* * *
My hands shook as I made my way through the halls of the palace, Swinton at my side. His rage had cooled as I’d explained my plan to get Vi, Fern and Trix free, and by the time we’d managed to sneak the rest of my siblings and their small bundles of goods through the streets of Penby and onto the ship, the tension between us had cleared entirely. If anything happened to either of the girls, though, Brenna had assured me in no uncertain terms that she’d rip me apart, limb by limb, king or no.
I’d never thought having a big family could be so fun.
Swinton took my hand as we passed into the corridor that led to the council chamber. A contingent of the Ilorian and Denorian soldiers—the Vigilant, as they’d taken to calling themselves—stalked behind me. The remainder of our force had split. Half had gone to meet Vi, and the other half was tasked with securing the palace.
In theory, the palace guard would obey whoever sat on the throne, but as the people who’d shot at and killed my grandmother had been in the uniforms of guards, it was hard to know who to trust. Our force was just large enough that, positioned smartly, they should be able to ensure a peaceful transfer of power. If everything went as we planned, anyway. Which it undoubtedly would not, but I couldn’t allow myself to think about that. Not now.
Each of the soldiers behind me bristled with weapons, but despite everyone’s fervent protestations, I myself had come unarmed. It was one thing to take back my throne, but it was another entirely to show up looking like I needed to fight for my rightful place. For me to walk into the council chamber armed would make my position look weak. So I kept my head high and forced myself to make eye contact with and nod at every member of the royal guard as we passed.
“When we move back into the palace, bully, will you give me my own suite of rooms, or will I be forced to keep bunking with this pack of brutes?” He winked at the soldier walking beside him.
“If we move back,” I muttered.
Swinton squeezed my hand gently and whispered, “Put on your brave face.” Louder, he said, “I was thinking about the green suite just outside the royal wing. I know it’ll make Gerlene absolutely incensed with envy, but I like the view of the gardens.”
The palace guards stationed outside the council chamber opened the doors. My Vigilant guards all knew they could go no farther. There was a part of me that wished I could send them in my stead, but my time to let others do my work for me was over.
Gerlene came bustling down the hall behind us. “Everyone’s been notified?” I asked her.
Gerlene nodded. “Patrise and Lisette should be waiting for you inside. You’ll be wonderful, Bo. Remember that this is what Runa wanted. Draw strength from her memory. There’s never been a woman so capable of turning an argument on its head. You can’t go wrong by doing as she would’ve done.”
The solicitor shoved a green leather folder stuffed with loose papers into my free hand. I looked down at them, puzzled. “Thank you?”
“I made some notes for you. Just in case.”
Swinton laughed. “He’ll be fine. Never worry. And we’ll be right here waiting the whole time.”
I took a calming breath and squared my shoulders, wishing I’d managed to save the circlet. I needed something more than the cuff circling my wrist to feel like a king. I wanted a symbol. The thought of Runa’s crown, still hidden in Brenna’s attic, flashed before me. I wished I’d thought to retrieve it when we’d been there earlier.
With a sigh, I gave Swinton one last hug. “In the worst possible scenario, they kill me in there,” I said quietly. “If that happens, I want you to promise me that you’ll get Vi and the rest of the family and take them back to Ilor. At least there, they’ll be fairly safe.”
Swinton sniffed hard and squeezed me harder. “Hush. No one’s dying today. Now get in there and take back your crown.”
* * *
Patrise and Lisette stood up as I entered the chamber alone.
“Please tell me your fairy godmother came up with something,” Lisette hissed.
“Please tell me that you convinced the rest of the singleborn to vote for me,” I countered.
Patrise collapsed back into his chair with a huff. “Down, you two. We’ve work to do. Ambrose, darling, didn’t you notice that we got you a present?”
I glanced down at the table. Just before the seat I’d taken at my first and only council meeting, a box was waiting for me, tied with a cloth of gold ribbon.
