Chapter 43
Richard had never held much regard for Alaric.
Seven years ago, the Estaran royal family had visited his home, hoping for a match between Alaric and Ardenia’s still unwed Crown Prince.
Alaric had smiled at Richard charmingly enough, but later that night, he had tormented a servant boy and boasted his crude intentions for Richard before an eighteen-year-old Kaelen.
To this day, Richard knew not what vile words Alaric had uttered. Kaelen had refused then to repeat them, even with execution looming. A consequence of his heavy punch to Alaric’s jaw.
Perhaps it was then, Richard mused, that his curiosity about the squire stirred.
Who was this boy, he’d wondered, who had so foolishly defended his prince’s honour?
Who was this boy, who agreed to a fistfight duel with Alaric’s personal guard, despite being outmatched and outsized?
Richard had warned Kaelen to yield, sure that the boy would be wrecked.
His prediction had come true. Varkos had fractured Kaelen’s arm and battered him so thoroughly that the boy had barely been able to stand.
But stand, Kaelen had done, to the very end. With sheer will, he’d pushed himself up, legs quivering, arm hanging useless, and his defiant grin bloodied. Refusing until the end to yield. How the Ardenian crowd had roared, how Richard, too, had held his breath in awe—
And now, Sir Varkos was staggering up, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth into his beard. He spat on the floor, prodded a tooth with his tongue, and guffawed.
“Bloody hells.” He grinned at the table, where Richard had forced Kaelen to sit beside him. “The whelp has grown up.”
Kaelen peered past Richard, and his glare—that had been pointed at Alaric on the opposing bench—simmered into shocked recognition. He made as if to get off the bench, and Richard yanked him back down, not trusting Kaelen to hold his fists.
“Sir Varkos,” Kaelen gasped, straining against Richard’s grip. “I—I do apologise. I struck before I thought. That was not honourable of me.”
“Lad.” Varkos cupped his jaw and rolled it, wincing. “I landed you in the healing wing for days last time. You owed me one. Call us square.”
Kaelen returned his smile tentatively. “Square, then, Sir.”
“There’s a good lad,” Varkos said. “Gods, but the boy hits like a horse now. Did you see that, Your Highness? Felt as if my skull went one way and my brains the other.”
“Yes, I saw,” Alaric scoffed. “You are rather outliving your usefulness, Sir Varkos. By all measures, I should replace you with a younger knight.”
He still wore court clothes, Richard noted. Under the dusty black cloak, slivers of a deep blue tunic poked out, with stag horns embroidered around the seams.
“So.” Nyx propped her chin on her fist. She’d already cleared the room of the other rebels, snapping orders at them to check on the situation above ground. “Suppose someone tells me why the King of bleedin’ Ardenia is in my kitchen.”
Richard set his hands flat on the table. “I am here on a mission. There is an island near the coast. I require to reach it, with Kaelen and one other.” He ignored the curious expressions that followed, and raised a brow at Alaric. “And you? What are you doing at a rebel’s table?”
Alaric exchanged a glance with Varkos. “The burning is the only hour in which I may leave without a tail.”
“You are in league with the rebels?”
Alaric shrugged. “I tell Nyx what’s been said behind closed doors, how the factions are moving, where my father intends to send his soldiers. Then I go back. I smile at my father and darling stepmother. I drink and play the part of the idiot prince so as to keep my sister and me alive another day.”
“So you are a spy in your own father’s house,” Richard said, surprised. “What was it that changed your thinking?”
“Oh, I don’t know, Your Majesty.” Alaric snorted.
“Suppose I started feeling ill at ease after watching the fifth person scream as their skin blistered. Or suppose it was after my big brother died, and my father sought to marry Calentrius’s widow—a woman no older than Penelope.
I told Father then.” Alaric scraped a hand down his face.
“I told him that Brother’s wine had been poisoned, that none other than Octavia could have done so.
He didn’t believe me.” His hand trembled.
“By Ignatious, my mother would weep to see such a farce. It has all gone to the hells.”
Richard grimaced. Put so plainly, he could not help but feel a measure of sympathy. The same, it seemed, applied to Kaelen. Gingerly, the knight patted Alaric’s other hand upon the table.
“I am sorry for your loss,” Kaelen said.
Alaric blinked at the hand, at Kaelen, and with a look of outrage, ripped his arm away.
“I have no need for your sympathies, vermin,” he spluttered. “You lowborn ingrate—”
He yelped as Nyx clouted him on the ear.
