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Five daughters now and still no son worthy enough to pass his crown to. Poor, poor king. My heart wept for him. Truly. Or it would if I actually cared about his precious heir. But I didn’t. So my smile spread.
I only cared about his misery. Or his recognition.
I knew another girl didn’t put me in the line of succession. As I’d told Sable, I didn’t want to rule. And hell, gaining another sister didn’t get me any closer to being publicly claimed, either. But there was a petty sort of relish to being the only son of a man who had no male heir when that man refused to acknowledge you as his. I liked seeing him suffer, since he’d made me suffer with his denial, since he’d made my mother suffer by forcing her to stay in that damned brothel where she’d died, broken and alone, riddled with disease. I ached for his despair and ruin almost as much as I yearned for his approval and respect.
And if I couldn’t have one, I’d settle for the other.
It was all so very complicated and contradictory of me, I know. It probably made me just as evil and wretched as my paterfamilias, but it was the deepest desire of my heart. And I couldn’t seem to stop myself from craving his pride or his pain, no matter how hard I tried.
So, until the day he decided I was worthy enough to be called son, I would wish for a whole litter of sisters, just to spite him. May they all be as clever and witty and entertaining as sassy Sable.
Curious to see who else the king was going to blame for having another daughter—for he certainly wouldn’t point a finger at himself—I furtively followed the trail of dignitaries and guards fretting over him as he stormed into his throne room to rant and pace.
The last time he’d fathered a female, he hadn’t even let his queen heal from childbearing before he’d tossed her from the castle—literally, from a second-story window and straight to her death—and married another. And that had been while Murdock was still alive. Who knew how long this wife would last.
I had to admit, it wouldn’t break my heart to see the youthful Queen Kalendria go. She and I had never gotten on, not since the night she’d tried to crawl onto my pallet with me in the stables, anyway, and I’d turned her away without giving her what she wanted.
In hindsight, I probably should’ve just fucked the shrew as she had ordered, because a woman scorned—especially when she was the most powerful woman in the kingdom—was the worst sort of enemy to have. Sable had no clue our stepmother had secretly been trying to have me assassinated for nearly two years now, and only the king’s interference had saved me.
Watching Father fume, I settled into my usual spying spot behind the largest tapestry on the north wall as he heaved himself onto his throne before he pounded his fist down on its stone armrest.
“I want that damn king of Donnelly to pay for this. This is that bastard’s fault. How dare he take my only son from me?”
From the dark, I rolled my eyes. Not your only son, Father.
“Murdock was supposed to be my legacy,” King Torrance wailed. “My heir.”
Oh, give me a break.
Murdock had been an ass. A boorish, vain, cruelly selfish ass. Worse so than Father because he’d been particularly reckless and ignorant in his asinine ways. Far Shore was better off with him gone. He would’ve made the worst ruler this realm had ever seen. And that was saying a lot with all the tyrants who’d traipsed through these halls before him.
Good riddance to Murdock was my sentiment.
“And that Donnelly fiend murdered him!” my father sneered. “Something must be done to make Donnelly weep with regret, I tell you. The House of Lyker will not stand for this injustice. We should—we should kidnap one of his children. Or his wife. His entire fucking family. He took my son; it’s only right that I take his. We could torture the whole lot of them until Donnelly forfeits a debt that drains their coffers to nothing, only to return his kin back to him in such disrepair that barely even an axe to the head could benefit them.”
One of his dignitaries bowed low. “As always, you have devised a most wonderful plan, Your Majesty. The only problem, however, may lie with the fact that Donnelly—er, King Brentley, that is—has n-no children to torture. And—and—”
“That’s right,” another dignitary jumped in to assist when the first became tongue-tied under the king’s glare. Wringing his hands, he added, “And since his marriage was an arranged union to help Donnelly form their alliance with High Cliff—”
“Yes, yes,” the king growled, waving a harassed hand. “There’s no need to remind me of that. I’m fully aware Donnelly chose to align themselves with High Cliff and not us. We waged a war against them because of it, did we not? A war I lost my only goddamn son in. Do you think I’ve forgotten about Donnelly’s fucking alliance with fucking High Cliff?”
“No, Your Majesty, no. Not
at all, of course not. I was just saying, uh, that maybe King Brentley isn’t so fond of his wife, since—you know—he was forced to marry the daughter of the High Cliff king to seal their alliance. We might be doing him a favor if we took her off his hands.”
“Idiot,” the king scoffed, backhanding the dignitary across the face. “It doesn’t matter what he thinks of the bitch. No man wants his possessions taken from him, regardless of his affection for it. It’s a matter of pride, something a dullard like you could never comprehend.”
“But they’ll declare war on us if we steal one of their noble family members,” the first man pleaded. “And they’ve defeated our armies twice now. You remember what they did the last time we—”
Surging to his feet, the king roared, “Think you I’ve lost my memories, you damn fool?! Why do you keep reminding me of everything I already know? Everything I’ve lost?”
“I’m sorry, Your Majesty. I just—”
“Get out of my sight!” Pointing toward the exit, King Torrance snarled at two of his nearest guards, “Take him to the dungeons. His services here are no longer required.”
“Your Majesty, no! I didn’t mean it that way. I beseech you, please. Have mercy. I just thought—”
“And cut out his tongue,” the king added. “I’m tired of his incessant prattling.”
