“It never seemed to bother her before. I just worry about her. We haven’t spent any time together since Kasen’s letter arrived. She’s always with your father talking strategy, or in the library with Papa looking at maps. Even at dinner she’s only around a short time, then it’s off to bed without a word. I wish I could get her alone for a minute, just to talk to her.”
“What would you say to her if you did?”
“I don’t know,” she shrugged. She hadn’t told Thane about the kiss in the courtyard, or the aftermath. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust him, more that she wanted to keep that moment her own for a little while longer. She sighed, “I just—I miss her, and she isn’t even gone yet.”
“Like I said, she’s got a lot going on. I’m sure everything is fine. I wouldn’t worry about it if I were you.”
“No,” Cam scoffed, “you wouldn’t, would you? You don’t worry about anything.”
Thane put a foot on one of the bales and leaned against his knee, staring up at her. She could tell by the somber look on his face she’d hurt him, and in return she was going to receive a lecture. As he began to list off the things and people he loved, and therefore worried about, she leaned her head back and looked up at the sky.
The clouds were wispy and thin, swirling their way across the sea of blue overhead. She watched them dance in slow motion, luring her into a sleepy haze until the shouts from the men snapped her awake.
The yelling was coming from outside the walls, and in an instant the guards were rushing towards the main gate. From her spot on the bales she could see the gears moving, and their clicking beat in time with her heart. The soldiers had spilled out from all the buildings and were lined up facing the opening archway, their swords at the ready. Cam jumped from hay stack landing next to Thane, who grabbed her arm to keep her upright. As soon as her feet were stable she took off like a flash, darting into the sea of guards.
“What’s going on?” she shouted, running towards the commotion. No one answered her question, keeping their focus on the entry. She’d reached the front line of bodies when a spear stuck out across her legs, and another at her chest, blocking her way.
“Let me through,” she growled.
“Sorry, Your Highness,” one of the men answered. “King’s orders. If anyone comes through that gate, we are to keep you away. We don’t know who they’ve found.”
From the other side of the yard, people were running from the armory to join the growing crowd, and in the chaos, Cam spotted Rya rushing towards her.
“What happening?” Rya asked, grabbing Cam by the arm. “I heard someone say they have a prisoner.”
“They’ve found someone in the woods,” Thane answered, suddenly next to them. He stood a head taller than the two of them, making it possible for him to see what was on the other side of the human wall. “They’re bringing him in now.”
“Do you think it’s Nix?” Cam asked.
“I hope not,” Rya answered. “If he’s been captured it’s because he allowed it to happen. The Kael don’t get caught.”
The portcullis reached the top, and Cam strained to look over the man’s shoulder, but couldn’t see anything but the back of his neck.
“I don’t understand,” Thane said, watching the soldiers enter. He was squinting towards the gate.
“What is it?” Cam asked. “Is it him? Is it Nix?”
“No.” He shook his head, his face pinched in confusion. “It’s a kid.”
“A kid?” Rya repeated.
Cam argued with the guard in front of her, but as she held his attention, demanding to be let through, Rya used the moment to push past them. She ignored the protests of the other guards, and the pleading from Cam to wait for her. She stopped short, gasping for air as the solider carrying the prisoner slung him off his shoulder and set in on the ground at his feet. Thane had made it to her side and reached out his arms to grab her, but instead she fell into them, clawing at his sleeves for support.
“What’s wrong?” Thane gasped, wrapping his arms around her. “What is it?”
“It’s him,” she whispered. The words were like a ghost, as all the air had been taken from her lungs and she could barely form the words. “It’s Sora.”
Thane looked down at the frail body lying in the dirt and then back at Rya’s anguished face. He called for Cam who finally broke free of the guard’s grasp, and handed the queen off to her as he knelt down, scooping the boy into his arms. It wasn’t long before he had pushed past the crowd and was running back towards the castle, the child’s head bouncing against his chest.
Gasps and whispers disappeared behind Cam as she tried keeping pace with Rya and Thane. The boy was small and pale, with a tangled mass of thick black hair jutting up in all directions. His tattered clothing hung from his thin body. The large chunks of missing cloth revealed the bruised skin he hid underneath. The soles of his bare feet were shredded and bloody. Each stride Thane took jostled the boy, and left crimson drops from his torn skin trailing behind them. The bright red stood out like a warning on the white stone floor of the castle’s entry, and Cam’s stomach dropped.
“Who is he?” She asked, still running up the stairs after Rya.
Thane burst into one of the rooms on the second floor and placed the boy on the bed. With his arms now free, he bent forward, his hands on his knees, breathing heavy and wincing at the sweat in his eyes. Rya was already at the bedside, holding the child’s hand in her own, searching his unconscious face for something only she knew. Cam hovered in the doorway, feeling alien and uncertain.
“Is he—” she gulped, not sure if she really wanted to ask. “Is he yours?”
“My son?” Rya huffed. “No, he’s not mine. Sora is my steward and has been for years.”
“He’s a child,” Thane replied, unable to hide his surprise.
“He’s thirteen,” Rya answered. “He’s small for his age, but that doesn’t mean he’s not tough. He’s a fighter, and he’s survived a lot in his life.”
