The Broken Realm Page 15

  “A common ancestor,” Eoghan whispered. Had his father known this? Why would he not have shared it? Eoghan had been young and not ready to rule, but when his father knew he was dying, he should have prepared him better. The opportunities had been there. He should have conspired in his knowledge, so that Eoghan was not left floundering at the head of a bloodline he knew nothing of. “Do the Ravenwoods know?”

  “If they have paid homage to their own past and protected it, I should think so.”

  “Do we have reason to fear them?”

  “We have reason to leave them upon their perches,” Oldwin said. “Yet, if the wayward bird were to find herself upon our shores, we would maintain our innocence in the matter.”

  “I see,” Eoghan said. A Ravenwood. Here. He’d never seen one with his own eyes. He’d never considered that he might want to. But now, it was all he could consider. All he could think about. A Ravenwood. His bride. Uniting a past to bring it into the future.

  “I am rather glad I cannot read your mind,” Oldwin said.

  “Yes. Be glad of it. For you have given me a gift and you do not even know it!”

  Oldwin’s slithering grin had Eoghan thinking the sorcerer knew exactly the gift he’d given, and Eoghan was again left wondering if he’d shared what he’d shared more for his own greater design than Eoghan’s benefit. But what the man revealed was too valuable to put pause to it, and so he had no choice but to see where it took him.

  As if understanding this very thing, Oldwin said, “You have asked me before of Dain. I have seen more since we last spoke of him. I believe he lives.”

  * * *

  “I swear to you, my father taught me to hunt,” Anabella said, grimacing as her arm trembled at the pull of the bow.

  “You’ll find no doubt with me. I haven’t met a Northerland woman who couldn’t catch her own supper,” Wyat replied. He braced himself behind her, holding the wood just below where her fist shook. “It isn’t your skill in question. Only the body out of practice.”

  Her practice was not the worst of it. Anabella’s waning strength in the sky dungeon had come with more than a wasting frame. She found even lifting the water pail to be too much most days. But each was better than the last, and when she at last came before Darrick once more, she wanted his eyes to behold the Anabella he’d left all those years ago in the Wintergarden, not the one who’d suffered high in the sky dungeon.

  “That’s enough for today,” he said, easing her fingers off the bow when she refused to release it. “I sense your frustration, but it won’t serve you. I see your strength improve daily, even if you do not. You must trust me.”

  Anabella tried not to laugh. “Trust you? I trust very few, Scholar Edevane, and you are among them.”

  “Wyat,” he said softly. “There’s no point in titles here. Not yet. And if you trust me, trust I would not lie to you. You are getting better, and will only continue to. Our bodies are as resilient as our minds, when we set ourselves to the task.”

  “Thank you, Wyat.” She dusted her hands on the apron of her dress. “Can I ask you something? I know, perhaps, it is not prudent for me to ask this, and you are of course welcome to tell me that. But until very recently I thought my life would soon end, and it may still, if we cannot find a way to move forward, so I find myself not wanting to leave questions unasked and words unsaid.”

  Wyat nodded. “Ask me anything.”

  “When Darrick was… when we thought he’d been killed. How did you make it out with your own life? Eoghan knew you were loyal to his brother. You were his best man.”

  Wyat dropped his eyes. He set the bow aside and leaned against the snowy tree. “I should feel shame in what I did, what I had to do, those days after Darrick was taken away. If Assyria hadn’t gotten to me first, I would’ve run, but she did find me, and she told me what she’d done, sending Prince Darrick to the Wastelands. I was astounded. I had not even considered that something like that could happen, that she was capable of it. So I stayed, knowing there must be some task left for me in service to my prince. With my heart in my throat, I swore fealty to Eoghan, though I knew I would die upon my own sword before ever having to prove it in any meaningful way.”

  “There is no shame in the choice you made. You are no ally to anyone dead,” Anabella replied.

  Wyat looked up. “I’m not ashamed. For I knew there was still a way I could serve my prince, my friend, through you. It was never Eoghan who had your meals sent. He’d never known enough about his own court to question that it would have taken a royal order, or the order of one serving the royal court, to feed any prisoner. Even Oldwin was fed upon the prevailing order of his old master, Khain. There was so much Khain could have told his son, and didn’t. At times, I think that was intentional, though I cannot guess why.”

