In which I love the first half because of little El and Wes, but then they grow up and things get weird again. 

Legion was unaccounted for. The fallen soldiers and guards were buried, dozens in a day, and a separate ceremony was held for Gideon Huntian after a rescue mission set out to find him and never returned. The moon was blocked by black clouds and summer lightning flashed constantly like white firecrackers. The entire household—the servants and maids, the stable boys and landscapers and hunters—flocked outdoors dressed in black, surrounded by the surviving members of the army and security. Each of them bore a bow and arrow. Caine Weatherby, the interim master of the army, stood by with a lit torch, setting flame to the arrows one at a time.

Winter, Wescott, and Elowyn stood slightly above the scene on an elevated platform facing the dark bay. Staring straight ahead, Winter whispered, "When Caine comes near, hold out your arrows so he can light them for you."

"Why do they have to be on fire?" Elowyn asked out loud.

"Shhh," said Wescott, glaring at her.

"Shhh," Winter hushed both of them. "It's an oath of goodbye. Wait quietly until it's your turn to shoot."

Elowyn leaned behind her mother. She whispered to her brother, "I'm not going to shoot mine."

"Me, neither," Wescott agreed.

Caine, tall and tattooed with an earring winking in the light, reached the Huntians and touched his torch to Winter's arrow. She drew back and fired. In an arc brilliant and beautiful to look at, her burning arrow sailed far through the sky and down into the bay, where it was swallowed in darkness.

Blue lightning lit up Winter's weary face. "Hold out your arrows," she told her children.

"No," said Wescott.

"Do it!" hissed Winter in a whisper.

Wescott put down his bow. "I don't want to say goodbye."

Winter did not argue. She watched hundreds more arrows hit the water and burn there.

Elowyn came to her brother and took his hand. To her surprise, he did not wrench away. They turned and walked silently back to the castle as the bows twanged and the arrows whistled, hundreds of fiery streaks in the night sky, and they left behind a piece of their childhood.

That night, after the ceremony, Elowyn stayed in her own room just long enough for her mother to tuck her into bed. Then she scuttled down the marble hallway into Wescott's room. Wescott was also up, staring hard at his reflection in his dressing mirror. Elowyn climbed into his warm bed but only stayed for a moment before hopping up and joining him, scrutinizing his intense face in the mirror.

Wescott held his hair back from his forehead. A fierce sadness and protectiveness he was too young to understand gripped his heart like an iron fist.

He let his hair fall and turned to his sister. "I'm the king now," he whispered.

The night's silent lightning gave way to a heavy shower with real thunder that shook the huge windows of the dining hall, where Elowyn and Wescott shared a silent breakfast served by the staff. Winter was yet to rise from bed. The two children went clomping out in their boots and stood under the dripping shade of the carriage house. Elowyn felt no joy at the wetness of the day. Everything was upside down.

"You're it," Wescott said, and darted off with Elowyn close behind, both of them stopping to splash in every puddle. Everything had changed except for Wescott. He would always be there.

They ended their chase in the stable, where the stable boys hardly older than Wescott and Elowyn were shoveling hay. With drenched hair, Wescott hoisted himself to the top of a stall divider and stood there. "Get me Melky!" he ordered, referring to his black pony.

The boys grinned up at him, not taking him seriously. "She's in the other barn. She's got to stay there till the rain stops."

"No," said Wescott. "I'm the king. Bring Melky."

The boys only laughed. Wescott frowned at them. "What?"

"You look funny," said Elowyn, also laughing.

Wescott jumped off the wall and tackled his sister. They thrashed each other around in the hay and bits of it clung all over their wet clothes. "I'm glad I'm king so I can have you thrown out," said Wescott, sounding angry, but he was merely continuing the argument for the fun of it.

Then they stumbled to their feet and made their way through fat raindrops to the edge of the bay. It was green today with all the algae churned up from the bottom. Wescott and Elowyn kicked sand into the water, but then they did nothing at all except stand there deep in though.

"I wanted to grow up before Father died," Wescott said at last. "I don't want to be king without him."

