Chapter 44 The Prince
The Prince
ALASTOR
Talon was somewhat more subdued than I remembered, his exhaustion hanging heavy on him as he led us to a small, empty room at the end of the corridor.
“How’s this?” he asked with an arch glance towards Radven. “Private enough for your standards?”
Rad went in first, making a show of checking the perimeter as if he was concerned that Talon was leading us into a trap.
I wasn’t especially fond of Talon myself—the man was entirely too sanguine for my tastes—but I trusted Oak’s assessment of his character, and I saw no reason to doubt his loyalty to our cause.
Rad and Talon’s rivalry, by my estimation, was entirely personal, and therefore of little interest to me.
“I’m sure it’s fine,” I said. My patience was especially thin tonight. Even before the tragic events that had led us here, all of the drinking I’d done at the Festival had left me with a pounding headache.
That girl is going to be the death of me. I needed to be more careful around her—especially if she was the one I’d seen in my visions so many years ago.
“It will do,” Rad said, turning to the rest of us. He leaned against the closest wall and slipped a dagger out of his sleeve. He liked to remind people of how easily he could gut them if they displeased him.
The rest of us filed in, and Talon pulled the door shut behind us.
“Now, to answer your earlier question,” Talon said, eyeing Radven.
“Yes, of course I have an opinion on what happened with Mordren, but I don’t expect you lot to listen to me.
” He leaned against the wall next to the door, mirroring my brother on the opposite side of the room.
“But I will say this—if there’s even a question of whether or not you should take that deal, then you aren’t the men I thought you were.
She’s just a girl. And Mordren…well, I don’t have to tell you what he’d do to her if he got his hands on her. ”
“No one’s taking the deal,” Oak said firmly.
He was calm now. Confident. Slipping back into the man he showed the rest of the world.
There was no indication that, mere moments before our return, he’d turned on Radven and me in a fit of rage, convinced that one or both of us had been seriously considering Mordren’s offer.
I looked to Talon. He claimed his birds had told him everything they’d witnessed in the woods, which likely meant he knew about that altercation.
And a man like Talon—a man who’d cunningly created his own little court of followers here in the underworld of society—was sharp enough to guess at the implications of that incident.
He would have noticed the cracks in his old friend. Made note of them.
I could see him thinking. Taking in our bruises and torn clothes and deciding not to mention them. Despite my feelings about the man, I respected him for that.
Finally he said, “So this attack was about the girl.” It wasn’t a question. “I think it’s time you tell me exactly who she is and why the Circle wants her so badly. I’d assumed you were the main targets.”
“So did we,” Oak said. “But now that they know how much innate power Marigold possesses, apparently they see her as the bigger prize.”
“I saw the pearls,” Talon said, watching his friend closely. “But where did she come from? How did you lot find her before the Circle?”
Oak glanced to me, then Radven. We hadn’t discussed when we would reveal the truth, or to whom. But we’d accomplish little here without recruiting allies, and if Oak trusted this man…
I nodded. Rad did the same.
Oak gave his friend a brief overview of what had happened to us—and how we’d found our way back to Therador, powerless and with Marigold in tow.
Talon looked alternately shocked, horrified, and bewildered by Oak’s tale.
It was a wonder the fellow could keep a secret, given how every thought he had flashed across his face like he was a damned pageant player.
It was no surprise he had taken to Marigold after such a brief acquaintance—the pair of them were cut from the same cloth in that respect, wearing their emotions plainly for the world to see.
That girl. She was entirely too demonstrative, too sentimental…
“And now you can’t access your abilities,” Talon said. “Unless the Circle decides to return them to you.”
“We don’t even know if that’s true,” Oak replied. “Mordren could be lying to us. We still don’t understand how this curse works or how to break it completely.”
“But in the meantime, you’re powerless.” Talon rubbed his chin.
“Not powerless,” Oak barked back. “Never powerless.” He drew himself up to his full height then, and I knew the show was as much for himself as it was for Talon. None of us liked being neutered in this way. But it ate at Oak and Radven differently than it did me.
My brothers had lost their greatest strengths, the powers they’d claimed as part of themselves. But I… I had lost my way. Without my visions I was directionless. Aimless. Wandering in the dark, as useless to Therador as I’d been in the days before my gift had been bestowed on me.
