The Exiled Queen

  The evidence of the ongoing war surrounded them—burnedout farmhouses, salvos of foot soldiers on the march, massive keeps locked up tight with battle flags flying, large encampments of soldiers. Repeatedly, Han’s party left the right of way, hiding themselves in the trees to avoid mounted patrols flying the myriad colors of the warring thanes.

  They came upon battlefields, sometimes dislodging crows and carrion birds from the decomposing bodies. The scavengers circled overhead, complaining rudely, then settled again as soon as they passed. Several times they passed gibbets bearing the stinking fruit of recent executions.

  It’s a good season for crows, Han thought. There was no way they’d be in time for the opening day of classes, delayed as they were by their late start and many detours.

  Cat wasn’t happy on horseback. The horse Jemson had lent her was an ill-favored, lazy beast, nearly as bad-tempered as Ragger. Cat clung to his back like a sticker burr, totally uncomfortable, impossible to dislodge. Things went better once Han convinced her to switch to the spare pony. They used Cat’s horse for baggage.

  Cat’s superior street skills did little good in the countryside, which made her sullen and briary. She wasn’t used to being second best at anything.

  Han and Dancer traded off teaching Cat woodcraft, such as tracking and bow hunting. She had quick, accurate reflexes, and she’d always been good with blades of all kinds. When their hunting was successful, she quickly learned to skin and dress the carcasses.

  She seemed subdued, very different from the Cat Han remembered from the Raggers. In the past, it was Cat’s pride and obstinacy that got her into trouble. Now she seemed snappish, like a dog that’s been kicked too many times.

  She displayed a persistent prejudice against Dancer for the crime of being clan. It seemed ironic, Cat being from the Southern Islands, that she’d soaked up Vale attitudes. Sometimes people that get beat on just want to beat on someone else.

  They continued to travel by night. As dawn approached, they’d find a sheltered place to lay up for the day. Han and Cat would set out a few snares, while Dancer built a fire and set up camp. They’d eat, catch a few hours sleep, then prop up and pull out their books.

  Dancer switched off between his Demonai flashcraft book and the book of charms. Han committed charms to memory, then struggled to make his amulet do what he wanted. Sometimes he succeeded, sometimes he failed, but at least there were no more aggressive spurts of power or bizarre, self-destructive behavior.

  He’d just as soon get that out of his system out here in the middle of nowhere.

  As long as they stuck with reading, Cat would stay. Sometimes she brought out her basilka and played—sweet, melancholy tunes that could bring a person to tears, even if you didn’t know the words. Dancer would often leave off reading and lean forward, wrapping his arms around his knees, eyes closed, just listening.

  But if they started practicing charms, Cat would stalk out of camp and stay away for hours. She made it plain that she wanted nothing to do with magic.

  Dancer still disliked the substitute amulet, though he continued to load it with power. “This doesn’t feel right,” he said, poking at it. “It’s like there’s something coming between me and the amulet — something that doesn’t belong.”

  Han shrugged. “Maybe they’re all like that,” he suggested. He hesitated, then pressed his fingers against the Waterlow piece. “Sometimes it seems like this one has knowledge and power embedded in it already. I thought maybe it was because of — because of who I am. Or because of who owned it before.”

  Dancer frowned. “You think it’s cursed? Or you think you’re cursed?”

  “Maybe both,” Han muttered. What if it was true—what Elena had told his mother? What if he was cursed because the blood of the Demon King ran in his veins? His family fortunes had certainly fallen over the past thousand years—from king of the Seven Realms to starveling street thief.

  “Why? Who owned it before?”

  Startled, Han looked over to where Cat sat cradling her basilka. He’d forgotten she was there.

  Han didn’t want to lie to Cat, but he also didn’t want to spook her any more than she was already by telling her he was using the Demon King’s old amulet.

  “Well,” he said, “it used to belong to Lord Bayar. The High Wizard.”

