The King
KING Costis has miscalculated.
Voices rumble from below as Costis strides through the modest stone halls of Castle Avendell. It’s an old building, older than the Vernevau lineage itself. As a boy, he dreamed of replacing the floors with shining marble, like that mad fool to the south did before he declared war and brought all of Costis’ plans to ruin. Had he more time, Costis would have redone the grounds next: ripped up his mother’s gardens, replaced them with saplings of oak, cedar, and elm. Something to withstand the approaching chaos. Something to last.
But that was before, when Costis had assumed his reign would span decades. Now he’ll be lucky to see dawn.
In his mind’s eye, he sees the cause of his dread, curled on his pillow, petals damp: a single winter lily.
Costis shudders and hurries around a corner. Gaudy silk banners wave overhead. Green and red, representing Avendell and Istellia’s patron gods, twine together in a unity braid, celebrating an end to their devastating ten-year war. The treaty signing is scheduled for dawn, and it’s the whole point of this ball Costis can’t afford. Invite merchants, noblemen, and diplomats to witness before every dead and sleeping god that Avendell and Istellia have finally, impossibly, agreed to peace.
It will all be for nothing now.
At the castle gate, guests arrive: nobles, performers, and scholars in their finest livery, pouring in like hungry ants. Costis ought to greet the new arrivals, but any one of them could be the enemy. He cannot risk it. When the pastry chef approaches, Costis flinches and stumbles back, but she only wants to know if he’d like raspberries or blueberries placed on the lemon tarts. Behind her, two servants rush to the windows, breath fogging the glass.
“Look,” one says. “Snow! This late in spring?”
Costis walks faster.
Two guards are posted outside his private chambers. They snap to attention, and Costis hesitates, comparing their faces to the scrawny orphans he plucked from poverty ten years back. He can’t help but notice the swords at their hips and the muscle cording their forearms. They look as Costis remembers. He thinks.
Costis clears his throat. “You’re dismissed.”
The guards frown. They glance at each other, at their king, then back to the door.
Costis forces himself to smile. “They’ve just finished the lemon tarts. Get some before the prince pinches them all for himself.”
After another moment’s hesitation, they bow and murmur gratitude. Costis steps aside, turning so they cannot access his unprotected back. He waits as the thuds of their boots fade. No danger
from the guards, then.
Costis places his palm on the gold-wrought handle. He knew this day would come. His job now is to buy what time he can—for his country, and for his son.
He opens the door.
Five young faces turn toward him.
Costis examines them. There’s the Evercraft healer, with his tired face, haunting eyes, and single black bead gleaming on the golden chain hanging from his neck. Next to him is the Istellian princess, her dark hair braided into a crown and studded with rubies, hiding her displeasure with a polite bow of her head. It’s not the princess he wanted, but she’ll have to do.
The third guest, though—that’s not the beast tamer he sent for. Her scar is familiar: a sinuous, twisting white cord that winds down her neck. Irritation pricks him. Why didn’t Gaspar warn him the Beauforte girl came in her father’s stead?
The creak of a leather sword belt comes to his left. Oak, Costis’ personal guard, stands straighter than his namesake, eyeing the strangers with mistrust. A tiny gold stag glints on his lapel. Costis relaxes.
That leaves only—
“Father,” a petulant voice demands. “What is the meaning of this? And why did you insist I wear these hideous clothes?”
Kellam.
Costis bites back a sigh. His only child and sole heir to the throne lounges comfortably in the corner, antlered circlet tipped sideways, legs sprawled in a manner Costis can only describe as indecent. He has a point—Costis believes his instructions to Gaspar for Kellam’s livery were to make him look ridiculous, and the grand chamberlain certainly delivered. Costis needed to be sure it was him. Even the gods could not replicate that awful overcoat on a whim.
At the sight of his son, Costis nearly loses his resolve. He wants to apologize. He has not prepared Kellam for what’s coming. But something stronger than love holds his words hostage.
