The heavy oak doors had scarce clicked shut behind the retreating stride of King Argus before the Queen turned upon her tirewomen. Her face was the colour of curdled milk, her fingers twitching against the woollen coverlet.
"Go," Isabella whispered, her voice like dry autumn leaves scraping across stone. "Bring Seraphina hither. The Commander of the Vanguard. Tell her the Queen demands her presence before the candle-wax drips twice. Run, you lazy sluts."
The maids scurried away like mice when the owl hoots.
It was no more than the time it takes to boil a small pot of broth before Seraphina entered. She was still clad in her boiled leather, smelling of horse-sweat and rain. The Queen did not give her time to breathe. She flicked a thin, trembling hand toward the remaining servants. "I have matters of weight for the Commander's ear alone. Leave us. Every soul."
They curtsied and fled, their slippers clicking softly until the heavy draperies fell shut.
When they were gone, the steel fell away from Seraphina's face. She looked upon her sovereign—her friend since they had both been small enough to hide in the orchard barrels—and her eyes swelled with water. Isabella looked half-devoured by her own bed, her skin grey, her eyes hollowed out by the winter illness. "Isabella..." the knight choked, stepping forward.
"There is no time for tears, Seraphina. None." The Queen's voice was a knife-edge. "Listen to me, and listen with all your wits."
Seraphina stiffened, her jaw dropping. "My Lady? What tribulation is this? You look as though the stranger himself hath touched your shoulder."
"Listen," Isabella hissed, grabbing the sleeve of the leather jerkin. "What I breathe to you now must never leave this room. It must remain a secret between our two souls. Not even Valerius must know. Not the maesters, not the captains. Promise me. By the old gods and the new, promise me as the sister of my youth."
The Commander fell to her knees by the bedside, taking Isabella's small, cold hand between both of her scarred palms. "I swear it, Isabella. By my sword, and by the womb that bore me. The crows shall have my tongue before any man hears a whisper."
The Queen closed her eyes, a shudder wracking her thin frame. "Argus hath lost his mind. The madness hath finally taken him whole. He means to put Daker into the lists. He will force the boy to fight in the coming Arena tournament."
Seraphina blinked, confusion washing over her sun-browned face. "But... My Lady, the boy fought like a seasoned hound today. He bested me fairly in the yard. His name is on every man's lips."
"And that was the blackest mistake you ever made!" Isabella's voice rose to a harsh creak. "You should have beaten him until he could not stand. You should have let him taste the dirt! You should never have let him win."
"Why, My Lady?" Seraphina pleaded, her brow furrowing. "The Knights look upon him with respect now. They see steel in his spine. The King is his patron; no man would dare strike him with a lethal blow in the lists. It will be but blunted swords and chivalry."
The first tear spilled down Isabella's hollow cheek, hot and bright. Then another, until she was weeping openly, her chest heaving under her shifted linen. "You fool," the Queen sobbed. "You blind, noble fool. Daker will not leave that dirt alive. He will be slaughtered in that pit."
Seraphina went rigid as stone. Her hand dropped from the Queen's. "What? Who would dare? Tell me the name of the traitor, My Lady, and I swear by the high heavens I shall leave his head rotting upon the pike before the sun is at its zenith!"
"The King," Isabella whispered. "King Argus."
It was as if a winter frost had crept into the room and settled in Seraphina's marrow. Her fingers turned white and numb. "My Queen... I... the mind wobbles. Why would my Lord do this thing? He hath held Daker closer than any prince. He loved him above us all." She shook her head, backing away a step. "No. No, it is a foul tale. A lie hatched by some poisoner. Why would a father seek the blood of his own seed?"
"Argus never held him as his seed," the Queen said, her voice dropping into a hollow, dreadful calm. "The curse of that mountain Demon hath festered in his brain like a maggot in meat. He is deaf to reason now. He told me plain—if the boy somehow survives the butchery of the Arena, he will have the guards bind him and cast him into the 'No Man's Land' to be eaten by the wild beasts and the lawless."
"But what hath a boy to do with a Demon's hex?"
"Argus believes Daker is the rot at the root of the kingdom," Isabella said bitterly. "He thinks the boy is the reason my womb dried up and my body withered. He thinks the famine—the black rot in the wheat fields these past three harvests—is the boy's fault. The King told me it would have been a holy deed if Daker had been left to the crows that day, along with that wretched woman. He thinks if we had not slain the beast, we could have bartered with it. Given it the boy. Sent it far from our borders with a tribute of flesh."
