Splinter & Ash, page 11
She called out to the two guards. “Did you see anyone enter or leave the wing?”
The older of the two guards—Splinter was quite certain he was called Ridir—turned to her and frowned. “No one, squire. But Princess Ash was looking for you. You probably just missed each other.”
In any other situation, that would’ve been good news. Right now, Splinter wasn’t sure. “She didn’t leave by carriage yet?”
Ridir shook his head. “No, squire. She meant to come back here first.”
Panic fluttered inside Splinter’s chest. She dashed back to Ash’s room, grabbed the note, and flew past the astonished guards.
“Alert the other guards!” she shouted at them. “I think Ash has been kidnapped!”
She ran toward the staircase, and the mysterious note with the threatening message burned a hole in her hand.
We have your princess. She is safe and unharmed. If you wish to see her again, our demands must be met. Extinguish the lights at the royal star temple to signal your understanding.
We will be in touch.
Without care for propriety, Splinter had burst into Lord Lambelin’s office. His flash of anger had made way for shock and action as soon as she handed him the note. He’d immediately ordered a full lockdown of the palace. No one could leave the grounds without the guards knowing and checking every cart and carriage. He sent for those who’d seen Ash that afternoon. He recalled the crown prince from his private weapons practice, and then Lambelin stalked toward the throne room, where the queen was with the captains of the floating docks, negotiating trade agreements and taxes and job opportunities for apprentices.
Splinter followed awkwardly, half running to keep up with the guard commander. He’d glanced back at her once and nodded, which she took as permission.
But when Lord Lambelin entered the majestic throne room, she had hesitated. The fiery late-afternoon sun poured through the windows like liquid copper, the beams of light reflecting off the star-covered domed ceiling. The din of voices hushed.
Lambelin dismissed the captains, who observed him curiously—and calculatingly. Once they realized how serious he was, they filed out without protest. Guards fell into step with every single one of them, to escort them out.
At the head of an oval table covered in scrolls and cups, Queen Aveline crossed her arms. Her eyes briefly rested on Splinter as thin lines appeared across her forehead. They were the only outward sign of her worry. “Lam? What’s going on?”
Lambelin gestured at Splinter. “Close the doors.”
She did as ordered and lingered.
“Your majesty, Ava . . . it’s Adelisa. Someone took her.” Lambelin knelt down in front of the queen and held out the crumpled note.
Reading it, the queen turned a ghostly shade of pale. Her expression twisted in pain—and fear. “No. No.”
Splinter swallowed. This was what Ash had feared, that night in the hidden passages.
“Once you’re in the princess’s service, you’re her first line of defense,” Veridia had told her.
“I will protect her,” Splinter had told the queen.
“I’ll protect you,” she’d promised Ash.
Splinter slunk into the shadows of the doorway, but Queen Aveline got to her feet and slammed the note down onto the table. “Tell me, one of you, how could this happen? Why weren’t you by my daughter’s side, squire?” When Lambelin rose, the queen grabbed the front of his tunic. “Why didn’t the guard stop anyone from getting close to her? My daughter, Lambelin! I demand to know how!” Her voice broke on the last word, and her knees gave way underneath her.
Lambelin caught her in his arms, and held her close, until the shaking of her shoulders subsided and the muffled sobs grew quieter. Splinter blinked hard and turned away from the queen’s raw pain. She wanted to help. She wanted to run through the palace and find Ash.
The queen shook out of Lambelin’s grasp. She dusted off her dress. “I want to know everything.” Her eyes were red and puffy, but her voice was measured. “Are the Maronnes involved in this? Did we send her into danger ourselves?”
Lambelin guided the queen back to her seat while he remained standing. He beckoned Splinter closer. “My guards have apprehended the carriage driver who came to take Ash to the Maronnes. He only arrived at the gates after Splinter found this disgraceful note, so it’s unlikely he was involved. But for the Maronnes, I . . . do not know. The letter Ash found in their library appears harmless, though the palace scribes still miss Evana’s eye for codes.”
