The Moonstone Heiress- Chapter Eleven: The Brutality and Saviours Amongst Us

Carlone's first official meeting confirmed what she'd already suspected.

She had no idea what she'd gotten herself into.

The two men she was supposed to report to were known simply by their ranks: Captain and

Lieutenant.

Both were enormous.

The Captain was middle-aged, broad through the shoulders, with a face that seemed permanently carved into displeasure. The Lieutenant was younger, perhaps in his late twenties, but nearly as intimidating.

Carlone was hardly delicate herself.

Years in the quarry had made her strong.

These men still towered over her.

"You're the new guard," the Captain said.

Carlone nodded.

"Yes, sir."

The Lieutenant glanced at the Captain.

Something passed between them.

Carlone didn't like it.

They were polite.

Too polite.

Their smiles never seemed to reach their eyes, and Carlone repeatedly noticed clenched fists whenever one of them looked at her.

She kept her own hands loose at her sides.

The instructions they gave her were stranger still.

She was to train with the Queen's guard.

Wear the uniform.

Learn basic defensive techniques.

Maintain equipment.

Follow guard discipline.

But she was not, under any circumstances, to actually guard the Queen.

"If Her Majesty approaches," the Captain said, "you will turn away."

Carlone blinked.

"Turn away?"

"Discreetly."

"What if she's in danger?"

The Lieutenant almost smiled.

"She won't be."

Carlone decided not to ask more questions.

For performing this mysterious imitation of a guard's duties, she would receive generous weekly pay, meals, and private quarters.

It should have been the best arrangement she'd ever had.

Instead, Carlone left the meeting with the distinct impression that she'd just agreed to rules nobody intended to explain until she broke one.

Her days quickly developed a routine.

Morning training.

Equipment maintenance.

Basic defensive drills.

Errands.

More training.

Then evening lessons in castle etiquette.

Carlone ate with the kitchen staff and often prepared the guard stations for the following morning.

She wasn't really a guard.

She wasn't really a servant either.

She occupied some strange place between the two.

Her sleeping arrangements were stranger still.

While the other guards slept in barracks, Carlone had a room in the guest wing.

A private passage connected that wing to another part of the castle.

The Regent used it at night.

At first, Carlone looked forward to his visits.

Nobody else wanted her.

The guards barely spoke to her unless they were giving instructions.

Servants became quiet when she entered a room.

Even the kitchen workers found reasons to sit somewhere else.

The Regent, at least, seemed happy to see her.

So Carlone waited for him.

She began measuring good days by whether he appeared at her door.

Weeks became months.

Gradually, something became impossible to ignore.

The Regent enjoyed having Carlone.

He did not particularly enjoy knowing her.

Whenever she tried to speak about a future beyond the castle walls, he changed the subject.

When she suggested going somewhere together, he had obligations.

When she asked what would happen after his wedding, he told her not to worry.

When she asked what she meant to him, he kissed her instead of answering.

Carlone began to understand.

She wasn't his partner.

She was somewhere he went at night.

The realization hurt more than she wanted to admit.

Worse, their supposedly secret relationship wasn't secret at all.

The whispers began first.

Carlone would enter the kitchen and conversation would stop.

During training, someone would laugh behind her.

Then the comments became clearer.

Crueler.

Carlone learned new words for herself from people who barely knew her.

At first she was stunned.

Then embarrassed.

Eventually she became afraid to respond.

The Regent assured her that arrangements like theirs were common.

Perhaps they were.

That didn't explain why Carlone seemed to bear all the shame for it.

Nobody mocked him.

Nobody refused to sit beside him.

Nobody whispered when he entered a room.

Carlone became the scandal.

The Regent remained the Regent.

She should have become angry with him.

Instead, something more dangerous happened.

The more everyone else rejected Carlone, the more important he became.

If the kitchen workers hated her, she waited for the Regent.

If the guards insulted her, she waited for the Regent.

If she cried alone in her room, she told herself he would come.

Soon he was the only person in the castle whose affection mattered.

And then his affection began disappearing too.

He disliked it when she cried.

He grew impatient when she told him how the others treated her.

"I can't control every servant's tongue," he said.

"I didn't ask you to."

"You want me to solve everything for you."

"No. I just want you to care."

That seemed to annoy him even more.

His visits became less frequent.

Carlone responded by wanting them more.

She hated herself for that.

By summer, Carlone volunteered for every errand that took her outside the castle.

No real guard would have been sent searching for a silversmith to make a decorative banister piece.

Carlone volunteered immediately.

Anything to get outside.

She wandered through the market longer than necessary.

Once, she would have walked with her head high.

Now she kept it down.

The girl who'd survived alone in the forest seemed impossibly far away.

So did the quarry worker who could haul stone from sunrise until dark.

