: Chapter 52

I’m woken by shouting.

No, cheering. The soldiers in the barnyard are cheering. Excited whoops and victorious hollers that are definitely going to wake Nora.

I try to make sense of the noise to figure out why they’re so happy. I move to the window to look down. Several lanterns have been lit, and the soldiers are excitedly milling about.

“Callyn.”

Nora stands in the doorway of my bedroom, her face tight and worried. She knows who’s in our barn—and she knows that cheering from the queen’s captors is likely not good news.

“Go get dressed,” I say to her quickly, then move to do the same for myself. I press a hand to my mother’s pendant. I don’t know what’s going on, but after what happened with the princess, I don’t want to deal with it in a sleeping shift.

Minutes later, we’re down in the bakery. Nora draws close and clutches at my fingers as we hide just inside the door to peek out.

The soldiers are still cheering. There are dozens of them now. Maybe over a hundred.

Where did they all come from? Were they sleeping in the woods?

“What are they saying?” Nora whispers. “They keep chanting. We caught …”

“The king,” I say breathlessly. “They caught the king.”

And the queen is held prisoner in my barn.

Alek asked me where my loyalties lie. He said he was loyal to the queen—but now she’s been imprisoned by the very people who were supposedly protecting her.

I want to honor my mother’s memory, but I can’t imagine she’d be doing this.

My father did.

The memory burns. If this was his plan when they raided the palace the first time … then he was wrong.

The guards and soldiers are everywhere now, but they’ve been allowing me to bring food to the queen since I first learned of her presence. I don’t see why that would change if they’ve caught their quarry.

“Help me pack a few bags with food,” I say to Nora. “We need to make them heavy so I have a reason for you to be with me.” I think quickly. The soldiers were checking the bags of food at first, but either they grew bored with it or they stopped worrying about me planning anything. They’re so busy celebrating now that they surely won’t bother this time. “Fetch Mother’s daggers from under the bed. Pile the loaves from yesterday on top of them.”

Her eyes go even wider. “Why?”

“Hurry.” I glance out the window of the door again. “I don’t want to leave you here.”

“Why not?”

“Because we’re going to try to save the queen.”