***
A weight pressing on the foot of his bed made Will wake, blinking against the darkness that surrounded him. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust and make out the form of a man seated at the edge of his bed. Scrambling upright, Will reached automatically for the empty dagger sheath that rested on his side table before the figure let out a low laugh and he relaxed. He sat up straighter, gazing at the familiar figure in his black cloak, the hood drawn low to hide his face.
“The blacksmith is going to hate you for going through daggers as fast as you have this year,” the Ranger said coolly, shaking his head. “It must be a record.”
“Shouldn’t you be in a healing bed too?” Will asked, frowning and glancing around the room. Across the room, Haru was snoring gently in a pool of silver light that filtered through the windows above. The hearth had turned to glowing embers, the torches almost entirely dead. “What time is it?”
“Late.” The Ranger shrugged. “And as for staying in here, I’m rather like you. I don’t care to listen to rules.”
Though it was impossible to see the Ranger’s face, Will imagined the shadow of a smirk flit over the man’s mouth. He grinned sheepishly. “Well, you didn’t expect I’d just leave you there, did you?”
“I rather hoped you would,” the Ranger grumbled. “Seeing you in that castle made me wonder why I haven’t throttled you before now.” He sighed. “But you did very well, Will. You did more yesterday than most knights manage in a lifetime. And you got away with it. You survived.”
Will closed his eyes, thankful for the night as pain gripped his heart. He had survived. But Niet was dead. Marl had killed Niet with Will right there. He’d left Will…
His eyes shot open, and he frowned, confused. “Ranger?”
“Yes?”
“Marl…Marl killed Niet.”
There was a long pause then the figure in the darkness nodded. “I gathered as much.”
“How?” Will asked, bewildered.
“When I saw the tracks by Niet’s body. It seemed the attacker moved away, went to leave, and Niet struck. I can’t think of anyone else that boy would have tried to stab in the back.”
Will’s jaw tightened and he thought of Niet, pleading with him to never tell Serena. “Marl would have deserved it. But please, please don’t tell Serena or any or…”
The Ranger held up a silencing hand. “Niet was courageous. He acted out of fury and as far as I am concerned, you and I will go to our graves with the secret of what happened.”
“He wasn’t going to kill Niet.” Will’s throat tightened, and he swallowed the lump that had started to rise. “He struck Niet down, but it wasn’t a killing blow. I thought he would, and I yelled…and…and…” he remembered Marl stepping toward him, the hatred that contorted his face.
The Ranger waited in silence, rigid as a statue.
Composing himself, Will forced the words out. “He killed Niet only when he knew I was there. He killed him and he left. He left me. But I don’t get it. Why? Why wouldn’t he kill me instead?”
With a low exhale, the Ranger ran a hand over his jaw, seeming to weigh Will’s words. After a long moment he spoke, his voice low, cold. “He did it to torture you.”
“What?” Will asked, feeling if anything more lost.
“He’s done it to people before. If he knows you care about someone–a friend, a brother, a sister, a wife, an infant–if he knows that someone wants to save another person, he kills them. He lets them see it because that pain will haunt you far longer than any wound.”
“But they wanted me dead,” Will whispered. “They tried to kill me.”
“He wants you as his heir,” the Ranger growled. “He wants you as a puppet for Tollien when he either stands down as King of Kelkor or is killed. If you were dead, Tollien would have to task him with finding another heir.”
“Another heir?” Will stiffened. Surely there weren’t more, more people would think his being an heir was something to be jealous of.
The Ranger chuckled. “They were considering me.”
“You?” Will asked, frowning. He thought of the fury he’d felt toward the Ranger and a shiver ran down his spine. “Would you become his heir?”
“Not if my life depended on it,” the Ranger snapped. He shifted, seeming uncomfortable then added, his voice lower. “They knew that. They knew someone else’s life would have to depend on it. It’s part of why I’ve avoided people since coming here. I know how they work, what they would do to those I loved or cared about. Unless they could capture you, they couldn’t control me.”
