“Watch where you’re throwing that fork,” Jerrod muttered.
Suddenly Prince Damian strode in, with Antonio right behind him.
We all rose to our feet simultaneously. My stomach lurched into my rib cage as he strode past me without even a glance in my direction. I hadn’t seen the prince since the night before, and the memory of everything that had passed between us made my neck grow hot and my cheeks flush. Hopefully, anyone who noticed would blame it on the sweltering night.
“I hear I am to meet the newest member of my guard tonight.” He circled around the table and took his chair at the head of the table. Once he was seated, we all sat back down, except for Mateo.
“My prince, it is an honor to join your esteemed guard.” Mateo bowed his head, his right fist pressed to his left shoulder.
“Yes, yes, you can sit down.” Prince Damian gestured at him before grabbing a drumstick from the plate in front of him. “What is your name?”
“Mateo, my liege,” he said as he took his seat once more.
“Well, then, Mateo, welcome. Now let’s enjoy this feast before it grows any colder.”
And with that, everyone returned to eating. Conversations rose again, building into a cacophony of noise, hammering through my brain. My skull ached, the pain growing worse every time I looked at Prince Damian. He didn’t meet my gaze once. Had he really treated me any differently last night or had I imagined it? I forced myself to take a bite of the macaw roasted in mint leaves, but the freshly flavored meat was greasy and cold in my mouth. I could barely swallow it. I longed for the quiet and solitude of my room — until I remembered I didn’t have my own room anymore.
I didn’t know how much time passed, only that the pounding in my head was nearly unbearable, when the prince suddenly pushed his chair away from the table and stood up. We all jumped out of our seats as well, standing at attention.
“I have business to attend to, so I must reluctantly leave the celebration.”
“Ahem.” Nolen cleared his throat from the corner of the room. He’d been so silent, I’d almost forgotten he was there. “Don’t forget your father’s, ah, desires.”
Prince Damian’s face darkened, but he nodded curtly. “Of course not. We wouldn’t wish to anger my father.” He looked around the table before his gaze landed on me for the first time all night. “Alex, you will accompany me. The rest of you may enjoy the remainder of your meal. Welcome once more, Mateo. May you serve me well.” The prince inclined his head at Mateo, who bowed in return. Then Damian marched past the length of the table and swept out of the room. I hurried to follow him, my scabbard hitting my leg with each step as I tried to ignore the way my heart suddenly began to pound.
He strode down the hallway without looking back, or acknowledging any of the servants or guests he passed. I practically had to jog to keep up with his longer stride. He walked by the ballroom, then the stairs to his wing, but kept going without even pausing.
The palace was a massive conglomerate of hundreds of years of additions, constructed by kings and queens each trying to outdo the previous monarchs. The newer wings were more open, more opulent. But for some reason, Prince Damian marched right on through them all, on and on, twisting and turning through the palace until we were in the southwest wing, where the oldest monarchs lived long ago. I wasn’t very familiar with this wing. It was almost always empty, practically abandoned. As we walked through the much darker hallways, I couldn’t quite suppress a shudder.
He finally stopped before a nondescript door. “Stay here, Alex. I’ll only be a moment.”
“My lord, not to question you, but the king’s orders were to —”
“Are you working for the king or for me, Alex?” Prince Damian’s expression was cold, almost frightening in the dimness of the barren hallway.
“You, my prince, of course.”
“Then stay here.”
He reached out, opened the door, and slipped into the room before I could make out anything beyond an empty bed.
For once, it wasn’t sweltering in the palace as I stood waiting for Prince Damian. In fact, a light breeze wafted down the hallway, gently lifting the hair on the back of my neck. Despite the cooler temperature, sweat still beaded on my skin, making my hands damp. What was he doing in there? If something happened to him, I would be as good as dead. What was I supposed to say to King Hector if Prince Damian got himself killed? He wouldn’t let me come in the room with him probably would not be enough to save my skin.
