“Princess?” Theon asked, as if looking for her command to intervene. She put her hand on his arm to stop him. This didn’t need to become more of a scene than it already was.
“Let’s go, Aron.” She exchanged a worried look with Mira, who nervously set down her second glass of wine.
Aron’s attention didn’t leave Tomas. “How dare you insult me?”
“You should obey your little girlfriend and leave,” Tomas advised. “The sooner the better.”
“And as soon as your father fetches the cases of wine for me, I’d be more than happy to do just that.”
“Forget the wine. Walk away and consider yourself lucky that I didn’t make a bigger deal of your insult toward my father. He is trusting and willing to undersell himself. I am not.”
Aron bristled, his previous calm now thrust aside by offense and inebriation, making him much braver than he should be when faced with two tall, muscular Paelsians. “Do you have any idea who I am?”
“Do we care?” Jonas and his brother exchanged a glance.
“I am Aron Lagaris, son of Sebastien Lagaris, lord of Elder’s Pitch. I stand here in your market accompanied by none other than Princess Cleiona Bellos of Auranos. Show respect to us both.”
“This is ridiculous, Aron.” Cleo hissed a small breath from between her teeth. She did wish that he wouldn’t put on such airs. Mira slipped her arm through Cleo’s and squeezed her hand. Let’s go, she seemed to be signaling.
“Oh, your highness.” Sarcasm dripped from Jonas’s words as he mock-bowed. “Both of your highnesses. It is a true honor to be in your shining presence.”
“I could have you beheaded for such disrespect,” Aron slurred. “Both of you and your father. Your sister too.”
“Leave my sister out of this,” Tomas growled.
“Let me guess, if it’s her wedding day, I’ll assume she’s already with child? I’ve heard Paelsian girls don’t wait for marriage before they spread their legs to anyone with enough coin to pay.” Aron glanced at Felicia, who looked mortified and indignant. “I have some money. Perhaps you might give me a half hour of your attentions before dusk.”
“Aron!” Cleo snapped, appalled.
That she was totally ignored by him was no surprise. Jonas turned his furious gaze on her—so hot she felt singed by it.
Tomas, who seemed the marginally less hotheaded of the two brothers, turned the darkest, most venomous glare she’d ever seen in her life on Aron. “I could kill you for saying such a thing about my sister.”
Aron gave him a thin smile. “Try it.”
Cleo finally cast a look over her shoulder at a frustrated-looking Theon, whom she’d basically commanded not to intervene. It was clear to her now that she had no control over this situation. All she wanted to do was go back to the ship and leave all this unpleasantness far behind. But it was too late for that now.
Powered by the insult toward his sister, Tomas flew at Aron with fists clenched. Mira gasped and put her hands over her eyes. There was no doubt Tomas would easily win a fight between the two and beat the thinner Aron into a bloody pulp. But Aron had a weapon—his fashionable jeweled dagger he wore at his hip.
It was now in his grip.
Tomas didn’t see the knife. When he drew closer and grabbed hold of Aron’s shirt, Aron thrust his blade into Tomas’s throat. The boy’s hands shot up to his neck as the blood began to gush, his eyes wide with shock and pain. A moment later, he fell to his knees and then fully hit the ground. His hands clawed at his throat, the dagger still deeply embedded there. Blood swiftly formed a crimson puddle around the boy’s head.
It had all happened so fast.
Cleo clamped her hand against her mouth to keep from screaming. Another did scream—Felicia let out a piercing wail of horror that turned Cleo’s blood ice cold. And suddenly the rest of the market collectively took notice of what had happened.
Shouts sliced through the market. There was a sudden rush of bodies all around her, pushing and shoving. She shrieked. Theon clamped his arm around Cleo’s waist and roughly yanked her backward. Jonas had started for her and Aron, grief and fury etched onto his face. Theon pushed Mira in front of him and pulled Cleo under his arm, Aron close behind. They fled the market while Jonas’s enraged words pursued them.
“You’re dead! I’ll kill you for this! Both of you!”
