Queen's Crown

by Anne Wheeler

  A rush of wind blew across my face, and my eyes flew open. I hadn’t been homesick for Lochfeld since we’d left. I missed Laurent, yes, and it was painful much of the time, but . . . but Lochfeld?

  My breath grew short.

  It wasn’t the same feeling I’d sensed at the castle in Iraela. Not exactly, at least. Still, I was quite sure it was the map—a gnawing hunger, an emptiness that even Laurent’s absence couldn’t match.

  It was calling to me.

  I wanted to scream at it, to tell it that I wasn’t at Lochfeld, and it just needed to hold on for another day. I bit my lip instead, hiding my panic as Erstad let his horse drop back beside me.

  “Last chance to stop for the night while the ground is still comfortable,” he said, retying dark curls at the base of his neck. “If you’re willing.”

  My eyes unfocused as I looked up the road. I wasn’t willing. I wanted nothing more than to continue on and reach the map as soon as possible, but none of the horses were capable of that. And Erstad was correct—soon the ground would grow rocky as we approached the cliffs which protected Lochfeld, and that would mean no sleep for me and less grazing for the horses.

  The pull grew weaker, and I blinked. Was the map telling me it was all right to stop?

  “Yes,” I replied. “Here seems sufficient.”

  He nodded and trotted off, giving orders to his men. I eased Skylark off the trail and slumped in my saddle. How was I supposed to sleep tonight? Still, as the carriage appeared behind me and I grudgingly climbed inside, I couldn’t deny that my exhaustion was warring with the map’s pull. I lay back on the seats, fully clothed, and stared at the ceiling.

  Silke had traveled. She had. Her journals attested to it, over and over. But she’d never said how she managed to explore Meirdre and watch the map at the same time. Was it possible it was so obvious that she never thought to write it down? Or was it that secret?

  I yawned and rolled to my side. The flickers of a fire reflected in the carriage, and the encroaching darkness didn’t help my mood. How I wanted to be outside, at the edge of the moors I loved so much. But that would not do for the king’s wife, even if—even if she needed the land.

  Cautiously, I slid to the other side of the carriage and unlatched the door. A soldier paced somewhere in the distance, and I waited until he wandered off to relieve himself before sliding the door open and creeping out to the back of the carriage.

  The pull here was even stronger. Not a surprise, since my feet were sinking into the loose soil that Skylark had no difficulty with. Could that be the key? Father Gerritt had said that I needed contact with the land for the map to speak to me, and out here in the moors, with the moonlight spilling across the carriage, I was closer than ever. Short of having dug through the frozen dirt for rotten potatoes as a child, that was.

  Or had Silke simple not cared what happened to Meirdre? Maybe she’d convinced her husband she could read the map while away from Lochfeld, and he’d simply been fool enough to believe her. She hadn’t seemed too enamored with her king, and maybe that disinterest extended to Meirdre itself. Maybe there’d been more threats during his reign than she’d written about, and she’d ignored most of them.

  I leaned against the carriage, my jaw tight. Perhaps Silke had been wrong. I’d meant it when I’d told Laurent that if staying at Lochfeld forever was what I needed to do, then I would. Yet I’d already broken that vow, was stranded over six hours away from the castle and that vexing map, which was calling for me once more. Yes, it had glowed blue and gold before, showing the next disaster was a few months away, but what if I’d missed something prior to that? I’d assumed seeing the prediction meant things would be safe for a while, but I’d missed something when I was in Iraela, after all. When would that disaster happen? Before or after the Vassian invasion?

  Silly girl. You have no idea.

  The shouts around the campfire grew louder, spurred on, I assumed, by liquor. I wandered away from the carriage as they did, easing my muscles into a painless stroll. The moon bestowed a shimmering path as I drew farther and farther away, until the crackle of the fire and gleeful roars were drowned out by the wind of the moor. Here, at the edge of the grasslands, the land had become rocky, and soon I found myself scrambling over the top of a small rise in the moonlight, the pull of the map too strong to resist. Stars flickered above me, thrown there at the beginning of time, innumerable and eternal. And—and something brighter ahead of me?

