AllFreeNovel
Share Us
When she was finished helping me resettle my cloak back over my shoulders, she handed me a weathered hand mirror to hold while she brushed and plaited my hair down the side.
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d taken a good look in the mirror. I wanted to think that, after all of this, I’d be able to look at my reflection and see some new strength written there, or some beauty brought to the surface through adversity, but I looked the same as I always had. Ashy blond hair, pale cheeks, and eyes like silver saucers—?too big and too strange for the rest of my face.
“Onal,” I said thoughtfully as she wove my hair with her long, nimble brown fingers. “Nathaniel’s daughter, Ella . . . did you take a look at her?”
“I did. Perfectly healthy babe, if a little small.”
“She was a little early, you know, so tiny and precious. But she had these beautiful brown eyes.”
“That’s nice,” Onal said absently.
I continued, “After Ella was born, both mother and babe were in a bad way, and the woman acting as midwife gave me a potion she’d distilled from bloodleaf flower.”
Onal’s hands grew still. She was listening intently now. “Even so, Kate—?my friend—?wouldn’t take the potion herself, and insisted that I give it to the child instead. I respected her wish.” I felt my throat constrict. “Ella woke from the very brink of death, Onal. But afterward her eyes were different, more silver. Like they are now.” Without looking up, I asked, “What color were my eyes before you gave bloodleaf flower to me?”
There was a long pause.
“I don’t know,” Onal said quietly. “You never opened them before you received it.”
33
The king and queen had tried for several years to conceive, and when they did, they were elated. But—?as was by then tradition—?they chose not to reveal their joy to the public until after the birth. Arrangements were made. If the baby was a boy, the birth would be celebrated throughout the land for weeks. If it was a girl, she would be spirited away in the night, given to a family somewhere far away, and the kingdom would never even know she existed. They were more than prepared for either outcome.”
Onal sighed and sat down beside me. “But then the babe arrived, so silent and still. They had been ready to send her off, knowing that she’d live a full and happy life, but this was a parting they had not considered. Such sorrow I’ve never seen, before or since. So I went to my stillroom. I’d kept my three preserved bloodleaf petals secret and safe for nearly thirty-five years by then. I knew it was pointless to waste one, that in the face of death they are useless . . . but if you had seen their faces . . .” She shook her head. “So I took that little babe in my arms, and I parted her tiny, blue little lips and pressed that petal onto her tongue . . . and then she opened her eyes. You opened your eyes. And they looked just like they do now.
“After that, your mother and father could not be parted from you. They saw the miracle of your life as a sign that you were meant for a greater purpose. They reached out to the king and queen of Achleva, who sent Simon to us as a liaison. The arrangements began for your wedding, though you were only a few weeks old. But what happened with you made me too confident. I wasted another petal on your father, after the fire—?as you well know, it did not work.”
“Why did it work on me, then?”
“I don’t know. But you’ve always had a healing touch, not to mention how quickly you heal yourself. I’ve often wondered if those anomalies were just you, or residual effects of being given the bloodleaf flower before you took a living breath.”
“All this time, why did no one ever tell me? I’ve gone my whole life thinking—?”
“We told you what we thought you needed to know. Don’t glower. And don’t slump—?you’ll look like a potato. Now listen to me, Aurelia. All of your adversities have shaped you into who you needed to be to get through all of this. Be thankful that you’re strong enough.”
“Am I?”
“Well, you’re not dead yet. So for now, let’s assume you are.”
* * *
It was dark again when I emerged from the tent in Renaltan uniform. All the guards were gathered on the grass, waiting for me to speak.
I positioned myself at the head of the gathering, and Kellan took his place behind me, just the same as always. I gave him a quick glance, still marveling that he was alive. That he was here. Catching my eyes, he gave me a slight, reassuring nod.
I wasn’t quite sure of my phrasing, but I began anyway. “Men and women of the guard. On behalf of my brother and myself, I thank you for your loyalty to our mother, Queen Genevieve, and to our monarchy.”
Some of their faces I recognized from past hurts; the group was populated with soldiers who had ignored me, or whispered about me as I passed. One or two of them I’d even seen in the crowd at executions, chanting and screaming. But I could not criticize them for prejudices I, too, once held against myself. The past was irrelevant; they were here now, on Achleva’s doorstep, ready to fight. For my mother, yes, but also for me.
I cleared my throat.
“For centuries we’ve seen Achleva as our enemy. Hundreds and thousands of Renaltan lives were lost as we tried and failed to penetrate Achlev’s Wall, all on the word of one man: the Tribunal’s founder, Cael. Senseless, useless deaths,” I said, “pursuant of a single man’s agenda of revenge. The same man who created the organization that, for five hundred years, has kept Renaltans obedient and afraid. Obedient to his statutes, afraid of one another.” I remembered what Zan said, that the greatest threat this city has ever faced came from within, not from without. “But the truth is this: Achleva is not our enemy. It never has been. Our true oppressor is, and has always been, the man we call the Founder . . . his teachings, his Tribunal, and now his self-appointed successor: Toris de Lena.”
My voice grew stronger. “Toris is even now enacting a plan years in the making . . . an effort to destroy the sovereignties of two nations and bring them both under the Tribunal’s complete control. In mere weeks he has displaced our queen, kidnapped our future king, and begun a sequence of destruction within Achleva that has culminated in regicide: King Domhnall is dead at Toris’s hands.”
I heard several gasps.
I continued, “As upsetting as it is, Domhnall’s death was not Toris’s end game; rather, it was just another necessary step toward a larger goal. Toris is trying to bring down Achlev’s Wall. And when it falls, the lines of power Achlev used to construct it—?the ley lines—?will snap back to their original paths, bringing five centuries of suppressed calamity in their wake.” I lifted my chin. “Already there are signs of the coming danger: the water is bad, the plants are dead, the ground has been shaking, and Toris has barred the citizens from leaving. Without intervention, the wall won’t even have to fall before everyone inside it starves to death.”
