The Opal Crown (22 page)

“Why did you believe the rumors?” I ask.

“Because Lord Murcendor said—” he breaks off, and his eyes search my face again.

“Lord Murcendor is not a true friend, Andrei. I was under the impression you invited me here because you were beginning to see that.”

“He is the only friend I have ever had.” His eyes stray toward the door, and I wonder if he’s regretting his decision to meet with me.

“I thought the same,” I say quickly. “All my life I imagined Lord Murcendor was my most trusted friend—right up until the night he held a sword to my throat and offered me a choice: marry him, or die that very night.”

“He said you were confused,” Andrei insists, though weakly.

“Can you really still believe that? I heard him threaten you just now. If he’s as true a friend as he claims, can you make a decree without consulting him? Could you dismiss him from your service and your wishes would be obeyed without question?”

The sigh Andrei heaves seems too deep for a fifteen-year-old. “You know I cannot.”

“Meet with Lord Royce,” I begin, “and we—”

“Meet with him? Why? So I can hand the crown over to him? To you and our sister?”

“So we can figure something out,” I say. “There are more people involved here than you or me or Elara. Than Lord Murcendor or Lord Royce, even.”

Andrei frowns. “Who are you speaking of?”

“The Galandrian people, Andrei,” I say, burning with the same sense of frustration I often feel around Elara. “They have a right to a ruler who is actually concerned with their well-being.”

“I
am
concerned. But there’s little I can do when—” he breaks off and takes a deep breath. He pours himself a glass of wine. Cautiously, he sniffs at the goblet before making a face and pouring it out into the empty fireplace.

“Don’t you have a taster?” I say.

“Yes, but he is employed by Lord Murcendor.” His face turns dark. “And there are ways to get poison past a taster.” He sighs. “But your suspicions are correct. The guards and the palace staff—I fear most of them are more loyal to Lord Murcendor than to me.”

“Then meet with Elara and me and Lord Royce—”

“Is Lord Royce any more trustworthy than Lord
Murcendor?” Andrei interrupts, unconsciously voicing my own suspicions.

“He is not particularly likeable,” I say, “but he has never tried to kill me.”

At this Andrei gives me a sorrowful look. “Is it not sad, that this is the most we can say about the advisor we are to cast our lots with? How did it come to this, Wilha?”

From his wearied expression, I don’t think he expects an answer. And yet I have spent months asking myself nearly this same question. “A long time ago a series of terrible choices were made, and the three of us—you, me, and Elara—are the ones who must pay for them.”

“What if just the three of us meet?” Andrei says suddenly. “You, me, and Elara. Without Lord Royce or anyone else whispering their own agendas into our ears. I know nothing of Elara, only what Lord Murcendor has told me—which, I am beginning to accept, is nothing at all like the truth. There are still a handful of guards who remain loyal to me above all others. If you can get Elara to agree to a meeting, I will make arrangements for us to meet alone, and I will guarantee your safety.”

Staring at him, with his jaw set in the stubborn way that reminds me of Elara, my heart constricts. “Perhaps Elara and I have underestimated you,” I say.

Andrei smiles sadly. “Perhaps all three of us have underestimated each other.”

Chapter 43

Elara

M
y name is Wilhamina Andewyn.
As more days pass in this rotting shop, the peace I
initially felt dissolves completely and is replaced by a grow
ing rage—just as the scent of rotting meat grows—until it crawls down my throat, threatening to choke me with its rancid stench.

Did Astrid think her words would bring me comfort? Did she think I would be
happy
to know that for a few shining moments I slept in a golden cradle? Until, by a very deliberate act of her will, she chose to send me away instead of Wilhamina?

Wilhamina, who is really me.

I imagine my life if I had grown up in the Opal Palace. Once I became old enough, I would have refused to wear the mask. I would have taken up a dagger against anyone who tried to force it over my face; or more likely, used any one of the number of techniques Mistress taught me—

But . . . if I had grown up in the Opal Palace, I never would
have known Mistress. I never would have known her anger, true. But I never would have learned her tactics, either. How much of who I am today is because she raised me? If I had grown up wearing the mask, if that was all I’d ever known, would I have been more docile, more fearful, more . . . like Wilha?

