The Cutthroat Prince (William of Alamore Series Book 2)

by C. J. R. Isely

  Oberoan listened to the hooves thunder into a gallop then fade to nothing. It was a long while before he dared to push himself to his hands and knees. He swayed, eyes shut against the terror of a moment before, and wretched over the forest floor, silently vowing never to drink again.

  ***

  The teenage girl stared down from the high windows at the dark ocean that broke at the base of the cliff below. Storm clouds roiled overhead, blotting the stars from view, but their anger was familiar, tolerable. Nothing like the sight at the far side of the castle, the sight of the lands that stretched away from this kingdom. Their fury was different, something she’d never seen or imagined. Where lightning broke the sky here, there it was the distant fires on the horizon, growing nearer each night.

  She closed her eyes as salty air blew through her window, fluttering the hem of her dress, lifting the hair around her face. For a moment, she felt she was escaping reality, racing back through time to when none of these fears had even existed, when she was play-fighting with the squires, racing horses with her friends, swimming in the ocean.

  “Princess Kalia?”

  Kalia started, whipping round, her dark blonde hair fanning in a curtain around her. Shoulders relaxing, she smiled at the sight of the two people standing in her doorway–a seventeen-year-old boy, dark shaggy hair falling over his tanned forehead, a few strands loose over his eyes, and his small shadow, a girl around twelve, her own slightly lighter hair braided over one shoulder, her hand resting on the hilt of the dagger on her hip.

  “Storms of the sea, you scared me.”

  “Why are you sitting in the dark?” the boy asked, giving her a roguish grin as he stepped in, opening the door wider so the light of the corridor flooded over her surroundings. She blinked, taken aback by the shadows that had stretched over the room. Through the door behind the boy, light streamed into the room. It shone off the candelabra that hung overhead, the table set with a chessboard of silver and bronze figures. The light chased the shadows from her shelves of books, reflected on the bronze kelpie set on its sea green tapestry, and the ornate white and gold threads of the carpet shone. The empty hearth alone remained dark, swallowing the light in its depths.

  “You’ll laugh at me, Niet, but I hadn’t even realized it was getting dark,” she said, smiling sheepishly. Her smile slipped and she turned back to the window a moment, fighting the knot that had risen in her throat. She wasn’t about to let either of them see her moment of weakness.

  “Well then, let’s work on getting this room a bit brighter, shall we? Eldin, give me a hand, get the lantern on the shelf lit, I’ll work on the hearth.”

  When she turned again, the older was crouched beside the fireplace, the sword on his side clearly visible, striking flint and steel while the younger girl was crossing to the lantern. “Don’t bother with that, Eldin. I haven’t refilled it since last night,” Kalia said quickly, reddening.

  “Up late?” the younger girl, Eldin, asked quizzically.

  “Aren’t we all of late?” she asked, giving Eldin a wry smile. “Anyway, I figured if I was awake I might as well read up on my uncle’s lands, just in case.”

  Light flickered to life and warmth spread through Kalia as the fire in the hearth ignited, growing quickly as it consumed the generous kindling around it. Niet stepped back, giving an appreciative nod at his own handiwork. “That should do.” He straightened, brushing the ash from his hands, and turned to Kalia, a wolfish grin in place. “You read when you can’t sleep, meanwhile squires all cause mayhem. I guess that’s the difference between the royals and the protectors.”

  Kalia gave him a look of mock offense. “Are you implying the royals aren’t protectors?”

  “If he isn’t, I will,” Eldin retorted playfully. Kalia made a snatch for the younger girl but, with light-footed agility, she was already springing away into one of the plush chairs.

  Laughing, Kalia crossed to another of the seats, sinking down beside the chessboard. “I was wondering when you two would get the chance to come visit. I don’t think you’ve ever stayed away this long.”

  “Well,” Niet said, flopping into the chair across from her, “we’ve been getting all the busy work now, helping mostly, and training’s gone to the back burner.” He moved a silver pawn forward, gesturing to signal her turn.

  Kalia moved without much thought, pushing one of her pawns out two spaces. “I’m not surprised. The knights have a lot to do at the moment.”

