Chapter Eight A Sea of Melancholy
Night had fallen while we—mostly the others—strategized how to progress in the morning.
Lord Parable advocated for a circuitous route to the shore, but Jerrald and Ariana were aligned in pressing forward most directly.
Others seemed to feel strongly as well, but twice Parable was successful in resetting the conversation and we had to review the same points again.
I was quiet to begin with and grew anxious as the night progressed. I wasn’t the only one. Ironclaw was less vocal than usual. It was unclear if anyone else noticed—was there knowledge in the queen’s eyes or was she simply swept up in the campaign planning?
When we were finally released, outside the torchlight of the generals’ tent I walked without seeing.
Ironclaw knew. He finally knew that the sister he had spent the past two years searching for was in front of him the whole time as the Dark Mage’s apprentice. She was known across the queendom as a brutal, relentless enemy of the crown—his own fiancée.
I paused as the thought struck me anew, the first time I was able to take in how very personal that must feel for Ironclaw.
It wasn’t simply his family member had gone dark.
She was actively trying to kill the person he planned to marry.
For all her secrecy about her identity, Ironclaw was well-known as the brazen hero of Landsome.
How much would his sister have to hate Queen Elthra to go against him like that?
How could he imagine it possible to turn her back to the side of peace?
Yet he must hold enough hope. He would act, I was certain of it. A brother will always believe a sister could be redeemed.
The question now was whether that letter was enough to give him the idea to trade his cousin for his sister, or did something else have to happen to push him to it?
Should I confront Ironclaw myself, try to impress upon him how changed Bianca was? Or would that be the very thing that pushed him to action?
“I said, are you all right?”
I flinched at Draw’s touch and his words; he was clearly repeating himself.
Others were drifting out of the generals’ tent and I fought to compose my face. Draw drew me to the side, an arm circling my shoulders.
“What is it, Dottie?” he said more gently.
I gestured. I couldn’t speak or else I would burst into tears. It was my job to keep Draw safe, make sure he had a life after the book closed. He was more than the queen’s solicitor, more than a sacrificial character. I had to save him.
When it came to words, Draw was not patient. “Did seeing the body today upset you?”
My face crumpled. Oh God, that poor man.
Draw pulled me in. I nodded into his chest. His sigh enveloped me. I strained for the beating of his heart.
“Come on.” He pulled me along behind him.
Tears blurred my vision, but I sensed we were leaving the crowd behind.
Their voices were muted and tired, only looking forward to sleep.
They had no idea what was coming. Who else would die in the coming battle?
Jerrald? Amelia? Meg’s Westly? They weren’t mentioned in the books—for all I knew, they very well could.
I’d put effort into shaping Landsome Roads, but it didn’t feel like enough.
There was no putting off the fact that we were here and heading to Spectral Peak.
Draw had pointed out all the lives I’d saved by cutting the battle campaign short, but what did it matter when it did nothing to forestall our march into the face of evil?
We stopped moving and I blotted my eyes, sniffing.
Draw held aside the opening of his tent and led me in.
He made short work of settling me on the bed with a blanket wrapped around my shoulders before fiddling with the oil lamp.
A soft bloom rose over his face as he adjusted the flame.
I could barely make out the green in his eyes, but his dark eyebrows and the cut of his nose were stark in the low light.
He looked me over, as if assessing me for damage. For once he was quiet.
He came and sat next to me on the bedroll. I shifted and leaned into him, the blanket still snug around my shoulders.
“It’s not just Manse Peters, is it? What else is going on?”
Half a day earlier, I wouldn’t have thought it possible to be angry with Draw, but I bristled. “Don’t test me.”
I sat up straight, no longer willing to lean on him, and batted the blanket down. When he’d asked if it was the body, he knew that wasn’t all that was upsetting me—he was checking to see if I’d tell the truth.
“I’m not testing you. I want to help.”
“It’s...it’s all of it. I don’t know what I can do.” I was deflecting.
“Dottie.” Draw’s voice was patient but firm. He knew I was holding something back. I don’t know how he knew, but he knew.
“What?” I said to buy time.
A pause hung in the air between us. Far off, a snatch of conversation drifted as someone made their way to bed.
“Dottie.”
“What?”
“You said that already.”
“Well, so did you. Stop saying my name.”
