Queen of the Unwanted Read online

  It was in the Citadel’s main building that Alys expected to find Jailom, her lord commander, and her already hurried footsteps sped even more when she burst through the door, ignoring the startled guards who attempted to greet her. The lord commander’s office was situated directly across from the main entrance, and Alys was so furious she did not even bother to knock before throwing the door open, a torrent of angry words poised to spill out of her mouth.

  The words died on her lips when she stepped into the room and found herself face-to-face not with her lord commander, but with her brother. Tynthanal was leaning against Jailom’s desk, arms crossed in a posture that suggested he’d been waiting for someone.

  Alys blinked and made a quick assessment of the situation. Jailom was not an idiot. He was fully aware of what Corlin had gone through as a virtual prisoner in Delnamal’s brutal care. He also knew that Alys, having already lost one child, was fiercely protective of her son. He had known news of the beating would bring Alys to his doorstep—and he had chosen not to be present when she arrived.

  She shook her head and glared at her brother, who had once been Jailom’s commanding officer. “I never took Jailom for a coward,” she growled as she slammed the door behind herself, leaving her honor guard to wait uncomfortably in the hall. Her hands shook with pent-up rage, and she wanted to howl at the unfairness of being deprived of her target.

  Tynthanal stood up straight and uncrossed his arms. She could not read the expression on her brother’s usually open face, and somehow that enraged her even more.

  “Where is he?” she demanded. And she swore to herself that if Tynthanal told her to calm down, she was either going to scream or resort to physical violence.

  “He and I both agreed that this was a conversation best kept among family,” Tynthanal said, his voice maddeningly level.

  “He doesn’t get to make that decision! He chose to have my son beaten, and now it’s time for him to face the consequences. This does not concern you.”

  “It doesn’t concern me as the lord chancellor, but it does concern me as your brother and Corlin’s uncle. And also as a lifelong soldier, who received a fair number of beatings himself as a cadet. It is of vital importance to military discipline that all cadets be treated as equals, and Corlin earned his thrashing.”

  “How dare you!” Alys spat, and to her shame she felt tears welling in her eyes, her chest and throat aching with the effort to hold them back. It was beneath her dignity as the Sovereign Princess of Women’s Well to weep like a heartbroken child, and yet she feared that was just what she was about to do.

  Tynthanal rubbed his eyes and looked tired. “I’m sorry, Alys, but I saw the other boy, and I can assure you Corlin most definitely deserved to be punished. Unless you want your son to turn into a vicious petty tyrant like our thrice-damned half-brother.”

  Alys swallowed past the aching lump in her throat, still fighting to keep the tears at bay. She’d been told Corlin had been punished for getting into a fight, but her indignation and her protective instincts had been so instantaneous and overwhelming that she hadn’t asked for any details of the incident. Corlin was a sweet boy with a generous dose of courage and a good heart. The thought of him becoming a “vicious petty tyrant” was absurd.

  Tynthanal shook his head and sighed. “He’s just so angry,” he said. “He should not have allowed the other boy to bait him so easily, but that isn’t what I find most troubling about the incident. Corlin was still throwing punches when the boy was unconscious. He had to be pulled off by three older cadets.”

  Alys’s mouth dropped open in shock, her anger temporarily forgotten. “I can’t imagine Corlin…”

  She let the words trail off. It was true that she couldn’t imagine the Corlin she’d known before Jinnell’s death savaging a boy who was unconscious. But the time since Delnamal had ordered an innocent girl’s execution had unquestionably changed him. The boy blamed himself in a way that was simultaneously understandable and completely unfair. Jinnell had made the choice to put herself in danger to keep her brother safe, and it was hardly Corlin’s fault that she had paid the ultimate price for her courage. How Alys hated that the world expected even young boys to somehow be responsible for protecting the girls and women in their lives.

