56. Maren
Maren
Oberon is dead. He was the Rivean emissary years ago.
I turned the conversation from minutes ago in my head, grateful for a moment alone as I slipped to the training yard.
The same corner of the palace I’d once visited, watching through the glass as Aren punched a surprised Kye.
The office of the Guard was a narrow, slanted room built into the curtain wall, door rusted and latch loose, its bolts half wriggled out of the wood.
I slipped in, hunting for an easy target. Someone young and easily sung to.
But the only person inside was the Captain of the Guard.
Aren’s father. Kye’s friend must have inherited his wheatfield hair and hazel eyes from his mother.
The man’s hands were long and graceful for a guard’s, his shoulders broad and his head almost high enough to scrape the ceiling.
He wore the same kind expression as his son, loyal and welcoming—the face of a man with many friends and few enemies.
He’d been writing at his desk, and I waited patiently for him to finish, unsure if he’d even seen me enter. My gaze roved over the walls, framed and glass-encased armor from decades before, medals and ribbons from jousting competitions collecting dust one mote at a time.
“Princess,” he stammered, shuffling to his feet.
“Good morning.” I glanced at him from over my shoulder with an easy smile.
Even if he wasn’t young, I’d found I could win most humans, men or women, with an affable flash of teeth.
We’d instructed Aren to eat shield weed weeks ago, though I wasn’t sure if he would have passed the suggestion to his parents.
Likely no singing, then.
“Did my son send you here?” He moved around his desk, a small uptick in his heart, the air around him souring with anxiety.
“No.” I waved my hand, hiding a small wince at the taste of his worry in the air. No doubt he’d seen Aren after his fall down the stairs. “No, Aren didn’t send me. I was hoping to find someone willing to lead me to the dungeon.”
The Captain’s mouth parted on a sharp, silent intake of oxygen as if he might have corrected me. “The dungeon.”
I folded my hands together at my waist, mimicking the pretty way Kye’s sister Jonet walked the halls. “There’s a man down there I’d like to speak with.”
“A man in the dungeon…” The Captain of the Guard ran a hand through his dark bronze hair, crossing his feet as he leaned against his desk. He cleared his throat. “Sorry, I just realized I haven’t introduced myself. I’m Aras.”
“Maren,” I said, shaking his hand.
“I’m so happy to finally meet you.” The man smiled, almost shyly. His voice was naturally low and rich, a voice made for singing lullabies and telling bedtime stories. Like a warm, rough cloak of wool, easy to fall asleep under.
I couldn’t help but smile at him. Most of the noble women of the palace turned their noses up at me, princess or not.
I didn’t boast the same spotless skin from a life spent indoors and under laced umbrellas.
My waist wasn’t rail-thin, my hair wasn’t slick and straight.
The evidence of hours under the sun and hard labor in my garden lay stacked within the hardened muscles of my arms and back.
Men often watched me from afar while pretending not to, but like the women, they scoffed and snickered, the scent of their eager attention lingering even after they’d walked away.
Even the servants raised their brows and averted their eyes.
It was rare to hear a palace dweller say they were happy to meet me.
But Aras lifted a brow, a smile hooked into the corner of his mouth. “Which man in the dungeon did you hope to see?”
I’d never set foot in the prisoners’ vault below Laurier Palace.
There was a time when I’d thought I was destined for it. That I’d live out the remainder of my days underground swathed in cold. When Thaan accused me of witchcraft and slid a contract across the table for my signature in blood.
Unlike the stone walls in the palace towers which had been mortared and manicured and cleaned with care, the stone here was a crude mess, the mud between stacked boulders rough and pitted, the potholes along the tunnel floor a waiting trap for wandering feet.
The walls sweated like the walls of The Deadman’s House in Rivea, and though I could see nothing but rock and water, the taste of old rot hung in the air.
Aras raised a lantern against the dark. “This way,” he said, turning to delve down the steps first. They sagged with erosion, the middle of each stair more sloped than the sides, crumbs of stone crunching under my feet.
Iron gates hung at our right, raised in the air over a hall of cells, each of them empty.
“Sometimes we’re full,” Aras said, watching me study the passing chambers. “Most times we’re not. The King would rather call for a beheading than feed prisoners for years on end.”