Carlone worried constantly.

Was the Regent tired of her?

Had he found someone else?

Would she simply be dismissed?

Or had she learned too much to be allowed to leave quietly?

That thought stopped her.

Carlone looked toward the distant city road.

She could leave.

Right now.

The silver pouch in her hand contained enough money to get her somewhere.

The farm.

The coast.

Merri's inn.

Anywhere.

Her feet actually began carrying her toward the edge of the city.

Then Carlone stopped.

If she disappeared while wearing the Queen's uniform, would they call her a deserter?

Would guards come after her?

She didn't know.

The castle had given her a title without giving her any real position.

For the first time, Carlone wondered whether that had been deliberate.

She was still thinking about leaving when she walked directly into someone.

"Sorry."

The man turned.

Carlone recognized the sack over his shoulder before she recognized his face.

"Mox?"

He stared at her.

"Little Carlone?"

Carlone almost laughed.

"You remember me."

"Remember you? Look at you!"

Mox motioned for her to walk with him.

He was moving quickly.

Too quickly.

"I heard about you," he said.

Carlone's brief happiness vanished.

"Heard what?"

"You and the Regent."

Her stomach tightened.

"Where?"

"People talk."

That wasn't an answer.

Mox lowered his voice.

"Be careful. You're not his first."

Carlone looked away.

"And the Queen isn't known for forgiving embarrassment."

"Mox—"

"I'm telling you what I've heard."

Carlone didn't want to hear more.

She changed the subject.

"Why are you leaving?"

Mox kept walking.

"Because I'm not stupid."

Carlone raised an eyebrow.

"That's debatable."

He ignored her.

"There's trouble coming. Mountain country and the royal households. Debts. Agreements.

Nobody agrees on what belongs to whom anymore."

"What does that mean?"

"It means people with weapons eventually stop arguing with words."

Carlone tried to get more from him.

Mox only shook his head.

"I know what I know."

"You always say that when you don't want to explain anything."

"And I'm usually alive afterward."

He pointed toward the road.

"Come with me."

Carlone looked at it.

She could.

Mox was leaving.

She had money.

The castle was behind her.

This was exactly the opportunity she'd wanted.

"I can't."

Mox studied her.

"Can't?"

Carlone swallowed.

"I need to say goodbye first."

Mox's expression told her he understood more than she wanted him to.

"Then be careful, Little Carlone."

He left.

Carlone watched until he disappeared into the crowd.

Then she turned back toward the market.

She told herself she only needed one final conversation with the Regent.

After that, she could leave.

Seeing Mox made Carlone desperate to speak to someone who had known her before the castle.

Buloke was here somewhere, but she avoided him deliberately.

He had found steady work moving between different castle duties.

If people knew he was close to Carlone, perhaps they'd turn on him too.

There was someone else.

Dowson.

Carlone crossed half the city to the tavern where she'd last seen him.

The barkeep recognized his name immediately.

Not favorably.

"Threw him out weeks ago."

"Why?"

"Fixing fights."

Carlone stared.

"Dowson?"

"Unless you've got another one."

The quiet boy who'd barely spoken on the road?

The boy who'd been terrified before his first match?

"Where is he?"

The barkeep shrugged.

"Try around the prison district."

Carlone left unsettled.

She found him the following day.

The Regent hadn't visited the night before.

That made two weeks.

Carlone made herself a promise.

One more week.

If he didn't come within one more week, she would leave.

No goodbye.

No explanation.

She'd simply go.

The search for Dowson took her into a part of the Capital most respectable citizens avoided.

Carlone didn't care.

She had slept beneath bushes and worked among quarrymen.

A filthy neighborhood wasn't going to frighten her.

The tavern she entered nearly managed it.

The floor stuck to her boots.

The tables looked as though they'd never been cleaned.

Someone pointed toward a man asleep over a table.

Carlone almost didn't recognize him.

"Dowson?"

He lifted his head.

His face had changed.

His nose sat crooked.

Old cuts marked his brow.

His knuckles were scarred and swollen.

He'd grown broader.

Harder.

Older.

Not in years.

In everything else.

Carlone sat across from him.

She bought him strong tea.

He smelled so heavily of alcohol that she could smell it across the table.

"You look terrible," she said.

Dowson gave a weak laugh.

"You too."

Carlone almost smiled.

Fair enough.

It took time before Dowson began talking.

Once he did, he didn't stop.

After losing his first fight, he'd become obsessed with proving that he wasn't weak.

He fought again.

Then again.

At first, he wanted fair matches.

Then he needed money.

A bed cost money.

Food cost money.

Entering better matches cost money.

Losing meant going hungry.

So Dowson began choosing opponents he knew he could beat.

Then he began lying about matches.

Then fixing them.

Each decision seemed small when he made it.

