taken things as far as he had so desperately wanted, but it was love that stilled his passion for the young raven whose future had already been decided. Gretchen wasn’t the only one who’d brought the ghost of an ill-fated past into the marriage.

  “How do you know this?”

  “The Ravenwood boy, Alasyr, told Emberley.”

  “He told her? Are they friends now?”

  “No! Of course not.”

  “Then how did this conversation come about?”

  “Does it matter? They know, Holden. They know.”

  “If the Ravenwoods know,” Holden said, measuring his words with caution, “then I would counter it makes our allies more safe, not less.”

  “More?” Gretchen stammered, nearly choking on the word. “More safe? They are more safe with enchanters who can fly this news anywhere in the kingdom?”

  “To what end, Gretchen? The Ravenwoods rely on our alliance for survival. Spreading this information beyond our borders would invite the very last thing they want.”

  “Our secret has spread. That makes it no longer one.”

  Holden leaned closer to his wife. He forced himself not to cringe at the way she recoiled. He often wondered if it was one or many moments that had led her to this derision of him, but he knew how to spot a lost cause and regaining her respect had been lost for many years. “There are many things you are wise on, Gretchen. Even I cannot deny this, and I would not, for you have earned your place here, as my equal. But the relationship shared between the Derehams and Ravenwoods is more ancient than you or me, and while you tolerate it, you have never understood it. Never. You turn your nose when you face the north. You cannot even say their name without a light curl in your lip. They are safe, because of us. We are safer, because of them. This is our way, and will always be our way. If the Ravenwoods have spotted our allies in the cave, then they are either curious, or in some way helping to ensure it remains a secret to all who would bring us harm.”

  “Hold—”

  “No, Gretchen. I will grudgingly defer to you on many things, but not this. Not this thing you cannot understand and have never tried to. We will not send warning over the pass. It will only lead to more problems. We stay to the course we plotted together. That is all I’ll say on the matter.”

  Holden enjoyed the contortions in his wife’s face as she mulled over the way he’d taken back some of his authority. He relished more the slow realization falling over her that, this time, she would not be getting it back.

  For, this time, she was wrong.

  * * *

  “Does he know?”

  “He thinks he knows. He knows very little. He knows less than his forebears.”

  The face peering back from the water nodded. “He is like a child, is he not? But a child answers to their parents. He answers to no one.”

  “His whims can be brought to heel. But only if he stays in the dark, where he belongs. Where his forebears lived most comfortably.”

  “And you are keeping him in the dark?”

  “He suspects I parcel information like sweetmeats, giving him enough to slake his appetite and no more.”

  “Then he is not a complete fool.”

  “Let him have his suspicions. He knows nothing. He wants what I know badly enough that he is willing to overlook it. He understands that is the price.”

  “For now.”

  “Yes. For now. I will consider what needs to be done when he grows weary of it. As I did with his father.”

  “You were fortunate with Khain. You couldn’t harm him, but you didn’t need to. The illness took care of that.”

  “I deserve more credit than that, do you not think? He begged me to heal him. I denied him that.”

  The face in the water shimmered in annoyance. “I have no care of the fate of a man long dead. The time is upon us, as was long foretold, and if we cannot see this plan through to the bitter end, then we will not again have such an opportunity.”

  “It will happen. We have seen it. We know the way. I have no care what the boy king does or does not know. His knowledge will change nothing.”

  “Pray that his suspicions do not impede with us drawing the three from their veil of safety.”

  “She protects them.”

  “She knows we look for them. But I cannot see the fourth. You must also keep looking for this one, searching your own visions.”

  “I have, to no joy. It’s as if there’s an enchantment over him. Over all of them. If not for your link to the Saleen we would not have known the three had passed the Drumain veil, nor even of their existence. Would not have known of a fourth.”

  “If there is an enchantment, it comes from the very same who so carefully crafted their existence.”

  “But they are beyond our detection.”

  “Yes, and? They created the four without a whisper of premonition from either of us. Neither of us saw the boy live, taken away, and grow to make more of himself, more of—”

  “Is this, also, the work o
f our brother and sister? Have they at last returned?”

  The face in the water darkened. “Two can never again be four. They saw to that decades before with their treachery. Should they return, their removal will take precedence over more important matters.”

  “Knowing now what they are capable of, they may already be here.”

