Page 63 of Queen of War and Ruin

I don’t reply. I’m not expected to.

“It was a joke,” Malrik cries. He laughs again, that hollow bark. “You were so soft, so harmless! Tiptoeing around the palace like you were afraid to break something. Like if you stepped on the wrong tile, the whole place would come crashing down. Syvan said you crawled around on your belly like a snake!”

Malrik shakes his head. Something sharp and horrible crawls up the back of my spine, something almost like panic. I shove it down.

“You were such a fool,” Malrik continues. “So easy to control. Nine hells, I only had to mention those other boys from Dungal, and you’d hop like a rabbit!”

He laughs again. I remember Petrys and Gerrart kneeling in the throne room, their hands bound behind their backs. The sound the whip made when it hit my brothers. The hot, iron smell of their blood filling the room.

“Steal letters from a lord,” Malrik continues. “Spy on my sons. Anything I wanted. You were always too damn scared to say no, weren’t you?”

His lips curl, like he’s smiling at the memory. It was the same sort of smile he gave me when I handed him the letters from Lord Pembyrtun, the ones proving His lordship had been embezzling. Pembyrtun hung in the palace courtyard for almost a month before they finally cut him down and hauled his corpse away.

“Still,” Malrik continues. “I didn’t think you’d be able to kill. Not at first. You know why?”

I don’t dare respond. My chest feels like it’s caught in a vise, like my lungs are screaming for air. Malrik leans so close that I can feel the heat of his breath on my face.

“I didn’t think you had the balls,” Malrik hisses.

I swallow again. The prince from Lisal opened his mouth as my dagger slid between his ribs, but the only thing that came out of his lips was blood.

The first man I killed for Malrik. The first of the dead waiting for me in the Howling Fields.

Malrik raises his hand a second time. I flinch, but the blow doesn’t come. Instead, he wraps his fingers around my chin and, almost gently, he tilts my head to look in my eyes.

“Snake,” he says, in a voice as soft as royal velvet. “I tried to make you into something more. To hammer you into a weapon. But it never would have worked, would it?” He shakes his head, then steps back.

“You’re weak,” the king declares.

He sniffs, and I know our little conversation is over. I shiver, then tighten my jaw.

I am not going to fall apart. Not in front of Malrik. Not ever again.

“Pathetic,” Malrik says, rubbing the back of his neck, “But useful, perhaps. Now that you’re not dead, Ethiria’s about to give you to me on a silver platter.”

He laughs again. It’s a bit warmer this time, a bit happier. His mood is improving. He turns to the guard from Ethiria who brought me here, then to Elstein.

“Tell this man we appreciate his discretion,” Malrik says, nodding at the guard.

Of course. Because it’s beneath the king of Vsenrog to speak directly to an Ethirian guard. Malrik turns and walks down the hallway, the lamps all flickering in his wake. Elstein turns to the guard from Ethiria with a wide grin.

“What’d you see here tonight?” Elstein rasps. He’s one of the nastier members of Malrik’s personal guard. I’ve always hated the bastard.

“N-Nothing,” the guard replies.

Elstein nods, then turns to follow Malrik, leaving the guard and me alone in the silent hallway.

Weak.

The word screams through my skull. I curl my hands into fists and try to push it away, to beat it down. The face of the long-dead king of Dungal rises in my memory, his heavy brow and sad eyes as he told me I would have to be brave. I would have to be strong.

The Ethirian guard doesn’t even bother to glance inside our room when he pushes the door open. He gives me a gruff nod as I step into the gloom, but his eyes are a hundred paces away. I close the door, shutting him out, then stare at the dark emptiness of the room I shared with my wife.

She’s gone. Thank all the gods in all their heavens.

I take a deep breath, trying to calm the panicked beast screaming inside my chest. And then, slowly, I walk to the window and pull it open.

Wind rushes through the opening, tugging at my hair. It’s cold, that biting wind, and it carries the tang of the sea. I swallow hard, then turn toward the balcony. Light spills across the smooth stones from the windows of Prince Elrick’s room.