by Rebecca Ross
I didn’t want him to serve me. I wanted answers from him. I wanted to demand, Who are you? Who are your parents? Where do you come from? And yet I had no right to ask such of him. These were answers that would be won by trust and friendship.
“I’m sure I can find a task for you. And as long as you are on my lands, I will protect you, Tomas.”
Tomas murmured a sigh of gratitude and closed his eyes. Not a minute passed before he was snoring.
I waited a few moments before withdrawing the book from my jerkin. I gently leafed through the pages, tickled that I had randomly chosen a book of poetry. I wondered if this had been my mother’s, if she had held this book and read by the window years ago, when a page fluttered loose from the leafs. It was folded, but there was a shadow of handwriting within it.
I took the parchment, let it unfold in my palm, delicate as wings.
January 12, 1541
Kane,
I know we both thought this would be for the best, but my family cannot be trusted. While you were gone, Oona came to visit us. I think she has grown suspicious of me, of what I have been teaching Declan in his lessons. And then I saw Declan yanking Ashling around by her hair in the courtyard. You should have seen his face as she cried, as if he enjoyed the sound of her pain. I am afraid of what I see in him; I think that I have failed him in some way, and he no longer listens to me. How ardently I wish it were different! And perhaps it would be, if he could live with us instead of being with his parents in Lyonesse. Oona, of course, was not even surprised by his behavior. She watched her son yank our daughter around, refusing to stop him, and said, “He’s only a lad of eleven. He’ll grow out of such things, I assure you.”
I can no longer go through with this—I will not use our daughter as a pawn—and I know you would be in agreement with me. I plan to ride to Lyonesse and break Ashling’s betrothal to Declan at dawn, for it is I who must do this, and not you. I’ll take Seamus with me.
Yours,
Líle
I had to read it twice before I felt the bite of the words. Kane, my father. Líle, my mother. And Ashling, my sister, betrothed to Declan Lannon. She had only been five then, as this letter was written mere months from the day she was killed. What had my parents been thinking?
I knew the Lannons and the Morganes were rivals.
But I never imagined my parents had been at the origin of it.
My family cannot be trusted, my mother had written.
My family.
I held the letter to the candlelight.
What had she been teaching Declan? What had she seen in him?
My father had never revealed that my mother had come from the Lannon House. I had never learned her lineage. She was beautiful, he had said. She was lovely; she was good; her laughter had filled the rooms with light. The Morgane people had loved her. He had loved her.
I refolded her letter, hiding it in my pocket, but her words lingered, echoed through me.
My mother had been a Lannon. And I could not stop the thought from rising . . .
I am half Lannon.
THREE
TO TAKE UP GRIEVANCES
Lord MacQuinn’s Territory, Castle Fionn
Brienna
I woke to the sound of banging below in the hall. I lurched out of bed, momentarily dazed. I didn’t know where I was—Magnalia? Jourdain’s town house? It was the windows, of all things, that reminded me; they were mullioned and narrow, and beyond them was the fog Maevana was notorious for.
I fumbled for the clothes I had worn yesterday and brushed my hair with my fingers on the way down the stairs, servants noticeably quieting as they passed me, their eyes wide as they took me in. I must look wretched, I thought, until I heard their whispers follow me.
“Brendan Allenach’s daughter.”
Those words sunk into my heart like a blade.
Brendan Allenach would have killed me on the battlefield had Jourdain not stopped him. I could still hear Allenach’s voice—I will take back the life I gave her—as if he was walking in my footsteps, haunting me.
I hurried along, following the noise, realizing the clamor was inspired by Luc’s music. My brother was standing on a table playing his violin, rousing hearty claps and cup banging from the MacQuinns.
I watched for a moment before sitting alone at the empty lord’s table to eat a bowl of porridge. I could see the love and admiration in the MacQuinns’ faces as they looked upon Luc, cheering him onward even as he knocked over a pint of ale. My brother’s music spread over them like a healing balm.
Beyond the revelry, on the other side of the hall, I noticed Jourdain standing with his chamberlain, a grouchy old man named Thorn, no doubt discussing the plans for the upcoming day. And I began to think about what my own plans should be now, in this strange time of in-betweens—in between resuming normal life and the trial, in between an empty throne and Isolde’s coronation, and perhaps more than anything, my place in between arden and mistress. I had been a student for the past seven years; now it was time for me to decide what to do with my passion.
I felt a wave of homesickness for Valenia.
I thought about the possibility of a passion House in Maevana. There were none here that I knew of, as impassionment was a Valenian sentiment. Most Maevans were familiar with the idea; however, I worried their attitudes toward it fell as cynical or skeptical, and I honestly could not fault them for it. Fathers and mothers had been more concerned about keeping their daughters and sons alive and protected. No one had time to spend years of their life studying music, or art, or even the depth of knowledge.
But all of that would soon change beneath a queen like Isolde. She had a vast appreciation of the study. I knew she desired to reform and enlighten Maevana, to see her people flourish.
