The Moonstone Heiress- Chapter Twelve: Traveled Roads

Carlone cried until there was nothing left.

Then she began lying to herself.

The Regent would come.

He would miss her.

He would realize what the Queen had done and order someone to release her.

Perhaps he was already arguing for her freedom.

Perhaps that was why no one had come yet.

Carlone built one explanation after another until she had constructed something almost believable.

Then thirst destroyed it.

A day passed.

Then another night.

No food came.

No water.

Carlone shouted until her voice weakened to a rasp.

"Guard!"

Nothing.

She pounded against the bars.

"Please!"

Silence answered.

By the second day, Carlone understood.

They weren't keeping her prisoner.

They were waiting for her to die.

There would be no trial.

No public execution.

No questions.

Carlone had been hidden while she was alive.

Now she could disappear just as quietly.

One terrible thought came to her.

If she'd become pregnant, perhaps things would have been different.

Not better.

Different.

The Queen and Regent had already built their lives around appearances and convenient stories. Perhaps a child would have been taken from Carlone and folded into another one.

Perhaps Carlone would still have disappeared.

Perhaps they would have kept her alive only as long as she remained useful.

Carlone didn't know.

She no longer had enough strength to care.

She wanted water.

Nothing else in the world mattered.

By the third morning, Carlone was feverish with thirst.

She wrapped both hands around the bars and pulled.

Nothing.

She pulled again.

The quarry worker inside her refused to accept that something made of stone and iron could defeat her.

Her arms shook.

"Come on."

She planted her feet against the floor.

"Come on!"

The bars didn't move.

Carlone's hands slipped.

She fell.

The last thing she remembered was cold stone against her cheek.

Carlone woke inside darkness.

Not ordinary darkness.

Close darkness.

Something pressed against her face.

She couldn't move properly.

Panic struck.

Carlone tried to scream.

Her voice barely worked.

The thing around her shifted.

She smelled wood.

Canvas.

Ash.

A barrel?

Carlone struggled once more.

Then exhaustion pulled her under.

She didn't yet understand.

For the second time in her life, someone was carrying her away from a place where she had

been left to die.

Carlone woke again on a hay mat.

She stared at a damp stone ceiling.

For several seconds she didn't know where she was.

Then she saw the mug.

Water.

Carlone grabbed it.

She drank too quickly, choked, coughed, and nearly brought it all back up.

Footsteps hurried toward her.

"Easy!"

Carlone knew that voice.

Dowson appeared.

He looked down at her.

"Got yourself in over your head again, I heard."

Carlone tried to sit.

She couldn't.

"How?"

Dowson lowered himself onto the dirt floor.

"Long story."

Carlone stared at him.

"I have nowhere else to be."

"Fair."

Dowson explained.

He'd used the money Carlone gave him to enter a legitimate match.

Then he'd done something Carlone hadn't expected.

He won.

The prize money, combined with what he'd bet on himself, had been enough to repay her.

At least, that had been his intention.

"When I went to the castle asking for you, nobody seemed to know where you were."

Carlone's stomach tightened.

"Then Buloke found me at the tavern."

Dowson hesitated.

"He'd heard you'd been thrown out."

"Thrown out?"

Dowson's expression changed.

"They thought you were dead."

Carlone stopped breathing.

"The castle disposes of bodies and rubbish together before burning what needs burning."

He said the next part carefully.

"Buloke found you first."

Carlone stared at him.

"They threw me away?"

Dowson nodded.

Something inside Carlone went very still.

No trial.

No execution.

No grave.

Not even enough humanity to call her a prisoner who had died.

Rubbish.

Then another thought came.

Carlone began to smile.

Dowson looked concerned.

"What?"

Carlone had already died once.

At least according to the world.

A little girl had disappeared from a burning farm years ago, and everyone had assumed she was gone.

Now the Regent's mistress was dead too.

Apparently Carlone was becoming very good at dying.

"What are you thinking?"

Carlone looked at him.

Her throat hurt.

Her body felt hollow.

She gave the only answer that mattered.

"I'm hungry."

Dowson laughed.

The tension broke.

