Bend Her novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: Given at the Gate
Before the whole court the king gives Linnet to the Beast Mage and she walks the bridge on her own feet; Ansel says the gate opened for her.
My brother read my name aloud to three hundred people, and then he gave me away.
"Princess Linnet Carrick," Aldous said, "is placed in the keeping of the Beast Mage of the Hollow."
The herald repeated it from the steps of the gate.
The court stood in the cold in their furs and watched me.
I was twenty-two years old.
That morning I had been told I was going to a quiet house in the hills to rest.
Nobody had said a word about a gorge, or a black keep, or a bridge with no rail.
Bess stood behind me with my cloak over her arm.
She had gone very still.
"Lin," Aldous said, and he turned his crown a quarter inch on his head. "Your betrothal to the northern lord is suspended until Midwinter."
"Suspended," I said.
"Until you've been taught."
"Taught what?"
He looked at the stones.
I had been carried to my lessons all my life.
I could play the harp and read three languages.
I could name every flower in the palace garden, which I had only ever seen through glass.
I had never once been taught anything that mattered.
"Majesty," said a soft voice at my elbow.
Lord Osric Gisborne had raised half the palace, and he was the only one who ever sat with me when I was sick.
He took my gloved hand in both of his.
"Child, listen," he said. "The Hollow is the safest place in Tarnmere."
"Is it?"
"The mage is a hard man, but he has never lifted a hand to a student in his life."
"A student," I said.
"Only a student, my dear. That is all he is allowed to have."
He patted my hand and let it go.
The ring of iron keys at his belt clinked.
I looked past him down the gorge.
The bridge was a single span of black stone over a drop so deep that fog filled it.
On the far side, an iron gate stood shut in a wall of black rock.
A litter waited at my feet, with four bearers and its curtains drawn.
"They will carry you across," Aldous said. "You needn't walk it."
That was when I understood.
He did not want me to see where I was going.
He wanted me wrapped and quiet, handed over the edge of the kingdom without a fuss.
Behind the nobles, a woman in a green hat whispered to her husband.
I heard the word beast, and then I heard someone laugh.
I turned my left hand over inside its glove, as I always did when I was frightened.
There was a round white scar in the middle of the palm, the size of a coin.
The nursery hearth had given it to me when I was a baby.
That was what I had always been told.
It had begun to ache.
I took my cloak from Bess and put it on.
"Princess," Bess whispered. "You don't have to."
"I know."
"Then I'm coming with you."
"I know that too."
I stepped around the litter.
"Lin," Aldous said sharply. "Get in the chair."
"No."
The word was small, but the whole court heard it.
I had never said it to him before.
"I am going on my own feet," I said. "If I am being given away, the kingdom can watch me walk."
So I stepped onto the bridge.
The stone was slick and the wind came up the gorge and pulled at my hem.
I did not look down.
I kept my gaze fixed straight ahead, and Bess's boots rang behind me.
Near the far end, the fog opened.
The gate had swung wide, and a man was standing in it.
I stopped, because he was larger than the gate had any right to let through.
He stood six and a half feet tall, and black ridged horns swept back from his brow.
His coat hung open over a chest crossed with old scars.
Black fur ran down both his forearms.
His left hand ended in claws.
His right hand was covered to the wrist in an iron glove.
His eyes were amber, and they were fixed on me.
Bess made a small sound behind me.
I made myself walk the rest of the way.
I stopped one step short of him and lifted my chin.
He did not bow, and he did not smile.
"Princess," he said, and his voice was low and rough. "Your brother wrote that you have no magic."
"I was told the same."
"Hold out your hand."
I did not know why I obeyed.
I took off my glove and held out the scarred palm.
He looked at it for a long moment.
The fingers of the iron glove closed slowly.
"I am Ansel Rooke," he said. "This gate has not opened for anyone in twelve years."
"Not for the king?"
"Not for the king, and not for me unless I ask it."
"But it opened for me."
"It opened when you set foot on the bridge."
Behind me, three hundred people had gone quiet.
"Your brother lied to you, Princess," said the Beast Mage. "Come inside."
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