by Laurie McKay
She arched a brow. Her face flushed. “I could go with you.”
“Good, I may need you.”
Brynne stood up and stretched like a wind cat. “You often do, prince.”
While the others played games, he and Brynne slipped out the back door, through the garden, past the creepy gnomes, and out the back gate. In the area outside the gate to the yellow town house’s garden, Caden spotted hoofprints. Familiar-looking ones. He bent down.
“What?” Brynne said.
Caden pointed to them and smiled. “Sir Horace has been here.”
“Why would he come here?”
“He explores. He must have seen Jasan and followed him.”
As Jasan had trained both Caden and Sir Horace in riding, Sir Horace seemed to consider Jasan a close friend. Truth be told, Sir Horace listened to Jasan’s commands as much as Caden’s. There was no way Sir Horace would have such love for a traitor.
Caden and Brynne walked to the back of the yellow town house and peeked into the rear window. Except for a small tan couch, a cushioned chair, and a coffee table, Caden saw little inside. He pounded on the back door. No one answered.
“Maybe he’s not home?” Brynne said, sounding disappointed.
“Then I’ll wait inside until he is.”
Brynne seemed fine with that. “I’ll wait with you.” She pulled out her hairpin and smiled brightly. “You’re ever so lucky I’m a sorceress and a thief.”
She didn’t have to be quite so thrilled with the prospect of seeing Jasan. Caden frowned at her. A moment later, they were inside.
The yellow house’s living room was a mirror image of Ward’s living room, only with different furniture. There was a small booklet on the coffee table. It looked a little like Tito’s booklet of hard-to-spell words. It was tattered as if it had been passed from person to person. He picked it up and showed Brynne. Half the words he recognized as being of the common tongue of the Greater Realm. He couldn’t read as many of the other half, but he knew their English letters.
“He needs to learn some English to teach here,” she said.
There were also papers nearby written in the Royal Razzon language—plans for the fitness class. He’d drawn quick neat sketches of exercises and fighting stances. It seemed Jasan planned to use the pictures to teach. If he’d prepared so much, it meant he wasn’t completely ready to throw away his life. At least, that was what Caden hoped.
“I suppose I could magic him for you,” Brynne said. She sounded quite thrilled with the idea. “I’d have to do it each morning, though.”
No Elite Paladin would use magic to enhance an ability, and such spells would drain Brynne even more than she already drained herself. He set the papers back down. “No, I’ll teach him some words. And he has his sketches.”
“We’ll see,” said Brynne.
Just as in Ward’s house, the kitchen was in the front. A window with soft blue curtains let in sunlight, and the daisies outside framed the bottom of it. Unlike Ward’s house, the sink was loaded with dishes. The Enchanted Whisk of Mixing sat beside the sink, dirty with dried eggs. The countertops were smooth, pale granite. A clear box with a cell phone in it sat near the edge, and there were candy bars stacked beside it.
Brynne reached around Caden and pocketed two bars. Then she smiled like she was daring him to speak. Truth be told, Jasan shouldn’t be eating candy bars. They were not proper food for an Elite Paladin, so Caden ignored her thieving.
He opened the refrigerator. It was filled with fruits and eggs—those were okay—and what he recognized as fast food containers. He picked one up and sniffed. Some kind of poultry fried in heavy, unhealthy batter. He put the container back and poked at a box on the bottom shelf that said “Pizza.” Inside was a round slab of dough covered with melted cheese and greasy meats. Caden made a face. Pizza, fried fowl, and candy bars weren’t approved by the Elite Paladin dietary guidelines.
“Eeek!” That was Brynne.
Caden spun around, one hand ready to strike, one hand still on the refrigerator door.
Jasan stood in the kitchen entrance. He wore a fitted gray T-shirt and loose black sweatpants. His hair was damp like he’d just gotten out of the shower. He looked weary and not at all happy to find Brynne in his candy and Caden in his refrigerator. He held Brynne’s wrist.
She was turning bright red. “Your Highness,” she said. She spoke in the common tongue. “I didn’t think you’d mind if I took the candy. I hope—”
Jasan glanced at Brynne like he wasn’t concerned, and he released her. He spoke in the elegant tongue of Royal Razzon. “Keep it.”
