Tanith & Shaw (The Fealty of Firstborns Series Book 1)

by H. V. Rosemarie

  With a silent apology, she rummaged through the tall shelf closest to her. Books. Books. Books. Tanith traced her finger over the bumpy spines until she came across one with no title.

  A notebook.

  She snatched it off the shelf and darted towards the counter, plucking the man’s pen and ink bottle off the surface and tucking them away in the pockets of her skirt.

  With her fingers clutched around the blue notebook spine, she held it in front of her and ran for the door, stumbling outside and into the street with a racing heart and a guilty conscience.

  She’d just entered the flow of bustling city people when a shoulder gracelessly knocked into her, sending her stumbling to the side and nearly tripping in front of a fast-moving carriage.

  “Sorry!”

  Tanith whipped her head around with a few choice words on her tongue before pausing, her eyes going wide. “Ekko?”

  The spotted-skinned man let out a breath of relief, waiting for a woman to pass between them before rushing forward. “There you are!” he exclaimed, looking her outfit up and down. They both knew no such dress had been carried over with them on the boat. “We’ve been looking for you everywhere!”

  “We? You found Ardeen?”

  Ekko shook his head. “No. Ward and I. You and Shaw disappeared from the beach. We thought you were with Ardeen.”

  Tanith’s smile slackened. “No. I never found her, but Kent swam here. We’re looking for him too. Have you found any leads on the Sight?”

  “None too impressive. Just theories. Where are you staying?”

  She wasn’t sure why she hesitated, but she did, and in those moments, yelling voices rolled over the crowd from behind.

  “That’s her! Thief!”

  “Get her!”

  Gasping, Tanith clutched the notebook tighter and grabbed Ekko’s hand. “Come on!”

  “Don’t let her get away!”

  “What’s going on?” Ekko asked, looking over his shoulder.

  “Just a little chase. We can outrun them.”

  Tanith wove between people, grateful for being smaller than the giants around her for the first time since her arrival as she led them down an alley and into another part of the spiral.

  Just when she thought they were safe; she saw them ahead. The guards in their silver and black attire talking to the shop owner, their keen eyes scouring the street.

  “We have to split up,” Tanith decided.

  Ekko’s head whipped towards her. “What?”

  “You go that way. They aren’t looking for you. We can meet by the fountain tonight.”

  He shook his head quickly. “Ward has other plans for us. I can’t leave you behind. Come on!”

  Stubbornly, she stayed put. “I’m not asking. Find Ward. Stay with him and get the Sight if you can. I’ll see you on Ellesmere when this is over with.”

  There was a flash of disbelief before she pushed him forward, letting the strangers move him along as she darted the other way, down another alley and past another spiral of shops. She kept going until she saw a metal ladder in the third alleyway, climbing it without hesitation and hiding out on the roof beneath the brutal sun.

  She stayed away from the edge so she wouldn’t be seen, glancing at the buildings around her to confirm that it was indeed a spiral, and she was in the middle of it all.

  In the distance, she could see a palace glittering near the water, separate from the civilization by at least three or four miles. It was nothing but sharp points and ivy from where she was standing, but it would have cast a shadow on her own castle without a doubt.

  As her adrenaline lessoned, she sat down and pulled out her supplies, opening the notebook to the first page and starting to jot down facts that should have been recorded long ago.

  A Historical Account of the Invisible Island

  Appearing every two hundred years, the island a mile off the coast of Ellesmere is protected by a barrier. The shield creates the illusion of no civilization, though once a person passes through, the truth becomes visible. It can only be assumed that the same barrier is what eventually makes the island invisible altogether.

  There are barbarians that live among the natives. They hunt the firstborn royals who arrive on the beaches for sport. Prince Hisrele Vichinoff of Menne was the first to fall at their hands this year. The whereabouts of Princess Ardeen Neach of Larune are still at large, but it’s suspected that the barbarians have gotten a hold of her too.

  Prince Kent Shaw of Shadow Hunt was taken by the royal guards for reasons unknown. What we do know is that the king of this strange island has shown an interest in the firstborns. Prince Kent happened to be the one to be captured.

  The natives don’t believe in the Sight, or so they say. Three days in, and there have been no successes, save for the discovery of knowledge for future generations to study.

  There were pages of information she wanted to add, small details about the flora and fauna. The water sources. The volcano. The city. The people.

  She wrote for so long that she lost track of time, imagining she was a historian in her office by the coast instead of a firstborn royal, expendable and weighed down by the duty placed on her from birth.

  The sun was warm on her skin as she wrote, journaling only the facts and theories as she saw them while keeping her opinions tucked away in the folders of her mind. Perhaps she would be able to put her head together with real historians when she returned to Ellesmere. Then maybe they could finally understand why the island was invisible most of the time. She could have her own books published on the matter. The thought made her smile as she proudly flipped through the dozen pages of text, listening to the sounds of the city in the streets below her.

  The shouting had stopped, the guards no longer in pursuit, or perhaps they hadn’t really cared about the stolen notebook and pen. She tucked away her supplies again and peaked over the edge of the roof to be sure, taking a few extra seconds to search for Ekko’s unique head of hair before coming up short.

