CHAPTER NINETEEN
The Hermit bowed before the king, giving me one last warning look before returning to his seat.
The first joust was the two knights with the lowest rankings after the melee sat atop their stags, their lances at the ready and charged.
“Are you bored?” King Tirian leaned over his throne. He hadn’t spoken to me all day. Not something I would have thought to complain about. The silence, particularly from him, was welcome. But something about it felt pointed, as if it was a punishment for me. As if I’d somehow displeased him.
Or he wanted me to believe I had.
“I’m waiting for Brennan to return,” I said. “He’s the only knight who has captured my interest.”
He smirked. “Had to have his armor cleaned after last night. Should have had it cleaned again.”
I squinted, watching Brennan speak with his squire as the first two knights charged. His armor looked perfect to me—shining and strong.
“I see no marks upon it,” I said without thinking.
The king harrumphed. “Not armor I would have worn.”
“What did you wear to the tourneys then, Your Majesty?”
His brows narrowed. “I was the crown prince. What do you think?”
“You wore the black armor,” I said.
“Well, you’re not completely stupid.” He scratched his chin.
I spotted Jaron, his armor of black steel.
The witch armor Tirian had called it. The armor passed down to the royal heir.
Looking at it again, I felt that strange feeling.
It was not as strong as the day before—yet my unease, that feeling, that sense of familiarity, was not going away.
Where was that coming from? Why was the armor striking me this way?
“May I ask why Jaron is in possession of it now?” A part of me loved that the king himself had been denied a piece of his own tradition. But I hated that Jaron was the one who’d benefited. Another fucking reason he could lie to me and claim he was the prince.
And right as if he knew we were discussing him—he lifted his lance.
Like the other knights, there was a small flag hanging from it with his house sigil.
But Jaron’s wasn’t blue and red. It didn’t depict the moonstag with flames.
In the late day’s sun, I could see the golden thread of House Lafir.
But his flag was red and gray, not blue.
A chimera in flames was painted across the center, not the moonstag.
It was the sigil of House Bathiner.
I was sure it had been there the night before during presentations, but it had been darker then, and I’d been too focused on how he was watching me to really notice. Now, it seemed almost like a declaration of war.
The king also took notice of the display and made a clicking sound with his tongue in disgust.
“It’s just armor,” he said simply. But his voice betrayed otherwise.
“Family lore. It’s not the crown. Not the throne.
Sometimes you must give a little to get something in return.
A symbol that means something to the right person, and not to the wrong.
” He jerked his chin at the pavilion beside us, the one covered in flags of red and gray, all complimentary matches to Jaron’s sigil.
This time, Lady Alena watched us in return, her brows narrowed.
He clicked his tongue again, his lips twitching in annoyance.
“I think she still fantasizes about what if my brother had lived.
“Something natural for a grieving widow,” I said.
“Or something more.”
Like that if he had lived, he’d be king. Would King Rowan have been a better ruler than King Tirian? Would I actually be marrying Jaron now if those events had come to pass? Or was all of this always fated to be?
Though even more bewildering was the fact that he’d mentioned the succession to me again. The possibility of a world in which he wasn’t king.
So, this was still a source of insecurity for him. Was that why he told me about his brother yesterday? Why could he not help himself from returning to the subject again? Was he so undisciplined? Or was there some other game afoot?
“But my brother was weak,” he continued. “Always getting sick. And a king who is sick cannot rule.”
I nodded, wishing those in power cared less about the appearance of their physical health, and more about the way they ruled—the kindness they showed, their willingness to actually improve their people’s lives.
The first joust came to an end. Both knights had fallen from their moonstags in the end, and neither got up in time, disqualifying them from moving forward.
Tirian’s jaw tensed, his eyes narrowing with repulsion at the scene. “My health has always been perfect. The most perfect in Eskalon. No man is healthier than me. It’s why I was chosen by Kavrir to rule. My health made me king when my birth time did not.”
“I see.”
“You will,” he said. “You’ll learn that no one is stronger. And yet, you see Jaron,” he gestured again toward his nephew, “he was almost the crown prince. But his father didn’t live, did he?”
