Henry was lost in a battle far away from Stormwall. I was only seven years old then. Ten years later, I still remembered his smell. A mixture of tobacco and firewood.
Part of me still hoped that he was out there, somewhere, but the other part knew, if he were, he’d come home.
“I know you’re going to haunt me forever for not visiting for so long,” I told the great limestone. I blew a laugh through my nose. “But listen, you wouldn’t believe the buck I saw today. You’d kill me for mucking it up. Though I must tell you, it wasn’t my fault. Don’t say it was. Trust me. It wasn’t.”
The leaves crunched beneath me as I sat at my brother’s grave. Flanked by two massive willow trees, it wasn’t far from the rock wall that surrounded the entire castle. He had no mausoleum. No concrete casket atop the earth. Just a bright, smooth headstone and behind it, thrust into the ground like its own marker, his sword.
I guess when you’re dead and there is no real body to bury, there is no point in building a house around you. There’s nothing to protect. I scraped away some bird-shit and brushed away the leaves. I vowed that when I was made queen, I’d build a mausoleum just for him.
I pushed to my feet and blew a kiss to the wind. “I’ll be back,” I said. “Don’t go anywhere, all right?”
I used the servant entrance to get back into the castle. Most of the guards knew me well enough to let me pass without a second look. Today, there was one I had never seen before. At my presence, he hovered a hand over the sword at his hip before the other guard nodded to let me pass.
I rushed up the first set of stairs, and turned the corner to another set. With a heaving breath, I gripped the wall and bounded two steps at a time. I stopped short, almost running smack dab into two people walking ahead. They wore neat, gray uniforms—a common wardrobe for the kitchen staff. I recognized one by voice as the head of the kitchen staff, Maurie Bets, an old man with hunched shoulders. The other wasn’t recognizable from the back, but from what I could tell, he was younger. What I did know was that they were in my way.
“Princess Isabelle,” said Maurie Bets. He watched from the landing. His face was a dried-up raisin with wrinkles so deep you could stick a coin in them. He lowered his head to me. The other person, a boy about my age, merely looked at the floor until Maurie gave him a swift smack to the chest. He straightened after a low bow and looked to me. Despite my haste, I blinked at the sight of him.
And blinked and blinked until my eyes adjusted.
He cast a look through tired, pale blue eyes and tawny brown hair that looked as though someone had taken a knife to it blindly. Such a pretty boy. Man. Boy. Whatever he was. He was…
Gods is he handsome. So handsome, in fact, that I tripped up the second stair and would have fallen into him had I not caught myself on the edge of the landing. I cursed aloud, causing Maurice to clear his throat in an exaggerated fashion. The boy bent down to hand me the sack of tusks that I had dropped at his feet, arching an eyebrow curiously. He smelled like sweet root. I cursed again, suddenly aware of how I must have looked. And smelled.
I took the sack of tusks and nearly dropped them again.
I turned, not trusting myself to speak, and ran up the last set of stairs to a large steel door.
The echoes of my name reverberated against the walls and down to my very bones as I strode through the castle, the sack of boar tusks in hand. My mother could be so dramatic.
Curious eyes met me at every turn. Princess or not, hidden glances from guards and servants alike weren’t uncommon. They were the type of looks you give when you’ve accidentally seen someone naked—shameful, but oddly curious about the strange birthmark or saggy body parts. For me, the strange birthmark was a streak of blood on my cheek that I only noticed when I passed one of the many oval mirrors on my way to my mother’s chambers. I wiped it clean, dropped off the sack in my room, and turned down a second hallway where my personal guard, Crimson Stanwood, waited.
I sighed deeply at the sight of him. “I know, Crim. She must be losing her stones.”
He nodded, exasperated, glad to have finally found me, running his hand across his head as if there was even a wisp of hair left there. Crim was a mountain in his own right. Standing over six feet tall and big enough to fit me inside of him four times over. He’d been known all over Stormwall and the new and old country as “The Woodchopper,” a name earned after he toppled a perfectly standing tree and carried it ten miles on his back. This impressed my father, the unimpressible king, and earned him a place in Stormwall.
