The Queen’s Rising

But Maevana had not always been so dark and dangerous.

“What are you thinking?” Cartier asked.

“I am thinking of King Lannon.”

“Is there that much to think of when he comes to mind?”

I gave him a playful look. “Yes, Master Cartier. There’s a man on Maevana’s throne when there should be a queen.”

“Who says there is supposed to be a queen?” And here came the banter; he was challenging me to flex my knowledge as well as my articulation.

“Liadan Kavanagh said so.”

“But Liadan Kavanagh has been dead two hundred and fifty years.”

“She may be dead,” I said, “but her words are not.”

“What words, Brienna?”

“The Queen’s Canon.”

Cartier leaned forward, as if the table cast too much distance between us. And I found myself leaning closer too, to meet him in the middle of the oak, the wood that had witnessed all my lessons. “And what is the Queen’s Canon?” he asked.

“Liadan’s law. A law that declares Maevana should be ruled only by a queen, never a king.”

“Where is proof of this law?” he asked, his voice dropping low and dark.

“Missing.”

“The Stone of Eventide, lost. The Queen’s Canon, lost. And so Maevana is lost.” He leaned away, settling back into his chair. “The Canon is the law that keeps the power from kings, granting the throne and the crown to the noble daughters of Maevana. So when the Canon went missing in 1430, right after the Stone of Eventide was lost, Maevana found herself on the brink of civil war until the king of Valenia decided to step in. You know the story.”

I did know it. Valenia and Maevana had always been allies, a brother and a sister, a kingdom and a queen’s realm. But Maevana, suddenly void of a queen and magic, became a divided land, the fourteen Houses threatening to splinter off into clans again. Yet the Valenian king was no fool; from the other side of the channel, he watched the Maevan lords fight and squabble over the throne, over who should rise to power. And so the Valenian king came to Maevana, told each of the fourteen northern lords to paint their House sigil on a stone and to toss their stones into a cask, that he would draw who should rule the north. The lords agreed—each of them was hindered by pride, believing he had the right to rule—and anxiously watched as the Valenian king’s hand descended into the cask, his fingers shifting the stones. It was Lannon’s stone that he drew forth, a stone graced with a lynx.

“The king of Valenia put the Lannon men on the throne,” I whispered, regret and anger entwining in my heart whenever I thought of it.

Cartier nodded, but there was a spark of anger in his eyes as he said, “I understand the Valenian king’s intentions: he thought what he was doing was right, that he was saving Maevana from a civil war. But he should have stayed out of it; he should have let Maevana come to her own conclusions. Because Valenia is ruled by a king, he believed Maevana should also embrace a kingdom. And so the noble sons of Lannon believe they are worthy of Maevana’s throne.”

It wasn’t lost on me that Cartier would probably lose his head if loyal Maevans heard him speak such treason. I shivered, let the fear gnaw on my bones before I reassured myself that we were tucked into the deep pocket of Valenia, far from Lannon’s tyrannical grip.

“You sound like the Grim Quill, Master,” I stated. The Grim Quill was a quarterly pamphlet that was published in Valenia, paper inked with bold beliefs and stories written by an anonymous hand that loved to poke at the Maevan king. Cartier used to bring the pamphlets for me and Ciri to read; we had laughed, blushed, and argued over the belligerent claims.

Cartier snorted, obviously amused by my likening. “Do I, now? ‘How shall I describe a northern king? By humble words on paper? Or perhaps by all the blood he spills, by all the coins he gilds, by all the wives and daughters he kills?’”

We stared at each other, the Grim Quill’s bold words settling between us.

“No, I am not that brave to write such things,” he finally confessed. “Or that foolish.”

“Even so, Master Cartier … surely the Maevan people remember what the Queen’s Canon says?” I argued.

“The Queen’s Canon was authored by Liadan, and there is only one of them,” he explained. “She carved the law magically into a stone tablet. That tablet, which cannot be destroyed, has been missing for one hundred and thirty-six years. And words, even laws, are easily forgotten, eaten by dust, if they are not passed from one generation to the next. But who is to say a Maevan won’t inherit their ancestor’s memories, and remember these powers of the past?”