  A campfire.

  I sank to the ground, too conscious that the moon’s radiance illuminated everything between here and Lochfeld itself. But that was fine—it also meant I could see the horses down below, grazing while their riders hurried about. Merchants? Tradesmen? I couldn’t tell from up here, and their voices were hidden in the soft whispers of the night breeze.

  For almost an hour I sat there, waiting for Erstad to realize I was missing, waiting for the travelers down below to go to sleep. Perhaps something told me they wouldn’t, even as I shivered in the cooling air. The horses, far from as exhausted as I suspected Skylark was, became increasingly agitated, pawing and circling around, until the figures below saddled them.

  I held my breath. Who traveled the moors at night, when bandits roamed and the slightest misstep could be fatal?

  Even as I asked myself the question, I knew the answer.

  Scrambling back down the hill, I considered my options. Waiting was not among them. Neither was telling Captain Erstad, for a reason I couldn’t articulate. Probably because he would doubt me, question me, and by the time he believed me, Thomas and his men would be long gone toward Lochfeld. I couldn’t let that happen.

  I skulked back toward the carriage in the moonlight. Skylark had rested for quite a while now—a few hours, if memory served. She couldn’t gallop all night, especially across the rocky terrain, but she could get me closer than we’d be if we slept all night and then rode. That would have to be enough.

  Skylark nuzzled my hand as I whispered in her ear. Her ears pricked, attracting the attention of the horse next to her, but I gave him a pat on the haunch, and he quieted down. Skylark had no such anxiety as I slid into her back and circled her around the group, debating how I could disappear without being seen—or pursued. The soldiers would give chase if one of their horses vanished down the road, wouldn’t they?

  “Your Grace!”

  I twisted around at Erstad’s voice and brought Skylark’s impatient saunter to a stop, the lie coming easily to my tongue. “Captain. There’s a pond just up the road. Not more than a five-minute ride. I need—I need some time alone. To bathe. Change into something fresh.”

  He caught Skylark’s reins and frowned at me. “Your Grace, it’s late.”

  “Dark,” I replied. “Not late. Not especially. And I can’t sleep, filthy like this. All I can smell is smoke in that carriage.”

  He stared up at me, as if he suspected a trap, then his shoulders relaxed. “If you’re not back in half an hour, I’m sending someone for you.”

  I nodded and forced my most demure smile. Skylark reacted at once to a click of my tongue, eager for an evening walk, and we set off down the road, alone and unpursued. The moon rose as we did, and for what might be the last time in a while, I let myself believe I was home in Elternow, going for an evening stroll, secure in the knowledge that a bed awaited me in the morning.

  It wasn’t until I was twenty minutes away that I realized how fortunate it was that he hadn’t realized I had nothing clean to change into.

  Chapter Seven

  I’d drifted off to sleep several times on Skylark’s back, but she was steady enough—or perhaps used enough to my poor riding—that it hadn’t seemed to affect her at all. For when Lochfeld came into view atop the cliffs and I yawned once more, she continued as though nothing untoward had happened the night before.

  And perhaps for her, it hadn’t. She hadn’t seen the men down below, preparing for an evening ride, and we hadn’t encountered them on the road, either—wh
ich meant they’d stayed far away from any potential traffic. Erstad’s men hadn’t found us either, likely too consumed with finding the non-existent pond to even begin to close in on me.

  Skylar and I pulled off the road and into a stand of trees for two horses and a carriage, but they’d turned out to be brazen merchants, likely headed to Haszen, taking advantage of the moonlight to further their journey and avoid overnighting in the Arsele Forest. We were mostly too enlightened in Meirdre to believe in such things as ghouls, but there was enough of a question that merchants and everyone else avoided it at all costs.

  The morning sun grew hot on the right side of my face as Skylark trotted on, and I couldn’t help but be grateful that Laurent wouldn’t see the freckles that would no doubt appear shortly. In love with him, yes, I was that, but I hadn’t forgotten, and probably wouldn’t ever, how particular he could be. And the king’s wife couldn’t be seen with freckles.

