The Broken Realm Read online

“All right. Go on.”

  “When I met you at the cottage, on the outskirts of Warwicktown, ready to run, to hurt those who had hurt me, I was a spoiled, childish girl who was in love with a man I wasn’t supposed to have, and angry at the one who denied me of him. I saw the world through very different eyes then. It feels as if I’m talking of a lifetime ago, when it’s been mere months. But I am not the same. It’s not only this wee one, either.” Esmerelda let one hand fall to rest on her belly. “For all my love of Ryan, which was real and true then as it is now, I did not see him for who he was, and who I was, and how that love was selfish. It was never me who had the most to lose. Never me. Oh, how I reveled in the pity of myself in those early days in exile with you, how much I’d given up for this love, for a world that was unfair to me alone. I was angry with you for how you reduced me to a princess in your mind, never asking myself why you might carry this anger, why it might be yours to feel, to have, to own.”

  “I had some misunderstandings of my own, you know.”

  “We are both made of them, are we not? Like earlier, when I found you at the river. I think I knew what the two of you were doing, and I chose to see it for something else, anyway. I should have left you both alone.”

  “Esmerelda, there is nothing there between us.”

  “You’re a liar. And I’m a silly girl for giving you cause to feel wrong for it. I’m sorry for that. I don’t even understand my own jealousy in the matter, only that it’s been you and me for so long that I didn’t know how to handle another.”

  They were approaching the forest’s edge. Esmerelda brought her mare to a gentle halt. She turned in the saddle and dropped her hood back. “It’s time for me to go home, Jesse.”

  Jesse swallowed. He looked around him, at the darkness of the edge of a dead town, of the beckoning timber line. Of the world he’d brought her to, after what felt like years together.

  “If Ryan survives, he will not know where to find me. No matter what my father does when he finds out what I’ve done, I owe Ryan my courage, not my cowardice. The first face he sees if they let him out should be mine, and then that of his child.”

  Jesse lowered his head. He’d not anticipated her words, and he wondered how long she’d been considering this. But though it was her decision, she was making it without knowing all he did, and while she talked of owing Ryan, it seemed to him that he owed her as well, for she was a part of it, whether she knew it or not.

  How many times had he almost told her? Almost broken the Sacred Vow, for her?

  He would break it now.

  “There’s something you need to know,” Jesse said. “About what Ryan is really doing in the Wastelands.”

  18

  Tempestuous Natures

  The incessant pecking of the bird against the tree at the base of the cave ripped Asherley from the best sleep of her life. At first, she thought it was another Ravenwood. They were the bane of her exile, perched in silent judgment as the long days turned to long nights. Saying nothing. Doing nothing.

  She’d had some of the most wonderful dreams of her life, though they veered dangerously close to actual memories. Playing with the children and Byrne at Wildwood Falls. Standing at the shore with Byrne, toes buried in the cool sand, wondering what lay beyond the horizon. Her mind had found a way to encapsulate the happiest moments of her life, and then play them for her, reminding her of why she had taken this path.

  Asherley groaned as Byrne’s smiling face faded to the sharp icy wind of the Northern Range and the desperate neighs of the restless horses. She tried to shake the remains of her dream off, for there was no good living in the past, but when she attempted to sit, she was rooted in place. Her limbs felt weighted to the cold rock of the cave floor, as if she’d slept days and not hours.

  Her next thought was a question. How long had she slept? It wasn’t only her limbs fighting her. Her head was split open from the throbbing as she tried again to sit, like when she’d consumed too much of her favorite wine. She felt more rested than she had in years, but was overcome also with the terrifying sense she’d missed a great deal while she was out.

  Hobbled steps called her attention to the darker side of the cave. She turned her head. Assyria.

  “They’re gone.”

  Asherley winced through the inexplicable pain, pushing herself forward. “Who? Who is gone?”

  “Would I care if the Dereham and Warwick lads had left? Stefan is gone! With Anabella and the scholar.” Assyria kicked something. It bounced off the cave wall and landed in a thud several feet from where Asherley struggled to rise.

