The Heir and the Spare

by Kate Stradling

  “It is regrettable,” said King Gawen, “but think no more of having caused offense. We are almost family now, so there is no place for such anxieties among us.” He smiled, and the expression reminded Iona so much of her sister that she had to avert her gaze. Confused, she looked to her mother instead.

  Queen Marget kept her attention on her plate as though she had not heard a single word. Iona sensed within her a tightly held restraint. Whatever transpired in the queen’s thoughts would not escape by way of her tongue.

  And with little wonder. Iona could not count the number of times throughout her life that her father had instructed her mother to maintain the dignity of the crown, and more often than not, that dignity relied upon silence.

  “Your younger brother was a musician, was he not?” Prince Jaoven suddenly asked.

  Conversations around him stuttered to a halt, as though a damper had fallen upon the dining hall. King Gawen, his shoulders stiff, asked, “Who has been speaking to you of my brother?”

  The prince, cognizant that he had stepped in a trap but perhaps not exactly sure how, said, “No one in particular. The villagers who helped me after I escaped the Awinrea had a folksong they sang, and someone mentioned that your brother had written the words. But perhaps I was mistaken.”

  A furrow appeared between the king’s brows. “I’m not aware of any songs Orran wrote, though he certainly had a gift for poetry. What was it about?”

  “I hardly recall,” said Jaoven. “The melody was familiar, a tune we have in Capria, but when I didn’t recognize the words they sang I asked where the new ones had originated. I didn’t hear the song enough to commit it to memory, though.”

  Goosebumps rose along Iona’s skin. Was he speaking of “The Bird among Thorns”? She had sung a number of folksongs, but her own unfamiliarity with that one directed her suspicions toward it. Who had tied its lyrics to her late uncle? Emell, or someone else in the village?

  “If a relic of my brother exists among the people of Wessett, I should dearly love to know of it,” said King Gawen, leaning closer. “The whole kingdom mourned his untimely passing, and I most of all. Can you not recall this song’s message? Even a word of it?”

  But Jaoven only shook his head. “I’m sorry. In Capria we sing ‘The Lord of the Lake’ to the same tune, so those are the only words I can remember. I’m sorry to have caused you distress, Your Majesty.”

  The king, though frowning, waved a dismissive hand. “Many years have passed since Orran’s death, but sometimes it still feels fresh. He had an artist’s soul, a fair mind, and a smile that captivated all who encountered him. He was away at one of our northern estates when his illness struck, and we did not receive word until after his passing. I felt that day as though I suffered a mortal blow. Poor Orran, who had such a bright future, to be cut down by something as common as pleurisy.” He covered his eyes then, shielding them from view as he breathed deep.

  “I remember my uncle, though vaguely,” said Lisenn, her voice pitched low and tremulous. “He was kind—so kind that it almost defied belief. One of my earliest memories was of him telling me how lucky I was to have a sister, and that I should always treasure her. I took his counsel to heart and have never forgotten it.”

  She fixed her gaze upon Iona, a mocking glint in her eyes.

  Was that memory real, or had she made it up? If she had received such counsel in her childhood, she had taken it to heart by doing the exact opposite.

  “I seem to have conjured a number of tender memories,” Jaoven said. “Again, I do apologize.”

  Lisenn caught his hand and squeezed. “You are family now,” she said, favoring him with her most engaging smile. “There is no subject you should feel hesitant to broach.”

  “Indeed,” said King Gawen. “You could not have guessed how deep our grief yet runs for his loss.”

  The prince spared a glance further down the table, where stricken nobles hung upon every word exchanged. Iona, frowning, followed his gaze, only to lock eyes with Aedan, who minutely shook his head.

  The subject of her late uncle was forbidden, even if her father and sister claimed otherwise to their guest. Indeed, this was the most she’d ever heard the king speak of his younger brother in one sitting. What little she knew about Orran of Wessett had come from passing remarks from her mother and others beyond the family who had known him.

  “What is ‘The Lord of the Lake’ about?” she abruptly asked. “I don’t recall hearing it when I lived in Capria.”

