by Sarah Dalton
“What is it?”
“Your choices for the army. For the generals.” Brother Axil looked over at him. “Lord Essad has been appointed and has spoken with Lord Tinian about his duties.”
“With Lord Tinian? Why not with me?” Luca frowned. “He would not be commanding the Xanti forces. He would be commanding mine. And what of the others?”
“The others….” Axil sighed. “The others have been replaced.”
“By Lord Tinian, you mean.” Luca clenched his hand into a fist. He stood up to pace. He found he wanted to throw his crown across the room.
“Yes. The lords he picked are known to be quite favourable to Xantos. Lord Trewan, Lord Damont, and Lord Kels.”
Luca was vaguely aware of those men. They were well-respected, he knew that much; but they were respected for their trading acumen and their opinions on political matters, not for their abilities to lead troops.
“I made my choices,” he said. “I wanted the lords I chose.”
“Indeed.” Axil turned to him. “So, what are you going to do about it?”
For some reason, the question infuriated Luca. “What can I do about it? Lord Tinian does not listen to me! People listen to a king, but I am not yet a king.”
“Prince Luca, people listen to a leader.” Axil nodded at him gravely.
“Then I am not a leader,” Luca said sullenly.
“Of course you are not,” Brother Axil agreed. “How could you be? You have been installed by Lord Tinian, and you came here only two weeks ago. You have not had time to become a leader. You will become one, however.”
“How?” Luca demanded. His fingers closed around the cup of wine. In every matter, in every way, he was not a king. He was just a boy, and everyone knew it.
“Stop thinking about how to gain their respect,” Axil suggested. “What would Matias concern himself with now?”
Luca hung his head. “Matias would only want to do what was right.”
“Precisely. Matias had the respect of those around him because he did the right thing. Because he fought for what was right, he always had his conviction that what he argued for was necessary. Do you see?”
Luca was not sure he did. Matias had been handsome, charming, and a good fighter. Luca was none of those things. When he spoke, people would not want to listen to him the way they had wanted to listen to Matias.
“When you ordered the Gardens of Anios shut down, you were a leader,” Brother Axil said softly. “Everyone in that room took note that when it was a matter of right and wrong, you would not be swayed into taking the easy option.”
Luca’s face flushed with heat.
“What is it?” Brother Axil asked. Luca could not hide any emotion from his Governor.
“I changed my mind,” Luca told him. He saw Brother Axil’s expression change, and he swallowed hard. No one disobeys a king, he thought, and he lifted his chin. “Estala needs medicines for plague relief. I sent soldiers to every camp to make sure that the workers are treated well, and they will make medicines for plague relief, not labour in the fields.”
“The workers,” Brother Axil said. His face was expressionless for a moment, and then it grew angry. “They are slaves, Luca, not workers. You know that. You know this is wrong.”
“As a king, I have to make decisions that hurt some to help others!”
“Did Lord Tinian tell you that?” Brother Axil gave Luca a hard look, then turned back to the city below. “Matias would never have changed his mind. Neither would Serena.”
“So, you will back her over me now?” Luca challenged him. He saw Axil’s startled look and shook his head. “Serena would understand the same thing in my place.”
“And what is that?”
“That Lord Tinian gave us Nesra’s Keep, and he can overthrow us if he wants to!” Luca was shouting now. “His fleet is in the harbour. He has installed generals. It is his army now. I cannot stand against him yet. I cannot afford to offend him. I am no king, not the way you want me to be, not the way Josef wants me to be.”
“Prince Luca.” Brother Axil crossed the room to his side. “What kind of king do you want to be?”
“It does not matter,” Luca said bitterly. “Lord Tinian is the true king here. It’s what he wanted. Now he has it.”
“Prince Luca, it is not so.” Brother Axil shook his head. “You impressed Lord Rokkan, and that is hard to do. He thought you were a weakling when he came in here, a sickly boy. You told him you were a Menti, and he still wanted to fight for you. That is the king you can be. Lord Tinian needs you to defeat Stefan, or the whole world will be unstable. Xantos will be hurt without its largest trading partner. He cannot let Estala be consumed with chaos. You have power against him. You have strength.”