  “It seems we’ve slept through the best part of the morning. They’re probably out hunting. Wyat has been teaching Stefan.”

  Assyria snickered. “No, Lady Blackwood, they are not out hunting. Their bows are gone, yes, but so is everything else. Their bedrolls, their sacks.” Her rush of anger continued as she kicked the boys from their bed and launched into demands of them. “Do neither of you have anything to say? What did you see? What do you know? Did they tell you they were leaving?”

  “We don’t know anything!”

  “Leave them be,” Asherley said. She could sit now, so she bit back the rest of her stiffness and rolled forward, pulling herself to her feet. “Assyria,” she said again, when she saw the princess had Pieter by his neck. “Leave them be.”

  Pieter cried out when Assyria dropped him. “They must know something. Isn’t that important to you? Finding them?”

  Asherley’s head was a whirlwind, mixed together of all she knew and didn’t. It seemed Assyria was right. They’d left. She didn’t even need to ask herself why, for it was obvious to anyone with eyes to see and ears to hear. They’d left to get away from the sparring women and their tempestuous natures. “If I were Anabella... I’d go south. To my husband.” She said it more to herself, but Assyria jumped quickly on her words, storming over.

  “Did you know, then? That they were leaving? Did you help them?”

  Asherley narrowed her eyes. “I know nothing more than you.”

  “Did you even see what I kicked over to you?”

  Asherley looked down. “A bowl. So?”

  “Smell it!”

  Without taking her eyes off Assyria, Asherley knelt down. She met Assyria’s eyes as she brought it to her nose. She inhaled and then sighed with recognition. “A sleeping draught.”

  “Now do you understand? This was planned. They put us to sleep and then slipped away in the night.” Assyria leaned in. The energy radiating off her sent a sickness to Asherley’s belly. This woman was a danger. She’d always been a danger, but this was something else. Something more.

  “They couldn’t have gone far, not yet,” Asherley said. She sounded calm, but her heart caught in the back of her chest from the force of the beats. She put all her focus into proper breathing; into not inciting whatever bloodlust burned so hot in Assyria she could hardly contain it. She didn’t know what had happened to Anabella and the others, but she was certain they didn’t want to be found, and Asherley was slowly coming around to the understanding that the mother and son might be better off without the two women who had decided their fates. “Our plan has changed. We need simply to amend it.”

  “Simply amend it, you say,” Assyria repeated. The bitter disgust rolled off her tongue. The spittle dotted Asherley’s cheeks. “You have no appreciation for the years I spent caring for that woman and child, preparing them for what they would need to do to save all of us. You have no comprehension of all I’ve given up, for this, for them!”

  Asherley reached down in instinct for her sword, but it was propped against the wall. “Perhaps my inability to appreciate this lies in your lack of willingness to explain yourself. To explain why you should care which Rhiagain sits upon the throne, when your standing in this kingdom is the same either way.” The last of her sleep was leaving her and now her own anger burned to the surface. “Or why you needed me to see it done.”

  Assyria laughed. She sounded l
ike those creatures that lived high in the woods beyond Longwood Rush; the ones the children were afraid of. “You pride yourself on knowing so much, being so cunning, and yet you know nothing, do you? You know nothing!” Assyria stepped closer. Asherley backed away, toward the cave entrance and the morning light. From the corner of her eye she saw Assyria’s hand fall upon the hilt of her sword.

  Asherley looked past the princess to see the boys scampering toward the back of the cave. That was good. She didn’t know if she could keep them safe from what was coming. “You cannot wound me with your words, princess. For, you may be a ‘good’ Rhiagain, but you are still a Rhiagain, and who could respect the words of a bloodline that had to steal its throne to rule?”

  Asherley ducked right as she heard the metal release from Assyria’s sheath. She rolled to the side and retrieved her own sword, just in time to feel the princess’ steel connect with the cave above her head.

  “Lady Asherley!” Pieter cried out.

