Protect the Prince (A Crown of Shards Novel)

by Jennifer Estep

  Surprise sparked in his eyes. For a moment, I thought that he might say yes, but then his surprise vanished, swallowed up by regret.

  “I’m sorry,” he rasped, “but I can’t. Not right now. Maybe not ever. I’m sorry, highness. I wish things were different. I wish that I were different.”

  “It’s okay,” I whispered back. “I understand.”

  I leaned forward and pressed my lips to his. Unlike the last time we’d been in the gazebo, this was a gentle kiss, just the briefest, softest touch of my lips against his. Still, I breathed in deeply, drawing the scent of him deep down into my lungs and locking it away in my heart. Then I sat back.

  “Good luck, Sully,” I whispered. “I want nothing but the best for you.”

  “And I want the same for you, highness,” he whispered back.

  I got to my feet. I trailed my fingers down his cheek, then turned and hurried away before he saw the tears streak down my face.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  The next morning, my friends and I left Glitnir. We took the train back to Svalin, and we arrived at Seven Spire a few days later.

  Captain Auster had managed to hang on to the palace, although a dozen new crises had arisen while I’d been gone. So I busied myself with those, as well as the demanding nobles.

  Dealing with these fresh problems helped keep my mind off Sullivan, although I found myself thinking about him every time I had a moment alone. I wondered if he was still at Glitnir or if he had left and gone somewhere else, somewhere he could figure out who he was and what he wanted to do with his life.

  As a going-away present, Alvis had given me a Cardea mirror so that I could talk to him, Gemma, and Grimley in his workshop. We spoke every few days, but Alvis and Gemma never mentioned Sullivan, and I didn’t inquire about him.

  Part of me didn’t want to know where he was. Because if I did know, then I would have been tempted to go to him, ask him to come to Seven Spire, and stay with me. But I’d seen how disastrously that had turned out for Heinrich and Dahlia, and I wasn’t going to ask Sullivan to repeat his mother’s mistakes or abandon his principles for me. At this point, they were just about the only things he had left.

  One night, after a particularly long and boring court session, I escaped to my room. Three weeks had passed since I had returned to Seven Spire, although after dealing with the ever-demanding nobles today, it felt like three years.

  Calandre and her sisters drew me a bath and did their usual ministrations. Then, once they had left me alone and I was sure that no one else would check on me, I did the same thing that I’d been doing every single night since I’d returned to Seven Spire—I used the secret passageway behind the bookcase to sneak out of my chambers and go to Maeven’s room.

  I had ordered her chambers to be sealed off again, and I was the only one who had a key to the door. I had finally told Paloma, Serilda, Cho, Auster, and Xenia about my previous conversation with Maeven before we had left for Glitnir, but I hadn’t told them that I’d been coming here every night, hoping that she would appear in the mirror again. She hadn’t yet, but her room was quiet, peaceful, and the absolute last place anyone would look for me. So I sat down to get some work done while I waited to see if Maeven would appear.

  I laid a stack of papers on the writing desk, right next to two other items already sitting there—Maeven’s signet ring and Ansel’s pocket watch.

  Thanks to my dreams, my memories, of the Winterwind attack, I’d been thinking about my tutor a lot, and when we’d returned to Seven Spire, I had fished his watch out of its hiding place in one of my vanity table drawers.

  I traced my index finger over the large, fancy cursive M embossed on the bronze watch cover. The initial was the same as the M on Maeven’s silver signet ring, and the stylized M was also part of the Mortan royal crest—the only part it seemed like the members of the Bastard Brigade were allowed to wear.

  Including Dahlia. Her gold heart locket with its distinctive D had been buried with her. Heinrich had told me that her locket had contained a painted portrait of Sullivan, along with an M engraved on the inside. I supposed it was fitting, since Sullivan and Morta were the only two things that Dahlia had ever truly loved.

