“Is there another way into that cave?” Cadoc asked, pointing at the river hole.
“We must not abandon the child,” Trevn said. He wanted to make peace but was still angry Mielle had ignored his command. “Lead on, Miss Mielle.”
His formality earned him a glare, but she guided them back to Sink Road, where Trevn found Captain Veralla and informed him of the situation.
“Ho, up! Squad!” Veralla yelled at the King’s Guard who’d been searching for witnesses. “Fall in behind me.” He nodded to Mielle. “Lead the way, miss.”
Mielle took off at a run. Veralla shot Trevn an amused smile, and together they traversed a different series of alleys and backstreets to the mouth of a cave that was crowded with squatters.
Captain Veralla grabbed Mielle’s arm, then Trevn’s. “Here you’ll both wait with Cadoc until we return. I’ll leave three more guards with you.”
“But we want to come!” Mielle said.
“Out of the question,” Veralla told her. He turned his authoritative gaze on Trevn. “I trust you’ll handle this?”
Trevn nodded. He too wanted to accompany the soldiers, but he couldn’t risk putting Mielle in danger. If he went in, she would follow.
“I don’t need handling,” Mielle grumbled. “I know my way around my own city.”
Trevn chose not to reply.
A few seconds later, Mielle grabbed Trevn’s hand. “Do you have any coin?”
My, she certainly blew east and west. “Some,” Trevn said.
“Let’s go buy some food.” She glanced around at the squatters. “Please, Trevn?”
The way she said his name turned him to custard.
Trevn nodded, and their party of six trekked back to the market. He purchased six baskets and enough food to fill them, which they took back to the squatters at the cave.
Trevn had never served the poor before. He talked to them often enough, but today Mielle’s somber reverence for these people tied his tongue in knots. Besides, he was covered in so much filth he likely looked like her waitman, so he followed in her wake until Veralla and his men returned, towing between them ten adult men and three women.
“Take them to the dungeon,” Veralla told his second. “Then send another squad back here.”
“What about the missing boy?” Trevn asked the captain.
“Better come take a look,” Veralla said. “You as well, Miss Mielle.”
They followed Captain Veralla deep into the cave, which turned out to be a tunnel. The smell of pitch was heavy from torches in braziers along the wall. They suddenly entered a vast cavern where they found themselves high above the ground, looking down on a scene that stole Trevn’s breath.
It was some sort of factory. Lit torches mounted on crude lampstands stood throughout the open area, which was covered with individual millstones and bronze urns filled with a white mixture.
Children were everywhere. Over a hundred of them. Skin and bones with eyes overly large in their dirty faces. Some sat in pairs, spinning millstones. Some stood over urns, pounding poles into the white stuff, breaking it down. Into what? Some kind of flour?
“What is this place?” Mielle asked Veralla.
“Evenroot milling. Some harvesting too, it looks like.” He motioned to a series of small tunnels in the inner wall of the cavern.
“Evenroot in Armania?” Mielle said. “I didn’t think it grew here.”
“It grows everywhere,” Trevn said, examining the urns again now that he knew what he was looking at. “It’s illegal to harvest here.”
“I’m going down.” Mielle spun and took hold of the sides of a ladder that ran along the wall to the ground. Trevn thought to stop her, but he wanted to explore this place too. He waited until she was far enough down that he could follow.
“Go with them, Cadoc,” Veralla said.
“Yes, sir.”
Trevn glanced back to Veralla and decided to get a jump on Mielle. “Send some of the guards for food—and lots of it.”
“An excellent idea, Your Highness,” Veralla said.
Trevn climbed down. His boots slipped a few times on the smooth rungs. At the bottom he followed Mielle, who had already begun gathering the children into a huddle.
“You will not work here another day,” she told them. “You’re all going home.”
“Got no home,” a boy said.
“Then we will find you one, won’t we, Sâr Trevn?”
Gasps rose, and over a hundred sets of eyes locked onto his. He saw them examine his muddy clothing with doubt, but it wasn’t long before each and every face realized his garments were not made of rags, just filthy.