  “It was you who sent our food?”

  “And Assyria, when I left Duncarrow.”

  “What made you leave?”

  “Once I had convinced Eoghan of my loyalty, I returned to the Reliquary. You see, Anabella, a lie cannot be so easily held when it is always present to inspect. I knew the truth of my deeper intentions would eventually be laid bare, and I could not help you or Darrick if I was dead, or imprisoned.”

  Anabella wrapped her shawl tighter. “I was most surprised to see you upon that ship.”

  “Because you thought I was dead?”

  “I thought Eoghan had them all taken from me. Darrick. My father.”

  Wyat smiled. “I visited Steward Weatherford once each year you were gone. More would have drawn attention. But it was enough to ensure he still had the fire within him to go on. I couldn’t tell him about you, but I could be sure of his health, so he would be ready for the day he could witness his daughter returned to life and crowned queen.”

  “I was certain Eoghan had him killed when they took me,” Anabella said, breathless in the fierce wind sweeping over the pass. “I was so relieved when Lady Dereham sent word to us here, that he lived and thrived. Still the best furs around, I imagine.”

  Wyat frowned. “There’s something else you want to ask me, but you’re afraid.”

  “How do you know this?”

  “We are trained to see intentions at the Reliquary. It’s not magic, though some may say it is a form of it,” Wyat answered. “You needn’t fear anything with me, Anabella. I am perhaps the only one here whose loyalties are clear.”

  Anabella sighed. She looked past him, toward the cave, where her life was consumed by the escalating tension between the two women who had conspired to rescue her and her son. Only out here, in the biting cold, could she be free with her thoughts. “It is that very thing that troubles me. I could never be more grateful for what they’ve done for me and Stefan, for all they risked to do it. But I also cannot help but worry.”

  “Because they are ever at odds.”

  Anabella nodded.

  Wyat glanced back toward the cave. “You’re right to worry. I worry as well.”

  Anabella’s heart sank. “I had so hoped you would have more reassuring words on the matter.”

  “I won’t deceive you,” Wyat said. Men of the Reliquary wore their hair close cropped, but his had grown longer in his adventures to rescue her. Its gentle waves were a comfort, just as the void of the mountains beyond were a comfort. Anything that was not a prison was a relief. “I believe they are both well intentioned. But they are not in accord.”

  “I fear for what happens when their disagreements become more.”

  Wyat turned back to her. “You’re going to suggest we leave. You and I.”

  Anabella sighed, looking away, a new shame rolling over her. To abandon those who had risked all for them was the ultimate form of ingratitude, but it was not for herself that these thoughts had taken over, but for Stefan. Little separated him from a role as a prince in exile and one as a pawn to be positioned at will.

  “The men after us will be looking for more than three travelers. Perhaps if we break away…” Anabella was scanda
lized by her own words, but it didn’t slow her from saying them. “If we leave, then even they are safer without us. They argue about what to do with my son, but if he is not here to quibble over, then they can move forth toward whatever ends they had before he was in their hands. Lady Blackwood has an entire Reach to return to. Assyria… well, I confess, I don’t know anything about her. She’s an enigma to me.”

  “She is an enigma to all, even her own blood,” Wyat said. He ran his hands down over his face. A damp sheen lay upon the trail he’d left. “If we were to leave…”

  Anabella’s pulse did a hopeful leap. “I’m not completely mad for the suggestion?”

  “I may be mad for entertaining it,” Wyat said with a long exhale. “But I, too, worry of what brews between them and threatens to boil over. Mostly, for what it may mean for you and Stefan.”

  Anabella stepped closer, dropping her voice even lower. “But where would we go?”

  “Mama!”

  Anabella and Wyat both jumped at Stefan’s voice.

  “What is it, darling?” Anabella welcomed him into her arms as he looked up at her, excited.

  Ransom appeared behind him. “I believe we may have a problem.”

