“Not that I disagree, but why now, Rai—after all this time? Is there something that makes you think it isn’t safe anymore?”
“It’s a combination of things—the wolves at solstice, the attack on Alyssa, this feeling I have that I’m overlooking something important. Anyway, it’s time. I want to have my children here with me.”
Children?
The word seemed to ricochet inside Lyss’s head, setting up a clamor of echoes wherever it hit until it seemed like her head would split apart.
Who was at Oden’s Ford? Who?
Her mother’s voice broke into her thoughts again. She was responding to something Byrne had said.
“Look, I know you didn’t approve of my keeping it from her, but Alyssa was eleven years old! It was too big a secret for a child to keep, yet so very important that it be kept. We all thought he was dead, remember. We’d held the funerals. We’d already dealt with our grief. And then to hear from Beaugarde out of the blue—I doubted the truth of it. I thought it might be one more ploy from Montaigne—one more attempt to break my heart. We didn’t know for sure that he was alive and safe until Lila reported back.”
“The princess was eleven then, but she’s almost sixteen now. You weren’t much older than that when you became queen.”
“Alyssa is different,” her mother said. “She’s more headstrong and impulsive than I ever was.”
“You really think so?” Lyss could hear the skepticism in the captain’s voice.
She didn’t trust me, Lyss thought, her cheeks burning. Maybe I’m just headstrong about different things.
“She would have insisted on marching straight to Oden’s Ford and bringing him home.”
“No doubt,” Byrne said. “Will you tell her now?”
The queen considered this. “It seems too much like tempting the fates to tell her now, before he’s home safe.”
Adrian. Adrian was alive, and he was at Oden’s Ford. And no one had told her these four long years, because they thought she would do something stupid.
With that, the clamor in her brain was replaced by a cold and deadly silence.
The hinges on the chapel door screeched like a demon as she pushed it open. Her mother and Byrne shot to their feet like guilty lovers at a tryst. Byrne pushed the queen behind him, his Lady sword drawn and at the ready. When he saw who it was, he let the tip drop until it pointed at the floor.
“It’s just me, Captain Byrne,” Lyss said.
“Your Highness,” he said, saluting her.
“You are dismissed now, Captain,” Lyss said. “I need to speak with my mother alone.”
She half-expected him to refuse, or look to her mother for orders, but he did not. Instead, he returned his sword to its scabbard, saluted her again, and said, “I’ll be outside.”
When Byrne was gone, they stood looking at each other, queen and princess heir, mother and daughter, dark and light, small and tall.
“I suppose you heard all that,” her mother said, chewing on her lower lip.
“Most of it, I think,” Lyss said. “Enough.”
“Ah.” She gestured toward the bench. “Would you like to sit down, Alyssa?”
“I’ll stand. I might want to do something headstrong, like impulsively rush from the room and announce Adrian’s whereabouts from the tower.”
“I deserve that, I suppose,” her mother said, with a sigh.
“Yes. You do.”
“And you deserve an apology.”
“I would prefer an explanation.” Cold. Deadly. Numb.
“I’ll sit down, then.” The queen sat down on the edge of the bench as if she, too, might need to spring into action. “Which do you want first—the apology or the explanation?”
“Why don’t you begin by telling me what happened the day my father was murdered.” Lyss folded her arms.
“Most of what I know, you already know,” her mother said. “The rest comes from Taliesin Beaugarde, a Voyageur healer and a dean at Spiritas, the healing school at the academy.”
“What about Adrian? What does he say? How could he possibly justify—?”
“We haven’t spoken to him,” the queen said.
“Adrian has been at Oden’s Ford for four years, and you’ve never spoken to him?” Lyss’s voice was rising so that she was all but shouting at the end. Cold and numbness were ebbing away.
“Adrian blamed himself for his father’s death. He couldn’t face us afterward, so he ran. When he met up with Beaugarde in Delphi, he was ill and grief-stricken. He threatened to kill himself if she didn’t take him with her to the academy. So she did. Months later, she got in touch with us and let us know that he was alive.”
