Royal Spy (Fate of Eyrinthia Book 2)

by Heather Frost

  Anything was better than feeling that way himself.

  As the years passed, Desfan kept pushing himself and his father. Drinking, drugs—he’d done it all by the time he was fifteen.

  The night of his birthday had changed everything. He’d avoided the party at the palace and snuck into the city instead, roving the betting tables for any diversion from the oppressive reminder that he was still alive, still aging, while his sisters and mother never would.

  The guards had found him eventually, as they always did, and they’d dragged him back to the palace for what had to be the thousandth time.

  But this time was different.

  The drugs and drink might have clouded his mind, but he knew something was wrong when he was hauled not to his room, but to his father’s. And when he saw the man’s face flushed red in anger . . . He knew he had pushed the serjan too far.

  For the first time in years, the serjan had touched his son. He’d struck Desfan so hard he’d fallen to the floor, blood bursting across his tongue.

  His father had stared down at him, heavy breaths sawing out of him, his eyes finally flashing with something. Anger. Frustration. Hopelessness. The serjan had looked . . . raw.

  “No more,” he gasped. “This ends tonight. There’s a ship at the harbor. I’ve given you to the captain for a year.”

  Desfan had trembled, still curled against the floor, his jaw throbbing, ears ringing, lips smeared with blood. His father didn’t want him. He’d given him away. To the sea, of all places—the monster that had swallowed his mother and sisters.

  It felt like his chest was collapsing around his heart and lungs. He couldn’t breathe.

  “Maybe someone else can do something with you,” his father had snapped. “The fates know I can’t.” He’d stalked to the door, stopping only to throw one last look at Desfan. “Your mother would be disgusted with you.”

  The words were a knife in Desfan’s stomach; they gutted him.

  Filled with his own pain, he barely heard the note of it echoing in his father’s hollow voice as he muttered, “She would be disgusted with us both.”

  He’d walked away, leaving Desfan on the floor. He hadn’t even said goodbye.

  Guards had escorted him to the ship, and he’d felt like a criminal being led to prison. And there, at the docks, he had met Karim.

  His father had assigned him a young bodyguard, probably in hopes they would become friends. Karim had been unbearably good, even then. And though their relationship had been rough at first, they had become friends. Eventually.

  What had started as a horrible nightmare became Desfan’s saving grace. A year at sea turned into another, and another. He didn’t want to go home. He didn’t want to be the serjah. With the deaths of his mother and sisters, the palace had become a mausoleum, his father slowly rotting inside those stone walls. And Desfan had been rotting, too.

  But at sea, life was simple. He worked alongside the crew. Bled with them. Fought shoulder-to-shoulder with them, kept the islands and trade routes safe. And perhaps he wasn’t saving his mother and sisters, but he had saved others. He’d made a difference, served his people.

  Then, six months ago, he had received the message from Serai Yahri.

  His father had collapsed. He couldn’t speak. Couldn’t communicate in any way. They expected him to die within days.

  Desfan had returned, his gut a bottomless pit of dread. He had hated and loved his father, and he didn’t want to lose him. He didn’t want the crown. He didn’t want this life.

  He didn’t want to be truly alone—the last Cassian in Eyrinthia.

  But his father hadn’t died. Desfan had not become Serjan, but regent—and even that was enough to smother him. He’d spent the last nine years of his life running away from the palace and his responsibilities, and now he was stuck here. And though his father was still alive, he wasn’t actually here.

  “I’m sorry,” Desfan said, his voice a dull whisper. “I’m making a mess of everything. Like always.”

  His father, of course, said nothing. He was staring vacantly at the ceiling. A bit of drool gathered at the corner of his mouth, and Desfan’s hands clenched into fists.

  The fates could be so cruel.

  The physicians weren’t sure what ailed him. He’d simply collapsed one night. He’d been in his office. Working too late, too hard.

