When he looked up, Finnikin saw the angel of death above him, an ax raised over his head. He knew he would die. The jagged blade would split his head like a watermelon. And in those seconds before death, he kept his eyes on his father fighting less than ten feet away. He wanted his last thoughts to be of this man. And of her.
But the ax, and the hand attached to it, went flying through the air, and the enemy crashed to the ground in front of him. Finnikin stumbled to his feet and stared into the face of the exile from Lastaria. The man held out a hand to him and pulled him to his feet, and then he was gone.
Without hesitation, Finnikin turned back to Lucian and stood guard, lobbing arrows toward anyone who dared to enter the Mont's circle of grief.
Later, those who had lived the horror inside the kingdom for ten long years spoke of vindictive retribution. As if the bastard king, as they called him, had sensed that Lumatere was about to be reclaimed and set their world alight. Those of the Flatlands and
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the River hid with those of the Rock and watched as their kingdom was razed to the ground, watched from up high as their lost ones entered the gate and fought the bastard king and his men on the path leading up to the palace.
Some said it was the end of days and planned to climb to the highest point of the rock of three wonders, where they would plunge to their deaths.
But a sliver of hope stopped them. Hope created by a promise scratched into the arm of a child.
The promise that Finnikin of the Rock would return with their queen.
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***
CHaPteR 26
When it was finally over and Trevanion stared into the face of the impostor, he wondered how such a pitiful human being had created such despair in all their lives. It had been his order to keep the impostor and nine of his men alive, but he fought hard against the urge to plunge his sword into this man's heart.
"Trevanion," Finnikin said quietly as one of the guards threw the prisoners into the back of a cart, their mouths gagged, their hands and feet chained. Trevanion knew that every member of his Guard itched to snuff the life out of these bastards.
"Don't worry, Finn. They'll get there alive," he said soberly. "Perhaps just not in one piece."
When he returned to the palace village, the dead and dying had been dragged into the main square. Villagers tended the wounded, and Trevanion suspected they had emerged from their cottages in the darkest part of the night, when the battle had raged at its worst. Now the world was silent, but for the
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sounds from those who lay dying. This was no place for triumph or celebration.
"Captain, you wounded," Froi said, following Trevanion as he weaved his way toward Perri.
"How many lost?" Trevanion asked Perri.
"Too many," Perri muttered. "The impostor king?"
"Imprisoned in the palace with the rest of his scum," Trevanion said, looking at the wretchedness around him. When he asked about the queen, he could sense Froi's anxiety, almost as if the boy had stopped breathing.
"With those from the cloister of Sagrami," Perri said quietly.
"We need to count them," Trevanion said, gesturing to where the dead had been laid out at the edge of the square.
Froi's expression was one of acceptance. "I know. Make myself useful and count the dead."
Trevanion grabbed his arm. "A sorry task. Mine, not yours. Return to the Valley of Tranquillity and tell Sir Topher that Lumatere is free from the impostor king. Then find the priest-king and bring him home."
Trevanion looked over to where August of the Flatlands sat with his head in his hands, between the body of his sister's husband and Matin, one of Augie's men. He remembered the excitement that night in Augie's home, the bantering and the fierce friendship between these kinsmen. The key Matin had showed him. "It is the key to my house in Lumatere," he said. "I keep it in my pocket at all times as a reminder that I will return one day."
Trevanion had seen Saro fall, as well as Ced, one of the younger guards. Ced had been the first into the palace grounds and the first of his men to die. Ced, the last of a bloodline. Already
Trevanion felt their absence from the earth. In the makeshift morgue, he closed the eyes of one of the men they had
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rescued from the Charynites on the river not even seven days past.
And then Trevanion saw her. When the sun began to appear in the blood-red sky as Lumatere continued to burn. She stood with fresh linens in her arms at the edge of the square. Between them lay rows and rows of corpses and the wounded she had come to tend.
A child was by her side, a miniature Beatriss, with eyes the color of the sky.
He thought of the child they had created together, the child who had died in the palace dungeons where the impostor king was now imprisoned. His face reflected the rage and hatred he felt toward those who had taken so much from him.
And Beatriss of the Flatlands saw the fury as he looked at her child.
Saw the hatred.
And quietly she covered the child's eyes and walked away.
Later, Trevanion returned to the foot of the mountain, where the Monts were collecting their dead. With a sickness in the pit of his stomach, he went searching for Finnikin. He found him with Lucian, sitting alongside Saro's body, their heads bent with exhaustion and grief. Both stood when he reached them, and Trevanion placed his hands on Lucian's shoulders, kissing him in the Mont tradition of respect.
"The last thing we spoke of, Saro and I, was how blessed we were as fathers, and the joy and pride we felt in our sons, Lucian."
Lucian nodded, unable to speak.
"I need to take my father home," he said finally.
"I will have the Guard take care of that, Lucian."
