by Rebecca Ross
“It was supposed to be my sister,” she had continued. “Not me. Shea was supposed to be queen.”
Her older sister who had died beside her mother, during the first failed rising.
“You will be the greatest queen the north has ever seen,” I’d said to her.
And here we were, fifteen years later, standing on royal ground, on the cusp of crowning her.
Isolde must have read my mind, because she met my gaze through the rain and smiled.
“It won’t do us any good if you catch a chill from this rain, Lady,” I said.
She laughed. The Stone of Eventide rippled with cerulean and gold, as if it felt the waves of her amusement. “You forget, Aodhan, that I have magic that favors healing.”
“I forget nothing,” I reminded, but I was smiling as I fell into stride beside her.
We followed the trail of the others, our boots clicking over the damp floor. “How have things been here?” I quietly asked, as we continued to walk deeper into the castle, toward the guest wing.
“It has been calm, although there has hardly been any time to rest,” the queen replied, just as quietly so our voices would not carry. “I have news to share with all of you. I’ve called for a meeting, after you refresh yourselves.”
We stopped when we reached a fork in the corridor, lanterns hanging from iron hooks in the wall. I could hear the MacQuinns and the Dermotts, their voices fading as they continued to walk to their appointed chambers.
“Lady Dermott has requested a private conversation with you,” I murmured, listening to the rain drip from my clothes.
“I know,” Isolde responded. “I could see it in her eyes. I’ll ensure it happens on the morrow.”
I wanted to say more but caught myself, remembering that there were many ears in this castle, that my thoughts should not be announced in the corridors.
“Go and tend to yourself, Lord Morgane,” the queen said, and then drolly added, “Before you catch a chill and I am forced to heal you.”
I snorted but granted her a bow of playful defeat, hurrying down the hall to my chambers.
She had been thoughtful; Isolde already had a bath drawn for me, and a plate of refreshments set out on the table. I stripped from my sopping clothes and sat in the warm water, trying to sort through the tangle of my thoughts. Ewan, unsurprisingly, was at the forefront. I still had not decided what I was to do about him, to tell Isolde or not that I was harboring him.
I had come up with a theory over the journey. Ewan had obviously escaped the day of rising, most likely when our battle broke out. He had gone north, seeking a safe place to hide. He had come across Brígh and squatted there for a day or two before I arrived and found him.
I did not believe Ewan was guilty of anything other than trying to survive.
And I struggled to imagine what it would be like to grow up as Declan’s son, in such a terrible family. Had Ewan not been skin and bones, as if he had not been fed regularly? Had he not been fearful of me, expecting physical punishment from my hand?
Did I protect him? Did I defy his father and take him as my own? Could I honestly come to love my enemy’s son?
I washed and emerged from the water feeling no better about my predicament, dressing in the blue and silver of the Morganes. I stood at the table and ate a few morsels of fruit and bread, and that was when it finally struck me. Somewhere beneath my feet, layers deep in this castle of old stone and mortar, the Lannons were sitting in darkened cells, chained, awaiting their fate. Somewhere beneath my feet sat Declan, breathing, waiting.
I could not eat anymore.
I stood before my fire and waited until Brienna knocked on my door.
Luc and Jourdain were with her, or else I would have drawn her into my chambers; I would have told her my troubles, all of them. I would have begged her to tell me what to do, bending myself to her as if she were fire and I were iron.
She regarded me with a strange gleam in her eyes as we began to walk the corridor together; I knew she had questions for me. And I did not even have a moment to whisper in her ear, to request that she come to me tonight, because Isolde and her father were waiting for us in the council chamber.
I had never been in this room before. It was an octagonal chamber void of windows, which made it feel dark until I noticed the walls were set with a shimmering mosaic. The little stones caught the firelight, making it seem as if the walls were breathing, as if they were the scales of a dragon. I could not see the ceiling, but the room felt endless, as if it continued upward into the stars.
The only furnishing in the room was a round table and a ring of chairs. And at the heart of the table burned a circle of fire, to cast light upon the faces of everyone who gathered.
