Chapter 1
I crouched lower, watching as the arrows rained onto the castle wall outside. The window was narrow, merely a slit in the stone wall, designed for just this: trying to avoid enemy arrows flying in.
A hideous scream carried over from the courtyard below, so I gripped the handle of my dagger with a shaky hand and tried to see over Princess Lyria’s shoulder down to the yard.
From fifty yards below, the clamor and the glimpses I got told me the men of King Taramon were getting through the first guards and spreading out. The screams, yells, and the clang of weapons from below made my skin crawl.
Discreetly, from the corner of my eye, I just as much kept glancing at Lyria, wondering how she could stay so calm. She was eighteen, the same as I, definitely no experienced soldier…and if the army slaughtering men in the yard right now managed to make their way up here, Lyria would have to beg for her life to be spared.
Scratching at the door made us both turn.
I whispered an incantation to prepare a spell, hearing my voice come out unsure. The lock crunched and clacked as a key turned in it, and my heart jumped to my throat, but I climbed up to my feet and stepped between the door and Lyria. I was nothing but a chambermaid, but I had trained at the armory with my cousins. I always carried spell-caster stones as well as a dagger hidden in my dresses.
Lyria rose to her feet behind me and laid a hand on my shoulder as if to hold me back.
A bewildered, flushed man’s face peeked in. I glimpsed a bloodied sword in his hand. The man was swaying, panting. Quickly taking in the room with a brief look, he slipped in and locked the door. Now I recognized him — the first commander of the king’s personal guard.
Still trying to catch his breath, he put the bloodied sword away in its sheath and wiped off his face with a sleeve, then he knelt down on one knee and bowed his head down deep.
“My queen…”
Lyria gasped beside me and went to her knees in front of the man, too, mirroring him, but covered her mouth with her hands.
“No…Andre?” The words were disbelieving, but full of held-back tears, already.
The man nodded slowly, knowingly. His face was a display of dirt, blood, and gore, but somehow, he emanated a reassuring calm.
“Oh, no,” Lyria muttered again through her palms, and I could tell by the way she started pulling her breaths, she was starting to sob.
Andre dug around in the large pockets of his dark royal guard uniform jacket and produced a small, decorative scimitar and something wrapped in a piece of crimson silk. He unrolled the silk bundle and offered all of this for Lyria to take, the scimitar in the silk…and a crown.
Lyria took them but didn’t seem to know what to do with them, and a muffled, short sob escaped her, as she looked around.
“This is my inauguration? Oh, Andre…”
I wasn’t sure what exactly she was referring to, but she waved her hand minutely around the room. It seemed that Andre wasn’t any more certain than I was, but his face turned concerned. I could easily imagine Lyria had dreamed her inauguration to be under different circumstances, not this, the end of the world.
“There was no time,” Andre said. “I was everyone’s best bet, rushing these to you alone. I flew through the flights of stairs — it was all we could do — and there’s still no time to lose.”
“Did my father suffer?” Lyria asked, her voice suddenly harsh, as if she was trying to hold back storms of emotions.
Andre shook his head slowly, his mouth a stern line.
Lyria didn’t say anything apart from a short sniffle as she began to raise the crown to her head. Andre winced and reached out to snatch it back. He pushed away some of Lyria’s striped, brown curls and carefully set the crown on her head.
“There. May the gods bless,” Andre said. He pulled a long breath. “I’ve sent for my best men, you’ll have them soon. They were working their way back to the entrance to clear the way out, when I had to make the decision to run here, and I sent a trusted knight to get them the word. But they should know, now, and some should be here any minute. They can accompany you as you flee—“
“Flee?” Lyria exclaimed.
“What else will you do? As the head of the guards, I can tell you, we can’t hold the castle for long. King Taramon has somehow gathered too many men. They have spellcasters, too, good ones. I’m sorry, we weren’t prepared. Who could have guessed he was plotting this all along? We were supposed to unite our forces against the fae…You should go to the summer castle. I’ll give you my best men.”
Just then, we heard people banging at the door, demanding and violent. Andre rushed up and called out to them.
They answered, yet Andre still drew his sword and positioned himself in an odd angle to the door before he opened it. I sighed, as three men filed in, and Andre locked the door again and everything seemed to be all right.
These soldiers were as worn and bloodied as Andre, if not worse. Their clothes were torn and they had blood all over, smudged on their faces, horrible wide stripes of it, as if smeared on their skins by claws.
“You’re right, Andre, we’ll leave for the summer castle,” Lyria said, speaking fast, frantic. “But just me and my chambermaid. We won’t be needing these men.”
I expected Andre to lash at her or to be taken aback — though he couldn’t defy her now — but Andre gave a tense smile.
I had watched Lyria play out these power games at the court before. I’d spent a lot of time in Lyria’s presence as her chambermaid, though we didn’t speak all that much, and I doubted she recalled me among her chambermaids as anyone special, because I was simply one of many. But I hadn’t expected Lyria to get like this and wasn’t sure what to think of her…I’d always found that challenging gleam in her eyes intriguing. And already, minutes into her reign, she calls out commands as if she had been born a leader, destined to reign. All this in the midst of grief, pain, chaos, with flaming arrows nibbling at the castle corners.
And oh, yes, the flames were rising from a corner in the yard…
Andre seemed perplexed, but all things considered, he too handled himself well. I’d gathered he had always admired Lyria’s feistiness, but that too was only an impression — I did. There was never a boring day when I was working for her.
“All right, Your Highness. I’ll keep the army fighting and I’ll do my best that when you return, you’ll have a court to come back to. But if I may be so bold and defy you, I’ll have you take one bodyguard. Just one. Take your chambermaid, by all means, but take one of these men as well. I’ve sworn to protect you on my life, promised your father that, so I can’t let you run to your death like it’s some kind of a child’s game to survive out there. King Taramon’s men are trained soldiers and they’re making quick, clean kills down there, no negotiation. I know you’re stricken with panic and grief, I understand that, but make wise choices now…As queen.”
Andre quickly turned to let his gaze go over his men and nodded to one of them. The man stepped forward, but turned to look to Lyria, uncertain.
“What, this one?” Lyria asked. “He’ll be a burden, he’ll only slow us down. He’s too noticeable! Doesn’t he look immediately threatening, don’t you think? He’ll aggravate any soldiers we pass, who’ll only try to target him…He’s just the kind of person enemy soldiers will keep an eye for in the crowds, too good. But Milla and I, we can slip away through the crowds in disguise, smooth like the wind. Not him, with his head above the crowds and wide shoulders?”