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"No. I will carry my father home now. So I can lay his still warm body on our mountain. It's all he spoke of these past ten years. Returning to his mountain."
Finnikin crooked an elbow around Lucian's neck and pressed the Mont's forehead against his face. Then Trevanion stood by his son as they watched Lucian tenderly lift his father's body and carry him away.
"Will you come with me to the river?" Trevanion asked. Most of the Monts, except those tending the dying, had left.
Finnikin nodded listlessly. He was numb as he followed his father. In the morning light, villagers had appeared as if from nowhere. It was eerie to see so many faces, yet hear no sound. They looked different from the exiles. No better or worse, but damaged all the same. He wanted to feel a sense of home, as he had always dreamed he would. Lumaterans were connected to the land, yet he feared the dislocation for him would last forever. He had once read in a book from the ancients that one could never truly return home after years of absence. Was he cursed with such a fate?
He swung onto the back of Trevanion's horse, and they rode through their smoldering land, following the waterway that wound through the Flatlands, where the blackened stumps and leafless trees looked like skeletons, specters of death. Cottages were burned to the ground, and the barges on the river were nothing more than black pieces of timber floating on stagnant water. Finnikin sat on the banks with his father. Above them in the Rock Village, Lumaterans emerged in the hundreds.
"Tell me," Trevanion said, his face blackened with ash and streaked with blood. "At the gate with Evanjalin? What took place?"
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"Isaboe," Finnikin corrected quietly. He rubbed his eyes, wondering when everything would stop looking blurred. "She lied."
There was silence before his father spoke. "The queen omits rather than lies, Finnikin. For a purpose. One that will humble us each time. I feel shame that I can hardly remember the child who grew up to be the novice Evanjalin. I remember the older princesses and Balthazar, but not the little girl."
"She omitted. Walking the sleep was not the only part of the gift. Or curse." Finnikin laughed bitterly. "Oh, to have such a gift. To sense the pain every single time a Lumateran suffers. She feels every
death, every torture, every moment of grief. And when she walked the sleep of those inside, it was not just that of our helpless people." He looked at his father. "She walked the sleep of the assassins," he whispered, his voice catching. "Those of the impostor King's Guard who were Lumateran."
Trevanion cursed.
"The king died last. They made him watch, and what they did to those princesses and his queen I will never repeat as long as I live. But Isaboe knows, for she walked the sleep of a monster who was witness to it, and if I could have one wish in my life," he said through gritted teeth, "it would be that I could tear from her mind the memory of such depravity. Sweet goddess, that I would have such a gift. I would give my life for it." And then he was sobbing, despairing at his uselessness.
Trevanion watched Finnikin, unable to offer any hope. That men could conquer kingdoms and fight armies of such power and might, yet not be able to offer comfort to one so beloved. Where Finnikin's wish was to have the power to remove the ugliness of memory, Trevanion's was to have the gift of words needed to bring solace to his son.
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"Finn, look," he said after a while. "The river's beginning to flow."
As Trevanion and Finnikin rode back into the palace village, the first exiles from the Valley entered Lumatere through the main gate. Froi was leading the priest-king, and the silence of those walking into the kingdom seemed strained.
Lumaterans stared at each other as strangers. Those who had tended the injured within the palace grounds walked to a nearby hill and watched the procession of exiles coming toward them. Finnikin and Trevanion swung off their horse and made their way between the villagers. Finnikin could hear Trevanion's name being whispered. And his. They must have looked frightening with their knotted hair and blood-soaked clothing. Beside him, he heard a sharp cry, and a moment later he was jostled out of the way by one of the women. She stood on her toes, her neck outstretched as she searched through the exiles coming their way.
"Asbrey, my brother," she said quietly. She spun around to look at the older man standing behind her. "Fa? It's Asbrey, your son, with a babe in his hands." Her eyes stayed on the group behind Froi and the priest-king, and then she placed a hand over her mouth as if to hold back a sob. "And my ma."
Finnikin turned to look at the man. His eyes were dull with shock, but his daughter began running, stumbling toward her family as she called out their names. Finnikin saw an expression of annoyance cross Froi's face when he sensed the commotion around him. The thief stood in front of the priest-king while the exiles behind him began to push past, trying to get to the young woman. But one of them tripped at Froi's feet, the one holding the baby, and the priest-king managed to catch the child and thrust it into Froi's hands to keep it from being smothered. So
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Froi held it high above their heads as it proclaimed its freedom, the cries heard all across the village and the square beyond and the palace up above.
And it was this image that was stamped on the hearts and minds of all who were present that day.
Of Froi of the Exiles holding the future of Lumatere in his hands.