Splinter startled at that. Ever since Ash had asked her about her mother, in those quiet moments before sleep, Splinter had wondered about Evana’s work. The long texts on her desk. The stacks of notes. Her mother, a code breaker? Ash would want to hear that. She should tell—
She swallowed hard.
“Regardless, these thieves needed help to get into the palace,” Lambelin said. “Lord Maronne remains our best lead. With your permission, I want to bring him and Lady Maronne in for questioning. With luck, we can shield our investigation and Ash’s role in it.”
“Do whatever needs to be done,” Queen Aveline snapped. She rubbed her eyes and focused on Splinter, who wanted to shrink back under her fierce glare. “You found this note?”
Splinter folded her hands behind her back to keep them from trembling. “Yes, your majesty. It was pushed under Ash’s door.”
“Did you see who delivered it?”
“No, your majesty.”
“Did you ask the guards for information? Had they seen anyone?”
“No, your majesty,” Splinter said. Heat rose to her cheeks. “I mean, I did ask, but they hadn’t seen anyone.”
Queen Aveline tapped the note on the table. “Do you know where Ash was when she was taken?”
Splinter shook her head. She couldn’t force herself to meet the queen’s gaze anymore, so she stared at her boots. “No, your majesty.”
“From what we’ve puzzled together so far,” Lambelin interrupted, before Queen Aveline could say any more, “Ash was on her way to Squire Splinter. She was seen on the second floor, in the physicians’ wing. She spoke briefly with Sister Beatrice, who believed Ash was on her way to the battlements. But the guards outside never saw her. The guard who stood watch inside is nowhere to be found.” His voice darkened at those words.
“You think the guard might have been infiltrated?”
“It’s one of many possibilities that we need to investigate, your highness,” he said. “If they have been, the traitors will be found and dealt with harshly. I will not fail you again.”
Splinter knew how Lord Lambelin felt. He was the queen’s best friend. And he didn’t want to disappoint her any more than she wanted to disappoint Ash.
“I don’t care about failure, Lam, I care about my daughter.” Queen Aveline breathed out hard. “And to demand we extinguish the lights of the royal star temple . . . that temple has weathered storms and wars and it’s never been brought down. It’s a beacon of hope. If we give in to these demands, it’ll be a clear message to our enemies that we’re vulnerable.”
“I believe that’s their intent. It must be a Ferisian ploy to weaken us. Cruelty upon cruelty.”
The queen closed her eyes. “Order it to be done.”
“Your highness . . .”
“Lam. Do it.”
Splinter had to force herself to not fidget as she felt the weight of the queen’s decision. For as long as she could remember, the royal star temple—a building older even than the palace, or the city—had been a bright light against the darkness. In winter, it offered warmth and shelter for all who needed it. In times of famine and fear, it offered food and hope. It towered high enough over the rest of the city that all could see it, and all could use its lights to find their way.
But Ash needed to find her way home too.
“Squire Splinter.” The slight inflection when the queen called Splinter “squire” was enough to indicate that she was fast reconsidering her promise to Ash. “Why weren’t you with my daughter? You promised to keep her safe.”
The letter. The fight. The crown prince.
It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t her fault.
Splinter opened her mouth and closed it again. Anything she could say would sound like an excuse. It would only make matters worse. “I—”
The door slammed open, and Lucen, dressed in his practice gear, barged in. His pale face was blotched with red. He ran to his mother, discarding his leather braces and dropping them on the floor. “Is it true? They say Ash is gone. Everybody’s talking about it. Is it true?”
His voice cracked, like Splinter had never heard it crack before. Not even when they fought. He was pleading. He bit his lip.
Queen Aveline took one of his hands in hers and gently pried open his fingers, rubbing circles over them with her thumb. She nodded at Lambelin. “The palace remains locked down. I want the royal council assembled within the hour. I need a moment alone with my son.” She regarded Splinter. “We’ll talk later.” It sounded less like a promise, and more like a threat.
