Piper Prince

by Amber Argyle

  “She never fought for it?”

  Harben dropped his head. “No one would support a woman on the throne.”

  And Harben had abandoned it to be with Mama. No wonder Iniya had disowned him. He’d been her only hope for taking back what was hers.

  “Who were the men they hanged?”

  He sighed. “The druids claim it was a coup led by the king’s top advisor. Iniya claims the druids hired criminals and blamed the whole thing on an innocent man.”

  Ancestors, that’s why Iniya hated the druids. Perhaps Larkin was better off growing up in the mud, far away from the machinations of the druids and the royals. And Iniya planned to take them all on.

  She stepped back from him. “You gave me a life of hunger and bruises. You’ll give your son a short drop at the end of a rope.”

  He winced as if she’d struck him. “Kyden will have a chance to change things, to stop the druids from lying and manipulating our people.”

  Kyden. Her brother’s name was Kyden. She turned on her heel and marched back to the blue room, shutting the door firmly behind her. Her rug was gone.

  Tam waited on the couch. “What did Maisy want?”

  “Can you hear him? The beast is coming for you.”

  Larkin scraped her hands over her face. “She wanted me to leave.” She started pacing while Tam watched her, dark circles under his bleary eyes. “Why do you have trouble sleeping?” she asked.

  Tam was silent a long time. “Talox wasn’t the first I’ve lost.”

  She rubbed her sweaty palms on her knees. “Do you have nightmares?”

  He sighed and pushed the blanket off. “Might as well get some training in.”

  She looked down at her floor-length nightgown. What she wouldn’t give for a pair of piper trousers and a tunic. She pulled the divided skirts from yesterday under her nightgown. It would have to do.

  Tam opened the drapes to let in the early morning light. He pinned her to his chest. “Knee to the groin. When I hunch, grab my ears, and shove my nose into your thrusting knee.”

  Two hours later, Iniya found them sweating and panting. She looked hollowed out and fragile, her freckles hidden again under a thick layer of makeup. Larkin felt a sudden kinship with the woman. She knew what it was to be hunted. Hated. Powerless.

  “I chased you out yesterday,” Iniya said.

  Tam wiped sweat from his forehead. “The sword in your cane is a good idea. So is this.”

  Iniya considered him. Tinsy appeared behind Iniya. She stepped into the room, her gaze fixed on the ground. She set plates and a pot of tea on the table.

  “Fetch another setting, Tinsy. The Commander of a Hundred Men will be staying.”

  It seemed some sort of truce had been worked out between Iniya and Tam. Larkin wondered if that truce extended to her and if she would accept it if it was.

  As if sensing the tension, Tinsy left the room as quickly as she’d come. Forgoing a plate, Tam bit into a sweet roll, this time with butter and jam, as it was meant to be eaten. Crumbs scattered down the front of his shirt. He’d never had such bad manners before, which meant he was baiting Iniya.

  “You are a heathen and a slob,” Iniya said.

  “Yes,” Tam agreed.

  Iniya sighed and sat at the table, but she made no move to eat. “Humbent will be here this afternoon. The other lords follow where he goes. I need you to garner his support.”

  “How?” Larkin asked.

  Iniya poured herself a cup of tea. “Show him your magic. Leave the rest up to me.”

  Larkin frowned. “Men have all the power in the Idelmarch. What’s to stop Humbent from taking the throne for himself?”

  Iniya stamped her cane. “Men are a sword in the daylight and a knife in the dark. Women, of necessity, must be subtler.”

  “Subtler than a knife in the dark?” Larkin asked.

  Iniya leaned forward. “We must be the one to convince the wielder to strike.”

  Humbent was her wielder. But the weapon could still turn on her. Unless Iniya had magic.

  “Magic won’t protect your son or his,” Larkin said. “Not after you’re gone.”

  Iniya’s gaze narrowed. “You let me worry about that.”

  Larkin flared her weapons. “I don’t need to be subtle about any of it anymore.”

  Iniya huffed. “And when faced with a bigger, stronger, faster, more experienced opponent who wields equally deadly weapons?”

