A Kingdom Lost

by Barbara Ann Wright

  “Well?” Katya barked before he had a chance to wipe his brow. He’d lost a lot of weight since Marienne, but he was still stout, and even this meager work seemed to tire him.

  “Your pardon, Highness, but a sleeping mind is hard to sort through.”

  “Of course.” She tried to rein in her tone. “Anything useful?”

  “Definitely mind manipulated.”

  “You’re certain?”

  “This woman was a baker, who up until a few weeks ago was just trying to live her life. I would imagine the others were the same. Overnight, she developed a passionate hatred for your family, particularly the young children, and decided to make it her life’s work to hunt you down.”

  “They were just ordinary people.”

  “This one was, certainly. For the dead, I cannot say.”

  “Corpse Fiends aren’t enough, it seems,” Da said. “Now he’s warping our own citizens to kill us, the very people we’re trying to save.”

  “And he’ll make us cut through them in order to get to him,” Ma said. She clenched Da’s arm.

  Katya looked to Rene. “How many people could a pyradisté warp in a day?”

  “It would depend on the—”

  “Someone very good at mind manipulation.”

  “I don’t know, Highness. As many as he could do without tiring.”

  But Roland didn’t get tired. “Is it possible to warp more than one person at a time?”

  “If one had the skill and a large enough pyramid, certainly.”

  Starbride could suddenly find herself surrounded by enemies, even in her own camp. And if Roland had a large mind pyramid, he was probably keeping it close by in the palace. If Katya could reach it and put it in friendly hands… “We might be able to free them,” she muttered.

  She turned back to her parents. “When we get close enough to Marienne, I might have to ride in first, sneak in, like I used to.”

  Before her parents could ask, she said, “Not just for her. If I can cripple the usurper it will help all of us.”

  Da smiled softly. “But part of it is for her, of course.” He touched Ma’s chin. “Our family’s always been more romantic than is probably good for us.”

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Starbride

  Someone shook Starbride awake, but a candle blocked their features. “Who? What?” she mumbled.

  The flame shifted, revealing Freddie’s face. “I’m sorry to wake you, but it’s an emergency. You didn’t answer my knock.”

  Starbride tried to still her hammering heart. “Is it Maia? What time is it?”

  “Just after dark. Dawnmother hasn’t sent any word about Maia or Averie.”

  “Are we under attack?” But of course not. He wouldn’t be so calm.

  “My contacts in Dockland have found someone. You need to come now.”

  “Found someone?” As she pulled on her boots, Starbride tried to gather her wits. “Another pyradisté?”

  Freddie’s mouth was grim as he shook his head. “My contact didn’t name this person directly, but from his note about the black sheep of a preeminent family, I think we can guess who it is.”

  Starbride stared at him as she tried to shake the last of the sleep from her mind. “Black sheep?”

  “The shameful member of any family. I think you called such a person a rogue noble earlier. And there’s only one preeminent family that would rate a hasty note from my contact.”

  At first Starbride thought it must be Freddie’s family for him to be so concerned, but then it hit her so hard, she nearly dropped her boot. “The Umbriels.” But they only had one black sheep, and he was currently on the throne.

  No, a voice inside her said, Roland was a Fiend, but he wasn’t the member of the family who had caused them real shame. “Reinholt?” she whispered.

  “It must be.”

  “In Dockland? Why?”

  Freddie gestured impatiently at the door. “That’s why we have to go see.”

  “And you can trust this contact?” Starbride asked as she threw her cloak around her shoulders.

  “He’s beyond reproach.”

  “No one who can have their mind altered by pyramid is beyond reproach.”

  “Roland wouldn’t bother to warp someone like my contact. He’s beneath notice; that’s what makes him so valuable. So let’s collect Hugo from his sister’s bedside and be off.”

  Starbride loaded her pyramid satchel with everything she might need, including a mind pyramid for Reinholt, if it came to that. Too much was at stake to let him run loose if he insisted on being a problem.

