A Throne of Swans Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  BOOKS BY KATHARINE AND ELIZABETH CORR

  Copyright

  Epigraph

  The Kingdom of Solanum

  Family Tree

  Prologue

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Acknowledgements

  Katharine and Elizabeth Corr

  Read on for an extract of A Crown of Talons

  PROLOGUE

  Copyright

  BOOKS BY KATHARINE AND ELIZABETH CORR

  A Throne of Swans

  Look out for A Crown of Talons

  The Witch’s Kiss series

  For Mum and Dad, who encouraged us to read everything. (EC)

  For Victoria, who told me Swan Lake would make a great starting point for a story, and was totally right. (KC)

  Surrounded by unspeakable deeds, I am forced into something terrible.

  I know my rage. It cannot go unacknowledged.

  But amidst the terrors I will not resist this ruinous path …

  ἐν δεινοῖς δείν᾿ ἠναγκάσθην·

  ἔξοιδ᾿, οὐ λάθει μ᾿ ὀργά.

  ἀλλ᾿ ἐν γὰρ δεινοῖς οὐ σχήσω

  ταύτας ἄτας …

  Sophocles, Electra vv.221–4, trans. Georgie Penney

  Prologue

  It is nearly midnight, and my father is dying.

  The physicians continue to scurry around him, grinding up herbs with pestles or chanting over their poultices. But the lavender-scented smoke of the fire can’t mask the odour of decaying flesh. Candlelight can’t conceal the laboured breath, the claw-like fingers clutching convulsively at the bedclothes. He pushes the nearest doctor away, irritable, and beckons me closer.

  The doctors mutter about infection. Still, I obey. As I balance on the edge of the massive oak-framed bed, my red silk skirts are like a spill of blood in the dimness. I lean in, holding tight to one of his hands.

  ‘This …’ he gestures to the weeping sores on his chest and shoulders, ‘a mistake. I … stayed too long. And the contagion …’ His speech is thickened, as if his tongue is swollen. ‘I’m sorry, Aderyn.’

  I understand him. The sickness that has ravaged one of our port towns for the last month has led to quarantine and death. My father – to help his people, or in the cause of science, or both – stayed with the afflicted, hoping to discover a cure. He has gambled his life in pursuit of knowledge before. But this time he lost. And now – now he wants absolution. I try to tell him that all will be well, that the doctors might still find a way to save him, but the lie catches in my throat. Instead, I stare into his clouded eyes and murmur, ‘I know. It’s late, Father. You should rest.’

  But he shakes his head and grits his teeth, blinking, trying to focus. ‘I want you to … stay here, once I’m gone. Stay in the castle.’

  His words are not new. I’ve been confined within our castle and the peninsula upon which it stands for years. So many years that I long ago stopped asking when I would be allowed to leave. I have learned that it is possible to stand in the open air with the wind on my face and still suffocate. That it is possible to command others and still be a prisoner.

  ‘You must stay –’ He breaks off in a paroxysm of coughing; a servant darts in and wipes the blood and spittle from his chin. ‘Stay here, where it’s safe. Promise me.’

  Perhaps this sickness is finally claiming his mind. If I never leave, I cannot do what will be required of me. And I cannot believe my father truly expects me to become my own jailor, trapped behind these walls through an oath of my own making.

  But I am wrong apparently. He grips my upper arm tightly, pulling himself up, the pressure of his fingers still painful despite his loss of strength. ‘Promise me, Aderyn. You know I love you. All I want is –’ he gasps with pain – ‘to protect you.’

  ‘I know you love me, Father. And I love you too.’ But I make no promise. I won’t lie to him now.

  Mercifully he does not notice my omission. He sinks back into the mattress, eyelids fluttering as the clock begins playing the chimes that lead to the hour. ‘Good. You’ll understand eventually, I hope. And finally … finally, your mother …’ The words fade into silence.

  ‘Father? What about her? Please, if there’s anything you haven’t told me, anything …’ My voice seems to be coming from a long way away. I shake his shoulder. ‘Father …’ The doctors cluster round and I am moved gently to one side as they check pulse and breathing and heartbeat.

  And then someone is closing his eyes, and drawing the sheet up over his face. The clock strikes the hour.

  ‘Your Grace?’

  For a moment, I don’t understand. I think, My father is dead. He can’t answer you.

  But the servant repeats the question. ‘Your Grace?’

  And then I realise: he is addressing me. I am no longer a seventeen-year-old girl who can spend her time exactly as she wishes. I’m no longer merely Lady Aderyn. I am Her Grace, Protector of the Dominion of Atratys, sole mistress of Merl Castle and all the lands that belong to it.

  Somehow, in the space between the end of one day and the start of the next, everything has changed.

  For the next week or more, I seem to be submerged, looking out at the world from inside a bubble of my own grief. Grief; anger; pity. For my father. For myself. I take care that no one else should know. I walk and speak as normal, eat and sleep at the appropriate times. The dressmaker brings mourning gowns, and I try them on; I give my red dress, that had been my favourite, to a servant. Lord Lancelin of Anserys, our steward, sets before me suggestions for my father’s Last Flight – food, music, people to be invited – and I make a show of reading through his lists. But the scratches of ink on the pages convey no meaning to me; I agree to everything so that I might be left alone. When I am alone, I sit and stare at the waves breaking against the familiar granite rocks beneath the castle, stare until my eyes are sore. I listen to my own breathing, crushed into immobility by the ache in my chest, the onslaught of this second loss. And so, the time passes.

