“What is this contraption, anyhow?” she asked as he moved up to free her wrists.
“Stretcher,” he said. “For removing the war-wounded from the battlefield. I’d have thought that would be patently obvious but then, lest we forget, you have no experience of battle, do you?” He shrugged. “It’s good to know the equipment’s in good working order. We’ll have need of it soon enough.”
She propped herself up on her elbows, already aware of how much her body was going to ache the next morning. “So you think war is coming again to Archenfield?”
“Almost certainly,” Axel said matter-of-factly. “Which is why this is no time for playing childish games.” He glanced around, checking—it seemed—for prying ears and eyes. Evidently satisfied that they were alone, he sat down, cross-legged, on the ground beside her.
It was strange, Koel mused. She could not remember the last time they had sat like this.
“What games do you think I have been playing?” she asked.
“You know very well,” he said. “You have been seen, sister. On your nocturnal trips to the Dungeons and your daylight flights to the Falconer’s Mews.” He raised an eyebrow and paused, as if readying himself for her objections.
She decided, under the circumstances, that it was best to let him continue.
“Somehow you got wind that I’m planning on putting a certain vote before the Twelve. And you decided to throw in your lot with the enemy.” He paused again, his eyes scanning her face. “You’re unusually quiet,” he said. “Aren’t you going to protest that I’ve got this all wrong?”
She shook her head sharply. “There’s no point,” she said. “You’re right in all but one respect. I was angry at you the other night when you railed at me about how I had no power and how you had no need for my help. And I did overhear you conspiring with your cronies about this vote.” Her eyes widened. “You left the door to the chamber open, Axel. You made it exceptionally easy for me and Asta to overhear every traitorous word you said.”
Axel was frowning. “Asta heard us too?”
Koel nodded. “She was standing in the corridor, and I was in the gallery. Honestly, what were you thinking?”
She could see he was vexed. “I closed the door myself—”
“Well,” Koel cut in, “somehow it opened up again. Or someone opened it. Surely you must have noticed, or were you too distracted by your own rhetoric?” She could judge how perturbed he was by the fact that he didn’t rise to this barb.
“I was sitting with my back to the door…” His eyes narrowed. “That’s why I didn’t notice. But one of the others must have. Why didn’t they say anything?”
Koel drew her arms around her knees. Ouch—it hurt! “Either one of your comrades has issues about being shut in a confined space, or he wanted to allow for the possibility of you being overheard. I wonder which of them is working to undermine you.”
Axel bit his lip. “No need for you to wonder,” he said. “Be assured I will deal with this in my own way.”
“Fair enough.” She shrugged. “But it shows you, does it not, that you really can’t trust anyone around here anymore…”
Axel smiled darkly. “If you start off from a position of trusting no one,” he observed, “then you’re less likely to be disappointed later.” He returned his full attention on her. “Koel, I know you’re frustrated at not having a position in court and I know you get angry because you don’t think I have any time for you and your ideas. But when you threw in your lot with Asta Peck and Nova Chastain and started plotting against me, you crossed a line.”
It was her turn to smile. “It might look that way, mightn’t it?” She looked closely at her brother before she said her next words: “Because that’s exactly the way I wanted it to look. In reality, I didn’t cross any line at all. I’m working for you, brother—I have been all along. What better way to bring down the campaign against you than putting myself at the very heart of it?”
Axel’s eyes narrowed once again. “Let me get this straight. You’re busy plotting with Asta, Nova and our deranged Aunt Elin to rally support for Jared, but in fact you’re really working to strengthen support for me?”
Koel nodded. “That’s about the size of it. And actually it was surprisingly easy. You see it’s not hard convincing people that I think you are a monster.” She smiled again. “Oh, it’s all right, brother. You can save the big thank-you for when you win the vote and scoop the main prize.”
There was a short silence, then: “You had better be telling the truth,” Axel said. “Because, if you’re not, next time I won’t stop at a little ride around the grounds.”
