by Oxford, Rain
“I drank a bad batch a few months ago, and it made me horribly ill. I haven’t had a taste for it since. Anyway, I am still tired from my travels. If you don’t mind, I would like to continue this tomorrow.”
“Of course. You are getting quite old, I have no idea how you manage the trip every year, just to pester me about mining rights.”
Ome-mor laughed. “Just think about it. I think Aneko is a good influence on your boy.” He left my father in deep thought.
* * *
“What have you found out?” The twins, Jedes, and I were in my room with the door closed and Doro was standing outside with instructions to not let anyone in. Jedes and I were sitting on my bed and the boys were sharing a dark green high-back, cushioned chair.
Momo buried his face against his brother’s back. “Haru-joul is definitely a dejeva,” Koko declared. “She treats her maid like scum. Her maid put the wrong combination of oils in her bath, and she kicked the old woman repeatedly. She screamed at the stable boy because she didn’t like the way he saddled her tokuami.”
“Who did she talk to right before she went to the archery field?”
“Her maid dressed her, and she chatted with the guy to brought her food.”
“Who was her maid, and who brought her food?”
“Her maid was from Zendii; we don’t know her name. She is married to the stable boy they brought to take care of their tokuami. Or, at least we think so. The guy didn’t saddle the tokuami right because he didn’t have enough time after they were kissing for an hour.”
“You were supposed to be watching Haru-joul, not her stable boy. Who brought her food?”
Koko shrugged. “Kego-do brought her some soup, bread, and fruit from the kitchen.”
“She kept touching his chest and playing with her hair,” Momo said with revulsion.
“Oh, see, that’s how you know a woman is bad. If she ever does that to you, you should definitely leave.”
The twins nodded their understanding even as Jedes shot me a glare. “Then Ome-mor went to her room and they went to the archery field,” Koko finished.
“Did they talk about anything suspicious?”
“No. Ome-mor said he and the king had a meeting later and then they left.”
“Good work, boys,” Jedes said. “Go back and pay close attention to who she meets with.” The twins left and she put her hand on my knee. “You can’t suspect Ome-mor without proof. He is friends with your father and there has been peace between Mokii and Zendii for hundreds of years.”
“No, you’re right. If Ome-mor is trying to kill my father, I will have to get rid of him on my own.”
“No, that’s not what I’m saying at all. Find out for sure who is behind this, get proof, and then bring it to your father. You could warn him that someone is out to kill him, but tell him you have no suspects.”
“Have you met my father? If I go to him and tell him someone is out to kill him, he will beat me just for not acting like a proper prince. Or worse; he’ll believe me. He’s already so suspicious that he would probably lock the castle down and interrogate everyone. Nothing would anger the Zendii house more than to be held in suspicion, and this kingdom does not need any more enemies.”
There was a scuffle outside the door a moment before it flew open and Rojio stomped in. “You are to meet your father in his study right now,” he demanded. My father’s advisor hated being used as a messenger, so his fury was understandable as he turned and marched back out.
I sighed and stood. “Bring me something good from the kitchens for dinner.”
“I always do, but I don’t think he’ll put you in the dungeons if he is trying to marry you to Haru-joul.”
“He will when I tell him I would never marry the dejeva.”
“Here’s an idea, don’t pick a fight,” she suggested.
“Are you saying I should---”
“No, of course not. Just make it sound like you are in agreement with whatever he says. Then, when he thinks you will do what he demands, make it sound like she isn’t good enough for you or the crown. If your father is anything, it’s greedy. He will not waste you on someone unworthy.”
I considered her advice on my way to my father’s study. Even if I did everything right, I never left my father’s study without some kind of punishment. Two guards stood at the doors, which was an absolute giveaway to the king’s location. I really need to lecture the guards. I entered without knocking and closed the door quietly behind me.
My father was sitting at his desk, and we were alone. “Sit down,” he said.
The room was small and dark with no windows. The fireplace sat cold behind him with a huge painting of my mother over it. Across the room from the desk was a bookshelf filled with handwritten journals and grimoires that belonged to our family. The only light came from the lit torches placed sparingly around the room.
I sat in the chair across from him at the desk. “Hello, Father. How was your meeting with Ome-mor?”
“The same as always; he wants Picor.”
“Picor is a suffering population. If he wants to relocate the people to a place with better food and jobs, I think it is worth considering. But he cannot expect to keep all the profits from the land.”
“He has the equipment to put the land to better use, so I was planning to allow him conditional access, in which he can mine, but I get forty percent of the profits and several of my men oversee the any and all activity. Of course, he also has to pay for the relocation of the people.”
“That sounds fair to me. Did you call me here because you want me to talk to Ome-mor about it?”
“No. I will speak with Ome-mor myself, and he will agree to it. I brought you here to ask you how you feel about having Haru-joul as a wife.”
“I think she is beautiful and would make a great queen and image for the kingdom. She is well-mannered in public, knows all the right words, and has the lineage to back it up. I also feel she is a spoiled, egocentric woman who would drain the kingdom dry of money before she could even become queen. I would prefer to marry her tokuami than her,” I said as pleasantly as I could. Since he didn’t reach over and hit me, I must have managed it pretty well.
