I inclined my head. “Would they have forced me? Perhaps. But I have difficulty now. If I could go back—” I shook that thought away, focusing on young Jenna. “That’s the thing about choosing wisely. We don’t get to go back and change the past.”
Brian gave a grunt of satisfaction, releasing me from the vise. He took the bracelet in both his big hands, pulling it wider, and I slipped my hand free. Free. A diamond popped from its setting and went bouncing. Jenna scrambled to fetch it, holding it up to the light as Brian moved to my other side, reattaching the vise to the table.
“Is this real?” Young Jenna breathed.
“Yes. And it’s yours now.”
“Oh, no,” Rillian exclaimed. “We can’t possibly.”
“We can and we will,” Brian said, beginning to saw on the other bracelet. “That’s the deal—we keep that one.”
“And do what with it?” she demanded. “This is a fortune in Imperial jewels. Are we to buy meat and fabric with diamonds?”
Brian looked up at her. “No. We take our savings and use it to buy passage back to Myli. You’ve been wanting to go home anyway. Your family will help us sell the gems, little by little.”
“Brian…” Rillian sounded both broken and full of hope. “Truly?”
“It’s a better place for the girls,” he replied, head down, sawing with meticulous care. “You’re right. This is no place for them to grow up. With these gems, they’ll have good dowries. Better than good. We can provide for your parents—I know you’ve worried about them. There.”
He picked up a pair of heavy shears and snapped the little chains to the diamond ring, then wedged open the bracelet for me to slip my hand out. When the ring wouldn’t come off, Rillian fetched me some soap and water, working it gently until it, too, relinquished its hold on me.
Because young Jenna stared at the ostentatious diamond with such fascination, I handed it to her to look at. Then turned to Rillian, and Brian, carefully replacing his tools in a leather packet. “Thank you,” I told them. “I don’t imagine I’ll ever be in a position to do much for anyone, but I am forever in your debt.”
“You’re not,” Rillian said firmly, taking the ring from Jenna and giving it back to me. She let her keep the smaller diamond, though, and wrapped up the one bracelet in a towel for washing dishes. “We’ll do as Brian says—just pack up and leave, today, if we can manage it.”
Brian nodded. “I’ve already turned off the forge. Anything we can’t carry, we’ll leave and replace in Myli.”
“I’m having that diamond set for you,” Rillian said to young Jenna. “So you can wear it around your neck and remember your namesake, remember what a true princess is like. Courageous and full of kindness and grace, even under the worst circumstances.”
Tears spilled out of my eyes. “No, wait,” I said, shaking my head when young Jenna made to hand the diamond back to me. I dug out one of my gloves from a deep pocket in the cloak, and worried off one of the biggest pearls. “Sell the diamonds. For a remembrance, keep this.”
Jenna held it with wonder, rolling it in her palm.
“Wear it against your skin,” I advised her. “Pearls need that.”
Rillian took my hand, squeezing it. “We wish you the best—and I, personally, expect to hear of great deeds from you in the future.”
~ 20 ~
Harlan used the last of his coin to buy us passage on a ship leaving on the morning tide for the port city at Halabahna. Better to save the oh-so-recognizable gems and precious metal for bartering in Halabahna once we arrived. And he found us a room at an inn. The smell and sounds of the bustling place reminded me searingly of the one before, where Rodolf had served me his final lessons, but I’d bear it for the night.
It wasn’t a bad omen. Just because he’d told me I could never escape him, that he’d kill Harlan before my eyes if I tried, that didn’t mean he could. I had escaped him. And I was free of his cursed ring and bracelets. In a sort of wonder, my fingers kept straying to my unburdened wrists, rubbing the healing skin, the scars I’d always bear.
I stayed in our shared room, hiding away from sight, as did Harlan. He sent servants after food and drink, and to fill a bath for us, setting up a screen for privacy. Once they left us alone, we both shed our cloaks with relief.
“You go first,” Harlan told me. “We might as well get clean now, as we won’t likely have the opportunity on the journey.”