She knew he was deadly serious. “I’ll prove my worth to you,” she said. “Just give me a few more days.” Her eyes zeroed in on his. “Trust me.”
He met her gaze, his eyes boring into hers. Then he shook his head. “I told you before—I have no truck with trust.” He rose to his feet and brushed the earth from his trouser legs. “And now I need to get the horse and stretcher back to the stables.”
She stood unsteadily. “You could at least give me a ride back.”
He shook his head. “That would be an obvious mistake. After what you’ve told me you’re up to, it would not do for us to be seen out riding together.”
Once more, Koel realized her brother had outmaneuvered her—even in something as petty as the journey home. As she watched him meander over to his waiting horse, scooping up the cloth gag on his way and tucking it into his pocket, Koel felt stabs of pain and aching spreading through her body as she began what she sensed would be a slow and painful walk back to Blaxland Manor.
THREE DAYS UNTIL INVASION…
TWENTY-THREE
The Palace, Archenfield
LUCAS WAS ACCUSTOMED TO RIDING ALONE AT THIS time of day. Although he was rarely lonely, it was an unexpected pleasure to have company. He and Nova barely exchanged a word as they cantered into the countryside, where their horses broke into a gallop.
It had been quite some time since the two friends had taken their horses out together, and Lucas was swiftly reminded what an expert horsewoman Nova was. As they galloped side by side over rain-sodden fields, their riding boots and clothes becoming spattered in mud, Nova seemed to have fully given herself over to the exhilaration of movement: her cheeks were flushed and her long, untamed hair flew out behind her like a dark pennant. Lucas smiled in admiration, recognition and also relief: to ride with such vigor, the Falconer must clearly be well on her way to making a complete recovery from her near-fatal fall. Glancing above them, Lucas glimpsed Pampero keeping pace a short distance above them. It always fascinated Lucas to witness the close connection between the Falconer and her birds. On either side of the horses, two of the Prince’s hounds kept pace with the riders.
As they reached a clearing, Nova turned her exuberant face toward him. Lucas eased up his horse’s pace and Nova did the same with her own. The hounds, too, gratefully slowed as, above them, Pampero turned watchful circles in the crisp morning air.
“I really needed that,” Nova exclaimed.
“So did I,” Lucas agreed. “This threat of invasion has rattled me more than I care to admit. I feel keenly these short winter days ebbing away, each one bringing us closer to the edge of the abyss.” He dismounted and went over to offer her assistance.
“The Paddenburg Ultimatum has deeply unsettled all of the Twelve,” Nova answered, waving away his hand. “I don’t mean to be rude,” she said as she jumped to the ground. “I just need to prove to myself that I can do these things on my own again.”
“I understand,” Lucas assured her. “It’s wonderful to see you embracing life again.” He lowered his voice. “Not only in the aftermath of your fall, but following the death of Prince Anders, to whom you were so close.” He noticed her face tighten at these words.
“We were all close to the Prince,” she said pointedly. Seeing him blush red, she softened her tone. “I’m sorry, Lucas. I didn’t mean to snap. I suppose I am
still adjusting to the fact that the secret I kept buried so deep, and for so long, is now out in the open.”
“I’m sure this is uncomfortable for you,” he said. “But at least now you can mourn your deep loss openly and not bear the burden alone.” He knew it would have been more politic to end it there, but he couldn’t stop the words from pouring out. “I know what it is like to carry the burden of a secret friendship.”
In response, the Falconer spoke just one word. “Silva?”
Lucas nodded. It was a relief to feel his own weighty secret lift from his shoulders, but he was grateful for the distraction as they both heard a rustle of leaves in a nearby tree.
Nova turned, her sharp eyes focusing on one of the branches, where her falcon now perched, alert. “I think Pampero has prey in her sights,” she said.
Lucas nodded, glad of the change of subject. “Shall we send the hounds into the copse to flush it out for her?”
Nova strode over to the nearby copse with the hounds trotting beside her. As he watched, Lucas mused that Nova was as much of a huntress as her birds. Now that she found her target, she moved with new energy and purpose.
