Protect the Prince

by Estep, Jennifer

  Sullivan cleared his throat, pretending like he hadn’t noticed my reaching for him, and lowered his gaze from mine.

  “What’s that?” he asked. “There, on top of the wall?”

  I looked down. Two large hearts had been crudely carved into one of the stones, along with the initials J + K running down the center where the hearts overlapped. I grimaced. I hadn’t realized where I was standing, but I should have. I had always gravitated toward this spot.

  “Oh,” I said in a light voice, trying to brush off his questions. “It’s just a carving. Nothing important.”

  Sullivan raised his eyebrows. “People only say that when something is actually very important.”

  He wasn’t going to let it go, so I sighed, then tapped my finger on the hearts. “Have you ever heard the story of Queen Johanna Blair and her lover, Killian?”

  Sullivan shook his head.

  “It’s a famous Bellonan love story. Johanna was the younger sister of Jocelyn, the crown princess, and Killian was a palace blacksmith. They used to play together as children, and they eventually fell in love. Johanna’s mother, Queen Deborah, didn’t approve of her daughter’s relationship with a lowly blacksmith, but it was tolerated because Johanna wasn’t inheriting the throne.”

  Sullivan asked the obvious question. “But?”

  “But Jocelyn was killed in a boating accident, and Johanna became the crown princess. You know as well as I do that every noble is expected to marry well and secure bigger and better fortunes, lands, titles, and alliances for their family. That’s especially true when it comes to royals.”

  This time, Sullivan grimaced. He’d said something similar the night he’d told me that we could never be together. Even though he had been right back then, and was still right now, it hadn’t made his words hurt any less, and it didn’t ease my heartache, frustration, or longing.

  And he was right about something else. Things had been far simpler at the Black Swan, when he was just a magier enforcer and I was just a gladiator, than they would ever be here, especially when it came to our feelings and our damned duty to ignore them.

  “Let me guess,” Sullivan said in a low, strained voice. “The queen picked out someone else for Johanna to marry, and Killian was heartbroken.”

  “Of course. Killian couldn’t stand to see Johanna marry someone else, so he left the palace and got a job in the city. But that’s not the end of their story.” I pointed to a spot in the distance. “See that bridge? It’s called Pureheart. All the bridges have names, but I particularly like that one.”

  Sullivan squinted in that direction. The seven bridges that arched over the Summanus River were all more or less the same, but the bridge I was pointing at had one extra, notable feature—the enormous bell sitting at the far end. At one time, the bell had been a bright, polished silver, but the weather had slowly tarnished it to a dull, unremarkable gray.

  “Killian wasn’t a mere blacksmith,” I continued. “He was a metalstone master who made all sorts of amazing things, but his specialty was musical instruments—flutes, whistles, harps. Once Johanna’s engagement was announced, Killian was commissioned to make Heartsong—a beautiful bell to ring in the couple’s marriage. But he had other ideas.”

  “Heroes always do,” Sullivan drawled.

  “Killian made Heartsong as instructed, right down to all the swords, flowers, vines, and hearts that the queen wanted carved into the silver, and then he loaded it onto a wagon. But instead of delivering it to the palace, some friends helped him set up the bell on the far side of the bridge, where it sits to this day.”

  “Then what happened?”

  I smiled. “Then he started ringing it.”

  Sullivan frowned. “What? Why?”

  “Killian rang and rang and rang that bell. Heartsong lived up to its name, and the chimes echoed throughout the city. Everyone came to the river to see what was going on. Queen Deborah and Princess Johanna also heard the commotion and walked out to this very spot.” I gestured down at the bridge again. “As soon as the queen and Johanna appeared, Killian stopped ringing the bell. With everyone watching, he strode out to the middle of the bridge, declared his love for Johanna, and begged the queen to let him marry her. Killian said that he would do whatever the queen wanted, if only he could be with Johanna.”

