“Our baby? You’re mistaken, Mikael,” I growled. “I already told you the father is no one you know.”
I tried to yank away again, but his fingers dug into my wrist. “We both know that I’m—”
And then there was the crack of a fist on flesh and he was flying through the air. He landed with a thud, flat on his back, a cloud of dust erupting around him. Kaden was upon him, grabbing him by his collar and hauling him to his feet. Molten rage twisted Kaden’s face. “You have a question about the father, soldier, I’m the one to ask! And if you ever lay a hand on Pauline again, it will be more than a split lip I give you.”
Kaden pushed him away, and Mikael stumbled back, then froze. He knew who Kaden was, the Assassin of Venda who could have easily gutted him without making a sound. But more than that, I saw another assumption settling over Mikael’s face. Maybe it was true, maybe he hadn’t been the only one in my life. His inroad to me was gone. He wiped his lip and turned away, disappearing into the milling soldiers.
I saw Kaden’s shoulders heaving as if he was trying to dispel the last of his anger. He told other soldiers who had stopped at the commotion to go back about their business before he finally turned to face me. He brushed the hair from his eyes. “I’m sorry, Pauline. I saw you trying to pull away, and I—” He shook his head. “I know I had no right to intervene or imply that—”
“You already knew who he was?”
He nodded. “Lia told me he was still alive, and I put it together. The same shade of blond as the baby. Your reaction.”
The color on his neck suddenly deepened, as if just realizing his admission—he had been watching me. His eyes bore into mine, and I saw a hundred questions behind them I hadn’t seen before. Would I ever forgive him? Had he gone too far? Was I all right? But mostly I saw the kindness in them I had seen the first time I met him. Silence and dust motes hung in the air between us.
“I’m sorry,” he finally said again, and glanced at his knuckles that were red from the blow to Mikael’s face. “I know you wouldn’t want it to appear that a barbarian Assassin—”
“Will you walk me back to the abbey, Kaden?” I asked. “If you have the time? Just for appearances, in case he’s still watching?”
He looked at me, surprised, perhaps even fearful, but he nodded, and we left for the abbey. Both of us knew that Mikael wasn’t watching.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-SIX
After my aunts and Gwyneth helped me bathe and dress, I shooed everyone from my room. For almost a week now, I had been consumed in meetings with generals, officers, and lords, and today I had addressed more regiments who had arrived after being called back to Civica. I needed one quiet moment. I remembered what Dihara had told me about the gift. The walled in, they starve it just as the Ancients did.… You’re surrounded by the noise of your own making. And there had been a continuous stream of noise, most of it passionate and loud.
Rafe, Kaden, and I led private talks with Generals Howland, Marques, and Perry, Captain Reunaud, the Field Marshal, and Sven and Tavish. I personally greeted General Howland, trying to put our rocky start behind us. Our team of ten gathered maps, made lists, and devised our strategies. Kaden and I told them in vivid detail about the weapons and numbers we faced, a hundred and twenty thousand. When the Field Marshal suggested that the Komizar might divide his forces to attack on many fronts, Kaden assured him he wouldn’t. The Komizar would hit with his full force on Morrighan, ruthlessly plowing his way to Civica to make it a quick decisive victory. I agreed. The Komizar’s blood pulsed with the power this army gave him. He wouldn’t divide it. I remembered his face as he beheld his creation—its immense, crushing impact was a thing of beauty to him.
During our meetings, arguments erupted over everything from timing to routes the Komizar would take to the best ways to arm our soldiers. One thing was clear—we needed more—so that call was sent out too. More weapons, more soldiers. The lords were sent back to their counties with the same orders for recruits and supplies.
All of Morrighan was enlisted in the effort. Metal of all kinds was brought to the forges to repurpose into weapons. Gates, doors, teapots, no item was too small or too important that it couldn’t be used to save the kingdom. The mill was tapped to work around the clock. More wood was needed to build stockades, polearms, and defenses yet to be imagined. Training began as well, the sharing of skills, because it was undeniable that Dalbreck’s soldiers had a refined disipline that would be helpful. Initially this rankled the officers, the prospect of Rafe’s regiment of one hundred soldiers training Morrighese troops, but I snuffed that argument cold, making it clear that pride was not to be an obstacle to our survival, and Rafe smoothed it over, genuinely reaching out for advice from them as well.
