The Inadequate Heir, page 34
Keris made a noncommittal noise, swapping out a card, then lifting a hand to the barmaid. “A round on me, love.”
She brought him a glass of wine and the men more ale, which went quickly down throats, the men’s grievances against the crown—and his father—voiced with increasing volume and intensity. And not just at his table, but at all of them, men and women alike crying foul against the taxes, the Endless War, the hunger, the invasion of Ithicana, and the imprisonment of Aren Kertell, all of them blaming one person.
His father.
For as long as Keris had been alive, there had been no love lost between his father and the people. But he was feared, which allowed him to maintain total control. In recent years, the people’s ambivalence had moved to dislike, and then, after the invasion of Ithicana, into outright hate. But still … fear had kept them in check. Yet listening to the players and the other patrons, feeling the roiling rise of fury in the room, Keris realized the balance had tipped so far that fear no longer had the power to silence them.
One man could not stand against a king and hope to win. But a nation …
Keris listened and played and bought round after round until the noise in the room was near deafening with shouts for the liberation of Ithicana and its king. Then he asked his now very drunk companions, “What do you see as a solution to Maridrina’s woes?”
“I say …” the bearded man drained his cup, “that Silas Veliant is not fit to reign. I say,” he shouted above the noise, “that Maridrina should pull him from the throne! I say, death to the king!”
“Hear, hear!” Keris said, then rose and went to the bar. Sitting next to Serin’s spy, he said, “I hope you’re taking notes of all this so you might accurately repeat it back to your master.”
The man twitched. “You incent them toward treason, Your Highness.”
“I merely listen to the voices of the people.” Leaning back against the bar, he rested his elbows on the damp surface, watching as his gambling companion’s cry for his father’s death spread through the room. “Their thoughts and actions are their own.”
“And will be punished accordingly,” he snapped. “They all deserve to be arrested. To have their heads removed and spiked on the gate as traitors to the crown.”
“Ah, yes. Because that will undoubtedly regain the goodwill of the people.”
The spy made a face. “Crawl back into your books of idealism, Your Highness. The people need not love their king; they need only fear the consequences of crossing him. Consequences, I might add, from which you are not exempt.”
Keris sipped at his wine, knowing he’d had too much but not caring, because the people had more power than he did. The power to see change accomplished.
They only needed someone to guide them in the right direction.
All his life, Keris had run from the crown, not wanting any part of it. Yet now he found that the desire to take that crown from his father burned like wildfire through his veins. Not only because it would give him the power to liberate Valcotta. Not only because he’d be able to free Aren Kertell and withdraw from Ithicana.
But because he wanted to rule.
So Keris lifted his glass and joined the voices of his people as they screamed for Ithicana’s liberty. For Maridrina’s liberty. “Death to the king!”
The spy’s face drained of color. “Your father will hear of this.”
“I certainly hope so.” Keris leaned closer to the man. “He needs to answer for crossing his people. And for crossing me.”
Vaguely, he realized that his voice sounded like his father’s. Cold and threatening and cruel. But with the heat of wine and anger and grief firing through him, Keris didn’t care. The spy blanched, seeming to finally understand that what sat next to him was no sheep, but a wolf.
The spy tried to rise. “Your Highness—”
Keris shoved him back onto his stool, then raised his voice, loud enough to be heard over the noise. “This is one of the Magpie’s spies!”
The men and women near him went silent, their eyes fixing on the spy, whose face went pale.
If you truly believe in something, you should be willing to suffer for it. To die for it.
To kill for it.
“I bet he’s here spying on us and plans to scuttle back to his master,” Keris shouted. “And you all know how Silas Veliant punishes dissent.”
Tension rose, the room growing silent as word spread.
“That true? You one of the Magpie’s creatures?” his bearded gambling companion finally demanded.
If the spy had held his ground and denied it, he might have lived. But the man’s nerve failed him, and he bolted to the exit.