“You shouldn’t have to take my used water,” I protested.
“Then wash fast, so it’s not all cold.” He gave me a cheerful grin and went to stir the fire.
Without delay, I shed my clothes, beyond delighted to sink into the hot water. The journey to Halabahna would take fully ten days, and we’d share a cabin, traveling as brothers. Best for no one to suspect my gender, Harlan thought, not until we’d made it well clear of the Dasnarian Empire’s reach.
He didn’t know how it was for women in Halabahna, if they could handle money or walk about without male escort, so he also thought it best for me to maintain a boyish disguise even after we disembarked in the port city. If we didn’t like it there, we’d go somewhere else. After we saw real live elephants, he added, with a happy grin.
We were both in good spirits, feeling celebratory, despite the lingering chill of fear. That might chase me for a long time, maybe all my life. I refused, however, to let superstition rule me. We’d made it thus far with no sign of pursuit. Probably Rodolf still scoured the trade routes on the other side of the mountains, thinking I could never be so audacious as to cross in midwinter.
But I had done it. I was stronger than he knew.
I’d bathed, dried off, and dressed again, nibbling at the enticing smelling roast fowl while Harlan took his turn in the tub, when a knock came at the door. My heart climbed to my throat, and Harlan clambered out of the tub, calling out that we were fine and needed nothing.
The door crashed open, the wood splintering around the bolt.
Kral stood there, surrounded by Imperial guards.
I stared at him, completely dumbfounded, unable to make myself move. His icy blue gaze raked me, and he smiled thinly as he took in my ragged hair and the boy’s clothes I’d put back on, then to Harlan, dripping wet and wrapped only in a towel—but sword in hand.
“Don’t,” Kral said softly as Harlan moved to interpose himself between me and Kral. His own sword in hand, fully armored, Kral advanced on Harlan, pointing the lethal tip at him. “Don’t make me kill you when I’m fully prepared to forgive. As is our father.” He looked between us. “Both of you, if you come home with me. Leave us,” he told the guards. “Remain on the door and at the windows below. Smells good,” he added with that same lethal smile. “Shall we eat and talk?”
* * * *
A strange meal, for the three of us to sit at a table together. Kral allowed Harlan to don his pants but nothing else, also making him leave his weapons on the other side of the room, whereas he kept on his armor, sheathing his sword but keeping his long knife across his lap.
I thought about seizing it, if only to cut my own throat, but I wasn’t sure I could move fast enough. Sick to my stomach, I couldn’t eat. Neither did Harlan, watching me across the table with gray eyes full of an intense message I couldn’t read.
For his part, Kral ate with enthusiasm, complaining only about the lack of wine or mjed. When he’d stuffed himself, he sat back, surveying us. “So.”
“How did you find us?” Harlan asked, in the same neutral tone.
Kral’s eyes flashed with, of all things, humor. “Because you’re stupid, little rabbit.” He shook his head. “You have growing up to do, letting sentiment lead you. This is the only port city close enough with ships going to Halabahna, and we all remember the fits little Jenna here had about seeing an elephant. You made yourself sick over it, remember?” he asked me.
I didn’t reply, regar
ding him steadily. Of course he had no idea what our mother had done to me, making me sick. But he was right that we’d let sentiment lead us to such an obvious choice. Of course, we had expected Rodolf to chase us, not our own brother. And I knew precious little of the world.
If I survived, I would change that.
“All I had to do was wait here and watch the inns.” Kral let his gaze wander over my face, taking in the marks on my arms I didn’t try to hide. “Though I admit I almost missed you, the way you look now. What have you done to yourself?” He asked. “Your beautiful hair.”
I laughed, the sound harsh enough to make him flinch. “What about my beautiful skin—don’t you miss that, too? This is Rodolf’s work.”
To his credit, he cringed a little, then shook his head. “We all bear wounds in battle. Did you think your fairer sex entitled you to coddling? Our mother would never have run away like this. Not with everything we have riding on it.” His gaze flicked to Harlan and away. “You knew how important this was.”