  No one outside this room knew how dire his condition was, except for the council. But no one could assume by now that the chances of the serjan returning to the throne were good. He had been ill for months.

  But Desfan knew they still had hope. They clung to it, chanting prayers and holding late-night vigils in the streets. Even most members of the council seemed to refuse the dire truth because the alternative was to have Desfan crowned. He knew they assured themselves repeatedly that the serjan would get well soon. Because to have Desfan on the throne permanently was an unthinkable option.

  Desfan eyed his father’s lax profile, spinning the obsidian ring on his finger. What if he hadn’t forced the man’s hand all those years ago? What if he had been here? Been the royal figure he should have been? He could have taken some of the burdens from his father’s shoulders. Perhaps his father’s health wouldn’t have deteriorated so quickly.

  Not that speculating did any good.

  Sitting here didn’t do any good, either.

  So Desfan pushed up from his chair, bent over his father, and used a cloth to blot away the drool at his mouth before it could spill. “I’ll visit again soon,” he said quietly. “I promise.”

  His father gave no indication of hearing him. But then, he never did.

  Desfan strode from the room. The problems with the council weren’t magically solved, but he could visit Kiv Arcas. It had been three days since the olcain raid, and the kiv should have a full report with detailed interviews from every smuggler they’d arrested.

  Running a country was overwhelming.

  Hunting smugglers and drug masters? That, he could do.

  Chapter 12

  Desfan

  “Serjah Desfan, do you have a moment?”

  Desfan looked up from the papers spilled over the desk and blinked to bring Serai Yahri into focus. It had been another late night of sifting through reports, and he’d returned to his father’s desk first thing this morning so he could again go over Kiv Arcas’s report of the olcain raid.

  Not to mention he hadn’t slept well after visiting his father last night. Too many memories had been stirred.

  A visit from Serai Yahri wasn’t what his morning needed.

  The older councilwoman was wearing her ceremonial green robe, even though the council session would not start for hours yet.

  Perhaps she liked flaunting the power of her position.

  Desfan straightened behind his desk. “Of course.” There was no other polite answer.

  The woman moved with surprising grace, her cane tapping the stones as she advanced. Karim started to move forward, but Desfan waved him back. It didn’t send a great message if he was always seen with his bodyguard, especially in a private meeting with the leader of the council. Karim tipped his head and remained in the hall as he closed the door.

  Desfan shuffled some of the papers on the desk to hide the olcain report. Yahri had already reprimanded him for his involvement in the raid, and he wasn’t in the mood for another lecture. “What can I do for you, Serai Yahri?” he asked, settling back into his chair as she sat across from him.

  Serai Yahri settled her hands atop her cane, her thin shoulders up despite the slight curve of her back. “I’m grateful I caught you. I know your schedule is full. I’ve been sending you cards for the last two weeks, trying to find a time for us to meet.”

  “I’m sorry I wasn’t able to fit in an appointment sooner.” The messages were probably still on his desk. He’d read them and set them aside with intentions to get back to her soon—another failing, but, fates blast it, he was exhausted every day and the last thing he wanted was to endu
re her disapproving words in the council chambers, and then again here.

  A corner of the serai’s wrinkled mouth twitched. “Well, lucky for me to have caught you at a good time.”

  “Is there something in particular you’d like to discuss?” Frankly, he couldn’t think of any lecture that she hadn’t already delivered to him in front of the council.

  “A couple of things, actually.” She lifted a silver eyebrow. “I have consulted with the royal physician and he informed me there has been no change in your father’s health, except for the continued weight loss. There is no telling how long this will continue.”

  Desfan’s hands fisted under the desk. “I don’t think it is your place to discuss my father’s health with his healer. You could have asked me.”

  “I planned to, but you never returned my messages.” She shook her head. “Times are uneasy, as you well know. I believe there are those who would take advantage of our weakened state.”

  “You mean my ineffective rule?” he asked drily.