“He deserved it,” Aron growled. “He was going to try to kill me. I was defending myself.”
“Keep going, your lordship,” grunted Theon, sounding disgusted. They pushed their way through the crowd, making their stumbling way onto the road back to the ship.
Tomas would never live to see his sister get married. Felicia would never see her brother again—instead she’d witnessed his murder on her wedding day. The wine Cleo had drunk churned and soured in her stomach. She yanked away from Theon’s grip and threw up onto the path.
She could have had Theon stop this before it got so far out of control. But she hadn’t.
No pursuers seemed to be following them, and after a while it became clear that the Paelsians were letting them leave. They slowed to a fast stride. Cleo kept her head down, holding on to Mira for support. The foursome walked through the dusty landscape in absolute silence.
Cleo thought she’d never get the image of the boy’s pain-filled eyes out of her mind.
Jonas collapsed to his knees and stared with horror at the ornate dagger sticking out of Tomas’s throat. Tomas moved his hand as if to try to pull it out, but he couldn’t manage it. Shaking, Jonas curled his hand around the hilt. It took effort to pull it free. Then he clamped his other hand down over the wound. Hot red blood gushed from between his fingers.
Felicia screamed behind him. “Tomas, no! Please!”
The life faded from Tomas’s eyes with every slowing beat of his heart.
Jonas’s thoughts were jumbled and unclear. It felt as if this moment froze in time for him as his brother’s life drained away.
A wedding. There was a wedding today. Felicia’s wedding. She’d agreed to marry a friend of theirs—Paulo. They’d jokingly given him a hard time when they announced their engagement a month ago. At least, before they welcomed him into their family with open arms.
A big celebration was planned unlike anything their poor village would see again for a very long time. Food, drink...and plenty of Felicia’s pretty friends for the Agallon brothers to choose from to help forget their daily troubles carving out an existence for their family in a dying land like Paelsia. The boys were the best of friends—and unbeatable in anything they attempted together.
Until now.
Panic swelled in Jonas’s chest and he looked frantically around at the swarm of locals for someone to help. “Can’t something be done? Is there a healer here?”
His hands were slick with Tomas’s blood. His brother’s body convulsed and he made a sickening gurgling sound as more blood gushed from his mouth.
“I don’t understand.” Jonas’s voice broke. Felicia clutched his arm, her wails of panic and grief deafening. “It happened so fast. Why? Why did this happen?”
His father stood helplessly nearby, his face grief-stricken but stoic. “It’s fate, son.”
“Fate?” Jonas spat out, rage blazing bright inside him. “This is not fate! This was not meant to be. This—this was done at the hands of a Auranian royal who considers us dirt beneath his feet.”
Paelsia had been in steady decline for generations, the land slowly wasting away, while their closest neighbors continued to live in luxury and excess, refusing them aid, refusing them even the right to hunt on their overstocked land when it was their fault in the first place that Paelsia lacked sufficient resources to feed its people. It had been the harshest winter on record. The days were tolerable, but the nights were frigid within the thin walls of their cottage. Dozens
, at least, had frozen to death in their small homes or starved.
No one died from starvation or exposure to the elements in Auranos. The inequality had always sickened Jonas and Tomas. They hated Auranians—especially the royals. But it had been a formless and nameless hate, a random, overall distaste for a people Jonas had never been acquainted with before.
Now his hatred had substance. Now it had a name.
He stared down at the face of his older brother. Blood coated Tomas’s tanned skin and lips. Jonas’s eyes stung, but he forced himself not to cry. Tomas had to see him strong right now. He always insisted that his kid brother be strong. Even with only four years separating them, that’s how he’d raised Jonas to be ever since their mother died ten years ago.
Tomas had taught him everything he knew—how to hunt, how to swear, how to behave around girls. Together they’d provided for their family. They’d stolen, they’d poached, they’d done whatever it took to survive while others in their village wasted away.
“If you want something,” Tomas had always said, “you have to take it. Because nobody’s ever going to give it to you. Remember that, little brother.”