  “And what did the queen say?” Sullivan asked.

  I grinned. “She did one of your favorite things. She gave him a test.”

  He snorted.

  “The queen told Killian that if he truly loved Johanna, then he should come and get her.”

  “That doesn’t sound like much of a test.”

  I pointed down. “She told Killian to come get Johanna that way.”

  Sullivan leaned forward, and we both stared down. Balconies, terraces, and columns adorned much of the outside of Seven Spire, but this section of the royal lawn overlooked the steep, jagged cliffs that plummeted down to the river two hundred feet below.

  “The queen told Killian that if he was brave enough, strong enough, to climb up the cliffs and reach Johanna, then they could marry.”

  “And did he?”

  “Of course.” I tapped my finger on the two hearts and the initials. “Johanna and Killian carved this on their wedding day. From all accounts, the two of them were happily married until they died, and Johanna’s reign was long and prosperous.”

  Sullivan shook his head. “You Bellonans certainly do love your spectator sports.”

  I grinned. Johanna and Killian’s tale was one of my favorites, especially because theirs wasn’t the end of the story—it was just the beginning.

  “We do love our spectator sports, and we also love our traditions.” I pointed at another stone a few feet away that also featured two overlapping hearts, along with initials. “Thanks to Johanna and Killian, several people have scaled Seven Spire in order to be with their loves. And not just those in the Blair family. Other royals, nobles, servants, and guards have all done it. We call it the Pureheart trial.”

  Sullivan’s gaze flicked from one stone to another, staring at the linked hearts and initials. His mouth twisted a bit, as though he wished he’d never asked about the carving. Part of me wished he hadn’t asked either, since it only highlighted the differences between us. Andvarian, Bellonan, bastard, queen. Things that no fairy-tale climb up some cliffs would ever truly change.

  I cleared my throat. “But of course, it doesn’t always end happily.”

  “No?”

  I gestured at another stone that featured one heart that had been broken in two, along with two initials. “That one is for a nobleman named Elric. He fell to his death during the climb.”

  Sullivan grimaced.

  “Elric is the only one who ever actually died,” I continued. “Although lots of people have broken their arms and legs.”

  He eyed the jagged cliffs again. “I can’t imagine why.”

  “The climb has ended in other ways too.” I gestured at another stone that featured a single heart with a large S carved in the middle. “That one is for Sabrina, one of my Blair cousins. She was an orphan like me, with no real family or money. She climbed up to the top.”

  “What happened?”

  I shrugged. “Sabrina’s lover was waiting up here, but she decided not to marry him after all. She said that if he was more concerned about being disinherited than losing her, then he could keep his bloody money, and she would marry someone who truly loved her, someone who would fight for her, someone who would climb the cliffs for her, instead of the other way around. She’s the most famous person to complete the Pureheart trial, other than Killian.”

  That story finally put a smile back on Sullivan’s face, and some of the tension eased from his shoulders. “Do people still climb the cliffs to declare their love?”

  “Not really. The last time anyone tried was about thirty years ago. A man started to climb up, but he chickened out. His lover was so angry that she told him to slink away like the coward he was, and that ma
n was never seen nor heard from again.”

  Sullivan laughed. I concentrated on the low, husky sound, trying to imprint it on my mind the same way I had his scent and the icy color of his eyes and the curve of his face whenever he smiled.

  “Well, one thing is for sure,” he murmured, staring down at the cliffs again.

  “What?”

  “You’d have to be desperately in love to do something that stupid and dangerous.”

  He kept his gaze fixed on the cliffs, but my heart still squeezed tight. The stories might be grand and romantic, but we both knew that love didn’t always fix things. Sometimes, it just made them worse.

  “You should go back inside, highness.” Sullivan jerked his head to the right. “Your storytelling has drawn an audience.”

  I glanced over my shoulder. Several nobles were now milling around the lawn, pretending to admire the flowers while not-so-secretly spying on me.