  Ramass. In a contest with the Wraith King, Larkin would lose. Feeling his oily shadows on her, she moved to stand in the midafternoon light streaming through the window.

  Iniya hummed. “So you do know.”

  “Know what?” Tam asked.

  “What it is to be made to suffer at the hands of those more powerful than you,” Iniya said.

  Tam shifted.

  “You know it too,” Iniya said in surprise.

  His fists opened and closed, his expression dark. “Who doesn’t?”

  It seemed all three of them were haunted by their pasts.

  Iniya glanced out the window. “Larkin needs to prepare for Humbent’s arrival. Tinsy!” She stood and smoothed her skirts. “Tam, you will stay out of sight.”

  “Ladies.” He gave a mocking bow and left Larkin alone with Iniya.

  An awkward silence descended that Larkin itched to fill. She motioned to the dolls. “Your hair?” The moment the words left her lips, she wanted to reel them back.

  Iniya froze and then sagged. “Mine, my sisters, and my mother.”

  So Larkin had inherited her hair from her grandmother.

  Tinsy entered the room.

  “Ah, good,” Iniya said. “Tinsy will prepare you for our trip to the tailor.”

  “The tailor?” Larkin asked. “I’m only going to be here for a few more days.”

  Iniya started for the door. “And during those days, I need you to look like the granddaughter of a queen.”

  “What about you, madame?” Tinsy said.

  “I will lie down for a moment. Wake me when she’s ready.”

  A covered carriage was already waiting for them in front of the house. Oben helped his mistress inside. Larkin had never seen a covered carriage let alone ridden in one. Ignoring the servant’s meaty palm, she lifted her fake pregnant belly out of the way and climbed in after the old woman. The carriage swayed as Tam stepped onto the back and Oben climbed into the front.

  It lurched and shuddered over the cobblestones through the misty city. Larkin leaned forward to peer out the window.

  “Stop goggling. Someone might think you’re a tourist.” Iniya handed her kid gloves.

  Clearly, Tinsy had reported on Larkin’s sigils. Larkin pulled the gloves on all the way up to her upper arms and used them to clean the fog off the glass. People trudged through the rain, heads down, collars up. Everywhere Larkin looked, she caught sight of candles in the windows for the coming equinox—one for each girl taken.

  One window had three candles.

  Not wanting to see anymore, Larkin sat back.

  “What is it like?” Iniya asked, as if she had guessed Larkin’s thoughts. “Being taken.”

  Larkin closed her eyes to try to shut out the fear. The loss. And not just hers, but the hundreds of soot-darkened, wide-eyed girls from the hollow. The older woman and the young one from Cordova. Her friends from the Alamant: Magalia and Caelia and Aaryn. “Were you not forced from your bed as a girl? And you’ve never really been allowed to go home.”

  Iniya clenched her fists until the sinew stood out. “You didn’t watch them die.”

  “No,” Larkin said gently. “But I would have never seen them again either. Nor they me.”

  Iniya panted, one hand braced against the carriage. Pity welled in Larkin, but not enough to wish she could take the words back. Iniya needed to know how wrong the druids were.

  “If you were to bring handsome, well-off men to the towns,” Larkin said, “and inform the girls that the men will take them to a place so beautiful it
will bring tears to their eyes, a place with magic and eternal summer, then the pipers won’t have to steal them. They’ll go willingly.”

  The forest take her, Larkin would have fought her way to the front of the line. “When you are queen, the Idelmarch and Alamant will see it happen.”

  Iniya watched Larkin. “I swear it.”

  Larkin nodded, a weight lifting from her shoulders.

  The carriage stopped at one of the shops. It was three stories high, with windows as tall as she, filled with dresses and hats.

  Iniya led the way, the door opening with a merry jingle of a trio of bells. Larkin adjusted her gait to the waddle her mother always reverted to toward the end of her pregnancies. Three girls sat sewing in the corner. They took one look at Iniya, and the youngest rushed to the back of the room.

  Half a moment later, a man pushed through the curtains, his hands out at his sides. His mustache shone with oil, and he wore a tailored cream shirt and brown trousers with a lovely vest in teal and gold.

