The Queen's Assassin Read online

  Even though they probably know I’m home, I still slip inside the back door of the cottage and tiptoe through the kitchen. It’s almost the middle of the night.

  I climb the stairs to my cozy attic room as quietly as I can, avoiding the seventh step because it creaks loudly enough to wake a bear from hibernation, and finally flop onto my fluffy bed, managing to kick off my boots and nothing else. I’ll regret it in the morning when I have to wash the dirt out of my bedding, but for now, I care about nothing but lying here undisturbed.

  But I can’t ignore what happened today. Visions of Caledon and the grand prince flash in my mind. The prince was trying to kill me! And he was wearing an Aphrasian mask. Did that mean he was a traitor to the crown? I owe Caledon a debt of gratitude I could never repay—and yet, I can’t tell anyone he saved me! Still, guilt pulls at me—what if Caledon is punished for killing the prince? I have to do something. I have to say something.

  The house is unnaturally silent, which means my aunts are listening to my every move. I tense, waiting to hear their footsteps on the staircase, but they never come.

  Finally, I hear them whispering in their bedroom. I try to eavesdrop but I’m too tired to make much of an effort. Besides, the obstruction spell they cast over their room usually keeps me from hearing anything they say in there anyway. I wonder what, if anything, they already know about where I’ve been, and if they think my return means they’ve won our earlier argument. That I’m resigned to give up on the Guild.

  As exhausted as I am, sleep will not come now. The events of the day repeat in my mind over and over again: Caledon Holt; the Grand Prince Alast; the argument about my future that led me to venturing off toward Baer Abbey in the first place. The mysterious pull toward it, the visions from the willow tree . . . I wish I could tell my aunts about all of it, except then I’d have to explain that I’d been to the abbey and admit the danger I was in.

  Despite the flurry of thoughts crowding my mind, at some point I do drift off, because next thing I know, I’m waking up to the sounds of roosters crowing and pots banging downstairs. Aunt Mesha is making her morning oatmeal. My stomach growls. I hope we have molasses for it, and not just honey. And fresh cream.

  I pull a pillow over my head. I’m not sure if my aunts went to bed at all; I hear their voices drift upstairs. They think I’m still sleeping, though—they’re not making much of an effort to cover their words.

  I hear Aunt Mesha say, “We can’t let her—”

  But Aunt Moriah interrupts her. “If she goes anyway, then what would we do? Do you want that?”

  “Is it really our responsibility that she—?”

  “How can you say such a thing? You know that it is!”

  I hear a spoon being stirred angrily against a teacup before being slammed down on the table. “It has been quite a few years since we were her age, but if you recall, little can be done once a young mind is determined . . . Maybe if . . .” Aunt Mesha’s voice trails off.

  I roll over and push myself out of bed. My arms and legs ache something awful from the day before. My neck is stiff; my shoulders hurt. I have tiny scratches all over my hands. I’m afraid to check my reflection. I’m sure I look even worse than I feel. And I’m supposed to go into town today to sell honey too.

  They’re going to ask questions when I go down to the kitchen. I could tell them about the jaguar, I suppose, but not the rest. They’d certainly never believe I accidentally found myself at Baer Abbey, and that I was accidentally attacked, and that it was pure coincidence that Caledon Holt, whom I’ve so openly admired, happened to be there at precisely the right moment. How can I make them believe it was all by chance? They will most certainly think I tracked Caledon down in an attempt to persuade him to take me on as a Guild apprentice. There’s no other reasonable explanation for my actions.

  Avoiding the small mirror on the wall, I peel off my filthy shirt and torn black pants—completely ruined—and attempt to wash up a bit, using what’s left of the clean water I brought up the day before. I comb out my long hair as best I can, removing a few twigs and leaves as I do so, and wrap it in a low bun. That feels better. I pull a clean linen shift over my head and step into a soft brown skirt, then lace my leather bodice over it. Presentable enough. I tie on an apron and slide clogs on my feet.

  My aunts stop talking when they hear me clunking down the wooden staircase. I hear spoons stirring in cups, and an egg crack, then sizzle as it hits the pan.

