Prince Anryniel watched him. She flexed her left hand, where she had the same seams from wounds he healed for her.
“What are you, then?” she asked. Now he noticed that her eyes were pale blue, like the flaky gems chipped out of the mountain and made into jewelry. “Did God send you to teach me some kind of lesson about justice or humility...?”
“Oh, I could not teach you about those things,” Maertyn said. He looked away from her face. Boy or girl, she was pretty.
Prince Anryniel sheathed her sword and came over to where he stood. She knelt over the burnt jacket and examined it. After a moment, she rubbed a hand over her face, and pinched the fingers of one hand against the bridge of her nose.
“That was one of the men who drove my sleigh. Griff hired him... but maybe he works for my father...? I don’t know.” She spoke more to herself than to him. Maertyn did that, too, when he was hungover.
“You know,” he said, fumbling through the words. “I could teach you to drink. Do you know anything about whiskey?”
The prince glanced up at him from where she crouched. Somehow she looked down her nose at him even from the ground. “I know that it tastes like shoe leather. My father says it’s a peasant’s last resort.”
“Oh?” he asked. “What is a prince’s last resort? What does that taste like?”
I used to be like this, Maertyn realized. Years and years ago, before the mages gave him the name “Blackfire,” he was known in his village as funny. He used to make his wife laugh all the time, right up until the day she died.
“Wine, I guess. It’s what my professors drink.” Prince Anryniel stared at him a moment longer. She smiled, one corner of her mouth folding into a dimple. “Help me down the mountain and back to my university—and I’ll buy you as much whiskey as you like.”
The smile, more than anything, made the prince look like a girl—gentler, softer. Yet the hand she offered him to shake was firm like a man’s. Maertyn held on to it for a moment, still trying to decide just what she was. When he shook her hand, he felt something pass between them. Like a moment in time overlapped itself.
“In private, you may call me Anryn,” she said. “The rest of the time, it’s ‘Your Highness,’ understand?”
“Okay... Your Highness,” Maertyn said. His face hurt. He realized that he was smiling, too.
CHAPTER 4
It wasn’t until the age of seven that the Lightning King finally seemed to notice his son. By then, Anryn had done all that he could to fight this mysterious deficiency everyone seemed to see in him—even stabbing the tutor in the thigh with a pen for suggesting the prince was too short to sit at a writing desk. King Anathas had beaten Anryn for that, but grudgingly arranged for the prince to have fencing lessons.
Eventually the King packed Anryn off to Amwarren University and looked for a bride for him. Only then did Anryn finally start to feel like he could become a king. His tutor was Haley Lawson, Amwarren’s top professor of Law and Diplomacy. The professor helped the King negotiate with Sanchia for the match and explained to the prince exactly what was expected of him. Anryn’s task now was to bring Sanchia’s Golden Fleet under Ammarish influence.
Soon after the wedding, Professor Lawson said, the King planned for Anryn to lead the ships into a third war with Nynomath in his father’s name. At well past seventy, the Lightning King could hardly expect to live long enough to see the outcome. But, Professor Lawson said, all the rest of the world would be watching Anryn.
How nice it would be to hide from it behind a veil, Anryn thought.
Just now, he thought of wearing a veil as a disguise. The assassins’ attempt at Dorland blindsided him. His father never would have made such a mistake, traveling without any of his usual attendants, allowing himself to be called to royal business when he was meant to be incognito. Professor Lawson would have said no to it as well—but Gruffydd the Younger, his friend and lifelong companion, convinced Anryn a few days of sledding in Dorland would be fun. No one would even know that they were gone, Griff said.
And they wouldn’t have—if there hadn’t been a witch trial that needed a lord to read the sentence. Prince Anryn tried to see the King’s justice done and instead had almost cost Ammar its future. It was a miracle he hadn’t died there or up on the mountain.
But that was no miracle—it was witchcraft, Anryn thought, glancing at Maertyn’s back as they trudged on foot toward Amwarren.
The prince pushed the thought away. It was too frightening, too dangerous to think about. To admit to himself that he traveled in the company of a witch, or worse, a rogue mage... The Lightning King wouldn’t just beat his son for breaking the witch laws; he might outright imprison him.
Anryn found it easier to think of the assassins instead, and how he might avoid another knife in his back. A veil would only be a temporary solution. Getting back to Professor Lawson was better.
Maertyn led them down the mountain over deer trails, avoiding the North Road until they reached the valley. Anryn did not want to go back to Dorland—he convinced Maertyn to take them around the town instead, over smaller roads that connected little towns to the north of Amwarren. In each place, Maertyn wanted to stop and look for his whiskey. The best he found was sour barley beer, which he spiked with the flask that he carried. Anryn paid for these inferior brews with some of the silver coins he had left in his pocket and borrowed Maertyn’s coat to pull over himself while they took turns sleeping in haylofts or on dirt floors.
At night, Anryn would pray with the words he was taught from childhood.
Look on me, O God, and deliver me from misery and woe. Distance me from wrongdoing. For You, God, watch over us and deliver us. For You, God, are gracious and merciful.
God might’ve been merciful like the priests said, but King Anathas was not. If Anryn’s father had seen his son reduced to this—after the decades the Lightning King fought to restore the prestige and glory of Ammar’s monarchy—the old man would have had a stroke. Anryn lay awake for long hours in the night, praying over and over for God to deliver him, first from the assassins and then from his father’s disappointment. He dreamed of his wedding and woke up with gritted teeth.
Three days out from Amwarren, they came to a river with a village on the far bank. Maertyn wanted to go there to look for more whiskey. Anryn wanted to lie down for the night, to pray and to agonize.
Just as they reached the narrow wood bridge that would take them across the water, three men emerged from the trees. Anryn hid behind Maertyn. One hand went to the hilt of his sword.
“Assassins,” he whispered to Maertyn.
“Them? No,” Maertyn reassured him. “They only want to rob us.”
Only? Anryn thought, tightening his grip on his sword.
The prince gave the men a second glance, and Anryn thought Maertyn might be right. They were dirty peasants with a hungry, lean look. Like wolves in winter desperate enough to attack prey that they would normally keep well away from. These men likely had trade in the summer, felling trees and chopping lumber to sell. Summer was still months away.
The largest brigand stood only as high as Maertyn’s shoulders. The man stepped forward to block their way. In one hand, he held an old sword with a broken tip. The wide flat kind Ammar’s infantry carried. He held out the other hand to them, palm up.