Seraphina could only stare, her mouth half-open, a single choked sound escaping her throat: "What?"
The room seemed to spin. The tapestries of golden stags and green forests blurred. Images rushed through her mind like a muddy river in spring—Daker as a babe, his small fingers catching her scabbard; Daker as a lad of seven summers, falling from his pony and rising with blood on his lip but no tears in his eyes; Daker distributing loaves of barley to the starvelings at the gate; the weight of his wooden practice sword against her own shield.
"Seraphina," the Queen's voice pulled her back from the dark. "Where have your wits gone?"
"It cannot be," the knight muttered, her teeth clicking together. "He is but a boy... a boy who hath done no wrong. No. I will pierce the throat of any man who lays a finger on him."
"You will do no such thing," Isabella commanded, leaning forward, her eyes burning with a terrible, desperate fire. "You will take Daker, and you will ride. Ride tonight, before the watch changes. Take him far from the reach of Argus's crows. Let no man see you go. Let no scout have an inkling of your trail. Go, and never look back upon this cursed seat."
"And what tale do I give the boy?" Seraphina asked, her heart hammering against her ribs. "He thinks himself a prince of the blood."
"The hour hath struck to give him the truth," the Queen said, closing her eyes as the strength left her. "Tell him all of it. Every bitter word. And tell him... tell him his mother loved him until her last breath."
The castle was a labyrinth of cold stone and flickering torches. Seraphina searched the armory, the stables, and the high battlements where the wind howled from the north, but the boy was nowhere to be found.
Then, through the heavy winter air, the iron tongue of the sept bell began to toll. Dong. Dong. Dong.
Seraphina looked across the dark courtyard toward the stone spires of the old church. She hurried to the stables, threw her leg over her great grey destrier, and trotted through the shadows.
When she reached the church yard, she dismounted, tying the reins to a withered yew tree. She took her woollen cloak and pulled the hood low, wrapping the dark cloth across her nose and mouth until only her eyes showed in the gloom.
The air inside the church smelled of beeswax, stale incense, and old death. It was empty save for a few old crones kneeling in the back. Near the altar, where dozens of tallow candles flickered against the stone saints, a solitary figure knelt. Daker. His head was bowed, his shoulders tense as he prayed for the life of the woman he called mother.
Seraphina walked softly, her boots making no sound on the rushes. She stepped up behind him and placed a heavy, gloved hand upon his crown.
The boy startled, spinning around, his hand instinctively dropping to his dagger. "Comman—"
Before the word could leave his teeth, Seraphina's palm was clamped tight over his mouth. Her eyes, fierce and shadowed beneath her hood, bored into his. She shook her head once, jerked her chin toward the side door, and released him.
Daker looked about the dark nave, his brow furrowed, then rose and followed her out into the cold night.
Behind the stone walls of the church lay an ancient grove of ash and oak trees—a quiet place where the monks grew their herbs, now sleeping beneath the frost. Seraphina led him deep into the shadows of the boughs before she turned.
"Before the next bell tolls," she said, her voice a low rasp, "you will meet me under these very trees. You will bring your horse, your stoutest woollens, and enough hard bread and salt beef to last a fortnight. And bring your sword. Not the bated yard steel. Your true iron."
Daker stared at her, his eyes wide in the moonlight. "Why, Commander? The frost is thick enough to crack leather tonight. Why must I go now?"
"I have no breath to waste on arguments, boy," Seraphina snapped. "It is the Queen's own command. She wills it."
Daker's face hardened. He was eighteen summers now, with the broad shoulders of his lineage and a stubborn jaw. "If this be my mother's word, I will hear it from her lips. She was weak when the sun went down; she would not send me into the dark without a blessing."
"You will not go to her," Seraphina said, grabbing his tunic. "Not under any moon. Not tonight."
"But why?" Daker's voice rose, thick with anger and fear. "What foulness is this? Why keep me from her bed?"
"I will give you the tale on the road," she said, trying to pull him. "For now, we must move like shadows."
The boy wrenched himself free, his breath coming in white plumes. "No! Whatever poison you have in your head, spit it out here! I stir not a single inch until I know why the Commander of the Vanguard is acting like a thief in the night."
Seraphina looked at him, and the iron in her broke. Her eyes grew wet, her teeth grinding together as she took a long, shivering breath of the winter air. "Your life hangs by a thread, Daker. The Queen ordered me to steal you away because... because your father means to have you dead."
