The Fire Prince (The Cursed Kingdoms Trilogy Book 2) (24 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

“H
OW ARE YOU
?” the princess asked. They sat at the marquetry table. Sleet slapped against the window panes.

“Fine,” Karel said. “Normal.” The effect of the All-Mother’s Breath had worn off while he slept; he’d won his sword-fighting bouts this morning. “But if you hadn’t used the Horned Lily root like that, I don’t think I’d have woken for hours. Whoever’s idea it was, it was a good one.”

“Yasma’s.”

“You scared us, Karel,” Yasma said.

Karel nodded. He’d scared himself. They’d come perilously close to ruin. “Thank the All-Mother we didn’t use the full dose. I think we can safely say the tincture is a very strong concentration. It all happened much faster than I thought it would, and went on a lot longer.”

“What can you remember?” the princess asked.

“You said that nonsense rhyme the boys love. I didn’t hear any more than the pink sea. If you got to the barking cows—”

She shook her head. “I didn’t.”

“Tomorrow...” Karel frowned, thinking. “I think we should increase the dose by no more than one or two drops. And as for the boys... they need to be sedated, but not All-Mother’s Breath. It’s too dangerous.”

The princess nodded. “I agree. I asked the nursemaid this morning about poppy syrup. She told me a dosage that will make them sleep all night. And we have almost a full bottle left from... before.”

From her marriage, she meant.

“Good.” Karel tapped a finger on the table, thinking. “Yasma... did you smell the All-Mother’s Breath last night?”

She shook her head.

“You were what? Two yards away? So the boys shouldn’t inhale any, but even so—get them to eat Horned Lily root as soon as you can, highness.”

“I shall.”

“The nursemaid, did you ask whether she’ll be with the boys or—”

“She’s going to the coronation.”

“Good.” That was one less person they needed to deal with.

Princess Brigitta took a folded piece of parchment from her pocket. “Last night you fell over so fast, Karel. There’s no way I’ll have time to tell the armsman what I’m doing with your bodies, or why. The bloodstains will be there for anyone to follow and they’re sure to
guess
, but I thought—just in case—I should write Jaegar a note. So there’s no doubt you both died loyal to Osgaard.” She pushed the parchment across to him.

Karel unfolded it and read.

Jaegar, I won’t let you kill the boys, nor use me in your plans to catch Harkeld. You are worse than Father ever was. I pray to the All-Mother for your death.

Then came a gap.

I thought they were mine to command, but they were loyal to Osgaard. For that, they die and their bodies shall rot in the sewers.

“I’ll rewrite it tomorrow, the first sentences neat, and the last ones all messy and rushed and bloodstained. What do you think?”

“An excellent idea.” He folded the note and handed it back to her.

“What else needs to be done?” Yasma asked.

“The princess’s trunks?”

“Packed,” Yasma said. “And the coronation clothes laid out. And I’ve put pepperwort infusion in two of the perfume bottles, and—”

Someone rapped on the door.

“Frankl,” the princess said, shoving the note into her pocket and standing. “I’ll take him next door to the boys. Tonight we’ll go over everything, step by step. We can’t make
any
mistakes tomorrow.”

CHAPTER THIRTY

K
AREL WOKE AT
dawn and knew he wouldn’t sleep again. Nervous tension clenched in his belly. The enormity of what they were about to do was horrifying.

Two hours until breakfast. He couldn’t just lie here and worry.

Karel climbed out of his bunk and dressed quietly. All around him, armsmen slept.

He left the bunkroom and headed for the training arena. The sky was low and overcast.

Karel fetched his Esfaban bow. Handling it brought memory of home. Warm rain, tree frogs singing, palm fronds rustling in the breeze. He heard his father’s voice:
Keep your arms relaxed, son. It comes from the back. From here
. He almost felt the tap of his father’s fingers between his shoulder blades.

Karel practiced for an hour. The world narrowed to the straw-filled targets on the far side of the arena, to the smooth flex of the bow, the swift, sure flight of the arrows. It was relaxing, almost hypnotic. But when he laid down the bow, the day loomed over him again and he became tense once more.

He collected the arrows from the targets. A gust of wind blew across the arena, not icy, not blown up from the south pole, but raw and blustery, from the north. In its wake, rain started to fall. Karel glanced at the clouds.
Keep raining
. The bondservants would be miserable, kneeling all afternoon in the Great Courtyard, but the river flowing beneath the palace would run faster, flushing sewage into the sea, and no one would think it odd if his and Yasma’s bodies couldn’t be found.

He unstrung the bow and held it for a moment, remembering the day his father had given it to him. How could he leave it behind?

Karel laid a kiss on the smooth, dark wood.
Forgive me, Father
.

The third bell rang, and the morning seemed to speed up. Breakfast, surrounded by armsmen grumbling about starting their shifts an hour early, and then instead of training, they were set to polishing their gear. Karel went to the quartermaster for his traveling kit. The man hauled out a small trunk and filled it, not just with spare tunics, but a whetstone and buffing cloth, soap and razorblade, bootlaces, fur-lined hat and gloves, long-sleeved woolen vests and leggings, a warm traveling cloak.

Karel lugged the trunk to the barracks and heaved it up on his bunk. Then he went to the duty commander. “Sir, one of the cottagers by the wagon gate is storing a trunk for me. I’m filling it to send home to my family.” He held out the spare key. “Will you see it’s sent if... if something should happen to me?”

