The Beauty of Darkness

  CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN

  PAULINE

  You need to name him.

  But I had no name. My mind was too swollen with other thoughts to make such a decision.

  I eased the child from the wet nurse’s arms and rocked him, fingering his locks. They were the color of a bright high sun. Like Mikael’s.

  But after what Mikael had done, I didn’t want to think that he was any part of this child.

  You have kin, Pauline. You are not alone.

  But my aunt’s cold stare surfaced again and again.

  After Lia’s hand had been treated and bandaged, we had cut away her clothes and washed her. She lay unconscious, limp, and they stared at her battered body lying across the white bedding. A diary of these past months was written across her skin. They saw the jagged scar on her thigh. The nick on her throat. The fresh cut on her lip where the Chancellor had struck her, the bruises on her face where the guards had hit her. And when we turned her to wash her back, they saw the raised scar on her ribs from where an arrow had been cut away, and then there were the remnants of the kavah trailing over her shoulder.

  As every new mark was discovered, the queen or Lia’s aunts choked back a sob at her broken body, and the queen’s attendant—my own aunt—cast me an angry glare.

  “This is what you led her into!” she finally snapped accusingly.

  I turned my attention back to rinsing a cloth in the basin, unable to meet her gaze. Guilt rushed through me. It was true. I was Lia’s accomplice. If I hadn’t helped her, she might never have left. But if she hadn’t—

  I looked up, staring into my aunt’s face that was rigid with anger and disappointment. “It was her choice to make.”

  She pulled in a startled breath. “It was your duty to stop her! Not—”

  “I don’t regret my decision,” I said, “and I would do it again!”

  My aunt’s mouth fell open, appalled, but Lady Bernette reached out to her, putting a hand on her shoulder. “Pauline is right,” she said softly. “It was Lia’s choice and beyond any of us to stop her.”

  My aunt remained silent, but condemnation still shone in her eyes. The queen sobbed quietly at Lia’s bedside, Lia’s hand clutched to her cheek.

  I blinked back tears. “I have something else I need to attend to.” I spun and left the room, stepping out into the dark hallway. When I had closed the door behind me, I leaned against it, trying to swallow away the painful throb in my throat. Doubt flooded through me. I hadn’t even told her about the baby yet.

  “What is it?” Kaden had rushed out of the shadows toward me. I’d forgotten he’d been waiting for word on Lia.

  “She’s fine,” I said. “We don’t know about her hand yet, but the bleeding is stopped and her heart is strong.”

  “Then what is—” He lifted his hand toward my cheek, then pulled back as if afraid to touch me. Even in the darkest shadows, he had seen my tears, but there was still a wall between us, distrust I couldn’t set aside, even now, and he knew it.

  I shook my head, unable to speak.

  “Tell me,” he said quietly.

  My chest shuddered with uneven breaths. I forced a smile that I felt nowhere inside, but the tears flowed down my cheeks unchecked. “I have only one living kin in this entire world, and she thinks this is all my fault.”

  A frown pulled at the corner of his mouth. “Your fault? We’ve all made mistakes, Pauline, and yours—” He reached up and his thumb grazed my cheek, wiping away a tear. “Your mistakes are the very least among them.”

  I saw the regret in his eyes, my hurled accusations still swimming behind them. He swallowed. “There is not only blood kin, Pauline. Some family you are born with, other family you choose. You have Lia. You have Gwyneth and Berdi. You are not alone in this world.”

  A long quietness hung between us, and I wondered if the mention of family had reopened his own wounds. I saw the same pained expression on his face that I had seen hours ago when he confronted his father. I wanted to say something, offer him some sort of kind words like he had just given me, but something fearful still paced behind my ribs. He drew in a deep breath and filled the silence for me.

  “And you have the baby too. You need to give him a name.”

  A name. It shouldn’t be so hard.

  “I will,” I had whispered, and brushed past him, telling him he’d be able to see Lia soon.

  I placed the baby back in the wet nurse’s arms. “I need to leave him here a little longer,” I told her. “The citadelle is still in turmoil. It is no place for a baby. I’ll be back.”

  She nodded understanding, promising to take good care of him, but I saw the doubt in her eyes. She rubbed a gentle knuckle over his cheek, and my still unnamed baby nestled happily into her arms.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT

  A soft red hue seeped behind the edges of the drapes. For seventeen years it had been my familiar signal of dawn. It was odd to move about my room again. Home. But it didn’t feel the same. It was tight, confining, like trying to pull on a jacket that no longer fit. Too much had changed.

  My mother hadn’t been by. Aunt Bernette and Aunt Cloris had come three times during the night to check on me, both of them weary, with red-rimmed eyes. They gave me doses of the thick, syrupy medicine the physician had prescribed.

  “It will help restore your blood,” Aunt Bernette whispered and kissed my cheek.

  When I asked her how my father was, her face dimpled with worry, and she struggled with a hopeful reply, saying it would take time.

