The Never King, page 12
part #1 of Lost Lands Series
“Please! It’s Gable!” I cry, my voice cracking with emotion. “He’s not Bastian! He’s Gable! He’s Gable Bouchard, the Bastard Prince!”
The men hesitate. Their eyes flicker to each other, then back to me. Renot squints at my hand and the ring on my first finger. His brow clears when he reads it.
His gun goes down slowly.
“Put your gun down,” he whispers to Gall. “She’s a Villette.”
chapitre trente-deux
It’s a long, bumpy ride to Braise, the capital of Brûlé. Bastian and I pass the first hour in uncomfortable silence sitting in the back of Renot’s large white pickup. Its tires are almost taller than I am. Bastian had to hoist me up over his head to help me get into the bed. He didn’t say a word to me as he did it. In fact, he hasn’t said anything since the barn, but the questions are coming. I can almost hear them whispering in his brain over the drone of the engine barreling us deeper and deeper into the hinterlands.
“Why did he call you ‘maddy’?” he asks.
“It’s what they say here instead of ‘mademoiselle’.”
“I’ve never heard that before.”
“You don’t exactly spend a lot of time with the Brûlén.”
“Do you?”
“No.”
“Then why does your last name matter to them?” he asks calmly.
That’s clever. He’s asking casually like it doesn’t bother him, he just wants to know. He’s curious. Everyone is curious. He definitely won’t be mad, no matter what I answer. So… why? Why do they know me? Why did they take my word for it that he was Gable Bouchard instead of his evil twin just because I said so? Just because my name is Villette?
“Because they like my grandfather,” I answer vaguely.
“They haven’t worked with him in over a decade. How does his name carry so much weight?”
“You’d have to ask them.”
But please don’t.
“I’m asking you,” he tells me.
I cough roughly, choking on dirt kicked up by the big back wheels of the truck. This area was miraculously untouched by the rain, the dirt dry as sand. On top of everything else, Bastian and I will now be covered in a thin layer of dust when we get home to Loire.
Assuming we make it home at all.
If they find out he’s Bastian, not Gable, I’m finished. Plain and simple. I tried to deceive them, and whatever goodwill my last name grants me will be gone in an instant. In a flash of gunpowder.
Poof.
Bang.
Dead.
This is a high stakes game Bastian and I are playing, and to play it with any chance of winning we need to be on the same page. Meaning I need to tell him the truth. About everything.
“My grandfather never stopped working with the Brûlén,” I admit, my voice barely audible.
I’m giving life to a secret I’ve lived with for half my existence. It’s a part of me. One I’m forcibly ripping from inside my chest and laying out bare in front of him under the glaring sun. It feels indecent and grotesque to say it out loud.
“He still trades with them?” Bastian asks.
“They run his routes for him.”
“The Crown pays him for running those routes with his own soldiers.”
“Hazard pay. I know. It doesn’t matter. It’s not enough. The Bluecoats have never been equipped to be in the borderlands. They tried once. They were ambushed. Too many men died and Grandfather swore he’d never send them out again. He asked Brûlé for help. They already had the armored trucks and the experience.” I shiver, pulling my arms in tight around my body. The wind is cold as we hurry across the dusty farmlands. “It was easy for them. He pays Brûlé with the extra money from the King, goods go in and out of France, the Brûlén have a fair amount of coin in their pocket, and your father is happy thinking he cut out his worst enemies. Everybody wins. No one gets hurt.”
We pass a mile in silence. Maybe more. Maybe less.
I can’t take the quiet anymore.
“I’m sorry,” I tell him.
“For which sin?”
“I’m sorry you lost your parents.”
He exhales hard through his nose, his nostrils flaring. “I don’t need your pity.”
“It’s not pity. It’s condolences.”
“I don’t need that either. Not from someone who hated them.”
“I didn’t hate them.”
He looks at me sharply.
