I met Allenach at the doors of the hall, just before breakfast. He had been waiting for me, leather gloves on his hands, a fur-lined cloak knotted at his collar. I was wearing a Maevan dress that he had provided—a red woolen gown that fit comfortably close to the body, a dress for exploring and riding, with white, billowy sleeves—and a warm cloak and leather boots so fresh they still creaked.
I raised my brows when I saw him. Did he truly desire me to tell him my answer outside the hall?
“I want to take you somewhere,” he said before I could utter anything. “We can break our fast afterward.”
I nodded and let him escort me out to the courtyard, worried as I wondered why he wanted to draw me away from the safety of the castle. Two horses were already tacked, waiting for us. Allenach mounted his chestnut stallion while I took the dapple mare, and I followed him, cantering up a mountain that lay to the east of his lands. The fog was slowly burning away, minute by minute, as we continued to ride higher, the air becoming sweet and sharp.
The cold had sunk into my bones by the time he came to a stop. My mare eased to a halt beside his stallion, and I watched as the fog receded, brushed by the wind, leaving the two of us behind on a great summit. If I had thought the view from the castle parapet was breathtaking, this changed my mind.
The lands of Allenach stretched down before us, hillocks and streams and forests, green and blue and umber, docile patches mixed with wild meadows. My eyes soaked it in, this bewitching land. This loam was in my blood, and I felt it, felt it tug and pull along my heart.
I had to close my eyes.
“This is your home, Brienna,” he said, his voice rasping, as if he had not slept last night either. “Anything you want, I can give you.”
Land. Family. A Crown.
My eyes opened once more. I could see Damhan below, a smudge of dark stones, the smoke rising up from her chimneys.
“What of your sons?” I asked, finally taking my gaze from the beauty to look at him.
“My sons will have their portion of inheritance.” The horse shifted beneath him, pawing the earth. Allenach looked at me, the wind playing with his loose, dark hair. “I have waited for you a long time, Brienna.”
I looked back to the sprawling land, as if my answer lay hidden in her streams and shadows. I had set my mind, determined my course. I had gone to Cartier at dawn to tell him my choice, to spin together a final plan with him. Even so, I was astounded by how doubt still set a crater in my heart.
But I rested my eyes upon him, the lord who was my father, and I said, “I choose you, Father. I choose the House of Allenach. Set me upon the throne.”
Allenach smiled, a slow warm smile that made him look ten years younger. He was thrilled, his eyes praising me as if I had no faults, as if I were already his queen rather than his long-lost daughter.
“I am pleased, Brienna. Let us return to the castle. I want to show you the Canon.” He was turning his horse around when I stopped him with my voice.
“Perhaps, Father, we can plan to look at the Canon tonight, after dinner?”
He paused, glancing over his shoulder at me. “Tonight?”
“Yes,” I said, forcing a smile to the corners of my mouth. “You have the Valenians here, remember? I can wait until tonight.”
He contemplated my words. I prayed he would take the bait.
“Very well,” he finally conceded, then inclined his head in invitation for me to follow him back.
I was heartsick and sore by the time we clattered into the courtyard. I dismounted with as much grace as my tight legs would allow and took Allenach’s hand, letting him guide me to the hall.
Breakfast was still thriving when we entered, the warmth like a tingling balm to my frozen hands. I noticed that Rian was nowhere to be seen, that his chair was empty. And Allenach took me to it, giving me the seat at his right hand.
“Good morning, Sister,” Sean greeted, his eyes suddenly wary of me, like he couldn’t believe this was happening.
“Good morning, Brother,” I returned just as our father took the chair between us.
I made myself take three swallows of porridge before I found Cartier in the thinning crowd. He was looking my way with heavy-lidded eyes, as if he was bored, but he was intently waiting.
Discreetly, I stroked my collar.
He returned the motion, the air shimmering between us, like a cord made of magic was strung from me to him.
There was no going back from this.
I waited until dinner was nearly over, the hall buzzing with stories, ale, and music. I had forced myself to eat until my stomach wound into a tight knot. Only then I looked to the left, to Allenach as he sat at my side, and said, “Perhaps you could show me now, Father?”