  “Beating him isn’t the answer,” she said, feeling like she was returning to solid ground. “Delnamal thought it was, and it only made him more stubborn.” She shuddered as she remembered the shape Corlin had been in when he’d escaped from the palace and arrived in Women’s Well, his body brutalized by multiple beatings inflicted by the sadistic tutor Delnamal had assigned to him.

  “I agree,” Tynthanal said, to her surprise. “Fear of a beating will not teach him to control his temper. But teaching him that he can beat another boy unconscious with no repercussions is not a viable alternative, and Jailom cannot allow the other cadets to perceive that Corlin is somehow untouchable and not subject to the same discipline as everyone else.”

  Some part of her recognized that Tynthanal’s argument was perfectly rational, but the burning need to protect her remaining child made it impossible to view the situation in a logical manner. All she knew was that her son had been hurt, that she had once again failed to protect him.

  “I don’t care what he did,” she said, tears now slipping down her cheeks despite her best efforts to suppress them. “I will not have my child brutalized.”

  Tynthanal had been patient up until now, but it seemed he couldn’t resist rolling his eyes at the accusation, giving her anger new strength.

  “He was not brutalized,” he said. “He was punished. There is a difference.”

  Alys’s hands were clenched, nails digging into her palms as she sought to regain some semblance of control over herself. “You don’t understand!” she accused, her voice coming out strangled as her throat tried to close up. “You don’t have children.”

  Tynthanal flinched at that—a subtle expression that nonetheless hit her as sharply as a slap, shocking some of the anger out of her. She grimaced and closed her eyes, forcing as deep a breath as her stays would allow.

  “Forgive me,” she said. “I didn’t mean that the way it came out.”

  Tynthanal could not sire children. Perhaps during his long years as a career soldier and affirmed bachelor, he had felt no great loss at the prospect. But as a high-ranking civilian nobleman, his unmarried and childless status was remarked upon in a way it had not been when his home had been a barracks. He could not help but feel the pity of those few who knew why such an eligible bachelor remained unmarried, and the mingled curiosity and censure of those who didn’t.

  “I know you didn’t,” Tynthanal said, but she knew her brother well enough to see the shadow of pain that remained in his eyes. “And I do understand. I’m here because Jailom and I already had this same argument, before I stopped thinking of Corlin as my nephew and started thinking of him as a cadet. If he’s to remain at the Citadel, then he must do so as a cadet, not as a prince. And that means enduring discipline when he has earned it.”

  Alys shuddered and hugged herself. “I never wanted him to be a cadet,” she said, which of course her brother already knew. Corlin was destined to succeed her as the sovereign of Women’s Well, and the military would one day serve him. He did not need to be a fighter himself, and if she had her way his education would take a very different direction.

  “But you let him come to the Citadel because you knew it was best for him,” Tynthanal said gently. “If you force him to withdraw, he will resent you for it.”

  She wasn’t sure it was possible for Corlin to resent her any more than he already did.

  “If it makes you feel any better,” Tynthanal said, “Jailom gave Corlin the choice to withdraw from the Citadel rather than endure the beating. Corlin did not hesitate to pay the price for his bad behavior and promised it would not happen again. I believe he is g
enuinely sorry for what he did, but it remains to be seen if his desire to remain at the Citadel is stronger than his anger.”

  The fight went out of her, and Alys sank down into one of the chairs in front of the commander’s desk. Closing her eyes, she put a hand to her belly and drew in a deep breath, searching for a calm she wondered if she would ever feel again. How she wished she could turn back the clock and return to the halcyon days before her mother had cast the Curse. Her life had never been simple, but in some ways she’d felt very much more in control of it in the days when she was nothing but a mother and a nobleman’s wife. And no pain she had ever faced in her previous life—not even the death of her beloved husband—could compare to the agony of losing her daughter. And yet as the Sovereign Princess of Women’s Well—and as Corlin’s mother—she hadn’t the freedom to wallow in her pain, to withdraw from life until the world somehow became tolerable once more.

