Assana Rhiagain moved through the dreary halls of Duncarrow like an unmoored ghost. There’d been whispers intended for her in those first few days. They all wondered about the replacement bride, the girl who was only valuable to her father as a means of securing his place as key sycophant of the king. Some took great pleasure in their anticipation of the pain she’d endure at the hands of King Eoghan. Others reflected on this same thing with resigned sadness. Pity. The pity was the worst of all. She’d rather they all exalted in their joy over her painful marriage than direct toward her even a grain of sympathy.
The whispers had since moved on, redirecting their focus to the latest court intrigues. The Right of Choosing and a consolation prize would-be queen were no longer so interesting when measured against Asherley Blackwood’s moonlight flight, prompting a rare display of the king’s righteous fury. They looked to him to set the tone of their own emotions, and he did not disappoint. For this, he’d finally left his bedchamber, stomping through the barren halls of Duncarrow in his nightshift, roaring like a vexed dragon. Assana supposed they were all surprised his voice had the capacity to carry like that at all. His cruelty had always been louder than his words.
Asherley had taken with her the male heirs of the Southerlands and Northerlands. Asherley herself had been among the king’s pawns, and so her escape meant the loss of his leverage with the three Reaches who had failed to deliver as promised at the Right of Choosing.
Something else had been stolen as well, though no one knew precisely what. Only that it was of great importance to the king.
That left only Assana. Assana, burdened by her questions. Assana, laden with the weight of the many betrayals painting her short life.
No one looked her way now as her bare feet connected with the damp stone. She was no longer worth the height of their emotions, on either end of the pendulum. She was hardly worth Eoghan’s time, and his supposed need of her was the reason she’d been dragged to Duncarrow.
Asherley’s escape had been supplanted by yet another event that stirred the busybodies into a frenzy. This one was a hit closer to home, but not for the reasons others must have assumed.
Assana approached the rear of the keep and started the long, winding climb up the crumbling stairs. Every few steps the stone had decayed away altogether, and if one wasn’t attentive they might find themselves careening through the gaps to their death. Assana was aware of everything, in a place where it all meant her harm, so she nimbly lifted her skirts and stretched her legs to dodge the holes where the stairs should be.
No one ventured here without proper business. That didn’t mean the guards had questions for her. They seemed surprised, perhaps even relieved, to lay eyes on someone who was not one of them. Visitors were not a common occurrence.
“Lady Assana,” one said, nodding. He and the other guard scrambled to their feet. He didn’t address her as queen. As Eoghan had said, so many times now that it no longer bothered her, she was not a queen. Only a woman bearing Rhiagain blood could be a queen, and even a Rhiagain queen would never be regent.
She didn’t nod in return. She still had some of her dwindling dignity left. She was still a Quinlanden. Still among the fairest of all families, in all the Reaches.
They knew who she’d come to see. They, who all had her defined, fitting neatly in the boxes designed, assumed they knew everything about her. That there could be no greater depth beyond the turbulent waters at the surface of her bearing.
Not that they were wrong, but it was two, not one, she’d come for.
But first.
One of the guards paused outside the cell. “I can’t let you in, Lady Assana. Not without the king’s authorization.”
“I have no wish to go in,” she snapped back. “Merely open the window where you pass his dinners.”
“That I can oblige. With pleasure, my lady.” The guard fumbled with the massive ring of keys, sweating through the effort. She sighed, loudly and forcefully enough for him to understand where it was directed.
He found the proper key at last and slid it into the lock. Pulling back the small metal window, he said to her, “You let me know if he gives you any trouble.”
Assana rolled her eyes at his soft, rotund belly and layers of hard-earned jowls. Only at night did the guards bring in the tougher men, because no one dared attempt an escape in the daytime. “And what would you do, if he did?”
The guard’s face fell. “Just the same, my lady.”
She almost felt bad. But he was surely no different than the others, who whispered behind her back, who had reduced her to the worst of herself as well. She would take what little power she still possessed, even if it came at a cost to others.
Assana approached the makeshift window separating prisoner from freedom. The man on the bed across the room looked up, and, Guardians bless him, the hope in his face almost brought her joy. Had he only been someone else; someone she loved, and who loved her in return, she would’ve reveled in knowing she was doing good. But she had not come to intervene on his behalf. She wouldn’t, even if she had that power.
“Assana! Oh, thank the Guardians!” he cried out, reaching for her through the window. She stepped back, beyond his reach, never taking her eyes off him. “My blessed child!”
“Father.” Assana ground her jaw.
Aiden brightened with relief. “Oh, I knew you would come. You’ve at last talked sense into your husband, the king. I had no doubt.”
“I’ve done no such thing,” Assana said. “Had I tried, they would’ve been words wasted upon the air.”
Aiden’s face lost some of its unbridled enthusiasm. “You have not come to release me?”
“No.”
“I don’t understand your hostility toward me, Assana.” Aiden dropped his hands to the small ledge at the base of the window. “I made you a queen.”
Assana laughed. “I am no queen. And you know this, for he told you so himself, in front of all the court, before throwing you in here.”
“He was heated at the betrayal of your cursed aunt.” Aiden’s cheeks flooded with dark red anger. “Asherley will pay a heavy toll for what she’s done.”
“You already took the head of her husband,” Assana replied.
Aiden ignored her. “The king has calmed by now, surely. Weeks have passed. No man has a temper that long.”
“You perhaps do not know King Eoghan as well as you thought,” she said. Assana took a single step closer, staying clear of the reach of his hands. “You will die in here, Father. Not because he is angry at Aunt Asherley. But because he is afraid of you. You brought him Rowanwen, and then the Westerlands, but though he is young, he is no fool. He knew those gifts were not for him.”
“Reckless girl,” Aiden hissed. “Are these the things you whisper in his ear, in the bedroom?”
“In the bedroom, he prefers the ministrations of a mother’s touch, I’m afraid. I’m surprised your own spies did not uncover this... proclivity of his. You would’ve done better to send my mother in my place.”
Aiden pressed his forehead to the small gap. “You will find a way to reach him, Assana. You’ll find a way to appeal to his better sense, to remind him of all I’ve done, and will do. Or I will have you cast into the sea, like Eoghan cast Darrick, years ago.”
Assana sighed. It turned into a yawn. “I have to go. I have a more pressing matter.”
“Go? What could be more pressing than aiding your father through this terrible misunderstanding? We have not done all these things to see it end in the sky dungeon of Duncarrow!”
Assana whistled at the guard. He hobbled over, set to the tune of the clinking keys as he again fumbled for the right one.
“Assana!” Aiden called, as the window closed. “Assana, do not forget who you are!”
“I haven’t, Father,” Assana whispered and beckoned the guard to follow her farther down the corridor, to the end. There was but one cell past the bend of the tower, and if rumors were true, it had not been opened in many years.
“That one?” The guard hesitated. He seemed almost scared. “Have you perhaps the wrong cell?”
“Is this not the cell of Oldwin the Sorcerer?”
“Yes, but—”
Assana silenced him with a hard look. “Open it.”
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