Redemption

  She reached the revolutionary army’s forward ranks. An open, barren field lay between her and the royal forces.

  Horizon and his rider drew forward at her side.

  “No, Robert.” Aurelia met the blue gaze. “I need to speak for Tyralt. You know this.”

  His wince confirmed her theory. Though he opened his mouth as though to protest. To say what? To point out that once she rode into that gap, the royal marksmen could fire on her with their rifles.

  She had to bridge that gap. And he could not come. If he rode forward, the generals of the royal army would assume he spoke for her. That she could no longer speak for herself, much less her entire country. We both know this.

  Instead of argument, his mouth closed.

  His hand clutched at her fingers. A single pulse, which she returned.

  Then released.

  And Aurelia rode into emptiness. Sound swelled, a distant roar she assumed came from within her own mind—an inner warning that ultimately the men ahead of her answered to the monarch’s will. She found it impossible to believe her sister had ordered the Head General to respect the Code of Truce. Whatever moral sense stayed his assault, the restraint must be his own.

  But even his authority could not bind the city guards in the towers along the Tyralian wall. Their orders would have come directly from the palace. And neither the royal army nor those guards could yet know the monarch was dead. No message would have made it through two armies, not once both forces had settled into place.

  Aurelia slowed Falcon to a halt at the center of the open field.

  The shot did not come.

  But neither did an emissary. No chance to convince the Head General that her sister was dead. No opportunity to win the army’s true support. No one came. For minutes. Or hours.

  Aurelia watched the royal line.

  The roar grew louder. Perhaps it was her own body, telling Aurelia that the cold she had falsely attempted to blame on the breeze had grown more intense. Deeper. Within her bones. That her limbs were going numb.

  Her vision was failing. People seemed to have scaled the height of the Tyralian wall. Figures that refused to still, line up, or stand in unison. Instead they blurred and joined the roar.

  Then the gates cracked open.

  And from their center, as though pushed by the roar, rode a figure. Flanked by mounted palace guards. Had Melony’s death only strengthened her mother’s power? If the approaching rider was Elise, vengeance for her daughter would be swift indeed.

  Aurelia struggled for strength. Robert would be watching. Waiting for a sign that she wished for his help. But she could not ask for it. He was the leader of her army. If he moved, the men would follow. She would not start this battle. She would die, if she must, alone.

  The rider continued toward her. Not her stepmother. At a closer distance, Aurelia knew him for a man; though based on his posture, he could not be a soldier. A statesman then.

  Her mind reeled through the upper ranks of the aristocracy. Relationships she had failed to cultivate. How often during this journey had she been warned, both by her own conscience and by others, that the traditional aristocracy would have their say? That ultimately she would need the support of the wealthiest men in the kingdom. Which power hungry lord had been chosen to confront Elise’s treasonous stepdaughter? What evidence could Aurelia give that might persuade him to listen?

  Her hand clenched at the empty space beneath her throat.

  Then the rider’s gray head swam into clarity. Henry?

  Her heart pounded, trumpeting the announcement that the man before her was no aristocrat, but her father’s former adviser.

  He is the queen’s adviser now, logic argued.

  And Robert’s uncle, she thought in response.

  His son died trying to murder you, logic continued.

  Aurelia sought the gaze of the man she had known her entire life.

  Behind him, the guards stopped. And he rode to her. His head was bowed, his eyes down, his beard tucked against his chest. “The key,” his voice rasped.

  Her hand reached again for the absent object that was no longer at her throat. “I had it, Henry,” she murmured, knowing her words would be worth nothing in the face of the law. “Melony took the key … before she died.”

  He did not shudder. Nor draw away. Gave no sign that the revelation surprised him.

  He knew. How was this possible? But Henry had always known more than Aurelia: the failings of her father, the secrets of the palace, the threats to the monarch. “Messenger doves delivered word of your sister’s death,” he said. “The titleholders at court will reconsider your claim to the crown over that of your distant cousin, His Majesty of Minthone. If you will produce the key.”

  “My stepmother?” Aurelia whispered.

  “She has secluded herself within her rooms.”

  He pulled closer, reached beneath the folds of his cloak, and then stretched his fist toward Aurelia. From that fist dripped a silver chain.

  The chain, still stained with blood. Aurelia gasped.

  “To prove your place as queen,” he murmured. He had done the political bartering for her, she realized, and the maneuvering as well.

  She closed her eyes. He was offering her peace—the means to end the nightmare of war. And a chance to claim the crown. A right that had never been meant for her in the first place.

  Her father might have sent her the symbol of succession, but deep down she knew the former king had always felt robbed of his true heir. Aurelia had no knowledge of whether her dead older brother would have been a good king. And neither, she thought, had her father.

  There was no such thing as birthright.

  Henry’s hand opened above her own. And revealed the key of Tyralt.

  Thomas’s final words rang in her head: Promise you won’t trade our liberty for peace.

  She could not wear that key. The people of the Geordian had not died for a crown. Nor had the frontiersmen, fighting to defend their own homes. The Valshone had not ridden north in order to save her, and the men at the Fortress had not enlisted because they needed a new queen.