And I had my own desires to sow here, one in particular being to start a House of Knowledge and maybe, hopefully, convince my best friend Merei to join me, uniting her passion of music with mine. I could see us filling these castle chambers with music and books, just as we had done at Magnalia as ardens.
I pushed my porridge bowl aside and rose from the table, walking back to my room, still struck with homesickness.
I had chosen an eastern chamber in the castle, and the morning light was just beginning to break through the fog, warming my windows with rosy hues. I walked to my desk, staring down at my writing utensils, which Jourdain had ensured I had an ample supply of.
Write to me whenever you miss me, Merei had said to me days ago, just before she departed Maevana to return to Valenia, to rejoin her patron and her musical consort.
Then I shall write to you every hour of every day, I had replied, and yes, I had been a touch dramatic to make her laugh, because we both had tears in our eyes.
I decided to take Merei’s advice.
I sat at my desk and began to write to her. I was halfway through the letter when Jourdain knocked on my door.
“Who are you writing to?” he asked after I had invited him in.
“Merei. Did you need something?”
“Yes. Walk with me?” And he offered me his arm.
I set my quill down and let him guide me downstairs and out into the courtyard. Castle Fionn was built of white stone in the heart of a meadow, with the mountains looming to the north. The morning light glistened on the castle walls as if they were built of bone, nearly iridescent in the melting frost, and I took a moment to look over my shoulder to admire it before Jourdain led me along one of the meadow paths.
My wolfhound, Nessie, found us not long after that, trotting ahead with her tongue lolling to the side. The fog was finally receding, and I could see the men working in an adjacent field; the wind carried snatches of their hums and the whisk of their sickles as the grain fell.
“I trust my people have been welcoming to you,” Jourdain said after a while, as if he had been waiting until we were liberated from the castle before he voiced such a thing.
I smiled and said, “Of course, Father.” I remembered
the whispers that had chased me to the hall, about whose daughter I truly was. And yet I could not bear to tell Jourdain.
“Good,” he replied. We walked farther in silence, until we reached a river beneath the trees. This seemed to be our talking ground. The day before, he had found me here among the moss and currents, revealing that he had secretly married his wife in this lush place, long ago.
“Have you had any more memory shifts, Brienna?” he asked.
I should have expected this question, yet I still felt surprised by it.
“No, I have not,” I responded, looking to the river. I thought about the six memories I had inherited from Tristan Allenach.
The first had been brought on by an old book of Cartier’s, which happened to have belonged to Tristan over a century ago. I had read the same passage as Tristan had, which had created a bond between us that not even time could break.
I had been so bewildered by the experience, I had not fully understood what was happening to me, and as a result, I told no one about it.
But it had happened again when Merei had played a Maevan-inspired song, the ancient sounds of her music vaguely linking me to Tristan as he had been searching for a place to hide the stone.
His six memories had come to me so randomly, it had taken me a while to finally theorize how and why this was happening to me. Ancestral memory was not too rare of a phenomenon; Cartier himself had once told me about it, this idea that all of us hold memories from our ancestors but only a select few of us actually experience them manifesting. So once I had acknowledged that I was one of those few people to have the manifestations, I began to understand them better.
There had to be a bond made between me and Tristan through one of the senses. I had to see or feel, hear or taste or smell something he had once experienced.
The bond was the doorway between us. The how of it all.
As far as the why . . . I came to surmise that all the memories he had passed down to me were centered on the Stone of Eventide, or else I would have most likely inherited more memories from him. Tristan had been the one to steal the stone, to hide it, to begin the decline of the Maevan queens, to be the author of magic’s dormancy. And so I was the one destined to find and reclaim the stone, to give it back to the Kavanaghs, to let magic flourish again.
“Do you think you will inherit any more memories from him?” Jourdain asked.
“No,” I replied after a moment, looking up from the water to meet his concerned gaze. “All of his memories pertained to the Stone of Eventide. Which has been found and given back to the queen.”
But Jourdain did not appear convinced, and to be honest, neither was I.
“Well, let us hope that the memories have come to an end,” Jourdain said, clearing his throat. His hand went to his pocket, which I thought was a nervous habit for him until he withdrew a sheathed dirk. “I want you to wear this again,” he said, holding the blade out to me.
I recognized it. This was the same small dagger he had given me before I crossed the channel to set our revolution into action.
“You think it necessary?” I asked, accepting it, my thumb touching the buckle that would hold it fast to my thigh.
He sighed. “It would ease my mind if you wore it, Brienna.”
I watched him frown—he suddenly appeared so much older in this light. There were more threads of gray in his russet hair and deeper lines in his brow, and suddenly I was the one to feel worried about losing him when I had just gained him as a father.
“Of course, Father,” I said, tucking the dirk away into my pocket.
I thought that was all he needed to say to me, and we would begin to walk back to the castle. But Jourdain continued to stand before me, the sunlight dappling his shoulders, and I sensed the words were caught in his throat.
I braced myself. “Is there something else?”
“Yes. The grievances.” He paused and took a breath. “I was informed this morning that a large portion of the MacQuinns, mainly those younger than twenty-five, are illiterate.”