  “Yes.” Her simple response shouldn’t have surprised him, but it still felt like a slap. She sighed. “Desfan, you are young, inexperienced, and impulsive—often reckless. One look at your face confirms this.”

  His broken nose flared with pain. He wanted to point out that the swelling had gone down dramatically, but instead he tried to keep his voice level as he said, “Your feelings about me are no secret, Serai Yahri. I’ve known of your low regard for me since I was a boy.”

  Her head tipped a little to the side. “Do you know what I see when I look at you, Desfan? And no, it’s not what you’re thinking.”

  It grated that she’d dropped his title. Normally, he wouldn’t care—he’d spent years running from it—but from her, it felt like a calculated insult. “How do you know what I’m thinking?”

  “I know exactly what you assume,” she said. “That I am an old fool who still regards you as a child. And in some ways, you’re right. But when I look at you, I don’t see the drug-addicted hellion who wreaked havoc wherever he threw himself. Nor the boy who skipped his lessons and refused to learn how to lead this country. No, instead I see the pain, despair, and disappointment of your father.”

  Desfan’s jaw tightened even as his gut sank.

  Yahri didn’t even blink as she continued., “When I look at you, I see how your childish tantrums and complete disregard for your life, your safety, your future—your identity—impacted the serjan. You broke his heart. Repeatedly. You forced him to send you away, and then you never came back. You abandoned him after he had already lost so much.”

  Heat crawled up Desfan’s throat. “You have absolutely no right to say these things to me.”

  “You leave me no—”

  “My father abandoned me,” Desfan bit out. “He shut me out first. And after ignoring me for years, he paid a man to take me away so he didn’t have to deal with me anymore.”

  The woman’s forehead wrinkled. “I did not say he was perfect. But neither were you.”

  “I was a child.”

  “And what are you now?”

  Trapped. Alone. Judged.

  He couldn’t give voice to any of that.

  Her whisper was almost loud in the sudden quiet. “You do not want the crown.”

  Desfan didn’t answer. He wasn’t even looking at her anymore, but at that fates-blasted painting across the room. The one of him and his father, their faces so bleak.

  Yahri’s voice was quiet. “I think it may be time to discuss some options. For the best interests of Mortise.”

  His spine was as stiff as his tone. “Such as?”

  There was a pause, long enough that he forced himself to meet Yahri’s eyes. The woman’s expression was relaxed. Almost poised. He had the thought that she must have been quite beautiful in her youth. “You could refuse the crown.”

  The words hung between them, heavier and more terrible than a weapon.

  “No,” Desfan said, his voice low and hard.

  The serai shifted, tightening her grip on the cane. “It has happened before in our history.”

  “I know the story,” he nearly snapped. “The heir was feared to be insane.”

  “And he denied his birthright so his brother could rule—your ancestor.”

  He huffed a dry laugh. “If memory serves, the serjah in question was locked in the dungeon for a month and tortured, and it was with a knife to his throat that he disavowed the crown.”

  “An unpleasant part of the story, to be sure. But he was not in his right mind and he would have made a dangerous—no, disastrous—ruler.”

  “And you judge me to be insane as well? A dangerous choice?”

  “Not insane, obviously. But you do not want the crown.”

  The words cut deeply, because they were true. He didn’t want the crown.

  He also refused to give it up. It was his birthright. And for all the ways he had disappointed his father and the memory of his mother, this was a line he would not cross.

  Strange, though, how much more willing he was to fight for it the moment someone told him he should give it up.

  His voice was edged as he asked quietly, “Is this you holding a dagger to my throat, Serai?”

  The woman straightened her spine. “Of course not. I merely bring the story up as an example. There is a precedent for a royal to refuse the throne the fates granted him.”

  “Yes, well, the fates took all the other Cassians away. I’m all that remains of the royal line.”

  “Then perhaps it is time to discuss the difficult subject of ending the Cassian line,” Yahri said gently.

  Desfan rose in one fluid motion. “You speak treason.”