  * * *

  “You told me before you didn’t know whether Dain lived or died,” Eoghan said through gritted teeth. He’d grown increasingly weary of the sorcerer’s parceling of information. How satisfied he looked as he doled out what he chose to share, and when. What to keep close to his bony breast.

  But there was no one else. No one else with his knowledge. Knowledge that was immeasurably valuable to Eoghan.

  “When the treachery of your father’s Lord Chancellor was revealed to us, that Dain had not been killed, I beseeched the Guardians of this kingdom for wisdom, for anything to help Khain understand how we could find him. I debased myself in prayer to higher powers no Rhiagain has ever believed in. For the crown.”

  This entire kingdom believes in them, you fool. Eoghan nodded in impatience.

  “But the magic does not come on command, Your Grace. Though… when one’s mind has spent enough time on a matter, the visions can sometimes follow. As you and I have discussed the fate of your elder brother, I have been fortunate enough as to have been gifted with another sight.”

  Eoghan’s arms lifted his robe to his sides. “And?”

  “I see him in a clearing in a wood. A man still young with life, but graying at the temples. He is waiting for something.”

  Eoghan winced as a wave crested the tall rocks beyond the gravelly courtyard. “How thrillingly vague, Oldwin. That could be anyone. Anywhere.”

  “It was once said that to look into the eyes of little Dain Rhiagain was to look into the eyes of Beyond. I would know these eyes a thousand years from now, just as I know them now. It was, after all, I who condemned them to die, even if the task was not complete. I know you regret that you never knew your brother.”

  “I regret that my father’s Lord Chancellor lacked the spine to do as his king commanded,” Eoghan replied. He leaned his head back so that he could meet the sorcerer’s eyes, no matter how unsettling the effort. “And that you could not have foreseen it and prevented this predicament we now find ourselves enmeshed in.”

  “That is not how magic works,” Oldwin said once more, and Eoghan mimicked him.

  “Yes, yet one more thing I am forced to take your word for, aren’t I? For I know nothing of it myself, and I am at your mercy.”

  Was it Eoghan’s imagination, or was Oldwin suppressing a grin?

  “You have again given me life. I would repay that, in sharing what I know.”

  “Then tell me how it is that a nondescript man in a clearing in the woods is of any use at all to us!”

  “Your Grace, it is the beginning. It is confirmation of what we suspected, and we can find power in that. For we know of him, but he does not know of us. This kingdom is only so big, and even a forest can reveal much. For, there is nowhere in the Northerlands where the ground is not inundated with snow right now, so it cannot be there. The Southerlands is a realm of sand. That eliminates half the kingdom.”

  “We are still looking through the eye of a needle, Oldwin.”

  “For now.”

  “And how can you be sure he doesn’t know of us? Of who he is?”

  “If he knew he was the heir to the kingdom, do you not think he would’ve come to reclaim that?”

  Eoghan twisted his lips. “Unless he does not want it.”

  “He knows nothing,” Oldwin said, his clipped words tinged with a confidence he didn’t further explain. “Your Grace, it’s growing colder and this wind is not hospitable to your constitution.”

  Eoghan tensed under his robe. There were few things more offensive than the reminder of who he was by others. But neither could he deny the dogged chill permeating straight through to his bones, or the ache that might leave him bedridden for days if he didn’t address it. “I have matters to tend to, so we will return to the keep,” he said. “But I must know. They say you have been on these shores since Carrow Rhiagain washed up. That you were with him.”

  Oldwin folded his hands over his robe and nodded.

  “But you cannot be so unique, can you?”

  “I do not understand the question, Your Grace?”

  “If there are two of you, you and Mortain, there must be three. There must be more.”

  “Sorcerers?”

  “I won’t quibble over a name, Oldwin. Whatever you believe you are.”

  Oldwin’s eyes shifted to the left ever briefly. “If any others made it to the kingdom, I am not aware of it.”

  Eoghan was certain the sorcerer had just lied to him.

  * * *

  “Stefan, can you go collect firewood? We’ll need more for tonight,” Anabella asked. She knew now—one of many things she was learning about her son, now that he had been introduced to a world bigger than her and four walls—that he did not respond well to any request of him that led to his exclusion. But to give him a task that proved his usefulness was to win his heart.