  15

  Two Seals

  Corin read the words four times. He even rerolled the vellum and approached the scroll with fresh eyes, to ensure what he’d read was not a sleight of magic, or his own fears manifesting some new strange reality.

  “Yesenia.” He stood behind his wife. The steam from her bath rose forth and tickled his nose. She only murmured in response, and he realized she’d fallen asleep.

  He dropped down beside her. Her obsidian waves fell into delicious curls against the cypress basin. “Yesenia. My love. We’ve talked about this. You could drown.”

  Her sleepy smile made him reconsider telling her about the message. He yearned to drop into the warm water beside her and take her in his arms, be lost to the delightful sound of her giggles against his ear as he let his hands search out her favorite places. She was not afraid of pleasure. Of giving or receiving. He hated the Rhiagains for many reasons, but his animosity softened when he remembered they’d given him the gift of Yesenia Warwick.

  “I won’t drown. I’m a Warwick. One with salt and sand, remember?”

  “There’s no salt in this bath except you.”

  “Why do you look like that? As if you’ve eaten plums by accident?”

  Corin winced at the memory of the last time he’d mistakenly eaten a dish with the wretched fruit inside. He’d been at the privy for days. Yesenia’s amusement at the event seemed to have no end. “We have to talk.”

  Yesenia slid upward, alert now. She looked around and then leaned toward him. “Here? There are ears.”

  Corin unrolled the vellum, slowly, carefully. He held it out for her to read, and then, when she at last looked up, wearing the same startled expression he must have when the words settled into his mind, he pressed a finger to his lips.

  “But this makes no sense,” Yesenia hissed, in a low whisper. She read the words again before handing the scroll back to him. “Can this have really come from the king?”

  “It bears his seal,” Corin said, voice as low as hers. “It seems we were right after all. Aiden overplayed his favor.”

  He again looked down upon the words.

  Your brother has caused me great displeasure, and is not fit to rule the Easterlands. It is my command that, at a time of my choosing, you, Corin Quinlanden, second eldest, will take his place and assume this role. For now, these words are for you alone, and if shared, your life, and that of your wife and son, will be forfeit and I will pass the mantle of leadership on to someone more grateful for the gift. For the present, I have made the request that your guard be eased and you be allowed to proffer leadership in your brother’s stead, though all military command will come from me alone.

  “When it was delivered, I saw no guards in the hall.”

  “That doesnae mean they aren’t there, Corin.”

  “I love when you speak to me as your brother would.”

  Yesenia gave him a playful smack. “And what if this is a trap? What if we are being led?”

  “Whether his words are true, the offer is most certainly a trap,” Corin whispered. “Because I can serve The Pretender no more than I can serve my brother. And what of Cian? Does he really mean to pass him over? And if so, are we expected to sit back and allow it?”

  “A dilemma indeed.” Yesenia nodded. “I wish it were safe to send this to my brother. He deserves to know what’s happened in Duncarrow. That both our enemies have been weakened.”

  “The raven wouldn’t make it out of the castle.”

  “Aye.” Yesenia sighed, slipping again into the water. “What do you think he’s told the others?

  “The others?”

  “If the king sent us a raven, when we were not expecting one, surely he’s also sent one to those who have been? Those awaiting Aiden’s word? And if he has, we need to know what he’s told them.”

  Corin exhaled into a light gasp. “You’re brilliant. Of course he has. Now, how do we get our hands upon one?”

  * * *

  Mads waited for the sorcerer to complete his morning routine. He didn’t know what foul magic the creature employed, and didn’t want to. His job was to protect Mortain in these fleeting, fragile moments where he was most vulnerable. When that daily task was done, he wouldn’t need to even speak to him again until the next morning.

  He didn’t like Mortain. He didn’t need him. Lord Quinlanden knew this, and Mads suspected his lord felt the same, for he grew very solemn whenever Mads broached the subject. Mads thought his lord was afraid, even, though Aiden would die before admitting such a thing.

  But Mads needed the sorcerer now, for something was wrong. Very wrong.

  “There,” Mortain said with a dusting of his hands and a light smile, as if he’d just tidied his room. “Now. What leaves you with this constipated look you offer me?”

