The Queen’s Resistance. Rebecca Ross

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СКАЧАТЬ then you called me Amadine Jourdain, and Cartier didn’t know who that was.” I shrugged, but I could still feel the shock of the revelation, that heady moment when I had realized Cartier was Lord Morgane. “A simple misunderstanding caused by two aliases.”

      A simple misunderstanding that could have destroyed our entire mission to restore the queen.

      Since I had known where my ancestor had buried the Stone of Eventide, I had been sent to Maevana, to seek Lord Allenach’s hospitality while I covertly recovered the stone on his lands. In addition, Jourdain’s rebel group had planned for Lord Morgane to masquerade as a Valenian noble visiting Castle Damhan for the autumnal hunt. His true mission was to prepare the people for the queen’s return.

      “And who told you about it?” I asked Luc.

      “Merei,” my brother said, taking a quick sip of ale to hide how his voice softened when he spoke her name.

      Merei, my best friend and roommate at Magnalia, who had passioned in music and had also known Cartier for what I had always believed him to be—a Valenian master of knowledge.

      “Mm-hmm,” I said, relishing the fact that my brother was now the one to flush beneath my scrutiny.

      “What? She offered the truth to me after the battle,” Luc stammered. “Merei said, ‘Did you know Lord Morgane taught Brienna at Magnalia? And we had no idea he was a Maevan lord?’”

      “And so—” I started, but was cut short by Jourdain, who suddenly rose to his feet. At once, the hall fell quiet, every eye going to him as he held his chalice, gazing over his people for a few moments.

      “I wanted to speak a few words, now that I have returned,” he began. “I cannot tell you how it feels to be home once more, to be reunited with you. For the past twenty-five years, I have thought of you upon rising, and upon lying down at night. I spoke your names in my mind when I could not sleep, remembering your faces and the sound of your voices, the talents of your hands, the joy of your friendship.” Jourdain paused, and I saw the tears in his eyes. “I have done wrong by you, to abandon you as I did that night of the first rising. I should have stayed my ground; I should have been here when Lannon arrived, seeking me …”

      A painful lull overcame the hall. There was only the sound of our breaths coming and going, the crackle of the fire burning in the hearth, a child cooing in its mother’s arms. I felt my heart quicken, as I had not expected him to say this.

      I glanced at Luc, whose face had gone pale. Our eyes met; our thoughts united as we both thought, What should we do? Should we say something?

      I was one moment away from rising myself when I heard the steady footsteps of a man approaching the dais. It was Liam, one of Jourdain’s remaining thanes, who had escaped Maevana years ago to search for his fallen lord and who had eventually found Jourdain in hiding, joining our revolution.

      We could not have fully revolted without Liam’s insight. I watched him now ascend the steps and set his hand on Jourdain’s shoulder.

      “My lord MacQuinn,” the thane said. “Words cannot describe what we feel to see you return to this very hall. I speak for all of us when I say that we are overjoyed to be reunited with you. That we thought of you every morning upon rising, and every evening as we lay down to sleep. That we dreamt of this very moment. And we knew you would return for us one day.”

      Jourdain stared at Liam, and I saw the emotion building in my father.

      Liam continued. “I remember that dark night. Most of us here do. Coming around you in this very hall after the battle, bringing your lad into your arms.” He glanced to Luc, and the love in his eyes nearly stole my breath. “You fled because we asked and wanted you to, Lord MacQuinn. You fled to keep your son alive, because we could not bear to lose the both of you.”

      Luc rose, walking around the table to stand on the other side of Liam. The thane set his right hand upon my brother’s shoulder.

      “We welcome you both back, my lords,” Liam said. “And we are honored to serve you once more.”

      The hall came alive as everyone stood, holding up their cups of ale and cider. Cartier and I stood as well, and I held my cider up to the light, waiting to drink to my father’s and brother’s health. “To Lord MacQuinn—” Thane Liam started, but Jourdain abruptly turned to me.

      “My daughter,” he rasped, extending his hand for me.

      I all but froze, surprised, and the hall fell silent as everyone looked at me.

      “This is Brienna,” Jourdain said. “My adopted daughter. And I could not have returned home without her.”

      I suddenly was flooded with the fear that the truth from Castle Damhan had spread—Lord Allenach has a daughter. Because I had certainly announced myself as Allenach’s long-lost daughter last week in his hall. And while I did not know the extent of the terror and brutality that had happened on this soil, to this people, I did know that Brendan Allenach had betrayed Jourdain, and had taken Jourdain’s people and lands twenty-five years ago.

      I was their enemy’s daughter. When they looked at me, did they still see a shade of him? I am no longer an Allenach. I am a MacQuinn, I reminded myself.

      I stepped to Jourdain’s side, let him take my hand and draw me even closer, beneath the warmth of his arm.

      Thane Liam smiled at me, an apologetic gleam in his eyes, as if he was sorry to have overlooked my presence. But then he raised his cup and said, “To the MacQuinns.”

      The toast bloomed throughout the hall, scattering the shadows, soaring as light up to the rafters.

      I hesitated for only a moment before I lifted my cider and drank to it.

      After the feast, I found myself being ushered by Jourdain with Cartier and Luc up the grand stairs to the room that had once been my father’s office. It was a wide chamber with walls carved deep with bookshelves, the stone floors overlaid with furs and rugs to mask our footsteps. An iron chandelier hung above a table set with a beautiful mosaic face, the beryl, topaz, and lapis lazuli squares depicting a falcon in flight. On one wall was a large map of Maevana; I took a moment to admire it before joining the men at the table.

      “It’s time to plan the second step of our revolution,” Jourdain said, and I recognized the same spark that I had seen in him when we had plotted our return to Maevana in the dining room of his Valenian town house. How distant those days felt now, as if that had occurred in another life entirely.

      On the surface, it would seem that the hardest leg of our revolution was over. But when I began to think upon all that sprawled before us, exhaustion began to creep up my back, weigh upon my shoulders.

      There was plenty that could still go wrong.

      “Let’s begin by writing down our concerns,” Jourdain suggested.

      I reached for fresh parchment, a quill, and a stopper of ink, preparing to scribe.

      “I’ll go first,” Luc volunteered. “The Lannons’ trial.”

      I wrote The Lannons on the paper, shivering as I did so, as if the mere scratch of the quill’s nib could summon them here.

      “Their trial is in eleven СКАЧАТЬ