  Pennynail didn’t take any routes out of Marienne that his father had known about. If Crowe had known them, so would Roland. Like Katya, Roland had hardly ever sneaked out of the city. He’d ridden out on some faux errand and then operated outside of town. It was likely he didn’t know Pennynail’s secret way under the walls using the sewer that dumped into a creek outside of Marienne. It was one of the most odious journeys of Starbride’s life, and she was glad over and over of the cloth smeared with cologne that Freddie had insisted she tie around her nose and mouth.

  It took hours of hurrying through the dark until they reached the outskirts of Dockland. The small city at night was just as awful as she remembered. It stank of wet wood, fish, and burning garbage, the miasma strong enough to choke a mule.

  No guards stood at the gates. No one cared who left or entered. Starbride wondered if an invading force would even go into the hive of thieves and murderers. She tried to shake the thought, tried to remember that there were innocent people there, too, people just trying to live, but the prejudices of Marienne had penetrated her brain. Every foray she’d made into Dockland had reinforced those prejudices, though it wasn’t the fault of the innocent residents if the Order of Vestra always dealt with the more unlawful of Dockland’s citizens.

  They met Pennynail’s contact in a small shop in one of the more well-to-do areas of town. Of course, the wealthiest street in Dockland would be the poorest in Marienne. The houses were too close together, and all the windows were shuttered since most didn’t have glass. The streets were narrow and cramped, and the streetlights far apart or darkened altogether. But unlike most of Dockland, they spotted the occasional Watch officer and had to duck into alleys to avoid being seen.

  After Pennynail’s soft knock on the shop door, a thick man with a bristly, brown beard ushered them inside. His head brushed the ceiling when he straightened, and he rubbed his long fingers together as if washing them. Starbride spotted tall shelves running the length of the dimly lit shop, dividing it into rows. Every surface was crammed with jars and bins filled with nails and pegs and screws. Pots of glue lined one shelf, and stacks of wood lay near the back. It smelled of cedar, and the floor was coated with sawdust.

  To Starbride’s surprise, Freddie slipped off his mask. “Starbride, Hugo, this is Owen Bradstreet, one of the truest men you’ll ever meet.”

  Owen bobbed his head as he smiled, as if embarrassed by the compliment. Starbride didn’t have time to ask how they knew each other, but she was dying to know. Instead she said, “Thank you for contacting us. Where is he now, the black sheep?”

  “Got him in the basement, thank the spirits, before many people had a chance to see him. He’s been down there all day. I was selling yesterday, down where they’re building a new warehouse, and there he was, sneaking in the shadows. He’s lucky it was dark, and I was on my way home. I recognized him at once, even more since I’ve been keeping an eye out, you know, for any royals on account of what Pennynail told me about them going missing.”

  Starbride nearly started at the name. She hadn’t been able to even think of Freddie as Pennynail without his mask. “How did you convince him to come with you?”

  Owen rubbed his palms together harder. “I, um, well…”

  Freddie patted his shoulder. “Owen had to give his guest what we in Dockland call the alleyway tickle.”

  Starbride blinked slowly, hoping he
r expression said it all. Freddie seemed amused, Owen embarrassed. It had to be that Farradain gallows humor, so that probably meant a much worse kind of contact than tickling.

  Hugo leaned close to her ear. “I imagine they hit him over the head, Miss Starbride.”

  “Thank you, Hugo. I had just come to a similar conclusion.”

  “This way,” Owen said. “He’s not happy. Yelled bloody murder after he woke up. Thankfully, the people who owned this shop before me designed the cellar to block out just that.”

  Starbride grimaced but followed him down a set of stairs. When Owen opened the door at the bottom, revealing a root cellar lit by a single lantern, Starbride paused, but Owen didn’t seem inclined to push her in and lock the door behind her.

  And Freddie trusted him. She glanced over her shoulder, and he pulled his mask into place before they walked in. “Reinholt?” Starbride called.

  He stepped from the shadows at the back of the cellar. His face was splotched with dirt, and his eyes looked sunken, his cheeks gaunt.