Costis locks the door behind him. The princess and the beast tamer’s daughter stiffen.
“Thank you all for joining me,” Costis says, swallowing the lump in his throat. “I apologize for the lack of transparency, but I’ve
summoned you all for a . . . delicate task.”
He eyes them again: heir, guard, tamer, healer, foreign princess. What do they make of each other? What will they make of him once this is all over?
Perhaps he’s made a mistake. But it’s too late to turn back.
Snow patters against the window. The lights dim. In the stunned silence, just beyond the door, comes a single featherlight footstep.
Panic shoots ice up Costis’ spine.
“I’ve received word from the Istellians.” The wind begins to howl. “Kellam and Melarie are to marry and sign the treaty. Now.”
“What?” cries the princess, Melarie, spots of color rising on her pretty cheeks. “King Costis, I don’t understand. I was sent here to represent my sister’s engagement. Elodie—”
“Has decided you will be a better fit for Kellam.” The storm swells, casting long, ghastly shadows across the five panicked faces staring back at him. Did the door handle just creak? “Think of how thrilled our guests will be. A ball to celebrate a marriage, instead of a mere engagement. If the treaty was strong before, now it will be ironclad.” He hopes.
“Father.” Kellam leaps up. “Can we discuss this first?” His eyes fly not to the strangers but to Oak. “Alone?”
“No.” From his robes, Costis pulls a thick bundle of cream papers. The treaty was meant to be signed at dawn, with the entire court and all their guests as witnesses. A drunken healer and a beast tamer’s daughter will have to do.
“Now, the two of you”—Costis nods at Kellam and Melarie—“come stand together, please.”
Kellam and Melarie throw each other panicked looks. They move slowly, painfully, as though they’re approaching a morgue rather than marriage. Kellam reaches out to take Melarie’s shaking fingers in his; she whirls to Costis.
“King Costis,” Melarie begs, her lilting accent made sharp by desperation. Her eyes dart frantically about like a trapped bird, seeking some kind of escape. In the light of Costis’ chambers, the rubies glued around her eyes look like flecks of blood. “This is ridiculous. I’ve only just arrived, there is no one here from my court to witness, I do not even have a bouquet—”
nd it, but bruises already mottle the edges. With trembling fingers, he places it in her hair.
“Forgive me,” he says quietly. “But I must do this before the bargain comes due. Take each other’s hands, please. And repeat after me. By the grace of the Twelve, under witness of the king, I bind my soul to yours—”
Thunder cracks. There is something sweet in the air; something familiar.
“Father,” Kellam protests.
“Your Grace,” Oak whispers.
“Why,” the healer slurs, “are we here?”
“Shhh,” scolds the beast tamer’s daughter.
The lights go out, and Costis’ heart stops when he smells it: the cloying, mountain-sweet scent of winter lilies, with that familiar wet-earth edge.
In the cool darkness of his chambers, wrapped in shadow and the hum of a storm building, Costis is a young king again, kneeling in frigid waters and bargaining not for glory, country, or legacy, but for his son. Always his son.
The wind screams. Lightning flashes, painting the five of them in deathly white. They plunge back into darkness.
And a knife meets Costis’ ribs.
It’s expert placement, slicing under his lower rib and angling up, piercing his heart, cutting straight through the still-mending flesh of the archery wound he suffered two moons prior. They’ve even done him the kindness of lacing the blade. Costis is pleasantly numb by the time his head strikes the carpet.
He only regrets he was not fast enough. He should have called them the moment he found the flower.
It’s too late now. What comes next is in the Weaver’s hands.
“What was that?” someone whimpers.
“Who touched me?” a second demands.
“Gods,” a third whispers. “What have I done?”
Below, the castle doors fling open. Partygoers rush in with a gust of snow, relieved to be out of the cold, chattering about the oddness of the storm and pointing to the blackening sky.
