“I have to check on Vasili,” Julian said, entering his room after Niko. “Will you be all right?”
Niko waved him off, entered his chamber, and eyed all of the work spread across the table. Hours of study, pointless. What was he even doing here? These people, this place, they weren’t his life. He’d lost battles, lost his men, lost his home, his family. There was nothing left but piles of paper trying to protect a prince from threats Niko barely understood and couldn’t even see.
The screams were back inside his head. Visions of bodies swinging from trees. Friends. Lovers. Marcus. So much death. And it had turned him, made him different, made him broken inside. Made him furious.
He gripped the table and upended it. The contents flew, but it wasn’t enough. He swept an arm across the sideboard, sweeping the ornaments to the floor. A wine bottle smashed. Still not enough. He grabbed his sword and brought it down with a roar across the cot. The blade lodged in the wood. Fury burned. Fury at the bed, the sword, the princes—both of them. Fury at Julian for stopping him from killing Amir. Fury at himself for being so fucking useless.
He left the chambers, sheathed the sword at his side, and strode toward Vasili’s room. He’d be heard, if nothing else. Vasili would answer every damned question, even if Niko had to beat it out of him. About the elves, about the flame, about his scars and his brother’s words. You’re more elf than man.
He flung open Vasili’s door and pulled up short, his own breath choking him.
Julian.
Shirtless.
Arms above his head, gripping the bed’s canopy.
And Vasili. Holding a whip in both hands. Slim fingers stroking the leather tail.
Niko might have lunged for the prince, snatched the whip from him and beaten him with it, if not for one simple thing.
Julian’s rapt expression, his lip pinched between his teeth.
Well, that and the erection tenting his trousers.
Julian groaned, so lost to whatever this was that he didn’t know they were no longer alone.
But Vasili knew, and the prince raked his penetrating glare over Niko, the whip still in his hands, his chest heaving from exertion. At least he wasn’t erect.
Niko turned on his heel and walked away, and kept on walking. Walked out of the palace, down the parade grounds and through the gates, hearing them slam closed for good behind him.
Chapter 17
Escaping the palace wasn’t as simple as walking away. Thoughts of foul play, of the two princes at each other’s throats, the absurd accusation of Vasili being part elf—they looped around and around his head. And none of it mattered to Niko. Not his life. Not his problem.
He stared at the ruined cottage, the chimney stack lying among piles of rubble and burned timber that had once been the attached forge. He’d walked all night around Loreen, until his feet had finally carried him home.
In another life, Pah’s forge had been Niko’s sanctuary. And now he was back, among the burned bricks, wondering how he’d survived to this day when so many others had not. The last few weeks seemed surreal, like maybe it had all been some spice-induced waking nightmare.
He picked up a brick and weighed it in his hands, then kicked aside a mound of debris and dirt, revealing the cottage foundations.
Sand, cement… He had both. All he had to do was put one brick on top of the other. He didn’t have to think of why he was here, or of the twisted tangle of snakes he’d left behind in the palace, or the war and how it had taken everything from him. Just one brick on another. Simple.
The days grew shorter as the weeks went by. The cottage slowly began to look like a structure again, but it would need a roof before winter. Niko was contemplating how best to make and fix the roof trusses in place when the heavy clop of hooves sounded down the old village road.
He knew by the gait of the lead horse who its rider might be. His damned heart raced, instincts readying to fight or run. A nearby bucket of water, pulled from the village well, caught his eye. Sweat–soaked and filthy, he scratched at his beard, listening to the horses trot closer. He considered dunking his head and then wondered why the fuck he cared if Vasili saw him caked in dirt.
He opened the door he’d made himself that very morning and leaned against the frame, drying his hands on a rag. The horses weren’t draped in the griffin insignia and they didn’t carry any banners, but the beasts were so perfectly groomed and powdered in chalk they could only have come from the palace.
The lead rider was cloaked in grey, his face hidden just like before.
Niko arched an eyebrow. He should probably kneel. Wasn’t that what peasants did?
The rider dismounted with practiced ease and approached, his stride so confident he would have walked through Niko if he hadn’t ducked back inside the cottage inside and let him pass. “Princes don’t know how to knock?”
The figure turned in the middle of the room, his cloak swirling. Room was a stretch. There were only three walls and no roof. But the fireplace was lit, which was something.
Vasili reached up with bejeweled fingers and lowered his hood. The eyepatch was still in place—a permanent feature, then. “You will return to the palace immediately.”
Niko had almost forgotten how that voice always held an edge. “More threats on your life? Or are you just bored with picking the wings off flies?”
The tick. Niko smiled to see it. It meant the prince wasn’t infallible. He stepped up to him, no doubt making his guards outside nervous. Since a wall was missing, Vasili’s guards could see inside, and hear much of what was said. “No.”
Vasili lifted his chin. Icy Caville defiance burned in his blue eye.
Any second now, Vasili would order his guards to arrest him, and the whole thing would start all over again. He’d been expecting it. Every day he’d waited for the sound of hooves to come up the road and for the guards to drag him back until the task was done, and here Vasili was. Predictable in one thing at least.
Niko drifted toward the fireplace and used a stick to poke the logs, stirring up the hungry flames.
“He doesn’t know you saw,” Vasili said.
Niko breathed in, filling his lungs, and cleared his throat. Of all the sights that haunted him, seeing Vasili whip Julian was the one he couldn’t shake or explain away. He stood, leaned against the old mantlepiece, and regarded the prince. “I don’t know what that was, but it had nothing to do with me.”
“True.”
That one little word twisted like a knife in Niko’s heart. He’d sworn off love, vowed never to let it touch him again, but Julian had been easy to fall in love with, so easy that Niko hadn’t known it was happening. And now here was the prince, telling him whatever Niko had with the man meant nothing. Maybe the prince was right. That palace twisted everything around, made the bad good, made Niko want things.
“I’m not going back,” he said firmly. “Order me and we’ll have a problem.”
Vasili wet his lips with the tip of his tongue. He looked around at the rubble-strewn floor, the hand-crafted bowls, the half-built walls. “Is this the life you want?”
“Only royals are free to choose how they live.”
“You can’t be so naïve as to believe I chose my life?” Vasili asked, his tone flat, a sign he was holding back.