A place, yes, but Crim was a Voiceless. For people like him, his place was merely a placard.
At first, I’d learned how to sign to better communicate with Crim, and then with the other Voiceless in Stormwall. He had been there since the day I was born. The least I could do was have a proper conversation occasionally.
You’re getting better at giving me the slip, he signed. He wasn’t mad, per se, but he folded his big arms across the chest of his gray and yellow uniform. His hands were the size of dinner platters. Unlike the other guards, Crim didn’t carry a weapon. It was easy to see that a mere sword was very much beneath him.
“The slip, yes,” I said with a quick curtsey. I held my hand out to Crim with a bow. “But have you seen me dance?”
The wailing of “Isabelle!” interrupted my sad excuse for a slow dance with my guard. In a moment’s time, the queen would float down this hallway in a frenzy of ruffled skirts, perfume, and flailing arms. I didn’t want Crim to bear the brunt of my mother’s temper, so I sent him away and slipped into her chambers.
I stood against a polished wardrobe, cleaning my nails with my dagger when my mother arrived. She gave one look and, with no thought at all, snatched the weapon from my hand and slammed it down onto the massively ornate desk to her right. She walked into the other room, her bedchambers, just as the door opened behind me.
My cousin Lulu slipped in, smiling through clenched teeth as she took position beside me. She was my own spitting image, down to the part in her hair. She argued that she was at least a quarter of an inch taller than me, but I swore she’d rise on her heels every time.
“It was your mother who caught me.” Lulu’s voice was barely a whisper. Her mouth turned upward in one corner. Nervous amusement.
I snorted. My mother. Of course, it was.
“There’s a new boy,” I said.
“Really?” Lulu replied. Her lips quirked up higher. “Is he cute?”
I thought back to those blue eyes and bit my inner cheek. “Painstakingly so.”
A thin smile spread across her face. “Sounds fun.”
I laughed. “Sometimes I admire your candor.” She still wore my green dress and the dragonfly pin in her hair.
“You’ll admire my dalliance when I have the servant boy between my sheets.”
“You little tart.” I went to punch Lulu but my mother strode back into the room. We both diverted our eyes to the floor. From this angle, all I could see were my mother’s apple red heeled boots as she walked toward us across the carpeted floor.
“I don’t quite comprehend why you insist on disappointing me, Isabelle.” One heel pivoted as she waited for a reply.
“Did the elders even notice?” I asked brazenly. “Gods. In the dozens of times I’ve stood before them, they’ve never once looked me in the eyes. I could have the head of a lizard and rule the land with a matchstick, and they wouldn’t bat an eye.”
“Your insults toward the elders do not help your cause.”
I bit my tongue, doing my best not to give her the satisfaction of a debate that I would clearly lose. I finally lifted my chin and met her gaze. Despite the scarcity of any sort of apology in my eyes, my mother did not look as close to a warpath as I’d imagined. I might get out of this with a stern speech about respect and maybe, if she was particularly keen on ruining my day, she’d bring up Henry—not by name, of course—and my obligation to Stormwall. It was then that I realized Lulu was my buffer, and when s
he was ordered to leave, the air around me changed into something thick.
“Smile when they think they’ve got you, Izzy,” Lulu whispered before leaving. “They can’t know that they’ve won.”
I tried smiling, but it melted away at my mother’s gaze. I touched my emerald necklace, as if trying to cipher strength from the gemstone.
“I am ordering all dyes, paints, and makeup I find unsavory to be removed from both of your rooms and anywhere you have access,” said my mother, her look now cold and hard. She started pacing, her skirt moving like a bell in the breeze. “I don’t want you near even a child’s finger paints.” She stopped, moving aside a wisp of dark hair from her ear. “Using your cousin as a stand-in. Honestly, Isabelle. What would your father say?”
