The Beauty of Darkness by Mary E. Pearson
We were farmers, merchants, tradesmen, not a battalion of a hundred armed soldiers. At least that was what we wanted them to think.
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
Heave.
Heave.
I threw off my blanket and sat up, my skin hot and cold all at once. The synchronized chants, the squeal of gears, the sickening metallic clang still rang in my ears. I looked around, reassuring myself that I was still in the cottage. It was dark and silent except for Berdi’s gentle snores. Only a dream, I told myself and lay down, struggling to get back to sleep. I finally dozed in the pre-dawn hours, then slept late, but when I finally woke, I knew—the sounds and chants were real. The bridge was fixed. They were coming.
I looked around. The cottage was empty except for Gwyneth dozing in the rocker with the baby in her arms. I noticed that the melody of drips falling into buckets and bowls had stopped at last. Finally I could slip back into town. The streets would be busy again and I could pass unnoticed—and Bryn and Regan could be back. I quietly dressed, putting on my protective riding leathers and strapping on every weapon I had. If all went well, I might be leading my brothers and their comrades into Aldrid Hall by this afternoon. First I’d scour the citadelle one last time for evidence, but with the bridge fixed, confronting the cabinet couldn’t wait any longer. I threw on my cloak and tiptoed quietly outside to find the others. I found Pauline at the end of the porch, lifting a crate and hanging it from a nail on a porch timber.
“Are you sure you should be doing that?”
“I had a baby, Lia, not an accident. I’m actually feeling quite well. First time I haven’t had a foot pressing on my bladder in weeks. Besides, cleaning a crate is easy enough work. Kaden got it for me from the mill. He just went back over there to let out the animals. The oats are gone. They need to graze.”
I hoped that was all he was doing. I knew he still wanted to confront his father.
I looked around, walking to the other end of the porch. “Where about Berdi and Natiya? Where are they?”
“They went to town while there was a break in the weather for more supplies.” She ran her hand along one side of the crate. “It will make a decent enough cradle for now—at least when there aren’t arms to hold the baby.”
“It seems there will always be plenty of those available. Gwyneth has hardly let the baby out of her grip.”
Pauline sighed. “I noticed. I hope it’s not painful for her. I’m sure it stirs memories in her of all the times she didn’t get to hold her own baby.”
“She told you?” I asked, surprised that Gwyneth had shared what I’d thought was a closely guarded secret. I had only guessed because I’d seen the way she looked at Simone back in Terravin. A tenderness had sprung to her face that she had for no one else.
“About Simone?” Pauline shook her head. “No, she refuses to talk about it. She loves that little girl more than air itself, but at the same time, that love is what grips her with fear. I think that’s why she keeps her distance.”
“Fear of what?”
“She desperately doesn’t want the father to find out that Simone even exists. He’s not a good man.”
“She told you who he was?”
“Not exactly. But Gwyneth and I have found this strange place of truth. There’s a lot that we share without ever saying a word.” She untied her damp apron and hung it to dry beside the crate. “The Chancellor is Simone’s father.”
My jaw dropped. I knew Gwyneth had some unsavory connections, but I never suspected one of them to be so high in the food chain. She had good reason to be afraid. I turned, cursing in Vendan to spare Pauline’s ears and a penance.
“You can curse in Morrighese,” she said. “No penance required. I’ve probably said the same thing myself. Or worse.”
“You, Pauline?” I grinned. “Wielding knives and cursing? My, how you’ve changed.”
She laughed. “Funny, I was just thinking the very same about you.”
“For better or worse?”
“You are who you needed to become, Lia. We’ve both changed out of necessity.” A wrinkle darkened her brow. She noticed my riding leathers beneath my cloak for the first time. “Going somewhere?”
“Now that the rain has let up, people will be in the streets again. I can pass unnoticed, and Bryn and Regan are surely back by now. I want to—”
“They won’t be back yet.”