Daker stood as if struck by a mace. The blood drained from his cheeks. His hair seemed to stand on end in the freezing wind. "What? Have you taken too much sour wine, woman? Do you know what sacrilege you speak? Why would the King seek my blood?"
"Because King Argus is no blood of yours," Seraphina said, the words falling like heavy stones. "And Queen Isabella never bore you in her womb."
Daker's hand flew to his sword-hilt, his eyes blazing with fury. "Enough! One more word against my house, Seraphina, and knight or no, I will see your guts on the frost! I am a prince!"
He turned on his heel to march toward the keep.
"Your true mother died eighteen winters past," Seraphina shouted after him, her voice cracking. "She died in the dirt because the King was a coward and made a grave error!"
The boy stopped. He did not turn, but he stayed rooted to the earth, his shoulders trembling under his cloak. "A lie," he whispered into the dark. "A black, rotten lie."
"No," a deep voice boomed from the shadow of a great oak. "She speaks the king's truth, boy."
Seraphina's hand flew to her hilt as General Valerius stepped into the moonlight. His heavy grey cloak was dusted with frost, his face grim as a graveyard.
"General?" Daker gasped, turning around. "You too?"
Seraphina narrowed her eyes. "How did you find us, Valerius? Who gave you the scent?"
"I have eyes, my love, and I have used them these many moons," the old General said, stepping closer. "The King's humours have been foul of late. He looks upon the lad as a dog looks at a mad wolf. Today, when I went to speak with His Grace regarding the rules of the coming Arena, he had vanished. They told me he had gone to the Queen's chambers. A strange thing, for he hath not crossed her threshold since the last harvest."
Valerius spat into the dirt. "It smelled of mischief. I followed. When I reached the upper hall, there were no guards, no maids—only emptiness. Then came the shouting. I stood by the ironwork and heard every word the Queen gave you."
Seraphina let out a ragged breath. "What is our play then, my heart? Do we fight?"
"There is a way to halt this wheel," Valerius said, turning his cold gaze to Daker. "If the boy flees now, and remains hidden until the last horn of the tournament hath blown, the King's hand may be stayed. But if the crows catch him before the gates open, he must go into the pit."
The General shook his head. "The tournament itself does not worry my soul. The lists will be filled with green boys—lads whose beards have scarce sprouted, peasants from the outer villages who know not which end of a pike to hold. Daker hath more steel in his little finger than that whole rabble. He would best them all."
The old man's face grew darker still. "But the King spoke plain to the Queen. Even if the lad wins the crown of the Arena, Argus means to banish him to the 'No Man's Land'. And no man ever walked out of that grey waste alive. Therefore, boy, you must find a hole where the sun does not shine. Watch every road. Keep your eyes open."
Valerius leaned in, his voice dropping to a gravelly whisper. "Trust no soul living. Not a maid in the tavern, not a lord in his keep, not a beggar by the ditch. None save the Queen, Seraphina, and myself. Now move your legs."
Seraphina stepped forward, catching Daker's face between her rough, leather-clad hands. She looked into his frightened eyes. "Go, my boy. Get your beast. I shall be riding in your shadow, not a league behind."
"No," Valerius barked, pulling her back against his chest with an iron, yet protective embrace. "That is the path to the axe, my love. If you vanish from the city walls tonight, Argus will know who loosed the hound. Your life will be forfeit before the cock crows. And who will comfort Isabella then? She hath no friends left but us. Let the boy go alone. He knows how to hunt; he knows the woods."
The General turned back to the dark castle. "The heralds will make the proclamation tomorrow before the smallfolk. The rules of the tourney will be read then."
"Do you know nothing of the rules, Valerius?" Seraphina asked. "You are the General of the Forces."
"The King kept his own counsel," the old man muttered fiercely. "I pressed him for the terms, but he gave me naught but silence. He said only that the rules were still churning in his belly, and he would spit them out on the day of the crying." He waved his hand toward the dark trails. "But it will be a field for novices, as it hath been since the first foundation. There is naught to fear from the blade. Now go, Daker. We will hold the gate here as long as the gods allow. Keep your head low."
Seraphina looked at the lad one last time, her fingers slipping from his cheeks. "Go, Daker. Run."
The boy looked at the two veteran soldiers, his world shattered into pieces beneath his boots, then turned and vanished into the thick gloom of the ancient forest.