“Ancestral memories?” I echoed.

“An odd phenomenon,” he explained. “But a passion of knowledge did extensive research on the matter, concluding that all of us carry them in our minds, these select memories of our ancestors, but we never know of them because they lie dormant. That being said, they can still manifest in some of us, based on the connections we make.”

“So maybe Liadan’s will be inherited one day?” I asked, only to taste the hope of the words.

The gleam in his eyes told me it was wishful thinking.

I mulled on that. After a while, my thoughts circled back to Lannon, and I said, “But there must be a way to protect the Maevan throne from … such a king.”

“It’s not so simple, Brienna.”

He paused and I waited.

“Twenty-five years ago, three lords tried to dethrone Lannon,” he began. I knew this cold, bloody story, and yet I did not have the heart to tell Cartier to stop speaking. “Lord MacQuinn. Lord Morgane. Lord Kavanagh. They wanted to put Lord Kavanagh’s eldest daughter on the throne. But without the Stone of Eventide and without the Queen’s Canon, the other lords would not follow them. The plan fell to ashes. Lannon retaliated by slaughtering Lady MacQuinn, Lady Morgane, and Lady Kavanagh. He also killed their daughters, some who were mere children, because a Maevan king will always fear women while Liadan’s Queen’s Canon lies waiting to be rediscovered.”

The story made my heart feel heavy. My chest ached, because half of my heritage came from such a land, a beautiful, proud people that had been driven into darkness.

“Brienna.”

I blinked away the sadness, the fear, and looked at him.

“One day, a queen will rise,” he whispered, as if the books had ears to eavesdrop. “Perhaps it will be in our lifetime, perhaps the one to follow us. But Maevana will remember who she is and unite for a great purpose.”

I smiled, but that emptiness didn’t fade. It perched on my shoulders, roosted in my chest.

“Now then,” Cartier said, tapping his knuckles on the table. “You and I are easily distracted. Let us talk of the solstice, how I can best prepare you.”

I thought back on his suggestions of the three patrons, of what I needed to have prepared. “My royal lineage is still lacking.”

“Then let us begin there. Pick a noble as far back as you can, and recite the line through the inheriting son.”

This time, I did not have Grandpapa’s letter sitting in my pocket to distract me. All the same, I got several sons into my recitation before I felt a yawn creep up my throat. Cartier was listening to me, his gaze focused on the wall. But he forgave my yawn, let it pass by unacknowledged. Until it came again, and I finally resolved to take a hardback book from the table and stand on my chair with a swirl of my skirts.

He glanced up at me, startled. “What are you doing?”

“I need a moment to revive my mind. Come, Master. Join me,” I invited as I balanced the book on my head. “I shall continue my recitations, but the first one whose book falls from their head loses.”

I only did it because I was weary, and I wanted to feel a jolt of risk. I only did it because I wanted to challenge him—challenge him after he had challenged me these three years. I only did it because we had nothing to lose.

I never thought he would actually do it.

So when he grabbed The Book of Hours and stood on his chair, I was pleasantly surprised. And when he balanced the book on his head, I grinned at him. He no longer seemed so old, so infinite, with his sharp, crisp edges and infuriating depth of knowledge. No, he was far younger than I’d once believed.

There we were, face-to-face, standing on chairs, books on our heads. A master and his arden. An arden and her master.

And Cartier smiled at me.

“So what are you going to give me when you lose?” he teased.

“Who says I am going to lose?” I countered. “You should have chosen a hardback book, by the way.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be reciting to me?”

I held still, my book perfectly balanced, and continued where I left off in the lineage. I misspoke once; he gently corrected me. And as I continued to descend the rungs of noblemen, that smile of his eased, but it never faded.