  “Stay back, Pieter! Ransom! This is between us women, right, Assyria?” Asherley wielded her sword with both hands, out to the side, at the ready. It wasn’t The Betrayer, but it would answer to her nonetheless.

  “I’ll send their heads to their fathers before I let you stand in the way of what needs to be done, Lady Blackwood.” Assyria swung her sword, and Asherley met it midair with her own. Assyria pressed down upon her and she stumbled back into the snow.

  “And why must Anabella answer to us? Why can she not decide what is best for her own son?” Asherley grunted as their swords connected again, and then again. She’d forgotten the weight of steel in her hands, which was so much more intense when putting it to use. Men trained for years to do this, and she was already weary of the exchange. She saw the same in Assyria’s eyes, but the fire burned hotter than her exhaustion, and Asherley had to find the same within her or she would lose everything on this mountainside.

  “Anabella is a fool! Darrick is a fool!” Assyria cried. Her hair had come out of her plaits, dancing around her face in haphazard snarls. She looked like a madwoman as she held her sword out to the side once more. “They know nothing of what my father worked against! And he was a fool for not telling his sons what his daughters knew, for now it falls to us, and Correen was never going to be the one to rise up and meet this challenge. Never. It was me, always me.”

  Asherley met her attack once more and pushed their swords down to the side with a groan. Panting, she asked, “Do you know how you sound? Like all those you claim to be against, Assyria! Like you’ve lost your mind! I am not your enemy.”

  “Anyone who does not work to halt the awakening of The Four Sorcerers is my enemy!”

  Asherley’s arm was on fire as their steel connected once more. “What are you talking about? What sorcerers?”

  “My father knew. He knew and tried to stop them,” Assyria said. She swung her sword so hard Asherley lost her footing again. They were too close to the edge. Snow and rock crumbled off the side of the mountainside, disappearing beyond. “He imprisoned two, and then Eoghan, the fool, he gave one to Quinlanden. Now that he’s seen Mortain’s work, he’ll do the same with Oldwin, and when the other two return from hiding, there will be nothing to stop them anymore. No one in this kingdom knows what’s coming. And they won’t, not until it’s too late.”

  “You make no sense.” Asherley went to block another hit when her sword flew from her hand. They both watched it land in a pile of snow, too far for her to reach. She sighed as she looked up to receive the next blow, but Assyria had lowered her sword.

  “Mortain’s submission of the Medvedev. Eoghan’s attempt on Darrick’s life and Eoghan’s ascension to the throne. These are no accidents. The sorcerers have served us only to bide their time, and though they cannot kill us, and we cannot kill them, they can devise our undoing. They have, and they will. Not only Rhiagain. Not only Ravenwood. Not only Medvedev. Not only man.” Assyria inhaled the cold air and then snapped her sword up, pressing the point into Asherley’s neck. “And you thought this was all about who sits upon the throne. You silly, useless woman.”

  A loud caw sounded above them. The Ravenwood spies had become part of the background, but it was so close now she couldn’t help but look up, and as she did, just as the tip of Assyria’s sword pierced her flesh, she could hardly believe what she was seeing.

  The raven dove in and swarmed tight circles around Assyria’s head, confounding her. In the confusion, she dropped the sword and batted her hands around her face to be rid of the strange assault.

  Asherley stumbled to the side just as the raven drove Assyria Rhiagain off the cliff and into the abyss.

  Gasping, Asherley crawled through the heavy snow to the cliff’s edge. She peered into the emptiness of snow and the bottomless chasm, but there was no sign of the princess. Of anything.

  She looked up, searching for the raven that had done this, but in its place was a man.

  “Who are you?” she managed through ragged breaths.

  He answered by raising his hands above his head, and then Asherley was consumed in fresh darkness.

  * * *

  “Go! Run! Faster!” Ransom called behind him. He scrambled through the snow, half running, half climbing, as they pushed up the path away from the cave. “Forget the horses, just go!”

  “Did you see that? Did you see it?” Pieter yelled.

