Sword Catcher (Sword Catcher, #1)

When he was younger, Kel had assumed that one day he would be given his own room—near Conor’s, certainly, but still separate. That hadn’t happened. Jolivet had insisted that Kel continue to sleep where Conor slept, in case something happened in the night. And when Kel had asked Conor about it, saying surely Conor also wanted privacy, Conor had said he wasn’t looking to be alone with his thoughts, unless Kel really wanted his own room, in which case Conor would make sure he got it. There had been genuine hurt in his voice, though, and Kel had dropped the topic.

Queen Lilibet, after all, shared her apartments with her ladies-in-waiting, keeping a golden bell beside her bed to summon them to her side. Master Fausten had slept on a cot outside King Markus’s door in the Star Tower since the Fire on the Sea. And the rooms Kel shared with Conor were vast, encompassing not just the room where they slept, but the library upstairs, the roof of the West Tower, and the tepidarium. Being alone wasn’t impossible, so Kel decided he’d been unreasonable to ask in the first place.

Kel, who had already bathed, began to dress, ignoring the stinging in his right hand. There were three wardrobes in the apartments: one, the largest, for Conor’s clothes. One for the sets of clothes required for public appearances and other events at which Kel might need to take Conor’s place at a moment’s notice, containing two of everything, matching: frock coats, trousers, even boots. And the third for clothes that were Kel’s own, inflected with the style of Marakand. For after all, wasn’t he Amirzah Kel Anjuman, the Queen’s cousin? Lilibet had taken some delight in making sure his wardrobe reflected that. Silk tunics in jewel tones with loose sleeves, colorful scarves, and long tapered coats of gold or bronze brocade, their sleeves slashed to show green silk beneath. (Green was the color of the Marakandi flag, and Lilibet wore it almost exclusively.)

Kel dressed in black today, with a green tunic buttoned over: The loose sleeves were useful, as they concealed the daggers secured to his wrists with leather buckles. As far as he knew, Conor had no special plans for today, but it was always good to be prepared.

They ate breakfast in the courtyard of the Castel Mitat. Marivent was not in fact one large castle, but a scatter of different small palaces, or castels, dotted among richly planted gardens. The story was that this had made the Palace easier to defend—even if an army were to get past the walls, they would have to siege multiple fortresses—but Kel did not know if that were true, or if it simply reflected the fact that kings and queens over the centuries had found it easier to add new buildings than to expand the Castel Antin, the oldest of the palaces, which contained the throne room and the Shining Gallery.

The Castel Mitat sat dab in the middle of Marivent; it was a hollow square, surmounted by the sturdy West Tower, which looked out over Castellane and its harbor. Half in sun, half in dappled shade cast by arbors of climbing vines, its courtyard glowed like a jewel box. Orange and red poppies and grandiflora hung from vines like drop earrings of polished coral. In the center of the courtyard was a sundial tiled in scarlet and green, representing the marriage of Lilibet and Markus. The green of Marakand, the red of Castellane.

According to the sundial, it was closer to noon than morning, but as far as Conor was concerned, that still meant breakfast. Bread, honey, figs, and soft white goat’s cheese, alongside cold game pie. And wine, of course. Conor poured a glass and held it up to watch the sunlight strike through the liquid, turning it to stained glass.

“Perhaps we should go back to the Caravel,” Kel suggested. He was picking at a fig; he found he had not much appetite. “Since you’ve forgotten yesterday anyway.”

“I haven’t forgotten all of it,” said Conor. He had left off his crown, or lost it in the tepidarium. There were shadows smudged beneath his gray eyes. Once they had had eyes of different colors, but that had been changed long ago. “I recall Falconet doing some truly scandalous things to Audeta. She seemed to like them. I ought to ask him how—”

“Well, then, if you enjoyed yourself, all the more reason to return. With Falconet, if you like.” Which will allow me to seek out Merren and demand some answers.

“I prefer not to wear the same thing twice in a row, or do the same thing two nights running.” Conor turned the glass in his hand. “If you’re missing Silla, we can always have her brought here.”

Where I have no bedroom to myself? No, thank you, Kel thought. But that was not fair. Conor required him close by. It would be that way until Conor himself was married. Which reminded him—

“So were you really thinking of getting married? Malgasi, Kutani, Hanse . . .”

Conor set his glass down with a thump. “Gods, no. What’s gotten into you?”

He really doesn’t remember, Kel thought. It was both a relief and an annoyance. He would have liked to know what had bothered Conor so much he’d put his hand through a window. Perhaps whatever Falconet had done with Audeta had been very, very peculiar.

“I was thinking,” Conor said, his eyes bright. “Before I get married, I’d like to see more of the world. I’m the Crown Prince of Castellane and I’ve never been farther away than Valderan. And Valderan is mostly horses.”

“Excellent horses,” Kel pointed out. Asti and Matix had been gifts from the King of Valderan. “And arable land.”

Conor chuckled. So he remembered that, at any rate. “I recall I promised you travel, a long time ago,” he said. “An extraordinary life.”

You would see things hardly anyone ever sees. You would travel the whole world.

They’d often spoken of the places and things they’d like to see—the floating markets of Shenzhou, the towers of Aquila, the silver bridges that connected the six hills of Favár, the Malgasi capital—but it had always been in a distant, theoretical sense. The little travel he had actually done with Conor had not been much like his dreams of ships and blue water, gulls flying overhead. Traveling with royalty was an organizational nightmare of horses and caravans, trunks and soldiers, cooks and bathtubs, and rarely managing to go more than a few hours a day before having to stop and set up camp.

“My life is already fairly extraordinary,” said Kel. “More than most people know.”

Conor leaned forward. “I was thinking,” he said. “What about Marakand?”

“Marakand? Over the Gold Roads?”

Conor dipped his left shoulder in an elegant shrug. “Why not? Marakand is half my heritage, is it not?”