by Rebecca Ross
I was frozen in my chair, but I read the sneer, the triumph in Declan’s face.
If I go down, you go with me, Morgane.
The crowd began to boo. The lords and ladies sitting around me started to furiously murmur. Isolde and Grainne sat unflinching, staring at Declan.
“Magistrate,” Isolde finally said, her voice whetted like a blade. “Call this trial back to order.”
The magistrate appeared flustered, glancing from me to Declan.
Declan was just opening his mouth, but the crowd was screaming, chanting, raising their fists.
“Let his head roll!”
The prince’s shouts were drowned in the protest, and the magistrate rushed to recite Declan’s fate, which mirrored his father’s and his mother’s. Death by sword, three days next.
My fist was still in the air when Declan was escorted from the scaffold. And when the prince’s baleful gaze met mine, I did not gloat. But there was a promise to him in my eyes.
Your House will turn to dust.
And Declan understood it. He growled and tripped down the scaffold stairs, disappearing back into the castle with his armed escort.
My pulse was still spiking when Keela Lannon was brought forth.
The crowd was already exhausted and weary, their patience brittle. And the air swarmed with their boos as she walked the scaffold. She was not bearing chains, but she cowered all the same when the guards set her on the stand, her dress filthy, her pale blond hair matted.
From behind, her hair was the same shade as her grandfather’s; I sensed this was not going to bode well for her. We should have brought her out first, before Gilroy, before the long list of her family’s grievances could be transposed on her.
“Keela Lannon,” the magistrate began, clearing his throat as he reached for the piece of paper. The one sheet of her grievances. “You stand before the people of Maevana with a list of grievances held against you.”
Keela was trembling in terror, her shoulders caving as if she wanted nothing more than to dissolve.
I sought Brienna, my heart continuing to drop in alarm.
Brienna was still standing at the forefront, her eyes wide as she felt the tide of the crowd shift further and further from mercy.
“On the twentieth of December, in the year of 1563, you denied beggar children food in the streets, and instead of giving them bread, you gave them stones to eat.”
“I didn’t . . . He made me,” Keela sobbed, covering her face with her hands as the people continued to boo her.
“Keela, you must remain quiet while I read your grievances,” the magistrate reminded. “You will have your moment to speak after the list is finished.”
She kept her face covered as the magistrate continued to read.
“On the fifth of February, in the year of 1564, you had your chambermaid flogged for brushing your hair too roughly. On the eighteenth of March . . .”
Keela wept, and the people only grew louder and angrier.
The magistrate finished reading, and then asked Keela if she wanted to address the people.
This was the moment Keela needed to speak the truth, to make her case.
Please, Keela, I silently begged. Please tell them the truth.
And yet she was cowering and crying, hardly able to raise her head and face the dissent of the crowd.
I looked for Brienna again. She had been swallowed in the shifting of the crowd, until she suddenly rose heads above the others, perched on Luc’s shoulders. She held herself up so that Keela could look in the crowd to see her.
“Let her speak! Let her speak!” Brienna shouted, but her voice was drowned out among the protest.
I felt like shutting my eyes, like closing myself to the world, to block out what I knew was coming. Until I saw Keela finally straighten, until Keela finally found Brienna in the crowd.
“My grandda forced me to do these things,” she said, but her voice was still too weak. “So did my da. They . . . they beat me if I disobeyed. They threatened to hurt my little brother! They wouldn’t let us eat if we told them no. They would lock us in the darkness all night. . . .”
“Lies!” a woman in the crowd screamed, which roused the boos and shouts again.
“Let their heads roll!” the chorus rose with fists, as if the people could strike the sky.
One by one, the lords and ladies on the scaffold lifted their fists, in approval of her death. All save for four.
Morgane. MacQuinn. Kavanagh. Dermott.
How could it be that the four Houses that had greatly suffered beneath the Lannons would be the only four to give mercy to Keela?