“I didn’t hate them both,” I amend. “Queen Marie was a good person.”
“Was she?”
I shrug. “I guess I don’t really know. I didn’t talk to her much.”
“She didn’t have much to say, and if she said anything it was to Gable. No one else.”
The sound of his name hurts. It stings like needles. My throat is dry and tight, my eyes burning. It’s just the dirt. It’s such a mess back here.
“It’s probably better if we don’t talk,” I tell him.
“You’re probably right.”
chapitre trente-trois
I’ve never been to a Brûlé village. I’ve never been outside the walls of France before, but as we approach the bustling town, the thing that amazes me the most about this completely foreign place is how utterly familiar it is. The houses are built in the same design you’d find in a small village in France – boxy and simple with weathered thatch rooves and large windows pouring light into every corner. Wildflowers grow freely in the front yards. The roads are heavily patched but well maintained. A crop of wind turbines thwumps rhythmically on the edge of town. It’s the sound of stability. Of safety.
As Renot drives us through the center of town, people stop on the street to stare. Not only are Bastian and I dressed differently from them, we’re covered in mud and dirt. We’re like an attraction in a traveling zoo. People pour into the streets to see us go by.
Renot comes to a stop in front of a building on the main strip. Its exterior is painted white. There’s a large, black sign on the top that reads POLIZIA.
“Why is it written in Italian?” I ask Gall as he gets out of the truck.
“It’s as good a language as any.”
“How many do you speak?”
“Most.”
“Most?” I chuckle in disbelief.
He smiles proudly. “Most that are still around. Italian. Gaelic. German. English.”
“Gaelic? Isn’t that Ireland?”
“And Scotland.”
“Is Scotland still a country?”
“Come inside,” Renot commands.
He’s already halfway to the door.
Bastian jumps down from the truck first. I try not to notice when he winces because I know he doesn’t want me to, but his leg worries me.
He reaches for me. “Ready?”
It’s the first he’s spoken to me in thirty minutes.
I nod, swinging my legs over the edge of the truck where he can grab them. Bastian lifts me like I weigh nothing, setting me down on the ground with a soft grunt.
I thank him but he doesn’t respond.
Inside the police station is nothing but two black desks in front of two black chairs over black flooring. The walls are so white they almost hurt to look at. Two bulletin boards full of postings hang on the wall – nothing else. There’s nothing on the desks. No one in the chairs. Our feet echo as we march into the middle of the vast, nearly empty room. The only thing taking up any real space is a doorway to a dark hall and a long line of cages spread out next to it. The bars and the single cot inside each one are made of wood painted – can you guess? – black.
A door slams in the back.
“Hello?!” Renot hollers.
“Who is it?!” a woman shouts back.
“Renot! Is that you, Brymer?!”
“Who else would it be?”
A tall woman with wispy white hair and beautifully wrinkled skin appears from the back of the building. She’s wearing a long, loose dress of raw cotton dyed an orange ombre that looks like a sunrise.
“We’ve got two more for you,” Renot tells her.
She gives Renot and Gall a quick going over before turning her attention to Bastian and I. Her eyes feel like Mother’s – sharp. She won’t miss much. Least of all the ring on my finger.
“Let me see it,” she demands immediately, gesturing for me to come to her.
I go obediently. She twists my hand back and forth as she examines the ring for longer than seems possible.
What is she looking for?
“What’s your name?” she asks me briskly.
“Aurelia.”
“What’s your whole name?”
“Aurelia Villette.”
Brymer drops my hand impatiently. “Your whole name. What’s your title?”
“My grandfather said the Brûlén don’t have any use for titles.”
“Henry? Is that your grandfather?”
“Yes.”
“You’re not Brûlén, granddaughter of Henry. You’re French. What’s your fancy French title?”
“Mademoiselle Aurelia Villette, Duchess d’ Poitiers,” I tell her, careful not to sound too proud of it.
“Is that all?”
“So far.”