  I laughed out loud at the idea of Laurent’s reaction to freckles just as the sound of hooves echoed somewhere in front of me. With a gentle tug of the reins, I backed Skylark into the woods once more and held my breath. We were hardly hidden here, but I was counting on the branch in front of my face and the fact that this interloper, like all the rest, was simply traveling Meirdre like anyone would do.

  But as I squinted into the sun, the figure turned familiar.

  “Lieutenant Vahl!” I shouted.

  He brought his horse to a halt as I trotted out of the woods, shame-faced at having arrived without my entourage and in a dress that probably smelled like I’d set myself on fire. But somehow, he didn’t look startled to see me—not a surprise, I supposed, for a man who’d first met me when Laurent had locked me up for treason.

  “Your Grace.” He glanced around and conspicuously behind me. “What are you—”

  “I had to get back,” I replied. Now that I was close to Lochfeld and no one could stop me, I could tell him what I’d seen. “I saw—there was a group of men and horses, off the road, preparing the ride through the night. And I knew Captain Erstad would never believe me, or at least not take me seriously enough to do anything about it, so I snuck away and rode through the night to get here.” He frowned, and I added, even though he wouldn’t understand completely, “I had to warn Lochfeld, someone, anyone!”

  “But how do you know they were headed for Lochfeld?” His brow furrowed. “They could have been anyone.”

  “I—”

  Oh, heavens. How had I known? Why had I thought the people I’d seen could have possibly included Thomas? Out in the moors in the moonlight, it had made sense, but now, with the castle towering over us in the morning sun, I was less sure. Not certain at all, if I was being honest with myself. Hadn’t I passed benign travelers on the road, after all?

  “I don’t know.” I slumped in my saddle. From here I couldn’t even see the soldiers patrolling the top of the castle, and the entire situation seemed a dream. “They seemed—threatening.”

  “Well . . .” His brows raised, and I felt like an idiot. “Then we shouldn’t be standing here on the road, should we?”

  I shook my head, and then we were off.

  Lochfeld was quiet when we arrived at the stables. My muscles protesting my foolishness more than Vahl ever could, I slid off Skylark and glanced around. No stable boy arrived to take the horses, but then again, it was still early in the morning, and Vahl was obviously under the impression I wouldn’t reprimand him for allowing such an oversight. I’d disappeared to Elternow, had abandoned my position without so much as a second thought, so I couldn’t blame him for that. Perhaps he’d run off to visit his own family, so I gave Skylark a perfunctory cool down on my own.

  Still irritated at the oversight, I climbed the stairs to my room. Vahl knew enough to alert the soldiers before I could tell the rest of the story, and I was vain enough to refuse to tell it while smelling like smoke and horse.

  But Sara was also missing. I yanked off my gown and pulled on another, grumbling over my lack of a bath. My hair? I ran my fingers through it, and then a brush, and then gave up. Laurent wasn’t here, anyway. Who was I trying to impress?

  Even Laurent’s mother seemed to be gone, though she was probably on one of her early morning rides. Elsanne was prone to those ever since she’d arrived, and most of the time I suspected she was trying to see how far she got from Lochfeld before the soldiers found her and begged her to return home. I’d always laughed when they did, for it was obvious they were more afraid of her reaction to being caught than failing to follow Laurent’s orders regarding her. Eventually she would outrun them or perhaps even out-sly them, and then she’d be back in Iraela before they could do a thing about it.

  And then—and then the king of Iraela would have to decide. Continue coercing Laurent into paying a never-ending dowry, or drop the blackmail and fall back into the distance, enjoying the last years of his life with the wife who now knew she was a pawn—yet somehow loved him anyway.

  Not that it any of was my business. Not anymore, at least. I’d done everything I could.

  Laughing over Elsanne’s continual insistence that she belonged in Iraela, I made my way to the octagonal war room on knees that wouldn’t stop shaking from fatigue. It was the longest ride I’d been on in a while, and had I known I’d be in so much discomfort at the end, I might have made a different decision. But it was done now, and I could deal with Erstad’s fury later. Well, soon, for there was no doubt he was closing in on Lochfeld soon.

