Page 1 of The Flame and the Forsaken

Chapter1

Loch Ethereal

Suffering through a belated marital idyllmoon with an unbearable princeling, on the lake that had once belonged to her family until it had been stolen by his, was a perverse sort of torment, even for Mariel Ashdown.

She leaned onto the balcony overlooking the dawn mist wrapping Loch Ethereal below. The fog made it impossible to see from her vantage point, but one of hers was almost certainly waiting below, just as they’d promised when she had told them where she’d be forced to spend the week after her husband’s “triumphant return” from months away at sea.

The mossy, thatched banks had disappeared, trailing into and blending with the dense morning air. The once-tranquil lake embodied the sinister authority of its subjugators, a warning and a reminder of the thin veil between past and present. It was far too cool for a swim, but she was already imagining herself stripping away her layers, recalling the icy jolt of first contact that would remind her she was still—unlike almost everyone she had ever loved—painfully alive.

Erran would still be peaceably sleeping, like all men with no conscience with which to burden themselves. He was no doubt exhausted from his most recent naval conquest, which had kept him away for the entire three months of their arranged marriage. He’d already been planning the campaign when their fly-by-night union had come about, and it had been too late to send another in his place. At least, that was what his mother kept saying, as though Mariel was nursing a broken heart in his absence. It had been all she could do to nod solemnly and play the doting, mooning wife.

She hadn’t seen her husband at all since the wedding, actually, until four days ago when he’d shown up with his too-pretty, hangdog face, and a scandal following him that made her disgust for him an easy part of the act.

There was still time to make her rendezvous and be back before the attendants—every one of them a spy for his father—sounded the morning meal bell, upon which she and her princeling husband would sit in rigid silence and pretend they weren’t secretly dreaming of killing one another.

Mariel tore her eyes away from the lake and started down the hall. To her surprise, there were no attendants there, nor any following her down the stairs. She stepped into the balmy morning without encountering a single soul, which seemed as suspicious as it was fortuitous, though she lived perpetually on edge, always anticipating danger. It was the life she’d chosen, one of secrecy and shadows and peril. But her only witnesses at the early hour were the crickets and songbirds slowly waking the world up.

Still, sneaking off, right under the nose of her “naval hero” husband, was reckless even for her. No one could know who she was when the sun disappeared in the evenings, but ifErranfound out...

He couldn’t. Hers wasn’t the only neck that would swing.

The dew in the air coated her skin from the moment she stepped into the lush forest. It painted the leaves so shiny and green, they seemed spun from silk. The Southerlands were known for endless tropic coastlines and salt-hardened traders, but the Lake District was a hidden gem, stretching between the Rutlands’ seaside territory in Whitecliffe all the way to the foothills of the Easterlands range in the north. Many wealthy barons owned cabins along the twelve lakes, but not because they’d purchased the land legitimately. Any records claiming otherwise had been signed by the same people who plundered through life like the conquerors of old.

The hardest lesson Mariel had learned, and early, was that while the wealthy could buy anything they desired, their real thrill came from stealing it.

Mariel paused at the end of the worn path to look back at the garish monstrosity that had been built in place of her modest childhood home. The juxtaposition of memory and reality fueled her vengeance and gave her the last bit of resolve needed to continue on.

She followed the tall reeds lining the banks. Frogs croaked from thatches of pads, which broke up the soft mossy algae of the otherwise-still surface. How she and Destin and sweet Angelika had played and played as children, skipping rocks through the thick stew of colors... even then, they’d known their time was stolen. They’d read it in the increasingly haunted stares of their mother and father as they’d slowly starved to death.

Soft light painted an orange band across the grass. She closed her eyes and looked up, breathing deep. Home. Not the way it had been, but still hers. Land didn’t recognize gold. It recognized like. Love.

A fluttery whistle snapped her attention back. She ducked low and listened. When it came again, she cupped her hands over her mouth and sounded her own in return. Once. Twice.

Reeds cracked underfoot. She stood slowly, trying to guess which one of her friends had come for her.

Her heart skipped when she saw it was Remy.

Or, as the barons they frequently robbed knew him as, the infamous Tactician.

The corner of his mouth pulled into a slow grin. She matched it as she moved closer, knowing, even before he held out his arms for her, where she would land. When he locked around her, she allowed herself the briefest interlude of vulnerability, releasing a breath into his warm chest. He pulled back, still smiling, and brushed the gesture along her forehead with a sharp inhale.

“The Flame lives,” he jested.

“Aye.” Mariel snorted and broke the embrace. She scouted the area once more, but they were alone. “Barely. Was touch-and-go for a while.”

“How much time do you have left on your sentence?”

“Four days.” She crossed her arms. “Thoughdayswith that one are measured in far longer terms than the ones we know.”

“He was bound to come home eventually. Unless you were hoping he would drown?”

“Even I’m not so cruel,” she retorted, though she’d be lying if she claimed she’d never thought about the prospect.

But if the princelinghaddied at sea, she’d never get what she needed. Months alone with his family had produced no valuable intelligence. He was the key. She knew he was. If not, it would mean she’d married him for nothing, and she couldn’t live with that.

Remy scratched a hand through his shoulder-length blond hair. “Has it been so bad?”

“He’s been avoiding me ever since his idiocy in Warwicktown. He thinks... that I care about his foolishness with Yesenia, which is absurd. Better he believes it though. Makes it easier to stay in character.” She tilted her head back in the frustration she couldn’t show to anyone else. “I ken the attendants have reported to the steward we haven’t been sharing a room though. Feckin’ spies, the lot of them.”

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