The Broken Realm Read online

  Asherley’s escape had been supplanted by yet another event that stirred the busybodies into a frenzy. This one was a hit closer to home, but not for the reasons others must have assumed.

  Assana approached the rear of the keep and started the long, winding climb up the crumbling stairs. Every few steps the stone had decayed away altogether, and if one wasn’t attentive they might find themselves careening through the gaps to their death. Assana was aware of everything, in a place where it all meant her harm, so she nimbly lifted her skirts and stretched her legs to dodge the holes where the stairs should be.

  No one ventured here without proper business. That didn’t mean the guards had questions for her. They seemed surprised, perhaps even relieved, to lay eyes on someone who was not one of them. Visitors were not a common occurrence.

  “Lady Assana,” one said, nodding. He and the other guard scrambled to their feet. He didn’t address her as queen. As Eoghan had said, so many times now that it no longer bothered her, she was not a queen. Only a woman bearing Rhiagain blood could be a queen, and even a Rhiagain queen would never be regent.

  She didn’t nod in return. She still had some of her dwindling dignity left. She was still a Quinlanden. Still among the fairest of all families, in all the Reaches.

  They knew who she’d come to see. They, who all had her defined, fitting neatly in the boxes designed, assumed they knew everything about her. That there could be no greater depth beyond the turbulent waters at the surface of her bearing.

  Not that they were wrong, but it was two, not one, she’d come for.

  But first.

  One of the guards paused outside the cell. “I can’t let you in, Lady Assana. Not without the king’s authorization.”

  “I have no wish to go in,” she snapped back. “Merely open the window where you pass his dinners.”

  “That I can oblige. With pleasure, my lady.” The guard fumbled with the massive ring of keys, sweating through the effort. She sighed, loudly and forcefully enough for him to understand where it was directed.

  He found the proper key at last and slid it into the lock. Pulling back the small metal window, he said to her, “You let me know if he gives you any trouble.”

  Assana rolled her eyes at his soft, rotund belly and layers of hard-earned jowls. Only at night did the guards bring in the tougher men, because no one dared attempt an escape in the daytime. “And what would you do, if he did?”

  The guard’s face fell. “Just the same, my lady.”

  She almost felt bad. But he was surely no different than the others, who whispered behind her back, who had reduced her to the worst of herself as well. She would take what little power she still possessed, even if it came at a cost to others.

  Assana approached the makeshift window separating prisoner from freedom. The man on the bed across the room looked up, and, Guardians bless him, the hope in his face almost brought her joy. Had he only been someone else; someone she loved, and who loved her in return, she would’ve reveled in knowing she was doing good. But she had not come to intervene on his behalf. She wouldn’t, even if she had that power.

  “Assana! Oh, thank the Guardians!” he cried out, reaching for her through the window. She stepped back, beyond his reach, never taking her eyes off him. “My blessed child!”

  “Father.” Assana ground her jaw.

  Aiden brightened with relief. “Oh, I knew you would come. You’ve at last talked sense into your husband, the king. I had no doubt.”

  “I’ve done no such thing,” Assana said. “Had I tried, they would’ve been words wasted upon the air.”

  Aiden’s face lost some of its unbridled enthusiasm. “You have not come to release me?”

  “No.”

  “I don’t understand your hostility toward me, Assana.” Aiden dropped his hands to the small ledge at the base of the window. “I made you a queen.”

  Assana laughed. “I am no queen. And you know this, for he told you so himself, in front of all the court, before throwing you in here.”

  “He was heated at the betrayal of your cursed aunt.” Aiden’s cheeks flooded with dark red anger. “Asherley will pay a heavy toll for what she’s done.”

  “You already took the head of her husband,” Assana replied.

  Aiden ignored her. “The king has calmed by now, surely. Weeks have passed. No man has a temper that long.”

  “You perhaps do not know King Eoghan as well as you thought,” she said. Assana took a single step closer, staying clear of the reach of his hands. “You will die in here, Father. Not because he is angry at Aunt Asherley. But because he is afraid of you. You brought him Rowanwen, and then the Westerlands, but though he is young, he is no fool. He knew those gifts were not for him.”