  The silver object tumbled from the adviser’s fingers, and she let it fall to the ground.

  “No, Henry,” she said. “Our people must choose their own leader. I am here to free Tyralt.”

  His head came up, his gaze meeting hers. Wonder swam in those foggy eyes.

  “Then you deserve to be chosen,” he answered. He turned slowly back toward the wall. And lifted his hand.

  A sound louder and more powerful than anything Aurelia had ever heard rose around her. The roar multiplied ten thousand times. Not in her head. But real. Echoing from the city. And then from two armies on either side of her. The voices of Tyralt. As the gates swung open and an entire country welcomed her home.

  Revelation swelled within her. All her life Aurelia had feared she did not know enough to lead her country. Now, in this field with the cries of the people raining over her, she understood that leadership was not about knowing, or speaking. But about listening.

  And that the roar pounding in her ears was the combined voice of the common people. They had stormed the wall and opened those gates ahead of her. Had freed themselves. The shouts were overwhelming—shouts of freedom and unity and celebration mingled with cheers of “Long live the queen!”

  Though more often, her name and a new title: Liberator.

  She longed to bridge that final threshold and ride straight into her city’s embrace, but she had lost the ability to ride. The world had become a blur. She could no longer see Henry. He had pulled away from her and could now be any of a dozen vague forms waiting for her signal to return to the capitol.

  But her limbs were like ice. Her hands could no longer grip. Her breath had gone shallow.

  A hand touched her elbow.

  Aurelia knew that touch.

  “Robert,” she managed to speak as he bent close. “I need you to carry me inside and I need you to make it look like yo
u’re not carrying me.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  VIGIL

  Robert listened for Aurelia’s breath as she lay on a cot in the council tent. His gaze traced the map of bandages along her back, the shadows around her eyes, and the lines on her sleeping face. His hand closed on hers as he waited on a crate at her side.

  He had run out of ways to fight for her. Two nights and two days had passed since he had carried her inside this tent and laid her down in the hope that she would heal. His sword, having been returned, hung useless in its scabbard at his side. He had guarded the threshold. Had cast out the royal physician who had arrived and threatened to bleed her. But now Robert could only watch and wait and listen.

  “Long live the queen!” Shouts reigned in the distance, testing his strength.

  At times he wished he could stop them. To shut out the voices that seemed convinced they could have both freedom and a queen.

  But he had counted on those voices. And on the bond that Aurelia had formed during a childhood of escaping palace walls to understand the people of her city. The people, not cannon, had defied the Tyralian wall. He owed them. And she would want to hear those voices. If she awoke.

  “Wait,” the desert healer had told Robert after salving and bandaging Aurelia’s wounds. “Watch for infection and let her rest.”

  Canvas rustled at the tent’s entrance. Then soft footsteps. Uncle Henry’s wild, gray hair had been tamed within a simple queue, his beard trimmed. Despite all the man had lost—all Robert had taken from him—his father’s brother stood more erect than he had in years. Solemn brown eyes stared out of his leathery face. “You should sleep.”

  “I’ll stay with her,” Robert said. The only power he possessed in this situation was the power to remain awake.

  “You are as stubborn as your father.”

  Perhaps. “My father is gone.”

  Henry dropped his head in a nod that said he already knew. “And you are afraid if you close your eyes, she will disappear as well.”

  Robert’s hand tightened on Aurelia’s. He did not need to defend his reluctance to let her slip away.

  “We have a country with no government,” Henry said slowly. “The inhabitants of Midbury await interrogation.” He took a breath. “The former queen is imprisoned in her own rooms.” Another breath. “Two armies require dispersal. The court is full of cowards. And more than one region has been torn apart by war.” His hand settled on Robert’s shoulder. “When Aurelia wakes, she will need all of us at our best.”

  Will she?

  The palm withdrew. And Uncle Henry retreated toward the exit.

  “Thank you,” Robert spoke. “Thank you for opening the gates to her.”

  “I did not open them. The people did.” The older man’s solemn gaze studied his nephew. “As you knew they would. Didn’t you?”

  Robert had not known anything.

  He had hoped the people of Tyralt City would open those gates. As he had hoped the royal army would not fire. And that Aurelia would live. He listened again, deeper, beyond the final closing of the tent flap and the shouts of the crowd. Her breath was smooth, neither catching nor scraping the air. Yet still she failed to wake. Where was she?

  • • •

  Aurelia had been in this nightmare before. The clinking crystal of champagne toasts boxing her in. The stifling perfume, wafting off the palace guests’ silk gowns and high cravats. The punishing glow of candles in every sconce along the high walls of the ballroom. Violins tuned her death.

  She tried to flee. To escape from the barricade of raised arms, billowing skirts. And whispers.

  Her father watched her. Usually in this dream, he paused in his conversation with Henry only long enough to raise a glass in her direction. But this time the king did not toast his eldest daughter. Or turn his back to her to speak to Henry, who was absent. Instead her father stood still, without movement, watching her failed attempts to flee.

  A woman touched her arm.