  I wasn’t quite sure why I had kept Ansel’s watch all these years, or why I had dragged it back out now, along with Maeven’s ring. Maybe I wanted to remind myself that the people we loved the most could have the darkest secrets—and to be extra careful who I put my trust in.

  I scooted the watch and the ring off to the side and got to work, still waiting for Maeven to appear.

  And she finally did.

  I’d been reviewing some new trade agreements with Unger for about an hour when a bright silver light flared, and the surface of the Cardea mirror began to ripple. I put down my pen, walked over, and stood in front of the mirror.

  A few seconds later, Maeven came into focus on the other side. Blond bun, amethyst eyes, elegant gown. She looked the same as always, but there was one noticeable addition to her features—a deep, jagged wound surrounded by an ugly, purple bruise on her left cheekbone.

  I recognized the mark for what it was—someone had backhanded her, and his ring had left behind a large, lasting impression. Most likely her brother the king, unhappy with her latest failure to kill me.

  “Hello, Maeven. I’ve been expecting you.”

  She seemed surprised by that. “Have you been waiting up for me every single night since you returned to Seven Spire? Why, Everleigh, how sweet. I didn’t know you cared so much.”

  I shrugged.

  “So why are you here?” she asked.

  “I wanted to know whether or not you were still alive.” I pointed to her cheek. “Looks like your brother the king gave you a little souvenir. I’m guessing he wasn’t very happy that your entire scheme turned out to be a massive failure. You lost all those magiers and strixes, your secret weapon in Dahlia, and any shot you had at the Andvarian throne, all at once. It was a truly glorious defeat.”

  Maeven’s hand drifted up to her cheek. She realized what she’d just done, grimaced, and dropped her hand back down to her side. “My relationship with my brother is none of your concern.”

  I shrugged again. “I suppose not. Tell me, though. Are you going to keep that nasty little wound he gave you? It would be a terrible shame to ruin your beautiful face with it. Did you know that Serilda has a similar scar near her eye from where Cordelia backhanded her years ago? I think that keeping such an ugly mark on her face reminded Serilda of what she was fighting for. Will your scar do the same for you?”

  I paused, but she didn’t answer, so I kept talking, trying to cut her to pieces with my words.

  “Or will your king even give you a choice in the matter? Probably not. After all, he doesn’t give you a choice in anything else, does he? You and your Bastard Brigade are just good little soldiers, fighting, fucking, betraying, and killing for him from the day you’re born until the day you die. No matter what the cost is to any of you.”

  Maeven’s lips pressed together in a tight, thin line, but the motion must have made her wound ache because she grimaced and forced herself to visibly relax her features. She still didn’t respond to my harsh words, though.

  I tilted my head to the side, studying her. “So why are you here, Maeven? Why did you appear in the mirror tonight?”

  “Perhaps I wanted to see how you were doing,” she murmured.

  “Why? So you can start plotting how to kill me again?” I shook my head. “There is another option, you know.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You could just give up.”

  Maeven threw back her head and laughed. And laughed and laughed and laughed some more. Anger spiked through me, but I forced myself to listen to her loud, mocking chuckles.

  She finally stopped laughing, wiped the tears out of the corners of her eyes, and looked at me again. “Oh, Everleigh. You are nothing if not entertaining. Part of me will almost regret killing you.”

&nb
sp; This time, I was the one who threw back my head and laughed. “Please. We both know that you’re not going to kill me—that you can’t kill me. Not with your magic, anyway.”

  Maeven’s eyes narrowed. “And why is that?”

  I held up my hand and waggled my fingers at her. “Because I’m a Winter queen, and I have a power that makes you very, very afraid. Because I can destroy your magic, and the king’s magic, and all of Morta along with it. That’s why you really want me dead, isn’t it? That’s why you wanted all the Blairs dead at the massacre, but especially the Winter line. You didn’t want to take a chance that any of the Blairs were magic masters like me.”

  Her lips puckered, and she didn’t respond, but I kept going.

  “When you tried to kill Sullivan with your lightning, I snuffed out your power with a wave of my hand. You saw me do it. That’s when you knew for sure what I truly was.”