Luca looked away, swallowing. He did not feel like he had strength. He felt like he had when he was a child, as if everyone looked past him and was waiting for him to die.
Brother Axil sighed, but when he spoke, his voice was gentle. “This is too much, I think.”
“I know.” Luca looked down at his lap. “I am not meant for this.”
“I meant too much for one day,” Brother Axil said, amused now. “You are being turned around, dizzied by all these demands and meetings. We expect you to know how to do each little thing your father spent years learning to do. It is too much, and certainly, these are not matters to solve in a day.
“Think over what you will say to Tinian. Remember: you will defeat Stefan, as you said when you spoke to Lord Rokkan. You were a leader in that meeting, Luca. You were a king. You were picking competent people to strengthen your rule. Stefan never did so well. He surrounded himself only with people who would always tell him he was right. That is why you will defeat him. You will face Stefan in combat, with your fellow Menti at your side, and you will defeat him while your troops defeat his if they must. And those troops will be led by the generals of your choosing, and Tinian will be your ally.”
But Luca had no belief in any of the words Axil was saying. He was exhausted from Josef’s training, and the wine was making his head cloudy.
“For now,” Axil said, “rest. Call the others for a dinner. How long is it since you last spoke to Nico? Or Tania?” He tried to keep his tone level, but there was curiosity there. Brother Axil had noticed the coldness between Tania and Luca recently, though he had not asked the cause. “I meant what I said about having friends, Prince Luca. It is important for a king to have people who do not think of him first as a king.”
Still muddled from all the thoughts of what type of king he should be, and who had power over whom, Luca found the thought of a nice, simple dinner to be absolutely perfect. He nodded.
“Would you send for them, please?” He stood. “I will change my clothes. Oh, and send for Joss as well.” He had enjoyed the other boy’s easy humour as they sparred the other day, and he looked forward to an evening of talking and laughing with the others. “And send for food? I should call a servant. You are not my secretary. Am I supposed to have a secretary?” Another thing to worry about.
Brother Axil only smiled. “I will take care of it, Prince Luca. Change, and I will be back soon with your friends.”
Luca was humming as he found new clothes to change into. Stefan had been attended by many servants, but Luca found it ridiculous to have them attend him for something as simple as changing a shirt and doublet. He smoothed his hair as he looked in the mirror, and tried to ignore the way his heart pounded at the thought of Tania’s smile.
He did want to see her. Despite his anger, he had missed her, and now he realised that he did not have to forgive her as if it were some sort of defeat on his part. He could decide that she had made a mistake, but that he still cared for her. He thought of telling her that, and the thought made him a little queasy.
Perhaps he would just have a nice dinner and hope she understood.
He was walking into his receiving rooms once more when there was a knock and the door opened. It was not Brother Axil, however, b
ut a messenger, panting from his climb up the stairs.
“Sir—Your Majes—Prince Luca.”
“Yes?” Luca stared at him. “Would you like some water?”
The messenger shook his head, still panting. “There’s a woman here to see you. She says….” He bit his lip. “She says she’s Lady Reva Avalon.”
Reva
Reva stood at the gates of Nesra’s Keep and willed herself to believe that this was going to work. Had they actually been waiting for a long time, or did it simply feel like a long time? She was so nervous about what might happen that she wanted to throw up. She pressed a hand over her stomach and was rewarded with a growl of hunger.
“This was a bad idea,” Sam said. He did not sound pleased. “It has been too long. We should go. Why would they not welcome you in at once?”
Reva bit her lip. “King Stefan—” She saw a glare from the guards at the gates and bit the words off hastily. “Stefan, who was the king—briefly—he killed my husband. And my husband killed his troops. It is a long story.”
“What happened?” Carlia looked horrified.