Both Lambelin and Splinter bowed. When Splinter straightened, she found herself staring right into the tearstained eyes of Lucen. He snarled, like he wanted to start their fight all over again. “You should have been there for her.”
“I would have been—” Splinter bit her tongue. Her head pounded. She would have been, if it hadn’t been for him.
Lucen flinched and looked away.
Lambelin grasped her shoulder. “Come. It’s best if you return to your room now.”
After weeks of squire training and tutors who expected all squires to jump at their commands, Splinter could only mutter, “Yes, my lord.”
But she kept her eyes on Lucen—who didn’t meet her gaze—while Lord Lambelin guided her out of the throne room, where the shadows obfuscated the stars above.
Splinter couldn’t sit by and wait. She had promised to protect Ash.
Once she had returned to the royal wing, she walked past her own room and toward the prince consort’s old office, where she traced the windowsill until she found the lever that Ash had used. She let the bookcases swing open and checked the passage for any sign of Ash.
Nothing. Nothing but darkness and silence.
Splinter hated silence. It was far too easy to fill it with worry.
Everyone assumed it had been the Ferisian Empire that stole Ash. What would they do to her? Would they ransom her? Would they hurt her?
Someone had to go after her. Someone had to find her.
She went to Ash’s room to collect the map Ash had used to teach Splinter her way around the buildings. Ash had marked down every passage in case Splinter ever needed a shortcut to her classes.
Splinter planned to make her way through every single one, just in case the guard had missed anything.
But on the third floor, guards were swarming the hallways, methodically scouring rooms and passages. When Splinter tried to get closer, her practice sword at her side, she was pushed back, like the other nobles who gathered to watch and whisper.
“I’m Ash’s squire!” Splinter called. “I want to help.”
“You can help by staying out of our way,” a blond guard with a gruff voice replied. “We’ll do what we can to find her.”
Splinter tried another wing, where she was met with similar chaos. Two courtiers, tall young women in flowery dresses, observed the search from a distance, gossiping behind their fans.
“When I was her age, I wanted to run away from home all the time. Perhaps she chose to go back to Byrne. It’s a simpler, quieter place for her.”
“They say the poor girl was kidnapped. Kidnapped. If the palace guards cannot even protect a princess, how can we feel safe here?”
“Don’t worry, I don’t think the Ferisian Empire is coming for your fake diamond earrings quite yet, Dinah.”
Splinter pushed past the squabbling women and approached the nearest guard, who stopped her. “No. We don’t need help. We don’t need good advice. We don’t need rumors from your friend’s cousin’s neighbor who saw the princess being carried away. We are doing what we can.”
“But I . . . ,” Splinter started, but the guard had already turned away.
With every passing hour, the gossip grew more outrageous. On every floor, the guard tried to disperse the gathered nobles, but they simply flocked to another part of the investigation.
Everywhere Splinter tried, the response was the same. The guards didn’t need help. They wouldn’t let her pass.
And Ash was nowhere to be found.
Splinter grew desperate. Once, she saw Lambelin walk past from a distance, but by the time she’d elbowed her way through, he was gone.
She wasn’t Ash’s squire anymore in the eyes of the palace.
But she was her friend.
Splinter knew what she had to do. She returned to her room and dressed in her most comfortable leather armor and a midnight-blue cloak. She grabbed the stash of candies and dried fruits that Ash had stored away for emergencies, munching on a few of them to silence the pangs of missed dinner. And she waited for darkness to blanket the city.
Before she left, she placed her mother’s ornamental dagger in the rack above her desk, as a silent promise that she would return—with Ash.
Inside the palace, Splinter zigzagged around the gossip and around the worries that the guard had no clues or witnesses. Outside, she cast a longing gaze in the direction of the royal stables, where Owl was housed, but she didn’t want to draw attention to herself.