That makes two of you, Cam thought, watching the queen allow the tears to drip from her chin. She wouldn’t wipe them away, refusing to let go of Sora now that she had hold of him again.
Á
The door had been left open, but the only light remaining in the room was the dull red glow of the fireplace, making it difficult for Cam to see much inside. From her bench in the hallway she could make out the shape of the chair next to the bedside, and Rya’s shadow in the same place she’d left her.
Cam took a deep breath and stood up, trying to keep her nerves in check as she walked towards the doorway.
“He won’t like his hair this way,” Rya whispered as Cam entered the room. “He always kept it cropped short on the sides. Some said it made his ears look larger, but he didn’t mind.”
Cam placed a hand on Rya’s shoulder, giving a tender squeeze. The queen reached out and tucked one of the boy’s dark strands behind his ear, allowing her fingers to graze his cheek.
“He’s going to be alright,” Cam reassured her. “He looks better than you did when we found you, and you bounced back. He will too.”
“Right,” Rya replied.
Cam could hear the footsteps approaching in the hall, and she knew she was out of time. She’d come to tell Rya her plan, but before she could get the words out, Norell appeared in the doorway.
“Rya,” Cam started, “I need to talk to you.”
Rya looked back and forth between Norell and Cam, trying to work out what was happening, then frowned. “What’s she doing here?”
“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about,” Cam answered. “We understand you don’t want to leave Sora’s side, but you have to allow us to help him.”
“I can’t go.” Rya shook her head. “I don’t want him to be alone.”
“I know, I don’t want that either,” Cam replied. “That’s why Norell’s here. Papa and I both thought it was best to have her care for Sora, the way she did for you when you first arrived.”
<
br /> “No,” Rya snapped. “There’s no way I’m letting that happen.”
“Please,” Cam pleaded. “My father is still depending on you to help beat the Ashen army, and you can’t help us, or be of any use to Sora when he wakes, if you’re weak and exhausted.”
“There has to be someone else. Why does it have to be her?”
Norell shifted her weight, crossing her arms in front of her.
Cam sighed. “I know you both have your issues with each other, but we have no other choice. There’s still a traitor somewhere looking to sell you to Nix. Everyone in the outer ward could see how you reacted when Sora arrived, and they all know how much he means to you. Word is going to spread, and whoever is trying to hurt you is going to take advantage of that. I have no doubt they will try and use him to get to you. We don’t know who we can trust, and Papa rather keep the mender out of here until we have more answers.”
“And what if it’s her?” Rya asked. “What if Norell’s the traitor and you’re just handing her exactly what she wants.”
Norell grunted in disapproval. “If I was going to betray you I’d do it to your face. I wouldn’t sneak around whispering secrets to some assassin.”
“Sure,” Rya scoffed. “I have no reason to doubt you. You’ve been nothing but truthful and up front since I met you.”
“Stop it,” Cam cut in. “Norell would never do that. She’d never do anything to hurt me. I trust her with my life, and I trusted her with yours as well. She’s my family, and she’ll always have my back.”
“That’s what you’re relying on?” Rya stood up, storming out of the room into the hallway. With Cam and Norell on her heals she spun around, shaking her head in disbelief. “Just because she’s family doesn’t mean she’s above suspicion. Her being your blood doesn’t make her a good person. Let me tell you what family is; it’s watching your father cry over three small mounds in the back garden, wailing over the newborn sons he never saw alive. It’s knowing you only survived infancy because you born a girl. It’s having a mother who believed a son would never be able to raise her status the way a daughter could and ensuring she got what she wanted. Being family doesn’t stop you from being evil, it simply masks it.”
Norell’s face burned red, and Cam shook her head, silently pleading with her to keep quiet, but it was no use. She stepped forward, getting only inches from Rya’s face.
“Now let me tell you what I think about family,” Norell snapped. “Family is my parents waving goodbye to me as they rode through the gate. It’s having an aunt that’s willing to step in as a mother to you when you’re all alone, only to lose her too. It’s watching them burn her body on the pyre after she’s gone.
“All I’ve ever wanted was to keep my family close, and yet death keeps snatching them away from me, and here we are again, on the verge of tragedy. Mikkel, the man who stepped in to be my father when I had no one, is preparing to fight a war that doesn’t need to happen. My cousin, who’s more my sister than anything else, is ready to lay down her life to protect you. I hate that they are facing danger, and I hate you for making it happen, and yet I keep agreeing to help you. Do you know why? Because Cam asked me to. Because I love my family that much. I’m not going to do anything to hurt her, and that means I’m not going to hurt you either. I know it’s hard for you, but you’re going to have to trust me.”
Cam was frozen, unsure what to do. Norell was standing like a wall, waiting for Rya to reply. The queen was fuming, clenching her good hand into a fist, and Cam could see a bright green glow illuminating from between her fingers.
“Fine,” Rya said, breaking the silence. “I’ll let you take care of him. But know this, everything you feel for your family, I feel for Sora. He’s all I have.”
“Understood,” Norell replied. “I promise, I won’t let anything happen to him, and I don’t make promises I can’t keep.”
