The Fire Prince (The Cursed Kingdoms Trilogy Book 2) (40 page)

“Yes, do!” Prince Tomas said, his eyes alight with enthusiasm. “I’d like to see you fight. Do you wrestle, Karel?”

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

T
HE JUNGLE.
T
HEY
climbed down from the highlands and found it. Jaumé had asked Bennick what it was like and Bennick had joked, “It’s full of things that want to eat you.” Black-skinned Gant had said it stank.

Both were right. Nothing big had tried to eat Jaumé yet, but small buzzing things bit him all the time. They were called
gnats
, Gant said. The gnats came night and day, from scummy ponds and underneath damp leaves. They sucked your blood and left red lumps that itched. Kritsen had given them oil that stank like cats’ piss to rub on their skins. It kept the gnats off, but the jungle was large, Nolt said, and he made them use it sparingly. As for the stink, the oil was the least part of it. It seemed to come from the wet ground and the fat leaves, from the brown fungus on the trunks of trees, from the yellow ponds with drifting bubbles breaking on their surface.

Jaumé hated the jungle. He hated the gnats and the stink and the wet heat and the howls of animals in the night. There were screaming things and things with shining eyes in the branches of the trees. He was afraid when Bennick was on watch, but told himself there was nothing out there that Bennick couldn’t kill, with his bow, with his Stars, with his throwing knife, his sword.

He had one rule for himself: stay close to Bennick. Bennick let him stay. He rode beside Jaumé when the trail widened and held the pony’s mane when her hooves bogged in the marshy ground. At night he laid his sleeping mat by Jaumé’s. In Jaumé’s dreams, Bennick’s face sometimes changed into Da’s.

“Where are we going?” Jaumé whispered to Bennick one evening, hoping to hear about the prince, but all Bennick said was, “A town called Mrelk, where one of our Brothers lives.”

CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

B
RITTA STOOD IN
the doorway to the bedchamber, watching the boys and Yasma. Rutgar and Lukas were chattering happily, telling Yasma about their grandfather. “He says he’ll get me an axe,” Lukas announced, bouncing on the bed. “A proper woodcutter’s one!”

“And I can have my own horse!”

Yasma smiled as she listened. Britta didn’t feel like smiling.
Soon I shall never see her again, or Karel.

King Magnas had been everything Harkeld had said. Warm, welcoming, wise. And above all, kind. He’d hugged the boys, unashamedly shedding tears, and then hugged her too, as if she was his kin.
My home is your home, child. You shall be my daughter
.

“We’re going on another ship,” Lukas said, bouncing. “Tomorrow.”

“And then we’ll ride to the castle!”

“And we’ll have rooms at the top of a tower!”

And I shall go back to being a princess.
Why did that prospect bring her no joy?

“I can’t wait, I can’t wait, I can’t wait!” Rutgar chanted.

Yasma glanced at her. Her smile faded. There was quiet grief on her face.

Yasma, what will I do without you? You have been my close friend for so long.

Britta turned away from the doorway and crossed to the parlor window, looking out at the busy harbor. She didn’t want to leave Yasma. Didn’t want to be a princess again. But to keep Yasma with her would be selfish; and worse, it could bring ruin down on Yasma’s family.

Britta sighed and leaned her forehead against the glass. And as for being a princess, Lundegaard wasn’t as formal as Osgaard. Neither Kristof nor Tomas wore crowns, and their uniforms were unembellished. Perhaps her royalness wouldn’t be so constricting.

The street was two stories below. Karel was down there somewhere. He’d gone with King Magnas to discuss plans for his and Yasma’s future. And then to visit the practice ground.
You must see him wrestle, Father,
Tomas had said, laughing.
He slaughtered me!

A ship had just disembarked. The wharf swarmed with refugees and green-clad soldiers. A woman caught her eye, haggard, exhausted, with two young children and a baby. Britta watched them out of sight.

She touched the windowsill and sent a prayer through wood and stone to the All-Mother.
Be safe, Harkeld
. Only he could stop this exodus of people. Only he could save the Seven Kingdoms.

Someone knocked on the door.

Britta turned, hoping it was Karel, but the man stepping through the door wearing Lundegaard’s forest green uniform and with a silver torque at his throat was fair, not dark. “Princess Brigitta?”

Britta frowned. Hadn’t Kristof said his armsmen didn’t know who they guarded?

The man came towards her. He moved like Karel, light-footed, with a sense of coiled muscles. A trained fighter. “Princess Brigitta?” he said again. “There’s been a concerning development. The prince requests I bring you to him.”

