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Father had described to me what chaos felt like. I had been five and already curious about it. In a castle, I’d been exposed to things other children hadn’t, and my parents vowed to be truthful to me. They had treated me like a girl who’d come of age, even when I hadn’t been one.
To endure, Father oftentimes went numb. His body ceased to function, all the resilience going straight to his head. The swarm of calm helped him think clearly during the upheaval, sharpened his mind into a weapon.
“But what about ruling with your heart?” I had asked.
“Love with your heart. Rule with your head,” he’d answered.
“But maybe my head and heart can help each other. They can work together. Isn’t that what they’re for?”
Pensive, Father had stared at me. “Someday, if you find a way to use both, do advise me.” He’d placed me on his shoulders and quipped, “In the meantime, your weight is much easier to bear.”
My weight. The heft of a child had been easier to bear than the weight of a nation. Of course, it had.
Whenever problems plagued Autumn, I would watch Mother’s head bow with indecision, then rise with resignation. Perhaps the numbness became a shield for her, like it had for Father.
And now for me.
Before Jinny’s words could snake into the pit of my stomach, numbness swooped in like a raptor and snatched the terror in its talons. As it did, a single thought looped in my mind.
They took Nicu.
They took him.
Nicu.
Sick with worry and exhaustion, Jinny’s limbs gave out. I caught her before she collapsed like a rag doll. Tumble shadowed me as I hooked my arm around the woman’s waist, hefted her into the stronghold, and scowled at one of the baffled sentinels.
“Help me,” I commanded, incredulous.
Tumble dashed out of range, the ferret’s sly movements going undetected. But the sentinel’s eyebrows tilted like ramps as he surveyed Jinny’s cotton dress, the apron embroidered with sprigs of lavender yet stained with dirt, and the soil wedged under her fingernails. “Your Highness,” the man cautioned, “wouldn’t it be best if—”
“No, it would not,” I commanded. “But I do recall telling you to help me.”
The confused man scooped Jinny into his arms and followed me to my suite. I sensed him itching to question the matter, to suggest we deposit her at the physician’s repository, to insist a mere peasant’s swoon hardly warranted a trip to a Royal’s chambers.
My glare ceased his objections. In my room, the sentinel draped Jinny on the bed while I perched at her side. “Send a maid,” I ordered.
As the man left, Tumble snuck into the room, bolted around every corner as if searching for Nicu, and finally slid under a reading chair. He blinked from beneath the upholstery and kept hissing, likely emitting some type of alarmed noise.
Jinny struggled to sit upright. “I have to—we have to—”
I gently pushed the woman down and wrapped her in my duvet. “We will,” I promised. “We will get him back. First, tell me how you got here.”
She panted at the canopy, her eyes jumping about in thought. “There are these herbs—they grow in a clearing off the main road. At our pace, it’s a right trip there and back, but I’ve been suffering a pained head something severe. I told myself we’d be careful of strangers, then hitched our horse and wagon.
“I-I bundled Nicu into the cart so no one could see him, told him it was a game.” Her wild gaze staggered across mine, and her features crimped with terror. “I told him it was a game,” she confessed, haunted.
“It’s all right,” I murmured, gathering her hands in mine. “Then what?”
“I was busy harvesting with Tumble when Nicu disappeared. He must have taken the road to the palace and seen the carnival ribbons. He must have mistaken them for the ones in our home. When I realized he was gone, I ran. I ran so fast, and I saw him at the drawbridge with the sentinels.” Tears rimmed her eyes, yet she didn’t allow them to fall. Instead, her jaw hardened an instant later, rage replacing the fear. “They were taking him away. Those bastards were taking my wee boy away.”
A growl scrolled from my throat. “Did they harm him?”
“Not a hair. If they had, I wouldn’t be standing here in one piece. I’d have skinned them alive with my bare hands, but no. Seeing as they didn’t hurt him, I knew intervening would only endanger Nicu more. He went with the guards willingly, probably thinking it was another game. Poet told him over and over not to pounce on strangers, but Nicu isn’t a child who remembers everything he’s told.”
“Is your wagon still tethered where you left it?”
Jinny nodded, her wits slowly recovering. “You have something in mind, then?”
