Chapter One

 

 

Av stumbled into breakfast, bleary eyed and feeling self-conscious. Lords and ladies stopped in conversation to gape at him. The head table was quiet as he sat and began serving himself from the laden dishes. He looked up at those occupying the other seats, fully expecting to have to explain Aren's absence.

Every head at the head table was hanging, their eyes were bleary and hair in disarray. The ranks of court had had a good deal to drink the night before. Hung over, it took them a very long time to even realize someone else had sat at the table. They all made small sounds acknowledging the presence of someone new, but didn’t look up from their plates of food.

Van was the first to look up, his eyes not quite focusing though otherwise the western baron looked well. Tired, but not in agony as the others were.

“Water is key to cheating pain after a night of heavy drinking,” Van said, lifting the mug that was before him.

“Most lords prefer tea or wine with breakfast,” Av said quietly.

“I know some of how the palace works; I know how clear and good this water is,” Van grumbled. “After all, I've been trying to imitate the cleaning magic in my home for years. It can be quite difficult unless generations of ranks have directed the flow of magic in just a way.”

Av's mind might have been clouded from lack of sleep, but he could have sworn Van had just said he was in control of the magic of his home. Only a queen could have control of her magic, especially in the western marshes, where women were the only reason houses stood above the soggy ground.

Van watched Av. The two met eyes and the western baron's face fell. Suddenly alert, Van looked over the table.

“Where is Aren?” Van asked.

Er and then Gamen turned to Av, eyes slowly focusing on him, then on the empty chair beside him. He looked to the chair and then over the table, thinking back over how things had come to this point.

The barons had come to the palace under strange circumstances. Merkat, baron of the south, had supposedly summoned them. He had done it to have them witness the arranged mating between his youngest son, Laeder, and the one who sat the throne.

Aren had no romantic interest in Laeder. The young man certainly had no interest in Aren, beyond the fact that she was a queen and he had done extensive research on her rank upon being informed of the arrangement by his father some months prior.

Av had claimed Aren. He had thought she was interested in him and perhaps she had been, but he couldn't tell if she still wanted his company.

Laeder only liked his own, having paired up with Jer while arranged to be mated to Aren. Av didn't blame the young man. After all, there had only been one outcome of the arranged mating: death.

The only way for the two not to be mated, as far as any of them could figure out, was if one of them were to die. Aren was too important, she sat the throne, and fuelled the magic of the palace to give them lights, water, and even heat. She was stronger than any queen in centuries. There was no way the court would allow anyone to remove her.

Laeder would be the one who would have to die and he knew it. When a man thought he was about to die, he acted differently. The young man had chosen to go to bed with Jer, to enjoy his last days amongst the living.

They had been told there was no way to break off the mating, which made Av presently question why things were not being thrown at him. Perhaps that had something to do with the fact that Merkat was still drinking, obviously wavering in his seat, or the fact that Laeder smiled openly at Jer as Av's brother sat beside him.

The night before had been the engagement ball for Aren and Laeder, which had been carefully arranged by Aren's mother, Para. When Aren had walked into the ball, Av’s heart had almost stopped. He couldn't carry the burden of allowing her to go to another, promising himself one last dance. They had floated across the floor and there, before the court and the barons, Aren had claimed Av.

If anyone else tried to touch her, he would kill them. Even then. Even after all that had happened in the late hours of the evening and then the early morning.

He had been denied, excuses had been made. Enough was enough. The barons would be leaving for their homes soon and he would make it clear to Merkat that there would be no mating between his blood and Aren's. Not now and not ever.

After leaving the ball, Av and Aren had retired to the queen's rooms, those that would be Aren's when she was at the palace. They had enjoyed one another and fallen asleep together. Late night, or early morning—he wasn't entirely certain which—he had awoken to a sound and a dim light.

She had been reading journals of those who had sat the throne before her. Crying because each had thought they would rule a long time, breaking the line of short lived queens. Each had been removed by their mates. After coming to love and trust someone, being delivered a mercy by them was no easier. It certainly wasn't easy for the mate to handle, either. He, or in the one instance she, had to live out the remainder of his days knowing he had taken the life of his one true love.

Av couldn't imagine having to live with that burden.

At eighteen, Aren had looked out over her life and seen an execution sentence. Her fear had driven her to run away, leaving Av alone in the middle of the night with no explanation. He had no idea where she might be headed, when she would be back, or what he was supposed to tell everyone else while she was gone.

Aren had simply vanished.

Av hadn't understood how, but she knew coastal tricks. She knew how to hide her rank while at court, even from Em, her predecessor. It hadn't been until after Av revealed Aren, after she had run away and stumbled upon a cave of queen's stone, that her rank became apparent to those around her. Aren had blamed many things, yet to him, to his senses, she had remained the same.

She was a young woman who wanted to remain private and removed from court, who had difficulty making friends with anyone and refused to speak to the lords and ladies unless she had called the court. Her temper, when she had been hiding, drove others from looking too closely at her. Av had thought it an act. The more time he spent around Aren, though, the more he wondered if perhaps her aloofness was not an act, but an actual inability to interact with people on a personal level.

Aren had made friends with Mar, a young queen about her age, but only after being forced together. Mar had no one else to talk to in the six months that the pair had spent as guardian and ward. What began as a mutual anger and rebellion against Em had bloomed into friendship.

He had no idea what the young women had in common, besides both coming from families who had shuffled them away, ignored them, and refused to allow them to have friends. Perhaps that was enough.

Aren's tricks had hidden her until she became Mar's guardian. After which she had allowed the servants to see her in order to hide Mar from them. This allowed Mar to do things, such as training with the guards, while keeping her true identity hidden.