"Maybe you're not really king," Elowyn suggested. "Mother's still queen, and you're not her husband, so how can you be the king?"

"Mother doesn't count anymore. It's the rights of....the rights of succession."

In school, Edem had taught all about the rights of succession. Elowyn had not paid much attention. She stood on the beach now trying to work it all out in her head.

"Enough bloody talking," she said at last, and selected a stone to throw.

When they trudged back to the castle, Winter was up, wrapped in a white cloak. Elowyn came to her and hugged her. She was warm and smelled clean. "You're soaking wet!" Winter said, placing both hands on Elowyn's head. "Where have you been? Who has been looking after you?"

"We've been looking after us," said Elowyn.

"Exactly why you need me here! This entire place is out of order," boomed an unfamiliar, caustic voice from the other side of the hall.

Wescott, who had lingered in the doorframe, hurried over to stand beside his mother. He and Elowyn watched as a tall stranger crossed the room and knelt directly before them. "Look at that," he went on, nearly shouting, but he was smiling now. "My own brother's children, afraid of me."

His eyes were pale blue but his hair was a thick, coarse black. He had not shaved in several days. Up and down his meaty arms snaked colorful tattoos. "Wescott and Elowyn," said Winter, pushing her children closer, "this is Conrad Daley, your father's brother."

Do you see the problem? DO YOU SEE THE PROBLEM? HE WON'T LET ANYONE WITH DARK HAIR LIVE HERE AND YET HE HAS DARK HAIR. 

Actually there was an eventual plot point to that weirdness, but I have no idea what it was and I think the whole series fizzled out before I could reveal it. 

"Father doesn't have a brother," Elowyn stated, sure of herself.

"Ha!" Conrad Daley laughed as harshly as he spoke. "You're looking at him."

"If you're his brother, then why isn't your last name Huntian?" asked Wescott with surprising boldness.

"Smart, aren't you?" said Conrad, and tried to touch Wescott's hair. Wescott ducked out of the way. "I'm your father's half-brother. Same mother, different fathers. So we got different last names."

Wescott and Elowyn stared up at Conrad Daley. They did not know what to think.

"Uncle Conrad will be serving as king in your father's place," Winter went on explaining. "His wife died last year. He and I are in the same situation. It is only natural that he come and join us here."

"No," said Wescott.

"Wescott," warned Winter.

"No. I'm the king."

"Wescott, you are seven years old," said Winter in a hurried voice.

Elowyn butted in. "But it's true! It's the rights of recession."

"Succession," Wescott said through his teeth.

"Ha!" said Conrad Daley again. "Let them talk. It's so highly entertaining."

Madge came scurrying into the hall as he spoke. "Your room is all ready, your honor," she said to Conrad, bowing quickly and nervously.

The two of them made their way down the echoing corridor, with Conrad's laughing voice booming off of the walls. Winter turned again to her children. "Listen to me. I don't want to be in this position any more than you two do, but it's where we are. There has to be a queen and a king. It's the rules. How can the three of us run a kingdom and territories on our own?"

"Just let me grow up and then I will," Wescott spat out, glaring maliciously at the floor.

"But Wescott, that's a long way off." Winter softened her voice. "Your uncle only wants to help us. He's the only family we have. And he has three sons you can play with."

Elowyn did not like the prospect of extra boys. She looked up in alarm, but her mother and brother were not paying attention to her. Winter stared at Wescott while Wescott stared at the floor.

At length Wescott said, "When I'm grown up, I get to be king."

"Of course," said Winter warmly.

"When I'm sixteen."

"You won't be grown up then."

"Father and I were supposed to do this together. He was supposed to always be here to show me—"

"I know, but he's not," Winter interrupted sadly. She held Elowyn's face in one hand and Wescott's in the other, just like Gideon always did. "This is how things are now. All we can do is make Conrad and his boys feel welcome. All right?"

"All right," said Elowyn reluctantly, taking Winter's hand.

Wescott said nothing. He didn't even shrug.

