The Once and Future Queen

One More Chapter

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First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2021

Copyright © Clara O’Connor 2021

Cover design by Andrew Davis © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2021

Cover images © Shutterstock.com

Map © Laura Hall

Clara O’Connor asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008407667

Ebook Edition © January 2021 ISBN: 9780008407650

Version: 2020-12-14

Contents

Prologue

Part I

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Part II

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Part III

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Acknowledgments

Author Q & A

Exploring the World of The Once and Future Queen

Thank you for reading…

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About the Author

Books by Clara O’Connor

One More Chapter...

About the Publisher

I dedicate this first step to

My posse who said I should

My dear KL who helped me realise I could

My family who assumed I would.

Thank you

So much.

Prologue

I scowled as I studied my reflection. Something was off… I couldn’t quite place it, but I could see it was there. Or not there. And if I could tell, others would too. There would be consequences. I just wasn’t sure what they would be yet.

I shut my eyes, seeing again the blood soaking into the sand. The red spattered across the golden grains, the flashes of neon from the screens high above reflected on the pale arena walls. The red soaking deeper into the gold. You would think it would disappear, but it doesn’t. The dark stain just sits there as witness to the damage.

The humidity of my bathroom was at odds with my dry mouth and the wind whipping across the sands in my mind.

I should never have intervened. Until him, I had followed the Code unwaveringly every day of my life. And now our fates were aligned. If he was proved to be a Codebreaker, I too could be deemed guilty.

I lifted my promise ring to my lips, the warm, familiar weight grounding me, giving me focus. Clarity. The promise that kept me going, a family that would be truly my own. Somewhere I would belong.

If anyone ever learned of my impulsive actions, I wouldn’t just stand out anymore, I would be thrown out. Of class. Of home. Of the city.

If I was lucky, most likely…

Promise broken.

My chest felt tight.

What had I done?

Part One

The Nearest Coast of Darkness

Thither he plies

Undaunted, to meet there whatever Power

Or Spirit of the nethermost Abyss

Might in that noise reside, of whom to ask

Which way the nearest coast of darkness lies

Bordering on light; when straight behold the throne

Of Chaos, and his dark pavilion spread

Wide on the wasteful deep!

— Paradise Lost, John Milton

Chapter One

Londinium, Imperial Province of Britannia

In the reign of Caesar Magnus XVII

The morning shivered awake grey and wet, putting my hair in danger of severe frizzing ahead of the Mete this evening. I had an early class so caught the gleaming monorail straight to the forum, dashing past the merchants preparing their stalls for the day without a glance to spare for their sundry wares.

As I entered Basilica Varian, my eye was caught by the graffiti on the wall. How anyone had managed to deface the facade of a building inside the forum without either the sentinels or the cameras catching them, I could not begin to imagine. Maybe the graffiti was right, that there really was “chaos in the Code”. There would have to be. I forced myself to look away – there was no point paying it any attention. The sentinels would have it removed in no time. No doubt they were already on their way.

“Good morning, Cassandra,” my locker offered loudly, the door swinging open as I approached. I really did need to change the settings on my utilities more often. Even though it was nearly the end of the course, I just hadn’t gotten around to it yet. I should really; it was such a bonus to even own a locker. One of the perks of having a prominent merchant as a father. Most of my classmates had to carry their belongings around while we attended classes in the basilica, but through his business connections at the forum Papa had somehow arranged it.

“Cassandra,” Ginevra greeted me, swinging off her scooter. Luckily, this part of the forum was quiet in the mornings, but if anyone saw her gliding across the mosaics, there would be Hades to pay. Not that Ginevra ever seemed to care for such rules. I, on the other hand, preferred to stay well within their boundaries at all times. My parents insisted on it, stressing that as my future would be in the public eye, my past must be beyond reproach. My own personal code to live by.

“You have any mid-terms this morning?” Ginevra asked, throwing her exquisitely embroidered jacket into my locker.

“No, just a history lecture on the Reformation of the Province for me, I think.”

Ginevra was examining her nails as I rummaged in my pocket for my mini slate. Hopefully, no tiny smudge was lurking. We had little enough time after class to run home and get ready for tonight. Having to redo nails would completely throw out all our careful planning.

“Schedule,” I said, glancing at the data the slate offered up. “Yep, just a regular class. I’ll see you for lunch after, yeah?”

