Redemption

  The choice is what will matter to them.

  “I have no way of knowing how long this journey will take,” she admitted. “Or whether any of us shall survive. We will need time to prepare before we travel, but also we will race a clock none of us can entirely define. This choice is not for me,” she told the men. “If you choose to come, it must be for yourselves. For Tyralt. And for the future. Will you join me?” She raised a hand, then rotated her palm upward and held it out toward the throng in a gesture of request. “Will you join me in revolution?”

  And the shouts of confirmation were more powerful than any thunderstorm ever to roll across the frontier.

  Chapter Nine

  VILLAINESS—SCENE II

  Central Plaza, Tyralt City

  Melony tucked the parchment of a military dispatch beneath the thin knife in her reticule, then stepped out of her emerald-green carriage onto the smooth brick surface of the Central Plaza. Red clay. Perfect camouflage. One would never know how much blood had been spilled here over the centuries.

  She had never appreciated the plaza. Regular justice ensued within the city’s prisons. And she had always thought the palace’s courtyard would serve for a royal execution; but that would require letting in the masses, when those who needed to see—the commoners who were rumored to question her right to the throne—should remain beyond the palace’s walled boundary.

  Her father had had a point about tradition.

  Even if he had been too weak to look beyond it.

  A charcoal message, scrawled upon the clay, slowed her steps. Did the people of this city have no regard for their own safety? The cost of sedition was death, yet here was her sister’s name scrawled at her own feet. And Melony had heard whispers of secret celebrations.

  Perhaps the Head General’s recent excuse for his delays in communication—the need to tamp down a growing unrest among the city’s tenements—held validity.

  Her stomach tightened as another carriage emerged in the distance. White undergear, white trim, a white body. The relentless shade flashed through the branches of cherry trees while the vehicle circled beneath them and around the city’s central fountain. Then the driver ignored the perimeter set by her guard and turned off the street. Those white wheels rolled across open clay. Toward Melony.

  The carriage slowed to a halt.

  And her mother descended, one scarlet brocade shoe at a time. Her ivory skirts, matching travel jacket, and ebony upswept hairstyle emerged from the carriage without disruption. She crossed the brick in the sculpted heels and pointed toes of her most recent fashion triumph. The corners of her mouth constricted as her gaze flicked over her daughter’s appearance.

  “Your Excellency.” Melony addressed her with the dowager queen’s self-chosen title. Then nodded toward her own recent triumph: the plaza’s newest centerpiece. “Your presence here is unexpected.”

  Pale-blue eyes skimmed over the new construction. Then a scarlet glove settled on the weathered edge of a nearby pillory. “Well, what did you expect? You see what happens, darling, when you fail to complete a task. Have you considered the power your sister will have if she has changed her mind and agreed to marry Edward of Anthone?”

  “She’s too self-righteous to marry Anthone.”

  “And yet she is in Tyralt. Why?”

  Melony eyed the deteriorating pillory. Inadequate. The post, designed to hold its victim in the face of public assault, would have to be replaced. “I would assume she intends to depose me.”

  “Have you sent someone after her?”

  “Mother, the time for assassins is passed.”

  “There was never a time!” The dowager lifted the now dirt-stained fingertips of her gloves. “She would have destroyed herself had you left well enough alone. Fifteen years I was patient, in order to convince the king to recognize you. And you could not wait even a matter of weeks!”

  How often must I hear this rant?

  “Darling, if your sister crosses that Gate, she will not come alone.”

  Melony plunged her hand into her reticule and felt the sharp edge of her hidden knife. Comfort. She veered around the pillory and strode to the plaza’s new centerpiece. Stained oak. Polished bolts. A sanded frame with a high magnificent crossbeam. She paced around the foundation. Twenty steps by twenty steps. “I can assure you that fact has not escaped my attention.”

  She had thought of little else since her interrogation of the blond sailor who had confirmed her sister’s return. Though when Melony had finally corralled her Head General, half a week later, he had had the gall to chastise her for previously making the capital her priority. Then he had informed her that he would require at least a month to prepare the army to head north. And for twenty-one days he had refused to march. Perhaps, he had said, Your Majesty should leave the defense of Tyralt to me.

  Those words ground in her stomach. She was finished with his control tactics. This morning she had acquired his youngest daughter as one of her lady’s maids. After all, a threat to family was a brilliant motivator.

  As evidenced by the military dispatch Melony had received less than an hour ago. Her gaze rose again to assess the construction that served as her latest achievement. “I ordered an advance force to march north to intercept them,” she said. “And I am assured of its immediate departure.”

  Melony was Tyralt.

  Her vision would save this kingdom. Her sacrifices would be worthwhile. And ultimately the people of this city and the entire country would share in that vision: of her sister’s death on this glorious scaffold.

  Chapter Ten

  A PRIVATE CONFRONTATION

  The sword slid over Robert’s shoulder and pricked his throat.

