The Broken Realm Read online

  Jesse had no control over the Guardians and their intentions, but he could protect the body and soul of Esmerelda Warwick, and that meant keeping her—and himself—from dwelling on matters that had no place.

  The energy in the room shifted. The din of awkward conversation turned to the excitement of anticipation. Easlan James emerged from the room behind the bar with another man, and though Jesse had never seen him before, he knew he was looking upon Joran Rosewood. The Enchanter’s silver hair was thinning in his twilight years, but fell in patchy waves over his matching robes. He was an eyesore, practically glowing against the dingy browns and grays of the Mule. Easlan held him by the arm, and soon, Jesse saw why. Joran leaned heavily upon a walking stick.

  “Anyone who has had the pleasure of visiting Longwood Rush will recognize our friend, Joran Rosewood. Joran was born a man of the Easterlands, but he has lived, and will die, a true Westerlander.”

  The room hummed with reverent respect for the elder man. Jesse wondered what he’d done to earn it. Lord Warwick kept a healer in his keep, but had never paid mind to soothsaying. An imprecise fool’s weapon, he’d said. Jesse had never known a seer, or been privy to their predictions, but it seemed to him that in a world of finite outcomes, one could say almost anything and have a fair chance at the truth.

  “My greatest and truest appreciation to you, Steward James. As Lady Asherley had always valued your loyalty, now I, too, find myself on the proper end of it,” Joran replied. Easlan released his arm and stepped away. Joran faced the gathered men. “There are things you must know, you, who are also among the most loyal of Lady Asherley. The sacrifice she made, for all of us. And though she may hang me later, as she was wont to threaten when I did not tell her what she wished to hear...” The men laughed in understanding. “I will tell you nonetheless. I believe it is what she would wish me to do, in her extended absence, which I assure you, is for the realm and none other.”

  A small figure bumped against Jesse’s side. He whipped his neck around, prepared to chastise the inconsiderate fool, but he recognized one of the worn cloaks from Easlan James’ closet. He leaned down and peered inside it to see two very familiar green eyes.

  “What are you doing here? It isnae safe,” he whispered.

  “You said there could be news from home. News of Ryan,” Esmerelda replied. She kept her head bowed. He didn’t suppose she could see a thing from beneath the massive hood meant for a man twice her size.

  “I was wrong,” Jesse replied. “Seems your father isnae interested in revolution unless it suits himself.”

  “This surprises you?”

  “He wants the aid of others, he’ll need to be ready to provide some when they ask.”

  Esmerelda made a pfft sound. “Did ye not hear? Isnae another man alive been wronged by the crown such as the great Lord Khallum Warwick has.”

  Jesse chuckled under his breath. “Ye do sound like him. Best lower your voice, though. Even in the back of the room.” He pointed. “That’s Lady Blackwood’s seer.”

  “She has a seer?”

  “Aye. He’s made a rather theatrical entrance. Says he has news to share from Lady Blackwood herself.”

  “So he’s seen her? He knows where she is?”

  Jesse tapped his head. “Seen her.”

  Esmerelda clapped a hand over her mouth, laughing.

  He nodded ahead where Joran had stepped upon a stool to be seen. As if anyone could miss him in his silver glory.

  “When Lady Blackwood departed for Termonglen, to the event that has thrown our kingdom into chaos, she did so knowing she would not be returning to the Westerlands or Longwood Rush for a long time. Perhaps ever.”

  Shock rippled through the men. “Lady Asherley would never abandon us!” one called out.

  “She has far from abandoned you,” Joran continued, smiling, as if he’d anticipated and been further empowered by the question. “A fortnight before The Right of Choosing, I came to Lady Blackwood. I came to her with a vision. A terrible vision, of the highborn children of the realm in chains, dragged back to Duncarrow.”

  Men whispered the names Ransom, Pieter.

  “They believe him already,” Esmerelda said.

  “I bade her send her children away before they could meet this fate. And send them she did. She scattered her four babes to the corners of the realm where they could not be poisoned by The Pretender’s cruel grasp.”