“Me?” Will asked.
Across the room, Haru huffed and rolled over, making them both fall silent. The Ranger turned back to Will. “Yes. If they had you, I would die to protect you and they know that. And before you ask, no, it’s not because of your blood. It’s because you’re the only person they know I care about seeing survive–whether you’re royal or not.”
“You said you wanted me to challenge Tollien for the throne,” Will mumbled, turning his face away from the Ranger.
“What I said was it was your right,” the Ranger retorted. “Whether you pursue that right or not, that is your decision. Will, if you want to be a knight of Alamore, then I will keep you alive to be a knight of Alamore.”
Will nodded, feeling the knot tighten in his chest again. Only this time it seemed different. It wasn’t grief for what was lost but for what had been found. Finally trusting his voice, Will cleared his throat and grinned ruefully at the Ranger. “I’ll be a knight and I’ll help you go after the throne. It’s as much your right as mine.”
The Ranger laughed hollowly again. “Not exactly but, that’s not the point. That is a discussion for another day, when you’re rested and not on the verge of death with your bulldog of a knight keeping guard.”
Will glanced toward Haru, still sound asleep. “Yeah, he hasn’t let me out of his sight yet.”
“I can’t blame him,” the Ranger huffed. “He took his eye off you thinking the walls would keep you in and you still got out. From what Miller told me, when Haru found out you were gone, he tried to disobey orders and find you. He and Rockwood both have been kept under lock and key since you left. The King couldn’t afford more knights leaving, not after Ross and Laster.”
Will nodded, the thought of Laster stirring more thoughts. “Laster…” he started but stopped, not sure what to say.
“Laster has his reasons for hating me and I can’t say I don’t deserve them,” the Ranger said flatly. “He’s never forgiven me for stopping him from leaping between his knight and Marl. He most likely never will forgive me for it. But I knew my brother by then. Had Laster tried to stop Marl, they both would have died. His knight would have suffered the pain you feel now–Marl would have killed Laster first just to cause his knight agony.”
“But Marl wanted to ransom Laster,” Will pressed. “He wouldn’t have killed him.”
The Ranger snorted. “Marl wanted to kill knights for entertainment. He wanted to prove the Alamore knights weren’t immortal. It was I who said we should ransom Laster when Marl killed his knight. It was my idea to keep him alive.”
“Why?” demanded Will. “You were Thornten then? Weren’t you?”
“I was but my allegiance had started to shake. I’d seen what Tollien was capable of doing, what measures he’d take for power, and I didn’t like it. It made me uneasy. Marl has always followed his orders well, always let Tollien be in charge.
What I did bought me time to decide between staying in Thornten and betraying everything I knew to come to Alamore. I couldn’t decide, it tortured me, until Laster’s father responded. Then I heard my father’s plan to make his execution a lesson, and I made my decision. I snuck Laster from the dungeon that night on my horse, while I pretended to be Tollien. We rode from the gates without question. No one stops a Prince or Princess, as I know you’ve learned.”
“You’ve never told Laster that?” Will shook his head. “Why?”
“What difference would it make?” the Ranger asked coolly. “He wanted to die for his knight. He wanted to keep alive the only person he cared about in the entire world. I stopped him from doing so. It’s not something he will easily forgive. I’ve told you before, Will. I used to serve other Kings. I am not proud of all I’ve done.”
“And Serena?”
The Ranger chuckled though there was no humor in the laugh. “Serena had the misfortune of meeting me three years before that–when I was young and arrogant, I thought I was above the world because I was a Prince. That was back when I didn’t care because I supported Tollien, I thought he would be the rightful heir for Thornten and all I wanted to do was please him. Marl didn’t care about Kelkor, but it had been an idea between Tollien and my father. I went to see how I could help. Even then, I was the one who could slip through halls unseen. I was the Prince who might as well have been a shadow.
“Serena trusted me. I got her to open up, to tell me far more than she should have. She was the star of all the squires, the only one trusted with duties of a knight, but she was young, she was naive. We both were.