But she had already gone, not waiting for an answer. One of my favourite morning tunes started to play in my ear as I swayed towards my class. I walked through the gallery, using the portico covering for as long as possible to stay out of the rain. Crossing the corner of the expansive courtyard, I took the side entrance into the central part of the basilica before turning up towards the civics centre where the citizenship classes were held.

My usual seat beside Ambrose was taken, leaving me to weave my way to an empty place. But my attention was caught by a device, a glint of impossible gold from the jacket pocket of a boy in a seat to my right. Distracted, I missed a step and stumbled forward.

I braced myself for impact, but a hand grabbed my arm and steadied me before I could fall in an inelegant heap in front of the entire class.

“Thank you,” I said, looking up at the boy who had restored my balance. My breath caught as our eyes connected, his midnight gaze burning into mine. Magnetism seemed to sizzle in the air between us, the lines of his face becoming sharper, his presence building to a crescendo in my mind like a song… until his lids lowered, cutting me off, and his gentle hands released me.

What just happened?

“Cassandra Shelton,” a voice snapped from across the room. “If you would?”

Shaken from my stupor, I took my place, my cheeks hot.

I looked again at the boy in the seat next to mine, that hint of illegal tech in his pocket no longer visible.

Devyn, that was his name. I had to dredge the word up from some shadowy recess of memory, but even holding the thought in my mind felt wearisome and wrong. It was so strange – in that moment of contact I had felt solid unyielding muscle. Yet that reality clashed with what my eyes were now telling me, that this slight boy would be knocked over by an overly aggressive wind. It was like his very appearance had shifted beneath my gaze, like a mask falling back into place.

I tried to focus on the lesson, but my concentration was shot. I felt hyperaware of the boy next to me in a way I never had before. Not with Devyn, who I must’ve shared classrooms with for almost a decade. Not with anyone. Which was odd, because what would be the point? I knew exactly where my story ended. What on earth was I doing getting distracted by old classmates and impossible devices? Ridiculous.

I shook off all thought of glimmering gold and midnight eyes, and even managed to take some notes, until our tutor encouraged us to move our desks back and make a circle with our seats.

These classes were a formality really, but every now and then you got a teacher who wanted to go the extra mile. One for whom the Code was not just a set of rules to live by but the very foundation on which the Empire existed. As a class of elites, the chance we would fail to achieve citizenship was incredibly remote. But we had to be seen to complete the same formalities as every other young adult in the city.

Devyn ended up in the seat next to me again, his chair uncomfortably close. I was so concerned with not touching him that I managed to stumble clumsily for the second time. His jacket was hanging off the back of his chair and whatever none-of-my-business thing was in the pocket scraped my leg as I rearranged my chair next to his.

I scowled, rubbing at the spot as I retook my seat, only inches between us now. Imperial tech was always superbly finished, uniform silver, smooth, and compact. Not gold like glazed amber, and certainly not sharp. It could only have come from beyond our walls. But where would he have sourced such a thing? And why? It wouldn’t even be compatible with our hardware.

I shook my head, trying to focus. The Reformation was one of my weaker subjects, but the bar was low, given the selection of mostly dusty legislative classes we were required to attend, packed with mind-numbing civic obligations and duties.

“When Aurelius XV became consul, the Britannia Province wasn’t much more than the city itself, and the citizens were deemed to be half-native,” Professor Livius droned on. “Hard to imagine now, but in a world where the Olympian myths and the Christian god of earlier generations had faded, some had even adopted the religious practices of the Celtic kingdoms, and druids could be regularly found inside the walls.”

I jotted down the years: 1521, new council begins era of reform; 1528, introduction of imperial Code of Conduct and expulsion of Britons from the city; 1540, end of the Tewdwr dynasty leading to the Two Hundred Years’ War; until the eventual Treaty of 1772 and the establishment of agreed borders between the imperial Province and the rest of the peoples of Britannia.

Devyn Agrestis.

How long had we been in the same classes? I couldn’t seem to recall. We didn’t share the same social circles and certainly not the same virtual ones. I knew nearly everyone in this particular round of citizenship classes. I should, I went to school and college with most of them. Beyond them, there was an even wider circle of people all across Londinium whose views I knew on every topic from celebrity homes to upload damage whom I might not even recognise if I met them in real life.