I was caught off guard several times when I saw Rafe and Kaden explaining—or arguing—strategies. I saw them both in ways I never had before, in ways that had nothing to do with me. Ways that were all about their own histories and hopes, obligations and goals. I watched Kaden, skillfully skirting questions about the future of Venda even as he plotted to strengthen Morrighan. Some of our battles had to be waged later. They still called him the Assassin, not in a disparaging way but almost as a badge of honor that a Morrighese citizen had infiltrated enemy ranks and now returned to his own with Vendan secrets.
As the days passed, meetings ran long, and tensions ran high, I realized most of the outbursts were not about pride as much as dawning realization of the monumental fight ahead of us—they fully grasped it, including General Howland—and everyone searched for answers that were not easy to find. How does an army of thirty thousand, still scattered across the kingdom, take on one that is a hundred and twenty thousand strong and armed with far deadlier weapons? But we kept trying to find an answer.
When we pulled out maps and unrolled them across the table, I tried to read the Komizar’s mind. I looked at the roads, the hills, the valleys, and walls surrounding Civica. The lines and landmarks blurred, and something faint tapped beneath my breastbone.
The details of our meetings whirled constantly in my mind. It was hard to block out the noise, but I knew I needed to use other strengths as well, a knowing that would help guide us because my doubts about all our strategies were growing, and each day wrung tighter with worry about my brothers and their squads.
I threw open my window, the cool night air shivering over my face, and I prayed, to one god or four, I wasn’t sure. There was so much I didn’t know, but I knew I couldn’t bear losing two more brothers.
There had been no word, but Rafe had already told me there would be none. They would either come or they wouldn’t. I had to hope and trust that the message had gotten there in time. Bring them home, I begged the gods. And then I called to my brothers, just as Walther’s words had reached out to me. Be careful, my brothers. Be careful.
I stared out over Civica, the eventide remembrances quieting, a thin song still clinging to the air. So shall it be for evermore. For evermore. A city dark except for golden flickering windows watching over the night.
Peace settling in, meals being prepared, chimneys billowing.
But then the peace was disturbed.
Sounds crawled up my spine.
Sounds that weren’t from the world outside my window.
The crunch of stone.
The hiss of steam.
A keening howl.
Fervor, Jezelia, fervor.
My heart sped. I felt the Komizar’s breath on my neck, his finger tracing the kavah on my shoulder. I saw his onyx eyes in the darkness and the smile behind them.
“Shall I walk with you?”
I jumped and whirled.
Aunt Cloris poked her head into my chamber, her question a reminder not to be late.
I smiled, trying to mask my alarm. While my aunt had tolerated the complete lack of protocol on every level with surprising grace, I saw the signs of her impatience returning. She wanted things to go back to the way they were before. I couldn’t promise that but I could
give her tonight.
“I’ll be along,” I said. She left as quietly as she came, and I shut the window, returning to my dressing table. With only one hand, there would be no fancy braids tonight—not that I was ever particularly skilled at braids even with two hands. But I had become skilled at using a sword and knife with either one.
When the physician checked and rebandaged my hand today, I got a good look at it for the first time. The wound itself, except for the three small stitches on either side, was barely visible but my hand was still swollen. It looked like a blue-veined glove stuffed with fat sausages and felt just as foreign and numb. Something inside had cracked or torn—probably when I shoved the bolt loose to kill Malich. The physician was dismayed by the continued swelling and said it was essential that I keep it elevated on pillows at night and he crafted a sling for me to wear by day. When I asked about the numbness, he only said, “We’ll see.”
I set aside my brush and looked in my mirror. My hair trailed loosely over my shoulders. On the outside I mostly looked as I had before, perhaps a little gaunt, but on the inside, nothing was the same. It would never be the same again.