Instead she held her head high when she approached the first gate out. The lanterns were lit, and the soft orange glow formed a barrier against the deep emptiness of the night. “I’m running errands for Lord Lambelin,” she lied. “I have to go to the lower wards.”
The guard at the gate, the copper band around his sleeve indicating he was a sergeant-at-arms, squinted at her. “Aren’t you the princess’s squire? Are you the one who let her get stolen?”
Splinter gritted her teeth. “The lord commander won’t like to be kept waiting. Let me pass.”
The sergeant grunted and stepped aside. “Far be it from me to make sense of who the commander trusts.”
At the next gate, Splinter told a similar story. “Lord Lambelin wants the latest information from the curtain walls. Please let me through.”
At the third and final gate, Splinter noticed the guard on duty was the same one who’d given her entrance to the palace on her first day. Guardsman Jasse. She picked up her pace and waved at him. “Running errands for Lord Lambelin, I’ll be back soon!”
The second guard at the gate stepped forward to stop her, but Jasse shook his head. He furrowed his brow. Some part of Splinter wanted him to demand an explanation. Leaving the palace felt far too easy after she had fought so hard to be allowed in. But she couldn’t stay. She had to figure out who had taken Ash, how they had gotten to her, and where she was now.
The guard would search every corner of the palace grounds. Lord Lambelin would interrogate Lord Maronne, who was the crown’s best lead. So Splinter would talk to the two girls who—with a bit of luck and eavesdropping—knew everything their parents knew. Hazel and Mist.
Splinter cracked her knuckles.
She would bring Ash home.
As soon as she stepped through the last gate onto the meandering road down the hill, a blade flashed in the starlight, a hand pulled her into the shadows, and the tip of a dagger pointed at her throat.
Chapter Fifteen
Splinter
Splinter searched the shadows for the person on the other side of the weapon. A figure in a supple dark cloak stared back at her, a heavy bag slung over his shoulders. Despite the large hood he used to hide his face, she’d recognize that scowl anywhere.
“What are you doing here?” Splinter and Lucen hissed at the same time.
Splinter narrowed her eyes. “I’m going to look for Ash,” she said. It should be obvious.
“You’re going to run around Haven and hope that someone has seen something?” Lucen’s words were sharp, but his voice sounded hesitant. The hand with the dagger dropped.
“It’s better than doing nothing!”
As soon as Lucen had lowered the dagger completely, Splinter charged at him. She vaguely registered the sound of the dagger tumbling to the cobblestone road as her fist collided with his arm. “If it hadn’t been for you, I would have been with her! None of this would have happened.”
She shoved him against the outer wall of the palace grounds, and punched.
She expected Lucen to fight back, like he had in the squires’ courtyard. Instead he raised his arms to protect his head. He didn’t flinch away. He didn’t reach for his weapon or block Splinter’s blows. “I know.”
She barely heard him at first. She only stopped because she refused to fight an opponent who didn’t fight back, even one two years older than she was. “What did you say?”
“I said I know.” Lucen was still scowling. He lowered his hands. His knuckles were bruised from the fight that afternoon, and red spots and scrapes showed where Splinter’s punches had landed. “You’re right.”
Splinter took a step back, uncertain. She was so angry at Lucen her fingers tingled and the back of her neck itched. This was the last thing she’d expected. “Good. So you know. That’s . . . good. . . .”
One of the guards at the gate took a lantern from its hook and began to walk down the road. Lucen hid deeper in his hood, until his face was obscured by darkness.
Splinter pushed herself closer to the wall too, but the guard noticed the movement, swinging the lantern in their direction.
“No loitering, no lingering! Keep walking!”
This late at night, only a handful of people made the trek from the palace to the city. Servants, mostly, who lived somewhere in Haven. On normal days, it’d be guards too, but Splinter assumed they were all needed in the palace.
Lucen grabbed Splinter’s hand, snatched the dagger from the cobblestones, and drew her toward the city. Flabbergasted, she let him, at least until they were well outside the glow of the guard’s lantern.
