Return of the vengeful q.., p.1
Return of the Vengeful Queen, page 1
Dedication
For Mary Weber, my ride or die in every era. I had the time of my life fighting dragons with you.
Map
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Map
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-One
Twenty-Two
Twenty-Three
Twenty-Four
Twenty-Five
Twenty-Six
Twenty-Seven
Twenty-Eight
Twenty-Nine
Thirty
Thirty-One
Thirty-Two
Thirty-Three
Thirty-Four
Thirty-Five
Thirty-Six
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Books by C. J. Redwine
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Copyright
About the Publisher
One
DAWN BROKE IN shreds of crimson gold, spilling across the dark expanse of the Draiel Sea like liquid fire as Charis Willowthorn, exiled princess of Calera, readjusted her compass and drew an invisible line across the ship’s map with her finger.
The upper corner of the map was anchored in place by the captain’s log, the leather volume opened to a page of fresh notations in Orayn’s looping scrawl. To Charis’s left sat the tide chart, its edges smudged from use by the smugglers who’d once owned this vessel. She double-checked the chart, her throat tightening.
They’d make port in Solvang today.
Three weeks on the open seas, constantly scanning the waters for signs of pursuit by the monstrous Rakuuna who’d invaded Calera. Three weeks of sleepless nights and endless scheming to find a way to kill the enemy and rescue her people—and it all came down to this.
Somehow she had to convince the rulers of Solvang to stand with her against powerful creatures who moved faster than humans, could sink a ship with the brute strength of their hands, and whose reach was so long, swords were all but useless against them. Worry squirmed in her belly.
No ruler in their right mind would join her cause.
The blue lines of the map wavered before her, and she rubbed at the gritty exhaustion in her eyes. This was no time to lose focus.
“Good morning, Your Highness.”
Charis jumped, sending the tide chart fluttering to the floor, and whirled to find Orayn in the doorway of the tiny room.
“I apologize for startling you.” The big man ducked his shiny brown head beneath the doorjamb as he stepped inside and bent to retrieve the chart. He looked closely at her as he set it on the navigation table.
“Is something amiss?” Orayn’s deep voice reminded Charis of King Edias’s, and for an instant, she was back in Father’s sun-warmed quarters, her head resting against him as he told her everything would be all right. A lance of pain pierced her heart, and she abruptly set the compass on the table and turned for the door.
“All is well,” she said in a voice so hollow, she barely recognized it as her own.
“It’s a fine day for a coronation. Everyone on board is looking forward to it.” He bowed as she backed out of the little room, her heart knocking against her chest like a frantic bird in a cage.
Before the Rakuuna invasion, back when Charis was leading a secret group of loyalists to search the sea for the unseen enemy who was sinking Calera’s ships, everyone aboard their boat had worn masks so that she could protect her identity from all but the few she trusted.
The memory of including her former bodyguard Tal on that list was a constant ache—a wound she didn’t know how to close.
There was no point hiding her identity now. Still, revealing her true self and claiming her mother’s title were very different things.
Charis hadn’t wanted a coronation, but Holland, as next in line to the throne, had insisted. He’d argued that their people needed a queen, and that entering Solvang as Calera’s sovereign ruler gave Charis far more leverage than entering as an exiled princess.
He’d been right, but Charis had fought him on it until the very last moment.
It was taking everything she had to move forward, to shove aside the grief when she thought of Mother, fierce and indominable, falling to the ballroom floor beneath an onslaught of Rakuuna. And of Father, crumpled and lifeless in his bedroom. She was breathing by sheer force of will. Standing because she refused to let her knees give out.
How could she possibly do all that if she had to participate in a coronation?
Accepting the crown, the title, was real. It was final.
Charis couldn’t bear for this ruin to be final.
Turning away from the navigation room, she climbed past the cannons resting in their metal rings along the edges of the ship. Past the hammocks hastily strung between the masts for the people who hadn’t fit in the ship’s eight cabins. A few children still slept, clinging to their mothers’ arms, their dirty faces streaked with the remnants of tears.
Charis’s own cheeks were dry. Everything soft within her had been burned to ash when she’d found her father’s lifeless body and then learned that the boy she loved—the boy she’d trusted—was the son of her enemy, sent to spy on her.
A chilly breeze danced along the water and swept over the deck, prying at Charis’s cloak. She tugged the garment close, stepped past the last of the hammocks, and then stopped.
Grim, the palace groom who’d been Tal’s contact with Montevallo, and Dec, a sailor who’d turned out to be another Montevallian sent to look after their spy of a prince, were huddled in conversation at the bow.
Something cold and vicious unfurled in Charis’s chest as she stalked toward them.
“You.” She pointed at Grim. “You should be down in the brig taking care of the horses.”
He held her gaze, and she ignored the worried grief in his eyes. Let him be terrified as he imagined Tal’s fate at the hands of the Rakuuna who’d kidnapped him. Let it keep him up at night, eating at him until peace was nothing but a distant memory.
It still wouldn’t be half of what he deserved.