  Instantly, she wished she could catch the words and swallow them whole. A shadow flickered behind Niet’s dark eyes and his fingers, resting on the castle piece in front of him, visibly tightened. “Yeah, they have.”

  “She’ll be back before long,” muttered Kalia. “And you know you couldn’t have gone. Father said it wasn’t-”

  “I know,” Niet cut across her, moving the castle into the pawn’s vacated position. “It’s just frustrating. I don’t even know if she’s made it out of Kelkor or if…” He shook his head. “I should have been there. I’m her squire. She might need help.”

  “She thought you were needed here,” Kalia said, her voice more commanding now. “And she was right. I’d lose my mind without you and Eldin, and Eldin would honestly probably just sneak out after you.”

  “She’s not wrong,” Eldin agreed, scooting her chair nearer to study the chessboard. “Anyway, now you get to see what it’s like training a squire by helping Paxrin train me.”

  Niet snorted, but Kalia was glad to see the shadow of a smile return to his lips. “I’m pretty sure you’ve been training Paxrin. My poor brother probably thought you’d be simple to train after Serena’s glowing review.”

  “If Serena gives a glowing review, I think it means the person will be an outstanding knight, not an easy squire,” said Kalia, laughing. “Paxrin was a squire when you started. Shame on him if he doesn’t remember the pranks.”

  “I told him always that it was your idea,” Niet admitted, guiltily. “And don’t go giving Eldin ideas on pranks or Pax is going to murder me.”

  “Pranks? Why haven’t I been learning these?” Eldin demanded, sitting up straighter. “I’ve been a squire for four months and you haven’t mentioned anything about these pranks! How come?”

  After that, the conversation was interspersed with laughter as Kalia, then Niet, recounted to the younger girl their days of tricking knights, sneaking through the castle, and scaring the guards. She listened with rapt attention and Kalia could see the grey eyes were imagining herself pulling such trickery now that she was at last a squire.

  The distant sound of yelling broke the warmth and laughter. They all turned toward the door and Kalia half rose, her heart sinking. “What’s going on?”

  “Not sure.” Niet was the first to the door, the other two following. Kalia noticed Eldin was gripping the handle of her long dagger and could almost feel the girl’s fear and excitement.

  “Do we need to go to help?” she asked, turning to Niet.

  “Might.”

  Another shout had all three racing into the corridor. They heard feet running down a stairwell to their right and charged toward them. Kalia wished she’d thought to change into something as practical as the other two’s tunics after dinner, hiking her skirts up to her shins to keep from stumbling over them.

  At the end of the hallway, she grabbed the railing that looked down over the open stairwell to the steps descending into the grand hall below. Knights and soldiers, men and women alike, were rushing downwards, pulling on cloaks and swords as they descended. Niet grabbed Kalia’s arm and pulled her to the stairs. The three raced after the others, taking the steps two at a time. Kalia almost tripped twice but Eldin always was there to grab her other arm and steady her, never hesitating.

  At the bottom of the stairs, the three stopped, panting, and took in the grand hall. It had changed over the last few weeks. Weapons lined the walls now instead of statues and art. The place where once the thrones had set now held a table ladened with maps and
strategies. At the table, Kalia could see a woman, her golden hair falling loose of its knot at the back of her neck, barking orders while the man beside her had his dark head bowed, speaking to one of the soldiers.

  Catching sight of the three of them, the man straightened, dark eyes flashing. “Kalia, Niet, Eldin.”

  Niet swore under his breath and Kalia bit back a mad urge to snort with laughter. Her father’s stern tone scared most of the knights and squires but to her it was almost amusing, so seldomly used. They crossed toward the man, Niet and Eldin letting Kalia lead this time.

  “Father, what’s going on?” Kalia asked, hardly noticing her friends bow on either side, heads ducked forward, right hands held to their left shoulders.

  “It seems Lord Casryn’s decided he doesn’t need the crown’s favor,” her father said, his jaw tightening as he spoke. He waved a hand to the two squires who straightened, still nervous.

