Splinter & Ash, page 1
Dedication
To Tonke and Tamora, who taught me how to dream.
And to all the kids who build castles out of stories.
This one’s for you.
Map
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Map
Prologue
Chapter One: Ash
Chapter Two: Ash
Chapter Three: Ash
Chapter Four: Splinter
Chapter Five: Splinter
Chapter Six: Ash
Chapter Seven: Splinter
Chapter Eight: Ash
Chapter Nine: Ash
Chapter Ten: Ash
Chapter Eleven: Splinter
Chapter Twelve: Splinter
Chapter Thirteen: Ash
Chapter Fourteen: Splinter
Chapter Fifteen: Splinter
Chapter Sixteen: Splinter
Chapter Seventeen: Ash
Chapter Eighteen: Splinter
Chapter Nineteen: Ash
Chapter Twenty: Ash
Chapter Twenty-One: Splinter
Chapter Twenty-Two: Ash
Chapter Twenty-Three: Splinter
Chapter Twenty-Four: Ash
Chapter Twenty-Five: Splinter
Chapter Twenty-Six: Ash
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Copyright
About the Publisher
Prologue
The sun set behind the Starlit Mountains, casting the sky in pale purples and blues. The peaks formed jagged shadows. The stars blinked to life. And a carriage driver, who was on her way to deliver her passenger from a small garden estate to the royal city of Kestrel’s Haven, decided to take a long-forgotten mountain path instead of the high road.
After all, the driver, a stout woman with a tender heart, had promised her youngest son that she’d be home for the Winter’s Heart festival. And the high road was the long way around.
A kingdom’s fate is quite often decided by coincidence and happenstance and such small individual decisions.
The girl inside the carriage approved of the change of route. She didn’t mind the cold, even though the superstitious saw it as a warning sign and muttered about unlucky stars shining on the year ahead. Especially with the war at the northern border. The girl had no misgivings about the way the wheels clattered over the uneven stones. She didn’t remember the last time she had trekked across icy mountain paths in a carriage, the night of the accident that killed her father. She was bundled up in a thick woolen blanket, and her thoughts were on something quite different than tragedy and war. She was returning to Kestrel’s Haven for the first time in nearly six years, and she couldn’t wait to be home.
After a long, freezing night amid the cliffs, the carriage wound its way down toward the royal capital, and the girl sat glued to the window. Kestrel’s Haven was the type of city that had once centered around a palace and a market square, but over the years it had grown. New districts crawled along the riverbanks. Countless houses and stores pushed past the confines of the city walls and tumbled across the fields. Tall temples provided children a place to learn their letters and numbers, while schools served those who had the coin or the title to demand a finer education. In every district, statues honored the kings and queens of old.
Atop a hill sat the palace, overlooking everything. Like the city, the palace had grown from a handful of buildings to great halls and towers and keeps and pathways that crossed over and under each other. Walls and gates kept strangers out. But the girl’s carriage passed through all without delay. It was eagerly awaited at the royal gate. Not by the guard, who kept the palace safe. Not by the knights, who served the crown. Not by the girl’s brother, who’d been counting the days until her return and wasn’t thrilled at all.
The girl’s mother, the queen, stood outside the gates in a simple blue dress with a woolen overgown, fur-lined boots, and leather gloves. She didn’t fumble with the hem of her sleeve, because it would not do for the queen to be caught fumbling. She didn’t pace, for that would have been improper too. She didn’t let her guard come close, though that might have been wise in light of recent threats. Instead she ran, out of the cover of the guardhouse and into the falling snow, as soon as the carriage pulled up. She opened the door before the horses came to a complete halt, and when the girl leapt out, the queen gathered her daughter close, held her tightly, and prayed that she would be safe here.
The princess was home at last.
Thanks to the shortcut, she’d arrived two full days earlier than intended.
Now, if that hadn’t been the case, perhaps everything would have been different.
If the princess had arrived at the palace on the morning of the masquerade, she’d have been awed by the celebrations, without worrying that she didn’t belong. She’d have spent the evening with her brother and her mother, delighted to be reunited, without any concern for the nobles around her, with their cutting glances and snide remarks. She wouldn’t have run deep into the snow-covered garden, and she wouldn’t have met the squire.
The kingdom would have remained unchanged.
That was not what happened.
Instead the princess discovered that the palace might be awe-inspiring—but it wasn’t home. She barely had time to talk to her mother, the queen, who kept being shepherded away to more pressing matters. To preside over the royal council, to settle disputes, to talk to merchants and visit Haven’s shelters and hospitals, to give the blessings in the royal star temple.
The princess got into the first of many pointless fights with her brother, the crown prince, who wished she’d stayed away.
And the court did not welcome the princess either.
Two days later, instead of enjoying the masked ball, she was plotting her escape back to her aunt’s estate, certain that Haven held nothing for her. Until she stumbled into the squire, who longed for a friend and a home, and the trajectory of both their lives—of the royal family and even the kingdom itself—changed forever.
This is how legends start.
Once upon a time, there was a city, a princess, and a squire.
