Chapter Eleven #3
“No,” Cedric answered. “After the sleeping spell was lifted, curiosity drove me to visit him in his cell. I wanted to know why he tried to capture my brother. And what I discovered thrilled me to no end.” He extended his hand and poked the center of my forehead. “Turns out, he was after you.”
“M-Me? Why?” I asked, not wanting to let on that I already knew the reason. Playing dumb was a great defense.
“Ah, there’s that cleverly feigned ignorance once again, but it won’t fool me.” He nodded to the mercenary. “Once I administered a truth serum, he told me everything. Your little secret included.”
“My secret?” I sounded so small. Fitting. It’s exactly how I felt. Small and frustratingly helpless. Truth serums made it impossible to lie.
How much did Cedric know now?
“My suspicions were confirmed.” His jaw tightened. “You’re my father’s bastard son.”
Okay. He lost me.
“What?” No need to play dumb that time.
The mercenary regarded me with a mysterious glimmer in his eyes. Something secretive.
“Enough of the act.” Cedric dismissively flicked his hand. “I know everything. From the moment we first met, I noticed the striking resemblance to our family. My father saw it too. I believe it’s why he’s doted on you all these months.”
“Because I’m his… son?”
“Bastard son,” he spat. “Don’t think yourself special.
You aren’t the first one I’ve encountered.
My father has calmed in recent years, but he used to frequent brothels.
As is a king’s right, taking what he wants when he wants it.
You and the others before you are merely an unfortunate consequence of his actions. ”
So the king had other children. Or used to.
“What happened to them?” I asked… and regretted it instantly.
A maddening gleam lit Cedric’s eyes. “One came to Bremloc hoping for recognition as an heir. Before having the chance to meet with the king, however, he took an unfortunate tumble off the cliff, right into the sea. A fisherman found him sometime later half-eaten by sharks.”
My gut coiled. No need to ask about the others. They had undoubtedly met similar fates. How many of them had this psycho murdered?
“As for you?” His eyes narrowed. “I’m told my father fucked some whore while campaigning for peace with Haran years and years ago. The moment you came screaming into this world, that same whore sold you off for a bag of copper coins.”
“Wow. Copper? You’d think I’d at least be worth silver.”
The mercenary pressed his lips together and looked toward the lit hearth.
“Peasants take what they can get their filthy hands on. I’m sure she would’ve sold you for a loaf of bread.” When Cedric’s nostrils flared, I imagined steam wafting out. Like an enraged cartoon bull. “However, even a loaf of bread would be paying too much for you.”
“Only if it was fig bread. I’m definitely inferior to such a delicacy.”
“The ground I stand on is superior to you,” he said with a scowl. “You’re nothing but a street rat who’s scampered his way through the sewers of society, whoring and thieving to survive.”
“Whoring and thieving,” I repeated, beyond confused now.
Quite the story he told. But it damn sure wasn’t mine.
“Being the bastard of a king gave you quite the reputation, allowing you to make a decent amount of coin selling your body. The closest those men will ever get to sticking their dirty pricks into a royal. You’ve since gambled away the little money you earned, racking up a large debt and making enemies of the wrong men. ”
“Uh… what?” A laugh tried to work its way free, but I shoved it down. What the crap was he talking about? This shit was just getting stranger and stranger. “So I’m a street rat slash prostitute with a gambling addiction? Is that what you’re saying?”
“It’s the truth. No sense in denying it now.”
“The truth. I see.” What I saw was bullshit. “Why am I in Bremloc, then?”
“The same reason the other bastards came here,” Cedric said, eyes like daggers.
“To take what isn’t yours. I imagine that little hovel you call a café has delayed your plans, being more prosperous than expected.
It even helped settle some of your debts.
You’ve also seduced powerful men in the meantime, like the knight captain and the court physician, using all you’ve learned from your years spent in the brothel to manipulate them. ”
“Okay.” I lightly scratched at my jaw before nodding to the mercenary. “How does he come into this?”
“Now that, I presume, you truly don’t know.” Cedric helped himself to more wine. Too bad it didn’t shut him up for long. “One of the men you fucked in the brothel is a mage. I’m told his interests lie in dark magic, and one of the spells he wishes to master requires the blood of a royal.”
“My blood?”
The mercenary looked at me, his earlier amusement gone.