“It isn’t my birthday,” I said cautiously. With my luck, there would be an angry viper inside, waiting to strike the moment I opened the box.
“Don’t be silly. It won’t bite,” Lisette teased, eerily echoing my fear.
“Think of it as a coronation gift,” Patrise said.
I went to the end of the table, untied the ribbon and gently lifted the lid. There, on a velvet cushion, sat a crown. It wasn’t an exact replica of the Crown of Alskad, the one I’d hidden in my sister’s attic, but it was as though this crown had evolved from that. It was a powerful piece of artistry, all glittering gems surrounded by a knotted pattern of yellow-and-white gold. I lifted it out of the box, turning it over in my hands. The gems were the same kind of gray diamonds that had been used in the crown and Circlet of Alskad. They caught the light and sparked, like thunderclouds brimming with lightning.
I stopped short, breath caught in my throat. One of the gems was cracked down the middle, just as the gem in Runa’s crown had been. I looked up at Patrise.
“Your Swinton gave it to us to pass along to you,” he said. “The crown itself was irreparable, and we all thought that the symbols of the royal house should reflect this new era in the history of the Alskad Empire. Swinton insisted we include the broken gem, though why, I’ll never understand.”
My heart fluttered, and I felt the heat of a blush rise up my neck. I hadn’t realized he was just as worried about taking care of me as I was about taking care of him. I promised myself that at the first opportunity, I would remind him of exactly how I felt about him. Our relationship had grown and shifted these last few months, and the weight of everything we’d endured had cracked each of us in its own ways, but I knew that together, we could and would get through any obstacle set in our way.
“He thinks of everything,” I said softly.
Lisette sniffed and went to the sideboard to pour herself a glass of ouzel while Patrise went on, “The guild of jewelers asked that we convey to you their support and best wishes, and their hope that they will be allowed to continue to offer their services to you during a long and peaceful reign.”
“The others will be here any minute. Put it on,” Lisette said.
I turned the crown so that the broken diamond would be centered over my eyes and placed it on my head. A peace came over me as the crown’s weight settled into place, and I took my seat at the head of the table to wait.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Vi
A dark figure rose out of the shadows outside the cell. At first, in the dim light and through the shroud of my pain and exhaustion, I imagined for a moment that it might be one of the goddesses come to give me a piece of their mind for all the times I’d cursed their names. I coiled, ready to unleash the sharp edge of my tongue. Not even a goddess would be safe from my ire in my current condition.
“We send you all the way across the ocean, give you everything you need to stay safe and under the radar, and yet here you are. Come crawling back to the temple like a beaten cur, begging for more.”
The figure stepped forward into the slashes of moonlight let in through the barred grate overhead, and Curlin let out a low, hissing curse. Recognition dawned over me as the woman went on.
“And you, Curlin,” she said, clicking her tongue. “We give you one task, and you can’t even manage to do that much. More than that, you break vows you’ve held for, what—not even five years? Child, do you know how
long I’ve upheld these vows? Do you know how long we’ve worked from within this temple without having to go so far as to break our sacred oaths? No. Of course you don’t. You’ve no respect for the sacred. Neither of you. Not that I can say I’m surprised. Disappointed, yes. But never surprised.”
Sula. One of the three anchorites who’d raised Curlin and me. Who’d been like mothers to us. Cold, distant, punishing mothers, but mothers nevertheless.
Curlin struggled to her feet and bowed her head, grimacing. “Anchorite Sula. My apologies. I did everything in my power to watch out for her, to take care of her, but I failed you.”
“Wait just a minute. You failed?” I shouted. “What about them? What about the temple? They’re the ones who’ve failed us.” I turned my gaze on Sula. “You knew about the serum, didn’t you, Sula? How could you? How could you allow them to poison us? Not just the two of us, either, but everyone they look down on, everyone who speaks up against them? Everyone.”
Sula closed the distance between herself and the rust-speckled iron bars. She withdrew her hand from the folds of her robes and reached out to us. “Child, it is so much more complicated than you know.”