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PaRt tHRee All the Queen's Women
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CHaPteR 27
From where Trevanion stood, he could see nothing but burnt stumps and acrid smoke. It had been a week since they had entered Lumatere. Longer since the deposed impostor king heard the strange whispers from those inside the kingdom that spoke of the return of the heir. As a punishment, the impostor's men had set fire to the kingdom, destroying most of the cottages and the arable land of the Flatlands. In this village, only the manor house had survived. Unlike other parts of Lumatere, where plowing and rebuilding had begun, the fields here would need to be cleared before they were fit to plow, a task that seemed backbreaking. Yet each day as he rode by, resisting the urge to stop, Trevanion watched them as they worked. This village of Sennington. Beatriss's village.
He dismounted at the road and walked his horse down the long narrow path that led to the house. Several men were loading carts with rubble and bits of timber, the charred remains of a village. The workers stopped as he passed, exchanging glances and nodding in his direction.
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He reached the front door and knocked. When there was no response, he entered tentatively, following the noise of chatter into the parlor. It seemed as if most of the village of Sennington was in the room. He recognized exiles among them. Some stood, but most sat around a long table, chewing on corn cobs and drinking soup. He guessed there was not much in their bowls but water and flavoring, yet their talk was cheerful.
And then they noticed him.
The room grew silent, and suddenly she was there, standing by the stove. She stared at him, pot in hand. Her hair, once long fine waves of copper, was short, framing a face darkened by the sun's rays. She was thinner than he remembered, but neither the exiles nor those trapped inside had much flesh on their bodies. He felt uncomfortable under her gaze, like an intruder.
"Lady Beatriss."
Still no one spoke and then one of the men stood. Trevanion remembered him as Beatriss's cousin, a wealthy merchant who had spent much of his time traveling the land. Except in the last ten years.
"Captain Trevanion. Welcome home." The older man bowed.
"Excuse my rudeness, Captain Trevanion," Beatriss said finally as she came forward with a hand extended. Part of him wanted to laugh at the idea of them shaking each other's hand. Strangers and acquaintances shook hands. Not a man and a woman who had created a child. Not lovers who had cried out their pleasure in unison during those early hours of the morning when the rest of the world was asleep, their bodies speaking silently of never letting go.
Her voice was the same, if stronger and firmer. But her eyes had changed. He could only remember them looking up at him with trust, or at one of the princesses and the younger children with laughter and affection. During the past week, he had seen
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from a distance her tenderness with her child, but her innocence and openness were gone.
The silence became uncomfortable. Trevanion desperately wished Finnikin were by his side. His son would know what to say. He would charm them all with his honesty, and impress them with his earnestness and knowledge. No one made a move to accommodate him, but Trevanion could not blame them. Lady Beatriss of the Flatlands would never have been arrested and tortured, would never have been subjected to such horror if she had not been his lover.
The child appeared at the door. Trevanion had seen her frequently during the past week, in the palace village where members of his Guard handed out provisions and instructions. Each time, the sight of this other man's child was like a blunt ax carving up his insides.
She clung to her mother, staring up at him. He was suddenly aware of his appearance. He touched his hair, clumped in knots. There had been more pressing things to attend to during the past week, although Lady Abian had ordered him to stop by that very afternoon so she could attend to his hair and beard. He felt as he had when he was back in the mines of Sorel and Finnikin had first set eyes on him. Ashamed.
"I am sorry to have disturbed you," he said quietly, and abruptly left the room.
He was halfway up the path and almost at his horse when he realized he was being trailed by the child. She said nothing, just watched him as she tried to keep up. Her tiny face was framed by thick copper curls, and she stared at him with large blue eyes.
"Vestie!"
They both turned and watched as Beatriss hurried toward them. She picked up her skirt to stop herself from tripping, and
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when she reached them, she took her daughter's hand. He stared at the child's arm, saw the scratches inflicted by their queen in her desperation.
"I'm sorry for her forwardness, Captain Trevanion," Beatriss said. "There are many new people passing through and it must be overwhelming for our children."
Their children. Not his.
He looked around the village, or what was left of it, for a distraction. "We would recommend that you move your people to Fenton," he said gruffly. "There is a pocket of fertile land there, the exact size of Sennington."
He watched her face pale. "Move my villagers away from their home?" she asked.
"There is nothing left here, Lady Beatriss."
She looked at the blackened earth around her. "Burning my land to the ground, Captain Trevanion, has been a constant these past ten years."
But Beatriss the Bold refuses to stop planting.
The child was looking from one to the other.
"In the coming week, will you welcome Sir Topher and my son, who is assisting him in the census?" he asked. "I have heard you and your villagers have kept the best records, and we need help in locating names ... people ... graves."
She nodded and he walked toward his horse.
Her voice stopped him. "It brings me great joy that you have been reunited with your beloved boy."
"Sadly not a boy anymore." He thought for a moment and nodded. "But a joy all the same."
"Finnikin," the child announced.
Trevanion stared down at her, and his look seemed to frighten Beatriss. But not the child. She returned the stare, an inquisitive expression on her face as if she were attempting to recognize