Redemption

  Redemption

  ANNE OSTERLUND

  REDEMPTION

  Published by the author

  Copyright 2015 Anne Osterlund

  All rights reserved

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission from the author.

  Cover design and illustration by Maria Patla

  Other Books You May Enjoy

  by Anne Osterlund

  Aurelia

  Exile

  Academy 7

  Salvation

  For all my readers—

  especially the ones who have raced in the arena, crossed the Gate, ridden the frontier, survived the desert.

  And need to know the whole story.

  Contents

  Prologue: THE VISITOR

  Chapter One: A MORAL DILEMMA

  Chapter Two: PROPHECY

  Chapter Three: CONFESSION

  Chapter Four: DEPARTURE

  Chapter Five: VILLAINESS—SCENE I

  Chapter Six: THIS LOSING DAY

  Chapter Seven: THE VULTURE

  Chapter Eight: A SINGLE VOTE

  Chapter Nine: VILLAINESS—SCENE II

  Chapter Ten: A PRIVATE CONFRONTATION

  Chapter Eleven: SHUTTERED

  Chapter Twelve: AN ARMY?

  Chapter Thirteen: WAR COUNCIL

  Chapter Fourteen: BATTLE

  Chapter Fifteen: GRAVEYARD

  Chapter Sixteen: COST

  Chapter Seventeen: FLAMES

  Chapter Eighteen: VILLAINESS—SCENE III

  Chapter Nineteen: THE MEANING OF VICTORY

  Chapter Twenty: DEVASTATION

  Chapter Twenty-One: FLAWS

  Chapter Twenty-Two: FINAL CONFRONTATION

  Chapter Twenty-Three: TUNNEL OF DARKNESS

  Chapter Twenty-Four: STALEMATE

  Chapter Twenty-Five: VIGIL

  Chapter Twenty-Six: PROPOSAL

  Epilogue: AURELIA'S RIDE

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  About the Author

  Acknowledgments

  Prologue

  THE VISITOR

  The future of an entire country hinged on whether the traveler completed his mission. Or so the man told himself as muddy water splashed his boots, soaking through the foreign-made leather. He had no time to purchase the footwear of the Outer Realms. Nor to detect the driest path through this drizzly capital city with its vaguely familiar rim of inns and taverns. He knew the familiarity was just an empty silhouette of a past he could no longer make solid. The people in these lodgings he did not know.

  Save one.

  A trio of dockworkers splashed by, heedless of the water. And of the stranger in their midst. His seven-foot height failed to surpass their own; his charcoal skin was just one of a thousand shades. And his journey by ship had ruined his once-vibrant clothing. The salty sea air had destroyed the eagle feather in his hat and dulled the crimson of his vest. His only noteworthy quality now, in this damp, fog-ridden realm he had once called home, was his magnetism to the mud.

  He wanted a bath. And a real mattress. And a place to roll the dice, preferably one that involved a track and the pounding hooves of superior horseflesh.

  But there was no time.

  If he had planned to secure a day of rest, he would have delayed his recent interrogation of the “lad” in the dockside stables. A chuckle drifted out of the traveler’s throat at the memory of the young man’s shocked response when confronted, less than an hour ago, with the old moniker. Though, truth be told, the stable hand was just a lad, having barely reached the age of twenty.

  The traveler halted in the midst of a puddle and stared up a rickety staircase toward the address the young man had given him. The stairs were warped and the railing splintered. Paint that had once sealed the wood against the weather had faded to a dull murky gray, and the crammed doors on the upper level promised nothing in the way of improvement.

  She couldn’t be living here. Could she?

  The traveler stepped onto the bottom stair, then slowly scaled the crooked steps.

  Might the stable hand have lied? In truth the man didn’t know him well. Their acquaintance had extended little over six months’ time, all told. Before the lad had fled here—with her—into exile.

  But the lad had an aura of being trustworthy.

  Though come to think of it, he had lied on her behalf on more than one occasion.

  Nonetheless, the traveler counted his way down the sunken doors and knocked on the fourth. He had no alternative—had broken the law, booking passage on a smuggler, and risked the hazardous early spring crossing to find her. Too many lives were at stake not to try.

  His doubt increased as he waited at the door. Exiled royalty, even those living in countries their own nations refused to have dealings with, didn’t live in poverty; did they?

  He pictured the former crown princess of Tyralt as she had looked two years ago in her last royal portrait at the age of seventeen: her chin raised, her brown skin draped in jewels and silk, her dark hair piled on top of her head.

  He knocked again.

  No response came from within, but from below a child’s voice drifted upward, pleading for a spare copper. The voice jostled the traveler’s mind.

  The man tossed a coin over the rickety stair and discarded the formal image of the princess, remembering instead the first time he had met her—a twelve-year-old girl dressed as a boy in the depths of Tyralt City, trying to barter a lesson in lock-picking off a street rat. She had been less than perfect then at imitating the bayside slang. Though he might never have learned her real identity if he had not seen her the next day at the palace stables. Even there, he would not have known her as the crown princess if the head groom had failed to pronounce her as such. She had never quite fit amidst the vaunted aristocracy.