The fact that worry over Tal’s fate sometimes crept into her own thoughts as well was unfortunate, but it wasn’t anything that a reminder of his betrayal couldn’t fix.
Grim shot a look at Dec, his freckled brow collapsing into a frown. “Your Highness, if I might ask what you’re planning once we reach port—”
In three steps, Charis closed the distance between them, her dagger in her hand. Before he could do more than blink in surprise, she had the point of the blade against his throat.
“Three weeks of silence from you isn’t long enough. You will not speak to me unless I ask you to. You will not leave the brig unless I send for you. You will remember that this is a Caleran ship, and you are the enemy.” She turned to lock eyes with Dec. The boy was taller than Tal, with black hair, brown skin, and brown eyes. As always, he was quiet and still, his body giving her no indication of what he was thinking.
She bared her teeth in a cruel smile, feeling every inch her mother. “As for you, traitor, the only reason I’m not sending you to the brig to care for the horses with your dishonorable friend is because Orayn needs competent sailors to help run this ship.”
Dec inclined his head respectfully.
“I am keeping the two of you alive and fed solely for the purpose of providing me with useful information on the inner workings of the court at Montevallo.” She drew her second dagger and aimed it at Dec. “If either of you refuses to cooperate, I will run you through with my sword, mount your head to the bow, and throw your body into the sea. Are we quite clear?”
“We’re clear.” Dec’s voice was so quiet, she could barely hear him over the sound of the water slapping against the sides of the boat.
She sheathed her daggers as Grim moved toward the steps that led into the belly of the ship. Dec shifted as if to move away as well, then paused.
“You may cut out my tongue for saying this if you need to, Your Highness, but I’m truly sorry for what happened to your people and to you. It’s horrifying, and if you want my help fighting back, I freely offer it.”
Before she could respond, he bowed and then headed toward Orayn. She stepped to the edge of the ship, gripping the wooden railing so hard her palms ached.
There was no room inside her for being sorry. There was only rage and ruin and the desperate hope that, somehow, she could save her kingdom.
Mother had trained Charis to be smarter. Strike harder. To never falter, never waver, never break. Every interaction was a chess move, and only the most ruthless person on the board survived to win the game.
Maybe she could barely breathe past the grief. It was no excuse to stop thinking five steps ahead. No excuse to falter, even when the task in front of her would cut her to pieces.
“Charis?”
A soft voice spoke from behind her. Turning, she found her cousin Nalani Farragin—the closest thing she had to a best friend now that Tal no longer deserved the title.
“Are you ready?” Nala
“Ready or not, it’s time.” Holland joined his twin sister, his black duster and battered sword sheath looking right at home aboard the ship. Hildy, the fluffy, multicolored kitten Tal had rescued and given to Father, perched on Holland’s shoulder, blinking in the early morning sunlight. Holland swept Charis with a critical eye. “You look awful. Did you even try to sleep?”
“Holland!” Nalani smacked his stomach lightly with the back of her hand.
He raised his brows. “It’s the truth.”
“That doesn’t mean you say it out loud.”
“I’m fine.” The lie rolled off her tongue with practiced ease. She’d spent the last three weeks repeating it until she no longer considered answering differently. “Let’s get this done before we make port.”
Holland stood to Charis’s right as she turned to face the small crowd assembled on the deck. Nalani stood beside him. They both looked gravely serious, an expression shared by everyone on the ship. Every member of the royal staff that Charis had managed to take with her when the palace fell. Every sailor who’d scrambled to escape the chaos at the port. Every merchant, farmer, and peasant Holland, Nalani, and Delaire, a young noblewoman who’d escaped the ballroom with them, had whisked off the streets on their way to the dock—and quite a few who hadn’t fit in the carriage but had followed on foot in a race for their lives. Sixty-two people who gathered in silence on the deck, staring up at Charis as she stood on the forecastle above them.
Reuben, one of two remaining palace guards, was a few steps behind Charis’s left shoulder, looking faintly ill, as sailing did not agree with his stomach. He kept his hand on his sword, his somewhat-bedraggled uniform buttoned up to his chin while his eyes scanned the crowd, hunting for threats, just as he would’ve done if she’d been standing on the dais in the palace throne room.
The thought of the throne room with its one golden chair where Charis had spent countless hours standing silently to Mother’s right squeezed her chest until the next breath felt impossible to take.
Then Orayn stepped to her left side wearing the captain’s jacket he’d had on the night of the invasion, pale blue braided tassels looping over the shoulders as silver buttons gleamed against his chest. He held a crown in his large hands—a delicate concoction of twisted silver wire that one of the merchant women had fashioned from spare supplies found in the cargo hold.
The thin metal shaped at the whim of the woman’s hands reminded Charis of the dagger hairpiece Tal had made for her by twisting a simple updo cage into a weapon. Was that how he’d seen her? As a weapon he needed to keep close so he could predict where she would strike?
The memory of Tal drew blood.
She was a weapon. She had to be. Her kingdom’s survival depended on it.
