by S. M. Boyce
While Lori worked, Bonnie asked questions. Kara told them an altered version of how Braeden had pulled her away from everything she had with no notice, only to leave her alone. She wanted to tell them more, but—considering her magical abilities and why Braeden had whisked her away in the first place—she refrained. Still, it helped to have someone listen.
The two Scottish women sat across the table from her and just let her talk. On more than one occasion, Bonnie frowned as if she noticed something off about Kara’s story. Thankfully, though, she didn’t push the matter. She kept quiet and simply listened.
When Kara finished, no one spoke. The teapot whistled, but Lori didn’t get up.
“We need to get you pished,” Bonnie said after a while.
“Huh?”
Lori sipped her tea. “She means drunk, dear.”
“Oh.”
Kara thought about it. She hadn’t been drunk since the semester before her mother died. Drinking would never solve her problems, but maybe one night of partying would help her relax. The only problem was she didn’t have any sort of identification to offer if they carded her.
“Do I need to bring my passport as ID?” she hedged.
Bonnie shrugged. “If you want. I’d like to take you to a club I frequent, and they never check. I’m not letting you say no, by the way. It sounds like you need this.”
Kara resisted the impulse to sigh with relief. Finally, some luck. She didn’t have a clue how she could explain getting to a foreign country without a passport.
Chapter 23
Preparations
Braeden awoke to a distant order from Carden. The command told him to eat the breakfast that would be delivered in a few minutes. In an hour, he was to head to the king’s study.
He grinned and sat up. Even though he had an instinctive urge to obey, he could resist the command. He would have to test it further. He still didn’t know exactly what had happened, or how much he could resist. Had anyone before him ever disobeyed a Blood’s mandate?
He stood and looked in the mirror. He had to practice his expression from before—what was it? Indifference.
He relaxed his face and stared at the mirror. No, his eyes were too sharp. That wasn’t right. He had to look as if he had no internal thought. His eyes had to stay calm no matter what. Bored, even.
Bored! That worked. He could do bored.
Someone knocked on the door. Braeden waved his hand, and the entry swung open at his command.
Deirdre stood in the hall, leaning on the doorframe. She balanced a tray on her hips.
Braeden reeled inwardly in surprise, but practiced maintaining his bored expression. He had to be better prepared for surprises like that; they would give him away if he wasn’t careful.
She smirked. “Miss me?”
“If you’ve touched that food, I want nothing to do with it.”
“Now that just isn’t nice.”
She walked in and set the tray on the coffee table before lifting the lid and helping herself to a grape.
His stomach growled. The tray’s selection impressed him. He could choose from a half dozen plates. Apples, grapes, and pears sat next to a tray of ham and what he figured from the sweet aroma was honeyed turkey. A few loaves of sliced wheat breads and a white cheese block of some sort completed the feast.
“They didn’t make a spread that big for one person,” he said.
“The chefs figured you’d be hungry after the beating your daddy served you yesterday. I know better, though.”
“What does that mean?”
She picked up a knife from the tray and cut a few slices of cheese. “It means I saw you go into the forest last night, even though you were expressly forbidden to leave.”
Braeden laughed. “The forest is part of the Stele. Did you have a point?”
“I know you left.”
“Stop wasting my time. That’s impossible,” he lied.
Deirdre set down her half-eaten cheese and stood. She inched closer, taking slow steps until she stood only a foot or so away. “In my two hundred and sixteen years of living, I’ve learned that nothing is impossible, dear little prince. But, all right. I’ll bite. If you happened to resist your blood loyalty and leave the kingdom, I would be very much impressed.”
“If I did happen to defy the command, it would mean I could also kill you now despite Carden’s order not to harm you.”
She grinned. “You’re so cute. You can’t hurt me. However, I know you wouldn’t try. You don’t want Carden knowing about you. Not yet.”
Braeden’s jaw tensed. “And you plan to share your little theory with him?”
“No,” she said with a shrug. She sat back down and continued eating her cheese.
“No?”
“I don’t see a point. You would likely still pass any test he gave you. He might put you back into torture, or he might just kill you. I don’t see a personal benefit in any scenario. Thus, your secret is safe with me. For now, anyway.”
“I don’t have a secret,” he said. She couldn’t trick him into admitting anything.
“Of course not.”
“I thought you were Carden’s servant. You do what he tells you.”
She laughed. “Is that what he said? Hardly. Your father and I simply have an agreement. We—how do I put this—we help each other.”
“I don’t believe that for a minute.”
“It’s probably wise to not trust me. However, it just means I can tell you the truth and you won’t believe me.”
Braeden gritted his teeth. Bloods, he hated this woman.
Deirdre stood and headed for the door. “I have an errand to run. Do enjoy your little war, though. Ah! And I’ll tell Kara hello for you when I see her.”
The isen shut the door behind her. Braeden wanted to run over and rip the door off its hinges, but he forced himself to stay still. He didn’t believe she knew where to find Kara. She couldn’t. Nothing alive could follow a vyrn.
