Protect the Prince (A Crown of Shards Novel)

by Jennifer Estep

  Dominic touched Rhea’s arm again, then strode back up onto the dais. She watched him go with a sad, longing expression. I wondered what she thought of the rumors that Dominic might marry Helene.

  Rhea must have sensed my gaze because she turned in my direction. She realized that I had witnessed her yearning after Dominic, and her face hardened. She didn’t like anyone seeing her desire for him. Couldn’t blame her for that. Crown princes didn’t marry captains of the guard, no matter how skilled and pretty they were.

  The captain marched over to the center of the black carpet, clearly wanting to get on with the business of killing me. Couldn’t blame her for that either.

  Paloma opened her mouth, but I stabbed my finger at her.

  “Do not ask me if I’m ready for this,” I muttered.

  She grinned, as did the ogre on her neck. Apparently, they thought our little inside joke was hilarious.

  I looked over at Sullivan. He was still standing next to Helene, although he was staring at me. He flashed me a brief, encouraging smile, but worry quickly filled his face. I wondered if it was for Rhea or for me. Or maybe it was for both of us. Either way, I forced myself to smile back at him, then walked over to the captain.

  Rhea drew her sword from its scabbard and held it out by the blade, as per the Andvarian tradition of letting her enemy—me—see exactly what kind of weapons and magic they were up against.

  Several pieces of jet were embedded in the silver hilt, along with three large, round rubies. Jet deflected magic, while rubies increased someone’s strength. I drew in a breath, tasting the air. Those rubies were filled to the brim with magic, which would make the captain much, much stronger than me. A sharp tang of magic also emanated off Rhea herself, indicating that she was most likely a mutt with enhanced strength.

  Terrific. Just terrific. But all I could do now was see this through to the end—and hope that I didn’t die.

  So I drew my own sword and held it out to her by the blade. Her topaz gaze locked onto the midnight-blue shards embedded in the hilt. “Those little pieces of tearstone might have let you outlast Vasilia and her lightning, but they won’t protect you from me.”

  She grabbed her sword by the hilt and started twirling it around in her hand. I did the same with my own weapon, mirroring her move for move.

  “If you know so much about how I killed Vasilia, then you should know that I don’t need protecting, especially not from you.”

  “We’ll see about that,” Rhea hissed.

  The nobles fell silent and tiptoed forward, forming a semicircle around us. Heinrich was still sitting on his throne, with Dominic standing to one side of him, and Dahlia to the other. Gemma remained on the edge of the dais, with Alvis standing at the bottom of the steps.

  In many ways, this was just like the black-ring match I had fought at the Black Swan arena and my more recent bout with Libby at Seven Spire. I wondered if the nobles here would bet on the outcome like the people had in the arena. Probably not. They seemed much too stuffy for that. We Bellonans might be barbarians, but at least we were honest in our greed, avarice, and bloodlust. I much preferred that to the Andvarians with their scheming eyes, sly smiles, and silent judgments.

  Rhea started circling me and swinging her sword. Not attacking me, not yet, but getting a feel for how I moved, reacted, and held my own sword. All the while, she studied me, likely debating the best and quickest way to kill me.

  I did the same thing, drawing in breath after breath and tasting all the scents in the air. She was definitely a mutt with impressive strength, given the stench of magic that burned my nose. She didn’t need those pretty rubies in her sword to kill me. They were probably just for show and to keep people from realizing how truly powerful she was, which meant that she was smart as well as strong.

  But perhaps the most curious thing was that Rhea’s scent didn’t contain the sour, sweaty eagerness and hot, jalapeño rage that I’d sensed earlier. She hated me, to be sure, but she wasn’t the one who so vehemently wanted me dead, which troubled me far more than if she had been screaming curses and vowing to kill me.

  A secret enemy was always much more dangerous than one right in front of you.

  Finally, Rhea grew tired of circling me. With a shout, she lifted her sword, lunged forward, and attacked.