  Cat blinked at him. Then stood, setting aside her basilka. “It seems like it brought you a whole lot of trouble,” she said. “Maybe you should give it back.” She turned and disappeared into the woods.

  Han and Dancer stared after her.

  “Well,” Dancer said, “for what it’s worth, I don’t think you’re cursed. If I did, I’d stay away from you.” He tilted his head, gazing at Han’s amulet. “As for the flashpiece, it’s more likely it’s because the thing’s extremely powerful, and you don’t know what you’re doing. At least wait until you get a little training before you decide.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  CADET

  Raisa opened her eyes to darkness, but she could hear that Talia and Hallie were already up. A flare of light, and then the lamp was lit. She closed her eyes against the glare, wishing she could go back to sleep. But if she did, she’d miss breakfast. And she would need breakfast to get through the morning. After four weeks of classes, she knew that much.

  With a shuddering sigh she pushed back the blankets, swung her legs off the bed, and stood in her smallclothes, yawning and stretching. Her spare uniform jacket was draped over a chair back to dry.

  Cadets wore buff uniforms that required washing nearly every day in the sodden autumn weather. When they marched on the parade ground, mud splashed up their breeches to their knees. Because of that, or because of the drab color, students from the other side of the river called them dirtbacks.

  Raisa poked at her jacket as she passed by. Still damp. Nothing ever dried in this miserable climate. She thrust away memories of a life in which clean clothes magically appeared whenever she needed them. With several ensembles to choose from.

  Somebody had been washing those clothes, she thought. And doing the mending, and all the hundred little tasks she now had to do herself—and to military standards.

  Amon had arranged it so that there was no dorm master in residence at Grindell, and Raisa, Talia, and Hallie could share the room on the top floor. This meant that they all had to share the dorm master’s duties—keeping the common areas and washrooms clean, and maintaining a supply of fresh linens for the beds. As the weather cooled, they hauled wood for the fireplaces from the quartermaster’s depot along the river.

  Hallie was done in the washroom already; that girl was amazingly efficient. She just skinned her hair back and tied it with a cord, washed her face, and she was done.

  Raisa fluffed her cap of hair and regarded her reflection glumly in the polished metal mirror. Would long hair have been easier? She could have tied it back. But thick as it was, it would dry just as slowly as her jacket. She scrubbed her face with cold water, then slid into her damp uniform, making a face as the clammy fabric touched her skin.

  She’d be hot soon enough.

  Raisa walked out into the sitting room, where Talia was sprawled in a chair, knees draped over the arm, the lamp close by her, reading. She looked up from her book and smiled, marking her place with a finger.

  Talia was a mixed-blood, like Raisa—her mother was clan and her father was Valeborn—a member of the Queen’s Guard. She always rose early to read the Temple Book before class. Either that or one of her moonspinner romances that would put a blush on a fancy’s face.

  Talia was a person of diverse interests.

  “You two ready?” Hallie called from the door. “If we don’t hurry, all the sausage will be gone again.”

  At least Hallie and Talia had quit calling her “Lady Rebecca” after they’d heard her swearing like a teamster when Switcher stepped on her foot.

  The three of them barreled down the stairs, nearly toppling Mick, who was hopping around the common room, trying to darn h
is socks while wearing them.

  “Bad idea,” Raisa called as she shouldered open the door.

  “That fool’s just hoping somebody will offer to do it for him if he looks pitiful enough,” Hallie said. “He’s going to have holes in his socks for a good long time.”

  Snickering, they crossed the dark, soggy quad to the dining hall, where sleepy cadets were already lining up for breakfast.

  At least I don’t have to do my own cooking, Raisa thought as she plopped a dollop of porridge into her bowl, adding molasses and milk and, yes, two sausages. One advantage to drilling at the break of dawn—there was still meat left.

  She carried her tray to the long table, sat down, and began shoveling in the porridge. It was a bad way to start the day, but she refused to leave any of it behind when the bells rang for first session.