  He was gone and they were separated again.

  She accepted the fact as she descended the ladder, using the small details of her memory to retrace her steps and return from whence she came. The walk back took significantly longer, but before the inevitable rush of the city people returning home, she made her way back to her temporary street and took her time climbing through the cracked kitchen window, grumbling lowly as she folded herself in half and closed it behind her.

  She set the notebook down on the counter with the ink and pen before turning around, a hot bath on her mind until she came nose to nose with a dead-faced Shaw. Frowning, he was standing there, just staring with his arms crossed over his chest and his cloak still on. “Where the hell have you been?”

  Tanith raised a brow, a silent challenge to his authority. “I could ask you the same.”

  “You know damn well what I was doing. Getting our shit together so that we can rescue my brother and go home.”

  “Yet you wouldn’t let me come too. That’s suspicious, you know.”

  For a moment, his brown eyes flickered dangerously. “Were you following me?”

  “No,” Tanith said quickly. Not for lack of trying, anyway. “I had my own errands to run.”

  “With what money?”

  She turned up her nose. “You aren’t the only one who can steal.”

  Shaw didn’t hold in his snicker as he turned around, strolling into the sitting room. “I never said I was, but you did say you’d stay here. I didn’t take you for a liar.”

  “I said no such thing. You told me to stay here. I didn’t,” she corrected. “That’s the difference.”

  Shaw dropped into the armchair with a sigh. “You’re a pain in the ass.”

  “Ditto.”

  She took a moment to scan the table. There was more food spread out on it. Fresh fruit and a stack of blueprints next to them. The palace. Even scaled-down on paper, it was more lavish than Tanith could have imagined. On the other end of the couch was
a guard’s uniform, the long silver jacket detailed with black and the matching garments piled underneath. Beside it was a plain black dress and silver apron, certainly nothing special to look at.

  “A guard’s uniform,” he confirmed. “And a maid’s uniform. As promised. I already looked through the blueprints and we’re good to go. We can slip in without trouble as long as we’re wearing those, and we’ll be out with Kent in no time. From there, it’s straight to the beach, you hear me? You’ll both get on that boat and go home.”

  “What about you?” Tanith frowned.

  He shrugged. “I’ll poke around for the Sight. See if the locals were right about it being a myth or not.”

  She pressed her lips together. “I don’t feel right leaving you, Ardeen, Ward, and Ekko behind. We were supposed to stay together.”

  “That plan is down in the dumps, though, isn’t it?”

  Tanith leaned back against the couch with a sigh. He was tired. She could see it in the way his usually strong, straight shoulders were slouched. She couldn’t blame him. The city was exhausting, especially when someone was leading a chase. She considered telling him about it—about running into Ekko but thought better of it. He was already irritated with her, and she didn’t want to give him anymore ammunition to tell her how foolish she was.

  “Do you have a backup plan?”

  Shaw’s brows pulled together. “What?”

  “A backup plan. In case the one you’re thinking of fails. What will we do if we get caught?” she asked.

  The prince shook his head, slipping off his gloves and taking off his cloak. “We don’t need a plan. It’s a simple in and out. You can expect some improvising along the way.”

  “You think it’ll be so easy?”

  “Not easy,” he argued. “Just take it a little at a time. I know the layout. We have the outfits. Just trust me.”

  Tanith couldn’t hold in her laugh as it bubbled out of her. “Trust you? Have you met you? Last time I had a real conversation with you. I was twelve. In case you haven’t noticed, I’m twenty now, and you still haven’t told me what happened to you. You still haven’t told me why you let us all think you were dead.”

  It was hard to keep the emotion out of her voice, but she remembered how hard it had been. She’d lost her father to the fever two years before Shaw disappeared, and just as the King of Ellesmere had been Tanith’s rock, Vaere had been Kent’s. The brothers were all each other had as their mother died giving birth to Kent, and they had once faced the horrors of their father together.

  “That’s your answer,” he grumbled quietly.

  Tanith snapped her head up, clearing her thoughts. “What?”

  “The answer to your question. Why I let everyone think I was dead. It’s exactly what you’re thinking. Getting out of Shadow Hunt was the best thing that ever happened to me. Scariest thing, too, but I knew I could never go back. Not even for Kent. My only hope for him was that he’d be smart enough to get out on his own.”

  “He’s your brother,” she reminded him. “You should have known he was too damn stubborn to leave. You should have got him out of there.”

  “If you couldn’t, what makes you think I could?”

  “You’re blood.”

  “You’re his best friend,” Shaw countered. “Not to mention he loves you like a sister. If you couldn’t make him leave, then no one would have been able to.”

  Tanith clenched her teeth in frustration. “It still isn’t right. He thought he was the sole heir to Shadow Hunt. That’s why he’s put up with your father for so long. It isn’t fair for you to come back and… insert yourself into an equation you already took yourself out of long ago.”

  “I’m not here to take the throne of Shadow Hunt,” he assured. “Trust me, after the island is gone, you’ll never see me again.”

  Heavy silence settled over them.

  “What the hell does that mean?” she snapped.

  Shaw shrugged. “Do I really need to elaborate?”