“The City of Sacraments is only a few days’ ride, and dedicating a memorial stone doesn’t take but a day. Bryn and Regan won’t—”
“Lia, I think you misunderstood. They’re going to more cities after that, and then on to the Lesser Kingdoms. Regan to Gitos and Bryn to Cortenai. They’re on a diplomatic mission ordered by the Field Marshal.”
“What are you talking about? Princes don’t go on diplomatic missions. They’re soldiers.”
“I questioned it too, especially with your father ill. It doesn’t follow protocol. But Bryn thought it was important, and your father approved it.”
All the way to the Lesser Kingdoms? My heart plummeted. That could mean weeks of waiting that we couldn’t afford. But I couldn’t march into the conclave without them.
I shook my head. A diplomatic mission. I knew how Bryn and Regan hated such things. I could picture Regan rolling his eyes. The only part he would like was riding in the open—
My throat tightened.
They were asking a lot of questions, trying to get at the truth.
Just like Walther had. I’ll discreetly nose around.
Which made them a liability.
“What’s wrong?” Pauline asked.
I grabbed the porch post to steady myself. A visit to a Lesser Kingdom would mean days of traveling across the Cam Lanteux. They’d be unsuspecting and easy targets. My heart went cold. They weren’t on a mission. They were headed into another ambush. The princes were being eliminated—along with their questions.
My father would never have approved this. Not if he knew.
“It’s an ambush, Pauline. Bryn and Regan are headed into an ambush—the same as Walther. They have to be stopped before it’s too late. I have to go tell my father. Now.”
And I ran for the citadelle, praying it wasn’t already too late.
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
KADEN
“Hello, Andrés.”
I had promised Lia I wouldn’t confront my father. I’d said nothing about my brother.
I’d heard Pauline wonder aloud to Gwyneth if it could have been Andrés who had followed her to the inn and alerted the Chancellor to where they were staying. Pauline hadn’t revealed her identity to Andrés, but she recalled that he’d asked her a lot of questions. Once she learned what the Viceregent had done to me, it made her wonder if his questions hadn’t been so innocent after all. I was sure they weren’t innocent. He was his father’s son.
I surprised him at the cemetery gate just after he walked in, quickly hooking one arm over his shoulder like we were old friends, my other hand holding a knife discreetly pressed to his side. “Let’s go for a walk, shall we?” He got the message right away and fell into step with me.
I led him to Morrighan’s crypt in the center of the cemetery, a place of cobwebs, spirits, dim light, and thick walls. Once we were down the stairs, I pushed him away. He stumbled forward and turned.
His head angled to the side as he finally got a good look at me. The dawning came fast. I guessed that I looked far too much like our father. Andrés took after his mother, ashy coloring, a round cherub face, better suited to begging on street corners—but he wasn’t the bastard son.
“Kaden?” I saw his fingers twitch as if to reach for his weapon. “I thought you were dead.”
“I think that was the point. It didn’t turn out that way.”
“I know you have reason to be angry for what he did to you, Kaden, but it’s been years. Father has changed.”
“Sure he has.”
He glanced at my knife, still gripped at my side. “What do you
“Answers. And maybe a bit of blood to pay for all that I’ve lost.”
“How did you know where to find me?”
“Marisol told me,” I answered.
He frowned. “You mean Pauline.”
“I figured you knew.”
“The belly threw me off, but her voice—I met her once. She didn’t remember me. I guess I didn’t make much of an impression, but she made one on me. Is she—”
“She won’t be back,” I said firmly, so he’d know that whatever sights he’d set on Pauline were a thing of the past. “Tell me, Andrés, how is it that you were the only one who didn’t ride with Prince Walther’s platoon the one time they encountered a Vendan brigade?”
His eyes narrowed. “I didn’t ride because I was ill.”
“I don’t recall you as the sickly sort. This happen often, or was it just a coincidence that staying home saved your neck?”
“What are you implying, brother?” he sneered.
“Do I really need to say it?”
