I entered her study; she immediately rose to her feet, startled by my drenched appearance, the blood dribbling down my arm.
“Brienna? What is wrong?”
I didn’t truly know. And I didn’t even know what I was going to tell her, but I was burdened with the need to tell it to someone. Had Cartier been here, I would have told it all to him. Or Merei. But it was just the Dowager and me, and so my boots squeaked over her rug as I sat in the chair opposite her desk.
“Madame, I must tell you something.”
She slowly sank back to her seat, her eyes wide. “Did someone hurt you?”
“No, but . . .”
She waited, the whites of her eyes still showing.
“I have been . . . seeing things,” I began. “Things of the past, I believe.”
I told her of the first shift, channeled by The Book of Hours. I told her of Merei’s music, with its Maevan influences granting me a glimpse of some northern mountain. And then I told her of my wound and his wound, of the woods and the burial of the stone.
She abruptly stood, the candles on her desk trembling. “Do you know this man’s name?”
“No, but . . . I saw his initials, carved on the tree. T.A.”
She paced her study, her worry hanging in the air like smoke. I could hardly draw breath as I waited. I thought she would challenge my claim, tell me that I was slowly losing my wits. That what I had said was fantastical, improbable. I expected her to laugh, or become condescending. But the Dowager did none of those things. She was quiet, and I marveled with dread as I waited for her to speak her mind. Eventually, she came to a stop at her window. Facing the glass to watch the storm, she asked, “What do you know of your father, Brienna?”
I was not expecting this question; my heart flared with surprise as I responded, “Not much at all. Only that he is Maevan and that he wants nothing to do with me.”
“Your grandfather never told you what your paternal name is?”
“No, Madame.”
She walked back to the desk but seemed too agitated to sit. “Your grandfather told me the day he first brought you here. And I swore to him that I would never reveal it to you, out of his concern and protection for you. So I am about to break my word, but only because I feel like your father’s blood is calling out to you. Because your paternal name could potentially match this . . . man’s last initial, the man you have been shifting to.”
I waited, twisted rain from my skirts.
“Your father bears the name of Allenach,” she confessed. “I will not speak his first name, so at least I will honor your grandfather on that account.”
Allenach.
The name rolled and writhed, ending with a harsh syllable.
Allenach.
It was one of the fourteen Houses of Maevana.
Allenach.
Long ago, Queen Liadan had granted them the blessing of “shrewd” when the clans united into Houses beneath her rule. Allenach the Shrewd.
And yet after all this time, learning the latter half of my father’s name didn’t affect me how I’d thought it would. It was simply another sound, one that failed to stir much emotion within me. Until I thought of T. Allenach, and how he was pulling me back. Or, now that I reflected on it, how his memories were overlaying with mine.
Cartier had mentioned this, the oddity of ancestral memory. And at the time, I had been more concerned with Lannon and the Queen’s Canon to entertain the possibility that it was happening to me.
But it began to come together. For T.A. and I had held and read the same book, had listened to a thread of the same music, and had felt the same pain amid the trees. And so I laid my hands on the armrests of the chair, looked at the Dowager, and said very calmly, “I think I have inherited this man’s memories.”
The Dowager sat.
It sounded fanciful; it sounded magical. But she listened to me as I told her of what Cartier had randomly said one day in lessons.
“If you are right, Brienna,” she said, spreading her hands over her desk, “then what you have seen might be the key to bring about reform for Maevana. What you have seen is . . . very dangerous. Something that King Lannon has ruthlessly tried to keep from happening.”
At the mention of Lannon, I stifled a shiver. “Why would this stone be dangerous?”
In my mind, it was a beautiful artifact of ancient Maevana, a channel for magic that was no more. It was a drop of history, painfully lost, which should, of course, be recovered if possible.
“I am sure Master Cartier has taught you the history of the queen’s realm,” she said, her voice dropping to a whisper, as if she was afraid we would be overheard.
“Yes, Madame.”
“And I am sure he has also taught you the current state of politics? That there is a strain between Maevana and Valenia? Our King Phillipe no longer condones King Lannon with his violent affairs, even though King Phillipe’s forefather was the very one to set Lannon House as a regal imposter to the northern throne.”
I nodded, wondering where she was guiding this conversation. . . .
But the Dowager said nothing as she opened one of her drawers and retrieved a pamphlet, bound by red thread. I recognized the emblem on the front—the unmistakable illustration of a quill that was bleeding.
“You read the Grim Quill?” I asked, surprised that she would peruse satire.
“I read everything, Brienna.” And she extended it to me. I accepted it, my heart beginning to nervously pound. “Read the first page.”
I did as she beckoned, opening the pamphlet. This was an edition I had not read before, and I took it in, word by word. . . .
HOW TO DETHRONE AN UNRIGHTEOUS NORTHERN KING:
STEP ONE. Find the Queen’s Canon.
STEP TWO. Find the Stone of Eventide.
STEP THREE. If step 1 cannot be accomplished, jump to step 2. If step 2 cannot be accomplished, proceed to . . .
STEP FOUR. Find the Queen’s Canon.
STEP FIVE. Find the Stone of Eventide. . . .
It was a set of instructions that continued to circle back upon itself, over and over. I sat quietly, staring at the page, until the Dowager cleared her throat.
“So the Canon . . . or the stone . . .” I began. “One of them is enough to remove Lannon?”
“Yes.”
By law, or by magic, a northern king would come undone.
“But magic can only be wielded by the Kavanaghs,” I whispered. “And that House has been destroyed.”
“Not destroyed,” she corrected. “Many of them, yes, have been ruthlessly hunted and killed by the Lannon kings over the years. But there are some who survived. There are some who found refuge in Valenia. And Lannon knows it. Simply another reason for him to close his borders to us, to gradually turn Valenia into his enemy.”
I thought of what she had just told me, what I had just read, what Cartier had taught me, what T.A.’s memories had illuminated. I drew in a deep breath and then said, “If I found the stone and gave it to a surviving Kavanagh . . .”
The Dowager smiled, our thoughts entwining.
Magic would return. And a magical queen could overcome Lannon.