  “We’re all doing the best we can,” Tynthanal said softly. “Corlin is young and resilient, and he’s surrounded by people who care about him. He may not always appreciate our care or the forms it takes, but we will get him through this. He will never be what he was before.” He sighed. “But then neither will any of us.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  King Delnamal of Aaltah scowled over the report he had requested from his lord commander. The damn thing told him what he’d known all along: Aaltah was not prepared for sustained military action. The late King Aaltyn had slowly let the ranks of his military forces, both on land and at sea, shrink over the years since Aaltah had last been at war, and the defection of an entire company of soldiers under Tynthanal’s command had only made the situation worse.

  “This is outrageous,” Delnamal said with a shake of his head.

  Lord Aldnor stood before Delnamal’s desk at stiff military attention, but seemed to stiffen even more at Delnamal’s harsh tone. Delnamal reminded himself that it was not the lord commander’s fault the late king had allowed their military to dwindle to such a degree—although some of the blame for the defection of Tynthanal’s men lay on Lord Aldnor’s shoulders. Surely it was the lord commander’s duty to ensure that his men were more loyal to the Crown than they were to any commanding officer!

  “We are near the limit of what the budget will allow, Your Majesty,” the lord commander said. “I can afford to recruit perhaps fifty more men to replace those we’ve lost, but after that we will be at capacity. Unless our budget were to be increased, of course.”

  Delnamal shoved the report aside irritably. There were few prospects less appealing than trying to pry more money out of his royal council. Already the lord high treasurer was grumbling about the loss of revenue the royal coffers had suffered when Delnamal had ordered the old Abbey razed and sent all the abigails away. He realized now—way too late, of course—that the Abbey had been one of the Crown’s most profitable ventures, operating on a very low budget and with impressive revenue. He had instituted a new abbey—the men of Aaltah needed somewhere to send their unwanted women—but without the guidance of more senior abigails, their ability to produce the most powerful potions and spells was limited. And because the Curse had made it inadvisable to take a woman who was not willing, the Abbey’s most profitable commodity had all but dried up.

  “Well, we need more men if we are to subdue the rebels my cursed half-sister leads,” he said, fists clenching at the idea that the woman dared to style herself a sovereign princess. He refused to call that pathetic encampment in the Wasteland a principality, just as he’d refused to call it by the name others insisted on using. It was a gathering of outlaws and traitors, not the fucking Principality of Women’s Well! There were only seven Wells in the land of Seven Wells, and the abomination that had sprung up the previous year was merely a pimple on the earth’s surface.

  “I’m not certain that’s the case,” Lord Aldnor said.

  Delnamal gave his lord commander the kind of glare that would send most men scurrying for cover, but Lord Aldnor was not so easily quelled.

  “We might have prevailed when we marched on Women’s Well the first time,” Lord Aldnor continued, showing no sign of having noticed his king’s disapproval, “had we left a sufficient garrison behind to discourage Rhozinolm from attacking.”

  Delnamal clenched his fists, blood pounding in his temples. The lord commander had advised him not to march on Women’s Well with such outrageous numbers, but Delnamal had brushed off the man’s concerns in favor of the grand show of force. There was nothing in Lord Aldnor’s voice or expression that could be read as I told you so, but Delnamal was sure that sentiment existed behind the coolly professional façade. Not that Delnamal had any intention of ceding the point.

  “We might have prevailed, you say,” Delnamal snarled. “ ‘Might’ isn’t good enough. We need enough men to be certain to prevail.”

  Lord Aldnor nodded. “Understood. But those men would need to be armed and trained and housed and fed. The council may be persuaded to increase the Citadel’s budget, but you don’t need me to tell you how strained our treasury already is.”

  “No, I don’t!” Delnamal snapped, for of course the lord high treasurer complained ceaselessly during council meetings. The effort to rebuild after last year’s devastating earthquake and flood had drained the treasury, and it would be years—if not decades—before Aaltah’s wealth was restored. “And unless you can provide some helpful recommendations, I suggest you take your cloud of doom and leave.”

