Page 9 of Winter's Fate

The monster broke against the wave of Laena’s power. With one last scream, it dissolved into a foul vapor and disappeared into the wind.

Still lying prone on the path, Laena stared at the steaming garden, blinking at the wisps of remaining smoke until they dissipated. Where the creature had spewed mud into the trees the leaves were already shriveling away.

Her body was trembling, as if from a deep chill, and her cheek stung from the shadow’s cut. When she reached a tentative call out for the power, only silence responded. Brin turned a worried circle on her chest, and she gave the shimmerling a comforting stroke on the back.

If she hadn’t heard of Vales-born magic, she certainly had never heard of a shadow creature like the one that had just assaulted her. Had it been formed among the mess of the garden? Or had itinfestedthe garden?

There was no way to be certain. But as the trembling began to subside, there was one thing she did know.

“Well,” she said, her voice scratchy and distant in her ringing ears. “I guess this means we’re going to the palace.”

When one didn’t haveaccess to a royal coach, one journeyed to the capital city of Riles via a network of hired stages. It required an exhausting three days of travel and the majority of Laena’s meager funds. Saved from her palace days mostly, as the villagers were as loath to purchase vegetables from her as they were to sell.

Mercifully, the other coach passengers didn’t appear torecognize her. The interior was cramped, and Laena hugged her traveling bag to her lap, as did the other passengers. On the first day, a young man with exaggeratedly tall hair felt it necessary to practice a speech he was to give at the university, and despite exchanged looks of dismay, no one moved to silence him. Thankfully, a university coach met the professor at the first evening’s stop and whisked him away to practice elsewhere.

In the evenings, the coach stopped at roadside inns, where Laena shared attic accommodations with the other women passengers. The innkeepers had stuffed the rooms with wall-to-wall cots, hoping to capitalize on every possible inch of space. The rooms were stuffy, but clean enough, and the women kept to themselves. Some of them departed on other stages come morning, heading toward the countryside or the mountains, where smaller towns dotted the landscape at intervals. No doubt some would need to walk a distance to reach their destinations.

Every time a new person entered the coach, Laena would tense, certain that this time she’d be recognized. And, if her experience was any indication, thrown bodily from the coach and sneered at. The closer they got to Riles, the more she wanted to bury her face in her cloak.

But it was not until the final leg of the ride, after Laena had spent a blissful two hours riding by herself, that an elderly woman hobbled into the coach, sat directly across from her, and narrowed her eyes.

Laena looked out toward the increasingly familiar roll of the hills, pretending she couldn’t feel the old woman’s gaze on her. But the moment she turned her head, the woman caught her eye. “You’ll forgive me for staring, I hope.”

The woman was wearing a woolen cloak pulled over her shoulders, a tarnished broach clipping it shut at the throat. She clutched a bag to her side, no doubt carrying all the coin she had in the world, and though her back was hunched and her entryinto the coach suggested some pain in her back or legs, the sharp gleam in her eye said there was not much that passed by without catching her notice.

Laena blinked, affecting the innocent look she had been planning for the entire trip. She would be surprised. She would deny. And she would run, if she had to. “Of course, my lady,” she said. “I had not noticed.”

The woman laughed. After so many hours of university speeches, polite requests for bench mates to provide more space, and, in several cases, sibling squabbles, it was refreshing to hear someone laugh.

If Laena thought about it, she had not heard another person laugh in her presence—not honestly, not deeply—in some time.

“I’m no lady,” the woman clarified. “And you look so much like our queen. I can’t help but stare.”

Laena swallowed. This close to Riles, she could walk if she had to. It would add time, but not a disastrous amount. “Queen Katrina has golden hair,” she said lightly.

But the old woman was already shaking her head. “No, no. I meant Laena. I meant the real queen.”

Laena’s throat went dry. Of all the conversations and accusations she had imagined, this was not among them. She had never been queen—and officially, Katrina was not yet queen—but that had always been a matter of splitting hairs to the people of Etra. If an Etran queen passed, the heir was spoken of as the new queen. Even if she had yet to complete her tour and be coronated.

“Laena was dethroned,” she said carefully.

The old woman leaned in, her expression eager. As if this was a favored subject of hers, whether speaking to a friend or a random stranger who just happened to resemble the abdicated queen. “Have you never wondered why? Laena was so well suited to the role. Well studied. Kind. Smart as a whip when she was a girl, asking questions of everyone she met. She’dwalk the streets, and you’d know you were in the presence of greatness.”

Greatness.Laena turned the word around in her mind, unsure of how to respond. She would not have known how to respond even when she had been expecting to take the throne. But perhaps she could have at least stopped her cheeks from reddening.

She was so used to the open hatred of the villagers. Their disdain had carved her confidence away in chunks over the last five years until she hardly recognized the confident woman she’d been. She had not imagined anyone in the realm might think otherwise.

Of course, it was possible that this woman knew who she was. But even if she did, there would be no reason to curry favor. Katrina had made it abundantly clear that Laena was out. Unwelcome in Riles, if not officially exiled.

The old woman sat back. “I always wondered why she’d feel she was forced to abdicate over some love affair. Especially when the man was… well. Destined to be fleeting I’d’ve said. Yes?”

The woman, still craning her neck, leaned forward, as if the subject of their conversation was too juicy to discuss at a distance. Even so close a distance as the interior of a coach. Laena ought to change the subject, to guide it elsewhere, but she found she was interested in what the woman had to say about Ben. Perhaps she represented a thread of opinion in Etra, though she might just as well be an eccentric outlier.

“What makes you say that?” Laena asked.

“I saw him, a time or two.” The woman laughed again, and this time it sounded almost girlish. Like a giggle. “I wouldn’a given up a throne to have him between my legs, is all I’m saying. Not saying I would havemindedhim there, just… it always seemed…”

The old woman raised her hand, holding her fingers a shortwidth apart, and Laena stared at her, taking a moment to understand her meaning. When she did, she coughed, cheeks flushing with heat beneath the bandages. “How could you possibly guess at the size of his…”

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