Jonas remembered. He’d always remember.
Tomas had stopped twitching and the blood—so much blood—had stopped flowing so quickly over Jonas’s hands.
There was something in Tomas’s eyes, past the pain. It was outrage.
Not only for the unfairness of his murder at the hands of a Auranian lord. No...also at the unfairness of a life spent fighting every day—to eat, to breathe, to survive. And how had they wound up this way?
A century ago, the Paelsian chief of the time had gone to the sovereigns of Limeros and Auranos, bordering lands to the north and south, and asked for help. Limeros declined assistance, saying that they had enough to contend with getting their own people back on their feet after a recently halted war with Auranos. Prosperous Auranos, however, struck an agreement with Paelsia. They subsidized the planting of vineyards over all the fertile farmland in Paelsia—land that could have been used to grow crops to feed its people and livestock. Instead, they promised to import Paelsian wine at favorable prices, which would in turn enable Paelsia to import Auranos crops at equally favorable prices. This would help both country’s economies, the then king of Auranos said, and the naive Paelsian chieftain shook hands on the deal.
But the bargain had a time limit. After fifty years, the set prices on imports and exports would expire. And expire they had. Now Paelsians could no longer afford to import Auranian food—not with the falling price of their wine since Auranos was their only customer and could ruthlessly set the cost, which they did, ever lower and lower. Paelsia lacked the ships to export to other kingdoms across the Silver Sea, and austere Limeros in the north was devout in its worship of a goddess who had frowned on drunkenness. The rest of the land continued to slowly die as it had for decades. And all Paelsians could do was watch it fade away.
The sound of his sister’s sobs on the day that should be the happiest of her life broke Jonas’s heart.
“Fight,” Jonas whispered to his brother. “Fight for me. Fight to live.”
No, Tomas seemed to convey as the remaining light left his eyes. He couldn’t speak. His larynx had been sliced clean through by the Auranian’s blade. Fight for Paelsia. For all of us. Don’t let this be the end. Don’t let them win.
Jonas fought not to let out the sob he felt deep in his heart but failed. He wept, a broken and unfamiliar sound to his own ears. And a dark, bottomless rage filled him where grief had so quickly carved out a deep, black hole.
Lord Aron Lagaris would pay for this.
And the fair-haired girl—Princess Cleiona. She stood by with a cold and amused smirk on her beautiful face and watched her friend murder Tomas. “I swear I’ll avenge you, Tomas,” Jonas managed through clenched teeth. “This is only the beginning.”
His father touched his shoulder and Jonas tensed.
“He’s gone, my son.”
Jonas finally pulled his trembling, bloody hands away from his brother’s ravaged throat. He’d been making promises to someone whose spirit had already departed for the ever after. Only Tomas’s shell remained.
Jonas looked up at the cloudless blue sky above the market and let the harsh cry of grief escape his throat. A golden hawk flew from its perch on his father’s wine stall above them.
Someone asked Magnus a question, but he hadn’t been paying any attention. After a while, everyone at a banquet like this began to resemble a swarm of buzzing fruit flies. Annoying, but impossible to squash quickly and easily.
He pasted what he hoped was a pleasant expression on his face and turned to his left to face one of the more vocal of the insects. He took another bite of kaana and swallowed it without chewing in an attempt to evade the taste. He barely glanced at the salted beef next to it on his pewter plate. He was quickly losing his appetite.
“Apologies, my lady,” he said. “I didn’t quite hear that.”
“Your sister, Lucia,” Lady Sophia said, dabbing at the corner of her mouth with an embroidered jacquard napkin. “She’s grown into a lovely young woman, hasn’t she?”
Magnus blinked. Small talk was so taxing. “She has indeed.”
“Tell me again, what age has she turned today?”
“Sixteen.”
“Lovely girl. And so polite.”
“She was raised well.”
“Of course. Is she betrothed to anyone yet?”
“Not yet.”
