Author's Note: It's been a horribly long time, no? Please accept my most profound apologies. I was even thinking of finishing the rest of this fic before updating at all… but I decided to just post this chapter up first. It's been hard for me to get myself to sit down and write lately, maybe reading a few supportive reviews is just what I need. Thank you for being so patient with me. College is most certainly an experience of a lifetime. (In a good way, of course.) So here, I bring you, albeit tentatively, the next chapter. (if there are errors, please excuse them. I wasn't patient enough to run it through with my beta.)

33. United

Nobles' Bane: Chapter 31

After she had a fulfilling meal (under Axe's menacing gaze), she had fallen into bed, feeling utterly exhausted. It felt like she had only been asleep for a few hours when she was awakened.

From there, she stumbled blindly into a dress that Delice held out and ordered her into. Matching shoes were brought for her, and jewels too.

"What's this for?" she asked, dazed, while holding up a handful of stringed pearls.

"They're for your hair," Delice said patiently, snatching the strand from her.

"My... hair? Why? What's happening?"

"Hold still while I pull up your hair," Delice scolded her.

"But–"

"I said to hold still!"

She held still.

Once Lauryn's hair was in a proper coif, Delice stepped back to study her work. "No, no. Nevermind. The pearls won't do at all." She frowned in thought.

"Why am I getting dressed like this?" Lauryn tried again.

Delice turned to one of the slaves who stood beside her. "The green ones that I rejected earlier. I want them back. Will you fetch them please?"

The girl quickly ran off to do as she was bid, and Delice turned back to Lauryn. "You look lovely, lady."

She blinked. "Pardon?"

Delice smiled at her. "You're beautiful."

Lauryn laughed, and even to her, it sounded awkward. "A fancy getup doesn't do that much to change a person."

Delice chuckled. "You've never been around Court for as long as I have, to think that. You and your brother. You're both quite striking."

Before she could reply, there was a pounding on the door.

"Lauryn! Aren't you ready yet? They're waiting for you!"

She recognized Nathan's voice and opened the door. "Who's waiting for me?"

He blinked when he saw her, and then blurted "Everybody!"

Before she could demand to know who this mysterious 'everybody' was, Delice's slave was back. The 'green ones' that Delice had rejected earlier turned out to be several glittery emerald drops that were quickly pinned into her hair, and a lovely jade comb which was inserted right in front of Lauryn's coif, framing it perfectly.

Delice smiled a pleased smile. "You look like royalty."

Lauryn merely found the comment disconcerting.

"Now go with Nathan, quickly."

"I don't understand," Lauryn protested as she was just about pushed out the door. "What's happening?" she asked Nathan, just now noticing his own sleek attire.

"I'm not quite sure myself," he said. And, indeed, he did appear a bit nervous.

She paused for a moment in the hallway, studying him.

He stopped and glanced back at her, tugging at his collar. "What?" he asked with irritation.

"You look a lot like–" she stopped.

...like your father.

She felt guilty then. She had neglected Nathan these past days, neglected him and his parents. When he deserved to be told of her discovery the moment she realized he had arrived.

"Like what?"

"Like a noble," she amended softly.

He snorted. "From you, that would most definitely be an insult."

She frowned. "Not necessarily."

"You hate nobles," he retorted flatly.

She went still, and Nathan immediately noticed his misstep.

"Lauryn, no, I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking when I spoke," he apologized, flustered.

She turned away from him and started walking again, but the shoes seemed uncomfortably high, and her bodice seemed unpleasantly tight. She stumbled.

Nathan righted her. "Lauryn," he said, voice quiet, "he was my friend too."

His words gave her pause.

Kenric had been more than a friend to me...

Just as Clarine had been more than a friend to him.

She finally nodded. "I know."

He wavered on uncertainty for a moment, then he, too, nodded. And he offered her his arm. "Come on. Everyone's waiting."

~*~*~*~

'Everyone' did indeed turn out to be... everyone. Axe, the Queen, Lord Athaniel, a few nobles whom her brother had reassured her a few days ago were supporters of their side, and their guards. She also saw Caleb, Cecil, Jessup, and several of the other villages who had aided them. Everyone was dressed in as fine a matter as she had never seen them dress before.

"Is this... some sort of party?" she asked one of those gathered.

Axe shook his head at her. "How many parties do you know of, that take place up on the castle walls?"

She frowned at him, saw her brother over his shoulder, and asked if he perhaps knew what was going on. Travis merely winked and looked out over the castle walls towards the city.

One of the men who had worked under Travis as the Lord Provost stepped aside and offered her his spot. She smiled her thanks and went to her brother's side.

"My, don't you look pretty," he teased her.

She snorted. "'Pretty' is a word to describe young girls, dear brother. Not I." Even as she spoke, she lifted a hand to her cheek to touch the scar from her youth.

He caught her hand and lowered it back to her side. "Some of my best memories are of when you were a young girl," he rebuked her. He waited for her to smile at him in consent before speaking again. "How do I look?"

She shrugged. "Dashing as always, I suppose." She remembered those stories she had heard about him, the Lord Provost, in the past. The ones involving love sick girls attending hangings in hopes of catching a glimpse of his disturbingly cold, but handsome face. Well, he wasn't cold anymore, and, to any other young man's chagrin, more young female hearts were about to be in danger.

She raised a brow slyly. "You know, we really need to find you a wife."

Her brother gave her a look of mock horror. "A wife?" he repeated, sounding appalled. "Whatever for?"

