The Fire Prince (The Cursed Kingdoms Trilogy Book 2) (31 page)

“Good.” Cora stood. “Justen, can you get a bow, please? And a hundred of those arrows.”

“I
F YOU WERE
a Fithian using a throwing star to knock an arrow out of the sky, you’d aim ahead of the arrow,” Cora said. “Magic isn’t like that. You’re not trying to anticipate where the arrow will be. Take sight of it and throw your magic at it. As long as you keep your eyes on it, the magic will find it. Take your eyes
off
the arrow and you’ll probably miss.”

Harkeld nodded.

“Ready?”

He nodded again and flexed his hands, as if readying for a fight. Fire magic tingled in his blood. He eyed Justen, thirty yards distant.

“All right, Justen,” Cora called.

Justen raised the bow and fired, sending an arrow upwards. At the peak of its arc Harkeld raised his right hand.
Burn
.

The arrow burst into flames.

Satisfaction flared in his chest.
Got the bastard
.

The arrow curved across the sky like a small comet, burying itself in the mud fifty yards away.

Harkeld lowered his hand. “Someone could see this. Woodcutters—”

“Petrus says there’s no one within leagues of us.”

He nodded and watched Justen draw back the bowstring again.

“Make your fire hotter,” Cora said. “See if you can burn the arrow to ash.”

Justen released the bowstring.

Harkeld watched the arrow climb. He threw the hottest fire he could. The arrow ignited in a white-hot burst of flame and then vanished, leaving nothing except a smudge of ash. Even the iron arrowhead seemed to have burned.

“Like that?” Harkeld said, conscious of smugness in his chest. He looked across at Justen. The armsman was gaping upwards, mouth open.

“Yes,” Cora said. “Exactly like that.” She gestured to Justen. The armsman obediently reached for another arrow.

Harkeld burned that arrow and the next and the next, leaving nothing but ash in the sky. Each white-hot flare of fire seemed to ease the pressure of his rage.

“Lower the angle,” Cora called.

Justen obeyed. The arc became shallower, the arrows faster.

Harkeld had to concentrate harder.
Burn. Burn
.

By the time dusk fell, there was barely any arc in the arrows’ flight. Justen was aiming a few yards to Harkeld’s left, each arrow whizzing past almost too fast to see.
Burn
. And another arrow.
Burn
.

The light faded. Justen lowered the bow.

Harkeld glanced at Cora.

“Impressive,” she said. “You didn’t miss any.”

Harkeld dismissed the words with a shrug. He didn’t need Cora’s praise, and certainly didn’t
want
it.

“Tomorrow, if you feel confident, we’ll have Justen aim at you.”

His smugness faltered slightly.
At
me?

“Don’t worry, Katlen and I will make sure none of them hit you.”

Harkeld lifted his chin. “You won’t need to.”

I
NNIS COULDN’T FIND
the prince in the palace gardens. She finally found him leaning against the topmost parapet of King Magnas’s castle watching the sun set behind the Graytooth Mountains. “What are you doing here?”

He shrugged, not looking at her. Still angry, then.

Innis took his hand. Anger, yes, but even stronger was humiliation.

“They watched me. They rutting
watched
me. Why didn’t they tell me they’d do that? If they’d told me I’d never have—” His humiliation rose. She could feel it, like an agitated, painful cramp.

Innis tried to heal his anger and humiliation, sending cool serenity flowing into him. “Let’s go to the gardens.” She stood on tiptoe and kissed his cheek, a silent invitation to sex. “It’ll make you feel better.”

Harkeld pulled his hand from hers and rubbed his face so hard she saw his fingertips whiten. “No.”

“Why not?”

“I’m too angry. If I have sex with you, I’ll hurt you. And I know you’re only a dream, but I
can’t
.”

Innis took his hand again.
Calm. Serenity.

Harkeld sighed. “The first time I ever had sex was here. When I was fourteen. King Magnas arranged it.” He turned his head and looked at her. “But you know that.”

I’m not your dreaming mind. I’m me
. But she kept the thought suppressed.

“I never asked why, but now I can’t help thinking... why did he do that?”

“Perhaps he saw you were ready.”

“Thinking about sex? Yes, all the time. But ready for it? I was only a boy, for all I thought I was grown up.”

Innis thought back to King Magnas. He’d had the same astute wisdom as Dareus. “If he had a purpose, what do you think it was?”

Harkeld’s frown deepened. “I think... he thought that if I went back to Osgaard, I’d start raping bondservants, the way everyone does there, and that’s just cursed
insulting
. As if I would have! As if I
could
have, after two years living here!”

“I’m sure he didn’t think that.”

“Until I came here, I thought bondservants were lower than animals. I thought they were moving pieces of furniture. If I hadn’t been fostered here, I’d have raped them just as... as
casually
as everyone else does.”

