Chapter Twelve
Pel
Pel licked suddenly dry lips. “Why would you do that?”
It was Prince Torex’s mother who’d established the peace accords, and they included the provision that the land was for the exiles. They’d stay on their side, and the United Realms would stay on this side. Peace maintained.
Voice full of tension, Torex said, “I received orders from the High King. It must have been a little over two years ago. They’d begun raiding in Filon, and King Nostex asked for our help.
We patrolled for weeks, and sure enough, a large raiding party attacked.
They weren’t expecting us in such great numbers, and our victory was decisive. They were routed. And we… celebrated.”
Torex’s tone was distant, but it turned acidic on the last word.
After a moment, Pel interpreted: “You were drinking.”
“I was drinking,” Torex confirmed, voice thick. “I was by no means the only one, and I didn’t think I’d drunk that much, but—” He cut himself off, glancing away from Pel again. Stiffly, he repeated, “I’d been drinking.”
Pel digested this. He knew how Torex had started this conversation, so he ventured, “You sent guards after the exiles who’d retreated?”
He’d tried not to sound judgmental, but he wasn’t sure he succeeded. Cutting people down after they’d fled? Pel couldn’t condone that, exiles or no.
Torex swallowed visibly. “I received orders from the High King. I was ordered to send them after the exiles. So that’s what I did.”
“Then you were doing what you’d been ordered to do,” Pel said carefully.
He still didn’t approve, but he understood a little better.
Torex looked out over the hills for a long moment. “Had I been more sober, I would have questioned those orders.”
Perhaps, but it was easier to say that in hindsight.
Carefully, Pel said, “I must confess that I’m generally a proponent of compassion, but it could be argued that the exiles broke the accord with their raid.”
It was certainly what Forex was arguing now.
The counterargument was that a small group of criminals couldn’t be taken to represent the whole and should be dealt with as isolated incidents.
That was what they’d been doing since the peace had begun, but Pel wasn’t sure how much longer his father would tolerate it.
Torex was silent for another long moment, and then his gaze darted to Pel’s, and Pel was surprised by the depth of the self-loathing in his eyes.
“Had I been less drunk, I might not have misread the orders from the High King. The ones that explicitly ordered me not to go after the exiles.”
Pel swallowed. Oh, goddess.
“You read your orders wrong, and people died.”
Torex wouldn’t look at him, but he nodded his head, a sharp, jerky movement.
Voice raw, he said, “I can still remember the letter. I’d still swear that it ordered me to send the guards into the mountain.
” His face twisted. “But I should have—I should have known better. I should have told him where to stuff his orders.”
Pel doubted that was acceptable even if you were the High King’s brother. He frowned. “Why would the High King send you orders like that? Were you considering sending them into the mountains?”
You didn’t order people not to do something out of the blue, did you?
Torex’s voice was still tightly controlled. “He’d apparently received word that I was behaving rashly. There were concerns that I would do something foolish. So he sent explicit directives.”
“Was he right?” Pelun wanted to know. “Was the letter just a convenient excuse to do what you wanted?”
For the first time since he’d started his confession, Torex sounded indignant.
“No, of course not! We were victorious; the remaining exiles had fled. There was no good reason to pursue them, not really.” His face twisted.
“The letter said something about an absolute victory, wanting to be certain we sent a message that would prevent further harm in the future.” He scoffed.
“I can’t remember it word for word because I apparently invented the entire thing.
I hadn’t been captain of the guard for even a year.
They’d spent all that time drumming into my head that I was an instrument of the Crown and I was meant to follow orders.
And I just did.” He sounded choked. “And twelve people died. Because I was a drunken fool.”
“You made a terrible mistake,” Pel acknowledged. “You caused real harm. But you didn’t intend to do so. And I’m sure you triple-checked every order from that point forward, right?”
He didn’t appear to have stopped drinking, though.
Torex scoffed, the sound as bitter as his words. “I wasn’t given the chance. My brother demoted me and made me a useless accessory with no real responsibility.”