He’s betrothed.
The thought came unexpectedly, like a sudden gust of wind. A mountain of demands had blocked it out, but now a single unhurried moment had let it back in.
I jumped up from my dressing table, adjusting my belt, my sling, sheathing my knife at my side, learning to do with one hand what I had always done with two.
* * *
The family dining chamber was for smaller more intimate meals, but tonight there would be sixteen of us. I would have just sipped some broth in my room and fallen into bed, as I had previous nights, or eaten through our late-night meetings, but my mother had come to me herself and suggested it, and she hadn’t left her room in days. I thought about my doubt in the days after Aster had died and how Rafe had told me I needed to regroup and move forward. It seemed like that was what she was trying to do now.
My aunts chimed in, saying that in the frenzy of activity over the last few days, they’d met everyone only in frantic passing moments. They said we had a long fight ahead of us and a shared meal would give us a chance to knit tighter together. I couldn’t argue with that.
Berdi and I were the first to arrive in the dining room, and when she hugged me, I got a warm whiff of fresh bread and saw a dusting of flour on her cheek. “Have you been in the kitchen?”
She winked. “I may have stopped in. Your mother asked, and I was happy to oblige.” I was about to ask her what she had been doing there when Gwyneth and Natiya walked in behind us. Natiya’s gaze immediately rose to the high ceiling and then she surveyed the tapestry-covered walls. I remembered the first time I had ever dined with Natiya. She’d met my gluttony with wide-eyed innocence and questions. Now she observed quietly with the eye of a cat in the bushes, ready to leap, not unlike the rest of us. We all wore weapons to the table, which in the past would have been forbidden by protocol. Tonight no one would object, not even Aunt Cloris.
We settled at one end of the table.
My mother and aunts, and Pauline’s aunt, Lady Adele, came in next. My mother’s hair was combed and braided, her dress neatly pressed, and the fire in her that had been buried these past days had surfaced again. I saw it in her eyes, her level shoulders, and high chin—the traitors would not win. I was surprised to see her chatting with Berdi like they were old friends.
Orrin, Tavish, Jeb, and Kaden strolled in together, all of them looking slightly uncomfortable, but my mother greeted them warmly and directed them to seats, and I realized how little all of them really knew everyone else, though we had been here for days. We did need to knit together. A shared meal was for more than nourishing bodies. Servants began filling goblets with ale and wine. Though my mother had promised to keep the fare simple, the sparkling cherry muscat was the exception.
“Where’s Pauline?” I asked Gwyneth.
Lady Adele heard my question and perked up, waiting for an answer too. I knew that after their clash on our first night here, Pauline had avoided her. That was why she stayed at the abbey with the baby. Today she had moved back.
“She had to go to the abbey to pick something up,” Gwyneth answered. Of course, we both knew what that something was. “She’ll be here soon,” she added, but when Lady Adele looked away, Gwyneth shrugged as if she too, was uncertain what was delaying Pauline, or if she would come at all.
Sven walked in with Captain Azia, and I was surprised to see them both dressed in officer’s uniforms. Captain Azia blushed at the fawning of my aunts, and I realized how young he truly was. He and Sven quickly became engaged in conversation with them and Lady Adele. I wondered what had happened to Rafe. I sipped my muscat and then I heard his footsteps. I knew them as well as my own, the weight, the pace, the slight jingle of his scabbard. He hurried in and paused in the doorway, his hair slightly windblown, dressed in his Dalbretch blues too. My stomach squeezed against my will. He apologized for being late—he’d been stuck in talks with some of his men. He greeted my mother with additional apologies, then turned to me. He noticed my sling.
“The physician said it would help reduce the swelling,” I explained.
He looked at the sling, back at me, at the sling again, and I knew he was searching for words while others swirled in his head. I knew his tics, his pauses, his breaths. Would his betrothed ever know him as well?
“I’m glad you’re following his advice,” he finally said.
