The Queen's Rising (Untitled Trilogy #1)(66)

I paid one of the sailors to carry my trunk, and I disembarked with the sun on my shoulders, vengeance in my heart as my papers were cleared for admittance. The first place I went was the bank, to have my ducats exchanged for coppers. And then I went to the nearest inn and paid a servant girl to help me dress in one of my finest Valenian gowns.

I chose a gown the color of cornflowers—a blue that smoldered, a blue for knowledge—with intricate silver stitching along the hem and bodice. The kirtle was white, trimmed with tiny blue stones that glistened in the light. And beneath that, I wore petticoats and a corset, to hold me together, to blatantly define me as a Valenian woman.

I drew a star mole on my right cheek with a stick of kohl, the mark of a Valenian noblewoman, and closed my eyes as the servant girl carefully gathered half of my hair up with a blue ribbon, her fingers carefully pulling through my tangles. She hardly spoke a word to me, and I wondered what was flickering through her mind.

I paid her more than necessary and then began my ascent up the hill in a hired coach, my luggage in tow. We clattered beneath the oaks, through markets, passing men with thick beards and braided hair, women in armor, and children hardly clothed in tattered garments as they rushed to and fro with bare feet.

It seemed that everyone all wore some mark of their House, whether it was by the colors of their garments or the emblem stitched into their jerkins and cloaks. To proclaim which lord and lady they served, which House they were faithful to. There were many who wore Lannon’s colors, Lannon’s lynx. But then there were some who wore the orange and red of Burke, the maroon and silver of Allenach.

I closed my eyes again, breathing the earthen scent of horses, the smoke of forges, the aroma of warm bread. I listened to the children chanting a song, to women laughing, to a hammer striking an anvil. All the while, the coach trembled beneath me, higher, higher, up the hill to where the castle lay waiting.

I opened my eyes only when the coach stopped, when the man opened the door for me.

“Lady?”

I let him help me down, trying to adjust to the ambitions of my petticoats. And when I looked up, I saw the decapitated heads, the pieces of bodies staked on the castle wall, rotting, blackening in the sun. I stopped short when I saw the head of a girl not much older than me on the closest spike, her eyes two holes, her mouth hanging open, her brown hair blowing like a pennant in the breeze. My gorge rose as I stumbled back, leaning against the coach, trying to take my eyes from the girl, trying to keep my panic from splitting a hole in my exterior.

“Those would be traitors, Lady,” my escort explained, seeing my shock. “Men and women who have offended King Lannon.”

I glanced to the man. He watched me with hard eyes, with no emotion. This must be a daily occurrence to him.

I turned away, leaned my forehead against the coach. “What . . . what did she do to . . . offend the king?”

“The one your age? I heard she refused the king’s advances two nights ago.”

Saints help me. . . . I could not do this. I was a fool to think I could ask a pardon for MacQuinn. My patron father had been right; he had tried to express this to me. I may walk into the royal hall, but I most likely would not emerge in one piece.

“Should I take you back to the inn?”

I drew in a ragged breath, felt my sweat run cold down my back. My eyes wandered to the coachman, and I saw the mockery in the lines of his face. Little Valenian coquette, his eyes seemed to say. Go back to your cushions and your parties. This is no place for you.

He was wrong. This was my place, by half. And if I fled, more girls would end up with their heads on spikes. So I gave myself only a moment more to breathe and calm my pulse. Then I pushed away from the coach, standing in the shadow of the wall.

“Will you wait for me here?”

He tipped his head and went to stand by his horses, stroking their manes with a chapped hand.

I trembled as I approached the main gate, where two guards in gleaming plate armor stood armed to the teeth with weapons.

“I am here to make a request before the king,” I announced in perfect Dairine, drawing forth my papers once again.

The guards only took in my tightly strung waist, the glistening blue of my gown, the poise and the grace of Valenia that softened my edges and abolished any semblance of a threat. The wind played with my long hair, drawing it over my shoulder as a shield of golden brown.

“He’s in the throne room,” one of them said, his eyes lingering on my décolletage. “I will escort you.”

I let him lead me through archways burnished with antlers and vines, through a bare courtyard, up the stairs to the royal hall. The doors were massive, carved with intricate knots and crosses and mythical beasts. I would have liked to stand and admire those carvings, listen to the quiet story they told, but the two other guards saw my approach and wordlessly opened the doors for me, the old iron and wood groaning in welcome.

I entered a pool of shadows, my dress whispering elegantly over the patterned tiles as my eyes adjusted to the light.

I felt the weight of the ancient dust as I approached that cavernous hall. There was the sound of voices, one pleading, one scathing, bouncing off the impressive height of the ceiling, which was upheld by crosshatched timber rafters. I rose up on my toes, trying to see over the heads of those gathered. I could just barely discern the dais, where the king sat on his throne of welded antler and iron, but more important . . . there was Lord Allenach. I caught the dark brown of his hair, the flash of his maroon doublet, as he stood by the throne. . . .