CHAPTER 58
Keenan
Sakura lunged forward, but Cherry stepped in front of the maid and opened her mouth. Keenan grabbed Sakura’s arm and tugged her back. Mori joined Oliver between the two women, but neither advanced against the small dragon.
“As you will, Dorobo,” Mamoru hissed. “I will fetch the prince.” Then she launched herself into the air with a gust of her wings.
“Please, Kasumi,” Sakura begged. “Please don’t do this. Hari has never been anything but kind to you.”
“And Dai was always good to you,” Kasumi replied. “But that didn’t stop the queen from sending him away. It didn’t inspire you or the friendly prince to do anything to keep him here. You let him go without even a fight, and for that, you are as unsuitable to rule as your parents!”
The princess struggled in his grip. Keenan wrapped an arm around her waist to help anchor her.
He should take advantage of Mamoru’s absence to get Sakura to safety, but was anywhere truly safe with the adult dragon under Kasumi’s control?
And could he leave the prince to the maid’s designs, even if he couldn’t do anything to stop it?
“This will solve nothing!” Sakura bit out, her voice rougher than Keenan had ever heard it. “You will simply throw the kingdom into chaos by robbing it of its heir, and then even more people will suffer.”
“Rob the kingdom of its heir?” Kasumi said innocently, pressing a hand to her chest. “Oh, I couldn’t do that. But Prince Hatori never wanted the crown anyway. Everyone knows his older sister would do a better job.” She slipped a hand into her pocket. “Churippu, the illusion.”
Keenan’s jaw slackened as Kasumi’s features shifted, making her identical to the princess.
She folded her hands at her waist and grinned.
“What do you think? I know everything about her, and she’s already begun convincing people that she’s willing to tolerate those beneath her.
I think I’ll do a fine job of ruling the kingdom, even as I work through the grief of losing my family. ”
He swallowed. “If you wanted me for yourself, you should have said so,” he joked faintly. Sakura reached back and pinched his side. “I’m sure we can work something out without all this fuss.”
The moonlight just highlighted her smirk. “Unfortunately, you’re next. It’s nothing personal; I just don’t want to fight for my legitimacy by marrying a commoner.”
“But don’t you still have to marry to rule?” he asked, grasping for something, anything, to make her see reason. Or at least to delay until someone else figured out how to stop her. “You’ll still have that fight.”
“I’m sure I can find a way to…convince someone appropriate,” she said, patting her pocket. “So thank you for your concern, but it isn’t necessary.”
“Is that the reason the queen decided to execute me the next time she saw me?” he asked. If she was talking, she wasn’t thinking up new orders for Cherry and Mamoru. “Because she was already under your influence, and it was an easy way to get rid of me?”
Kasumi shook her head with a little smile. “You are smarter than you look. If you were going to survive till morning, I would have to watch my back around you.”
He just stared back, speechless for the moment. He hadn’t expected to be right.
“Dai wouldn’t have wanted this.” The princess’s voice was hard but distressed. “He would want you to honor his memory, not use it as an excuse for murder. Especially Hari!”
The maid’s expression flattened. “I’ll thank you not to pretend to know my brother’s mind. But it doesn’t matter what he would have wanted. Thanks to your family, he’s gone. And the precious prince, my brother’s friend,” she sneered, “let him go without even trying to save his life.”
“What do you know of what we tried? Were you there?” Sakura strained against Keenan’s hold again, and he leaned back to compensate for his failing strength.
“Hari spoke to both our parents, but Mother wouldn’t be swayed.
And Father saw no reason to countermand her.
What argument could Hari give for overruling the queen’s orders?
It wasn’t as if she’d actually decreed his death. ”
“So your brother made a tiny attempt,” Kasumi scoffed. “He wasn’t willing to truly risk his neck for Dai like my brother would have for him. Some friend he turned out to be! And you didn’t even bother yourself to try.”
Instead of continuing to fight, the princess sagged back in Keenan’s arms. “What good would my support have been? If the queen punished him for his friendship with me, what would my pleas have done but convince her that I cared? If not for that stupid prophecy, she might have let it be. But once she heard it…” Sakura’s head dropped.
“She was determined to keep me from such a disgrace.”
Kasumi strode forward, bringing Cherry with her and sending Oliver and Mori back a few steps. Keenan could see the play of emotions flickering across her face, but he couldn’t make sense of them. Anger, obviously. But guilt?
“You will not make this my fault,” the maid bit out. “I was only trying to give my brother the chance to be happy, and you as well, if you’d been willing to take the risk for him. But no one even suggested changing the law.”
Her nostrils flared. “Instead, your mother eliminated Dai and hid you from anyone else who could fulfill the prophecy. Until he came along—” she stabbed a finger at Keenan “—and everyone was only too willing to accept him into your hearts and family. It allowed me to achieve my goals, but why?” Her expression twisted with anguish. “Why him, and not my brother?”
Keenan suspected Sakura was as speechless as he was. Perhaps it was more than the crown that drove Kasumi to seek his demise. He’d been a tool in her twisted games, but he was also the manifestation of everything she’d hoped for her dead brother.
