Page 55 of Her Cruel Redemption

‘Tight. But never mind. It’s done.’ We walked towards the exit to the sanctum, down the stone steps and into the street, where thankfully there was a carriage waiting to ferry us back to the palace. I didn’t want to walk through the streets like this.

When we’d settled into the carriage, she spoke again. ‘That seemed difficult for you.’

I shifted my weight in my seat, not meeting her gaze. ‘It was.’ And then I realised that she might assume the difficulty was in the annulment part and draw some conclusions I didn’t want her coming to, so I added, ‘I lived on the streets when I was younger. I was always covered in dirt then. I don’t much like reliving it.’ I could have added bits to play on her sympathies. Perhaps about the cupboard my mother sometimes kept me in even before the streets that left me covered in worse than dirt. She had always panicked when we’d clashed, my mother. When she’d thought I was too unruly, too aggressive, too little like the high-born lady she had been, despite the fact that I was growing up in a very different world to the rich estate she’d known. In her world bellies were always full and the nights weren’t scary and people had time free from deep bouts of depression to love you. Not so in mine. A locked cupboard was a solution she’d discovered when I was small enough that she could manhandle me into it. And then she’d drink herself into a stupor and only remember where she’d put me when she’d come out of it again. Then she’d sell another of her girlhood possessions in a fit of guilt to buy me a present or a feast of some ridiculously fine food, as though that would make up for the hours I’d spent scared and alone. It would have been easier if she was always cruel. The unpredictability of her, her feast and famine style of mothering, made it so much worse. Especially when she ran out of things to sell and stopped coming out of the stupors.

‘I’m so sorry,’ Gwin said softly, reminding me she was there. ‘Your life… it seems like it’s been so difficult.’

‘It was a long time ago,’ I said, shaking the dark memories from me and coming back into the carriage. ‘I’m perfectly fine. Just don’t ever ask me to do something like that again.’ I took a breath, shut the box firmly on my past and turned my thoughts to the future. ‘So I suppose they can set a date for this negotiation now.’

‘Well… Esario still hasn’t decided if he wants to agree to it.’

A beat of silence. I stared at her. ‘Then what was all that for?’

‘I think he’s likely to go ahead, but he wants to settle the terms of our alliance first.’

‘And those terms will be what exactly?’

‘I know you think I should… assert myself more,’ Gwin replied, folding her arms around herself and looking uncomfortable. ‘But I don’t have much to offer them outside of a marriage.’

‘What about your Yoxvese friends?’ I asked. She shot me a puzzled look. ‘Come on, you must have thought about it. You’d be the first monarch who has some sort of relationship with them. You know there’s a dearth of magic in Oceatold. Draven won’t be facing that same problem. You could make the Elders of the Living Valley earn this revolution you’re offering them.’

‘I’m not going to make them get involved in a war,’ she replied. ‘That’s not why I offered to end the blood trade.’

‘It isn’t why you did it, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t expect them to help you fight for the future they want.’

She only frowned.

‘Gwinellyn, you’re going to have to learn to play some of the cards you’re clutching if you want to get through this with any agency at all,’ I continued. ‘Youcouldbe a force to contend with. Your stint on the road almost got us captured, but at least it means word will be circulating that you’re here and you’re ready to fight for your throne. The rate of refugees crossing the border will only increase because there will be people ready to fight with you. Youcouldalso call in a flesh-and-blood wyvern to terrify everyone if you wanted to. You also have me.’

‘But you can’t control your magic.’

‘Maybe not, but they don’t know that.’ A smile spilled across my mouth. ‘I could scare them.’

We rolled through the gates to Bright Keep, the white stone of the castle walls looking dreary and grey in the miserable weather, and Gwinellyn turned to looking out the window without responding to the suggestion. I didn’t push her again. Let her play at being meek and compliant for a while and see where that got her. Then maybe she might change her mind.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Iwatched the housemaids carefully as they went about clearing the breakfast dishes and stoking the fire the following morning. Both looked tense, teary, the blond one’s cheeks were pink and blotchy, and the brunette was biting her lips until they bled. I’d started watching them when I walked into breakfast to find them standing close together, heads bowed, whispering urgently. They’d sprang apart as soon as they’d seen me, but I’d caught a few words before they did. Just the end of a sentence. ‘My brother’s there. I hope the king will send reinforcements.’ Not much to go on, but enough to draw my attention, because it sounded like more than a scolding from the housekeeper had frightened them. But they seemed too scared of me to speak to each other again. The more I watched them, the deeper my sense of unease. One had knocked over a vase, the other had forgotten the light weave to start the fire. When she dropped the bucket of coal on her return, I decided I’d had enough of trying to guess.

‘Can you two please tell me what’s got you so twisted up in knots?’ I tried not to bark at them, but they both snapped upright with shocked faces anyway, hands clasped behind their backs.

‘Did we… do something to upset you ma’am?’ the brunette asked hesitantly.

‘Only if you don’t explain what’s going on. The footman from earlier looked rattled too.’

‘Have you not heard, ma’am? Port Howl has fallen.’

‘Fallen?’ I repeated. ‘What do you mean?’ I began running over what I’d learned about Oceatold from the guidebooks I’d studied. If I remembered right, Port Howl was the kingdom’s largest seaport. Butfallen, surely that didn’t mean…

‘An attack was launched yesterday,’ the maid continued, her voice wavering. ‘It f-fell this morning.’

‘That can’t be right. It’s nowhere near the border. It should be miles from the fighting.’

‘I heard they attacked from the sea.’ The blond squeezed her friend’s hand, taking over the burden of answering when the other seemed too overcome to continue. ‘Enemy forces hold it now. I heard the Blood King himself fought, that he’s—’ She bit off the end of the sentence, suddenly blanching, eyes going wide, like she’d just remembered who I was. Maybe she was reacting to the waymyexpression had changed at the mention of Draven, at the suggestion that he was in Oceatold.

‘We didn’t mean to disturb you with our fear, ma’am,’ the girl continued, after she seemed to collect herself. ‘It’s just that Liddy has family there.’

‘No, of course. Thank you for telling me.’ I was already out of the conversation, crossing the room to an adjoining one, where my stack of books on Oceatold rested haphazardly on a table. I picked up the first one and flicked through it until I found a map, tracing my finger along ink lines.Port Howl. I was right. Nowhere near the border. Just a stone’s throw down the coast from Sarmiers, really. What the hell were they thinking? Why take a city so far away from the frontline? How did they expect to hold it?

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