“Are you Master Lasius?” the boy inquired, using the name Stephan had adopted upon coming to Varta. He was a little out of breath and squinted at Stephan suspiciously, as if judging the fit of the name against the feminine persona Stephan now presented.
“Who wants to know?” Stephan asked cautiously. He peered outside, over the boy’s head, but the stairwell was empty.
“I have a message for you from Master Ivar,” the boy said, referring to Warren. “He said to tell you he ran into some trouble at the docks and wants you to come there quick, if you please.”
Stephan frowned. Warren must have been in some serious tangle to call upon him after insisting he stay home. He was sure Warren had already concluded his dealings with Alaim at the docks and was on his way to the courthouse, if not there already. Something must have gone wrong with the negotiations, though he was hard-pressed to imagine what it could possibly have been, seeing as their rapport with the shipmaster had been good so far.
“Thanks.” He grabbed a copper from a small box on the table and tossed it to the boy, who caught it deftly and tore down the stairs.
At least he was already dressed and ready to go. Stephan grabbed his silk scarf to protect his face against the dry wind and locked the door after him. As he descended to the ground floor, he bumped into Mala, who was also heading outside.
“Out and about in such weather?” she asked with a smile, wrapping her own scarf around her head so only her expressive dark eyes were visible. There was a spark of laugher in them. “You’re going to be breathing sand before long.”
“I might ask you the same thing,” Stephan said.
“I’m headed for the fish market. Better pick up today’s catch before the storm hits. The fishing boats won’t be going out tomorrow.”
Stephan nodded. “I’d offer to get it for you, since I’d headed for the port myself, but there’s no telling when we’ll be done there. I might be delayed.”
“We can go together,” Mala offered.
They stepped out into the street, which was already emptying. The sky had turned gray and overcast, its azure cupola dimly visible through a thick layer of dust hanging heavy in the air. As impossible as that had seemed merely hours ago, the temperature had risen further.
Stephan enjoyed having company along the way. Mala was as close a friend he’d ever had, save Warren. She was the only person in Varta in whom he had confided, telling her his real name and the real reason they’d sought refuge in the city.
“I wish your handsome husband were here,” Mala said teasingly as Stephan struggled, in the strong gusts, to keep the thin fabric wrapped around his head. “He’d shield us from the wind. We could hide behind those broad shoulders of his.”
“He’s not my husband,” Stephan said, feeling his cheeks redden.
“As good as.”
Stephan grinned at her, but deep down the thought made him wistful. As liberal as Segor was in its attitude toward same-sex relationships (something he couldn’t dream of back at Seveihar, prince or not), marriages between such couples were not legally recognized. He was perfectly content living with Warren, but he couldn’t deny he sometimes wished they could call each other “husband” in truth.
They made their way, side by side, down the winding streets to the docks. Most of the vendors, especially those with fragile or precious wares, had already closed their stalls, but the ones selling food and drinks were still open. Laundry flapped violently on the ropes spanning the alleys. The smell of fish and seaweed greeted them the closer they got to the wharf, more potent than usual due to the heat.
Seveihar would be enjoying the beginning of summer. Wild flowers would be in full bloom, dotting the high grasses all around the tiny villages scattered along the course of the river, and mornings would be veiled with fog as diaphanous as the finest silk, to be dispelled by the first rays of the sun rising above the mountains.
A sudden longing for his homeland took him unawares. Stephan hardly missed his home or his family, apart from maybe Nessa, his sister, but when he’d fled Seveihar, he’d left behind a part of his heart that would always be tied to the green glens, the distant mountains, and the ancient stones of the royal castle.
Was it like this for Warren, too? They never discussed what they’d had to abandon, being too caught up in what lay ahead. Had Warren been overcome by nostalgia—or remorse for throwing in his lot with Stephan rather than going back to his family?
Mala suddenly stopped, rousing Stephan from his solemn reverie. He halted as well and followed her gaze to the mouth of the alley as a tall, massive man stepped forward to block their path. Stephan wheeled around, but two more men had similarly cut off their only possible retreat. Apart from the five of them, the alley was completely deserted, the few windows overlooking it shut tightly against the weather—and perhaps something more sinister.
Stephan’s heart sped up. These seemed to be just the sort of men who would prey upon what looked like two vulnerable young women, or robbers set on accosting easy victims for their purses. But somehow, they didn’t appear to be random thugs. If they had been following them, lying in wait for him in a secluded spot, it was because they had a specific purpose in mind, and it probably wasn’t rape or robbery.
Had they gone as far as lure him here? The vague message, supposedly from Warren, flashed through Stephan’s mind. Could it have been a ruse? And if so, where was Warren now?
Another man stepped from around a corner, next to the hulking thug at the mouth of the alley, dashing any hope Stephan might have harbored about this being an ordinary mugging. He knew that face too well for this to be random.