By the time he arrived at her side, the dogs had flushed a rabbit out from the undergrowth and were waiting and watching with Nova as Pampero went in for the kill. Lucas stared with dark fascination as the bird swooped down to claim the trapped rabbit. As the falcon’s merciless claws and beak made contact, he saw the hounds straining to reenter the fray.
“No,” Nova told them. “You have played your part.”
The rabbit was not yet dead but the resignation in its eyes was pitifully plain to see. As the Falconer moved across to where the stunned animal lay, Pampero mercilessly began tearing through fur toward the still-beating heart. “And now you must wait a moment,” Nova instructed her bird, reaching out with her gloved hand.
Lucas was surprised to see Pampero accept this interference, but he understood that this was all part of the rapport between the Falconer and her falcon. Nova took the stunned rabbit and in a quick, single movement twisted its neck. Its torture was ended. Only then did Nova allow Pampero to claim her prize.
The Falconer stepped back to join Lucas.
“There are parts of your job I think I’d struggle with,” he told her.
Nova shrugged. “I tend to think that the brutality of nature serves as a useful reminder to us—our own impulses are not so far removed from those of the hounds or Pampero.” Her eyes met his. “Really, is what we have just witnessed any more brutal than the threat from Paddenburg, or the conspiracy in our own court being launched against Prince Jared?”
Lucas felt a stab of fear and adrenaline. “Conspiracy? What are you talking about?”
Nova’s dark eyes met his. “Lucas, I have a confession to make. I did not just ask to join you on your ride this morning on a whim. I wanted to get you away from the palace to talk to you in confidence about a scheme of Axel’s.”
“Axel?” Lucas said. “Are you telling me Axel is plotting against Prince Jared?”
Nova nodded. “It is as true as it is abhorrent,” she said. As she folded her arms, he saw the scarlet smear of rabbit’s blood on her gauntlet. “But it is not too late to fight it.”
Lucas’s eyes darted over to where Pampero was enthusiastically extracting the rabbit’s vital organs. The Groom turned back to the Falconer. “Tell me everything you know,” he said.
The Kitchens, the Palace, Archenfield
Asta stared at the pig’s head, then the bulbous mass of brains nestling beside it in the straw interior of the wide wooden crate.
“Mind yourself, Poet!” barked a voice. “Another box of delights coming through!”
Asta stepped back as the kitchen boy deposited a fresh crate—groaning with what looked and smelled very much like a wet, sleeping dog—beside the one containing assorted pig parts.
“What’s in that one?” Asta asked, covering her nose. “It reeks!”
“Tripe!” Vera announced, sweeping into the kitchens grandly and, hands on hips, processing past the nine boxes of heads, entrails and organs, which had been laid out for her inspection along the full length of the kitchen table.
“What do you intend to make with all this?” Asta inquired.
Vera shrugged, reaching out to have a poke around the brains. “I haven’t decided yet. I’m experimenting with offal. If we’re heading toward another war, I intend to make the most of everything in my larder. Waste not, want not!”
“Do you think for certain that war will come?” Asta asked, leaning back against the wooden bench.
Vera shrugged, her attention now firmly on the tripe. She had plunged her hands into one of the fragrant crates and was exploring its contents as if it were a favorite fur coat.
Asta was assailed by a fresh waft of damp dog. It made her think of Hedd, the Prince’s beloved wolfhound. Though, to be fair, Hedd never smelled that bad, even after a long walk in the rain and mud.
“Axel seems to think the invasion is inevitable,” Vera said. “But you know as much as I do. You were at the Council meeting yesterday yourself. And now you’re here.” She pressed down on the surface of the brains again. “You just keep popping up all over the place, don’t you?”
Feeling queasy, Asta turned away from the boxes of offal. Watching her uncle dissect a human body was preferable to this—at least then she had known that it wasn’t heading for her supper plate.
“Since you’re here,” Vera said, a smile forming on her usually sullen features, “why don’t you make yourself useful?”
“I’m not very practiced in cooking,” Asta said.