Caden also spoke in Royal Razzon. “We need to talk.” He nodded at Brynne to leave. “Alone.”
She sighed like it was a great imposition. “Fine. I’ll wait next door.” She smiled at Jasan. “I can spell you to speak English if you need me to, Prince Jasan.”
Caden waved her away. “Just go,” he said.
After she left, Jasan leaned against the granite counter. He seemed annoyed, like when their father had ordered him to help Caden with swordplay or riding. “I told you to stay away from me. It wasn’t a request.”
Caden had no intention of staying away. He wanted to sound calm and collected, but his words sounded more hurt than anything. “I’m not going to do that.”
Jasan clenched his jaw and took in a deep breath. That was good. Jasan wasn’t fond of solving things with conversations, but his controlled breathing meant he was going to talk, and not just yell or speed away somewhere. “Caden,” he said. “My enemies here are many. You need to understand. You could get hurt.”
Perhaps Caden had been stung more by Jasan’s words in the gym and after the spelling bee than he’d admitted. He felt unsure. “So you do care then?”
“Sometimes.”
That was more than Jasan normally admitted. Caden felt a small smile form on his lips. His confidence started to return. “All times, you mean.”
“Don’t push it,” Jasan said.
Jasan’s eyes seemed weary. Dark shadows filled his face. Caden looked down. The floors were a limestone tile. They badly needed sweeping.
“Look at me,” Jasan said, and Caden looked back up. “Listen. If you and that little sorceress can’t leave the school yet, then keep quiet and guarded until you can. Sit quietly. Don’t draw unnecessary attention. The villains are dangerous, and Rath Dunn won’t hesitate to hurt you.”
Caden was aware. “He’s already explained that to me.”
Jasan’s face darkened. “Has he, now?”
He pulled up his sleeve. “See for yourself.”
Jasan inspected the wound and set his mouth into a tight line. Likely, he was planning Rath Dunn’s demise. “He did this with that dagger of his?”
At least Caden now had his attention. He needed to convince Jasan they had to be unified against Rath Dunn. He pulled his phone from his jeans pocket. “There is something I need to ask you. It’s about Rath Dunn. He knows details about our family that I didn’t tell him.” Caden took a deep breath. “And I overheard him say something else troubling.” He explained about Tito’s recording. “Listen.”
He played the audio file just as Tito had showed him. Jasan wouldn’t understand the words—the villains tended to keep to English in Asheville—but he’d recognize Rath Dunn’s voice. “He speaks to the lunch witch. She’s a master of ritual magic.”
Jasan peered at the phone. “What are they saying?”
Caden translated. He hesitated as he got to the part about himself. “He said he already promised me to my brother.” His voice cracked. “Who is he talking about?”
Jasan’s face was turning red. He gripped the counter behind him so tightly Caden expected it to crumble under his touch. But it didn’t. “Maybe he’s talking about me. Did you consider that?”
“I did,” Caden said truthfully. Jasan had saved Tonya. He’d been surprised to discover Rath Dunn in this happy Land of Shadow. Jasan wouldn’t kill Chadwin. Sir Horace wouldn�
�t visit a traitor. Wherever Rath Dunn was getting information, it wasn’t from Jasan. Nor was it Caden or Brynne. Caden held his brother’s gaze. He had to sound sure. “I know it’s not you.”
Jasan gritted his teeth, then pushed away from him. He clenched and unclenched his fists as if wanting to hit a memory. “You’re the only one who thinks that.”
Caden could tell Jasan’s control of his temper was reaching its limit. “Then we’ll have to show the others they are wrong,” Caden said. “If it takes years, so be it. I’m alive, that’s proof enough.” In the following silence, Caden heard the rumble of engines as cars parked in the spaces out front. The refrigerator hummed. What was it his counselor had said? “People make mistakes. Father will realize that soon. The Greater Realm Council will—”
Jasan released a harsh, hurt-sounding laugh, and his quick temper seemed to spike like a raging kiln fire. He grabbed Caden’s shoulders and pushed him against the refrigerator. The door was cold against his back. “I don’t care what Father realizes now, Caden. And the Greater Realm Council doesn’t admit mistakes. My portrait will hang in the Hall of Infamy beside the likes of Rath Dunn. Do you understand at all? There is no going back for me.”
