Stefan stops dancing. “He attacked you? Where is he? If he has harmed you in any way, then I swear I will—”
“That won’t be necessary,” I interrupt. “He’s dead.”
Stefan steps back and stares at me with an appraising look. “Dead? How, exactly?”
“By my own hand,” I snap impatiently, not caring that this in no way sounds like the actions of Wilhamina Andewyn.
“If he’s dead, then where is his—”
“We can deal with him later! You need to send guards to the docks now, before it’s too late.”
He looks at me a moment longer before nodding. “I will alert the guards. Until this is over, I would like for you to return to your chambers.”
I smile, in what I hope looks like serene obedience. “Of course, my lord. That is exactly what I planned to do.”
CHAPTER 59
WILHA
I press my thumb to the embedded opal and the wall slides back. I grab a candle from a table and venture yet again into the passageway, and light the first two torches I come upon.
When I return to the bedroom, I slump to the ground and lean against the bed, my heart hammering in my chest.
By now James should have left the Sleeping Dragon and will be making his way to the castle gates, safely away from the docks. But what of Victor and Kyra? What of Galina? What of the hundreds of other people who live near the docks? People who may not have enough time to escape if the men are not stopped and the fire starts.
A fire started by men from my own kingdom, for the express purpose of pushing Galandria and Kyrenica into war. All these years, I have heard Kyrenicans called dogs. But now, more than anything, I find I just want to see them saved.
From the sitting room comes the sound of anguished moaning.
I freeze and my fingers move to my cheek, where Lord Murcendor tried to kiss me. My breath starts to come in ragged gasps.
Soft thuds sound from the sitting room, followed by the click of a door opening, and then closing.
It is a while before I can make myself stand up and creep over to the sitting room. Yet when I do, I discover that the place where Lord Murcendor had laid is now empty, his abandoned sword the only evidence that he was ever in the room.
CHAPTER 60
ELARA
When I fling open the door to my chambers I find Wilha staring at the empty spot where Lord Murcendor’s body should have been.
“Where did—I thought he was dead?”
“I never said he was dead,” she replies, white-faced. “I said—”
“It doesn’t matter. We’ll deal with it later. Grab his sword, we’ll need it.” I hurry into the bedroom. Wilha follows be-hind me, carrying the weapon. The passageway is open and a gaping black hole beckons me. I grab a cloak and pull it around me.
“What exactly do you plan to do?” she asks as we step into the tunnel.
“We’re going to try to buy the Kyrenican guards some time.” I lift a torch from its mount in the passageway.
“How will we do that? We can’t stop them all with just one sword. We are outnumbered, and they have more weapons.”
“But we have words. And we have legends and rumors. Put them together, and you have the most powerful weapon in the world.”
When the tunnel wall slides away, I’m greeted with a blast of fresh, icy air. Wilha points to the edge of the cave.
“The men are just below there, at the base of the cliff. When I left there were about ten of them with more due to arrive.”
I hand her my torch and creep to the edge. Rowan’s Rock rises up in the distance, proudly battling the tide. To the north, the docks are eerily quiet. Deserted sailboats are tethered to port, and they float quietly on the water, like ghost ships. From far away I hear the sounds of laughter and carousing. It seems that anyone who’s still awake at this hour has moved to the west side of the city toward the castle.
Down below on the beach several men, about twenty in all, stand around a campfire and listen to another man that I believe is Garwyn. He carries a torch and seems to be giving instructions.
From the west I hear a screeching, whistling sound, followed by a loud pop! Fireworks are exploding in the sky. Facing away from the castle, I can’t see them, but the men below turn toward the cliff to watch, and I draw back further into the cave. I don’t want to draw their attention. Not yet.
“That was the signal for them to start,” Wilha whispers urgently.
“I know.”
I’m standing at the edge of a moment. The instant the first act of war is committed. Or the instant I prevent it. Don’t I know how one choice, one moment, can echo across time? Eleanor Andewyn dropped the First Opal. Aislinn Andewyn chose to betray her twin. The ripples of both these women’s actions continue on today in my own life. And here now is another moment. A hundred years from now, how will it be remembered?
I think of the book Queen Astrid gave me. I still can’t reconcile myself to the fact that I’m an Andewyn, but I can understand this: Maybe the book was intended to be more than a feeble parting gift from a mother who gave me away. Maybe in its truest sense she intended the book to be a guide, something to help me set the course of my days. In this moment, maybe I can draw strength from Eleanor’s story, the peasant girl who became a queen, and hope that her courage and determination will pass on to me.
“Light them!” Garwyn calls to his men, and they all step forward, each man producing a torch of his own. When the last torch has been lit, the men turn toward the docks.
As loud as I can, I yell, “Men of Galandria! Why have you come to wreak havoc upon my city?”
The men stop. They look up toward the cliff, and I draw back into the cave. I don’t want to be seen, not yet. For now I prefer to be a voice in the darkness.
“Who said that?” comes Garwyn’s voice.
I don’t answer, and in the silence another man replies, “It came from there—from the cliffs. I told you I heard something earlier. Maybe it’s the spirit of Queen Rowan herself.”
“Don’t be a superstitious fool,” Garwyn retorts. He raises his voice. “I say again, who said that? Show yourself.”
“Stay back,” I whisper to Wilha. I flip the hood of my cloak up and step slightly forward. “Men of Galandria! Why have you come to wreak havoc upon my city?”
“There is someone up there—look. I see a shadow!”
“I know your plans,” I call down to the men. “I know you mean to destroy this city and bring war to this land and to your own homeland. Yet what you cannot know, what you couldn’t possibly know, is that the man who gave you this order is dead.”
Silence meets my cry. And then, “She’s lying. Moran, go up there and shut her up.”
“I’m not going up there. What if it really is Queen Rowan’s ghost?”
I step back and whisper to Wilha. “Give me his sword.”
Wilha hands it to me. My arm immediately drops to my side and the sword clanks to the ground. “This is heavier than it looks,” I say, cursing.
In the torchlight I see Wilha smile. “I know.” She picks up the sword again—seemingly with ease—and as we stare at each other it occurs to me that maybe I’ve misjudged this quiet girl. The same girl who, now that I think about it, somehow managed to scale the cliff to reach this cave. The same girl who fled the castle and learned to survive in the city on her own, something I wasn’t so sure I could do.
“I hid the letter from Patric in one of the velvet boxes,” I say suddenly. “It’s there waiting for you when . . . this is all over.”