“Why didn’t you bring him home right then?” Lyss demanded. “How could you just . . . just leave him there?”
“We thought that leaving him there might be safer than bringing him back here.”
This has to be a dream, Lyss thought, like the ones I used to have where Adrian came back and haunted me.
“You thought that leaving him unprotected in the middle of Ardenine territory would be safer? Whose idea was that?”
“Just before your father was murdered, someone contacted him, claiming to have more information about Hana’s death. He said there was nothing random about it, that it was a targeted attack. Your father was killed before that meeting took place. After that, I thought there must be a spy somewhere close to us. Since Captain Byrne and I were the only ones who knew that Adrian was at Oden’s Ford, we decided it was safer to leave him there, and let everyone think he was dead.”
“Including me.”
“And that is what I need to apologize for. I had my reasons for not telling you as soon as we received Beaugarde’s message. What if I got your hopes up, and it turned out not to be true? We didn’t know for sure that he was alive and well until Captain Byrne’s daughter verified it.”
“Captain Byrne has a daughter?”
Her mother nodded. “Lila. She’s Adrian’s age. After Annamaya died, Captain Byrne sent Lila to Chalk Cliffs, where she was raised by her mother’s family. Because she hasn’t really been connected to Fellsmarch, we thought it might be safe to have her keep an eye on Adrian.”
“So . . . you knew, and Captain Byrne, and Captain Byrne’s daughter, what’s her name, but I didn’t.” Lyss felt compelled by hurt to keep driving that blade home.
“We were . . . I was worried that if word got out that Adrian was at the academy, he would be totally vulnerable to agents from Arden. Time passed, and nobody came after him, so it just seemed easier to let things be.”
Lyss felt like her head was splitting in two—joy warring with hurt and resentment and the pain of lost opportunity.
For every bitter word that Lyss spoke aloud, a dozen crowded in behind, begging for release. Fortunately, she intercepted most of them.
“And you never contacted him? He doesn’t know that you know that he’s alive?”
The queen shook her head. “As far as I know, he doesn’t. We were afraid that if we reached out to him, our enemies would find him. There was also the chance that he would run. Or worse. Dean Beaugarde was very concerned about his mental health.”
“Did you ever intend to tell me the truth?” Lyss said.
“I know I should have done before now.” The queen stared down at her hands. “Looking back, I can see that I took the coward’s way out. I knew you would feel betrayed, and I just kept putting off this conversation. I thought, perhaps, we would bring Adrian home for your name day this summer.” Trying out a smile, she looked up at Lyss. “Now, with any luck, he’ll be home just after Solstice.”
It was hard to keep flailing at someone who just sat there and took it. Which meant that Lyss could no longer ignore the voice in her head that whispered, He wanted to leave. He wanted to go to Oden’s Ford. He wanted to leave us behind.
With that, the tears finally spilled over and ran down her face. “How could he? How could Adrian go to Oden’s Ford, leaving us thinkin
g he was dead?”
“I think that’s a question you will have to ask him,” her mother said. “Neither of us knows for sure what he was thinking at the time.” She planted her hands on her knees. “Look, I know you’re angry and hurt, and I don’t blame you. Every parent makes mistakes, Alyssa. When you are a queen, the mistakes are larger and harder to forgive.”
“This is exactly why I keep saying that we need to launch an offense,” Lyss said. “This is why merely holding our own is unacceptable. This is the kind of trade we are making. I’ve lost four years with my brother because of this damnable war, and I cannot get them back.”
“I’ve lost four years with my son.”
“But that was your choice! And Adrian’s choice! I didn’t have a choice. When he comes home, we’ll be strangers.”
“Here.” Her mother fished into her neckline and pulled out a locket. She pried it open with her thumbnail and handed it to Lyss. “This is a sketch of him, done by one of the students at the Temple School at Oden’s Ford. Lila brought it back to us.”
Lyss studied the portrait. There was no doubt it was him, with his auburn hair and blue-green eyes. His face was thinner, his features sharper, as if every bit of baby fat had been rendered away. His eyes were shadowed with painful history. He wasn’t smiling.