  Though she could wind a common Tyralian crowd around her palm with only a few words.

  That was the type of young leader he had come to see.

  Another knock. The man recalled his last image of her from a year and a half ago: weary, travel worn, her skin burned even darker than normal by the desert sun. Emotion full on her face. Grief from the news of her father’s death, fury at her younger sister’s usurpation of his throne, horror at the slander claiming she, herself, had killed him. And determination, as she had prepared to steal across a dock swarming with soldiers intent upon hunting her down. Could that person live here? If she had to?

  The door opened.

  To reveal a scullery maid. In a straight black skirt, white apron, brown shoes. Red, sand-roughened hands. Brown eyes. Hair pulled back so tight that he knew the loss of a copper had to be retribution for a single loose strand.

  Behind her he took in the simple, almost unfurnished lodging. A lone room with a barren hearth. A cast-iron pot. A single bed.

  A pair of men’s riding boots.

  What exactly was the relationship between her and the young man back at the stables?

  The traveler’s gaze flew again to the maid.

  “Your Highness.” The tall man quirked an eyebrow at her.

  Those dark eyes began to boil. The young woman’s face went sharp, and the hand gripping the door tightened. For a second the opening widened, then slammed shut with ferocity.

  Right in his face.

  He chuckled, taking a step back but allowing himself a wide grin.

  She had not really changed at all.

  Chapter One

  A MORAL DILEMMA

  No. Aurelia pressed her head to the door, her palms flat against the surface, her mind dark. She was not “Her Highness.” Had forfeited her title.

  A chuckle came from across the barrier—the same chuckle she had heard fr
om Drew a hundred times before she had fled. And become nothing. The horseman’s voice replaced his laughter. “Come on, Highness, it’s blasted damp, and I’m turning into a mangy cob.” His humor ceased. “I’ve brought news.”

  To respond would be to rip off all the calluses she had built by telling herself this was her life now. Her hands curved to fists as she fought the need to beg for answers to the thousand questions that had haunted her for the past eighteen months.

  “Aurelia, Anthone has attacked Tyralt.”

  The calluses tore, her mind inviting a lone color: Red.

  “The Anthonian army crossed the desert in a matter of days,” Drew continued.

  Crossed or crushed? Memories of her own experience in the Geordian Desert slashed within her: the smoke as a tent burned around her, the screams of the trapped tribe members, the odor of death caused by her sister’s bargain with King Edward of Anthone.

  “Not underhanded raiders this time,” said Drew. “Organized soldiers in an open assault against the frontier. Your sister declared the attack an act of war.”

  So Melony had learned that her barter with the neighboring king had a cost.

  “But she’s refused to send northern Tyralt any military support,” the horseman added.

  What?! Aurelia’s knuckles scraped against the door.

  “She’s declared the capital too vital to lessen its defenses. Claims the people of the frontier chose to go north, and if they want to protect that land, they’ll have to defend it.”

  Against an army?

  “The frontiersmen have cobbled together a force, Your Highness. But I’m afraid it’s only a matter of time …”

  Of course it was only a matter of time! Why was Drew here? Why wasn’t he back there fighting?!

  “You’re the only one who can save Tyralt. Please, Aurelia, come home.”

  Her hands jerked open the door.

  And Aurelia burst past the man in the doorway. When had she saved anyone? Her feet took her down the stairs and onto the high edge of the street. She sped up.

  Then plowed straight into Robert.

  His arms folded around her, and she clung to the young man who had kept her alive and sane throughout exile. They had lived together due to need rather than romance; yet he had been her lifeline—the one tie to her past, her country, and to herself. His left hand rose, splaying fingers across her hair.

  He loved her.

  Had told her once, before their exile. But she could not return the words. She did not dare alter their relationship—could not afford to lose him. So she just … held on with every rational fiber of her being. Which was not enough.

  He had not kissed her in weeks.

  She knew the distance was her own fault. Something within her refused greater intimacy—beyond her reluctance to risk bearing a child and ending all ties with the throne she had already lost. But she could not name the greater cause of her fear because she was not brave enough to delve that deep. Easier to blame the faltering romance on her and Robert’s wretched schedules. Why was he here now? He should still be working.

  Then she knew.

  He must already have seen the horseman. How else would Drew have found her? Robert would have been easy to find at the dockside stables. Which meant he had already heard everything. Had left her—alone—to hear the news.

  She slammed her hands against his chest and yanked away.

  “Aurelia, hold on.”

  Did he think she could bear hearing how her country was falling apart? She ran, the terrain tugging her upward, above the mist that clung to the ocean’s rim, into late-afternoon light. Her feet found a red-brick path, and its clay surface blurred beneath her until at last it spread into a wide plaza scattered with statues.

  Aurelia whipped around a stone figure so old it was faceless.

  Neither Drew nor Robert had chased her. Why should they? She had nowhere to go. Had already left behind everything that held any meaning to her.

  Except Robert.