I tried not to laugh. “He’d say a lot, I expect. He’s been gone long enough.”
My mother studied my face to see if I were joking. I wasn’t. I knew any sort of backtalk about what my father, the king of Stormwall, did outside of the city walls was a sore subject. Not only because of the danger he faced beyond the Archway in the Old Kingdom, but also because of the reason he was there. I couldn’t tell if my mother approved of the conquering of kingdoms to expand the empire, or if she’d rather give it all up to have him home.
“He is ensuring your future,” she said after the longest of pauses. “So you don’t have to worry about war or death or anything of the sort.” I tried to interrupt her, but she kept on. It sounded like a speech that she had practiced. “Soon, all of the Six Realms will be united. Not just one half, but a whole. A whole Mirosa.”
“Still, the Archway, Mother,” I said. “Father tells us that there is nothing left to conquer, yet still he goes and takes his armies with him.” I thought back to all the stories of the Old Kingdom—stories of magical beasts and spirits. I even read that there was a gateway to the Uncanny’s underworld out there. It didn’t sound like a place where we’d want to expand our empire.
“So says the girl who cannot find her way to a temple in the very town she’s known for seventeen years.” She stopped pacing and hit where it hurts. “Do you hate us so much, Isabelle?”
I thought of Henry at that moment. I straightened, fighting the surge of emotion that followed such a loaded question. If Lulu had stayed, I would have grabbed hold of her hand and squeezed it until the anger faded. I bit my tongue. Again.
“I know you’re doing everything you can, given the circumstances,” said my mother. She pinched the bridge of her nose and squeezed her eyes shut as if she had a headache. “But I’d like you to try a little harder, Isabelle.”
I kept my mouth shut and nodded. I didn’t have to read between the lines to know what the words “given the circumstances” meant. So many retorts ran through my head. One included blaming my father for sending my brother to war and my mother for allowing it to happen. But in the end, the past was the past, and blaming someone for something long gone was like blaming the clouds for rain. Both were beyond my control.
So, I said nothing as my mother swept across the study and rifled through some papers on the desk. She found a letter and unfolded it in front of me. The royal seal was stamped in wax. A letter from my father.
“He sends his love, as always.” My mother scanned the letter further. “Oh, and he says they have found nothing worthy.”
My voice dropped an entire octave. “That means he’s coming home.”
I swore under my breath.
The queen didn’t hear. She folded up the letter in silence and held it at her side. “They are moving deeper.”
Deeper. That meant further from Stormwall. Further from the Archway, deep in a place beyond the mountains where it was cold and gray, where the land was barren due to long years of war. A place where nothing grew but the stories of great beasts and sorcery and the ghosts of the dead. Deeper in the old country, where the last shreds of magic threatened everything my father built. Everything my brother died for.
My father wanted to destroy everything.
This fact didn’t escape my mother, a queen ruling without her king beside her, fully capable of such a task. But it didn’t take a genius to know why she cried at night when she thought nobody could hear.
I gathered myself up and took a deep breath. “I wasn’t just parading around like you believe I was,” I told her. Something in her eyes flickered. “I was with—”
“All right, go now,” my mother interrupted. She’d said everything she needed to say and that was the end of it. “I have much to plan for tomorrow.”
Once outside my mother’s room, Crim fell into step beside me. I sensed my guard’s attention as we walked.
It could have been worse, I signed. There hadn’t been steam coming out of her ears this time.
When I finally arrived back at my room, I collapsed into my bed despite my grungy clothes. I shifted to my side and let the silk sheets kiss my cheek. I would have fallen asleep right then and there had it not been for the dull ache in my head. It was only when I looked up to the ceiling that my cousin’s face blinked into view.
“Please tell me that he kisses as well as he speaks.” She purred and grinned. “And moves and breathes.”
I sat up, sighing deeply. “My day was great. Thanks for asking.”
Lulu cocked her head.
“All right, I’ll bite,” I said. “Who are we talking about?”
“The new servant!”