  The woman also stood, swaying a little as she gripped her cane. “No. I speak of an opportunity. You do not want the crown. We could find a graceful way for you to walk another path. You could assign an heir. And when your father passes—”

  “Get out.” Desfan’s chest tightened, his lungs burning as he tried to hold onto his anger. “If I could remove you from the council, I would. But I can order you from this room so get out.”

  She paled, but her fragile jaw firmed. “Desfan—”

  “I am the serjah,” he said, hands braced on the desk before him. “You will address me as such. This conversation is over. And I don’t want you to visit my father anymore, or speak to the physician about him. You can be assured I will deliver my wishes to the physician myself, and he will report to me if you so much as walk by my father’s room. Do you understand me?”

  The councilwoman lifted her chin, her eyes sharp. “As you will it, Serjah.” Without another word, she left. But even after the door closed behind her, Desfan knew that Yahri was not done with him.

  Desfan wanted to go to the docks, find the worst sort of pub, and drink until he found a good brawl to join. Since that would only prove Yahri right, at least on some level, he asked Karim to join him in his apartment. He’d needed to escape his father’s office, be in a new space before he was due in the council meeting chambers.

  Karim closed the door behind them and watched with one brow raised as Desfan paced the blue and gold carpet.

  “Are you going to tell me how that old woman got you so worked up?” he finally asked.

  When Desfan told him, Karim’s eyes lost their humorous edge. “She what?”

  “Abdication would be her preference, but I’ll admit, she might not be above hiring an assassin.” He was only partially joking.

  “Did she mention anyone else?” Karim asked. “Was she alone in the request, or do others on the council feel this way?”

  “She didn’t say, but I wouldn’t be surprised if she has allies. None of them are loyal to me.” Well, Jamal seemed agreeable. He was also the youngest on the council, though, and he didn’t hold much—if any—sway over the others.

  “What she said to you is serious,” Karim said.

  “I know.” Desfan shoved a hand through his dark curls, pushing them off his heated brow. A light
breeze drifted through the open windows, carrying the scent of the sea into his room. It calmed him a little. “She didn’t actually threaten me. I can’t label her a criminal for expressing her opinion.”

  “It was seditious. That’s enough to see her thrown off the council.”

  Desfan didn’t disagree, but his hands were tied. “As long as my father breathes, he is the serjan. Since he instated Yahri, I can’t remove her. Not unless she is guilty of committing an actual crime.”

  Karim growled low in his throat. “I still think this should count as a crime. She’s dangerous, Des.”

  “Yes. But if I imprison her, how does that make me look? Paranoid. Weak. And as you said, if more people agree with her, it won’t do any good—it could silence them to the point where they do hire an assassin, rather than approach me as she did, and I need to know my enemies.”

  “Even if you know which ones oppose you, what then? As you said, you didn’t instate them, so you can’t remove them.”

  Desfan considered this, and a wonderful, reckless idea occurred to him. “Yes, but if they did commit a crime, then they would lose their office.”

  Karim’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t like that look you have.”

  The corner of Desfan’s mouth curved. “I just have to make them angry enough that they reveal themselves—either as Yahri did tonight, or better yet, through action.”

  “Like hiring an assassin to kill you in your sleep?”

  “That would be perfect, actually, if I can get proof of the hire.”

  Karim shook his head. “You’re insane.”

  “Not insane enough to give up the throne. Besides, I’ve always liked a challenge.”

  “Do you hear what you’re saying? You want to incite the council until they either demand you step down, or they try to kill you.”

  “At least I’ll know who is loyal to me.”

  Karim folded his arms over his chest, his dark brows lowering over his sharp gaze. “What exactly are you planning to do?”

  “Oh, I’ve got a few ideas . . .”

  Karim grit his teeth. Desfan could see his friend warring with something, some internal battle. Finally, his mouth opened. “Did you read Kiv Arcas’s report?”