Mara finished emptying the tavern. She shooed out all but a handful of patrons, carefully selected: her husband—Lorne—a woman, and two men.
She bolted the door and craned her neck up at the stairs, calling out for someone to come down. Yesenia met Mara’s eyes as the woman ran her hands over her arms, as though chilled. Snow had once more turned to rain, pelting the uneven stones of the Row beyond.
Yesenia glanced at Corin. His nearness was enough to steel her frayed nerves, but she was never far away from the understanding that every second here was a second stolen—a second that could bring the Quinlanden Guard in swarms.
His tight smile betrayed his shared worries. In his eyes, he wore the love she needed to see, before they heard what Mara and the others had to say.
Yesenia leaped up, nearly knocking her chair over, at the sight of the man Mara had called down the stairs.
“Anatole!” Yesenia yelled his name in a violent, rushed whisper and dashed to greet him. “What? You devil. How?”
“It was in the agreement that you could have your own men and women, Yesenia. Ye know, the one you didnae read,” he said, accepting the squash of her hands atop his. “But your brother feared they’d have me dispatched before we arrived at Arboriana, claim it was brigands or some such. He bade me wait—and hide. I remember ye telling me about this place, what it meant to you. I’ve been here for going on a week, waiting for you.”
“Waiting for me?” She dropped his hands. “How could ye have known I’d come here?”
“I didnae,” he said with a fractured laugh. “But I hoped ye might, or I’d be finding myself a wife and settling down.”
“Why come at all, if ye thought they’d dispose of you?”
“Khallum asked me to. He said you’d need me but that I wouldnae be able to serve ye properly from where the tree-dwellers live.” He shot a half-apologetic glance to Corin. “That I should wait in safety for ye, until the need arose.”
“The need has arisen,” Mara declared, drawing her arms in swooping motions to encourage everyone to gather around the large table at the center of the tavern.
As they shuffled into place, Mara nodded at Lorne. He was behind the bar, balancing four pitchers of ale that sloshed with his uneven gait. Tristan, the young boy who’d drawn the picture of Corin, appeared behind Lorne with the mugs.
“Thank you, son,” the other woman said with a soft nuzzle of the boy’s cheeks. “Pass them around, there you go.”
Thank you, Yesenia mouthed to Tristan as she accepted her mug.
“I forgot to bring your picture tonight, Lady Yesenia. ’Tis a poor thanks for all the vellum you brought me.” His smile deflated.
“Just Yesenia,” she said gently to remind him. “But there will be other nights, Tristan. I ken it will be well worth the wait.”
He beamed in response and went to deliver the rest of the mugs.
“Right. Everyone have their ale?” Mara asked. She slid in at the end of the bench. “Laoch, Yesenia, you can trust every man, woman, and child in this room. Yesenia, Riona is my sister. Callan is her husband, and Tristan is their son. Laoch and my family are already well acquainted. And Antioch...” She nodded at the final man. “Would you like to introduce yourself?”
The man fiddled with his dark hood. “I come from Streamstowne, near the western border of the Easterlands. I’m only the first emissary to arrive. Others are coming.”
“Coming, why?” Corin asked.
“While the two of you enjoyed yourselves in the Southerlands, your father again raised the rents across the Reach by another ten percent.”
“Antioch.” Mara clucked her tongue. “Save your ire for the deserved ones.”
“But they’re already double what they should be,” Corin stated. He swallowed a mouthful of his ale, letting it sit in his mouth before swallowing. “Guardians. There’s no low my father won’t fall to.”
“You really haven’t heard of all the smaller uprisings, in the lesser cities?” Callan asked, his face wrinkled in surprise.
“My father mentioned some skirmishes, but he seemed to think they were nothing.”
Mara laughed, looking at the others. “Why does that not surprise me, eh?”
“So we’ve come,” Antioch continued, “to do something about it.”
“We?” Yesenia looked around. “How many men are ye expecting? Whatever it is, triple it, and it still wouldnae be enough to challenge Chasten Quinlanden.”
“We’re on your side, always, but Yesenia is right. If you’re planning some kind of uprising, I hope your plan is more solid than this,” Corin said with wide eyes.
“No. But it will be.” Antioch turned his heavy gaze on Mara. “You didn’t tell them then, did you?”
“There wasn’t time,” she said. Her shoulders rolled back in a touch of defense. “First Laoch showed up, in distress, and then hours later, Yesenia. But their plans are a match for ours, Antioch. You might say the timing is the most fortune we’ve seen in many years.”
“What’s going on here?” Corin asked, looking from one to the other.
Riona spoke. “Laoch, you have been a friend to the Row, a friend to all of the Easterlands, since you were a boy. We have oft wondered how our lives could be... if you were our lord.”
“You’re serious?” Yesenia whispered. She fell back in her chair. Timing and their own distress had caused them to overlook the changes in Mara—and the men and women of the Row. They’d been planning something for months, and that it was coming together now, when she and Corin were back, was only wind for their flame. “This is happening?”