“It’s him!” a girl said.
“The sâr rescued us!” yelled another.
“Hooray for the sâr!” a boy said.
“Hooray!” the children sang, and rushed him like a mob.
It shamed Trevn that his first thought was fear. Tiny hands and bony arms grabbed his legs, arms, and waist, hugging, shaking his hand, clapping him on the back. “Not I,” Trevn tried to say. “Captain Veralla and his men arrested your captors.”
No one cared. They continued to thank him until the soldiers returned with several dozen women carrying baskets of food. The women and Mielle bade the children sit in circles, and as they passed out lunch, Trevn began to explore the cavern. He crouched over an urn of white powder and examined it. It looked no different from flour. The temptation to taste the substance seized him, and he quickly moved on.
He next approached the wall. Most of the tunnels were too small for him to enter. Past the end of the evenroot tunnels, Trevn reached a natural river hole that was only two hands’ breadth shorter than he was tall. No water trickled from it, though the sides showed various stains from different water levels that had once flowed through here.
Footsteps sounded behind him, and he glanced back just as Mielle stepped past him up into the river hole.
“After you,” he told her, smirking as he climbed inside.
“It’s dark in here,” she called back. “I can’t see the end.”
“It’s part of the ream; it might not have an end.”
She screamed.
“What’s wrong?” He stepped toward her.
Mielle had crouched down. “I think it’s dead.” From over her shoulder he could see a puddle of pale light illuminating a creamy-colored lizard.
Mielle gasped, pointing behind Trevn’s head. “There’s another one!”
The front half of a lizard hung limply from a hole in the wall. It too looked dead. The reamway walls were covered in holes, most the size of Trevn’s fist. Water dripped from many, drying on the rock before it reached the bottom. Wasn’t the water supposed to flow freely in the ream? They weren’t in a drought, that he knew of.
“These are baby cheyvah,” Mielle declared.
Nonsense. Trevn grinned. “Cheyvah are myth. And they’re massive.”
She gestured at the wall. “Clearly not!”
“I will take one back to Father Tomek. Perhaps he could find a sketch in the archives.”
“What killed them? Did they drown when the tide came in?”
“The tide doesn’t come this high.” Trevn didn’t see any abrasions on the first creature. Its legs and tail were curled inward, stiff. It had webbed feet and gills. Not a lizard at all. “These have gills. They must live in the ream.”
“In the water? We drink lizard water?”
“Newt water.” Trevn shrugged. “I never drank a newt, but probably their excrement.”
She punched his arm. “That’s disgusting.”
“Hey!” He grabbed her hand and pushed it behind her back. She punched his shoulder with her other hand, so he grabbed that one too. She ducked under his arm and untangled herself, scampered toward the mouth of the river hole, turned back, and raised her eyebrows.
“Giving up so easily?” she asked.
He sank to his backside and leaned against the curved wall, stretching out his legs. If she wanted
to, she would come back. He hoped. It would be a good experiment anyway.
She did come back. Slowly. Staring at him all the while. He swallowed, nervous from the look in her eyes.
“What?” he asked.
She sat on his lap and kissed him. Her lips were cold, but her breath was warm.
She pulled back. “Princess Nabelle forbade me to see you.”
“Why?” he asked, shocked. “She cannot do that.”
“As my employer she can. It would upset Kal if I lost my position. I need it to help provide for my sister and hopefully find her a place someday. If the princess is angry with me, she could keep my sister from a good position.”
This was no good. “I could speak with her and—”
“That would only make her angrier.”
“Then I’ll help your sister find a position. She could serve my mother.” At Mielle’s horrified expression, he added, “Or my grandmother.”
“That would be better, I think,” Mielle said.
“You could serve Grandmother too, if you want.”
“Thank you, but I adore Lady Zeroah. She needs me. Once she and Sâr Wilek marry, I’ll no longer work for Princess Nabelle.”
“So we bide our time in secret?” Trevn asked, liking the sound of that.