I was nearing the end on the lineage when Cartier’s book finally began to slip. His arms flew out, outstretched as a bird, eager to regain his balance. But he had moved too suddenly, and I watched—a wide-eyed victor—as he tripped down from the chair with a tremendous crash, sacrificing his dignity in order to catch The Book of Hours.

“Master, are you all right?” I asked, trying in vain to control my chuckling.

He straightened; his hair had fallen loose from his ribbon, spilling around his shoulders as gold. But he looked at me and laughed, a sound I had never heard, a sound that I would yearn to hear again once it faded.

“Remind me to never play games with you,” he said, his fingers rushing through his hair, refastening his ribbon. “And what must I sacrifice for my loss?”

I took my book and eased down from my chair. “Hmm …” I walked around the table to stand near him, trying to sort through the mayhem that had become my thoughts. What, indeed, should I ask of him?

“Perhaps I might ask for The Book of Hours,” I breathed, wondering if it was too valuable to request.

But Cartier only set it into my hands and said, “A wise choice, Brienna.”

I was about to thank him when I noticed a streak of blood on his sleeve. “Master!” I reached for his arm, completely forgetting that we were not supposed to touch each other. I caught my fingers just in time, before I grazed the soft linen of his shirt. My hand jerked back as I awkwardly said, “You’re … you’re bleeding.”

Cartier glanced down to it, plucking at his sleeve. “Oh, that. Nothing more than a scratch.” And he turned away from me, as if to hide his arm from my gaze.

I hadn’t seen him hurt himself when he fell from the chair. And his sleeve had not been ripped, which meant the wound had already been there, reopened from his tumble.

I watched him begin to gather his things, my heart stumbling over the desire to ask him how he had hurt himself, the desire to ask him to stay longer. But I swallowed those cravings, let them slide down my throat as pebbles.

“I should go,” Cartier said, easing his satchel over his good shoulder. The blood continued to weep beneath his shirt, slowly spreading.

“But your arm …” I almost reached for him again.

“It’ll be fine. Come, walk me out.”

I fell into step beside him, to the foyer, where he gathered his passion cloak. The river of blue concealed his arm, and he seemed to relax once it was hidden.

“Now then,” he said, all stern and proper again, as if we had never stood on chairs and laughed together. “Remember to have your three approaches prepared for the patrons.”

“Yes, Master Cartier.” I curtsied, the movement ingrained within me.

I watched him open the front door; the sunshine and warm air swelled around us, laced with scents of meadows and distant mountains, stirring my hair and my longings.

He paused on the threshold, half in the sun, half in the shadows. I thought he would turn back around—it seemed like there was more he wanted to say to me. But he was just as good at swallowing words as I was. He continued on his way, passion cloak fluttering, his satchel of books swinging as he moved to the stables to fetch his horse.

I didn’t watch him ride away.

But I felt it.

I felt the distance that widened between us as I stood in the foyer shadows, as he rode recklessly beneath the oaks.

The summer solstice descended upon us like a storm. The patrons were to lodge in the western quarters of the grand house, and every time one of their coaches pulled into the courtyard, Sibylle shouted for us to rush to her room window so we could catch a glimpse of the guests.

There were fifteen of them in all—men and women of varying ages, some who were passions, some who were not.

I became so nervous that I couldn’t bear to watch them arrive. I tried to slip from Sibylle and Abree’s room, but Sibylle caught my hand before I could vanish, drawing me back around to face her.

“What’s wrong, Brienna?” she whispered. “This is one of the most exciting nights of our lives, and you look like you are about to go to a funeral.”

That coaxed a little laugh from me. “I’m only anxious, Sibylle. You know that I am not as prepared as you and our sisters.”

Sibylle glanced to the sheen of the window, where we could hear yet another patron arrive to the courtyard, and then she returned her gaze to me. “Don’t you remember the first lesson Mistress Therese gave you when you were an arden of wit?”

“I try to block all such memories from my mind,” I said drily.

