Chapter Eleven
Eleven
The man I’d fought, searched, and danced with—the man who’d kissed me—was the new Western Prince. A Lys’Careth. Son of the Emperor Eternal.
Should I have seen that? Yue had told him to stay in the carriage instead of helping the fight. In the caravanserai, Savaadh—a prince among his people—treated him as an equal. Galen was overprotective, apparently because Nik wasn’t just his colleague in arms, but his responsibility.
I was confused and furious and hurt, and I could feel Wren bristling beside me like a startled snake, ready to strike.
Nik—no, the prince—hadn’t taken his eyes off me. “You might as well say something, Fox, before your head bursts into flames.”
“We trusted you. We saved you.” That was all I could manage.
“I know.” He glanced at Luna. “As did you. I owe you a debt of gratitude. Thank you for intervening.”
Luna nodded, but her expression was tight.
“This is Luna,” I said. “You took him into the Aetheric?”
She nodded, then gave me a long last look and disappeared. She’d find us later, when we had more privacy.
“You have unusual friends,” the prince said.
“So we’ve discovered,” Wren said, her voice tight.
The prince met her gaze straight on. “Say what you want to say, Wren.”
“Fuck you, Your Highness.” Her thin smile was sharp, deadly as a blade. “There’s more to say, but I don’t want to be arrested.”
I considered how many inappropriate things I’d said—including telling the prince to hush.
He must have seen that in my face. “You both get a pass for anything said before the…revelation. No one’s going to arrest you.”
Galen sighed with disappointment.
“Your identity explains the bandit attack,” Wren said darkly.
“They wouldn’t have known who he was,” Galen said.
She rolled her eyes. “They may have learned the prince was sending people to Vhrania to investigate.”
“A lot of trouble to send bandits all that way to stop us from bringing back information. Maybe someone saw through my disguise, or we just got unlucky and they took a chance.”
“They were thieves,” I said.
“Thieves?” Galen asked. “Of what?”
“We don’t have anything of value,” the prince said. “Other than the horses, which they didn’t take.”
“They didn’t want coin. One of the bandits was searching the carriage for something specific.” I looked at the prince. “Maybe something they wanted to take back.”
“Take back…” the prince murmured, and then his eyes went dark with understanding. “The seal we found on the assassin in the woods. Or the drawing we found in the forge.”
I nodded. “Maybe Tommen confessed he’d done drawings, told the practitioner where they were hidden. Maybe they need the plans to make the weapon work.”
The prince nodded. “Or they wanted to cover their tracks.”
“Do you have it with you?” I asked.
The prince shook his head. “No. I described it to Savaadh, but he didn’t know anything more than we do. The drawing is in the palace, in my rooms.”
Galen looked around. “If this was the Aetheric practitioner’s doing, why isn’t he here? And why not send an Anima?”
“He didn’t show himself in the market,” I said. “He apparently doesn’t want to be seen, and there’s nowhere to hide out here.”
A white-tailed hawk flew over us, and its scream sent shivers down my spine.
“The bandits could be using hawks to send messages,” Galen said. “We should go.”
The prince nodded. “We can continue this discussion in the stronghold, or while moving quickly toward it.”
We all looked back at the carriage. While we’d sniped at each other, Yue had already pulled away the remains of the broken wheel.
She rose, looked at us, then pointed beneath the carriage. “If you’re done arguing, there’s another wheel stored below. Could use some help getting it on.”
“I wasn’t arguing,” I muttered as Galen jogged over. After giving me a long look, the prince joined them.
“I’m sorry, Fox,” Wren said quietly when they were out of earshot.
“A fucking prince,” I said, and indulged myself in a very long sigh. Because there had been a tiny spark of hope that the soldier and I could have been something more.
But he was no soldier. He was a royal. A Lys’Careth. A man who could kill me—or anyone else he wanted—with a word.
As beautiful as a god, but just another ordinary devil.
The second wheel was attached, and we all helped shimmy the carriage into level again. And then it was time to ride.
The prince was already inside when I climbed onto the driving board.
“He only wants to stay alive,” Yue said quietly.
I glanced at her. “So do the rest of us. Smart strongholders stay far away from Lys’Careths.”
I climbed inside, took a seat, and said nothing.
I didn’t meet his eyes, but I felt his gaze on me all the same, heavy and grim.
We sat in heavy silence until we were well underway and could be sure a second attack wasn’t waiting.
Then he leaned forward, clasped his hands together, and frowned down at them.