  “Reckless girl,” Aiden hissed. “Are these the things you whisper in his ear, in the bedroom?”

  “In the bedroom, he prefers the ministrations of a mother’s touch, I’m afraid. I’m surprised your own spies did not uncover this... proclivity of his. You would’ve done better to send my mother in my place.”

  Aiden pressed his forehead to the small gap. “You will find a way to reach him, Assana. You’ll find a way to appeal to his better sense, to remind him of all I’ve done, and will do. Or I will have you cast into the sea, like Eoghan cast Darrick, years ago.”

  Assana sighed. It turned into a yawn. “I have to go. I have a more pressing matter.”

  “Go? What could be more pressing than aiding your father through this terrible misunderstanding? We have not done all these things to see it end in the sky dungeon of Duncarrow!”

  Assana whistled at the guard. He hobbled over, set to the tune of the clinking keys as he again fumbled for the right one.

  “Assana!” Aiden called, as the window closed. “Assana, do not forget who you are!”

  “I haven’t, Father,” Assana whispered and beckoned the guard to follow her farther down the corridor, to the end. There was but one cell past the bend of the tower, and if rumors were true, it had not been opened in many years.

  “That one?” The guard hesitated. He seemed almost scared. “Have you perhaps the wrong cell?”

  “Is this not the cell of Oldwin the Sorcerer?”

  “Yes, but—”

  Assana silenced him with a hard look. “Open it.”

  Tainted Blood and Barbed Tongues

  1

  Torrin’s Pass

  Christian loaded the last of the crates into the wagon. Aylen was only half a beat behind, stretching and snapping the canvas over the top. He helped her secure the rope ties, and within moments, the contents of the wagon vanished under the dark cover. A fresh layer of snow dotted the top, further sealing their efforts.

  “Is it enough, do you think?” Aylen asked. She crossed her arms, regarding their work with a troubled frown.

  “It has to be. We can’t risk making weekly trips.”

  “The bows will be an improvement from the swords. The scholar will know how to hunt. And Pieter is old enough that your father must have provided some training, right?”

  “I think you underestimate the women in that camp,” Christian said with a short laugh. “But you’re right. You can’t hunt with a sword in the Northerlands. They’ll eat better with the proper tools.”

  “Have you seen anything? Any visions?”

  “No,” he said. “Not about that. My gift has been inexplicably quiet lately.”

  Aylen frowned. “I put some toys in this time. They aren’t much, but...” She sighed. “He’s just a boy. He’s never had anything of his own. I know these aren’t essential to survival, but in a way, perhaps, they are.”

  Christian kissed her on her temple. “You were right to put them in. His mother will appreciate that most of all. No one is more aware than she is of what he’s been denied.”

  “It doesn’t seem possible, Christian. All these years, and no one knew they were there? Not a single person tried to help them?”

  “Maybe they did and were punished for
it.”

  “Do you think...” Aylen turned her head away. “Lord and Lady Dereham knew about Darrick and Anabella. We read the scrolls. Their entire courtship happened here, at Wulfsgate. Your mother even advised Anabella on the matter. Isn’t it also possible they knew of their marriage?”

  Christian had wondered this, too, but there was no good to be found in losing oneself in speculation. His parents had nothing to do with Anabella’s kidnapping. They were as shocked as anyone to learn that she lived, that she had a son with the rightful king. “I don’t think they knew of the wedding, or they would’ve had a weapon against Eoghan long ago. Even after reading Anabella’s words, though I believe her, none of it seems real. Steward Weatherford thought his daughter had been lost in a storm, like so many others of the Northerlands. There was no reason to suspect something more sinister.”

  “I suppose you’re right.” Aylen pulled her fur hood back over her face when the wind kicked up. “The kingdom will not take well to this news. To what Eoghan did.”

  “No,” Christian said. Ahead, he saw his father, on Sorcha, returning from a patrol. Alric lingered behind on his smaller pony. “Though we will trust to our betters to decide when and how that news is to be spread.”

