by Rebecca Ross
“You won’t get the remainder until the exchange is successful,” Pierce said. And then he yanked my passion cloak away; the cold rippled over me as Thorn reluctantly took my cloak in his hands, as if the blue fabric would bite him.
Pierce picked me up and tossed me over his shoulder like I was nothing more than a sack of grain. I screamed, but my voice was muffled from the gag; I kicked, trying to jar my knee into his stomach, and he tripped. We sprawled on the ground and I rushed to crawl away from him, cutting my knee on a rock. Pierce was on me before I could get to my feet, striking me across the face. My sight blurred, my cheek smarting in pain; I fought to breathe as he dragged me into the woods.
I was still dazed as I tried to gain my bearings. We were in a small clearing, and there was a wagon; four of Pierce’s men were gathered about it, waiting, their eyes regarding me coldly. Two of them had old blood dried on their jerkins. Phillip’s and Eamon’s blood, I knew, and I felt bile rise up my throat.
I watched as Pierce pulled back the wagon tarp.
There were grain sacks in the back. But there was also something else: a compartment beneath the sacks of grain, cleverly hidden. My heart hammered when I saw it, when I realized Pierce was about to slide me into the coffin-inspired darkness. I stumbled to my feet, clumsy without the balance of my hands, and wildly began to run. I got through two briar patches before Pierce caught me, his fingers snaking into my hair, yanking me back into his arms.
“You’re a shrewd one, all right,” he sneered. “Fechin warned me that you were, that it would be difficult to catch you. But this time I’ve outwitted you, Brienna.” He brought me back to the wagon and hefted me into the secret compartment, his men chuckling and cheering him on. Then he leaned against it, regarding me with a tilt to his head, as if he enjoyed seeing me cower in the small space. “The prince wanted MacQuinn blood, not Allenach. But I suppose you’ll do well enough.”
He fiddled with one of the grain sacks above me. I could hear the clink of glass, and before I could react, Pierce pressed a damp rag into my face, forcing me to breathe in the fumes of something acidic.
I resisted, drawing farther back into the compartment, but my fingers began to tingle, and the world began to slow. I had almost succumbed to the void when I heard Pierce speak.
“You know . . . if you hadn’t humiliated me before your father’s House, if you had chosen to alliance with me . . . the Hallorans would have chosen your side. We would have cast off the Lannons like they were dirty laundry. You would be mine, and I would have protected you, Brienna. But now look at you. It’s amusing how power shifts, isn’t it?”
He ripped the gag from my mouth, and I tried to scream again. But my voice was fading. I only had the strength to rasp, “Where are you taking me?”
“I’m taking you home,” he said with a smile. “To the prince.”
He shut me in the darkness. I felt the wagon rumble into motion, and I struggled to remain coherent.
My last thought kindled, just before I slipped into unconscious.
I was about to be handed over to Declan Lannon.
TWENTY-FOUR
ULTIMATUM
Lord MacQuinn’s Territory, Castle Fionn
Cartier
I knew it the moment I saw Jourdain’s castle appear through the storm fog. Brienna was gone.
I pulled my horse to a halt in the courtyard, just behind Jourdain. We were too late, and yet Jourdain did not realize it.
Isolde reined her horse beside mine; her face was streaked with mud and rain. We had ridden through the night, hardly stopping, to reach Castle Fionn. And yet we still had not arrived in time.
The queen looked to me, silently bidding me to follow Jourdain into the hall. And so I obeyed, my chest hollow as I dismounted, following Jourdain and Luc as they rushed into the foyer.
The remainder of our party—Sean, Isolde, and her guards—entered slowly, hesitantly.
“Brienna? Brienna!” Jourdain’s voice boomed through the castle.
The MacQuinns were gathered, just finishing breakfast. The light even struggled here, where the fire was roaring in the hearth, casting a tepid glow on the MacQuinn banners. The people stood in clusters with pale faces, their eyes wide and solemn. There was one young girl with golden hair and scars on her face who was weeping, her sorrow the only sound to break the tense silence.
“Where is my daughter?” Jourdain asked, and his voice was frightening, the crack of a tree about to split through its heart.