"I'll get you stew."

"Lots of it."

"You're demanding for a dead woman."

Carlone settled back onto the hay.

"Being dead makes me hungry."

It took two more days before Carlone could walk any distance without becoming dizzy.

She left the Capital anyway.

Waiting felt more dangerous than weakness.

Carlone traveled only at night, when clouds covered the moon, and darkness swallowed the road.

The infamous Regent's mistress was dead.

Carlone intended to keep her that way.

Buloke and Dowson had risked their lives to save her.

She would not repay them by allowing herself to be recognized.

Dowson went with her.

He had finally had enough of the Capital too.

Neither spoke much as the city disappeared behind them.

Both had arrived there hoping to become something more.

Instead, the Capital had discovered their weaknesses and fed them.

Dowson had wanted to prove he was strong.

Carlone had wanted to be loved.

Both had nearly destroyed themselves trying.

There was nothing left for either of them to win there.

So they walked away.

They planned to meet Buloke halfway between the Capital and the coast.

He intended to leave too.

Officially, he complained that castle employment had proved considerably less generous than its reputation.

Unofficially, rumors of an attack were spreading.

Mox hadn't been the only one warning people.

The dispute with the Mountain Country had worsened.

Dowson explained what he'd heard.

After the blood fever, enormous numbers of refugees had fled north. The Mountain Country had absorbed many of them, but citizenship came with strict requirements.

Military service was one.

Without citizenship, people faced restrictions on legal employment, land ownership, schooling, marriage, and other rights.

The result was an expanding military.

Now that army was moving south.

Carlone understood very little of the old disputes between governments.

Debts.

Territory.

Agreements made before she was born.

Everyone seemed to tell a different version.

One fact was becoming difficult to dispute.

Soldiers were coming.

The farther Carlone traveled from the castle, the more she felt herself returning.

She found mushrooms.

Wild greens.

Roots.

She identified trees by their bark and plants by the shape of their leaves.

The skills had never abandoned her.

Neither, she realized, had the person she'd been before the castle.

Carlone had simply stopped listening to her.

By the time they reached the meeting point, she was walking faster.

Buloke was already there.

Carlone hugged him.

He squeezed her hard enough to hurt.

"You're alive."

"So I've been told."

Then she noticed his expression.

"What?"

"We need to move."

Buloke had heard something before leaving the castle.

An army—perhaps ten thousand soldiers, perhaps more—was reportedly marching toward the Capital.

Carlone had learned to distrust numbers carried by frightened people.

But Buloke had seen enough to believe the threat itself was real.

"There's more," he said.

He led them away from the road.

A camp waited in the darkness.

Carlone stopped.

Dozens of people.

Castle servants.

Porters.

Maids.

Children.

Elderly parents.

Day laborers.

Nobody had lit a fire.

They were too afraid of being seen.

Carlone recognized several faces.

Some had mocked her.

Some had whispered when she passed.

One woman had once moved her plate rather than sit beside Carlone in the kitchen.

Now they stared at her.

Not embarrassed.

Stunned.

The dead woman had walked into their camp.

Dowson counted nearly a hundred people.

Carlone looked at Buloke.

"You brought all of them?"

He lifted both hands.

"I know."

"If we're caught—"

"We're dead."

"You say that very casually."

"The castle guards have more important problems."

Carlone wanted to argue.

Instead, she remembered a barrel.

Buloke had carried her out when everyone else had left her to die.

She hugged him again.

Mostly because she loved him.

Partly because it prevented her from saying something ungrateful.

They needed somewhere to take the refugees.

Carlone knew one.

Hillside.

The abandoned village she'd found years ago on her first journey south.

It had houses.

A church.

Barns.

Water.

And, unless things had changed, almost no people.

"Can everyone walk?" Dowson asked.

Buloke studied the group.

"Everyone who can walk will. Anyone who can't gets help."

He pointed toward himself.

"I'll stay at the back."

Carlone looked at the frightened families.

Part of her resisted.

These were people who had watched her suffer.

Some had participated.

Now she was expected to risk herself helping them?

Dowson leaned toward her.