  “My lady Iniya, you should have told me you were coming. I would have had all your favorites laid out.” He placed a kiss to her cheek.

  “Not for me, dear man, but my granddaughter. She’s an autumn.”

  His eyes dissected her. “And what a beauty she is. Just like her grandmother at that age.”

  “Don’t flatter me, Gus.” Judging by the tiny smile at the corners of Iniya’s mouth, she didn’t really mean that. And judging by Gus’s self-satisfied smirk, he knew it.

  Larkin was surprised at this vain side of her grandmother. And that her grandmother seemed to have friends? The forest take her, the woman had even sort of smiled.

  Gus kissed Larkin’s cheek. His mustache poked her, and he smelled of too much pomade. He whisked Larkin to a platform and stretched her arms out to her sides, examining her this way and that.

  “You were right; she’s an autumn. I have a moss, mustard, and eggplant already made up that will complement her coloring nicely. They can easily be taken in after the baby.”

  Baby. Nesha and Bane’s baby. Suddenly, Larkin was drowning in emotions. Loss that she would never meet the child created by two people she loved … and hated. Loathing that she was weak enough to feel loss at all. Guilt that she’d ever kissed Bane when he had been with her sister, even if she hadn’t known.

  “I’ve always detested autumns,” Iniya said. “No sense of propriety in the whole lot.”

  The man chuckled. “Summers are the classiest of the seasons.” They exchanged knowing looks.

  Larkin fisted her hands on her hips. “I can hear you.”

  “Yes, child,” Iniya said matter-of-factly. “But you can’t understand a word we’re saying, which makes it all the more fun.”

  Before this was over, Larkin was going to strangle her grandmother. “I thought druids’ wives always wore black.” She was supposed to be Nesha, after all.

  “Which is why you will be in color,” Iniya said. “You’ll stand out like a flower in winter.”

  Seemed like a colossal waste of money to Larkin.

  “Oh, don’t look so put out.” Iniya headed toward the back of the shop.

  Gus folded his arms, offended. “Any girl in the city would rob her own mother to trade places with you.”

  “Gus is the best, you see.” Iniya patted his arm. “Forgive her, darling, she’s from the country.”

  He harrumphed.

  Iniya examined a bit of lace. “Her arms, hands, and the back of her neck must be completely covered,” she said.

  The tailor shot her an incredulous look. “She’ll be overheated.”

  “Do it,” Iniya said.

  He harrumphed and herded Larkin into the back, behind the curtain. “Down to your shift. One of my girls will help you dress.”

  The girl cinched Larkin up until her small breasts were forced up as far as they would go. The girl laid out a simple dress of shiny, moss-green fabric, the hems lined in the softest brown fur, the skirts full. Next, she chose a long leather vest that had been tooled and cut until it resembled lace. It had been overlaid with gold and jewels until she shone like a star. The girl laid it over Larkin’s shoulders and buckled the decorative straps at her chest and waist to hold it in place. Larkin stared at herself in the mirror. She was beautiful in the way she’d always wanted, and yet it felt fake. This wasn’t the real her.

  When she came out, Iniya and Gus stared at her a moment. “You see? The right clothes and any girl can be beautiful.”

  Larkin wasn’t sure whether she should be insulted or not.

  “Yes, but curls are so out of style,” Iniya grumbled. “The bane of the daughters of my line.”

  Larkin straightened her shoulders. “I like my hair.”

  The tailor gave her an approving look. “We’ll bring it back in style.” He lifted one of her curls. “Pile these curls over one shoulder with a hat and some peacock feathers.”

  “More makeup to cover her blotchy collar,” Iniya added.

  “They’re not blotches—they’re freckles,” Larkin said. “And I like them.”

  “Child, you don’t know what you like.” Iniya found a copper brooch inset with purple and green stones. “We’ll take the moss and purple.”

  “Don’t you want to try the purple on?”

  Iniya waved her hand. “I trust your work, Gus.”

  The tailor preened under her words. He selected a moss velvet hat with peacock feathers sticking out of the band, settled it on her head, and pinned it in place.

  Iniya pressed the brooch into Larkin’s hand, the stones gleaming. “Pin that to your cleavage. Ancestors know they need all the help they can get.” She left the shop.