  “You might. You can’t just disappear again! What about Kent? What about your father and Shadow Hunt and… You can’t abandon everything twice,” Tanith insisted.

  “Watch me.”

  Scoffing, she reached for the table and threw a plum right at his head. He caught it easily, dropping it on the side table next to his chair before rolling his head back. “Come on, Tanith,” he all but pleaded. “Something tells me you won’t miss me that much. No one will.”

  “That isn’t true. You have a lot to make up for, and it would be shitty to skip out again.”

  “Then I guess I’m shitty,” he figured, brown eyes lifeless.

  Tanith groaned in frustration, pulling at the roots of her hair as though speaking to him was physically painful. “You don’t have to be, though. That’s the whole point. You can do better. You keep telling me to trust you, but I can’t! Not until you prove you’re trustworthy and give me some real answers.”

  Shaw tilted his head slightly, a chunk of auburn hair falling in front of his eye. “You want answers?”

  “Do I have to scream it for you to get the memo?”

  “Touché. I’ll answer if you do, but we each get three passes. Game is over when I say so.”

  Shaking her head, Tanith got comfortable on the gray cushions. “You’re such a control freak.”

  “Get used to it. The eight years I missed out on, fill me in.”

  “That’s your first question?” He nodded. “Fine. As you’ve probably heard, Xeres is in a bad state—”

  “Not that. You. Tell me what I missed about you. Everything,” he added.

  Tanith sucked in a deep breath at the intensity of his stare. She knew exactly what he meant. The scars, because she certainly had gotten them when he was around.

  “I was sixteen. I did my royal internship and relation practices in Shadow Hunt so that I could spend a few weeks with Kent. Your father was… in a bad way a lot of the time. You know how it goes. He gets angry. Drinks. Starts ranting. Yelling. Throwing things. Makes you strip and then…”

  Shaw’s fingers curled on the ends of the armrests. “He made you strip first?”

  “Isn’t that what he made you do?”

  He shook his head. “Not usually.” He looked away from her for a moment, staring at the map on the table before turning back to her, eyes softer. “I’m sorry. That never should have happened.”

  “I don’t blame you,” she assured. “Kent always came to Ellesmere after that, but he wouldn’t move permanently. You know how he is. When he wasn’t around, Meelah and I would do a good portion of our studies together. I had to train separately, though. For the last five years, my mother hired the best trainers to push me towards success. It was their only job to make sure I could come back from the island, but it’s a lot less brutal here than I was expecting.”

  “Despite having been almost killed and kidnapped?”

  “Surprisingly, yes. That’s pretty much everything. My turn. That brand on your wrist. What does it mean?”

  Shaw glanced down at the puckered burn mark, the shape obviously intentional. “It’s… It’s something I got in my time away. It helps with attracting things. Things that I was in search of.”

  Tanith frowned. “How could you be looking for things when you were kidnapped?”

  “It isn’t your turn. First kiss. What was his name?”

  “Seriously?” she asked, receiving only an intense look from Shaw. “It was Kent. We were six. When did you escape?”

  “I didn’t need to,” he responded easily. “I wasn’t really taken. I left.”

  “What?”

  “I left,” he repeated with a sigh. “I couldn’t be in Shadow Hunt anymore, so on my travels to Ograboden, I joined a band of pirates and had my own adventure. My old ship’s captain started the rumor that I’d been kidnapped and sent back pieces of bodies from the morgue on the northeastern continent after he arrived. At my request, of course.”

  “You went off with pirates? Where you w
ere looking for things?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you ever plan on returning?”

  He paused. “I don’t know. That was more than one question. My turn. Did you miss me while I was gone?”

  Tanith tried not to smile at his obvious ego. “I wished you hadn’t disappeared if only to be there for Kent. How did you get that scar on your chin?”

  “Fishing hook,” Shaw answered smoothly. “Do you still use long hallways to practice your opera?”

  “No. That was a phase,” Tanith defended. “How could you just… leave? How could you up and disappear without a word to anyone or any idea whether or not you’d bother to show your face again? Who does that?”

  He had the audacity to raise a brow. “Is it that different from you sailing to this island without knowing whether or not you’ll return to Ellesmere?”

  “Very,” she insisted. “I was born for this. I didn’t just decide to alter the future of my kingdom and family on a selfish whim.”

  “Selfish?”

  “You left Kent behind!” Tanith reminded him in outrage. “You didn’t even tell him where you were going or that you might not see him again.”

  “I didn’t plan on leaving. It was a spur-of-the-moment decision, to save my crew in part. A prince is worth more than any treasure the pirates could have stolen from our ship, and they were more than willing to take me in as one of their own.”

  “So, you’ve been sailing the five seas for eight years?”

  Shaw shook his head, smiling cruelly. “Not this whole time, no. I was looking for something, remember?”

  “For what?”

  “Pass.”

  Tanith nearly sighed in frustration. “Did you find what you were looking for?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you satisfied with what you found?”

  His brown eyes flickered, almost as though in surprise before he nodded simply. “I am.”

  They stared at one another for a few moments, gauging each other before Tanith broke down. “Will you ever tell me what you were looking for?”