With a pathetic flicker, the mage-lights wink back on. The first thing Costis’ private guests see is blood, spreading in a deep crimson pool, staining the carpet beyond repair. Someone screams.
And six pairs of eyes stare in horror at the king lying dead at their feet.
One Hour Earlier
Kellam
KELLAM cannot get the acorn to grow.
The crown prince of Avendell kneels before the library window, a tiny pot cradled in his palms. Heat leaches from his skin into the worn clay. In the center, pressed into the soil up to the cap, is a single, sad acorn.
“Grow,” Kellam whispers. “Please?”
He’d thought himself clever when he’d found the acorn gleaming like some distant summer jewel on a rare patch of snow. It’s meant to be a funny gesture. Oak’s been giving Kellam that look again—the disappointed one, the tired one, the one he always gives any time he catches Kellam kissing someone in a dark corner.
With Kellam’s future closing around them like a noose, the tree will be a peace offering. And a promise, ahead of tonight’s terrible change. An oak, for his Oak.
Except the acorn will not grow.
Kellam clutches the pot. This is his birthright. His father, and his father’s father, and every king before them were blessed by the Gardener herself to call life from the earth and make roses dance.
Surely Kellam can grow a single tree.
He remembers his father’s lessons and pictures the acorn swelling, cracking, visualizes the pale tendril that will worm free and reach for the sky. He can see it in his mind’s eye: a great green tide, swirling from Kellam into the pot. It coils around the acorn, testing the limits of the outer shell, and sinks in.
And does nothing.
“Useless!” Kellam flings the pot over his shoulder, wincing when it shatters. He’s nearly eighteen now, and still the magic resists him. Years of lessons, all those healers and their strange experiments, and for what? He cannot even grow a measly dandelion, let alone the rows of steady conifers King Costis can raise with a single twist of his hand.
Kellam listens as footsteps thud down the hall beyond. There’s a nervous hum to the castle today; after a decade of war, Avendell and Istellia have agreed to peace, and not a moment too soon. Avendell barely made it through the winter, and Istellia is just as bad off. Their countries are too small and intertwined to endure further conflict.
Kellam ought to be elated that tonight will bring an end to it all. With the stroke of a pen and a promise of nuptials, King Costis will marry their countries together, just as their patron gods, the Builder and the Lover, once did. There will be peace at last.
So why does Kellam feel only dread?
Memory stirs—of that fateful day all those years ago, back when Costis had been quick to laugh, a man full of life, a stark contrast from the haunted, paranoid shell he is now. They’d been in the kitchens the morning the war began. For reasons no one understood, Istellia had crossed the border in the night and burned an Avendellian village, Magnivelle, to the ground.
There were no survivors.
That evening, when Costis called Kellam to the garden, he seemed to have aged several years. The antlered crown of Avendell had looked heavier on him than usual, as though its weight threatened to crush Costis where he stood. The king knelt before a rosebush and beckoned his son closer.
“Kellam,” he’d called. “What do you see?”
The rosebush had been swarming with insects—mostly ants and aphids, with a few stray lacewings flitting nearby, their delicate wings turned translucent by the midsummer sun.
“Bugs,” Kellam had said, annoyed. Their closest ally had sent a declaration of war, written in Avendellian blood, and his father wanted to talk about insects? “Father, shouldn’t we—”
“Look,” interrupted Costis.
One of the lacewings landed, and the ants reacted as one—swarming the larger creature, biting into its carapace and delicate wings. The aphids carried on, oblivious to how close they’d come to death, harvesting sap to create sweet honeydew for the ants to carry away. Costis reached forward, swiped away the line of ants, and watched as the lacewings began to feast.
Costis glanced up at his son. “Avendell and Istellia are part of the same ecosystem. When one side is wiped away, we’re all vulnerable.”
