by James Tate
“Who is attacking?” I asked Sagen, taking one of the heavy, tarnished blades from her as she yanked them off the wall.
She grimaced, wrinkling her pretty nose and glancing toward the front windows. “I seriously hope I’m wrong, but it sort of looked like the king’s army. Or a section of it, at any rate.”
My jaw dropped. “The king,” I repeated, feeling dumb and slow. “Our king? King Titus? That king?”
She gave me a small, apologetic shrug. “The one who is currently sitting on your throne? Yep, that’s the one.”
“But...” I shook my head in disbelief. “The bridge. They wouldn’t have killed their own prince.”
She arched a brow at me. “Wouldn’t they?” Leading the way through the inn to the stairs, she started hurrying up. “Come on, we need to wake everyone up and let them know what’s going on.”
Hurriedly, we pounded on every door of the inn, waking up groggy, half-drunk women and warning them that they were under attack. Neither Lee nor Ty were in their rooms, and I vaguely remembered seeing them still amongst the late-night partygoers when I’d snuck away.
“They’ll be fine,” Sagen muttered to me as we ran back downstairs at the sound of splintering wood. “Ty is one of the best soldiers in the army, don’t forget. A lot of these men will hesitate to hurt a prince they admire.”
Worry twisted in my stomach, but there was no time to voice my fears. The front door of the inn had been kicked in, and a broad-shouldered man stood in the gap with a huge broadsword clutched in his meaty fist.
Sure enough, the crest of Teich was emblazoned on his breastplate, confirming the worst. Titus had no intention of honoring the trials. This whole thing had been a trap to find Ophelia’s crown or the missing princess... or both. If that meant losing one or two of his sons in the process, so much the better. He only needed one to complete his plans, after all.
Sagen didn’t even flinch. She flew at the soldier with such lithe grace I could have sworn she was trying to dance with the man—until she whacked him on the side of the head with the heavy, dull blade and he dropped like a ton of bricks.
Tossing her decorative sword aside, she pilfered the man’s weapons, then gave me a nod. “Let’s go save some lives, Queen Zarina.” It was said with only a hint of a smirk, and I gritted my teeth as I followed her out into the street.
“Don’t call me that,” I snapped at her as I jogged to catch up. Ahead of us, a fierce battle was waging in the town center, where the townsfolk had been partying just a short time ago. On the rooftop of a building ahead, I spotted a soldier taking aim at us with his arrow, so I dove forward, grabbing Sagen around the waist and shoving her behind an overturned wagon. “We’re even, by the way,” I informed her, and she quirked a half smile at me.
“No way, I totally saved your ass twice. Here.” She handed me a heavy dagger that she’d stolen from the last soldier. “Take him out so we can stop cowering behind here.”
I weighed the weapon in my hand, then poked my head up to peer at the soldier on the roof. Typical man, he was just standing there in plain sight. Clearly he felt there was nothing to fear from a town full of women.
Well, fuck him.
Lining up my target, I drew my arm back and let fly.
The blade flew through the air silently, the red dawn reflecting off it with a flash of light before the dagger found its mark in the archer’s throat. The man barely made a gurgle before toppling forward and falling from the building. There was an audible thump as his body hit the street below, and I couldn’t help but notice Sagen didn’t even bat an eyelid.
This was no pampered princess. She’d seen death before. Probably at her own hand.
“You could have done that,” I muttered as we left our protected spot and continued toward the main fray.
She just shrugged. “Actually, my aim isn’t too great when the target is above me.”
My intuition spiked, alterting me that she was lying, but I let the matter drop as we reached the edge of the town square. Blood stained the stone streets, and everywhere we looked, the ladies of Ironforge were fighting back against the royal guard.
Fighting, but losing.
Too many female forms lay motionless on the ground, and my heart spasmed painfully at the knowledge that this was because of me.
“Come on,” Sagen snapped, hefting the enormous broadsword she’d stolen. “Let’s kick some ass.”
