The Queen’s Rising

Ah, King Lannon. There were three things I thought of at the sound of his name: greed, power, and steel. Greed because he had already minted Maevan coins with his profile. Power because he heavily restricted travel between Maevana and Valenia. And steel, because he settled most opposition by the sword.

But Maevana had not always been so dark and dangerous.

“What are you thinking?” Cartier asked.

“I am thinking of King Lannon.”

“Is there that much to think of when he comes to mind?”

I gave him a playful look. “Yes, Master Cartier. There’s a man on Maevana’s throne when there should be a queen.”

“Who says there is supposed to be a queen?” And here came the banter; he was challenging me to flex my knowledge as well as my articulation.

“Liadan Kavanagh said so.”

“But Liadan Kavanagh has been dead two hundred and fifty years.”

“She may be dead,” I said, “but her words are not.”

“What words, Brienna?”

“The Queen’s Canon.”

Cartier leaned forward, as if the table cast too much distance between us. And I found myself leaning closer too, to meet him in the middle of the oak, the wood that had witnessed all my lessons. “And what is the Queen’s Canon?” he asked.

“Liadan’s law. A law that declares Maevana should be ruled only by a queen, never a king.”

“Where is proof of this law?” he asked, his voice dropping low and dark.

“Missing.”

“The Stone of Eventide, lost. The Queen’s Canon, lost. And so Maevana is lost.” He leaned away, settling back into his chair. “The Canon is the law that keeps the power from kings, granting the throne and the crown to the noble daughters of Maevana. So when the Canon went missing in 1430, right after the Stone of Eventide was lost, Maevana found herself on the brink of civil war until the king of Valenia decided to step in. You know the story.”

I did know it. Valenia and Maevana had always been allies, a brother and a sister, a kingdom and a queen’s realm. But Maevana, suddenly void of a queen and magic, became a divided land, the fourteen Houses threatening to splinter off into clans again. Yet the Valenian king was no fool; from the other side of the channel, he watched the Maevan lords fight and squabble over the throne, over who should rise to power. And so the Valenian king came to Maevana, told each of the fourteen northern lords to paint their House sigil on a stone and to toss their stones into a cask, that he would draw who should rule the north. The lords agreed—each of them was hindered by pride, believing he had the right to rule—and anxiously watched as the Valenian king’s hand descended into the cask, his fingers shifting the stones. It was Lannon’s stone that he drew forth, a stone graced with a lynx.

“The king of Valenia put the Lannon men on the throne,” I whispered, regret and anger entwining in my heart whenever I thought of it.

Cartier nodded, but there was a spark of anger in his eyes as he said, “I understand the Valenian king’s intentions: he thought what he was doing was right, that he was saving Maevana from a civil war. But he should have stayed out of it; he should have let Maevana come to her own conclusions. Because Valenia is ruled by a king, he believed Maevana should also embrace a kingdom. And so the noble sons of Lannon believe they are worthy of Maevana’s throne.”

It wasn’t lost on me that Cartier would probably lose his head if loyal Maevans heard him speak such treason. I shivered, let the fear gnaw on my bones before I reassured myself that we were tucked into the deep pocket of Valenia, far from Lannon’s tyrannical grip.

“You sound like the Grim Quill, Master,” I stated. The Grim Quill was a quarterly pamphlet that was published in Valenia, paper inked with bold beliefs and stories written by an anonymous hand that loved to poke at the Maevan king. Cartier used to bring the pamphlets for me and Ciri to read; we had laughed, blushed, and argued over the belligerent claims.

Cartier snorted, obviously amused by my likening. “Do I, now? ‘How shall I describe a northern king? By humble words on paper? Or perhaps by all the blood he spills, by all the coins he gilds, by all the wives and daughters he kills?’”

We stared at each other, the Grim Quill’s bold words settling between us.

“No, I am not that brave to write such things,” he finally confessed. “Or that foolish.”

“Even so, Master Cartier … surely the Maevan people remember what the Queen’s Canon says?” I argued.

“The Queen’s Canon was authored by Liadan, and there is only one of them,” he explained. “She carved the law magically into a stone tablet. That tablet, which cannot be destroyed, has been missing for one hundred and thirty-six years. And words, even laws, are easily forgotten, eaten by dust, if they are not passed from one generation to the next. But who is to say a Maevan won’t inherit their ancestor’s memories, and remember these powers of the past?”

“Ancestral memories?” I echoed.

“An odd phenomenon,” he explained. “But a passion of knowledge did extensive research on the matter, concluding that all of us carry them in our minds, these select memories of our ancestors, but we never know of them because they lie dormant. That being said, they can still manifest in some of us, based on the connections we make.”

“So maybe Liadan’s will be inherited one day?” I asked, only to taste the hope of the words.

The gleam in his eyes told me it was wishful thinking.

I mulled on that. After a while, my thoughts circled back to Lannon, and I said, “But there must be a way to protect the Maevan throne from … such a king.”

“It’s not so simple, Brienna.”

He paused and I waited.

“Twenty-five years ago, three lords tried to dethrone Lannon,” he began. I knew this cold, bloody story, and yet I did not have the heart to tell Cartier to stop speaking. “Lord MacQuinn. Lord Morgane. Lord Kavanagh. They wanted to put Lord Kavanagh’s eldest daughter on the throne. But without the Stone of Eventide and without the Queen’s Canon, the other lords would not follow them. The plan fell to ashes. Lannon retaliated by slaughtering Lady MacQuinn, Lady Morgane, and Lady Kavanagh. He also killed their daughters, some who were mere children, because a Maevan king will always fear women while Liadan’s Queen’s Canon lies waiting to be rediscovered.”

The story made my heart feel heavy. My chest ached, because half of my heritage came from such a land, a beautiful, proud people that had been driven into darkness.

“Brienna.”

I blinked away the sadness, the fear, and looked at him.

“One day, a queen will rise,” he whispered, as if the books had ears to eavesdrop. “Perhaps it will be in our lifetime, perhaps the one to follow us. But Maevana will remember who she is and unite for a great purpose.”

I smiled, but that emptiness didn’t fade. It perched on my shoulders, roosted in my chest.

“Now then,” Cartier said, tapping his knuckles on the table. “You and I are easily distracted. Let us talk of the solstice, how I can best prepare you.”

I thought back on his suggestions of the three patrons, of what I needed to have prepared. “My royal lineage is still lacking.”

“Then let us begin there. Pick a noble as far back as you can, and recite the line through the inheriting son.”

This time, I did not have Grandpapa’s letter sitting in my pocket to distract me. All the same, I got several sons into my recitation before I felt a yawn creep up my throat. Cartier was listening to me, his gaze focused on the wall. But he forgave my yawn, let it pass by unacknowledged. Until it came again, and I finally resolved to take a hardback book from the table and stand on my chair with a swirl of my skirts.

He glanced up at me, startled. “What are you doing?”

“I need a moment to revive my mind. Come, Master. Join me,” I invited as I balanced the book on my head. “I shall continue my recitations, but the first one whose book falls from their head loses.”

I only did it because I was weary, and I wanted to feel a jolt of risk. I only did it because I wanted to challenge him—challenge him after he had challenged me these three years. I only did it because we had nothing to lose.

I never thought he would actually do it.

So when he grabbed The Book of Hours and stood on his chair, I was pleasantly surprised. And when he balanced the book on his head, I grinned at him. He no longer seemed so old, so infinite, with his sharp, crisp edges and infuriating depth of knowledge. No, he was far younger than I’d once believed.

There we were, face-to-face, standing on chairs, books on our heads. A master and his arden. An arden and her master.