The Beauty of Darkness (The Remnant Chronicles 3)

“Are you ready?” Natiya asked.

I had no choice but to be ready. “Yes,” I answered.

We traversed down the steep hillside and were about to emerge from a copse onto the road when I was struck with the obvious. I stopped my horse, my head pounding, the shadows of trees spinning around me. How had I not considered this before? “Dear gods. Pauline is in Civica.”

Natiya pulled up close to me, alarmed. “I don’t understand. You knew that already.”

But I was so worried about her safety, I hadn’t put it together. Mikael. What if he was in Civica too? What if she saw him? What would it do to her?

“Arabella?” Father Maguire asked from behind me.

I tried to push the worry from my mind. Maybe if I was lucky, Mikael really was dead by now. “It’s nothing,” I said, and I snapped my reins, trotting out onto the road to Civica.

Just before the first outlying hamlet, there was a barricade and checkpoint. Two soldiers were stopping wagons and travelers.

“Your reason for coming to the city?” a soldier asked when it was our turn to pass through.

“Business at the abbey,” Father Maguire answered.

One soldier gave a cursory peek into our bags, and another motioned to my face. “Your veil, madam?”

The priest flew into an immediate rage. “Has it come to this?” he yelled, rolling his eyes heavenward. “I can vouch for this widow and her daughter, as can the gods! Have you no respect for the mourning?”

The young soldier was sufficiently shamed that he waved us on through. There were no more checkpoints. Just as I’d thought, they suspected I was already within the gates of the city. My first note had done the trick. When we passed through the last hamlet and rode into Civica, I breathed with relief. I was in. The first task was accomplished. We dismounted, and I used a cane as an additional disguise as I walked through the crowded street. My relief was momentary.

Only minutes later, chatter revealed that the king was gravely ill. My steps faltered with this revelation. I interrupted the two women I’d overheard as they surveyed a plump dumpling squash in a market bin, and I fished for more information. “But I heard the king had only a minor passing ailment?”

One of the women grunted and rolled her eyes to her friend, noting with disapproval that I was eavesdropping. “Then you heard wrong. My cousin Sophie works in the citadelle, and she said they’re keeping a vigil.”

The other woman shook her head. “And they don’t keep vigils for passing coughs.”

I nodded and moved on. Natiya and Father Maguire looked at me with questioning eyes, but I maintained my focus. The plan hadn’t changed. Much. I gave Natiya my horse to be stabled and told her to go on to the abbey with the priest and complete the task I had set before her—find Pauline. She was to go to every inn and say she had information for the lady who had inquired about a midwife. They would either send her on her way if there was no guest in such need, or they’d lead her to Pauline. Once she found her, she was to send her and the others to the millpond. Pauline would know which one. There was only one that was abandoned. Father Maguire nodded over Natiya’s head. He had made another promise to me—to protect Natiya if events should spiral out of my control.

I left for the citadelle, my face covered and my footsteps as quick as I dared. Two daggers were concealed beneath my cloak. I had tried to conceal a sword, but it was too bulky, and I couldn’t take a chance on detection.

My father had been healthy when I left. Yes, a few extra pounds around his middle, but robust. I didn’t overlook that it might well be a trap. It probably was. Draw the princess out. Appeal to her sentimental side. If that was the case, they had played the wrong card. I couldn’t afford a sentimental side anymore.

When I turned the corner and saw the citadelle, my throat tightened. I stared at the steps, where I had stood countless times with my family, impatiently waiting for a procession, ceremony, or important announcement—always tucked safely between my brothers. My father’s hand would rest on my shoulder, my mother’s hand on Bryn, usually to keep us still. I fought the urge to run up the steps, call for Bryn and Regan, to run through the hall and greet my aunts, find my mother, to race into the kitchen for something fresh from the oven.

Now citadelle guards were posted on the perimeter. Though they were trained at the soldiers’ camp, their uniforms were a stark contrast from soldiers. Guards wore highly polished black boots, long red capes, and helmets of pounded metal. More stood back in the shadows of the portico, their halberds crossed at the front entrance I’d been instructed to use on my wedding day. My stomach rolled over as I remembered my frantic last minutes stealing out the servants’ door instead—the moment the sun flashed in my eyes and the day split in two creating the before and the after of my life.

I was cautious in my approach, slowing my steps and hunching my shoulders like a true grieving widow. I had bought a posy on my way.

I walked up the center of the steps, and a guard came forward to meet me. I lowered my voice, adding a slight northern accent. “For the king,” I said, holding out the posy to him, “along with my prayers for his recovery.”

He took the small bouquet of primroses from me. “I’ll see that he gets them.”

“And Prince Regan?” I added. “My prayers for him too. Is he preparing to take the throne?”

The guard cast an annoyed frown at me but quickly corrected himself. I was a widow, after all, and perhaps the widow of a soldier. “Prince Regan is away attending his duties—as is Prince Bryn. The king isn’t so ill that anyone has to worry about succession.”

A ploy, just as I thought. There was no vigil. But my brothers away from Civica?

“Both princes are traveling?” I asked.

“Attending kingdom business, like I said.” His patience was spent. “Ma’am, I need to return to

my post.”