“My husband, Francis, was Menti,” Reva explained. “Stefan was known for hunting the Menti. He hated them even more than Davead. He came for us in the castle, and Francis sacrificed himself to get me to freedom by creating a landslide that killed many of Stefan’s troops. I was running from them when the Sisters captured me.” She stopped speaking then, aware that the guards were listening.
There were shouts from inside the courtyard, and Reva’s stomach flip-flopped. Sam was right: this had been a mistake. They were readying troops to arrest her. Then the gates swung open and there were not soldiers there, but Luca himself.
Or at least, a man who looked like Luca. He had Luca’s eyes, and his mouth, and his hair, but he was taller now, with broader shoulders, and he carried himself like a warrior. He was wearing fine clothes, and he had a crown on his head. Next to him, with his sun-tanned skin and his elegance, Reva felt ashamed. She had survived so long outside the palaces that she no longer noticed her ripped clothing or worried about how her hair was dressed.
Now that she was staring at Luca, though, she was acutely aware of every shortcoming. She was thin and pale, her stomach was still paunchy from childbirth, and she was dirty. Every inch of her was covered in the dirt of the road, her dress was ripped and ill-fitting, and her feet were bare. What would Luca think of her?
He did not seem to care at all. “Reva,” he whispered, and he took two steps and caught her up in his arms. “It is you. I did not believe it could be you. Reva, what happened?” He held her away from him for a moment, and she saw anger in him now. “What has Francis done to you? Tell me, and I will have him called to court and he will answer for his crimes.”
“Luca.” Reva gaped at him. “Francis…. Francis is dead.”
“What?” Luca frowned.
“How can you not know? Stefan’s troops came after us, and—”
She stopped. The guards were watching avidly, and some nobles and merchants were stealing covert looks at the small party gathered there. Reva could not hear their words, but she imagined their curious whispers as a swarm of flies buzzing in the evening air.
“We should talk inside,” Luca told her gravely. He finally noticed Sam and Carlia. “I am sorry. We have not met…?”
“This is Sam, and this is Carlia.” Reva said. “They are—it is too much to explain here. I will tell you in private.”
Luca hesitated for only a moment, his eyes meeting Sam’s, before he nodded to her. “Of course. Come with me, all of you.”
He led them into the courtyard, offering Reva his arm. She felt ridiculous taking it in her current state, but he seemed to think nothing of getting dirt all over his fine clothes. In the courtyard, he stopped abruptly, and Reva saw Brother Axil there. He was accompanied by three others: a tall young man with dark skin and easy good looks, a shorter man with a plump, worried-looking face, and a beautiful girl with long limbs and the dark skin of the Xanti.
Brother Axil frowned. “Can it be? Lady Reva Avalon?”
“Brother Axil.” Reva smiled at him. She felt tears coming to her eyes, and she blinked them away. This was all so familiar, and at the same time, everything was so different that it was utterly jarring. “I am glad to see you,” she managed to say, though she realised in horror that tears were falling down her cheeks.
Luca noticed her distress and became very flustered, fiddling with the sleeve of his doublet. “We should go somewhere more private. Brother Axil, would you arrange for these two to be given rooms? And have one prepared for Reva. She and I must speak.”
Brother Axil inclined his head. “Your dinner plans, then—”
“Oh.” For a moment, Luca looked like the boy Reva remembered, flustered and unsure of himself. He looked at the other three. “I am so sorry. I meant to have dinner with you all tonight, but with Reva here so suddenly, and in such a state—Brother Axil, did you know Francis Unna had died?”
Brother Axil’s brows rose. “I did not. We will speak more later, Prince Luca. Tania, Nico, Joss, I think you should return to the ambassadors’ wing for now. You two—”
“Sam and Carlia,” Reva said. “Luca, will they be safe?”
“Of course,” Luca said, uncomprehending. “They will be given every luxury. Reva, do not look so afraid. Everything is going to be all right.”
