The Queen’s Resistance

“Morgane and Lannon,” he said, so quietly I almost didn’t hear him.

I raised my eyes to Cartier, but he was not looking at me. His gaze was transfixed on something distant, something that I could not see.

Morgane—Lannon, I wrote.

“I have another concern,” Luc said, breaking the awkward silence. “The Kavanaghs’ magic has returned now that the Stone of Eventide has been recovered. Is this something we need to be addressing now? Or perhaps later, after Isolde’s coronation?”

Magic.

I added it to the list, one little word that held so much possibility. It was evident after the battle that Isolde’s gift in magic was healing. I had set the stone about her neck, and she had been able to touch wounds and heal them. I wondered if she was somehow controlling her magic.

“I’m not,” she had confessed to me. “I wish I had an instructor, a guidebook …”

She had confided in me the day after the battle.

“If my magic goes astray … I want you to swear to me that you will take the Stone of Eventide away. I do not desire to wield magic for evil, but for the good of the people,” she had whispered, and my gaze had drifted to where the stone rested against her heart, alight with color. “And as of this moment, there is still so much about it I do not know. I do not know what I am capable of. You must promise me, Brienna, that you will hold me in check.”

“Your magic will not go astray, Lady,” I had whispered in return, but my heart began to ache at her admission.

This had been the very reason why the stone had gone missing one hundred and thirty-six years ago. Because my ancestor Tristan Allenach had not only resented the Kavanaghs for being the one House to bear magic, but he had also feared their power, particularly when they wielded it in war. Magic did go astray in battle, this much I knew, even though I didn’t fully understand it.

I had seen bits and pieces of this filtered through the memories I had inherited from Tristan.

The last memory had been of a magical battle gone terribly wrong. The way the sky had nearly split in two, the dreadful trembling in the earth, the unnatural way weapons had turned on their handlers. It had been terrifying, and I partly understood why Tristan had decided to assassinate the queen and take the stone from her.

And yet … I could not envision Isolde becoming a queen whose magic went corrupt, a queen who could not control her gifts and power.

“Brienna?”

I glanced up at Jourdain, unaware of how long I had been sitting at the table, reminiscing. All three men were gazing at me, waiting.

“Do you have any thoughts about Isolde’s magic?” my father asked.

I considered sharing that conversation with the queen, but I decided that I would hold her fears privately.

“Isolde’s magic favors healing,” I said. “I don’t think we need to be afraid of it. History has shown us that the Kavanaghs’ magic only went astray in battle.”

“Yet how vast is the Kavanagh House now?” my brother asked. “How many Kavanaghs are left, and will they all be of the same mind-set as Isolde and her father?”

“Gilroy Lannon was bent upon destroying them, more than any other House,” Jourdain said. “He killed a ‘Kavanagh a day’ at the beginning of his reign, accusing them of false crimes, making a sport of it.” He paused, grieved. “I would not be surprised if only a small remnant of the Kavanaghs remained.”

The four of us fell silent, and I watched the candlelight trickle over the falcon mosaic, catching the glimmer of the stones.

“Do you think Lannon kept record of their names?” Cartier asked. “They should be read as grievances at the trial. The realm needs to know how many lives he has stolen.”

“I do not know,” Jourdain responded. “There were always scribes in the throne room, but who knows if Lannon allowed them to record truth.”

More silence, as if we could no longer find words to speak. I stared at my list, knowing we had not truly created any solid plans this night, and yet it seemed as if we had at least opened a door.

“I say we meet privately with Isolde when we return to Lyonesse for the trial,” my father finally said, breaking the quiet. “We can speak to her more about the magic, and how she would prefer her grievances to be read.”

“I agree,” Cartier said.

Luc and I nodded our consent.

“I think that is all for tonight,” Jourdain said, rising. Cartier, Luc, and I mirrored him, until the four of us stood in a circle, our faces cast half in firelight, half in shadows. “I shall send a letter to Isolde, to let her know our thoughts for the trial so she can begin gathering grievances in Lyonesse. I’ll also send missives to the other Houses, to prepare their grievances. The only thing I ask of the three of you now is to remain aware, vigilant. We have planned a rebellion before; we should know what to look for, should supporters of Lannon dare to impede our plans to crown Isolde.”

“Do you think we will face opposition?” Luc asked with an anxious fidget of his hands.

“Yes.”

My heart plummeted at Jourdain’s response; I had believed that every Maevan would be thrilled to see the Lannons overturned. But the truth was, there were most likely groups of people who would scheme to disrupt our progress. People with darkened hearts who had loved and served Gilroy Lannon.

“We are one step from returning the queen to the throne,” my father continued. “Our greatest opposition will no doubt come in the next few weeks.”

“I believe so as well,” Cartier said, his hand drifting close to mine. We did not touch, but I felt his warmth. “Isolde’s coronation is going to be one of the greatest days this land has ever seen. But wearing the crown is not going to protect her.”

Jourdain looked to me, and I knew he was imagining me in her place, not as a queen, but as a woman with a target upon her.

Crowning Isolde Kavanagh as the rightful queen was not the end of our rising. It was merely the beginning.

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Lord Morgane’s Territory, Castle Brígh

Cartier

There was a time in my life when I believed I would never return to Maevana. I did not remember the castle I had been born in; I did not remember the lay of the land that had been in my family for generations; I did not remember the people who had sworn fealty to me as my mother held me to her heart. What I did remember was a kingdom of passion and grace and beauty, a kingdom that I later learned was not mine although I yearned for it to be, a kingdom that had held and guarded me for twenty-five years.

Valenia was mine by choice.

But Maevana … she was mine by birthright.

I had grown up believing myself to be Theo D’Aramitz; I had later defiantly become Cartier Évariste, and both were names to hide beneath, a shield for a man who did not know where he was supposed to live or who he was supposed to be.

I thought of such things as I departed Jourdain’s castle well past midnight.

“You should stay the night, Morgane,” Jourdain had said to me, after our planning meeting had come to an end. He followed me down the stairs, concerned. “Why ride out so late?”

What he meant to say was, Why ride back to sleep alone in a crumbling castle?

And I did not have the courage to tell him that I needed to be on my own lands that night; I needed to sleep where my father and my mother and my sister had once dreamt. I needed to walk the castle I had inherited, dilapidated or not, before my people began to return.

I stopped in the foyer, reaching for my passion cloak, my travel satchel, my sword. Brienna was there, waiting on the threshold, the doors open to the night. I think she knew what I needed, because she looked to Jourdain and murmured, “It’ll be all right, Father.”

And Jourdain, thankfully, left it at that, clapping me on the arm in a wordless farewell.

It had already been a strange night, I thought, moving to where Brienna waited. I had not expected to hear Jourdain speak his regrets, to witness the first step of healing for the MacQuinns. I felt like an imposter; I felt burdened each time I anticipated my own homecoming and reunion.