Chapter 31

25 days left

A fter three days, Aria, Eliza, and Henry had attempted everything they could think of.

Nothing worked.

Eliza had locked herself in her room, unable to bear the moment of judgment. Aria stood with Henry outside the throne room, waiting to be announced, and though Henry wore a brave face, he fidgeted.

"What do you think the punishment will be?"

"He may remove your knighthood." Aria's throat burned to even speak it, and Henry paled.

The doors swung open, silent and indifferent to what was about to transpire, as stoic as the king who commanded them.

Aria refused to take her place on the dais, staying with Henry. The king seemed to take that as a good sign, smiling as he asked for Henry's report.

Henry stood straight, hands clasped behind his back, fingers trembling. "Your Majesty," he said in a firm voice that betrayed nothing of the weakness, "I regret to report I was unable to pass the challenge. The Artifact is undamaged."

Slowly, the king nodded. Then he sighed. "I regret to hear it."

"Father—" Aria took a step forward.

His sharp look silenced her.

"Law is the strength of a kingdom." His Majesty stood, his golden crown catching stained-glass light in a bloodred flash. "Therefore, in accordance with our proclamation, Henry Wycliff bears the punishment of failure. Lord Henry, as of this moment, you are banished from Loegrian soil."

"Father, no!" Aria shouted.

Henry's face drained of color, his hands falling limp at his sides.

"This brings me no joy, Aria." Her father's stern eyes carried warning. He gestured to the waiting guards, who stepped forward.

"Then what is the purpose of doing it? Stop! You won't take him." Aria threw herself between the guards and Henry, one hand outstretched to hold them back. "Father, this is madness!"

"Stand aside, Aria."

"I won't! In what world do you reward a tournament champion, a knight of court and son of your friend , with banishment ?"

But as she said it, she remembered what he'd done to the son of another friend. Everything inside her chilled as she felt the remembered wind of Northglen.

"A world in which he has failed his kingdom," her father said, each word clipped, "and therefore no longer holds a place in it. The challenge was clear from the start."

A challenge Henry had been forced to participate in. Her father may as well have escorted Henry onto gallows and called it reasonable to hang.

While she mouthed wordlessly, two guards pulled her away while another pair escorted Henry from the room. She saw the unshed terror in his eyes, but he said nothing. He walked with his head up, like a champion.

Aria wrenched free of the guards. They allowed it, no doubt afraid to injure their princess. Their powerless princess.

"You are dismissed," her father said, returning to his throne.

"I'm not going anywhere."

"Do not think you are above the need to obey me, Aria. A king's authority—"

"Is absolute. And his judgment is flawless. And he's perfect in every measure, every single measure, never a mark ."

"No doubt this curse weighs heavily on your emotions. Take another day of rest. I'll inform your tutors. In the meantime, Lord Kendall will be summoned, having expressed his interest at the tournament should Lord Henry fail. He wishes a chance to regain—"

" Listen to me !" Months of sleepless nights and a mountain of worry combined within Aria, sparks building to lightning. "Please, Father. Please . I don't want this. The Artifact is a trick. Everything has been a trick. You can't punish Henry for the impossible. Please."

"Then perhaps you'll provide a truth I can trust. Simply tell me what happened when you, against my express warnings , visited Morton." He barely waited. "No? I thought not. I'll remind you that you do not govern this kingdom, Aria. Not yet."

"Not ever, you mean. That's what you really want. This whole challenge is your excuse to dig through the toy box of nobility, tossing men aside like wooden soldiers—"

"Aria," her father said sharply.

"—searching for a real heir."

"If you were competent, I wouldn't need to!" he roared.

Aria's jaw trembled. She clenched it. The high-ceilinged throne room echoed her father's voice back to her, repeating the condemnation. It rang in her ears.

Incompetent. Mark.

She crushed the quill in her mind, tossed it in fire and watched it sizzle.

But it returned.

It always did.

Incompetent.

"Regardless of your feelings toward me ..." Aria's voice shook. One tear escaped her tight hold, sliding down her cheek. "Don't punish Henry."

"Law is the strength of a kingdom," her father repeated. "And my word is law."

With brisk steps, he exited the throne room, leaving Aria alone.

Aria walked to her bedchamber in silence, closing the doors behind her delicately, like handling a teacup already cracked and breaking. She opened her window to the cold air. The trees had dropped their leaves, littering the castle grounds, bare patches attesting to where the servants had already raked. She couldn't tell if the skeletal trees looked relieved of a burden or robbed of their identities, but looking at them, a sudden intensity seized her chest.

She marched to the bottom of her bed, where a small but ornately carved trunk waited. Each side bore a masterpiece collection of scenes from history, beginning with Loegria's founding and touching on its proudest moments. Aria knew every story by heart. It had been her father's gift to her for her eighteenth birthday, mere months ago, and she'd been so captured by the trunk's elegance, she hadn't even convinced herself to fill it yet. Nothing seemed worthy to go inside.

Now she hefted the box from the floor, her aching legs staggering beneath its weight, and carried it to the window. The beautifully stained wood scraped across her window ledge with a horrible screech as she pushed it out, out, out , until she expelled it from her room, watching it plummet two stories to shatter against the ground, spilling fragments onto the leaf-covered grass like a stomach emptied of its contents.

While Aria clutched the windowsill, gasping for air, a sharp caw came from overhead.

She turned away as the familiar bird glided into her room, landing on a bedpost knob. Though she rubbed the tears from her face, her hiccupping breaths betrayed her. The crow gave a soft, muted version of his call, so soft it almost sounded like a concerned word, like a voice saying—

"Aria?"

