The Queen's Rising(52)

Ire boiled up my throat as I cleared the last stair, following him into the hall. “I know who you are,” I said, my words pelting him as rocks in the back. “You may not be Lord Kavanagh the Bright, but perhaps you are Lord Morgane the Swift?”

Jourdain halted as if I had pressed a blade to his throat. He didn’t turn around; I could not see his face, but I watched his hands curl into fists at his sides.

“Or might you be Lord MacQuinn the Steadfast?” I finished. That name had scarcely had time to leave the tip of my tongue when he rounded on me, his face pale with fury as he took my arm and pulled me into his office, slamming the door behind us.

I should be afraid. I had never seen him look so furious, not even when he took on the thieves. But there was no room for fear in my mind, because I had spoken truth—I had spoken his name to him, the one he had never wanted me to know. And I let that name sink into me, let the truth of who he was settle in my heart.

MacQuinn. One of the three Maevan lords who had boldly attempted to reclaim the throne twenty-five years ago. Whose plans to dethrone Lannon and crown Kavanagh’s oldest daughter had fallen to ashes, and as a consequence, whose wife had been slaughtered, who had fled with his son, to hide and quietly endure.

“Amadine . . .” he whispered, his voice choking on my name. The white wrath was gone, leaving exhaustion in its wake as Jourdain collapsed in his chair. “How? How did you guess?”

I sat slowly in one of the other chairs, waiting for him to look at me. “I’ve known you were Maevan ever since I saw you so effortlessly cut down the thieves.”

He finally met my gaze, his eyes bloodshot.

“It makes sense to me now, why you reacted so violently. How you will protect your family at all cost, because I now know you have lost someone very precious to you. And then this . . . stranger . . . mentioned that he had waited twenty-five years,” I continued, lacing my cold fingers together. “Twenty-five years ago, three courageous Maevan lords stormed the castle, hoping to place a rightful daughter on the throne, to reclaim it from a cruel, unrighteous king. Those lords were Kavanagh, Morgane, and MacQuinn, and though they may be hiding, their names are not forgotten—their sacrifice is not forgotten.”

A sound came from him, a tangle of laughter and weeping, and he covered his eyes. Oh, it broke my heart to hear the sound come from such a man, to realize how long he had been hiding, carrying the guilt of that massacre.

He lowered his hands, a few tears still clinging to his lashes, but he chuckled. “I should have known you would be shrewd. You are an Allenach, after all.”

My heart turned cold at the sound of that name, and I corrected him by saying, “It’s not that, but because I am a passion of knowledge, and I was taught the history of Maevana. Were you ever going to tell me the truth?”

“Not until Isolde was crowned. But it was only out of protection for you, Amadine.”

I could not believe it. I could not believe my patron father was one of the rebellious Maevan lords—that a name I had once heard Cartier merely talk about was now sitting before me in the flesh.

I glanced to the papers scattered on his desk, overwhelmed. My gaze caught on something familiar . . . a piece of parchment with a drawing of the unmistakable bleeding quill. I reached for it; Jourdain watched as I held up the illustration with a tremor in my fingers.

“You’re the Grim Quill,” I whispered, my eyes darting to his.

“Yes,” he responded.

I was flooded with awe, worry. I thought back to all those pamphlets I had read, how bold and persuasive his words were. And I suddenly understood the “why” of it all . . . why he wanted to obliterate the northern king. Because he had lost his wife, his land, his people, his honor because of Lannon.

I read the words he had scrawled beneath the drawing, a messy first draft of his upcoming publication:

How to ask pardon for rightfully rebelling against a man who thinks he is king: Offer your head first, your allegiance second. . . .

“I . . . I cannot believe it,” I confessed, setting the paper down.

“Who did you think the Grim Quill was, Amadine?”

I shrugged. “I honestly don’t know. A Valenian who liked to poke fun at Lannon, at current events.”

“Did you think that I fled here to hide and cower, to sit on my hands, to try to become Valenian and forget who I was?” he asked.

I didn’t answer, but my gaze held his, my emotions still running the gamut.

“Tell me, daughter,” he said, leaning forward. “What does every revolution need?”

Again, I was quiet, because I honestly didn’t know.

“A revolution needs money, belief, and people willing to fight,” he replied. “I began writing the Grim Quill almost two decades ago, hoping that it would stir Valenians as well as Maevans. Even if the Dowager had never told me about you and what your memories could unleash . . . I would have continued writing and publishing the Grim Quill for however long it took, until I was ninety and frail, until people—Valenian, Maevan, or both united—eventually rose, with magic or without it.”

I wondered what that would feel like—he had spent over twenty years in hiding, letting his anonymous words slowly chip away at Valenian ignorance and Maevan fear. And he would spend twenty more doing it, if that’s what it required, until he had the money, the belief, and the people to make it possible.