  “So what?” she snapped.

  “So I saw how fucking scared it made you,” I snapped back. “How very scared I made you. No magier ever wants to lose their power. It’s the thing they secretly fear the most. I promise you this—if you come at me again, I will shatter your magic just like I did in the gardens. And then again, and again, until I’ve completely destroyed your magic. Until I’ve completely destroyed you.”

  I leaned in even closer to the mirror. “Tell me, Maeven. What will your precious brother the king do when he realizes that you’ve lost your magic and that you’re of no further use? I don’t think he’ll be very pleased. And I don’t imagine that Bastard Brigade members get to quietly live out the remainder of their lives in some quaint little cottage.”

  She didn’t respond, but agreement flashed in her eyes, along with the faintest flicker of fear.

  “Face it,” I said. “You have two choices. You can keep trying to kill me and risk my destroying you and your magic in return.”

  For a moment, I thought that she wasn’t going to ask me the obvious question, but she finally did. “Or?”

  “Or you can stop. Just stop and get away from your brother, from Morta, from this whole twisted life you’ve been forced into.”

  “No one has ever forced me into anything,” Maeven snarled. “I make my own choices, and I decide my own fate. Not you or my brother or anyone else.”

  “It doesn’t seem that way to me.”

  “You know nothing about me or my brother or anything else,” she hissed, her hands clenching into fists. “But there is one thing that you will know, far sooner than you think. And that’s death, Everleigh. Your death, along with the death of your precious Bellona and everything you love.”

  I leaned forward even more. “Well, then, at least I’ll die for something I love, for something I truly believe in, and not because some tyrant sent me on a fool’s errand because he was too much of a coward to come and face me himself.”

  Maeven’s lips pressed together, but she couldn’t deny the truth of my words. She glared at me a final time, then gave a sharp wave of her hand. The surface of the mirror rippled again, and that bright silver light flared. I had to shut my eyes against the intense glare, and when I opened them again, she had vanished, and the mirror was just a mirror again.

  A thin, satisfied smile curved my lips. Despite our mutual threats, I considered our conversation a great success. I had told Maeven that she had only two options—die trying to kill me or leave the king and Morta behind forever—but the truth was that she had a third option.

  I wondered if she realized that yet and exactly what that option was. If not, she soon would, given the seeds of doubt and fear I’d planted in her mind. I just wondered whether she would decide to make that third option a reality.

  But I’d done all that I could, and only time would tell if my long game with Maeven ended the way I wanted it to—not in her death, but in something far, far worse.

  * * *

  I returned to my chambers. For once, I slept well, and I woke up the next morning feeling refreshed. Plotting against my enemies invigorated me.

  But my light, happy feeling quickly evaporated as the day wore on, and it was completely gone by lunchtime.

  I sighed and shifted on my seat, trying not to show how utterly bored I was. It was mid-afternoon, and I was once again in the throne room, listening to Lord Fullman, Lady Diante, and the other nobles drop not-so-subtle hints about which one of their sons, nephews, and grandsons I should marry. Despite returning home with the new Andvarian treaty, the nobles were still determined to wed me off.

  I opened my mouth to tell Fullman, Diante, and everyone else in no uncertain terms to quit trying to foist their male relatives off on me when a faint ringing sound caught my ear. For a moment, I thought that I’d just imagined the noise, but the sound came again and again, each note a bit louder than the one before. I frowned.

  Was that . . . a bell?

  Fullman, Diante, and the other nobles glanced around, also wondering what that sound was.

  I glanced over at Paloma, who was standing at the bottom of the dais. She was smiling, as was the ogre face on her neck, as if she knew exactly who and what was making that noise. I looked at Captain Auster, who was standing on the other side of the dais. He too was smiling. Next, I peered up at the second-floor balcony, where Serilda, Cho, and Xenia were sitting, along with Theroux, Aisha, and several other members of the Black Swan troupe. They too were grinning, as were Calandre and her sisters.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  Paloma’s grin widened. “Why don’t you go out to the royal lawn and see for yourself?”