He leaned back and considered me. “You would have the title of joul.”
“I don’t want the prince title. I’m just fine not even having a family name.” That was a lie, but no title was better than a royal one. The joul title would be closer to the mor title; the king title, which is what I was trying to avoid.
“Ome-mor wants to offer her as part of the Picor deal.”
“Of course he does. Zendii has nowhere near the riches that Mokii does. He will use anything he can as currency that isn’t actual money. Are you going to make me marry her?” I was only nineteen; I didn’t have much choice in the matter.
“Are you serious? She is the princess of Zendii. If you wanted to marry her because of her beauty, I think she is suitable, but there are far better women out there. We have no alliance with Anoshii and they have several beautiful daughters that I can marry you to.”
“So you called me here to ask me if I want to marry her? Thank you for considering my feelings.”
“I also wanted your opinion on Ome-mor.”
That made me suspicions, so I took a deep breath. My father smelled as he usually did; full of greed, pride, and anger. There really was no good quality to be found in him, but he was my father. He didn’t discard me at birth and for the most part, he loved me in his own way… usually.
“You have an advisor.”
“Of course I do; I can’t rely on you,” he snarled. “I tried to make you sit in on councils before. You can’t run away every other day and hold a decent position in the court.”
“I don’t want a position in the court. I want to take the chance to travel and explore before something happens to you and I get chained to the throne.”
“You have to grow up and learn responsibility,” he growled. If I weren’t sitting so far away, he w
ould have hit me for sure. “I know you have the twins spying on either Ome-mor or his daughter. I want to know why, and what you found out.”
I sighed. If I lied or told him I suspected nothing, he would put me in the dungeons, and then the assassin would have easy access to the king. “I think someone may be trying to kill you.”
“Someone from Zendii?”
“That is my suspicion.”
“Do not lie to me, boy.”
“Yes. The assassin is from Zendii.”
“How do you know? What have you heard?” When I didn’t answer, he glared at me. “Don’t tell me you smelled it. You really are just ridiculous sometimes.”
My father didn’t believe me from the time I was a tiny child when I told him I could smell a person’s intentions and emotions. Every scent was seemingly stronger for me than anyone else I knew. Jedes believes it is a natural power of mine, similar to her premonitions. I learned from a young age to keep it secret because my father found it extremely embarrassing and foolish.
Suddenly, the torches all went out and we were plunged into darkness. I jumped up and felt my way around the desk until I reached my father, then slapped my hand over his mouth as he tried to yell for the guards. Assuming the assassin couldn’t see in the dark, it was imperative my father did not give away his location by calling out.
The moment we were both hidden behind the desk, the door burst open and light spilled in. I peeked through the small gap under the desk and could see the boots of the person entering as well as one of the guards unconscious on the floor outside.
As soon as the door shut and it was pitch black again, I reached over for the fireplace, felt along the upper inside seam beneath the mantle, and pulled the small trigger. The back panel of the fireplace slid away and I grabbed for my father blind. I caught his arm and pushed him in, careful to protect his head from hitting the stone. He was temperamental enough without a concussion. I made sure he was fully inside the escape passage before I turned back. My father grabbed me and tried to pull me through, but I managed to shake him off, push him further in, and press the trigger again. The major defect in this particular escape tunnel was that it could only be opened and closed from the outside.
The assassin, drawn to the sound of the fireplace, was slowly getting closer. I could smell the person’s scent very well now that they were close and unaccompanied. I felt along the desk to go the opposite way of the assassin, when my foot set down on something smooth and I slipped. Landing hard on my tailbone, I couldn’t hold back a painful grunt. Getting up was even more difficult, as I had knocked over a stack of papers on the floor and everywhere I put my hand, there was paper.
A hand landed on my shoulder and turned me towards the assassin, so I reached up, buried my fist in their shirt, and pulled them closer until I could get press my nose against their flesh and confirm without a doubt who exactly was trying to kill my father. I had to warn Haru-joul as well, because this person’s hate was too great to be confined to my father.
Before I could let go or strike, the person kneeled in front of me and there was a sharp, hot pain in my stomach. I reached down and felt both the handle of the knife and the assassin’s hand still on it. My blood pouring from the wound felt extremely hot. The assassin gently tilted me onto my side and the pain was too much for me to uncurl. Then they patted me softly on the arm, stood, and walked away.
* * *
My dreams were morbid and full of fire; it was the type of dream that left me more exhausted than when I went to sleep. For the first time, I knew what it felt like to burn in fire, and I did so… over and over in my dreams. Sometimes I knew it was a dream, sometimes everything was just so confusing and vague. I hurt the entire time, and even when I heard Jedes crying and begging for me to wake up, I couldn’t. Most of the time I was aware I had been stabbed and even that something went wrong. Towards the end, the burning was fading and only exhaustion kept me from opening my eyes.
It was the girl screaming that finally woke me.