  When he was out of sight, Anabella and Wyat turned to Ransom.

  “Both of those women are completely mad.”

  Wyat was the first to speak. “I believe they would both agree with you, and with pride,” he said. “But I assume you’re not here to repeat what we already know.”

  “You’ve heard them. Always arguing. Nay an hour can pass that they aren’t at each other’s throats, clawing for the top. It only gets worse.”

  Wyat and Anabella exchanged a look.

  “That’s nothing new,” she said to Ransom. “Has something happened?”

  “It’s not what has happened, but what will if she isnae stopped.”

  “Assyria,” Wyat whispered, just as Anabella started to ask who.

  “Aye, Assyria,” Ransom said. He spat upon the snow at his feet. “She’s madder than a seabird coated in mine dust. She’ll listen to no one!”

  “Tell us what she’s done.”

  “Not what she’s done, but she will do, if no one stops her, as I said,” Ransom said. He looked at Anabella. “You’d think she’s the mother o’yer son, not you, miss. She’s got her plans for him.”

  “What plans?”

  Ransom threw a glance at the cave. “Unless ye want her to take your son and leave—”

  “Take my son!”

  Wyat steadied Anabella with his hand. “You’re certain? She said this? Said she would do it?”

  “Aye, and nothing stopping her. She willnae listen to the reason of Lady Blackwood, and who else is there? Us? She’s scarier than most men of the Southerlands, and I suspect there’s magic in her, as there is in all Rhiagains.”

  Anabella had seen no signs of magic in Eoghan, or even Darrick, but that didn’t mean Ransom was wrong. Had that not always been both the mystique and the fear surrounding the Rhiagains? How what they knew of them could never match what they did not?

  “We could take him with us,” Anabella w
hispered when Ransom was gone. “Return him to his father, where he belongs.”

  “He won’t be safe in Warwicktown any more than Pieter would be safe in Wulfsgate. They are fugitives of the crown. Even with ours and Warwick’s borders closed, there will be spies. There always are.”

  “Let Lord Warwick decide where he should be. He is his father. He will have places a man can go where no one will find him. Just as Torrin’s Pass has protected Pieter.”

  “I don’t think we’d make it all the way to Warwicktown. Especially if Assyria intends to go there herself. The father and the son, together. She’s said it more than once,” Wyat said. He eyed his bow, still leaning against the tree. “I would not forgive myself if I could not protect you and Stefan.”

  Anabella laid a hand upon his arm. “Wyat. He is my son, and I must protect him, as I have for all his life. But if it eases your heart, there is no one else I would trust to join me. No one but Darrick himself.”

  Wyat paced the patch of snow under the tree, casting furtive glances toward the cave. “There may be a place we can go. But if we do… if we leave, we must ride hard. Hard enough that we’ll be sick from it. Hard enough that, trail or no, there’ll be no catching us.”

  Anabella felt a new hope swell within her. It was bigger than her fear. “Just tell me. Tell me when.”

  He turned to face her. “Tomorrow.”

  * * *

  Eoghan closed his eyes as the iron door swung closed behind him. The sound was satisfying. He knew it would keep any of his enemies at bay when they stretched beyond what could be borne. One, only a cell away, called for him, but it would remain unanswered. He might order the lord’s food intake halved. Not that it would change anything, for any remorse found in suffering was born of circumstance, not truth. There would be no redemption for Aiden Quinlanden, only the potential for future use.

  He stepped lightly over the stones that had never been washed, not in five years or more. Grime coated them, enough that he nearly slipped. He wondered if she had known the right spots to step; the ones to avoid. She must have. The old wooden desk, the one which had not been made level and had never been fixed, rocked as he ran his hands over it, as she once had. He felt the grooves in the soft wood where she had pressed her quill, writing the letters that had sustained him, angered him, immersed him. Ah, to imagine her saying these words to Darrick. He had soiled his nightshift with every read and reread, knowing that it would never again be to Darrick that the words were said and then now it was he, he, the true king, the one who had emerged from hardship to overcome and rule, who was hearing them.