The Heir and the Spare

by Kate Stradling

  Iona’s breath, already shallow in her lungs, quickened.

  “And then,” Lisenn said, enjoying every second of her explanation, “they take a wheel, like this”—she grasped a cartwheel tipped against the wall and rolled it closer—“and they hold it high over the chosen limb, and… they… drop it.”

  She slammed the iron-banded wheel into the platform, gouging the wood. Iona flinched, her hands clenched against a flash of imaginary pain.

  “And the beauty of it is,” her sister continued, “it breaks the bone, but the body remains basically intact. We start with the shin, and then the thigh bone, and then do the same on the other leg. Then, we’ll move to the arms below the elbow, and then above, and when all of your limbs are destroyed, I’ll undo your restraints and flip you over, and break your spine. And if you’re lucky, you get to live through the whole blissful experience, right up until the moment I toss your battered body off this tower and you meet your rightful end.

  “I’ll probably have to stop to get married somewhere in the middle there,” she added in a stage whisper. “You won’t mind waiting, I’m sure.”

  Iona fought against the tears that stung her eyes. “Why are you doing this?”

  “Because it’s the perfect opportunity to watch you suffer.”

  “This isn’t like the river, Lisenn. Everyone will know what you did.”

  A blood-chilling laugh escaped her. “No, they’ll all attribute it to suicide. You’ve already shown yourself to be volatile—throwing yourself in a river, destroying your art and your instruments. You’ve even written a confession explaining why you’re killing yourself on my wedding day of all days. You’re lovesick for my prince, did you know? And you can’t bear to see him marry someone else. And that’s not even false, which is the best part. Oh, don’t think I haven’t spied on you.” She shook her head, warding off her sister’s instinctive protest. “Poor Iona. Your preference for him is plain as day, and pathetic. Did you really believe someone could want you instead of me?”

  The corners of her vision blurred. “There is nothing between Jaoven and me.”

  “And there never will be, because you’ll be dead and he’ll be wrapped around my pinky finger until I get tired of him.”

  The malice wouldn’t end with Iona’s death, in other words. She should have undermined the treaty, should have warned Jaoven away from the start instead of relishing in his union with her wicked sister. But, in petty revenge, she had chosen satisfaction in someone else’s misfortune instead of sparing him that grief.

  “You don’t have to do this,” she said as a tear spilled down the side of her face, into her ear. “I’m no threat to you.”

  “Do you think I’m stupid?” Lisenn asked. “That I would sail away from Wessett’s shores while you yet lived? To let you undermine my position here while I’m off conquering Capria? No, Iona. I’m not leaving until you’re good and dead. And you won’t be good and dead until I’ve seen you suffer for all the years you’ve been a thorn in my side.”

  She hiked up the cartwheel by its spokes, a manic glint in her eyes and a grin upon her face.

  “Please,” Iona said, more tears leaking into the grooves of her ears. “Please, Lisenn. I don’t want the throne. I never have. Please don’t do this.”

  “Ohh.” Her sister made a face as though cooing at a puppy. “We’re so far past me caring what you want.” She hefted the wheel above her head. Iona squeezed shut her eyes, steeling herself against the coming snap of pain.

  “Lisenn!”

  She jerked.

  Their father’s voice sounded from the doorway, the top of his head barely visible beyond the tables and racks in the intervening space. Iona’s heart spasmed, relief flooding through her. Lisenn quickly lowered her torture implement as he strode into the room. He looked from his elder to his younger child secured upon the low platform.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” he hissed.

  Lisenn’s response killed Iona’s fledgling hope. “Exactly what we agreed.”

  “I said after your marriage.” King Gawen snatched the wheel from her grasp. He spared his younger daughter a glance upon the floor—as though looking at a piece of debris someone had left there—and then wagged a finger in the crown princess’s face. “This ruins everything. How do you explain her absence when half the kingdom is here today?”