I realised I actually knew little to nothing about Devyn. Even though we were in the same civics class and, thinking about it, I was sure we had attended the same secondary school as well.

My eye ran from his loose, dark curls down his straight nose, over his lips, past the column of his throat, to the rise and fall of his chest. He was sort of… well, nondescript, but my eyes kept wanting to trace his features. I froze as I saw his brows pulling together over those dark eyes. He had noticed.

I cringed, quickly redirecting my focus to Lucia Lonis, who had the floor.

“It goes without question that the introduction of the imperial Code of Conduct paved the way for the Glorious Reformation. Imagine the city if it was still overrun by natives, freely walking our streets, marrying into our families… It’s bad enough that they’re allowed in for the Treaty Renewal. At least that interaction is limited, but even that could and should be reduced. Why can’t the Renewal be done outside the walls?” she implored the room, delicately shuddering, as if allowing Britons entry into the city for one week every four years was going to contaminate us in some way.

Lucia’s dramatics only called attention to the rumours that had followed the Lonis family for the last few generations that before the introduction of the Code the family had been much less worried about relations with the local inhabitants. Particularly during periods when it had been economically advantageous to do so. By all accounts, at one point the Lonis family had been more native than not, some sections of the family choosing to make their fortunes outside the walls in the wider province where intermarrying with Britons reduced some of the more threatening aspects of life in the Shadowlands. These days, nobody could question the purity of the Lonis blood and their commitment to the imperial Code, if Lucia’s performance was anything to go by: she was the very model of modern Roman elite; she could be a woman from the age of the ancients reborn. I had once yearned for the glossy black curtain that Lucia flicked behind her shoulder. My own hair was a rather gaudier colour.

Lucia’s interminable monologue was cut short by sentinels silently entering the room, their dark red cloaks almost as black as their uniforms from the rain. They slid in through the door, expressionless, still… like a breeze, almost unnoticed but cooling the temperature imperceptibly.

Time felt sluggish to me, and I noticed them a fraction of a second before anyone else in the room responded. Lucia stopped speaking. Everyone went utterly still. Why were they here? Or rather, who were they here for?

Devyn, they were here for Devyn.

Seated beside him, I swore I could feel the heavy thump of his heart, rapid and loud before it returned to slow, steady composure. Much quicker to return to normal than anyone else’s. But there remained a coiled tension that seemed to pulse off him.

That glint of gold in his pocket, I hadn’t imagined it. It wasn’t imperial technology. I was sure of it now.

And that’s when I did it. I put my hand down in the space between our chairs and reached into his pocket, my fingers closing around the strange, unfamiliar shape they found there.

“Devyn Agrestis.” The uniformed sentinel spoke softly into the unnaturally still room.

Devyn rose, his exit from the chair taking him a fraction further than necessary, so he stood between me and the sentinels, allowing me an extra moment to tuck the device into my pocket and lay my once again innocent hand back in my lap. My entire being was focused on appearing normal. Slow, heart, slow. I blinked dismissively at the sentinels’ intrusion into my day. My features composed themselves into their usual agreeable – if a little haughty – expression, not dissimilar to everyone else in the room.

Despite the unlikely chance that anyone in the room had ever so much as littered, everyone wore a studied kind of indifference at the shocking appearance of sentinels in our classroom. I looked around at my classmates, many of whom, like me, had known Devyn for years. Yet we all sat there, unflinching.

The stern-faced lead sentinel motioned Devyn forward. My stomach folded in on itself. When he reached them, they surrounded him as they left the room together.

The class immediately resumed, water closing over the submerged stone of the interruption, barely so much as a ripple left on the surface. The only sign anything untoward had occurred was the empty cooling seat beside my own.

While I remained calm on the outside, my mind was churning, sifting through recollections of the lean shadow that was Devyn Agrestis, attempting to find a pattern, a truth that made sense.

Chaos in the Code. The graffiti I had seen this morning flashed through my mind.

There were some in the city who were not fans of the Code, people who preferred to push against the limitations of the walls rather than embrace the security they gave us.

Dissidents talked a big talk, but beyond a bit of graffiti they made little impact on city life. Occasionally a hacker was arrested, someone who, in the name of chaos, breached the digital firewalls which were every bit as vital to the protection of the city as the physical walls themselves.