  The music and moves that Serilda had spent so much time drilling into me filled my mind, and I snapped my sword up. Our two weapons banged together, throwing off a few red-hot sparks that dropped to the black carpet and quickly winked out.

  Rhea bore down with her sword, using her superior strength to try to wrest my weapon out of my hand. I grimaced, as though I was already having trouble with her power, and started to fall to one knee.

  Rhea pressed her advantage, just like I’d expected, and I quickly pivoted, spun to the side, and surged back up onto my feet all in one smooth motion. She wasn’t expecting me to spin away, and she stumbled forward, almost doing a face-plant onto the floor.

  “I told you before,” I called out. “I don’t need protecting.”

  Rhea whipped around, let out an angry snarl, and charged at me again.

  Back and forth we fought in our semicircle of space, hacking and slashing at each other with our swords. Serilda was right. Rhea was an excellent fighter who matched me move for move. I didn’t know how good the captain had been before Serilda’s training, but now she was almost as good as Serilda herself.

  Every blow that Rhea landed threatened to knock my own weapon out of my hand. My tearstone blade and the shards in the hilt absorbed some of the hard, bruising impacts, along with her strength magic, but not nearly enough of it.

  Up to me to do the rest.

  Rhea’s biggest advantage was her strength, and she relied on it to win battles, even more so than she did the rubies in her sword. She wouldn’t know what to do if I took her magic away. She would hesitate, and then I would have the advantage, at least for a moment. All I had to do was get close enough to touch her. All I needed was one brief brush of my skin against hers, and I could snuff out her power with my immunity.

  But try as I might, I couldn’t force Rhea to lower her sword or break through her defenses long enough to lunge forward and actually touch her. I didn’t want to give away the secret of my immunity, but I also didn’t want to die. So I kept listening to that phantom music playing in my mind, biding my time and waiting for an opening. I didn’t want to think about what I was going to do if I didn’t get one.

  The fight dragged on another minute, then two, then three. Rhea couldn’t get a clear advantage over me, but I couldn’t get one over her either. Finally, after a particularly furious exchange, she retreated, trying to get her breath back.

  “Winded already?” I asked in a loud, mocking voice. “Looks like I work harder at being queen than you do at being captain.”

  I wanted to make her angry enough to do something reckless, and I definitely succeeded. Murderous rage glinted in Rhea’s eyes, and she lifted her sword and charged at me again.

  And this time, she didn’t stop.

  She lashed out with blow after hard, heavy blow, and it was all I could do to keep her from knocking my sword away. Still, I managed to block her strikes.

  Until I tripped.

  I wasn’t quite sure what happened. I was moving forward for another attack when a sudden, sharp tang filled my nose, as if someone was using magic. An instant later, my boot snagged on the black carpet, even though it was lying perfectly flat. I stumbled forward, although I managed to catch myself and only go down on one knee instead of hitting the floor face-first.

  Rhea screamed in delight, lifted her sword high, and rushed in for the kill.

  That phantom music roared in my mind, the frantic, pounding beat telling me to move, move, move, but I knew that I wouldn’t be able to get to my feet in time to avoid her deadly, whistling strike.

  With my right hand, I snapped up my sword to block hers. Without even really thinking about what I was doing, I lifted my
left hand, desperately wishing that I could push my immunity out of my body the same way a magier could their fire, ice, or lightning—

  Rhea’s sword crashed into mine, but the blow wasn’t nearly as hard as I’d expected it to be, and her weapon didn’t cut through my defenses and plunge into my chest like I’d anticipated. She frowned, wondering what I’d done to derail her strike. I was wondering that myself, but I recovered much more quickly than she did. I leaned back on my knee, then kicked out with my other foot, catching the captain in the side of her own knee.

  She shrieked, her leg buckled, and she tumbled to the floor, landing on her hands and knees. Before she could recover, much less lift her sword again, I lunged forward and snapped my blade up against her throat.

  Rhea froze, as did everyone else. Silence descended over the throne room, and the only sounds were our harsh, raspy breaths.

  “Do you yield?” I asked in a soft voice.