He still had food on his plate, a chalice brimming with ale. But if there was one thing I was learning, it was that a father liked to indulge his daughter. Allenach stood at once, and I slipped my hand in his, glancing over my shoulder just before we disappeared from the hall.
Cartier watched us leave. He would wait ten minutes after our departure, and then he too would slip away.
I inwardly counted my own steps as Allenach led me back to his private chambers, the order of numbers strangely comforting as my boots pressed into the carpet.
This was the part of the plan that had been wholly unpredictable—the actual location of the Canon. Allenach had said it was hidden somewhere in the castle, and so Cartier and I had taken our chances with that. I had predicted it was probably in the lord’s wing, the very chambers that had once been Tristan Allenach’s.
I had presumed right.
I followed Allenach through his parlor, through his private dining room, into his bedchamber. There was a grand bed, covered with quilts and furs, and a large stone hearth that was cold with ashes. A trio of stained-glass windows lined one wall, candlelight illuminating the dark-colored glass.
“Tell me, Father,” I said, waiting patiently as he vanished into an adjoining room. “How did you know about the Canon?”
He remerged holding a long, skinny piece of iron with a curved head. For a moment, my heart struck my breastbone, thinking he was about to wield it as a weapon. But he smiled and said, “It is a secret that has been passed from father to inheriting son ever since the Canon was hidden here.”
“Does Rian know, then?”
“He knows. Sean does not.”
I watched as he began to use the iron pick to uproot one of the stones of the hearth. It was a long slab, stained from years of soot and the scuff of logs, and as he worked to bring it up, I thought of Tristan. I could almost see my ancestor employed with the same movements, the same motions as Allenach, only Tristan had labored to hide rather than to liberate.
“Brienna.”
I moved forward when he spoke my name, the sound of his voice breaking sightless fetters about my ankles. He was holding the stone slab up, waiting for me to come and see what lay beneath, waiting for me to come and claim it.
Quietly, I walked to Allenach’s side and peered down at the depression in the floor.
Cartier had once described it to me. He said that Liadan had used her magic to carve the words into stone. The sight of it stole the very breath from me, made the Stone of Eventide flare unbearably hot in its locket, still tucked away in the bodice of my dress. The stone’s awakening forced me to kneel, and with trembling hands I reached for the stone tablet.
Liadan’s words glimmered, as if stardust had been resting in the grooves. The tablet was deceivingly light, a rectangle of white stone, the size of a large book cover. I wiped away the dirt and dust, the words responding to my strokes, lighting up from within. I knew it was the stirring magic; the Canon was responding to the proximity of the Eventide. And sweat began to prickle at the nape of my neck when I realized Allenach saw the celestial light coming from within the Canon, as if the tablet’s veins had been filled with nourishment.
I stood and took a few steps away, angling my back to him, cradling the tablet as a child in my arms, silently ordering the Canon to swallow that alluring gleam, for it was about to give me away.
And as if the Canon had heard me, the light from within died as an ember, and the Stone of Eventide also cooled. I could only imagine what this experience would have been like had I but one drop of Kavanagh blood.
“Read it to me, daughter,” Allenach said as he lowered the hearthstone back into place.
I cleared my throat, willing my voice to be steady.
Liadan’s words flowed off my tongue, ethereal as a cloud, sweet as honey, sharp as a blade:
“I, Liadan Kavanagh, the first queen of Maevana
hereby proclaim that this throne and this crown
shall be inherited by the daughters of this land.
Whether they be Kavanaghs, or whether they
hail from one of the other thirteen Houses,
that no king shall sit upon this throne
unless the queen and people choose it to be so.
Every noble daughter has a contention for
the crown I leave behind, for it is by our
daughters that we live, that we flourish,
and that we endure.
Carved this first day of June, 1268”
The room became quiet as my voice eased to the shadows, the words hanging like jewels in the air between Allenach and me. I had once believed that only a Kavanagh daughter had the right to the throne. Now I realized that Liadan had opened the crown to any noble daughter of the fourteen Houses.
Allenach was right; I did have a legitimate claim.