Kai, Jax, and Levi Daley were twelve, ten, and nine years old. Wescott and Elowyn were greeted by their newfound cousins with nothing but disdain and frequent slugging. Winter was too busy to intervene for the well-being of her children. There was to be a coronation for Conrad Daley, new king of Terradon and its territories—the Low Country, the Black Forest, and the Eastern Shore. Across the castle the staff was hopping, and Winter was bustling about in the thick of it as if all was right in the world. She had every room aired out and shined. The floors were waxed. The red and gold flags of the Huntian crest, which had hung half-mast after the attack, now waved hard and proud. Conrad wasted no time in overwhelming the palace with his demands. All of the women staff became his personal servants. Wescott was booted from his own bedroom so that Conrad could transform it into a lounge. And strangest of all, Conrad demanded that all weapons, even the little swords and bows owned by Wescott and Elowyn, be collected and burned on the front lawn.

"Why?" Elowyn asked.

"Your weapons don't belong here, with all your toys," said Conrad in the smooth voice Elowyn quickly learned was forced. "Weapons don't belong anywhere. They're bad and they make people angry."

Elowyn looked down at her sword, her prized posession. She had not known it made people angry.

"Why?" she asked again.

"Elowyn, Uncle Conrad is the king now. He knows exactly what he is doing," interrupted Winter, hovering nervously behind Conrad.

Elowyn held out her sword and arrows, thinking sadly of her weaponry going up in flames, but if Winter agreed with it, it must be a good idea. Conrad whipped them away and strode off whistling to confiscate Wescott's weapons. That would be the first major battle of his career.

The coronation of the new king took place on the terrace at the top of the castle and consisted mostly of Conrad Daley crediting heroic acts to and heaping lavish praise upon himself. "So ends the legacy of Gideon Huntian, gone down into the darkness," he concluded in a triumphant shout, "and now come the days of Conrad Daley. Warrior, savior, keeper of men."

From the hands of every occupant of Leida Castle, hundreds of lighted lanterns were released up into the starry sky, where they burst into fireworks in the shapes of dragons and griffins and phoenixes. "God save thee and defend thee, and may you have wonderful peace," chanted the crowd.

"And may you get food poisoning," added Wescott in a low growl.

Immediately following the coronation, Wescott and Elowyn were kicked off to bed while the adults laughed and drank and gorged themselves on a feast. The two children lay together in Elowyn's bed listening to the singing and performances that lasted well into the next morning.

"We'll never be grown-ups," grumbled Elowyn, staring at the mural on her ceiling.

"Why would you want to?" snapped Wescott, also to the ceiling. "All they do is have parties. They've forgot all about Father."

"I haven't forgot," said Elowyn.

"I miss Father," Wescott said. "I miss swimming in the bay with him."

It was the first time since his death that Gideon Huntian had been spoken of as a father rather than just a king. It was a relief to Elowyn's ears. "Me, too."

"I'm even glad I don't have my sword and my bow anymore," Wescott went on in a shaking voice. "Nothing at all is good without him."

Elowyn rolled onto her side. Her forehead touched Wescott's. "But we're safe," she whispered, fierce and confident. "Conrad will keep us safe, but only till you get to be king. You'll be the best king ever. You'll have the rights of succession."

Wescott paused and then lifted his head. "I'll make you my queen," he whispered. "I'll take you to the Low Country."

Elowyn thought hard about how to repay him. "I'll buy you a new sword."

----------------------------------

Conrad Daley was not a warrior, a savior, or a keeper of men. He dedicated his life to food, drink, and his rotations of iniquitous women. The subsequent decade heaped more pounds on him until he could barely manage a staircase. His black hair faded to the color of ash. The only time he saw his niece and nephew, or their mother for that matter, was at seven each night, when Winter, Wescott, and Elowyn dined at one end of the banquet table while Conrad ate at the other end with his sons, who grew no more tolerable upon reaching adulthood. They were as big and hairy as Vikings and ate like them, serving with their hands and licking plates clean. Wescott and Elowyn had learned ages ago to eat as quickly as possible. Winter was the only one who attempted any form of civility. "More refugees pounded on the castle gate today," she said at one such dinner. The stream of refugees had grown ever thicker in recent years, and now the city nearly choked on them. "The Bellican terrorists are becoming a real threat to the economy, do you not think?"