  “Has Lord Dereham given any indication? Any at all?”

  Christian didn’t answer. He didn’t have one. Much had changed since he’d been a boy, running around the Wintergarden, chasing after his younger siblings. Though, perhaps it had not changed, so much as he’d been too young to realize the wisdom in Wulfsgate had even then rested with the lady, and not the lord. It would be his mother who decided what to do next, and while she was cunning enough to make her husband believe the idea was his if she wanted to, there was a crushing cruelty in her, and that, too, had been a surprise.

  He eyed the cart. This run included less food than the past one. They had to make room for fresh clothing, blankets, furs to withstand the cold weather. There were bows and knives, for hunting and dressing. There had also been a request for vellum and ink, though this left him anxious. They wanted, they said, to send them back with letters. There was risk in this, as well, but Christian found he couldn’t deny either the writer or the receiver of these letters. To be safe, he’d run it by his father, who’d rightly reminded him that those taking refuge in the cave were not their prisoners.

  It didn’t ease Christian’s fears, though. If they were discovered, it would bring the entire kingdom down around them. It would bring war to the Northerlands.

  Christian and Aylen had taken on the responsibility for these trips. They told others that Aylen’s father was ill, and there was need for the two to cross the pass to tend to him intermittently. It wasn’t necessary to cross Torrin’s Pass to reach Witchwood Cross, so they claimed to be picking up furs from Steward Weatherford in Whitecap along the way. And they did both. They would stop in Whitecap and pile the furs into the now-empty wagon, and then continue on, crossing the pass at the northern end, to dip into Witchwood Cross for a visit with Aylen’s father, Steward Wynter. Yet it seemed that, by the time they returned home, it was already time to make the trek once more. Exhaustion had begun to set in, and Christian forced himself to disregard it.

  Lord Dereham approached, his mare’s hooves crunching through layers of snow from past storms. Only in springtide would some of it melt away, revealing the crushed green of the ground. “All ready, then?”

  “It would seem so,” Christian answered. His eyes traveled to his uncle, Alric, who was slower to join them. He rode a pony, he said, because he’d been atop a horse when that bear, years before, had dragged him from his mount and taken him away to be feasted upon. The horse had run off. A pony, he claimed, would have no such disloyalty.

  This was one thing that had not changed at all. Alric had always seemed to exist in another realm altogether, in body and thought. He made a strange match with the spirited Earwyn, and their only son, Balfour, had been sent to Oldcastle, to university, before he was old enough to say the word. Christian heard his mother say that this had been Earwyn’s doing, so that the son did not become the father.

  “You have the weapons? It will mean less exposure for you. For them.”

  “We do.”

  “Good.” Holden squinted his eyes against the sun penetrating through the hazy sky. “Don’t linger in Witchwood Cross. Your mother has a feeling news is imminent.”

  “Lady Gretchen has always had keen instincts,” Aylen said, and Christian wondered if it was only he who noticed his father flinch.

  Alric at last pulled up on his pony. He settled to a stop, lingering just behind Holden. “Do not forget, the veil is thin in the pass. If you are not paying the air around you fair mind when you approach the pearapple tree, you might step through.”

  Christian and Aylen exchanged a look. Holden closed his eyes, his patience spent before he could conjure it, as it often was with his only living brother.

  “I’ve told you not to waste your breath on nonsense about veils.”

  “You wouldn’t be so cross with me if you’d stepped through, to Beyond. If you’d returned with me, when I asked, so I could show you.”

  Holden’s face blossomed into red fury. He balled his fists tighter around Sorcha’s reins. Many who knew Lord Dereham said he led with emotion, but Christian wondered if any of them had witnessed the tremendous restraint he employed where his brother was concerned. Alric had always been different. Christian could not recall a time where his uncle seemed normal. But there were few things that marked him quite so much as his claim to have been to The World Beyond the Sea, that indefinable realm or realms that existed beyond the shores of the kingdom. What made it worst of all was that Alric believed his claim, and this magnified his already legendary lunacy.