And then he stepped forward, his hands framing my face again, the lust for power and the throne glittering in his eyes as he stared down at me, as he saw the shade of my mother within me.
“So the House of Allenach rises,” he whispered.
“So it does, Father.”
He kissed my forehead, sealing me to his plans of destiny. I let him lead me out to the parlor and sat in the chair before the lit hearth while he poured me a chalice of wine to celebrate. I kept the Canon on my lap, let it rest along the length of my thighs, my fingers still caressing the carved words.
That was when the urgent pounding on his door finally came.
Allenach frowned, setting his bottle of wine down with a flash of irritation in his face. “What is it?” he called with pointed annoyance.
“My lord, the fields are burning!” a voice returned, muffled through the wood of the door.
I watched Allenach’s perturbed expression transform to shock as he strode across the chamber and swung open the door. One of his thanes stood there, his face smudged from smoke and sweat.
“What do you mean the fields are burning?” the lord repeated.
“The entire field of barley is taken by fire,” the thane panted. “We cannot contain it.”
“Rally all the men,” Allenach ordered. “I will be right there.”
I rushed to my feet, leaving the Canon on the chair. Allenach was striding back across the room to a door off to the side of the parlor, a door that blended into the wall, so I had not noticed it before. I trailed him, wringing my hands.
“Father, what can I do?” I asked, realizing he had stepped within his own private armory. Swords, shields, maces, spears, bows, quivers full of arrows, and axes gleamed from their places on the wall when the firelight touched them.
Allenach belted a sheathed long-sword at his side, and then he was moving back into the parlor, all but forgetting about me until he saw me standing there.
“I want you to remain here,” he said. “Do not leave my chambers.”
“But, Father, I—”
“Do not leave my chambers, Brienna,” he repeated, his voice rough. “I shall be back as soon as it’s safe.”
I watched him leave, listened to him shut the door. This was exactly as I’d hoped. Until I heard him turn a key, the sound of the door locking me into Allenach’s wing.
No, my heart pounded as I rushed to test the door, the only way out. The iron handles held fast, married to the threshold, holding me captive in my father’s chambers. I still pulled, fighting the door. It hardly budged.
I had to get out. And I had only a few ordained moments to do it.
My mind swelled with panic until I remembered the steps I had planned. I left the doomed doors and hurried to Allenach’s bedroom, straight to his wardrobe. I rummaged through his things, his clothes organized by color and fragranced with cloves and pine, and found a leather bag with a buckle and drawstrings. Back to the parlor I hurried, easing the Canon into the satchel, slipping the straps onto my shoulders, and buckling it tight to my back.
Then I went to his armored room. I chose a slender sword with an extraordinary hilt—there was an orb of amber in the pommel, and in the amber there was a black widow, frozen in time. Widow’s Bite. This sword shall suit me, I thought and belted it about my waist. I also grabbed the closest axe and returned to the locked door, swinging the blade into the wood about the iron handles. In a matter of moments, I knew this was futile. It was draining my strength and this door was hardly splintering beneath my swings.
It would have to be the window.
I returned to Allenach’s bedchamber, to the stained-glass windows. Through the colors, I could see the fire burning in the distant field, the glass translating it to an eerie green light. I held up my axe, drew in a long breath, and swung.
The window exploded around me, rained upon my shoulders and the floor as crunching teeth of color. Cold night air howled in, carrying the smoke from the fire Cartier had set, carrying the calls of Allenach’s thanes and vassals as they rushed to put it out. I worked furiously to clear all the shards of glass from the sill, and then I leaned forward to see how far I was from the ground.
This was the second floor of the castle, and still a fall like that would break my legs.
I had to return to the armored room, to snag a coil of rope. I liked to pretend that I knew what I was doing as I knotted one end of the rope to Allenach’s bedpost, which was thankfully bolted to the floor. I liked to pretend that I was calm as I eased myself to stand on the windowsill, the world beneath me a swirl of darkness, of bittersweet decisions, of broken vows, of treacherous daughters.
I couldn’t hesitate. I only had a matter of moments.