Blasted prince and his blasted secrets. I began to pace, stomping harder with every turn past the door, which remained firmly shut. What little light had been shining through the one stained-glass window in the hallway had long since disappeared, leaving the wing in almost total darkness.
I wasn’t fond of the dark. In fact, according to Marcel, it was my biggest fear. Well, that and snakes. I tried to control my fear, but as I continued my vigil in front of the door, I suddenly had the feeling I was being watched. I forced myself to continue walking back and forth a couple of more times, but I slowed my pace, made less noise. I glanced left and right, straining against the shadows to try and make out who might be hiding in the gloom. A friend or foe?
For some reason, I thought back to my fight against Eljin earlier that day. I was suddenly afraid it had been the wrong decision not to report my suspicions immediately. I let my hand drop down to rest on the hilt of my sword, making it a casual gesture, even though my whole body hummed with tension. I needed to rectify my mistake as soon as possible and let Deron know. Unless Eljin was the one at the other end of this hallway, preparing to attack. I could beat anyone — any natural man or woman. But I was no match for magic. No one was.
Not even Papa had been, and he was the best fighter I’d ever seen. Swords were useless against the fire that sorcerers wielded.
My blood pulsed hot through my body, and I tensed, waiting for the strike that I sensed was coming.
When the door flung open beside me, I nearly jumped out of my skin. Prince Damian emerged, holding a lit torch. Light spilled into the hallway, scattering the shadows nearest us into oblivion. I spun to face the unknown assailant, my grip tight on the hilt of my sword, but the hallway was empty.
“Let’s go,” Prince Damian said, brushing past me. The door to the room was already shut. In my attempt to see if someone had really been hiding in the corridor, I’d missed the chance to try to look into the room he’d been in for so long.
Frustrated and still on edge, I followed him. There was no sign of anyone else anywhere in the southwest wing. But I trusted my instincts. We hadn’t been alone.
DESPITE HOW EXHAUSTED I was, I couldn’t sleep as I lay on the cot outside Prince Damian’s room. Now that Mateo had officially joined the guard and taken Marcel’s empty bed, I was grateful for my assignment guarding Prince Damian’s door. I lay under the blanket, still wearing the same binding and tunic, having only dared do a quick wash with a wet cloth again.
The skylight above me glowed with the white light of the nearly full moon as I stared up at the ceiling. Though I kept my body still, my mind spun around and around mercilessly. When Damian and I returned, it had been so late, Deron was already in his room for the night. I hadn’t been able to warn him about Eljin.
What was Eljin’s goal — why was he here? Why had he fought me and purposely lost? And what was the prince involved in? Why was he including me now?
I needed Marcel. As he’d said only a couple of nights ago, I was the better fighter, but he’d been smarter. He would have been able to tell me what to do. He would have been able to figure out what was going on. My eyes burned and I shut them, pressing the heels of my hands against them to push the emotion away. I tried to force myself not to think about Marcel’s death, not to long for him, because there was nothing I could do to change what had happened. I couldn’t bring him back. Death was final. I knew it all too well.
And now Tanoori, who had once been a weaver’s innocent daughter, would die as w
ell.
My stomach twisted and I had to jump out of bed and rush over to the corner of the room. I barely made it in time to heave the contents of my stomach into the dark belly of the chamber pot. Over and over, I wretched, until there was nothing left but bile, burning as it came up. Finally, tears running down my cheeks and my stomach aching, I was done. I shakily put the lid on the chamber pot to smother the smell until I could gather enough strength to do something with it.
I heard the door behind me slip open right before the prince asked, “Alex? What in the name of Antion are you doing on the floor?”
I jumped up, stepping in front of the chamber pot, pressing my fist to my chest. “My prince, why are you up? Do you need something?”
We locked gazes across the room, the pale moonlight washing over him, transforming him into a specter come to haunt me.