Kara was safe. She was in a tiny village in Scotland, out of harm’s way. She would never find the closest lichgate to her. She wouldn’t find her way back until he went for her. He had to believe that. Deirdre wouldn’t find her so long as he didn’t show her where to go.
Carden’s orders to eat pulled again on his gut, even after he’d ignored them once already. They were easier to defy the second time.
He walked toward his bathroom for a bath, but passed on the food. Orders or not, he refused to eat anything that isen touched.
Twenty minutes later, Braeden knocked on the door to Carden’s study. After a shower and a clean change of clothes, he’d still managed to arrive early.
The door opened to Carden sitting in a chair in front of a blazing fire. The heat warmed the room until it was hotter than the summer day outside.
“A fire? Aren’t you overheated?” Braeden asked as he entered. He focused on maintaining a bored tone.
“I haven’t been warm in years,” the Blood said absently.
“Why’s that?”
“Power has its costs.”
The little gray Xlijnughl jumped onto Carden’s leg from where it had been sitting by the fire and curled up on his lap. The king scratched its back without looking down.
Braeden shrugged when Carden didn’t elaborate. He would probably find out what the king meant soon enough.
“I’ve heard that the Vagabond will be attending this little ambush,” Carden said.
Braeden didn’t move or answer. He didn’t know how to react. This was supposed to be a new Braeden, an obedient one.
“She won’t be a problem,” he answered.
“If you see her, you are to kill her. Is that clear?” Carden asked.
The order pulled on Braeden’s gut. For a moment, it consumed him. And image of Kara flashed in his mind, and he longed to wrap his hands around her neck.
But he pushed against the command. He suppressed the desire with a memory of their kiss in the Stelian grottoes. Heat rushed down his neck. His
pulse slowed. The need to kill crumbled away. The urge to obey disappeared, and relief flooded his body.
Outwardly, he nodded as if agreeing to his father’s order. Inwardly, he suppressed a grin. Braeden was his own man. He would never again blindly obey.
Carden sneered. “Good boy. I like this new you.”
“As do I,” Braeden said with a smirk.
“Look on my desk.”
Braeden walked to the table, where six swords lay on the polished wood. Each was unique: some broad and thick, others thin but sharp.
“Pick one,” Carden said. “It’s time you had a real blade.”
Braeden looked up in time to see the king draw Braeden’s old Hillsidian sword from its sheath. The Blood weighed it in his hands, and it was all Braeden could do to not grab it. Richard had given him that sword before he could even hold it properly. He’d killed hundreds of isen with it. The steel had been a part of him for years.
Carden gripped the blade. White light splintered through his fingers. Metal split. In seconds, the sword lay in pieces on the floor. The hilt dropped to the carpet with a thud.
Braeden kept still. He never let the boredom leave his eyes, even though he wanted to scream.
He looked down to the swords again. No emotion. He couldn’t show his hatred or his anger. He had to simply look bored. He already hated the expression. Hopefully, he wouldn’t have to wear it much longer.
He picked up the sharpest sword, which had an even longer blade than his old one. The Stelian crest glittered on the tip. Its hilt twisted around his hand, protecting him as he held it.
He would kill Carden with this sword. Sure, it wasn’t a Sartori, but even Bloods could die by decapitation. And for Carden, it was only a matter of time.
Chapter 24
The Attack
Braeden was expressly forbidden from training in the two days leading up to the ambush. He still couldn’t quite figure out why, either. Carden claimed his son needed to be rested, but there had to be more to it. Braeden just hadn’t figured it out yet.
He took up walking around the kingdom in his sudden spare time. He hated the rising tension, the calm before the storm, but he had no choice. He had to keep up pretenses, and as much as he hated the bored expression, it was the only one he wore in his time there.
He spent most of his time building theories as to how he had defied Carden’s mandate to not leave the kingdom. He didn’t know if he’d somehow become stronger than his father, or if being far away from the king at the time had something to do with it. Either way, the commands became easier to resist every time he tried.
The throne room had been fixed since his—he took a moment to count—since his second escape from the Stele in his life. That was when he’d met Kara, when the drenowith had grabbed them and torn through the stained glass ceiling. It had since been repaired, and no evidence of the two dragons remained.
Braeden frowned. He wished the muses had killed Carden right then. They probably could have done it, too, but he figured the drenowith council would have been angry at them for killing a Blood.
At some point, Deirdre left. A guard in the throne room said he’d seen her heading for the grottoes the day before. Braeden had figured she wouldn’t stay, though. He just hated to think about why.
In his free time, Braeden practiced defying orders, which never came in short supply. It was as if the king survived off of royal decrees and commands. If Carden told him from afar to eat, Braeden would throw the food away or eat only when hungry. If Carden was near, Braeden waited until he suppressed the desire to obey before he obliged. These practices went unnoticed, but he needed more proof with each passing day that he was really his own man.
Carden had prisoners in the dungeon. Braeden could hear their screams. Some were women, and he could have sworn he even heard a child. It took all his will to not run down the stairs to stop the torture, but doing so would have just given him away.