And so I began to scale down the castle’s wall, the rope burning my hands, the Stone of Eventide humming in my dress, the Queen’s Canon a shield at my back, my hair loose and wild in the smoky wind. My poorly wound knot came undone from Allenach’s bedpost, because I was suddenly falling, flailing through darkness. I hit the ground with a bark of pain in my ankles, but I had landed on my feet.
I began to run.
As the fire raged through the field, blessing my escape and signaling Jourdain’s people to rise, rise and fight, I darted through shadows to the alehouse, which sat quietly in the early hours of night. I was almost there, the grass whisking about my dress, when I heard the pounding gait of a horse.
I thought it was Cartier. I stopped to turn toward the sound, my heart in my throat, only to see Rian furiously cantering toward me, his face a blaze of anger in the starlight. And in his hand was a morning star, a thick wooden club embedded with spikes.
I hardly had time to catch my breath, let alone dodge his death swing. The only shield I had was at my back, the tablet of magical stone, and I turned it to him, felt his morning star slam into the Canon.
The impact rattled my bones as I fell facedown in the grass, believing he had just obliterated the tablet. Numb, I reached back, felt a solid piece of stone within the satchel. It was still whole—it had just saved my life—and I crawled to my feet, tasting blood on my tongue.
The clash of morning star and Canon had split his weapon in half, the way lightning slices a tree. And the impact had ripped him from the saddle; it made me think that even after all this time, Liadan’s words still protected her Maevan daughters.
I was trying to decide if I should run, my breath still wheezing from my fall, or if I should face him. My half brother was lying in the long grass, staggering up to his feet. He caught sight of me, my hesitation, and took a portion of his split weapon.
I only had a matter of moments to fumble for the sword sheathed at my side, but I could feel the air spark with warning, because he was about to give me a deathblow before I could defend myself.
He loomed over me, blocking the moon, and raised one half of his severed weapon.
But his blow never came. I watched, wide-eyed, as he was suddenly rocked off his feet by a leaping beast, a dog that looked like a wolf. I stumbled back, shocked, as Nessie tore his arm open. He let out one strangled scream before she was at his throat. The dog was quick; I watched as Rian went still, his eyes open to the night, his blood spilling into the grass. And then Nessie moved to nuzzle me, whining into the folds of my skirts.
“Easy, girl,” I whispered, shivering. My fingers stroked her head, thanking her for saving me.
He was my half brother, and yet I felt no remorse that he had been killed by his father’s hound.
I turned my back to him and hurried the rest of the way to the alehouse, Nessie trotting at my side.
Cartier was waiting for me at the back door of the building, the shadows of the heavy eaves nearly concealing him from my sight. But he stepped forward when he saw me coming, two horses saddled and ready, the moonlight like spilled milk around us.
I walked right into his embrace, his arms coming about me, his hands touching my back to feel the Canon that I carried. I would have kissed the smile that graced his mouth when he looked down at me, but the night demanded that we hurry. And then I saw that we were not alone.
From the shadows, Merei emerged with a horse in tow, the starlight limning her face as she smiled at me.
“Mer?” I whispered, slipping from Cartier’s arms to reach her. “What are you doing?”
“What does it look like I’m doing?” she teased me. “I’m coming with you.”
I glanced to Cartier, then back to Merei, just now realizing that she had been involved from the very beginning, that she was part of our plans.
“How . . . ?”
“When I volunteered to be the one to go to Damhan,” Cartier explained quietly, “I contacted Merei. Asked if she could convince Patrice to come north, to play in Damhan’s hall. I honestly didn’t think she would be able to sway her patron . . . and so I said nothing of it to Jourdain, in case my idea never materialized.”
“But why?” I persisted.
“Because I knew Amadine Jourdain would need help on her mission,” Cartier replied with a smile. “Little did we know it was you, Brienna.”
And how right he had been. Without Merei, I would have never been able to recover the stone.
I took both of their hands. “To Mistwood?”
“To Mistwood,” they whispered in unison.
We had a six-hour ride ahead of us, through the deepest stretch of night. But before we reached Mistwood, there was one more place we needed to visit.
“Whose dog?” Cartier asked, finally noticing the large, wiry-haired hound who waited at my heels.