“I was ill for a week, mostly delirious. The court physician can confirm it. When I came to, Father said I’d been sick with a fever.”
“You were with him when you fell ill?”
“Yes. I’d had dinner with him and a few cabinet members at his apartments the night before I was to ride out, but as I was leaving, I got dizzy and fell. Father’s servants helped me to bed. I don’t remember much after that. What difference does it make? No one knew what Walther and the others were headed into!”
“Sure, someone knew. And that someone didn’t want his only remaining son going into a massacre that he had planned. I’m guessing the son was happy to play along.”
He drew his sword. “You’re talking treason.”
His eyes were wide and crazed, his voice desperate, and it occurred to me that he might actually be telling the truth. Pauline had said he was grieved by the platoon’s death. If his grief wasn’t real, why else would he come here to mourn every day? I studied him, wondering about some other kind of motivation, but I saw only anguish in his eyes, not deceit.
“Put it away, Andrés. I’d rather not kill you.”
He lowered his sword. “Who are you?” he asked, as if he sensed I was not just his little discarded brother anymore.
“No one you want to know,” I told him. “Who else was there the night you fell ill?”
He thought for a moment, then said that, besides his father, he had also dined with the Chancellor, the Watch Captain, and the court physician.
CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
My parents shared a marriage chamber, but there was a private suite next to the physician’s office for royal family members when they were ill or in need of care. It was the chamber where my mother had given birth to us all. If my father was truly ill, and maybe even if it was a ruse, that was where he would be.
I walked into the outer chamber, my hair tucked into a cap, and my face bowed into a stack of towels piled high in my arms. A flask dangled from my hand. I shuffled forward with indifference, while my feet burned to run. Even my father, no matter how angry with me, would still be raw with Walther’s loss. A glimmer of doubt was all it would take for him to rescind his order. I’d make him listen if I had to hold a blade to his throat and take him hostage.
“I’m here to sponge the king with a tincture ordered by the physician,” I said in a thick Gastineux brogue, sounding like my aunt Bernette when she was angry. The sleepy nurse sitting in a chair by the door perked up.
“But no one—”
“I know, I know,” I grumbled. I swallowed and forced my words out in an annoyed drawl. “No one ever tells us anything until the last minute. Here I was about ready to go home. Maybe I can talk you into doing this? If I were to—”
“No,” she said, thinking the better of it. “I’ve been stuck here for hours. I could use the break.” She glanced at the guard standing by the open door to the inner chamber. “Need his help?”
“Pfft. Ain’t doing much more than his brow. Don’t need help for that.”
She stood with relief and was out the door before I could say anything else.
The inner chamber was dim. As I passed the guard, I asked him to close the door behind me since my arms were full. “Protocol,” I chided when he hesitated.
The door gently shut behind me, and I faced the large bed on the opposite wall. I almost didn’t see my father in it. He was small and sunken, like he was being eaten up whole by pillows and blankets. His eye sockets were shadowed, and the skin thin over his cheekbones. He was someone I didn’t know. I set the towels and flask on a table and stepped closer. He didn’t stir.
He’s dying.
They are killing him.
My pulse raced. The citadelle had already whispered this truth to me. I’d thought it meant everyone but him, not the man who had always been bluster and power—all that I had ever known.
“Father?”
Nothing.
I dropped to his side and took his hand in mine. It was limp and warm. What was wrong with him? I desperately wanted to see him loud and angry in all the ways that Walther had described him, the way he had always been, but not like this.
“Regheena?”
I startled at his weak voice. His eyes remained closed.
“No, Father. Mother is busy elsewhere. It’s Arabella. You must try to listen to me. It’s important that you order Bryn and Regan home immediately. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
He frowned. His eyes slivered open. “Arabella? You’re late. And it’s your wedding day. How will I explain it?”
My throat pinched. A misty fog filled his gaze. “I’m here now, Father.” I lifted his hand to my cheek. “All will be well. I promise.”
“Regheena. Where is my Regheena?” His eyes drifted closed again.