  This term she was enrolled in a History of Warfare in the Seven Realms lecture and recitation; a finance class full of clarks with ink-stained fingers; courses on military strategy and weaponry; and an intensive on the Ardenine language. Plus, she had been assigned to drill daily with the first-year cadets. That was right after breakfast.

  “So, Rebecca,” Talia said, squeezing in next to Raisa. “Do you like any of these, then?” She pointed her spoon toward the cadets at the next table. “What about that one on the end? With the red hair. Barrett. I hear he’s a lively one.”

  Barrett was in her History of Warfare class. Raisa surveyed him appraisingly, chewed, and swallowed. “Not my type,” she said, shaking her head.

  “How about Sanborn, then,” Talia said, pointing at a well-built boy with straight black hair and skin that was close to Raisa’s own bronze color. “He’s from the down-realms—We’enhaven, I think. They say they’re calm and steady.”

  Raisa yawned hugely. “I don’t know how you have the energy for romance.”

  “You’re too bloody picky,” Talia said. “It’s not like you have to marry them.”

  “Leave her alone, Talia,” Hallie said. “Maybe there’s someone back home she’s pining for. Some young lord or a rich merchant. She comes from quality, you know. She may be aiming higher than Barrett or Sanborn.”

  “That doesn’t mean she can’t have a sweetheart at school,” Talia persisted.

  Talia was on a matchmaking mission. She and Pearlie Greenholt, the Wien House weapons master, were madly in love, and Talia wanted to share the joy with everyone.

  “Just watch yourself, Rebecca,” Hallie advised her. “Talia and Pearlie—they’re moonspinners. They don’t have to worry about making babies.”

  The word moonspinners referred to members of the Temple of the Moon back home in the Fells—women who chose other women over men. Talia was a member; had been since she was twelve. Pearlie wasn’t officially—she was Ardenine.

  Hallie stood. “Listen to Talia, and you’ll end up with a baby in your belly.” She patted her midsection for emphasis and walked back toward the food line, her broad back very straight.

  Hallie was the single parent of a two-year-old daughter, Asha. She’d had to leave her back in Fellsmarch, with her parents. She was an old soul—not prone to romantic musings.

  Hallie needn’t have worried. Raisa deftly parried all of Talia’s hints and suggestions. She couldn’t very well tell Talia that she was in love with their commander.

  So much for all her plans to play the field before marriage.

  Raisa genuinely liked Hallie and Talia. She enjoyed their company and admired their grit and determination. Talia loved whom she loved, not caring that spinners were frowned upon in the down-realms. Hallie was determined to further her education even though she missed her daughter terribly.

  They’d become friends despite all the secrets that divided them.

  Having female friends was new to Raisa. Relationships at court were competitive, politically charged, with everyone jockeying for a position next to those in power. No one could be trusted, all motivations were suspect. Amon had been her only real friend, and now that relationship carried its own baggage.

  It was no wonder Hanalea had walked about in disguise. It was the only way to find out what people were really like.

  The session bells clanged through the dining hall. Raisa carried her bowl and spoon to the scrappers and crossed to the door.

  “Give Pearlie my love!” Talia called as she exited into the autumn darkness.

  Cadets were already running circuits on the parade grounds when Raisa arrived. She peeled off her jacket and set it aside, knowing she’d be sweating before long.

  A half hour of running, and she was drenched. Then they drilled with weapons as a group. Wielding pikes, they charged back and forth across the field in a line ten across, screaming like banshees until Raisa was hoarse and her arms so heavy she could scarcely keep her weapon from dragging on the ground.

  This was flatland warfare, and alien to Raisa’s eyes. There was no room in a mountain pass for lines of soldiers to maneuver together. Clan warriors battled as individuals or small groups in an alternating attack-and-retreat fashion. But that kind of fighting required cover, and there was no cover in the flatlands.

  The drillmaster finally called a halt, and Raisa handed off her pike to Pearlie, who stacked them in the racks. “Talia sends her love,” Raisa said. Pearlie blushed and smiled, her face radiant with pleasure. Talia was Pearlie’s first real girlfriend.