Sibylle squeezed my fingers with an exasperated smile. “Then let me refresh your memory. You and I were sitting on the divan, and it was storming outside, and Mistress Therese said ‘to become a mistress of wit, you must learn how to wear a mask. Inside your heart, you may rage as the storm beyond the walls, but no one must see such in your face. No one must hear such in your voice …’”

Slowly, I began to remember.

To be a mistress of wit, one must have perfect command over their expressions, over their aura, over what they concealed and what they revealed. It truly was like donning a mask, to hide what actually lay beneath the surface.

“Perhaps that is why I did so poorly in wit,” I said, thinking of how Cartier could always read my face, as if I wrote my feelings on my skin.

Sibylle smiled, tugging on my fingers to regain my attention. “If you remember anything of wit, remember the mask. Wear confidence instead of worry tonight.”

Her suggestion was comforting, and she kissed my cheeks before letting me go.

I retreated to my room, pacing around Merei’s instruments and my piles of books, reciting over and over the three approaches I had diligently prepared. By the time the maids came to dress us, I was sweating.

I knew that every noble and passionate Valenian woman wore a corset.

Even so, I was not prepared to shed the comfortable innocence of my arden dress for a cage of whalebone and complicated laces.

Neither was Merei.

We stood facing each other as our corsets were laced, the maids tugging and pulling on us. I could see the pain on Merei’s face as she readjusted her breathing, her posture, trying to find symbiosis with it. I mirrored her—she knew better how to hold herself from all those years of playing instruments. My posture had always been poor, stooped by books and writing.

There is no passion without pain, Cartier had once told me when I had complained of a headache during lessons.

And so I embraced it that night, the agony that was married to the glory.

I was, not surprisingly, short of breath by the time my solstice dress emerged from its parcel in three elaborate pieces.

The first was the petticoats, layered in lace. Then came the kirtle, which was low-cut and spun from silver fabric, and last, the actual gown, a steel-blue silk that opened up to reveal coy glimpses of the kirtle.

Merei’s kirtle was a rosy shade of gold, overlaid by a mauve gown. I realized that she was wearing her color—the purple of musical passion—and I was wearing mine—the blue depths of knowledge. Obviously, this was arranged so the patrons would know who we were by the colors of our gowns.

I gazed at her, her brown skin glistening in the warmth of early evening, the maids brushing the last of the wrinkles from our skirts. My roommate, the friend of my heart, was stunning, her passion as light radiating from her.

She met my gaze, and it was in her eyes as well; she was looking at me, seeing me as if I had just taken my first breath. And when she smiled, I relaxed and settled into the dusk of summer, for I was about to passion with her, a moment that had taken seven years in the making.

While Merei’s hair was intricately braided with tendrils of gold ribbon, I was surprised when one of the maids brought me a laurel of wildflowers. It was a whimsical array of red and yellow blossoms, a few shy pink petals, and a brave ring of blue cornflowers.

“Your master had this made for you,” the chambermaid said, setting the flowers as a crown in my hair. “And he has requested your hair remain down.”

My hair remain down.

It was untraditional and a bit perplexing. I looked to my blue-and-silver dress, to the long brown waves of my hair, and wondered why he would make such a request.

I moved to stand before the window and waited for Merei, forcing myself not to think of Cartier but to mentally recite my chosen lineage again. I was whispering the ninth-born son when the maids departed from our room and I heard Merei sigh.

“I feel like I should be ten,” she said, and I turned to look at her. “Or eleven, or even twelve. Is this truly our seventeenth summer, Bri?”

It was strange to think of, how slowly time had moved until we had reached a certain point. And then the days had flowed as water, rushing us along to this night. I still didn’t feel wholly prepared …

“Where did the time go?” she asked, glancing to where her lute sat on the bed. Her voice was sad, for come Tuesday, we would both leave this place. She might to be pulled to the west, me to the east, and we might not ever see each other again.

It bruised my heart, made a knot well in my throat. I could not think of such possibilities, of the good-byes that loomed on our horizon. So I walked to stand before her and took her hands in mine. I wanted to say something, but if I did, I might shatter.