“I need to speak with you,” Prince Damian said. “And unfortunately, the only time I dared broach this subject with you was the middle of the night, when I knew there would be no listening ears. However, since it would appear that you are not having a very good night, perhaps I should wait for another time.”
“Of course not, Your Highness. I am at your service, always.”
“You’re sick, Alex.”
“No, my lord. I was indisposed by … emotional upset. I’m fine now.” I prayed he couldn’t see the way my hands trembled in the indistinct light of the moon.
“‘Indisposed by emotional upset’?” Prince Damian echoed, one eyebrow lifting. “Are you so ill at ease with me that you feel you have to hide being upset over your brother’s death?”
I didn’t respond, staring at his chin rather than meeting his eyes.
He gestured to the cot. “Alex, come, sit down. You don’t need to stand at attention right now.”
I haltingly stepped forward but couldn’t bring myself to sit down on the bed while my prince stood before me.
“Please sit down. We don’t need to always stand on such ceremony, especially when you aren’t feeling your best and it’s the middle of the night.”
We stood there in silence as I battled with myself. I couldn’t stop thinking about his nightmare, how I’d stared at him and even let myself dream of him holding me in his arms. How I’d imagined kissing him. We were treading on dangerous water. The closer I allowed us to become, the harder it would be to keep the truth from him. And no matter what, I could never let him find out my secret.
Before I decided what to do, he did as he’d asked me to do, and sat down on the cot with a sigh. He propped his elbows on his knees and dropped his head into his hands. “I know I told you that I kept a stiff upper lip when my brother died, but that wasn’t exactly the truth.”
I stared down at his bowed head, my heart picking up speed. Whatever it was I’d been expecting him to talk to me about, a confession about his own brother’s death wasn’t it.
“When did you come to the palace — three, maybe four, years ago?”
I nodded, but he didn’t look up. “A little over three years ago, in the army barracks, my lord.”
“Then you never knew Victor. He was older than me and he was the rightful heir.”
So slowly my knee actually creaked in protest, I gingerly lowered myself down to sit beside him on the cot.
Damian turned to look at me. There was an expression of such undisguised anguish on his face, it took my breath away. “I loved my brother. He was killed by an assassin — a hired sorcerer. I was with him before he died, but when we heard the sounds of fighting, he made me leave. There was a passageway from his room to mine. No one else knew of it. He told me to leave and I never saw him alive again.”
I fought valiantly to maintain my composure, but it was a losing battle. “Why are you telling me this, my lord?”
“Because you, of all people, understand. Because, for a while now, I’ve known that of anyone on my guard, you’re the one I can trust. I wish that you wouldn’t continue to pretend with me, Alex. I’m telling you this so that you may know that you’re not the only one who puts on a show for everyone around him. You’re not the only one playing a part.”
My heart jumped into my throat. I blinked rapidly to clear my eyes, meeting Damian’s pointed gaze with a feeling like a hand had reached beneath my ribs and was squeezing the air out of my lungs. My suspicions of him were true, then — he wasn’t the man he portrayed himself to be. But was he trying to say he knew my secret?
“The fact that you’ve continued on, acting as though nothing can shake you, even though losing your brother was obviously a horrible blow, proves how alike we are.”
I slowly exhaled, the vise on my lungs releasing. He believed the part I played was that of a dedicated guard, unaffected by the loss of his brother. Did Damian suspect that I was hiding far more than that? “Why did you have to pretend your brother’s death didn’t affect you?” I asked to cover up how flustered I was.
“Because a prince of Antion can’t afford to have emotions like love or sorrow or grief. Not unless he wants them used against him.”
An uncomfortable silence fell upon us and I looked away from Prince Damian to stare at my bare feet on the floor. It hit me again, how very little I really knew about the prince I’d served day and night for the last year. Before these last couple of days, it had never occurred to me that the haughty, spoiled person I disliked might be nothing more than an act. But I still didn’t understand why. Why go to such lengths to make your own people despise you? The man sitting next to me on the bed, talking about the loss of his brother, was someone I could grow to respect, even like.