“I keep telling ya,” she snapped. “Mind yer manners. I’m lowborn too, I am.”
Alaric flushed and rubbed at his ear. “Ah—well—you—you are different.”
Nyx rolled her eyes. “You’re a snivelling pup, you are. And it ain’t that bad. Have your sister still, don’t you? You ought to introduce me.”
“She’s a fool who’ll have us all killed by supper,” Alaric muttered. “Penny can’t lie to save her life.”
Richard stared. This was new. This was an Alaric he did not think could ever come to be. “How did this relationship between you and Nyx come to be?”
Alaric opened his mouth, but Nyx spoke first. “Two summers past. I’d snuck into the fortress to put a blade through his father’s throat.
Dressed as a scullery maid, I did. Got all the way to the king’s chambers before I were spotted and had to run.
Then this one steps out of the shadows and grabs my wrist. He could’ve called the guards.
Could’ve had me burned the next morning.
” Nyx smiled at Alaric. “Instead, this princeling here—this spoiled, wine-soaked excuse for royalty—snuck me out and told me he wanted to help.”
“She was remarkably persuasive,” Alaric muttered, examining his nails.
“I—” Nyx cocked her head. She clicked her fingers, and glowing blue lines appeared along the perimeter of the room.
She glanced around and clicked her fingers again.
They disappeared. “Anyway, he started slipping me information. Patrol routes, supply schedules, troop movements, court informants. It’s come in mighty handy.
” She fluttered her fingers at Alaric. “Our prince here’s been feeding the Broken Stag for two years. ”
Richard studied Alaric with some surprise. The arrogance was still there, plain to see. But with his trimmed beard, tired eyes and short hair, he looked less a peacock and more a leader.
“Tell me of your stepmother,” Richard said. “Penelope said that Queen Octavia commands the court?”
Alaric’s expression darkened. “Octavia is the reason my father’s court functions at all.
She is the reason the burnings have tripled in the past year.
She is the reason every man, woman, and child in this realm lives in terror of a knock upon their door.
The factions are in her hand, you see. Through holding their secrets or promising them power, she dominates them all.
” He held out a finger. “The Iron Wardens control the garrisons. Ten thousand soldiers sworn to General Marsten, who answers, in truth, only to Octavia.”
He flicked up a second finger. “The Ashen Choir are priests of Ignatious. They run the burnings, manage the inquisitions, and maintain the lists of heretics and traitors. High Priest Eldwulf is a fanatic who believes Ignatious speaks to him through the flames. Octavia’s convinced him that the divine flame demand obedience to the crown and that the crown speaks through her.
” The third finger. “The Gilded Scales. Merchant lords. House Velantis—her family—controls the trade routes. House Carroway holds the fishing fleets and the salt mines. House Thorne owns half the farmland in the western provinces. She has relatives in them all.” Fourth finger.
“The fourth faction has the least power—the Silvered Tongues. They are the courtiers, the diplomats, the minor lords and ladies. They have no army or gold, but they have information. Lady Harisse leads them, and she is Octavia’s closest friend.
Octavia learns of every secret in the kingdom and trades them like coins. ”
Richard rapped his fingers against the table. It was an interesting state of affairs. Four factions. Military, faith, commerce, and politics, and all answering to Octavia. “And your father?”
Alaric laughed bitterly. “My father believes he is king. He lounges on the throne, wears the crown, and watches the burnings from his balcony. He signs whatever Octavia places before him and laughs at her jokes. He thinks the realm flourishes because she tells him it does.”
“Why not simply remove them both?” Kaelen hefted his elbows onto the table. “Kill your father and Octavia, and end it.”
“Because the factions do not care who sits on the throne,” Alaric snapped.
“If my father and Octavia die tomorrow, General Marsten seizes the military and declares martial law. High Priest Eldwulf proclaims divine judgement and calls for holy war. The merchant lords barricade the harbours and strangle the trade routes. And my sister and I—” He gritted his teeth.
“Penny and I are expendable. We have no power, no leverage. Within a week, one faction or another would have us killed and install their own puppet.”
Richard leaned back from the table with a sneer. “Your father is a fool, Alaric, but you have been more so. Had you performed your responsibilities as a prince earlier instead of leading a careless life, you would have secured the factions’ support.”
He’d expected anger to greet his statement, but Alaric only flushed, and shame flitted through his features.