Chapter 14

CHAPTER 14

F or three days on my new farm, I've been waking at sunrise, feeding the chickens and the two pigs, mending the fence, and cooking meals.

Meriadec found us a small, abandoned place in the most isolated part of Lauron. There's no one around for miles—just our tiny timber-frame cottage nestled on snowy rolling hills, with a thatched roof and smoke coiling from a brick chimney.

Meriadec believes that we have to really get into our characters, to play the role for real.

I grip a few weeds, tugging them out of the earth, and breathe in the clean air. The wind nips at my cheeks and fingers.

The moment we arrived here, we prepared the cottage thoroughly, setting it up to be my childhood home. We went through our cover stories, talking them over, polishing every detail.

Meriadec says a cover story should be as close to the truth as possible. On our way here, he spent a day interrogating me about every painful detail of my real life before coming up with our fake family dynamics. Naturally, my fake family involves having one parent who's a complete train wreck and another I never met.

We set up the house, taking care to leave empty bottles of mead lying around, and then we started playing our respective parts. By the time Talan arrives, the dynamics will be perfect. If anyone in his retinue scouts ahead, they'll see exactly what they expect to see: a small, dysfunctional farming family harvesting mostly rotten vegetables from the wintry soil.

Now, as I sit in the dirt in our fields,a subtle thaw spreads through the air. The snow has been melting the past few days. As I gently pry an onion from the wet earth, the cold soil stings my fingers. I inhale the rich scent of the earth and hold up my find. There aren't many edible onions. Most of them are covered in a dark mold, rotten from the inside out. But this one is actually good, and I feel immense satisfaction when I drop it into the near-empty basket.

"Nia! Nia?" I hear a voice calling.

I stand up, stretching my back. "Yes, Father?" I call back.

Meriadec steps around the low fence that surrounds the onion field, holding a bottle. "My dinner!" he slurs.

"I still have half the field to pick, and I need to finish mending the fence."

"You're starving me, girl." He scowls at me, but for a second, his eyes flash, a recognition of the imaginary game both of us are playing. But that look disappears instantly, and he's back to being my drunk dad. He waves a hand at me. "Your worthless sister is in a rotten mood again."

He stumbles off. I wonder if he's actually drunk. He's the type to really commit to a role. I turn back to the field and let out a breath.

I'm feeling oddly better about things. Maybe this is what everyone needs after a breakup: onion farming. Every morning, I've felt a sense of peace as I watch the sun rise over the rolling hills. I could stay in a place like this for good.

While I've been here, the volume has been turned down on my most pressing worries: Mordred and his magic moths, Prince Talan, Raphael wandering around the forest. For now, I let myself believe that this is who I am: Nia Vaillancourt, Meriadec's daughter.

I finally finish pulling the onions from the cold earth and trudge back to our little cottage. As I walk, weariness seeps into my bones.

Nivene is in the kitchen, arms folded, staring sullenly. "There's nothing to cook."

At this point, we're authentically starving. We've hardly eaten a thing in the past few days—fried onions, a few carrots, and dried herbs. France might be Auberon's breadbasket, but the bread isn't making it out to rural peasants like us.

"Look at this." I remove the single healthy onion from the basket. "Isn't it amazing?"

She looks at it, then at me. "It's a fucking onion."

Nivene, unfortunately, doesn't do so well on an empty stomach. Last night, as we lay in our beds, she whispered that if Talan didn't show up soon, she'd eat all the pigs and be done with it.

"It's a good onion," I point out.

"Whatever. And yesterday, you found a weird-looking carrot?—"

"It looked like a penis, and it was delicious."

"And that one potato. You're driving me insane."

"Father said you were in a rotten mood."

"Well, Father can bite my?—"

"Girls," Meriadec shouts from the doorframe, clinging to it for balance. "We have visitors. They're coming on horseback." His eyes are wide, face pale. He heads out the door again.

Wordlessly, Nivene and I exchange a quick look. I turn back to the counter and start to chop the onion.

It's another few minutes before Meriadec stumbles back into the kitchen. Talan follows right behind him, bowing his head to fit into the small space. Two armored soldiers lurk close behind the prince.

My heart races. Talan looks completely out of place here—the rich, velvety fabric of his dark cloak is obviously worth more than the farm. His cold, unearthly beauty stands out here like a marble statue in a field of rough scarecrows. He casts his dark gaze around the rushes strewn over the floor, the simple furniture of rough-hewn wood, and the rustic beams. I can't say it smells amazing in here, and it's obvious how much a prince does not belong in a place like this.

