The Essence

Because he’s your father, she silently chided herself. Of course she’d wanted his approval; she’d been a little girl without a mother and he was all she’d had.

Maybe if he’d spent more time with her after her mother had died, made her feel like something other than a housekeeper, she wouldn’t have found a home with Xander’s rebel army. Maybe she wouldn’t be a commander in the queen’s army now.

“You can’t win, is all I’m saying,” she spat back at him, speaking only in Englaise—the voice of the people—and knowing that it galled him that she did so. He preferred the old ways: a class system in which he was better, by birth, than nearly half the country. But what he conveniently forgot was that, by that same system, he was classified as a Vendor, and there’d been those who’d looked down on him, in the same way he looked down on Anson.

Brook, however, would never forget what the class system had meant: a lack of free will. “How many supporters can you possibly have? Three, maybe four hundred? To do what, go backward? To undo the good Queen Charlaina is trying to do? To give up the freedoms her reign has offered? Are they willing to give their lives for your cause?” She gave him a look that said exactly what she thought of his cause: not much. Then she glanced down casually at her fingers, examining a hangnail. “Besides,” she explained, “we’d crush you in a matter of seconds.” Her lips parted slowly, spreading into a grin as she glanced up again. It was daring, filled with intentional defiance as she baited the man before her, watching as the color rose in his face.

His lips tightened and his jaw flexed. Not a flattering look for him, she noted.

“You don’t know the half of whose support we have. What would you say if I told you that you’re outnumbered? That I could stop you from leaving here today if I gave the order? That me and my little insignificant band of protesters have the queen’s best friend at their mercy?” The meaning of his words was crystal clear. He would sacrifice his own daughter to send a message to the queen.

Fortunately for her, Brooklynn didn’t back down that easily. “What if I reminded you that you don’t have the queen’s best friend at your mercy, but rather the commander of the First Division of the Royal Armed Forces? What if I were to tell you that to harm me would be considered treason, and that the mere threat that just passed your vile lips could send you to stand in front of a firing squad? Or worse, get you sent to the Scablands?” She took a step toward him, closing the slim gap that remained between them, until they stood—father and daughter—nose to nose.

“You don’t have the authority,” he challenged in Parshon.

There wasn’t a trace of tolerance in her hardened expression. “Try me.”

He studied her for a long moment. He laughed then, a tight sound. Brook could taste the foul flavor of tobacco on his breath, lingering with the rancor inside him. The skin around his eyes wrinkled, like crumpled paper, but the eyes themselves remained flat. Emotionless.

“I was only jesting, dear daughter. You know I’d never harm you.” And suddenly he was the father who’d bragged of Brooklynn’s wood-carving skills. The same man who’d held her up on his shoulders to watch street performances and had given her sugar-covered fruits and sweets when her mother wasn’t looking. He reached out to stroke her cheek. Brook jerked away when his fingers—so cold they felt as if they belonged on a corpse—grazed her. “We’re flesh and blood, you and I,” he cooed. “If we can’t depend on each other, who can we count on?”

ii

I crept as silently as I could into the kitchens, which weren’t nearly as quiet as I’d hoped they’d be. It was hard enough to sneak around with a giant by my side, and it only became harder with everyone bowing to me and whispering words of respect, and then whispering some more when I passed. Gossip mostly.

This was one of the hardest things to get used to: people noticing me. I’d spent my entire life trying to go unobserved.

Funny, though, how convention tried to dictate my actions now, when once it was simply convenience. I’d merely worn the clothing available to any girl of my status—the Vendor class—and never thought to complain. Now that I could wear whatever I wanted, now that class was no longer an issue, I hated being told what was—and wasn’t—proper for someone of my stature.

And pants most certainly were not considered queenly.

I ignored the strange looks I received for my attire—gapes and stares whenever I donned trousers. But it made no sense to try to sit sideways on a horse when I could gain much better balance by sitting astride, something a skirt would never allow me to do.

Plus, the fighting lessons. I couldn’t possibly fight in a dress, could I? Not with any amount of decorum, anyway.

Of course, my father could never know that. He didn’t approve of me doing anything that put me in harm’s way . . . and hand-to-hand combat would most certainly fall under that category, lessons or not.

The rest of it, taking my place on the throne, hadn’t been nearly as hard as I’d imagined. I’d adjusted quickly, or at least I’d adjusted quickly by my standards. Considering that I hadn’t wanted the position in the first place, I thought I was doing pretty well.

In fact, there were things I actually liked about my new role.

Like seeing my country released from the tyrannical rule of an oppressive queen and her antiquated notions. Hearing the words of Englaise spoken everywhere I went, while never having to pretend I couldn’t understand what was being said. And the fact that my parents no longer had to work from sunup to sundown to provide for us.