“She’s mine,” I replied as I mounted my horse. “And she goes with us.”
Five hours later, I found the safe house on a dark street corner, just beneath one of the oaks that flourished through Lyonesse. Cartier and Merei followed me, their boots hardly making noise on the cobblestones as we moved from shadow to shadow, from road to road, all the way to the printmaker’s front door.
We had left our horses hidden outside the city, guarded by Nessie, who had kept up with our pace, so we could silently travel on foot, to avoid being discovered by Lannon’s night patrol, who enforced a strict curfew. Even so, I still felt a shudder rack my spine as I lifted my knuckles to quietly knock on the door.
The three of us waited, our breath escaping our lips as plumes of smoke in the cold night.
By the moon’s position and the deep chill in the air, I guessed it to be around three in the morning. Again, I dared to rasp my knuckles upon the printmaker’s door, praying that he would hear and answer.
“Brienna,” Cartier whispered. I knew what he was telling me; we had to hurry. We had to reach Mistwood before dawn.
I sighed, about to turn away when the front door unlocked and creaked open, just a sliver. Wide-eyed with hope, I looked to the man who had answered us; his frown was lit by a solitary candle.
“Evan Berne?” I murmured.
His frown deepened. “Yes? Who are you?”
“I am Davin MacQuinn’s daughter. Will you let us in?”
Now he was the one to go wide-eyed, his gaze assessing me, assessing Cartier and Merei. But cautiously, he opened the door and let us enter his home.
His wife was standing a few paces back, clutching a woolen shawl about her shoulders, her terror evident. Flanking her were two sons, one who was obviously trying to conceal a dirk behind his back.
“I am sorry to come at such a time.” I rushed to apologize. “But Liam O’Brian marked you down as a safe house for our mission, and I must ask something of you.”
Evan Berne came to stand face-to-face with me, his gaze still wide and frightened. “Did you say you were . . . MacQuinn’s daughter?”
“Yes. My father has returned to Maevana. By dawn, the three fallen Houses will rise and take back the throne.”
“How?” one of the sons sputtered.
I glanced to him before letting my eyes return to Evan, slipping the satchel from my back. “You are a printmaker?”
Evan gave a sharp nod, the candle trembling in his hands as he watched me pull the Queen’s Canon from the bag.
He hardly breathed as he moved closer, to let his light shine upon the carved words. His wife gasped; their sons stepped forward with entranced gazes. They gathered about me, reading the words Liadan had carved so long ago. With every moment, I felt the hope, the wonder, the courage weave through their hearts.
“Where did you find that?” Evan’s wife whispered, tears filling her eyes when she looked at me.
“It is a long story,” I responded with a flicker of a smile. One day, I thought, I will write it all down, of how this came to be. “Can you print this Canon on paper? I want it posted on every door of this city, every street corner, by dawn.”
Evan grew very still, but he met my gaze. Again, I watched years of fear, years of oppression and estrangement melt from him. This was one of Jourdain’s most beloved thanes, a man who had watched his lord fall decades ago, thinking he would never rise again.
“Yes,” he whispered, but there was iron within his voice. At once, he began to give out orders, for his sons to drape blankets over the shuttered windows so no candlelight could leak out, for his wife to ready the press.
Cartier, Merei, and I followed him into the workroom, where the press sat as a sleeping beast. I set the Canon down on a long table and watched as Evan and his wife began to line the letter plates up, copying Liadan word for word. The air was rich with the scent of paper, with ink as he wet the metal words with it, as he set down a square of parchment.
He began to pump the press, and I watched as the Queen’s Canon was inked on paper, over and over, as quickly as Evan Berne could move. Before long, there was a glorious stack of them, and one of the sons gathered it with reverent hands.
“We will post these everywhere,” he murmured to me. “But tell me . . . where is the rising happening?”
From the corner of my eye, I saw his mother glance up from her place at the ink roller, her mouth pressed in a tight line. I knew what she was thinking, that she was worrying about her sons fighting.
Cartier answered before I could, coming to stand close behind me. “We ride from Mistwood at dawn.” His hand rested on my shoulder, and I could feel the urgency in his touch: we needed to depart. Now.