Jasan was hurt. He was lashing out. He’d no real gift with words, other than to spew them out quickly and without much thought.
“You’re wrong,” Caden said.
Whatever was happening was part of something terrible, something that was interconnecting in horrible and unknown ways.
Caden pulled away. “Rath Dunn wants your blood. Maybe he’s communicating somehow with the Greater Realm.” He shifted on his feet. The words came out shaky. “If you didn’t . . .” Caden couldn’t say “Kill Chadwin.” Not out loud. He just couldn’t. He looked back up. “If you didn’t do what they said, and you’re not the brother he promised me to . . . who is?”
Jasan turned back to him. He looked troubled.
“I’m unsure.”
The night before Chadwin was killed, Caden and his brothers had gathered with their father in the Great Hall. The table was forged from giant bluebirch, one large and smooth piece of wood that stretched across the room. The imperial Winterbird was engraved into the tabletop and inlaid in gold and silver metals. The table legs looked like wings.
King Axel sat at the table’s head in a chair finished in dark velvets, at the place of honor. Valon, Caden’s first-born brother, sat to the king’s right. Second-born Maden to his left. Then sixth-born Chadwin beside Valon, and seventh-born Jasan beside Maden. The others, third-born Lucian, fourth-born Martin, and fifth-born Landon, were on a diplomatic mission to the Summerlands. Caden sat beside Jasan.
They were quiet, so Caden told them of how he’d spoken to a rock spirit in the garden.
Maden, the size of a small frost giant and with hair the color of straw, chuckled. “Rock spirits don’t speak.”
He was wrong, of course. “Rock spirits don’t speak the common or royal tongues. But they do speak, they are sentient.” Caden kept Maden’s gaze. “The one in the garden wanted to be chipped into two.”
“It doesn’t sound so bright,” Maden said.
“It wanted a twin.”
Valon, first born, peered at Caden. Of all Caden’s brothers, he looked most like their father. His hair was dark blond, his build powerful. His brow always seemed creased with worry. Caden had never seen him laugh, and Caden caught his attention even less than he caught their father’s. Now Valon looked at him with a calculating expression. “His gift seems particularly strong.” Then he looked at the king. “We should utilize all our assets, Father.”
It was rare that any of Caden’s brothers did more than tease him about his gift of speech, and his gift seemed to make their father uncomfortable. Caden sat up straighter. True, he could translate anything spoken to him.
Maden chuckled. “Hmm,” he said, “we may wish to talk to the garden rocks.”
Caden frowned. That was a more typical response.
Valon seemed unperturbed. “Such an ability has its uses.”
The king raised his hand. They quieted immediately. “Caden’s your brother; he’s not an asset,” he said. “Remember that.”
Caden, however, had no qualms with being a useful asset. His life goal was to be an Elite Paladin like his older brothers, to slay dragons and defend the king and kingdom. Being useful would only help him with that goal. “I can be both,” Caden said.
Valon nodded. “I agree.”
Jasan leaned forward. “I don’t.”
Chadwin looked at Valon and Maden and Jasan with a strange expression. He’d been watching them like that often in recent days. “Nor do I,” Chadwin said. “He’s barely twelve turns.”
“He’s sitting here,” Caden said, “and he’s capable enough.”
Chadwin turned to him and smiled. “Of course,” he said. “And when you are older we can serve the kingdom together. But for now, you are still too young, little brother.”
Only Chadwin ever called him little brother. It always caught Caden off guard, and made his cheeks flush and his heart twist. All he wanted was to be useful. To be an Elite Paladin, like his heroic brothers.
Chadwin turned toward the king. “Don’t you agree, Father?”
King Axel surveyed the group. “Caden will concentrate on his studies and his riding,” their father said. Then he turned to Caden. “And he’ll also stop talking to rocks.”
That had been the last night all his brothers had been alive. The next morning, Chadwin was dead. And Caden would never serve with him.
