Chapter Two
Highcastle
“Oh, this won’t do at all,” my mother said when Finnrey and I trudged through the courtyard gates still several hours before dawn. “You look a fright.”
“Good to see you too, Mother,” I said. I was dusty, tired, and hungry. My excitement had waned with each passing hour, and now all I wanted was a bath and my bed. I did not need to be judged and picked over.
“You cannot go to an audience with your father looking like this.”
“Orders are to escort the princesses directly to the king,” Ecdra said, taking my elbow and shuffling me forward.
My mother hurried to walk beside me. “Surely the king won’t mind if we take one minute to brush her hair.”
I touched my long dark plait. I hadn’t thought about it since I’d pinned it to the nape of my neck this morning.
In the outerlands, all that mattered was safety.
A Hollow could grab onto unsecured hair, so we kept it out of the way.
Loose or flowing clothing, like the gown my mother wore now, could also be a liability.
Finnrey and I were dressed in earth-toned tunics and tight leggings with belts at our waists to hold our weapons.
Even the packs we wore on our backs had quick release clasps so we might drop them away from our bodies in case of attack.
There had been no sign of Hollows on our trek back.
When we’d spotted the walls of the castle in the distance, I’d been relieved to see that everything looked as it should.
From the punishing pace Ecdra had set, I’d been afraid something was horribly wrong.
But now that I was inside the walls and all was quiet, the court asleep, I wondered exactly what the hurry had been.
If pressed, I might admit I was disappointed nothing overtly exciting was happening.
“I have my orders, my lady,” Ecdra told my mother, who tried to fuss with my hair anyway.
“Just leave it, Mother,” I said, trying not to tangle my feet with hers as I kept up with Ecdra. “Papa knows I’ve been out on patrol.”
“Oh, fine,” she said, blowing out a breath.
Ecdra continued to drag me across the large courtyard. As we passed the fountain, Finnrey looked at my mother. “Lady Aine, do you know why we’ve been summoned?”
Leave it to Finnrey to ask the one question we all wondered. Ecdra and the guards had refused to answer our questions on the trek back. But my mother had never been tight-lipped.
Mother shook her head, dashing my hopes.
Her long dark hair, tied up in two high tails on either side of her head, swished about her face.
“No, but all the princesses have been summoned. Broga was on patrol in the north, and she arrived back just an hour or so ago. Cameed, Riah, and Morga are already in the throne room.”
“That’s not all the princesses,” I said. There were several more, some older and others younger. My mother’s eyes, a tawny color like mine, widened.
“You’re right. Those are only the—”
“Unmarried princesses of age,” Finnrey interrupted her. She glanced at me. “Curious.”
It was curious, but I couldn’t make any sense of it.
In Earsleh, princesses were only allowed to marry men who were royal or of a noble family.
Of the eight royal princesses old enough to marry, only two had married.
The rest of us would probably never marry simply because there were no acceptable men.
While we might secretly mourn our fate, we didn’t question it.
At one time, long before I had been born, before even my papa’s time, things had been different.
There had been five kingdoms on the continent.
I’d heard whispers of other peoples across the sea, but no one I knew, not even Old Ceba, who claimed to be one hundred and forty-three, had ever seen any of those people.
Most doubted lands across the sea even existed.
But sometimes, when Ceba had drunk a little too much wine, he would forget that he was not to lecture us on history and would tell us tales of the time before the red vein virus infected people and turned them into Hollows.
In those days, almost one hundred years ago, people moved freely between the kingdoms and trade between the lands flourished.
Ceba said that in those glorious times, royal families intermarried to strengthen ties between kingdoms. I’d never met anyone from another kingdom.
It was difficult to travel safely in Earsleh.
No one wanted to go beyond our borders and the security of our Barrier and patrols.
Something else Ceba accidentally said, that always stuck with me, was that before the red vein virus, there were no restrictions on how many children a woman in Earsleh could produce.
People had lived all over the kingdom, spread out over the land.
Now only a handful were brave enough to live in the outerlands.