The newcomer wore plain sailor’s garb, but Stephan instantly recognized him as Otis, a lieutenant in the Royal Guard of Sever Castle. He was one of the young minor nobles who always teemed around Robert, vying for his attention. Sometimes currying favor entailed picking on those who displeased his brother for whatever reason—Stephan included—and Otis was never one of those who shied away from bullying, especially when the victim was an easy mark. After winning a position with the Royal Guard, Otis had risen quickly through the ranks, becoming a member of Robert’s personal security detail. Noting the scornful expression on his clean-shaven, angular face, Stephan couldn’t help but wonder if those near-fatal “accidents” he’d been so prone to during his last years at the castle hadn’t been the manifestation of Otis’s ambition.
“What do you want?” Stephan asked in Seveiharian, although the knives in the men’s hands gave him a fairly good idea.
“Your pretty head in a sack,” Otis replied in the same language, his voice laced with contempt.
A knife glinted in the fake sailor’s hand as he advanced on them along with his burly companion. Stephan took a step forward, squaring his shoulders and shielding Mala from the assailants. It was extremely rotten luck that she was there at just the wrong time; she was the last person to deserve being mixed up in Stephan’s misfortunes. He’d never been much of a fighter, and now he had nothing to defend them with, but he’d be damned if he let her be harmed on his account.
Mala moved behind him, and he risked a glance at her. Instead of cowering, she stood back to back with him, holding her empty shopping basket in one hand like a shield, and the small paring knife she used for prying open oysters in the other. Her stance reminded him of a cornered alley cat arching her back and hissing at a pack of rabid dogs.
His heart hammering, Stephan turned to face Otis with stronger determination. There was only so much the two of them could do against four strong men, but at least they’d go down fighting.
Warren, please be all right, wherever you are , he begged silently, and then all thought fled as Otis took a swipe at him. Stephan ducked under his arm to avoid the blade.
“Mala, watch out!” he shouted, but she was already moving, her knife swinging in a wide arc around her to keep her two attackers at bay.
If it was him they were after, he could try drawing them away from her.
“You thought a costume was going to help you, pervert?” Otis sneered. “I’ve tracked you down, all the way from Esnia. You thought a fancy dress would fool me? Think again.”
Stephan wanted to shout back that it was anything but a costume. His draw toward feminine attire was as much a part of him as the color of his hair or the texture of his skin, a side of his identity he could finally embrace, turning to it as much or as little as he pleased, as the mood took him. But he was sure his attackers couldn’t care less about his predilections. He bit down on his outrage, refusing to let Otis goad him. Anger would only lead him into making mistakes he could scarcely afford.
Stephan had been mocked his whole life for being slight and effeminate and weak, and he’d failed to master (or make himself take interest in) such obligatory masculine pursuits as fencing and wrestling, lacking in brawn and stamina. But he could boast a stubborn streak, sometimes beyond what could be considered reasonable, as well as all the reckless tenacity of an especially obnoxious lady’s lap dog.
“If Robert sent you to wag your tongue at me, he’s surely getting his wish,” he retorted, hoping to divert the assassins’ attention from Mala to him.
When Otis lunged at Stephan, he sidestepped, relying on his natural agility rather than any skill to get him through, but that brought him closer to the second, larger attacker, coming on him from the rear. A mountain of a man, his muscular bare arms were easily as thick as Stephan’s thigh. Stephan attempted his earlier maneuver of dropping low and skidding past him, but the man deftly caught him by the waist, knocking the breath out of him. Instead of thrashing instinctively, Stephan drove the point of the spoke into the assailant’s side, stabbing with all his strength. It was enough to penetrate the man’s sturdy leather jerkin, and he was rewarded with a grunt of pain just before the spoke was violently yanked out of his hand.
The attackers had no intention of backing down, not when their prey was effectively trapped between them. Stephan tried to jerk free as Otis came at him again, but the brute held him fast despite his injury. Stephan threw up his left arm at the last second in a feeble attempt to shield himself, and the blade bit into his flesh, slicing through the thin linen.
Stephan hissed, but in truth, the pain hardly registered. This was it. He was about to die.
“Mala, run!” he shouted desperately and shut his eyes as his would-be killer raised the knife for a final blow. The realization that he’d never had the chance to say goodbye to Warren cut much deeper than Otis’s wicked blade ever could.
But the deadly strike never came.
“What is going on here?” a stern male voice called out from the mouth of the alley.
Stephan risked opening his eyes in time to see a pair of city guards, with their pointy hats and burnished breastplates, striding in their direction. The guards’ hands were already on the pommels of their short swords, ready to be drawn at the first sign of resistance. Stephan sucked in a sharp breath, but Mala beat him to it.
“Help!” she screamed from where the two men were cornering her. “Help, robbers!”
Stephan staggered and dropped gracelessly to his knees on the cobblestones when the thug released him. All the attackers tore toward the other end of the alley and disappeared around a street corner as the guards approached, but not before Otis threw Stephan a nasty look.
“Are you hurt? Do you need a doctor?” one of the guards asked Stephan, while the other went to check on Mala. Being outnumbered and with injured civilians to take care of, they probably judged the pursuit unwise—not that Stephan blamed them. Running anywhere with the amount of sand blowing in their eyes and noses was a bad idea.