Something vaguely resembling a grudging thanks creeps into my gut. Astrid’s blood flows through me. Astrid, who, by her own admission, was too weak to stand up to my father and the Guardians to prevent them from tearing her own family apart. But it’s Mistress who mentored me. She taught me to lie and deceive.

Ultimately, she taught me how to survive.

And so, one night when I’m downstairs—as far away from Alinda’s merciless crying as I can possibly get—I decide I’m tired of waiting around for Lord Royce and Rolf to come up with a plan to rescue me from this rotting city. I’ll rescue my own self. It shouldn’t be a difficult thing to do. Thanks to Mistress, I possess a very special set of skills.

The guards are on the lookout for two girls bearing my likeness.

My eyes fall on a pair of the butcher’s abandoned scissors. Two
girls
.

A plan begins to form, and I ask myself if I have what it takes to stare directly into an armed guard’s eyes and lie my way to freedom.

I take up the scissors and begin hacking at my hair.

After all, I’m at my best when I’m someone else.

Chapter 44

Elara

T
he wooden blocks in Rolf’s old boots make me taller. The padding in my borrowed clothing makes me broader, and my shorn hair makes me gruffer.

A long line snakes from the city gates; the guards searching each cart and carriage seem no more than small dots from where Rolf and I stand.

“Are you sure you’re up for this?” Rolf asks.

“Of course,” I say in the coarse, mannish voice I’ve been practicing for the last week. I point to our carriage where Alinda waits inside. “My wife needs to leave the city, and I intend to see that she does.”

“Amazing,” Rolf says. “You make a fearsome man.”

“I’m going to take a walk and get a little more comfortable in these clothes.”

“Are you sure that’s wise?” Rolf says, frowning. “The less attention we call to ourselves, the better.”

“I know what I’m doing,” I say, though of course he’s right. But I have no pigeons to send, and if I go back inside the carriage, I won’t be able to find someone to carry my note to Tulan.

Rolf makes a face, but says nothing and steps back up to the driver’s bench. I stroll up the line, weaving through carriages laden with trunks, carts overflowing with hay, and farmers trying to keep their goats and chickens from wandering off as we wait for the line to inch forward.

I slip my note from my pocket and read it one last time, even though I’ve memorized it by heart:

Cordon,

I heard that you and Serena are married now, and while I was unable to properly congratulate you sooner, I do so now. I have heard that life in the villages is tough, and I am concerned for how you are faring. If you are in need of any assistance, send a pigeon to Lord Nichols’s estate in Versan, and I will make sure you have all you need. I’m not sure what news has come to you by now from Allegria, but I think you will understand why I could not travel to Tulan personally.

All I’ve heard about since returning to Galandria are the food shortages and the suffering in the villages, and though I bear little love for the Ogdens, I can’t bring myself to turn my back on them completely. Lord Royce won’t like it when I ask him for worthings to give to Cordon, and by extension, the Ogdens. But he’s made it clear his wealth is at my disposal, and I intend to hold him to it.

I fold up my message and continue on down the line, until I come upon a man and woman sitting in the driver’s bench of a cart. Both of them are dressed in rags. The man sips a bottle of ale while the woman dots her brow with a
gray handkerchief. In the back, between a dusty trunk and two dirty children, sit three carrier pigeons in cages.

“Good afternoon,” I say in my new voice. “Don’t suppose a single worthing would buy me use of one of your pigeons? I have a letter I need to deliver.”

The man takes a long pull of ale. “A single worthing won’t get you anything in this city.”

The woman looks at me strangely. “You look familiar—don’t you think he looks familiar, Stan?”

“Yeah.” Stan scrutinizes me. “Are you related to the
Andewyns?”