I stood, summoning every ounce of power I could muster to get through the pain that pounded like sledgehammers against every nerve in my body, and fixed the anchorite in a hard stare. “I’m not a child anymore, Sula. If you’ve come here just to rub our broken noses in the dirt and tell us all the ways we’ve managed to disappoint you, I think I speak for both of us when I say that if I never saw your face again, it would be too soon.”
I glanced at Curlin. Her split lip curled into a snarl even more ferocious for the fresh blood welling in the cut. She nodded. “That about covers it.”
“Surly and churlish from the cradle, both of you.” Sula sniffed. “You’d think I’d learn to expect no less, but here I am, yet again, doing everything in my power to save your sorry, ungrateful souls.” The anchorite’s hand slipped back into her robes. When it reappeared, there was a thick iron key dangling on a chain between her bejeweled fingers.
I reached for it almost unconsciously, but Curlin’s hand darted out to stop me.
“What do you want from us?” she asked.
Sula’s lips curled into a tight smile. “Ever the cautious one, aren’t you, Curlin?”
We stood, the three of us waiting for another to say something and interrupt the symphony of thick drips, rat squeaks and distant chains rattling. The back of Curlin’s battered hand pressed into mine, as much comfort as she could manage, given the wrecked state her torturers had left her body in.
Finally, after what felt like a thousand pounding heartbeats, Sula sighed. “The three of us... Lugine, Bethea and I... We believe in Alskad. Not to say we don’t stand by our sacred vows and our faith in the goddesses. But we believed in Runa. In her work. I doubt there’s a person alive who remembers this, but Runa’s mother and mine were the best of friends. So when I learned about the serum, I took that information to Runa. As time went on and we needed more eyes and ears, I brought Lugine and Bethea into our inner circle. And then you came along, Vi.”
I bit the inside of my cheek, thinking of my mother, jobless, far away from her family and friends, set up in an unfamiliar city to give birth to some nobleman’s cast-off children. And then, a few months later, having to give them up—I didn’t know how she’d done it. I’d always felt like a burden to my family; an unwanted, embarrassing burden. I’d spent my whole life grimly anticipating the moment when I would lose control and the rage would take me. At least then my family would have been free of me.
And when Bo’d found me, when I’d been reunited with my twin, I’d felt the cutting pain of being unwanted even more. Bo wanted me, of course, but neither of our parents had cared enough to look after me. To save me from the hellscape of growing up in the temple. Bo’d had two parents who wanted him, and a grandmother who loved him. I’d had no one. No one but Curlin and Sawny and Lily.
Tears stung my eyes.
“Runa brought you to me herself,” Sula said. “She charged me with your care, and you wouldn’t for a minute believe me if I told you how often she came to see you in secret. You were always in her thoughts. We all so badly wanted to dote on you, child. But it was imperative that no one know you were special. That no one know you were different in any way. You were our mission—your safety, your education. We even pushed Curlin into the Shriven so that we’d have someone trustworthy we could use to protect you without suspicion.”
Her words did nothing to cool the rage that seemed to run through my veins like blood more often than not of late. If anything, they made it worse. Runa had cared about me, sure, I could see that. But she’d placed a great deal more import on her succession plan. She’d cared a whole lot more about Bo.
Curlin bristled. “Do you have any idea what that training’s like, Anchorite? Do you know what you did to me?”
“Of course I do,” Sula snapped. “We all make sacrifices. But the time has come. Rylain’s gone too far, and the young king is poised to lose the throne forever if we don’t rally the people. We need you.” Her eyes, shining with determination, met mine. “It’s time to stand up. It’s time to resist. Will you join us?”
I reached through the bars and took the key. Wanted or not, cast-off or not—hell, royal or not—I still believed in stopping the temple. I still believed that Bo’s place was on the throne.
I still believed in the resistance.