  The day of the Last Flight comes. My father may have ignored the rigid etiquette of the court while he was alive, but his death brings its own set of demands. I am dressed in my new black gown – high-collared, with long sleeves that almost hide my hands – and from somewhere in the vaults my maid produces a heavy mourning diadem of jet and silver. She sets it on top of my dark hair; the clips dig into my scalp. When I arrive at the jetty, the guests – castle inhabitants, tenant farmers and local lords, mostly – are already assembled, a mass of shadow like so much inky seaweed cast up on the shoreline. There are the required number of speeches and songs, and then my father – like my mother, and their parents before – is laid in the high-prowed boat that awaits him and pushed out into the current. At the last minute, a fire is set among the dry kindling piled around the body. Red flames swarm. And as they do, the honour guard steps forward. Each member a noble, representing his or her family, they are dressed in long black cloaks.

  One by one, they hand their cloaks to the leather-garbed servants. For a moment, each noble shivers, naked in the chill morning air. And then, they change.

  Cranes, cormorants, ravens and rooks, herons and falcons – the air fills as each person shifts seamlessly from human to bird. Birds far larger, far more dangerous than their namesakes that l
ive in our forests and fields. Together, the transformed nobles follow the blazing boat out to the sea. So many different types of bird. But no swans.

  Now my father is dead, I am the only swan here.

  And I do not fly.

  One

  I’m sitting at the large desk in my study. A new room this; my father conducted business in the long gallery, under the dead gaze of our ancestors’ portraits. Like most of our kind he walked as he worked, orbited by servants taking notes or carrying stacks of paper; it’s easy for your leg muscles to wither if you spend much of your life on the wing. The steward pauses in his pacing and raises one forefinger – a sure sign that he has thought of another argument.

  ‘You only came out of mourning last week, Your Grace. Only four days ago. To hasten to the society and pleasures of the court the moment you are no longer wearing black … Some might consider it unseemly. Demonstrating a lack of respect for your late father.’

  ‘They might. But I am out of mourning, and I’m not proposing to go to court tomorrow. We both know my visit will take some time to organise; I see no reason for delay.’

  A muscle twitches in the side of my lord steward’s lean face. ‘And I see that you are determined to leave Merl and your dominion as soon as possible.’ He raises an eyebrow. ‘Regardless of my attempts to persuade you otherwise. Regardless of the fact that there is so much to be done here and now in Atratys, Your Grace.’

  The sound of singing floats up from the courtyard. Abandoning our quarrel, I go to the tall, arched windows and open the casement wider. There are servants working in the kitchen gardens, walking to and fro between the vegetable beds with hoes and wheelbarrows. Leaning outward, I turn my face to the sun, trying to catch the stray beams just lighting up the angle of the wall, wishing I was outside. On a fine morning like this my father would have summoned me to walk beside him through the castle grounds, testing me on my knowledge of Atratyan plants and crops, teaching me about those we export, entertaining me with tales of his visits to other dominions and the differences he found there. Places I’d never been allowed to see for myself.

  ‘Your Grace …’

  ‘I’ve been shut up here long enough, Lancelin. I know I have responsibilities –’ I cast a guilty glance at the piles of paperwork that take up at least half my desk – ‘but I won’t be gone long. And it’s the court. I would have spent at least two years there by now, in the ordinary course of things –’

  ‘But your situation is not ordinary, Aderyn.’ The use of my given name surprises me into silence. My steward pinches the bridge of his nose, sighs. ‘Forgive me for speaking plainly. But you know very well that your father kept you here at Merl for your own safety. If the king realises that you are, for all practical purposes, flightless –’

  ‘I am not flightless.’

  ‘We’ve discussed this. You cannot shift your shape; not at the moment. If the king asks you to transform for some reason –’

  ‘Why would he? Nobility is not put to the test; it would be considered an outrage.’

  ‘But if he did –’ Lancelin glares at me over the top of his spectacles – ‘you won’t be able to comply. And you know what will follow.’

  Disgrace and death. The flighted rule; the flightless do not. A Protector who could not fly would automatically be stripped of power and banished, no matter who was on the throne. To be sent away from Atratys would be bad enough. But Lancelin tells me I wouldn’t even live long enough to grieve. With my claim on the throne, no prudent ruler would leave me alive.

  ‘It isn’t fair.’

  ‘But it is the law, Your Grace. The Elders spoke, and the Decrees are what they are.’ A stock phrase, used by parents to silence children, or by those in authority to explain why something cannot change. I heard my father use it often enough.

  ‘But it must be nearly two years since my cousin the prince lost his arm. And he has not been banished. Or assassinated.’