I sat between Brienna and Jourdain. Luc was on her other side, followed by Isolde and her father, Braden Kavanagh. We were the queen’s inner circle, her most trusted of advisers and support.
“I must say how good it is to be reunited with you, my beloved friends,” Isolde began tenderly. “I hope that these past two weeks have been joyous ones, and that returning to your homes and gathering your people has been the beginning of your healing and restoration. Above all, I must express my gratitude for each of you returning to Lyonesse, for being my support and my eyes, for helping me prepare for this trial.
“Before I begin with my news, I wanted to give you the chance to share any concerns or thoughts.”
Jourdain started, summarizing our plans to seal public fealty for Isolde, about our deliberation of alliances and rivalries. Which made a perfect transition for me to talk about the Dermotts.
“I do believe Lady Grainne will support you,” I said, meeting Isolde’s gaze over the flames. “But to prepare you for your talk with her tomorrow . . . the Dermotts have faced a great deal of persecution from the Hallorans.”
“So I have feared,” Isolde said with a sigh. “I confess that I am very uncertain as to how punishment needs to be given to Lannon supporters.”
“Speaking of which,” Brienna spoke up, “I made a discovery on the journey here, thanks to Lady Grainne.”
My attention shifted to her. I had greatly wondered what the women had been discussing on the ride.
“Would it be possible to bring in the coats of arms for the Lannons, Carrans, Hallorans, and Allenachs?”
Isolde’s brows rose, surprised. “Yes. They are hanging in the throne room.”
We waited while Isolde asked a servant to bring the banners in. Once they were laid on the table, Brienna stood, her fingertip tracing the embroidered design. The House sigil was at the center—a lynx for Lannon, a leaping stag for Allenach, an ibex for Halloran, a sturgeon for the Carrans. Then came the shield patterns followed by the typical ring of flora interlinked with smaller fauna.
“Here it is,” Brienna whispered, her finger stopping on something. The five of us rose and leaned over the table, to see what she was transfixed with. “All of them have the mark, as Lady Grainne said they would. A half-moon.”
I finally saw it, hidden among the flowers of the Hallorans’ sigil.
Brienna began to tell us about her conversation with Lady Grainne, and I merely stood and stared at her, marveling that she had come into this knowledge so seamlessly.
“This is incredible,” the queen murmured, studying the Carran coat, finding the hidden half-moon. “I cannot even begin to express how vital this is going to be for us in the coming days.”
“Have you faced any opposition, Lady?” I asked. It was the question all of us had been dreading to ask.
Brienna folded up the banners and dropped them unceremoniously to the floor. We then resumed our seats, waiting for the queen to speak.
“Not openly,” Isolde said, and her father reached for her hand. She glanced at Braden, and I saw sadness in both of their eyes. “I have discovered that the Kavanagh House has been annihilated by Gilroy Lannon. I do not believe any other Kavanaghs remain alive.”
The mood among us instantly dropped, deep into
grief. From the corner of my eye, I saw Brienna lace her fingers in her lap, so tightly her fingers went white.
“Isolde . . . ,” Jourdain whispered.
“It has been a difficult truth to come into,” the queen said, briefly closing her eyes. “Gilroy kept a ledger of all the lives he took. There are so many names listed. Not long after the first failed rising, the king sent soldiers into Kavanagh territory, burning most of the cities and villages to the ground. I have been told that it is only ash and charred remains. There is nothing left there to return to. But my one hope is that perhaps there are other Kavanaghs still in hiding. And that maybe, once the Lannons are gone, they will come forward and reunite with me and my father.”
I helplessly thought of the Dermotts, of my suspicions. That a spark of the Kavanaghs was within them, and yet I said nothing of it. That was for Grainne to share with the queen, not me. But it gave me hope that restoration could still be possible for Isolde and her father and their people.
“Now, on to the second matter of business,” Isolde said. “One of the Lannons is missing.”
