Castles in Their Bones (Castles in Their Bones #1)

Daphne

A scant half hour after emerging from the river drenched and freezing, finds herself in a dry, new gown almost identical to the green velvet one she wore before, a thick ermine cape draped over her shoulders to ward off the chill that works its way even into the carriage she shares with King Bartholomew and Bairre. Neither of them seems to feel the cold, but when remarks on it, Bartholomew gives her a small smile that doesn’t reach his eyes.

“You’ll grow used to it, in time,” he tells her.

thinks she would rather burn alive than stay in this miserable place long enough to grow used to it, but she pretends to find the words a comfort.

King Bartholomew glances at Bairre, whose attention is focused out the window, before looking back at her. He seems to steel himself for something—hardly a good sign, thinks. The king takes a deep, steadying breath before he speaks.

“There is no easy way to say this and I’m still struggling to say it at all, but Cillian died six days ago, the night after Cliona and the others departed to meet you.”

laughs. She doesn’t mean to, but after all the stress and sleepless nights and change over the course of the last few days, she can’t help it.

“You aren’t serious,” she says, but when Bartholomew and Bairre only look at her with anguished eyes, her laughter dies. “I—I’m s-so sorry,” she stammers, “I didn’t mean…I’d heard he was ill, but I didn’t think…”

“None of us did,” King Bartholomew says, shaking his head. “Until a few months ago, he was the picture of health. We always assumed his illness would pass. It didn’t.”

His words are clipped and matter-of-fact and can see the general he was before he was king, a man more familiar with death than life. But even that hasn’t prepared him for the loss of his son—beneath the placid exterior, there is pain in his eyes.

“I’m sorry,” she says, and she means it. She didn’t know Cillian, not really. They’ve shared letters over the last few years and she’s thought him kind and clever, but she isn’t Sophronia, imagining herself in love with a boy made of words. Any sympathy she feels, though, is quickly drowned out by panic that she tries her best to hide. What does this mean for her mother’s plan, for her own future?

“Thank you,” King Bartholomew says. “It’s difficult for a parent to lose a child, just as I’m sure it was difficult for you to lose your father.”

doesn’t correct him, though the truth is that she rarely thinks about her father. He died when she was only a few days old. She couldn’t mourn someone she’d never known, and besides, her mother has been more than enough.

“I always looked forward to Cillian’s letters,” she says instead, another lie that falls easily from her lips. “I was very much excited to finally meet him.”

“I know he felt the same, isn’t that right, Bairre?” King Bartholomew says, looking at his son.

Bairre gives a jerky nod but doesn’t speak.

“However,” Bartholomew continues, “I am a king first and everything else second, even a father. And as much as I would like to take the time to properly grieve Cillian, I must ensure my country’s well-being. We need the trade routes our alliance with Bessemia promised.”

frowns. “I’m sorry, I’m confused,” she says. “I came here to seal an alliance through marriage. If Cillian is dead—”

“Cillian was my wife’s and my only surviving child, but there were others. Ten total. Six born alive; three of those survived a week. None survived two.”

“I’m sorry,” she says again.

King Bartholomew shakes his head. “The reason I am telling you this is so that you understand: we can have no more children together. The stars will not give us any, for whatever their reasons might be. And a united Friv is too young—too fragile—to endure should I die without an heir.” He pauses, looking at Bairre, who sits up straighter, his face suddenly ashen. “However, I do have an heir.”

“You must be joking,” Bairre practically growls. “Cillian has been dead six days and you want me to replace him? To just step into his life, his title, his betrothal like a pair of hand-me-down boots?”

King Bartholomew flinches, but his gaze on his son remains steady. “Friv needs a clear future. Legitimizing you is the only way to give her one.” He doesn’t wait for Bairre’s response, instead turning to . “And this way, our treaty with Bessemia will still stand. I have written to your mother already. Her agreement arrived just before you did. An updated contract is being drawn up as we speak.”

Of course she has, thinks. One Frivian prince is much the same as another. She doubts her mother even spared the matter a second thought.

