Rae Carson - The King's Guard

Fernando bites his tongue for once, but it’s likely more from exhaustion than anything else. Or maybe he’s worried Mandrano will notice the state of his shoes.

Mandrano comes to me last. “That is a lovely quilt, recruit,” he says.

“Thank you, sir.”

“It’s the envy of every little girl in Brisadulce. I saw them sitting on the wall today, staring at that blanket and asking their mothers if they could join the Guard so they could have one just like it. Is that what you want, recruit? You want a Guard full of little girls?”

“If they can fight well enough to defend the king, sir.”

“Are you talking back to me?”

“No, sir.”

“Tuck every bit of that quilt under the mattress, recruit. If I see even the tiniest edge, I will confiscate it and destroy it. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes, sir.”

I do as he asks as quickly as possible. He inspects everything one more time while we sway unsteadily on our feet, our stomachs growling. Finally, finally , he gives us leave to seek out a meal.

We tumble from the barracks and into the mess with renewed energy, but we stop short as soon as we arrive. The place is empty.

“What did you expect?” Mandrano says. “You shouldn’t have taken so long in the training yard.”

Beside me, Fernando whimpers, and I hope with all the hope inside me that Mandrano did not hear.

“The cooks won’t arrive to begin breakfast for another half hour,” Mandrano says. “You’re free until then.” All nine of us glower at his back as he leaves.

“Now what?” Fernando says. “I guess we could go back to our room and sleep for a bit.”

“I’m not going to risk missing a meal,” says one of the others.

“I could thrash Hector now,” Lucio suggests hopefully.

I swing my legs over the nearest bench and plop my forearms onto the table. “I’m sleeping right here,” I announce. “So I can wake up as soon as the kitchen opens.” I let my head drop onto my arms. Lucio can thrash me if he wants, but I’ll probably just sleep through it.

I wake to a hand shaking my shoulder, and I jump up, reaching for a sword that isn’t there.

“Easy, my lord,” says a high voice.

“Just a recruit now,” I mumble.

A boy with curly hair backs away from me. I blink at him to clear sleep from my eyes. It’s one of the new pages. Adán or Ando or something like that.

Men are filtering into the mess hall. Easy laughter fills the air, along with the sounds of spoons against bowls and benches scraping the floor. I step away, intending to dart toward the meal line, but the page grabs my arm. “Message from the king,” he says. “You’re being summoned.”

A hush settles over the mess hall. Everyone stares at me. Everyone who isn’t glowering, that is. The page holds out a piece of folded parchment.

Alejandro, what have you done?

Captain Mandrano is at my side before I can react, snatching the king’s note from my fingertips. “What’s this about?” he says.

“How should I know?” I snap. “I haven’t read it yet.”

Mandrano’s glare is as hot as a blacksmith’s furnace. My brother Felix used to say that my knives would never be as sharp as my tongue, which was a shame. But seeing Mandrano looking at me with murder in his eyes makes me understand that my sharp tongue will be my downfall unless I learn to control it.

“You can read it, of course,” I say.

He turns it over, a tiny square in his large hands, but the seal stops him. “That’s His Majesty’s mark,” he says. “It’s addressed to you. Only you can open it.”

He means it sincerely, I can tell. The king’s seal is sacred to him.

When he hands it back to me, I tear it open at once. Come immediately is all it says in Alejandro’s fluid, elegant scrawl.

“Damn it,” I say.

A half dozen possibilities run through my mind. Chief among them is an early morning tryst. I used to deliver messages to coordinate his assignations with the court ladies—the errand I hated most. But that can’t be it; he ceased all such behavior after marrying Rosaura.

The collective stares of the Royal Guardsmen press in around me, and I realize it doesn’t matter why I’m being summoned. Everyone will see this as confirmation that I’m the king’s flunky, exempt from the usual standards and behaviors expected of a Royal Guard.

With the seal broken and the message read, Mandrano casts his reservations aside and tears it from my grasp again. “Well, then, squire ,” he says, turning the title into an insult. “You’d better go at once.” He stuffs the summons back into my hand and shoves me toward the door. It feels like a permanent dismissal.

The scent of hot, honeyed porridge follows me out of the mess. I’m in the hallway heading toward the palace proper when I hear two Guardsmen talking at my back, loud enough for me to hear.

“Less than a day,” the first one retorts with a sneer.

“He hasn’t washed out yet.”

“He’s walking out the door before he’s sworn in, and that means that he’s washed out. Pay up.”

I’m only a Guard recruit because of Alejandro.

And now, because of him, I may have already failed.

Ican’t imagine that the barracks will ever feel as much like home as the palace halls, with their worn cobbled floors and sandstone walls warm with torchlight. I pass the kitchens, waving to the staff. They’re doling out leftover bread and cheese from breakfast to children of the palace servants. When the kitchen master sees me, he brandishes a heel of bread at me. My mouth waters, but I keep going.

I stop at a well-lit archway framed with block quartz. Centered in the archway is the desk of Vicenç, Alejandro’s mayordomo—though it is empty. A Royal Guard stands rigid beside it, his face stony. In the hallway just before the desk are several plush couches arranged around a thick rug.

This is the waiting area where all visitors to the royal quarters are received. As a page, I spent hours here, waiting to escort guests as needed. But there are no pages here now. Even the mayordomo is absent. But then I notice the Invierne ambassador sitting on one of the couches, his legs elegantly crossed, and I realize their absence is a deliberate snub.

The ambassador stands upon seeing me. He’s taller even than Enrico, with pale flowing robes, hair like molten gold, and upturned eyes the color of an emerald cove. Like all Inviernos, he has an ageless quality about him that makes him seem unknowable. He is newly appointed, just since the old king’s death, and I don’t remember his name. I resist the urge to back away as he gazes at me with haughty disdain.

I hear voices coming toward us from beyond the desk.

A moment later, Vicenç emerges from the shadows, accompanied by General Luz-Manuel, Conde Treviño, and Lord-Commander Enrico. Three of the five Quorum lords.

Lord-Commander Enrico is out of uniform. His civilian clothes are carefully cut to resemble those of the general and conde, though adorned with gold threads and jeweled buttons to emphasize wealth and station.

“Thank you for your reports, gentlemen,” Vicenç says. He is a sharp-featured man who probably should not have made the decision to draw attention to his nose with a large, gleaming nose ring. “I assure you the king and queen will announce the birth of their heir very soon.” The last statement is the kind of practiced theater that the Invierne ambassador is meant to overhear while he waits. If the royal succession is secure, Joya d’Arena will not be weakened by internal conflict. The message is that we are as strong as ever, and now is a very bad time for Invierne to attack.