‘This has little to do with palace business,’ Perri responded almost politely in poor Charyn.
‘Step back, madam,’ Trevanion ordered Lirah. ‘You’ll get hurt.’
Froi hesitated, thinking how ludicrous it all sounded. Finnikin took the opportunity to straddle him, holding Froi down to the ground.
‘You want to ask about my wife?’ Finnikin demanded. ‘What would you have me tell you, Froi? You probably know more about her than I do. Her little confidant.’
Froi popped him in the nose with his fist and the next moment he was on top, and Finnikin was struggling to break free.
‘It’s the word “little” I take offence to, my lord,’ he said. ‘I think I’m the taller one now. Perhaps we can have Isaboe decide.’
Finnikin’s elbow caught Froi in the eye and he fell back before Finnikin dived on top of him.
‘What else did she tell you?’ Finnikin hissed. ‘What else has she confided in you that she couldn’t tell me?’
Froi shrugged free. ‘Are you insane?’
He was on his feet, shaking his head with disbelief. ‘What have you done, Finn?’
Finnikin leapt up seconds later, and they stood nose to nose.
‘What else, apart from her time in Sorel, did she trust you with and not me?’
Finnikin shoved him hard for an answer. Froi shoved him back.
‘Do you really want to know?’ Froi goaded, fury lacing his voice. ‘She spoke to me of love and obsession and the way the Goddess can weave ties between human hearts that burn with every touch.’
Finnikin roared and charged for him, but Froi leapt up onto one of the branches, shoving a boot into Finnikin’s face.
‘She trusted me with the knowledge that loving the way she loved frightened her beyond imagining.’
Finnikin gripped at his boot and Froi tumbled, landing back on the ground with Finnikin pressing his face into the dirt. Froi crawled free.
‘She trusted me with the knowledge that her people think she’s the bravest Queen who ever lived, but she fears she doesn’t know who she is without the man she worships,’ Froi continued. ‘She fears that if something happened to him she’d lie in her bed and never ever get up.’
Froi scrambled to his feet and soon enough they were standing before each other, so unlike the time in training back in the meadow before Froi had travelled to Charyn.
‘When she was carrying Jasmina in her belly she trusted me with the knowledge that she feared she wouldn’t love her child as much as she loved her king,’ Froi continued. ‘She told me about her slavery in Sorel because she had to speak to someone about her shame. If anyone understood that sort of shame it was me … and her king. But she couldn’t tell her king because their curse was that he had to share her pain twofold and she will never forgive herself for putting him through that.’
Froi threw a punch and it knocked Finnikin down.
‘And do you know what else we spoke about? Not that she doesn’t believe that her consort is a man of worth because he is less titled than his wife, but that her consort doesn’t believe he is worthy. You have no idea what that does to her, you fool. Because you’re too busy being proud. What an indulgent luxury pride is,’ he raged. ‘I would give my life to be the consort to the woman I love. I’d give my life to be her footman! Her servant. Any chance to stand close enough to protect her. Yet your queen asks you to sit on the throne by her side and it’s all too degrading for you. You fool,’ Froi said bitterly. ‘You will drive her away.’
There was no satisfaction in Froi’s victory. After a moment they both looked over to where Trevanion, Perri, Gargarin and Lirah were watching dispassionately. Froi suddenly felt like a child. Under the same stares, Finnikin fidgeted uncomfortably beside him.
‘Finished?’ Trevanion asked.
No one responded.
‘We head home,’ the Captain said. ‘You ride with me, Froi. And you better be speaking the truth about this man’s innocence. You’re going to have to face the Queen about the decision we made to let him go.’
They were the last words Froi wanted to hear.
‘I’m staying,’ he said quietly.
Finnikin turned to stare at him, but didn’t say a word.
‘Get on the horse, Froi,’ Perri ordered.
Froi shook his head. ‘Don’t ask me to do that. For now, I need to stay here.’
Finnikin still hadn’t spoken and Froi waited, wanting a word, a gesture. From his king. His friend.
‘You’re making a choice here, Froi,’ Trevanion said. ‘Charyn or Lumatere?’
Froi couldn’t fight the anguish he was feeling. ‘Why does there have to be a choice?’ he asked.
Finnikin made a sound of disbelief and Froi felt as if he was with strangers.
‘How can you even ask that?’ Finnikin said, mounting his horse and riding away.
And on that night, Finnikin travelled with a heavy heart, his thoughts on his childhood friend, Balthazar. Because the loyal friendship he had shared with Froi had become just as fierce over the years. Lucian would have agreed. Froi reminded them both of how they had been before Balthazar’s death. They were more carefree in his presence. Content. But all that was gone now.
‘They’re not safe here,’ Trevanion muttered when they reached the border. ‘There’s an army camped somewhere close back there. Probably for one of them.’
‘Not our problem,’ Finnikin said, steering his horse towards the river that would take them across to Osteria and then home.
‘Froi made his choice. He’s dead to Lumatere.’
And I’m shaking with Phaedra as we climb to the cave, Froi. Our skin is still fastened by blood that is hers. And the women are stunned and all asking questions, but the fool girl just cries and let goes of my hand. And she weeps and she weeps so I lay by her side and I whisper the order, ‘We’ll kill them together.’ Phaedra reaches a hand to her cheek and I see that it’s pressed where the Mont’s blade had pierced her. And I can see in her eyes that she’s almost convinced. The next time we meet them, it’s the bitch Queen who weeps.
And sometime the next day, Isaboe returned from the mountain to the palace. She responded to the letter from the Sarnak Ambassador that was waiting for her. Then she spoke to the kitchen staff about the dinner banquet for the Osterian archduke, and chose the design for the garden they were building in honour of her mother. Sir Topher arrived in the residence soon after and they put the finishing touches on the invitations for the next market day. Rhiannon came fussing with Jasmina, who wanted no one but her mother, and Isaboe rocked her daughter to a song of unicorns and rabbits and all things fluffy and white. And then the palace was quiet and she was alone for the first time in days, thinking of that hideous night of death, trying to remember with all her might what her last words to every one of her family were. Until Finnikin’s hound came searching for his master and found her instead. It was only then that she felt the weary sob release. And she wept into the hound’s coat until her body ached and she feared she would hurt the babe that was inside of her. Because everything was broken. Everything. And there was no design, nor treaty, nor map that could put it all back together.
Part Two
The Lumateran
Chapter 11
‘She’s gone again,’ Cora said, shoving Phaedra awake.
Phaedra didn’t want to go out in the cold. She didn’t want to move from the bedroll where she had been huddled all day and night. But Cora shoved her again.
‘Get up. I don’t know what took place out there with you two useless girls and I don’t care. But we didn’t
