I trapped her sword blade with my shoe, then ducked as the big guy swung at me.
“You’re lucky I don’t mind hitting a lady!” Morick said cheerfully.
“No one was under the misconception that you are a gentleman, Mor,” Nora said.
“Oh, you love me,” Morick said.
The girl abandoned her trapped sword and whirled, pulling a knife from her belt. “I don’t want to hurt any of you!”
“I don’t think you have to worry about that,” I promised.
The fight went on, raging from the kitchen to the living room; everyone stumbled at one key moment or another in the rubble of their house.
Trek was apparently endlessly optimistic, because he tried to catch the chandelier in the living room. This time he jumped free as it started to come loose, giving up on kicking me in the chest. Instead, he punched me across the face.
The chandelier plummeted to the ground just as Glora threw Nora back. Bryden rushed in to try to help, and the chandelier slammed across his shoulder blades, driving him to the ground as he pushed Nora free.
She sat on the floor with a shocked look on her face. “What did you do that for, you big oaf?”
“You would have gotten hurt,” he said weakly.
She looked horrified.
Mor slammed Trek into the wall, a knife to the big guy’s throat, and I pressed Glora against the wall, my fingers wrapping around her throat.
“That’s enough of that. How about we have some nice introductions now?” I suggested, my voice coming out dark, as it always did when my friends were hurt.
Through gritted teeth she said, “You’re the ones who came in uninvited.”
“You invited us when you visited our carriages without welcome.”
She quirked her eyebrows. “I think the king might have a different perspective on that ownership. I wasn’t stealing from you, Prince Caldren. I was merely inspired by you.”
“How are you, Bryden?” I asked, without looking away from her. Her chin lifted slightly, her discomfort at the blade against her throat obvious. My interest in a chat was directly tied to his well-being.
“I’ll be fine,” he said. “Just bruised.”
“You might just be bruised, but you’re not fine,” Nora snapped back. “You’re an idiot. I don’t want you getting hurt for me.”
“Too bad,” Bryden said. Maybe it was because he was in pain, but he sounded aggravated. “I’ve been patiently waiting for you to catch up, Nora, but in case you haven’t noticed, I care about you!”
There were a few beats of heavy silence between them while Nora obviously struggled for an answer.
“Can you put the blade away and we can talk?” Glora’s voice came out in a rasp, since my fingers were still on her throat.
I shushed her. I wanted to know what Nora would say.
“I care about you too,” she said finally. “We’ve been friends a long time, and if you were in danger, you know I’d try to protect you too, but I don’t want you to be stupid—”
Bryden cursed, interrupting her, and her eyes went wide as he abruptly leaned in, grabbing the back of her neck and dragging her close to him. His lips descended on hers in a clumsy, claiming kiss, and her hands went to his shoulders—though to push him away or pull him closer, I couldn’t tell.
He was blushing furiously as he let go. She just stared at him.
It seemed like a good time to lighten the mood by switching the topic to criminal misdeeds and rebellion against the crown.
I asked Glora, “So you were inspired by me, hm? You’ll have to forgive me for not feeling particularly honored.”
She’d been watching Nora and Bryden too, but her gaze swept back up to mine. “I think you should be, Prince Caldren. We want to work with you.”
She sounded so confident even with a knife pressed against her neck. I took a step back, grudgingly, and gestured her toward the table. Morick let Trek join her there. Bryden looked more disgusted by them sitting at the filthy, money-covered table than he had by his own injury.
“No thanks,” I said coolly. “I don’t want to work with you when you’ve been acting like an idiot. You’re going to bring the king’s men down on top of us all.”
Pend might be reluctant to hurt me despite the rumors that I was sure were circulating about my misdeeds, but I couldn’t say the same for my friends. He’d keep them alive as long as he thought that helped shield him from open rebellion. If he ever decided he’d be better off without them, even though it meant I’d try to kill him, then they’d be dead before I could protect them.
Sometimes I fantasized about sending all three of them off on Morick’s ship where they could never get hurt.
“Someone has to do what you haven’t, Prince Caldren. It’s time to arm the peasants. They need steel, not scraps of gold.”
So they planned to lead an open rebellion while the royals were also dealing with the Scourge. It might be hard for the royals to fight on two fronts, but then the royals would also abandon the peasants to the Scourge—so they’d be fighting on two fronts as well. “That isn’t what the peasants need. And you can just call me Caldren.”
“Why wouldn’t I call you prince?” She offered me a smile, a smile that was bright and gleaming and reminded me of a weapon. “When I hope one day I’ll get to call you king?”
The words hung in the air. She kept grinning up at me, obviously expecting her dramatic words to merit some kind of dramatic response.
Nora whistled. “We should just kill them.”
Glora’s smile dimmed.
“Now hang on,” Bryden disagreed. “I’ve long thought we should topple the throne and put Cal up there instead. We’ve all thought about it, haven’t we?”
“Sure. But she’s just telling us what we want to hear. I don’t trust her.” Nora pumped water into the sink, then began to deposit dirty dishes into it. She always had to keep moving. She might despise these people but if we kept her here long enough, she’d clean their kitchen.
“We all want the same things,” Trek offered. It was the first time he’d spoken, and his voice was softer and higher than I’d expected given he was a mountain of a man. “We just have slightly different approaches.”
“Mm. Well, as the future king in this hypothetical, I think I’d probably insist on doing things my way.”
“Wouldn’t it be better if we worked together?” Glora offered.
“I wasn’t looking for apprentices,” I warned.
A slow smile spread across Glora’s face. “Well, sometimes we find ourselves getting something that we never even knew we needed.”
She turned that grin on Nora, who looked like she’d rather murder her than smile back at the moment.
Dealing with a rebellion might be easier than dealing with my friends’ social angst.
“I’ll consider it if you’ll stay out of trouble,” I said.
I didn’t have a lot of faith.
I knew a lot of troublemakers.
Chapter
Seventeen
Faleen