  This revelation was met with some skepticism. The men struggled to believe she would send her children away, unprotected, with no way to get news of their fates. But Joran was undeterred. “If you were faced with seeing your children taken or delivering a new fate, a better one, you would do as she did. She was right to do it. All but her eldest yet live. Many of you know how ill Lady Hollyn was before she left her home, and it should come as no shock that the Guardians finally deemed her promise spent. We beseech the Guardian of the Unpromised Future to protect her in death, as her mother did in life.”

  The men repeated the words, solemn. Esmerelda bowed her head lower. Jesse rested a hand on her lower back.

  “The children departed with other children, little ones you all know, from your own towns. Children of Great Families. They are all safe. I have seen them, as only a seer can,” Joran said. “I cannot reveal their whereabouts, as they will not remain secure the more know where to find them.”

  “He’s lying,” Esmerelda said, leaning close to mask her voice. “Gabi isn’t safe at all. Who knows where Emberley and Brandyn are, or the others with them. Does he even know about little Brook Ashenhurst sweeping the floor in the back?”

  Jesse grimaced.

  “But... I tell you now, her son is coming to Greystone Abbey. Where he, her heir, will join with us, and will help reclaim the Westerlands from The Deceiver’s men. Brandyn is on his way to us now. He has left his comfortable life in the Sepulchre to serve his family and this Reach.”

  Easlan James smiled, regarding the men around him with pride. He enjoyed their renewed energy as they cheered the news; news that would not have reached them had he not found the means to deliver. Jesse was happy for him, after years of being relegated to the steward of the forgotten. His moment had arrived where he had something of value to offer his peers other than his stalwart loyalty.

  “And when Brandyn doesn’t show?” Esmerelda murmured. “How will the seer explain that?”

  “Once Lady Asherley could rest soundly in knowing her children were not in danger of The Pretender’s cruelty, she made peace with her own mission. She knew The Pretender would take her, in place of her children, and she was not afraid.” Joran’s hands shook as he looked around, training his eyes across the sea of men. “She was not afraid, for she knew the key to saving this realm could be found only in Duncarrow.”

  “She go to kill the king, then? Seems she forgot to do it before escaping,” a man asked, and others around him laughed.

  Joran didn’t even crack a smile. “There are secrets that can bring upon one a fate worse than death. Your lady of the Westerlands knows this. She left her hearth and home to discover this secret, to weaponize it against this kingless crown. She lost her husband, our beloved Lord Warwick, for standing tall against his many repressions. Can any of you say the same?”

  “He’s a persuasive man,” Esmerelda whispered. “Do you suppose any of what he says is true?”

  “Only he knows,” Jesse replied. His heart raced. Was the truth of Darrick’s fate the secret Asherley Blackwood discovered? If Eoghan knew his brother lived, then neither Ryan nor Darrick were safe.

  Joran rattled a long sigh. “I am old, and I am tired, and I have said what I came to say. All except this, which is most important of all.”

  Joran’s face was deathly serious as he regarded the gathered men, the last stand of the Westerlands. “If Asherley Blackwood fled Duncarrow, we can be certain it is because she obtained what she went there for. Your leader has not abandoned you—she has put in motion a plan that will save you.”

>   * * *

  The moon was the only light on their trip back to Dungarde Keep. They rode in silence until they left the better part of the main road, switching to the path that took them up into the foothills and the keep.

  “I’m sorry about your cousin. That’s no way to learn of her passing on,” Jesse said.

  Esmerelda dropped the hood back. “I didn’t know she was so sick. Aunt Yesenia wrote not so long ago, after she’d gone to Longwood to visit with Uncle Byrne. In her letter she said Hollyn was improving.”

  “It could’ve been a lie. Joran’s words.”

  She shook her head. “No. These men are loyal to the Blackwoods. He may mix his tales in with the truth, but he wouldn’t lie about that. Not to them.” She rolled her head back and inhaled the night air. “I don’t trust the seer, but I can’t help my hope that he isn’t lying about Brandyn. How I’d love to see him again, especially now. He must be so afraid, after what happened to his mother and father.”