If Devyn had been questioned with unauthorised tech on him, he could have been accused of sympathising with such people. I wasn’t sure what he might need such a thing for but being mistaken for a dissident would have been bad, perhaps even fail him in our civics course. What was he playing at? He was an elite. He had access to all the tech he could need. Some people just had to poke at things better left alone, I thought, tidying a loose tendril of hair behind my ear.

Outrageously, what perturbed me most in the immediate aftermath, making my thoughts teem and jostle against each other, was that feeling. The scalding awareness that had exploded between us the second I touched him. What was it? Where had it come from? And more pressingly, would I experience it again?

Even though I had known Devyn for ever, I felt like I had never really seen him before today.

I hoped we never had an exam on the topics covered in the rest of the morning’s classes, as unless it was on the shape and texture of the thing in my pocket and the myriad possible explanations for it and its owner then I was doomed.

At lunch, I grabbed a juice blend from the fruit seller in the forum, momentarily pulled from thoughts of Devyn at the sight of a pineapple. I adore them, but they hadn’t been readily available in recent months, which usually meant that traffic from the tropics was being impeded. It would explain my father’s lousy mood of late. Double bonus to see it in the market today – happy father and delicious tangy beverage. I sipped my juice, wondering if they had released Devyn yet. After all, they would have no reason to detain him now that I had the device.

I took a perch on the stairs of the arch nearest the silk seller’s shop, an old favourite from when my father would bring me to the forum and I would wait quietly, mesmerised by the colours and feel of the exotic material. The spot on the second gallery also offered an excellent view of the vast marketplace below. The rain continued to pour down on the shoppers, merchants, gossips, and general loiterers milling about in the ancient venue, dodging around stalls and statues, sheltering under the grand columned entrances of the basilicas, keeping to the porticoed arcades as much as possible.

On the pedestal in the courtyard below me, a sharp-featured man was speaking against the lack of privacy in the city. It was a not uncommon complaint from those who took a stand on the forum’s stage, where citizens could voice their opinion free of repercussions. Taxes, overpopulation, warmongering, and privacy were the topics most commonly debated at length here. Occasionally, some fool would even take the stand to rail against the imperial Code that shaped our society. Those were rare though.

Honour, loyalty, justice, city, empire – these simply weren’t smart targets to take aim at, and anyone fool enough to attempt it ran the risk of the crowd in the forum dealing out their own form of justice even if the sentinels didn’t.

Today’s speaker wasn’t even particularly witty or original. If you were going to stand up in the forum to tackle a topic like privacy and the obligation of every citizen to live with complete transparency under the council’s watchful eye, then you really had to bring something new to the debate. This fool seemed to like the sound of his own voice more than anything else.

Ginevra joined me just as he was reaching his concluding arguments in a voice that suggested he, at least, was terribly impressed with himself. Raising one perfectly arched brow, Ginevra took a seat on the step beside me.

“I hear your Reformation class was a little more interesting than usual,” she said.

I tilted my chin up to indicate she should fill me in on what she’d heard. Gossip-lover that she was, she didn’t have to be invited twice, proceeding to regale me with the best of the questions and speculation zinging between our classmates. What could the sentinels want with him? Was it anything to do with tonight’s Mete? If so, what could it be? Had he fallen victim to a street swindler? Had he witnessed something?

If only they knew. It never occurred to any of them, elites as they were, that one amongst them might have actually broken the Code. The Code outlined our duties as citizens, it was our moral centre, the foundation of our city and our lives within it. Why would we ever do anything to defy it?

I answered Ginevra’s questions about what had happened, honestly, with a few minor omissions. No need to mention the physical awareness I suddenly had of a boy I had barely noticed before or the small matter of the strange device I had stolen from him. As Ginevra didn’t know to ask those questions, it was unnecessary to lie, which I had never been particularly successful at. I hadn’t needed to be.

Maybe a good liar was someone who practised more often. Perhaps the more you crossed the line, the better you were at it. I wasn’t in the habit of thinking of myself as inhabiting a space anywhere near the line – until today, anyway – and I was certainly uncomfortable with my current proximity. I would be more than happy to back further away. The device in my pocket was small enough that if I really tried, I could almost forget it was there. If it were to drop out as I walked home by the river, then it would be as if the whole thing had never happened.

“I have Prof Livius next myself,” Ginevra announced, popping up. “Do you think he’ll know more or could I squeeze in a hair appointment if I leave now?”