Bloodleaf (Bloodleaf #1)(87)

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In the largest tent, a makeshift table was made from a scavenged flat-topped stone. Not everyone could fit inside, so half the men stayed outside, on guard, and the other half lined the inside of the canvas.

Kellan’s explanations were hasty: after he’d fallen into the river, his memories were vague, little more than impressions of washing ashore, then being moved, and careful hands dressing his wounds. He was still in the haze of fever when his brother, Fredrick, found him delivered to the Greythorne estate’s front door with no sign of his benefactor. Just Kellan and, in the distance, a watchful yellow-eyed fox.

Wisely, Fredrick kept Kellan’s sudden appearance a secret. He ministered to his younger brother himself, keeping vigil by his bed for two days, until the fever finally broke. Finally lucid, Kellan was able to relay what had happened to us in the woods at Toris’s hands. In turn, Fredrick’s news of the queen in the capital was equally perplexing: it seemed that though my mother had been taken as a royal hostage in Syric, the Tribunal had then made no further moves to consolidate their power. But something was simmering; everyone knew it. The only question was: What was stopping them? What were they waiting for?

I provided that answer. The Tribunal was waiting for Toris to destroy Achlev’s Wall.

What they had planned after that, I hoped we wouldn’t have to find out.

Now, inside the tent, Fredrick Greythorne was standing behind Kellan, dressed in the livery of their family. He looked like Kellan in nearly every way except the hair; where Kellan had a wealth of tight, corkscrew curls, Fredrick kept his hair closely shorn, skimming his deep brown skin, but not so close that he could hide the hints of iron gray at his temples. He was fifteen years Kellan’s senior, and watching him made it easy to imagine how Kellan would look fifteen years from now: handsome, with a wide, well-cut jaw and fine, crinkly lines around his mouth and eyes.

It had been Kellan’s idea to infiltrate Syric and rescue the queen, and Fredrick’s plan that had made it happen.

“My mother is free?” I asked, jubilant for the first time in what felt like years. “Where is she? How was it done?”

Kellan was slowly pacing; it was clear from his movements that he was still feeling the effects of his injuries. “The castle was completely locked down. The Tribunal was in total control, and even though they maintained that the queen was in good health, Onal was the only person Simon allowed to go in and out of the room, to bring them food and the like.”

“And the Tribunal clerics let her?”

“She’s a harmless old woman. What was she going to do?”

I nodded. “So they were all scared of her.”

“Terrified.”

Fredrick said, “We went to Onal first, and used her to pass messages to your mother and Simon, make plans. Then I went secretly to my old comrades in the guard and recruited anyone still loyal to the queen. We didn’t have as much force as we would have liked, which made storming the castle impossible. So we had to be furtive and use our only real advantage: Simon. We drugged their night guards and dragged them into the room, where Simon created an illusion to make them look like himself and the queen.”

“And that worked?”

Kellan said, “It got us out. I’d hate to know what kind of punishments those two had to face when the rest of the Tribunal figured out they weren’t their actual prisoners.” His wide grin said otherwise. “We’d have been sunk without Simon. After we broke them from the room, he made himself and the queen virtually invisible until we were out of the city. It was the damnedest thing.”

“I can’t imagine,” I said dryly.

Fredrick picked the story up where Kellan left off. “The Tribunal didn’t realize she was missing until well into the next day. By then we were halfway to the port at Hallet.”

“But the Tribunal still holds Syric?”

“They do. We’ve gotten the queen to safety; she’s with a regiment of soldiers at the Silvis family’s holding halfway up the fjord. We wanted her to start making plans for our next move to regain the capital, but all she can think about is you and your brother.”

“And what about Simon?” I asked. “Is he all right?”

“You can ask him yourself,” Kellan replied. “He’s with Onal right now, two tents down. So is Conrad and your friend with the baby.”

I raced in the direction he’d pointed me, and when I located the right tent, I tossed the flap aside to find Conrad on a stool with a miserable look on his face. Onal stood behind him, tugging a comb through the knots in his curly locks. She didn’t even glance up before saying crossly to me, “Look at this mess. You couldn’t have wiped some of the smudges off his face before bringing him in front of an entire troop of soldiers? He’s supposed to lead them one day, Aurelia. He can’t command their respect when he looks like he rolled around in a trash heap all day.”

I threw my arms around her bony shoulders, and she patted my back in a rare display of fondness before saying, “I sure hope your stink doesn’t get into my clothing, young lady. I’d prefer not to smell like a cesspool.”

“How is my mother?” I asked, pulling away.

“She’s well.” I turned to the new voice coming from the other corner of the tent. Simon was sitting back against a pallet, next to Nathaniel. He was rocking a sleeping Ella and smiling, but he looked haggard and sallow, as if he’d aged years in the weeks since I saw him last. “My family’s property isn’t large, but it’s well secured. She’s more than safe there until we return. Until then, she sends her love to you both.”