Морган Райс: A Dirge for Princes

He felt the sharpness of that edge as Rupert pressed it to his face.

“You think you get to attack me? I’ve ridden halfway across the kingdom because of you. I’m cold, I’m wet, and my clothes are ruined. Maybe your face should be too.”

Sebastian felt a bead of blood form under the pressure of that edge. To his surprise, one of the soldiers stepped forward.

“Your highness,” he said, the deference in his tone obvious. “I suspect that the Dowager would not wish us to allow either of her sons to be harmed.”

Sebastian felt Rupert go dangerously still, and for a moment, he thought that he would do it anyway. Instead, he pulled the knife away, his anger sliding back behind the mask of civility that usually disguised it.

“Yes, you’re right, soldier. I wouldn’t want Mother angry that I had… miss-stepped.”

It was such a benign term to use when he’d been talking about cutting Sebastian’s face to pieces only moments before. The fact that he could switch like that confirmed almost everything Sebastian had heard about him. He’d always tried to ignore the stories, but it was as though he’d seen the real Rupert both here, and earlier, when he’d tortured the gardener at the abandoned house.

“I want all of Mother’s anger reserved for you, little brother,” Rupert said. He didn’t hit Sebastian this time, just clapped a hand to his shoulder in a brotherly fashion that was undoubtedly an act. “Running off like this, fighting her soldiers. Killing one of them.”

Almost too fast to follow, Rupert spun, stabbing the one who had raised an objection through the throat. The man fell, clutching the wound, his expression of shock almost matched by those around him.

“Let us be clear,” Rupert said, in a dangerous voice. “I am the crown prince, and we are a long way from the Assembly of Nobles, with its rules and its attempts to contain its betters. Out here, I will not be questioned! Is that understood?”

If it had been anyone else, he would have quickly found himself cut down by the other soldiers. Instead, the men murmured a chorus of assent, each one seeming to know that anyone cutting down a prince of the blood would be the one responsible for reigniting the civil wars.

“Don’t worry,” Rupert said, wiping the knife. “I was kidding about cutting your face. I won’t even say that you killed this man. He died in the fighting around the ship. Now, thank me.”

“Thank you,” Sebastian said in flat tones, but only because he suspected that it was the best way to avoid further violence.

“Besides, I think Mother will believe a tale of your uselessness more than one of your murderousness,” Rupert said. “The son who ran away, couldn’t get there in time, lost his lady love, and got himself beaten up by a girl.”

Sebastian might have thrown himself forward again, but the soldiers were still holding him tight, as if expecting exactly that. Perhaps, in a way, they were even doing it for his own protection.

“Yes,” Rupert said, “you make a far better tragic figure than one of hate. You look the very picture of grief right now.”

Sebastian knew that his brother would never understand the truth of it. He would never understand the sheer pain eating through his heart, far worse than any of the aches from his bruises. He would never understand the grief of losing someone he loved, because Sebastian was sure now that Rupert didn’t love anyone except himself.

Sebastian had loved Sophia, and it was only now that she was gone that he could begin to understand how much, simply by seeing how much of his world had been ripped away in the moments since he’d seen her so still and lifeless, beautiful even in death. He felt like some shambling thing from one of the old tales, empty except for the shell of flesh surrounding his grief.

The only reason he wasn’t crying was because he felt too hollow to do even that. Well, that and because he didn’t want to give his brother the satisfaction of seeing him in pain. Right then, he would even have welcomed it if Rupert had killed him, because at least that would have brought an end to the infinite expanse of pain seeming to stretch out around him.

“It’s time for you to come home,” Rupert said. “You can be there while I report everything that has happened to our mother. She sent me to bring you back, so that’s what I’m going to do. I’ll tie you over a horse if I have to.”

“You don’t have to,” Sebastian said. “I’ll go.”

He said it quietly, but even so, it was enough to get a smile of triumph out of his brother. Rupert thought that he’d won. The truth was that Sebastian simply didn’t care. It didn’t matter anymore. He waited for one of the soldiers to bring him a horse, mounted up, and heeled it forward with leaden limbs.

He would go home to Ashton, and he would be whatever kind of prince his family wanted him to be. None of it would make a difference.

Nothing did, now that Sophia was dead.

Cora was more than grateful when the ground started to level out again. It seemed as though she and Emeline had been walking forever, although her friend didn’t show any of the strain of it.

“How can you just keep walking like you aren’t tired?” Cora asked, as Emeline continued to press forward. “Is it some kind of magic?”

Emeline looked back. “It’s not magic, it’s just… I spent most of my life on Ashton’s streets. If you showed that you were weak, people found ways to prey on you.”

Cora tried to imagine that, living somewhere where there was the chance of violence any time anyone showed weakness. She realized that she didn’t have to imagine it, though.

“In the palace, it was Rupert and his cronies,” she said, “or the noble girls who thought they could abuse you just because they were feeling angry at something else.”

She saw Emeline cock her head to the side. “I would have thought that it would be better in the palace,” she said. “At least you didn’t have to dodge the gangs or the slave takers. You didn’t have to spend your nights hunkered down in coal cellars so that no one would find you.”

“Because I was already indentured,” Cora pointed out. “I didn’t even have a bed in the palace. They just assumed that I would find a corner to sleep in. That, or some noble would want me in their bed.”

To Cora’s surprise, Emeline put her arms around her in a hug. If there was one thing Cora had learned on the road, it was that Emeline wasn’t usually a demonstrative person.

“I saw some nobles once, out in the city,” Emeline said. “I thought that they would be something brighter and better than one of the gangs, until I got closer. Then I saw one of them beating a man senseless just because he could. They were exactly the same.”

It seemed strange, bonding like this over how harsh their lives had been, but Cora did feel closer to Emeline than she had at the start of this. It wasn’t just that they’d been through a lot of the same things in their lives. They’d traveled a long way together now too, and there was still the prospect of more miles to come.

“Stonehome will be there,” Cora said, trying to convince herself as much as Emeline.

“It will,” Emeline said. “Sophia saw it.”

It felt strange, putting so much trust in Sophia’s powers, but the truth was that Cora did trust her, absolutely. She would gladly trust her life to the things that Sophia had seen, and there was no one she would rather share the journey with than Emeline.

They kept going, and as they headed west, they started to see more rivers, in networks that connected like capillaries leading to bigger arteries. Soon, there seemed to be almost as much water as land, so that even the fields in between were semi-flooded things, people farming in mud that threatened to turn into marsh at any moment. Rain seemed to be a constant, and while occasionally Cora and Emeline huddled down out of the worse of it, for the most part they pressed on.