Piper Prince

by Amber Argyle

  He stared at Larkin, his breath coming fast. “What is this?”

  “What does it look like?” Iniya asked.

  He wiped his face. “It looks like magic.” He ground his teeth. “Magic comes from the forest, and we all know nothing good comes from the Forbidden Forest.”

  “That’s what the druids would have you believe,” Larkin said. “There are many different kinds of magic.”

  He glanced from Larkin to her sword. “This isn’t Nesha. It’s Larkin.”

  He’d heard of her. Lovely. Now she couldn’t let him leave—not unless he was on their side. She stood and moved between him and the door.

  He watched her suspiciously. “You were in league with the men who came from the forest.”

  Larkin let her weapons fade, ready to be called back at a moment’s notice. “I was taken by them in the middle of the night into the forest. It was there I learned the truth.”

  Humbent’s gaze shifted from Iniya to Larkin. He sat back down. “You’re saying the men from the forest are the ones taking our daughters?”

  “Yes,” Iniya said.

  “But I’ve seen the carcass of the beast that takes the girls,” Humbent protested. “You have one in this very house.”

  “And who is our intermediary with the forest?” Iniya asked.

  Humbent’s head came up in understanding. “The druids are in league with the men from the forest—these pipers.”

  “They were,” Larkin said.

  His face darkened to a terrifying fury. “So the druids have known the truth about the disappearances all along.”

  Oh yes. They needed this man on their side.

  He considered her. “Why are these men taking girls? Why attack us now?”

  “They aren’t attacking us,” Iniya said. “They’re attacking the druids for breaking the treaty.”

  Larkin huffed. “If the pipers were attacking the Idelmarch, you would have already fallen.”

  Humbent ground his teeth. “My niece was taken by the forest. If the pipers are the ones who took her, I’ll kill them myself.” He shot Larkin a look of disgust. “And you’ve allied yourself with them.”

  “The pipers do what they must to protect us all from the true beast,” Larkin said.

  He sat silent and still before rising to his feet. “I will go into the Forbidden Forest and see the truth of this for myself, just as the druids do.”

  Larkin shot a panicked look at Iniya. They couldn’t let him leave. One word in the ear of a Black Druid, and he could be the undoing of them all.

  “The same arrangement as before is in place.” Iniya pushed from her chair, her limp more pronounced.

  “My daughter married long ago.”

  What did his daughter’s marriage have to do with anything?

  “You have a granddaughter,” Iniya said.

  Humbent’s mouth thinned. “She’s only thirteen.”

  “She’ll be a queen,” Iniya said. “What does her age matter?”

  Larkin stiffened. They wanted Harben to marry a girl younger than Larkin? “He’s already married.” He’d abandoned Larkin and her family for the woman. Their child was supposed to be the next king.

  Iniya waved the comment away. “Easily enough remedied.”

  “Harben didn’t cooperate last time,” Humbent said.

  “He signed a contract,” Iniya said. “And he’s older now. He knows what it is to live in the dirt.”

  Humbent pushed to his feet. “I’ll consider it.”

  Larkin didn’t budge from the doorway. “He could expose us all,” she said to Iniya.

  “Humbent is one of the few people in the world I actually trust,” Iniya said.

  He looked at Larkin. “I may not join you, but I will not betray you.”

  “And if you don’t make it out of the forest alive?” Larkin asked.

  “My son has his orders not to betray you either,” Humbent said.

  Larkin’s gaze flicked to Iniya. “Sons don’t always obey their parents.”

  Iniya rose to her feet. “Humbent is my cousin, Larkin.”

  Larkin’s mouth fell open. “How many family members do I have?”

  “More than you want,” Iniya said.

  Humbent considered her. “Most lords can claim some relation to the royal family. It’s why they were given lordships.”

  “Does that include Lord Daydon of Hamel?” Was she related to Bane?

  He turned back to Iniya. “A cousin somewhere along the line, I think?”

  She nodded. “His father did something to earn the ire of my great-grandmother and was sent as far away as possible.”