  He preferred to avoid conflict. Had stayed away from the council tent and foregone the arguments over minutiae, first during the week of preparations to head south, then on the eight-day trek to the Gate. Instead he had helped arrange a supply train, redistributed the confiscated weapons of the Anthonian army, and secured enough mules to transport what little ammunition had been found for the lone salvageable cannon. That particular task had been folly, but he’d needed only one glimpse of Aurelia’s exhausted face to know the cannon had been the topic of a lost argument.

  He and she both knew if her men could not move fast enough across the Gate, they would be trapped on it—sealed along its narrow path—and picked off with ease by marksmen of the royal army. The Valshone avowed that no guard waited at the foot of the pass. That traffic north had ceased and all Tyralian forces had been ordered to the capital. But those orders would change.

  By now word might well have reached the palace, assuming the gossip had headed south as soon as Aurelia had arrived at the frontier. Robert knew the royal army would still need weeks to prepare for a campaign. But he also knew far better than to waste time arguing.

  He had kept his opinions to himself.

  Listened when Aurelia needed to rail.

  And done his best to avoid Valerian. A goal which had appeared reachable throughout the start of their trek. Robert had eaten breakfast alone among the horses each morning and spent his days weaving through the men. He had tried to spot problems before they arose, then helped with the ones he failed to catch.

  And had spent his nights with Aurelia.

  In a way, their relationship had changed. The passion in her eyes had returned with her first sighting of Tyralt and had grown as though each challenge had made her stronger. She had seen him at his weakest, mourning his parents’ death, and he had not been able to push her away. He no longer worried, as he had in exile, that she might disappear or lose herself when they kissed.

  Which they did.

  Though he drew the line there. She still had not told him she loved him.

  Nor did she appear to have professed to Valerian that she did not love Robert. At least not judging by the sharp, steel blade now caressing his neck.

  Silently he cursed Aurelia. She was the one who had insisted he take Valerian with him. Tho
ugh it had been Robert’s idea to scout ahead on this—their first day on the high, narrow trail across the Gate.

  Robert had told himself, as he led his less-than-eager stallion up the curved path that cut off his ability to see, that Melony could not yet have sent an ambush. That while word of her sister’s return might well have reached the palace, even the fastest armed force could not have retraced that ground. That surely the threat was all in his mind.

  But his gut had argued that this narrow trail was the ideal place for death.

  And now he was here, isolated—with Valerian holding him at sword-point. Rapids crashed hundreds of feet below, the roar echoing up the jagged cliffs. Horizon reared nearby, hooves coming dangerously close to the cliff’s crumbling drop-off. And to the man wielding the blade.

  Valerian held his stance, his grip on the sword unwavering despite the stallion’s threat and the fading sound of his own horse’s departing hooves. “She’s the champion of Tyralt,” he said. “She doesn’t need an impediment.”

  Meaning me. Robert slipped his lead to his left hand. Then backed away until his spine felt chiseled rock.

  The sharp steel remained at his throat, his assailant’s dark glare now before him. “She has to prove herself to all of Tyralt,” the Heir continued. “None of us can afford to have that compromised by rumors she’s making decisions in her tent.”

  Robert strove for calm. “Anyone who knows her is aware that she can make her own decisions.” And sending you on this scouting trip was a lousy one. He had told her that much this morning.

  But she had ignored him.

  Again Horizon pounded the path in protest. Color rose on Valerian’s face. “The people don’t know her,” he said. “They want to believe in her, but she left. She knew about her sister’s manipulations; and she fled, first the palace, then the country.”

  This then, Robert realized, was the fear below the surface and beyond the public adoration. She was a child—Robert wanted to argue. A seventeen-year-old girl with no allies or defense of her own. If she had stayed at the palace, she would have died. As had her father. “She is human.”

  “We don’t need a human being.” Sweat beaded on the Heir’s forehead. “We need a queen.”

  Idiot. Robert squelched the urge to reach for his own sword. You haven’t been listening to her. She’s not here to be queen.

  But Drew’s words from the ship haunted him: It comes to the same result.

  Valerian continued, “She must prove she is worthy to lead.”

  “And you believe her place as that leader would be more secure at your side?”

  “You can’t believe otherwise.”

  Because of a defunct title; Robert understood the implication. Because if she bowed to tradition and married Valerian, the aristocrats would be more likely to recognize her authority. As if a title could make this man worthy of her. “And those eight Valshone who were hung?” Robert said. “Were they more secure under your leadership?”

  His assailant’s sword wavered. “I was absent in my duty.” The Heir’s gaze dropped for a second to the trail, then lifted. “I will not be so again. I should have been there.”

  The comment struck home. How many times had Robert thought those final words at the side of his parents’ graves? And how often had his father told him that the way to end an argument was to find something in common? To agree with one’s opponent. “We are all flawed.”

  Valerian lowered his blade. “If you really cared about her—”

  That Robert was not going to accept. He spun, wrenched the hilt from the Heir’s fingers, and stepped away. The depth of the gorge plunged beneath his vision. “I’ll tell you what I believe.” He tossed the weapon to the trail. “I believe you are not a fool. You went to the palace two years ago, met Melony, and didn’t want to marry her.”

  The Heir’s gaze traveled from the fallen sword to the untouched hilt at his opponent’s waist.