“No one’s asking you to whip up a salmon soufflé!” Vera cried, returning with a lit taper, which she thrust into Asta’s hands. “You take this and get to work burning the hairs off that pig’s snout.”
Asta stared at her in disbelief.
“Quickly now,” Vera barked. “Queen Elin won’t thank you if she finds bristly nostril hairs floating in her soup!”
Asta brought the lit end of the taper to the pig’s gaping nostrils and tried to think of the crystal-clear waters of the fjord.
“That’s more like it,” Vera observed, leaning in a little too close. “I think we might just have found a job entirely appropriate to your talents!”
Asta didn’t like the Cook’s tone: clearly Vera was not thrilled that she had been given a position on the Twelve. Asta told herself that she could not afford to be derailed by Vera’s slights—she hadn’t come to the kitchens that morning to make a friend; she had come to win over a key ally to Prince Jared’s side.
“How’s that?” she asked Vera. Before she realized what she was doing, she found herself presenting the pig’s head to the Cook to show off her work.
“What do you want? A medal, or a chest to pin it on?” Vera snorted, handing her another taper. “Here you are—finish off his other porthole, if you please!”
Wrinkling her nose, Asta applied the taper to the pig’s other nostril. “Prince Jared seemed confident that he could forestall the invasion by securing those alliances,” she said.
“Good luck to him!” Vera said. Her tone was hard to read.
“It’s very brave of him,” Asta said. “Don’t you think?” She had completed her work on the second nostril and now stepped aside, as if to announce that she was not available for further kitchen tasks.
“He is the Prince,” Vera said, dropping the mass of tripe onto a large wooden board and beginning to slice through it. “It’s his job to secure alliances, just as it is mine to make lunch and yours to… well, do whatever it is you’re supposed to do, dear.”
Undeterred by Vera’s latest barb, Asta stepped closer. “So you support the fact that Prince Jared decided to go on this mission himself?”
Vera continued to chop. “I don’t feel strongly one way or the other,” she said. “As long as someone brings in the alliances, I’ll be happy.”
Asta nodded, thinking about what Nova had said to
her and Koel the day before—that what mattered most to Vera was the security of the Princedom.
“I think Prince Jared has behaved with great maturity and dignity since the murder of his brother,” Asta said. “Don’t you agree?”
Vera glanced up from her labors, cleaver aloft. “Are you president of the Prince’s fan club, in addition to your other arduous responsibilities?” Setting down her knife, she waddled over toward a vast bank of cast-iron cooking pots.
“My new role is all about communications,” Asta told Vera, thinking quickly. “So it is important for me to know how everyone on the Twelve feels the new Prince is doing.”
“He’s doing as well as we might expect from a sixteen-year-old lad thrust into such a high position,” Vera declared. She looked hard at Asta, and her eyes grew steely. “I know what you’re doing, Asta Peck—I’m no fool. If you want me as your ally, you might do me the credit of speaking plainly to me.”
Asta blushed, watching as the Cook heaved a pot onto the fire and emptied a thick slab of drippings into it. The fat melted, sizzling and spitting in the pan. Asta stood there, wondering what she could do in order to get things back on track.
Suddenly the door opened and Lady Koel appeared—an unexpected but welcome sight. Smiling, Koel strode confidently down the length of the kitchen, past the other busy members of Vera’s team, toward them.
“Well, now,” Vera said, her voice brimming with warmth. “You are a welcome visitor.”
“I thought you might welcome some help,” Koel said brightly, turning from Vera and winking at Asta.
Asta nodded and Koel gave a brief, graceful nod before turning her attention back to the Cook. “I think I’d better be on my way,” Asta said, taking the hint.
“Such a shame,” Vera said, “but if you must, you must!” She reached out for the board of chopped tripe.
“Here, let me help you with that!” Koel said.
“Oh, no, Lady Koel, you don’t want to get tripe juice on that lovely blouse of yours! What color is that by the way? Duck-egg blue? It’s the perfect foil for your eyes.”