My fate, had I refused to marry Kye. Though something told me even that had been a ruse. Thaan wouldn’t have killed me, a Prizivac granddaughter he could someday use. A cold wind swept through my veins, and I shuddered the thought away.
Aras nodded to a heavily latched door at the end of the hall, a table beside it. “Everyone past this point is alive only because they might harbor information against the Crown. You’ll have to sign your name as a guest if you want to go further.”
I gnawed at the inside of my cheek. My reasons for visiting the dungeon were purely innocent, as far as possible conspiracy was concerned. But I’d rather not leave a trail back to myself. “Might you make an exception today?”
His steps slowed. “I might,” he said. “If you explained why.”
I crossed my arms, amused. He almost sounded like Kye. “Well,” I started, rotating to walk sideways so I could face him. But my feet halted. And I stared.
Stared at Aras’s eyes, a warm golden brown. His thick lashes, the dark gold curls in his hair, silvering behind his ears. The cut of his mouth and jaw, so like one I’d spent hours familiarizing myself with over the past year.
Aras glanced behind us. But there was no one here. Nothing but the hanging gates of iron, low enough it seemed they’d stooped to listen to our words. His heart ticked again.
“Your accent.” My eyes widened. “I thought I recognized it. You’re Cressian.
” The lantern flickered quietly over our faces as I studied him in silence, logging each detail.
The arch of his brows, the dark shadow of his stubble, even the crow’s feet stamped in the corner of his eyes, deeper than Kye’s but a crinkle I’d recognize anywhere.
“Maybe we should head back,” Aras said softly, the acrid tinge of worry a small prickle in my nose. When I didn’t answer, he sighed. “I didn’t realize that you didn’t know. I thought he might have told you.” He breathed a guilty laugh. “The way you’re looking at me, I’m guessing he hasn’t.”
“No,” I said. My hand found my ring. Kye’s mother’s ring. She’d given its mate to another man, before she married, so that she wouldn’t have to share thoughts with the King.
The lantern lowered. Aras pushed his lips together, avoiding my eyes.
“He doesn’t like me. When I saw you in the office, I thought—I don’t know what I thought.
That he’d sent you here, maybe. But he wouldn’t like to know you were down here with me.
” He reached for my arm, gently, and I stepped away.
“Why wouldn’t he?” I asked. “Does he have a reason to not trust you?”
“No, no. He doesn’t really need a reason. Nikolaos blames me for his mother’s death.”
“Emilius killed Kye’s mother,” I said. The Captain of the Guard closed his eyes. My voice trailed, soft and edged. “Because she was in love with someone else.”
The Captain of the Guard rubbed his fingers over the bridge of his nose.
His lantern scraped the stone floor as he set it down, the light dimming as it traveled to our legs.
In the near-dark, Aras leveled me with a look of exhaustion.
“I fell in love with Cemre as a boy. She was the princess of thieves. My father served as guard to the prince, her grandfather. We grew up together, and then I joined her guard. But I never touched her in Cressi. Not until she was sold to the Calderian King. I brought her here myself. But in the weeks leading up to the wedding.” He paused, shaking his head.
“There was a new woman in Emilius’s bed every night.
He flaunted them in front of her, draped them over his lap and against his ear whenever she could see.
She never batted an eye, but the sight of it made me sick.
I still might have never touched her, until she came to me days before her vows, a bruise across her cheek and two rings in her hand. ”
“But you’re married,” I argued, hearing the naivety in my voice and not caring. I remembered Kye telling me about Aren’s family; his mother a cook in the royal kitchens, his father—“You’re retired from the guard.”
“I still come in, sometimes. See my son. Aren,” he quickly amended.
“Aren is Junior Captain. And I love my wife. Aren is the product of…” He cringed, his face reddening in the lantern light.
“I know how it sounds. Horrible. Disgraceful. Emilius used to call Cemre to his bed. Either she went and returned with bruises, or she refused, and returned with bruises. I was powerless. Tasked with protecting Cemre from every danger in the world except him. I’d watch as she’d come back to her quarters, weeping, limping.
She’d cross the floor, straight to me, grabbing my arm and pulling me to her room.
That was the only power she had. To tell him no, and then to choose for herself.
When she gave birth to Kye, the King knew.
I was moved for a time, posted in the lower floors of the King’s tower near the kitchens.
One of the scullery maids was expecting, her husband dead in an accident in the orchards. ”