Meriadec's face is pale, his voice quivering, playing the act of the terrified but drunk villager quite well. I'm not sure how much he's acting. More than likely, he really is terrified. He nods vigorously. "This is His Highness, Royal, High…Prince Talan de Morgan."

"Your Highness." I give a cursory curtsy, then lift my chin.

Talan had called me "imperious," so I can't change it up too quickly. He saunters over the rushes like he owns the place, casually taking it in—the counters of rough-hewn wood, the fiery hearth, and the ceramic pots hanging from the ceiling, nearly hitting his head. "We were passing by on a hunt, and I realized how hungry I was. There's not a tavern for miles, and sadly, one of my idiot guards scared our stag away."

Meriadec waves a hand at him. "We'll get you fed, Your Highness. My Nivene is an amazing cook."

"It is a nice farm," I say, "which is why I hope we can stay here, but since our taxes are so high, it won't be easy."

"Nia," Meriadec barks.

Talan's lip quirks. "And what's your name?"

"I am Nia Vaillancourt," I say. "And this is my sister, Nivene."

"It's a true honor," Nivene says, her voice sounding high and nervous. But I know her body language well enough to see the charade. She's cool and calculating, ready for anything.

This is the crucial moment of our plan.

"And you're the cook?" Talan asks.

"I…I didn't know we were about to entertain guests," Nivene stammers. "But I can kill one of the chickens. My cooking isn't fit for such esteemed?—"

"I'm sure it will be fine," Talan interrupts, looking bored with all of this already. "And while you're making dinner, perhaps your sister might show me around." His dark eyes flick to me, and the corner of his lips curls in a sardonic smile.

"Of course, Your Highness. I will show you the apple grove." I bow slightly, making the lines sound just slightly rehearsed.

I'm performing a complex juggling act of multiple fronts, and the wrong move might end with all of us dead, burned to a crisp by dragon fire. Talan assumes that I'm playacting for my family and for his guards' sake, but I'm playing two characters, one on top of the other. My roles are as layered as the onions I dug up.

I can't think about it all too intently. Instead, I force my mind deeper into my surface cover. I'm Nia, the farm girl with an attitude forced into league with the prince.

"Perhaps I could see your house first," said Talan.

He wants to see if anything seems out of place. He doesn't trust me at all, of course.

"It's just a small cottage," I reply. "Surely Your Highness has seen?—"

"Indulge me."

"Nia," Meriadec half-shouts. "The prince asked you to show him the house. I'll pour us some mead."

"Fine." I gesture at the small room. "This is the kitchen. We have two bedrooms."

"Let me see."

"It's just my father's room, and the one where my sister and I sleep." I beckon him up to our bedrooms, taking a narrow, crooked flight of stairs. Meriadec's room is a mess, with empty bottles of mead scattered over the floor and a few discarded clothes. It truly smells like piss.

Our room is messy, too—carefully cultivated, a staged disarray with some underwear on one of the beds.

"How will you ever live, deprived of all this?" he says.

"You can cut the attitude," I whisper. "I'm doing what you told me to do. And my sister will miss me, you know. That's why I don't want to leave. She'll be left all alone with my father."

Sunlight slants in the windows, sculpting his cheekbones with shadow. He has to stoop just to stand beneath the rough wooden beams.

He casts a critical eye around the tiny room. "Which bed is yours?"

"That one." I say, pointing at the more organized bed, the one with a knitted doll on the pillow.

Talan goes over, picks the doll up, and raises an eyebrow.

"My mother made it for me before I was born. It's a keepsake from her."

He turns and picks up a small painting from a wooden trunk. "Who painted this?"

"Nivene. She has a talent for likenesses, don't you think? I love being with her when she draws."

It's a sketch of Meriadec, Nivene, me, and another woman, all sitting outside the house. Nivene and I appear younger in the sketch, still girls. In truth, Meriadec was the artist. Nivene couldn't draw a stick figure to save her life.

"Is this your mother in the portrait?" He points at her.

"Yes. She died giving birth to me, but Nivene wanted her in the portrait anyway."

His dark eyes find mine. "Was it after her death that your father developed a fondness for so much ale?"

"Not ale, just mead. He was always that way, but it got worse when she died, then worse again with the famine."

"How does he afford it?"

I shrug. "Oh, he doesn't buy it. We never leave the farm. So, he makes his own mead. We keep honeybees and produce our own honey."

He slides the painting back on the nightstand. "Show me the apple grove."

This must be how it is with royalty, I suppose. They don't ask questions or suggest things. They just issue orders and declarations, and everyone falls in line.

Particularly when you had the reputation of being an absolute monster.