*Jon* 

      The council meeting ended without further mishap, fortunately; the young queen laid out her plan, the councillors approved it. Archer swore to devote his efforts to replacing Lord Westover. All in all, Jon Larieux was glad when it was over. 

        The queen left, and the councillors slowly trickled out after her. Jon gathered his papers, and stood. He was about to follow the others out when Archer called him back. 

        "Larieux. A word." It was not a request, but an order, in a tone Jon knew all too well. Jon sat back down and propped his feet up on the table. Just because they were still in the council chamber didn't mean he couldn't be comfortable. 

        "I'm at your service," he quipped, pouring himself a cup of wine. 

        "Spare me your little jokes," Archer said coldly, picking at the lace on his velvet sleeves. "I think you'll be pleased to know I've found Princess Grace." 

        "Oh?" Jon said drily, glancing mockingly around the room. "I don't see her anywhere. I don't suppose you've hidden her up your sleeve or something?" Archer's brow creased into a frown, and Jon found he regretted agravating the bigger man. 

        "Very funny," Archer said, clearly not finding anything funny at all. "It turns out the Warlord of Theoria hosts her in his palace," Archer went on, talking slowly and carefully as if Jon were a willfull child, not a grown man, and a commander of the Royal Navy. "She also happens to be guarded by four men. I believe it will interest you to learn who." 

        "Alright, I'll bite. Who?" Jon said, knowing what Archer wanted him to say, yet also feeling that he already knew what he would learn. 

        "Arin Montrose; his squire Ronan Sea. Sir Thomas Cailin. Sir Charles Bann," Archer said, rattling them off like he was reciting a list. Jon grimaced. All four had once been loyal to Elizabeth, and all four had vanished the night of the coup, along with little Princess Grace. 

        Jon remembered the child, a sickly little girl, weak, always ill. Honestly, he was surprised some ailment or other hadn't carried her off by now. 

        "Why haven't you told the queen?" he asked coolly, trying to pretend he wasn't worried. Archer shrugged, glanced around the room, and leaned closer. 

        "Our wonderful queen is young, and overburdened for her years. I'd hoped to spare her some of the stress that accompanies this news," he said smoothly, raising an eyebrow as if daring Jon to contradict him 

        "Tell her," Jon ordered. "Tell her at once. She should know, she should..." Archer narrowed his ice-blue eyes. Somehow, Jon thought, this made him look a bit owlish, a bit too wise and perceptive for his liking. 

        "As you say, m'Lord," the spymaster said. The "m'Lord" was condescending. 

        Archer rose, catlike, and stalked from the room. Once he was gone, Jon leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes, thinking, remembering. 

        Princess Grace would have to resurface now, of all times. Now, when the crown was so far in dept. Now, when fleets of pirates harried the coasts in search of plunder. Now, when rebel and bandit attacks were not infrequent in the Queenswood outside the capital. Now, when discontent among the borderlords could do nothing but rise. 

        Jon sighed. Queen Arabella's other children were also a problem. Prince Roald had been struck in this face by a burning log,  and Elizabeth's men had believed him dead and thrown his body overboard, but last year, word was, one of the southern borderlords, Iain Tam, had taken on a horribly disfigured squire with very blond hair and green eyes. 

        Prince Christopher, the oldest, had apparently been brutally beaten to death, but the corpse had been so badly battered as to be unrecognizable, and no one had ever been able to identify it to anyone's satisfaction. 

        Roald's twin, Ella, had been taken prisoner–Queen Elizabeth's intentions were to execute her after a trial–but during her first night in prison, when the guards had changed shifts, they'd taken her with them, smuggled her out of the capital, and she'd vanished. 

        Princess Mary had been taken as a hostage of sorts, after she'd sworn fealty to Elizabeth, and was now kept in a tower prison under permanent house arrest, guarded by Elizabeth's most trusted knight. 

        Somehow, Arin Montrose had mannaged to smuggle Princess Grace across the sea, where she was now hosted and guarded by the Theorian Warlord. Jon remembered the child, and in his mind's eye, he saw her features, so clearly and utterly Roth that it was amazing anyone had been able to claim she was anything but legitimate. To Jon, and he was sure everyone else, when they'd discovered that Sir Rolond's bastard Kathryn had replaced her, she'd become the greatest threat. The bastard replacement had been spared, but had been banished to her father's estates. 

        Little Rose had been spared as well, a little girl of three, and had been raised as one of Rolond's bastards, and, indeed, she'd grown to have predominately Roth features, but with her mother's green eyes. It had been safest to keep her ignorant of her lineage, and to keep the Valorian people ignorant of her existence. It was best if everyone believed her dead. 