  “She’s going to throw herself off a tower in despair,” Lisenn replied. “She’s always been an over-dramatic little pest, and seeing her beloved prince of Capria marry someone else is her final tipping point. Oh, don’t rebuke me. It’s no worse than what you did to your brother.”

  Cold shot through Iona. His brother, her uncle—?

  “I let him die with dignity,” the king said, steel in his eyes.

  Lisenn waved a negligent hand. “Poison is for the faint of heart. Just because you couldn’t stand to get your hands dirty doesn’t mean I shouldn’t have my fun.” She glanced at her sister, at the horror on her face, and said with a peal of laughter, “Oh, Father! I do believe she thought you’d come to rescue her!”

  “Enough, Lisenn,” he said. “I agreed to let you kill her early, but not like this, not before you’d even secured the alliance with your wedding vows.”

  Every word he spoke drove a spike of despair deeper into Iona’s heart. Lisenn she could comprehend, but her own father…?

  The crown princess angled her head, the better to peer into her sister’s eyes. “Did you hear that? I’m only killing you early. Ordinarily, the elder sibling has to wait until they’ve secured the line of succession before they can kill their spare. That was the bargain he made with me: the throne of Capria for your life. I think I win on both counts, don’t you?”

  King Gawen, more aloof, said simply, “It’s nothing personal, Iona. You’ve served your purpose in this world, and you’ve done it admirably. Letting a second heir survive only leads to conflict, as happened when Wessett and Capria split, and as Capria only recently proved with their civil war. Never in the history of Wessett has a second heir survived into adulthood, except where circumstance required them to inherit the throne.”

  “Even then, Grandfather killed his older brother to get it,” said Lisenn. “The poor fool never suspected his junior would get the better of him first. I vowed I wouldn’t make such a stupid mistake.”

  Generations of murder and intrigue stretched before Iona’s eyes. Had it always been like this, one sibling killing the other for control? The bird among thorns forever hunted by the snake? The lyrics flitted through her mind: Orran of Wessett had learned of the pattern. He’d written the song about himself, and as a warning about Lisenn and Iona.

  A whimper escaped her throat.

  Her father made an impatient sound. “This is why I told you never to form attachments, child. You would not face so many regrets now had you heeded my advice. And you,” he added to Lisenn. “You could have allowed her to enjoy your ceremony at least, one last carefree day.”

  “I let her enjoy the royal ball,” Lisenn said with a sniff. “And anyway, it’s too late now. If I loose her, she’ll only run away or cause a scene.”

  Annoyance flashed across his face. He glanced at Iona bound upon the platform and made a disgusted noise. “It can’t be helped. Leave her here and come back when you’ve met the terms of our bargain. I want Capria beneath my thumb, a tributary to the crown of Wessett.”

  He caught her upper arm and pulled her to the door, but she dug in her heels.

  “Wait. She’s not likely to escape, but the chances plummet if she has a broken leg.”

  Iona’s insides wrenched into knots. King Gawen contemplated his elder daughter in silence, a hard furrow between his brows. Then, grudgingly, he tipped his head toward the platform.

  “Be quick about it.”

  And Lisenn, a rapacious light in her eyes, snatched up her iron-banded wheel.

  Chapter 23

  “Riok, did the servants arrive at the ship safely?” Jaoven, pacing alon
g the length of their common room, cast a questioning glance toward his eldest advisor.

  “Yes, Your Royal Highness, along with all of our belongings and Princess Lisenn’s trousseau. We’ll be ready to set sail this afternoon, before the tide goes out, and if all goes well, should be home in Capria tonight.”

  The prospect sickened him. He increased his pace.

  “You can still back out, if you want,” Clervie said where she lolled on the ivory couch.

  Jaoven, halfway across their common room, paused to favor her with a frown. He hadn’t told anyone else of his misgivings about Lisenn. Now that Iona had disavowed the accusation, he saw no reason to broach it again. “Why would I back out?”