  “Good morning,” I say, coming through the doorway.

  Neither returns the greeting. My aunts stare at my face before glancing down at my hands. Then they exchange a look with each other. They don’t seem angry. I’m not sure how to read their mood, actually. Worried, for sure. Also frustrated. Perhaps a little sad? They definitely haven’t slept much—both are wearing nightclothes and Aunt Moriah’s hair is still wrapped up. Aunt Mesha has her usual loose braid hanging down her back, the way she wears her hair day and night.

  I go about my morning routine as if nothing has happened, waiting to see if either of them will speak, or if the incident will just blow over and be forgotten. I choose a chipped teacup from the shelf and sprinkle dried herbs inside. My aunts continue to watch me, and I pretend not to notice. I add a generous dose of turmeric to the cup, for the aches. I grab a mitt, pull the kettle off the fire, and fill the cup, then replace the kettle.

  I begin to wonder if I should wait for the tea to steep here or if I should take it outside when Aunt Moriah finally says, “We need to talk, child.”

  Aunt Mesha springs into action, fussing with canisters, opening and closing them as if looking for something. She settles on the honey jar, begins adding dollop after dollop to her bowl of oatmeal. Her hands are shaking.

  I nod before taking a sip of the too-hot, still-watery tea. I don’t want to offer any information or ask any questions that may lead to subjects I don’t have any desire to discuss right now.

  “Mesha? Do you want to . . . ?” Aunt Moriah begins.

  Aunt Mesha slams down the honey spoon. “Oh! Absolutely not, and you know that very well.”

  “What is going on?” I ask. Their behavior is starting to alarm me. I can sense this is about more than where I disappeared to yesterday.

  “Well . . . ,” Aunt Moriah says.

  Aunt Mesha bursts into tears. “I just don’t understand how this all happened so fast!”

  “Calm down, Mesha. You’re scaring her.”

  “Honestly, yes, you both are,” I say. Something terrible occurs to me. Are they marrying me off? Some of the tea splashes from the cup. I put it down on the table and wipe my hand on my skirt.

  Mesha wipes her face with her apron. “We received this today, a letter from your mother and orders from the palace. You are to take your place by your mother’s side at court.”

  I read my mother’s short note and the official document.

  TO MAIDEN SHADOW OF THE HONEY GLADE, NIR,

  IN THE KINGDOM OF RENOVIA

  HRM Lilianna, Queen Regent of Renovia,

  requires your presence at the court of Violla Ruza

  I wanted my mother to call for me, but not like this. I had told her as much during her last visit. I had told her to send me to the Guild. I know I’ve been spirited at times, but over the years I’ve been a compliant daughter, always willing to listen and learn, and this is how I’m treated on the cusp of adulthood—with complete disregard for my own wishes? I am eighteen years old. I am old enough to marry, to have a life of my own.

  Then it occurs to me: That is exactly why this is happening now.

  And I cannot defy orders from the queen.

  “We are so proud of you,” says Aunt Mesha.

  “Your mother is so proud of you,” says Aunt Moriah.

  I’m sure they think it’s a wonderful honor to accompany my mother at court. Every little girl’s dream. Except I’m
not a little girl. And going to court has never been my dream. I long for dangerous assignments, to be out in the field, to be a spy just as she was when she was my age. But my mother wouldn’t know that, because she’s always been more concerned with living her life at court than getting to know her only daughter.

  “But I don’t want to go,” I say.

  “You’re not leaving yet. Your mother says we have a week to prepare,” says Aunt Mesha.

  Aunt Moriah puts her arms around her wife and turns to me. “Let’s not talk about it any more. Shadow, darling, go outside and check on the mint plants, would you? I’m worried those pests got to them during the night again.”

  I grab my hot tea and walk out the kitchen door toward the back garden. The mint is fine, of course. They simply want privacy so they can talk about me. I take a seat on our old stone bench and blow on my tea to cool it off while I think about the summons, as well as what happened last night. I still don’t know what to make of it—or what to do about it.