Oh. That actually explained a lot about the drinking. Pel thought there should definitely have been consequences, and maybe High King Varex had judged these the appropriate ones… but Pel could also see how it had left Torex purposeless and hurting.
He still wasn’t looking at Pel, and he realized that although he’d come to like and admire him a lot more than before, he still hadn’t seen him as a regular person.
Yes, Torex had a lot of privilege. And with it came a lot of responsibility. He’d made poor choices, and he’d also paid for them. He’d brought some of it on himself, and the deaths of those guards could never be undone, but who among them was completely blameless?
Failing to take responsibility for your actions was one of Pel’s least favorite traits.
Forex liked to act as though Gornexi was behaving completely unreasonably when they cut ties almost completely from Tond.
Bavil bore plenty of the responsibility—but Forex had also passed along a lot of his behavior to his son, a fact which he never acknowledged.
The deaths of twelve people was no small matter—but it wasn’t like Torex had killed them himself.
They’d known the law. They could have refused.
That might have had consequences, of course, but it was still a choice.
Pel couldn’t imagine Prince Torex—a sober Prince Torex, anyway—disciplining them harshly.
It was like the end of the war. Their rulers had made some terrible decisions and choices, but if they didn’t forgive them—or at least accept them—how would they ever have peace?
Pel wasn’t entirely sure how he felt, but he knew he wasn’t ready to give up on Torex.
And the High King hadn’t thrown Torex in the dungeon.
He had a troop that he was still in charge of.
He talked about them sometimes, and he never sounded more affectionate than when he spoke about them, unless he was talking about his best friend, Sir Rinil, or Princess Adexa.
He clearly adored his sister and didn’t think he got to see her often enough.
If he bonded, he might well have to move.
Where would Torex go if he wasn’t in Alossa?
Princesses Terila and Marwila seemed the most likely options.
Vayrin was closer to Alossa, and Pel could only imagine that she would be as delighted by an Extraordinary High Prince as she had been horrified by an Unremarkable one.
Marwila seemed like the better option, but it would be further away from Adexa in Lotar.
And instead of either of those options, Torex had come all the way to Tond…
to take a break? He’d said he didn’t have any responsibility anymore, but that wasn’t the same as actually resting and recovering from the trauma of what had happened.
Maybe he’d needed to get out of sight of his brother and everyone who might judge him.
Only he’d told Pel what had happened.
It gave Pel so much to think about that they were back at the stables before he knew it. They’d taken longer than they usually did, and it meant they were going to have to hustle to attend afternoon training.
“You go ahead,” Torex told him, already turning towards the horses. “I’d like to groom Melody.”
He was definitely going to be late if he did that, but after what he’d just shared, maybe he was looking forward to some time alone. Pel had been guilty of using his horse as an excuse more than once.
He was thus unsurprised that Torex didn’t appear, though there was a faint air of disappointment from the guards.
It was going to be an adjustment when they didn’t have the High Prince in their midst anymore.
And he’d have to leave. If the High King didn’t know where he was, the situation was untenable in the long-term.
But coming to Tond and being well out of the way of the other realms bought Torex some time, and perhaps that was all he wanted.
Pel often felt like he was being judged, but there simply weren’t that many people interested in him.
Extraordinary High Prince—and handsome, to boot—was a much loftier position.
Pel had always thought that the best thing that could have happened was that he would wake up one day and suddenly be Extraordinary.
Yes, he told himself that it shouldn’t be necessary, that he still had value without all that magic, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t that core part of him that was sure such…
elevation would solve all of his problems, that he would be recognized as having value if only he also had the strong magic ability as well.
For the first time, thinking about Torex trapped in a web of expectations and assumptions and regret, Pel… was no longer certain.
To Pel’s surprise, Torex wasn’t at dinner that night, either, and a servant brought his regrets and the news that he was a little under the weather.
“Weak Southerners,” Forex scoffed, and went back to his wine.
Dinner passed more quickly without the High Prince to entertain or impress, and it was with relief that Pel was able to get away.