  “You tell me. You’re the one wearing a track in the floor.”

  The rest of his personal entourage—Elouan, Denoela, Neven, Riok—offered no sympathy. They were the only ones left, the few privileged to witness their prince’s nuptials and return in triumph with him. He waved a dismissive hand and resumed his course. “I’m only working off some nervous energy. It’s not every day a man marries a crown princess.”

  “Especially when he’s in love with her younger sister.”

  He stumbled but caught himself. Swiveling, he leveled an incredulous glare at her. “Excuse me?”

  “You don’t have to pretend outrage,” said Elouan beside her. “We all know it.”

  “I am not—!”

  “Jove, you’ve sacrificed a lot for Capria. We understand. But you don’t have to lie to yourself while you do it.”

  “I am not—!”

  “Ugh,” said Denoela, tossing her head. “You’re smitten. Anyone with eyes can see it. You perk at every mention of her name, and when the pair of you are in the same room, you can hardly look anywhere else. She’s probably the only one who hasn’t figured it out yet.”

  “Because she’s so busy pretending she has no interest in him,” Clervie quipped, and the pair of girls exchanged a knowing glance.

  He strode back to the space between the two couches, finger raised as though to chastise them all, but when he opened his mouth the words stuck in his throat. His advisors stared back, waiting, every one of them equally nonchalant while his insides roiled.

  With a grimace and a cutting swipe of his hand, he returned to his pacing.

  “Smitten,” Denoela called to his back.

  “Shut up,” he said. “So what? Even if I were it wouldn’t mean anything. She openly despises me, and Capria needs this alliance with Wessett. It’s too late to change the terms.”

  “It’s never too late until the vows have been exchanged,” said Riok, the last person Jaoven expected to voice such a sentiment. “If you go to King Gawen right now, give him your deepest apologies, and confess where your feelings lie, he surely must hear you out.”

  Jaoven flung a hand toward the door to the hall. “The wedding is in less than an hour.”

  “Then you ought to make up your mind quickly,” Elouan said.

  “And insult our host and his heir by jilting her almost at the altar, and because of an irrational attachment to her sister, no less!”

  “At least you’re admitting it now,” Neven said, much to his consternation.

  Riok interjected before the prince could burst. “These matters are easy to smooth over in the public eye. We have only to announce that we’ve received urgent word from Capria, and that we have to return there immediately. Start a rumor of instability at home and the wedding gets postponed. King Gawen has our assurances that we will come back, and we do, in about six months’ time, with the object of our alliance as Princess Iona instead of Princess Lisenn. The intervening time allows him to find a suitable husband for his elder daughter—for which no one will blame him, for who can expect Lisenn to wait at our leisure?—and that clears you a path to Iona with much the same provisions as the original treaty agreement. The thrones of Capria and Wessett won’t combine, of course, but plenty of people in our kingdom will be grateful for that, and I can only imagine the same sentiments exist here.”

  Jaoven’s mouth hung slack. Amid a surge of billowing hope, he registered the glibness of this explanation and how little it surprised the rest of his entourage.

  “We’ve been discussing it for days,” Denoela said. “We didn’t want to scuttle the treaty unless we had a method of salvaging the more important parts.”

  “And we didn’t know how honest you were being with your own feelings,” Neven piped up.

  The haze that had overshadowed him for the past week seemed to lift. “But you’re assuming King Gawen would go along with the proposal.”

  “Why wouldn’t he?” Riok asked. “He can’t force you to marry Lisenn, and why would he want a son-in-law constantly pining after the wrong daughter?”

  The prince’s ears burned. “I am not—”

  “You’re pining,” Denoela and Clervie said together.

  “Fine. I’m pining. For a woman who wants nothing to do with me.”

  “I think she does,” said Denoela.