To his surprise, it was Mori’s voice that broke the silence. “You were even behind the prophecy,” the boy accused. “You really are the reason for everything.”
“Yes, and you’ve been so very helpful the last few weeks,” Kasumi told him, gracing him with a disturbing smile. “I really wish you hadn’t chosen to come along tonight, because I can’t let you escape to spread the word of what I’ve done. You must know that.”
“Not even if he promises to keep his mouth shut?” Keenan said quickly, shooting the young guard a look. “He’s been starry-eyed over you since you joined us in the mountains. He might—”
But Mori shook off Keenan’s attempts to seek mercy for him. “I won’t,” he ground out. “A pretty face is meaningless with a heart as rotten as hers.”
Keenan wasn’t sure if the Kasumi of three years ago, the one who had arranged for a false prophecy in an attempt to con the king and queen, could be called rotten. It sounded like she’d had good motives, even if her methods were questionable.
But the version in front of them that refused to admit her own responsibility for the current mess certainly qualified.
“Me?” Kasumi seethed. “If you want rotten hearts, you should take a closer look at the royal family you so devotedly guard.”
Her eyes flashed as she reached for her pocket. Keenan braced himself, though he would be just as helpless against dragon claws and fire as the rest of them. Worse, not counting the princess, because he didn’t have armor. Sakura had forgotten that detail, and he’d been too tired to correct her.
Before Kasumi could open her mouth, a shadow fell over them. A moment later, Mamoru landed heavily in the middle of the topiaries. The prince hung from one massive hand, his head swinging loosely between his limp arms.
“Hari!” Sakura cried, bursting free from Keenan’s slack grip. He made a grab for her, but it was Oliver who snatched her arm and held her back from the dragon.
“He is only asleep,” Mamoru said quietly. “I did not want to bring the entire castle if he did not keep silent.”
For a moment, Keenan thought he saw Kasumi’s lip quiver.
She walked slowly up to Mamoru and bowed her head as she set a hand on the prince’s shoulder.
“My brother considered you a friend,” she murmured.
“It pains me to do this, but if you’d been the friend he thought you were, he would still be here. And none of this would be necessary.”
She backed up a few steps, then turned to Sakura. “I’ll give you the choice,” she said kindly. It contrasted horribly with the situation. “Should I wake him so you can say your farewells? Or let him sleep through this?”
It was a terrible sort of mercy, offering a final farewell or the chance to spare the prince some pain.
Keenan gripped the hilt of his dagger, wondering if he stood a chance of making it to Kasumi before she could give the command.
But while Kasumi hadn’t ordered Mamoru to protect her, he was certain that Mamoru would protect her daughter.
“Please, Kasumi,” the princess begged, her voice thick with tears. “Please don’t hurt my brother. I’ll convince him to abdicate. I’ll tell Father we need to reconsider our naval policies. But please, let him go.”
Kasumi gave her a sad smile. “What happened to the perfect princess willing to make hard choices for the sake of the kingdom? And now you’re begging and offering concessions for the life of someone you care about?”
Keenan edged closer. Kasumi was distracted with Sakura, and the lack of aggression had allowed Cherry to settle back onto her haunches while she watched the proceedings with wide eyes.
“It can’t be helped,” Kasumi said. “He is as unfit to rule as the rest of your family. And I cannot fix the course of our kingdom while he lives.”
He was almost there. If the princess could keep her distracted for another minute…
But Sakura, the cold, logical, perfect princess, was struggling against the gulping sobs that kept escaping, and as Cherry turned away from the tears, her large green eyes caught on him.
She stood, ducking her head before baring her teeth. “I’m sorry,” she whimpered.
Kasumi’s eyes flicked over to him. “I suppose there’s no point in putting it off.” Looking away, she ordered, “Mamoru, kill the prince. But make sure he’s recognizable.”
Gold ringed the older dragon’s eyes. “As you command, Dorobo,” she sighed. Setting the prince down, she drew back one clawed hand and hesitated, the most she could manage against the sphinx’s command.
And in that moment, Keenan made a decision.
I’m sorry, Miss Beatrice.
The prince wasn’t Keenan’s usual rescue.
But right now, he might be the most helpless person for whom Keenan had ever fought.
And while it might not spare Mamoru the horror of her forced actions or Sakura the grief of loss, the princess might get to keep her brother.
A good brother was a lot harder to replace than a man she’d known for less than two months.
And maybe he would provide just enough distraction to let Oliver and Mori end things.
Releasing a harsh cry, he dodged past Cherry, leapt over Prince Hatori’s still form, and drew his weapons.
Mamoru’s hand crashed into him like one of his hammers on a piece of steel, collapsing his weak limbs and sending him to the ground.
His heart jolted in fear when the dragon pulled her arm back again, remorse on her face.
But Kasumi meant for him to die anyway. He might as well save someone else if he could.
Mamoru’s hand plunged down again, and he rolled, throwing himself over the unconscious prince. Sakura’s screams filled his ears as he curled around her brother and waited for the bite of the dragon’s claws.