"They're no threat at all!" Conrad shouted, as if the notion was mind-bogglingly daft. He was reclining in his velvet dinner chair with a tumbler of wine in each hand. "They're not even terrorists! They're just angry! And we can handle all the refugees in the world. I'll just increase taxes in the Low Country. Impose another meat tax. Raise the price of the Daley Dailey News."

"If you keep this up, the Low Country is going to rebel," said Elowyn.

"Did I speak to you?" Conrad barked. Taking a long drink from each goblet, he observed that Wescott's and Elowyn's plates were empty. "What are you still doing here? Get." As the two Huntian children gladly exited the dining hall, they heard Conrad say to Winter, "I'm hosting another weather summit tomorrow. Our climate is getting more unsettled. It's bad on our oysters."

Wescott and Elowyn were seventeen now. In place of black ponies, they rode horses as bright as the moon. An afterthought for the past ten years, they had been left under the supervision and training of no one but their teacher, Edem. Snubbing the formalities and etiquette usually drilled into children of royalty, he took them hiking and climbing, swimming in the ocean, let them manhandle their sailboats in the wind and rain until their hands blistered. The most traditional schooling the twins received came from books of science and ancient wars. And, unbeknownst to their uncle the king, they daily practiced swordsmanship, fencing, and bow hunting. Getting away with it was no problem. Conrad Daley was too involved with his drinks and parties and the climate change to really remember that he had a niece and a nephew, and barely anyone else in the kingdom enforced Conrad's rules. They did not give away secrets. Harder to conceal were injuries. Elowyn's face was bruised for two weeks by a sword handle and she blamed her horse.

Elowyn grew up but her wild heart did not. She studied history and geography until she knew all creation inside out. In her room she had shells and sand from the Smoky River and the Oyster Bay and the Terracotta Sea. She had feathers and nests and eggs, bones and fossils and amber. She scooped handful after handful of the available world but still her brain was parched for more. She wanted to taste for herself the hot, cracked dust of Bellica and the cold water of the Black Forest. And she wanted to go to the Low Country and meet the people, hear the way they talked, dragging out every word with the rs as hard as a growl.

"They're nothing special," said Wescott for the umpteenth time. "Some animals. Some people killing the animals."

It was after dinner. Wescott and Elowyn were with Edem in his tower sitting room. Against the window the sky was black and the room was full of dusty light and blue smoke. Edem watched Wescott and Elowyn from beneath his gray eyebrows with a particular look on his face, but he kept silent.

"I have a question," said Wescott, on the floor reading. He uncrossed his legs. "I don't know what 'provocative' means."

"Provocative," Edem repeated. "Something that provokes a feeling. Usually anger."

"I have a question, too." Elowyn looked at Edem while speaking to Wescott. "I want to know what Edem knows about the Low Country."

Edem removed the vanilla pipe from his mouth and waved it. "I know everything. Most of it is worthless."

"Then why do you get that look?"

He feigned ignorance. "What look?"

"The look you get when you're right and we're wrong," said Wescott.

Edem merely shook his head. "That would be always. And tell your sister to broaden her horizons. It's not good to have only one interest."

"The Low Country is her only interest," said Wescott.

"Horsemanship, swordsmanship, archery," Elowyn fired at them both, "dragon-keeping, troll-keeping, goblins, geography, geology, batfish-"

"Batfish?" Edem interrupted.

"Part bat, part fish. They're real. I read about them."

"I thought you knew everything," said Wescott to Edem.

"I was testing her," replied Edem, chomping down onto the pipe again with a hidden smile. 

I actually like all their scenes together. Elowyn's perspective was so hard to chop out of The Book of Secrets. 

The climate change summit was held the next day at Leida Castle. Besides the members of the Black Forest council, the attendees consisted of a few city officials as well as the lesser strand of royalty, very distantly related to the Huntians, who occupied the Eastern Shore. They came out of their carriages one by one, paying obsequious attention to Conrad Daley, worshipping his measures to protect the oysters.

"What complete prats," said Elowyn, watching them.