  What could possibly be happening on the lawn? I eyed my friend, but she didn’t say anything else.

  By this point, I was getting annoyed, so I got to my feet and walked down the dais steps. The nobles moved aside, and I marched past them, heading for the closed double doors at the far end of the throne room.

  “My queen?” Fullman called out. “Where are you going?”

  “To see what the bloody noise is,” I snapped back.

  Two guards opened the doors at my approach. I glanced over my shoulder. Paloma and Auster had fallen in step behind me, as had all the nobles. Everyone wanted to see what was going on.

  I quickly made my way through the hallways, pushed through the glass doors that led out to the royal lawn, and stepped outside. I looked around, but the lawn was empty, except for a few servants going about their chores. Still, the sound was much louder here than it had been inside, and I realized that it wasn’t coming from the royal lawn—it was echoing up to it from somewhere down below.

  I looked over my shoulder. Paloma and Captain Auster were still behind me, and Serilda, Cho, and Xenia had joined them, along with the nobles and everyone else who’d been in the throne room. The nobles were as confused as I was, but my friends looked at me expectantly, as if I should know exactly what was happening.

  Finally, Paloma rolled her eyes and pointed at the wall that cordoned off the lawn. “Maybe you should check out the view, Evie.”

  I frowned at her again, but I walked over to the wall and peered down, still trying to find the sound of that loud ringing noise. Everyone followed me, lined up along the wall, and stared down at the river and bridges below.

  “Look!” Cho said, his voice booming out. “Down there! At the end of the Pureheart Bridge!”

  I peered in that direction. A man was standing at the far end of the Pureheart Bridge, right beside the Heartsong Bell—and he was ringing it.

  Over and over again, the man pulled on the long rope, making the clapper bang against the inside of the bell and emit a loud, pealing noise. I lifted my hand to shade my eyes from the sun and squinted, trying to make out his features. The man moved around to the front of the bell where I could see him, and my breath caught in my throat.

  Sullivan.

  He was the one yanking on the rope, and he was the one making the bell chime. He’d already attracted quite a crowd on that side of the river, and more and more people hurried in that dire
ction, eager to see what was going on.

  Behind me, a soft, resigned sigh sounded. “Damn,” Diante murmured. “I wish I’d thought of that.”

  I kept staring at Sullivan, still not quite believing that he was here. “What is he doing?”

  Paloma elbowed me in the side. “What does it look like he’s doing? He’s going to climb up here to get you. Isn’t that the grand Bellonan love tradition?”

  “That idiot!” I hissed, even as my heart soared. “He’s going to fall and break his fool neck!”

  But she was right, and that was exactly what Sullivan was doing. He rang the bell again, then looked up. He must have spotted me because he let go of the rope. Everyone on the lawn fell silent, as did the crowd gathered along the river. Sullivan waited until the last cheery echoes of the bell had faded away before he cupped his hands around his mouth.

  “Queen Everleigh Saffira Winter Blair!” he yelled. “I’m here to profess my love to you and to prove it, in true Bellonan style! What do you say?”

  I cupped my hands around my mouth and yelled back at him. “That you’re a fool and that you’re going to fall to your foolish death! Come up to the palace, and we can talk about this like normal people!”

  Sullivan grinned, his eyes flashing like sapphires in the sunlight. “But we’re not normal people, highness. I may be a fool, but I’m a fool in love!”

  Several people in the crowd down below aahed at his words, as did some of the nobles up here on the lawn. Even Captain Auster dabbed at the corner of his eye, as if he was suddenly overcome with emotion.

  Sullivan turned to the crowd gathered around him and held his arms out wide just like I’d seen Cho do dozens of times during a gladiator show at the Black Swan arena. “Good people of Svalin! What do you say? Shall I take up this Bellonan challenge to prove my true love? Shall I put on a good show for you, along with my lady, my queen, up there high in her grand palace?”