  She paced around a second statue, this time trying to catch her breath as her mind conjured the young man she had just fled. Those blue eyes that rarely now showed anything other than concern. His dark-brown hair, threaded by nervous fingers. His face, shadowed by hours of labor. She knew it was not his fault she had agreed to leave her country. He only wanted her safe. She was the one who had not been strong enough to find a way to save Tyralt.

  Come home, Drew had said. Nothing could be more devastating.

  Her steps sailed to the edge of the plaza, and her gaze flew out over the capital of the Outer Realms. She had tried to belong here.

  But her heart felt only the tug of the ocean.

  And beyond. Her soul begged for the crimson waves of the Geordian Desert, the spectacular sunsets of the frontier, and the drifting Tyralt River as it curled its way through her own city. Home.

  She whirled and almost crashed against another statue—a stone woman with a crown.

  The key of Tyralt, on the chain beneath Aurelia’s collar, chafed at her throat. Tyralt’s capital was in Melony’s hands now; the desert in Anthone’s. And the men, women, and children of the frontier? I should have stayed. Should have fought. Should have died.

  A bell rang. The first of the city’s evening bells, the heavy tone matching the feelings of inadequacy in her heart. Three base notes for the years of plague that had almost stripped the Outer Realms of its strength. Next a long, deep clang for the fruitless ten-year war with the Distant Isles. And then the pealing rings of celebration. For freedom.

  Her gaze swept to the high marble facade of the building beside the plaza—the building she had trudged to reach before dawn every day of the past year. Along the servants’ path, down the steps to the kitchens, where she had learned to work. In this palace that was not a palace. Not in the traditional form. Here there was no monarch. Only a leader who had been chosen as a guide of the Realms for six years. The palace belonged to no one—except the people.

  Why could her own homeland not function like this?

  If it did, the citizens of Tyralt would not need a hero. They can speak for themselves, Robert had once said. And he was right.

  The pealing of the bells stopped, but the final notes echoed back at her. Why could her people not rule their own country?

  Because no one has suggested the idea.

  Hadn’t she herself been stunned eighteen months before by this concept—that the citizens here chose their leader, then chose another a mere handful of years later? But this government could not be destroyed by one warped personality or one act of cowardice. Her people could embrace this system. They could rule themselves. All they needed was someone to share the possibility.

  I could, Aurelia realized. I could be that person. I might not be an adequate ruler, but I can provide them with this vision. So they can choose. They can determine the future of Tyralt.

  Her feet began to move without guidance. Back down the hillside into the mist. Of course the system could work in her homeland! Hadn’t Robert himself told her that a leader was not determined by a crown?

  She stumbled into a puddle. Robert! What would she tell him?

  That she was going back to a kingdom in which she was no longer the secret prey of her sister’s assassination attacks, but rather the most highly prized enemy of the queen. A country also under attack by the ancient king whose hand in marriage Aurelia had spurned.

  She could already hear Robert’s sarcasm. Return in the midst of an active, ill-destined war? Yes, Aurelia, I think we should go home now.

  But somehow she would have to explain that she was not herself here.

  Nothing could alter the guilt.

  The knowledge that she had done nothing—had left Tyralt and her people in the hands of the sister she, herself, was too inept to fight. The only way she wins is if you gift her with your death, Robert had told Aurelia. But exile while her country suffered was equal to death.

  Some things were more important than her survival.

>   He would have to—

  She stopped.

  Deluged by her own thoughts, she had trekked down the brick path; along the edge of the lower, water-logged streets; and up the warped steps.

  To the entrance to the lodging she and he shared.

  The door was open.

  Outside it, heaped in a pile, rested a crate, blankets, two folded pallets, and a ragged canvas bag Robert had brought all the way from Tyralt.

  He had already begun to pack.

  Chapter Two

  PROPHECY

  A heavy grip clamped Robert’s shoulder, staying him in the darkness of the ship’s hold. “Are you angry with me, lad?” The horseman’s tone was low.

  Robert peered up the rungs of a high fixed ladder toward the light through which Aurelia had just slipped. He knew he could not save her. Had come to that realization, reluctantly, over the course of exile. As the emptiness had grown behind her eyes.

  “Seems you might prefer I’d never come,” Drew spoke again.

  Robert tried without success to shrug off the horseman’s hand. “What do you want, Drew?”

  “To know if you’ll support Her Highness’s return to Tyralt. In the end.”

  Why must this man insist on asking questions Robert had no desire to analyze?

  He was the one who had been with Aurelia through the hardship of exile. They had arrived in the Outer Realms without coin, contacts, or the ability to speak the language. And, despite the stableman’s job he’d obtained their first week of arrival, both he and the former crown princess of Tyralt had missed more than one meal during those early months.

  He had not even allowed himself to react with shock when she had taken a position as a scullery maid. Robert had long since learned to appreciate her determination to survive. “I’ll support her.” His hand thrust off the other man’s grip and reached for the ladder.

  The horseman’s palm clutched a higher rung, blocking escape. “As your sovereign?”

  “You don’t believe her, then?” Robert swung around to the reverse side of the apparatus. “When she says she wants the people of Tyralt to choose their own leader?”