The Queen’s Resistance

But then Brienna smiled up at me, the night breeze playing with her hair.

How did you and I reach this point? I wanted to ask, but held the words captive in my mouth as she caressed my face.

“I shall see you soon,” I whispered, not daring to kiss her here, in her father’s house, where Jourdain was most likely observing us.

She only nodded, her hand falling away from me.

I departed, fetching my horse from the stables, the sky crowded with stars.

My lands lay to the west of Jourdain’s, our castles only several miles apart, which equated to roughly an hour’s ride. On the way to Castle Fionn that evening, Brienna and I had found a deer trail connecting the two territories, and we had chosen to take that instead of the road, winding through a forest and over a rill, eventually meandering into the fields.

It was the longer route, beset by thorns and branches, but I chose again to take it that night.

I rode the trail as if I had done so countless times, following moonlight and wind and darkness.

I had already been to my lands once, earlier that day.

I had come alone and taken my time walking through the corridors and the rooms, uprooting weeds and streaking through dust and cutting down gossamer, hoping I could remember something fair about this castle. I had been one year old when my father had fled with me, but I hoped that a fragment of my family, a seed of my memory, had lingered in this place, proving that I deserved to be here, even after twenty-five years of solitude. And when I could remember nothing—I was a stranger within these walls—I had conceded to sit on the dirty floor of my parents’ chamber, eaten by grief until I had heard Brienna arrive.

Despite all of that, the castle still took me by surprise.

Once, Castle Brígh had been a beautiful estate. My father had described it to me in perfect detail years ago, when he had finally told me the truth of who I was. But what he had depicted to me did not correspond with how it looked now.

I eased my horse to a trot as we approached, my eyes smarting from the cold as I struggled to see it in full by moonlight.

It was a crumbling sprawl of gray stones; the foothills of the mountains rose steadily behind it, draping shadows on the uppermost floors and turrets. A few slopes of the roof gaped with holes, but the walls were thankfully intact. Most of the windows were shattered, and vines had nearly overtaken the front of the exterior. The courtyard was thick with weeds and saplings. I had never seen a place more forlorn in my life.

I dismounted, standing in waist-high grass, continuing to stare at the castle, feeling as if the castle was leering back at me.

What was I to do with such a broken place? How was I to rebuild it?

I untacked my horse, leaving him hobbled beneath an oak, and began the trek to the courtyard, stopping in the wild heart of it. I stood on vines and thorns and weeds and broken cobbles. All of it mine, the bad as well as the good.

I found that I was not the least bit sleepy although I was bone weary and it had to be drawing nigh to two in the morning. I began to do the first thing that came to mind: pull up the weeds. I worked compulsively until I warmed myself, sweating against autumn’s frost, eventually getting on my hands and knees.

That was when I saw it.

My fingers yanked up a tangle of goldenrod, exposing a long cobble with a carving in the stone. I brushed away the lingering roots until I could clearly see the words, gleaming in the starlight.

Declan.

I shifted back to my heels, but my gaze was hooked to that name.

Gilroy Lannon’s son. The prince.

He had been here that night, then. The night of the first failed rising, when my mother was slain in battle, when my sister was murdered.

He had been here.

And he had carved his name into the stones of my home, the foundation of my family, as if by doing so, he would always have dominion over me.

I crawled away with a shudder and sat down in a heap, the sword sheathed at my side clattering alongside me, my hands covered in dirt.

Declan Lannon was in chains, held prisoner in the royal dungeons, and he would face trial in eleven days. He would get what he deserved.

Yet there was no comfort in it. My mother and my sister were still dead. My castle was in ruins. My people scattered. Even my father was gone; he had never had the chance to return to his homeland, dying years ago in Valenia.

I was utterly alone.

A sudden sound broke my chain of thoughts. A tumbling of stones from within the castle. My eyes went to the broken windows at once, searching.

Quietly, I rose, drawing my sword. I waded through the weeds to the front doors, which hung broken on their hinges. It rose the hair on my arms to push those oaken doors open further, my fingers tracing their carvings. I peered into the shadows of the foyer. The stones of the floor were cracked and filthy, but by the moonlight that poured in through the shattered windows, I saw the imprint of small, bare feet in the dirt.

The footprints wound into the great hall. I had to strain my eyes in the dim light to follow them back to the kitchen, weaving my way around the abandoned trestle tables, the cold hearth, the walls stripped bare of their heraldic banners and tapestries. Of course, the footprints went to the buttery, to every cupboard in an obvious search for food. Here there were empty casks of ale that still sighed with malt, old herbs hanging in dried batches from the rafters, a family of goblets encrusted with dust-coated jewels, a few broken bottles of wine that left glittering constellations of glass on the floor. A smudge of blood, as if those bare feet had accidentally stepped on a piece of glass.

I knelt, touching the blood. It was fresh.

The trail of blood took me out the back door of the kitchens, into a narrow corridor that emptied into the rear foyer, where the servants’ staircase wound in a tight spiral to the second floor. I stepped through a hoard of cobwebs, stifling a shudder when I finally reached the second-floor landing.

Moonlight poured in patches through this hallway, illuminating piles of leaves that had blown in from the broken windows. I continued following the blood, my boots crunching the leaves and finding every loose stone in the floor. I was too exhausted to be stealthy. The owner of the footprints undoubtedly knew I was coming.

They led me right to my parents’ chamber. The very place I had stood with Brienna hours ago, when I had given her her passion cloak.

I sighed, finding the door handles. Nudging them open, I peered into the dim light of the chamber. I could still see where Brienna and I had wiped the dust from the floors, to admire the colorful tiles. This room had felt dead until she had stepped within it, as if she belonged here more than I did.

I entered and was promptly assaulted with a handful of pebbles.

I whirled, glaring across the chamber to see a flash of pale limbs and a mop of unkempt hair disappear behind a sagging wardrobe.

“I am not going to hurt you,” I called out. “Come. I saw your foot is bleeding. I can help you.”

I took a few steps closer but then paused, waiting for the stranger to reappear. When they didn’t, I sighed and took another step.

“I am Cartier Évariste.” And I winced, to realize my Valenian alias had come out so naturally.

Still no response.

I edged closer, nearly to the shadow behind the wardrobe …

“Who are you? Hello?”

I finally reached the back of the furniture. And I was greeted by more pebbles. The grit went into my eyes, but not before my hand took hold of a skinny arm. There was resistance, an angry grunt, and I hurried to wipe the dust from my eyes to behold a scrawny boy, no more than ten years old, with a splash of freckles on his cheeks and red hair dangling in his eyes.

“What are you doing here?” I asked, trying to subdue my irritation.

The boy spat in my face.

I had to find the last dregs of my patience to wipe the spittle away. I then looked at the boy again.