The Sin Eater's Daughter

by Melinda Salisbury

  “I still don’t understand,” I say slowly, and Merek tightens his grip on me. Lief looks at a spot to my left, no longer able to meet my gaze.

  “When my father died, we had nothing. My mother lives in a hovel at the end of the world and my sister can’t leave the house because the people who live there …” He pauses and swallows. “It’s Lormere’s fault. Were it not for your queen and her family, I’d have been brought up in a court, too. I would have been a scholar, instead of learning to read in secret. Had it not been for Lormere, there would have been no uprising. I’d be like him.” He jerks his head at Merek. “So I came here to rob the castle. I planned to break in, grab everything I could, then take it home and sell it. Put us back where we should be, at least part of the way.”

  His eyes flicker back to me briefly before dropping to the floor. His fingers fidget by his sides.

  “I wanted the money. Enough to get the farm back, to get us back on our feet. But I got caught and thrown in the dungeon. I thought I was done for, a Tregellian caught stealing from the castle. But then your queen came to see me. I suppose someone must have reported me to her. She offered to free me, and to pay me a lot of money if I could get rid of you. All I had to do was to get you to fall in love with me and convince you to leave with me. To leave him. And I agreed. The queen reassigned your other guard, and then a trial was staged and I won.” He shrugs arrogantly. “I’d have gold and revenge on Lormere, with the queen’s own help.”

  I hold up my hand to stop him from continuing. “This can’t be true.”

  Lief screws up his face. “I was supposed to convince you to leave, and once you agreed I’d tell them when and where to catch us. You’d be disgraced and sent away, and I’d be paid. But I saw the way the prince looked at you and I knew he’d forgive you, find a way to make you stay. He’d win; his kind always do. But he might not want you if … if you weren’t a maid. If you weren’t pure, if someone else had beaten him to it. If a commoner had had you first.”

  I run from the room, propelled by some instinct of self-preservation, sickened by what he has said. I race blindly down the hall, collapsing, helpless to prevent the churning inside me, shaking as I heave, spitting onto the floor.

  A cool hand rests on the back of my neck, and for the first time I appreciate Merek’s cold skin, soothing the fire that rages inside me. Lief used me. He said he loved me and he shared my bed, and all the while he was planning for this, to break the royal family and get his revenge.

  I sit back, and Merek looks at me, gently wiping my mouth with the sleeve of his tunic. My eyes stream from the force of my retching, and he wipes the tears away, too.

  “I owe you a great debt of thanks,” he says quietly. “All of Lormere does. I’m sorry I let you think I didn’t believe you, but there were guards waiting for me around the corner in the dungeon. I didn’t know where their loyalties lay, so I had to make it appear that I thought you were lying. One of them was Taul, and he confirmed what you’d said about his sister. At supper I saw my mother’s necklace and it was as you said. So I sent for the physician I’d hoped would get here in time for Dorin. I knew she must have hidden the poison somewhere, so I arrested the mute—it must have been him who got the poison for her. As she prepared for the trial, my men went in to search her rooms. I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you. But I needed her to trip herself up in front of everyone, where she couldn’t deny it, or murder her way out of it.”

  “He lied to me,” I say, ignoring everything that Merek has said.

  “I had no idea about your guard. I’m so sorry.”

  “Dorin,” I say. “If he had not been stung, it would never have come to pass. He would never have let Lief near me.”

  “Twylla … I’m not sure he did die of a bee sting.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I can’t be sure, but I suspect strongly he was poisoned, too. By her. To push you into Lief’s arms. When I discovered he was dying, one of the healers said there had been a time when he was rallying and they felt sure he’d recover. And then he went downhill, rapidly. I didn’t want to tell you at the time. It seemed pointless. But now I believe she had him poisoned.”

  Something inside me turns to ice, to iron. It’s so clever.

  “If she’d reassigned Dorin, I would have been shaken,” I say, my voice sounding as though it comes from far away. “I would have trusted no one. I would never have let my guard down. But if he were ill and Lief offered a shoulder to cry on … Because I thought he trusted Lief, I also trusted Lief.”

  “What would you have me do?” Merek asks, and I look at him. “What will make you happy?”

  “Her body burning where I can watch it.”

  Merek’s jaw drops open.

  “I mean it. She’s raised the almost-dead to try to start a war. She’s killed my guard and your stepfather and countless, countless others. She’s insane.”

  Merek looks at me as though I’m a stranger. “But don’t hang her,” I continue. “Give her a dose of that musquash. I want her to know she’s dying.”

  “You don’t mean this?”

  “Oh, Merek, I do. I really do.” And I do. For the first time in my life, I want someone dead and I want her to suffer. But no matter how much she suffers, she will never, ever suffer enough for what she has done to Dorin, to Merek. To me.

  “Why?” I ask him. “Why would she go to such lengths? Why not give me to the Bringer and get rid of me that way?”

  “How could she? She’d trapped herself. She’d spent years telling the kingdom you were its savior and the emblem of faith, sent especially to be my bride—the hope of Lormere. If you’d been taken, the people would have rioted, gone out to find you. I would have gone to find you. She made you too meaningful. She made you too important to kill.”