“She told me that the east had unrest and Marl left Kelvane to ride east, to gain the support of rebels. He was good at that, as he promised war. Men who feel they are being trod upon love the idea of killing their enemies, even if that solves nothing. They will get a new oppressor, a new iron hand.
“When it came time for Paranella to pick a husband, she announced she was in love with Azric. That was when Marl returned to court, with Kelkor Lords, Dukes, and Earls at his back giving him support. They announced they wanted him as King. It nearly brought the country to war that much sooner to see how many of their nobles betrayed the crown. But it was settled, and Marl and I fled back to Thornten, we laughed about it and thought it was fun.”
The Ranger sounded disgusted with his younger self and Will imagined the sneer curling his lip. “I didn’t care that I’d left a squire to take the fall. She’d trusted me as her best friend, and she’d wanted me to stay in Kelkor. I left her to go through her trial where she was accused of betraying the crown. It was probably Azric’s merciful nature that had her go east to settle the feuds rather than be marched to a gallows.
There are things I did for Tollien, for my father, I will never forgive myself for. But to remember them and live in the past will do me little good.”
Haru grunted and turned again, and the Ranger stood, his cloak falling like shadow around him. “I better let you sleep, Will, or your knight will be baying for my blood like a hound.”
Will shook his head. “I want more answers.”
“And I’ve told you,” the Ranger murmured, his voice low but gentle. “Some answers are not mine to give you. You will get them, Will, when the time is right. I promise you; I’ll make sure of that. For now, however, sleep. There are long days ahead of you, I am sure.”
Before Will could protest, the Ranger was striding across the room and slipping from the chamber. There was a faint click of the door closing at his back and Will was left again in the darkness.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
The following morning Will had no choice but to face the reality of Niet’s death when a soft knock on the door was followed by the appearance of Lady Serena, Eldin, and Kalia. All of them had bloodshot eyes and Kalia’s cheeks glistened with tears. Serena’s tears seemed to have morphed into an anger, deep in her green eyes, that burned like flames. Haru sprang from his bed, still wearing his filthy clothing from the night before, and moved to stand between Will and Serena, one hand resting on his sword, eyes narrowed.
“Serena,” Haru said warily.
“Haru, don’t worry.” She gave a small smile and the flames in her eyes quieted some. “I’m not here to attack Will.”
She turned back to Will, the smile sliding from her lips. She didn’t have to say anything else; he already knew. She wanted the truth. She had come to find who had killed her squire, one of the few people who had escaped Kelkor’s uprisings and fall.
“It was Marl.” Again, his voice was different, like someone else spoke through his lips.
She moved past Haru in silence and sank onto the foot of his bed. Her shoulders sagged, the light in her eyes fading. Somehow she seemed much worse, much more intimidating. Blank, cold.
“First Azric, then Paxrin, now Niet,” she whispered.
“He was trying to save me, and then.” Will shook his head, fighting to keep his composure, “Marl caught up with us, but was going to let him go. He was going to let Niet go, he didn’t know I was there and…” Will’s voice failed. He remembered the fury in Niet’s face, so similar to the anger in Serena’s when discussing Marl before. “He tried to kill Marl…he tried to kill him because of Kelkor. For Kelkor. He struck at Marl, but it only injured him, he didn’t manage to kill him or stop him striking back and then Marl broke his sword…”
Behind Serena, Kalia was pulling Eldin into a hug while Eldin tried to keep her bandaged arm from being crushed between them. The older girl was crying in silence, tears racing down her cheeks but Eldin was listening, her expression hollow. Will had the sense that her grief was deeper than tears and that she, like Niet’s knight, needed to hear what had happened.
Will glanced beyond them to where Haru sat, face taut. He shook his head, just barely, but Will understood. He was telling him to stop. He didn’t have to continue. And it was a relief. He didn’t want to tell Serena that Marl had struck again to kill Niet when discovering Will in the undergrowth, too weak to stand.