It was only a few spare words, but everyone had paused from their own conversations to watch us. He turned and took his seat at the opposite end of the table.
Before the first course was brought in, my mother turned to me. “Lia, would you like to offer a remembrance?” It was more than simple politeness. It was her recognition of the position I now held.
Memory tugged behind my sternum, and I stood. An acknowledgment of sacrifice. But there was no plate of bones to lift. I said some of the words only to myself, others for all to hear.
E cristav unter quiannad.
“A sacrifice ever remembered.”
Meunter ijotande.
“Never forgotten.”
Yaveen hal an ziadre.
“We live another day. And with it, may the heavens grant us wisdom. Paviamma.”
Only Kaden echoed back paviamma to me.
My mother looked at me uncertainly. It was not a traditional prayer. “Is that a Vendan prayer?” she asked.
“Yes,” I answered. “And part Morrighese prayer.”
“But that last word?” Lady Adele asked. “Paveem?”
“Paviamma,” I said. My throat tightened unexpectedly.
“It’s a Vendan word,” Rafe answered. “It can mean many things, depending on how it’s said. Friendship, forgiveness, love.”
“You know the language, Your Majesty?” my mother asked.
He kept his eyes averted from mine. “Not as well as the princess, and of course, Kaden, but I know enough to get by.”
My mother’s gaze shifted to Kaden and then to me. I saw the worry in her eyes. A Vendan language, a Vendan Assassin seated at our table, a Vendan prayer, and Kaden’s lone response to it. He and I shared far more than just an escape from Venda.
Sven seemed to notice my mother’s pause and jumped in, saying how he had learned Vendan after being a prisoner in a mine for two years with a fellow named Falgriz. “A beast of a man, but he helped keep me alive.” He entertained everyone with a colorful story, and I was grateful to him for drawing the attention away from me. My aunts were spellbound by the daring account of his escape. Tavish rolled his eyes as if he’d heard the story before—many times over.
The first course was served—a cheese dumpling.
Comfort food. I looked up at my mother, and she smiled. It was what she served whenever I or my brothers weren’t feeling well. I was grateful she hadn’t gone to great lengths to impress King Jaxon. In light of everything that had transpired, a simple meal seemed th
e most appropriate.
When my mother inquired about the Valsprey, Sven told her the message had surely arrived at the outpost by now but we wouldn’t hear anything back. He explained it was a one-way message only that we had to keep our hopes in.
“Then we shall keep that hope,” Aunt Bernette said, “and be grateful to all of you for providing it.”
My mother lifted her glass and offered a toast to Rafe, his soldiers, the Valsprey, and even for the colonel who would receive the message and help her sons. A rally of toasts followed, circling the table and offering gratitude to all those present who helped uncover the conspiracy.
My chest warmed with my many sips of muscat, and a server stepped in to refill my goblet.
“And to you, Kaden,” my mother said. “I’m so very sorry for how you were betrayed by one of our own, and doubly thankful you are helping us now.”
“A Morrighese son, returned home,” Aunt Cloris said, lifting her glass.
I watched Kaden squirm at the assumption that he was no longer Vendan, but he nodded, trying to accept the acknowledgment with grace.
“And to—” I lifted my glass, trying to divert the attention from him. Heads turned my way as everyone waited to hear who or what I toasted. I looked at Rafe. It was as if he knew what I was going to say before I did. The blue ice of his eyes drilled into mine. We had to get past this. Regroup, move forward. It’s what a good soldier does.
I swallowed. “I’d like to offer congratulations to King Jaxon on his upcoming marriage. To you and your bride—I wish you a long and very happy life together.”
Rafe didn’t move, didn’t nod, didn’t say anything. Sven lifted his glass and elbowed Tavish to do the same, and soon a flurry of good wishes rippled around the table. Rafe threw back the rest of his wine and said a quiet “thank you.”
My throat was suddenly sand and I realized I didn’t truly wish them well at all and I felt small and petty and an ache bloomed in my chest. I gulped down my drink, draining my goblet.
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