Mielle nodded. “If you don’t mind. Will you help with the orphans? You see the problem is bigger than even I imagined, don’t you?”
“I see now. I won’t abandon them.”
That made her smile. “We will help them together,” she said, eyes glinting in the low light. “No matter what anyone says. I would give up my position with Lady Zeroah for this, Trevn. It’s more important than anything.”
He understood. This was her cause. She would fight even the king to get her way. “You’re a Renegade.” Trevn fisted his hand and twisted it to show Mielle his mark. “See this R?” He traced it with his finger. “Hinck and I marked ourselves Renegades when my father ordered us back to Everton. We were happy living in Sarikar. We liked their ways. So Hinck and I, we made two vows. First, not to let this realm change us, and second, to change this realm for the better.”
“I’m a Renegade because I care for orphans?” Mielle asked.
“Not only that. You’re honest and brave. You would never pass by a wrong without speaking out or helping. You do what you believe is right, no matter who stands in your way.”
Mielle set her forehead against his. “Have you a knife? I want to be a Renegade.”
That evening Trevn returned to the castle, stiff with dried mud, Cadoc at his side. They entered the foyer and found his mother and a half-dozen King’s Guards waiting.
His first thought was for Wilek. “What has happened?”
“Seize him,” Mother yelled.
Trevn held up his hands, confused. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“You most certainly are. To the rosâr.” Mother glared at the guards. “Well? Obey me!”
The guards stepped toward him. Cadoc moved between them and drew his sword.
“There is no need to touch me,” Trevn said, frustrated yet determined to finally end this ridiculousness. “Do not forget, I outrank my mother now, though she seems happy to ignore that fact. It is time we both speak to my father about this issue of dominance. We shall see what the rosâr has to say on the matter.”
“Indeed we will.” Mother pointed through the vestibule that led into the west wing. “After you, my son.”
Trevn walked as slowly as he could to his father’s apartment. The dead newt hung in a bundled handkerchief Mielle had tied to his belt. His feet were damp inside his boots and stuck awkwardly to the leather. He was shocked his mother hadn’t insisted he change. She likely planned to use his filthy appearance against him.
When they arrived outside Father’s office, the guards said the king was in conference.
“Apparently he’s busy, Mother,” Trevn said.
“We will wait.” She took a seat by the fireplace.
The only other chair was beside hers, so Trevn stood in front of the door, Cadoc at his side. That way they could enter before—
The door opened. King Jorger of Sarikar stood holding it with one hand, still looking inside at Father, who sat on his throne. “I suggest you deal with it, and soon.”
“She was a concubine,” Father said. “We later discovered she’d been meddling with black spirits. If Mikreh cursed her, he had good reason.”
“Your foolishness will bring down House Hadar someday, Echad, mark my words. I only hope my loved ones are in Sarikar when it happens.”
“Now, see here, Jorger—”
The Sarikarian king turned his back and walked away. Two of his Royal Guards followed him. “That man tires me,” he mumbled. “I shall rest before dinner.” He came face-to-face with Trevn and stopped, looked him up and down. “Been wrestling pigs, have you, Sâr Trevn?”
“Chasing criminals in the Sink, actually,” Trevn said with a bow.
The king grunted. “Yes, well, your father is a madman, but you already know that.” He charged past, cloak dragging heavily. His guards jogged to keep up.
Trevn entered Father’s office wondering why crotchety old Jorger had traveled to Armania. His mother already knelt before the throne, head bowed, waiting to be spoken to. She must have sneaked past when Trevn had been talking to King Jorger. Father was ranting to Janek, who stood on his right in Wilek’s place. A potted flower occupied the bench seat on Father’s left, so Trevn claimed the chair on the side wall. The only other person in the room was Schwyl, Father’s onesent, who leaned against the wall opposite Trevn with a ledger and quill in hand.
“Barthos curse his lands and wither his trees!” Father sputtered, face flushed.
“Why come all this way to rant about a dead concubine?” Janek asked.