Lulu practically fell over me. She plopped right beside me and leaned in, shoving her nose into my face. She always expected a full-length detailed description of everything the sons of Mirosa had said, the way they said it, and how their lips moved when they did. Never mind where they put their hands and if I let them. She always said it wasn’t fair how good-looking all the highborn were, and blamed me for leaving her with the sons of carpenters and even soldiers, who, to me, weren’t half-bad if you ignored their need to solve everything with violence.
I let her hang for a bit longer as I removed my boots and clothes, scrubbing my hands clean in the water room and slipping into a black satin dress with a gold band cinching the waist. It was nothing like the comfort of my hunting clothes, but I wouldn’t dare wear them within the castle walls. At least not where my mother could catch me in them.
My chambers consisted of three rooms—the bed, the dining, and the bath—and took up most of the west wing of the castle. Throughout, there were accents of golds and reds and the massive skin of black bear in the center. With its hollow eyes and tooth-filled maw, it was the subject of many arguments between my parents. Mostly my mother objected to such things, but as the prize of one of the king’s annual bear hunts, it stayed put.
I leaned against the doorframe of the water room and looked to Lulu. I had to smile at the level of anxiety this was causing my cousin. She practically teetered at the edge of the bed. I wanted to tell her that he tasted like berries and his hands touched places she’d never imagined could be touched. I wanted to make her jealous and swoon and fall over my words.
But I couldn’t. Because that servant had done none of those things.
“Lulu, we didn’t do anything. We barely spoke.”
Lulu spotted the sack of boar tusks by my door. “Where was it you went, then?”
“I brought some food to the Voiceless.”
She caught her breath and then jumped to her feet. “Izzy, you didn’t!”
“I will never understand why people fret over helping one another.”
My cousin put her face into her hands. “You love to instigate. Listen, you have better things to do than waste your time acting like a missionary.”
I said nothing and moved to my window. I threw open the curtains to the mountains silhouetted against the afternoon sky. Somewhere out there my father had led his army through two large columns extending hundreds of feet into the air and topped with a carved keystone. This stone structure, or Archway, was the opening to the split in the mountains and the quickest route to the old country. My bitterness to
ward his absence shifted to guilt. He ate, slept and fought in gloom and desolation. It was so hard to picture that there was such a place beyond those mountains when everything around where I stood looked so…safe.
The guards below my window looked rather bored,
So I pushed open the doors to the balcony and threw down a rolled ball of linen onto their heads. I promptly shut the doors again.
“I’m in need of a trip,” I told Lulu, twirling around the post of my bed.
“A trip may need to wait,” said Lulu, undoing her hair and brushing it out with her fingers. She handed me the dragonfly pin and stared at me without apology. “You do remember who is set to arrive tomorrow, don’t you?” My blank look prompted a sigh. “Prince Ashe Paratheon!”
I threw up my hands and collapsed into a large armchair by the window, wanting to sink down far enough to disappear. Ashe Paratheon. Why did the name sound so familiar? I tapped on my chin and dug through my memories only to come up short. Perhaps it had been mother who had brought him up. He was arriving in Stormwall, after all.
That had to be it.
“Oh yes. The Prince of the Peeks,” I purred. “How fun will he be, do you think?”
“With your track record, he might run from this castle and jump ship back to his islands in less than a day. Screaming like an infant, might I add.”
“That was one time! The spiders were not my fault.”
“But the beetles were.”
“It’s all relative.”
Lulu picked up my leather riding jacket from the floor and balled it up in her arms. “A relative is who you’ll marry if you don’t stop messing around with those boys.”
“Boys,” I said under my breath.
“What?”
“Boys,” I repeated. “That is what they all are.”
“It’s a pity you weren’t born one.”
I laughed. It was a pity.
“What’s your basis for comparison, Izzy?”
“Someone who is brave without thinking twice,” I replied and bit my lower lip. “And can gut a pig with a kitchen knife. Where are you going with my clothes anyway?”
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