“When the people explored the land, they found a valley, an isolated location surrounded by mountains. But that wasn’t all that circled it. Tall smooth stones had been placed in roughly a ring around the place, and these were carved with runes. The runes took the shape of whatever language those people were familiar with, and warned them that trapped within the valley was an entity called the Queen Beneath the Earth, who could never be allowed to leave it.”
“Even without that warning, the people would not have gone in, because they felt the entity’s presence. It was like opening an oven and getting a blast of heat on your face, like…”
She stopped, because this girl had been in a Prince’s harem and wouldn’t need any prompting to remember being exposed to malice. “Anyway, that was where matters stood. A horror lay in the heart of the land, but it couldn’t affect the people as long as they kept away from it. They called the land Avalon and split up to colonize the rest of it. But some of them wanted to leave. They longed to find a way home, even if they died trying, and the captain of Solstice was one of them. His first officer, who was called Janice Stuyvesant, remained on land, but once the ship was resupplied, the captain and a skeleton crew set off.”
The apprentice moved away, turning his back as if he didn’t want to hear any more. Janice locked her hands in her lap.
“We don’t know if they found their way back to our world, or if they died out at sea,” she said. “We don’t know what will happen to us in the end either. But sometimes the only thing which keeps me from…”
Involuntarily she glanced at the dark narrow slabs of the rafters before she looked back at the unconscious girl and finished their story. “Sometimes, all we have is the hope that tomorrow will be the day things change for the better. Maybe even the day we return home.”
Chapter Six
Marus spread a double handful of pallet-stuffing on the floor and picked out the sturdiest straws. Then he found a badly rusted rake in an outbuilding. He tied the straws he’d collected to the rake-end, making sure their ends were even.
There, he thought. He’d made history, an Earthborn Prince constructing a broom.
The irony was bitter in his mouth, but oddly, it didn’t make him as angry and frustrated as he’d felt three weeks ago. So he’d built a broom. What was the alternative, to sit there waiting for a human to come and help him? He was still a Prince if he was trapped in flesh form, and as a Prince, he could do whatever he damn well liked, including sweep the floor if he chose.
He started to work, but the dust rose up in clouds, so he soaked rags in water and tied those around the broom’s head. There, now he had a mop.
He kept the doors closed and glanced self-consciously at the windows, but as the day went on with no interruptions, the stone floor grew cleaner and Marus couldn’t help admiring his handiwork. He’d never want to remember it once he regained his earth form, but for now, he could keep his residence in a condition that befitted his status. He didn’t need to depend on Kat for that.
Besides, after she had left, it had occurred to him that she’d trudged up to the outpost, carried in his tribute, helped destroy the linx and prepared his meal without a word of complaint, even though she must have been tired. Not that he was getting soft about any human, least of all her. It was just that she was more useful as a bodyguard—especially considering how good a shot she was—and he couldn’t expect her to guard him if she was dropping from exhaustion.
He ate the last of the bread for his evening meal, then used more damp rags to wipe down the furniture. The mop made it easy to reach cobwebs in the rafters, though by the time he was finished, the unaccustomed exertion made him so tired he was asleep at once.
The next day was bright and clear. After boiling two eggs for breakfast, he cleared the broken glass out of the barracks and went to find more firewood. Fallen branches were running low and he didn’t have an axe, but he gathered everything he could and piled it neatly next to the hearth. He filled the water bucket as well.
Pleased with his efforts, he went out to scatter crumbs for the mountain doves that pecked and scratched among the rocks. He threw a crust to a crow as well, but obviously that wasn’t what the bird liked to eat, because he just got an evil look in response.
Noon came and went. Feeling distinctly hungry, he climbed the steps that led up to the tower. From the vantage point, he glanced hopefully down, and to his relief he saw a figure on the trail far below, just ahead of two laden ponies.
He went back down, but it was nearly evening before the ponies scuffled their way up the trail. Much as he would have liked to go out to get the food, he made himself wait. It was one thing to see to his own home, but actively helping a subordinate might be…misconstrued. He heard her unloading the ponies and leading them out, so he lit the candles while he waited.
Kat finally appeared, but she stayed at the door, not with the subservience she’d shown when they’d first met, but as if she kept her distance. Her face was blank except for a furrow between her brows—and he’d never been good at reading human eyes.
“What’s wrong?” he said.
“I heard some disturbing news in the town.” She didn’t step over the threshold. “What does the name Ractane mean to you?”
He blinked, startled—and not just because of her wary tone. “One of my brothers. Why?”
“How well do you know him?”
“As well as I know any of them.” He rose, trying not to show the sudden jolt of fear that tensed his limbs. “What happened?”
Her throat moved as though she was swallowing hard, and then the taut line of her shoulders slumped. “We found a girl a few miles away.” She pulled her gloves off. “Before she collapsed, she told us she was in Prince Ractane’s harem.”
“I see.” It was an immense relief that Ractane wasn’t actually near. Marus wasn’t sure he could fight off an unarmed human, let alone another Prince.