When I asked Ceba why the law had changed so that only the king and queen were allowed to have multiple children, he said it was because most people in Earlseh were confined to the castle walls.
The king felt it necessary to regulate the number of people in Highcastle, and he approved all marriages and said when or if a couple could produce a child.
If a couple disobeyed and had a child without approval or more than one child, they were sent to live in the outerlands.
Many families lived in the outerlands simply because they desired a large family.
Once Ceba let slip that in the past, women were excluded from military service.
It was still a fact that mostly men were sent to the Barrier, but now all women were also required to go on patrol.
The only excuse was if a woman had a child under two years old.
Some people said women who were afraid to go on patrol birthed multiple children to exempt themselves.
Those sorts of statements were uncharitable and distasteful.
Hadn’t I just seen that living in the outerlands—the trade-off for having multiple children—was far riskier than any patrol?
By now we were at the gates of the castle, and the sleepy guards at the entrance opened the gateways to admit us. Ecdra went first, followed by Finnrey, and then me. The guard started to close the gate as my mother cried out in protest.
“I’m sorry, Lady Aine. Only the princesses are allowed.”
“I am the mother of a princess and a former queen. I demand to be admitted.”
I let out a breath. I knew that tone. My mother did not like being denied something she wanted, and she could make a very big fuss when she didn’t get her way. Her eyes narrowed into slits, her lips pressed into a tight line, and her voice grew low and quiet—as it was now.
Ecdra must have known what was coming too and decided dealing with an angry Lady Aine was not worth it.
“Let her pass,” he said, tossing the words over his shoulder.
He sounded tired, and I felt that weariness in my bones.
I’d been awake almost a full day now, traveling or scouting for most of it.
My head and back hurt, and my eyes stung with fatigue.
I would make whatever sacrifice was required to get this audience over with.
“Thank you,” my mother said as she passed through the gate and stood at my side.
Her head was held high as though she was the one who had done Ecdra a favor by joining us.
Two more guards opened the towering wooden doors, revealing the shining great hall of the castle.
It was quiet at this hour, but usually it was bustling with activity.
Signs pointed to the fact that we were expected.
The great hall was not dark. Instead, lamps blazed, the polished floor gleamed, and the opulent tertanium accents glinted in the light, reminding everyone that we were a rich and noble kingdom.
Ecdra marched ahead, veering to the right to take a doorway off the great hall.
I knew this path well. It was a faster route to the king’s throne room than climbing the wide stairway and passing the great gallery with paintings of all the kings and queens of the past. This corridor was simple and had been carved out of the rock that composed the hill protecting one side of the castle.
I shivered at the cold air and ducked my head as I entered the doorway.
I had to stoop a bit so as not to brush my head on the ceiling.
The path wound around but sloped gently upward as we climbed the hill.
A few moments later, Ecdra pushed open another door and we emerged in the throne room’s antechamber.
Two large she-wolves lifted their heads from where they’d been sleeping beside the hearth.
The Hollows had decimated any free-roaming animals in Earsleh.
Though the wolves lasted longer than any cattle or sheep, the Hollows would converge on a wolf pack in a horde and take them down.
We still saw the occasional bird or creature that could burrow underground, but anything that might draw the notice of the Hollows was long gone.
My father’s wolves were said to be the last of their kind.
Seven or eight years ago, the pups were found by a patrol, alone and crying in a den.
The patrol leader brought them to Highcastle and gifted them to my father, who raised the pups as pets.
Being in the presence of the wolves always felt magical to me.
Now, seeing us, the wolves put their heads back on their paws and closed their eyes again.
My attention was drawn by the sound of my half-sisters bickering and squabbling as usual. My father’s head of council approached, looking as though he’d been dragged out of bed and hadn’t had time to dress properly or comb his thick gray hair. Ecdra opened his arms, indicating Finnrey and me.
“Here they are.”
“Very good,” Lord Ashe said. He beckoned us forward and cleared his throat. “Lady Finnrey of Highcastle and Lady Mara of Highcastle.”
My mother cleared her throat and stepped forward.