Page 7 of Queen of War and Ruin

Itake a breath, wondering where to begin. I’ve never shared this story, and it’s not easy to trace the tangled mess of my life as the snake of Vsenrog back to the very start.

“We were kids together,” I finally say. “The real prince was born a few months after me, and we were both raised at the palace. He was inside of it, and I was outside, but as a kid, maybe that didn’t make such a difference.”

I shrug, then run my fingers through my hair. It did make a difference, of course. Prince Zarek always had the final say in what we did and where we went. If he wanted something, I had to give it up, even though I was older and stronger. That was the way of it.

“When the king of Vsenrog announced he was coming to negotiate with Dungal,” I continue, “the palace was scared. Some of the other kids said King Malrik would kill us all, that he drank blood and ate bones.”

I shake my head at the memory. When you’re a kid, everything outside of the boundaries of your home is terrifying. Ogres in the storybooks were just as real to me as King Malrik. Scary, yes, but somehow not a part of the same world that held chickens and chores and parents that could protect you no matter what.

“I wasn’t afraid until the day before the delegation from Vsenrog arrived,” I admit. “That’s when the king and queen asked for me. I stood in Zarek’s private chambers, with the prince, and the queen got on her knees before me and told me she wanted to play a game.”

My throat goes dry. I swallow, the memory of my fear pulling the skin tight on the back of my neck.

“She was scared,” I continue. “I could tell. She was the queen and she was trying to hide it, but she was afraid of something. She told me I would get to be the prince for a day, and wouldn’t that be fun?”

My voice falters as the memory plays through my mind. I’d turned to Zarek, expecting the real prince to voice some outcry over this, but he stayed silent. He looked scared too.

“And then the king stepped forward,” I say. I blink as the memory rushes over me. “The king had never spoken to me before, of course. But that morning he got down on one knee and looked me in the eye. He said the time had come for me to serve my country, and that lives would depend on me.”

My voice thickens; I stop to clear my throat. I can still feel the weight of his hand on my shoulder.

“Gods,” Lilias whispers. “How old were you?”

“Twelve,” I reply. Old enough to play at being a man.

“Shit,” she hisses.

I shrug. “Zarek told me it was okay if I played with his toys, just not to break anything. Then Agnes, his nursemaid, took him away, and I spent the rest of that day learning how to eat like a prince,” I say. “I didn’t really understand what it meant or why they were asking me to do this. Even at the dinner table, when King Malrik mentioned taking a hostage to ensure cooperation and the queen started sobbing, I was mostly focused on making sure I used the right fork.”

I laugh. It sounds hollow.

“When the king said lives depended on me,” I confess, “I thought he was talking about my table manners. That, somehow, armies would rise or fall based on my dinnertime behavior. So I was very focused on those damn forks.”

I turn to Lilias, smiling at the stupid memory, but she’s staring at me like she’s about to cry.

“Oh my gods,” she whispers. “They took you. As the hostage. Instead of the prince.”

I nod. “I’m sure the prince was out of the palace by then. Hells, he was probably here already,” I say, waving a hand at the garden. “The queen told Malrik that I couldn’t go to Vsenrog alone, that he should bring two of my friends, two guards in training. So I left Dungal with Petrys and Gerrart.”

“Your brothers,” Lilias says.

I nod. My eyes start to sting.

“But, your parents,” Lilias cries. “They agreed to this?”

“I don’t know,” I admit. “I don’t imagine they had much choice. I wasn’t allowed to see them before I left. That would have given the whole thing away. Instead, the king and queen hugged me as I stood before the delegation from Vsenrog. The queen sobbed over me, the king looked straight in my eyes and called me son, and then the guards led me toward the palace gates as the court musicians played.”

My voice fades. I remember the guard who told me not to look back, and how I ignored him. I remember seeing my own parents, my real parents, my mother kneeling in the dirt outside the gate and my father standing beside her, tears streaming down both their faces, as the king of Vsenrog dragged their three children away.

And I remember the first cold tendrils of rage wrapping around my heart as I started to realize this wasn’t a game at all, and that the lives depending on this lie were mine and my brothers’.

“All those years,” Lilias whispers. “How did you do it?”

Tears sparkle on her cheeks in the afternoon light filtering through the leaves above us. I shrug. It’s never seemed like anything special to me, perhaps because I never had a choice. I had to act like a prince, to spend every waking minute pretending to be the real Zarek, son of the king of Dungal.

Or my brothers and I would die. Badly.

“Alia helped,” I say, smiling at the memory of the surly, scrappy girl who became Vsenrog’s stable master. “She taught me manners. Taught me how to ride. She never said anything, of course, but she must have suspected.”