Isolde, Grainne, Jourdain, and I all sat with our hands clenched in our laps. From the corner of my eye, I saw Isolde hang her head, saddened by the verdict. And in the crowd, amid a sea of fists, was Brienna, still on Luc’s shoulders, tears in her eyes.
“Keela Lannon,” the magistrate announced, and even his voice was heavy with disappointment. “The people of Maevana have weighed you and found you wanting. You will be executed by the sword three days from now. May the gods have mercy on your soul.”
SEVENTEEN
DARK DISCOVERIES
Night Following the Trial
Brienna
We sat together in Jourdain’s chambers that night—my father, my brother, Cartier, and me—all of us exhausted and quiet as we shared a bottle of wine, too upset to stomach food.
It was difficult to explain how I felt after hearing the grievances, especially those of MacQuinn and Morgane, which I had not known the exact details of. I do not think there were any words that could appropriately describe the pain I felt for them. And I could not imagine how it felt to write down such grievances and then to hear them read before hundreds of witnesses.
It was even more difficult to name what I felt after watching the people condemn Keela to die. I knew that I would have to witness her beheading, and I struggled to breathe whenever I imagined it.
“So the Lannons’ reign has come to its bloody end,” Jourdain said when our silence became too oppressive, when the wine had run dry.
“So they fall,” Luc said with a salute of his empty cup, his knee pressed close to mine as we shared the divan.
I met Cartier’s gaze through the firelight. We shared the same thought, the same emotion.
Not all of them will fall. We still had Ewan, who we would protect, who we would raise in defiance of his father and grandfather.
“Yet why do I feel like we have been defeated?” Luc whispered. “Why doesn’t this feel like victory? I want them to die. I want to inflict as much pain on them as possible. Beheading is too swift for them. I want to see them suffer. But does that make me any better than them?”
“You are nothing like them, son,” Jourdain murmured.
Cartier leaned his elbows on his knees, staring at the floor. But when he spoke, his voice was steady. “The Lannons stole my sister, my mother. I will never know the sound of my sister’s voice. I will never know what it is like to be held and loved by my mother. I will always feel their loss, as if a portion of me is missing. And yet . . . my mother herself was a Lannon. She was Líle Hayden, daughter of a Lannon thane.” He looked at Jourdain, at Luc, at me. I was surprised by this confession. “I do not think justice—in this moment—follows a clear, straight line. We have suffered with our losses, but so have the people here. For all the gods’ sake . . . Keela Lannon, a twelve-year-old girl who has been abused by her father, is about to be beheaded right behind him, because the people will not hear her; they will not look at her; they cannot separate her from him.”
Luc sniffed back his tears, but he was calm, listening to Cartier. So was Jourdain, who was watching Cartier with a gleam in his eyes.
“Do I think Declan deserves beheading?” Cartier asked, holding out his hands. “No. I would rather see every one of Declan’s bones crushed, one by one, slowly, until he died, as he did to my sister. And I am not remorseful to confess this. But perhaps more than what I feel a
nd what I want . . . I have to rest in knowing that justice has been served today. That the people spoke and decided the fate of a family who was finally held accountable. That we have all returned to our homeland. That in the days to come, Isolde Kavanagh is going to be crowned as the queen. The only thing we can do at this moment is keep moving forward. We will stand witness at the Lannon beheadings. We will crown Isolde. And then we will decide what to do with a people who are now without a lord and lady.”
We fell quiet again, Cartier’s words piercing us. He was half Lannon, and yet that did not change how I regarded him. For I was half Allenach. We had both come from treacherous blood. And if we looked closer into our hearts . . . we would all find darkness within us.
I went to bed shortly after midnight, kissing Jourdain and Luc on the cheeks, gently caressing Cartier’s shoulder when I passed him in departure. My body demanded that I lie down and try to sleep, but more than that, I wanted to escape reality for just an hour of a blissful dream.
I was dozing when I heard the commotion in the corridor.
I sat upright, blinking into the darkness. I was struggling out of bed when my private door blew open, and Luc stood on my threshold.