Dread had turned every part of Kellam cold. Mountain-locked Avendell and farm-rich Istellia. Two halves of the same whole. The little nations shared everything, from customs and crops to their very gods. Many in Avendell had family scattered across the border, and many Istellians had made a life here. The countries had stitched themselves together to survive. War had torn them apart.
“Are we the ants or the aphids?” Kellam had asked, his skin prickling.
“I don’t know,” admitted Costis, and that scared Kellam more than anything. “Let us pray to the Twelve we never find out.”
A knock sounds on the library door, jolting Kellam from memory.
“Prince Kellam,” whispers one of his guards, clutching a paper-wrapped bundle against his chest. “King Costis has
summoned you.”
Kellam deflates. The first carriages are arriving after days of struggling up Avendell’s muddy mountain roads. Kellam’s father has spared no expense—diplomats from any nation with even a half interest in the Avendell-Istellian conflict were invited, alongside nobles, musicians, trade workers, and apparently, even a beast tamer. Whatever that means.
“Prince Kellam?”
Kellam closes his eyes. “Can it wait?”
“He said now, sir. And he, um, he has sent . . . clothes for you.”
Kellam unwraps the package Reed brought and gapes. It’s one of the ugliest overcoats he’s ever seen: pale, pea-soup green, rough-stitched with Istellian red in the most haphazard pattern imaginable, as though the seamstress got drunk and changed her mind several times halfway through.
Kellam blinks. For all his faults, Costis has always been a man who believes in the power of smart dress. The color of the coat combined with the golden, antlered circlet Kellam wears is going to make him look less like a prince and more like a frantic baby deer that fell into a swamp and emerged covered in algae.
“Is this . . . some kind of joke?”
The color drains from Reed’s face. “The king wishes for you to put this on and come immediately. That’s—that’s what Grand Chamberlain Weatherington said before he, uh, sent me away.”
Ah. So the grand chamberlain is behind this.
Kellam isn’t certain if Gaspar Weatherington is a real person or a joyless bundle of wasps that have aligned to make his life miserable—but if Gaspar (or the wasps) are good for anything, it’s holding a grudge. Avendell’s second most powerful man decided long ago to make Kellam his enemy. He’d jump at any chance he could to humiliate the prince—including, clearly, putting the fear of the Twelve into Reed to ensure the crown prince attends the ball dressed like a bowl of soup.
It’s not Reed’s fault the coat is hideous. As much as Kellam hates to lose to Gaspar, if he refuses to wear the coat, it will be Reed who suffers.
“Very well,” Kellam sighs. “Tell the grand chamberlain to sleep with one eye open. I’m ordering Oak to put a snake
in his bed.”
Reed flees in obvious relief. The noises of the impending ball slip through with the first unsteady threads of music as the entertainers for the evening warm up. The scent of lemon tarts wafts up from the kitchen. Kellam takes one last look at the pot, changes into the most hideous coat he’s ever seen, and leaves the library behind.
The halls are a flurry of activity. Kellam walks quickly and avoids eye contact with everyone who passes. At dawn, Costis will sign the treaty, Kellam will be engaged, and the last scraps of hope he’s been clinging to will vanish. But this is his duty, is it not? Surely this is a small price to pay, to marry a girl he’s never met, if it means his people will be safe? If it means Oak will be safe?
This is for the best. This peace, this treaty, is a gift from Costis to Kellam, an end to a decade of war.
So why is Kellam so miserable?
He heads toward his father’s chambers, then turns down a different hallway, trying not to catch his own pea-green reflection in the windowpanes as he strides past. If Costis wants him, he likely wants Oak, too. Kellam will steal what little time he can.
Costis didn’t even bother to make eye contact with Kellam when he told him that he’d be married off to Istellia’s crown princess, Elodie. He kept his eyes on the papers on his desk and muttered something about country over heart and duty before desire, as though Kellam had used up the last reserves of Costis’ patience.
As he approaches a familiar door, all Kellam can dream of is some way of ensuring tonight never happens.
