Queen of the Unwanted Read online

  He’d sunk so deep into his sea of self-loathing that he started when a glass of brandy suddenly materialized in front of his face.

  “Drink,” his mother said simply, and he could do nothing but obey.

  He managed two delicate sips before he just couldn’t help himself and downed the rest in one burning swallow. Xanvin plucked the empty glass from his hand. Unfortunately, she put it down on a side table instead of refilling it, but he felt calmer already with the familiar flavor on his tongue and the pleasant warmth the brandy left in his throat.

  “If you want my brother’s support,” Xanvin said, “you must present your case in a way that feels compelling to him. He will have no interest in your squabble with Alysoon, and even a trade war with Rhozinolm—should it come to that—would strike him as trivial.”

  Delnamal scowled. He had never met his uncle—nor any of his other Khalpari relatives, come to think of it—but he was well on the way to despising the man. “Then he is no ally of Aaltah’s, whatever he might claim.”

  Xanvin sighed delicately. “You are missing the point. If you want his aid, you must present your requests in just the right way. I am certain Khalvin does not approve of the idea of a woman sitting on a throne. The Mother swore eternal subservience to the Creator, and it is the duty of women to honor Her oath. If in your communication with my brother, you were to emphasize that your troubles are caused by a pair of women who are flouting the laws of the Creator by placing themselves above men…”

  “Huh,” Delnamal grunted, having never thought of either Alysoon or Queen Ellinsoltah in quite that light. Xanvin had made certain he’d grown up well-lettered in the teachings of the Devotional, and he was well aware of the penance the Mother had sworn after She’d betrayed the Creator in Their son’s bed. But for all his mother’s efforts, he’d never really believed the stories in the Devotional. Certainly he’d never taken them literally, nor had he developed any but the vaguest sense of faith. And yet for his mother and King Khalvin—and most of the people of Khalpar—the Devotional contained nothing but the literal truth, and it was the duty of every human being to live in accordance with its laws and teachings. There had never been—and never would be—even a temporary sovereign queen in Khalpar.

  “I am not suggesting that he will have a sudden and miraculous change of heart,” Xanvin warned. “You may not immediately get the aid you request, but with a little time and persuasion, he might very well decide that it is his moral duty to battle against the decadent and unnatural rule of women.”

  It galled Delnamal that he would have to wheedle and cajole his uncle into fulfilling his duties as the blood ally of Aaltah—but then it galled him to need the aid in the first place. “Will you write to him?” he asked his mother. “I suspect you can make a more convincing religious appeal than I can.”

  “I will write to him. If you will join me for my nightly prayers. If you are going to court my brother’s favor, then you had best make an effort to absorb the teachings of the Devotional.”

  He made a disgusted noise at the back of his throat. “I am well aware of the teachings of the Devotional.” He must have read the damned book twenty or thirty times when he was growing up, at his mother’s insistence. He’d kept hoping his father would intervene and insist he be raised as a man of Aaltah, to respect the Devotional without being enslaved to it, but he never had.

  “Awareness and absorption are not the same thing.”

  “You will not turn me into a priest! If you don’t want to write the letter for me, just say so and be done with it.” And then he would command her to do it or she would find herself ousted from the dowager’s apartments, reminding her that he was not just her son but also her king.

  She shook her head at him reproachfully, her eyes sad and troubled. “I will write your letter. But—”

  “No buts,” he interrupted with a sharp hand gesture. “Thank you for your help and your advice. Now I am afraid I must take my leave before my secretary sends a search party to find me.”

  For half a heartbeat, it looked like Xanvin might try to press, but the teachings of her own beloved Devotional must surely have warned her it was not her place. Instead, she dipped her head in a courteous nod.

  “Of course, Your Majesty.”

  * * *

  —

  Alys—flanked, as always, by her honor guard—followed the soldier through the halls of the Citadel and out the back to the cadet training grounds. The boys were gathered in clusters of similar age groups, each headed by an experienced soldier whom Jailom had assigned as an instructor. Her escort led her to a group of fourteen- and fifteen-year-olds, who were the youngest cadets at the Citadel. Spaced in even rows, all looking tired and sweaty in the scorching sun as they moved through the positions of a sword drill, the boys must have noticed Alys’s approach, if only in their peripheral vision, but not one spared her even a glance. Their instructor nodded approvingly, then called a halt.

  Alys had not announced her intention to visit the Citadel, but her purpose was no doubt clear, for the instructor called out to her, “Are you perhaps looking for Cadet Smithson, Your Royal Highness?”

  One of the boys turned to look at her then, his eyes wide and almost alarmed looking. Alys smiled at him encouragingly. Her smile faltered just slightly when she realized that Corlin was not among the group as he should have been.

  “If you can spare him for a few moments,” Alys confirmed. “I don’t want to interfere with his training.”

  “Of course,” the instructor said with a bow. “Cadet Smithson, you are dismissed.”

  The boy looked terrified as he sheathed his sword and left his position in the formation. As soon as Smithson was out of the way, the instructor barked at the rest of the cadets to stop gawking and get back to work. Alys looked over their ranks one more time, just to make sure she hadn’t somehow missed her own son, but Corlin was definitely not there.

