As I’m forced to stand before the dais, I hear the sound of a struggle behind me and I turn to see Lief being dragged in. He is gagged, too, and above the gag his eyes are blackened and swollen. It seems as though he can barely stand after the beating he took, and I move toward him. A guard pulls me back and I can only watch as Lief struggles to right himself when his guards release him.
“A sad day for Lormere,” the queen says, looking anything but sad. “I am no stranger to sadness. In my life I have seen a daughter and now two husbands go to their eternal rest before me. And yet none of those losses compare with the devastation I felt when I discovered the girl we called Daunen Embodied in bed with her guard.”
Lief looks at me, his eyes full of sorrow as the court explodes.
“How?” one voice calls as another screams “The Gods!” at us. “Daunen!” someone wails, and it’s echoed, “Daunen, Daunen, Daunen,” until I can’t bear it.
The queen shoots me a triumphant glance before raising her voice to speak over the outcry. “I know it wounds deeply to know we have been taken in by an impostor; I know it is hard to learn of such a diabolical betrayal, but hear it we must. Bear witness we must. Because I found the pair of them, naked, in her room mere hours after the king’s funeral. She is guilty of adultery; she has betrayed the prince and all of you. All of us. But there is worse than that. Because the man she was sleeping with is the man who killed the king!”
A low rumble fills the room like thunder as the courtiers begin to talk amongst themselves, and I shake my head, trying to knock the gag loose so I can tell them the truth.
“You saw the king collapse at the feast. He was poisoned. He died, in agony, hours later. Because that man, that Tregellian”—she points at Lief—“poisoned him. He is a spy sent from Tregellan, and had I not discovered him in bed with Twylla, I’ve no doubt he would have poisoned me and the prince, too. He must have used his wicked knowledge to find a way to use her without succumbing to the poison. They have those skills, the Tregellians. And though it pains me to say it, I cannot be sure the girl was not involved with his scheme. That she did not encourage him in his evils and offer herself as payment for it if he could achieve both antidote and murder.”
Lief makes no sound, staring at the queen with undisguised hatred, and I know he’s making it worse by not even attempting to struggle. So I do it for him, screaming into my gag, trying to pull away from the guards.
Merek, who until now has stared resolutely at the door, slams his hand down on the table, silencing both the still-buzzing court and me.
“Twylla, is now really the time for theatrics?” he says slowly, his eyes fixed on mine.
Theatrics.
What was it he said after I’d sung for his stepfather?
“How pleasant to spend an afternoon without the need for theatrics, don’t you think?”
I look at him and he pushes his sash aside, revealing a small golden flower at his breast. A dandelion. So that is why the sash hung strangely; he was trying to hide it. He blinks at me firmly, and then I know.
He believed me after all.
“This is a trial,” Merek continues. “Not a performance. And as such we will conduct ourselves properly. Send in the first witness,” he says, and the queen’s face falls.
“The what?”
“The first witness. I have summoned a Tregellian physician here to share his expertise. I will not have anyone say that my first trial as king was unjust. I can be merciful.”
Behind my gag I smile.
“Absolutely not!” The queen stands. “He’ll be bound to defend his countryman. They are all in league against Lormere. Merek, I will not have it.”
Lief turns to look at me, a bewildered expression in his eyes. Behind me the court is fidgeting impatiently and the queen hears it, too. She tries to cow them with a look, but there’s an undercurrent of doubt now and she knows it. She sighs loudly.
“Fine,” she says. “Bring your witness. Bear in mind,” she says to the court, “that the witness will not be unbiased.”
The guards throw open the doors and usher in a small man, dark-skinned with short black hair. He bows to the queen and Merek, and looks studiously away from Lief and me.
“Physician, I have no body for you to examine, but every soul in this room saw my stepfather collapse. He later died. I would tell you his symptoms, and I want you to tell the court your diagnosis based on them. Can you do that?”
“Yes, Your Highness,” the physician says.
“My stepfather had a sudden weakness in his legs. He lost control of his limbs and could not walk nor stand unaided. This weakness spread across his body, eventually leaving him unable to talk. He died not long afterward.”
