The Queen's Assassin (The Queen's Secret #1)(48)

“You know that and I know that, but we aren’t the ones who benefit from war. We’re the ones who suffer so that others gain,” Cal says darkly.

“Why do what you do, then? Why work for the crown at all? You have the smithy. Couldn’t you do that instead of being in the queen’s service?”

Cal doesn’t speak. Then he sighs and rubs his face with his hands. “Because I have to.”

I can tell he has more to say, so I let him talk.

“My father made a blood vow to the queen. But he died before it was satisfied. So it passed on to me. Now I must satisfy it.” A blood vow? I’ve only heard of them from the old tales my aunts read to me. It seems so . . . barbaric. Evil even. The blood in my veins runs cold at the thought.

“Why did he do that? What do you have to do?” I think of the path my mother and aunts set for me. I veered off it on my own, with no consequence so far. But a blood vow—if the stories are right, then Cal’s very life has barely been his own.

“After the Battle of Baer, the queen fell apart. She wouldn’t govern. She wouldn’t leave her rooms. She wouldn’t even lower the palace flag to confirm the king’s death. My father was there to protect her, but he couldn’t do that for long if she wasn’t able to perform the most basic duties. The kingdom would look weak, it would be invaded, and that would be the end of us. There’d already been an attempt on the queen’s life soon after her pregnancy with Princess Lilac was announced, which sparked the Aphrasian Rebellion in the first place.

“The only way he could rouse her from her grief was by promising her the Deian Scrolls. She insisted on a blood vow, so he made it. He was foolish and shortsighted, I guess, but the kingdom was on the verge of collapse. One victorious battle meant nothing if the queen let it all fall to pieces. He intended to return the Deian Scrolls to her long before I came of age, but that never happened. So now I must.”

“And if you don’t?” I ask, my heart in my throat.

“If I don’t, it passes on to my children and theirs . . . until it is finally done. Until the scrolls are returned to their rightful place. But I refuse to pass it down to my children. I will have no children.” His jaw is set and his eyes are stormy.

“You can’t abandon the vow?”

At that, a rueful smile. “A blood vow is deep magic. There is no escape from it. Not that I haven’t tried.”

Of course he has. I would. “Is that what you were doing in Baer Abbey that day?” It suddenly dawns on me that we’ve never spoken of the first time we met.

He nods. “I thought there might be a chance they were hidden there, that my father had missed something. And what were you doing at Baer that day?”

“Nothing, really. I was exploring, I guess.”

“Did the queen send you? Because I wasn’t even supposed to be there.”

“No. Queen Lilianna did not send me to Baer. The truth is, I didn’t mean to be there at all.” Yet something had pulled me to the ruined castle, something deep in the earth had led me there. The visions choose the seer; that is what my aunts taught me.

“So, you were out for a walk and just happened to end up there.”

“Pretty much, not that it matters now.” I don’t appreciate his skepticism, but the truth is, I did lie to him to get where I am right now. “What matters is what happens next.”

“Next is Montrice. We need to find a place to stay, and buy new clothes. If anyone asks, we’re brother and sister. Taverns are typically the best places to find information, particularly when you want to know who the criminals are. Or better yet, who the criminals work for.”

“And if this discovery leads all the way up to King Hansen?” I ask.

“Then he will be taken care of,” Cal says softly.

I feel chills, and am suddenly nauseous with fear. Cal will protect Renovia at all costs. There is nothing he will not do for his kingdom when the time comes. Without fear and without regret.

He is the Queen’s Assassin. And no one is safe from his blade.





EXCERPT FROM THE SCROLL OF OMIN, 1.2:

A Comprehensive History of Avantine

On the Origins of Omin of Oylahn

LONG AGO, WHEN ALL THE kingdoms of Avantine were one, the region of Renovia was a backwater, a swampland, a hopeless swath of fallow earth sparsely populated in most places and dominated by warring clans in others. The oldest child of the oldest child of the oldest family in the land was unlucky enough to lead the chaos, for however long they could until they were ousted—either by murder or fatigue—and replaced by the next oldest child in line, and so on. Clan leaders bribed or blackmailed the monarch in return for favor and to maintain control over their own territories.

However, Avantine’s new queen, Alphonia, only thirteen years old, wasn’t satisfied with the struggling realm she inherited, especially since surrounding kingdoms had begun taking advantage of Renovia’s weaknesses and invading its outlying communities.

Alphonia may have been a child, yet she was older than her sister had been when she was crowned at age ten but died soon after from consumption, and both were older at accession than their father had been before them, though he had lived to the ripe old age of twenty. And thirteen years, then as now, was old enough to know her own mind—and young enough not to know that maybe she really didn’t.