Heart of Defiance (The Royal Spares)

Chapter 2

Chapter Two

Landric

“ H ere, have another!” Arette the barkeep grabs the cup I’ve drained and pushes a second mug of ale into my hands.

She heads off across the square, exchanging empties for newly filled vessels, with a spring in her step to match the music. A melody of lute and horns lilts through the air. Over near the players, a bunch of my fellow townspeople are bounding around in a dance of celebration under the glowing lanterns.

Gunther the baker has been distributing fresh pastries as fast as he and his assistant can bake them. Novak the farmer is handing out the pears and plums he brought to sell.

Everyone who isn’t dancing is wandering around exclaiming over what a spectacular night it is. I haven’t seen this many smiles on my neighbors’ faces in… in possibly my entire life.

Next to me, Rupert wrinkles his nose at his own barely touched mug of ale. He speaks with the dryly derisive edge I’ve gotten used to. “So this is what small town festivities look like. So… quaint. I suppose it’s not your fault when you don’t have much to work with.”

His two noble friends guffaw. I bite my tongue.

I do so much of that around the duke’s son that it’s a wonder I haven’t bitten right through. Rupert has a lot of opinions about my home and the people I’ve grown up with. Sometimes I’m not sure whether he takes the breaks from court life more to enjoy a little freedom or simply to gawk at his supposed lessers.

But I’ve been able to earn my way into his good graces. He doesn’t see me as quite the same clueless hick as everyone else in town.

So I will just keep biting my tongue until I can leverage this association into a career that sees my mother’s business secure—and me finally on my way out of this place.

Deiter, Rupert’s duller regular companion, gives the crowded square a puzzled frown. “What exactly are they celebrating again? Someone fought the Darium army?”

“Not the whole army,” I say. “A few soldiers were bashing up our fountain, and everyone got upset and managed to drive them off. We wouldn’t usually try to stand up to them.” Let alone hope to succeed.

The thought sends a quiver of excitement through me. I wish I’d been here to see the confrontation.

Even if just a glimpse of those skeletal uniforms can turn my gut into a lump as hard and cold as granite.

We only got the story secondhand after we headed into town for dinner once our fishing was done. The shadows shifting across the fountain in the lantern light show the statue of Adelheid is missing most of one arm, her nose and chin cracked off, a chunk missing from the jug that pours the water .

Looking at it sends a renewed pulse of anger through my veins. Can’t they let us keep anything ?

Rupert makes a disgruntled sound and smooths back his pale hair from his ruddy face. “It’s bad business, really. Father always says we should work with the empire, not against them, and I agree. We’ll put ourselves in a much better position in the long run.”

It’s not as if he’s in a position to make any political decisions at the moment. As far as I can tell, the most responsibility Duke Berengar trusts his son with is not to drown in the river when he takes off on one of his country larks.

Deiter and Leonhard murmur in eager agreement, though, so I force a smile. “It obviously wasn’t a move made out of wisdom.”

Only the pure, totally justifiable craving for retribution.

I scan the crowd as if I might pick out my mother’s face, even though I already looked for Mom earlier. She’ll be off in the shop’s back room, sorting through inventory and fretting over whether the acquisitions and sales will balance out. She might not even know anything unusual has happened.

She used to smile a lot more. Laugh, even. When she and Dad handled the business together, his sharp mind for negotiating the perfect pairing with her persuasive warmth, life felt easy.

Now I constantly get the impression that she’s treading water, a few weak kicks away from going under.

I glance up toward the memorial on the hill. Even with the celebration, someone remembered to light the lantern that sends a glow over the glossy stone.

It’s been seven years since we carved Dad’s name into its side. Seven years since a Darium noble marched into a negotiation with a tradesman and cut Dad down for daring to bargain for what the noble had decided was already his .

We still don’t really know how to live without him.

Rupert lets out a low, dark chuckle that immediately puts me on the alert. “Oh, look, there’s the waif of refuse who somehow started it all.”

I yank my gaze back to the crowd. Signy is just weaving past us, carrying a bucket I can’t make out the contents of.

Her tan face looks strangely solemn amid the revelers, but her dark eyes burn so fiercely I can’t look away. The waves of her black hair tumbling across her shoulders as wild as always only make her more breathtaking.

The lantern light glances across her face, and I spot the purpling splotch of a bruise on her jaw. My hand closes into a fist as if I could punch it into the past to smack down the prick who battered her.

Of course it would have been her who spoke up first, who launched herself at those soldiers rather than freezing up in fear. She’s never let all the caustic whispers stop her from doing what matters to her.

No one’s sneering at her now. Even as I watch, a couple of our neighbors raise their mugs to her in cheers, and another gives her arm a quick squeeze with a look of gratitude.

There’s something delightful about the startled awe she can’t quite hide beneath her wariness.

I saw her aunt and uncle among the dancers. What do they make of their niece’s sudden shift in status?

No one spoke against them when they kicked her out of their home at sixteen and left her to fend for herself. Trouble enough having to take in an orphan after they’d just finished raising their own children, but one who was rejected by her godlen? Who skulked around the town like she had nefarious deeds in mind?

Who could blame them for wanting no part in that? That’s what everyone murmured behind Signy’s back .

Funny how one brief act could shift opinion so quickly. I only hope it doesn’t swing back toward disdain by tomorrow.

She deserves better. She’s deserved so much better from me than simply trying to divert a little hostile attention away from her.

Gods, she must hate me. She must hate all of us.

And why shouldn’t she? Here I am, still playing along trying to win my own game.

“What is the bint doing?” Leonhard says, peering at Signy as she moves through the crowd toward the fountain.

Between the milling bodies, I catch a glimpse of her setting the bucket down on the rim of the basin. Several chunks of broken marble have been laid out along it nearby. She picks up the largest piece of arm and hops onto the rim to hold it to the statue’s stump.

Rupert figures it out at the same moment I do. He snorts. “Of course. She thinks she can fix it. Always poking around in the trash. I suppose like calls to like.”

Deiter shakes his head. “Why’s that fountain matter so much anyway?”

The words jolt out of me in a sharper tone than I intended. “Her mother made it. It’s the last sculpture she carved before a Darium soldier killed her.”

Rupert turns his attention on me, keenly enough that my skin prickles uneasily. He keeps his voice smooth, but I can hear the undercurrent of warning. “If the woman was anything like her daughter, I’m not sure the soldier should be blamed for it. No doubt she was asking for it.”

He’s goading me, wanting to see if I’ll react. And Great God help me, the urge to slam my fist into his smug face rushes up so fast I’m not sure I can contain it.

My shoulders stiffen with tension—and a clatter of hoofbeats breaks through the music, cutting off my anger with a startled hitch of my pulse .

Most of the crowd whirls toward the arrivals: several armed men on horseback who’ve drawn to a stop at the edge of the square. My heart thuds even louder in the split second before I recognize that they’re not wearing the eerie Darium uniforms but the burgundy jackets and steel caps of the Veldunian armed forces. The hobbled remains of our army that our Darium overseers allow to handle local disputes.

One of the soldiers prods his horse forward, his bright blue eyes blazing in stark contrast with his bronze-brown skin. “Stop the music! Grab what you can. You need to evacuate the town now. ”