Evan shuffled to us, gently handing the Canon to me. The tablet went back into my satchel, tethered to my shoulders. He guided us to the front door, but just before we left, he took my hands.
“Tell your father that Evan Berne stands with him. Come darkness or light, I will stand with him.”
I smiled and squeezed the printer’s hands. “Thank you.”
He opened the door, just a sliver.
I slipped out into the streets, Cartier and Merei at my sides, our hearts pounding as we once again ran from shadow to shadow, creeping around enforcers who milled in their dark armor and green capes. I prayed the Berne sons would be careful, that the night would protect them as they too ran the streets with an armful of Canons.
I felt ragged and worn by the time we returned to our horses. Dawn was close; I could feel her sigh in the air, in the crinkling of the frost over the ground as my gelding followed Cartier’s up the road that would lead us safely around Lyonesse’s walls, deep to the heart of Mistwood, Nessie close behind us.
The forest waited, etched in moonlight, sheltered by a thick cloak of fog. Cartier slowed his horse as we approached, our mounts easing into the earthly cloud as if it were foamy water. We rode deep into the trees before we finally saw the torchlight, before we were greeted by men I had never seen before.
“It’s Lord Morgane,” a voice murmured, and I had the prickling suspicion that we had just had notched arrows lowered from us. “Welcome, my lord.”
I dismounted in tandem with Cartier, my back sore, my legs tight as harp strings. A man took my horse as Merei and I began to walk deeper into the forest, Nessie stuck to my side. We wove around tents and clusters of people, people who had joined us for the rising, utter strangers who wore armor and the colors of the fallen Houses.
Blue for Morgane. Crimson for Kavanagh. Lavender for MacQuinn.
Yet I could hardly soak this in as I continued to search for the queen, for my patron father, weaving through the trees as a needle in fabric, around stacks of swords, shields, and quivers brimming with arrows.
Jourdain had been right: we were prepared to wage war. If Lannon did not yield, if Lannon did not abdicate his throne for Yseult, we would clash with sword and shield.
We were here, and we would fight until the last of us fell. And while I had been told such, I found that I was not prepared for the thought of war.
This all felt like a dream, I thought, the exhaustion knotting in my muscles, in my blurred vision. But then I heard his voice, and it snapped every yawn, every desire for sleep.
“She is not here yet,” Jourdain said. “She was going to ride with Morgane, from Damhan.”
His voice pulled me, drew me closer as I waded through the mist.
“Will she come?” Yseult asked. But I could hear the words she did not say, pitted in the valley of her voice. Will she still choose us, or will she join Allenach?
I finally saw them, standing in a clearing. Jourdain, Luc, Yseult, Hector Laurent. Their armor glistened like the scales on a fish in the torchlight as they stood in a weary circle. Their heads were bowed, their swords sheathed at their sides, and the shadows seemed to feed off their doubt, the darkness rising higher as they contemplated what to do.
“We have told our people the Stone of Eventide would be here,” Hector said quietly. “They all believe that when we ride out to defy Lannon, the stone will be in our possession. Do we continue this belief, even if she doesn’t come?”
“Father,” Yseult said, reaching out to touch his arm. “Yes, the stone is life for us. The stone is what makes us Kavanaghs. But it is not what makes us Maevans.” She paused, and I watched as all the men, one by one, raised their eyes to look at her, their queen. “I am not going to ride out wearing the stone come dawn.”
“Isolde . . .” her father warned, his displeasure evident.
“If Lannon does not abdicate peacefully,” she continued, “we will fight, we will wage war, and we will take back the throne with steel and shield. I am not going to awaken magic only to let it go corrupt in battle. Magic has been dormant for over a hundred years. I need to learn how to wield it in peace.”
“But all of these people who have rallied behind us,” Hector softly argued. “They have done so because of the stone.”
“No,” Luc countered. “They have done it because of Isolde. Because we have returned.”
I held my breath, waiting to see what Jourdain would say, what Jourdain thought.
But he never spoke.
And so I stepped forward, breaking the fog as I said, “I am here.”