Her head came up. “You knew he had a harem?”
His restraint began to fray. Everything out of her mouth seemed to be an accusatory question, and not only was that a marked contrast to her previous behavior—see what happens when you give humans an inch of leeway? a small voice whispered—he couldn’t understand why she seemed angry with him for something Ractane had done.
“Let me explain something about my, er, family,” he said evenly. “As soon as we were born and dug ourselves out of the earth, we scattered in different directions. We sensed that our mother hated us as much she wanted us to be the instruments of her revenge, but we knew what we felt for each other too.”
“Which was?” The closed look had relaxed a little.
He shrugged. “At best, nothing. At worst, we were rivals for the same land, and unlike our mother we weren’t confined in one place. My brothers could have anything from harems to armies to paintings of fluffy ducklings swimming in a pond, and I wouldn’t know, because to find out I’d have to enter their territories and that’s likely to start a fight.”
Her brows went up. “One you might not win?”
Oh, you have no idea—and I hope you never will. “Let’s just say I choose my battles.”
She kept looking at him, as though trying to stare him down in a silent challenge, but when he didn’t relent or keep talking, she trudged to another bench and sat down. It was only that, he thought, which showed how long the journey had been on foot—the way she lowered herself to the bench, the almost imperceptible sigh. Dust dulled her hair and clung to her skin.
Not that she let the subject drop, of course. He couldn’t be so fortunate. “Wouldn’t they flaunt it before you, if they had a harem of beautiful women?” she said, looking down at her gloves as she shoved them into her belt.
“Why bother? You think I couldn’t have one if I wanted?”
That brought her attention back to him. “Have you?”
His bench might have be
en made of thorns for all the comfort he felt, but he didn’t need to put up with such an intrusive question. Had he really looked forward to her return? I must have been insane.
“I’m going to do you a great kindness,” he said.
She heard the dangerously soft tone at once—it was obvious from the way she stiffened—but she had the wits not to say anything as he went on. “I’ll pretend I didn’t just hear myself being interrogated as if I was some human you’d taken into custody. You’re welcome.”
“I apologize.” Her reply was almost inaudible. “You’re right. I forgot my place.”
That should have felt so much better. That should have set him at ease, and yet he found himself wishing she didn’t bend her head and pull her shoulders inward, as if trying to make herself a smaller target. It made him feel petty, as if he’d just hit someone who was unable to strike back. Which was the greatest irony, given how easily she could kill him.
His silence only seemed to make her more ill-at-ease, and she licked her lips. “I heard what happened in Copper Lake, and I promise you won’t have cause to—”
“Copper Lake?” A cold dread ran deep as the marrow of his bones, and it took an effort to keep his voice calm. “What did you hear happened there?”
She looked up at him. “That you were the patron of the town until—until the people displeased you, so you abandoned them and another Prince razed the town. I should have kept that in mind. I’m sorry.”
Marus wasn’t sure what to say. It was no surprise that as the news traveled, it changed, and her version cast him in a better light than he had expected. A Prince who abandoned a town because of its people’s disobedience was infinitely preferable to a Prince who hid in a hole and crept away under cover of dark.
But damn it, none of the devastation had been his people’s fault. They’d done their duty to him. They deserved a hell of a lot more than to be wiped out and remembered—if they were remembered at all—as ingrates who’d brought their doom on themselves by defying their patron.
Whichever of his brothers was behind this, the filthy coward had a lot to answer for.
He pushed his hair back from his forehead. He needed to play the Prince card so she wouldn’t question him—and he would certainly feel better at being treated with more respect. But he had to do it carefully, because she was more likely to be honest with him if she wasn’t terrified.
And while he would never admit it, he preferred her when she wasn’t flinching from him.
“I don’t permit anyone to speak to me the way you did,” he said. “I’m also under no obligation to explain my decisions to my servants. But we’ll both be happier in the end if you don’t confuse me with anyone else in my large and loving family. We’re not interchangeable, so Ractane’s behavior doesn’t mean you should expect the same treatment from me.”
She still looked skeptical. “So you would never do whatever he’s done with that girl?”
Marus started to say no, then paused. He didn’t need Kat—or anyone else, for that matter—thinking of him as some sort of virginal ascetic.
“I like women,” he began.
“Human women.” Her lip curled.
“No, mushroom women. As I was saying, I like women and I’ve had several in the past. But they all had the choice of whether to come to my bed, and they could leave when they liked. A harem is too much responsibility.”
Kat tilted her head as though she hadn’t heard that right. “Really?”
“Yes. Why would I want to feed and look after a dozen humans? So much easier if they go back where they came from once we’re done.”
There was another pause, during which she seemed to be turning his words over in that alien mind. Though Marus’s own thoughts weren’t exactly familiar ones either, since now he had the additional fear of whether Ractane, in searching for the girl, might find Marus too.