  “It’s you,” he said. He wore ragged homespun, but his unkempt beard and hair were the same golden color she remembered. He looked like he’d been walking Darkstrong’s road, but he was unmistakably the prince of Farraday. “What in all the spirits names are you doing here? What’s happened to my family? Did you order this man to lock me up?” He took one step closer.

  “Calm down, and I will tell you all.”

  “Calm down? Calm down? Don’t you order me about, you Allusian cur, you—”

  He lifted his fist. Before Hugo or Pennynail could make a move, Starbride whipped her hypnotism pyramid from her satchel and fell into it with barely a thought.

  Reinholt lurched to a halt, caught in a web of her anger, but his mind was free to work and his senses to perceive.

  “I am not defenseless, you arrogant prick. Now, sit!”

  He plonked down on the root cellar’s dirt floor, eyes locked with hers.

  “I’m doing you a courtesy even speaking to you,” she said. “You’re more trouble than you’re worth. With your unlocked Fiend, Roland would love to get his hands on you, and I can’t allow that. It would be extremely practical to kill you where you sit.”

  “Miss Starbride!” Hugo gasped.

  Pennynail didn’t speak, but Starbride could almost feel his approval. She had Horsestrong behind one shoulder; Darkstrong behind the other. She wasn’t going to kill Reinholt, but it would serve her well if he believed she might. He fought her pyramid and lost.

  Starbride knelt in front of his face. “You’re not in charge anymore, little prince. Even were your family here, you still wouldn’t be in control. Now, here’s what’s going to happen. I’ll free you, and you’ll sit there with your mouth shut unless you have something useful to say. I will not let your pride get anyone else killed.”

  She stepped out of reach before she dropped her focus. Reinholt gasped as if he’d been holding his breath. He glared at her, shoulders heaving, and she waited for him to decide what to do.

  “What happened to my family?” he asked at last.

  Starbride nodded, glad to hear he was concerned about something besides his own skin. She told him about Roland’s attack and the Umbriels’ fleeing, how they were gathering support while she was making all the mischief for Roland that she could.

  He glanced about as if he could see the horrors she spoke of in the shadows of the darkened cellar. Several times, tears hovered in his unblinking eyes, and he seemed almost pitiable.

  Starbride had questions: Where had he gone? What had he been doing? But she didn’t quite care enough to ask. His next words would determine what she did with him.

  “Thank you for helping protect my children,” he said softly.

  Starbride cocked her head. It was on the tip of her tongue to say, “Unlike you?” but she couldn’t quite manage it. She couldn’t kick a horse after it had already fallen.

  “What are you going to do with me?” he asked.

  “That depends.”

  “On what?”

  “On what you want to do.”

  He blinked up at her. “What?”

  “I wasn’t kidding when I said that Roland would love to have you, but he wants to catch all of us. For you, however, he’d go out of his way. I can’t let you wander around on your own, here, in Marienne, or anywhere else. Roland has patrols all over the countryside. You must have had Horsestrong at your shoulder to have eluded him so long.”

  Reinholt’s chin inched up. “I stayed away from the patrols.”

  “You seem a good sneak,” Hugo said.

  Starbride was so surprised she smirked. Reinholt frowned around her. “Still got your pup, I see.”

  “I wouldn’t mock him,” Starbride said. “He’s done more for this kingdom in the past few months than you probably ever have.”

  Reinholt’s mouth dropped open. Starbride rushed ahead. “If you keep civil, I will do the same. The moment the over-privileged prince comes out, I will remind you that not only did you aid Roland on his journey to the throne, you ran away rather than help your family deal with the consequences of your actions.”

  His mouth snapped shut.

  “Now,” Starbride said, “the question remains. What do you want to do? What did you hope to accomplish in Dockland?”

  “I…I wanted to see if my family was all right.”

  “And if they weren’t?”

  “I wanted to rescue them.” He wiped his mouth and drew his legs up to rest his elbows on his knees. “It sounds ludicrous, I know. What could I do against Roland? But I had to try. I heard so many rumors.”