Caden looked at Jasan. In Rath Dunn’s taunts about a traitorous brother, he’d never specified Jasan. Caden had five more surviving brothers. Chadwin had trusted them all. No matter what he’d suspected, it wouldn’t have been a dagger in the back.
If Jasan was innocent, and if Rath Dunn were to be believed, one of Caden’s other brothers was guilty. But that night, Caden’s three middle brothers had been away. The only ones who could’ve turned traitor were Valon, first born, or Maden, second born.
Caden heard a bird happily chirping outside the window. Slowly, Caden gathered his courage. He said what he didn’t want to say. “Valon and Maden were there that night. They were there that morning. And they’ve both seen my favorite sword enough times to have a similar one made.”
Jasan said nothing. He never made anything easy.
Caden couldn’t bring himself to ask if Valon or Maden had killed Chadwin. Instead, he asked something that likely meant the same thing. “Could one of them have framed you?”
“I don’t know,” Jasan said.
Caden raised a brow. Jasan did know. Caden knew it. It was time to accept that one of their loved ones was a traitor, was capable of fratricide. It was time to say it aloud.
“It is no accident it was you who was framed,” he said slowly. “It is your blood Rath Dunn needs—the blood of the seventh-born son—and someone made sure you were sent here so he could get it. Someone was communicating with him. There is a traitor in our family.”
“And?” Jasan said.
This wasn’t so hard to understand. Caden threw up his palms. “And we need to warn Father, and Lucian, and Martin, and Landon, and whoever else doesn’t know.”
Jasan leaned forward. “Lucian, Martin, and Landon aren’t my concern. Nor is the king.”
“It’s your duty to protect them and to protect the kingdom,” Caden said.
“Not anymore.” He grabbed one of his candy bars from the counter like he was going to eat it. “Don’t ask me to protect those who sentenced me to death for killing my own brother.”
“They’ve been tricked,” Caden insisted. Their father would have never banished Jasan otherwise. “Do you want Lucian or Martin or Landon to die like Chadwin? Do you want Father to die?” If Jasan wouldn’t protect the kingdom, he’d still protect them. “We’re family.”
“Again—not anymore.”
That wasn’t true. Jasan couldn’t say that. Caden felt his insides
knot. “Always.”
When Jasan looked mad enough to punch someone, he often hit the wall. There were holes throughout the Winter Castle’s lower training room—fist marks that crushed right into the stone. He looked that angry now.
The punches came with words, not fists. “No one considers you family except Father,” Jasan said.
Caden felt his body start to shake. “Chadwin did.”
“Not really.”
It was as if Caden really had been hit in the eye with a sparring mop. He reeled back. Some of Jasan’s anger seemed to drain. “I didn’t mean . . .”
Knock. Knock. Knock.
Someone was at the door. Like Ward had said, Jasan made no move to open it. At the castle, a servant or guard would have done so. Maybe Jasan didn’t understand how doors worked since there had always been someone to open them for him.
Caden remained against the refrigerator. Blood rushed to his cheeks, and he felt acid drip on his tongue. “But they know I’d never betray them.”
Tap. Tap. Tap.
The knocker was at the window now. It was Rosa. She stood outside among the flowers, peering inside at him. She looked a little worried, a lot furious, and was at least two hours early to pick them up. That couldn’t be good. Caden wasn’t sure he could take anyone else being upset with him today. But he didn’t want to be in this kitchen any longer.
Caden hadn’t told Jasan of the quest. How would Jasan respond if he did? Maybe he’d say he didn’t care if they both died. Maybe he’d lock Caden away and attack Ms. Primrose. If Jasan did that, he’d be devoured. They’d both be. Caden wasn’t sure which scenario was worse. He turned away.
“I’ve got to go,” Caden said.
Jasan started to reach out to stop him but then didn’t. “I don’t care about any rules. I don’t care if I’m eaten. Stay away from me.”
Caden almost said, “I don’t care if you’re eaten either” and “I also don’t consider you family.” He wanted to say that. He wanted to say many things. But he didn’t. He couldn’t. A future Elite Paladin was always honest.