  Mads bit his tongue, not responding as he’d most like to. Not once, nor even twice, but three times Lord Quinlanden had chided him for his lack of respect toward the sorcerer, and though his lord was not here now, Mads was leading in his stead and would act accordingly. “I’d like your outlook.”

  “Hardly a cloud, and that wind is so delightful.”

  Mads sighed inwardly. “We’ve at last had word from Lord Quinlanden.”

  Mortain’s eyes twinkled. “Have we? Now that is a pleasant surprise! And why do you not look as if this pleases you?”

  “Something is wrong. Read it for yourself.” Mads thrust the scroll at Mortain. “Perhaps you can use your... whatever it is you use to ascertain the problem.”

  “Ah, let’s see. ‘All is well in Duncarrow. The king is a most pleasant host and I could not ever thank him enough for offering of me all the delights of court. So much so that I have lost the thread of time, and been remiss in my communications home.’” Mortain regarded him over the vellum. “Seems pleasing enough.”

  “Read on.”

  “Here we are. ‘I regret that we still have much to discuss, and so my return will be further delayed. I leave you with the following command. Leave your men in position, but stay their hand from violence or an eye to battle. Their presence should inspire peace, not fear, and if I hear of any going against this order, their decision will be treated as treasonous. Until I am with you again, be my eyes and mouth in this matter. Lord Quinlanden.’ I don’t see what has you so twisted about, Waters. This all seems perfectly reasonable to me.”

  Mads gaped at him. “Reasonable?” He gestured wildly toward the Medvedev, wandering about the forest in an enchanted daze. “Before he sailed for Duncarrow, he was crying war! He was building an army, one bigger than any before it, and even that was not enough! Now he wants peace?”

  “Perhaps his time with the king has been illuminating,” Mortain said lightly, his deep red robe swimming around his bony wrists as he gestured at nothing. “Even with an army such as ours, there is a time for war and a time to stay the hand.”

  “This was your idea!”

  “One of my very finest,” Mortain said with a bright smile. “But I am patient, and so it seems, is your lord, as he has seen the prudence in easing off for now. And so we will follow his direction.”

  Mads’ cheeks flushed with incredulous frustration. He couldn’t believe it, any of it. Not his lord’s words, not this devious sorcerer’s easy acceptance of them. None of it fit in with the man he knew Aiden Quinlanden to be. “Then I’ll sail to Duncarrow and hear him say the words myself.”

  “If I were Lord Quinlanden, I would take that to mean you don’t trust in his leadership.”

  “He knows I trust him. But I cannot help but wonder—”

  “Then trust him,” Mortain said. With a swish of crimson, he spun and left
him.

  * * *

  Clarissant Tyndall hovered at the door of the Round Room, one eye to the outside and one to the inside. For the moment, the crimson and gold was not their concern, but it would be. But it had come to them, in another way, in the form of Stirling Oakenwell.

  “You cannot speak with him!” she cried to Griffath when he mounted his horse, headed for the Round Room. “If he is deceiving us, we are lost! If he is a traitor, then we are equally lost!”

  “Look around you, Rissa,” Griffath had said from atop his horse. “Do you see anyone come to save us? Do you see the men at Greystone returned, with a plan to end this?”

  “They need time is all, time for—”

  “Time they take is time The Deceiver takes as well. If my brother were here, he would remind us that the Guardians do not make mistakes. Oakenwell’s defection is a gift, one we would be fools to turn away.”

  Clarissant didn’t like for her husband to see her cry, but she wouldn’t look away from him, either. “If this puts our children at risk of further pain...”

  Griffath’s gloved hand reached down to caress her cheek. “If I detect even an ounce of deception from the man, I’ll have his head before he can finish his words. Now come, wife, and hear what he has to say yourself, for I trust your counsel on the matter.”

  So she had. She’d followed, both listening to the words within and straining for the signs of any without.

  “I know you have no reason to trust me,” Oakenwell was saying. “I would not, were I standing where you are.”

  “Then why should I?”

  “Because I am showing you what neither Lord Quinlanden nor the king would ever want you to see.” Oakenwell slapped a roll of vellum onto the desk. “Read it yourself, Steward Tyndall. Quinlanden is ordering peace, you’ll see, but those are not his words. You can be certain of it.”

  Clarissant loved her husband for the deeply skeptical look he gave Oakenwell as he unrolled the vellum and read.