Chapter 5
eering out the window, I count half a dozen soldiers around the cottage.
They’re mounted in a semicircle: some men, some women, all wearing gold armor that shines in the sun.
There’s a symbol emblazoned on their chests with the intertwining letters VIA.
It takes me a woeful amount of racking my brain to realize they stand for Verdish Imperial Army.
The soldier at the door is a big man with red hair.
He knocks again, with the sharp cadence of someone who expects to be answered.
Fear closes my throat as I plan my next move. Can I pretend not to be here? My eyes dart to the hearth fire. No. There’s smoke in the chimney.
Another knock. Better move quick. My hands fly to my ears, and I murmur the concealment charm at top speed. I knot my kerchief for good measure. With a deep, steadying breath, I open the door a crack.
Up close, I get a better look at the big redheaded soldier. “Good morning. I’m sorry if we startled you. My name is Edmund Roburn, and I’m captain of the Royal Guard,” he says. “We’re here on official business of King Rodrick and the Thorne family.”
Run. If Mother were here, that’s what she would command.
Out of all the monsters I’ve been taught to fear, there is none worse than King Rodrick Thorne.
Everything I know about him tornadoes through me in an instant.
He’s a distant descendant of Verdin, and perhaps the most fanatical Verdish ruler yet.
Like the Vanquisher himself, King Rodrick’s lust for territorial expansion is insatiable.
Equally endless is his hatred toward Elves.
I’m nauseated, recalling horrors Mother described: mass executions, torture, whole Elven families ripped out of hiding to be forced into servitude or massacred.
If King Rodrick knows I exist, I’m a dead girl walking.
All this I process in an instant, gaping at Roburn and the unit behind him. The primal instinct to flee roars through me like wildfyre, but I’d never outpace them. Not with them on horseback.
I could fight. Maybe. I consider it—six of them, one of me.
My weapons would be useless against that armor.
It’d have to be my Talent, then. But I’ve never attempted using it on multiple beings.
Could I even draw up that much power? Even if I somehow managed it, could I live with that much blood on my hands? They feel filthy already.
An uncomfortable amount of time has passed.
Say something. Anything.
“What do you want?” I finally croak. I clear my throat, then try again more firmly. “We have no business with the king.”
“We’re here by order of his son Prince Finneas.”
My heart plummets into my shoes.
“Prince…Finneas?” I repeat dizzily.
Finneas as in…Finn?
“That’s correct. He’s ordered us to escort you to the palace.”
The world pitches. Shatters. Re-forms. Fragments of the last weeks click together, sparking like flint against steel: the way Finn described his swordmasters, plural, his childhood behind walls….
Palace walls, I correct myself.
Finn is a prince. And not just any prince.
Finn is King Rodrick’s son.
It takes every last infinitesimal shred of my willpower to keep my Talent from exploding out of my palms. The monster in my chest claws for escape, howling like a banshee for answers, for vengeance.
I sway, sweat trickling down my temples and spine, as I struggle to shove down the magic that’s shrieking for release.
Roburn holds out a letter. “He asked me to deliver this.”
I try to still my shaking hands as I accept. It’s been sealed with wax, and the imprint is deep and precise…a thorned rose against crisscrossing blades. I trace my fingers over it, disbelieving.
Everyone’s watching as I tear it open.
Lyria,
I must begin this letter by entreating you to forgive me twice.
First, forgive me for not delivering this message in person.
I wanted nothing more than to accompany our guards and invite you to Crown City face-to-face, but my position dictates that I fulfill responsibilities outside my control.
Since I’m not able to be there, I hope you’ll put your trust in Captain Roburn. I would trust him with my life.
Second, forgive me for leaving without confessing my feelings or revealing my true identity. If I’d been more courageous, I would have admitted just how thoroughly you dazzled me. Now I can only pray you’ll give me another chance.
I left the Ironwoods resigned to the probability that our paths would not cross again in this life.
However, it seems providence has other plans.
Upon my return to Crown City, I was met with news of a terrible plague threatening our kingdom.
Up until his recent death, our royal apothecary was working diligently to develop a cure, but his efforts were fruitless.
With most of our Healers dispatched to support the campaign in Sontaag, there are few continuing his work.
Fewer still can be trusted to maintain the discretion we require.
If word were to get out about a plague sweeping toward the capital, it would trigger mass panic.
The Crown requires an apothecary with the ingenuity to outfox this disease and the character to maintain the utmost secrecy.
You are our perfect candidate.
I believe fate has brought us together in more ways than one, Lyria. Beyond my selfish desire to see your face again, it is concern for my people that compels me to beg you: Please, come to Crown City, join me in the palace, and help us defeat this horrific plague.
I pray to the One God Almighty that I will see you again soon. Until then, my heart is with you.
Yours most sincerely,
Finn
I read it three times, each time memorizing a different detail.
I see Finn all over the page—in the sharp slope of the Y’s, the cramped tilt of the script, even the dark smudges in the margins.