Jourdain startled at my side. “Which one?”
“Declan’s son, Ewan,” Isolde replied. “We never recovered him after the overtaking.”
“He’s only a lad,” Braden Kavanagh said when his daughter grew quiet. “We believe he is hiding somewhere in Lyonesse.”
No, not even close, my blood pounded. I was beginning to go numb, my thoughts circling around and around. Speak, one thought cried, which was swallowed by Silence. And so I sat there, unmoving, unyielding.
“Have there been any efforts to recover him?” Luc asked.
“We have searched, but very discreetly,” Isolde replied. “When I realized we were missing a Lannon, I decided that it needed to be kept quiet. That is why I am just now sharing this with all of you, why I did not even trust sending you the news by letter. No one beyond us needs to know the grandson is missing, as it might give fuel to Gilroy’s supporters.”
“Do you trust the servants here?” Jourdain asked. “Has anyone here given you reason to doubt or worry?”
“I have established a very loyal guard in Lord Burke’s men and women,” Isolde said. “A vast portion of the servants in this castle have come forward and pledged allegiance to me. Many of them have also given their testimonies, and while I know some of this may not be wholly trustworthy, I feel as if the stories that are emerging all align. They all lend proof that Gilroy Lannon brutally oppressed the people here.”
None of us spoke. And how the darkness seemed to creep upon us.
“All of this is to say,” Isolde continued, looking to Brienna, as if her strength and courage was within her, “there is a vast list of grievances against the Lannons as a whole, not just isolated to the former king. His wife, Oona, also partook in tortures and beatings, as did their son, Prince Declan. My father and I have compiled the grievances, just as all you have done, and I have no doubt that this list will continue to grow as more people come forward. That there will be no hope for this family.”
“Are you saying, Lady,” Jourdain carefully interjected, “that there is no need to put the Lannons on trial?”
“No, my lord,” Isolde responded. “They will go through the motions of a trial, for closure and for justice to be exemplified. We want to distinguish ourselves as coming out of Lannons’ darkness, by becoming an era of light.”
The chamber was quiet. It was Luc who broke the silence. “They will go ‘through the motions’?”
“It is the people’s voice that must be heard, not mine,” the queen said. Her face had gone pale as bone. “And the people have already decided the fate of the Lannons.”
And I knew what she was about to say. I knew what was coming, because this was history, this was the “bitter portions,” as the old ballads called it, this was how it was done in Maevana. Had I not spoken such a sentiment to Jourdain, Luc, and Brienna nights ago, when we had begun planning the second leg of our revolution?
And yet I felt stricken, waiting for it.
There was a dark flame in Isolde’s gaze; it was mercy meeting justice, twenty-five years of hiding and darkness and terror, twenty-five years of dead mothers and dead sisters, of destroyed Houses and people, of lives that could never be brought back.
But how things began to fragment when your enemy was no longer just a name, but a face, a voice, a little boy with red hair.
Isolde looked directly to me, as if she sensed I was inwardly conflicted, that I was crumbling between the desire to tell her and the desire to hide the boy. . . .
“The entire Lannon family must be executed.”
THIRTEEN
LATE-NIGHT QUANDARIES
Three Days Until the Trial
Brienna
After our meeting came to a close, Isolde accompanied me back to my chambers. We sat before the fire in my hearth, listening to the storm lash the windows.
“I know you’re weary from traveling all day so I will keep this brief,” Isolde said. “But I have been eager to speak with you about a few things. Mainly about the coronation. I know all of our attention is on the trial, but the coronation is only a few weeks away, and I need help planning it.”
“Of course.” I reached for my satchel, bringing forth my writing utensils. As the queen spoke her ideas, I wrote them down, trying to organize them. Cartier had once told me that the queens of Maevana were always crowned in the forest, and I was about to share this when I heard a clatter beyond the window. Isolde stiffened. My quarters were divided into two chambers, one for visitors, where we sat, and one for a bedroom, where the noise was coming from.