The physician clears his throat and nods before speaking. “Your Highness, it sounds to me as though His late Majesty had an incident in his brain.” The queen leans forward and the physician takes a step back. “The flow of blood to the brain can be interrupted, and this interruption prevents a man from using his limbs. He may try, but his body will not obey. Eventually he will die as his blood cannot flow where it is needed.”
“And how does this malady occur?” Merek asks.
“Naturally,” the physician says, and the court all draw in their breath as one. “It can happen to anyone, at any time.”
“Lies!” the queen shrieks. “It was poison!”
“I doubt he’s mistaken, Mother. He is a physician. So you rule it was a natural death?” Merek turns back to the pale Tregellian man.
“I do, Your Majesty.”
“Then I accept your expert diagnosis.”
“This is absurd,” the queen seethes. “The Tregellian poison musquash root causes paralysis of the nerves and then asphyxiation. A mere six to eight leaves is enough to fell a grown man. That Tregellian”—she points at Lief—“used it on the king, and that one”—she gestures to the physician—“is trying to cover it up.”
“How do you know what musquash root is, Mother?” Merek says quietly. The hall stills. “Where did you learn so precisely that it causes paralysis and asphyxiation? Odd words to use, for someone with no vocation in medicine.”
He’s trapped her.
The queen pauses for a beat too long before she answers. “The herbalist, Rulf, showed me a passage in one of his books. I consulted him on it, with my fears, and he confirmed them. That’s where the language comes from, of course. I was quoting directly.”
“Show me your pendant.”
“What?”
“Show me, and the court, your pendant.”
“Merek, now is not the time for—” Merek leans and snatches at the chain, forcing the pendant out from where it was tucked inside her bodice. The queen tries to pull away, but Merek doesn’t let go and she is forced to stand still, the chain digging into the white flesh of her neck as her son examines the round medallion.
“At the hunt, when I returned, you told me you’d filed this off to make it look more Lormerian.” He holds it up and I can see the piper. “Then Lord Bennel asked if I’d found the Sleeping Prince. A short while later you had Lord Bennel killed, ostensibly for insulting Twylla. Was that it, Mother? Or was it his reminding us all of the Sleeping Prince that angered you?”
“What is this?” the queen hisses. “Have you taken leave of your senses?” She jerks away from him and Merek finally releases the medallion, watching coldly as it lands against her gown.
“I have dispatched a party to Tallith. They should be back within a ha’moon and they will tell me whether the body of a maid lies beside an abandoned bier in the remains of Tallith Castle. I have also alerted my own guard to seal my castle and to tell me if a bedraggled creature in ancient dress tries to gain access to seek out his mistress. The mute apothecary you keep under the castle has been taken for questioning, and your rooms are being searched now. I call my second witness, the Lady Twylla.” He turns to the court.
The courtiers don’t bother to remain calm, and I hear scrapes behind me as peo
ple knock the benches askew when they jump to their feet to look at me, the accused turned witness. The guard who holds me pulls the gag from my mouth. He has the same heart-shaped face that Dimia had. Taul.
I feel the weight of the gaze of everyone in the room.
“Twylla, if you’d be so good as to tell the court what it is you discovered,” Merek says.
The queen looks close to amusement, and I speak loudly and clearly, my singer’s voice ringing through the room.
“You summoned the Bringer.” I look at the queen, watching for the moment my words will wipe the smirk from her face. “The necklace you wear is his totem, and on the night the solaris rode the skies you called him. The following day you drew everyone away from the castle so he could do his work. I heard the music. I saw a maid bespelled by it.” Her jaw twitches and I continue, speaking slowly, pushing every word toward her like a knife. “On the night the prince announced he and I were to be wed, you poisoned the king and tried to frame my guard in order to start a war with Tregellan. You want the Sleeping Prince to be your pet alchemist and make you the gold you need for your war. For the new Golden Age of Lormere.” I leave out the part about her wanting to marry Merek, and he shoots me a grateful look.