“Distantly, according to my mother,” I say without missing a beat, for I’d expected something like this. “Fat lot of good it’s done me. Tried to get big britches Andrei himself to help me when things got hard. All I got was the golden gates slammed in my face.” I spit on the ground. “Should’ve taken a sledgehammer to those gates.”

Stan passes me the bottle of ale and nods. “Should get some men together and show that Andewyn brat how easily he can lose
his
home.”

A chill passes over me as I take a sip of ale. He sounds completely sober. And completely serious. “Yes . . . at any rate, I am in need of a carrier pigeon.”

I pass the bottle back and Stan surveys my clothing, try
ing to decide, I think, just how much a distant relative of the Andewyns can cough up. “Ten worthings,” he says.

“
Ten
worthings? That’s more than my whole life’s worth,” I say, although I’ve got twice that amount stashed in my cloak, courtesy of Lord Royce, and the wealth he left hidden in the butcher’s shop.

“Fine. Eight, then.”

In the end we settle on five. Once I’ve watched the pigeon clear the city gates, the letter safely strapped to its leg, I take my leave of them.

As I walk back to the carriage, I imagine the look on Cordon’s face—on Mistress’s face—when they see my letter. I admit a part of me wants Mistress to know I now have access to the wealth she always craved. Didn’t I used to dream of walking into Ogden Manor holding a bag of worthings and watch her scramble to please me, just as she always forced me to do on the nights Lord Murcendor visited us?

When I step back inside our carriage, Alinda tries to shrink away from me, but I hold her firm. “I know you don’t care for me, but if we do not convince the guards we’re man and wife, we’ll both suffer for it.”

She nods and stares blankly out the carriage window. “I just need you to pretend, just for a little while,” I add. “Your uncle’s friends have agreed to take you in. As soon as we get past the gates, we’ll take you there, and you’ll never have to see me again.”

The line slowly moves forward, until the sun is high in the sky, punishing us all with its unceasing heat. Finally, Rolf steers us to the front and a guard strides up to my window.

Let the show begin.

“We need you to step out of the carriage, Sir.”

“Of course.” I stand up awkwardly, but Alinda remains seated. “Get up!” I command her in my new voice. “Or you’ll find yourself walking the rest of the way.” I grab her arm, haul her to her feet, and practically push her outside.

Guards enter the carriage, presumably to check for hidden compartments.

“What business do you have in the country?” says the first guard.

“Not business, family,” I say. “The events of the last couple months have not put my wife in a good mind.” I point to Alinda, who looks down at the dirt, tears leaking from her eyes. “I thought her mother—shrew of a woman that she is—would know what to do with her.”

The guard nods sympathetically. “You’re not the first to leave. Ever since the Masked Princess and her twin declared themselves, more people are leaving Allegria and heading for the countryside. Some are even fleeing to Azarlin.” He scowls and gestures to the line of carriages behind us. “It makes watching these gates a tedious business, I can tell you that.”

I utter a string of creative curses that would have im-pressed even Mister Ogden. “If you ever capture those twin traitors, I’ll return to the city, just so I can watch them hang.”

The guard laughs heartily, and when our carriage has passed inspection, he waves us through. But I don’t release the breath I’ve been holding until we’re well past the gates, and deep into the countryside.

We travel hard down the main road, and don’t stop to make camp until after night has fallen. There’s no need to make a campfire in this incessant heat, so we share a meal of mushy apples, spread out our cloaks, and sleep on the warm ground.

Or Rolf and Alinda do, at least. I lie awake, unable to sleep. I bring a hand to my pocket, where I’ve stuffed Astrid’s letter. At some point, I’m going to have to decide if I want to show it to Wilha.

Her notion that the two of us can rule jointly is whimsical at best, dim-witted at worst. In the act of producing Astrid’s letter, I could effectively extinguish whatever hopes
she has for the crown. And if I know anything about my sis
ter, it’s that she’s dutiful; she will do what’s required of her, which in this case, would be to follow the Galandrian laws of succession. The same laws that will proclaim
me
as the true heir to the opal crown.