Lyss blotted away tears. “He looks sad,” she whispered, her voice catching.
Her mother’s nose was pinked up the way it always was when she was close to crying. “You can keep that,” she said, clearing her throat. “I’ve had a year to memorize it.”
Don’t let your resentment ruin the joy of hearing this news, Lyss told herself. Adrian was alive—and he was coming home! Whatever had happened, they’d talk through it. She would find a way to forgive him.
I want to go to Oden’s Ford, Lyss thought, gripping the locket in her fist so that it cut into her skin. I want to go bring Adrian back home.
And that’s exactly what my mother was afraid of.
Lyss turned away, leaning on the railing around the lily pond, watching the shadows of fishes under the surface.
“Alyssa,” her mother said. “I am so very proud of you. You have a raw honesty and courage that I cannot match. Like your father, you have the common touch. Like your grandfather, you are a natural warrior. Soldiers want to follow you. Our enemies look into your eyes and they see their own defeat.” She paused. “We are different, you and I. But, sometimes, when our future looks darkest, we are given the queen we need.”
Lyss swung around to face her mother. “Do you really mean that?”
Her mother nodded. “I do.”
“Then prove it.”
“How?”
“If I cannot go to Oden’s Ford, then I’m going to Delphi,” Lyss said. “I have a team, I have an army, and I have a plan.”
The queen extended her hand. “Come. Sit down, and tell me all about it.”
20
SOUTH OF THE BORDER
Lyss sat on her pony at the southern end of Ana Maria Pass, trying to shake off the cold that crept into her fingers and toes and brought tears to her eyes—tears that froze as soon as they emerged. Mincemeat snorted out clouds of vapor that gilded his bridle and encrusted his mane.
It had finally begun—the invasion that Lyss had planned and plotted for so long. When she looked over her shoulder at the moody, snow-shrouded Spirit Mountains, she realized that when she’d crossed the border into Arden that morning, it was the first time she’d ever set foot outside of the queendom. She wondered if the dirt would look different than at home if she dug down through the snow. Even if the king of Arden was buttoned up in his palace, Lyss was still likely nearer to him than she’d ever been. She knew the way. She’d studied maps as closely as another girl might study prospective suitors at her name day party.
Sasha leaned toward her, only her eyes visible between her hat and her thrice-wrapped scarf. “Tell me again why we need a winter campaign?” She resembled a snow-covered mountain herself in her white wool cloak.
The snow was blinding, a swirling and unrelenting white, so it was impossible to tell up from down, or to see more than a few feet in any direction. And although the snow muffled sounds, now and then Lyss heard the creak of leather saddles, brittle in the cold, or the faint jingle of harness. It seemed to come from no direction, and then every direction.
Then the gray shadows would appear, always from the north, moving through the storm like wolves on the hunt. Which they were.
Lyss greeted each new arrival and directed the descending soldiers and horses through a narrow side canyon. The canyon opened into a wide, shallow basin, where they were protected from the wind and snow and not visible to any watchers below. Not that they would have been easy to see, in any event. Like every other soldier, Lyss was wrapped up in a white wool cloak layered and felted so that it could not be penetrated by the wind. Although they varied a little in shade, their sturdy, sure-footed, shaggy-haired mountain ponies were mostly white or pale gray, also. The soldiers streaming through the pass resembled the ancestors who prowled the peaks in the wintertime, walking snow spirits with ghost horses and a deadly touch.
The past three weeks had been a whirlwind. Her mother had convened a very select council of advisers—Captain Byrne, Char Dunedain, Shilo Trailblazer, and Julianna Barrett. They’d pored over the maps, diagrams, and sketches Lyss provided. By the week before Solstice, Lyss had not just one salvo, she had three—all under her command. She had a dozen Demonai warriors, led by Trailblazer. Ty Gryphon was in charge of the medical service. Lyss had supplies, weapons, tents, and other gear for mountain camping.
And her mother’s blessing.