  Fullman and Diante were among the watchers, and neither seemed pleased to see me with Sullivan. Fullman was glaring at the magier, while Diante’s arms were crossed over her chest. The two nobles still had aspirations of marrying me off to one of their broods.

  To my surprise, Serilda was here as well, lounging on a bench with a glass of blackberry sangria, while Cho was standing next to her, eating cakes from a small tray. Both of them were watching me with amused expressions. No doubt they had seen this kind of drama play out dozens of times during their years as Queen Cordelia’s guards. Unfortunately, doomed love was a rather universal story, no matter what station or kingdom you were born into.

  Including their own. Serilda and Cho obviously cared deeply about each other. I even thought that they loved each other, and I had no idea what was stopping them from being together. Perhaps the same mix of duty, honor, and pride that had come between Sully and me.

  Despite her smile, Serilda’s eyes narrowed in thought, and I could sense the faintest bit of magic wafting off her. In addition to being a fierce warrior, Serilda was also a sort of time magier, although she didn’t get visions of the past or future like other magiers did. Instead, she saw possibilities, different ways that people might act and react, and different things that might come to pass based on the choices that people made.

  I wondered what she saw when she looked at Sullivan and me. Heartbreak, most likely. That’s all I could see when I looked at him.

  Serilda drained her sangria, set her glass on the bench, and got to her feet. Cho popped the last of the cakes into his mouth and put down his empty tray.

  I sighed, knowing that my brief respite was over and that it was once again time for Queen Everleigh to do her duty. “I should go.”

  “Thank you for telling me those stories,” Sullivan said in a soft voice.

  Our gazes locked, and I drew in a breath, tasting his scent again. Full of minty regret, just like mine was.

  Sullivan stretched out his fingers, as though he was going to cover my hand with his, but at the last moment, he curled his hand into a fist, just as I had done earlier. He wouldn’t touch me like that, not with so many people watching, no matter how much he might want to.

  I looked down at our hands, his on one side of the carved hearts and mine on the other. So close, yet so far apart. That’s the way it would always be between us.

  And that hurt my own heart more than I’d ever thought possible.

  Chapter Five

  I left Sullivan standing at the wall and headed over to Serilda and Cho, who met me in the middle of the lawn.

  “Sorry to disturb you,” Cho said in a cheery tone, “but we thought it best to come fetch you before your loyal subjects decided to swarm you again.”

  I eyed the nobles. Fullman kept glaring at Sullivan, while Diante was talking to her grandsons and gesturing at me, as if she was trying to get one or all of them to come over and try to woo me.

  “I suppose I should be grateful that Fullman and Diante didn’t demand that I marry someone right then and there in the throne room.”

  “Too bad they didn’t,” Serilda drawled. “It would have been amusing watching you dance your way out of that.”

  I gave her a sour look. “You’re enjoying my misery far too much. You’re the one who put me in this position, remember? You’re the one who made me queen.”

  “You made yourself queen,” she corrected. “And I’m not enjoying your misery.”

  “Much,” I accused.

  She grinned. “Much,” she agreed. “But misery or not, our job is to keep you alive. Dealing with the nobles and their petty schemes is up to you, Evie.”

  I sighed. Sometimes I thought that being queen was like trying to wrangle a pond full of baby ducks that were constantly squawking at, swimming circles around, and trying to drown me, all at the same time. Quack, quack, quack.

  “But you handled the nobles well,” Cho chimed in, trying to put a positive spin on things.

  I resisted the urge to throw up my hands in exasperation. “Why does everyone seem so surprised by that?”

  Serilda shrugged. “Because no one remembers that you’ve been here all along, watching the nobles, learning their games, and surviving their schemes. But after today, none of them will forget it again. I heard several of them inside, whispering and frantically trying to remember every mean and nasty thing they ever said about or did to you.”

  I snorted. “Well, that should keep them busy for a good long while.”