“Bastard or not, you’re still of royal descent. A degree of power lies in our blood.” Cedric eyed me over his goblet. “Only someone with a death wish would dare target an actual member of the royal family, but you aren’t granted those same protections.”
“I feel so special.”
“Well, you won’t feel anything soon enough. The mage who hired Stryder to collect you wants to sacrifice you for a spell, draining every drop of blood from your body.”
“Stryder?” I looked at the mercenary. “That’s your name?”
“It is.”
“And you were hired by a dark mage to kidnap me so I can be sacrificed?”
Though faint, the muscle in his cheek twitched. “Aye.”
Liar. How he managed to lie under the influence of a truth serum, I had no idea. But if it kept Prince Psycho from learning the real truth, so be it.
“Once Stryder told me the truth about you, I realized we could help each other.” Cedric turned toward the balcony doors and peered outside, slowly turning the goblet in his hand.
“I made sure that spy of yours hiding in the shadows was called away before having Stryder freed from his cell. The plan was then set in motion.”
“Might we move this along?” Stryder asked. “I have places to be.”
“We’ll be finished when I say so,” Cedric snapped. “If I still allow you to take him, that is. Filthy pebble or not, he has royal blood. Perhaps I no longer wish for him to leave here with his head.”
A dangerous gleam surfaced in Stryder’s golden eyes. “We had an arrangement. You dare go back on it?”
“You’re the one who failed to meet expectations,” Cedric countered. “The poison was supposed to kill my father, yet he lives.”
“He’s as good as dead,” Stryder responded in a threatening tone. “The poison paralyzed him to the point where he will never again sit on the throne. I fulfilled my side of the bargain. You get to be king, and I get the boy.”
“True.” Cedric’s hard gaze landed on me. “How I wish I could watch you die, just as I watched the others. There’s a certain beauty in it: death. The finality of it.”
“Don’t worry about the boy,” Stryder told him. “He will be dealt with, suffering a great deal in the process.”
“Very well.” Cedric flicked his hand. “Take him. Our business is concluded. See to it that he never steps foot in this kingdom again.”
Stryder bowed his head before grabbing me by the arm and dragging me toward the balcony. The chilly night air gave me goosebumps. Or maybe it was my fear that did that. Now that the humor of my obviously fake backstory faded, the gravity of my situation settled over me.
“Wait,” Cedric said.
A glimmer of hope blossomed in my chest. Was he having second thoughts? Showing a bit of humanity?
“What is it now?” Stryder asked over his shoulder, stopping in the doorway with me still in his grasp.
“Once you leave, I’ll wait a moment or two before calling for the guards and telling them he escaped.” Cedric withdrew my dagger from his pocket. “But it will be more believable with a little… bloodshed.”
He then ran the blade over his forearm. Blood beaded to the surface before dripping to the floor. The psycho didn’t even flinch while doing it. If anything, he seemed to get off on it. He sliced at areas of his clothes and made more cuts on his skin.
“Are you finished?” Stryder asked in a deadpan tone.
Cedric smiled and waved the dagger. “I can’t be the only one harmed in our scuffle. It would make me seem weak.”
“No.”
His smile fell. “Pardon?”
“You heard me the first time,” Stryder said. “Hurting him wasn’t part of our arrangement. Besides, his body is still weak from the wounds I inflicted. Any further damage and my pay will be cut, not to mention the tarnish to my reputation.”
There was a tic in Cedric’s jaw.
“I will take this though.” Stryder snatched the dagger from him. “Consider it payment for listening to you ramble on this evening like a villain from a poorly written novel.”
Without another word, he dragged me farther out onto the balcony. Part of me wanted to laugh at the insult, but fear still had me in its grip. The moon shone above us, full and bright. Dark water stretched beyond the cliff a short distance away, reflecting the night sky.
“Interesting.”
I looked to find him staring at the dagger. “What?”
“It’s nothing.” Stryder pocketed the blade and grabbed my waist. “Don’t scream.”
“Why would I—”
He leapt from the balcony, taking me with him. As we spiraled through the air, quickly approaching the ground below, I didn’t make a sound. Heights were nothing compared to what awaited me now.
Through the haze of uncertainty, one thing was all too clear. The storm that had been on the horizon, slowly moving toward me over the past few months, had finally hit.