By the time he realized what he'd become, nobody respected him enough to let him forget

it.

"I'm the kind of man who beat me that first night," he said.

Carlone went still.

She remembered encouraging him.

Even if you lose, we get a place to stay.

She'd meant to help.

That didn't change what happened afterward.

"I'm sorry."

Dowson looked at her.

"I told you to fight."

"You didn't tell me to keep doing it for months."

"I started it."

"No."

His answer surprised her.

"I did."

Carlone stared at him.

Dowson touched his crooked nose.

"I wanted to prove something."

Carlone understood that too well.

"I have something to tell you," she said.

Dowson waited.

"I'm the Regent's consort."

Dowson blinked.

"You're what?"

Carlone laughed despite herself.

Then she started crying.

Once she began, she couldn't stop.

She told him everything.

The Regent.

The secret passage.

The guards.

The whispers.

The insults.

How she'd waited for him.

How the more miserable she became, the more desperately she'd wanted him to love her.

"I know he doesn't," Carlone whispered.

Dowson said nothing.

"I know it."

"Then why stay?"

Carlone wiped her face.

"Because I'm waiting for him to prove me wrong."

Dowson looked down at his tea.

"That's stupid."

Carlone stared.

He shrugged.

"So is getting punched every night because I'm afraid to go home."

That made her laugh through her tears.

Dowson smiled faintly.

"My mother remembers who I was when I left," he said. "My sisters do. My brothers."

He touched his nose again.

"I don't want them seeing this."

"You're still you."

"Are you?"

Carlone's smile disappeared.

That question stayed between them.

Carlone gave Dowson the pouch of silver.

He opened it.

His eyes widened.

"I can't—"

"Yes, you can."

"This is a lot."

"I don't need it."

That wasn't entirely true.

But Carlone suddenly knew what she wanted it used for.

Dowson wanted to fight legitimately again.

Sanctioned matches.

Fair opponents.

A chance to rebuild his reputation before facing his family.

Carlone wasn't sure she agreed with the plan.

But it was his plan.

Not hers.

"This doesn't erase anything," she told him.

"I know."

"And you don't owe me."

Dowson looked at her.

Carlone thought about all the years she'd spent treating kindness like a debt.

"I mean it."

He slowly closed his hand around the pouch.

"Thank you."

Carlone touched his shoulder.

"And for what it's worth, I don't think you're ruined."

Dowson looked at her.

Carlone realized she was saying it to herself too.

They parted with something neither had possessed when they'd arrived.

Hope.

Not much.

But enough.

The Regent came to Carlone's room that night.

She almost ran to him.

Then he pushed her hands away.

Carlone stopped.

"What's wrong?"

His expression was cold.

"You've disappointed me."

Carlone stared.

"How?"

"You should have conceived by now."

The words took several seconds to make sense.

"What?"

"A child."

Carlone stepped backward.

"You never said you wanted a child."

"I shouldn't have needed to."

"Yes. You should have."

The Regent's face hardened.

Carlone's heart pounded.

Months ago, she might have apologized.

Now something inside her resisted.

"You don't even know whether I can have children."

"Clearly you cannot."

"You don't know that."

He ignored her.

"And now you're giving my money to disgraced fighters."

Carlone froze.

"My money."

"Your wages exist because of me."

"How do you know what I did with them?"

Silence.

Carlone understood.

"You have me watched."

The Regent looked annoyed that she'd made the connection.

"Of course I know what happens in my own household."

"I wasn't in the castle."

"That doesn't matter."

Carlone felt sick.

The job.

The private room.

The servants.

The strange duties.

None of it had been freedom.

She had simply mistaken comfort for it.

"Dowson is my friend."

"I don't care who he is."

"I do."

The Regent looked at her as though she'd said something offensive.

Then he left.

Carlone didn't chase him.

Not this time.

But after the door closed, she collapsed onto the bed and cried anyway.

Part of her still hoped he would return.

She hated that part most of all.

The knock came the following morning.

Rhett waited outside.

"Her Majesty requests your presence."

Carlone's blood went cold.

"The Queen?"

"Yes."

Carlone dressed slowly.

Uniform.

Boots.

Hair tied back.

She wondered whether these were the clothes she would die in.

Rhett escorted her through corridors she'd been specifically forbidden from entering.

He wasn't her friend.

He wasn't her enemy either.

Rhett treated Carlone like one more task on a long list.

But when they reached the Queen's study, something changed.

He looked at her.

Not with contempt.

With pity.

Carlone wished he hadn't.

The door opened.

Carlone knew the proper greeting.

Knee bent.

Head bowed.

"Your Majesty."

"Stand."

Carlone obeyed.

The Queen studied her.

"So."

Carlone kept her hands behind her back to hide their shaking.