Everyone in the bar surged, several moving to block the door.
“Spying on us, are you?” the bearded man said, driving the spy backward into the bar. “And just what are you planning to tell your master?”
“Nothing,” he sniveled. “I won’t tell him anything. You have my word!”
Keris smiled, for that was about the worst thing the spy could’ve said to these people.
“Your word?” the bearded man demanded. “Your word is worth less than the rag I wipe my ass with.” The crowd laughed, their starved eyes merciless. For the Magpie’s reputation was no secret to them. “You serve a sadist. You find him people to cut up for his own entertainment. Might be time for you to have a taste of what that feels like.”
“You can’t hurt me! There will be consequences!” He twisted around, and his eyes met Keris’s. “Highness, please! Keris!”
Keris tensed at the use of his name, waiting for the mob to turn their ire on him, but the bearded man only laughed. “I thought your pretty face looked familiar. Should have known it was you, given you’re the only man in the goddamned city with the balls to defy him.”
Shock radiated through him. That … that wasn’t what the people thought of him. They thought he was a weakling and a coward. The worst excuse for a prince to bear the Veliant name. Time and again, Keris had been told as much. Yet there were others in the crowd nodding, watching him not with disgust but with … with respect.
And he refused to disappoint them.
“Defiance is no longer enough.” Keris met their gazes. “Maridrina needs to be led by someone like-minded to its people. By someone who respects the people, not someone who sets Serin upon them for speaking their thoughts.”
The crowd shouted their agreement, calling again for the death of his father. For the death of Serin. For the death of the spy standing before them.
The crotch of the man’s trousers turned damp, a puddle of fear pooling around his boots. “I don’t serve Serin! I serve whoever wears the crown! I could serve you!”
“You’ll never serve me,” Keris answered, then gave a nod.
Like unleashed hounds, the mob descended with fists and feet. So many of them that Keris swiftly lost sight of the spy, though he heard his screams. Heard his pleas.
Heard his silence.
Keris waited long enough to ensure the spy was well and truly dead; then, with the shouts of his people ringing in his ears, he stepped out into the night.
“KERIS, WAKE UP!”
He jerked upright with a start, nearly falling off the side of his bed.
“Keris!”
It was Coralyn. Even muffled by stone and heavy wood, he recognized his aunt’s imperious tone. Rubbing at his eyes, Keris pulled on the pair of trousers he’d left discarded on the floor and then padded barefoot across the room, fastening his belt as he went. Unbolting the door, he swung it open. “Good morning—”
“It’s early afternoon, you lazy creature. You keep the hours of a prostitute.”
Since Otis’s death, his nights had been spent in the city, stirring up dissent against his father, his days trying to find a way to get Aren alone, though he’d had no luck with the latter. And when he did sleep, it was only to be jerked awake by the sickening thud of his brother’s body hitting the ground. He was exhausted beyond reason, but Keris didn’t want her knowing why. “There’s a reason I keep their hours; it makes it easier to—”
She leveled a finger at him, silencing the rest of his quip. “Don’t even go there, young man. Knowing of your habits is enough. I don’t need the details.”
Given the only woman to grace his thoughts was Valcotta, Coralyn knowing details was most definitely to be avoided. “What is it that I can help you with?”
“I need an escort.”
He glanced at the window, rain pelting against the glass and the howling wind clearly audible. “Why? You’re allowed to go where you will. And you know how I dislike getting wet.” A lie, the truth being that he didn’t want to be subjected to her interrogation about what had happened with Otis. While he might have convinced Serin of his ruthlessness, Coralyn wouldn’t be so easily fooled.
She snorted. “As though I care about your preferences. Get dressed. Clearly you need time away from these rooms so that the servants might have a chance to clean up.” She wrinkled her nose. “Be quick about it.”
