Our conversation hadn’t ended there, I was sure of that. I believed we’d talked about Simon, and it seemed that she had let it slip how much she loved him. Or maybe I had said those words. I hoped it wasn’t me.
I especially hoped it wasn’t she who said them.
Minutes later, an Ironheart rounded the corner. He was roughly Darrow’s age, with a similar build, and a long beard and rags for clothes. He went to one knee for me. “My queen. My name is Lore and I am at your service.”
“You are the only one to come?”
He rose up. “There is one more, not far behind me.”
I rolled my eyes. A glorious punishment was coming for all Ironhearts who had ignored my orders, but I wanted plenty of magic saved up for that event. For now, I needed that magic elsewhere.
Lore stood, accidentally bumping a foot against Harlyn’s leg. She sat up with a start, alarmed to see we were not alone. She reached for her sword, then saw it at my waist, along with every other weapon that had been hers not ten minutes ago. Sensing how vulnerable she was, Harlyn glanced down, hoping to be ignored. I was happy to do that.
Lore asked, “What are your orders, my queen?”
“Can you get me out of this tunnel?”
“If you’re going after Joth, I want to come too.” Harlyn’s eye was fixed on her disk bow, slung over my shoulder. I hoped she didn’t attempt to take it, because that would force me to defend myself.
I shook my head. “You will not come. Other than the kind gift of your weapons, you are of no use to me any longer.” She had started to her feet, but with a wave of my hand, she fell to the ground and there she would stay. “We are not friends, Harlyn, and anything I might have said last night no longer matters.”
“Anything you might have said?” Harlyn’s eyes narrowed. “Oh, you don’t remember what you said, do you? Well, believe me when I say that it matters a great deal.”
I began searching my recovered powers for a way to make her regret her insolence, but was startled by the approach of the second Ironheart.
“My lady, I came as fast as I could.”
“Address me as your queen,” I demanded, then stopped once I saw Rosaleen standing before me. Simon’s sister.
Now behind me, Harlyn breathed out her name. Rosaleen glanced at Harlyn briefly before her eyes returned to me.
“My queen,” Rosaleen said obediently.
“Do you know who I am?” I asked.
“Kestra Dallisor, Queen of Antora.”
“What else?”
Rosaleen’s eyes misted. “You were the Infidante. I used to fight for you.”
“Do you still?”
With a brief glance at Lore and then at Harlyn, she said, “I am an Ironheart, my queen. I must fight for you.”
Her answer told me more than I wished it did. Rosaleen was not here by choice, but at least she was here. If this was my only way to get an army, it’s where I would begin.
I said to Lore, “Lead me out of here.”
He went first and I followed, with Rosaleen behind us. Recalling the way she had taken aim at me outside All Spirits Forest, I eventually told her to walk at my side. Even if she was calling me her queen, I felt safer being able to see her.
“Why did the two of you come for me?” I asked.
Lore glanced back long enough to say, “How should we answer such a question, my queen? With what you want to hear, or the truth?”
“I want to hear the truth.”
“The truth is what the ruler of the Scarlet Throne declares it to be.”
“Enough bantering of words!” I said as we continued to trudge forward. “Why did you come for me in these tunnels?”
Rosaleen said, “I saw what happened to your former handmaiden when her heart was crushed. I prefer to avoid that fate.”
I started to tell her that, for Simon’s sake, I was hoping to avoid crushing her heart. But I didn’t say it. That hardly seemed like the right choice of words while I still needed her help.
In a softer tone, I asked, “If Endrick’s magic could stop a heart, could it start one beating again?”
No one answered at first; then after we rounded another bend, Lore said, “He did that for your father once. For Sir Henry.”
I paused. “When?” I’d never heard of such a thing.
“While you were … missing from the kingdom, two or three years ago, there was a Corack uprising. Their captain, a man who goes by the name of Tenger, managed to stab your father straight through the heart. He was dead, my lady. I saw it myself, and with such a wound, how could he be otherwise? But the next morning, Sir Henry stood in front of us all, alive and well, ordering punishments on everyone he felt had failed to protect him during that battle. Nothing could have healed him except Lord Endrick’s magic.”
By then, a ladder leading to the tunnel’s exit had become visible. Lore went up first, to ensure the area was secure. I turned to Rosaleen. “Simon is your brother.”
Something flickered in her eyes, fear perhaps, but she quickly took control of it. “We had a mother too, once. If you intend to kill my brother as well, then I beg you to crush my heart now.”
The person I had once been would have been hurt by her accusation, but I felt nothing now, cared nothing for a death I had not caused and could not have prevented. Or at least, I was trying to feel nothing. With no words in my mind for a response, I merely stared at her before I silently climbed the ladder out of the tunnels. A minute later, Rosaleen followed.
Once safely on the surface, I said to them, “Will you serve me by choice? Not because of any threat to your lives but because you believe in me as your queen. Will you stay and help me see this through to the end?”
Silence followed as Lore and Rosaleen looked at each other, neither wanting to be the first to speak, but both of them clearly with something they wanted to say.
“Are you so afraid of me?” I finally asked.
Their eyes lowered, giving me their answer.
“I am not Lord Endrick,” I said to them.
“You have his magic, and there is an echo of his voice when you speak, my lady,” Lore said.
Prove him right.
The words entered my mind so forcefully, it was as though they came from somewhere beyond myself. And yet they had been my thoughts, my instincts. My own desires.
I said again, “Will you serve me by choice?”
More silence, then Lore stepped forward, his head lowered as if expecting the worst. “What happens if we refuse?”
My mind raced with possibilities, with everything I wanted to say, every threat to force them to bend to my will. With a clench of my fist, I could make them obey, or simpler still, with a single touch, I could take their strength to myself and enter the throne room as strong as all of them put together. I didn’t need them to serve me. I only needed their strength.
It was easy to reach out my hand toward this bold man who had dared to question me, and far more difficult to pull it back. But I had to do it.
Because something had changed in me last night. Separated from my corruption for a few hours, I had a brief glimpse of who I had been, and who I now was. I missed the girl I had been once: Reckless and arrogant and deeply flawed, but still at my core, I had thought myself to be a good person. I wanted to hold on to that Kestra for as long as I could.