  “I know she does,” said Clervie. “She’s nearly impossible to read, but I finally figured her out. If she cared nothing for you, she wouldn’t go out of her way to avoid you, and if she hated you, she would show it. But if you’re worried, the obvious solution is to speak to her before you find her father. Confess your feelings, confirm her sentiments, and then set the ball in motion.”

  “Again,” said Jaoven, “the wedding starts in under an hour.”

  “Again, you should make a decision quickly,” Elouan said with a wry grin. “Find her and confess. Whether she accepts you or not, I think you realize you can’t marry her sister anymore.”

  The truth of that statement struck him full in the face. With his feelings acknowledged aloud, even the thought of kneeling at an altar beside Lisenn sickened him.

  “My father is going to wring my neck,” he muttered, and he resumed his pacing.

  “Doubtful,” said Riok. “He has prepared himself for any outcome, even the unfavorable ones. So what would you have us do?”

  His breath staggered in his lungs. Was he willing to throw away his kingdom’s security on the chance he could win Iona’s heart? But the treaty would be salvageable as long as King Gawen himself didn’t run the Caprians from his island for the effrontery of it all.

  “Go to the ship; ready it for an immediate departure,” he said. “If this turns sour, we might need a quick escape.”

  Riok and Neven departed to fulfill this command. “I’ll order your carriage to the courtyard,” Elouan said, and he followed them.

  Left behind with the pair of women, Jaoven asked, “Where would she be?”

  “On the day of her sister’s wedding?” said Denoela. “Probably with the bride. Shall we find her for you?”

  “I’ll come with you. It might be awkward to pull her away for a private word, but it’ll be easier if I’m somewhere nearby.”

  Clervie grunted, amused. “‘Awkward’ doesn’t begin to describe the trouble we’re about to cause.”

  They left the diplomatic quarters, resplendent in their wedding finery, but they got no further than ten steps down the hall. Several servants ran past in an adjoining corridor. At their rear, Aedan of Gleddistane appeared, but he backtracked when he registered the Caprians’ presence.

  “Is Iona with you?” he asked.

  Jaoven, startled to hear her name spoken so soon after his resolution, said, “No.”

  In three steps, Aedan fisted both hands into the prince’s doublet and shoved him against the wall, thrusting his face within two inches. “I’ll ask again, prince of Capria: is she with you or have you seen her in the last hour?”

  An urgency underlaid the menace with which he spoke. Jaoven, far from taking offense, was alarmed instead. “No. What’s happened?”

  The marquess backed up and cast a speculative glance toward the adjoining corridor. “She’s gone. I need to find her.”

  Jaoven dogged his steps, with Denoela and Clervie close b
ehind. “What do you mean, gone?”

  “Her maid said the queen summoned her early. She left her room with a pair of guards, but she never arrived at the chapel.”

  “You think she ran away?”

  Aedan spared him an exasperated glance. “If she had run off on her own power, she would have taken Bina with her.”

  The prince’s stomach gave an odd lurch. “So someone’s kidnapped her?”

  “Someone.” Aedan scoffed. He checked around the corner, both ways, and then skulked further up the hall.

  “Who has her?” Clervie asked, keeping close to the wall.

  The marquess paused, glanced up his path, and then back at the trio of followers he’d acquired. A muscle rippled along his jaw. “I’m going to level with you Caprians, all right? If she’s not with you, Lisenn has her. Our crown princess is an absolute monster. Most of us support this treaty solely to get her out of Wessett, and you”—he poked Jaoven in the chest—“were the sacrificial bull who was supposed to carry her from our shores. But none of that matters if she kills Iona before she goes.”

  The prince’s blood ran cold. “Kills? What are you talking about?”

  “I’m talking about a sister who has tortured Io since the day she was born, in a dynasty that never lets their second child become a threat to the chosen heir. You asked last night about ‘The Bird among Thorns’? Well, Io’s the bird and Lisenn’s the snake that’s stalking her. I just didn’t think she’d strike before her own line of succession was established.”