“He dared accuse me of carelessness,” Father said. “Princess Nabelle and her daughter have always been safe here. I heard no hint of them being unhappy. I thought they were staying in the castle. Why was I not informed when they returned to Fairsight Manor? Find out who knew she left and send them to the pole.”
“Princess Nabelle keeps her own servants,” Trevn said. “Ours might not have realized she was gone. Sending some poor waitman to the pole won’t change that.”
“What are you doing here?” Father asked, frowning at Trevn’s attire.
“My mother tried to have me arrested.” Trevn gestured to his mother, who was still kneeling before the king.
Father glared down on his third wife. “Woman! I’ve told you to stop meddling in Trevn’s affairs.”
“He was with Miss Mielle Allard,” Mother said.
Father’s gaze turned to Trevn. “Why are you covered in dirt?”
“I was in the city when a man abducted a boy. Cadoc and I chased them into the Sink, where we discovered an evenroot workhouse with over a hundred and fifty captive children,” Trevn said, hoping this news would distract his father.
“An evenroot workhouse?” Father’s eyes blazed. “In my city?”
“Indeed, Father. I would like to build a sleephouse for the orphan captives and any others who have been made homeless by the earth—”
“He is changing the subject,” Mother said. “Miss Mielle Allard does not match him in fives.”
“Janek, do all your friends match you in fives?” Trevn held his breath, unsure whether or not his brother would support him.
“That would be impossible,” Janek said. “Not even the Wisean Council matches in fives or even tens, right, Father?”
“That’s true,” Father said. “Thallah, if Trevn hasn’t married the girl or declared her his concubine, I don’t care what he does with her. Stop wasting my time.”
“But he hasn’t chosen a bride yet,” Mother said, “or even one concubine.”
“Why no concubines, son?” Father asked. “I expected your list days ago.”
Trevn scrambled for an excuse. “Mother invited too many to my ageday. I cannot decide.”
Mother’s dagger glare speared Trevn. “He who takes crooked paths will be found out!”
“I think I can help, Father,” Janek said. “I’ll take Miss Mielle as a concubine. She matches my fives. That way Trevn could borrow her from time to time without angering Athos.” He winked at Trevn. “Or his mother.”
Trevn shot to his feet. “You will not!”
“Who?” Father asked. “Who is this woman you both want?”
“She is Lady Zeroah’s honor maiden,” Mother said.
“Out of the question!” Father roared. “I have enough trouble with King Jorger as it is. I’ll not do a thing to further upset the man.”
Trevn relaxed. Thank Arman for that.
“Now, all of you, get out!” Father yelled. “It’s time for my massage. And, Trevn, get me that list. I don’t care how long it is. I’ll do what I can.”
“Thank you, Father.” Trevn bowed and strode from the room. As soon as the door shut behind him, he ran, not wanting Janek or his mother to catch up and cause more trouble. Cadoc, who had waited outside, gave chase.
They returned to Trevn’s chambers, where he found Hinck sitting at the table, gnawing on a chicken leg. “Cadoc, will you wait outside?” Trevn removed the bundle holding the dead newt and handed it to his shield. “And have someone deliver this to Father Tomek.”
Cadoc took the bundle and left Trevn alone with Hinck.
Trevn pulled off his boots. “What news of my cousin?”
Hinck wiped his mouth with his sleeve. “Why, hello, Hinck. How was your day, Hinck? Terrible, you say? Oh, I’m so very sorry to hear that.”
Sands, no more drama, please. “Just tell me.” Trevn entered his wardrobe and peeled off his dirty clothes.
“Your demand is my duty, Your Exasperatingness!” Hinck yelled after him. “Lady Eudora went to her apartment. I waited outside for over an hour before she came out. It was terribly boring and cold. And I was starving.”
“Which I see you’ve remedied, poor wee babe.” Trevn found a white tunic and put it on.
Hinck next spoke over a full mouth. “She then went down to the underbuilding of the east wing and passed through the dungeon.”
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