The Queen's Assassin (The Queen's Secret #1)(97)

He wonders what Shadow is doing at that very moment. Is she looking out her window at this scene, too? Does she wonder where he is?

Cal watches from the window as workers install the stage where the marriage ceremony will take place. Where Shadow will become King Hansen’s wife. How can he let her do this? How can he let her go?

No one questions him as he makes his way through the palace down to the catacombs; they are too busy with wedding preparations to bother with another Renovian in their midst. The steps down to the dungeons are damp and slimy, and Cal takes a torch from the wall to light his way. Even if the duke was unmasked as a conspirator, he was still an aristocrat, and Cal counts on his body being entombed underneath the castle along with other dead nobles. There are statues depicting their former visages: kings, queens, dukes, duchesses, earls of every stripe. Knights buried with their swords.

He walks between the tombs, reading names, looking for the final resting place of the evil duke.

“He’s not here,” a small voice says.

Cal swings the torch over and sees a boy hunched over by an empty tomb. “Jander?” he asks, startled.

The boy nods. “You can call me that for now.”

“Where is he?”

“We were too late,” Jander tells him. “The sun went down. So he came back. As did I.”

Cal sighs. “He was the one who cursed you, didn’t he?”

Jander nods. “A long time ago.”

A very long time ago, Cal knows now. For he finally remembers where he’s seen the duke before, in a painting at the royal palace when he was called to see the queen. The hawkish visage, the angry eyes. The duke is none other than the Tyrant King himself, King Phras of Avantine.

“I found this,” he says, showing Jander the obsidian key. “Any idea where the lock may be?”

“I might,” says Jander. He stands up.

It’s time to go then. They leave the catacombs together; Cal stops at his room to gather his things. He packs lightly, and finds a few things for Jander on the road. But there’s only one thing from Montrice he wants to keep. The lilac handkerchief. He tucks it into his back pocket alongside the other one.

Jander picks up a satchel and follows him out.

Cal smiles. He has lost an apprentice, only to gain a new one.

They leave the palace as musicians rehearse the wedding march. He doesn’t look back.





EPILOGUE


Queen Lilac


A FEW MONTHS AFTER THE WEDDING

QUEEN LILAC IS ALONE IN her bedchamber yet again, though she’s not complaining. For all her husband’s avowed attraction to her, they have yet to consummate their marriage. Hansen leaves her alone, and for that, she is truly grateful. He spends his nights with his favorite.

Her ladies-in-waiting have been dismissed for the night. The king’s apartments are far away from the queen’s, per the royal custom in Montrice; they are practically on the opposite sides of the castle. Hansen keeps late nights, while she prefers waking early to have a light breakfast of ginger tea and toast on the back veranda by the gardens, where she can watch her swans at the pond.

This schedule leaves the two of them with very few opportunities to be together. That’s a good thing. She knows it could be worse. Hansen may be vain and pompous, but he is not unkind. They are simply disinterested in each other, their marriage a political alliance and nothing more. At least their kingdoms are at peace.

In the afternoons, she trains with a Guild master. She is a queen now, and no one can tell her she cannot. She will follow her own path; she will turn the wheel of fate on her own terms.

She picks up one of the newly bound books she ordered from the royal printer. This one she’d had made especially for herself: an illustrated collection of Renovian legends, hand-drawn and accented with gold leaf.

Tomorrow morning she will write to Aunt Moriah and Aunt Mesha. She hopes they will visit the palace soon; she misses them dearly. She has forgiven them their part in this, for like her, they had no choice. Somehow, she has forgiven her mother as well. Now that she is queen, she understands her responsibilities to her people and the need for peace throughout the land.

All is serene as usual in the palace; a cat meows somewhere outside; feathers rustle in the dovecote. A horse whinnies softly in the stables. The kitchen maids throw old dishwater into the garden sluice and refill their pails at the well for tomorrow’s washing.

Lilac’s thoughts wander to Cal, as they often do in moments like this. She wonders where he is. Whether he’ll ever return. Whether she’ll ever see him again. Most likely she will, but only as a servant to the throne. He is still the Queen’s Assassin, and she is his queen.

She opens the book and carries it with her toward the bed. She’s looking forward to falling asleep with the fairy tales of Omin of Oylahn and Queen Alphonia. She, too, needs distractions.

Lilac is almost asleep when she hears a soft knock.

It is coming from the small door, the one that leads to the room next to her bedchamber.

Another knock, a little louder this time.

Her heart seizes. She can barely breathe. But hope springs to her chest before she can stop it.

She thinks back to her last moments with Cal, her desperate request of him.

You can come back, to be by my side . . . You will not be my husband, but I will be yours forever.

Lilac runs to open the door, her heart beating wildly in her chest, filled with fear and hope and love.