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I met her panic with a calm stare. I’ve got this.
“What the fuck do you want, uncle?” I asked, rotating the hilt of my dagger in my palm as I eyed him.
“You’ve been busy since I’ve been gone.” Jamming the toothpick in a gap beside his incisor, he pulled it out and examined the end, then sucked whatever was stuck on there off again. Fuck, I hated him. Then he went on, “Word is, you’ve gotten yourself into all sorts of trouble.” He shot a lecherous glance at Anika. “Tell me, nephew. How does she ride? I’ve always wanted to know.”
“You motherfucker,” I growled.
Anika groaned and turned away, like he’d slapped her, and I resisted the very real urge to drive my dagger directly between his beady little eyes. But I knew he was goading me. I strongly suspected that he wanted me out of the way, had always wanted me out of the way. I was the heir apparent, a threat to his power. He couldn’t simply do away with me. Too many questions. But if I tried to kill him? Cunning old fucker. Never underestimate a degenerate piece of shit.
“Shut the fuck up and get the fuck out of here,” I said, lunging at him, which made his guards lunge back. It was a purposeful fake-out; I needed to see what his men were made of. They were quick, but weighed down by armor. But by any measure, I was at a serious goddamned disadvantage—naked and armed with a single blade.
My uncle met my stare then, sucking some spit from between his teeth. For a long second, we stayed there, staring. Seething. I wondered how much he suspected I knew right now. Was he aware that I’d spoken to the prisoner? Was he aware of where I’d been for the past week?
For so long, I’d sat back quietly while he ran the kingdom, happy to be the good nephew, content to never be king. But now, everything had changed. I let him see the hate and the distrust in my eyes.
The moment of reckoning had come. I was just about to tell the motherfucker exactly what I knew, when he told his guards, “Take him. He’s to be tried for murder.”
Goddamn it. The guards swarmed me, two to each limb. I fought them with everything I had, but it wasn’t enough. As they dragged me down the hallway, I heard Anika screaming my name, before I heard her door slamming shut and my uncle barking orders at his men.
“Don’t let that little whore leave her room.”
* * *
The guards chained me to a wall in one of the small holding cells. As my eyes adjusted to the light, I saw the place had a serious fucking millipede problem. This goddamned castle. It was like my uncle himself. Rotten to the core.
Before long, I heard the toothpick sucking again and he appeared at the cell door. He looked ridiculous in all his silks and furs; all the years of kingly gluttony had made him not just fat but spongy. He’d changed so much from the days of my youth, when he took me in as his ward, that it made him that much easier to hate.
But he’d taught me some decent lessons, which were useful in dealing with him. For instance, he’d told me once that the last one to enter a meeting runs the room, but the first one to ask a question steers the conversation.
“So, who the fuck am I supposed to have murdered?” I asked before he had a chance to say anything to me first.
The opening was so small and the corridor so damp and dark, it almost looked as though he was the one behind bars. Only in my fucking dreams.
“A coal man’s body was found in the kitchen. A witness came forward. He said it was you. You and your little cocksleeve of a sister.”
Hearing him insult her drove me fucking insane. I thrashed against my chains, wanting just one solid swing at his face.
“Bullshit. There were no witnesses.”
My uncle lifted his eyebrow. “Gotcha,” he said, with a wink. “You’re almost smart enough to be dangerous but not quite.”
What an absolute asshole. He’d never played fair, never in his entire life. Everything he had, he’d gotten by scam and tricks and lies. He fucking knew that to insult Anika would make me irrational with rage.
“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 uncle 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, Maksim. 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! And then there will be a public hanging. Very public. And I’ll be rid of one more little problem. But I have more news for you, dear nephew. Prince Galen has returned. In order to claim that little tart from you. A duel to the death, he says. Tomorrow at dawn.”