And then I knew. He was still testing me.
I may have been a dancer and a whore, but I’d been raised a princess, and I knew better than to fall for that trap.
To acknowledge another monarch or the possibility of a monarch dying.
So I simply said, “You are king, Your Majesty.” As if it were final.
As if it had been destined. Maybe it had been, much as I hated the idea.
Maybe there’d been a prophecy in the Book of Orsete about such a thing.
Or maybe it was just as simple as one brother falling ill, and another being spared.
Or one brother ensuring the other’s continued weakness …
“I am king.” He sounded hollow. “And it’s a good thing.
Eskalon needs a strong ruler at the helm.
Needs a powerful man to defend it and lead.
So, sometimes you give a trinket to get them off your back.
They have the armor that meant something to my father.
Not to me. And not to the kingdom. And in exchange for an antique, I sit here on the throne. ”
I nodded. What he said actually made sense.
I imagined even the King of Eskalon had to appease his nobility, particularly those related to him.
And yet … I didn’t fully believe him. He wanted the armor back.
He knew its meaning ran deeper than mere symbolism, or he wouldn’t have worn it in his youth.
I frowned. This whole conversation, like yesterday's, was supposed to unsettle me, to make me obedient to him.
But instead it revealed that he was not as secure on his throne as he wanted me to believe.
As he needed Eskalon to believe, and all of Eley.
Had my mother known he was so weak? Was that why he betrayed her? Why he had fled from negotiations in Azeal when Brennan and I were still children?
I watched the king carefully. I still couldn’t tell if what he said about the armor being burned was something he believed, or just something he said.
I had a sneaking suspicion that the armor was ancient.
From before the Doom. The kingdom of Eskalon had stolen our Gods, taken Orsete, Kavrir and Batrir, and given them new stories and histories to suit their agendas.
They’d taken the moonstags, wild, ancient creatures of the mountains and sky, and domesticated them to little more than racehorses.
And they had deprived us of land and the ability to visit the ocean.
Why not take armor that was once in our possession?
It would have been a small theft in comparison, the least of their many crimes in the long run.
“It’s especially important to Eskalon that I remain strong now,” he said, “with those damn witches attacking with their chimera—”
“What?” I asked, suddenly pale, the armor forgotten.
“You know we had a chimera attack near a week ago. I know my son felt the need to disclose it to you. Visiting your room all alone. Not that it’s a secret.”
“What’s not secret? That he visited me?” I asked, my stomach turned. “Or that there was an attack?”
There was a leer in the king’s eyes, like he thought the visit salacious. I was reminded again of his threat yesterday. He didn’t care if Princess Olivay appeared ruined before the kingdom. The wedding was still only happening at his pleasure.
“Everyone knows there was an attack,” he said. “His little visit, though,” he made a noise low in his throat, “that’s making the rounds, I hear. But so goes court gossip.” Then he shrugged, leaning over toward me and reaching for my hair. He took hold of a lock and twirled it around his finger.
I stiffened, barely daring to breathe as he tightened his hold, wrapping my hair around himself more tightly, pulling me closer.
I didn’t get the impression he would hurt me, not in the way Jaron had tried to.
And not because the king was above such evil.
He was a man after all, and a king. But I felt more like he couldn’t hurt me in that way.
Not anymore. I’d encountered men like that at Geoffrey’s.
Impotent. Sickly. They were angry—more angry that they couldn’t enact violence than they had the will to do.
And they always tried to take it out on the nearest woman.
Blaming her for his frailty. For all his being a king and a tyrant, Tirian was turning out to be just a pathetic old man.
But as long as the crown remained on his head, a dangerous one.
He liked keeping me unsettled and on edge. As if he needed to do anything other than exist. But this was more than that. We were in public, on display. The tourney was happening, but by the very nature of him being the king, hundreds of eyes remained focused on us—on me at his feet.
I willed my hands to stay open in my lap, to not clench into fists. To not retaliate. To forget that I was here for vengeance against him, that when the time came, I would kill him.
But Olivay wouldn’t. Olivay had no ill will.