  I think of the poor king, not important enough despite his title and bloodline. “So she chose to discredit me? To ruin my reputation?”

  Merek nods. “I told you the people need something to believe in. They have to put their faith somewhere, and they put it in you. She had to take that faith away to eliminate you from her plans. If you’d died at any point, no matter the circumstance, then people would have thought Lormere cursed and forsaken, and the country would have fallen apart. Using the Gods to control the population works both ways. But if it emerged you weren’t truly Daunen, if it turned out the Gods had forsaken you, then she could get rid of you. She could have sweetened the blow with news of Lormere’s newfound alchemy and thrown you to the wolves.”

  I nod, barely able to keep up with him.

  Merek continues. “I told you that she asked me to bring back everything I could find from Tallith. I suspected she wanted alchemic knowledge. I thought she’d try to force scholars here to learn it. I didn’t see the harm in it; I told you I wanted that knowledge, too. But fool that I was, I brought her back everything I could find, including the totem. She must have been hoping for that: much better to summon an alchemist than try to decipher the ways of alchemy. Then all she needed to do was get rid of my stepfather, blame Tregellan, marry me and secure the bloodline, and then she could use the Sleeping Prince to make her gold.”

  I wrap my arms around myself, as though that’s the only way I’ll be able to keep myself from unraveling completely.

  “What shall I do with the guard?” Merek says softly. “He’s still committed treason. You’re obviously the innocent party in all of this.”

  But that isn’t true. I took Lief to my bed after I’d been in the Hall of Glass with Merek. I tell him as much.

  He swallows but shakes his head. “You are not accountable for this. You have been a pawn in a game. But I will take your lead, and if you want to execute him, too, I will sanction it.”

  No. The thought is immediate and consuming. I can’t see him dead. I know what he’s done—he told me in his own words—but despite it all, I don’t wish him dead and I don’t hate him.

  Because I still don’t believe him. Try as I might, I can’t. My
heart is screaming at me that he’s lying, that he couldn’t …

  “What good would executing him do?” I ask. “The damage is done.”

  Merek’s jaw tightens. “It would be rightful punishment for his crimes. Unless … unless it were to emerge that he was not successful in his actions.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “If it turns out he hasn’t divided us. If we continue along the path we’ve been on these past four harvests …”

  I smile sadly.

  “I need you,” he says. “The Sleeping Prince is coming. And she was right; I can’t handle him alone. I needed you to help me stop my mother; I can’t fight him without you.”

  “He might not want a war. He might want to understand what happened to him.”

  “Trust me when I tell you that no prince would rest if his castle were snatched from him. No man, even. Look at your guard. Look at what he did because he lost a farm. Imagine what he would have done if his whole kingdom had been taken from him.” He pauses. “Lormere is the only kingdom in the realm with a castle. We didn’t exist when the prince was last awake; Lormere was a handful of villages in the mountains. Now look at us. Can you honestly believe he won’t try to take it? Won’t think it’s his right to take it? You heard my mother, I can only govern as regent without a queen. Lormere will need me to be a king. I need to be as he is. Be my queen, Twylla. Stay by my side and rule with me; help me keep Lormere safe.”

  “Merek, the people will accept you as the king with or without me,” I say, reaching for his hand. “What’s happened here will be more than enough to convince them that the old ways have to change. The lords will stand behind you. The people will accept change if you’re honest with them. Tell them the truth. Tell them he’s coming and they must trust you to protect them.”

  “All of it? Even the truth about you, and Daunen?”

  I think for a moment. “No. Let that die quietly. They don’t deserve that.” Color spreads across his cheeks and I squeeze his fingers briefly before I let go of his hand. “Be a good enough king that they won’t need to pray to Gods. Don’t fail them. Tell them you love them and Lormere, and you will always put them first. You don’t need me for that.”

  “But I want you,” he smiles at me. “Not just to make me a king. I’ve always wanted you. Despite it all, you are still the bride I would choose. I do choose you.”

  He is so earnest, so sincere. I would be good for him, to curb his temper and warm his coldness. He needs a queen he can talk to. He needs someone to love. I could be that woman, and we could see what happens next for us. And if war does come, then surely it would be better for us to face it together. Lormere is my home, too.

  I cup his cheek in my palm. “I would like,” I say carefully, “to think on it. I would like to be able to come to you with a decision that is mine and mine alone, and not because I’m told what it will be, or because it allows me to take revenge on anyone, or prove them wrong. And not because of war. If I come to you, I want it to be because I am choosing you, for no reason other than that. I don’t want for you to ever doubt it.”

  Though his face falls, he nods his agreement. “I have waited eleven years for you to save me,” he says softly. “I can wait a little longer, I think.”

  Save him. He thought I would save him. The idea of being a heroine is so appealing that I’m about to tell him that I will marry him.

  “So what shall we do with the guard?” he asks again, cutting across my thoughts.

  “I’d like to talk to him. Then send him away. Banish him from Lormere. On pain of death should he ever return.”

  Merek takes my hand from his face and kisses the back of it. “You would make a good queen,” he murmurs. “I’ll be in the gardens when you have decided.”