Corin’s laugh turned into the high pitch of a cornered animal. “Riona, Mara. You both know... no.” He shook his head. “It cannot be me.”
“Why not you? You have the constitution to be a fair lord, a loving one. No one knows that better than we do,” Mara replied. To Yesenia, she said, “The details came together while the two of you were away... and still coming together, piece by piece. But now we see that timing is as important as intention. The two of you are in very real danger. You yourself said they might take your child. Laoch has spent his life trying to improve ours. We would do the same for you and save the whole Reach in the same breath.”
“I’ll take your ravens beyond Whitechurch and send them from somewhere safer,” Antioch said. “Lorne, you’ll ride south and send the hundreds we prepared tonight, to go out to every corner of the Easterlands.”
“No,” Anatole said, speaking for the first time since they’d settled around the table. “Let me take Yesenia and Corin’s ravens. If I’m caught, they’ll just send my head back to my mother. If you’re caught, they’ll know what you’re up to, and your plans will be over before you get the chance to see them through.”
“They’ll raze the Row. They’ll cut ye all down, like dogs.” Yesenia’s panic traveled to her hands. She set down her mug before she dropped it. “What you’re suggesting... It takes years of planning. Not months.”
“With respect, Yesenia, this has been years in the planning,” Mara replied. “But it was Laoch’s happiness, seeing him with a wife, building a family, that spurred us to make it happen now. It showed us we could yet have a leader who led for the people, not for themselves. But you can’t do that if you aren’t even safe yourselves, can you?” She softened and reached a hand over, covering Yesenia’s. “The Row is only wood and straw and stone. It can be rebuilt. Our people are stronger.”
“I know,” Yesenia whispered, lowering her eyes. “But...”
“No buts. This is our choice. That we can also protect the two of you in making it happen is how I know it’s right. That the timing is right.”
“We respect this choice,” Corin said, glancing sideways at Yesenia. “We do. As we love and respect all of you. But wait until you’re ready. I beg of you. Yesenia is right; they will cut you down without losing a moment of sleep over it. Wait until you’re really ready. We’ll stand by you. You know we will.”
“You don’t have that kind of time, Laoch.”
“We’ll make it,” Corin said. “We have to. My father and brother will answer for what they’ve done to the two of us. Lord Warwick will come.”
“It will be weeks before he can get here,” Lorne said. “Is that a chance you’re willing to take?”
“It’s our chance to take,” Yesenia answered, flattening her palms against the table with more restraint than she felt. “We willnae watch our friends die to protect us. You have already suffered too much. That isnae... no. Corin, we should go. We’ve been gone too long already.”
“What precisely has you so upset?” Mara asked. “You think you don’t deserve friendship because you’re higher born than us?”
Yesenia squeezed her jaw tight to keep from crying. “I know I don’t deserve your friendship, Mara. And I willnae have your blood on my heart too.”
“Yesenia, wait!”
Corin raced behind her down the slick cobbles of the Row. When he caught up, he spun to in front of her, choking a sob in his throat at the sight of her face curled in grief, her tears mingling with the rain.
“We cannae let them do it, Corin. It’s hard enough you and I have to fight to save our child, but to know we could lose them too? And that they could lose everything?”
“They heard you. They heard us,” he said to reassure her, pressing her face to his chest. “Khallum will come. He’ll come, and we’ll fix this, and then we’ll join them.”
“They’ll make you lord.”
“That’s not going to happen. Do we even need a lord? Maybe it’s time the Reach is given back to the people.”
Yesenia sniffled and pulled back. “As if the king would ever allow such a thing.”
Corin nodded. “We could give it to a Sylvaine then, or—”
“Not tonight.” Yesenia pulled her hood up, shuddering into the last of her sobs. “Tonight we just have to survive, Corin... tonight and for the next few weeks, until Khallum can raise arms. That’s all.”
“We will.”
“You donnae sound convinced.”
“I have to be, because even trying to envision a world without you in it, without you and me together, is worse than any nightmare my mind could conjure.”
Yesenia leaned up to kiss him. She left her mouth resting against his. “We cannae return together.”
Corin sighed. “You’re right. I know.”
“I’ll go first. Come to me later, when you can. I know they want us apart, but I’d like... I’d prefer we combine our strength for the days ahead.”
Corin softly laughed. “Can’t even say you need me? Even now?”
“I need nothing,” Yesenia whispered and kissed him once more, her lips still lingering upon his as they spread into a smile. “Except you. I will always need you. Our son will need you.” She cocked her head. “I’ll need you, Corin, for the days ahead. That better?”
“Better.” He straightened her hood. “Ride safely.”
“If they donnae let you come to me, I...” Yesenia’s voice caught. She sucked in her lip.
“I know.” Corin pressed his mouth to her forehead. “Go, my love.”