  Fury shimmered in the captain’s eyes. She couldn’t believe that I’d beaten her, but she wasn’t ready to give up. Her hand tightened around her sword, and hot, peppery anger blasted off her.

  I pressed my blade a little deeper into her neck, not breaking her skin but letting her know that I could easily cut her throat before she even lifted her weapon off the floor.

  Rhea froze again. This time, surprise filled her face. She couldn’t believe that I hadn’t already killed her. Maybe I should have. It was certainly within my right, since Rhea had been trying to kill me. If nothing else, it would have proved that I was just as strong and vicious as Vasilia and that the Andvarians should think twice before fucking with me.

  But there had already been more than enough bloodshed between our kingdoms, and I was tired of people dying just to prove a point. Even people like Rhea who hated me.

  “Do you yield?” I repeated in a louder voice.

  “I suppose you’ll kill me if I don’t,” Rhea muttered.

  “Well, I would prefer not to dirty up my tunic with your blood and ruin my thread master’s hard work.” I leaned forward, letting her see how cold my eyes were. “But that is entirely up to you.”

  We stayed frozen in place, both of us on our knees, with my sword still against her throat. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a couple of guards creeping up on me with their spears.

  Paloma let out a low, angry growl, dropped her hand to her mace, and stepped forward, putting herself in between me and the guards. The two men stopped short. They didn’t want to fight an ogre morph, not even here, in their own king’s throne room.

  I turned my attention back to Rhea. “I’ll ask you one more time: Do you yield?”

  For a moment, I thought that she was going to spit curses and that I was going to have to kill her anyway. But the tension slowly drained out of her body, and she loosened her grip on her sword, which was still on the floor.

  “Yes, I yield,” she muttered.

  I stared at her a second longer, making sure that she wasn’t trying to trick me, then dropped my sword from her throat and got to my feet. I leaned down and offered my hand to her, but she ignored it and scrambled to her feet on her own.

  Her hand tightened around her sword, as if she was going to attack me again, but instead, she turned and looked up at her king.

  Heinrich had a thoughtful expression on his face, and he seemed more intrigued than angry that his captain hadn’t defeated me. Dominic and Gemma both looked relieved, while Dahlia’s face was a blank, pleasant mask, as though nothing noteworthy had happened.

  Rhea squared her shoulders, strode over, and dropped to a knee at the bottom of the dais. Then she laid her sword on the floor. “I’m sorry, my king,” she said in a low, strained voice. “If you wish to strip me of my rank, I will surrender my sword and leave the palace immediately.”

  Heinrich stared at her, then looked at me and raised his eyebrows. I was surprised that he was asking my opinion, but I shrugged, telling him that I didn’t care what he did. After a moment, he waved his hand.

  “There’s no need for that, Captain Rhea,” he said. “You fought well, and you did your father and Andvari proud. You may resume your duties as normal.”

  “Thank you, Your Majesty,” she said in a relieved voice.

  Rhea grabbed her sword, rose to her feet, and faced me. Once again, her hand tightened around the weapon, as if she wanted to swing it at my head again. No doubt she did, but I was tired—tired from the long journey, tired of everyone staring at me, and especially tired of fighting on what was supposed to be a goodwill trip.

  “I am not your enemy,” I said.

  She snorted, despite the fact that I had just spared her life. So I looked up at Heinrich.

  “I want us to work together to fight the Mortan king. He is the one who is ultimately responsible for your son’s death, he is the one who is trying to pit us against each other, and he is the one that we must battle—not each other.”

  My words echoed through the room, but the tense silence quickly swallowed them up. I kept staring at the king. After several long seconds, Heinrich tipped his head, ceding my point, but I wasn’t finished.

  “We can stand united and defeat the Mortans together, or we can stand separately and watch our people be slaughtered and our kingdoms fall. The choice is yours, King Heinrich. I hope you make the right one.”

  My message delivered, I sheathed my sword, turned around, and strode out of the throne room.

  Chapter Eleven

  The double doors at the far end of the room were still open, and I marched straight toward them.