  He helps me to my feet, checking my face and smoothing my hair before he allows me to go back into the Great Hall. I close the door behind me and turn to face Lief.

  He still stands in front of the dais, his hands clasped before him, as though he’s remained frozen since my flight from the room. I pause by the door and the two of us lock eyes across the room, assessing, competing for dominance. When I tire of the contest, I walk to a bench and sit down, waiting.

  “I’m sorry,” he says finally.

  “What are you sorry for?”

  “All of it.”

  I nod. “I didn’t know she hated me that much.”

  He looks at the floor before speaking. “She didn’t, at least not always. I think she hated herself.”

  Despite myself I look at him. “What do you mean?”

  “She failed. She thought she was cursed, you know. First her daughter dying, then her husband. Then she couldn’t have another child. All she wanted was to keep her throne and be the greatest queen Lormere had ever known. She hated herself for needing you.”

  I clench my teeth before I speak. “And did you know she planned to marry Merek in my stead? Did she tell you that when you hatched your scheme? Her own son? She planned to depose me to marry her son. And start a war with your country. With your people. Did she tell you that’s what she’d do? Lief, she raised a monster from a story and now we’re all at risk. What do we do when he comes? Did you think about that?”

  “I didn’t know about that. And I don’t care what the mad royals of Lormere, or anywhere else, do,” he says.

  I stand and advance on him, my hands clawed at my sides. “What had I done to you to deserve it, Lief? What did I—me, Twylla—do to you to make you so determined to ruin me? Or was I to be a casualty of war?”

  “I didn’t know you when it started,” he says.

  “And now? Now that you know me so intimately? By the Gods, Lief, I believed you!”

  He looks at the floor, shaking his head.

  “You’ve destroyed my world,” I say to him. “Not the royal house of Lormere, but me. And you did it while pretending to love me.”

  “I didn’t lie about that,” he says hurriedly. “I didn’t lie about loving you. Not in the end.”

  “You lie to me now!” I scream at him.

  He starts toward me and I know that if he takes me in his arms, despite all of this, I will lose myself. I move swiftly and put a bench between us.

  “I tried to tell you in the apothecary garden and couldn’t. I have tried to tell you every day. If we’d gotten away, I would have confessed then.”

  “How can you lie to my face?”

  “I have come to love you,” Lief pleads. “That much is true now. If it wasn’t always, it is now. I didn’t start so well, but I didn’t betray you in the end. I would have run with you. I wanted to. I came back for you, not for gold or for revenge, but for you.”

  “You dare—”

  “It’s true,” he says swiftly. “I went back and forth with you. You would do something good, and I would regret my deal with the queen and decide to break it. Then you would do something as you did to Dimia and I would find my resolve. But when I saw him kiss you in the Hall of Glass, I realized that I loved you, truly loved you. And that all of the plans we’d made, I wanted them. With you.”

  “Oh Gods.” I clutch my stomach as it churns again at the memory. “It was all a lie. That was why you wouldn’t run with me that first night! You needed to ruin me first. Ruin me and make sure she knew where to catch us.”

  “But I didn’t because I fell in love with you! We were first together that afternoon and I said nothing! I could have betrayed you then, and I did not. I would have run with you again when I returned. I was ready for that!”

  “But you told her! She caught us! Oh Gods!” I moan as I recall the guards who arrested us. They wore gloves, which meant they could touch me. They came there prepared to arrest me. Because of him. “You knew she was coming. You lay with me, and you knew she would come and see us, find us naked like that. You shamed me.”

  “I did not do that! I had planned to leave you, leave the whole thing behind, but I couldn’t. I came back to take you away. I would have told you everythin
g. I didn’t know she would come. Please, Twylla, you must believe me.”

  “How can I believe anything you say? You lie; you have lied all along. The only thing you’ve not lied about is lying.”

  “But you love me, despite that. As I love you, despite everything. We could do this, Twylla. I know we haven’t had the best start, but surely it’s how we end that counts? Be with me?”

  What big eyes he has, green like the starfire in the winter sky, and I turn away, unable to stand his gaze.

  A noise in the corridor startles us both, and Lief takes his chance and darts around the table, reaching for me.

  “Twylla, my Twylla. I will give you the rest of my life. It’s yours, only yours. I will spend every hour of every day until the end of mine, making up for the wrongs I have caused you. But I need you to let me. And if war is coming, you won’t be safe here; he can’t keep you safe. I can and I will. Just forgive me. Let me prove myself to you.”

  No, he cannot do this to me. He cannot be sorry and ask for my forgiveness. Not now. For the first time in my life, I am in a position to truly choose my fate. I have all the facts; nothing is concealed from me. I can control my destiny; I can choose what happens next. But what a choice, between the callous liar I foolishly love and the broken prince who thinks I can save him. I look again into Lief’s eyes.

  Who will save me?

  In the stories of old, a hero is the one who sweeps in with drawn sword and noble face, to kill the dragon and free the princess. In the stories of old, it never seems to dawn on the princess that she should be careful not to put herself at the mercy of those who would do her ill in the first place.

  I don’t live in the stories of old.