Young Writers Society

Chapter 25

When I turn around to face everyone, Lindon and Alexander look how I feel. Alexander runs a hand through his hair, beginning to pace anxiously. “Couldn’t we make up an excuse about- I don’t know- having a bit too much wine and getting stranded?”

Lindon and I exchange glances. “Not the same night that Captain Fenthclann disappears, no. The queen, I assume, knows he’s working for her, so she’d check our whereabouts straightaway.” Lindon raps his knuckles on the sidetable as he muses aloud. “One of us will have to return to the castle. Ria and I disappearing together isn’t uncommon, so-“

Arianna cuts him off. “If we can get one of you to the castle, we can get all three of you to the castle. There must be a way.”

I close my eyes, trying to put my thoughts in order. “Right. Lindon, Alexander, you go try to find a way to get to the castle. Drian, Cora- the healer who found poison in my bedsheets today said that-“ At everyone’s disapproving glares, I snap, “I would have told you, but we have more pressing matters at hand. As I was saying, the healer who searched my rooms for poison found poison from a flower that is only found in Lysian. Put your heads together and see if you can find the source, or at least determine a way to find the source.” I nod to them, and they disperse, leaving Arianna and I alone.

She sits down in a chair. “You got rid of them on purpose, didn’t you.” A laugh echoes up the stairs, and she glances over before grinning. “So, princess, what did you want to talk about?”

I press my lips together, trying not to smile. “I thought I was being more subtle than that. Do you think they could all tell?” I make a show of looking to the stairs, but out of the corner of my eye, I study her expression.

A glazed look comes over her, and when she shakes her head and blinks again, she looks at me a little sadly. “No, but I could always tell what you really meant to do. Even after three years, you-“

I turn back towards her, and she stops talking. “You knew me, three years ago, didn’t you? You – you have memories of whatever we did together, and you trust me- you think of me as a friend- but I have no idea what happened!”

She sighs resignedly. “You want your memories back.” A wry smile splits her face. “I understand. And it’ll be simple enough to give them back to you. Before we do this, though- do you remember when you were kidnapped and held hostage by a group of radicals for two months when you were thirteen?”

I frown, confused. “Yes, but what does that have to do with anything?”

“Well- you see-“ She takes a deep breath, then says, “- that never really happened.” After taking a moment to observe my reaction, she says, “When I took your memories, I replaced them with something so you had a story to tell when you got back. Why do you think they never caught the radical group?”

I bury my face in my hands, at a loss for words. A flood of confusion runs through my exhausted mind, and I give up on trying to make sense of the situation. “Just- give me my memories back, Arianna, and you can explain everything to me later.”

She nods quickly, then withdraws a tiny leather bag from her purse. Opening it, she draws out a gold band. “Put this on before you go to sleep. It should give you your memories back, but I was told to warn you that it might be… disorienting.”

I take the ring from her gingerly, picking it up as if it might burn me if I held it too tightly. “That’s… it? In all the old books, regaining memories is a much more painful ordeal.”

She shrugs. “That’s what I was told, yes.” I frown at the ring, wondering why everything has seemed too easy.

Deciding that it can’t hurt to try, I slip the ring into my pocket and look back up at her. “There’s something else I wished to discuss with you.”

She stares back unflinchingly, and I grip the edge of my chair anxiously. The cold metal digs into my fingers, stinging. Holding it tighter, relishing the pain that clears my head.

“It’s about the man you wanted me to find for you, Arianna. You said his name was Salian.” She nods along with everything I say, and I will her to say something that will prove that Salian is who Lindon and I believe him to be.

Just then, Lindon comes back up the stairs, head bowed in serious conversation as he and Alexander discuss how to get back to the palace. Eagerly, I stand up and walk toward them.

Alexander greets me with a relieved nod, which I take to mean that they’ve found some way for us to make it back to the castle unnoticed, even with the howling snowstorm outside. Just thinking about it makes my skin prickle with goosebumps and childish excitement.

If the first snows have made it to the heart of Valkyr, it means that the solstice festival is close. Even with everything that’s weighing down on me, part of me still can’t wait to bounce out of bed on solstice morning to see what presents I’ve received.

Shaking myself out of my thoughts, I try to concentrate on what Alexander is stoically explaining to me, none of which I’m actually understood. “-so, you see, Prince Lindon and I have eliminated any chance of us being discovered by outside forces. What do you think, Rionach?”

