The Kingless Crown

Chapter 4

4

The Spare

Drystan Dereham crossed out yet another line in the book he referred to as his diary when his mother wasn’t around. Her soft, but commanding voice echoed in the back of his mind with every word he penned to life. This is not a poem, Drystan. This is an accounting of your day. Your life recorded for posterity. Your future reader does not desire dressing, only facts. He then tried to imagine his words one day written in The Book of All Things, within the chapter Histories of the Great Families, sub-chapter, Northerlands, section, Dereham. Of course, he’d never witness this. The words would be inked upon his death, and not a moment sooner, as was the way. On that day, they’d throw the old copies of the Dereham section tomes in pyres, replaced with the new.

He didn’t envy the copyist responsible for transcribing the mundane thoughts of all the highborns of the kingdom. His mother reminded him, when he forgot to stifle his groans, that if not for these writings of prior generations, they would not know their own histories. That they didn’t want to be like the Rhiagains, who claimed to know nothing of who they were. That every detail, no matter how small, was important. It’s these details that make the story, Drystan. Not the words announcing a new chapter.

He enjoyed details too, just not the same ones.

Gretchen Dereham rarely wasted so much of her energies on her other five children. Christian left for the Sepulchre when he was young and never returned, Lisbet was a dutiful student—or, smart enough to pretend—Pieter enjoyed the rigor of regimen, and the twins were as yet too young to be held to the responsibility of chronicling. And Drystan knew for a fact there were sometimes weeks where her mother wrote nothing in her own chronicle.

Your words will matter one day, Gretchen liked to say, even before they knew Christian wouldn’t return to prepare himself to become the eventual head of the Northern Reach. It was as if she knew Drystan, who was born the spare, would be forced to find within himself that which he had not been born with. She knew that as well, of course. Who he was. What he was not.

Drystan sighed and returned to his least favorite duty. Last night I dreamed of Ravenna. She came to me in the sliver of moonlight easing across my windowsill, her hair of midnight streaming behind her, vying to keep pace with the luminous energy she unintentionally, but purposefully, brought forth into every step. I dared not wake, not even for the hunger tickling through my dreamscape. He crossed this out, too. Tried again. Slept fair, awoke just after dawn and broke fast with the family. Boar, quail egg, and bread fresh from the oven. Father was indisposed, so I sat for two ticks of the sun in the Hall of Hearing, considering the petitions from the working class and guilds of Wulfsgate. Resolved two border disputes and granted aid to a farmer whose crops were lost to a rare run of blight. Approved a tanner’s solicitation for new business, along the market quarter bordering the southern gates. Collected monthly rents.

Drystan set the quill aside. He looked up, almost desperate for his dream image of Ravenna to appear, which was no replacement for her presence, but was still most welcome. It was akin to the light scent she left upon his pillow; her, but not enough.

He hadn’t seen Ravenna since the day they agreed the only option available to them was to leave before the Langenacht. But that discussion was nearly a fortnight ago, and less than a fortnight separated them from that fated night where she would bed the virile men of her clan, marry the one who sired her child, and, together, rule Midnight Crest until their own daughter came of age and went through the same sordid tradition.

It wouldn’t come to pass. It couldn’t. It was impossible for Drystan to imagine the woman he loved laying with any man not himself, though he’d never lain with her, either. Not out of a lack of desire, but fear. Her brood had a way of knowing certain things, and the discovery of the loss of her maidenhead would cause her to be cast from The Rookery to her death. There was no crime amongst her ilk like that of betrayal to tradition.

Until they were safely delivered from the Northerlands, they could not be safe in their love, either.

For Ravenna, the prospect of the Langenacht was even more painful than anything Drystan could imagine. She’d accepted her fate, as all future High Priestesses of Midnight Crest eventually did, until the strange friendship budding between her and Drystan became more than shared giggles and the comfort of childhood acquaintances. Her apprenticeship in Wulfsgate, which like many Ravenwood children involved healing and other useful tasks to help prepare for maturity, lasted far longer than it should have, and she was running out of excuses for why she continued to visit the town of men, when she belonged upon the jagged peaks of Midnight Crest with her own. She couldn’t possibly tell them about the long talks, lasting through the night and well into the morning. She didn’t dare mention the stolen kisses and the tears of longing. She blamed the volatile Northern weather and the sharp crags of Icebolt Mountain for the evenings she didn’t make it home.

Drystan said nothing to anyone either, except Lisbet. His punishment might or might not be equal to hers—he very much doubted the Ravenwoods were foolish enough to go up against the might of the Northerlands—but the fallout would change everything. It would destroy the careful alliance between Wulfsgate and Midnight Crest; between man and sorcerer. The two had little in common but much to gain from keeping civility intact, and Drystan felt the weight of this piercing him in places he couldn’t reach to ease.