“I need someone I can trust right now, Alex. And I hope I have chosen correctly in thinking that person is you.”
“Of course, my lord.”
“You may call me Damian when we’re alone. I get tired of all the my lords and Your Highnesses all the time.” He sighed, and I glanced over at him. There was nothing of the mocking royal heir I was used to in his expression. Instead, there was only a great weariness that lined his face beyond his years. Sitting this close, looking at him in the moonlight, I was struck by how young he really was — and yet, how old at the same time.
“My lo — um, Damian.” I haltingly spoke his name, my heart skidding a bit beneath my rib cage. “I don’t understand what you need me for. If you want me to trust you, I need to understand what you’re doing at night. The secret passageways and letters and everything else.”
Damian’s expression was unreadable in the darkness, but his pale eyes pierced me. “If you prove your trustworthiness, in time, I hope to be able to answer your questions. But for now I need to ask you to do something for me.”
“I am at your bidding, my lord.”
“Ah,” he said, “so we’re back to my lord, are we? I didn’t mean to offend you.” Damian paused and shook his head. “I don’t like being so secretive, but I have no choice. Half of my family has already been murdered. And though I believe I’ve chosen wisely in trusting you, I have to make absolutely certain before I reveal any more. I hope you can understand.”
I was silent for several seconds. He was right to be so cautious. It was presumptuous of me even to have asked him to explain himself. I was lucky he didn’t punish me for my audacity. My exhaustion, my emotional state, the moonlight on his face, the low timbre of his voice had encouraged me to become too lax.
But he was correct; we were more alike than I thought. Except both of my parents had been murdered by the enemy, not just one.
“I understand,” I said and I felt him relax slightly next to me, as if the possibility that I might remain upset with him had made him worried.
“I do hope to be able to tell you more someday soon. It would be a … relief to have someone to confide in.” Damian glanced over at me. “Don’t you agree?”
Now it was my turn to stiffen. “What is it that you would like me to do?” I asked, ignoring his question. My heartbeat was probably visible in my neck, it was pounding so hard.
Damian
looked at me for a long moment, his expression inscrutable in the moonlight. “The girl who attacked me,” he finally said, “the one who is to hang tomorrow, belongs to the group that was also responsible for killing my brother. It’s a rebel group that seems to believe killing us both will break my father and end this war. They are unfortunately wrong, if they think losing his last son will stop the king. I believe I have discovered where their headquarters are and I need you to deliver a message for me.”
“You wish to send a message to the people who want you dead, and you want me to deliver it?”
“Yes. Does that frighten you?” He pursed his lips, attempting to suppress a small smile.
“Of course not. I just don’t understand what you hope to accomplish.”
“If you prove faithful to me, I will try to explain it all. But not yet. If they question you, it would be better if you can honestly say you don’t know why I sent you. I will give you the message on parchment, closed with my official seal.”
I contemplated him silently for a moment. He couldn’t know that Tanoori had already told me about this group, that she’d tried to convince me to finish the job for her. Now here Prince Damian was, asking me to go to them on his behalf. “Where is it I’m supposed to go?”
“I will procure a small map for you with exact directions. It’s a network of caves about half a day’s travel from here to the northeast. It’s a place they call the Heart of the Rivers because three different rivers all converge near the entrance to their lair.”
“You wish me to go alone into the jungle?”
Damian cocked his head slightly to the side, appraising me. “You are afraid. But that’s a good thing,” he continued when I tried to protest. “People who are too cocky in the jungle end up dead.” He tapped one slender finger against his lips. “Is there anyone else on the guard whom you trust without reservation? Someone you could take with you who wouldn’t ask questions? You couldn’t tell him about this” — he gestured between us — “or the letters or anything else.”