AllFreeNovel
Share Us
De la Vega wore a mildly bemused expression as he watched us both from the rear-facing seat, swaying gently from side to side as the carriage continued to trundle down the street. It was a risk for us to be here, but these days it was a risk for us to beanywhere,with the whole population of Máros looking for us thanks to Welzes and Navar declaring me a traitor. If only my people knew how damn ironic that was, but the universal truth remained: the man with the soldiers got to define the narrative, and I didn’t have a single person at my back except Mathias.
And Lord de la Vega, apparently, although trusting him was a risk too. He’d always been loyal to me, but so had many others who had now seemingly thrown in their lot with Welzes as the ‘true’ king, because that was how it worked. A ruler was only as good as recognition of their legitimacy, and while my father had taken the crown twenty-five years ago through bloodshed rather than birthright, now that he had, as long as an Aratorre remained breathing we were owed Quareh. It was why Comandante Moreno had tried to force me to formally cede the throne to him rather than having me killed as he had my brother and my father: with my sisters still alive, they would have had more of a legitimate claim to it than he. Unless he’d sent assassins to the mainland to execute them and their children, no Quarehian would have supported Moreno’s claim without the legitimacy offered by my cession.
Which is exactly why Navar had sought to discredit my lineage. If I wasn’t Iván’s son, then the crown passed to the next Aratorre in line, being my oldest sister Alondra. And because Quareh was, in my darling Mathias’ eloquent words,a misogynistic fucking shithole,that meant the real power would be held by her Lukian husband, Duke Zidhan Welzes.
Who, because he’d rudely inserted himself into my coronation ceremony after we’d been forced to flee the palace six days ago, was nowKingWelzes.
Urgh. All the Dios-damned celebratingwe’d encountered in Máros over this past week had been draining, not just for the reminder that someone else was sitting onmythrone, holding court inmypalace, and eatingmyfucking coronation cake – the three-tiered orange and almond one I’d specifically commissioned as a private joke for Mat – but because it put twice as many people on the streets at night than usual. Sneaking around the city was fucking difficult, especially with a pale-skinned Temarian in tow, and we’d had too many close escapes already, many of which had only been evaded by the benefit of my lover’s Sight.
As Mat had said, we were running out of time and places to hide. Which was why we’d had to trust that de la Vega wouldn’t sell us out the moment we accepted his coded invitation to meet, although those seconds after we’d joined him in his carriage while it paused in a deserted alleyway, wondering if we’d find ourselves surrounded by palace guards in the next street…or the next, or the next, had been some of the most tense moments of my life.
Yet here we were, ten minutes later and still not clapped in irons, so I figured the trust thing was going as well as could be hoped. Mathias had tried his darndest to get me to stay behind in the Hernándezes’ laundry, but if we were taking the risk of meeting with Lord de la Vega face to face, I wanted to be there to hear what he had to say.
Besides, as I’d pointed out to Mat, if he was captured then there was really no hope for me either, because I’d give myself up the moment they threatened him. That had apparently not been as romantic a thing to say as I’d expected, because he just proceeded to look pissed off for the next half hour.
I’d spent the same half hour carefully constructing a series of subtle questions and evocatory expressions designed to tease out Lord de la Vega’s true intentions and learn his underlying motivations, each word scrupulously calculated to not alert or alarm him while I assessed his trustworthiness. I opened my mouth now to commence the planned eleven-minute artful interrogation, only for Mathias to speak first.
“Why the fuck are you helping us?” he asked bluntly, rudely, and with as much sophistication as a dead pigeon. I cursed him under my breath, and then again, out loud.
De la Vega chuckled. “My dear boy, I don’t need your seer’s gift to recognise what’s good for business,” he said, “and that’s a united Riehse Eshan with open trade between all three countries. Something our new king has already shown he’s not interested in pursuing.”
Or rather, Councillor Navar wasn’t. I wondered how much influence each of the men held in this new arrangement of theirs, and which of them would break first when pushed.
“So that’s it?” Mat demanded, indignant. He straightened in his seat, his shoulders practically vibrating with fury. “You only want Ren back on the throne because it will earn you moremoney?”
“That’s good enough for me,” I said, and it was. We weren’t all so magnanimous and selfless as my lover – in fact, it was highly doubtfulanyof us were – and a man looking to protect the gold in his pocket could be relied on to act consistently with that goal. Except…
“Although if it is riches you’re seeking,” I added casually, “wouldn’t turning us in for the reward be in your best interest? I hear there’s a significant bounty on my head.”
It was hard not to preen at that, because it really was an enormous sum of money that had been offered to any citizen who handed me over. That was another thing that had made it too dangerous to stay in the city, but with Máros encircled by high, guarded walls on all sides, we weren’t getting out without assistance.
“There is,” Lord de la Vega agreed with a suspicious amount of cheer. “Especially now Prince Valeri has doubled the amount.”
Mat stiffened at the mention of his brother. It had been a sore subject for him since he’d told me about the vision he’d had, and one I hadn’t dared to broach. But it seemed we couldn’t escape the Velichkov-sized awkwardness any longer.
“Doubled it?” he asked, baring his teeth. “What the fuck is he playing at?”
The lord seated across from us merely shrugged, yet Mathias wasn’t done with him.
“Answer Ren’s question,” he snapped. “If it’s so profitable to sell him out, why should we believe you won’t?”
“I don’t deal inpeople,Your Highness.” The nobleman’s expression was uncharacteristically fierce, his usual jovial smile replaced by a steely hardness. “My mother was a slave before Onn abolished the practice, and I vowed that no matter the reason, I would never buy or sell another human being.”
Mathias deflated at the vehemence in his tone, and Lord de la Vega offered a weak smile in an attempt to restore his good humour. “Besides,” he added, patting his massive stomach with a pudgy hand, “food can’t have you executed if they ever return to power.”
I snorted. “Depends on how many oranges you bribe me with,” I said, but before I’d finished speaking he’d already reached into a pocket and pulled out two of them, barely disrupting the lines of his silk clothes. By the Blessed Five, my people knew me too well. I pounced on the fruit, reaching down to slide Mat’s knife from his boot where I knew he was keeping it and avoiding his half-hearted attempts to bat me away.
“So, my lord,” I asked, slicing one of the oranges open and reluctantly offering one of the segments to Mathias, immensely relieved when he smirked and shook his head in refusal, “what evidence was put to the nobles to convince them that I’m not of my father’s line? I assume there had to be something for the coronation ceremony to have gone ahead with Welzes in my place.”
“All lies, my prince, I’m sure-”
“Tell me.”
De la Vega gave a heavy sigh. “Do you remember Yanev?”
“My father’s personal healer,” I responded with my mouth full, accidentally spraying orange juice onto the cushions of the carriage and covering the mess guiltily with my hand. Mat raised an eyebrow. “An elderly Temarian granted refuge in Quareh a couple of decades ago in return for his service. Decently gifted with the Touch, but never particularly talkative.”
“Well he is now,” the lord said wryly. “He was only too eager to tell the court the tale of how the late king Iván Aratorre was happy with his first-born son, Horacio, but then his wife bore him too many girls.”