  Summoned to the palace. Certainly the girls in town, always copying the nobility’s latest hairstyles and necklines—they wouldn’t hesitate for a second. They’d think me a fool for even questioning it. Admittedly some small part of me would revel in seeing their expressions when the honey girl turns into a courtier. But the amusement would be brief.

  I’m meant for so much more. Now I know some things even my mother doesn’t know, that the Guild doesn’t know. There are still secrets at Baer Abbey. The Aphrasians are not as weak and scattered as believed. Though Caledon is guilty of killing the grand prince, he is not a murderer, but a hero. He saved my life. The court needs to know. The queen needs to know.

  And suddenly it occurs to me that it’s not such a terrible thing that I have been called to Violla Ruza.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Caledon

  THE RUMBLE OF HOOFBEATS ALONG with the jangle of the royal equines’ riding bells rustles Cal from a deep sleep. His head is throbbing, his mouth bone-dry. He licks his cracked lips but it doesn’t help much.

  Three sharp knocks at the door. He doesn’t answer. More knocks. He groans. The knocking becomes banging. “Persistent this morning, aren’t we?” he finally yells toward the door. Then he sits up, aching, shoulders and neck stiff and sore, and forces himself out of bed. He’s still wearing his clothes from the night before, dirty boots and all.

  The abbey ruins, the skirmish with the monks, the shock at uncovering the traitor’s true identity, the strange girl whose life he saved, everything rushes back to him. Worse, the sunlight glaring through the front window means he slept much later than he meant to.

  When he opens the door of the smithy, a baby-faced page—can’t be older than twelve, if that—hands him a scroll sealed with the royal mark of Renovia. Cal croaks out a rough thank-you. Without speaking, the boy bows curtly and returns to the carriage waiting on the cobbled street.

  After locking both bolts on the door, he crosses the room to the wooden stool in front of the hearth. It’s his favorite place to sit and reflect, usually while stirring something hearty over the fire. His best work has been plotted here. Last year he’d had the idea to impersonate a cook in order to infiltrate the estate of an Aphrasian sympathizer in Stavin—that one was almost too easy—with direct access to the entire food supply, no less. And just this past summer he mastered an Argonian accent and memorized full monologues in order to get close to another would-be usurper by starring in his most beloved play.

  He slits the scroll open with his knife and unrolls it.

  HRM Lilianna, Queen Regent of Renovia, requires your immediate presence at court

  Short, but not sweet by any means. It is stamped and signed in ink by Queen Lilianna herself. Cal curses at the late hour. He meant to get there at first light, to be the one to tell the queen what happened at the abbey. But after battling a number of renegade monks, saving the girl, and killing the grand prince, he had collapsed in his bed the minute he returned. Now he has no idea what story she’s been told by the soldiers who’d come upon the aftermath. He had been surprised to discover the queen’s royal guard so far from the palace, but he appreciated their help in rooting out the remaining Aphrasians in the area.

  Cal had gone out to Baer yesterday just to rule out a hunch. He didn’t want to get his hopes up, but he felt like maybe—maybe—it could lead to the fulfillment of his obligation to the queen. Maybe he would find the scrolls hidden away in one of the hills behind the abbey.

  The scrolls are the center of his existence. He will fulfill his father’s pledge even if it means his life. Until then, this is the only life that he knows, and he will not rest until the scrolls are found and returned to the queen.

  Except sometimes he and the queen do not agree on the best way to search for them. Cal leans forward with his elbows on his knees, rests his face in his hands. How will he account for last night? He’d explicitly ignored the queen’s orders by going to the abbey. He was supposed to be on his way to Montrice by then. Yet while he was gambling with privateers in an Argonian shipyard last week, they’d mentioned a Renovian fisherman who purchased a small shipping vessel to move river freight, which immediately reminded him of the river running beneath the Baer Hills. Which is why he decided to follow his hunch and head out to the abbey instead. It’s a good thing he did, too, or that girl would be dead right now.