"These are the people who threw us to the dogs."

Carlone glanced at him.

"I know."

"And now we're saving them."

"I know."

"I don't like it."

"Neither do I."

Carlone looked again at the children.

They hadn't done anything to her.

Neither had the elderly parents.

And even among the castle workers, Carlone couldn't remember who had said what anymore.

Perhaps that didn't matter.

She didn't forgive them.

She didn't have to.

Helping someone survive wasn't the same as declaring them innocent.

"Let's move," she said.

Carlone remained near the back of the group.

Her face stayed covered.

Her moonstone necklace remained hidden beneath her clothing.

Buloke worried aloud about the fighting spreading beyond the Capital.

Carlone barely listened.

Another thought had taken hold.

The Regent.

What would happen to him?

She tried not to care.

Then she imagined soldiers entering the castle.

She imagined him frightened.

Cornered.

Killed.

Her steps slowed.

Dowson noticed.

"You all right?"

Carlone hesitated.

"What happens to the Regent if the royal household falls?"

Buloke looked at her.

"He's part of it."

Carlone knew what that meant.

Dowson's expression hardened.

"He left you to die."

Carlone flinched.

"You don't know everything."

"I know enough."

"He couldn't simply do whatever he wanted. There were rules. Restrictions."

She heard herself defending him and hated it.

Still, she continued.

"Maybe he made it easy for you to rescue me."

Buloke stopped walking.

Carlone did too.

"What?"

"Maybe he knew. Maybe that's why they didn't leave me there longer. Maybe—"

"Carlone."

Something in Buloke's voice frightened her.

"No."

She stared at him.

Buloke looked as though he didn't want to say what came next.

Then he did.

"Everyone knew what happened to you."

Carlone's stomach dropped.

"The guards joked about it."

She shook her head.

"They said they were finally done babysitting the Regent's mistress."

Carlone looked away.

Buloke continued.

"I kept track of where they put you. The Lieutenant gave me the key himself when they thought you were dead. Told me to dispose of your body."

Carlone swallowed.

"The Regent knew?"

Buloke didn't answer immediately.

That was answer enough.

Carlone's eyes filled.

"No."

"I saw him."

"Buloke—"

"I saw him with the Queen and their children."

Carlone shook her head harder.

"He never asked about you."

"Stop."

Buloke stopped.

Dowson didn't.

"He could have sent water."

Carlone turned toward him.

"Dowson."

"One cup, Carlone."

His anger wasn't cruel.

That somehow made it worse.

"One order. One guard. Anything."

Carlone covered her face.

Then Buloke said the thing that finally broke whatever hope remained.

"I saw another woman taken to your old room."

Silence.

Carlone's hands dropped.

"What?"

"While you were with the Queen."

Carlone stared at him.

The world seemed to tilt.

Another woman.

Already.

She thought about the Regent calling her my dear through the bars.

His jealousy over Dowson.

His refusal to help her.

His children.

His wife.

His insistence that Carlone's wages belonged to him.

She had spent days searching for some hidden kindness that would make everything else less terrible.

There wasn't one.

Carlone began crying.

Buloke put an arm around her.

She didn't pull away.

"I'm sorry," he said.

Carlone nodded.

She hated him for telling her.

She loved him for telling her.

Most painfully, she believed him.

Hillside looked almost exactly as Carlone remembered it.

Empty.

Quiet.

Waiting.

They arrived exhausted after walking from morning into the following night.

The abandoned houses needed repairs, but roofs still stood.

The church remained.

So did several barns.

There was water nearby.

For now, it was enough.

People immediately began choosing buildings and clearing rooms.

Buloke became something of a hero among them.

Carlone thought he deserved it.

Dowson decided to remain in Hillside for a while.

Buloke invited him to the inn.

Dowson shook his head.

"Not yet."

Carlone understood.

Going home sometimes required becoming ready to be seen there.

She decided not to return to Merri's inn either.

Not because she wasn't welcome.

She knew better now.

But she needed somewhere quieter.

She needed Faya.

Viktor.

The farm.

Before leaving, Carlone found Buloke.

"I never thanked you properly."

