by N. C. Hayes
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
The Wayward Prince
Part One: Prince of Nothing
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Part Two: Long Live the King
ONE YEAR LATER
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Part Three: The Children
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Seven
Author's Note
About the Author
The Wayward Prince
Copyright © 2021 Catchfly Publishing
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the written permission of the publisher.
For Jaren
Part One: Prince of Nothing
Chapter One
The bells ringing in the distance signaled the news my village had been waiting to hear for weeks: the king had finally died.
When King Mal of Nautia had first fallen ill, the Grand Palace had tried their best to keep the sickness a secret. However, my neighbors, many of whom worked in the palace itself, possessed an unquenchable thirst for gossip. Within days, talk was everywhere. I was in the garden when I heard the chimes, and my attention turned to the road leading to the palace square, where children ran and parents walked swiftly behind to hear the official announcement.
“Shaye, are you coming?” I turned to see Finn, the neighbor boy who like to help Uncle Gideon repair fences and do other small chores in exchange for copper pieces. His sandy hair hung in his eyes as he leaned against my front gate, but the toothy smile that normally consumed most of his face was absent today. Finn would be twelve years old this summer, though tall enough to pass for nearly fifteen, and was just old enough to understand the solemn mood that hung over our village.
“No, you go ahead,” I told him, my spade deep in the garden bed I was turning. Harvest had come and gone, and while wet leaves still clung to the ground, the icy chill of early winter was starting to show itself in the air. It would be a few more weeks until frost truly set in, but a head start now meant less work later in the harsh cold. “I still have work to do here. Be back before sundown, or your mother will be after you.”
“I think so. Stop by after breakfast tomorrow and he’ll find something for you to do, I’m sure.”
“See you then!”
I wiped the sweat from my brow as he took off down the road. On the other side of it, in front of a small house nearly identical to the one I shared with my uncle, stood Cait, Finn’s mother. She watched too as he ran toward the square, followed by his brothers and sisters that poured out of the house after him. We made brief eye contact before she gave me a curt nod, wiped her hands on her apron, and turned back inside.
Cait and I had been playmates in school, but like all girls in Nautia, we could no longer attend once we were fifteen and old enough to marry. While her parents arranged a courtship with the miller’s son, Uncle Gideon continued my education at home. Cait gave birth to Finn when we were just sixteen. Now, at twenty-eight, she was a mother of five, the wife of a respectable tradesman, while I was a spinster, unmarried and ruined.
Or so they said. I would rather be kept company by my books than by a husband, least of all the options available to me here. To hear folks discuss their marriages, hardly anyone even liked their spouse. Why sign up for a life of discontentment when I could spend my days as I pleased, caring for Gideon and studying whatever subject might pique my interest?
The village was quiet now, with most of its residents in the city square, mourning King Mal and celebrating the new king, the barely fifteen-year-old Callum. Most of my neighbors’ homes still flew the Nautian flag, a solid bloodred banner with a pair of crossed battle-axes in the center, near their doors in recognition of Nautia’s one hundred and forty-fifth anniversary. The aggressive sigil of House Thandreil was a constant reminder of our nation’s brutal beginnings.
The gate creaked as Uncle Gideon stepped into the garden. I had been meaning to grease those hinges. Perhaps Finn could do it for me tomorrow.
“How was your day?” I asked as I put my gardening tools away in their basket.
“It ended a while ago,” he said. There was a smudge of soot on his cheek, and his coat and vest were both partially unbuttoned, revealing the white shirt beneath. Even from where I knelt, the symbol of the royal blacksmith was visible against the black of his vest, stitched in red just over his heart. “When the bells started ringing, they told the staff to go home. It took me all this time just to fight through the crowd.” He took my basket as I stood, and we started toward the house. “Crown Prin—er, King Callum is going to address the people in a few minutes.”
I wondered how Callum must be feeling. Still a child, now the king of a small nation because his father was dead. His mother the queen had died during his birth. Mal’s younger brother, Prince Gram, was the only living family the young king had left.
“The boy has just lost his father. What could he possibly have to address so urgently?”
“Promises of stability through the transition of power,” Gideon speculated. “Calming concerns about strikes from the Old Ones during an uncertain time in the kingdom.”
I shook my head. “Can’t they give him a day? Poor thing.”
Gideon kept his grip tight on the basket handle, but his usual stoic look did not tell me any of his thoughts.
“I’m sure some advisor or another has a plan. He’s a good boy. Quiet, polite, the few times I’ve seen him. He’ll be all right.” He opened the front door and stepped aside to hold it for me. I entered and, with a frown, watched my uncle walk toward his bedroom to clean up before dinner, unsure of why a knot was forming in my gut.