A hand touched her shoulder. "Lauryn," the name sounded a bit uncomfortable coming from Axe's tongue, but he had told her that he was getting adjusted to it, "it's time."

"...Time?"

He led her to a far edge of the castle walls, the part closest to the capital of Tortall, Corus. She was still looking at him with some confusion when a great, thunderous roar sounded from below.

Her mouth dropped open. "I didn't know there were this many people in Corus, even," she murmured, looking out over the wall into the faces of countless people gathered, cheering, below.

"Not all are from Corus, lady," Lord Athaniel said from a bit behind her. " Just before your companions, the young men and woman from the villages, set off with you and the others to kidnap nobles, they sent out messages, using the Gift, to other nearby villages for volunteers to your cause. And they gathered here, at the capital, waiting. Their help was greatly appreciated, your brother tells me, during the siege of the castle. The citizens of Corus wouldn't have been as successful otherwise."

"They came here for you, Lauryn. Do you see?" Travis pointed to a several of the closest members of the still loudly cheering crowd.

She leaned forward, trying to spot what he was talking about. "See what?"

And then she saw them.

Sashes.

Blue, brown, green, red, of every color there possibly was, and more. The people gathered below, all that she could see, wore sashes. She even saw one that was floral-printed.

Surprised, she glanced behind her and saw that Caleb, Cecil, and their friends were also adorning sashes of their own. She briefly wondered why she hadn't seen them at first glance.

Catching her gaze, Caleb gave her a smart salute and smiled at her astonishment.

"They're here to see you," Axe said to her quietly. "Why don't you speak to them?"

But she couldn't, she didn't know what to say.

Thankfully, Travis took up the slack. One of his soldiers stepped up to his side and lifted his hand as if to touch Travis' back. But the hand stopped a fingersbreadth away, and she saw a slender tendril of the man's Gift extricate itself from the soldier's fingers to become absorbed into Travis' spine. And when Travis spoke, his voice was loud. Loud enough to be heard by all those gathered, even those whose faces were too far away to be distinguishable.

"As you can see," he said humorously, "your presence here has struck my sister speechless."

There followed a short silence in which her brother looked at her expectantly. But her mouth was dry; she couldn't work out a word even if she wanted to.

So Travis had to turn back to the crowd. "Seeing as my sister has lost her ability to speak, I shall in her stead."

She listened to him offer the crowd an elaborate thanks for their attendance that day, a thanks more profound than one she could have ever thought of instead. As he continued to speak, telling the gathering about what had been happening inside of the castle while they had been occupied with the siege, she turned to look at Axe.

"You could have warned me," she said with a grimace.

He gave her a lop-sided smile. "I could have," he agreed remorselessly.

Travis' tale ended with General Aleyn's leap from the Seer's Tower with his son and the discovery of King Duane's suicide.

"Which brings us to another affair," Travis said somberly. "King Duane and Queen Janah have no heir to inherit--"

"You're not entirely correct on that, Travis," she quickly interjected.

He paused to look at her thoughtfully. Then he lifted a hand and motioned to the soldier at his back. The man removed his hand, glowing with the power of his Gift, from Travis' back, and gently rested it behind her shoulder. Travis nodded at her to speak

She hesitated uncertainly, but then leaped in. "Queen Janah did have a child. Does have a child. A son who is actually here with us today."

An outcry arose, from beneath her amongst the crowd, and from behind her. She decided to face those behind her first.

Soldiers moved aside, making the way between Queen Janah and herself clear. The widow looked as if she were close to a swoon; Lord Athaniel helped her stand. Lord Athaniel stood stiffly at the Queen's side, facing Lauryn, studying her with his light blue eyes. Nathan's eyes. In them, she saw hope. And pain, caused by that same hope being crushed so many times in the past.

Lauryn bowed her head. "Your highness. My lord. I apologize for withholding this information until now. It was not with malicious intent."

"I will take your word on that," Lord Athaniel said. "Just as long as what you say is the truth."

"I think you may be able to see that for yourself." She lifted her gaze, searching until she found the man who had escorted her to these walls, the man whom she had depended on, and loved, during her youth. "Nathan. Won't you come forward and greet your parents?"

The shock on his face was complete. There was more than a little disbelief there, too. He stumbled forward, stopping a few feet in front of the Queen. But it was Lord Athaniel's face he examined.

Standing as they were, only a blind man would have been able to deny the resemblance. Sure, they did not share every last physical detail. But they had the same unruly head of black hair, the same blue gaze. And, if you looked hard enough, you can see that they had the same smile.

They stood there, one man noble to the core while the other was a mere horse breeder in a noble's clothing, staring at one another, measuring and assessing.

It was the Queen who broke the awkward moment. She reached out to Nathan with a plaintive "Jonathan?"

And Nathan's stiff exterior shattered with that plea. He let the Queen pull him into an embrace, even returned it after a moment of uncertainty.

Down below, the Tortallans who had witnessed the reunion broke out into cheers.

"Interesting," she heard her brother murmur consideringly. "Interesting."

And when he spoke again, it wasn't to her, but to the gathered below.

"So it appears that we are not as bereft of an heir as we first thought." His voice reverberated in her ears. "I present to you Jonathan, Queen Janah's only son."

The cheering from below got louder, if that were even possible. The Tortallans even took up a chant.

"Hear that? What are they saying?" she heard Caleb question curiously.

She listened for a moment. "Bean paste?"

"Lean bake?" Travis suggested with a smile.

But what Axe said made that smile disappear. "No. Listen. They are calling for you, Jade. They're saying, 'Queen Jade.'"