It hadn't been until Mar's engagement ball that Av had discovered Aren's rank. She had fled after knocking him unconscious. Leaving the palace with a murderous madman, Aren had thought to escape what she perceived as danger, only to find herself in an even more dangerous position. The madman had attacked Aren, driving her into what he had called a spirit cave. A cave filled with a mysterious blue stone and whispering female voices, the cave had actually been filled with queen's stone. The same stone that caused a wasting disease on palace grounds during wet springs, queen's stone had the frightening ability to infect those who stumbled upon the living stone with something much worse.

Once infected, the victim was typically given five days to live. Aren had survived the five days. Thanks to his mother's bloodline and their oral traditions, Av, Jer, and their father, knew that even though Aren hadn't succumbed in those five days, that didn't mean she hadn't been infected. For those who survived infection by queen's stone suffered a much worse fate.

A slow spiral into madness.

Since her time in the cave, Aren had exhibited strange changes. Her temper flared often, anger came more easily. Perhaps all emotion did, which would be a boon for a queen. The stronger their emotions, the more they could fuel their magic, even if they had burned through every drop they had.

Others began noticing Aren, seeing her rank. She claimed to have lived through the same day twice, successfully predicting and changing the future with Av's help. Finally, when she had been brought before the throne Telm had curiously made a comment on how she had become stronger. Something that, at least as far as he knew, was impossible for a rank. The strength a rank was born with was simply what they had for the entirety of their lives.

Once Aren had been taken by the throne, peculiar things began happening.

Ignoring the flickering lights and briefly purple water.

Everyone seemed to come to court as one. Not because they had felt the change, but because Em had demanded Aren's parents come to court, who in turn contacted the baron of the south, who contacted the other barons. All arrived just days after Aren was taken by the throne, despite the fact that each of their travel times varied and were days to almost a month travel.

Av suspected that the throne had called them all to the palace, but he didn't understand why. When his mother had sat the throne, they had not come as a group to court even though his mother had written treaties between the palace and the northern and eastern barons.

The southern baron had, somehow, known that Aren was going to be the next on the throne. He had brought his son with him to arrange a mating between him and Aren. The court had agreed.

Normally, arranged matings could be broken off if an elopement happened, but in order to elope the couple needed permission from one parent on each side. Aren's parents had made it very clear that they would never consent to Av mating her.

With the barons watching their every move, and Telm determined to prevent a war, they had remained separate. Av had watched his cousin Url walk Aren, claiming her just in case the arrangement with the southern baron fell through. Frustrated, he had been forced to remain idle as the one he had claimed went about court life. He had tried to stay out of it, knowing that if he did get involved he would be forfeiting his life, but during Aren's engagement ball their eyes had met and that had been the end of him.

The night before, after finally holding what was his, he had let her go because she believed that he only wanted to use her. Far from it. Av's only thought the past six months had been claiming and capturing Aren, to make her admit his claim on her. Yet once he had her, he was conflicted as to what to do. He had been so focused on the chase that he had forgotten that she was a young woman. She was a queen who needed to be protected, from her parents, the barons, the court, and anyone else who tried to use her. As the one who claimed her, it was his duty to protect her.

Perhaps that, too, was why he had allowed Aren to run.

To give her the freedom to think, to figure out what she wanted while giving him the freedom to show his more violent nature to those at court who had plans for the young woman. Without Aren to intervene, he could even get away with murder, so long as he planned carefully and gave plenty of warning.

Her parents would have to survive, but that didn't mean he couldn't banish, maim, and threaten them. Of the barons, he only wanted Gamen of the east and Er of the north, his uncle, at court. The southern baron had to go because he would challenge Av. The baron of the west had to go because he was a threat to Aren's reign.

Av stopped mid-thought and turned his attention back to Van.

He had no idea why he had thought that. It didn't sound like something he would normally think about a baron. Van's land was not allied to palace lands, but that didn't make him a threat. The marshlands had strong ranks, but their queens used most of their magic keeping homes from sinking into the wet land. Van himself appeared relatively harmless. A weaker warrior, for all but the southern baron were warriors, Van wouldn't even be a challenge to Av.

A voice whispered in Av's ear, begging him to look more closely.

Av jerked towards Telm, but the voice had been male.

"What?" Telm said, tea halfway to her mouth. "Are you hearing things? Do I need to warn you again about chasing invisible people?"

Er grunted out, buttering a piece of bread, "When was the last time the mate to the throne actually heard the throne?"

This drew a chuckle from most of the men at the table. The words registered in Av's mind, but he didn't quite understand. Asking what was going on would not be the best idea, not at the breakfast table, not then.

Focusing on Van, he squinted, seeing nothing more than a weak warrior. He shook his head, not understanding the voice, not understanding the instinctual reaction to shout and throw things at the older man.

"Don't be eyeing Van," Er said quietly. "He'll gut you with your own blade, Av. Best to start with the weaker amongst us, if you plan to off the barons, one by one."

Except Van, to his eye, was weakest by far. There was a hint of fear in his uncle's voice, indicating that Er truly believed what he said.

Turning to Van, he said, "You and I need to have a conversation."

"Not today," Van grumbled. "Tomorrow, perhaps, when I've my wits about me and the whole world isn't spinning."

"Aren's not even at breakfast yet," Er said. "Surely snarling and marking your territory can at least wait until she is up and about."

"Should buy us a few days," Telm said, causing those at the table to chuckle, then wince at the sound of their own voices.

Av swallowed and made a small, involuntary sound. He felt sick as all eyes turned to him.

"Aren will not be joining us," he said, despite how his throat constricted, how his chest seemed to tighten to the point that he could not get in a breath.

"Don't just sit there," Van said idly. "Tell us why."

"She left last night. Aren's gone."

"Oh?" Telm asked. "Is that all?"