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.