A small smile appeared on Draw’s face, easing the severity in his eyes. “Why would I when it’s the most beautiful name of two worlds?”
He leaned down slightly—a question.
I answered with a kiss. Shallow but real. I stopped when tears wetted my cheeks again.
“Tell me, Dottie.”
“No!” The romantic moment snapped. I turned my face from him. “I don’t have to tell you everything.” I sniffed. “Can’t, in fact.”
He waited to see if I’d say more and sighed.
“You’ve been spinning your ring since the queen read that letter—”
“Don’t analyze me.” I forced anger into my voice to cover my begging.
“Manse’s death is upsetting, but what you’re feeling isn’t about a single moment. It’s existential.”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“If you think we’re going to lose—”
“—I didn’t say that.”
“—then we need to change tactics. You need to trust me.”
“I do,” I sobbed. I cleared my throat to speak more calmly. “Queen Elthra will win this war, that much I’m certain of.” It wasn’t a problem of trust but of burden. How could I lay death at the foot of the man I loved?
Draw looked at me, squinting. I realized my tactical mistake. If I wasn’t upset about the outcome of the war and couldn’t be worried about my own safety due to Sorrel’s protection, then what was left?
“Dear Dottie.” Draw leaned in, nearly touching our foreheads. “It’s about me, isn’t it?”
I was so startled I choked and coughed. When I finally recovered, I opened my mouth to make a rebuttal, but he cut me off by smoothing back my long hair. I felt the frizz of it go flat.
“Do you think a man could get close to a woman who knows the future and not wonder?”
I swallowed again and licked my lips.
“Since you told me of your origin and cause, I reasoned that some things are better not to know. As much as you might want to protect me, this is a war and my place is here. If that puts me at risk, that’s the lot I’ve been given.
“But with my lot comes purpose. I may not be the cover hero, but I have an impact on this queendom, and for that I’m proud.
As much as I might complain about Elthra’s ways, she keeps the queendom stable.
Listens to her advisors more than most. I doubt this made it to the books, but did you know every orphan is fed and cared for until they come of age, at her command? ”
I shook my head wordlessly.
“The Dark Mage...I doubt he’s the terror he’s made out to be, but he has chosen chaos in his bid to challenge the queen, and I can’t have that.
” Draw put his arm around me and the blanket around us both.
“I’d much rather live my life five days a week at the ‘mindless corporate jobs’ you’ve described to me if that meant spending the weekends reading with you, safe, but I don’t have that chance.
I can’t go back with you. I’m here.” For the first time, his voice shook.
“And being here means my fate is tied to that of my country. As the court solicitor, as a man, I know how little control we have over life and its end. Besides, you’ll be going home soon, and I’m not sure I can stand to be without you.
” He said this last bit as if it were a joke but wasn’t entirely successful.
There was a shine of tears in his eyes. His mouth was firm.
“Don’t say that.”
His gaze flicked up to mine. “For meeting you, Dottie, I’m ready. Please tell me my fate.”
I was untethered, light-headed. Pain filled my belly. How could I?
But I must. I had to trust him. We had to work together.
“You’re...going to die soon.”
Though he expected it, fear still ran across his face. “How?”
“We need to be smart about this. So, though it might shock you, I need you to hold it together. Any plan won’t be very good without you.”
The corner of his mouth twitched. “Yes, Mistress Witch.”
I ran my hands over my face. This was going to be hard.
“In the books, you make it through the war alive. Sherry Whitehorse didn’t feature you in the battle scenes, so I don’t know exactly what you were doing, but you drafted the terms of peace between Queen Elthra and the last of the Dark Mage’s followers.
Ironclaw took him out, by the way. Then you appeared in the second-to-last chapter, a celebration of sorts.
The queen bequeaths your house an additional tract of land in recognition of your service to the crown. ”
Draw looked at me warily. All of this sounded good, so far.
“And then I eat a piece of celebratory cake and choke to death?”
“That’s the book,” I said. “Then there’s the TV show.”
Uncertainty grew in his eyes. “The moving images,” he said slowly, his mind racing to piece things together.
“Yes, like a play on a stage but recorded by cameras and shown to people across the world, just like the mass printing of a book. Our problem comes because the people making the television show have decided to change the story.”
“My ending?”