  Alys forced herself to smile again and put aside her unease as Smithson approached. The sun had browned his skin almost as dark as his leather jerkin, making a stark contrast with the white of his wide eyes. He had returned to Women’s Well the day before, having spent some time recuperating in South Bend before journeying home on cheval back. The cheval had made the return journey relatively quick, but the boy still clearly needed more time to recover from his ordeals. His clothes hung loosely on his frame, and his movements were overly careful, as if he was still sore from the saddle. Alys doubted he’d ever ridden a horse or cheval before, and she knew from painful experience how uncomfortable the day after could be. She was amazed that he was drilling on his first full day back—she’d have thought the instructors would have given him at least a couple of days to recover—but perhaps they had felt returning him to his usual routine as fast as possible was best for him.

  Alys’s smile failed to quell the boy’s nerves, and when he reached her, he bowed awkwardly. She knew that he was one of the commoner boys who’d been allowed to enter the Citadel, and though he had perhaps seen her from a distance before, he was not used to being in the presence of royalty. Other than Corlin, whom Jailom had insisted not be treated as royalty while within the walls of the Citadel.

  “Y-your Majesty,” he stammered when he rose.

  “It’s just ‘Your Royal Highness,’ ” she told him. “ ‘Your Majesty’ is for kings and queens.”

  Beneath the browning of the sun, the skin of his cheeks flushed darker, and Alys wished her first words hadn’t been to correct him. She still hadn’t gotten used to people being intimidated by her, and she hadn’t thought before she’d spoken. In the background, the other boys had resumed their drill, the stamp of their feet loud enough to ensure they would not have heard the interchange. At least she had not subjected him to public humiliation.

  “I wanted to take this opportunity to thank you personally for your service to Women’s Well,” she
said, perhaps a little hurriedly, hoping to smooth over any discomfort she might have caused. She would have liked to issue the boy some kind of medal or commendation, but Jailom had rejected the idea, saying the boy was too young to receive such military honors. She would settle—grudgingly—for awarding his parents an additional land grant so that they need no longer live in their tiny apartment above the smithy.

  Smithson’s mouth dropped open, his eyes widening once more, this time in surprise rather than fear. “B-but…I didn’t do anything.” He swallowed hard as the color drained out of his face. “I hid under the wagon.” His voice shook ever so slightly as the shadows of remembered horrors passed before his eyes.

  Alys’s heart ached for the poor boy, who had seen his three companions slaughtered, and who had had every reason to believe he, too, would die. He was so very young to have survived such a trauma, and she would have liked to gather him into a motherly hug. She settled for reaching out and putting a hand on his shoulder, giving it a squeeze.

  “You survived,” she said. “Sometimes, that’s all you can do. I can’t tell you how sorry I am that your first mission turned out to be such an ordeal. I just wanted you to know that I think you are very brave for agreeing to accompany the caravan, and that I’m very glad you made it back safely.”

  The boy shivered under her hand, and the haunted look in his eyes stirred a combination of guilt and rage in her breast. It was an act of mercy that the “bandits” had allowed the boy to live, but they had put scars on his soul that no fifteen-year-old should have to endure. How she wished she could pay Delnamal back in kind!

  “It’s what I signed up for when I entered the Citadel, Your Royal Highness,” Smithson said staunchly, raising his chin as he regained his self-possession. “I did my duty as a cadet.” His face colored again. “As best I could, at least.”

  She squeezed his shoulder again, then let go. “Yes, you did. And I’m sure Lord Jailom has already told you that it was your duty as a cadet to return to us safely instead of throwing away your life in some vainglorious attempt to do the impossible.” She knew for a fact that Jailom had had this conversation with Smithson already, and she hoped the boy had taken it to heart.

  “Yes, he did, Your Royal Highness.”

  “You only have to call me ‘Your Royal Highness’ the first time you address me,” she said. “After that, you can just call me ‘ma’am.’ Much less of a mouthful.” She smiled at him once more, and he tried a tentative smile of his own.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  He seemed perhaps a little more at ease than he had when she first approached, but there was still considerable tension in his shoulders. Perhaps it was best to let him return to his duties. She hoped that in the long run, he would be pleased at having been singled out for praise by the sovereign princess, but at the moment, it was just making him uncomfortable.

  “I’ll let you get back to your drills now,” she said, and there was no missing the relief in his expression. “One question before you go, though. Do you know where Prince Corlin is? I expected him to be drilling with the rest of you.”

  The relief disappeared immediately, and Smithson looked like he would very much like to be anywhere but here. Alys fought to keep her own unease off her face, for all it took was that one look to know that there was no innocent explanation for Corlin’s absence. And that she should have asked one of the adults rather than this poor child.

  “H-he’s in the barracks, ma’am,” Smithson said, his eyes suddenly locked on the ground.

  Why on earth would Corlin be in the barracks at this time of day? she wondered. But at least she had the good sense not to ask Smithson.

  “Thank you, Cadet Smithson,” she said with as much warmth as her worry would allow. “That will be all.”