  He imagines talking to the queen this afternoon: “Well, Your Majesty, the bad news is, the Aphrasian insurgency is alive and well. The worse news is that your brother-in-law, the grand prince, is part of it! The good news is, I caught him. The bad news is, I slew him before I knew who he was. In my defense, he was dressed like a rebel and was about to stab an innocent girl.”

  The queen is most certainly aware of that fact, though. About the grand prince’s murder, not the girl. Why was Alast going after that girl anyway? He can’t fathom why she was wandering around that old battlefield. Most of the villagers steer clear of it, believing it cursed.

  But he doesn’t have time right now to dwell on who she was or what she was doing there. He’ll have to come back to her later.

  Cal gets up and paces in front of the fireplace, considering the situation. The crown’s network of spies have known for a while that the Aphrasian sect is on the rise again. Reports are that they’re gathering strength, waiting for the right moment to strike and take down the queen, who only rules as regent after all, in order to replace her and Esban’s daughter with what they believe is their pure magical bloodline.

  However, the Renovians have no idea where the rebel monks are based—some say they operate out of a tavern in the capital city. Others are certain it’s a farm in rural Argonia or somewhere in Stavin. The queen is convinced they are being funded by Montrice, that her former home is conspiring against her. While the two countries are supposed to be at peace, Montrice has sent an unusually large number of soldiers to the border. Many Renovians fear invasion is coming.

  Cal had a different theory about where the Aphrasians might be.

  What better place for the resurrected Aphrasian rebellion to assemble than Baer Abbey itself? Everyone assumes it’s empty, since its consecrated grounds are soiled and the structure itself destroyed. But the castle is equipped to store years’ worth of provisions deep within its labyrinthine vaults. Plus it’s unlikely anyone would happen upon it, and the few who live in the town of Baer are unfriendly to strangers, and that’s before the dangerous trek through the woods to reach the abbey’s gates.

  He became convinced the monks had simply taken up residence in their old quarters, but he didn’t tell anyone he intended to explore the abbey, least of all the queen. Better to keep his mouth shut entirely and avoid any possibility of that information spreading around. People at court love to talk, and there is a complicated system in place that barters in petty secrets and nepotism. Cal loathes court life and does his best to avoid it.

  Of cours
e, before the search for the scrolls, Cal has a more immediate concern: Will he be rewarded or punished for killing Grand Prince Alast? Cal doesn’t know what the queen will do. He’s been at her service, officially, only a few years. She trusts him, but he wonders who else may have her ear, and whether they worked for the grand prince. Someone could already be refuting his story for all he knows, or spinning some other kind of tale—that he framed Alast in order to benefit himself; that he is actually the secret Aphrasian monk—it could be anything.

  If the grand prince was involved with the Aphrasians, anyone at court might be. The man has—had—an impeccable reputation. He was well-respected. Trusted. Beloved even. A hero. He had avenged Esban’s death. There wasn’t even a hint that he was the filthy traitor in their midst. By any account he was fiercely loyal to the queen and his niece, dedicated to Renovia. If you’d told Cal yesterday that he’d be killing the grand prince by nightfall, he’d have laughed.

  Cal scans his memory, trying to recall anything he’d overlooked before: a conversation, strange behavior from anyone at court—did he ever notice Alast whispering with another courtier during a dinner party or disappearing at a royal event?—anything that would shed light on the prince’s role within the Aphrasian order? Or anything Cal himself might have said that could be twisted, used against him by enemies? He can think of nothing. No one has acted out of character. Which means little.

  A terrible thought comes to him: What if Alast had been in the process of fulfilling a secret assignment for the queen—what if the farm girl was actually a spy? And Cal, playing the hero, had killed him in the process.

  He gets up and begins pacing. Crumples the summons in his fist. Throws it in the fireplace. What’s done is done, he tells himself. He can’t go back. There’s no way to fix it. His stomach clenches and his headache turns sharper, slicing through his left temple like a knife. When’s the last time he had something to eat or drink? He begins to pour what remains of yesterday’s drinking water into a mug, then decides to finish it off straight from the clay pitcher instead. He grabs a chunk of stale bread and shoves it in his mouth. The chewy texture feels good in his jaw, gives his aggravation a physical release.