* * *
Draped in the hooded robes of anchorites, Curlin and I followed Sula through the unfamiliar hidden halls of the temple that had been our home throughout our childhoods. Every footstep sent spikes of pain up my spine, and I could only imagine the agony Curlin was enduring as we sped through the halls. Sula led us through a door, and just like that, we were in the library where she’d cracked our knuckles through hours of mathematics, history and reading lessons. I couldn’t remember a door on this side of the room, though, and I turned just in time to see one of the bookcases swinging back into place alongside the others.
“How many hidden doors are there that we don’t know about in this place?” I whispered to Curlin.
“More than you’d imagine, but still no more your business than it was when you were brats,” a clipped, authoritative voice snapped.
The voice was so familiar that I nearly cried, and I spun around to see Anchorite Lugine emerging from the shadows, tears gathering in the wrinkles around her eyes, her arms spread wide.
“Come and let me squeeze you, the both of you.”
I didn’t even have to look at Curlin. We went to Lugine, as quick as we could manage, and were consumed in the warm, wholesome smell that clung to her. I breathed in her scent—baking bread, oyster stew and the sharp tang of the whiffleberry jam she dolloped into her porridge every morning. In a sudden rush, all the resolve and strength and honed-steel nerve I’d layered around myself as a shield crumbled. I was a child once more, clinging to the only comfort I’d ever known. She had bandaged every broken bone, every scraped knee, every oyster-cut knuckle. And while no one would ever call this woman maternal, exactly, she’d been the best we’d had, and I let myself sink into her warm, soothing embrace.
“You can’t be allowed to keep them all to yourself, Lugine,” Anchorite Bethea said in a quavering, nasal tone.
Lugine released us, and Bethea looked us up and down, leaning heavily on her canes. “Had a rough go of it, I see.”
She swung her cane up and tapped gently on my tattooed arm. “Those aren’t just for fashion’s sake, girly. Are you to have me believe you’ve earned what’s written there on your skin?”
“You think I’m stupid enough to tattoo lies onto my body, to carry around with me the rest of my life?” I asked.
Anchorite Bethea crooked an eyebrow at me. “Fair enough. Come on, now. Quickly. We seem to’ve collected a whole posse of you Abernathy
brats in the last few hours, and I’ve never seen any good come of having more than one of you in one place at the same time.”
I started to ask what she meant, but before I could open my mouth, the anchorites were hustling us down a darkened servants’ hall. Overhead, the first bells rang out the call to prayer. The entire temple would be hauling themselves out of their beds and beginning their days. Soon, there’d be nowhere for us to be without raising all sorts of questions we didn’t have any answers for.
“This way,” Lugine said.
She opened a door and led us into a long-unused suite of rooms just off the kitchen. Dust and cobwebs clung to the stacks of furniture broken and piled in heaps against the walls. The sounds of breakfast being prepared echoed through the vents that ran along the wall shared with the kitchen. My mouth watered at the familiar scents of baking bread, butter sizzling in skillets and sausage skins popping as they roasted on skewers over pans of potatoes set beneath them to collect the spiced grease. Pots clanged, and initiates cursed and chirped in equal measure, hurrying to finish their chores before prayers.
Through a doorway, a lamp flickered in the interior room. A figure leaned against the doorjamb, and tears welled in my eyes as more lamps flared around the room and I recognized him.
Quill took two steps toward me and faltered. “What did they do to you?” he whispered.
I touched my bruised cheek, suddenly shy. “I never was much good at keeping a respectful distance between my brain and my tongue.”
He closed the space between us and waited until I wrapped my arms around him before he pulled me in close. I pressed my face into his chest, breathing in the complex, familiar smell of him. The salt air of the harbor clung to his clothes, and underneath he smelled like spices and rain and the green jungle scent of Ilor. He smelled like home. His hand stroked my hair, and for the first time since I’d let the Shriven take me away from Bo, I let my guard down, just a little, and tears welled in my eyes.
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