The court remains deadly silent once I’ve finished. It was better than singing.
Then the queen speaks. “Do you honestly expect the court to believe the childish stories of a whore? This is a fairy tale. The whole realm knows ‘The Sleeping Prince’ is a fairy tale.”
“And Daunen Embodied?” I counter. “Do they know that is a fairy tale?”
I sense the court sit even further upright, tensed.
“Blasphemy,” the queen hisses.
“There is no Morningsbane. There is no Telling. I have killed no one,” I say finally. “It was all invented by you. You know it, Merek knows it, Rulf knows it. Tyrek died for it. Lief made no antidote for the Morningsbane because it does not exist. I am not and never have been poisonous. It’s all a lie and it always has been. Admit it.”
The volume of the court’s howls of anger and fury is astonishing, but even above it the queen’s screams can be heard. “You are raving. You might have bewitched my son, but you can’t fool them all. My people—” The queen is cut off as a guard—the same one who announced that the king had died—rushes into the hall with a small glass vial. The room falls silent, the atmosphere pregnant and treacherous.
“Forgive me, Sire.” He ignores the queen and skids to a halt in front of Merek. “This was discovered in the queen’s wardrobe, in her jewelry box.” He holds a small glass vial, identical to the one I would drink from at the Telling.
Merek nods for him to hand it to the nervous physician, who takes one sniff and looks at Merek.
“Musquash root, Your Majesty. Suspended in grain liquor.”
“It was planted!” The queen rises to her feet. “You are trying to depose me, you and the whore. Arrest the prince!” she screams. But the guards do not move.
“I do not need to depose you. Your husband is dead; you cannot hold the throne without a king. You should have thought of that before you killed him.” Merek looks at his court. “I charge the former queen with treason against the throne of Lormere—my throne,” Merek adds calmly. “Do any oppose the charges? Can anyone offer proof of her innocence?”
The queen is frozen beside Merek. She stares at us, her fists clenched, and there is a moment when I am sure she will try to run, but then she straightens her fingers and smoothes her gown. Her eyes harden as she looks at her son. “And how will you rule without a queen? You cannot hold the throne alone, either. Unless …” She shoots a sly, vicious look at me. “Unless you plan to pardon the harlot and marry her yourself?”
“She has committed no crime,” Merek says, his voice only cracking slightly. “I am the regent of Lormere now, if nothing else, and I acknowledge no crime was committed against the throne.”
The queen arches an eyebrow. “So, you do still want her? Even though I saw her coiled around him like a snake as he—”
“Silence!” Merek screams.
The queen looks at him, her eyebrows raised. “You will apologize to me, Merek. For all of this, for your tantrum and your cruel words and your wicked plan.”
“I won’t,” Merek says, his voice odd, distant.
The queen smiles at him fondly. “You need me, Merek,” the queen says. “The Sleeping Prince is coming. You need me to control him. I have the totem. Without it, who knows what he’ll do?”
Merek looks at her, the whole court looks at her, and I see him falter.
“The totem summons the Bringer,” I say, only half sure what I’m saying is true. “It has nothing to do with the Sleeping Prince other than that. It won’t control him.”
“Don’t you dare talk to me.” She spins around to look down at me, and I take a step back. But my words are enough to bring Merek back to himself, and once again he reaches for the necklace, this time tugging it sharply so the chain snaps. They both watch it dangling in Merek’s hand, both of them wide-eyed at Merek’s actions.
“Now I have the totem,” Merek says. “So if it has any effect on him, I will be the one to wield it. I will be the one who talks to him.”
“He’ll slaughter you!” The queen laughs manically. “Do you think you can negotiate with him? You think because you sat down for dinner with the council in Tregellan you’ll be able to talk with the Sleeping Prince? He’s been asleep for five hundred years. He’s woken to nothing! Everything he knew is gone: his family, his kingdom. He won’t sit down and share a cup of wine with you, you stupid boy! You haven’t a clue how to run a kingdom, let alone defend it from a monster. You need me.”