The only option was to leave.

Yet there was a problem Drystan, in all his hours and hours of daydreaming, had yet to solve, and that was how he might accomplish this without tearing apart centuries of alliances and bringing the world down upon both the Derehams and Ravenwoods.

Drew my bow for one tick of the sun, out past the edge of the Forest of Lycana where the foothills begin to rise up and become mountains. Did not fell any beast, but our kitchens are stocked so we are not in need of surplus. Following this, I took Nyssa and Torrin to the armory to be fitted for their twelfth year armor, though by the time it is needed for practical use they will have outgrown it. Drystan, frowning, scratched out the last part because he heard his mother tell him he was being contrarian again. Sometimes he struggled to separate her voice from his own. Does it matter if there’s no looming war, son? Those from later days will know this by the time they come to read it. Your opinion is of no concern to the historical record.

Drystan disagreed entirely. Opinions started wars. They shaped worlds. But there was no use arguing with his mother on any subject. He wasn’t Lisbet, who could wrap Gretchen Dereham around her fingers like silk, or Pieter, who knew when to speak and when to keep his counsel.

Drystan had a heart that wanted to lead his head, and the greatest challenge of his entire life had been learning when to listen to this instinct, and when to suffocate it.

“Mother’s blood, sit!” Holden boomed as the twins, Nyssa and Torrin, ran circles around the wooden slab where the family gathered to sup. The boom of his piqued voice, reserved for those who had pushed him to his greatest displeasure, and almost never for his children, stirred Gretchen from her reverie.

Torrin looked stricken and quickly stumbled into the bench across from his mother. Nyssa just gaped at her father’s outburst, backing away in an instinctual retreat. Drystan caught her before she fell back into the roaring fire of the Great Hall.

Gretchen should soothe her little ones. They certainly looked to her for exactly that, their wide eyes as confused as she was. But instead she locked her curiosity on her husband. She had half a mind to provoke him to see how far he might take this unusually foul mood, but she wouldn’t do it at the expense of the children.

“Where’s Lis?” Holden asked, calmer now, as if the past few moments were erased from the record of life. He reached for an ewe leg off the platter in the center of the table, eschewing the root vegetables altogether. She’d asked the kitchens to prepare meals that would sit with his constitution better, but she couldn’t make him eat them. Her mother had told her once that having a husband and having a child were quite similar, except children occasionally behaved. “And Eavan?”

“Playing,” Torrin said with a glint of mischief, happy to take the focus off his own misbehavior.

Holden’s tension returned. “Playing?”

“They aren’t playing,” Gretchen quickly clarified, with a quick, sharp look to her youngest son. Holden was in no mood for coy exchange. “They’re in the stable, with her mares. Lisbet asked for a bread and cheese basket from the kitchen so they could spend the evening brushing and tending them.”

“And why are they not sitting here at the table with the family?”

“She’s going to miss them,” Drystan blurted. “She can’t take them to Duncarrow. There’s nowhere to ride there. It’s all rocks and darkness. You know how she feels about her horses.” To himself, he muttered, pushing snow peas on to his fork, “That’s not all she’s giving up.”

Pieter’s lips twisted in surprise at his brother’s words. He buried his face in his plate.

Gretchen swallowed a measure of pride at her son’s courage to bring this up now. Guardians knew she could not. She’d argued this point with her husband until she was lost for breath, and he’d made up his mind. Even now… even after Khallum and Gwyn’s sweet Esmerelda went to the Guardians, which could have changed everything, Holden stuck steadfastly to his stubborn resolve.

“Hmph,” Holden replied. He refilled his ale from the jug. “I don’t like it. This table used to be full of Derehams.”

“You’re the one sending her away,” Drystan said. “Better get used to it.”

“Son,” Gretchen whispered in a hush. The only thing worse than Holden’s resolve was pointing it out.

Holden dropped his hands to the sides of his plate. “Drystan. You’ll be the one making these decisions someday. And when you do, your judgment will not be so easily maintained. Pray you never have a son who makes that harder.”

Drystan flushed. Nyssa and Torrin stopped eating, wide eyes passing between their father and brother. Pieter continued his intimate acquaintance with his meal.

“Drystan will miss her. As we all will,” Gretchen said. Peacemaker. Another role she’d never excelled at but was expected to serve. “But this day was inevitable. Lisbet would leave us to marry someone else if it wasn’t the king.”

“Not at fourteen,” Drystan said, but the fight had left him. The one thing he’d always sought and rarely received was his father’s approval, and he’d brought the ire upon himself this time.

“There’s nothing to be done,” Holden said, voice heavy with the weight of authority. “Lisbet will be your queen. One of your queens. Fourteen or forty, her age changes nothing.”

