Crown of One Hundred Kings (Nine Kingdoms Trilogy #1) - Rachel Higginson

1

“Tess!” Someone shouted. “Tess!”

Rolling over, I snuggled deeper into my wool blanket and tear-stained pillow, afraid to leave my dreams. They needed me. They needed my sword and my skill and my vengeance.

“Tess!” the voice persisted. “I will fetch a pail of water if you insist on being difficult.” There was a pause, and then the voice said, “Last time I used water to wake you, you were peevish.”

I peeled open my eyes and blinked my surroundings into view. The dark, wild images in my head were replaced by a plain but cozy bedroom marked by varying shades of gray. I squinted at the candlelight thrust in my face and the hand reaching out to shake my shoulder.

“I’m awake,” I panted.

“You had another dream.”

I pushed up on one elbow and stared at the white-washed wall. “I had the same dream. I always have the same dream.”

“Your family?”

The question grated on my already raw nerves. “Oliver, if Father Garius finds you in here, he’ll cut out your tongue.” I leaned forward, glaring at the young monk in training. “Which might actually serve you well, since you’re terrible at this whole vow of silence thing.”

Oliver straightened. He tucked the candle to his side, careful of his long gray robe, and lifted his chin. “Unfortunately for you, Tessana, my vow of silence is second fiddle to your need to speak. If I always honored my vows, you would have gone mad by now.” He snickered, “You’d still be speaking to the scarecrow and Father Garius’s bronze miniature.”

I flopped back on my one allotted pillow and ignored the way the loosely packed straw poked at my skin. “I suppose you’re right. But now if you’ll excuse me, I am very much looking forward to the silence of sleeping.” I closed my eyes and willed the idiot to disappear.

And when he didn’t, I tried not to wish a plague of pox on his face.

I tried, but I wasn’t the monk in training. Therefore, I failed.

“If only sleep were possible, my lady. But alas, morning has arrived. And you’re on chicken duty.”

“I hate chicken duty,” I grumbled.

“You hate every duty.”

“On second thought, I’ll cut out your tongue myself and save Father Garius the trouble.”

Oliver’s eyes widened as he backed away from my bed. “First you’ll have to catch me.”

And then he was gone, scurrying down the hallway like the scared little mouse he was.

I smiled as I sat up and stretched. Oliver was quite possibly the most annoying creature to have ever graced the realm, but he was my annoying creature and he was right.

Without him I would have gone mad years ago.

I gathered my courage and flung the scratchy gray blanket from my body. I quickly changed out of my nightgown and into a plain gray dress and stockings.

I fumbled around for my shoes—also gray—in the still wakening light, ignoring the lamp next to my bed. I wasn’t ready for light. I wasn’t ready to see clearly and face reality.

Glimpses of my horrific dream still floated in my consciousness and I desperately tried to cling to the fading, distorted images that had been so clear only moments ago. Images of my family. Memories of a family I had loved with everything I had.

A family I still loved with everything I had left.

But it was harder now that someone had taken them from me.

I splashed ice cold water on my face and used it to braid my chestnut hair.

I slipped from my room and wandered outside to feed the chickens. Hungry beasties.

The chilled air seeped into my clothes and clung to my bones. I ignored my discomfort as I finished my chores and made my way back inside and to the kitchens. The hallways remained quiet and still, even though most of the monastery would be awake by now. The Temple of Eternal Light required its priests to take a vow of silence from the time they were small children to the moment of their death.

Possibly beyond death. I wasn’t an expert on The Brotherhood of Silence. Even if I had called this isolated place home for the last eight years.

It wasn’t like they could answer my questions if I asked them. Instead, they would point me toward tomes and texts and endless pages of literature on the Light. And as interesting as that sounded, I would just have to trust that my afterlife would be loud.

Father Terosh nodded to me as I swept past him in a rush to the fireplace. He stood at the stone