  “More like to come cross a snowbeast,” Holden muttered.

  Aylen stepped forward and rested a hand upon Alric’s forearm. “We will practice utmost caution, Sir Alric.”

  Alric dropped his head, smiled. “You put an old man’s mind at ease, Lady Aylen.”

  * * *

  The trek out of Wulfsgate was no simple affair. Since news landed of Lord Quinlanden’s betrayal, and the escape of Lady Asherley from Duncarrow, the town existed in a perpetual state of restless anticipation. Lord Dereham had barred all entrances and exits from Wulfsgate except the southern one, and that one was heavily manned, some travelers waiting days to come in, or out. Aylen felt an especial guilt that they were guided to the front of the line, ahead of some who had been waiting many ticks of the sun. If those hiding in the caves were not counting on them for survival, she would have refused the special treatment, subjecting herself to the same treatment as all the others.

  She’d never known any town of the north to be so fortified. There were always guards, of course. But under normal occasion, only enough to maintain the gates, to watch over the keep. In the past month, all men, and boys old enough to wield a sword, had gone to carrying them. Farmers had been mobilized to soldiers. Even a visit to the market was tense and wrought with worry.

  Wulfsgate was not unique. Holden had called upon the stewards of all Great Families to follow his lead or risk conquer from The Deceiver—what they’d all taken to calling Aiden Quinlanden after his cowardly seizure of the Westerlands by murdering Lord Byrne under the cover of night. It was evident, he’d said, that the king was in support of The Deceiver’s actions and thus no one was safe. They could only rely on themselves to protect what was theirs.

  Aiden’s men had not come. The last word of him was that he’d sailed to Duncarrow to present his gift of the Westerlands to the king. He’d been there since, plotting, spurring even more terrified rumors of a coming onslaught. Between Lord Quinlanden and King Eoghan, they had armies large enough to subdue the Northerlands and Southerlands without significant effort. Aylen didn’t know what they were waiting for, but she was grateful for each day that the Reach had the opportunity to strengthen their skills in battle. Blacksmiths, armors, and bowyers worked by mo
onlight to supply the endless demand.

  You could not ride more than a hundred feet without seeing men of all ages practicing their swordplay in the snowbanks. Fathers, teaching sons. Old men, handling steel for the first time in many years. Women, too. In the Northerlands, toughness was not reserved only for men. Aylen herself had no fear of her sword, Witchwind, and had skill to spare.

  She wished she could tell them what they would soon be fighting for. That Darrick Rhiagain yet lived. And what was more, he had a son.

  But to protect Darrick and Stefan, there was no choice but to preserve these secrets to the hearts of the few sworn to safeguard them. It seemed especially unfair to keep father from son and wife, but within Darrick and Stefan existed two distinct weapons against the usurper king. Holding them at opposite ends of the kingdom did more than preserve their lives. It preserved the future of the entire realm.

  Torrin’s Pass was one of the only navigable paths across the long stretch of the Northerland Range. The uneven road was treacherous for anyone unfamiliar with its steep inclines and sharp switches, and even, sometimes, for those who were. But when they’d all huddled by the fire in the keep, whispering their plan, Aylen hadn’t hesitated to raise her hand when this assignment was presented. Someone had to take the risks, and she was the only healer, and more importantly, was properly authorized to perform this gift. As part of their banishment from the Sepulchre, she was given permission to heal, in service. We came here to serve, she told Christian. Only the Guardians know what they’ve been through. What injuries may have befallen them on their way to safety.

  This was their second trip through the mountains to visit the refugees. When they’d departed for the first trip—the day after the messenger brought news of those convening in the cave—Gretchen had thrown herself at Holden’s feet and begged to go see her Pieter. It was a terrible thing to witness. Holden had reminded her that she had no business in Witchwood Cross, and her joining them would only draw unneeded attention. She’d relented, but Aylen saw the slow death begin behind her eyes and so, later, she’d gone to Gretchen’s chambers and asked what she could bring on her behalf, for Pieter.