I picture him hunched over a desk, scowling at his unruly, ink-stained hands… and a little shiver runs through me.
He wants me. Finn wants me.
Skimming again, my eye snags on three words: You dazzled me.
Maybe I’m not so pathetically delusional. Can it be possible? Might he feel something close to what I do? Is there a future for us in Crown City?
NO, Lyria. Listen to yourself.
There’s a long stretch where all I can hear is my own pounding pulse. This is all way more than I can process with so many people staring at me. Perhaps sensing my confoundment, Roburn asks, “Would you perhaps prefer to speak privately?”
I blink at the captain, remembering Finn’s words: I would trust him with my life.
Reluctantly, I widen the crack in the door.
I offer the captain tea and a chair, but he politely declines the former. When Roburn sits at the kitchen table, he looks comically large for the furniture.
“Can I ask you something sensitive?” Roburn asks as he settles.
I nod.
He swallows, uncomfortably. “Are you perhaps…with child?”
“Excuse me?” My cheeks burst into flames. What the hell did Finn tell him?
“It was only a guess!” He quickly backtracks. “Sometimes women feel shame about those situations. The prince was clear that we were to bring you to the palace and that you were to be protected—”
I cut him off, mortified. “No, I’m not pregnant. Thank you for the concern.”
“Forgive me. It was only a guess.”
I eye the window, considering hurling myself through it. Roburn looks like he might be pondering the same. Then it suddenly occurs to me…“You haven’t done that for him before, have you?”
“What?”
“I mean…” My hands tighten into fists in front of me. Gods, I need air. “Has Finn ever sent you to fetch a girl because she ended up…in a situation?”
“Ah, no. Definitely not,” says Roburn awkwardly. “I’ve never fulfilled that particular type of request on Finneas’s behalf. Or his brothers’, for that matter.”
I turn away so that he doesn’t see the turmoil in my expression.
The captain clears his throat. “It must be interesting living in the Ironwoods. I can’t imagine there is much to do out here for a young woman like yourself. Do you live alone?”
I weigh my response. How much has Finn said already? “It’s just me and my mother,” I finally admit. I am hesitant to mention the plague, so I scramble for a lie. “She’s…getting on in years. Her health is failing. She needs me here, or else she won’t make it through the winter.”
I’m not sure it’s believable. Roburn squints as he considers my response. “Why doesn’t she join us? The Crown isn’t short on resources; we could make your mother very comfortable in the palace.”
“She’s a very proud woman,” I mumble. “I’m not sure she’d accept your offer.”
“Why don’t we ask her?”
Damn it. Now he has me.
Roburn clears his throat. “Listen. I can see that you’re afraid. But to be perfectly frank, if we were here to hurt you, we would have done so already.”
His eyes flit to my hands, and I realize I’ve crumpled Finn’s letter by gripping it so hard.
I need to refuse quickly, or else I might not be able to.
Already my heart is doing backflips. So I say forcefully, “My mother is away, and I don’t know when she will be returning.
I can’t leave without her. Please send the prince my apologies. ”
The captain is quiet as we appraise each other.
I see no calculation or distrust in his face, just concern and perhaps some pity.
Maybe I look as lonely and desperate as I feel.
“This invitation doesn’t have to be permanent,” he says quietly, after a while.
“You’ve been summoned as a guest, not a prisoner.
You’d be welcome to leave at your leisure. ”
My brow knits. “What are you saying?”
“Come with us. Report for your duties, rendezvous with Finneas, and do whatever it is he’s summoned you to do. You could leave a note for your mother explaining your whereabouts, and you’d always be welcome to return and retrieve her.”
“She wouldn’t want that,” I mumble.
The captain cocks his head. His voice drops, and his tone softens, like I’m a wounded animal. “And what is it you want, Lyria?”
What do I want?
The question is so foreign, he might as well have asked it in a different language. Cold sweeps through me as I take a long beat to consider, a thousand options bubbling up my throat. Safety. Control. A father. To be someone different. To make Mother proud. Finn.
But one word rises above all others.
Freedom.
I break Roburn’s gaze, looking out toward the crimson sky. Mother was seventeen when she first left the Ironwoods. A year younger than I am now. I’ve sworn up and down for years that I’m ready for the real world, begging her for the opportunity to prove myself.
Isn’t this my chance?
I imagine myself riding up to the gates of the palace, becoming a royal apothecary as she once did.
I see myself working alongside the other Healers, shoulder to shoulder with the greatest minds in the Midlands, engaged in a vital mission.
And I envision our reunion, with a cure in my hand…
and the look on Mother’s face as she realizes how wrong she’s been about my capabilities.
I could prove that I’m more than a monster.
If I can pull this off—travel to Crown City, successfully conceal my identity, and find a cure—she can never again claim that I don’t have what it takes to survive in the real world.
No more wardlines.
No more cages.
“All right,” I say finally. “I’ll do it. I’ll go with you.”