On their Highland Draught horses, Elowyn and Wescott rode into the forest belonging to Leida Castle. Conrad's personal scouts, the only people who might snitch, were busy monitoring the guests at the meeting. Wescott and Elowyn had a whole day to fight in freedom. They galloped towards each other with swords just for the magnificent noise of metal on metal. The horses weighed a ton each and the thunder of their hooves shook birds into the air and acorns to the ground. They stopped for the horses to drink at the river runoff as Wescott slashed at the air.

"What I wouldn't do for my old blade sharpener," he said.

"Yet another thing we'll never see again," said Elowyn as her horse side-stepped. "All our thanks to Conrad."

"Hail bloody Conrad," said Wescott gruffly.

Elowyn did not return his half-hearted smile. She was watching her horse, Quill. The mare withdrew her muzzle from the water and snorted uneasily. Wescott's horse was frozen except for his eyes, suspiciously rolling sideways.

Elowyn forced her horse around to survey the castle. The dogs and their handlers stood at attention outside the portcullis. The griffin scared a few crows off the roof and laid down satisfied, folding his thick gold wings beneath his body. Standing in front of the two pillars supporting the main gate were Ernie and Marty, the guard trolls. But something was wrong with Ernie. He was roaring at the air, yanking at his chain, smashing his own blue head into the brick.

Quickly, Wescott and Elowyn rose to him. "Ernie!" Elowyn called.

Hearing her, the troll turned in rage. His eyes had gone small and hard like black pebbles, and he roared, ripping his chain out of the wall and throwing it. The chain hit the cobblestone and cracked it for a hundred yards. Ernie pawed the ground and advanced, clawing Wescott's face. Elowyn plunged her sword into the troll's speckled back. Roaring again, the troll took off in a cloud of thundering dust. Elowyn lunged for her sword and grasped the hilt, falling hard from Quill. She hit the ground on her stomach with her sword in hand as Ernie made for the village at a breakneck speed, growling and bleeding.

"What the—" said Elowyn.

"Elowyn, move!" yelled Wescott above her.

Elowyn lifted her head and was nearly crushed by an advancing black rider. Wescott grabbed her and tossed her up onto his own horse. Together they galloped madly, one white horse choking in black, as the strange riders nearly trampled them. Wescott's horse made a painfully hard right and whipped around the castle, shaking the wooden bridge that led to the back entrance. The Huntians met the ground running and busted the lock on the door.

They came out into the hall of mirrors, now strung with posters of oysters and graphs of temperature spikes. In the center of the glass table stood Conrad Daley, drinking Winter's home-brewed ginger beer. He was at the tail end of a speech. "The carbon dioxide emitted by human beings is creating a dangerous layer of heat in the lower atmosphere," he said. "If we all learn to conserve breathing, maybe by taking one breath every ten seconds, we will stop this decay of nature in its course."

The enthusiastic clapping came to an abrupt end as Conrad's niece and nephew were noticed. Conrad nearly choked on his beer in pure annoyance. "WHAT?"

"We're under a terrorist attack," said Elowyn loudly.

"How many times do I have to tell you not to call them that? They're not terrorists! They're just bored."

"Whatever they are, they're about to break in," snapped Wescott.

It happened as he spoke. The guards at the drawbridge, unarmed by Daley's law, were easily swiped away and the cavalry of Bellica rampaged the castle. The guests screamed and sprang to the tabletop. Conrad Daley roared out orders that went largely ignored. Wescott and Elowyn charged at the thirty attackers.

Even with their skill, it was madness. Elowyn's head ached like it was coming apart in the middle and a dull buzz rode up and down her spine. She thought only of killing. It did not matter who, so long as they died. She was hit in the mouth. Blood ran down between her teeth and energized her like water. Conrad Daley shouted and the hall of mirrors became a battleground.

A scream like Elowyn had never heard before ruptured the core of her brain and grew inside her skull until she thought it would shatter into pieces. The pain drove her to her knees. Above the endless, piercing noise she heard something else, a wordless voice, and then it all went away and Elowyn was sore and herself again. A bearded man with covered eyes held a sword at her throat.