My Regheena. My mother’s name was tender on his lips. Even my name had been spoken with tenderness, a gentle reprimand, not an angry one.
“Father—” But I knew it was no use. He couldn’t issue an order for a drink of water, much less make a demand for Bryn and Regan’s safe return. He had already floated back to his unconscious world. I laid his hand on his chest and pressed my fingers to his neck. His pulse was firm and steady. If it wasn’t a weak heart that had laid him low, what was it?
I stood and went to the bureau, my fingers carelessly running through the mountain of tinctures, syrups, and balms—all remedies I recognized. My mother had given them to me and my brothers many times. I opened the bottles and sniffed. The scents brought back memories of stuffy heads and fevered brows. I rifled through a box of herbs and liniments and then moved on to the bureau drawers. I didn’t even know what I was looking for—an ointment? Liquid? Something that pointed to his true ailment? They are killing him. Or maybe they weren’t treating a simple illness properly. I looked elsewhere in the room, searching behind a mirror, a pedestal that held a tall vase of flowers, in his bedside table, and even slid my hand beneath the mattress, but turned up nothing.
I went to the door of the adjoining physician’s office, pressing my ear to it. When I judged the room to be empty, I gently eased open the door and searched there too, but short of tasting every elixir and waiting to see the effect, I had no way of knowing what may have caused my father’s weak and confused state. Maybe it was his heart. Maybe I had broken it just as the rumors said. I returned to his chamber, and my eyes lit on the box of herbs and liniments again. The physician had always disdained the cook’s kitchen remedies. When Aunt Bernette made tea from rapsi blossoms for Aunt Cloris’s headaches, he would shake his head and smirk. I searched through it again, more carefully this time.
Beneath the other bottles, I found a small vial no bigger than my little finger. It was filled with a golden powder I’d never seen. An herb for the heart the nurse was neglecting to give him? I pulled the cork from the vial, but could detect no herbal scent and began to lift it closer to my nose. No. Don’t. I held it at arm’s length, examining
“Your Highness.”
I spun. The Chancellor stood there in all his glory, his crimson robes flowing, his knuckles glittering, his arrogant tight-lipped smile beaming with triumph. Two guards with drawn swords stood behind him. “How amusing that your note said I should be afraid,” he said, his tone cheerful. “I think, my dear, it is you who should be afraid.”
I glared at him. “Don’t be so sure.” I shrugged off my cloak so my weapons were easier to draw and looked past him to the guards. I didn’t recognize them. Had he changed the guard who kept the citadelle secure? Still, they wore the Royal Guard insignia. “Lay your weapons down,” I told them. “By all that is holy, do not defend this man. He’s a traitor who’s sending my brothers into an ambush. Please—”
“Really, Princess,” the Chancellor said, shaking his head, “I thought groveling was beneath you. We all know who the real traitor is. You’re a declared enemy of the realm. Your blood runs so cold that you killed your own brother—”
“I did not kill him! I—”
“Seize her,” the Chancellor said, stepping aside.
The guards came at me, but instead of running away, I lunged forward, and in a blurred second, one of my arms had hooked the Chancellor’s neck, while the other held a knife to his throat.
“Get back!” I ordered.
The guards paused, swords ready to strike, but they didn’t retreat.
“Step back, you fools!” the Chancellor yelled, feeling the sting of my knife pressing into his flesh.
They backed up cautiously, stopping against the opposite wall.
“That’s better,” I said, then whispered in the Chancellor’s ear, “Now, what were you saying about being afraid?” Though I loved the feel of his racing heart beneath my arm, I heard footsteps pounding down the hallway toward us. More guards had already been alerted, and I probably had only seconds before all my exits would be blocked. I pulled him back with me toward the physician’s door, and when it was only a step behind me, I shoved him so he stumbled forward. I slipped inside the room, barring the door behind me. In seconds the guards were ramming against it, and I heard the Chancellor screaming on the other side to break it down.