  Smithson couldn’t quite suppress a sigh of renewed relief as he bowed to her once again, then hurried to rejoin his comrades.

  The sensible thing to do would be to ask one of the instructors what was happening—or maybe even seek out Jailom, who would certainly know the answer—but Alys had not the patience to do things the proper way. Instead, she turned and headed toward the barracks on the other side of the practice fields. She was well aware of the gazes that followed her, and she wondered for a moment if one of the instructors was going to break away from his cadets to intercept her. There was some level of informality to her leadership style that might have tempted an instructor with an exceptionally bold heart to do so, but she imagined the look on her face was especially forbidding, so no one approached her. There was no good reason Corlin would be in the barracks instead of drilling with his fellow cadets, and she was trying to keep her temper in check while still preparing herself for the worst.

  “Wait here,” she commanded her honor guard when she reached the barracks door.

  At first glance, the barracks appeared empty. There were no luminants lit, and though the windows admitted a fair amount of light, the room was full of shadows. Alys had never set foot in a barracks before, and though she’d known the living was austere, it still came as something of a shock to see the long rows of narrow, identical cots covered in dull gray wool blankets. At the foot of each bed was a small wooden chest for personal belongings—each identical, just like the beds—and there were no other furnishings in the room. It was clearly a place made for sleeping and nothing else, and anything that might identify an individual was tucked away into those chests. Alys couldn’t imagine what a shock it must have been to her son’s system to sleep in such a place when he had grown up in a comfortable manor house and had always had a room to himself. And servants to take care of such chores as washing his clothes and making his bed—chores that Alys was sure the cadets were responsible for themselves here at the Citadel.

  As she walked more fully into the room and her eyes adjusted to the dimness, Alys finally saw that one of the cots at the far end of the room was occupied. She moved tentatively forward, picking out the shape of her son, fully clothed in his cadet’s uniform, lying on his back on top of the covers. His hands were crossed over his midsection, and when he heard the swish of her skirts against her legs, he turned his head in her direction.

  Alys stifled a gasp, her hand flying to her mouth as she was caught between the warring impulses to dash to Corlin’s side and to run away so she need not see. His right eye was purple and swollen shut; his nose was conspicuously crooked, the bruising at its bridge extending all around his other eye as well; and his lower lip was fat and scabbed over.

  Wincing and groaning, Corlin sat up and swung his legs over the side of his cot. “Please don’t make a big deal out of this, Mama,” he slurred, his good eye looking at her imploringly.

  Alys’s heart thudded painfully against her breastbone, and she clenched her hands into fists to fight the tremor of rage. Once again, her child had been brutalized. And she had allowed it. Had not insisted he leave the Citadel and come home to her when her maternal instincts had screamed her need to protect him.

  “What happened?” she croaked, barely able to force sound from her throat. Her knees felt a little wobbly, so she took a seat on the cot across from him, knowing he would not welcome any attempt to sit beside him or take him in her arms as she ached to do.

  Corlin shrugged, though his quick wince said he regretted the movement. “I got in a fight. And lost.”

  Her hands fisted in her skirts. “Did this have anything to do with the last fight you were in?” She should have asked Jailom to keep an eye on Corlin after that, for she doubted the boy he’d beaten had been much mollified by his punishment. Perhaps that boy also had friends who felt honor-bound to avenge him.

  Corlin rolled his good eye. “What does it matter? Cadets get into fights sometimes. It happens.”

  Alys sucked in a deep breath. She wanted to rant and yell and weep, but Corlin would see any of that as an overreaction, and she could not bear to be further alienat
ed from him. It was certainly true that boys had a nasty habit of getting into fights, but Corlin’s ravaged face said this had been more than an ordinary fight.

  “Why have you not been seen by a healer?” she asked, changing tactics. The Citadel had two healers on site at all times, and they certainly had enough spells to repair the damage of a beating. It was unconscionable that he was lying here alone in the barracks suffering!

  Corlin met her angry gaze with a stubbornness that was visible even through all the bruises and swelling. “Lord Jailom has said that I can see a healer as soon as I tell him who did this to me.” His chin jutted out even more strongly. “Which means I will heal the natural way.”

  Alys bit back her immediate retort, forcing herself to think before speaking. There were aspects of the male code of honor that had always infuriated her, and she hated that her son had grown up thinking that it was his duty to protect the boys who had hurt him.

  “Boys who would do something like this to you might do the same to others,” she tried, already knowing that her logic would not sway him. “Actions should have consequences, and—”

  “They do.” He indicated his body with a sweep of his hand. “You’re looking at them. I am not blameless, and I will take the consequences like a man.”

  You are not a man, she wanted to say. Not yet. But of course she held her tongue.

  “You don’t need to protect me anymore, Mama,” he said, his voice going strangely gentle, as if she were the one in need of comforting. “I can take care of myself.”

  She eyed his broken nose and swollen eye with undisguised skepticism. The corners of his mouth tipped up in a painful half-smile.

  “As long as I don’t tattle,” he said, “things will be easier now between me and the other cadets. This…had to happen after…what I did.” His gaze lowered, and though it was hard to read his expression with all the swelling and bruising, she thought he looked genuinely contrite.