Gretchen herself hadn’t even reached the age of forty, and it brought chills to her spine to consider what her oldest daughter might experience in the years before she did.

Again she wondered, had she not fought hard enough? Not used what little real authority she had as the Lady of the Northerlands?

She reached for the tray of vegetables and rebelliously placed some on her husband’s plate, before doing the same for the children, who had also avoided them. “At least she will have Eavan,” she said. These were the same words she repeated to herself for false comfort. Sometimes they even worked.

“Eavan wants to be queen,” Drystan said. “She’s been playing pretend as one her whole life. But even she doesn’t know what she’s getting herself into.”

“Your mother and I were both happily betrothed to others before the Epoch,” Holden replied. “And now we’re happy to be wed to one another.”

Torrin snickered. Nyssa looked scandalized.

“What if he hurts her?” Drystan asked, and a hush fell over the table. The question said aloud was a reiteration of the fear underpinning the entire affair. The crux of the decision Holden had agonized about for weeks, before sending his raven to King Eoghan with their affirmation of The Right of Choosing.

“He won’t,” Holden said, but his eyes were now solely focused on the feast in front of him.

“Real men don’t lay hands on their women,” Torrin recited. “A king is a real man, so he can’t hurt Lissy.”

“They aren’t even from the kingdom. We know nothing of the men the Rhiagains truly are,” Drystan said to his little brother. He pushed back from the table and stood. “I’m not hungry anymore.”

Gretchen watched him leave the Great Hall, but still jumped at the sound of the heavy door swinging shut.

“He’s too emotional, Gretchen,” Holden said, casting a careful glance at the twins and Pieter. “He’s seventeen. The responsibility of this Reach could fall upon him at any time. We can’t abide these whims of his.”

Gretchen looked away. As always, the act of saving, small and large, fell to her.

If only Holden understood that Drystan’s sensitive side was only enhanced by his father’s unwillingness to be the one to talk to him about it.

Drystan found Lisbet alone in the stables. The doors were flung wide on both sides, snow falling in sideways, collecting at the edges of the hay piles.

She stood upon a chair, head lying against the mahogany neck of Starcaller. Lisbet had four horses, but Starcaller was her favorite. She’d been riding the mare since she was old enough to walk. Starcaller was older now, and not as nimble as the younger ponies Holden showered her with, but nothing could replace the bond of friendship.

Lisbet wiped at her tears when she saw her brother. She forced a smile.

“Where’s Eavan?” he asked. He knew better than to ask her what was wrong.

Lisbet sniffled, rolling both eyes. “She didn’t stay long. Said she wanted to pack her trunk more neatly, but I suspect she’s with Argus.”

Argus, the armorer’s son. Just the other day, Drystan had heard Eavan remark that he was far too handsome to be a laborer. She’d cast similar opinions and aspersions on most of the workers at Wulfsgate Keep throughout her month-long stay.

“She should be careful,” Drystan said. “Who knows what the king might do if he finds one of his brides has been unchaste.”

“She’s not that foolish. She only wants him to fall in love with her,” Lisbet said, returning to Starcaller. She pressed her lips to the soft mane and backed away. Starcaller neighed and backed into her stall. “Father send you?”

Drystan dropped his eyes. “I walked out.”

Lisbet’s mouth parted in surprise. “You walked out? In the middle of mealtime?”

“He’s not the same man I remember growing up. He’s changed.”

She tilted her head. “You’ve changed, Drys. You never used to fight back.”

Drystan kicked at the hay. “He likes to remind me I’ll be in his chair someday, but that doesn’t mean I’ll make his choices.”

She reached forward and grabbed her brother’s hand. “I know what you speak of, brother, but you, too, would’ve sent me to the king.”

“Lisbet, there’s no wa—”

Lisbet kissed his hand. “Yes, you would have. Because to do otherwise would be to invite the king’s eye and army to the Northerlands, which you’re sworn to protect. Because sometimes there’s no other choice.”

Drystan hated himself for the tears trailing down his cheeks. Of all of them, Lisbet would understand, but he didn’t want her to understand. He didn’t ask for this tenderness of heart that made him utterly ill-equipped for anything of substance. Father had failed Lisbet, and Mother had too, and now, here he was, following their lead despite the resistance burning in his chest. A betrayal wasn’t always a direct action. Sometimes it was inaction.

“How am I supposed to protect you?” Drystan whispered as he crushed his sister to his chest. “If I can’t even find the words to convince our own father?”

“There were never words capable of doing that,” Lisbet told him. “But you’re wrong, Drystan. You’ve protected me all my life, by teaching me to be true to myself. And I can’t think of a better weapon to take with me to Duncarrow.”