  Larkin didn’t just have a grandmother she didn’t know about. She had an entire family complete with aunts, uncles, and cousins—all descended from Eiryss. Of all of them, Sela had been the one to break the curse. Why?

  “You must be high in the boughs of the trees before sunset.” Larkin moved aside to let the older man pass.

  His brow furrowed, but he nodded. The door shut behind him.

  Larkin turned back to Iniya. “What if he wants the throne for himself?”

  Iniya hmphed. “He’s a cousin on my mother’s side, and so has no claim to the throne. Eiryss’s line comes from my father.”

  Larkin still didn’t like the risk. “Will Harben really agree to this?”

  “The barmaid signed a contract as well. They both knew this was a possibility.”

  “And Raeneth won’t mind losing her husband and her son’s claim to the throne?”

  Iniya rose ponderously to her feet. “I don’t really care what she’s fine with. She will do as she’s told. After you’re long gone, of course. Can’t have her running to the druids in a huff.”

  A knock at the door. “Dinner is ready, madame,” Tinsy said.

  Iniya left the room without a backward glance. Larkin hung back. This whole operation was spinning out of her control. She’d only meant to find a way into the palace, not become embroiled in family politics.

  Tinsy appeared at the doorway. “Madame Iniya would like you to know everyone is waiting.”

  Withholding a sigh, Larkin followed. The moment she crossed the dining room threshold, she froze. Raeneth sat beside Harben. And between them was a white bassinet, a tuft of red hair visible.

  “She didn’t betray you,” Iniya said before Larkin could protest. “Your father did. Your quarrel with him can wait until after dinner. Now sit.”

  Hiding the glow of her sigil with the opposite hand, Larkin steeled herself and sat down. She served herself ham and potatoes while Tinsy poured her a cup of tea.

  “Well,” Iniya said in her warbling voice. “It’s a relief that someone can come to their senses in this family without pouting for a fortnight.” She sipped her own tea and made a face. “Tinsy, there is far too much honey in this cup.”

  Tinsy hurried around the table. “Sorry, mistress. I’ll fetch you another.”

  “Larkin,” Raeneth began. “I want you to know—”

  “Don’t,” Larkin cut her off. “Just don’t.”

  Raeneth fell silent. From the other side of her, the baby squawked. His mother bent down and scooped him up, patting his back and holding him close as if she drew comfort from him instead of the other way around.

  His hair was the same bright copper as their father’s. Would he have freckles too? Not her brown eyes—those she got from her mother. Larkin forced her gaze away. Kyden was of no concern to her. She’d be gone in a few days and never see him again.

  Everyone ate in silence, save for Iniya’s occasional complaints about the potatoes being too cold or the ham too salty or the tea too hot. Afterward, she drew her cane to her and rose to her feet. “My constitution has been tried enough these past few days. I need all my strength for the morrow, so if you will please leave me in peace until the morning.”

  She left the room, cane tapping. Raeneth ate quickly, then shot Harben a sideways look that Larkin couldn’t interpret before leaving the room.


  Harben cleared his throat. “We need to talk.”

  Larkin figured it was better to remain silent than call him a horse’s arse.

  He sighed and turned fully to her. “Larkin, how did you escape? What about your sisters? Your mother?”

  The hairs on the back of her head lifted with anger. She turned to face him. “Why do you care?”

  His head fell. “Larkin, I’m sorry. I was in a bad place when I left you—”

  “When you left us? You threw me in a river and nearly drowned me when I was a child! You beat us and left us to starve for years!”

  He cradled his head in his hands and spoke to his empty plate. “Your grandmother told me when I left that my marriage with your mother would be cursed. Not a year later, Nesha was born with a twisted foot. I tried to deny it. But then your mother lost a son. I went to your grandmother after our crop failed. I begged her for just enough money so my children wouldn’t starve over the winter.” Harben wiped his eyes and turned away. “She told me to come back when I had a son to give to the throne. When I returned and overheard your mother saying she would have another girl …”

  He’d been furious and cruel, mocking Nesha for her twisted foot. So Larkin had hit him. For that, he’d thrown her in the river. She’d almost drowned, until Bane had pulled her to safety. Harben had served his time in the stocks for that. Instead of coming out contrite, he’d been bitter.

