I’m meant for so much more. Now I know some things even my mother doesn’t know, that the Guild doesn’t know. There are still secrets at Baer Abbey. The Aphrasians are not as weak and scattered as believed. Though Caledon is guilty of killing the grand prince, he is not a murderer, but a hero. He saved my life. The court needs to know. The queen needs to know.
And suddenly it occurs to me that it’s not such a terrible thing that I have been called to Violla Ruza.
CHAPTER FOUR
Caledon
THE RUMBLE OF HOOFBEATS ALONG with the jangle of the royal equines’ riding bells rustles Cal from a deep sleep. His head is throbbing, his mouth bone-dry. He licks his cracked lips but it doesn’t help much.
Three sharp knocks at the door. He doesn’t answer. More knocks. He groans. The knocking becomes banging. “Persistent this morning, aren’t we?” he finally yells toward the door. Then he sits up, aching, shoulders and neck stiff and sore, and forces himself out of bed. He’s still wearing his clothes from the night before, dirty boots and all.
The abbey ruins, the skirmish with the monks, the shock at uncovering the traitor’s true identity, the strange girl whose life he saved, everything rushes back to him. Worse, the sunlight glaring through the front window means he slept much later than he meant to.
When he opens the door of the smithy, a baby-faced page—can’t be older than twelve, if that—hands him a scroll sealed with the royal mark of Renovia. Cal croaks out a rough thank-you. Without speaking, the boy bows curtly and returns to the carriage waiting on the cobbled street.
After locking both bolts on the door, he crosses the room to the wooden stool in front of the hearth. It’s his favorite place to sit and reflect, usually while stirring something hearty over the fire. His best work has been plotted here. Last year he’d had the idea to impersonate a cook in order to infiltrate the estate of an Aphrasian sympathizer in Stavin—that one was almost too easy—with direct access to the entire food supply, no less. And just this past summer he mastered an Argonian accent and memorized full monologues in order to get close to another would-be usurper by starring in his most beloved play.
He slits the scroll open with his knife and unrolls it.
HRM Lilianna, Queen Regent of Renovia, requires your immediate presence at court
Short, but not sweet by any means. It is stamped and signed in ink by Queen Lilianna herself. Cal curses at the late hour. He meant to get there at first light, to be the one to tell the queen what happened at the abbey. But after battling a number of renegade monks, saving the girl, and killing the grand prince, he had collapsed in his bed the minute he returned. Now he has no idea what story she’s been told by the soldiers who’d come upon the aftermath. He had been surprised to discover the queen’s royal guard so far from the palace, but he appreciated their help in rooting out the remaining Aphrasians in the area.
Cal had gone out to Baer yesterday just to rule out a hunch. He didn’t want to get his hopes up, but he felt like maybe—maybe—it could lead to the fulfillment of his obligation to the queen. Maybe he would find the scrolls hidden away in one of the hills behind the abbey.
The scrolls are the center of his existence. He will fulfill his father’s pledge even if it means his life. Until then, this is the only life that he knows, and he will not rest until the scrolls are found and returned to the queen.
Except sometimes he and the queen do not agree on the best way to search for them. Cal leans forward with his elbows on his knees, rests his face in his hands. How will he account for last night? He’d explicitly ignored the queen’s orders by going to the abbey. He was supposed to be on his way to Montrice by then. Yet while he was gambling with privateers in an Argonian shipyard last week, they’d mentioned a Renovian fisherman who purchased a small shipping vessel to move river freight, which immediately reminded him of the river running beneath the Baer Hills. Which is why he decided to follow his hunch and head out to the abbey instead. It’s a good thing he did, too, or that girl would be dead right now.
He imagines talking to the queen this afternoon: “Well, Your Majesty, the bad news is, the Aphrasian insurgency is alive and well. The worse news is that your brother-in-law, the grand prince, is part of it! The good news is, I caught him. The bad news is, I slew him before I knew who he was. In my defense, he was dressed like a rebel and was about to stab an innocent girl.”
The queen is most certainly aware of that fact, though. About the grand prince’s murder, not the girl. Why was Alast going after that girl anyway? He can’t fathom why she was wandering around that old battlefield. Most of the villagers steer clear of it, believing it cursed.
But he doesn’t have time right now to dwell on who she was or what she was doing there. He’ll have to come back to her later.
Cal gets up and paces in front of the fireplace, considering the situation. The crown’s network of spies have known for a while that the Aphrasian sect is on the rise again. Reports are that they’re gathering strength, waiting for the right moment to strike and take down the queen, who only rules as regent after all, in order to replace her and Esban’s daughter with what they believe is their pure magical bloodline.
However, the Renovians have no idea where the rebel monks are based—some say they operate out of a tavern in the capital city. Others are certain it’s a farm in rural Argonia or somewhere in Stavin. The queen is convinced they are being funded by Montrice, that her former home is conspiring against her. While the two countries are supposed to be at peace, Montrice has sent an unusually large number of soldiers to the border. Many Renovians fear invasion is coming.
Cal had a different theory about where the Aphrasians might be.
What better place for the resurrected Aphrasian rebellion to assemble than Baer Abbey itself? Everyone assumes it’s empty, since its consecrated grounds are soiled and the structure itself destroyed. But the castle is equipped to store years’ worth of provisions deep within its labyrinthine vaults. Plus it’s unlikely anyone would happen upon it, and the few who live in the town of Baer are unfriendly to strangers, and that’s before the dangerous trek through the woods to reach the abbey’s gates.
He became convinced the monks had simply taken up residence in their old quarters, but he didn’t tell anyone he intended to explore the abbey, least of all the queen. Better to keep his mouth shut entirely and avoid any possibility of that information spreading around. People at court love to talk, and there is a complicated system in place that barters in petty secrets and nepotism. Cal loathes court life and does his best to avoid it.
Of course, before the search for the scrolls, Cal has a more immediate concern: Will he be rewarded or punished for killing Grand Prince Alast? Cal doesn’t know what the queen will do. He’s been at her service, officially, only a few years. She trusts him, but he wonders who else may have her ear, and whether they worked for the grand prince. Someone could already be refuting his story for all he knows, or spinning some other kind of tale—that he framed Alast in order to benefit himself; that he is actually the secret Aphrasian monk—it could be anything.