He looks at me eagerly, like a child waiting for appreciation, and for a moment, I realise that everything that we do, all the secret meetings we plot and all the men we kill, somewhere deep down inside, this is still a game for us. Taken aback, I frown, because I know that until something terrible happens, we will not realise how high the stakes are for us to win.

Lindon prods my shoulder. “Rionach? What do you think of the plan?” His voice is concerned, which means that he can see something of my thoughts in my face, and I school my expression to one of polite apology.

“I was caught up in my own thoughts. My apologies to you, Alexander, but repeat your idea?”

He starts again. “Prince Lindon and I have decided that the easiest way for us to sneak back into the palace will be in plain sight. We could go in dressed as servants, perhaps, for I’m sure there’s enough gate traffic near dawn that the sentries will pay us no mind.”

I smile brightly at him, wondering why I hadn’t thought of it first. “Of course, it’s perfect. No one will- hopefully- be looking for us just before dawn, and the kitchen maids will be going out to market to fetch things for breakfast. And by that time, the snow should have died down.”

Arianna rises and joins up, and I squash the illogical annoyance that springs up in my chest at her intrusion. Her husky timbre soothes the pounding nerves in my head, though, and I let myself listen to her words. “-and if it doesn’t? We all have places to be your highness, and we have no idea when this infernal snow will end.”

Alexander strides over to the curtain, and the thick damask catches my eye, its gold strands weaving in and out of the fabric, framing the silver-white snow that howls outside with a vengeance. “It is rather odd, isn’t it, that the snow came on so quickly? And tonight of all nights, too. I wonder if someone- tampered with it, or- arranged it.” He turns around, his hands clasped behind his back, just as I decide to perch on the edge of the sofa behind me.

Frowning, he looks at me. “Is that even possible, to create a snowstorm that huge?”

The thought of one faerie creating a snowstorm so huge that it trapped people inside their homes and surrounds the entire city is laughable, and I tell him so.

He considers my words, then says, “The weather’s not natural, though. There’s no chance that we didn’t notice the clouds that should’ve formed.”

I grin at him easily, never betraying the anxiousness that roils in my stomach and the sleepiness that threatens to make me drop where I stand. “We have faeries who are good at manipulating the weather hold off the chill for as long as we can. Fae like the warmth, and we don’t so well in the cold.”

“And- what, when winter finally catches up with you, it’s terrible and huge?” Alexander’s tone communicates exactly what he thinks of my suggestion.

Catching Alex’s disbelief, Lindon’s hackles rise. “She’s not lying. We can’t lie, or have you forgotten?”

This seems to unnerve Alexander. “I’d forgotten, but-“

Arianna drains her wine, as if our bickering is making her tireder and tireder. She drawls, “Never forget your enemies’ weaknesses, Alex.” A lazy smile splits her face after she warns him, and she tumbles into the sofa.

Refusing to feel annoyed at her actions, I instead concentrate on a way for us to get to the castle. “If the snow doesn’t stop, we’ll go through the catacombs. I don’t know of an entrance, but I should be able to feel the nearest one.”

Lindon, too, seems weary. As I watch him, I pour myself another glass of thrallwine and down it, not entirely sure why I’m drinking so much but not wanting to stop, either. My father used to drown his sorrows in drink a few times a year- never often enough to worry anyone, but often enough that I wondered often, when I was young, what the toll would be on me to rule someday.

A bitter voice in the back of my mind pipes up, You’ve found out now, haven’t you? I ignore the thought and take a long drink of the wine, closing my eyes against the troubles that have befallen us.

When I open them again, Lindon stands over me , his brow furrowed. “I think you’ve had enough to drink, Rionach.” When he reaches for the glass, I give it compliantly enough, but the pounding in my head comes back.

A crashing sounds from downstairs, and I’m on my feet immediately, searching for the threat. Everyone’s weapons are out- Alexander’s staff is out of it’s sheath, Arianna holds two wicked-looking pistols in her hands, and Lindon and I have our daggers out.

When Cora storms up the stairs in a maelstrom of fury and disappears into the bedroom, slamming the door behind her, we exchange careful glances before sheathing our respective weapons. Drian follows a few moments later, looking furious himself.

Still, I’m surprised when he visibly straightens, looking at us and sighing, tucking his anger away for later. “Please excuse her- she’s- we’re” He grasps for words, but eventually gives up. “Your highness,” he says to me, “I’ll get a message to you later.” Bowing, he stalks into the room after Cora, and their muffled voices rise in pitch again.

The rest of us stare at each other for a moment before Alex clears his throat. “Well, we had better get going, then. You said something about catacombs, your highness?”