“Of course.”
“And the others? The children they took? All girls, I assume?”
The wraithe was silent.
“Do you know where the child is?” Carred asked.
“Safe.”
“I didn’t ask—”
“Queen Talia came to an arrangement with those of my kind still abroad in the world. We will honor our side of the pact.”
Carred rolled Talia’s ring between her thumb and forefinger. “What exactly did she give you in return? Other payments, you said.”
The wraithe ignored her question. “Trust me when I say that you and your surviving warriors must become like the mist. You know this isle better than the enemy. Foment rebellion. Strike and run. Hide so you may strike again.”
“For how long?” Carred asked.
“Until the Queen returns.”
Don’t leave me …
So, it was possible, then. Despite their closeness, Carred knew so little of Talia’s powers. But she spoke with spirits, Carred had witnessed that in the night. Just how far had Talia dipped her toe into the darkness?
Suppressing a shudder, she asked, “When? When will the Queen return?”
“You will know when the time is right.”
“And her daughter?”
“The less anyone knows—”
“She should have a guardian,” Carred said. “All Niyandrian heirs are warded by a guardian until they take the throne.”
“You need not concern yourself. The child is safe for now. The guardian will be revealed when the moment is right, and at the same time the heir will be known.”
The wraithe didn’t trust her. Or was it that Talia hadn’t trusted her? Unless the wraithe was lying, the Queen had kept her daughter secret from Carred all this time. It felt like a betrayal.
Bitterness threatened to swamp her and she turned her back on the wraithe.
But Talia must have had her reasons, and Carred had given her word. This was about duty now, and duty didn’t care about feelings. When she’d been rising through the ranks, it had been drummed into her that duty trumped everything, even love. She thrust Talia’s ring into her pocket.
“So, my orders are to fight back against the mainlanders. That’s all my Queen wants from me?”
“Not all.”
“What else?” Carred asked.
No reply.
“What else?” she said again.
She turned to face the wraithe, but it was no longer there.
Anskar DeVantte felt a fierce itch beneath his scalp as he made his way to the stable yard for his early morning chores. Wind blasted him from the east, skirled around him, whipping up his cloak and hair, then passed him by. The odd thing was, there hadn’t even been a breeze before. And there was no wind now. It was calm again.
A lantern hung outside the main stable block where the knights’ destriers were stabled. Within, a dog yapped and a man let out a good-natured laugh. Anskar smiled. Larson the stablemaster liked to start his rounds early. Pages would soon arrive to tend their knights’ horses, but Larson was always there first, checking their work, making sure none of the animals were neglected.
Anskar made his way to the two-stall barn he’d been given charge over. Hazel was waiting for him, her big brown head sticking over the top of the stall, ears twitching. He greeted the mare with a stroke along the white stripe that ran down her face. She was getting old—too old to be useful, so the knights said—but Larson refused to put her down. “She’s family,” the stablemaster liked to say, and would glare a threat at anyone who said otherwise.
Anskar bridled Hazel, opened the gate, and her to the paddock. She resisted, as she always did, and let out a loud whinny.
“Silly girl,” he said, patting her flanks to reassure her. “Monty’s coming. When have I ever kept you two apart?”
He shut her in the paddock, then returned to the barn’s far side stall where the dappled gray and white donkey waited. Monty wasn’t good around people: he’d been beaten by a previous owner and flinched at the slightest movement. But he knew Anskar well enough and dipped his head for a stroke, then rubbed up against him.
Leaving the horse and donkey to exercise and graze, Anskar grabbed a rake and went to muck out their stalls. Years of helping in the stables had built his strength, along with his regular training and exercises. And whereas many of the novice knights in his year group were still developing, Anskar was broad of shoulder, lean and muscled. Larson said the girl trainees liked to look at him, but Anskar had seen no evidence of that. Most of them were from the mainland and thought they were better than him. They mocked him to his face on account of his sun-blushed skin and long, black hair.
When he’d taken the muck by wheelbarrow to the dung pile, he filled the feed buckets with grain and led the animals back for their breakfast. Which was when he noticed Hazel was limping. Angry red bites covered her left foreleg, and Anskar cursed. Fire-ant bites. The bane of Niyas.
“I got some salve for that,” Larson said, startling him. He hadn’t seen the stablemaster approach. “Go see if you can find the mound and treat it,” the older man added.
“Yes, sir,” Anskar said, and returned to the shed. He took down a linen bag of the herb and crushed crystal ant treatment the priests of the Elder prepared, and went to search for the mound in the paddock.
Rosie, Larson’s Niyandrian ridgeback hound, ambled over to join him, her nose pressed to the ground. Ridgebacks were big dogs, crossbred for their speed, size, and the volume of their bark. Niyandrian farmers reputedly used them to ward off mountain lions, and Anskar was inclined to believe it. Well, maybe not Rosie: she was too foolish for that. Too soft. As if to prove him right, she rolled over for a belly rub.
Anskar gave her a hunk of bread he’d saved in his pocket for her during supper. She wolfed it down, then followed at his side as he roamed the paddock. At first glance, Anskar couldn’t see any telltale mounds of earth, but Rosie barked to let him know she’d found what he was looking for.
“Good girl,” he said, kneeling beside her and stroking along the tuft of golden hair that ran in a ridge along her spine.
No wonder he hadn’t seen it: the mound had been flattened by Hazel’s hoof, and now hundreds of red ants swarmed all over it looking for something else to sting. He opened the linen bag, poured a measure of the glittering, pungent-smelling treatment over the mound, then re-tied the ends of the bag and returned it to the shed.
Back at the barn, Hazel had her head in the feed bucket while Larson painstakingly applied a thick salve to her bites. Rosie lay down outside the stall, tongue lolling as she panted.
“I wasn’t expecting you today,” Larson said as he pushed himself to his feet and shuffled to find his balance. His left leg had been mangled during a skirmish with Niyandrian rebels years ago; he was lucky not to have lost it. “Thought you’d be readying yourself for the trials.”
“It’s only the banquet tonight,” Anskar said. “The trials don’t start till the morning.”
“What is it I’ve been telling you?” the stablemaster said. “The trials start with the banquet. You’ve got to be prepared. For anything. After the trials is when you get to unwind and have fun, not before.”