“Will you wait for me here?”
He tipped his head and went to stand by his horses, stroking their manes with a chapped hand.
I trembled as I approached the main gate, where two guards in gleaming plate armor stood armed to the teeth with weapons.
“I am here to make a request before the king,” I announced in perfect Dairine, drawing forth my papers once again.
The guards only took in my tightly strung waist, the glistening blue of my gown, the poise and the grace of Valenia that softened my edges and abolished any semblance of a threat. The wind played with my long hair, drawing it over my shoulder as a shield of golden brown.
“He’s in the throne room,” one of them said, his eyes lingering on my décolletage. “I will escort you.”
I let him lead me through archways burnished with antlers and vines, through a bare courtyard, up the stairs to the royal hall. The doors were massive, carved with intricate knots and crosses and mythical beasts. I would have liked to stand and admire those carvings, listen to the quiet story they told, but the two other guards saw my approach and wordlessly opened the doors for me, the old iron and wood groaning in welcome.
I entered a pool of shadows, my dress whispering elegantly over the patterned tiles as my eyes adjusted to the light.
I felt the weight of the ancient dust as I approached that cavernous hall. There was the sound of voices, one pleading, one scathing, bouncing off the impressive height of the ceiling, which was upheld by crosshatched timber rafters. I rose up on my toes, trying to see over the heads of those gathered. I could just barely discern the dais, where the king sat on his throne of welded antler and iron, but more important . . . there was Lord Allenach. I caught the dark brown of his hair, the flash of his maroon doublet, as he stood by the throne. . . .
Relief rippled down my bones, that I would not have to delay. But before I could enter the hall, I had to stop before a white-haired man dressed in Lannon green, his eyes going wide at the unexpected sight of me.
“May I inquire why you are here, Lady of Valenia?” he whispered to me in heavily accented Middle Chantal, my mother tongue. He had a scroll before him, a quill in his veiny hand, a list of names and purposes scrawled on the paper.
“Yes,” I responded in Dairine. “I have a request for King Lannon.”
“And what might that request be?” the chamberlain asked, dipping his quill into the ink.
“That is for me to say, sire,” I answered as respectfully as I could.
“Lady, it is merely protocol that we announce your name with your purpose for seeking the king’s aid.”
“I understand. My name is Mistress Amadine Jourdain of Valenia. And the purpose must come from my tongue alone.”
He hefted a sigh but relented, writing my name out on the list. Then he wrote my name on a small scrap of paper, which he passed to me, instructing me to hand it to the herald when my time arrived.
A wake of quiet followed me as I entered the back of the hall, as I walked the aisle. I could feel the eyes of the audience rivet to me, drenching me like rain, and then threads of whispers as they wondered why I had come. Those whispers flowed all the way to the throne on the dais, where King Lannon sat with heavy-lidded eyes, blatantly bored as the man before him knelt, begging for an extension on his taxes.
I stopped, two men waiting to appeal between me and the king. That’s when Lannon saw me.
His eyes sharpened at once, taking me in. It felt like the point of a knife rushing over my body, testing the firmness of my skin, the layers of my gown, the nature of my forthcoming request.
Why, indeed, had a Valenian come to him?
I should not stare at him. I should lower my eyes, as a proper Valenian always does in the presence of royalty. But he was not royalty to me, and so I returned his stare.
He was not what I expected. Yes, I had seen his profile on a copper, which had depicted him as handsome, mythically godlike. And he truly might have been handsome for a man in his midfifties, had the scorn not soured the lines on his face, trapping his expressions in sneers and frowns. His nose was elegant, his eyes a vivid shade of green. His hair was pale, light blond melting amid the white of age, resting to the tops of his angular shoulders, a few Maevan braids beneath the twisted silver and glittering diamonds of his crown.
It was Liadan’s crown; I recognized it from the illustration I had once admired of her, the woven branches of silver and buds of diamonds, a crown that looked as if the stars had come about her. And he was wearing it. I almost frowned, angered at the sight.
Look away, my heart commanded when Lannon began to shift on his throne, his eyes suddenly assessing my pride as a threat.
I looked to the left, straight to Allenach.
Who was also staring at me.
The lord was elegant, well built and groomed, his maroon jerkin capturing his heraldic stag and laurels on his broad chest. His dark brown hair was tempered with a few threads of gray; two small braids framed his face, and a thin golden circlet sat on his forehead to denote his nobleness. His jaw was clean-shaven, and his eyes gleamed like coals—a flicker of blue light that made me shiver. Was he also seeing me as a threat?
“My lord king, this sigil was found among this man’s possessions.”
I looked away from Allenach to see what was unfolding at the footstool of the throne. The man in front of me was kneeling, bowing his head to Lannon. He looked to be somewhere in his sixties, weathered and worn and trembling. At the man’s side stood a guard dressed in Lannon green, accusing him of something before the king. I let my focus home in on them, especially when I saw a small square of blue fabric dangling from the guard’s fingers.
“Bring that to me,” Lannon requested.
The guard ascended the dais, bowed and then gave the king the blue fabric. I watched as Lannon sneered, as he held the fabric up for the court to see.
There was a horse, stitched in proud silver thread, over the blue fabric. At once, my face blanched, my heart began to pound, for I knew whose sigil that was. It was Lord Morgane’s mark. Lord Morgane, who was disguised as Theo d’Aramitz, who was currently at Damhan for the hunt. . . .
“Do you know the price for bearing the traitor’s sigil?” Lannon calmly asked the kneeling man.
“My lord king, please,” the man rasped. “I am faithful to you, to Lord Burke!”
“The price is your head,” the king continued, his voice bored. “Gorman?”
From the shadows, a hulk of a man wearing a hood emerged, an axe in his hands. Another man brought forth the chopping block. I was crushed with shock, with horror, when I realized they were about to behead the man in front of me.