Chapter 22
Morgana
Seagulls circle over the Potamis River, their high-pitched cries rising above the noise around the city walls. People jostle us, giving us barely a second glance on our old mares and cheap ponies—just another set of weary travelers.
Yet as I gaze up at the large arch that houses the northern gate into Elmere, a prickle of horror runs through me as I make out the shapes hanging above the city gates.
Bodies—three of them—in various states of decomposition, their gray faces bloated, limbs swollen and rotting.
Now I understand what’s got the gulls so excited.
I quickly avert my eyes as one of the birds swoops toward the corpses, but not before I read the placards hanging from each of their necks.
Heretic.
“They’re new,” Stratton comments dryly as we ride underneath the arch, stopping at the gates beside a royal guard.
“Name and purpose of your visit?” he asks, his eyes narrowing as he takes in Leon. Even with his glamour and plain cloak, he looks like trouble.
Leon’s about to answer when the soldier straightens, glaring past us toward a group of young men lining up behind our horses.
“You there, what did you just say?” the guard jabs a finger at one of the confused youths.
“Excuse me,” Phaia starts to speak, but the guard just waves us through, too focused on reprimanding the young man to pay attention to us.
“What did you make him hear?” Tira murmurs to Hyllus out the corner of her mouth.
“He thinks that man said something very unpleasant about his mother,” Hyllus says mildly. “I’d better not repeat it.”
Tira snorts, but she’s quickly distracted by the sights and sounds of Elmere.
She’s never been here before, and I’m reminded of the day, all those months ago, when I rode in a carriage up the main avenues straight toward the palace.
That day, I’d been overwhelmed by everything the city had to offer, but now I don’t dwell on the unique buildings and interesting people, too distracted by the signs of change in the capital.
“It seems my aunt’s been busy since she became queen,” I comment to Leon when we pass the third sanctuary in as many blocks. It’s clearly been converted from another building, a scythe hastily carved above the doorway.
Elmere used to be relatively free of the Temple’s influence, but now it’s everywhere, from the bodies on the gates to the flash of red robes I keep spotting in the crowds. Oclanna has made sure the city has welcomed Caledon’s cult with open arms.
It doesn’t do much to lift my spirits. After Siga, we made contact with the Hand’s network, which got us back north without the Temple finding us, though it was slow going.
Even with our safety secured, we traveled under a black cloud of defeat.
Siga was a disaster—a great victory snatched from our grasp, literally, and all I have to show for it is a freshly healed scar on my back and the memory of those dead clerics on the riverbank.
I still don’t feel guilty about killing them, not when it was necessary to protect myself and my friends, yet I think about them often.
I find myself wondering exactly how deep I’ll have to dig into the darkness inside me for this war.
I unleashed my new power that day, letting it run free and unfettered, but it still didn’t keep the seal in our hands.
Will I ever be able to do enough—push myself far enough—to win this fight?
I know Leon’s experiencing a lot of my uncertainty secondhand across the mooring.
Of course, he takes a much more pragmatic approach, but that’s where his life experience and mine separates us.
He knows who he is, but I was only just figuring that out before the world started forcing identities on me: princess, heretic, rebel, death bringer.
Now we’re in Elmere for me to claim another title: Queen of Trova.
I’m aware of the palace up on the hill, watching over us as we slip through the streets. I’m glad when we finally reach our destination, hitching our horses at a cheap livery yard down the road first, then proceeding to the address the Hand’s network gave us.
Like most of the Hand’s safehouses, you’d never look at it twice.
The small house is made of rough gray stone with brown shutters on the windows.
Stratton knocks, and the door is quick to open.
A human woman with short hair and a round face surveys us for an instant, then leaves the door ajar so we can follow her inside.
There, in a small upstairs sitting room, sit my brother and Alastor.
I hug Harman extra tight, wanting to prolong this happy moment before I have to tell him what’s happened. But he senses something’s wrong right away, drawing back to study my face.
“You didn’t find the seal?” he asks.
“Worse,” I say.
It’s hard, telling them about Siga. Reliving the joy of finding the seal after our hard work locating it—achieving what felt like an impossible task—and then the betrayal of the smugglers and the fight with the clerics. Harman listens with a slight frown, but when I’m done, he pats me on the arm.
“I know it feels hopeless right now,” he says. “But I’ve heard a hundred disastrous debriefs about how a mission failed. The only way to deal with it is to pick yourself up and look ahead to the next task.”
“I know you’re right,” I say miserably. Leon’s already tried to make this point.
“But the seal was our only lead on the artifacts. I’ve sent messages to Fairon and Esther to see if Filusia or the Hand can help search for the others, but we’re still starting ten steps behind Caledon for the last two. ”
“And maybe if you’d left the seal where it was, Caledon would never have found it anyway,” Alastor points out. I nod. This depressing fact has also occurred to me.
“Tactful as ever, Al,” Harman sighs. “Except I’m sure Caledon would’ve located it eventually, with or without our help. He’s been working on finding the tokens much longer than we have, and he has the resources of an entire country behind him now.”
“Which is why removing my aunt from power is more important than ever,” I say.
“If we can’t find the tokens faster than Caledon, we need to slow his search down.
Oclanna’s given Caledon the use of the royal armies and free run of our territories.