He would never mar Niet’s memory by describing how, as Marl had turned away from him, he’d tried to drive his sword into Marl’s back. The Ranger was right. That secret would go to the grave with them both. The pain in the faces of Niet’s friends, of Serena, Kalia, Eldin, and Haru, was too much. They would never need to know how he had died.
There wasn’t anything to be earned telling Serena that Niet might have been alive, would have been alive, if not for his temper. If he had just let Marl walk away, back to his horse…
“He died a hero, a knight by his blood if not by his King’s sword,” said Serena, her voice shaking.
Will nodded and glanced back toward Eldin. The stony features were fracturing, her lips beginning to tremble and Will wished he could slip from his bed and wrap his arms around Eldin. It was hardest to see her–Niet’s small shadow–breaking.
But he could see her trying so hard to hold onto the moment, to not completely fall apart, trying to be brave for Kalia. Kalia…she was sobbing at last, her heart shattered again; first she had lost her family, her parents, the King and the Queen, and now she had lost her best friend, the boy who might as well have been her brother. There were no words to ease their pain, so he offered none.
Serena rose suddenly, eyes filling with tears, and spun away. She was shaking with rage and grief, the muscles in her face jumping, her hands balled into fists. “I will kill him for this, I will kill Marl for this!” she stormed from the room slamming the door with enough force that the cup of water on Will’s side table rattled.
Her rage had broken apart Kalia and Eldin. Eldin looked at Will and tried to smile, hugging her broken arm against her chest. “You stayed with him…you stayed with him when he…?”
He nodded and watched the tears start to roll down her cheeks. “I didn’t leave his side till they found us,” Will promised.
She nodded. Kalia wasn’t listening, staring blankly at the open window in the respite before another wave of grief. Will understood the expression. He had been ladened with it through the night.
Haru stood stiffly, a man older than nineteen, and crossed toward them. He ran a hand through his hair, clearly struggling for the words. “Kalia, Niet was of your court and saved my squire’s life, saved the Ranger’s life.” He hesitated, opening his mouth to try again but Kalia shook her head. “I won’t let anything happen to you or Eldin. I promise, whatever you two need.” His voice choked, and Will looked away, at his own hand
s. He knew Haru wouldn’t want him to see him cry.
When he chanced a glance again, Kalia had thrown her arms around the knight and Haru was staring steadfastly ahead, his eyes overly bright, but strong as steel while Kalia shook with renewed sobs.
“Your Ranger, he saved us–me, Kalia, Niet–he got us to Alamore, he nearly died doing it,” Eldin whispered. “I know Niet wanted to save him, and he died knowing…knowing he’d saved the Ranger.”
Will nodded and Eldin leaned in, giving him a half hug before turning and slipping her arm around Kalia’s waist. Will had to admire the small girl’s grit. She didn’t waver, taking the Princess slowly from Haru and leading her away. It was as though she were suddenly the older one tending the child.
“She’s going to be a bloody good knight,” Haru said, his voice constricted.
Will gave a raspy laugh. “She will be.” He tilted his head back, fighting to keep his own grief inside.
“You will be too, Will.”
Will stared at the ceiling, feeling the tears slip from the corner of his eyes, down his cheeks. “I hope so, Haru.”
Haru chuckled and Will glanced at him, taken aback. The knight was sinking back onto the bed he had claimed, giving Will a wry smile. “You will be, providing I don’t murder you before then, that is.”
***
The last person to visit Will that day arrived in the evening, when the grey light was fading to darkness, stars blinking to life beyond the healing chamber windows. Haru had left to wash up, mostly due to the healer kicking him out. Will was waiting for his return, staring out the window and trying to keep his own mind from the haunting nightmares that lurked at its edges when he heard the door opening.
Sitting upright he turned, expecting to see his knight, but his grin faltered. The King closed the door and straightened, a small smile pulling the edges of his lips as his eyes settled on Will. “There’s no need to look so unsettled, William.”
The Cutthroat Prince (William of Alamore Series Book 2) Page 44