“Mmm. My son, Bernardo, is very accomplished, quite handsome, and what he lacks in height he more than makes up for in intelligence. I think they would make a fine match.”
“This, my lady, is something I would suggest you speak to my father about.”
Why had he been seated directly next to this woman? She was ancient and smelled of dust and also, for some bizarre reason, seaweed. Perhaps she had emerged from the Silver Sea and traveled up over the rocky cliffs to get to the frosty granite Limeros castle at the top rather than across the ice-covered land like everyone else.
Her husband, Lord Lenardo, leaned forward in his high-backed seat. “Enough about matchmaking, wife. I’m curious to know what the prince’s thoughts are on the problems in Paelsia.”
“Problems?” Magnus responded.
“The recent unrest caused by the murder of a poor wine seller’s son at market a week ago in full sight of everyone.”
Magnus slid his index finger casually around the edge of his goblet. “A murder of a poor wine seller’s son. Pardon my seeming disinterest, but that doesn’t sound like anything out of the ordinary. The Paelsians are a savage race, quick to violence. I’ve heard they’ll happily eat their meat raw if their fires take too long to build.”
Lord Lenardo gave him a crooked grin. “Indeed. But this is unusual since it was at the hands of a visiting royal from Auranos.”
This was more interesting. Marginally. “Is that so? Who?”
“I don’t know, but there are rumors that Princess Cleiona herself was involved in the altercation.”
“Ah. I’ve found rumors have much in common with feathers. It’s rare that either holds much weight.”
Unless, of course, those rumors proved true.
Magnus was well aware of the youngest princess of Auranos. She was a great beauty the same age as his sister—he’d met her once when they were both small children. He felt no interest in going to Auranos again. Besides, his father severely disliked the Auranian king and as far as he knew, the feeling was mutual.
His gaze moved across the great hall and he locked eyes with his father, who stared back at him with cold disapproval. His father despised the look Magnus got when he was bored at a public function like this. He found it insolent. But it was such a struggle for Magnus to hide how he felt, although he had to
admit, he didn’t try all that hard.
Magnus raised his water goblet and toasted his father, King Gaius Damora of Limeros.
His father’s lips thinned.
Irrelevant. It wasn’t Magnus’s job to ensure this celebration feast went well. It was all a sham anyway. His father was a bully who forced his people to follow his every rule—his favorite weapons were fear and violence, and he had a horde of knights and soldiers to impose his will and keep his subjects in line. He worked very hard to keep up appearances and show himself to be strong, capable, and vastly prosperous.
But Limeros had fallen on hard times in the dozen years since the iron-fisted Gaius, “King of Blood,” had taken the throne from his father, the much loved King Davidus. The economic struggles had yet to directly affect anyone living at the palace itself given that Limerian religion didn’t encourage luxury in the first place, but the tightened straits in the kingdom at large were impossible to ignore. That the king had never addressed this publicly amused Magnus.
Still, the royals were served a portion of kaana with their meals—mushed-up yellow beans that tasted like paste—and expected to eat it. It was what many Limerians had been choking down to fill their bellies as the winter dragged on and on.
In addition, some of the more ornate tapestries and paintings were removed from the castle walls and put into storage, leaving them bare and cold. Music was banned, as was singing and dancing. Only the most educational books were allowed within the Limeros palace, nothing that simply told a tale for entertainment’s sake. King Gaius cared only for the Limerian ideals of strength, faith, and wisdom—not art, beauty, or pleasure.
Rumors circulated that Limeros had begun its decline—just as Paelsia had for several generations—due to the death of elementia, elemental magic. The essential magic that gave life to the world was drying completely up much like a body of water in the middle of a desert.
Only traces of elementia had been left when the rival goddesses Cleiona and Valoria destroyed each other, centuries ago. But even those traces, whispered those who believed in the magic, were beginning to vanish. Limeros froze over each year, and its spring and summer were now only a couple short months long. Paelsia was withering away, its ground dry and parched. Only southern Auranos showed no outward sign of decay.