Orayn cleared his throat and then spoke in a voice that boomed across the length of the ship. “We, the remnant of Calera, gather on this, the twenty-third day after the enemy invasion, to formally acknowledge and accept as our sovereign ruler Charis Aliya Willowthorn, heir of Letha Roelle Willowthorn and Edias Stephren Lorrinton. Let our allies rejoice and our enemies tremble. Long live the queen!”
“Long live the queen!” the crowd yelled, their eyes lit with fervor.
Charis kept her expression regal and cold as Orayn settled the crown onto her head.
“Your Majesty.” Orayn bowed. Instantly, the twins and Reuben followed suit.
Charis blinked rapidly as the crowd at her feet bowed, their murmured “Your Majesty” rolling through the air and slamming into Charis as if she’d been struck by the hilt of a sword.
Her chest heaved, a silent sob she trapped inside by sheer force of will. The featherlight weight of the crown on her head suddenly felt impossible to bear.
She shouldn’t be queen.
Her family shouldn’t be dead.
Her kingdom shouldn’t be in ruins.
The salty air seemed to scour her throat raw as she drew in a breath.
“Would you like to say a few words, Your Majesty?” Holland asked beside her.
Another impossible thing. Even if she could force herself to speak past the ache in her throat, what could she say? She had nothing but grief and rage and the promise that she’d made to herself to see her vengeance through to the bitter end.
“Charis,” Nalani breathed, a quiet plea that wouldn’t reach the ears of those waiting below.
Tearing her gaze from the distant place where the sea met the sky, Charis looked at the faces below her.
They were full of grief and rage, too. But they had something else. Something more. A flicker of desperate hope as they gazed up at their new queen.
She forced herself to swallow against the ache. Licked her lips with a tongue gone bone-dry. And let her fury blaze within.
“People of Calera.” Her voice shook with anger. She let it spill out of her and fill the air, a vicious, shimmering thing born of bloodshed and loss. “We have been through something unspeakable. We have been deeply wronged by the monstrous Rakuuna from Te’ash. We have been betrayed by our former ally Rullenvor, who aligned themselves with the monsters and set us up for destruction.”
The words tore through her throat, raw and painful. “We lost countless loved ones on our most sacred night of the year. And an invader now resides in the palace. It would be easy to look at all of that and feel despair. But all is not lost.”
She let the statement linger, let them see the unyielding determination on her face. Let the faint light of hope in their eyes burn a little brighter. And then she stepped forward until her stomach pressed against the carved wooden railing.
“We are not running away from Calera. This”—she flung out an arm to encompass the ship—“is not escape. This is strategy.”
Slowly, she swept the crowd, meeting a sailor’s gaze, a merchant’s, a mother’s. “We will go to Solvang for supplies and information about the Rakuuna. From there, we will send out a call to the rest of our allies, and especially to Montevallo. My betrothal treaty with them will ensure that they commit their army to our cause.”
And if it didn’t, then the threat of losing Tal, the king’s youngest son, to Charis’s blade should do the trick.
“I will personally see to your safety. And then I will bring all who are able to sail with me on a journey of vengeance. We will not rest until we march into our royal city of Arborlay with an army at our backs and cleanse our soil of every last invader who dared set foot on Calera’s shores.”
She paused, her words ringing across the water, and Holland pulled his sword free of its sheath with a metallic scrape. Stepping to her side, he raised the blade above his head and yelled, “For the queen and for Calera!”
Reuben’s sword flashed as he lifted it. “For the queen and for Calera!”
The crowd stirred, drawing weapons if they had them, raising fists when they didn’t. “For the queen and for Calera!”
They chanted the words, louder and louder, until the deck seemed to tremble beneath Charis’s feet. The thrum of their voices reverberated in her chest, a heartbeat that would not be denied.
She drew her own sword and raised it high, her skin prickling with goose bumps, the crown on her head the heaviest thing she’d ever worn.
“Death to our enemies and to all who fight against us!” Her voice cut through the air, and the crowd below her roared. Shaking their fists, screaming their approval, the wild light of hope alive on their faces.
She held her sword aloft and let them scream. Let their rage and their hope blister the air while she stood, crown firmly in place. It didn’t matter that her knees wanted to buckle. That she was faint from both lack of sleep and lack of food. That everything in her longed to hear Mother’s cold voice slice through the chaos as the queen took control.
It was real. It was final.
Charis was queen now. There was no looking back, no matter what her heart wanted. There was only the path in front of her and the fortitude she would need to see it through.
Two
UNLIKE THE GENTLE, rolling hills and large fields that graced eastern Calera, Solvang’s shoreline was a long strip of golden sand bordered by thick dunes that backed up to forested cliffs of rugged rock. Roads of pale crushed stone wound their way through the trees and into the capital city of Ooverstaad, where the streets were lined with tall, narrow buildings in dark cranberry, navy, or gray. Every few blocks, a well-tended park with benches, fountains, and swings for the children stood safely ensconced behind an iron fence. Ribbons of fog threaded their way through the city.