“Are you angry because I lied, or because of who my father is?”
“Both.” I was disappointed, and that made me furious with myself for getting my hopes up in the first place. I knew better.
“A prince can’t ride through the streets unnoticed,” he said. “He can’t investigate. He has to ask other people to put themselves in danger—again and again—to fix his problems. I don’t find that acceptable, so I play a different role.”
I shook my head. “You shouldn’t lie to people who are trying to help you. Who’ve risked their lives for you.” I didn’t like being a mark.
“Unless telling them would put them in more danger,” he said. “And a lie becomes easier the more often it’s told. But I’m the same person I was in the caravanserai.”
“No, you aren’t. If you were, you wouldn’t feel the need to hide your identity.” I paused. “Savaadh knows who you are?”
The prince nodded. “And who I sometimes pretend to be.”
So Savaadh had also lied to us. Wren and I had played the fools while everyone else understood the truth. “How did he know to go along?”
“I wasn’t dressed as a prince.”
“Did he make up the story about your first meeting?”
“No. It was all true. Except I don’t have bandit hair,” he muttered.
“And the things we talked about on the way down here? Your relationship with the former Western Prince?”
“True.”
“And the Eastern Prince and his new army?”
He was quiet for a moment. “My father sent me to the Eastern Army when I was seventeen. I served for three years.” That explained his fighting skills.
“My mother was my father’s second Empress Eternal; she died when I was a child.
The Eastern Prince’s mother is the current Empress Eternal—my father’s third and current wife.
The Empress Eternal doesn’t like the rest of us. She wants her son on the throne.”
“And now he has an army,” I said.
He nodded. “Carethian princes are in precarious positions, because our father likes it that way. If we’re fighting with each other, we won’t be fighting him. I was in danger before you knew I was a prince; I’m still in danger. Nothing has changed, Fox.”
There was grim acceptance in his voice that threatened to burn away my anger. I didn’t want that. I needed the shield.
“Even if I understand why you lied, that doesn’t change the fact of who you are. I danced with Nik. The guard. A commoner, like me. A person in service. You’re a royal. A Lys’Careth.” I paused before delivering the fatal strike. “Our enemy. You could kill me right now and suffer no consequences.”
“Do you really think I’d do that?” His voice was brittle as glass. “Do you really think I’m the villain?” Fate wouldn’t care what I believed or wanted. Not as long as he wore a prince’s crown and stood in line to rule the country.
“You have a stronghold to protect. One life can’t matter so much.
Especially not if you want to stay alive.
” Because his strength, my bravery, didn’t matter.
There was no future for a servant and a prince, much less a prince and a thief.
That had my fury fading to sadness and frustration, and the fact that I understood why he’d lied didn’t lessen the sting.
“I’m allowed to have friends.”
“And I can’t be one of them. You can’t dabble with servants.”
His eyes went icily cold. “That’s insulting to both of us.”
“Blame fate.” I knew I sounded childish, but I was feeling childish. Confused and out of control, which I really hated. “You knew someone was going to attack you in the market, didn’t you? That’s why you posed as a guard when you came into the stronghold.”
“We’d received a message that an attack was possible. We didn’t know the details.”
“Was anyone in the carriages?”
“No. They were empty.”
So I’d stepped into an assassination attempt to save empty damned carriages. “And you traveled to Vhrania today without an army, even though you’re a target.”
“Nik the guard isn’t a target.”
I gave him the same look Wren gave me when I said something ridiculous. And then I pointed at one of the arrow holes.
“Shouldn’t have been a target,” he said.
“Maybe there’s a traitor in your palace.”
He nodded. “It’s possible. Some staff came with me.
Others are from the stronghold. I’ve met them all.
None of them seemed unhappy about working for Lys’Careths.
” Before I could argue, he held up a hand.
“And yes, they might have been afraid to say otherwise.” To his credit, he looked bothered by that.
“No lies,” I said. “That’s what I told you—that’s what I asked you for. You had a chance to tell me the truth, and you didn’t.”
“I know. I’m sorry, Fox.” He shifted on the seat and winced.
“What is it?”
Then I saw the drop of blood hit the ground. I looked up and found the dark stain across his coat sleeve. “You’re injured?”
“It’s nothing.”
“It is bleeding all over the damned carriage.” And that was just the absolute worst.
“And you don’t like blood. I can manage until we reach the stronghold.”
“What do you think will happen to me if you’re dead when we arrive?”
“A cut won’t kill me. Well, not unless a fever sets in.”