Seventeen
The boy stirred behind her, and Cam turned to watch him. All night he’d moaned and twitched, responding to whatever dreams had invaded his sleep, but he never woke. She waited for him to calm as he’d done each time before, but instead his eyes flew open and he sat up with a shriek.
“Where am I?” He asked. His eyes searched the room, confused and scared. “Who are you? What have you done with my queen?”
He threw back the covers, intending to jump out of the bed, but halted when his feet emerged from the blankets. They’d been wrapped to twice their size with bandages and smelled of the plants Norell had rubbed against his wounds. His hands moved around his torso, trembling over the fresh fabric of the nightshirt he wore.
“You’re in the Ashen Forest,” Cam explained. She kept her voice calm and sweet, hoping to ease his worry. “You’re in my father’s castle; you’re safe, and so is Rya.”
“What?” He scooted up the bed until his back hit the headboard, then pulled his legs to his chest, hugging his knees. “You know the queen? And you’ve kept her safe?”
“Yes,” Cam nodded. She held out a hand to stop Norell who had come running inside, scaring him even more. “My name is Cam, I’m the princess of this kingdom. This is Norell, she’s my cousin and she’s been tending to your injuries. We’re friends of Rya’s, and I promise we aren’t going to hurt you.”
“You’re lying,” he frowned. “My queen doesn’t have friends.”
“If she doesn’t have friends,” Norell questioned, “then what are you to her?”
“I’m her steward,” Sora answered with pride. “I’ve spent years serving her.”
“Being a steward is a lot of responsibility,” she replied. “She must put a lot of trust in you. Does that not make you some sort of friend to her?”
“No—I don’t think so,” he stammered.
“She’s put trust in us as well,” Norell continued. “Even if that doesn’t make us friends, she left you in our care and that means something.”
“I guess.”
Cam could see the boy getting more aggravated, and she tried to diffuse his anger. “Tell me, how did you and Queen Rya get to be so close? You said she saved you, what did she save you from?”
He glared at her, obviously sizing her up. He kept his arms wrapped around his legs, and his mouth closed.
“We save people also,” Cam offered, trying to coax him a little more. “I found Rya at our border. She was hurt so I brought her here to the castle, and we’ve been helping her heal. Is that what she did for you?”
“Sort of,” he mumbled.
“I’ve come to care a lot for Rya. It happens when you save someone. It’s why I have no doubt she cares a great deal for you as well.”
“She does.” His muscles relaxed just a fraction. He took one more look at Cam’s face, then began. “I was born to a poor family from the northern tribes. They had left the mountains looking for work in the Trava fields, but the drought made things difficult. By the time I was four my parents had decided they could no longer take care of me.
“My keeper had been trading children in Kelda for years before me. She was cunning and convinced my parents that selling me to her would be in my best interest. She would pay them a hefty amount of gold, and in return I would live in a nice home with a rich family. It was all a lie of course, but they bought it, and I never saw them again.”
“That’s horrible,” Norell gasped. “I thought the child slave trade had been annihilated in Kelda.”
“That’s what the kingdoms want to believe, but I can tell you first hand it’s not true.”
“I’m so sorry,” Cam whispered.
“It could have been worse,” he shrugged. “For some reason my keeper, Lady Wilma, took a liking to me. Instead of selling me outright as she did most of the other children, she rented me to various people as we traveled. We would set up camp in a new village, and she would hand me over to whoever offered the most coin, and when she’d collected enough new children, we’d leave and start it over in the next town. That was my life for years. Thankfully, Lady Wilma
refused to allow anyone to defile me. Under her orders I was to be kept pure. She did not object, however, to people beating me. That’s how I ended up meeting Rya.”
“She paid to hurt you?” Norell gasped.
“No, she would never,” Sora snapped. “There was a general in the Isles’ royal army who liked to unload his anger on innocent people. He paid a sack of gold to use me as a whipping boy, and had me tied to a post in the guard house. He had laid out a handful of tools to beat me with. I don’t remember much else, except the warmth of the blood running down my back, and the sound of my queen’s voice when she came to rescue me.”
“Rya found you?” Cam asked.
Sora nodded. “Yes. I heard her shouting at the general and then there was this horribly loud crack in the air. Between the blood, the tears, and the bright light that somehow swallowed the room, I never saw what happened. When the light faded, the general was dead on the ground, and it was just me and my queen alone. She untied me and took me inside to clean my wounds. She talked to me, asked me questions about my life, and in the end, she promised to keep me safe. She made me her steward so I would always be close to her. Some people objected, but that never mattered to my queen. She does what she wants.”
A few stray tears ran down Cam’s cheeks as Sora finished his story. She could imagine Rya cradling the young boy in her arms, trying to calm his fears. She could hear Rya’s voice whispering a promise to him, the same as Cam had done for her.
“What happened to Lady Wilma?” Norell asked. “If she only rented you out, how did Rya manage to keep you all these years?”
“I told My Queen about Lady Wilma’s love of the bathhouse, and how she would most likely be found there. My Queen went and convinced her to release me. After that she told me I belonged to no one. I was free to leave her service at any time if I wished, but I knew could never do that. She needs me as much as I need her.”
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