“Quick, sister. The queen has called a meeting in Father’s chambers,” he said, rushing to light my candle.
I found my sword and my voice as I chased him out into the corridor, steel unsheathed in my hand, my chemise slipping off my shoulder. “What is it? What’s happened?”
Jourdain and Cartier were standing in my father’s chamber, waiting. I joined them with Luc, trying to calm my breaths.
Before I could muster another question, Isolde entered the room, still in the dress she had worn for the trial, a rush light in her hand, two of her guards flanking her. Her face was stark, her gaze hopelessly bleak.
“I’m sorry to wake you,” she whispered to the four of us as we stood in cold shadows and flickering light.
“What has happened, Isolde?” Jourdain asked.
Isolde glanced down to her candle, as if she couldn’t bear to look at us. “Declan and Keela Lannon have escaped the dungeons.”
“What?” Luc cried, because the rest of us had lost our voices.
Isolde met our astonishment with bitterness in her eyes. “I believe they escaped an hour ago. They are still unaccounted for.”
“How?” Jourdain demanded.
Isolde said nothing, but she looked to Cartier, who looked to me. Our thoughts aligned, like the moon eclipsing the sun, casting a long shadow between us.
Ewan.
Cartier turned and hurried down the corridor to his door. I followed him into his main quarters. I saw the blankets and the pillow rumpled on the divan, where Cartier had been sleeping. And my hands were cold as ice as I followed him into his bedchamber, into the room where Ewan was supposed to be hiding.
There he was, sleeping in the bed. Or so I thought, until Cartier viciously ripped the blankets away, exposing a pillow strategically placed where Ewan’s body should have been.
And I walked to the window, which was open: Ewan’s original route into the castle. I couldn’t feel my hands, but I listened as the sword I held hit the floor with a metallic clatter. I stepped over the steel and stared into the night, into a sky dusted with stars, one of them my own constellation.
“No, no.”
Cartier’s voice, Cartier’s painful denial.
It was the beat to my own heart, my own denial. There must be an explanation. This must be a mistake.
But I came to the truth first.
I turned around. And when I saw Cartier sinking to his knees before me, clutching the tangle of blankets . . . I acknowledged what had happened.
I dropped to my knees too, next to my fallen sword, because I suddenly couldn’t stand.
What have we done?
“Brienna, Brienna . . .”
My name was the only thing Cartier could whisper, over and over, as the truth overwhelmed us.
I met his gaze. He was frozen, but I was smoldering.
Ewan Lannon had played us.
EIGHTEEN
RIDE THE CURRENTS
Cartier
There was no sleep to be had that night.
After I realized I had been fooled by a child, Luc and Brienna went to work poring over maps of the city, tracking potential escape routes, while I followed the queen and Jourdain down into the dungeons, bearing torches and steel, the queen’s guards close behind us. My breath was ragged by the time we passed through all three levels; the cold on the lowest level of the keep was so bitter it was like stepping into ice water.
Isolde hastily led the way to Keela’s cell. The door was wide open, the candles continuing to flicker on her table. I stared into the emptiness of her chamber, still unable to believe this had happened.
The queen led us forward without saying a word, where two guards lay in a pool of their blood, their throats cleanly sliced. There was no way Ewan had killed those men, I told myself, over and over. The door was also wide open, like a mouth trapped in a yawn. Two more guards lay dead at the threshold, their blood a black lake beneath them.
Isolde knelt, gently touching their pallid faces. That was when I heard it—the faint clatter of chains, the echo of movement coming from within Declan’s cell.
The queen froze on her knees, also hearing it. I held up my hand, wordlessly bidding her to wait, and I took my torch and my sword and entered the cell.
I couldn’t deny that I fervently hoped it was Ewan. Even after the sting of his betrayal, I longed for it to be him.
What I found was a person draped in black veils, their face completely hidden, their right wrist bound in one of Declan’s shackles, holding them fast to the wall.