  ‘No, he hasn’t. Not yet. But only because Prince Aron is protected by the king, and the king’s pride.’ Lancelin eyes me a little warily. ‘And I’d like to remind you, Your Grace, that the prince has been cut out of the succession since his accident. Moving you one step nearer to the throne. Putting you more at risk.’

  ‘I’ve no desire to become queen, you know that.’

  ‘But does anyone else?’ Lancelin ignores my scowl and continues. ‘I’m sure you’ve read my reports on the situation at court: your uncle the king’s new wife, the rumours of factions, of a power struggle.’

  ‘Yes, I read them.’ I raise my eyebrows. ‘What’s your point, my lord steward?’

  ‘My point is, things change. Even in the kingdom.’ The kingdom – that is how Solanum is always described, in books or in speech. As if the rest of the world does not exist. Or is, at best, unimportant. ‘The current political climate makes the Silver Citadel even more dangerous. Your father did his best to shield you. Everyone here has worked hard to keep your secret. But really, it is impossible to know what words might have been whispered into the king’s ears. And to put yourself into harm’s way, when it is not required, when your uncle has not sent for you, when your father specifically asked you not to go …’ He throws his hands in the air as if despairing at my stubborn stupidity.

  Anger lends acid to my tongue. ‘You do not need to remind me what my father said as he lay dying, Lancelin. It was only six weeks ago. I remember his words quite clearly.’

  My steward does not answer. He seems absorbed in straightening the papers stacked on the desk.

  I clamp my mouth shut. Bite down on my irritation. Manage – just about – not to stamp my foot. ‘Really, Lancelin, if the political situation is as you say, then all the more reason for me to go to the Citadel – someone needs to protect the interests of Atratys from those who might scheme against us. We’ve heard nothing from my uncle the king since his letter of condolence. I do not trust his silence.’

  Through the window next to me I can see fields full of early crops, and brightly coloured fishing boats rocking gently in the harbour. Further off, looking landward across the causeway that links Merl Island to the mainland, are the straggling stone buildings of the nearest town, dominated by the copper-roofed sanctuary, the tapering chimney of a tin mine, the tall masts of ships docked in the port at the end of the next headland. Just a tiny fraction of my Atratys, but so heavy with life and history and expectation that I sag forward, bracing myself on the window frame as the weight of my inheritance, my home, bears down upon me. There is almost nothing I wouldn’t do to defend my dominion. Almost nothing I wouldn’t give up to protect what my parents were trying to build here, to keep Atratys free from the oppression and poverty that stalk some of the other dominions.

  Almost nothing.

  A huge rose bush scrambles up this sheltered side of the castle. If I stretch down from the window my fingertips will just brush the tops of the highest, pale green buds, but in a few weeks’ time this section of wall will be veiled with deep pink roses, my mother’s favourite flower. She and my father used to walk in the rose garden every afternoon during the summer months. I was often with them, and I remember darting along the paths between the flower beds, gravel crunching beneath my feet, breathing in the scented air, collecting up the silken rose petals that had fallen to the ground. I remember looking back to see my parents strolling, hand in hand, behind me. Or sometimes sitting, her head on his shoulder, his arm tight about her waist.

  My father never returned to the rose garden after she was murdered. For him, there seemed to be no more summers.

  ‘Why did my father stop visiting his brother?’

  A shadow crosses Lancelin’s face. ‘Your father never took me into his confidence. I only know that he became more reclusive after your mother’s death, burdened as he was with grief. Grief, and anger, at his own inability to find and punish the culprit … I believe he held the king in affection, when they were younger.’

  Strange, then, that my father should never ev
en talk about him. But I suppose there were a lot of things we never discussed. Whether it was my mother’s death, or my requests to be allowed to leave the castle, my father’s response to unwelcome topics was always the same: fly into a rage and lock himself in his laboratory.

  There’s a painting on the wall above the fireplace: my parents holding me as a baby, my uncle standing next to them, looking at me. Or perhaps at my mother. Likenesses captured to commemorate the celebration of my fledging, images of the living side by side with those now dead.

  A cold gust of wind makes me shiver and I shut the window.

  There are plenty of portraits here at Merl. Plenty of ghosts. But no answers.

  ‘I’m going to court, Lancelin.’ I don’t intend to explain myself to him. To try to make it clear why, after all these years, my hunger to know the truth about my mother’s death still rages unabated. Or why I think I’ll find that truth at the Silver Citadel. But, as he gazes at me from his slightly hooded eyes, I decide he probably understands.

  Another moment passes; my steward, finally, bows his head in assent.

  ‘As you wish, Your Grace. I will, of course, accompany you –’

  ‘No. I need you here. There’s no one else I would trust to take care of Atratys.’

  He bows again. ‘Thank you, Your Grace. There is indeed much to deal with.’ Moving back to the desk he lifts a sheaf of papers from the top of one pile. ‘We’ve had a report of more people crossing the border into Atratys from the Dominion of Brithys.’ His nostrils flare. ‘And demands from the local Brithyan lords that we should round them up and send them all back again.’

  I can’t help groaning. ‘Must we? From what I know of Brithys, I can’t blame its inhabitants for wanting to live elsewhere. And there’s plenty of work for them here. The port master at Hythe was complaining only last week about the shortage of labour.’