The Fire Prince (The Cursed Kingdoms Trilogy Book 2) (9 page)

CHAPTER NINE

K
ING
E
SGER’S BODY
lay in state for only three days, massive and decaying. Princess Brigitta took the two little princes to say goodbye to their father on the first day. Karel examined the body with interest from his place behind the princess. The dead king’s face wasn’t purple; it was black.

The stink of putrefaction became so great that the armsmen guarding the body were rotated every hour lest they faint. The burial was moved forward. Five days after King Esger dropped dead, he was interred in the marble-and-gold Rutersvard vault. Princess Brigitta attended the ceremony with her young half-brothers.

The Heir-Ascendant wore robes that matched the long pitch-black pennants twisting and snapping above the palace’s golden roof and at each guard tower. Tomorrow, those pennants would be replaced with new ones, black with threads of gold woven through, and every day for the next nine days new pennants would be raised, each woven with more gold than the last, until on the tenth day the pennants would be pure gold.

Jaegar’s robes would change, too, marking his ascension from heir to king. Ten more days, and he would wear gold cloth and take the throne.
And Osgaard moves into a new era
.

Karel accompanied the princess back to the nursery, uneasy, and stood against the wall, his feet the regulation twelve inches apart. Princess Brigitta spent the rest of the afternoon with the boys, letting them know they weren’t alone, that they were loved. Prince Lukas sat in her lap for most of that time, hugging the blunt little woodcutter’s axe Prince Harkeld had given him.

“Will Harkeld come back now that Father’s dead?” Prince Rutgar asked, as the tenth bell rang and daylight faded.

“No, sweetheart.” Princess Brigitta reached out to stroke his hair. “He’s never coming back.”

Rutgar’s lip quivered. “I miss him.”

“So do I.”

Karel saw the princess blink back tears, saw her smile at her little half-brothers. “Bath time,” she said cheerfully.

But Princess Brigitta’s expression, when he accompanied her back to her suite, wasn’t cheerful. She looked preoccupied, worried. She disappeared into her bedchamber, with Yasma.

Karel stationed himself by the door.

Take me with you,
the princess had begged Prince Harkeld when he’d fled the palace. Memory of that moment was vivid in Karel’s mind. He could see Prince Harkeld, could see the witches flanking him—a man with gray hair, a middle-aged woman with a long plait—see the crushed marble path and the hedges and the tall wall and the guard tower.

Prince Harkeld had refused, but what would he have done if the prince had said yes? Stood back and let the princess go, and condemn his whole family to bondservice?

No. He’d have had to try to stop her, would have had to fight the witches.
And they would have killed me
. And by his own death, he would have won his family’s full freedom. And Princess Brigitta’s.

But not Yasma’s.

Yasma would have gone back to the bondservants’ dormitories. And spent the next thirteen years slaving in the palace and being raped.

Karel pushed away from the wall and paced the wide parlor, past the door to the bondservants’ corridor, past the brocade and gilt settle, past the marquetry table. Twenty strides to the end, twenty strides back.

A map of Osgaard hung on one wall, tinted in delicate colors. He halted and stared at it, his eyes finding Esfaban. The artist had shaded the islands green, with golden shores, and blue waters. Memories came to him: palm fronds waving in the warm breeze, the lap of waves, the night-song of insects. And with the memories came a rush of emotion, tightening his throat, stinging his eyes.

Karel blinked and forced his gaze away from the string of islands. He found the other kingdoms Osgaard had conquered—Horst and Lomaly, Karnveld, Meren, Brindesan. Lastly, he found the palace, marked with a speck of gold leaf. It should be marked with blood, to symbolize the misery generations of bondservants had endured within its walls. But perhaps the gold leaf was apt? Osgaard had conquered its neighbors out of greed, after all.

And would keep conquering.

If the Fithians caught Prince Harkeld, if his hands and blood were returned to Osgaard, Jaegar would possess the power to end Ivek’s curse... or allow it to ravage unchecked through the Seven Kingdoms. Lundegaard, Ankeny, Roubos, Urel, Sault, would be given a simple choice: be overrun by the curse, like Vaere, or cede sovereignty to Osgaard.

Would Jaegar even care how many kingdoms fell to Ivek’s curse? Empty kingdoms were easy to conquer.

Karel resumed pacing the room. Twenty strides to the end, twenty strides back. Prince Harkeld wouldn’t be captured. The witches would protect him. Witches could throw bolts of fire. They could turn into lions. They were a match for assassins.

That depends on how many of them there are, doesn’t it?
a tiny voice whispered in his head. How many assassins were scrambling for a share of the bounty on Prince Harkeld’s head? And how many witches were protecting him?

Karel halted by the shuttered window, stared blankly at it. Events were in motion that he was powerless to influence, a terrible future unfolding.

Don’t think about it
. The things he could do were simple: complete an exemplary twenty years’ service as an armsman, secure his family’s full freedom, and guard the princess with his life. Those three things were in his power. Everything else he had to ignore.

CHAPTER TEN

T
HE WOODCUTTERS HAD
been busy. The forest was felled for half a mile on either side of the road, a wasteland of mud and stumps. The rain eased, but never stopped. Every item they possessed was sodden: tents, saddles, weapons. Harkeld’s clothes smelled of mildew, his blanket smelled, his bedroll smelled.