If we take those away from him, his task gets a lot more difficult. ”
It’s not just about slowing him down. After what I saw at Siga, it’s clear I’ll need an army to stop Caledon, and I need it fast. The only way to guarantee that is by claiming the throne the right way.
There’s a distant knock on the front door of the house, and Leon’s soldiers stiffen, but Harman waves his hand to indicate we shouldn’t be worried. There’s some voices downstairs, and a single set of footsteps climbs to our floor.
A man with salt-and-pepper hair and a crinkle around his eyes appears in the doorway.
“Will!” I gasp, jumping up to run and hug my old friend.
“Hello, Morgana,” Will says warmly as he pats me on the back.
Harman smiles. “I’m glad I kept it a surprise. Now it’s something to cheer you up. Will’s been helping us here in the city. He found this place for us, for one.”
“Guinna downstairs is the daughter of an old pal of mine,” Will explains as Stratton gives up his chair to let Will sit down.
“Not just any old pal, a palace guard William knew back in the day,” Harman adds.
“As a Hand informant and someone who used to work in the royal court, I figured he’d be very useful helping us find sympathetic people in Elmere.
He’s even managed to link us up with the security of some nobles so we could talk to members of the court alone. ”
“It’s just been a lot of talking really,” Will says.
“Plenty of folk who worked under your parents’ reign aren’t keen on the way things are going.
I was one of them once, so I’m a safe person to open up to.
But how are you, my girl? Harman and Alastor here have been filling me on all your adventures. ”
I grimace. “Adventures” seems too light a word for it. When I was living with Will at Gallawing, there’s no way I could’ve envisioned all I’d go on to see and do.
“Things are very different since the last time I saw you,” I say carefully. “I’m different.” I study his face, wondering if he can see the missing piece of me, if he can sense the girl he once knew is now carrying around darkness at her core.
“Of course you are,” Will says with a gentle smile. “Hard times call for us all to change, but if it helps us to survive what gets thrown at us, then I call that growth.”
I nod slowly, his words helping me see things in a new way.
The girl who came to this city all those months ago could never have coped with the battle at the river Siga, or saved Leon by sacrificing a piece of her soul, or been tortured by the Temple and lived to tell the tale. But I can, and I did.
I sit up straighter as Harman and Alastor start to talk about their work over the last two and a half weeks, involving a host of names I don’t know and covert meetings in unfamiliar places.
“…And she said the best black market dealer in Filusian items was a man called Johnny Pockets on Wetworth Close,” Alastor says.
Harman clears his throat. “While I’m sure everyone wants to hear about our new friends, Al, why don’t we just skip to the part where we found the proof Morgana needs?”
I smirk at Leon.
“Alastor’s rubbing off on him,” I say across the mooring.
“I was just thinking the same thing.”
“Right,” Alastor claps his hands. “We found the man who gave Oclanna’s assassin the knife he used. He didn’t even smuggle it in from Filusia—he forged it himself, copying the Filusian style.”
“And he’ll attest to the fact the same knife was used to frame Leon?”
“Yes, now he’s confessed to Alastor, he’s willing to swear to it as long as we keep him safe from Oclanna and out of the hands of the authorities.”
I’m pleased. The testimony of a crook wouldn’t hold much sway in other circumstances, but with Alastor’s power to prove he’s telling the truth, his confession is useful.
“What about the monarch’s council?” Leon asks. “Did you find someone willing to back Ana’s challenge?”
Harman and Alastor exchange a smug look.
“Countess Irisma is your woman,” Harman says.
“Who is she?” Phaia asks. “And why would she be willing to risk her neck for the rogue princess?”
“She’s sixty-eight years old, has given birth to more important members of state than you can shake a stick at, and single-handedly negotiated a major trade deal with the Filusians about three decades ago,” Harman says.
“And she hates the Temple,” Alastor adds. “You must’ve seen the bodies over the gates when you came in. She’s not the only one on the council who’s unhappy about the extremism Oclanna’s brought to the capital, but she’s the one brave enough to make her feelings known.”
“When Oclanna pushed the council to vote on changing the law of accession so she could take the throne, Countess Irisma voted against it,” Harman finishes.
“You’re certain she’ll support my challenge?” I ask.
“We haven’t been able to speak to her directly,” Alastor admits.
“It’s too dangerous. But we’ve had communication with her through one of her servants, and she says her mistress is willing to stand up for the rightful queen, as long as we realistically think you can win the challenge. I think she’s a safe bet.”
“So do I,” Harman seconds.
“Alright,” I say, looking around at the rest of my friends for approval. Most of them offer me curt nods or encouraging smiles, but I also see a glimmer of doubt in their eyes. I feel that doubt too.
I wish we had more time to prepare. If we weren’t in such a hurry, we could secure my position better ahead of the challenge—convince not one, but three or five of the twelve-person council, to back my claim.
Right now, if Countess Irisma gets cold feet, we’re in trouble.
But I don’t have the luxury of time, not when Caledon is racing toward finding the last two artifacts and becoming so strong we may never have a hope of stopping him.
“That leads us to the next step, I suppose,” I say, remembering Harman’s advice to keep looking forward.
From where we’re seated at the top of the house, I can see out the window all the way to Elmere castle in the distance.
I knew this day was coming, have even relished the thought of it.
Still, the reality is setting in now. I might want this and know it’s the right thing, but the task ahead of me looms like that palace looms over the city. I have to kill my aunt.