"You hugged me twice."

"That isn't the same."

"It's plenty."

Carlone smiled.

Buloke was anxious to reach Peaches and the children.

Carlone could see it.

"You miss her."

Buloke sighed.

"Terribly."

"Even with the fighting?"

"Especially with the fighting."

Carlone laughed.

They embraced one last time.

Neither knew when they'd meet again.

That was all right.

Carlone had finally learned that goodbye didn't always mean abandonment.

She walked inland.

This time she didn't hide.

She used the main road.

No one passed her.

The country felt as empty as it had during her childhood journey.

But Carlone wasn't the same frightened girl.

When the farm appeared, exhaustion gave way to relief.

Faya ran to meet her.

Viktor followed more slowly, his altered gait still visible.

Neither demanded explanations before welcoming her inside.

Carlone stayed.

At first she intended to remain only long enough to warn them about the army.

Then planting season began.

There was work to do.

Carlone became a farmhand again.

For once, she didn't mind.

News arrived slowly.

Rumor first.

Then travelers.

Then merchants carrying increasingly consistent stories.

The Mountain Country's army had entered the Capital.

There had been violence, though accounts differed wildly about how much and against whom.

The Captain and Lieutenant were reportedly executed.

Carlone tried not to imagine it.

The Queen and Regent were removed from the country and sent into exile.

The Capital itself came under Mountain Country control.

Some people welcomed the change.

Others resented the occupation.

Most, according to the travelers, were concerned with simpler questions.

Would the markets remain open?

Would there be food?

Would their homes still be theirs?

Would soldiers leave them alone?

The answer seemed to depend on whom one asked.

The Mountain Country put soldiers and administrators to work restoring neglected farmland

around the Capital and redirected resources previously used by the royal household.

Whether that made the new rulers better people, Carlone didn't pretend to know.

She'd learned enough about powerful people to distrust anyone who claimed that authority made them good.

But the war did not reach Faya's farm.

That was enough for Carlone.

As for the Regent—

He was alive.

That was all she wanted to know.

At least, eventually it became all she wanted to know.

Carlone remained through harvest.

Then she left again.

Not because she was unhappy.

That was important.

Faya wanted her to stay.

Viktor wanted her to stay.

Carlone loved them both.

But the farm belonged to their life now.

Carlone needed one of her own.

She returned to the coast.

To the bay.

The first time she'd reached the sea, she'd been a starving child searching for moonstones because she thought they might keep her alive.

Years later, she'd returned with Viktor and discovered the shore glittering with them beneath the moon.

Now she came alone.

And stayed.

Carlone built a cabin.

Nothing grand.

One room at first.

A hearth.

A sturdy roof.

Shelves for preserves.

Hooks for drying herbs.

A small garden where the soil allowed it.

She knew how to build things now.

She knew how to repair them too.

Every summer, she returned inland to help Faya and Viktor with the farm.

She slept in the rebuilt barn.

Eventually, even that stopped frightening her.

Then, when harvest approached, she returned to the coast.

Her coast.

Her home.

Carlone collected moonstones and sold them inland.

Never in the Capital.

She had no reason to go there.

Sometimes she thought about the Regent.

Less as the years passed.

Sometimes she thought about her mother.

Her uncle.

Aunty.

Kuli.

Merri and Papa.

Buloke.

Dowson.

Mox.

Everyone who had carried her for part of the journey.

And everyone who had tried to stop her.

For much of her life, Carlone had believed survival meant becoming strong enough to need no one.

She understood differently now.

She had needed people.

Faya had pulled her from a burning barn.

Merri had given her a bed.

Viktor and Buloke had given her work and friendship.

Dowson had come looking when she disappeared.

Buloke had carried her out with the rubbish rather than let the castle burn her body.

Needing them had never made Carlone weak.

The mistake had been believing she needed someone else to tell her what she was worth.

Carlone stepped outside her cabin.

The tide had gone out.

Moonlight scattered across the wet sand.

Here and there, something pale glimmered.

Carlone smiled.

She no longer needed moonstones to save her.

She collected them because she liked them.

That difference, she thought, might be the whole story.