KNOWING HIS AUNT despised waiting on anyone, Keris forwent a shave and settled on a swift wash, realizing she might have had a point about the servants when he examined the limited contents of his wardrobe. Donning something more subdued than he was known for wearing, he stepped out of his chambers and made his way down the steps, finding his aunt waiting on the second level.
“Sara is leaving today,” she said. “Your father can’t be bothered to take her, and her mother hasn’t the fortitude for it, so it will have to be you and me.”
Sighing, he nodded and offered her his arm, a pair of servants holding canopies over their head against the rain as they stepped out of the tower doors. His eyes immediately went to the spot where Otis had landed, a wave of dizziness passing over him as he walked over it.
Thud.
He took a steadying breath, but each blink of his eyes revealed his brother’s body, blood pooling around it, Otis’s eyes full of betrayal.
Don’t think about it, he told himself. It’s done. You can’t fix it. Focus on what you can fix.
That thought had his gaze moving to the harem’s building, to Valcotta’s windows. Coralyn was keeping her confined, the reason given that she believed her at risk from Serin. It made him ill that she was effectively being kept in a cell, but there was nothing he could do but push forward with his plans. Since he had failed in learning how to reach the Ithicanians to secure their support, he’d turned to making plans to overthrow his father by way of force. His lieutenants, led by his bearded gambling companion, whose name was Dax, were gathering loyal men and women. As soon as there were enough of them to overwhelm the palace guard, Keris would have them move against his father.
And put the crown on his head.
His stomach flipped with a strange mix of anticipation and terror at the freedom he’d have with all that power. Power not just to free Valcotta, but to change Maridrina for the better. To make peace with enemies and form alliances that would make his country strong.
But those were thoughts for another time. Right now, his family needed to be first in mind, most especially his little sister.
Sara stood in front of the gates, her mother on her knees before her, sobbing and clutching at his sister’s hands. Her tears intensified as he and Coralyn drew close.
“Please. Please don’t take her away!”
“You are making this harder than it needs to be,” Coralyn said. “This is a wondrous opportunity for Sara, and yet you behave as though it were a punishment.”
Sara’s mother only cried harder, clinging to her daughter, who looked on the verge of tears herself. “I can’t lose her. Please, Keris, speak to the king. Convince him that this is a mistake!”
“He won’t be moved on the matter,” he answered, and in truth, that felt a mercy. His sweet sister would leave this place of misery and death, and even if it were not the life she dreamed of, it would be better than this one. “I’m sorry.”
Her eyes turned bitter. “Are you sorry, Keris? Do you even care that you’re taking yet another of our children away from us?”
He flinched, pain ricocheting through his chest, because he had no defense.
“Sara, it is time,” Coralyn announced, and more of the wives moved to catch hold of her mother’s arms, drawing her back. “Say goodbye.”
Sara’s chin quivered, but she squared her shoulders. “Goodbye, Mother. Goodbye, Aunties.”
Keris offered her his arm, her fingers clenching harder than they usually did as they slowly made their way through the gate toward the waiting carriage. He helped her inside while the servants loaded the few belongings she’d been allowed to take with her. Coralyn followed them in, handing Sara a long, wrapped parcel. “For you, dear one. I’ve been wanting to give this to you for some time.”
Wiping at her eyes, Sara unwrapped the parcel, extracting a polished cane sized for a child, her eyes widening. “Is this …”
“To help you walk, my love, because you will need to rely on your own strength going forward.”
Keris’s eyes burned, and he looked out the window as the carriage exited the palace.
It was always this way with Coralyn, her knowing what those of her family wanted. What they needed. When he’d been a boy, it was she who’d procured the books he’d so desired, using her own allowance to purchase them because his father had believed them a waste of coin. Even after he’d left to be fostered until he was of age, books he’d coveted would arrive for him in unmarked packages, her ability to know what he needed uncanny. And he found himself wondering what he’d ever given her in return.