At last, the chamberlain stepped forward. I watched him as he bowed his head, as he laid his hand over his heart.
“My lord MacQuinn . . . I fear to tell you . . .”
“Where is my daughter, Thorn?” Jourdain repeated.
Thorn held his hands out, palms upward, empty, and shook his head.
Jourdain nodded, but his jaw was clenched. I stood next to Luc and watched as Jourdain took hold of the nearest table, overturning it. The pewter, the plates of food, the drinks all cascaded to the floor, spilling and clattering and breaking.
“I sent her here so she would be safe!” he shouted. “And you let Declan Lannon take her!” He overturned another table, and my reticence finally broke, to see Jourdain come unraveled, to see the agony on his people’s faces.
I reached out and took Jourdain’s arm, guiding him through the crowd up to the dais.
“Bring some wine and bread,” I ordered the chamberlain, who looked petrified as he scampered toward the kitchens. I then forced Jourdain down into his chair; he laid his head upon the table, his resolve gone as the shock settled in.
Luc sat beside his father, ashen, but he reached out to touch Jourdain’s shoulder.
Isolde stepped into the hall at last. The silence returned as the MacQuinns looked upon her, drenched and storm battered. But she walked into the hall with grace, eventually coming to the dais steps.
She turned to look upon the men and women, and I wondered how she would address them, if she would ignite into fire as Jourdain had or if she would harden into ice, as I was.
“How long has Brienna MacQuinn been missing?” Isolde asked, and her voice was gentle, to coax out answers.
“She has been missing since this morning,” one woman responded. She had a streak of gray in her hair and a hardness in her face, as if she had seen far too much. And her arm was wrapped around the weeping girl.
This morning.
We had been so close, then.
“So she was taken in the night?” Isolde asked. “Who was the one to last see her?”
The people began to murmur, their voices low and urgent.
“Perhaps her chambermaid? Who tended to her last night?” Isolde persisted.
Again, there was silence. I found my fingers were curling into my palms.
“Lady, I sent her to her bedchamber.”
All of us looked to where an old woman stood off to the side of the crowd. There was blood on her apron, a gleam of remorse in her eyes.
Jourdain finally lifted his head to squint at the woman. “Isla?”
“My lord MacQuinn,” Isla said, her voice hoarse. “Your daughter helped me tend to your thane yesterday. She pulled an arrow from his rib.”
“Which thane?” Jourdain asked, trying to rise. I laid a heavy hand on his shoulder, keeping him down. That sour-faced chamberlain finally returned with the wine, and I poured a glass for Jourdain, wrapping his fingers around the stem of the goblet.
“Liam, milord. There was a hunting accident. . . .”
The story began to unfold. Jourdain did not drink his wine until I prodded him, and only when the color had returned to the lord’s face did I let him up and our small party followed Isla to a bedchamber, where Liam was laboring to breathe, unconscious, his wounds draped in linen.
“Can you heal him, Isolde?” Jourdain asked.
The queen gently removed the linens, to assess Liam’s wounds. “Yes. But it looks as if he has fever and infection. My magic will need to put him in a deep sleep for a
few days, to purge it from his blood.”
A few days? We didn’t even have hours, I thought. I could tell Jourdain was thinking the very same, but he held back the words.
“Please, Lady. Heal him.”
Isolde rolled up her sleeves and asked for Isla’s assistance. While the women began to heal Liam, the rest of us proceeded to look upon the two men who had been killed in the accident. They were still being prepared for the burial, their wounds horrifyingly gruesome.
Luc swore, covering his nose and glancing away, but I stared at them, recognizing them. They were the two men-at-arms who had accompanied Brienna home. Along with Liam.
“I want to see her room,” I said abruptly to Thorn, who startled at the harshness of my voice.
Jourdain nodded, and we followed the chamberlain up the stairs to Brienna’s chamber.
The first thing I noticed was her bed. It was rumpled, as if she had been woken in the dead of night. And then I noticed the dog hair. She must have slept with her wolfhound. And that ice in my heart began to thaw, beating wildly as I continued to look upon her things, as I imagined her lying in the darkness with nothing more than a dog to protect her.