  “Lord Casryn,” Kalia muttered, trying to place the name. “The one who looks like a beanpole.”

  “It doesn’t matter what he looks like, Kalia, but rather what he controls and in this case it’s the borderlands that hold the main route between us and Alamore,” he said firmly.

  Niet stepped forward, color washing from his face. “Your Majesty, King Azric, my knight-”

  The King held his hand up to forestall his question. “We haven’t heard anything, but I imagine Serena is already in Alamore at this point. She might have heard of Lord Casryn’s change of heart, but she’s not a fool, Niet. She’ll be riding hard. What this mostly means for us is that the escape we had hoped for is meeting complications. Sending anyone from Kelkor now-” His eyes rested on his daughter. “is dangerous.”

  “So, I’ll stay,” Kalia said, stepping forward. “I’ll stay, I can fight, I’ve been trained and-”

  “No.”

  It wasn’t her father who answered. The golden-haired woman was striding toward them, a commanding gleam in the clear brown eyes–Kalia’s eyes. “You won’t stay. When Serena arrives at Alamore, Revlan will know to send someone to help you, even if their forces aren’t enough now to help us.”

  “Mother, I can’t leave with this happening! My friends are here, you and father are here. I can’t-”

  The Queen of Kelkor silenced her with a sharp eagle eye. “You can’t stay here either. Should something happen, the last thing I need is the knowledge that you’re here and…” She stopped, shaking her head. “It’s not for debate, Kalia. You’ll leave as soon as we find a way for you to.”

  “Queen Paranella, why have the knights been mustered?” Eldin asked. Kalia was glad for the change of subject. Arguing with her mother was impossible at the best of times and now, with the flurry of wartime activity, it’d be impossible.

  “With Casryn’s change in his alliance to the crown, we face issues on a larger scale. We’ll have to work to secure the roads we can from here to Alamore, as well as send for alliances to be strengthened with the Lords on the north and eastern borders,” the Queen explained. “We’ll need to tighten the security around Kelvane and the castle, send word to Cale and see if King Prandus will send help. But, for now, I think you three need to stay upstairs. Go find a way to keep busy.” The ghost of a smile lined her eyes. “Find a way to cause trouble somewhere, eh? Niet, Eldin, keep Kalia company. Once we’ve found a way for you to leave, we will send you away.”

  “All this changes is that we won’t have the time we had hoped for, at least not enough for the Ranger to come for you,” King Azric said, running a hand over the two-day beard on his jaw.

  “The Ranger?” Niet asked sharply, straightening. “You were going to send Kalia with the Ranger of Kings? You trust him?”

  “I would trust him with all three of your lives. The Ranger isn’t a fool and Revlan has not been proven wrong to trust him yet. But I’m not as certain now that we have that choice. It may be best if we send you all with Paxrin instead-” Paranella’s stony voice quelled argument and he bowed his head again respectfully.

  “Yes, my Queen, I only meant…”

  “King Revlan trusts him. I understand your knight’s reserves, but in times of war, Niet, you must learn to do things that are difficult.” Paranella’s lips twitched into a faint smile. “Even when you know Serena would warn you otherwise. We can only hope she reaches Alamore soon and that we find some means of relief…but now, you three, get out of this hall. Niet, Eldin, stay with Kalia. We will discuss this more at the dawn. Casryn’s fall means things are far darker than they seemed.”

  “Yes, Queen Paranella,” Niet answered for them, bowing his head and grabbing Kalia’s arm in one hand, Eldin’s shoulder in the other, and steering them away. As they made their way up the steps again, Kalia couldn’t help but look back one more time. She could see that all traces of humor were gone from her mother’s face and replaced with strain and worry. Her father’s dark eyes were shadowed. Her heart clenched and she gripped the banister tighter, turning away. It felt that Kelkor would never be as it had been again.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Sun poured across the courtyard, shining on the gleaming coats of horses, the shadow of the trees at the courtyard edge swaying gently in the late spring breeze. On the walls above, the Alamore banner–deep blue with a silver stag’s head set across three slanted gold bars–waved in the lazy wind, the silver threads reflecting the western rays of the setting sun. The black double doors of the castle had been propped open, an attempt to free the castle of its last stale breaths of winter air. Leaning his back against the trunk of the tree nearest the doors, the brown-haired thirteen-year-old squire stifled a yawn behind his hand, turning his head up to the branches above him.