The man nodded. “Give it here.”

For the rest of the morning, Karel sat with the other armsmen, polishing his breastplate and greaves and wrist guards, his gilded scabbard, the hilts of his sword and dagger. Lastly he buffed the silver torque that proclaimed him a royal bodyguard. Princess Brigitta’s personal armsman.

But it wasn’t the torque that bound him to the princess. Nor the words of his oath. His tie to her was much deeper than that.

There was a flurry of washing, of shaving, of donning crisp uniforms. Karel hung back in the bunkroom. He felt inside his money pouch, took out the second key to the trunk he’d stored in Rakhamn, tucked it under a wrist guard, then joined the armsmen straggling off to start their shift an hour early.

T
ORVEN WAS WAITING
in the princess’s parlor. “Lucky whoreson,” he muttered sourly. “You won’t be going to the ceremony.
She
’s sick.”

Karel watched him leave. Torven wouldn’t get to his bunk until nightfall. He’d have a hurried meal, then stand at parade rest all afternoon while Jaegar ascended Osgaard’s throne.

Yasma peeked through the ajar bedchamber door. “Karel!” She came towards him, half-running. “Jaegar came!”

“What?”

Yasma gripped his hands, words spilling from her lips: “We did it just as we planned—Britta falling ill—and she sent a message to the master of ceremonies, and
he
came. Jaegar himself!” Her fingers were trembling, her eyes bright with excitement. “He was so angry. He thought Britta was pretending—and she threw up
all over him
.” She gave a choked laugh. “I wish you could have seen it!”

The bedchamber door opened fully. Princess Brigitta stood there in a loose night robe. Her face was shockingly pale, but her eyes were as bright as Yasma’s.

“Are you all right?” Karel asked.

She nodded. “I took the antidote.”

Karel crossed to her, holding Yasma’s hand. “Jaegar came himself?”

“Yes.”

“And she cried, too, because she’s missing the coronation,” Yasma said. “And he believed her!”

T
HEY WORKED THEIR
way down the list of things to be done: preparing fresh All-Mother’s Breath, filling two perfume vials with the mixture, blending poppy syrup and honey for the princes. Karel threaded the padlock key on a piece of cord and hung it around his neck. He sprayed pepperwort infusion on four empty wine bladders, and then on the princess and Yasma—their skin, their clothes, their hair. “Cover your eyes,” he warned. “It’ll burn if it gets in them.”

The noon bell rang.

The corridors of the palace were now empty. The kitchens were empty. The armsmen’s barracks, the stables, the palace laundry. Bondservants would be kneeling in the Great Courtyard in the rain, and everyone else in the palace—armsmen and guardsmen, stablemen and gardeners, cooks, nursemaids, artisans, courtiers, nobles and ambassadors—would be packed into the throne room and the chambers and antechambers and courtyards radiating from it to witness Jaegar become Osgaard’s king.

Everyone except us
. And the guards on duty on the palace walls. And the guards in the dungeons. And the three armsmen keeping watch over the princes.

Princess Brigitta picked up the empty wine bladders. “Let’s get the blood, Yasma.”

K
AREL WENT TO
stand in the corridor, opposite the man guarding the princes’ door, trying not to let his agitation show. Bored. He was bored, not worried. Bored, bored, bored.

Minutes crawled past. Where were Princess Brigitta and Yasma now? He tried to imagine how long it would take them to traverse the bondservants’ corridors, how long to fill the bladders with pigs’ blood, how long to return. What if a bondservant had been left on duty in the palace kitchens? What if there was no blood in the tub? What if they spilled it? Left footprints?

Stop it,
he told himself. None of those things would happen.

Half an hour passed. Too long, surely? Something must have gone wrong—

The door behind him opened. “Armsman,” Yasma said timidly. “The princess wishes to speak with you.”

B
RITTA TOOK ONE
last look around the parlor. The smell of blood was strong in her nose and the taste of Horned Lily root sweet on her tongue. “All right. I’m doing it now.”

Neither Karel nor Yasma moved. They lay on the floor, blood pooling around them.

Britta wiped her hands on her robe. Bloody hands, a bloody robe. She picked up the perfume vial, took a deep breath, laid a hand on the doorknob—
I’m distraught, half-hysterical
—and opened it. “Armsman!” she cried, her voice breathless, distressed. “There’s been a terrible accident. Help me!”

She saw the man’s shock as he took in her disheveled, blood-stained appearance. His eyes widened, his mouth opened. He pushed away from the wall, entered the parlor at a run, halted with an inarticulate cry when he saw the bodies—Yasma lying crumpled, Karel face-down, hand stretched towards his out-flung sword—and swung towards her.

Britta sprayed the All-Mother’s Breath.

The armsman stood for a moment, swaying, horror frozen on his face. And then he fell with a clatter of breastplate and sword.

Britta shut the door. She knelt and rolled the armsman over, examined him. His eyes were open, unblinking, the pupils hugely dilated. He made no reaction when she pinched his cheek sharply.

Britta closed the man’s eyes. “He’s out.”

Yasma lifted her head.

“Careful,” Karel said. “We mustn’t leave footprints.”

B
RITTA STRIPPED OFF
her bloody robe and dressed in clean clothes. She put the flask of poppy syrup and two pieces of Horned Lily root in her pocket, picked up the perfume vial, and headed for the door. Karel caught her glance, gave her a nod. She didn’t need to hear him speak to know what he was telling her:
I know you can do it
.