  “We’re next if we don’t get out of here!”

  Pieter cried out, so Ransom turned to retrieve him. Though they were cousins, he hadn’t known Pieter Dereham well at all prior to being imprisoned together, and now even the thought of being without him left him feeling sick in the belly. No one but Pieter could understand all they’d been through, and that bond was for life.

  Pieter smiled gratefully as he took Ransom’s arm. Ransom moved slower now, but he wouldn’t leave without Pieter, even if that meant the strange, aggressive raven came for them next and drove them to the same death as the princess.

  Had that really happened? Ransom had watched in muted horror as Princess Assyria had Lady Asherley on her knees. His father, Lord Warwick, always said that you did not put a sword to a man’s throat if you didnae intend to push it through, and this seemed a universal truth, not belonging only to the Warwicks. He’d decided then he would save Asherley, and was fumbling with an arrow in the quiver when the raven swooped down and changed everything.

  “She’s dead, right? The princess? She must be,” Pieter said, panting as they struggled through the endlessness of the snow. Ransom didn’t understand how Pieter and others lived like this. The Northerlands was covered in the stuff for most of the seasons. It stifled him. Made him long for the briny air of Warwicktown and the burning sand between his fingers.

  “I don’t know. I can’t see how she’d survive that.” Ransom paused, for only a moment. Before, he was certain they’d been on the path, and now he couldn’t see the delineation at all. It was all white, all blinding and terrifying.

  “And Lady Asherley?”

  “I don’t know, Pieter. I don’t know anything more than you.” He turned to look behind him, but there was no one coming. Yet. “We need to find the trail again. I think we’ve lost it.”

  Pieter pointed. “There. That’s the tree where Christian and Aylen stop to take the horses off the wagon. It’s just off the path. They walk them the rest of the way to the cave.”

  “Are you certain?”

  Pieter nodded.

  Ransom groaned through every grueling step. The pass should have been cleared, but there’d been no one traveling in the past days. Anyone coming after them would see their boot prints and know something was amiss, but did it even matter anymore? The others were gone. Princess Assyria dead. Lady Blackwood...

  What had happened to her? Who was that man?

  Lord Dereham would know what to do. But they had to find their way to him before they, too, met their end on this mountain. It would’ve been much easier with the horses, but there was no power in the kingdom that
could make him turn back.

  Pieter pushed on ahead, aimed toward the tree with a new burst of energy. Ransom struggled to keep up. He was exhausted already. The rush of fear was beginning to wear off him, and now he was confronted with the stark understanding that both of their lives were in his hands.

  Pieter had reached the tree. He half hung from a branch, grinning with pride. “Come on! There are pearapples on this one! It’s like the trees in the Wintergarden that bloom and bear fruit all year.” He took one from the tree and sank his teeth in for a generous bite. “See!”

  Ransom smiled through his exhaustion. He was hungry, had been since he’d awakened to the fight between the women, but he’d forgotten it amidst the bedlam. With a bit more energy, he climbed the last of the hill, toward Pieter.

  Pieter moved around to the other side of the tree. Ransom dropped his head, pulling his hood tighter as a fierce wind ripped through the pass.

  “All right, grab one for the road, but no stopping. We gotta move, Pieter. This looks like a fresh storm on the horizon.”

  Pieter didn’t respond.

  Ransom peeled his hood back and looked up.

  Pieter had vanished.

  19

  The Four Sorcerers

  Lisbet had every intention of helping Eavan prepare the morning meal, but that was before. After the exhausting episode Yseult had led her through, she no longer had much of an appetite. She struggled to imagine food ever tasting good again, or the enjoyment of a fresh wind off Icebolt mountain filling her lungs with the air of home. Even if she was wrong, any experience she had from here until the end would be different. Everything about her was changed.

  She tried to sleep, but her mind whirred so fast she nearly fell off the bedroll in a bout of dizziness. Eavan didn’t even ask her what was wrong. She seemed to purposely avoid her, for once deciding she was not entitled to know what was on the mind of another.