  Will stared at the leaves overhead and listened to the sounds around him, already familiar as an old song, despite not even being at the castle a full year.

  How had it been less than a year since the day that his two best friends–Colin Greyhead, the golden-haired Count’s son, and Rowan Lonric, a Lord’s heir–had come stumbling down the street where he'd been sitting? He'd thought that moment to be the best of his life, but it had only been where his luck began. By the end of that day, he'd been invited to train as a squire of Alamore, training to become one of the knights that defended the Kingdom. He could still remember the giddy feeling, the terror that he’d wake to find it all a dream.

  Not that it all had been a perfect dream come true. Within months of becoming a squire, Will had faced dangers he had never imagined; murderous traitors living in tunnels beneath the castle, their enemy to the east–Thornten–turning their allied kingdoms against them and trying to set a trap for the King of Alamore, and worse still his own father–Marl–capturing him and trying to kill him. He might have succeeded in killing Will, and Rowan and Colin too, if not for the Ranger of Kings arriving to rescue them. The Ranger, with the help of several Alamore knights, had given Will, Rowan, and Colin the chance to escape.

  It had been in that escape that Will had learned the truth. He squeezed his eyes shut a moment at the memory, unsure of whether it had been the pain of his broken rib that night, or the sharp edge of the spilled secret, that still could make him flinch. The squire of King Tollien of Thornten had followed them through the night to recapture Will. It had been he, Robin, squire of the King of Thornten, that had let slip the truth; that Marl was more than Tollien’s spy. Marl, like the Ranger of Kings himself, was Tollien’s brother.

  Which made Will an heir to not only Thornten but, through the twists of his lineage, also one of the heirs to Alamore. He’d wanted to ignore this, to never consider these ties, but again and again Marl had proven that he would not so soon forget. He was fired by a determination to kill Will and, thus, eliminate a Thornten heir whose loyalty rested with Alamore.

  Will hadn’t been able to tell anyone, unwilling to accept the truth of the matter himself. If he lived in denial, maybe he wouldn’t have to face what his blood made him.

  It seemed a good plan and thus far he hadn’t had problems in
his decision not to tell anyone. The closest he had come to discussing it with anyone, other than those who knew–Rowan, Colin, their knights, Sir Laster, Sir Miller, and the Ranger–was with his knight, Haru. Marl had tried to kill Haru when he was still a squire and it had been Will who fought him then, determined to save his friend’s life. After Haru had been knighted and asked Will to train as his personal squire, the reality had weighed on Will’s chest. He knew he would have to tell Haru in time, to explain the dangers that surrounded who he was and how Thornten would never stop hunting him. But the words seemed to escape him. Each time he thought he might, it felt as though a hand gripped his chest, threatening to rebreak his ribs.

  He had hoped that, childishly, he might be able to convince the Ranger to tell Haru, but that plan had proved in vain. The Ranger flitted in and out of the castle, a shadow that seemed to come and go without reason, never staying to talk before vanishing with the same silence and speed with which he had appeared. Rowan and Colin had tried to tell Will it was normal, that the Ranger had been that way for as long as they’d lived at the castle, and yet something felt wrong.

  He couldn’t explain it to them, he couldn’t even explain it to himself properly. It was only that the way the Ranger came and went crackled with unspoken tension and a foreboding he couldn’t understand.

  None of it seemed to matter, however. Marl hadn’t appeared in the long weeks since the battle of the crypt, where tunnel people and Thornten soldiers alike had rushed through The Crypt of Past Kings into Alamore. Though the tunnels had been fitted and sealed with iron gates so they couldn’t be used as an entry into Alamore anymore, Will didn’t think it had been enough to dissuade Marl from finding him. As much a relief as Marl’s absence was, Will couldn’t shake the gnawing sense that it wouldn’t last. It felt bound to end and Marl would come hunting him again.