“What?” I prodded. I might not have any weapons, but I did possess our family secrets—and I’d lost any loyalty or reason to keep them for the people who’d destroy me for their ambitions. “You don’t want Harlan to know how our mother conspired with the Elskadyrs and Rodolf to make me Queen of Arynherk, so they could unseat our father from the throne of the empire?”
Harlan sat up straighter. “Hulda… did what?”
I ignored Kral’s scowl of warning. “That was the deal. I’d marry and the Elskadyrs would back Rodolf in a rebellion. He planned to be emperor, did you know that?” I asked Kral, who shook his head, jaw tight.
“No, your son would have been emperor and I was to be regent.”
“Not if Rodolf killed me,” I corrected, full of fiery vengeance. “Did you know that part?” Kral gazed at me in dawning horror and I nodded at him. “Makes sense, doesn’t it. Rodolf would kill me, our father would move to punish him…”
“And the Elskadyrs would have first backed Rodolf until he committed his forces, then abandoned him to put me on the throne instead,” Kral finished. “I didn’t know that part, but certain things Mother said make sense now.”
“How could you do it?” I asked him. “How could you sit by while that monster—”
“I didn’t know, all right?” Kral fired back. “Besides, it’s over now. Father promised that if I bring you back—both of you—then he’ll make me heir instead of Hestar. We’ll have everything we worked for.”
Harlan and I exchanged long looks.
“Now you know,” I told him softly. “If you need them, the secrets will give you power.”
“I’ll protect you both,” Kral protested. “I’ll be heir. I’ll have the power to do that.”
“Do you really believe him?” Harlan asked. “Hestar is the image of our father in every way. His pride, his creation. Hestar has been heir since his birth.”
“Well, that’s changing,” Kral snapped. “His Imperial Majesty vowed to me and the empress, that if I deliver you two home, then I will be heir. Mother is overjoyed—and asked me to tell you she misses you and can’t wait to have you home where you belong,” he added to me. “Though she’s angry that you flaunted the law and fled from your husband, she—”
“That man is not my husband,” I interrupted, unwilling to hear another word of that pap. I held up my unshackled wrists. “I divorced him.”
Kral’s lips parted, his astonishment almost comical. “You can’t divorce your husband,” he replied, finally finding his voice.
“I’m an Imperial Princess,” I retorted. “I can do whatever I want to do.”
“Not anymore, you’re not,” he fired back.
“No? Good. Then the Imperial Palace is not my home, I owe no loyalty to you or our parents, and I’m not going back.”
Kral’s jaw tightened. “You’re still a subject of the Dasnarian Empire and I’m an Imperial Prince. You will obey me.”
I lifted a shoulder and let it fall. “No.”
His lip curled in frustration, flingers flexing. “You’ve changed, Jenna.”
“Thank you.” The smile broke across my face, and I had to laugh. “Thank you, Brother. I’m delighted to hear that.”
“It wasn’t a compliment,” he snarled. “And, in case the two of you idiots missed it, you’re surrounded by Imperial Guards. You’re going back with me if I have to hogtie you and cart you in a wagon.”
“Don’t do this, Kral.” Impulsively, I seized his hand with both of mine. “Come with us. We’re going to build a new life, far away from the manipulations of our mother and the power madness of the emperor. Hulda used me in the worst way for her own ambition and she’s doing the same to you. You’ll never be happy there.”
He yanked his hand from my grip. “There’s more to life than being happy. I’m going to be Emperor!”
“You’re not.” I shook my head, sorry for his blindness. For what our mother had done to him, too. “She’ll betray you, too. Seize something for yourself, make your own life!”
“Fools,” Kral growled. “I don’t know how I’m related to you.” He pushed back from the table and stood. “Harlan, you’ll share my room, where I can keep an eye on you. It’s not seemly to share a room with our sister. Be glad no one knows of your presence here. Jenna, get some sleep. The guards will remain outside to keep you safe. Have you any proper clothing?”