Chapter One
Ash
Beacons were set up all throughout the royal city of Kestrel’s Haven. Along the city walls. In the streets. On the floating docks. In front of the star temples. Around the bell tower that commemorated the citizens who’d fallen defending Calinor. And in the princess’s walled garden.
At midnight, every beacon in the city would be lit to celebrate the birth of the new year. And along with the new year, the princess’s twelfth birthday.
The masked ball was the social event of the winter, because the princess had only just returned to the palace and the vibrant, chaotic, wonderful city. She was new. She was different. It was the first time any of the city’s nobles would get a chance to talk to her and perhaps influence the girl to sway her mother’s opinions in their favor.
Which is why Princess Adelisa—Ash, to her friends, although she had none here—found herself at the center of attention. She wore a midnight-blue velvet dress, sensible boots, and a mask decorated with black feathers and tiny beads to symbolize the stars. Her unruly brown hair had been tied into a braid, but strands kept escaping it. Long gloves obscured the silver bands and rings she wore around her arms and hands, and she leaned ever so slightly on a finely carved cane, which had flowers and woodland animals etched in oak.
Ash felt ill at ease. She didn’t know where to go, what to say—or even where she belonged. The night sky was cold, and the questions and comments of her guests were colder.
A knight captain in a long light-brown coat, with deep purple knots embroidered along its sleeves, frowned when she passed him. “Look how fragile she is. The crown needs to be strong, especially in times of war,” he said, not softly enough to be subtle.
His dance partner scoffed. “She has no right to call herself princess. And the queen? She spends more time with the common folk than with the knights and nobles who fight for her. Disgraceful.”
Lord Lambelin, the commander of the guard, had warned Ash before the celebrations started. “Don’t worry about malcontented nobles. The war has made everyone grumpy, and your mother has to make hard choices to take care of her people. The palace is a brighter place for having you back. But try not to lose your guards. It makes it so much harder on them to protect you.”
Her mother had straightened her mask and flattened a wayward strand of hair. “It’s custom, my love. It was custom to send you to Byrne to be educated, like many princesses before you, to remind ourselves that our responsibility is not only to the city but also to the kingdom. And it’s custom to present you at court now that you’re home, to remind our nobles that we will always do our duty. Try not to get into any arguments with them.”
Back in Byrne, Aunt Jonet had promised Ash that she knew all a princess needed to know. Languages. History. Etiquette. All her tutors praised her work. The problem was, none of that helped her navigate the court.
She didn’t laugh at jokes she didn’t like. She didn’t put on a smile while half of the nobles in the city insulted her, and the others offered sugary words to curry royal favor. She wanted to talk archery or history or the midwinter mystery plays that Haven’s theaters put up every year, not gossip.
The queen was charming and graceful. Aunt Jonet was brave and fair. Ash was only some of those things some of the time. She had no idea what kind of princess she
Lute and zither players in the central square started the next song, the playful winter tune enticing all those present to leave their drinks and sweets behind and join a long circle of dancers. Laughter mingled with the music, and a flutist offered a mocking counterpoint to the main melody.
Ash sidestepped the squires running over to join the dance and withdrew to the wooden tables with spice cakes and sugared winter berries set up along the garden wall, where those nobles who claimed to be too old and too dignified to dance gathered.
An elderly lady in a luxurious fur-lined dress, whose soft brown complexion glowed in the torchlight and whose gray hair was brushed to a shine, tsked at Ash’s retreat. “Girl, don’t stand around with us old folk. Enjoy the night. Find a dance partner and let yourself be swept away by the music.”
Hovering at her elbow, a young gentleman in his early twenties, with a knight’s sword at his side, coughed. He tugged at her sleeve and whispered something in her ear, but the lady simply shook him off. “I don’t care if she is a princess or our stars-blessed queen herself or even the Ferisian empress, Idian. It’s good advice and she would do well to heed it.”
She pinned Ash with a stare. “If you don’t have a dance partner, my reluctant grandson would be much obliged. He’s too old for you, and sadly taken, but he knows how to swing.”
“Grandmother.”
Ash blushed, both at the suggestion and the young man’s discomfort. “Maybe another time, Lord Idian.”
She had turned to the table with cakes when another lady spoke up. “You know she’s hardly a princess. She’s been away from Haven half her life. Longer than any royal before her. I’ve always thought the queen should have gotten rid of her. Having a crippled girl close by is a constant reminder of the accident that killed our beloved prince consort—”
“Wendalyn, hush,” someone tried to interrupt her.
Wendalyn continued without the slightest hesitation. “She isn’t fit for noble society. In the old days, she would never have been brought back.”
Ash shrank with every bitter word. Her hands trembled, and her heart hammered. She barely heard the elderly woman’s shocked gasp. She hardly registered that Idian strode over to Wendalyn, hooked his arm through hers, and none too gently marched her away.
She retreated. A young guardsman followed her, so she made sure he saw her escape to a garden bench at the farthest edge of a snowy lawn, where it stood hidden in the shadows between two lanterns.