“No,” Merek says, his voice dead. “All I need from you is for you to be gone from my presence. From my castle. From my life. I sentence you to hang by the neck until you are dead.”
The words ring around and around the room.
The smile slides from the queen’s face like hot butter from a knife. “What?”
“The penalty for treason is death. You know that.” Merek does not look at her as he speaks.
“You can’t hang me; I’m the queen.”
“No. My wife will be the queen. And you will not be my wife. You are a traitor.”
“I’m your mother.”
The court sits in utter silence watching this exchange, and Lief and I stand still, watching them. The guard who held me has let me go, and when I turn my head I can see others have appeared at the doors. Waiting.
“You have until my men return with the body of the girl to make your peace with yourself. Once they return, your time is over. Take her to the cells,” he orders the guards. They step forward, all of them eager to be the one to secure her, and I’m glad when it’s Taul who pulls her hands behind her back. She is a statue again, putting up no resistance as they take her from the dais. She doesn’t move her eyes from Merek’s face, even as he resolutely turns away.
“Release the lady’s hands and the guard’s,” Merek says.
“Wait!” the queen shouts as my wrists are unbound. We all turn to look at her, to see her planted in the doorway of the Great Hall, her eyes blazing. “I’m not the only villain of the piece, am I, Lief? Tell Twylla how you came to be here, why don’t you?”
“Get her out of my sight,” Merek commands, and the guards drag the queen away, her deranged laughter ringing in my ears.
I turn to Lief in confusion and the bottom falls out of the world. He is so pale that his bruises shine against the pallor of his skin. He does not look like a man who has been reprieved. He looks like a man who has been forsaken and condemned.
“What does she mean?” I ask him.
He stares at the floor, and inside my chest I feel a sharp pain that I know is the beginning of heartbreak.
“Out!” Merek turns to the court. “All of you, leave us.”
“What does she mean?” I ask Lief again, but he won’t look at me. I take a step forward and then Merek is
moving, leaping from the dais to stop me from getting to Lief. He holds me until the room is emptied of all but us three, the doors closing us in.
Merek looks at Lief. “What did my mother mean, guard? What have you done? Did you help her summon the Bringer? Did you help her to poison my stepfather? Is there some truth in her claims a Tregellian did it?”
“No,” he says quietly. “No, I swear I had nothing to do with that. With the king or the Sleeping Prince.”
“Then what, Lief?” I say. “What does she mean?”
He shakes his head and Merek looks at him.
“Either you can tell us or I’ll drag her back here to tell us,” he says harshly. “But one way or the other we will know.”
Lief closes his eyes, and it seems to me that all three of us hold our breath. “I was working for the queen.”
“But I knew that—she hired you to guard me,” I say stupidly.
“No, Twylla. I was hired, by her, to seduce you. So you couldn’t marry the prince.”
As when Tyrek died, all the sound and color is gone, leaving only his words: “I was hired, by her, to seduce you.” Over and over they run through my head, the sense of them jumbling, and then Merek’s arms are around me, and he’s holding me as my knees give way beneath me. I right myself, keeping one hand on Merek’s arm as I look back at Lief, the man I love.
“She hired you to seduce me?”
He nods, once. “To make sure the prince couldn’t marry you.”
“I don’t understand,” I say quietly.
Lief takes a deep breath and looks at me. “I told you I was a farmer’s boy; that’s true, I am, and my father is dead. But my great-grandfather wasn’t from farming stock. He was the captain of the Tregellian army, and my family lived at the castle as courtiers under our then king. Until the war. He was killed because of the Lormerian war.”
My eyes widen as he speaks.
“After the war, the people revolted. They blamed the king and what was left of his army for their losses, and they rioted. The mob captured the royal family and their supporters. Including my great-grandfather. They were beheaded, every last one of them, and my great-grandmother had to flee for her and her son’s lives, lest they suffer the same fate. She had to lie about who she was in order to keep my grandfather safe. She married a farmer, well beneath her station as a lady of the court, but what choice did she have? They had no children, so the farm went to my grandfather, then my father. All because of Lormere.”
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