  Cho chuckled. “Yes, it should.”

  I scanned the lawn, searching for the rest of our friends. “Where are the others? Have you learned anything about the assassin yet?”

  “Theroux is questioning the kitchen staff, trying to find out how long that girl had been working here,” Serilda said. “Auster is doing the same with the guards, trying to track her movements through the palace and determine if she ever went into the city. Xenia is searching the girl’s room, and I asked Paloma to get Sullivan to examine the goblet and the dagger, to see if he can figure out what kind of poison she used.”

  In the distance, one of the glass doors opened. Paloma strode outside and headed toward Sullivan.

  I turned back to Serilda and Cho. “And what are we going to do?”

  “We’re going to get some answers about your would-be assassin, Maeven, and everything else,” Serilda replied.

  “How are we going to do that? The girl is dead.”

  “Yes, but there is someone else at Seven Spire who is still very much alive.” She grinned again, but this time her expression was cold and predatory instead of warm and friendly. “And I am very much looking forward to getting answers out of him—one way or another.”

  * * *

  I followed Serilda and Cho back inside the palace. We walked to the end of a hallway, pushed through a door, and went down a set of stairs. Then another set of stairs, then another. It didn’t take me long to realize where we were going.

  The palace dungeon.

  Located on the very bottom level of Seven Spire, deep within the belly of the mountain, these hallways were dim and empty. The only sound was the faint rasp of our boots against the flagstones, but the murky shadows and eerie quiet soothed me. At least no one was plotting against me down here.

  Our twisting, turning route took us past a large, gaping hole in one of the walls. Serilda, Cho, and I stopped and peered through the opening.

  A beautiful stained-glass door used to stand here, fronting the workshop of Alvis, the royal jeweler I had been apprenticed to for years. Xenia had told me that she and Gemma had fled down here during the massacre and that Alvis had used his metalstone magic to collapse the wall and ceiling to stop the turncoat guards from reaching them. Then the three of them had escaped using a secret passageway in Alvis’s workshop.

  Sometime during Vasilia’s brief reign, the crushed stones had been removed, as had the jewels, tools, and tables that had filled Alvis’s workshop, leaving it an empty, hollow shell. I drew in a breath, but I couldn’t even sense the metallic tang of his magic anym
ore.

  Sadness rippled through me, along with anger that Vasilia had taken something else away from me, even though she was dead, but I pushed the emotions aside. The most important things were that Alvis was alive and well and that I would see him and Gemma during my trip to Andvari.

  Serilda didn’t say anything, but the scent of her salty grief filled the air. She didn’t enjoy seeing Alvis’s workshop like this either. Cho reached over and squeezed her shoulder. She nodded at him, then walked on, and Cho and I followed her.

  A few minutes later, we arrived at a door at the end of a long hallway. Instead of a regular door, this one was an enormous round dome, as if half of a silver shield had been set into the wall. A single figure was inlaid in the center of the metal—a woman with a braid trailing over her shoulder and a sword in her hand who seemed to be glaring at anyone who dared to approach. Another image of Bryn Blair, my ancestor and the first queen of Bellona.

  Two guards I recognized as gladiators from the Black Swan troupe were posted outside the door, and they snapped to attention as Serilda strode toward them.

  “Any change?” she asked.

  “No,” one of the gladiators said. “He’s been quiet so far.”

  The two guards took hold of the large ring set into the metal and used their combined mutt strength to wrench open the door. The loud screech-screech-screech of it sliding across the floor made me wince, and the harsh sound echoed off the walls and rattled down the hallway.

  Serilda stepped through the opening. I followed her, but Cho stayed outside with the guards.

  We walked along a wide corridor with regular-size metal doors embedded in the walls. The cells in the front part of the dungeon were empty, and we stepped into another corridor. More cells lined the walls here, but they were empty as well, and we strode past them to the very back of the dungeon, which opened up into a single, large room.