  “After I hurt you, I realized the truth. I had failed my mother. I failed Pennice and you children. I couldn’t even sire a son to save us all. I wasn’t any good. I never would be.

  “When they released me from the stocks, I got roaring drunk—so drunk I no longer cared about anything. It was … blissful.” He closed his eyes, as if even now he craved that bliss. “And before any of that, I did something, Larkin.” He buried his head in his hands. “I did something awful.”

  What could be worse than what he’d already done? She didn’t want to know. She had to know. “What did you do?” Larkin breathed.

  He shook his head. “I couldn’t live with myself if it was my fault. I buried the guilt. I blamed you. My family. Never myself. And I drank.”

  He sobbed, sounding so heartbroken Larkin was tempted to pity him. But then she remembered the feel of his fist in her belly. His kicks on her thighs. The humiliation of having the town drunk as a father. He deserved to feel awful.

  When he was finished, he wiped his face. “It was my fault. I never should have pursued your mother, never should have left home, but you’ve seen how your grandmother is.” He spread his hands. “I had to get away.”

  “And now you’ve come crawling back,” Larkin hissed.

  His jaw tightened, some of the old anger crawling back, but he reined it in. “You were better off without me.”

  Larkin threw down her napkin. “You couldn’t try to be sober for us? But for her, you will. For your new son.” Iniya had already traded the boy’s future away; they just didn’t know it yet. “And for what? To bring your family back to that harpy? In the end, you’re still the same selfish, cruel man.”

  “We couldn’t stay in Hamel. The people turned against us as surely as they did you. Our son will have a better life here. An education.”

  Larkin pushed up from her chair. Harben grabbed her arm and looked up at her. “Have you never made a mistake, Larkin?”

  “Nearly killing your daughter wasn’t a mistake. Hitting your wife and children wasn’t a mistake. Abandoning us wasn’t a mistake. They were choices. And you made them over and over again. I won’t let you hurt me anymore. I won’t let you hurt me ever again.”

  She tried to pull away from him, but he didn’t let go. “Let me say what I need to say. Then I won’t bother you again. I swear I won’t.”

  She gave a jerky nod. Unable to bear looking at him, she crossed the room to put some distance between them and looked at a painting of a pair of red-haired children. They wore dark clothing, and their hair was short. She didn’t know whether they were boys or girls or one of each.

  “My mother was not always as she was now. She was never very affectionate, but she tried—until my sister and father died of the putrid throat, not long after this painting.” He pointed to the child on the left. “That’s her. Nesha.”

  Larkin started. She’d never imagined her sister being named after someone. She tried to imagine her father growing up alone in this stuffy house, buried under mounds of rules and regulations and expectations that could kill him if the druids ever found out that Iniya meant him for the throne.

  Harben wiped the tears from his cheeks with fingers coated in freckles. Threads of white wove through his hair. Without his beard and with eyes not muddled by drink, he looked ten years younger. He was handsome, Larkin realized.

  “Pennice was the first real friend I had. And she hated my mother as much as I did.”

  “So you ran away.”

  “I don’t remember a lot of what happened—or maybe I don’t want to remember. But I woke up.”

  “And it took an affair to wake you up?”

  “No!” He shook his head and breathed out through his nose. “It took me realizing I had become as bitter about life as my mother had. She swore as a girl she would take back her throne someday. So far, she’s failed. She lost so much—again and again. She was too much of a coward to risk love, to risk losing it again, so she wrapped herself in resentment like a warm blanket. I understand if you can’t let me back in your life. But let hardship make you better, not bitter.” He stepped closer to Larkin, his voice dropped low. “Choose love. Again and again and again.”

  Larkin watched him walk away until tears welled up in her eyes, blurring her vision. She blinked hard and turned away.

  Larkin woke to the sounds of a baby crying. She lay in bed, orienting herself to the foaming blue lace, the dolls staring at her with unblinking eyes. She waited for Harben and Raeneth to shush their baby, but his wails continued unabated.