And she understood. Gently, she squeezed my fingers, her dimples kissing her cheeks as she smiled at me.

“I think we are probably late,” she whispered, for the house around us was quiet.

We held our breath, listening. I could hear the faded sounds of the party melt through the windows, a party that was flourishing outside on the back lawn, beneath the stars. Punctures of laughter, the hum of conversations, the clink of glasses.

“We should go,” I said, clearing the aches from my throat.

Together, Merei and I left our room only to discover we were not the last ardens to the solstice. Abree stood at the top of the stairs, her dress as a cloud of midnight, her red hair piled up high on her head with curls and jeweled barrettes. She clutched the railing in a white-knuckled grip and looked at us in relief.

“Thank the saints,” she panted, her hand clawing at the corset. “I thought I was the last one. This dress is horrid. I can’t breathe.”

“Here, let me help you,” Merei offered, easing Abree’s hand from her waist.

I was just as inclined to fall down the stairs as Abree, so I took my time behind them, familiarizing myself with the wide arc of my petticoats as I descended. My sisters reached the foyer and turned into the corridor, their footsteps fading as they walked through the shadows to the back doors.

I would have caught up to them, but my hem snagged on the last iron rung of the balustrade and it took me a good minute to untether myself. By then, I was annoyed by the dress and shaky with hunger, a few stars dancing in the corners of my sight.

Slowly, I turned into the corridor, moving down its long passage to the back doors, when I heard Ciri’s voice. She sounded upset, her words muffled until I walked closer, realizing she was standing just inside the Dowager’s study, speaking to someone …

“I don’t understand! I was your arden first.”

“What don’t you understand?” Cartier. His voice was low, a rumble of thunder in the shadows. I stopped walking, just before the study doors, which were cracked.

“Are you going to hold her hand all evening and forget about me?”

“Of course not, Ciri.”

“It’s not fair, Master.”

“Is anything in life fair? Look at me, Ciri.”

“I have mastered everything you have ever asked of me,” she hissed. “And you act as if … as if …”

“As if what?” He was becoming impatient. “As if you have not passioned?”

She fell quiet.

“I do not want us to quarrel,” Cartier said in a softer tone. “You have done exceedingly well, Ciri. You are by far the most accomplished of all my ardens. Because of that, I will simply stand back and watch you passion tonight.”

“And what of Brienna?”

“And what of her?” he responded. “You should not worry about Brienna. If I see you compete with her, you will wish that I had never been your master.”

I heard her sharp intake of breath. Or perhaps it was my own. My fingers curled into the wall, into the carvings of the wainscoting; I felt my nails bend as I tried to hold on to something solid, something reassuring.

“You may be my master for one more night,” she said in a dark tone. “But if the patron I want is interested in her …”

His voice dropped so low it was nothing but a growl to me. I made my feet move forward, as silently as I could, praying they did not hear me pass the doors.

Through the glimmer of the bay windows, I could see the white tents of the solstice on the lawn. I watched the servants circulating with platters of drinks, heard the laughter floating amid the night. I caught a glimpse of Sibylle’s green dress as she meandered beside a patron, her beauty warbled by the mullioned windows when she moved. I was almost to the threshold, a threshold scattered with herbs to welcome the new season.

But I didn’t walk through the back doors.

I turned to the right, to the safe shadows of the library.

Gently, as if my bones might break, I sat in the chair in which I had withstood all of Cartier’s lessons. And I thought about what I had just overheard, wishing that I had not stopped to listen.

At Magnalia, there was never supposed to be two ardens of one passion. There was only supposed to be one of each, and now I understood why the Dowager had structured her house this way. We weren’t supposed to compete, but how could we not? The arials were not supposed to favor one over the other, but what if they did?

Should I say something to Ciri?

Should I leave Ciri be?

Should I avoid Cartier?

Should I confront Cartier?

I sat there, letting those four questions pick at my thoughts until I felt the urgency of the night. I could not continue to sit there as a coward.

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