  Jesse winced at the thought of yet another pulled into the secret of Esmerelda’s survival. But he would not deny her the comfort of family, should the boy actually show up.

  As they passed into the thicket of trees that would lead to the final stretch to the keep, he found words he’d been meaning to speak to her for hours. “I want your only worry to be caring for the bairn in your womb. So I will tell you this once and hope the words are enough to ease you. Ravenna has no sway over me. She seeks her own refuge, for her own reasons. I cannae deny her that, but it has been only you, and me, for months, and when at last we see Ryan again, it will be you, and him, and the bairn, and none of this will have mattered.”

  Esmerelda turned to him. Her emerald eyes glowed in the moonlight. “Pay me no mind. The bairn has driven me to madness, that’s all.”

  When Jesse didn’t respond immediately, Esmerelda scoffed. “Not going to correct me? Ply me with reassurances?”

  Jesse smiled in the darkness. “I said I would protect ye, Princess, not lie to ye.”

  3

  Drummond’s Cock

  Darrick stretched his legs into a sprint for the last hundred yards. Law paced him and together they ran toward the beckoning white cliffs and that monstrous statue that before he’d only seen from the sea. Carved from an immeasurable amount of stone, Drummond Rutland, Erran’s ancestor, towered over two hundred feet into the sky. It was the largest shrine in the kingdom. Even the vainglorious Lord Quinlanden and his kin did not have a monument so massive.

  Darrick paused at Drummond’s feet—the soles of which were even taller than Darrick—and doubled over to catch his breath. Law was right behind him, decidedly less winded.

  “Better,” Law said. “Quicker. And soon, further.”

  He’d put on weight. It felt strange, foreign, to no longer feel the hard cut of his ribcage when he braced himself. His belly, no longer concave. But other effects lingered. Many of the muscles below his abdomen had atrophied. Willing them back to life had been a feat, one led by the exacting ministrations of Samuel Law twice daily.

  Law handed him the waterskin and Darrick downed a generous gulp. As he opened his eyes again, he witnessed the morning sun breach over the horizon. He once feared this sight. It left an eroding sensation deep in his belly, of dread and resigned despair. The familiar clench seized his bowels, but nothing followed. He was beginning to remember how he’d viewed many things, before they’d all been taken.

  There were worse places to convalesce. It was said Whitecliffe was the most beautiful town in all the Southerlands, and, standing at the top of the miles and miles of jagged alabaster cliffs, the sea lapping upon the glimmering sand, Darrick was willing to wager this truth.

  “They call him Drummond’s Cock,” Law said, leaning his head back to regard the scale of the Rutland ancestor.

  “I can’t tell if that’s a compliment or a slight,” Darrick said. “He is massive.”

  Law smiled. “When a man sees fit to raise something to heights larger than need necessitates, it is said he may be doing so in compensation for an absence elsewhere.”

  Darrick’s mouth parted in a curl of amusement. “Right. And Steward Erran. What does he call it?”

  “I rather think he’s embarrassed by it.”

  “Why not have it removed?”

  Law turned to him. “For the same reason we will restore you to your rightful place as king. There is comfort in tradition for many. Those who sail past may jest about Drummond Rutland and what did or did not dangle betwixt his legs, but it is a beacon of familiarity. A landmark of hope, one might say, in a world ever changing. Even those who claim they would return to a time before the Rhiagains would not raise their hands to see it done.”

  “How hated have we become?”

  “Quite,” Law replied. “Your brother is a less polished replica of your father. He has his cruelty, but not his cunning. Not his head for politics. Even Khain grasped the value of compromise and concession.”

  “My father was an old man by the time we came of age,” Darrick said. He watched the glare of the rising sun glisten off the waves, creating a sea of shimmering dots. It was almost blinding. “He’d already raised two daughters to maturity. He needed us, but had nothing left to give.”