She didn’t need to tell me twice. We both dove into the action, and within seconds I found myself being pushed to the limit. I’d been in plenty of fights over the years growing up in the Pond, but nothing could have prepared me for a bladed-weapon battle with highly trained royal guards.
I ducked, narrowly missing a heavy swipe from an axe, then countered with a hard whack to the knee with my dull, decorative blade. The man crumpled as his knee cracked, and I pressed my advantage and punched him in the temple with the hilt of my weapon.
Following Sagen’s example, I exchanged my dull weapon for the soldier’s significantly sharper ones and continued on to my next opponent.
On an on we fought. The ladies of Ironforge were no shrinking violets, and soon the body count included royal guards too. Just not enough. Nowhere near enough.
Across the square, Ty and Lee fought side by side, and I could see that Sagen had been right. The soldiers were hesitating when it came to fighting against their princes. They couldn’t know what Titus’s revolting plans were, but even so the idea of fighting—killing—their princes had to be going against their better judgement. Surely.
A clattering of hooves pulled my attention from my princes, and I glanced toward the new arrivals with horror creeping through my veins.
“Of course he’s behind this,” Sagen spat, wiping blood from her face with the back of her hand. She’d just yanked her blade from a man’s chest and been sprayed with blood.
“And her,” I noted, levelling a death stare at Lady-fucking-Gracelin, who sat on her mare wearing a smug, untouchable smirk.
Sagen grunted and threw a knife at a young soldier who was approaching with his sword raised high. “Do me a favor, Pond-baby? Kill that bitch for me the second you get the chance.”
I snorted a laugh. “Kill her yourself, lazy ass.” Taipanus dismissed us from his focus and shifted his gaze to the princes, who still fought back-to-back across the square. “Shit,” I breathed.
My intuition flared hot, and I knew I needed to get there, to intervene before Taipanus reached Ty and Lee.
Pushing myself into a run, I used the back of a fighting soldier to launch myself up and through the air, then landed on the huge iron sculpture of one of our past queens. Looping my hand through the iron queen’s raised arm, I swung my body around the sculpture. As I released on the other side, I tucked and rolled, just like I would have done in the Pond if I were running from city guards. The roll broke my fall, and I was back on my feet in seconds.
But it was seconds too late.
I regained my feet just in time to see Taipanus snap out a long, metal-tipped whip. It stuck Ty in the neck, coiling around several times before the King’s Snake yanked it tight, pulling Ty from his feet.
“No!” I screamed with utter futility. No one heard me, or if they did, they didn’t care.
Taipanus kicked his horse sharply and began dragging Ty out of the square while my prince clawed at the whip around his neck and his face turned an ugly shade of red.
Lee shouted something unintelligible just as my momentum carried me almost right into him, and I staggered to a stop.
“Ty!” we both exclaimed at the same time.
“We have to—” Lee started to run after his brother, but I grabbed his arm.
“No,” I barked. “You need to stay here and help these women. I can’t lose all three of you.”
Lee’s attention snapped to me with a strangled gasp. “Zan?” I sensed that my face told him everything he needed to know, and I had to watch something break in his eyes.
“I�
��m getting Ty back,” I promised him with total determination. “Start healing; it’s where you’re most needed.”
I didn’t stick around to argue with him further. I needed to trust that he was level-headed enough to see sense. His magic was in healing people, not hurting them.
A high pitched, feminine shriek pierced my hearing, and I found Sagen dragging Gracelin off her horse by the hair.
“You two-faced, lying bitch!” Gracelin was howling, but Sagen didn’t bother engaging in name-calling. She just punched her clean in the face. Blood sprayed and cartilage crunched, and I bit back a grim smile as I stole Gracelin’s horse.
There would—hopefully—be time to congratulate Sagen later. I had a prince to save and a snake to behead.
24
Following in the direction that Taipanus had gone, I galloped uphill through the town. Blood smeared the street, and I knew it was from some part of Ty. Fear choked me andI pushed Gracelin’s horse faster, past the entry to the mine and up the steeply inclined road behind it.