~
A few hours later, Gideon was reading by a lamp in the sitting room while I washed the dinner dishes. When finished, I would join him to continue my latest read, a volume on the history of mushroom foraging, which had turned out to be much more interesting than it seemed at first glance.
The sitting room was my favorite place in our house. Being just the two of us, Gideon and I ha
d allowed the space to become a den of organized chaos framed by our interests. In the center of the farthest wall sat our fireplace, while each other wall was lined by bookcases and makeshift shelves. The only places not blocked by books were the spots where Gideon had hung his maps—antique curiosities from before the war, some depicting pre-revolutionary Nautia, back when we were still a territory of Medeisia, the kingdom of sorcerers. Others depicted the lands across the Lucent Sea: Keotis and Sewyth, the elf kingdoms, and Auperene, the faelands. The maps were of course contraband, but they had been up on the wall my entire life and had yet to draw any attention.
To the left of the fireplace was Gideon’s stiff armchair, covered in a tough blue fabric that had survived my jumping on it as a child, alongside the various spills I had caused—not to mention the ones Gideon had done himself. Next to it was a small table with a collection of pens and notebooks cluttering its top, some of the papers already marked with the telltale signs of teacup drips. To the right, the setup was similar, except that my chair was far more comfortable. A deep burgundy velvet covered the surface, soft though worn in some spots from overuse. Finn had delivered it to our doorstep one morning about a year ago, stating that his mother no longer had use of it. My armchair at the time had stuffing coming out of the seams and a loose spring that poked, and I sent Finn home with two apple-and-fig pies and a large loaf of honey bread to give Cait my thanks, though I never heard another word from her about it.
I was just hanging a skillet on its hook above the stove when three sharp knocks rang out from the front door. Gideon made to stand, but I was already halfway there, wiping my hands on my apron. I opened the door to a figure in a hooded cloak. He must have seen my eyes widen because he quickly put down his hood, revealing his face. He was handsome, with brown skin and black hair and eyes nearly the same color. Unkempt curls too long to be tamed hung around his face, the ends just reaching his squared jaw.
“Hello,” he said after a silent moment, and I realized I had been staring at him.
I frowned. “Can I help you?”
“Yes, er, is this the home of Gideon Eastly?”
“It is,” I replied slowly. My eyes trailed from the urgent set of his shoulders to the gold clasp at his neck, holding his fine black cloak shut. Too fine, I realized, to have come from any tailor in Nautia. “Is there something I can—” Gideon appeared next to me, jaw clenched beneath his graying beard. I stepped aside, expecting him to send the man on his way.
“Come in. Sitting room is this way,” my uncle said gruffly instead, turning back into the house. I tried to keep from gaping as I watched the stranger follow my uncle into the next room.
~
A few minutes later, I arranged what might have passed as a tea service on the one serving tray we owned. I could not remember ever hosting a guest and had to dig in the back of a cabinet to even find a third teacup to serve him with. If I were being honest, I was grateful for the few minutes to stall and regain some composure. Gideon’s reaction to the man was unsettling, as if this was someone he knew and did not particularly want to see. It was not often that Gideon looked so unnerved.
My uncle and the stranger were talking in soft tones, until I entered the room and they stopped, leaving a heavy silence in the air. I set the tray on Gideon’s table, which had been cleared and shifted between them, but before I could lift the pot to serve them, my uncle said, “That’s fine, Shaye. You’ve had a long day. You should go get some rest.” I glanced at our visitor, who gave me a tight-lipped smile as he took the teapot himself.
“I’m fine,” I replied. “I wouldn’t want to be rude to our guest—”
“Leave us, Shaye.” My face heated with embarrassment as I locked eyes with my uncle, startled by his stern words. He clenched his jaw again as I stood a bit straighter and smoothed my skirt.
“Well,” I said to the cloaked man. “Good night, then.”
He inclined his head. “Good night.”
I said nothing to Gideon as I walked past him and down the hall to my small bedroom. I shut the door soundly behind me and raged quietly at the humiliation of being ordered around like a child. Gideon had never spoken to me in that way. Even when I was young, he spoke to me as an equal, giving me the courtesy of an explanation even if I didn’t like the decision. Yet now he sent me away with nothing more than an order and a look of fear in his eyes. What had this stranger brought to our home that would make my uncle behave this way?
I stretched out on my bed without changing out of my dinner clothes, counting the minutes, and hoping I would get a knock on the door and an explanation. As time passed and I felt myself dozing off, I knew the likelihood of it happening before morning was slim. I fought to keep my eyes open, but try as I might, sleep eventually overcame me.