They made slow progress. The days narrowed to rain and tree stumps and mud, woodcutters’ camps and ox teams hauling logs, silent meals around the campfire. And dreams. The dreams were the only time the sun shone. The only time he was happy.

He became more adept at lighting the campfire. He could ignite wet branches by holding his hand an inch above them now. “Excellent,” Cora said on the fifth evening of rain, when it had taken him less than a minute to turn a pile of saturated wood into a roaring blaze. “You didn’t touch any branches, did you?”

He shook his head.

“I think you’re ready to start throwing fire.”

Harkeld remembered a boulder-choked gorge and a man screaming as he burned alive. He grimaced.

“What?” asked Cora.

“I won’t burn people.” He’d kill with his sword, pitting his skill against an assailant’s, he’d kill with his bare hands if he had to, but he would never burn anyone alive again.

“No. None of us would ask that of you. It’s forbidden to use magic to kill—unless you’re a Sentinel and the circumstances are extreme. But you can burn arrows before they reach you. Burn a man’s clothes.”

Harkeld nodded, remembering the chaos in his father’s throne room, the armsmen throwing down their swords, ripping off their breastplates, tearing off their burning tunics.

“But in order to do those things, you need to be able to throw your magic with focus and control, otherwise you
will
kill people.” Cora looked across the campsite. Figures moved in the gathering dusk: Justen and Gerit pitching tents, the others tending the horses. She raised her voice, “Rand, can you take over the cooking, please?”

Rand raised a hand in response.

“Let’s go over here.”

Harkeld followed Cora, squelching through the mud.

“See if you can set this stump alight.”

Harkeld obeyed, holding his hand a couple of inches from the dark, rain-soaked wood.
Burn
. The tree stump flared alight with a wet hiss.

“Put it out.”

He closed his hand.
Snuff
.

“Now hold your hand a little further away, say half a foot.”

From half a foot to a foot, then two feet, then a yard. Harkeld backed away, setting the stump alight, quenching it, setting it alight again.

Night fell. Cora lit a nearby stump to give him light to see. Two yards, then three. It took concentration to push the right amount of magic at the now-charred stump—too little and it failed to light, too much and it ignited with a
whoomp
that lit up the sky. The first time that happened, his heart gave a panicked kick in his chest. Harkeld hastily closed his hand.
Snuff!
The flames vanished.

“Try again,” Cora said, as if nothing had happened.

Harkeld glanced up at the black sky. Petrus and Innis must be up there. “I could burn one of the shapeshifters.”

“I hope they have more sense than to fly over a fire lesson,” Cora said.

Harkeld tried again.
Burn
. This time the stump caught fire with a demure crackle.

“Good,” Cora said. “Another half-step back.”

And another half-step, and another. Throwing fire wasn’t as alarming as he’d thought. Under Cora’s tuition, it was methodical and almost boring. Nothing like the catacombs. There was no searing pressure building in his ribcage, no feeling that flesh and blood and bones were on the point of bursting alight.

“Do you feel in control of your magic?”

Harkeld lowered his hand. “Yes.”

“Even at this distance?”

He measured the distance to the stump with his eyes. A good seven yards. “Yes.”

“Good. That’ll do for now.”

T
HAT NIGHT HIS
dreams took him to the desert. He stood outside the catacombs. His palm stung. Blood dripped to the sand. Around him were bodies. A soldier with a throwing star buried in his forehead. A charred assassin. A dead horse. People crouched at the gaping mouth of the catacombs, tending a wounded soldier. Cora, Prince Tomas, Innis. Emotions flooded through him. Rage, despair. He turned his back to the scene.

Innis stood in front of him, her face solemn. “This isn’t a good memory.”

Harkeld glanced over his shoulder. Innis was still healing the injured soldier. He turned to the other Innis standing in front of him. “No.”

“Let’s go somewhere else.” She held out her hand.

He took it and let her lead him away. His boots squelched. He looked down and saw mud, looked up and saw tree stumps stretching in all directions.

“I don’t like this either,” she said, tugging his hand.

They walked further. There was soft grass beneath his boots, sunlight on his face, the scent of roses. They were in the palace gardens.

Innis turned his hand over and looked at his palm. Blood still trickled there. “You should have let me heal this.”

“I was too angry.”

Innis smoothed her thumb across his palm, wiping away the blood. The edges of the cut grew together and sealed. “There.”

The rage and despair that had gripped him at the catacombs were gone. Vanished, as the cut on his hand had vanished. Innis’s presence was having its usual effect. He felt calm, happy.

They sat in a rose bower. Harkeld put his arm around Innis’s shoulders and pulled her close. Her hand rested on his thigh, a light, casual touch. He let himself relax into the quiet contentment of the moment.

The light pressure of Innis’s hand on his thigh wasn’t sexual... but gradually it became so. He felt the heat of her palm. It almost burned through his trews. His imagination told him what it would feel like if she stroked his leg. Her fingers would tickle their way from knee to groin...

His cock stiffened. He wanted, quite suddenly, to rut her on this lush, green lawn. No, rut was the wrong word. He didn’t want something rushed. He wanted to linger over the pleasure of it. He wanted to make love to her.

Harkeld stared across the lawn, his eyes narrowed, considering this. Sex with a witch?

In Lundegaard, when his dreams had headed in this direction, he’d broken free in revulsion. Tonight, instead of revulsion was... curiosity.