  “A sign, in my opinion,” Robert continued, “of fair judgment. So when her mother informed you that you should be paying tribute to her daughter, you chose instead to seek out the king—who was dying.”

  “As I told you.” Valerian edged toward the fallen sword.

  “No.” Robert secured his boot on the blade. “You told Aurelia.” You also said you enlisted my uncle for help. “And you told her you saw her father. Alone. That he somehow woke up while you sat near him and asked you—a man he had never met and whose political role he had disintegrated—to give his elder daughter the key of Tyralt.”

  Valerian paled. Which confirmed what Robert had suspected.

  He shortened his stallion’s reins, bringing the mount close. “Her father was dying,” he added. “Probably beyond the ability to communicate. And you decided to take the key. There—in that room—without orders. You chose to take the symbol of succession and deliver it.”

  To the young woman I love.

  The young woman who had never quite believed in her own merit until that silver key was placed around her neck. Not because she wanted to be queen. But because she believed her father had chosen her. She believed that key was a sign of her father’s love.

  Robert could not take that from her.

  Not for something as selfish as the chance to expose a flaw in the Heir of Valshone. Though it was fair, Robert thought, that Valerian now watched him with caution. A caution that had been severely lacking.

  Robert swung himself high onto his protective stallion. “Aurelia loves her father,” he said. “And because I care about her, I would never say anything to her that would interfere with that.” He looked down at the man beside the deadly hooves. “And neither will you.”

  • • •

  “Valerian wants to marry you.” The words assaulted Aurelia as she entered the candlelit tent she shared with Robert. They had not spoken to each other since dawn, when they had argued about his desire to scout ahead alone. He sat on the barren ground in the far corner, his knees bent in front of him, his back against a crate, his self-drawn map of the Asyan spread out at his side. Night had long since fallen.

  She dropped to her pallet, too tired to remove her boots, then sprawled backward and stared up at the elliptical light on the canvas ceiling. Of course the Heir thought he should marry her. He had been raised to believe leading Tyralt was his destiny and his path to that responsibility was through marriage to her.

  Though what she appreciated about him was that he had been prepared to take on that responsibility alone after she had fled. Clearly he was committed to this revolution. And clearly he viewed her hesitation to vote and her relationship with Robert as signs that her own commitment to the fight was lacking.

  “Valerian is the least of my concerns,” she said. Thank Tyralt the Valshone leader had spent the day with Robert rather than attaching himself to her hip—per usual.

  Unfortunately, the Heir’s absence had only opened space for other problems.

  An entire wagonload of salt pork was bad.

  Two dozen frontiersmen had a cough indicative of pneumonia.

  A wagon wheel had broken.

  With more than a thousand lives at stake, every delay and dilemma seemed as though it might push the entire force off the Gate’s narrow trail and over the side into the roaring falls at the base of the gorge. This and the men had barely begun to climb. She had anticipated the slower pace of travel with the larger force, but today’s progress had been agonizing. “Do you realize,” she groaned, “that the wagons moved all of three hundred feet today?”

  “I might have returned in time to help.” Robert rolled up his map and slid on the leather band that held it tight. “If you hadn’t saddled me with your suitor.”

  And if I could have found you, Robert—something that had not been easy in daylight hours over the past two and a half weeks. He had conveniently not been present during any of the recent conflicts she had been forced to resolve. Valerian, of course, was always ready with his opinion. But his perspective was rather limited and his vi
ewpoint often clashed with others’, including the Oracle’s. Which left her confused, worn out, and with a headache by midday.

  Also Valerian lacked tact. “He was underfoot,” she said.

  “So you sent him under mine?”

  Yes! She sat up, her back to Robert, and tackled her boot laces. “I thought if he spent a few hours alone with you, he would have to realize that you aren’t the bane of the entire revolution.” She grinned. The Valshone leader had returned from today’s scouting trip thoughtful, sober, and silent.

  Robert’s voice drew closer. “And if I am?”

  Oh, please. She did not have the patience tonight for his exaggerated sense of guilt. “You swore you would support my vote,” she said. Cheating, she knew, but she was tired.

  “I won’t break that oath.” His tone dropped. “Unless you ask me to, Aurelia. If you ask me to go, I will.”

  Oh, for the love of—!

  His hands clasped her shoulders and began to knead away her tension, his thumbs circling at the back of her neck.

  Mmm. His touch—and the fact that no matter how distant he had been during the day, he was now present to talk at the end of it—made surviving all the difficulties of the journey bearable.

  “I need you to be honest with me,” he whispered. His fingers graced her chin, the light caress pulling her around to face him. “If you ever want me to leave. If we ever reach the point where I’m more of a hindrance than a help—”

  Her lips covered his, swallowing his words.

  He pulled away from the kiss. “Valerian—”

  Would this topic never die? Maybe her idea had not been as successful as she had judged. “Valerian believes it’s his duty to marry me,” she said. “Forgive me if I don’t find that romantic.”

  The kiss Robert returned was powerful, stealing her breath. Her entire body heated, her thoughts melting.

  When he pushed her away, his own breath was ragged. “Marriage …”

  Enough! “I can’t marry anyone, Robert!”