She seized him by the shoulders and slammed him straight into a cabinet of china, smashing everything, letting the glass shelves crack into pieces on his head. Only then did she pull out her blade. She drove it straight through him and into the wall. She stood wiping the blood from her face and gasping in the abrupt silence.

Edem's recognizable hand took hold of her shirt and yanked her into the concealed tunnel ahead of Wescott. There the three of them stood, the candles flickering on the earthen walls down the long, narrow corridor.

"It's begun," said Edem, making his way down the tunnel with his hands on the walls and his head ducked. "It should have begun long ago, if you ask me. Of course they would start here, the best place to recruit for an army."

"What should have begun long ago?" demanded Wescott.

"Who would start here?" asked Elowyn at the same time.

Edem stopped and turned to face them grimly. "I need you to listen to every word. This is everything I have never told you."

They emerged from the tunnel into the curtained library, where Edem shoved everything off a desk onto the floor to make room for a tapestry of history. "It started with the troll," he said, looking closely at Elowyn, who was holding her aching head. "It spread to you. If you hadn't resisted...it could have taken this entire kingdom."

"What could have?" Elowyn asked.

"Mind control!" said Edem. He motioned the children to draw closer. "Mind control. It can take anyone—humans, creatures, and animals. No one here understands how it works. The Bellicans stand in their own country and with one chant draw to them whoever they want."

"I felt like there was something in my head and I couldn't think for myself," said Elowyn, fumbling.

Edem nodded. "It's certainly not random. They go for the best fighters first."

"And then there was this scream and a voice and it went away."

Wescott was listening intently, but Edem looked puzzled. "I've never heard of that happening."

They grew silent. Then Edem placed his toughened hand on the tapestry. "There are other things, too. Black arrows of steel that let spirits into the air to overtake you. It's highly specific warfare. We're not dealing with mindless barbarians. The Bellicans have some of the most advanced brains of the known world."

"So what does this have to do with anything?" asked Wescott, noting the tapestry.

Edem placed his thumb on an embroidered date. "Ten years ago, when your father was taken, something else happened. A prophecy was created. There is a way to undo all the evil we have allowed to take over the world. But it is not written down in one place. That was not secure enough. It was forged onto the back of five medallions and distributed throughout the civil world, given to people trusted to keep them safe."

That...... just.....

Why did I feel I had to follow the Lego game to the nth degree. Just why. 

"Who wrote the prophecies?" asked Elowyn. "Who printed the medallions? How did he know what to say?"

Edem gazed heavily down at the table. The flicker of a single candle lit up his blue eyes. "He has the rare gift of foresight," he said. "His name is Brim." From a pocket within his shirt he drew a simple silver coin on a chain and passed it to Wescott.

"I was present at its writing," said Edem. "I never forgot it.

"When the soul in the ebony tower dies,

the bones out of their graves shall rise.

But first the minds are stolen till

the tune is heard on the distant hill."

"And the man who was now is," Wescott finished, reading the medallion.

"This is the only one of the five I have," said Edem. "Brim gave the others to people he trusted, to have them hidden. Whoever comes upon them is meant to be a part of this."

"A part of the prophecy?" asked Elowyn.

"Yes!" said Edem. "It's happening now. First the minds are stolen. That's mind control."

"The mind control keeps happening," said Wescott, very slowly, "until a tune is heard some place, and a man is found or something, and then someone in a tower will die, and then the dead will rise."

"Father," said Elowyn.

She eyes met Wescott's over the candle flame. Wescott fingered the place on his chin where the troll had clawed him.

In the far corner of the library, the wood-paneled door was thrust open. Winter came in hurriedly. "What happened?" she shouted. "Why is it so dark in here? I heard the screaming from the hall of mirrors and sent my aids down. All they could see was destruction, and you two gone!"

"We're quite all right, Mother," said Wescott, drawing near.

"And the cakes we were baking burned to a crisp," added Winter. "We're still trying to get all the smoke out."

Edem looked at Wescott and Elowyn with half a smile. He pulled out his sword.

"Have a new one waiting for us," he said. "We've got a troll to catch."