the dirt and he could see that at least she was eating well, looking rounded and full-figured. When she heard the crunch of the pine needles under their feet, she stumbled to stand, her eyes wide with alarm.
Tesadora stepped forward, holding out a hand to quell her fears, but the girl’s eyes fastened on Isaboe. Lucian saw a snarl curling her lips and then heard the bloodcurdling sound. Aldron stepped forward, a hand to his sword.
‘We won’t hurt you,’ Tesadora called out meaningfully, for Aldron’s ears as much as the girl’s. ‘Step back, Aldron. You’re frightening her.’
Aldron refused to move. The girl seemed poised to lunge.
‘Step back, Aldron.’ Isaboe repeated Tesadora’s words. Reluctantly, Aldron did as he was told. Isaboe approached slowly, tentatively, and the girl stumbled back.
‘Your Majesty!’ Aldron warned. Isaboe held up a hand, stepping closer and closer to the girl. Neither spoke, but there was a tension in the air that unnerved Lucian. He looked at Tesadora and when she refused to meet his eye, he knew something was wrong. And then it happened quickly, the speed of it stunning them all. Isaboe’s hand snaked out and pushed the girl against the closest trunk, her fingers clenched around the Charynite’s throat.
‘Give me your sword, Aldron,’ his queen ordered, her voice so cold.
‘Isaboe,’ Tesadora hissed. ‘Let her go. You’re hurting her.’
‘Aldron,’ Isaboe repeated. ‘Give me your sword.’
‘What’s happening here?’ Lucian demanded. Aldron unsheathed his weapon and placed it in Isaboe’s hand. In an instant his cousin had the blade pressed under the girl’s chin.
‘Isaboe, let her go!’ Tesadora cried, stepping forward, but Aldron held her back.
Lucian couldn’t see Isaboe’s face, but he saw the girl’s expression. With the blade to her neck, she was petrified. He reached out a hand to Isaboe’s shoulder, but she shrugged it away.
‘I was one of five children,’ she said, speaking Charyn to the girl. ‘I want you to know that before you die. I want you to know their names. Evestalina. Rosemond. Jasmina. Balthazar. My mother’s name was Tilda. My father’s name was Carles. On the day he died, my brother Balthazar got in trouble for lying about breaking a vase in the reading room. My father said he was ashamed of him and so my brother went to his death thinking he had lost the King’s respect.’
Lucian heard her voice break.
‘My sister Rosemond … we called her Rosie, she carved her name on the cherry-tree trunk in my mother’s garden, declaring her love for one of my father’s guards who later died in the prison mines of Sorel. I want you to think of them when you’re choking on your own blood, Quintana of Charyn.’
Lucian’s pulse pounded to hear the name. Aldron stared at him, having no idea of the Queen’s plan.
‘Isaboe!’ Tesadora said, her voice desolate. ‘Do not do this. It will break your spirit.’
With her hand still pressed against the girl’s throat and the weapon still in place, Isaboe looked back at Tesadora.
‘My spirit was broken long ago, Tesadora. And it was broken again yesterday when Vestie told me about your deceit. While I was begging you to come spend time with me, you were playing nursemaid to the daughter of the man who ordered my family’s slaughter.’
Isaboe turned back to the girl. ‘Did you think you could find refuge in my valley, filthy Charynite?’
Tesadora struggled in Aldron’s arms. Lucian knew that nothing would stop the Queen. Wasn’t this exactly what Finnikin and Trevanion and Perri were doing in Charyn? Wasn’t this something they all had sanctioned?
But it was horror Lucian felt when he saw Isaboe raise the blade to strike. The girl’s scream was hoarse and full of rage and fear. The sound of it would ring in Lucian’s ears for days to come. And just as Isaboe went to use the sword, something came flying out at them from the copse of trees.
‘
The voice made his knees almost buckle.
Phaedra?
