He sighed. “Very well. Have Cook send our meal here, so we can eat privately.”
Humor danced in his wife’s eyes.
He smiled at her flirtation, kissed her, and strode from the room. Let’s get this over with.
***
When Huwen arrived in the war room, Igua, two generals, and an aide were studying maps spread out on a large table. The uppermost map, Huwen could see even at a distance, was a plan of Coldridge and its environs. Of course. Uprisings there were a constant thorn. Huwen had practically memorized every line on the parchment. But nothing had changed in Coldridge for almost eight years, except to worsen. Huwen did not need his few moments with his daughter interrupted for some minor point of strategy on the far side of Shangril.
The tacticians straightened, heads bobbing in quick salute.
“What is it, Igua?” Huwen stopped well short of the table. He would not be drawn in.
“Your Majesty.” Igua was not one to mince words, a trait at once irritating and useful. “Rebels have taken Coldridge.”
This was unexpected. Huwen’s face must have betrayed shock, as a moment of smugness flickered in Igua’s eyes.
God, How?
Igua pointed to the map, drawing the attention of the general and the aides, though the chancellor spoke to Huwen. “It was sudden,” he reported. “In the middle of the night, five days ago.” He raised a brow pointedly. “Six days ago. An act they would not have dared in the spring when Your Majesty directed the royal troops.”
Huwen noted this chastisement but did not acknowledge it. Yes, he’d left the fortress to return to Holderford to be with his wife in her confinement. Yes, he’s remained here for the past two months as his daughter proved she was not on the verge of dying in her cradle. Huwen was not about to apologize to anyone for that. He gave a short nod for Igua to continue.
“The city had been surrounded by rebels for two weeks before the attack.”
Huwen hadn’t known this. Or maybe he had. Or maybe Igua and the generals had handled it themselves, following Huwen’s instruction.
“Uprisers appeared within the castle walls. We were aware of ancient tunnels connecting the keep with a cave system in the hills, from conflicts before the God’s Peace, but they were guarded. We suspect spies or bribes. We’re ferreting that out, now.”
God. Huwen drifted toward the balcony door, the sunshine, and the breeze. A page, unbidden—unless Igua had given him a signal—brought him a goblet of wine.
Huwen was weary of this never-ending war. “Magic?”
“We don’t think so. The rebels have no magiels of significant power, and most of the half-breeds are imprisoned, ghettoized, or otherwise no threat.”
Or executed. His chancellor had omitted that. “You’ve taken steps to retake it.” He sipped his wine. A groom brushed a lovely mare in the bailey beyond the balcony’s stone railing. There was peace, he reassured himself. In some parts of the world.
“We are,” his chancellor confirmed. Of course, Igua was taking care of it. That was what he did.
But today, there was a hesitation in Igua’s voice that made Huwen turn.
“We defended the castle and city with cannons. They are in rebel hands, now.”
Huwen frowned at Igua, working through this statement. Nonsense, surely? But, no, his chancellor’s demeanor was grave. The rebels controlled their cannons? That would add a complication to retaking the fortress.
“There’s more.”
More? No. What more could there be?
“They’ve freed the Marigold prisoners.”
Huwen blinked. This would be laughable. Was laughable. But no one was laughing. “Freed them.”
“Yes.”
“From the prison.”
“Yes.”
“Into our waiting troops.”
The aide lowered his head and the generals looked uncomfortable.
“We recaptured many of the escapees,” Igua said. “We are hunting down more.”
Huwen stared at him. Unarmed prisoners—women and children—had escaped into royal hands but slipped through. It was not possible. Was his army made up of idiots? “Tell me this is a joke.”
“It was night. Raining. There was a flood of them scattering in every direction. The prisoners were armed, and the rebels provided covering fire from the cannons,” one general—Huwen didn’t even remember his name—said. “We were taken by surprise.” His words sank in the silence. Weak excuses.
Heat began to rise in Huwen’s chest. “Two years ago, you lost Gweddien.”
Igua licked his lips.
Gweddien. The last remaining full-blooded magiel. Male, able to father strong children. “I’ve heard no recent report saying you’ve found him.”
“We are searching, Your Majesty. He has great skill in disguise, and there are those who would shield him. He has not sought shelter in places we expected him to go.”
“Then look where you do not expect him to go.” Obvious.
Igua lowered his head in a truncated bow of subservience.
Huwen turned on his heel, fury barely contained. Ychelle waited. And Shalire.
“Your Majesty.”
Exercising restraint, Huwen turned.
“You must return to Coldridge,” Igua said in a low voice. “Your generals need your leadership.”
His leadership. Huwen would’ve accused Igua of mocking him, but he knew his chancellor was speaking in earnest. Huwen felt like anything but a king, anything but a leader. Everything he touched soured.
Still. He could not deny the soundness of Igua’s judgment. That he put the good of the realm ahead of his own welfare, at the risk of offending his lord. Above Huwen’s selfish and cowardly motives. He acquiesced with a sigh.
Igua gave the faintest nod of acknowledgment.
“But Gweddien must be recovered.” At all costs. Huwen hated giving the order. He hated calling for his childhood friend to be boxed, coerced.
“The order has already been given.”
There it was.
Huwen had no choice. The war must come to an end. It must. The strife was crippling him, crippling Shangril. Crippling his ability to finally unify the seven realms, to bring prosperity.
Crippling his ability to recover the Ruby.
***
Fearghus and Colm might disagree on many things, but Meg was under no illusion about how to unite them. Both would give orders for her and her sister to be hunted down: Janat to face charges, and Meg to come to heel, that she might churn out the potions a worldling could not concoct. No, she and Janat must leave in secret, stay off the roads, travel swiftly, and melt into some unexpected backwater.
None of which was possible. Glenfast was a small hilltop redoubt, walled, with one gate. It was deep in Elsen’s borderlands with nothing but wilds and orums surrounding it on three sides, accessed by a single road that wound down through cliffy, dense forests. To plunge into the woods would be to flounder in the dark, leave a trail any dog could track, and risk breaking their legs—or necks—on a sudden rain-slick precipice. Yet to remain on the road meant trying to outpace pursuers on horseback. And the few hamlets along the road were huddles of extended families where concealment would be futile.
Still, Meg was not without alternatives.
She could not trust Janat, mercurial and agitated with Heartspeed, to follow an instruction or even to stay put, so she towed her to the house of healing. She tried to keep her sister silent as she shoved charms into hidden pockets—Confusions, Disguises, Memory Losses, even two Serenities—and took her to the glazier’s home to pack clothing and coin, and to steal food. She pushed the cache of supplies over the city wall where it tumbled into a tangle of low bushes far enough from the gate to be masked by the wall’s curve, to be recovered later.