“Illiterate?” I echoed, stunned.
Jourdain was quiet, but his eyes remained on mine. And then I realized the cause of it.
“Oh. Brendan Allenach forbid them education?”
He nodded. “It would be of great help to me if you could begin to gather grievances for the trial. I worry that we will run out of time to appropriately collect and sort them. I have asked Luc to approach the men, and I thought perhaps you could scribe for the women. I understand if it is too much to ask of you, and I—”
“It is not too much to ask,” I gently interrupted him, sensing his apprehension.
“I made an announcement at breakfast this morning, for my people to begin to think about if they had any grievances, if they wanted them to be made known at the trial. I believe some will remain quiet, but I know others will wish to have them recorded.”
I reached out to take his hand. “Whatever I can do to help you, Father.”
He raised our hands to kiss the backs of my knuckles, and I was touched by the simple act of affection, something that we had not quite reached yet as father and daughter.
“Thank you,” he rasped, tucking my fingers in the crook of his elbow.
We walked side by side back along the path, the castle coming into view. I was comfortable with the silence between us—neither of us were known as avid conversationalists—but Jourdain suddenly pointed to a large building on the eastern edge of the demesne, and I squinted against the sun to see it.
“That’s the loom house,” he explained, glancing down at me. “Most of the MacQuinn women will be there. That is where I would have you start.”
I did as he asked, only returning to the castle to gather my writing tools. My mind was swarming as I walked the path and approached the loom house; the greatest of my thoughts was hung upon the fact that all of the young MacQuinn people were illiterate, and how devastating that was. Here I had hopes and dreams of beginning a House of Knowledge among them, but in truth, I would need to change my tactic. I would need to offer reading and writing lessons before I even attempted to educate on passion.
I stopped in the grass before the loom house. It was a long, rectangular structure built of stone, with a shingled roof and beautiful filigreed windows. The back side offered a sharp view of the valley below, where boys were herding sheep. The front door was cracked open, but it did not feel very inviting to me.
I took a deep breath and roused my courage and stepped into an antechamber. The floors were caked with mud and lined with boots, the walls crowded with hanging scarves and tattered cloaks.
I could hear the women talking farther inside. I followed the threads of their voices down a narrow corridor, nearly reaching the room in which they were working when I heard my name.
“Her name is Brienna, not Brianna,” one of the women was saying. I stopped short at the sound, just before the threshold. “I believe she is part Valenian. Her mother’s side.”
“That explains it, then,” said another woman in a rougher tone.
That explains what? I thought, my mouth going dry.
“She’s very pretty,” a dulcet voice stated.
“Sweet Neeve. You think everyone is pretty.”
“But it’s truth! I wish I had a cloak like hers.”
“That’s a passion cloak, love. You would have to go to Valenia and purchase one.”
“You don’t purchase them. You earn them.”
My face flushed from eavesdropping, but I could hardly move.
“Well, at least she doesn’t look like him,” the rough-hewn voice spoke again, spitting the words out. “I don’t think I could bear to look at her if she did.”
“I still cannot believe Lord MacQuinn would adopt Allenach’s daughter! His enemy! What was he thinking?”
“She fooled him. That’s the only explanation.”
There was a crash, as if something had accidentally overturned, followed by an exasperated curse. I heard footsteps draw close
, and I rushed back down the corridor, leather satchel banging against my leg, through the muddy antechamber, and out the door.
I didn’t cry, although my eyes smarted as I hurried back to the castle.
What had I thought? That Jourdain’s people would like me at once? That I would fit into the weavings of a place that had suffered while I had flourished on the other side of the channel?
As I stepped into the castle courtyard, I began to wonder if it would be better for me to return to Valenia.
I began to believe that perhaps I truly didn’t belong here.
FOUR
THE SWIFT ARE BORN FOR THE LONGEST NIGHT
Lord Morgane’s Territory, Castle Brígh
Cartier
I woke with a start, a crick in my neck, my hands aching from the cold. I was slumped against the wall, and morning light was pooling on the floor, illuminating the dust on my boots. A few yards away was my wool blanket, wrinkled and empty. I blinked, gradually gaining my bearings.
I was in my parents’ bedchamber. And it was freezing.
Rushing my hands over my face, I heard the distant pounding on the front doors. The echo of life moved through the castle like a heart remembering its pattern.
I stumbled to my feet, wondering if Tomas had snuck away in the night, rethinking his offer to stay here. Halfway down the broken stairwell, I heard the lad’s voice.
“Are you here to see Lord Aodhan?”
I halted. There, in the crook of the front doors, was Tomas balanced on one foot, speaking to a man standing on the threshold. The light was too bright for me to wholly discern the visitor, but I couldn’t breathe in that moment.
“He’s sleeping. You’ll have to come back later,” Tomas stated and began to close the doors, which would not have done much good with how they hung from the hinges.
“I’m here, Tomas,” I said, my voice almost unrecognizable. I descended the remainder of the stairs, taking care on the shattered stones.
Tomas begrudgingly relented, swinging the doors wider so that they banged against the wall.