  It was a lie, for the song was quite common, but her question allowed Jaoven a graceful exit from the previous conversation. He launched into an explanation of the ballad, which Lisenn promptly interrupted.

  “We sing that song in Wessett as well. I’m surprised my sister does not recognize it.”

  Iona pushed her food around her plate with her fork and said lightly, “I thought perhaps it was a different one. Their songs didn’t always match ours.”

  Her gambit had served its purpose. Lisenn drew the prince into giving a description of Capria itself, of the capital, of where they would live. The stiffness in the air dissipated as nobles up and down the table returned to their own discussions.

  Iona met Aedan’s gaze again, but only briefly, and the look he gave her warned her to remain on her guard. She would ask him soon enough about her uncle’s connection to “The Bird among Thorns,” but not tonight. No opportunity would present itself tonight.

  A pale blue dress awaited her return. She entered her bedroom to find the gown laid out upon the bed and Bina acting as a sentinel nearby.

  “She’s still in the drawing room with most of the guests,” Iona said, reproving. “I hardly think she would destroy it before her own wedding, either, unless she wanted to force me not to attend.”

  The maid sniffed. “I wouldn’t put it past her, and if you think I’m going to leave anything up to chance, you’re wrong. Enough of the royal guard will follow her every order, so they might have come on her errand to destroy it while she was otherwise engaged.”

  “And you would have fought them if they had? A dress isn’t worth getting yourself hurt. Besides,” she added before Bina could protest, “she’s always liked doing her own misdeeds. I highly doubt she’d send underlings to deprive her of that pleasure.”

  She crossed the room, the better to examine the gown in the dimness of the oil lamp. Her maid’s paranoia spread into Iona’s bones. It seemed impossible that she would wear such an exquisite piece, or that it should escape the same fate as all of its lovely predecessors. If she had the power, she would take refuge in her bedroom until the wedding had passed, or in the countryside. Even at this hour she couldn’t escape the castle without a member of the guard observing her, though, and her father would never forgive her for such a disgrace.

  Besides, if she disappeared, it might delay the wedding, and that would defeat the purpose of hiding until it was over. And Jaoven would no doubt accuse her of sabotage again, a prospect that bothered her more than she wanted to admit.

  Bina hung the dress lovingly in the wardrobe and helped Iona prepare for bed. As the maid tucked her in beneath her covers, the princess asked, “Do you know a song called ‘The Bird among Thorns’?”

  The hands upon her coverlet stilled. Bina regarded her with wary eyes, which was answer enough.

  “Did my Uncle Orran really pen the words?”

  A false lightness colored the maid’s voice. “I’ve heard that said. Who spoke of it to you?”

  “I learned the song in Straithmill. Jaoven asked my father about it tonight, though not by name.”

  The dim light cast Bina’s face in shadows but could not conceal her distaste. “The princeling should keep his nose where it belongs.”

  Iona’s heart flip-flopped. “He’s not the person you hate, Bina. Jaoven of Deraval vanished at some point during the Caprian war.”

  Her maid perched on the edge of the mattress, the better to study her.

  “If you ask me whether I�
�m in love with him, I’ll slug you,” Iona said.

  Bina only snorted. “I don’t think I need to ask.” She caught the fist that moved toward her shoulder. “Feeble attack for someone so outraged, my dove. I doubt that would have pushed me even an inch.”

  “I would never want to hurt you, even under provocation.”

  “You would rather I lie to you? When did it happen? When did he change from Jaoven of Deraval to this new, acceptable man?”

  “I told you, during the war—”

  “I’m not asking when he himself changed. When did your perception of him change, that you would defend his character? I suppose a simple act of heroism goes a fair way toward rebuilding bridges long ago burned.”

  “Stop it.” Iona wrested her hand away, scowling. “It wasn’t a simple act of heroism. It was a dozen trivial interactions, and not all of them with me. He’s not the same person he once was.”

  “But you’re not in love with him,” said Bina, rolling her eyes.

  Iona turned her back on the vexatious maid. “You’re impossible.”

  “You sulking like a child will certainly convince me I’m wrong. He’s marrying your sister in the morning, Iona—your wicked, hateful, malicious sister.”