Get me out of this, he thinks, tossing a prayer to whatever gods may be listening. Make something happen. Anything. Just make tonight stop.
He doesn’t care how. Perhaps the princesses’ ship will be lost at sea, or the kitchens will catch fire. Perhaps the guests won’t show, the food will spoil, or the treaty will be stolen and tossed to flame.
Or maybe Kellam will get lucky, and his father will simply drop dead.
Oak
OAK will need a smaller bag.
The first time he stuffed the satchel with his few personal belongings—his undergarments, an extra tunic, a bar of sage-scented soap—he’d almost laughed. The satchel had looked and felt empty, the tan leather hanging against his hip like loose skin. Oak hadn’t minded. All he needed was a bag and an opportunity. He was not picky about either.
But the king had called Oak into his chambers for the third time that day, whispering about enemies plotting against him, and Oak had sighed before returning to his own stuffy chambers to unpack his bag. Costis had given him a home when he had none, had sponsored his entry into the kingsguard and entrusted Oak with his life as soon as he had turned eighteen, despite Captain Laurent’s protests that Oak was not ready. He owed too much to the king. He couldn’t leave Costis lost in the maze of his mind.
The second time Oak had pulled the satchel out from under his cot had been only a fortnight ago. Again he dropped his belongings into the bag. Slid the buckle closed with a definitive click.
He’d gotten halfway down the hall before he was stopped by Kellam.
“And where are you off to?” The prince’s voice had echoed off the stone walls. The doorway to the stables was right there. The scent of early spring grass and manure hovered just beyond the threshold, coaxing him to a new world.
Oak turned. Kellam stalked toward him with the air of someone on a mission to ruin a good mood, so intent on Oak that he accidentally crashed into a hanging vase containing a freshly potted maidenhair fern. It shattered on the floor.
Oak sucked in his stomach as if he’d been punched. The fern was sacred to the Gardener, the goddess of growth who blessed Avendell’s heirs. Though Oak was not a believer himself, the Vernevau family was. Well, Costis was. The king had chosen the Gardener as his patron goddess, and that was enough for Oak to choose her, too.
Kellam blinked at the soil-stained fern and then whirled, spying a staff member who’d just stepped from the servants’ quarters in a sleep tunic and slippers.
“Mason!” Kellam cried, as if they were the dearest of friends. “Blessed be the Gardener, just the young man I was looking for. Be a saint and clean this up, would you?”
Mason paused, the protest clear on his face, and then softened. Oak didn’t have to look at Kellam to know the smile he was flashing at the boy. With only a show of teeth, Kellam could beguile a merchant into giving him their coin—or in this case, a servant into cleaning on their day off. He always complained that his charm never worked on Oak, and Oak allowed him to believe that lie.
“Of course, Your Grace,” Mason said with a quick bow. Twelve help them, he seemed genuinely pleased to clean up Kellam’s mess. “I will find a broom.”
“A true saint, you are,” Kellam said with a wink. “What would I do without you?”
Mason turned pink and began to back away.
“No,” Oak said.
Mason froze. He looked between Oak and Kellam, torn between obeying Oak’s command and pleasing his prince, whose expression had gone stony.
Oak cleared his throat. “Mason is not on duty today. But if you’d like help cleaning up your mess, I’d be happy to assist.”
The air stilled between them, and Kellam actually had the audacity to wilt. He rolled his eyes and gave Mason a conspiratorial look. “All he does is torture me. Very well, then. Point me in the direction of a broom. I couldn’t live if I disappointed the noble Kingsguard Ducasse.”
Oak turned, refusing to reward the prince with his smile.
They worked in silence, the sounds of glass scraping over stone echoing around them. Kellam pushed the last of the fronds into a pile before cupping his slender hands around Oak’s knotty ones to lift the debris into the canister. A spark caught beneath Oak’s ribs. Kellam flicked the last lingering sliver of green off his palm, his eyes twinkling, and said something about Oak being a relentless taskmaster before flouncing away.