"The quarry girl."

Carlone said nothing.

The Queen walked slowly around her.

"My first child is a boy."

Carlone waited.

"He resembles his father."

The Queen stopped.

"The man you know as the Regent."

Carlone's thoughts stumbled.

The Regent had told her the children belonged to other men.

One of them was lying.

Carlone had no idea which.

Perhaps both were.

"I nearly died giving birth," the Queen continued. "The second time was worse."

She gestured toward a portrait.

Two children sat before a fireplace.

Carlone looked at them.

Then back at the Queen.

"I wondered what kind of woman would be bold enough to follow my husband into my own

castle."

Carlone's mouth went dry.

"I didn't—"

The Queen raised one finger.

Carlone stopped.

"I know."

That wasn't what Carlone expected.

"I had you brought inside."

Carlone stared.

"The Regent believes most of his ideas are his own."

A faint smile touched the Queen's mouth.

"They rarely are."

Carlone suddenly understood why she'd been selected from the crowd.

The Queen had known.

From the beginning.

Her strange position.

The instructions never to approach the Queen.

The uniform.

The private room.

All of it.

The Queen had allowed it.

Why?

"His attention has become inconvenient," the Queen said. "Particularly now."

Carlone forced herself to speak.

"I can leave."

"Yes."

Relief nearly buckled her knees.

Then the Queen continued.

"But not yet."

Carlone's relief disappeared.

The Queen stepped closer.

"My husband has fathered a child before. Months have passed, and you have not conceived."

Carlone felt anger push through her fear.

"That doesn't prove anything."

The Queen raised an eyebrow.

Carlone immediately remembered whom she was speaking to.

But she didn't take the words back.

"No," the Queen said. "Perhaps it doesn't."

That answer frightened Carlone more than mockery would have.

The Queen regarded her for another moment.

"Nevertheless, your usefulness here has ended."

Carlone swallowed.

"Then let me go."

The Queen looked toward the door.

"I intend to."

She called for the guard.

Carlone barely had time to understand before hands seized her.

"What are you doing?"

She struggled.

"Wait!"

The guard dragged her toward the corridor.

Carlone twisted around.

The Queen remained perfectly calm.

"Where are you taking me?"

No answer.

Panic took over.

Carlone fought harder.

An arm tightened across her throat.

She couldn't breathe.

The corridor blurred.

Her boots scraped uselessly against stone.

Then everything went black.

Carlone woke on a cobblestone floor.

Her head throbbed.

Her throat burned.

Someone nudged her boot.

Carlone opened her eyes.

Velvet shoes.

The Regent.

He crouched beside her.

"I see they were rough with you."

Carlone tried to sit.

The room tilted.

"Are you here to get me out?"

His expression told her the answer.

"No."

Carlone stared.

"This may be our last meeting."

"What?"

"I risk enough merely being here."

Carlone pushed herself against the wall.

"Then why are you here?"

The Regent's jaw tightened.

"Why him?"

Carlone frowned.

"The boxer."

Dowson.

Of course.

Not concern.

Jealousy.

"He's my friend."

"You gave him money."

"My money."

"Money you had because of me."

Carlone stared at him.

There it was again.

Everything she had earned somehow belonged to him.

Her job.

Her room.

Her money.

Her body.

Even her friendships.

"I'm not yours."

The Regent's face changed.

Only slightly.

Enough.

Carlone finally saw something she'd spent months refusing to see.

He had never loved her.

Perhaps he had desired her.

Enjoyed her.

Possessed her, in his own mind.

But he had never loved her.

"Help me," Carlone said.

Not because she expected him to.

Because she needed to know.

The Regent stood.

"The Queen has made her decision."

"What decision?"

He didn't answer.

"What is going to happen to me?"

"I don't know."

"Then find out!"

"I can't interfere."

"You mean you won't."

The Regent looked away.

Carlone crawled toward the bars.

"Please."

He stepped backward.

"I'm sorry."

"No, you're not."

He paused.

For once, Carlone didn't regret saying it.

The Regent turned.

"Goodbye, my dear."

"Don't call me that."

He stopped.

Carlone gripped the bars.

"You don't get to call me that anymore."

For a moment, neither spoke.

Then the Regent walked away.

Carlone listened to his footsteps disappear.

Only after she could no longer hear them did the panic come.

Her breathing became too fast.

Her hands went numb.

The cell seemed to shrink around her.

Carlone slid onto the floor.

She had survived blood fever.

She had survived the burning barn.

She had survived winter alone.

She had survived the quarry.

But those things had happened to a girl who believed she could always keep moving.

Now there was nowhere to go.

Carlone curled against the cold stone and tried desperately to breathe.

For the first time since she was a child trapped inside a burning barn, someone else controlled whether she ever saw the outside world again.