It wasn’t long before I spotted his horse—minus the rider—at the base of an old, rusted crane, a relic from before Queen Ophelia’s death. Back when machinery still worked.
Glancing up, I sucked in a sharp breath and nearly choked on my fear.
Taipanus held Ty aloft with unnatural strength, and the venomous man radiated a faint glow. Not the same as the glow from the gods, but just enough to show he was using a huge amount of magic.
The frightening part wasn’t Taipanus’s use of magic—which he’d most likely stolen from somewhere like Ironforge—but it was the fact that the crane was poised on the edge of a cliff and Ty’s feet dangled over a drop that made even my steel stomach flutter.
Tucking my blades into the silk belt of my dress, I grabbed the rusty ladder and began to climb.
Before the destruction that Titus had brought down on us by killing Ophelia, Ironforge must have been an affluent, progressive town. The type of crane that I climbed was one that had only recently been developed—around the time of her death. It was huge, taller than twice the highest building in Ironforge, and built to haul huge loads.
Now, though, it was little more than a relic, a reminder of all that our kingdom used to be, but wasn’t anymore.
The muscles in my arms burned from swinging heavy, masculine weapons, and I needed to grit my teeth to keep my grip on the ladder when the wind picked up. My dress flapped out around me like a flag—a warning of danger, coming too damn late.
Taipanus didn’t even seem to notice me creeping up the ladder, his focus was so intent on Ty. He was shouting something at my green-eyed prince, and in return I saw Ty spit in his face. I was just three rungs from the top when the wind shifted and I was able to hear some of what Taipanus was saying.
“...if you don’t give me what I want, then I can promise you that pretty little princess will suffer a much worse fate than you.”
Ty’s response was quieter, probably due to the hand around his throat, and I couldn’t make it out. Taipanus was clearly displeased, though, because he shook Ty with his glowing hand, and I gasped aloud.
Thanks to a switch in the wind’s direction, the sound must have carried. Or maybe the bright red of my dress finally caught Taipanus’s attention. Either way, he turned slowly and grinned a revolting, cruel grin.
“Well, look who’s come to join the party,” Taipanus sneered at me.
Ty’s eyes were wide and he was clearly trying to tell me to run the fuck away, but I’ve never claimed to be the most intelligent criminal in Teich. Stubborn, on the other hand, that was something I owned.
“We were just talking about you, Your Majesty,” the awful man told me, his words dripping with sarcasm and contempt. “I had a feeling you were the one we were after, right from that very first day. It’s why I tried to poison you. How’d you survive that, anyway?”
His eyes flashed with madness, and crackles of pure power zapped up and down his arms. I ignored his question because it was pointless to argue with a madman, and I was now convinced that was what he was.
Mad with power.
“Ty,” I called out as I inched along the arm of the crane. “Are you...” I trailed off as my eyes took stock of his injuries. Asking if he was okay was a bit of a stupid question, given that blood dripped from raw, open grazes all down his arms, his face was blackened and bruised—partly from his fight with Zan—and his fingers grasped at Taipanus’s grip on his neck.
“Prince Thibault, here, was just about to let me drain his magic, weren’t you?” The Snake waved an ornate dagger at him. I hadn’t noticed it before, due to the angle they’d been standing at, but it gave me pause.
My intuition, centered over my mother’s mark, flared hot, as if warning me to stay the hell away from that curved blade. Squinting at it, I could see it crawling with magic all of its own, dark and ugly.
“I’d rather you dropped me, you corrupt sack of shit,” Ty croaked out in response. “We all know you’re not the one actually pulling the strings, just like we all know you’re coming after my magic because you’re too weak to take on Zarina yourself.”
This made color rise in Taipanus’s face, and he shot a furious look in my direction.
“Maybe I wasn’t the one who started this,” he accepted. “But I’m the only one willing to shed enough blood to see it through. If you won’t give me your magic willingly, I’ll tear the scraps from your soul by force. Something is better than nothing.”