“What was that?” I set aside my paper and quill and rose from my chair, the banging coming again, louder. It almost sounded as if someone was trying to open the bedchamber window. . . .
I reached for my broadsword, which sat sheathed on the divan, and Isolde withdrew a dirk from her boot. “Stay behind me,” I whispered to Isolde as she stood.
The queen followed me into the darkness of my bedroom, our steel catching the flash of lightning.
I saw it at once—the window was banging open in the storm gust and rain was splattering the sill and the floor. Someone was in the chamber; I could hear their heavy pants as I stepped deeper into the darkness. When the lightning forked again, the silver limned a small figure crouching beside the bed, just before my feet. A boy with a tangle of red hair.
“Tomas?” I breathed, astonished.
“Mistress Brienna! Please . . . please don’t kill me.”
I sheathed my sword instantly, reaching for him. “Lady Isolde? Will you bring light to the room?”
She stepped out into the adjoining chamber, bringing back a candelabra, letting the light fall over the boy. She said nothing as I rushed to latch the window, nearly slipping on the floor. I took a moment to squint against the rain and peer down the castle wall before I shut the mullioned glass to the storm.
“By all the saints, Tomas. How did you crawl up here?” I asked, turning to regard him.
He was, not surprisingly, transfixed with Isolde, with the Stone of Eventide glimmering at her breast.
“Tomas?” I prompted, and he finally heard me, glancing back to look at me with wide, bloodshot eyes. “Does Lord Aodhan know you are here?”
He froze. For a moment, I thought he would bolt from the room.
I approached him slowly, reaching for his hand. He was so thin, so slight for a lad his age. I felt my throat close, but I smiled, to help ease his mind.
“Why don’t we get you into some dry clothes? I’m afraid it will have to be one of my shirts for now. It will fit you like a tunic. Will that do?”
He studied his drenched, mud-splattered clothes. The clothes Cartier had given him, the blue of the Morganes. Hay and seed heads clung to him, as if he had hidden in the back of a wagon. “Yes, Mistress Brienna.”
“Very good,” I said, approaching my wardrobe. I had brought a few dresses, silk breeches, a pair of linen shi
rts, my cloak, and a fleece-lined leather jerkin. I selected one of the shirts and brought it to Tomas, laying it on my bed. “I want you to change into this. Lady Isolde and I will wait just outside this door.”
Tomas looked as if he would rather wilt than wear my clothes. Thankfully, though, he gave me no fuss. He reluctantly nodded, knocking the hay from his soiled clothes.
“And I suppose you are hungry?” I asked. “How does a bowl of soup and a cup of cider sound?”
“I would like that, Mistress Brienna,” Tomas said.
“Good. Come meet us in the next room when you are ready.”
Isolde and I left the chamber. I quietly shut the door so he could change and was about to call for a servant to bring a tray of dinner when I felt Isolde’s fingers close about my arm, holding me at her side.
“Brienna,” the queen rasped. “Who is this boy?”
I stared at her, our faces only a breath apart. And that’s when I saw it: the suspicion in her eyes, a marriage of disbelief and bitterness.
“No,” I whispered in return. “No, it cannot be. . . .”
The pieces began to come together, interlocking. An orphan squatting in Brígh. Cartier having no inkling as to where the boy came from, as to who he truly was.
But Cartier would not have willingly sheltered a Lannon. He could not have known Tomas was Ewan, that he was Declan’s son.
I drew in air to speak this, but the doorknob rattled, and the queen and I separated, schooling our faces into pleasant neutrality although both of our hearts were like thunder in our chests.
I rung for a servant, to request dinner for Tomas, and by the time I turned around from the main door, he had stepped into the receiving chamber, trying to conceal his limp.
“Are you hurt?” Isolde asked, noticing it too.
Tomas sat on the edge of the divan, making no response.
I wondered if Isolde would heal him. Would she willingly heal her enemy’s child? The child that had frustratingly evaded her and caused her sleepless nights?
She knelt before him. “May I look at your foot, Tomas?”