“Where is her dog?” I asked, glancing to Thorn.
“I’m afraid the dog is unaccounted for, milord. Although the hound tends to wander from time to time.”
I had a terrible suspicion Brienna’s hound might be dead.
“Did he come in through the window?” Sean asked.
Luc walked to one of the three windows, looking through the panes to the distant ground below. The storm light made him appear years older, drawn and worn. “That’s highly unlikely. There’s no way of climbing out safely from these windows.”
I continued to walk around her room, feeling Jourdain’s eyes follow me.
Brienna, Brienna, please . . . show me a sign. My heart ached. Tell me how to find you.
I approached her wardrobe, opening the doors. I could smell the essence of her, lavender and vanilla and meadow sunlight. My hands trembled as I looked through her clothes. . . .
“Her passion cloak is not here,” I finally rasped. “That means she left her room with someone she knew. Someone she trusted.” I turned to look upon the men. “She was betrayed, MacQuinn.”
Jourdain blanched as he sat on the edge of Brienna’s bed.
Sean was still studying the impossibility of the windows, and Luc continued to stand blankly in the center of the room. And there was Thorn, wringing his hands as he listened.
I ushered the chamberlain out of the room, rudely shutting the door in his face. Then I turned back around to the inner circle, the only people I trusted. And yes, that strangely included Sean now.
“Someone here is faithful to Lannon?” Luc whispered.
Jourdain was silent. I could tell he didn’t know, nor did he want to toss out names.
“The healer?” Sean suggested.
“No,” Jourdain was swift to deny. “Not Isla. She has suffered greatly beneath the hands of the Lannons.”
“Then who, MacQuinn?” I pressed softly.
“Wait a moment,” Sean said. “We continue to think of Declan coming here, of Brienna being betrayed directly into Declan’s hands. But Declan is a fugitive right now. He has to be in hiding.”
He was right. All of us had been thinking in one direction.
“Come,” Jourdain said, motioning for us to follow. “Let’s go to my office.”
We followed him down the corridor, where he requested a fire to be sparked in the hearth and refreshments brought in to be set along the table. As soon as the servants departed, Jourdain ripped the map of Maevana down from the wall, to spread it out before us.
“Let’s begin to think of where Declan would be hiding,” he said, setting river stones on the four corners of the map.
The four of us gathered, beholding it. My eyes went to MacQuinn’s territory first. His lands touched six others: the mountains of Kavanaghs, the meadows of Morgane, the valleys and hills of Allenach, the forests of Lannon, the orchards of Halloran, and the rivers of Burke.
“The first to come under suspicion,” Jourdain said, pointing. “Lannon. Carran. Halloran. Allenach.”
Sean was about to say something when Isolde finally joined us, her face noticeably pale and drawn, like she was in pain. I wondered if her magic weakened her, because she looked like her head was aching.
“I have healed Liam’s wounds, but like I said earlier, he will most likely sleep for several more days because of the fever,” she said, rubbing her temple as she looked to the map.
Jourdain filled her in on our suspicions of a traitorous MacQuinn, and her brow lowered, angry.
“We should obviously suspect the Lannon House,” Isolde said, looking to the Lannon territory. “Declan could be hiding anywhere within his own borders. And it is not a far ride from here, MacQuinn.”
“That feels too apparent,” Luc protested. “What about the Allenachs? No offense, Sean. But your manservant was a faithful half-moon.”
Sean gravely nodded. “Yes. We are right to suspect my people.”
“Do we suspect Burke?” Luc dared to ask.
I thought of Lord Burke, who had been ordered to stay behind with the queen’s father, to guard the remaining Lannons and maintain order. How he had sheltered my people the best that he could the past twenty-five years, how he had risen to fight alongside us weeks ago.
“Lord Burke has fought and bled beside us,” Jourdain murmured, and I was relieved that he felt the same as me. “He has also publicly sworn fealty to Isolde. I do not feel as if he would betray us.”
That left the Hallorans.
I traced their territory with my gaze. “How far is it to Castle Lerah from here, MacQuinn?”