I thought I would have more time. In the books I’d devoured as a child in the Pond—the ones about good overcoming evil and orphans becoming princesses—they always had time. The bad guys would rage on and on about their plans, giving the good guys time to defeat them. To think of a cunning escape, to outsmart or outman...
That’s why when Taipanus slammed his curved blade, crawling with dark magic, into Ty’s gut, all I could do was watch in horror.
Everything slowed, and I clearly saw the dark magic begin to sink into Ty’s body, infecting him as sure as the plagues had crept through over half of Teich’s population.
Horror and desperation flooded through me, filling me until there was nowhere else for it to go. My skin stretched and ached with it, burning me up inside until... I snapped.
Magic pulsed out of me like a slingshot, whipping through Taipanus and Ty, then continuing out into the town on Ironforge. All of a sudden, it was like I held hundreds of lives within the palm of my hand. I saw with startling clarity how easy it would be to close my fist and crush them all. Every last one of them.
But the women of Ironforge didn’t deserve to die. Not like Taipanus.
Dropping my hand to my side, I let my hold on all of those lives go and focused on the one I truly wanted to punish.
Lord Taipanus.
Whatever he saw in my eyes as I stepped closer to him filled him with terror. His face blanched and sweat beaded on his brow, but his fist still gripped the evil blade which was slowly poisoning Ty.
He opened his mouth to speak, but no words could fix what he’d done.
Zan was gone, probably splattered on the bottom of the ravine along with several thousand tons of steel from the bridge. Ty was as good as dead. The black magic was filling him; creeping black veins ran up his neck, and I could sense that they would kill him in moments.
All that was left was Lee. Lee... and me.
I couldn’t risk Taipanus getting his knife into my gentle, plant-loving prince.
Reaching out with my mind, I grasped hold of the slimy, withered weed that was Taipanus’s soul... and ripped it clean out.
The king’s advisor crumpled instantly, like a puppet whose strings were cut.
The stupid, foolish, anger that fuelled me hadn’t considered the fact that Taipanus’s grip was the only damn thing keeping Ty from falling.
With a horrified scream, I dove forward as Ty began to drop.
“Ty!” I cried out as my fingers met his and tightened. His weight pulled me off my feet,
and I found myself lying face down on the arm of the crane, looking down at one of my royal lovers dangling above his doom.
“Don’t let go!” I ordered him, grunting with exertion but stubbornly tightening my grip.
His eyes were full of sorrow and regret as he looked up at me.
I wasn’t going to be able to hold onto him forever. Hell, I wasn’t going to be able to hold on to him for more than a few, painful seconds.
“Lo,” he whispered, just as his sweaty fingers slipped through mine. I was going to lose yet another of my princes, and there was nothing I could do about it. “Just let go.” The darkness from the blade swept over his face, took over his eyes, and dimmed his gaze. I screamed, but I couldn’t hear the sound my lips made.
All I could hear was the thundering of my heart as I held my lover over a ravine and waited for him to fall. Because when he did, my heart and soul would fall with him.
To Be Continued in The Royal Trials: Heir
AUTHORS NOTE
Hey. You! Yes, you! Don’t you dare throw your kindle across the room! They’re expensive and you’ll regret it if you have to wait for a new one before you can read anything else. I don’t need that on my conscience! Now, take a deep breath and chill. I promise this was all for the best. If you need to curse me out for a few minutes, that’s cool. I’ll wait.
…
Are we good? I hope so! Now let me tell you a story. No one dies in this one, I swear.
Seeker is officially my first full length novel since giving birth to my second son on Imposter’s release day. It’s been a challenging journey, I’m not even going to try and pretend it hasn’t been. Hell, it still is. I thought I was going to be all over this, it was going to be a total breeze! I would write super hard during my pregnancy so that I had 2-3 books up my sleeve to release after baby’s birth which would allow me some time to catch up again. Except, that didn’t happen. Almost the second I fell pregnant my energy depleted faster than water through a sieve. All I wanted to do was sleep, or eat, or binge watch Orphan Black (that show is so addictive it’s not even funny). So when I released Imposter and a squalling baby on the same day, I was starting from scratch.