  Denan seems to like them just fine, Larkin thought tartly. She hurried after her. “I can’t accept all this.” She tried to hand the brooch back.

  Iniya waited for Oben to open the carriage door. “The stones are only paste.”

  “I’m only here for another few days.”

  Iniya took Oben’s hand, climbed into the carriage, and sat with a sigh of relief. “And how many kingdoms have toppled or risen because of the right dress?”

  Larkin climbed in after her. “None that I know of.”

  “Then you do not know men. Your father, for instance, toppled mine for the right dress.”

  Larkin settled into her seat; the carriage turned. “It wasn’t the dress. It was the woman.”

  Iniya stared unseeing out the window. “He was so in love with her that he turned his back on everything. Twenty years later, and he wants nothing to do with her.”

  Larkin wouldn’t have believed her grandmother—except she’d seen her parents in love. The first half of Larkin’s childhood had been filled with hard work and laughter. “Everything changed when he started drinking.”

  “When was that?” Iniya asked.

  Larkin considered. “Years ago. Our crop failed, and we didn’t have anything to eat. Mother was pregnant with Sela. Father overheard her saying she was certain she would have another daughter.” Larkin had nearly died that day.

  Iniya’s eyes slipped closed. “I see.”

  Nothing more was said between them for the rest of the ride.

  When they arrived back at the mansion, Tinsy waited for them. “Humbent is here, madame.”

  “Early?” Iniya took the purple dress from Oben and pushed it into Tinsy’s arms. “Put them in the blue room for tonight.” She smoothed her hair. “Humbent is never early.”

  “He’s taking tea in the parlor,” Tinsy said. “I’ve tried to delay him.”

  Iniya made an unhappy sound low in her throat.

  Dress in hand, Tinsy scurried up the stairs. Iniya looked Larkin over and straightened her fake belly. “I cannot stress enough how much we need Humbent’s support. Nor how much I need you to keep your coarse tongue between your teeth.”

  And yet Larkin was the princess and Iniya was not. “I’m the one with a sword, remember?” Iniya needed the man’s support to make a bid for queen. Lar
kin needed Iniya’s support to overthrow the druids. So she would play along nicely, but if the woman insulted her one more time …

  With a huff, Iniya pushed open the parlor doors. Sitting beside a side table holding an empty teacup, Humbent stood—surprisingly spry for a man of his size.

  “You’re early,” Iniya said.

  “My business in the city concluded ahead of schedule,” Humbent said.

  Iniya shut the parlor doors behind Larkin. “And how are things in Hothsfelt?”

  “The dealings in Hamel, and now in Cordova, have left us all uneasy. Men coming from the forest to attack our cities and towns—as if the beast wasn’t bad enough.”

  Clearly, Humbent didn’t know the truth of the forest.

  Iniya sat on the chair across from Humbent and rubbed her hip. Larkin vacillated between assisting an exhausted elder and letting the wretched old woman suffer. In the end, she fetched Iniya a cup of tea. Humbent took this as his cue to refill his cup and sit, though his rough features and largeness looked decidedly out of place in the delicate mauve couch.

  “And the druids?” Iniya said. “How are the people dealing with druid-led armies in their cities?”

  How long was this small talk going to go on? Why didn’t they just get to the point already?

  Humbent sat back on the couch. “The druids have no business running the armies. That has always been our job.”

  Iniya folded her hands. “Then you’ll be pleased to have the job back.”

  “The people won’t revolt against the druids, Iniya, even if I were to back you. They’re too afraid of the forest.”

  “They won’t be for long,” Larkin said.

  Iniya shot her a pointed look. Right. Larkin was supposed to remain silent.

  Iniya raised an eyebrow. “And if they realize the truth of the forest: that the druids have been lying to them for centuries?”

  Humbent raised an eyebrow. “I’m listening.”

  Iniya nodded to Larkin. “Demonstrate.”

  Feeling like a show horse, Larkin flared her weapons.

  Humbent shot to his feet and took a defensive stance. So, he knew how to fight. Good. The Idelmarch would need warriors.