Estrella
I lie in bed with my arms crossed, glaring at the canopy overhead. Anwen Solberg may be the most stubborn, most callous man I've ever met in my life. How dare he call me weak? How dare he commit such atrocities in my name and then have the gall to act surprised when I show him the truth of his actions?
Thinking of him, at least, is easier than thinking of the man in pain, somewhere in this castle.
The candle next to me sputters, then pops. Three times. Which means I have been staring angrily at the ceiling for an hour and a half. I groan and scrub my eyes. Lying here is only likely to irritate me further, so with a sigh, I get out of bed. Dressing is difficult without a second set of hands, but I manage to get myself into something near-presentable before slipping out of my room.
Only the cold, stone hallways of the castle I've spent the last week and a half in greet me. It is too late and too early for servants, so I have the space to myself. My footsteps echo, lonely and uncertain.
Something in my chest pangs. I cannot imagine growing up here.
And I don't want to. This place makes monsters. I lift my chin and stride down the hall with no destination in mind. My dress brushes the inside of my wrist, and I brace for the pain.
Nothing comes. It hasn't hurt in some time, in fact. I step to the side of the hall and inspect my skin. Where the oozing blackish mark once stood, there is only my own unbroken, sandy skin. It healed.
My heart beats out of time. I run my thumb over the spot again and again, searching for any whisper of that sickening pain. Nothing.
I healed it.
The glow shines in my mind's eye, the one I dismissed in the room tonight and thought I may have imagined on the night of Father's death. There are stories, ancient stories, of leaders particularly touched by the Moon Goddess. Ones who channel her light, not into light itself, but into light for the body. Healing. Those leaders appear when... the voice of our holy woman, Yana, rings in my ears, but I can't remember what she said. These stories are told rarely. We haven't seen a leader like this since well before Dun's Crossing and Sundrop Gem became different kingdoms.
Could those be related?
Certainly not. Nothing healing has ever come from proximity to Gavin Solberg or his children. Anwen especially only causes pain.
An idea seizes me, and I turn on my heel. Anwen caused pain in my name. I did not ask him to, and I refused to accept it, but the pain was caused all the same. With this, though, I have some way to fix that and quell the roiling guilt in my gut.
I knock on Cristofer's door quietly. My father's Beta answers after a brief hesitation. He looks drawn, exhausted, but he snaps to attention.
"Your Majesty? Is everything all right?"
I nod. "I simply have a question. You were in the dungeons tonight, yes?"
His gaze slides away from my face. "Yes."
"I need directions."
"What?" Shock paints his face. "No, Your Majesty, I-"
"Directions." I try to infuse my voice with iron, like Father sometimes did.
It seems to work well enough. Cristofer looks away from me again as he mumbles a set of simple directions. I can only imagine what he saw tonight.
"The Goddess would not frown on you for taking a sleeping draught," I say by way of thanks.
He smiles wanly and shuts the door. I turn toward the dungeons. I've never seen him so tired. In my very first memory of the man, he's bent at the waist, laughing full-throated at one of Father's worst jokes during a luncheon. It was never easy to make him laugh, exactly-he took his duties as Beta seriously-but never was it too hard either.
Thinking of Cristofer leads me, as it always does, to memories of Father. Cristofer's hard-won laughter didn't stop Father from trying. A few months after Tess's mother and his mate passed, I remember Father pulling me over to Cristofer at an event and the both of us telling the silliest jokes we could think of until he cracked a smile. Later, when Mother complained we were being undignified, Father said that there was no point to being a king if he were not equally responsible for his people's smiles as their frowns. Then, of course, he tickled Mother in the spot at her side that always made her laugh, and the whole conversation dissolved.
My chest aches as I wind deeper into the castle. I doubt I'll ever be able to make people smile as effortlessly as he did, no matter how much I want to. I haven't managed it with Mother or Castor yet. Mother still floats around her rooms like a ghost, only putting on enough of a face that the strangers here won't realize that she's a shell of who she used to be. Gone is the vivacious, loving woman I grew up with.