  “He had you, and you had nothing to learn from a man like that,” Law said. “He didn’t foresee a day where it would be Eoghan rising into his place.”

  “You perhaps give him more credit than is deserved.” Darrick took another drink from the skin. “I believe my father had a hand in Eoghan’s betrayal of me. If not directly, then in planting the seed that took root. He could have undone the plans my father laid for the Right of Choosing, but yet, he pushed forth. Had we not already forced our will upon the Reaches with the Epoch of the Accordant? Had we not already taken their ancestors, swept our fist across their beloved histories? We’d made our point. To ask for their children was madness.”

  “You were, of course, right.”

  “Even I did not foresee the degree of chaos that followed.”

  Law clapped a hand on his back. “Well, we are not seers, are we? We are men of reason, who take what we know of the world and apply what wisdom we have to determine expected outcomes. It is enough that you were right. That you would have put a stop to that madness, had it been you ascending the throne. And your future ascension will no doubt curtail future madness Eoghan has devised.”

  “And are we closer to a plan? Has there been word?”

  “Lord Khallum reminds us we have waited five years to see you free, and it will be a sliver of that to see you restored. But our patience will win this. Impulsiveness will sink it. There are many layers, and we are privy to only some.”

  Darrick nodded. He looked away, again, toward the sea. He had no skills to captain a ship capable of sailing north, but perhaps he could chance it. He could put down anchor at Eastport, as his wife had weeks earlier... as his son had. He was a father. Anabella had survived, and she had carried his son in terrible conditions. Had grown him, fostered him, sheltered him from the fate that would’ve awaited him had Assyria not stepped in.

  He’d given up believing she’d deliver. His faith in her had not wavered as much as his faith in her power at Eoghan’s court. When Darrick and Eoghan were born, taking their first breaths as their mother took her last, Khain had demanded his older daughters take the place of the mother and raise them to men. Correen had been assigned Eoghan, and Assyria, Darrick. He’d always known he’d gotten the better deal in that exchange. Assyria was tough but loyal. Strong. Others would have said she had a man’s intelligence, but Darrick did not subscribe to such antiquated views on women. Assyria was capable in her own right, and much of who he had become had happened under her careful but serious nurturing. When she’d come to him that night on the cliff, it was only his fear that had driven him to doubt. Once washed away, his faith in her had been doubly restored. She would do as she promised, if she could.

  If she could.

  But while Darrick l
anguished under the unforgiving heat and dust of the Wastelands, Assyria had fed and protected his wife and son. He would spend a thousand years in the Wastelands to know they were safe. Now, they were free.

  “You’re contemplating the difficulty of commandeering your own ship and sailing north.”

  Darrick laughed. “Was I so transparent?”

  “A Southerlander prefers the view of the land from the sea.” Law slipped the waterskin back in his trousers. “Also, those are the thoughts I would have, were I you.”

  “I know I must be patient. Only I... I never expected to see her again. Now that she is free, and I am free, I struggle against my own iron will to go to her. To take into my arms the son she had held tight for both of us, for five long years. To take from her the incredible burden she’s carried.”

  “I may hold you back from doing so, Prince Darrick, but it is not because I do not understand that desire.”

  “I have not asked you, Law. Are you a married man? Children?”

  “Aye,” Law responded. “One son and four beautiful daughters. They’re all married and starting families of their own. All except my son.” He reached his hand into the soft ground and dug up a handful of dirt. He stood again and then let the dirt seep through his fingers. “We had hope he would’ve wed Lady Esmerelda, Guardians bless her.”

  “Guardians bless her,” Darrick repeated. “What a terrible loss.” He would never betray Ryan’s confidence; that Esmerelda yet lived and awaited him to come to her.

  “A shame about Hamish’s lad,” Law said. “A death sentence, for a lass whose promise is already spent.”

  “He isn’t dead,” Darrick said, more forcefully than intended. “The Guardian of the Unpromised Future will find himself disappointed should he come to collect. We’ll rouse him yet.”