Oak sighed heavily. He bent down to pick up the frond, carrying it like a precious jewel back to his chamber before unpacking the bag once more.
But that was then. A lot had happened since that moment between them.
This time, Oak will not return to this room.
He shifts the satchel over his shoulder, the almost-empty bag hanging limp at his side. Oak glimpses his reflection in the small mirror above his wardrobe and winces. He is the king of Avendell’s personal guard, Costis’ most loyal staff member, and tonight he looks every bit the part. His forest-green uniform is pressed to perfection. The sash fits snugly over his broad chest, and the gold antlers pinned over his heart gleam. Even his dark blond hair has been shorn so short that the damp coolness of the castle has settled against his scalp.
The small pot of lemon balm beside his cot catches his eye in the mirror. A gift from Costis, something green to brighten the drab, windowless room. It was a miracle the thing had lived, but the king always said Oak had a
way with plants. Costis had said it so often that when Oak was little, he’d pretend that the peonies bloomed and ivy unspooled as he trailed behind the king. Oak has always been one to fall prey to dreams.
In fact, he should already be on his way to the king’s chambers to guard the door, staring at nothing while dreaming of everything.
Which is exactly the problem. As his king’s condition has grown worse, so has Oak’s. He should be at his most diligent now, yet each time he settles into his post, his mind wanders. It is only a matter of time before Oak makes a mistake that will ruin them all.
He won’t wait. Instead, he’ll pluck the dreams from his head and take them out into the bitter cold to see what they’re made of. To see what he’s made of.
Oak runs his hand over his scalp, examining his reflection. There are bags under his eyes the color of ripe plums—a parting gift he’ll take with him tonight. The king’s behavior has gotten even worse in the days leading up to the ball. Most nights, instead of sleeping, Costis paces the hall, rambling about vengeful gods or whispering to his long-dead wife. It is all Oak can do to trail behind him like a watchful ghost.
Oak blows out a long, low breath and fiddles with the satchel again. He leans into the mirror. “You can do this.”
Yes, Costis gave him a home, a job, a purpose. And, yes, Oak loves his king, though Costis’ mind is clearly rotting. But Oak is eighteen now.
How can he possibly know what he wants if he’s never left?
Oak’s stomach hitches. No, that isn’t quite right.
He knows what he wants. He also knows he can never have it.
A sharp knock at the door jolts him from his thoughts. He quickly rubs his face, adjusts the sash so it lies neatly atop his left shoulder.
A second knock.
Oak grows still. It can’t be—
A third knock, just as sharp as the first two.
One, two, three. No more, no less. Impatient and dramatic. Just like Kellam.
His pulse quickens. Oak looks down at the bag. The crown prince of Avendell waits for no one. Oak has only seconds. He drops to his knees and slides the bag back under the bed, careful not to crush the
fourth item he packed this time.
The door swings open. Oak sits on his heels, his palms slick with sweat as they rest atop his thighs. He glances up at the figure in the archway.
Kellam stands before him, arms crossed over his chest, his expression almost as foul as the overcoat he’s wearing. The corners of Oak’s mouth hitch.
“Don’t,” Kellam warns.
“I wasn’t going to say anything,” Oak answers, lifting his hands in surrender.
“Gaspar had it made.”
“Ah.” That explains it. While the grand chamberlain and Costis’ second-in-command seems to hate everyone, he’s always been particularly dedicated to making Kellam’s life miserable—not that Kellam doesn’t entirely deserve it. And, quite honestly, Gaspar is so busy torturing Kellam that most days he barely tosses a glance in Oak’s direction. Oak prefers to keep it that way.
“Come,” says Kellam. He reaches up and adjusts his circlet—a nervous tic Oak has come to know well. “We’ve been summoned by my father. ...
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