This prince was no longer a boy atop a white steed. He’d changed a great deal since Niko had seen him, not least because of the scar slicing through his right eye, rendering it blind. He’d hidden it with the hood when they’d met in the pleasure house, and he styled his hair to cover it now, but there was no way to completely hide such an injury.
He approached, carrying the bowl of grapes in his left hand. His broken right wrist he held behind his back.
With a nod from the prince, the guard unlocked Niko’s manacles. Niko rubbed at his wrists. He hadn’t been in the restraints long, but it was long enough to chafe.
Vasili lifted the bowl. “Now serve Amir and I.”
Was this a joke? Niko glanced at the crowd. They watched on, curious. Lords and ladies and dukes and viscounts—some intrigued, some already bored of Niko’s arrival, turning away to continue their conversations. Was Niko expected to perform in some way?
“Don’t you have servants for that?”
Vasili’s thin mouth twitched. “You are my servant now. So, serve.”
Prince Amir, who had approached first, snorted and moved on, more interested in the guests than his brother’s game. But Vasili’s attention wasn’t waning. He stared at Niko, his one eye a frosty blue. He looked like a shard of glass, all angles and fine lines that would cut anyone who dared get close. “Well?” he snapped.
These people, this feast—did they even know how many lives had been sacrificed to keep the elves from their doors? Did they even care? Families had lost generations. Fathers and mothers gone, orphanages overflowing. And the royals feasted and laughed, growing fat in their glistening palace.
“Serve yourself.”
Several guests gasped. Some murmured excitedly. Vasili huffed a soft laugh and gently set the bowl back down on the table. When he straightened, his eye shone with cold, hungry menace. What had this prince seen to make him so callous?
A sudden blow poured pain across Niko’s cheekbone, whipping his head to the side. He staggered, startled by the prince’s backhand. The aftermath throbbed through his face.
Vasili turned away. “Return him to the dungeon.”
He dabbed at a tickle on his chin moments before the guards caught his arms again and yanked them behind his back, hastily reapplying the manacles.
Blood dripped onto the polished marble floor. The prince’s rings had sliced open his cheek.
Rage boiled in his veins. He considered unleashing all his disgust at these people, but a loose tongue would likely see itself cut off. The princes were cruel. He’d heard it, but hadn’t believed the extent of their brutality until now. All the Cavilles were cruel. All but the queen, who’d died, leaving behind an ailing king and three vipers in his nest. They were supposed to be guardians of this land and its people, but these royals were parasites, feeding off it instead.
The guard dragged Niko back through the bowels of the palace, unlatched the manacles, tossed him into the cell, then heaved the body of the lad out. Niko had known it would happen, but it all seemed such a waste. A familiar and potent fury silenced all the reasonable voices in his head. He lunged for the brute and slammed his head against the stone wall until bone shattered and he stopped moving.
The next morning the guards dragged that body out too.
Chapter 3
It had been a week. He’d begun eating the foul slop dumped into the trough yesterday, mindless with hunger. Others came and went from the cell, but Niko was ignored. He whittled away the hours fantasizing of all the ways to kill a prince. Given the brothers’ reputation, they probably had wine tasters, so poison was out of the question. He had no weapons either. His sword likely still rested in the closet of the room he’d rented for a month. Getting close to the prince would be easy enough. Both times they’d met, he seemed to recklessly put himself within striking distance, but his guards would be a problem.
If Vasili had his manacles removed again, it wouldn’t take much effort for Niko to wrap his fingers around the man’s thin neck and choke the life out of him.
He growled at his own thoughts, despising himself.
He’d once loved his city and its royals. Fought for them, believing it was right. His soldiers had fought too. They’d all worn the griffin on their chests with pride.
Where had it all gone wrong?
When the guards came for him next, only he and two others remained in the cell. His wrists were manacled behind his back again and like before, he was marched through the servants’ areas—but this time, they all wore black and spoke in hushed voices.
Had the king finally succumbed to his ailments? Did that make Vasili, the eldest, the king now?
That was usually the natural order of these things. But Vasili had been absent for almost as long as the war, safely hidden away. His path to the crown could be contested.
“Who died?” he asked.
“Keep moving,” replied the sandy-haired guard with the kind blue eyes from the pleasure house.
He’d find out soon enough. It wouldn’t be Vasili; Niko had never been that lucky.
The guard escorted Niko up many staircases into the lighter, cooler parts of the palace where huge windows overlooked the glistening city, then stopped in a chamber adorned with gold-threaded furniture most people never got to see. It was an entirely different world from the blacksmith’s cottage where Niko had been raised.
The doors opposite them rattled open, and a plainly dressed man carrying a messenger bag walked out, scowling at Niko before moving past him.
“Send in the mercenary,” Vasili’s melodic voice chimed.
A shove, and Niko entered another chamber, this one decorated with the same elegance, but larger in every way. The prince leaned against the wall beside a sunlit window, his mourning clothes dark as a thundercloud. He held a glass of wine in his left hand, while his right rested on his thigh. The sight of the bandage around the prince’s right wrist summoned a smile to Niko’s cracked lips.
Vasili glanced over, as though he’d forgotten he wasn’t alone, and sneered. It seemed to be his preferred expression. “He reeks.”
“You said to bring him right to you,” the guard said flatly.
Vasili waved him off, but did it with his left hand, sloshing some of the wine from the glass. He didn’t seem to notice or care how the wine dribbled over his fingers. He walked up to Niko, his keen eye riding over Niko’s filthy clothes, making some kind of assessment. “What is your name?”
“Nikolas,” Niko croaked. If he was going to die, then at least the prince would know the name of the man he’d sentenced.
“Family name?”
“Yazdan.”
“Trade?” His gaze dropped again, scrutinizing, roaming, reading, assessing. Dissecting. “Before you were a soldier.”
“Smith.”
He sipped his wine and took a step back. “What kind?”
“Blacksmith.”
The prince nodded to himself. “Do you still forge?”
“No.” Niko was not about to reveal how he’d been too young to properly learn the trade before the war broke out, and when he’d returned, there had been nothing left of Pah’s forge, just rubble around a chimney stack.
Vasili’s smile was shallow, cutting a slash across his face. He took a second step back, appraising his catch. “Uncuff him.”