“You have plans to add to it?”
“It seems to happen naturally to a girl like me.”
She raises a thin eyebrow. “What kind of girl is that?”
“Privileged.”
I’m relieved when Brymer smiles crookedly. Her lips are almost as thin as her eyebrows, pale and translucent. “So you know you’re spoiled.”
“I know how lucky I am.”
“We’ll see about that.” She looks past me, dismissing me. Her eyes are on Bastian. “What about you, boy? What’s your name?”
“Gable Bouchard,” he answers. “I don’t have any titles.”
“Not anymore.”
“No, ma’am.”
She chuckles hoarsely. “‘Ma’am’. Did you hear that, Duchess? The stable boy has better manners than you do.”
“He always has,” I agree.
“My name is Brymer,” she tells Bastian sharply. “Not ‘ma’am’. If you call me ‘ma’am’ again I’ll clap your ears until they bleed.”
“Understood,” he says.
She looks him over from head to toe. It’s the third inspection she’s given him since we got here. It’s beginning to make me nervous.
“This is Gable?” she asks me.
“Yes.”
“You’re sure of it?”
“I’d stake my life on it.”
“Never do that,” she scolds. “No man is worth dying for.”
Brymer walks to the farthest desk where she sits down heavily. She looks tired and stiff. She can’t be their head of police, she’s too old, so what is she? I would ask her but she’d consider it rude. They aren’t fans of labels. They don’t even use last names.
Un Brûlén et un Brûlén. A Brulen is a Brulen.
There are no clans. No families beyond their tribe.
“Well,” Brymer says to no one in particular, “we have a Villette and we have a Bouchard. Throw in the soldiers and the aristocrats from yesterday and we’ve got ourselves a Full House. What are we going to do with a hand like that?”
“Do you want me to send a message to Fennel?” Renot asks.
“Not yet.”
“When?”
She turns to glare at him and his audacity. “What’s the hurry?”
“We have a Bouchard. Fennel should know.”
“He should, but he’s out of reach at the moment.”
“If we sent a car they could be there by tomorrow.”
Brymer leans forward, looking past him. “What did I tell him, Gall?”
“Not yet,” he answers quickly.
“There’s your answer, Renot. Quit asking.”
Renot rolls his jaw. “Whatever you say, Brymer.”
They don’t have titles here but they definitely have some kind of hierarchy. Brymer absolutely outranks Renot.
She gestures to the cells on the wall. “Lock them up. Bring fresh clothes and water for washing. Feed them if they’re hungry.”
“Are we prisoners?” I ask her.
“You’re not guests.”
“How long will you hold us?”
She grunts, standing to leave. “Be happy you’re alive, Duchess.”
Renot is excited to put us in our cells. He’s almost smiling as the locks click into place, our freedom suspended indefinitely.
Bastian gets the cell with a thin window. I’m irrationally jealous of that.
Renot disappears but Gall brings in clean clothes and food. He and Bastian turn their backs while I change, but it still feels strange to get undressed with two men in the room; one a stranger, the other a Bouchard. Mother would be mortified, especially by the outfit I’m wearing – loose gray pants and a plain white t-shirt. It’s the same thing they give to Bastian. I’m pretty sure it’s a prison uniform.
“Is it true what you said in the barn?” I ask Gall as he hands me a plate of meat, cheese, and bread. “Are the King and Queen dead?”
His eyes dart to the hallway. “That’s what we’ve heard,” he answers quietly.
“From who?”
“Your grandad.”
“How did he get word to you so fast?”
“I’m sorry, maddy,” he replies reluctantly. “I can’t tell you that. I’m not supposed to tell you much of anything, even if you are a Villette.”
I smile to reassure him. “That’s alright, Gall. I was just hoping maybe you could answer one more question.”
“I don’t know if—”
“Did my family in Loire survive?”
He’s uncomfortable, but he’s not heartless. He knows he can’t leave me with nothing, but what he gives me is so much worse.