“Is it a request?” Bairre asks his father, his voice shaking. “Or a royal order?”

The king doesn’t answer at first, though he suddenly looks much older than his thirty-seven years. “You are my son,” he tells Bairre. “And I believe I have raised you in such a way that you will know the difference.”

If Bairre does know the difference, he doesn’t say as much. Instead, he looks at for the first time since she entered the carriage. “And you?” he asks, the words scathing. “Are you all right with agreeing to marry a stranger?”

holds his gaze. “I was always going to marry a stranger,” she says before looking at King Bartholomew. “Whatever it takes for the treaty to hold.”

—

If the Bessemian palace is the crown jewel of the country, the sun around which all life revolves, the castle steps into that evening is the long shadow of Friv, a distillation of its wildness and savagery. There isn’t a hint of gold glowing beneath the light of the candles, no shining enamel paint, no glistening marble. It is all stone and wood, narrow hallways lined with thick wool rugs in shades of gray, and sparse décor. Where the entryway of the Bessemian palace is bright and decorated with gilded paintings and porcelain vases stocked with fresh flowers, the entryway here is dimly lit, with only a handful of oil portraits framed in naked wood.

pulls her ermine cloak tighter around her shoulders.

“I must check on the queen,” King Bartholomew tells them as soon as they’re inside. “Bairre—will you see settled in?”

The king doesn’t wait for an answer before hurrying off down the dark hallway. and Bairre remain, cloaked in an awkward silence.

“I’m sorry,” she says when the silence becomes too much. “I can see you cared for him.”

He doesn’t answer right away. “He was my brother,” he tells her, finally, as if it’s that simple.

And it is. Because even though doesn’t like Bairre, she cannot imagine what it is like in his mind right now. If it were Sophronia or Beatriz dead, she doesn’t know how she would even continue to breathe.

“I’m sorry,” she says again, because there is nothing else to say.

He nods once before looking at her, his silver eyes intent and red-rimmed. Star-touched, thinks, though this, too, was part of the spies’ information. She has never quite understood it—what woman would wish for a child only to give him up? Bartholomew wasn’t even king at the time of conception, just another soldier. So much about Bairre is a mystery.

He offers a brief, halfhearted bow. “There’s a guard at the end of the hall who will show you to your room,” he tells before turning on his heel and walking away, leaving her alone in a strange castle, in a strange country, with her world off-kilter.

—

paces the length of her bedchamber. It’s smaller than the one she had in Bessemia, but she’s grateful for that—the tiny room traps the heat from the fireplace better than a larger space would. The thick pine-green velvet curtains insulate the room from the bitter outside air, and the bed and chaise are piled high with furs in shades of white, gray, and brown. A woven gray wool rug, patterned with curls of green ivy, covers the stone floor nearly wall to wall.

It has been hours since she arrived, and the clock in the corner shows it is nearing two in the morning. Her attendants have come and gone after changing her into a flannel nightgown. Despite the late hour and the busy day, she can’t find sleep. She can’t do anything but pace while her thoughts unspool.

Prince Cillian is dead.

It doesn’t change anything, not really. She was sent here to marry a prince, and so she will. Nothing will change but the name on the marriage contract. It’s what her mother would tell her if she were here.

But that isn’t the whole truth. She’s spent her entire life preparing to marry Cillian, learning everything about him, figuring out how to make him fall in love with her so that he would be clay in her hands. She knew about his obsession with falconry and archery, that he once found a baby rabbit with a broken leg and nursed it back to health himself, how he forfeited a horse race when he realized his competitors were letting him win. She understood how Cillian worked, and how to use it to her advantage.

Bairre, though, is a mystery she doesn’t understand and doesn’t like—a feeling that seems mutual. The tactics she had planned for Cillian won’t work on him. She will have to start from scratch.

There is a part of her, too, that can’t stop thinking about Cillian’s letters, the boy she knew inside and out even without meeting him. She wasn’t Sophronia, losing her head and heart over a few kind words, but when she thinks of Cillian, cold and lifeless, she feels a pang of something deep in her chest that might be grief.

