The Queen's Assassin (The Queen's Secret #1)(13)

He leaves out the back door of the building and mounts his sorrel mare, Raine. She neighs, happy to see him. “Sorry, girl, no apples today,” he says, rubbing her forehead. Raine pulls her head away and paws at the ground. Cal laughs. “No tantrums. I’ll get you a treat later. Right now we have places to be.”

The two of them have been inseparable since he rescued her as a foal. Raine is the one thing Cal allowed himself to get attached to over the years. She’d been left tied to a tree on the side of the road one summer evening. He found her there, skittish and afraid, as he rushed back from the palace to his workshop, right as a storm was brewing. Too bad horses can’t talk, he often thought. He wanted to know who her prior owner was and why she was left behind. In any case, it doesn’t matter now, because he believes she was put in his path for a reason. She was meant to be his companion. Two lonely orphans together.

He waves to the milkmaid selling butter out the back of her wagon, and the tailor standing outside his shop on the corner. To them, he’s nothing more than the young blacksmith of Serrone, often commissioned to do work for the palace. In the few years he’s lived there, he’s never had any trouble with his neighbors. Never got mixed up with the local tavern vagrants or chased after anyone’s daughter. He keeps to himself. And intends for things to stay that way.





CHAPTER FIVE

Caledon

WHEN CAL ARRIVES AT THE castle, a footman leads Raine to the stable. He heads to the entrance hall, which is lined with portraits of kings and queens from Renovia’s past. There is one of King Esban with his brothers, Almon and Alast. The three of them were said to be as close as brothers could be, and yet, the youngest, Alast, was an Aphrasian all along. There is another of Esban and his queen, one of the crown princess as a baby, then their ancestors going back all the way to Avantine. There is even one of King Phras: a grim, gray-haired man with a neat beard and hawkish nose and aspect.

At the very end of the hall, near the doorway that leads to the queen’s reception room, is an imposing, full-length portrait of King Esban. Cal takes a seat on a cushioned bench to wait to be called inside, and his gaze keeps drifting back to the portrait of the king. Little wonder the king intimidated people. The man was as large as a bear.

His father talked about the king often. Cordyn Holt’s own father, Cal’s grandfather, was the renowned cook of the royal kitchens, his talents so valued that his lowborn son was given the honor of sharing a tutor with the young princes. Cordyn became closest to Prince Esban. They were playmates, and later, after Esban was crowned king, Cordyn became his personal advisor.

Cal’s father told him that though Esban was fierce and uncompromising in many ways—mostly when it came to causes he believed in—he was far from the unreasonable tyrant the Aphrasian traitors painted him to be. He had no interest in taking the ancient knowledge of the Deian Scrolls for himself, as they claimed. Once they were in his possession, his plan was to share their knowledge with the people, to better their lives after centuries of oppression and suffering. Sadly, he never had the chance.

King Esban was nothing like the monarchs who came before him. He’d only inherited the throne because his elder brother, Almon, died suddenly while visiting a grand duke of Montrice. They’d been out hunting and were on their way back to the duke’s estate when young King Almon fell from his horse in the middle of the field. He was rushed to his room at the manor house, but nothing could be done for him. Other guests at the manor reported that he’d been covered head to toe in a bright red rash; that his face and hands swelled like a melon before he finally suffocated.

As soon as Esban was crowned, a rumor spread that he had actually poisoned Almon. That he’d plotted to kill his own brother in order to enact a heretical agenda against the Aphrasian monks, the only rightful guardians of the Deian Scrolls. In truth, the monks were terrified of King Esban because he didn’t turn a blind eye to their corruption. As rightful leader of Renovia, he was the one man who still had the authority to convict them of treason; he could also disband the order entirely if he believed their duplicity ran too deep to mend.

Aphrasian insurgents printed broadsides and spread them throughout the kingdom’s towns and villages, representing King Esban as a dishonest and greedy man with a vendetta against tradition. “The new king demands the scrolls returned as he wishes to hoard the knowledge of Deia for himself,” read one pamphlet Cal’s father had kept. “Once in his control, he will use its magical power against us.”

Never mind that the opposite was true. Once he was king, Esban and his council had begun working on expanding access to magical training by dismantling Aphrasian monasteries and establishing new centers of learning for the people.

King Esban wanted Renovia to be more than strong; he wanted it to become the most prosperous, advanced kingdom of all the lands, a beacon of arts and sacred knowledge. But for that to happen, the king understood that the privileged, like himself, had to relinquish some control. By the end of his rule, he had done more to advance equality than any other Renovian leader: He lifted levies; eliminated trade barriers at the borders so that rare spices and textiles became more widely available; instructed monasteries to open their doors to those in need—the sick, the hungry.

But that hadn’t been enough to quell the public’s suspicions; at least not with Aphrasians spreading unrest through their campaigns of lies. Some people flocked to the sect rather than embrace change, convinced that Esban would soon unleash his true plan. According to them, he would gain the public’s trust, then, with the abbey disintegrated, hoard the scrolls and use his power to tyrannize the kingdom alongside his foreign-born bride.