The Queen’s Resistance

“But Gilroy looked to Declan and said, ‘Find them.’ And all I could do was stand there on the cobbles, watching as Declan slid off his horse and entered the castle with a group of men, to search for you, for your sister. I stood there, the king’s eyes on me. I could not move; all I could do was pray that Ashling had been hidden as well as you. And then the screams and shouts began to rise. But still … I could not move.”

I could scarcely hear her, her voice was trembling so hard. She set down her tea and I set down my quill, and I moved to kneel before her, to take her hands in mine.

“You do not have to tell me,” I whispered, the words like thorns in my throat.

Her cheeks were wet with tears, and Aileen gently touched my hair—I nearly wept at the gentleness of it, to know such hands had hidden me, had kept me alive.

“Declan found your sister,” she murmured, closing her eyes, her fingers still resting in my hair. “I watched as he dragged her out into the courtyard. She was sobbing, terrified. I could not stop myself. I lunged for her, to take her from Declan. One of the Lannons must have struck me. The next thing I knew I was on the ground, dazed, blood on my face. I saw that Gilroy had dismounted, and all of the Morganes had been called out into the courtyard. It was dark, yet I remember all of their faces as we stood, silent and terrified, waiting.

“‘Where is Kane?’ the king shouted. And that was when I realized … your mother had been killed at the rising, but your father had survived. And Gilroy didn’t know where he was.

“It gave me hope, just a tiny thread, that we might survive this night. Until the king began to ask about you. ‘I already have Kane’s daughter,’ Gilroy taunted. ‘Now bring me his son, and I will be merciful.’ None of us for a moment believed him, this king of darkness. ‘Where are you hiding his son?’ He insisted. No one but I knew where you were. And I would never tell him; he could tear me to pieces, and yet I would never tell him where I had hidden you. So he drew forth your sister, held her before us, and said that he would break each of her bones until one of us revealed where we had hidden you, where Kane was hiding.”

She opened her eyes, and now I had to close mine. My strength faded into dust; I leaned forward, to conceal my face, as if I were a boy, as if I could hide again.

“Watching them torture your sister was the most difficult moment of my life,” she whispered. “I hated myself, that I had failed her, that I had not hidden her in time. The king made Declan begin it. I screamed at him. I screamed that Declan did not have to do it. He was just a lad, I kept thinking. How can a lad be so cruel? And yet he did exactly what his father ordered. Declan Lannon took up a mallet and broke your sister’s bones, one by one, until she died.”

I could no longer fight it. I wept the tears that must have been hiding in me the entirety of my life. That my sister had died so I might live. If only it had been me, I thought. If only I had been the one to be found, and she had been the one to survive.

“Aodhan.”

Aileen called me up from the darkness. I raised my head; I opened my eyes and looked at her.

“You were my one hope,” she said, wiping the tears from my face. “You were the only reason why I lived day after day these past years, that my despair did not kill me. Because I knew you would return. Your father had to sneak back to the castle after the Lannons left that night; I have never seen a man more shattered in my life until I set you in your father’s arms and made him swear to me that he would escape with you. I did not care where Kane went or what he did; I said, this child slipped through the Lannons’ fingers, and he will be the one to return and crush their reign.”

I shook my head to deny that it was me, but Aileen took my face in her hands to hold me steady. There were no more tears in her eyes. No, there was now fire, a burning hatred, and I felt it catch in my own heart.

“I will record all of our grievances for you to take to the trial,” she said. “After they are read, I want you to look Declan Lannon in the eye and curse him and his House. I want you to be the beginning of his end, to be your mother’s and your sister’s vengeance.”

I spoke no vow to this. Was not my mother a Lannon? Did I still have distant family among them? I lacked the courage to ask Aileen, to address Líle’s letter that I had found. But my compliance, the eagerness to do as she bid, must have been in my eyes.

I was still kneeling on the floor when I heard it again in the howling of the wind.

Where are you, Aodhan?

This time, I answered the darkness.

I am here, Declan. And I am coming for you.

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Lord MacQuinn’s Territory, Castle Fionn

Brienna

The next morning, I packed up my writing tools and returned to the loom house.

This time, I emerged on the threshold and knocked on the lintel to announce my presence, my eyes sweeping the vast weaving hall and the women who were already hard at work.

“Good morning,” I greeted as cheerfully as I could manage.

After last night, the weavers would undoubtedly talk about me. And I had decided not to hide from such conversations, but to meet them directly.

There were perhaps sixty women in all, working on various tasks. Some were at the looms, coaxing the wefts into tapestries. Others were stationed at a table, drawing the cartoon that would be replicated into tapestry threads. Others were still spinning wool. This is where Neeve was, sitting at a wheel in a stream of morning light that cast her hair into a shade of gold. I noticed that her eyes brightened at the sight of me, and I could tell by the smile tugging on her mouth that she wanted to invite me into the weaving hall. But she didn’t move, because at her side was that older woman again, the one who had glared at me last night after Pierce had departed.

“May we help you?” the woman questioned in a careful, yet not very hospitable, voice. She had a large gray streak in her hair and a frown on her angular face. The only movement she made was to place her chapped hand on Neeve’s shoulder, as if to keep her in place.

I drew in a deep breath, my hand fiddling with the strap to my leather satchel. “My father has asked me to help gather the MacQuinn grievances, to take to the Lannon trial.”

No one spoke, and I began to realize that the woman at Neeve’s side was the head weaver, that I could not gain entrance to this place without her blessing.

“Why should we give up our grievances to you?” the woman asked.

For a moment, I was speechless.

“Be gentle to the lass, Betha,” another weaver, whose white hair was braided in a crown, spoke from the other side of the hall. “You would be wise to remember that she is Lord MacQuinn’s daughter.”

“And how did all of that come about, hmm?” Betha asked me. “Did Lord MacQuinn know whose daughter you truly were when he adopted you?”

I stood silent, my heart striking my breast like a fist. I could feel the heat rise in my face; I wanted to give nothing but honesty to the MacQuinn people. And yet to answer Betha’s question would make it seem that I had fooled Jourdain. Because he had not known I was Brendan Allenach’s daughter when he adopted me, but neither had I known. Yet I knew saying such would only sound hollow to these women.