“What development?” Britta said, taking a step back, bumping against the windowsill. She didn’t like the man’s eyes. They were fixed on her as intently as a cat’s upon a mouse. “Which prince?” She glanced at the bedchamber. Lukas was still bouncing on the bed, Rutgar was out of sight. She heard his voice, though, and the low murmur of Yasma replying.

“Prince Kristof,” the armsman said, halting in front of her.

Britta stared at him. What was it about this man that she didn’t trust? His face was clean-shaven, his tone polite, his uniform neat—

Was that a smear of blood on his torque?

Her eyes jerked back to his—cold, intent—and she knew with absolute certainty that he wasn’t one of Kristof’s armsmen. “Yasma! Lock the door!” She pushed past the man, tried to run for the armsmen in the corridor, but he grabbed her arm, swung her round. “Lock the door!”

She caught a glimpse of Yasma in the bedchamber, wide-eyed, saw her slam the door shut, heard the bolt shoot across, and then fabric pressed over her mouth. Damp. Smelling of vanilla.

All-Mother’s Breath.

CHAPTER FIFTY

K
AREL CLIMBED THE
wooden stairs two at a time. He liked King Magnas. The man’s reputation for fairness and wisdom was justified. The king listened shrewdly, hearing more than the words one spoke.
He holds his kingdom carefully in his palm, not crushed in his fist like the Rutersvards
. King Magnas would do a good job of raising Rutgar and Lukas, and in his care, Princess Brigitta would be safe, and happy.

No armsman stood on the landing at the top of the stairs. Karel frowned and stepped into the corridor beyond—and stopped. No armsmen stood on either side of the princess’s door. Instead, three men in forest green uniforms were exiting through the door at the far end of the corridor, moving with awkward haste, carrying something between them. A person on a stretcher?

“Halt!” Karel shouted. He broke into a run.

One man turned and threw something.

Karel flung himself flat. Metal struck the stone wall, rebounding with a fierce
clang
. A throwing star.

Karel shoved up from the floor. “Halt!” he shouted again, but the men had vanished through the door.

He ran, his boots slapping on flagstones, and barreled through the door onto a staircase. He heard the echo of footsteps one flight down.

An armsman wearing a silver torque huddled dead against the wall.

Karel vaulted over the railing, dropping onto the landing directly below, reaching for his dagger as he rolled into a crouch. His thoughts moved with the same bright, fierce clarity as when he’d killed the
Sea Eagle
’s men. This was about speed, about striking hard.

The Fithian who’d thrown the star spun to face him, blocking the stairs, his lips drawn back from his teeth. Half a flight below, two men carried a stretcher. Karel caught a glimpse of a pale face, golden hair.

He launched himself at the assassin, catching the man around the waist, knocking him off his feet. He stabbed as they tumbled down the stairs, stabbed again. The Fithian snarled, kicked, tried to slam his head against the risers.

They hit the half-landing, rolling. Karel sank his dagger into the assassin’s belly and sliced upwards until the hilt jarred against the man’s sternum.

The Fithian uttered a choked scream.

Karel shoved the man away and pushed to his feet. He ran down the last flight of stairs and burst through the door onto the wharf.

People. People everywhere. Refugees streaming towards the camps. Green-garbed soldiers striding in all directions. He swung around, panting, his bloody dagger in his hand, a scream building in his throat. Where was the princess?

“G
ONE,
” P
RINCE
K
RISTOF
said grimly.

“Where?” his brother demanded.

“To be bait for Prince Harkeld no doubt.” Karel turned to King Magnas. “I need a ship!”

“You’ll have one,” the king said. “But first we must find out what we can. Most importantly, how many of them are there?”

“There’s no time for that!” Thoughts churned frantically in Karel’s head, chasing one another. “I need a ship now!”

“The fastest ship is being provisioned,” King Magnas said. His calm gaze seemed to see inside Karel’s skull, to the chaos of whirling, panicked thoughts. “My best men are gathering. Let us discover what we can before you sail.” He turned to Yasma. “You said they didn’t try the bedchamber door?”

Yasma shook her head, her face pale and distraught.

“This was nothing to do with the boys,” Prince Kristof said. “Was it? This is about Brigitta. And Harkeld.”

“Did they follow us from Osgaard?” Yasma asked.

The king shook his head. “Their ship arrived in port before yours—if we’ve identified the right vessel. The harbor master is checking his records.”

“Then how did they know she was here?” Prince Tomas demanded.

“Fithians have ways of communicating,” Karel said. He pressed his hands to his temples, trying to stop his thoughts from chasing one another, trying to remember back to the palace gardens. “The poison master said... he’d had word that a ship had left Lundegaard.”