Reva wished she could believe that. She watched as Brother Axil led Sam and Carlia away, and then she let Luca lead her across the courtyard toward the wing of the palace where the king’s rooms were.
Of course, she realised stupidly. She had forgotten that he would be in the king’s rooms now.
“Reva, what happened?” he asked her again, once they were climbing toward the king’s chambers. “With Francis.”
Reva’s chin trembled. “Francis was not a kind man,” she said at last. That did not do justice to the pain of her years there, but it would do Luca no good to know the rest of it. “I failed to bear him a living child, and he was very angry with me. But when Stefan came to attack the castle, Francis sacrificed himself for me.”
“Stefan attacked you?” Luca looked furious. “Why? Why would he do such a thing?”
“Francis was a Menti,” Reva explained. She felt the old shiver of fear at admitting that she’d been part of a household that had Menti in it. King Davead might have judged her complicit for Francis’s crimes if she had been captured and brought back to Reyalon. “I should have known. The whole castle was decorated with iron. His idea.”
“Francis was a Menti,” Luca said. He sounded surprised. “And yet he served my father. Of course, I did, too. If my father were still alive….”
Reva frowned. Her heart was beating faster now. Did she dare to hope that Stefan’s rumours were true?
“Luca, what are you saying? Are you Menti, too?”
Luca stopped just shy of the door. He bit his lip, the old gesture he used to use, and then he nodded. “I am. Reva, I am a fire wielder. It is how Matias died. It was an accident—I did not mean it to happen. That was what the sickness was. My powers were trying to manifest. They came to me suddenly one day. Matias was there, and my power killed him.” There was an ache in those words. “Brother Axil took me out of the city before anyone could blame me for Matias’s death. That is how I got to Xantos in the first place.”
Now Reva understood. She followed Luca into his rooms and found food set out in large quantities.
“This was supposed to be for my friends,” Luca said with a wry smile. “They will not be eating it tonight, but perhaps you and I could eat together?” There was a curious twinkle in his eye as he moved towards the table. He apparently found what he was looking for, as he came back with a plate and presented it to her with a bow. “Honeyed figs, my lady.”
Reva laughed in delight. She reached out to take one and popped it into her mouth, then sighed with pleasure at the taste. After so many months of living on very little, it was almo
st too sweet. How had she eaten these every day? Still, it was delicious, and she remembered very well how she and Luca would challenge each other to races in the gardens with honeyed figs as a forfeit.
Or a kiss. Her eyes went to him, and she had the sense he was remembering the same thing.
“I am a mess,” Reva said before she could stop herself.
“Ah. One moment.” Luca left to summon a servant and gave orders. “I know you have much to say,” he told her, “but I think bathing and having some new clothes would make you feel much better. I know I felt better in Gold Port when—well, it is a long story. Please, use my rooms.”
Reva was taken into the king’s chambers to bathe. Servants brought a new gown for her to wear. It was a fine red colour that would have suited her better when she was not quite so pale, but it was soft and fitted her very well. After her months in the Gardens of Anios and her weeks on the run, the dress seemed unbelievably luxurious.
When she emerged into the main room, Luca stood at once. He swallowed as he looked at her.
“You look beautiful, Reva.”
Reva laughed self-consciously. “I feel strange in this after so long wearing rags.”
“Tell me everything.” Luca drew her over to a small table where two places had been set. She sensed that he had filled the plates himself, and she noticed that he had chosen all her old favourite foods.
“Tell me about you first,” Reva said. She was not quite ready to admit what had happened to her. “You said Brother Axil took you away.”
“Oh.” Luca flushed, and swallowed. “There was a camp near Mount Zean in Xantos. Menti would go there to hide. Brother Axil brought me there for training. While we were there, Stefan arrived. I believe he had been ordered simply to bring me back to Reyalon, but he ordered his men to kill me. I tried to fight him, but he is Menti also.” He swallowed and laid his napkin down in his lap. “He is a dragon shifter, Reva.”
Reva’s mouth hung open. Stefan was a dragon? It was not possible.