“No. Just make sure the other girl is all right,” he panted, but now that the distraction of immediate danger was gone, the pain and the shock finally hit him. Warm blood was seeping from a long deep gash on his upper left arm, staining the white sleeve a vibrant red. The smell of copper mixed with sweat and dust hit Stephan’s nostrils, and he struggled not to gag.
His brother would certainly love to see him now, with his hands shaking and breath tearing out of him in panicked gasps. Stephan was behaving every inch the coward his family had always thought him to be, so useless in a fight he couldn’t protect his friend. Some royalty he was. Even his late father would have been ashamed.
“Let’s get you home,” Mala said, coming to his side. Aside from dirt on her tunic and her ruffled hair poking from beneath her headdress, she appeared to be unharmed. Her eyes still glinted with rage, and her cheeks were flushed. She’d picked up Stephan’s scarf and now used it as a makeshift bandage, wrapping it tightly around his wound.
“I can’t. I have to find Warren.” Stephan pushed himself to his feet, wobbling a little as he regained his footing.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Mala scoffed at him. “You’re bleeding all over the pavement.”
“But what if they ambushed him too? I have to make sure nothing happened to him.”
Stephan had no doubt the message brought by the street urchin that morning was a ruse designed to lure him to a convenient spot for an ambush. But what if Otis and his hired killers had gotten to Warren first? If something happened to Warren because of him…
“You can’t go prancing around town injured in this storm,” Mala said. “What if they go after you again?”
Stephan gritted his teeth. She was right, but he couldn’t just go home and hope everything worked out to the best.
“Please—” He turned to one of the guards, pitching his voice to a more feminine register and squinting against the increasingly powerful gusts. “My lover might be in danger is well. He goes by the name of Master Ivar. He should be at the magistrate right now. Could you please go and see if he’s safe? I’ll pay you for the trouble.”
He’d meant to call Warren “friend” out of long habit of caution, but the Segati word for “lover” rolled off his tongue seemingly of its own accord. As if it was the most natural thing in the world. There was no other word he could use, and no one else could ever lay claim to that title. He was Warren’s in body and soul as much as Warren was his.
The guard didn’t appear thrilled at the prospect of running Stephan’s errands, but nodded.
“I’ll walk you home, ladies,” the second guard said. “You’re lucky we patrolled this way before reporting in for the weather. But if you’re afraid these men were after you specifically, you should take it up with the Guard Commander.”
“Thank you.” Stephan nodded, though he knew that’d be useless. The city guard couldn’t protect him when he couldn’t disclose his real name, or admit he knew his attacker and his purpose. It seemed like Warren’s admonitions had been right on the nose after all. It was beyond naïve of Stephan to believe that the timing of Seveiharian delegation’s arrival in Varta was nothing more than a coincidence.
“I’m so sorry this happened to you,” he told Mala as they started on their way back under the watchful eye of the guard. Despite the man’s presence, Stephan couldn’t help but glance around in apprehension, tensing at the sight of any passerby crossing their path. “It’s all my fault.”
“Don’t be silly,” Mala said firmly. “I’m not hurt.”
“But you could have been,” Stephan insisted. “I wish you had run. It was me they were after.”
“And leave you to fend for yourself?” Mala shook her head. “I couldn’t do that.”
Mala was only two or three years his junior, but she was so much more fearless and uncompromising than he ever hoped to be. Stephan found her hand and squeezed it gently in gratitude, blinking away the tears that suddenly stung his eyes.
Chapter Four
THE CALM GLOOM of the lower story of their home was a welcome respite from the gale that swept through the narrow streets. The city guard escorted Stephan and Mala right up to the upper rooms, and Stephan rewarded him with a silver coin before finally collapsing in a chair, dizzy with pain. The long sleeve of his tunic stuck to his skin, caked with dried blood, and his arm throbbed with every intake of breath.
“I’ll fetch you a doctor,” Mala said, frowning. “You’re pale as a sheet.”
“You can’t go out in such weather. I’ll be fine, anyway. It’s just a scratch.”
“That’s some scratch. We should clean it, at least.”
After shutting the windows tightly against the howling wind outside, she made him move to the bench next to the dining table and brought the bowl and water pitcher from the bedroom. Stephan sat meekly while she peeled the bloodied silk from his arm. He’d been only one knife stroke away from being killed. The realization drained all energy out of him, and he kept still against the nausea threatening to overwhelm him. He’d had his fair share of brushes with death, but now the possibility felt all too real. Perhaps it was something to do with cold steel ripping into his flesh—or seeing the pure malice reflected in Otis’s eyes, inches away from his own.
The notion that his brother would send his henchman to assassinate him seemed far-fetched and ridiculous, yet here he was. He and Warren had been so careful during their flight from Seveihar and their brief stay in Esnia. No one knew their real names, and Stephan had been sure disguising himself as a woman offered him ironclad protection against being discovered. After all, no one had suspected anything, and even Prince Arlen, his former lover, hadn’t seen past the veneer of femininity at first.
The Exile Prince Page 3