Lucian watched, stunned, as Phaedra threw herself at Isaboe. And then it all happened so fast and he did what he was taught to do in battle … when his queen was under attack. He acted on instinct. Lucian didn’t hesitate. Not for a single moment. His father’s sword was in his hand, pressed against the throat of his wife. He knew he’d kill anyone who was a threat to his queen. He knew he would kill Phaedra of Alonso. But Phaedra was on her knees gripping the blade of Isaboe’s sword and pressing it to her own chest. Lucian could see its sharpness cutting into his wife’s hands. Until they dripped with blood.
‘Kill me,’ she pleaded, her head pressed against Isaboe’s knees. ‘I’m begging, Your Majesty. Kill me. Please. If you want to avenge anyone, kill me. I’m a lastborn and daughter of a Provincaro. Ride through Charyn and take every lastborn girl to exact your revenge. But not her, Your Majesty. Charyn will cease to exist without her. We are nothing without the babe she carries.’
Lucian watched Isaboe shudder. Even Tesadora was speechless at the sight of Phaedra.
‘They don’t stay dead, these Charynites, do they?’ he heard Isaboe say, her voice so foreign to him. Compared to all the battles or deaths or sieges Lucian had ever witnessed, this was different. He swore later that the air changed, that there were spirits at play. That the Charyn gods and the Goddess herself were damning Lucian for the blade he held. Damning them all. And then suddenly Isaboe stepped away, letting go of Quintana of Charyn and pulling free of Phaedra.
‘Get out of my valley,’ Isaboe said. ‘Before I change my mind and slice you in half as your father’s assassin did my mother!’
Lucian lowered his sword and stumbled back. Without hesitation, Phaedra gripped the girl’s hand and they ran for their lives, disappearing through the trees.
For moments all he heard was the sound of their own ragged breaths, but Lucian knew it wasn’t over yet. Phaedra was alive. He had held a sword to her throat while she knelt, begging for another’s mercy, her hands drenched with blood. He thought that the difference between he and Isaboe was that his love for a Charynite had sometimes made him forget. And he despised himself for it. He had forgotten the way Balthazar had died. His cousins. His aunt. His king and his father.
‘You’re to return home to the cloister in the forest,’ Isaboe ordered Tesadora. ‘I forbid you to come here again. I’ll deal with you in my own time.’
Tesadora gave a humourless laugh.
‘You forbid,’ she mocked. ‘You’ll deal with me? I’m not yours to deal with, little girl. You’re mistaking me for someone else.’
‘Tesadora,’ Lucian warned as she walked away.
‘If you return to this valley, Tesadora, you face the consequences,’ Isaboe said.
‘I stay where I’m needed,’ Tesadora said.
‘She’ll stay with the Monts,’ Lucian said.
‘I stay here!’ Tesadora shouted, turning to face them all, eyes blazing.
Isaboe walked to her. She stood before Tesadora, shaking.
‘Is it the filthy Charynite inside of you that draws you to these people?’ she asked, and Lucian knew there was no turning back from those words.
‘Oh, beloved,’ Tesadora said, both rage and sadness in her voice. ‘Don’t force me to choose.’
‘Choose?’ Isaboe said. ‘Between her and me? You’d choose her?’
Tesadora leant forward and cupped the Queen’s face in both her hands.
‘Blood sings to blood,’ Tesadora said. ‘And yours doesn’t carry a tune.’
Isaboe stumbled back as if she had been struck, and then Tesadora was gone and Lucian could only stare at his cousin. He wished Finnikin were here, because only he could tear that look from her eyes. Lucian had seen him do it. Walk into a room when the images in her head were too powerful to bear. Finnikin would take her in his arms and whisper the words and she’d choke out a cry, but she’d breathe.
Lucian reached out to comfort her, but she stepped away. Being Evanjalin had trained her for years and years not to cry. It’s how she differed from the rest of the Monts. But he could see she was still broken inside.
‘Let’s go,’ he said quietly. ‘I need to get you home to