A talking animal. Panic flared in her mind, overturning the grief. She remembered every moment of intelligence the crow had displayed—every responsive nod and almost-laugh. Intelligence too sharp for an animal.

With wide eyes, Aria whirled to face the crow.

The bird squawked and dove for the window, but she was faster, pulling the shutters closed with a snap . The crow swerved away, flapping at the corners of her room, but every exit was barred.

Aria snatched up the fireplace poker, holding it like a sword. Her voice trembled. "Reveal yourself, shapeshifter."

Always, she was the fool. If Widow Morton had a squad of Casters at her command, why not a shapeshifter? How long since the woman had replaced Baron's crow?

Aria thought of Henry, collateral damage in the war between her father and Widow Morton. As much as her heart ached to know he'd fallen victim, it was nothing compared to the wrenching pain of imagining Baron in his place.

"Now, demon!" she shouted.

With a final pitiful caw , the crow dropped to the floor, shedding black mist from its feathers. The magic curled like smoke in the air, swirling around a rising form.

Aria clutched her makeshift weapon, preparing to swing—

Only to stop cold.

Because she recognized the terrified brown eyes that took shape, and the boy they belonged to.

"Corvin?" she whispered in horror.

From behind her, someone screamed.

Aria turned. Jenny stood in the open doorway, one hand clutching the doorknob, the other pressed to her mouth. Before Aria could say a word, the girl ran, shrieking for the guards.

Corvin ducked against the wall, quivering like a frightened animal.

Was he an animal?

She heard the heavy steps of oncoming guards.

"Into the wardrobe," she said, grabbing Corvin, herding him roughly. "Be silent. Don't move."

She fastened the doors behind him—banging one of his elbows in the process—just before three royal guards spilled into her bedchamber.

"Your Highness!" The first guard reached her. "Are you hurt? Where's the intruder?"

"It was a mistake," she said. She struggled for calm, but her voice sounded manic to her ears. The towering presence of the wardrobe behind her felt too obvious, as if it strained for attention merely by existing.

"Your lady's maid said—"

"It was terrible of me. I ... I played a joke on her. I leapt out from hiding when she entered. She must have thought me an intruder. Really, I'm—there's no need for concern, sir. I'm sorry for the inconvenience."

The guards exchanged a baffled look, but since there was no obvious danger, they took her at her word, no doubt wondering if her curse affected her sanity.

She followed them to the door, then told them to send Jenny back so she could apologize—in truth, she wanted to make sure the girl didn't spread word of Corvin.

As soon as she had the door latched, the boy spilled out of the wardrobe.

"Please, Highness, hear me out—"

Aria pulled him into a hug.

Corvin stiffened at first, then melted, gasping in shuddering breaths against her chest. She waited until his fear calmed before she stepped back, gripping his arms.

"I thought you were a spy for Widow Morton!" Even with the guards gone, she didn't dare raise her voice above a whisper. "The crow, I mean. I ... never imagined it was you."

He laughed, though it might have been a dry sob. "You don't hate me?"

"As if I ever could."

She caught sight of her own arm, prickled with goose bumps. While Casters held a documented presence in the kingdom, restricted but accepted, shapeshifters were more myth than reality. They were the stories told beneath the moon while imagining that every nighttime rustling held an animal with too much intelligence, stalking ever closer. Casters may have been strange—deadly, even—but they were human. What could a creature be called that walked the line between human and animal?

Apparently, it could be called Corvin.

"I would never hurt you." Corvin swallowed. "Promise."

"I believe you. Now I need you to fly home"—she nearly choked on the word fly —"before Jenny returns or anyone else comes to investigate. I'll swear her to silence, but we can't risk anyone else seeing you."

She could only imagine what her father would do to a shapeshifter discovered within the castle. Her ears rang with funeral bells at the thought.

How could Corvin even exist? The last shapeshifter had been executed during the reign of Aria's grandmother, some forty years earlier, and they were born only once every hundred years.

But Aria's understanding of magic had been terribly wrong before. She could not be surprised to discover it again.

Corvin turned toward the window, then hesitated. "You're not scared of me? Truly?"

"I believe Leon would be appalled," she said, "if I fainted at the sight of a skinny chicken."

He grinned in earnest, lighting his dark eyes and splitting Aria's heart. An expression like that couldn't be anything but human.

"Baron wants to save you."

She blinked at the unexpected topic. Her lips parted, but the words were still catching up.

"He keeps practicing his Casting in the kitchen, which drives Leon crazy. He's spent enough time in the training field, he broke a dummy, and he's up every morning pacing. He's trying to figure out how to save you."

Aria's tears threatened another surge, this time from joy.

"I wanted you to know, because ... Baron's stood up for me my whole life, and I've never done anything for him. So I can at least tell you—don't marry whatever challenger the king has lined up. Because Baron wants to save you."

The boy gave another grin, and then he opened the window. A rush of cold air washed across Aria's skin. Black mist wafted from Corvin's outline, and seeing it a second time, Aria thought there was something beautiful in the patterned swirls, like smoke messages rewriting his form before her eyes.

Then the mist vanished, and he was a crow again, stepping lightly on the sill. He dove off the edge, paralyzing Aria with fear until he flapped and rose into the sky, as able as any other crow. She watched until he disappeared around the edge of the palace.

After he was gone, she found his forgotten message canister, Baron's latest letter tucked inside. It began with Dearest Aria , any reference to her title abandoned at last, and it took no more than that to make everything right in the world again.