  “Gaah,” Raisa muttered, snatching up her jacket and heading for the bathhouse. Love everywhere, and none for me.

  The sun was just rising as she crossed the quad to Wien Hall for her first class—the History of Warfare, taught by Taim Askell.

  She’d been surprised that the master taught a course for new-lings. Askell was a remarkably good teacher—passionate about his subject and knowledgeable, with the kind of practical experience many academics didn’t have. He peppered his lectures with real-world examples, many from his own past. He’d fought in battles as far away as Carthis, using all kinds of weaponry and tactics.

  Raisa had studied the history of the Seven Realms with her tutors at Fellsmarch Castle, but this was a new kind of history, focused on warfare, and enlivened by the diversity of the students in her class. They came from all over the Seven Realms, and Raisa soon realized that there was more than one truth to know about the past.

  Due to the lack of natural barriers, there’d always been more interchange between Arden and Tamron, We’enhaven and Bruinswallow; even the island realms. The southern realms shared customs, languages, faiths—the same basic worldview.

  The Fells had become isolated, consumed with its own problems. As a result, the mountain peoples were the subject of much speculation, fascination, and misinformation.

  What little the flatlanders did know about the Fells came through the traders who traveled out of the mountains, selling metalwork, jewelry, and other upland products; and buying the foodstuffs that grew in the deep soil and warmer climate of the flatlands. Clan traders were exotic, romantic figures that were good at spinning tales.

  Raisa was the only Fellsian student in most of her classes, even the military ones.

  Like usual, Raisa had arrived for class from the bathhouse at the last possible moment, and so was forced to sit in the front row as Askell strode to the podium. She hurriedly set out her ink and paper. She always took copious notes in Askell’s class.

  He spread his lecture notes and surveyed the class, as he always did. Today his gaze lingered on Raisa a little too long. She straightened and met his gaze directly.

  “This morning we will discuss the use of magic in warfare,” he said. “And so this lecture will pertain particularly to Fellsian charm-casters and the Spirit clans, though it also applies to some elements in Carthis.”

  A murmur ran through the class, like a stiff wind through the aspens.

  Raisa tapped her pen on the table, surprised at the master’s use of proper northern terminology for the gifted peoples of the Fells. Most Ardenines referred to wizards as blasphemers, idolators,
and mages, and to the clans as heathens and savages.

  As if cued by her thoughts, a newling cadet from Tamron raised his hand. It was Barrett, the one who Talia had pointed out at breakfast.

  “Do we really need to spend time on this? No one here will ever use such tactics.” The cadet’s demeanor suggested that Askell had proposed a session on devil-summoning or torture techniques.

  On second thought, the topic of torture techniques would have been better received.

  “Newling Barrett, shall we assume that you have the gift of predicting the future?” Askell said. “Can you promise everyone here that they will never use magical tactics, and that they will never be at war with anyone who uses them either?”

  “Of course not, sir,” Barrett spluttered. “But it seems unlikely that—”

  “It’s the unlikely tactics that will be your undoing,” Askell said. “Not the ones you are prepared for. Would that our enemies were so cooperative.” His gaze swept over the class again. “Any other objections? No? Then let’s discuss the odd and symbiotic relationship between the Spirit clans and the charmcasters who invaded from the Northern Islands—a relationship fraught with conflict over the past thousand years.”

  For once, Raisa was ahead of her classmates. But she soon realized that Askell knew a lot more than she did about the use of magic during the wizard wars of conquest, and by the Demon King at the time of the Breaking. After a thousand years of peace in the north, it had not been a priority in her education.

  But could it be, in the future? What would happen if war broke out between Arden and the Fells? Raisa looked around the lecture hall. A good third of the students in her class were Ardenine. How could she make use of Fellsian assets to turn aside an invasion from the south?

  A sudden silence pulled her out of her reverie. She looked up to find everyone looking at her. Including Askell.