  Lord Aldnor took Delnamal’s cutting words in stride, his face showing no sign of anger or even annoyance. Delnamal wished he himself could learn to keep his feelings so deeply buried that others couldn’t see them, but it was a skill he’d never acquired.

  “I would recommend that we look to our allies to provide naval support, should it be needed,” Lord Aldnor said. “Khalpar’s navy is more than a match for Rhozinolm’s. A few of their warships added to our fleet should be enough to discourage Queen Ellinsoltah from attacking while our troops are on the march.”

  Delnamal grunted a noncommittal answer. By all rights, he ought to be able to count on support from Khalpar. He was King Khalvin’s nephew, after all, and the very reason Delnamal’s father had married his mother was to forge an alliance between their two kingdoms to save Aaltah when they were losing a war to Rhozinolm. But Delnamal could not bring himself to trust Khalvin the way his father had.

  “So what happens when the traitors are defeated?” Delnamal asked. “Are we to host Khalpar’s navy indefinitely? We would still need more men to withstand an attack from Rhozinolm.”

  “It’s far from certain that Queen Ellinsoltah would follow through on her threats as long as Aaltah is not an easy target. Especially when she cannot get at us by land without invading the Midlands.”

  “As if either of our kingdoms has ever let the Midlands serve as an impediment to our wars,” Delnamal scoffed.

  The lord commander acknowledged the point with a shrug. There had been countless wars between Rhozinolm and Aaltah over the centuries. The Midlands was an independent principality just now, but it had been annexed by its neighboring kingdoms so many times that even its sovereign prince must consider the condition temporary.

  “There’s also Nandel to think about,” Lord Aldnor added. “Rhozinolm’s trade agreements with Nandel will expire before our own, and if they are unable to reach a new agreement…”

  Then they would be so badly hamstrung they could not possibly go to war. If Shelvon of Nandel had only given Delnamal the heir he was due, he could have counted on Nandel’s continuing strong support—so much so that he might have convinced Prince Waldmir not to renew his agreements with Rhozinolm at all. But now that Delnamal had divorced Shelvon and married another—and that it seemed possible Waldmir’s nephew would become the Prince Consort of Rhozinolm—it was his own trade agreements that were most vulnerable.

  “You’ve given me much t
o think about, Lord Aldnor,” Delnamal said. “I still feel it necessary to build our military, but I will consider all the options.”

  Lord Aldnor looked relieved, and Delnamal was glad to have finally silenced him. However, the lord commander was much mistaken if he thought he had accomplished some kind of victory over his king. Lord Aldnor’s suggestion involved relying on another power to protect and supplement Aaltah’s military. If Aaltah was to stand strong in the face of all potential adversaries, it must do so on the basis of its own strength.

  The Citadel’s ranks would swell, one way or another. And if the lord high treasurer—or any other member of the royal council—objected, there were other, more loyal men who would be overjoyed to accept the office.

  * * *

  —

  Star had just taken Ellin’s hair down and was about to begin the nightly ritual of brushing the kinks out of the long tresses when there came a knock from behind the tapestry against one wall. Star gave a huff of exasperation and picked up the brush.

  “Don’t let him in,” the maid advised. “That man needs to learn that you are not at his beck and call.”

  Ellin laughed. “You are in danger of becoming prim, dear one.”

  Star sniffed. “I am not prim. I just feel he should treat you with the respect you deserve and not come knocking on your door at all hours of the night.”

  Ellin opened her mouth to argue, then shut it again. Zarsha had shown himself more than trustworthy, and though it was perhaps true that he took advantage of the intimacy of shared secrets, she had no desire to turn him away. All of which Star already knew. She was merely being protective, as was her wont.

  The knock sounded again, polite and patient. Not demanding entrance so much as requesting it.

  “Let him in, please,” Ellin said.