Chapter Two
A loud bang from the front of the house woke me. My eyes snapped open, and I scrambled to my feet. A pause, then more banging came, joined by the muffled sounds of men yelling. I stumbled out of my room and swiftly made my way toward the sitting room. Gideon and the man were standing a few feet from the door as the pounding outside continued. A loud voice rang out, “King’s Guard. Open up!”
“This is exactly what I told you would happen,” the cloaked man told my uncle sternly. “They know. They have known. We need to go now.”
“What’s going on?” Both of their heads turned toward me as I stood staring from the hallway. Sweat was beading at Gideon’s forehead.
“Shaye,” he said, “go pack a bag—”
“There’s no time,” the stranger said. “We need to get her out of here.”
“This is your final warning,” the voice from the other side of the door called out. “If you do not open this door in three seconds, we will break it down and you will not be met with mercy.” The following crash against the door indicated that our time had already run out. Gideon approached it as a second impact slammed into the wood. The stranger placed his hands on my shoulders and moved me further into the hallway. He pressed my back against the wall.
“Stay hidden,” he murmured before sweeping back into the entryway. Where I expected the third and final bang or the sound of our door being broken down, I instead heard a high-pitched squeaking of hinges, followed by Gideon’s voice.
“Hello, gentlemen,” my uncle said with false courtesy. “How can I be of service to you?” The men did not reply, but there was a sound like a brief scuffle, then boots stepping onto the creaky wooden floors. The door slammed shut behind them.
“I was under the impression that the guards of the Grand Palace had at least some sense of decency.” Our visitor’s tone was casual, almost sarcastic compared to the anxiety in his voice a moment before. “Last I checked, soldiers couldn’t simply barge into citizens’ homes.”
“We will take any measures necessary to protect these realms and the rule of law,” one of the guards spat.
“Charming.”
“We have been told explicitly by the palace witches that there is sorcery flowing from this shack, and we intend to take its source before the king,” said a second guard, and I nearly recoiled. It was well known that there had not been sorcery in Nautia in one hundred and forty-five years. All Nautians were taught that no sorcerer had stepped foot on our side of the border since the revolution, when Calvin Thandreil led an army of rebels against the Old Ones—the sorcerers of Medeisia—who’d once ruled over us. The only magic permitted in our land now was from the king’s witches, who’d allied with us against the Medeisians. But how could they have sensed sorcery here?
“Witches,” the man scoffed. “Spoiling the fun, as usual.” I crept to the end of the hall and peeked around the corner. “My friend and I will not be going anywhere. Go back to your palace and tell your witches that their spells are faulty.”
“Not a chance, boy,” the guard grunted. “Either you give up the sorcerer, or we take you both and burn this dump to the ground.” He took a step forward, sizing him up for a fight. He was short, with crop
ped blond hair and a ruddy complexion. The second guard was taller, but bald and much older than his companion. Our stranger sighed.
“You had to do this the hard way.”
Faster than I could blink, a broadsword appeared in his hand and swung down at the blond guard, who caught it just in time, blocking the blow with his own blade. The two swung again, swords clashing and clanging so loudly, my ears rang. The bald guard and my uncle gaped at the fight for a few seconds, and then, as if just remembering the other, both scrambled for weapons. The cloaked man whistled and tossed Gideon a second sword seemingly pulled from nowhere, which he used to parry a strike. Swords flashed as my uncle, with a considerable amount of skill, fought the guard into a corner. I had never seen Gideon use a weapon beyond a bow and arrow to hunt rabbits in the woods, but now I watched with one hand at my throat as he battled a soldier in our house and a stranger defended us from the other. It was only seconds later that the guard thrust his blade forward, slicing Gideon along the side of his body. He fell back.
“Gideon!” I shrieked and darted from my hiding place. Both guards whipped around, but before either could react, the blade disappeared from the cloaked man’s grasp and he raised his hands. Balls of strange, blue light glowed in his palms. He launched them into the soldiers’ chests, and the pair fell to the floor, still.
My uncle sat up, clutching his side. “I’m all right,” he told me as I knelt beside him. “It’s a surface wound. I’m fine.” Tears pricked behind my eyes as dark blood began seeping through the fabric of his shirt. Yet he stood, and I followed. He gripped the sword in his hand, placing the other on the side of my face, the way he’d done when I was a child—comfort, and a way of holding my full attention. I heard horses snorting and screaming in the distance and the sounds of armored men approached from the village road.
“We need to go,” the man said from beside us. “There are more coming, and when they see their comrades here . . .” He did not finish, and when I looked again at the men, I realized they were not simply knocked out as I originally thought. Gideon swallowed, and the man added, “I’m sorry. I thought there might be more time.”