  Every word drilled a nail further into her conscience. “I know.”

  “If he’s so changed, how will you live with yourself for letting it go forward?”

  She sat up, spearing the servant with a rueful glare. “What am I supposed to do? The treaty was set before the Caprians ever arrived at our shores. My interference—at any point in the process—would have created enemies for me both with them and with my own father, to say nothing of Lisenn. My hands are tied, Bina. And my legs, and my mouth, and my heart.”

  The truth of those words thrummed through her. She could not run away, nor could she voice a warning, and if she allowed herself to care she might never overcome the shadow of grief and guilt that gnawed upon her.

  Bina ran light fingers through her hair and touched her cheek in a motherly gesture. “Poor dove. Sometimes, if you want to escape a serpent, the only option is to turn its attention toward a different prey. Capria and its prince survived a civil war. They will survive Lisenn in their midst.”

  Iona’s scalp prickled, the sensation coursing down her neck to her arms. “My uncle did not write that song about me and Lisenn. We were barely children when he died.”

  “And yet, the message rings true,” said the maid. “He must have recognized a broader pattern.” She rose to hang up Iona’s clothing from that day, leaving her charge in a state of bewilderment.

  Certainly snakes preyed upon birds in the wild, and perhaps her uncle had merely chosen that as an appropriate lament. That people—first Emell, and now Bina, and likely Aedan as well—kept mapping the song to her situation could only be coincidence.

  Orran of Wessett had died young, but of natural causes. He left behind a nation that remembered him fondly and a brother who still grieved his loss. To Iona’s memory, Lisenn had always despised her, but surely that had not manifested when they were both so young.

  Unless she’d been a warped, malicious toddler.

  Which, even for Lisenn, seemed beyond probability.

  Iona slept fitfully in the hours that followed, too occupied with trying to recall at what point her sister’s hatred had first emerged. She remembered the poor, savaged canary, the pulled teeth and torn dresses, a head sheared of half its golden hair, a doll dismembered and a favorite blanket shredded. Lisenn had locked her in closets, tied her limbs and left her shoved under a bed, routinely thrown her dinner plate onto the floor before she could take a bite…

  Not a single pleasant memory surfaced. Her sister had always been cruel and spiteful and triumphant in her greater power.

  And dawn unfolded upon the day that would finally break that cycle, for better or for worse.

  The pale blue dress complimented her complexion and made her eyes seem bright notwithstanding her troubled sleep. Bina, unusually subdued, dressed her hair in a simple elegant style, with nothing more than a ribbon to adorn it. The pearl necklace from her mother rested against her collarbones.

  The woman in the mirror looked pretty enough to paint. Iona sighed, her heart like an iron weight within her ribcage. Soon enough it would be over. Her sister would wed and be on her way to Capria.

  A knock broke the stillness of the room. She twisted on her vanity chair, an irrational hope surging through her: perhaps the wedding had been called off. Perhaps Jaoven had realized—

  But when Bina answered the summons, a pair of guards stood in the hall. “Princess Iona is wanted at the chapel,” said one.

  “There’s still an hour before the ceremony,” said Bina, confused.

  He remained stone-faced. “The royal family is gathering early. The queen has requested her presence.”

  The maid stepped back, deferring to the command. Iona, her heart fluttering, stood and crossed the room in a swish of silken skirts. When she paused to bid Bina farewell, the woman clasped her hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze.

  Soon enough this nightmare would be over, with only her guilt to wade through in the aftermath.

  One guard led the way, while the other fell in step behind her, a customary pattern when her father or older sister traversed the castle halls or the broader grounds, but to which she was unaccustomed. She felt like a prisoner being led to the gallows rather than a woman in her own home.

  Not until the man in the lead position turned up a side hall did her misgivings swell enough for her to pause. She pointed further along their original route. “The chapel is this way.”

  “We are escorting you and the crown princess together,” said the guard in front. “As the sister of the bride, you are her attendant.”

  Iona’s throat tightened. “Nobody told me that.”

  But the guard in front only tipped his head for her to continue, and the one behind her gently nudged her along.