Even the royal seal I now carried everywhere inside my coat, the thing that tied me physically to my land, didn’t give the same sense of connection it once did, as if it sensed the hollowness of what I offered in return.
I lifted my hand, touching the spot near my chest where the seal lay tucked away. Instead, my fingers met an unfamiliar bulge, and I remembered I’d tucked Marigold’s little plant in the same interior pocket.
A silly girl with a silly little plant…
“We’ll come up with a plan,” Talon was saying. “My people can help.”
His “people,” from what I’d seen of them since our arrival, were little more than a ragtag bunch of fools who wanted to play at being heroes—and I was certain Radven agreed with me.
I had little interest in allowing Talon any say in our plans.
This was ultimately a matter for my brothers and me, and our situation was tenuous enough without allowing any well-meaning fools to muddle things up.
“Right now, though, there’s something a little more pressing at hand,” Talon said.
“The carnage on the Hill is…” He shook his head, grief and anger waging war in his eyes.
“Two members of the Circle already know you’re here, which means the rest will know soon.
I see no reason to continue hiding your return.
After this night, all of Therador will know within days.
” He looked at Oak. “Let the people see you. Let us proclaim the return of the Lion Warrior, the savior of Therador. The people of Ring-Around-the-Hill need to know that the deaths this night will be avenged. That someone is fighting for them.” His eyes shifted to me, to Radven.
“To know all three of you have returned, that you are still a united force committed to protecting them, would be even better.”
Rad slid his finger slowly along the blade in his hand, shaking his head.
“It might only be days until all of Therador knows, but during those days we still have the advantage. And we’ll likely have even longer than that, as many won’t believe the rumors at first. If we’re quick, we might even be able to direct and shape the rumors in a way that helps us.
But it’s too soon and too risky to proclaim ourselves to the world. We need every edge we can get.”
“You can use the announcement of your return to your advantage, too,” Talon countered. “Direct the narrative that way.”
“I have to agree with my brother,” I said. “The news of my return will cause a stir in my father’s court. And there are things I must do before I go there.”
But Oak stepped forward.
“My brothers are free to make their own decisions about this,” he said.
“But I am also free to make mine. I will go up to the Hill with you. Let them see that I am here, and that I will fight for them.” To Rad and me, he added, “There will be speculation about the two of you, of course. But I’ll do my best to deflect it.
I cannot stay silent, not in this. Not now. ”
I expected nothing less from Oak—he’d never been one to sit back in a situation like this. Despite the cracks in him, he would still behave nobly to the bitter end. And I knew he recognized that Rad and I served Therador best in other ways.
The matter was settled, then. Oak assured us that he’d be gone only as long as necessary—which, I knew, meant we likely wouldn’t see him again until well past dawn. He and Talon left the room, going opposite the way we’d come.
And I was grateful for the much-needed opportunity to speak with Radven alone.
Rad obviously felt the same way. The moment our brother’s footsteps faded away, he glanced at me and said, “What are we going to do about him?”
Because we couldn’t ignore what had happened in the woods after Mordren had fled—Oak's doubt, his rage, his accusations. We’d argued before. Tussled plenty of times. But never fought, not like that.
“I’d like to believe it was simply a moment of temporary madness,” I said.
Rad nodded, still playing absently with his dagger. He’d been on edge since Mordren’s attack. He hid it well, but he couldn’t keep the truth from me. I could always tell when my brother was silently fighting shadows, haunted by those parts of himself he tried to keep locked away.
Finally, he said, “Oak has always been easy to rile where matters of justice are concerned. But it’s worse now. It grates on him, being powerless.”
“It grates on all of us.”
“You don’t have to tell me.” Radven flipped his dagger into the air, then caught it deftly by the hilt before starting to twirl it again. “But with Oak…it’s personal. In a way it isn’t for us.”
He glanced my way, expecting agreement from me, and I gave him the nod he was anticipating. But this was personal for me, too, in a way my brother didn’t fully understand. And personal for him, too, even if he refused to admit it.
Blessed Vela, how my head throbbed. If that girl hadn’t driven me to so many bloody drinks…