  She supposed that was a good sign. He’d risked his own miserable hide to find out what had happened to his family. And he’d sneaked into Dockland, seeking a way into Marienne from there rather than just going cold to Marienne’s gates. That showed cunning, even if it also showed he had little knowledge of Dockland itself. He was lucky Owen had been the one to give him the alleyway tickle and not a gang of thugs.

  “Any ideas you had about saving the day?” Starbride shook her head. “Get rid of them. I know you always wanted to know what was going on with the Order of Vestra, wanted to be part of that world. Your ideas probably came from storybooks.” She smiled. “I know mine did.”

  He glared at her.

  “Katya operated from the shadows. We do the same. We don’t get any accolades. No one cheers. And if Roland finds you, you’ll become more evil than you ever thought you could be.”

  “That,” Hugo said, “or you’ll be dead.”

  Reinholt opened his mouth as if he’d snap at Hugo.

  “You’re going to need his help,” Starbride said, “all the help you can get.”

  “I don’t need help from a boy,” Reinholt muttered.

  “That’s fine,” she said. “We can hypnotize you into compliance.”

  Reinholt sat back as if finally beginning to understand. “You’re as bad as Roland.”

  Starbride shrugged. “You don’t know half of what he’ll do to you. We’re giving you the chance to help your family get Marienne back, the only chance you’re going to get.”

  He lifted his arms out and then dropped them. “Then I suppose I accept!”

  Starbride turned to go upstairs. When Reinholt began to follow, Pennynail’s arm shot out and stopped him.

  “I’m just to wait?” Reinholt called as they shut him in the cellar.

  In the shop above, Owen stood close by, wringing his hands. Pennynail took off his mask. “You know he’s going to try and escape the first chance he gets?” Freddie asked.

  Starbride nodded. “He gave in too easily.”

  “Use the pyramid,” Freddie said.

  “Wait,” Hugo said. “You can’t. It’s not right.”

  Starbride rubbed her forehead. “We might have to, Hugo. We can’t risk letting him be captured.”

  He stood a little taller, and Starbride knew he was going to object, but she glanced at Owen, hoping to signal t
hat they shouldn’t have any further discussion in front of a stranger. Hugo’s mouth snapped shut.

  “Just…keep him close,” Starbride said to Freddie. “If he tries to bolt, knock him out the old-fashioned way.”

  Owen chuckled. “If the poor man keeps getting hit over the head, it’s going to scramble his brains. I never imagined that princes would be so hard to handle.”

  “You don’t know this one,” Starbride said.

  “I don’t know any, and I’m very glad of that.” Owen clasped Freddie’s shoulder. “Take care of yourself, Pennynail. I wouldn’t want anything to happen to you; well, anything else.”

  They led Reinholt out of the cellar and into the streets. Pennynail stuck to him like glue, and if Reinholt had any designs on running into the night, he kept them well hidden. He wasn’t stupid; he might be biding his time, at least to see where Starbride ran her operation before he decided to bolt. Maybe he thought they’d get him closer to the palace where he could confront Roland in grand, glorious combat.

  When they returned to the hideout, they decided on a rotating guard to watch him. If he felt like a prisoner, tough. Until he’d proved himself, Starbride wasn’t willing to treat him any differently. She sat in her room and waited to meet with Katya, focusing on the pyramid Dekken had made. Master Bernard had been intrigued by it and had studied it in Starbride’s absence, leaving Claudius to work on the pyramid embedded in the strength monks, but Master Bernard hadn’t had any luck decoding its secrets. Maybe only certain people could use the Allusian pyramids, maybe only those with Allusian blood.

  The thought almost shook Starbride’s concentration. Could pyramid skills be specific to a certain people? As of yet, she hadn’t encountered a type of Farradain magic she couldn’t do. Maybe Dekken had Allusian in his ancestry, and Master Bernard had none.

  Starbride felt a familiar prickle over her scalp that signaled Redtrue calling her.

  “Greetings with many effusions of love, Starbride,” Redtrue said, the same note of sarcasm tingeing her voice.