  Aunt Cloris cast wary glances at Kaden, who dozed in the chair beside me. She didn’t like it, but clucked only mildly at the breach of protocol. Finally, late in the night, she shooed him off, having prepared a room elsewhere in the citadelle for him. I had slept fitfully after that, one dream dissolving into another, and I finally shook awake when I dreamed of Regan and Bryn riding together in a wide valley. I didn’t want to see what came next.

  Per Aunt Bernette’s orders, I took another dose of the sickly sweet syrup. I didn’t know if it was the sleep or the elixir, but I was feeling steadier on my feet.

  I tied back the drapes, and light flooded into the room. I looked at the bay, a rare clear day where the rocky island of lost souls was visible in the distance, its white crumbling ruins catching the morning sun. Ancients who were once imprisoned there were said to still rail against walls that no longer existed, caught in a timeless prison of another kind, memories caging them as strongly as iron bars. My attention traveled west to the last standing spire of Golgata, still leaning, facing its imminent demise with stoic grace. Some things last … and some things were never meant to.

  I heard a tap at my door. Finally. There were clothes in my dressing chamber—all still locked in trunks—the ones Dalbreck had dutifully returned. They had never been opened. But if I was to address the conclave this afternoon, or for that matter, any of the many tasks before me, I couldn’t do it in a thin borrowed nightgown. Aunt Bernette had gone to fetch someone with keys. I was about to search for a hairpin so I could pick them open myself. It was going to be a long and full day.

  “Come in,” I called as I pulled back a drape from a window in the dressing chamber. “In here.”

  I heard footsteps. Heavy ones. Boots. My heart thumped against my breastbone, and I stepped back into my room.

  “Good morning,” Rafe said. He was back in his own clothes, no longer needing to hide who he was.

  My chest beat harder. Every emotion I had tamped down bubbled up at once and I heard the eagerness in my voice. “I was wondering when you’d come by.”

  There. I saw it in his eyes again. Saw it in his swallow.

  “You’re looking better than you did last night,” he said.

  “Thank you for coming to help.”

  “I’m sorry I didn’t come sooner. I guess I was waiting for a note.”

  “I recall you telling me not to send any.”

  “Since when have you listened to me?”

&n
bsp; “Since when have you paid attention to my notes?”

  His worried expression was replaced with a grin, and that was all it took. I ran toward him, reaching for him, his arms folding around me, both of us holding each other like we’d never let go, his fingers sliding through my hair, his faint whisper of Lia in my ear, but when I tried to turn my lips to his, he pulled away, stepped back, grasping my arms and deliberately returning them to my sides.

  I looked at him, confused. “Rafe?”

  “There’s something I need to tell you.”

  “What is it?” I asked, the panic rising in my voice. “Are you all right? Did something happen to—”

  “Lia. Listen to me.” His eyes burned into mine.

  “You’re scaring me, Rafe. Just say it.”

  He blinked, something shifting in his expression. He shook his head as if his thoughts were racing ahead of him.

  “I need to tell you about the circumstance of—The truth is—What I need to tell you is, I’m betrothed.”

  My mouth went dry. I waited for him to laugh. To declare it a poor joke.

  He didn’t.

  I stared at him, still not believing it. My mouth opened to say something, but I couldn’t think what. He loved me. I knew he did. I had just seen it in his eyes.

  At least I thought I had. Yes, we had parted ways weeks ago, but was that all it took to forget? Less than a season of days? I searched for something to say. “You found someone so soon? Which kingdom?” I asked, the words numb on my tongue.

  He nodded. “She’s from Dalbreck. The assembly wanted me to marry right away. They thought it would add the stability that was needed.”

  I turned away, blinking, trying to focus, trying to make sense of this. “Your kingdom is in such terrible straits?”

  “Both of my parents were dead for weeks. I was missing. The kingdom was without a ruler. It created problems. More than we expected.”

  “The general who challenged you?”

  “He’s been one of them. I had to—”

  I spun around to face him.

  “Do you love her?”

  He looked at me, stunned. “I don’t even know her.”

  “You didn’t know me before our wedding either.”

  “You mean our wedding that didn’t happen.”

  I stared at him. He meant this. He was going to marry someone else. On the assembly’s advice. He was meeting his duty, just as he had when he came to Morrighan once to marry me. Was that all marriage was to him? Duty? In the same breath, I hated myself for disparaging his motives. What had I done but leave him behind because of my duty?

  I heard Jeb’s words again: His word is true. I didn’t want it to be, but I said things to fill the painful silence. Things I didn’t mean or even hope for. “Perhaps it will work out better for you two.”

  He nodded. “Maybe so.”

  We stood there looking at each other. My insides were jumbled, as though everything had been kicked loose and shaken. Strangely, he looked exactly how I felt.

  “So where does this leave us?” I asked.

  He paused as if trying to figure it out himself, but his gaze still remained locked on mine. “It leaves us as two people—three—who need to stop the Komizar.”

  “Three?”

  “You told me I had to make my peace with Kaden. I have.” His tone was wooden.

  Aunt Bernette rushed in, jingling the keys. “I have them!” She stopped when she saw Rafe, as if she knew she had interrupted something. I heard myself speaking, sounding like my mother rising to the occasion, trying to gracefully smooth out an awkward moment. “Aunt Bernette, I’d like to introduce the king of Dalbreck. King Jaxon, this is my aunt, Lady Bernette.”