They rode in silence, the carriage exiting the city through the south gate, forced to move slowly on the muddy roads until they reached the large estate where the church’s young acolytes were trained. The Veliant family had long been notorious for having little time for matters of faith, but his father was not fool enough to cut the funds used to support it, especially since it gave him an avenue for disposing of his inadequate children without question.
A pair of older women dressed in robes awaited them at the entrance, both curtseying low to Keris with murmurs of “Your Highness” flowing from their lips.
“His Majesty is giving into your care his daughter, Princess Sara Veliant, with the expectation that she be treated according to her rank,” he said, feeling Sara press closer to his side. Feeling her fear and apprehension, because it was his own.
“With respect, my lord,” one of the women answered, “in this place, there is no rank except for that which one earns in service.”
Which meant his sister would be dressed in rough garments and forced to sleep on a narrow cot in a cold room with no one to comfort her, then made to labor to earn her meals. Hard for any child, but for Sara, it would be harder. “Perhaps that is so, but outside these walls, rank does matter. And there will come a time when it will be me, not my father, whom you will come to when this place has needs that faith alone cannot provide. I will be more amenable to gifting resources to those who have shown kindness to my most favored of sisters.”
Behind him, Coralyn made an aggrieved noise, but the woman only inclined her head. “The princess will be shown every love and kindness, my lord. You have my word.”
“Wonderful. I look forward to your updates on her progress, and you may expect me to visit from time to time.”
“It is our preference …” The woman trailed off as Keris met her with a cool stare. “We would be honored, of course.”
Drawing Sara away to a bench against one wall, he sat next to his sister. “If you have troubles, you will send word to me or to Coralyn. Bribe the servants to carry your messages, if you have to. But you shouldn’t fear—they will treat you fairly.” Promising anything more felt too much like a lie.
His tiny sister stared at him, her large eyes welling up with tears. “I don’t want to stay here. I want to stay with you. Why can’t you move back to your house in the city? Then I could live with you.”
His heart broke into a hundred pieces, because under different circumstances, he’d have done just that. But it wasn’t just the palace she was safer away from. It was from him. “That’s not how it’s done, Sara. You know this.”
She bowed her head and began to weep, and he pulled her against him, smoothing her hair. “It’s not for forever, sister. I’ll get you back.”
She lifted her head to look at him, surprise driving away her grief.
“I’ll need some time to do it,” he said. “But as soon as I’m able, I’ll take you away from this place.”
“Do you promise?”
“I promise.” Pulling a handkerchief from his pocket, he dried her face. “Except when I do, I’ll be needing your assistance for a good many things, so you must remain strong until then, understood?”
She squared her shoulders and nodded, and then her eyes drifted over his shoulder. “You should go. Auntie Coralyn is giving you a look.”
“Thank you for the warning.” He kissed her forehead. “Keep this conversation between us.” He rose, fixing the waiting women with a long stare that promised there would be hell to pay if he was crossed before offering his aunt his arm.
“I see you’ve stooped to threatening nuns,” she said as they stepped outside. “I can’t help but wonder if there’s much lower you can go, boy.”
“One can always go lower.”
She sniffed. “In the effort to save yourself, please don’t forget yourself.” Stopping in her tracks, she said, “I fancy taking some air.”
“It’s pissing rain.”
She cast him a baleful glare for his language. “Find a canopy to hold over my head.”
Cursing under his breath, Keris retrieved one from the carriage, his consternation not for the rain, but for the conversation that was to come, for he was certain that it would pertain to Otis. Already his chest was tight, his mouth dry at the thought of not just having to relive the moment, but of having to spin lies to hide the truth of what had happened.
Together, they walked around the rear of the building, Keris angling the shade to keep the rain from dampening her, though it meant he was soaked through by the time they reached a gazebo. Climbing the steps, he set aside the shade and took a seat on one of the benches. “As much as I appreciate the opportunity to say goodbye to my sister, Auntie, perhaps you might explain your true reason for dragging me out of Vencia.”