I sat up to quickly and gasped at the sharp pain in my side. Suka-mas Mokomo, the physician, pushed me back down while Jedes cried and called me a fool for scaring her. Once I calmed down, I relaxed and let the pain settle. “What happened?” I asked.
“You were found in the king’s private study, stabbed with a poisoned dagger.”
“How did you save me?”
“I almost didn’t,” he answered, glaring at me.
Mokomo took care of my injuries since I was a baby. He was one of the very few people who cared about me for who I was instead of just the son of the king. I spent a lot of time with him and since he had no children of his own, he seemed to enjoy my enthusiasm for learning his craft. My father, of course, hated me spending any time with Mokomo.
“Who screamed?”
“When?” Jedes asked.
“Just now. I heard a screaming girl. It woke me up.”
“We were here with you for days while you slept. Nobody screamed… except for you a couple of times. You got an infection after Mokomo-mas gave you an antidote to the poison. You kept yelling that it burned.”
“It should be safe for you to get out of bed now, but you can’t run or do anything strenuous,” Mokomo said.
I flipped off the covers. Luckily, I had pants on. The bandage wrapped around my abdomen looked excessive, but as I sat up and put my feet on the cold floor, there was no real pain. I stood and tested the strength of my legs. “I’ve been asleep for days? Is my father safe?”
“The castle is locked down and your father has been secluded to his chambers with limited contact, the best guards, and food testers. He is waiting for you to wake and tell him who the killer is.”
“Good. Nobody is allowed in here, not even Haru-joul. I haven’t woken yet,” I said, yanking the sheet from my bed. I went to my foot chest and shuffled through blankets and towels before I found a few more sheets, which I tied together end-to-end. Then I gingerly made my way to the glass door that led to the balcony. “If somebody tries to insist, tell them I’m getting worse.”
“I hate you, Mordon,” Jedes said as I opened the door to the balcony.
It was night and very cold, but at least it wasn’t raining like the last time I snuck out. I tied one end of the sheet rope to the banister and threw the other end over. It was not long enough, which was normally not a problem, but the jump would be a lot more painful with a wound.
“Don’t do this Mordon. You’re going to get yourself killed.”
“Has death ever stopped me?” I turned back to her, put my arm around her, pulled her close, and kissed her. She was too startled to kiss back, but it was nice in a plutonic way anyway. Then I took hold of the sheet and climbed over the rail.
I loved heights normally, but a stomach wound could take the fun out of anything. By the time I ran out of rope, I was so tired and out of breath that it was easy to just let go. It hurt, but not quite as badly as climbing down the rope did, and I took a few minutes to let the pain ease. Stealth was the key factor in sneaking out and I couldn’t do stealth very well if I was wheezing.
I went to archery house first and got the bow and arrows I practiced most often with, and then I snuck across the castle grounds to the stables. Predictably, the tokuami, startled from their sleep, growled. I approached the king’s tokuami’s stall without hesitation and growled back. The beast quickly realized he didn’t want to challenge me and lowered himself in a submissive gesture. I pet his snout and he licked my hand, then I undid the latch to his stall and opened the door.
“Go. Get away from people,” I told him. The tokuami exited the stall hesitantly, then ran out the door with excitement. I repeated the process with Haru-joul’s tokuami and the animal escaped with the same enthusiasm. Since I let all our own tokuami go a month earlier, the stables were empty.
It was then that the Zendii house stable boy burst through the side door. He was young, only about seventeen, and did not expect to find the tokuami gone and the perpetrator s
till here. He looked around for something to use as a weapon or maybe an escape route, before he realized who I was.
“Mordon!” he exclaimed.
Obviously, someone had told him about me and the fact that my father had not given me my family name. It was embarrassing at the best of times, but disastrous when I needed to be intimidating. My father had a reputation for being grueling and unforgiving, but that seemed to be the only way to get what I wanted from the servants. The people who were paid to do what we said were typically lazy and gossiped and worked harder to find shortcuts in their chores than to do them right.
“I heard you were injured,” he said, eyeing the gauze around my abdomen.
“A minor scratch. You need to get out of here and alert the castle of the fire.”
“What fire?”
I pulled energy into me and focused on the heat I had dreamed of for days. This was an old building filled with cotton blankets and dried grasses, so when I released my energy, several fires broke out randomly.
The boy felt the heat, looked around at the fires, and shrieked.
“If anyone asks, you don’t know who I am, you couldn’t see my face. All you know is that I started the fire and released the tokuami to keep the people of Zendii from leaving, because I know who tried to kill the king. Tell this to anyone who will listen, but do not tell them that you know who did this.”
“I will not lie to my king.”
“You are on Mokii lands now; Ishte-mor is the king you have to fear.”
I turned and walked calmly out of the front doors, then went into the castle through the throne room. I easily made it to the servant passage without being seen before anyone responded to the panic outside.
As guards, servants, Ome-mor, and Haru-joul rushed outside to investigate, I entered the kitchen and opened the window to watch. Luckily, my father was intelligent enough to stay in his chambers where he was safe, because the assassin was one of those people standing around listening to the stable boy say exactly what I told him to.