  “We met last night. Briefly. Your Majesty,” she said, and curtsied deeply, giving Rafe the full honor of his position.

  “Lady Bernette,” Rafe answered and took her hand, lifting it to his lips, uttering polite niceties, and then excused himself, turning to leave without another word to me. He walked toward the door.

  How many times did I have to let him go?

  No more.

  This was the last time.

  He hadn’t even made it through the door when footsteps sounded in the outer chamber. Gwyneth rushed in followed by a cluster of Rafe’s soldiers—with the Field Marshal in their grip.

  “This couldn’t wait,” she said apologetically, seeing me still in my nightgown. “It’s about your brothers.”

  * * *

  I paced my room. I had sensed last night that the Field Marshal was innocent, but I had felt myself fading. It was safer just to order them all locked up where they would be secure until I could question them.

  “Why didn’t you tell us this last night?” I demanded.

  “In front of everyone? After what you revealed? I didn’t think it wise, considering I’d just found out about the snakes infesting the ranks. It’s not something we want everyone to know, in case it affords the princes any advantage. I demanded to speak directly to you from the moment I was whisked away, but he wouldn’t listen.” He nodded toward Rafe.

  “Everyone wanted to speak with her. Lia was indisposed. I told you to talk to me,” Rafe answered.

  “The king of a foreign nation who stormed in during a conclave? I’m supposed to immediately trust you with every kingdom secret?” The Field Marshal looked at Gwyneth. “This kind lady finally listened to me.”

  Gwyneth admitted she had gone down to the cellar where the prisoners were held in separate rooms to gloat at the Chancellor—and to reassure herself that he was still there. She’d been woken by a nightmare, dreaming he’d broken loose and was headed for Terravin. When the Field Marshal saw her pass by the small opening of his cell door, he begged for a moment to speak to her. All he would say was that he had news about my brothers that I needed to hear.

  He told me about a conversation he’d had with my brothers before they left. He hadn’t been happy about the diplomatic mission proposed by the cabinet, and he was surprised my brothers had agreed to it so easily. He suspected they were up to something.

  He privately confronted the eldest prince, asking him what they were plotting. Regan hadn’t tried to deny it. “You know what we’re doing. The same thing you’d do if your sister was wrongly accused.”

  “I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that.”

  “I thought you would,” Regan had answered.

  And then the Field Marshal wished them luck.

  I sat on the bench at the end of my bed, resting my face in my palms. My breath swelled in my chest. He said my brothers had never planned to go on to Gitos or Cortenai after they set the memorial stone in the City of Sacraments—only on to a few cities to recruit more help, and then they were heading to Venda to get me back and prove I wasn’t a traitor—which meant the trackers we had sent were headed in the wrong direction. By the time they figured out the princes had planned a new route, they would likely be too far behind to catch up. But this also meant those lying in wait to ambush them had to regroup too. It might give my brothers an advantage, but even if they evaded those sent to kill them, going all the way to Venda was a sure death sentence. Even a dozen regiments at their sides wouldn’t be enough to defend themselves against the Vendan army they would meet.

  “The Aberdeen garrison,” I said. “After what happened to Walther’s company, that’s where they’ll go next, to recruit more and double their numbers. We’ll send riders there.”

  Rafe shook his head. “No. Your brothers would be past there by the time riders arrived. We have an outpost northeast of the City of Dark Magic. Fontaine. We can try to intercept them near there.”

  “That’s even farther away,” the Field Marshal scoffed. “How would you get a message to them in time?”

  I looked at Rafe, my heart gripped in a fist. “You have Valsprey with you?”

  He nodded.

  We sat down at my desk immediately to write messages. One from me to my brothers so they would know the interception w
asn’t an attack by Dalbretch soldiers. The other from Rafe to the commanding colonel at Fontaine to set patrols combing the landscape for Morrighese squads. It was still a long shot. There were miles of wilderness, and those lying in wait to ambush my brothers could still reach them before they were warned. But it was something. Rafe looked over my message and rolled it up with his. No one else saw what he wrote, because it was written with ciphers known only to his officers. “I told the colonel I wanted a well-armed battalion to escort your brother’s squads home if he finds them.”

  Alive. It was unsaid, but I saw the word looming behind his eyes.

  He left to get the message into the hands of the Valsprey handler. If all went well, he said, it would be there by tomorrow, but he warned me there would be no return message. It took months to train a bird to fly to a distant location. They weren’t trained to return to Civica.

  I looked at the Field Marshal, nodding thanks and apologies in the same gesture. “And from this point forward, you must trust the king of Dalbreck as one of our own. His word is true.”

  I told the soldiers to release him, and ordered the Huntmaster, the Timekeeper, and Trademaster freed as well. The rest of the cabinet would remain in their cells to face trial and execution—if I didn’t kill them first. My threat to the Viceregent had been real. If any harm came to my brothers or their comrades, his death would not be an easy one.

  Devastation looked down on us,

  But a green valley lay ahead.

  The end of the journey was in sight at last,

  And I did what I knew I would do all along;