The Hidden Queen by Alma Alexander

she would have the advantage of that first instant of acceptance forced by the presence of their elders, in the absence of any of her own. In any event, her thoughts far from Cascin, she had ceased looking for them when she finally emerged into what looked like a small, empty clearing in the woods as she headed back toward the house. When a sudden hissing sound broke the silence of the glade, she looked up—and froze, transfixed by the sight of an arrow heading straight for her. Perhaps it was only the sudden breeze, or the shaft had been sped a notch too high, but the arrow suddenly lost height and fell short, embedding itself in the ground at her feet, where she stood rooted with shock. The arrow was followed by an exclamation with equal portions of anger, dismay and relief, and the sudden appearance of a rangy, fair-haired boy holding a sturdy bow.
    She seemed to have found her cousins.
    The first boy was followed by another, dark-haired but with piercing blue eyes, and then by two more, obviously twins, their almost lint-white hair an unmistakable bequest from Lyme, their father. Brynna did a swift double take. Four? There were meant to be four children in Cascin, but only three sons, the fourth being a much younger girl, still in the nursery. And Chella had said nothing…she had said, the boys might be out there. Her words still applied. But nobody had told her there would be more than three…
    The oldest blond boy scowled at her darkly from across the clearing. “You thundering idiot!” he said sharply. “I could have hit you! I still don’t know why I didn’t, you were such a perfect target! Who are you? Don’t you know this is our practice range?”
    “No,” said Brynna, goaded into equal sharpness by the unexpectedness of this second attack. “How could I? I only got here last night.”
    “It must be the new fosterling, Ansen,” said one of the twins, plucking at his brothers sleeve. Brynna, her eyes dancing from one to the other, already despaired of ever telling them apart.
    “Yes. It must be.” Ansen put down the bow, but the scowl still didn’t leave his face. “All the same, you shouldn’t wander in our woods until you know where you should go.”
    “Or where you shouldn’t, I suppose,” the dark-haired boy said, with a sudden smile. “Lay off her, Ansen, she didn’t do it on purpose. We were pretty well hidden; you would have been even more upset if she’d seen right through our hiding place.” He stepped forward, the first of them to do so. “I am Kieran Cullen, of Coba in Shaymir. I’m the other fosterling at Cascin.”
    “My name is Brynna Kelen.”
    Ansen seemed to remember his manners. “I’m Ansen, and these are my brothers, Adamo and Charo.”
    “Which is which?” said Brynna, looking from one to the other in almost comic disbelief.
    One of the twins giggled. “I’m Charo,” he said. “If you hear one of us talk, it’s usually me. Adamo only really speaks when spoken to.”
    Adamo succumbed to a slow flush at this brotherly gibe, but said nothing to disprove Charo’s quip. Ansen crossed the clearing and bent to retrieve his arrow. He examined it minutely, and scowled at it again.
    “I don’t get it,” he said. “It’s straight and true. By all rights it should have skewered you.”
    “Give over,” said Kieran, his voice suddenly sharp. “Would you have rather it had?”
    Ansen made no answer, wiping the point of the arrow clean of forest earth on his trousers and sliding it back into the quiver slung across his back. To say he was upset would have been putting it mildly; he had obviously set great store on the shot he had loosed—and he was right, it should have connected. And yet it had dropped like a stone when it came to within three feet of her.
    “Where are you from?” asked Kieran, breaking the awkward silence lengthening between them.
    “Miranei,” said Brynna.
    That earned her a quickening of interest from Ansen, at least. “Miranei? My aunt