“A half day’s ride,” Jourdain answered. “You don’t think . . .”
“It’s a very good possibility,” I said, reading the slant of Jourdain’s thoughts.
We were interrupted by a knock on the door. Jourdain crossed the chamber to answer it, and I watched as Thorn placed a package into the lord’s hands.
“This was just found in the stables, my lord, by one of the grooms.”
Jourdain took the package, shut the door in Thorn’s face, and wandered back to the table, ripping the paper open.
A brief letter fluttered loose first. It rested on the table, over the map.
I read the message, felt it strike my heart.
Brienna MacQuinn in exchange for the Stone of Eventide, delivered by Isolde Kavanagh alone, seven days from now, sundown, where the Mairenna Forest meets the Valley of Bones.
Declan’s ultimatum. It had finally arrived.
But I didn’t believe the words until I saw what was nestled within the package. Jourdain took it within his hands and lifted it to the light, and I finally let the shock devour me; I finally let my composure shatter.
“No,” I whispered. I dropped to my knees, spilling the wine from my hands. It spread like blood along the floor.
I had chosen that shade of blue, chosen those stars for her.
And I knew in that moment the terrible danger she was in, that Declan Lannon would torture her regardless if we agreed to the exchange, all because I loved her. That he would break her little by little, just as he had done to my sister, all because of me.
I closed my eyes to the light, to the sight of Brienna’s passion cloak in Jourdain’s trembling hands.
TWENTY-FIVE
TO THWART AND TO HOPE
Brienna
I woke slowly. My head was splitting, and my mouth was painfully dry. I longed for water, for warmth.
I heard the slither of chains, cold and metallic, and then realized they were moving in response to me, that there was a weight about my wrists when I shifted them across my chest.
My eyes opened to shadows and weak light, to dark stone walls splattered with old blood.
Someone was breathing, heavily, close to me.
And I was lying down on something that felt
narrow and sparse. A prison cot.
“At last, Brienna Allenach. You finally wake.”
I knew it was Declan’s voice, for it was deep and raspy. He sounded amused, and I struggled to swallow, struggled to calm my heart as I turned my head to see him sitting on a stool next to my cot, smiling down at me.
His tawny hair was carelessly knotted back. His beard was thick across his face, and there were scabs on his fingers, a cut on his brow. He smelled of sweat and he looked haggard, half-wild.
I jerked upright, my chains dragging along the stone. I was shackled by both wrists, by both ankles. And then I realized that I was bound to the iron posters of the cot.
I didn’t say anything, because I didn’t want to sound afraid before him. So I edged as far as I could from him on my little bed, my eyes sharpening over his, my chains pulling along with me like the tendrils of a plant.
“My mentee gave you too strong a dose,” Declan explained, stretching his burly arms. “I’ve been sitting here for hours, waiting for you to wake up.”
Mentee? Pierce Halloran was Declan Lannon’s mentee?
My skin crawled, to know I had been lying here unconscious with him watching me.
He read my thoughts, cut a smile at me. “Ah, yes. Don’t worry. I haven’t touched you.”
“What do you want with me?” My voice was hoarse, weak.
Declan reached for a cup of water on a table beside my cot, extending it to me. I didn’t accept it, and after a while he shrugged and drank it himself, the water running down his beard in veins.
“What do you think I want with you, Brienna MacQuinn?”
“Am I Allenach or MacQuinn to you?” I asked.
“You are both. Allenach by blood, but MacQuinn by choice. I confess, your decision is intriguing to me. Because no matter how far you run, you cannot escape from your blood, lass. In fact, I would be kinder to you if you embraced your true father’s House. The Allenachs and the Lannons have a good history together.”
“What do you want with me?” I repeated, impatient.
Declan set the empty cup aside and rubbed his large hands together. “Long ago, my father set out to punish the three Houses who tried to overthrow him. You know the story, of course, how the Kavanaghs and the Morganes and the MacQuinns tried to rise and failed. Despite their failure in the coup, three noble children escaped with their cowardly fathers . . . Isolde. Lucas. Aodhan. Three children who should have been killed.”