“He had it coming. He attacked her. And if you haven’t forgotten, she’s the princess of this shit ass kingdom. So, I did us all a favor by sparing the expense of a public hanging.”
My father scratched the back of his hand and peered at one of his liver spots in the low light.
“That’s not how the witness tells it.”
“There weren’t any witnesses, you dumb shit.”
“But there will be,” he said, his voice high and slimy, like it always was when he was smug with himself. “If I say so, there will be. And they’ll say whatever they want, son. Whenever I want. Perhaps a dramatic trial, what do you think? Put your head in the stocks? Make sure the people have plenty of pig shit to throw at you?” He widened his arms, imagining the scene. “Imagine the crowds. Oh, it’ll be fabulous. Just fabulous! But I have more news for you, son. Prince Galen has returned. In order to claim that little tart from you. A duel to the death, he says. Tomorrow at dawn.”
Now here was a goddamned plan I could put my weight behind.
“Bring it the fuck on.” The only way I think I could bear to look at that motherfucker again is if he was dead at my feet.
My father made a mocking face of sympathy.
“But so inconvenient that you’re otherwise engaged,” he said, glancing around the cell. He sighed. “You’ll miss the duel and be labeled a coward. But! Fear not, my boy!” He banged his hand on the bars, and his gold rings dinged against the crusty iron. “I have a plan! Once your little whore is married, and is big and swollen with Galen’s child, I’ll send you off to fight on the eastern border. You can expand our lands, acquire new territories. And then I’ll let you come back a hero. Coward no more! Then you can put your dick in whomever you choose. Except your sister.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. That all this was part of some long-game strategy was not a surprise. But that he thought I’d have anything to do with it told me he didn’t know me at all.
“Listen. I know you like to play with people’s lives like chess pieces, but I don’t. She’s fucking mine. I will fight for her at dawn. End of conversation.”
My father crossed his arms.
“You will not, and that’s a command from your king. You may be tough, and you may be strong, but Prince Galen is the finest swordsman anywhere. By keeping you here,” he said, now lowering his voice, finally leveling a little more with me, “I ensure that you live. And whether you know it or not, that is what matters most to me. One day, you will marry for the kingdom. One day, you’ll have children of your own and you will understand. I will do anything to guarantee that you have a long and healthy life. What I will not do is let you die at the hands of some useful-but-despicable prince for the sake of marrying some dead knight’s child whore. Princess or not, your sister or not, I won’t let you die for her.” He gestured toward Anika’s wing of the castle. Then he pointed straight at me. “Understood?”
I understood, alright. I was a pawn in his game and he was going to keep me prisoner until I lost her to time and circumstance. The worst war of attrition that I could imagine. And there was jack shit I could do about it, chained up there like an animal. So, I gathered a mouthful of spit and launched it at him.
“I fucking hate you,” I snarled.
“It doesn’t matter to me what you think of me, as long as you’re alive.”
He turned to go, leaving me thrashing my chains like the rabid dog I remembered from so long ago.
Hours and hours passed. Every minute away from Anika was agony, every second chained up there was unbearable. Long after my hands had gone numb from my restraints, and long after all the other prisoners elsewhere in the jail had drifted off to sleep, I heard it. The creak of a door, the jingle of keys. Someone was coming.
Light footsteps moved quickly down the corridor. There, in the low light, was a servant boy, with downcast eyes, carrying a tray of food. A chunk of bread, an apple, a piece of cheese. “Keep it,” I said, my voice thick and low from not speaking for so long. “Give it to someone who needs it more than me.”
The servant boy didn’t reply, and didn’t turn away. Instead, he very slowly raised his face to me… and beamed. There she was, looking back at me.
Anika.
Chapter 18
Anika
I pressed my finger to my lips and smiled at him as I set down the tray on the floor. In his eyes there was such relief, such joy, it made the agony of the last day evaporate. He was alive; he was whole. Thank goodness.