  Clenching my teeth, I pushed open the heavy door. Darkness greeted me, so I lit one of the oil lamps and took a breath. No one was here, preparing for what was to come? It made sense, I supposed. I hadn’t seen the soldiers up top when Vahl and I had ridden up the cliff trail, just like I hadn’t seen them from the ground below, but they had to be up there somewhere. Actually doing something. Not just planning and hiding inside.

  Fool.

  The word had scarcely dissipated in my mind when the war room blurred around me, a haze of gold sparkles. I cursed under my breath—of course I hadn’t thought to bring any water on my night ride through the moors, and unlike Skylark, I hadn’t been able to take a five-second break to slurp water from a puddle. Or was it the map calling to me in some peculiar fashion?

  Nonsense. It hadn’t acted like this since Juliana had first set the crown on my head.

  “There you are.” Vahl stuck his head inside, a fuzzy shape surrounded by that same gold effervescence. “Captain Erstad just arrived,” he said, gesturing me out. “He’s in the throne room waiting on your arrival, and—and he’s most displeased with your disappearance last night, Your Grace.”

  “Oh.” Through the pain in my head and my declining vision, I was a child once more, though I couldn’t decide if it was my impending chastisement or my complete and utter discomfort with holding an audience in Laurent’s seat of power. “Of course.”

  Vahl trailed behind me as I made my way down the glittering corridor, pretending I didn’t care what sort of tongue-lashing I was in for. I’d made it back to Lochfeld, had warned someone of Thomas’s approach, hadn’t I? Erstad might think he was in charge, but he would have ignored my warning, just like Vahl had at first. I couldn’t have that.

  Vahl pulled open the door, and I wet my lips with my tongue, preparing to speak first, before Erstad could make a fool of himself, say something that Laurent would never allow of one of his soldiers.

  Or at least, I tried.

  Because wasn’t Erstad standing there in front of the throne, ready to tear into me for my foolishness last night. In fact, it wasn’t a soldier at all.

  It was Laurent.

  Kneeling.

  Kneeling?

  And—

  And Thomas was beside him, a sword at his throat.

  Chapter Eight

  For a moment I could do nothing but stare, praying whatever magic that had overtaken me in the war room was responsible for this new vision as well. For I couldn’t be seeing what I was seeing. It
was a dream, a nightmare, some trick of the map that showed me the future. But even when I’d worn the crown, even when the crownkeeper gift had been bestowed upon me prematurely, I’d been in control of my senses. Confused, yes, but I hadn’t suffered from delusions.

  Just like I wasn’t suffering from them now.

  A cry arose in my throat, and Laurent looked up at the sound. The golden sparkles disappeared in an instant, and my stomach clamped down on itself as I stared at him. His right eye was purple and swollen, his wrists chained in front of him. By the look of the bruises, they’d been that way for a while, which meant—it meant something, but when the shimmering magic had fled, so had my ability to think.

  Undaunted by Thomas’s sword, I rushed toward Laurent and dropped to the floor in front of him. His harsh inhalations grew steady as my fingers touched his skin, but he didn’t move, didn’t speak, just watched with weary eyes as my hands ran across his shoulders, his chest, his back. Finding no serious injuries, I lay my forehead against his and wept, my palms against his temples.

  “Move away from him, Riette.”

  I froze at the irritation in Thomas’s voice.

  “No,” I replied, squeezing my eyes shut as the tip of his sword tapped against my collarbone. What else could go wrong if I refused? “I won’t.”

  “Then you will die beside him.” The sword tapped again. “A fitting end, perhaps, though I once wished for another.”

  Bile rose in my throat, and it wasn’t from the metal there.

  “If you wanted to kill us, you’d have done it already.”

  “Riette, stop.”

  Laurent’s voice was soft as he reached for me. The chains were too short, so I grabbed his hands and clung to them. They were still smooth, minus a few new blisters from riding, and I ran my fingers over his knuckles, knowing and not caring how much it would infuriate Thomas. But somehow, the order made its way into my heart, and I pressed my lips closed.