Shadow received an urgent message from his father and had to leave for Demonai Camp before they marched. Shadow was heartbroken, but Lyss was secretly relieved. He was just a little too eager to be safe on a battlefield. Hadley wasn’t coming, either, since there wasn’t much for a ship’s captain to do in a mountain assault. So Lyss asked her to go as her representative to Oden’s Ford with the others to collect Adrian. That way they could return by land or sea—whatever seemed most practical. She’d given Hadley a personal note to give to him, in case he needed any persuading to come home.
Now, every morning, when she remembered that Adrian was alive, it was like a small ambush of joy.
For nearly a week, Highlanders and clan warriors had been moving into the mountains, drifting in small groups from wherever they were posted to the staging area on the northern slopes of the Spirits. They regrouped at Hunter’s Camp, then entered Ana Maria Pass under cover of a winter storm. Even if the soldiers holding Delphi had considered the possibility of an attack from the north, hopefully no one would expect it to come out of the teeth of the gale.
They’d descended through Ana Maria Pass single file, linked together with a thick rope. The rope had been the key to keeping them all together. Any soldier who let go and stepped a few feet away might never find a way back.
Since there was no way to move wagons through the pass, each soldier—including Lyss—carried a tent, a bedroll, weapons, and several days’ worth of food. Some led strings of packhorses with additional weaponry and supplies.
They wouldn’t be here long. Lyss had no intention of their spending any precious time bivouacked in the high valley, eating up their meager food supply. The scouts had been out to the south for weeks, and the Demonai had been on the hunt for days, clearing the enemy between the pass and their target.
Lyss fingered her belt dagger, the one her mother had given her on the day she left for Delphi. It was clanwork, the hilt an image of the first Queen Hanalea with her flowing hair.
“Captain Byrne’s father gave this to me when I wasn’t much older than you,” she’d said. “It has served me well. Stay safe and come back to me with a victory.” She paused, as if distracted by the wolves she alone could see. Then gripped Lyss’s shoulders and repeated, “Come back to me, Alyssa.”
Lyss looked to the south, to the flatlan
ds beyond the mountains. Could Montaigne feel her bloodlust through the umbilicus of the road between them? It would be a sweet justice to kill Montaigne with her mother’s dagger. A girl’s got to have dreams, after all.
But a girl’s got to stay alive, because Adrian was coming home.
The crunch of hooves on snow and a rippling of blue shadow under the icy trees broke into her thoughts. Sasha’s sword sang as it left its scabbard. Lyss had her bow up and the arrow nocked before she got a good look at the intruder.
A horse and rider detached itself from the forest and moved into the clearing. It was Quill Bosley. He commanded a squadron in one of the added salvos. Unfortunately. It seemed that every time she turned around, he was there.
Dropping his reins, Bosley raised both hands. “Last I heard, Your Highness, we were on the same side.”
“Which is why I’d hate to have your untimely death on my conscience,” Lyss snapped, rattled by the close call. “What do you want?”
“The lady Barrett asked me to tell you that her contacts from the local resistance are here,” Bosley said. “She wonders if it would be convenient to come down to the command tent for a meeting.”
“Thank you, Lieutenant,” Lyss said. Nodding to Sasha, she put her heels to Mincemeat’s sides, and the two of them trotted off after the last of the straggling soldiers.
The valley was already carpeted with white tents, some of them now half-buried in snow, so they were at least well insulated. There were a few small fires burning under canopies to dry wet clothing, but the canopies covered the flames, and the wind snatched and scattered the smoke before it could reveal their location. The horses were penned to one side, against the cliff. Even one of the sharp-eyed mountain hawks, soaring overhead in better weather, would have had difficulty spotting them.
Lyss threaded her pony through the maze of tents, dismounting in front of the command tent. It was unmarked, but it was one of the larger ones, and it stood in a defensible area near the cliff. Several Demonai warriors lounged near the entrance, but she knew they were anything but inattentive. Nodding to them, she pushed through the tent flap and into the relative warmth of the interior, Sasha at her heels.