  Aurelia flinched, prepared to meet the cold, hard glare of her stepmother’s icy stare. To feel the sharp push toward the ballroom’s center. And death.

  Instead Aurelia’s own mother, unafraid, stood at her daughter’s side. Lady Margaret’s shoulders were square, her chest lifted. Her hands failed to shake. The scent of lilac cleansed the air, and a smile lit her features as she gestured toward the open, polished floor.

  Where a couple already waltzed. A young woman in white, her silk gown skimming the floorboards. Her golden hair floated free, down her neck. Her head rested on the shoulder of her escort.

  Chris.

  Robert’s cousin spun his partner in smooth, gentle circles. His hand holding her back. His eyes closed as if only she existed.

  Their steps slowed. Then stalled. Chris bent, whispered.

  Then his partner raised her head from his shoulder.

  Aurelia’s chest tightened. Never before had her sister been present in this nightmare. Aurelia had always been the bride. Engaged to death.

  But the face that looked up at her now was no skull. Green eyes shone with a human calm. Her sister did not speak. Or smile. Or threaten. She gave only a slow nod of acknowledgment.

  Now others were waltzing around the stalled couple—Robert’s parents among them.

  The ballroom was gone, replaced by the grassy gold and green of a frontier hillside. And the couples waltzed on, their numbers growing, multiplying to fill the entire space out to the horizon.

  Melony lowered her head again to Chris’s shoulder. And the couple waltzed with them.

  Beneath an endless blue sky.

  Aurelia felt the pull to join them, but a hand held her tight. She had a vague memory of releasing that hand.

  Robert did not seem to have let hers go in return.

  Her eyes opened. There were voices in the background. Words she could not discern, though they sounded familiar. She was lying on her chest, her head on a pillow, and she could not see clearly. Except for his face.

  He is worried, she thought. Robert was always worried. She shifted, ignoring the pain, and reached to smooth the lines from his forehead.

  He whispered her name.

  She murmured his in return. “Where are we?”

  “Home,” he answered, his hand still gripping hers. “We’re home, Aurelia.”

  “I thought”—she breathed—“we were.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  PROPOSAL

  Robert was summoned back to the council tent the following morning. Or perhaps, he realized as his groggy gaze noted the sharply diminished number of soldiers in the trampled fields, he had slept a great deal longer than twelve hours.

  The world around him had changed and he had no idea where he stood. With her, with his country, with the future.

  He took a deep breath and reentered the council tent. To find its occupants seated behind and at both ends of the former king’s council table. Dark mahogany filled the space. Clearly this was no last-minute gathering. And judging by the emptied plates and mugs on that dark surface, the meeting had long since commenced.

  Robert’s gaze swept the participants from left to right: the Oracle, his back straight and head high; Drew, with his boots propped on the table; Valerian, somewhat lost behind a stack of plates; Lord Lester, consuming more than his share of space at the center; Henry, calmly setting aside a napkin; and Aurelia, in a chair half buried in shadow at the far end of her father’s table. Why are they taxing her health?

  No vacant seats. Robert had no choice but to stand.

  “General Vantauge.” Lord Lester hefted his crutch into the air, then thudded the base against the ground and propped the crutch against the table’s edge. “While you have been slumbering in the Outer Realms for the past sixty hours, we have been discussing the appointment of the next leader of Tyralt.”

  Appointment? Robert’s breath stopped. His gaze sought Aurelia’s, and her dark eyes skidded away.

  Did she truly intend to be queen? He had heard
the shouts but had not believed in his heart that she would accept the title. He knew she cared about her people. That to her, their wishes were paramount. That her entire life she had wanted to live up to their expectations, but he had hoped …

  No, he had believed she understood there was more to Tyralt than the capital. That not everyone felt free to shout their wishes. And that not all of her people were sitting in this tent. Or still alive. Had Thomas been right? If the council was suggesting she abandon her mission, Robert would have to argue—

  “Of course the vision we all share for Tyralt will require elections,” the Oracle stated calmly.

  And Robert breathed. Never had he been so grateful for the voice of the only other council member from north of the Gate.

  “But”—His Lordship grunted, shoving another plate in front of Valerian—“as it will require some months, likely a year, to put a voting system into place throughout the far reaches of this country, Tyralt will need a leader in the meantime. To help with the transition. And to ensure justice.”

  Aurelia shuddered.

  She is tired, Robert thought. The council should let her heal.

  “We have talked over the naming of the transitional leader at length,” Lord Lester blustered on.

  Why? Her identity was clear.

  “We all agree,” Lester continued, “that while Aurelia is the most obvious person for the post, there are valid concerns.” He paused, lifting his mug and draining whatever remained within it, then went on. “First, that if she is named as the leader, without elections, there will be accusations that she … killed her sister for power.”

  No one who had seen the stripes on Aurelia’s back could make that accusation. “Does the populace know,” Robert asked, “how many times her sister tried to murder her?”

  Henry gave a tight shake of his head.

  Lord Lester answered, “We would prefer to produce that evidence only as needed, such as in the trial of her stepmother.”