It won’t do. She shakes herself and tries to focus.

The seal.

She originally planned to give herself a few days to settle in and figure out how to steal the king’s seal while avoiding notice, but now, with everything feeling more tentative, latches on to the one solid thing she can do. And, she reasons with herself, given the late hour and the prince’s recent death, the castle will be quieter than usual, allowing her the perfect chance to snoop.

She slides her cloak on over her nightgown and picks up the candle from her bedside table. She slips from the warmth of her room into the cold and empty hallway.

The Bessemian palace never felt dark. Even in the early hours of the morning, it was always bright and bustling. Servants would start bringing coffee and breakfast to courtiers’ rooms even as other courtiers were just coming home from whatever ball or banquet had begun the night before. It was never quiet, not like this.

It’s unsettling to as she tiptoes down the pitch-black hall, the candle casting a small aura of light, just enough to see a few feet in front of her.

Part of her wants to return to her room, but she knows she might never get another chance like this—even if she is caught, she’s new enough that she can widen her eyes and claim she got lost trying to find a glass of water.

She knows her mother keeps her seal in her office, hidden away in the locked drawer in her desk. It seems as good a place to start as any. The layout of the castle is strange to her, but she remembers the way she came from the entrance, the same way Bartholomew went when he left, which means she must be in the royal wing. The king’s office should be here as well, but it will be more accessible, closer to the castle entrance, so that he can hold meetings without visitors having to pass through his family’s private halls.

Of course, it would be easier if it weren’t so dark. It takes nearly half an hour of wandering to find the entryway she came through, never passing another soul along the way. It sets her teeth on edge. For the last sixteen years, she’s seen guards posted outside each door—her own included. It’s all she’s ever known, so the sudden absence of them feels like a nagging fly, darting around forever just out of reach.

There are guards standing outside the front hall—she sees their outlines clearly through the windows—more than twenty of them in her line of sight alone, and each with a rifle in hand. Given the absence of guards inside the castle, that many outside strikes as strange. What sort of threat are they worried about?

She goes to the first door down the hall of the royal wing and presses her ear against the wood, listening for voices. It can’t be a bedroom—who would want to sleep so close to the entrance?—so when she hears nothing, she carefully pushes the door open.

A sitting room, with plush velvet furniture and floral curtains. A small harpsichord sits in the corner, though it looks neglected, the keys covered by the lid and the sheet music kept on a high shelf with a thick layer of dust over it.

A gallery is next, another sitting room, a library, but no sign of an office.

has all but given up when she finds a locked door—a promising sign. She pulls the pins from her hair and crouches so the lock is eye level. Lockpicking is a delicate process, and one that requires patience in spades, which is why has always enjoyed it more than her sisters. It takes time and effort to displace all the pins in the lock’s barrel, but nothing is more satisfying than when she’s finally able to lever the hairpins to turn the door’s handle.

She withdraws her hairpins from the lock as she steps into the room, hastily shoving them back into her hair. Her earlier instinct proves right: it is the king’s office––a moderate-sized room dominated by an oak desk, the walls lined with wood-framed paintings of various battles can’t name. The only paintings she recognizes are a cluster of smaller ones just behind the desk showing the queen, young and rosy-cheeked, a young Prince Cillian, and Bairre at six or seven. Even then he looked surly, seeming to stare at her straight through the painting.

There is no time to waste. The top of the desk is covered only with sheaves of papers, a feather quill and inkpot, and a heavy marble paperweight. Most of the drawers reveal nothing of note. More papers—orders for merchants, correspondence from a cousin in the north, several original versions of royal decrees that have been issued over the last decade.

None of the drawers are locked, but none of them contain the king’s royal seal, either.

She could keep looking, try another room, but it is nearly morning now, and the castle will be waking at any moment.

She leaves the office just as she found it and slips from the room, making her way back to her bedroom to get a measly hour or so of sleep before dawn.