I stopped, regarding the bone sweeper with unfeigned surprise. Likewise, the bone sweeper ceased their struggle, drawing their knees close to their chest, as if they could curl up and vanish.
“Who is that?” Jourdain asked, arriving at my side.
I waited until Isolde had also stepped into the cell. The three of us stood in an arc, regarding the bone sweeper in silence.
“The bone sweeper,” I said. “I saw you the other day, in the tunnels.”
They did not move. But I could see the veil over their face rising and falling beneath their frantic breaths.
Isolde sheathed her sword and knelt. Her voice was gentle when she asked, “Can you tell us what happened here? How Declan escaped?”
The bone sweeper was silent. They began to struggle against the shackle, pulling so hard on their right hand I saw the metal cuff slice them. There was a flash of pale skin as their sleeve fluttered; blood bloomed at their wrist. They were thin, like Ewan had been. Their hand was lean, coated in grime. The sight filled me with unspeakable anguish.
“Please. We need your help . . . ,” Isolde began, but her voice faded. She glanced to me and Jourdain and said, “Ask my guards to find the key to this cell and to bring writing utensils.”
Jourdain moved to carry out her order before I did, and while we waited, I looked to my name carved into the wall, glistening in the firelight.
Aodhan.
I had to cast my gaze away from it, as if my own name had spelled out this doom, as if I had precipitated it all.
And perhaps I had, by persuading Isolde to grant Ewan mercy.
One of the guards brought a key, a piece of parchment, a quill, and a small vial of ink. They gave it to the queen, and Isolde cautiously drew closer to the bone sweeper, still on her knees.
“I am going to set you free,” the queen whispered. “And then I need you to help me. Can you write down what happened tonight?”
The bone sweeper gave a curt nod—it hit me like a blow, that they could not speak, that Isolde had known this from the moment she stepped into the cell.
Isolde closed the distance between them, sliding the key into the cuff. I noticed that Jourdain stiffened; I sensed he was about to step forward, mistrusting the bone sweeper. And if he so much as made a
sudden movement in their direction, I knew this fragile extension of trust would snap. I discreetly held him back, willing him to wait, to let Isolde foster this. Jourdain glanced at me, curses in his eyes, but he remained silent and still.
The shackle fell off; the bone sweeper retreated slightly, as if Isolde’s presence overwhelmed them.
“Did you see who set Declan free?” Isolde asked, opening the ink, dipping the quill into it.
The bone sweeper made no movement.
The queen held out the quill, gently set the paper before them.
They know nothing, I wanted to say. We need to hurry; we have wasted too much time here.
“Isolde . . .” Jourdain was one breath from saying my exact thoughts.
But Isolde did not acknowledge him. Her attention was consumed with the veiled person before us.
Finally, the bone sweeper took the quill. Their hand was dripping blood, trembling, as they began to write.
I waited, straining my eyes to try and decipher what they were writing. Their handwriting was wretched—we would never be able to read this account. And yet I found myself sheathing my sword; I found myself kneeling, moving to Isolde’s side, where I could better see. One by one, I ate their words; I ate their words as if it was my last meal.
Ewan came for his sister. He asked me to distract the guards while he freed her from her cell. He already had the master key; I am uncertain as to how he obtained this. I did as he wanted; I distracted the guards, who were at Declan’s cell, about to feed him dinner. But one of the guards grew suspicious. They heard a clanging down the tunnel—Keela’s door. They left to investigate it. That’s when I saw Fechin, the master guard. He unbolted Declan’s cell and went into it. I did not know what he was doing until the two of them emerged. Fechin set Declan free, and that was when Declan saw me, in the shadows. I could not run from him. He dragged me into his cell and locked me in his place. I could only listen as he departed. I heard an altercation, the sound of bodies hitting the floor. I heard Ewan and Keela both screaming. I heard Ewan shout, “I’m a Morgane now!” And then it grew quiet. It was quiet for a while before the second round of guards came and found the prisoners gone.