Braeden often debated ending his father before they even left. It would be the better option if he could only do it. If Braeden killed his father during the ambush, he would become Blood in the middle of a battle. He would be vulnerable, and he would have four enemies—the other four Bloods—trying to kill him in his weakened state. If he killed Carden at the Stele instead, he would be able to rest as he adjusted to the new power of being king, but only if the kingdom didn’t revolt after hearing their Heir had killed his father to take the throne. That was always possible. At least during a battle, he could make it seem like the enemy killed Carden instead of their Heir.
With so many factors, Braeden couldn’t make even one mistake.
“Heir Drakonin, your father wishes for you to join him.”
Braeden looked up at the voice and blinked himself out of his thoughts. He’d been sitting on a bench in one of the Stele’s many courtyards, elbows on his knees.
The voice belonged to a young Stelian girl, maybe sixteen. She wore the armor of a guard, even though the sword at her waist made her lean slightly off balance.
“Are you a soldier?” he asked.
“Yes, my lord.”
“But you’re a child.”
She looked at the ground and clenched her teeth, as if biting back a scathing remark.
Braeden laughed. “Go on, tell me off. This should be interesting.”
“I would rather not, my lord.”
He could probably guess what she was going to say anyway: something about being plenty grown up and ready for war. Honor. Nobility. The like.
“Where is Blood Carden?” he asked.
“His study, my lord.”
Braeden stood and left. He wanted to thank her, but figured it wasn’t something a cold, bored prince was supposed to do. He hated playing this part, but he was so close. Tomorrow, they would leave for the ambush. Tomorrow, he would rid the world of Carden.
No one walked the halls as Braeden neared the study, which didn’t make any sense. They were preparing for war; the hallways should be filled with soldiers packing bags and tying up loose ends. His intuition flared, ready for a surprise attack. Carden may have discovered him. If so, he had no idea what he would do. Fight? Run?
Fight.
He reached Carden’s study sooner than he would have liked. He rapped on the closed doors and waited. Many feet shuffled inside—six pairs. Not exactly an army.
“Come in, boy,” Carden’s voice called through the door.
Braeden opened the door to see the Blood and five other Stelians standing around a table littered with maps.
Carden waved his hand at the other men. “Meet your fellow generals. They answer to you. Now tell us more about the planned ambush. Where, when, who.”
Braeden nodded and stepped up to the table. The largest map depicted the gorge Gavin had chosen for the ambush. There was no use lying; Carden had already heard the truth during the torture. Braeden just had to hope Gavin had another plan up his sleeve. And knowing that conniving son of a—
Braeden cleared his throat. He needed to focus. “They claimed they would be camping here”—he pointed to a small valley—“but they will actually be farther along, likely here”—he pointed again farther up the gorge.
One of the generals laughed. “How stupid do they think we are? No leader would walk blindly into a gorge without a way to escape.”
Braeden could only nod. “The original claim was that Gavin got into a fight with the Bloods and broke off on his own to come find us. However, every Blood will be there.”
Another general leaned forward. “Including the Blood of Hillside? But he has no Heir.”
“I don’t know,” Braeden admitted.
Carden leaned against the table, an arm stretch on either side of it. “It doesn’t matter. Kill what Bloods are there, but spare him. Wound him only. He must survive.”
Braeden looked up and allowed a quizzical expression through the boredom.
“You’ll see,” the king said with a smirk.
“As you wish, Blood Carde
n,” Braeden answered. He wanted to prod, but couldn’t do so without sounding insubordinate.
He had just gotten a clue, though. Carden wanted the Bloods dead—but hadn’t mentioned the Heirs. Gavin was to survive, likely because he had no Heir. The Queen of Hillside had been the first Blood to die, leaving her inexperienced son to take the kingdom’s reins.
What is Carden planning?
“It seems there are trails along the edges of the gorge. This will give us an advantage,” one of the generals said.
The shortest general nodded. “We should split up at the mouth and each take a side.”
“Braeden, you are to remain with me,” Carden ordered.
The command pulled on Braeden’s gut, but this one he was only too happy to obey. “Yes, sir.”
“Half of the army will remain here, in case this is a trick to capture the Stele. Generals, prepare the other soldiers to leave just after sun up. Braeden, be rested for tomorrow,” Carden said with a nod to the door.
The unspoken command was, “leave.” The generals bowed. Braeden followed suit.
As they left, one of the generals kept pace beside him. The man kept his eyes forward and didn’t speak. The others dispersed into the hall, but this one remained until the rest disappeared.
“Two days ago, I saw you leave for the forest, Heir,” the general said.
Not this again.
“Congratulations,” Braeden answered.
“You are under express orders not to leave.”
“Unless I am mistaken—and I’m not—the forests are part of the Stele.”
“I would hate for your secret to—”
Braeden grabbed the general and spun him against a wall. He lifted the man by his neck until he was eye level and his short legs kicked beneath him.
Braeden sneered. “I don’t like you. Keep that in mind because someday, I’ll be the Blood. You would be better off dying before that day comes.”
The general’s eyes popped wider, and he nodded. Braeden dropped him to his feet, and the man scurried away.