  They headed up a tall staircase, their path directed straight for her sister’s quarters. She actively avoided this area of the castle. They passed the smaller library where Lisenn took her daily lessons and crossed through a study with heavy curtains shrouding its windows from view. Every step conjured up images of Lisenn’s past ills, and Iona’s breath steadily shortened in her lungs. When they arrived in the final corridor, with her sister’s bedroom door looming, she stopped and faintly said, “I’ll wait here while you get her.”

  The guard who led the way turned an arch look upon his fellow. Arms seized Iona from behind, wrapping around her waist and shoulder, and a hand clamped over her nose and mouth, cutting off her airway. She yelped and bucked, but a second pair of hands joined the first, restraining her until her body sagged and her vision fizzled into black.

  Chapter 22

  “Iona. Iona wake up.”

  Taut fingers slapped her cheek, and an odd metallic scent filled her nostrils. The cooing voice at her ear shifted into more sinister tones. “Come on. It’s no fun if you sleep through it.” A hand twisted into her hair and yanked.

  On a gasp, Iona opened her eyes. Lisenn loomed over her like the proverbial cat who had caught the canary, the smile on her lips eager and bloodthirsty.

  The younger princess tried to wrench away, but her arms were strapped down at the wrist, stretched perpendicular to her body. Her legs, too, had bindings at each ankle to prevent her escape from the low wooden platform on which she lay.

  “What are you doing?” Her voice trembled, the answer too apparent. She recognized the ceiling of her sister’s private tower, a small circular room attached to her broader bedchamber. In their childhood the area had held nothing more than a couple of chairs and a rug for the young princess to play on. Now it was crammed full of tables and deadly contraptions.

  Lisenn, immaculate in her wedding gown, straightened. “Just taking care of a small problem before I embark on the next chapter of my life.” She turned away, the cream-colored silk rustling. “You d
idn’t think I’d leave Wessett without telling you goodbye, did you?”

  Had the wedding already occurred? Iona fixed her attention on the one small window in her view, but the accoutrements around it made her blood run cold: deadly hooks, branding irons, spikes. The sunlight that glinted off them cast morning shadows. She had not lost more than a few minutes, maybe a quarter-hour at most.

  But that had been plenty long enough to give Lisenn the upper hand.

  “Oh, I had so many fun things planned for you,” her sister said, rifling through the metal instruments. “I can’t do anything that might get blood on this dress, though.” She paused to cast a mocking glance over her shoulder. “That’s a shame. Still, I think we can have some quality time together.”

  She tossed a rusted blade to one side. It clattered across her metal countertop, teetering near the edge when it stopped. “So many options no longer allowed,” she said with an irritated sigh. “You know, I used to fantasize about dragging you up here and making you scream until your voice gave out. Those four years you were away were absolute torture.”

  She spun, contempt in her eyes as she leaned against the counter.

  Iona swallowed against a dry knot in her throat. “Lisenn, please—”

  “And you were in Capria, of all places, and our Caprian friends were having all the fun with you while I was stuck at home. I can’t fault them for picking on such a pathetic weakling like you, but it still annoys me. Well,” she said, tilting her head thoughtfully, “but they’ll learn their place in the pecking order soon enough.

  “Have you ever heard of a breaking wheel, Iona?”

  The words, spoken in such a light and careless tone, sent a shiver up the younger sister’s spine. Lisenn, not waiting for an answer, sauntered around her with a bounce in her step. She caressed Iona’s cheek with the back of one hand, the nail of her index finger digging at the end.

  “In the old days they used to tie people to the road and then run a cart over their limbs until everything was broken.” A grin spread across her lips, her exuberance a sharp contrast to the blood draining from her sister’s face. “And then they realized, why bother with the trouble of a cart in the middle of the road? So the method changed, and they tied their victims to a platform instead. And then they use spacers like this”—she dragged a curved wooden frame from a shelf—“and they place them under your limbs like this.” She angled the frame under Iona’s right calf, the bindings just loose enough to allow for this addition. The curves at top and bottom elevated her leg two inches from the platform, suspending the lower half.