        After he'd left the council chamber, with Arabella's children so firmly on his mind, Jon found himself heading for Mary's prison tower, determined to speak with her to see if she was still the pious, innocuous thing he'd believed her to be.  

        At the base of the tower, he exchanged a few words with the guards, regular soldiers, not the queen's bastard brother's highly trained men. The two guards let him up without issue after he told them he was there on a royal errand.

        He climbed the winding stairs, up and up, to the room at the very top. The stairs went on and on, lit only by tiny arrow slits in the stone walls. At the top, the staircase oppened onto a huge round room, with a single bed, a table, chairs, brazier, and open windows, without a single pane in all of them. 

        Mary sat at one of those windows, in one of the two dining chairs, leaning her head on her hand, her elbow resting on the sill. Her sandy hair hung in filthy tangles around her shoulders. Her thin white dress was stained and tattered, and a ratty blanket was wrapped around her shoulders, her only protection against the bitter cold. The brazier had burnt itself out, and it wasn't much use anyway, against the winter winds. 

        When Jon came up the final stair, Mary turned to look at him, her green eyes sunken and empty. Her skin was waxy, and speckled with bruises. When she recongnized Jon, she blink and turned back to the window. 

        It struck him, all at once, that the former princess had been mostly forgotten, abandoned alone up here like an old ragdoll. Mary had been left to die, with no one to care, no one who even bothered to remember her existence. 

        "Mary," Jon said gently. The girl flinched and whirled to face him, eyes wide as a frightened deer. Jon wondered if anyone had shone her any kindness since her family's death. "I won't hurt you," he went on, slowly coming up with a plan to help this forgotten child. 

        "That's what they always say," she said dully.

        "They?" Jon asked startled. Fat tears dripped down Mary's cheeks, and she turned back to the window. 

        "The guards," she whispered, shivering and crying. "Whenever they bother to come up. And then they beat me and torment me." 

        "Have they... violated you?" Jon asked carefully. Mary shook her head, but wouldn't elaborate. "Look," Jon said carefully, slowly coming up with a plan to help this abandoned child. "If I could help you, get you anything, what would it be?" 

        Mary looked up, meeting his eyes for the first time. "You'd do that for me?" she asked desperately. Jon nodded. "Why?" she asked. 

        "I..." Jon paused. He really didn't know why he wanted to help this girl so badly. "Do I have to have a reason?" he said finally. Slowly, uneasily, Mary shook her head. 

        "Then I guess... I guess..." Her green eyes filled with tears of relief, of gratitude. "Blankets," she said. "Food. Coal and candles. A bath. Books." She stopped and bit her lip. "If you can get it, permission to visit the Temple, to pray. That would mean the most." 

        "I'll see what I can do, child," Jon said gently. "And I'll see if I can at least get these windows covered, or move you to someplace warm. Don't worry. I'll do what I can." And with that, Jon bowed and hurried down the stairs. He couldn't stay in that place of misery and cruelty any longer.

        He'd just stepped out of the door and into the hall when Elizabeth stumbled into him, literally. She was not the only one to ever have done so. While being small had its advantages–such as making it easier to grab certain more sensitive parts in a fight–it also created hazards like this one. He'd also learned, long ago, that important people often couldn't be bothered to look down. 

        "There you are!" the Queen cried out throwing her hands up in exasperation. "Please tell me Lord Archer is lying!" 

        "About Princess Grace? I'm afraid not." 

        Elizabeth collapsed against the wall, her eyes shadowed with uncertainty, her breathing heavy. Her eyes flickered to Mary's tower door, and then to Jon, and then back to the door, trying to think. 

        "Oh," she whispered. "I'd so hoped he was lying, or, at least, embellishing the facts." When neither Jon nor Archer said anything, she sighed. "I guess I'll just have to go to Theoria, then, and confront this Warlord."

A/N: So, we meet Mary, and we learn more of the fates of Arabella's children. Is anyone else getting excited to meet some of the others? I originally hadn't meant to introduce Mary yet, but I really like her, so I slid her in a little early. 

I'm also really sorry I haven't really had a chance to update anything else this week, but I've been kinda overwhelmed with school and stuff. But I promise that, no matter what, I should be always be able to update Opening on schedule: I'm trying to keep at least seven chapters back, so that I won't run out... 

(If I manage to get more than seven chapters in reserve I might do a bonus update partway through the week. If you want me to do that, please leave a comment!)

Also, don't forget to tell me what you think, and to vote! It means a lot to me, to know that people read what I write, especially for this, because these characters and their story has taken quite a bit of planning, and it's something that I actually know exactly where it's going. 

Thanks!