Or whether there was some connection between the two—if Ractane was trying to find him, perhaps by sending a loyal pawn in the guise of helpless victim? But why bother with pretenses? If Ractane wanted to question the townsfolk, he only had to loom over them in earth form and they would tell him anything.
Kat’s voice broke into his preoccupation. “I believe you,” she said. “If you didn’t want any human servants besides me, then you wouldn’t want a harem either. So you don’t know anything about Ractane?”
At least now she sounded genuinely curious rather than suspecting him of being in league with his brother. “Other than the fact that he’s greedy and vicious and violent, which describes all of us? No.”
That wasn’t entirely true, since even by Marus’s standards, Ractane was dangerous. All the Princes were aggressive, because that was the only way to survive their own kind, but Ractane took a special pleasure in inflicting humiliation and pain on anyone he defeated. Given a choice, Marus would willingly have put the entire continent between the two of them—until he had his power back.
“I meant, you don’t know whether he might come after this girl,” Kat said.
He shook his head. “Did she say how she escaped?”
“She wasn’t in any condition to talk.” Kat leaned forward, and he heard the suppressed plea in her voice; that time, her emotions showed only too clearly. “If he comes after us for sheltering her, will you help?”
Oh no. No. Of course she hoped he’d protect them, but what in hell was he supposed to say now? His thoughts whirled in his head.
Lie to her. Except he couldn’t. Perhaps because she had been direct with him; perhaps because it would be even more of a nightmare to see the destruction of Copper Lake happening all over again, with realization dawning in her eyes that they’d been deceived, lulled into a sense of security that had been false and useless.
Marus had no qualms about fighting his brothers, killing the one who’d done this to him—especially if that was Ractane—and killing any humans who threatened him. But lying to someone who had given him food and asked for his help seemed small and shabby in comparison.
Find some way to tell her the truth, then. It was the only other option. But how in the world could he tell her that and expect her to stay? At best, she’d go back to the town with the tribute, because there was no profit in helping a weakling. At worst? The rifle.
He started to speak, but he was too late. She straightened as though she was drawing back, and there was nothing in her voice now. It sounded cool and hollow.
“Thank you for hearing me out.” She got up.
“Wait,” Marus began.
She turned on her heel. “I’ll bring your tribute in.”
“Kat!”
He had never before shouted at a human, because he’d never needed to. In fact, he couldn’t recall the last time he had raised his voice. It startled him with the sheer volume, and the sense that it came from the depths of his chest, like plates of rock crashing together beneath the earth. Kat stopped in her tracks as though he’d split the ground open around her, which Marus felt was most gratifying. She turned and met his eyes.
“Sit down,” he said, and waited until she obeyed. Then he got to his feet to make her look up at him, because there had been a distinct lack of respect in the way she’d just spoken to him. And while he didn’t want her to grovel, his tolerating even a moment of scorn could leave the door open to more.
The only way to make certain he would never need to enforce his authority over humans with power—which he no longer had—was to make certain humans never ignored his authority to begin with.
“Have you forgotten who I am?” he said coldly.
She sat straight-backed on the chair, but while her posture didn’t change, her voice was quiet and a little shaky. “I’m sorry.”
He couldn’t afford to relent. “Yes, you have forgotten. So it behooves me to remind you. I’m Marus, not any one of my brothers, and not part of some collective where ever
y person is responsible for the crimes of others. I’m your master, but I am not your enemy. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
Though there was nothing unsteady about her voice now, and the moment he’d said the word master… He didn’t need to be familiar with humans to recognize the fury burning dark and hard in her eyes. Good.
“And if you don’t like taking orders from me,” he said, “there are a lot of other Princes you can choose from.”
That was his killshot, and he knew at once it had struck home. The muscles on either side of Kat’s mouth tightened, and it was a moment before she replied.
“Better the devil we know,” she said tonelessly.
If she’d just conceded that he was better for them than most of his brothers would be, he’d won. He sat back down, and only realized when he did so that the silk wrapping him was now stuck to his skin. The argument had taken a toll on him as well.
“Do you still think I had anything to do with this?” he heard himself say.
He hadn’t consciously thought of asking that, and rather than speaking with icy authority or in a conversational tone unsettling in its sheer softness, he sounded…vulnerable. As if he genuinely cared what she thought of him. But before he could think what to do about that, she shook her head.
“No,” she said. “I think if you shared Ractane’s—tastes, I’d have seen a little of that by now. And I wouldn’t even mind having you as a master if I was sure you’ll protect us. Are you afraid of him?”
Marus started to say Of course not, but stopped, because he didn’t need to be goaded into anything he’d regret later. His hesitation must have showed, because Kat stared.
“You are.” She spoke as if the sun had turned purple.
Best not to directly contradict her, Marus thought. He had no objections at all to her seeing him as utterly fearless, but at the same time, he was afraid of Ractane. Hell, of any of his brothers. And since he couldn’t be certain of always hiding it, especially from someone who lived with him, maybe it was best to acknowledge that, under some circumstances, he would be understandably cautious. Anyone would.
The Beast Prince Page 8