“You were a child.”

“I was a blind Osgaardan idiot!”

“
Were
a blind Osgaardan idiot. You’re not now.”

He turned away without a smile. “If I hadn’t been fostered here, I’d be another Jaegar. King Magnas was right to do it. To arrange it, to give me that lecture.”

“Lecture?”

“You remember.”

No. I don’t
. “Tell me anyway.”

For a moment she thought he’d refuse, and then he blew out a breath and stared out over the ramparts. “A month before I went home, King Magnas arranged for me to have a liaison with one of the maidservants. He sat me down and lectured me beforehand. I can still remember most of it word for word... ‘Sex is about sharing, Harkeld. Make sure you give as much as you take.’”

The emotion coming from him now wasn’t humiliation. She was aware of how deeply he respected King Magnas.

“‘Never force a woman to have sex. Never punish a woman with sex. Never have sex in anger.’” He glanced at her. “And then he said to never hurt a woman during sex unless she asks you to. I didn’t understand that then.”

Innis wasn’t sure she did. “What else did he say?”

“Oh... a man is responsible for his own seed.” He grimaced. “I forgot that in Gdelsk. I didn’t ask.”

“I’m sure she used a sponge. She’d have been more cautious otherwise, wouldn’t she?”

Harkeld shrugged. “And he said that personally he preferred women who were clean, and that out of respect, he always bathed before he went to a woman. Oh, and all that stuff about political marriages. But that was afterwards. Once I’d actually done it.”

“What about political marriages?”

“That even if a marriage is loveless, one should visit one’s wife’s bed with respect and kindness and then seek one’s own pleasure discreetly elsewhere.”

“King Magnas’s marriage was arranged?” There’d been no queen at the castle.

“His first was. A political match between Lundegaard and Urel. She died giving birth to Tomas. His second was a love match, but barren. Queen Berthe died several years ago. She was a very pleasant woman. Kind.”

An image came into her mind—a woman with ash-blonde hair and humorous eyes. Was that Berthe? Was she seeing his memory of the queen?

“You liked her?”

Harkeld nodded.

“Your foster parents meant more to you than your own parents?”

He glanced at her. “That’s a stupid question, isn’t it?”

Innis felt herself flush. It was a stupid question. The prince’s own mother had died when he was still in swaddling clothes, and as for his father...

Memory gave her an image of King Esger seated on his throne, obese and malevolent.
Be silent! Or I shall have your tongue cut out
. She repressed a shiver. “I’m glad you had King Magnas and Queen Berthe.”

“So am I. I hate to think who I’d have been otherwise.”

“You’d have been you. Just as you are now.”

He shook his head. “I’ve have been like Jaegar.”

“Or maybe like your sister.”

“Britta?” Grief flowed from him, sharp, painful, before he broke their handclasp and turned away.

“I’m sorry,” Innis said, dismayed.
He’s trying not to cry
. She touched the prince’s elbow, stepped closer, hugged him. She felt the turmoil of his emotions. Grief was dominant now.

“I hope she’s all right.” His voice was low, like a prayer. “And the boys. I hope they’re all right.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

T
HE NEXT TIME
the armsman left the cabin, he returned with two pieces of rusted chain. He ripped up their palace clothes—his scarlet armsman’s tunic, Yasma’s coarse cotton shift, her own silk undergown and long, silver-embroidered overtunic—and tore the two dung-covered blankets into strips with his dagger. The boys spent several happy hours knotting the pieces of fabric to the chains. “They look like hairy caterpillars,” Lukas said.

Britta tied her and Yasma’s palace shoes to one of the chains.

“Now it has feet!” Rutgar said, giggling with delight.

Karel dropped the chains out the window that night. Faint splashes drifted back on the breeze.

Britta felt even safer. Her princess’s clothes were gone, buried deep, where no one could ever find them.
Watch me vanish, Jaegar
.

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

T
HE PORT TOWNS
that straddled the border between Roubos and Ankeny were Drobil on the Roubos side, and Droznic on the Ankeny. There was no difference in customs and dress that Jaumé could see. The border was marked by a placid river with muddy banks, crossed by a dozen bridges.

Jaumé saw how people made way for Nolt and his band.
They know we’re soldiers,
he thought proudly. And he was one of them. He not only wore his knife, he carried his bow and the three arrows he’d made.

They rode through Drobil and crossed a bridge lined with market stalls. Nolt didn’t stop, although there was food to buy. In Droznic, they turned down to the waterfront. Men worked unloading the barges that carried goods from ships anchored further out. Jaumé listened to their shouts back and forth, but nowhere heard the accents of his home, Vaere.

They turned into a street leading away from the wharves. Nolt stopped before a courtyard with wooden gates. He called out a word Jaumé didn’t know.

“Is this an inn?” he asked Bennick.

“A house.”