“Some,” he says evasively.
Doubt. That one word fills my head with so much doubt, I can hardly see straight.
“How many?” I ask desperately. “Who?”
“I’m not supposed to tell.”
“Please.”
Gall grimaces. He gathers our filthy clothes off the floor, desperate to get away from me. “I can’t. I’m sorry.”
“No, Gall, don’t go.”
He doesn’t listen. He almost runs, leaving Bastian and I alone in the heavy silence of the blank room. Inside my head I’m screaming.
WHO?!
The door slams shut behind him, locking me in with the uncertainty.
“I’m sorry, Ria,” Bastian says gently.
“I don’t—I mean, how do I—” I shake my head, blowing out slowly through my mouth. In through my nose. I breathe until the tears abate, the way Mémé taught me. “I can’t think about it. Not until I know who.”
Bastian nods silently, his eyes on the floor.
He’s giving me space. He’s being kind.
I can hardly stand it.
I sniff sharply, forcing a laugh. “You know what’s messed up about not knowing who’s dead and who’s alive?”
“What?”
“You realize you have a preference. If it’s my mother or my dad, I’d rather my mother was dead. My mother or Iris? Mother again. Iris or Dad.” My breath catches painfully. “They’re not all easy choices, but the easy ones, they make you feel like trash, you know? I’m a terrible person.”
“As an actual terrible person, I can tell you that you’re not.”
I smile sadly. “That’s weirdly comforting. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
“I’m sorry too.”
He shakes his head. “I told you not to be. I don’t want it.”
“It feels selfish feeling sorry for myself when you’ve lost everyone.”
“It’s okay to be selfish sometimes.” He runs his hands over his face, exhaling slowly. “It’s liberating.”
I let my head fall against the wooden bars with a painful thump. “What are we gonna do?”
“There isn’t a lot we can do right now.”
“We have to get home.”
“I agree.”
“But how?”
“Ria.”
“You don’t know,” I murmur. “Me either.”
Bastian and I eat the food that Gall left us but I don’t have the enthusiasm for it that I did a few minutes ago. It’s my own fault. I wanted to know about my family and now I do. Sort of. The size of my hope has been whittled down to a pebble I can hold in the palm of my hand, smooth and round with worrying. I’ve touched it too much. I need to leave it alone before it disappears entirely.
“Who’s Fennel?” Bastian asks around a mouthful of turkey. “Do you know him?”
“I know of him. He’s like their king, if they had one.”
“He’s in charge?”
“Basically.”
“Is he going to kill me?”
“I doubt he’d do it himself.”
“Funny,” he mutters.
I wince apologetically. “You’re right. It’s not funny. I really don’t know. You’re… Gable, and I don’t know what that means for them. On one hand, you have no claim to the throne and you’ve never been close with your dad. On the other, you’re the last Bouchard. They might look at you as nothing or they might see you as a threat. I honestly have no idea.”
“That’s what I figured.”
“Just don’t do anything impulsive. Try not to make them angry. I don’t know much but I know we don’t want to be on Brûlé’s bad side.”
“What are you worried about? I thought they loved your people.”
“I’m in a cage too, so apparently they don’t love us as much as I thought.”
“That’s the upswing of being universally hated,” Bastian smirks. “You’re never surprised.”
chapitre trente-quatre
That night they bring us dinner and toothbrushes. We’re allowed out of our cells one at a time to use a small bathroom in the hallway. A light burns dimly in the room at the end of the corridor, the door half-closed, but I’m not allowed to get too close. My new jailer, a woman in her forties with impatient blue eyes, pushes me into the bathroom. She doesn’t let me close the door.
A man younger and stronger than her takes Bastian to the bathroom. He doesn’t say a word but the pistol on his hip speaks volumes.
“Brymer said that there were other French survivors,” I mention to the woman while we wait. “Where are they now?”