With a stinging in my eyes, I suddenly realize I may not have my royal portrait painted by Mother. She brought her paints here, her personal promise that we would hope this trip succeeded until it didn't, but she hasn't touched a brush since the ball. And she always promised she would. Or, she has since the disaster of Father's royal portrait.
After he was crowned, he put off the matter of the portrait for years, claiming his princely portrait would do. So as the years passed, an image of Father at perhaps sixteen hung over his head, growing ever more out of date. On his thirtieth birthday, Mother put her foot down. He had to replace the portrait before he had lived as many years after it as before. He agreed-he always agreed when she put her foot down-and hired an artist. And then another. And then another. Every one came out "wrong," according to him, but he wouldn't let anyone see them. Finally, Mother declared the throne room closed for the day, sat him down, and painted him. He didn't even look at the piece before declaring it perfect and demanding it hung.
A small smile creeps across my lips. On my sixteenth birthday, Father showed me the room where he kept all the other portraits. Every single one was perfectly serviceable. And he told me, in a whisper, that he wanted Mother to do it all along but knew she'd refuse because she wouldn't believe herself good enough. Sometimes, he said, a leader must know his people better than they know themselves.
My smile dies. Knowing others better won't be hard because I don't know myself at all.
I turn a corner, and a damp smell oozes up from an open doorway, right where the entrance to the dungeons should be. My stomach curdles. I'm here. All I have to do is walk down those stairs and right a wrong I didn't create.
And face the man who killed my father.
Father believed in second chances. No jail term in Sundrop was ever more than three years, at which point the perpetrators were allowed a new trial, in which they might plead to atone for their crimes by helping the community instead. He preached constantly that this was the only way we survived. By believing in each other and the bond we shared. He would have no trouble facing down this rogue and offering him help.
Guilt and anger war in my chest. The wolfsbane was awful, monstrous. I didn't believe anyone deserved that. Mostly. But if anyone were to deserve it, it would be the man at the bottom of those stairs.
I have never been less afraid for our future, Father said.
In my heart, I know he planned those words for my coronation. His voice takes on a particular rhythm when he's giving a pre-written speech, and there's no other occasion he would have planned them for.
"I'm sorry." I sink to my knees with a sob. Father won't speak at my coronation. He won't ever speak again. And the man in the dungeon made that true, but I made myself the sort of daughter my father would be disappointed to look down from the stars upon.
Footsteps sound on the stairs. I try to convince my legs to stand, my arms to wipe my tears, but they won't obey.
"Oh," a woman says softly.
If the Goddess is truly with me, it will be Nessa. I pry open my eyes.
Luna Queen Raven stares up at me with pity on her face and a wooden bucket in her hands. I cannot imagine a worse witness to my failure.
"Apologies, Your Majesty." I fight for any shred of composure with my tears still flowing. "I-"
She sits on the ground next to me. "You know who's down there, don't you?"
I nod helplessly. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I note that she's wearing an even plainer dress than I've seen in most of Dun's Crossing.
"He's alive, if you're wondering." She sighs. "And hurt."
Nausea claws at my throat. "I can help him."
A hard, bright smile appears on her face. "You may have the biggest heart I've ever known. Don't worry, I was tending to everyone down there." Her smile turns wry. "Even my mother-in-law."
I blink and, humiliatingly, sniffle. "What?"
"Conditions are better than they once were, but there's still much to do." She pats her bucket. "I ensure they are fed and watered, uninfected, the basics."
"Why?" The word stumbles over my lips before I can catch it.
She laughs in surprise. "They're people, aren't they?"
That startles me out of my sobs. The story of Luna Raven is quite clear. She's of Escuro, but she was raised here, under King Gavin. She should be like the others. But helping the prisoners... Mother took Castor and I to do that every month, and others tended them other times.
"Now, since I tended to him, can I help you back to bed?" Luna Raven asks.
"Yes," I say disbelievingly.
Without another ounce of pity, she helps me to my feet and leads the way back to my room. She's utterly silent, except for the few times she mutters the word, "Patrol," and changes direction. She's keeping me out of others' eyes.
"Thank you," I say when she deposits me at my door.
She smiles. "Any time."
I stumble back to bed, thinking perhaps the Luna of Dun's Crossing isn't quite as bad as Nessa says.