I shook my head, and he looked disgusted. “I’ll find a klút for you to wear. Where are your bracelets and ring?”
“I threw them in the ocean,” I lied, head high.
You’d think he’d have been done being surprised by me, but no. “A fortune in jewels and she throws them in the ocean.” He shook his head in amazement. “I know women aren’t the intellectual equals of men, but even that is beyond stupidity.”
“I only worry some innocent fish will choke on the cursed things,” I replied.
“I’ll arrange for a klút and a maid for morning,” he said, gathering Harlan’s weapons and gesturing him out the door. “Maybe she can do something with your hair. Be ready to leave.”
From the doorway, Harlan gave me a long look, then a salute with the tips of his fingers to his temple.
~ 21 ~
I didn’t sleep. Who could?
Instead I added to my already complicated relationship with inns by pacing the floor. Like and unlike that night I spent with Rodolf. Once again, I was trapped in a room not mine, locked in with terror of the future for close company. This time, however, I wasn’t gagged or bound. And I no longer wore Rodolf’s chains of ownership.
The only person keeping me in that room was me.
Yes, there were the guards outside, but still—I was deciding to stay put, wasn’t I? Waiting for morning and for Kral and to be groomed to be who they wanted me to be. No Harlan to rescue me this time. Do you need to be rescued? I did, and the only person who could do that was me.
I’d come so far. Not eight locked doors between me and the outside, only one. And a window.
With no one there to tell me I couldn’t look out of it.
So I doused all my lanterns, went to the window, and opened it. Just like that. This kind had hinges on one side, like a door, so it swung open, leaving nothing between me and the chilly night air. Colder than the day with its warm sunshine, but still so much warmer than the frozen mountains. The inn sat on a back street—cheaper and more inconspicuous, Harlan had said—so I couldn’t see the harbor, only rows of darkened buildings, and an empty street winding between them.
I’d expected to see the Imperial Guards standing at attention, as they had all over the Imperial Palace, but I couldn’t spot them at all. I leaned out, craning to see, and finally spotted them to the side of the front doors to the inn. Lanterns turned low flanked the doors, and a pair of guards sat with the boy who’d taken our horses when we arrived. They see
med to be intent on some game, all bent over it. One of the guards picked up a pitcher from the ground and refilled their mugs. Wine or mjed, it had to be.
They weren’t even watching my window. My heart thudded with real excitement, with possibility. Of course they didn’t expect me to cause trouble. What woman would? And they all knew I’d only escaped because Harlan broke me out of the seraglio. They figured me for sleeping and docilely waiting to be dressed and carted home. In their minds, the emperor’s wayward property had already been retrieved, nothing more than another bag of valuables to load into the carriages in the morning.
But I had legs—strong dancer’s legs—and the determination of my bloodline. Kral was no smarter than I was, just more educated and experienced in the world. I could do this. That had been the message in Harlan’s quiet gray gaze as Kral went on about his ambitions. He’d been telling me to go.
All alone. A woman without escort or protection. So I wouldn’t be her. Exactly as we’d planned, I’d be a young man. Heading out to see the world. But not to Halabahna. That much was clear.
I stirred the fire, stoking the flames to light the room, and bundled up my things. I worried a couple of pearls off my glove. I put those in my trouser pockets—something else a klút didn’t have, those handy pockets—and wrapped the gloves and bracelet in my scarves. Thinking of Rillian and her kitchen towel, I stuck that inside an innocuous-looking pouch we’d carried food in.
I wouldn’t have food, but I’d figure out a way to get it. Everything was possible as long as I got away. Every decision I came to had to be made with freedom in mind.
The diamond ring I waffled over. I really wanted to leave it behind, a symbol of my divorce. They could give it back to Rodolf and he’d know I’d left it. Then again, it was beyond valuable and I’d certainly earned it. So valuable and ostentatious, however, that it would be easily identifiable. And I doubted I could use it to buy anything. Anything short of an entire kingdom and, well, that just might draw attention.
Prisoner of the Crown Page 18
