“Good. Sir Raleigh, you should go,” the king added, waving a dismissive hand.
“I’m ensuring security for Xavier and Maggie, sire.”
“Ensure it outside the door,” the king growled.
Raleigh’s eyes shifted to the prince.
“You look to my son?” King Umbert roared. “Leave before I sic the dogs on you, you old useless cur!”
The way the king treated him, I would’ve felt sorry for Raleigh, only I wanted to leave too.
Jori nodded, and Raleigh left.
My stomach twisted into a knot. I knew this was going to be a private affair, but the room was too small, and the audience was too close. They would see way too much. My heart hammered, and my palms started sweating.
For too long, no one spoke.
Jori’s warm brown eyes remained on me with unwavering intensity while King Umbert poured a glass of ale. He drank the whole thing in three loud gulps, then slammed the glass on the tray so hard I thought it would break.
“Xavier, you have been a bitter disappointment. A single flame, a glimpse of the spectacular, put out by what feels like utter ineptitude.”
“Ineptitude, sire?” Xavier’s knees gave an inch. He leaned on the staff for support, his hands sliding up and down in a nervous volley for position.
King Umbert poured another glass. Bradyn shifted the throne to face the room before the king plunked down, spilling his drink.
Strange how distance distorts reality. Up close, King Umbert looked even fatter, older, and more tired than I’d previously thought. He walked as if his days on earth were numbered. He stared at Xavier like a man trying to stake his claim in immortality. As if a sorcerer could save him from time.
“Other than my son, no one has ever heard this tale I’m about to tell you and lived to retell it.” He pinned Bradyn with a stern glare.
Bradyn bowed his head, retreating to the shadows in the corner behind the throne.
Xavier sucked in a mountain of air, sputtering it out in short bursts. “Maggie lass, perhaps you should leave.”
“Yes,” Prince Jori agreed.
King Umbert raised a hand, stopping him. “No. Xavier needs incentive.” The king’s throne creaked as he leaned forward. “Maggie will stay. If he fails, they both suffer the same consequences.”
Jori’s eyes bulged. “Father, we discussed—”
“Shut up, Jori. No one cares what you think and won’t until I’m dead.” King Umbert leaned back.
Jori’s narrowed glare was ignored by his father. I got the impression this wasn’t the first time, or even the hundredth, that King Umbert had said that to him.
The king cleared his throat. “Once, I had an older brother. A tormentor type. Called me all manner of names. Hit me whenever my mother wasn’t looking. Took what little food I was given and fed it to his tiny rat dog.” King Umbert drank from his glass as if these were hard memories, as if we should feel sorry for him. So the bullied became the bully almost came out of my mouth. For once, I held my tongue.
He shifted the empty glass. Bradyn rushed with the pitcher and refilled it, then retreated from view again.
“And then one day, my mother sent us together to fetch water from the nearby river. She wanted two full buckets from each of us. Anything less, and we’d get the strap. On our way back, he kicked me from behind. Both buckets spilled, and I had to return to the river. He left his there and followed me back, the whole way telling me he would never let me get home with full buckets.”
King Umbert hefted his large form out of the throne, and paced. “At the river, he did as he promised. He kicked over every bucket. I was so small, and he so much bigger, I knew there was only one way this feud would end. Either he would die, or I would. It was his fault, you see. He knew I carried a dagger, and yet he looked so surprised when I used it. He pulled it out, though, and gave me a nasty cut.”
Umbert pulled back his sleeve, revealing a scar that went from wrist to elbow.
“Then, I slit his throat. As I washed his blood off my hands in the river”—the king pantomimed, and glanced over his shoulder, at his view of the Walled City, his eyes lowering to the arena—“I met my first draignoch. It chased me deep into the forest. By the time I was able to escape its sights, I was lost. I’d lost so much blood I could barely stand. Then I heard it.” He cupped his ear. “A woman calling my name. Delirious, I thought it was my mother. I followed her voice farther into the woods. I found her sitting on a rock, barely clothed, staring into the blue flames of a fire. It most definitely wasn’t my mother.”
He laughed in a way that gave me gooseflesh.
“She invited me to sit and get warm. Said she had been waiting for me to deliver a message.” He drank from his cup before continuing.
“She said that I would one day form a fierce army, and with a single great deed would unite the kingdoms and grow to be their king. That I would build a great city within an impenetrable wall. The greatest city these lands had ever seen. But that one day the wall would come down, and I would lose my throne unless true magic stood by my side. For magic was coming, she said, and I was either friend or foe. My kingdom would not survive if magic was not with me.” His hooded gaze fell on Xavier. “I fell asleep beside her fire. When I woke up, the fire was out, and she was gone.” His gaze drifted to the corner of the room. “I thought it was a dream, only everything she said has come to pass.”
“That’s why you brought Xavier here?” I asked Jori in a sharper tone than I should have, judging by his creased brow.
The prince looked panic-stricken. “Your father has shown real magic, Maggie. You know this better than any of us,” he insisted.
I didn’t know who the bigger fool was: Jori for believing Xavier could be anything more than an entertainer, or me for helping to put Xavier in this position. If I had known . . . We needed to leave this place.
Tonight.
“Are you saying Xavier is a fraud?” King Umbert asked me.
“Of course not, but you’re putting too much pressure on him. His magic cannot flow under these conditions. He needs time to—to allow the stress to ease so that his powers are not restricted.”
Umbert shook his fat head. “No. The deed is done. No one leaves this room until Xavier shows me something spectacular or lies dead at my feet. With you beside him.” He smiled then, and I saw his yellow cracked teeth for the first time.
Even under the stern glare from his father, Jori took a step closer to me. Maybe he wasn’t as bad as I thought.
Xavier slammed the staff down dramatically. “Very well, then you shall see something spectacular, sire. For I know in my heart that I am the one you have sought all these years.”
“Wait.”
King Umbert glared at me. He swatted the glass off the throne’s arm, spilling ale all over Xavier. “Wait? What for?”
“Maggie!” Xavier barked. “Keep to yourself, child!”
“No. If the king is to see your power, your real power, what do you get in return?” I clasped my trembling hands behind my back.
“Real power?” King Umbert asked. “Are you saying that your father has been holding back?”
I laughed. “Wouldn’t you? A garnet. A ruby. You get what you pay for.”