There’s a fizzling sound of magic being cast—an aesteri using wind to help the men shove aside the bulky piece of furniture. I can only stand, frozen, as it moves across the floor until the door is fully open.
Marlowe enters first, his sword drawn. His face shifts to open shock as he takes in the body still smoldering lightly on my floor. Etusca is behind him and lets out a little shriek at the sight of Bede.
“Who is that?” Marlowe asks.
I force my sore throat to work, croaking out the words as I speak to my nursemaid.
“Essy, it was an accident. I didn’t mean?—”
“Did someone attack you, my dear? Are you alright?” She rushes over to me, examining my face, my arms. She lightly brushes my cheek with her fingers where Bede hit me. An instinct to flinch away rises up in me, my body reacting to being touched. At first all I can think of is Bede’s hands raking over my skin, but I push the repulsion down, suppressing the urge to pull back from Etusca. My nursemaid throws an accusing look at Marlowe, though I’m sure she doesn’t yet realize one of his men assaulted me.
“An assassin, Marlowe, here in Gallawing—inher room,” she hisses.
I blink, bewildered by her assumption—an assassin is such a strange suggestion. But I’m more confused by the fact that no one has yet asked how the person on the floor came to be a burned corpse.
There’s nothing obvious in the room that could have been used to set someone ablaze. It’s a warm night, so there was no fire in the fireplace. No torches lit, not even a candle. What do they think happened? Do they believe the would-be assassin was a fire mage who lost control of his powers? That hardly seems likely.
Yet no one seems the slightest bit suspicious. There must be something bigger on their minds, but what?
“Etusca, what’s going on?”
A solemn shadow falls across her features, and she steps in closer, taking hold of my hands and giving them a comforting squeeze.
“My dear, the king and queen are dead.”
I stare at her. All the history books in the library at Gallawing are at least fifty years old, so I know very little about the current Trovian royals, and even then, only from passing comments from people around me. My addled brain turns over her words, trying to make sense of them.
The king and queen are dead, and they rushed in here to tell me. They didn’t hear Bede’s attack, I’m sure of it now—the only reason they came to me was because of this news.
The king and queen are dead, and Etusca’s first thought was to fear an assassin had come into my room. Why? What would the death of the royals have to do with me?
I search my memory, trying to find a clue to grasp onto that will make these pieces fit. Once, many years ago, Will had said something about having worked in the palace at Elmere, hadn’t he? But then he refused to answer any of my questions about it. Almost as if he hadn’t meant to mention it at all.
A strange tingling seizes my body as I start to wonder if perhaps the lack of recent history books in the library isn’t an accident.
“What are you saying?” I ask, not daring to voice the idea forming in my mind. “What does that have to do with me?”
Etusca swallows, glancing at the guards, who are avoiding my gaze.
“The king and queen are dead,” she repeats. “And as their daughter, you are Trova’s new queen.”
My hearing stops working, the tingling sensation rushing into my ears to block out all other sounds. I see Etusca say something to Marlowe and gesture to the guards. I watch, as if from a far-off place, as she steps forward to curtsey.
Then one by one, each of my captors bow to me.
Chapter5
Morgana
The carriage jolts over an uneven stretch of road as a horse whinnies and someone shouts to the driver of a cart trundling behind us. A bucket of water is emptied out a door with a splash, and children laugh as they scamper across the street. I watch them run after a ball, free as birds, disappearing into the alleyways of Elmere, Trova’s capital city.
It’s been eight days since I killed a man on the same night I learned who I really am. And now, here I am, in a city I’d only ever dreamed of visiting, surrounded by more people than I’ve laid eyes on in my life. They are everywhere. Streaming down streets, leaning out windows. In every carriage we pass, more sets of eyes peer out, but whoever their passengers are, those people cannot be seeing this world as I am, for the first time.
In Otscold, all the houses looked alike, but here every structure is different. Houses with curling balconies sit beside blunt, square buildings with deep-set windows; peeling pink facades huddle together down one street and rows of perfectly polished marble columns down another.
So much variety—so much of everything. The essence of this many people living so close together sours the air, but though the streets are muddy and some of the buildings are rimmed with grime, it’s all kind of beautiful to me. At the very least, it’s allnew—fresh and interesting after a lifetime of no variety at all.
“Give me your hand, dear,” Etusca, sat opposite me, takes my fingers to draw my arm toward her.