A slender black-and-brown cat lay dozing on the bench. She woke when Ash sat down next to her. She stretched languidly and leapt to the ground, where she butted Ash’s legs and walked in circles around her cane.
Ash bent down and let the cat sniff her hand. The cat investigated the girl before flopping onto her back, allowing Ash to pet her.
Ash grimaced. “You’re the first palace resident who’s happy to see me.”
The cat purred contentedly.
“You’re the bravest royal mice hunter, aren’t you?”
The cat pushed her head into Ash’s hands, and Ash relaxed a little.
“Will you be here to watch the new year? Or is it too loud and chaotic for you?” Ash scooted off the bench and crouched next to the cat. “I used to dream about coming home. This feels more like a nightmare.”
Back in Byrne, Ash had been expected to rise with the sun, do her chores alongside the household, and start her lessons after breakfast. Everyone knew her, simply, as Ash. The girl who didn’t know how to mend her own clothes, until Aunt Jonet’s housekeeper taught her to sew and darn. The girl who didn’t know how to hunt, but she’d pestered the guard captain to help her craft her own bow and shoot it. The girl who challenged the cook’s son to a race to the top of the tower—and won. She’d had friends, back in Byrne. People who saw beyond her cane and her title.
In the royal palace of Kestrel’s Haven, people bowed to her and never quite met her eye. When the bells struck dawn, everyone fell into their roles like pieces of a puzzle. The knights fitted tightly into their suits of armor. The queen’s council followed her in formation, and the royal guard wore long lines in the stone floors to protect the royal family from danger.
Perhaps there was a place for Princess Adelisa—but she wanted to be Ash.
“How pathetic. Your own party, and you hide like a coward.” A clear voice rang through the night.
The cat scurried away.
Ash’s nearly-fourteen-year-old brother, Lucen, sauntered over to her, footsteps crunching through the snow. Underneath a mess of brown hair he had the same bushy eyebrows as her, the same lanky figure, the same snub nose. Like her, he wore an outfit made of midnight blue: dark breeches and a long tunic with silver stars along the edges. On his left shoulder, he wore the royal stars embroidered in gold.
Ash got to her feet and smoothed her dress before she curtsied, mockingly. “Prince Lucen.”
“Sister dearest.” Lucen claimed the bench and perched on its backrest, looking down at his sister. He was flush with music and dancing, and snow clung to his boots. “Aren’t you impressed by our power and grandeur?”
She shrugged. “The stars aren’t impressed, so why should I be?” It was something the star priest at Byrne had said on an almost daily basis, whenever someone tried to find excuses to get out from under his teachings.
Lucen flicked a speck of snow from the cuff of his pants. “Did your peasant friends even know how to celebrate the birth of the year? Did no one teach you how to act like noble people do?”
Ash forced herself to count. First to ten. Then to twenty.
She’d tried—and failed—to figure her brother out. When she came home, she expected him to be happy to see her, like she was happy to see him. They used to play together, before she left to live with her aunt. Unlike Ash, Lucen had never been sent to Byrne, but he’d visited, along with their mother, and he’d made fast friends with Sterne, the cook’s son. The three of them had built tree huts together in the apple orchard. Ash had regaled Lucen and Sterne with all the ghost stories of the garden estate and all the myths and legends Master Ebed, her history tutor, had taught her.
Until the Ferisian Empire crossed the northern border, claimed the fiefs that lay beyond the mountains, and her mother and brother stopped visiting. Ash wrote letters, sharing her adventures and misadventures, talking about the progress she had made in her studies and inquiring about the war. She had asked Lucen if he was scared. Last year, with her pocket money, she’d bought him a birthday present from a traveling merchant. A small silver sword pendant, to wear as a necklace and a luck charm. She wanted him to think of her. But replies were few and far between. Her mother was too busy being queen, while Lucen had started his duties as squire and crown prince.
Ash straightened her shoulders. “What do you want, Lucen?”
He glowered. “The squires say Byrne is a backward town. And you haven’t answered my question.”
The first night after coming home, Ash had sneaked into the palace’s throne room, with its dome full of colorful stars. The heart of the crown’s power. A symbol of her family’s duty to serve Calinor, and a reminder of all the best and worst decisions of those who had come before them. Of war and death. Of peace and prosperity.
“When you’re home,” Aunt Jonet had told Ash, “remember that your words can make a difference. Use them to make Calinor better.”
Ash made her way over to her brother. She pointed the cane at his heart like she was wielding a sword, forcing him to balance precariously on the backrest. “If you care so much about power, you should get to know Calinor instead of insulting it. Winter’s Heart in Byrne is far better than in Haven.” Ash had always loved Byrne’s festivities, because everyone, from stable hand to noble and cook to tutor, danced and laughed together. She doubted Lucen would understand that. She doubted anyone here at court ever let go of their stiff formality.
Lucen pushed the cane away. “Fine. It was only a question. You don’t have to get all defensive.”
He got to his feet and dusted off his tunic. When he glanced up, his eyes held a challenge. “If it’s so much better, you should have stayed. Byrne is where damaged princesses like Aunt Jonet and you belong.”
Ash forgot her good intentions.