  She hadn’t slept much. Between the nightmares and her racing thoughts, she never did anymore. Unable to bear it another second, she hauled herself out of the bed. She followed the cries to the last door on the right at the end of the hallway. Inside was a small room, comparatively. It was perfectly round—the circular room above the parlor, then. The walls had been painted with animals.

  In the center of the room was a crib. Kyden pumped his fists and his legs and screamed. Larkin backed into the hallway and opened the door across from the nursery. A mussed bed, but Harben and Raeneth were nowhere to be seen.

  Sighing in exasperation, Larkin marched back to him, picked him up, and bounced him. He would only be a week or two younger than Brenna. His swaddling was dirty. She laid him out on a table, unwrapped him, set the dirty swaddling in a bucket, and washed him. He calmed as she wrapped him back up and laid him against her shoulder.

  She patted his little bottom while he stuck his fist in his mouth and sucked. Despite having different mothers, he looked like Brenna—the same chubby cheeks and round face. The same pouting lips—a white callous on the top from nursing.

  Her half brother. She stroked the back of her finger down his smooth cheek. “I’m sorry, baby.” Sorry she had ever hated him. Sorry she wouldn’t be there to make sure he was cared for the way she had for her sisters.

  Footsteps sounded in the corridor behind her. Her father’s laughter. Larkin started to set Kyden down. He wailed in protest. She didn’t want to make him cry, but she didn’t want to be caught with him either.

  Before she could decide, Raeneth pushed open the door, her hair damp and long down her back. Her round eyes in her round face widened as she took in Larkin holding her baby.

  Larkin crossed the room and settled Kyden into his mother’s arms. “He was fussing. I changed him. He’s hungry.” Larkin pushed past her to see Harben peering at her from within the room across the hall, his damp hair curling around his ears. She ducked her head and hurried toward her own room.

  “I— Thank you,” Raeneth calle
d after her.

  Larkin shut the door and leaned against it. She looked up at the ceiling. For her mother’s sake, it felt disloyal not to hate her father, Raeneth, and Kyden. They had wronged her and her family so thoroughly … The pain of it still throbbed in Larkin’s chest.

  A knock at her door startled her.

  “Miss, the water is heated in the basement if you’d like a turn showering,” Tinsy said.

  So that’s what Harben and Raeneth had been doing. Showering. Together. Larkin could see them suddenly—wet and naked and in each other’s arms. Gah! She shook her head violently. If only she could scrub it from her brain forever.

  “Miss?” Tinsy called.

  Right. The feast was tonight. After Iniya got them into the castle to look for the journal and ahlea amulet. “Yes,” Larkin blurted. “I’m coming.”

  “I’ll be waiting with towels, and we’ll do your hair,” Tinsy said. “Would you prefer to bring down the purple dress, or shall I?”

  “I’ll bring it.”

  An hour later, her oiled hair was smoothed back in an elegant updo. Layers and layers of makeup covered every one of her freckles. The high-backed dress and gloves hid her sigils. The pillow had been stuffed under the dress to mimic Nesha’s pregnancy. She was already sweltering.

  Larkin didn’t recognize the woman staring back at her, wasn’t even sure she liked her. But the dress … She very much liked the dress. Floral-embossed leather crisscrossed the bust and the waist, the buckles gold and beautifully cast. Other buckles went around her arms. Tinsy fussed with the sleeves so they draped just so, and then she belted the overskirt around her waist. Leather and gold panels fell just so.

  Tinsy placed a velvet hat with a brown feather on her head and picked up the breakfast tray. “Iniya will be waiting, miss.”

  Larkin stood and smoothed her hands down the soft velvet.

  Tinsy rested a hand on her wrists. “Good luck, miss.”

  Surprised by the sudden show of emotion, Larkin couldn’t think of a proper response before the girl fled. She made her way into the mansion and crossed the hallway. Harben and Iniya were indeed waiting beside the front door. As was Raeneth, the baby in a basket at her feet.