  I kept my hand on my sword, glancing around for trouble. I might have defeated Rhea, but no doubt I had angered the guards who served her, along with the nobles. I’d thought that defeating the captain would prove my strength and make things better, but now I was wondering if I’d just made the situation worse.

  Then again, that seemed to be my specialty.

  I was almost to the doors when the two guards posted there stepped forward and crossed their spears together, barring me from leaving. I stared at first one, then the other, giving them my best queenly glare, the one I’d seen Cordelia deliver a thousand times.

  The guards swallowed, but they held their positions.

  “Let her go.” Heinrich’s voice boomed out behind me.

  The guards lowered their spears. I glared at them again, then strode forward. Angry shouts rose up behind me.

  “Where is she going?”

  “How dare she walk out of here!”

  “No one disrespects our king like that!”

  I grimaced. Oh, yes. I had definitely made things worse. Not to mention the fact that I hadn’t figured out exactly who in the throne room wanted to kill me.

  But even if I’d wanted to, I couldn’t go back and apologize. Not without appearing weak, which was something I could ill afford in this hostile palace so far from home. So I kept walking, peering into the corridors and rooms that I passed.

  I hadn’t gone more than a hundred feet when footsteps sounded, and Paloma ran up beside me, along with some of the Bellonan guards. Xenia was with them too, although she was walking at her natural pace and stabbing her cane into the floor every few steps.

  “What are you doing?” Paloma asked. “Where are you going?”

  “I have no bloody idea,” I growled, stopping in the middle of the hallway. “All these bejeweled corridors look the same.”

  She grinned, as did the ogre on her neck. Seeing their smiles eased some of my disgust and anger, and I gave her a sheepish shrug in return.

  “I’ll say this for you, Evie,” Xenia said. “You certainly know how to make a dramatic exit.”

  She stepped up beside Paloma, and she too had an amused look on her face, as did her inner ogre.

  Perhaps it was the fact they were standing together and both smiling, but for the first time, I noticed just how much Paloma and Xenia looked alike. Sure, Paloma’s hair was blond, while Xenia’s was coppery red, and Paloma was decades younger than the
older woman, but they both had the same golden amber eyes and bronze skin, and the ogre faces on their necks were eerily similar.

  For a moment, I wondered if I was just imagining the similarities, but the ogre on Paloma’s neck was almost exactly the same as the one on Xenia’s, right down to the way the creatures’ eyes studied me and the locks of hair that curled around their faces. Strange. Very strange.

  I shifted on my feet, trying to figure out what to do next. Paloma and Xenia stared at me, as did the guards, waiting for me to give them some order, to lead them onward.

  But I didn’t know what to say, much less what to do. I didn’t want the trip to be over, but I didn’t see how it could continue.

  And perhaps the worst part was that I hadn’t even gotten a chance to speak to Heinrich privately, to truly offer my condolences on his son’s death and attempt to arrange a new peace treaty between Bellona and Andvari. This was my first diplomatic mission as queen, and so far, it was a miserable failure instead of the rousing success I had secretly hoped for, that I desperately needed to help with my own problems at Seven Spire.

  More footsteps sounded, and Serilda and Cho appeared, with Sullivan trailing along behind them. The magier stopped a few feet away, once again keeping his distance.

  “The king wishes to invite you to dine with the royal family this evening,” Sullivan said in a stiff, formal voice.

  I blinked in surprise. “He isn’t sending Rhea and the guards to kick me out of the palace?”

  He shrugged, which really wasn’t an answer. “My father asked me to convey his sincerest wishes that you join him for dinner and that you accept his hospitality and stay at Glitnir as planned.”

  He drew in a breath like there was more he wanted to say, but he grimaced instead, clearly miserable at being put in this awkward position.

  I forced myself to ignore Sullivan’s feelings and think about his words. Even though I had beaten his captain, Heinrich still wanted me to stay at Glitnir. Why? Then I remembered the cold calculation in the king’s eyes. I wanted a new treaty with Andvari, but Heinrich wanted something from me too—something important enough to overlook how I had defeated Rhea.