Her eyes fixed on him, then widened. “It’s the King himself!”
Her surprise was warranted because his father wouldn’t have come. Would barely have looked up from his desk if he’d learned one of his daughters had been endangered.
There was a shuffle of motion, and then the door eased inward. Ignoring Dax’s urging that he hold back, Keris pushed inside. “Where is Sara? Is she harmed?”
The woman bobbed three curtsies in a row, and he was about ready to scream at her to stand up straight when she said, “The Princess is unharmed, Your Grace. I’ll take you to her. We have captured the perpetrator. He is injured, but alive.”
Not for long.
Sword still in his hand, Keris followed the woman, two of Dax’s men pushing ahead, their eyes wary. Then they drew to a halt.
Breaking into a run, Keris rounded the corner to find a cluster of women. They stiffened at the sight of armed men, then pulled back to reveal Sara sitting on the ground next to a still woman, a pool of blood around her. “Sara?”
His little sister looked up, face streaked with tears. “Keris?”
He dropped to his knees, blood soaking his trousers as he pulled her against him. “Are you hurt?”
“No,” she sobbed. “He dragged me out of my room. When the abbess tried to stop him, he stabbed her.” Sara broke off with a choked breath. “She stabbed him back with a knitting needle, and he let me go.”
Keris glanced down at the dead woman, recognizing her as the one he’d threatened should anything happen to his sister. His stomach tightened, because he didn’t think that it was threats from him that had driven her to protect Sara with a knitting needle.
“Your Grace,” Dax muttered, and he pointed to the splatters of blood leading down the hallway.
“Stay here,” Keris murmured to his sister, handing her off to one of the women and following the trail of blood, Dax at his elbow. His heart beat with steady thumps fueled by anger, but as he rounded the bend to find two women with heavy candlesticks standing over a prone form, Keris sheathed his weapon and said, “Hello, little brother.”
“Keris,” Royce said through gritted teeth. “It’s been an age.”
“That’s Your Grace to you, you little pissant,” Dax growled, but Keris waved a calming hand at him before turning to the candlestick-wielding women. “You have my gratitude for your service, sisters. Thank you.”
The women grudgingly lowered their weapons, dropping into curtsies before retreating down the hall. Keris walked slowly and crouched next to Royce, eyeing his scowling half brother. Royce was years younger than Keris and, last he’d heard, was stationed at one of the garrisons in the southern Kestark mountains. He was also next in line for the throne if Keris didn’t produce an heir. Royce was bleeding from a wound on the side of his head, presumably from one of the candlesticks, but the
knitting needle jutting out of his side was of more immediate concern. “What brings you to Vencia?
Thinking of taking vows to God and joining the cloth?”
“Fuck you, Keris.”
“Incest aside, I’m afraid you’re not my type.”
Royce’s glower deepened. “You were always a smart-mouthed little prick. Yapping like a dog about your stupid ideals and then scuttling behind Otis whenever anyone challenged you. The only reason no one killed you was because you weren’t worth the effort.”
Thud.
God help him, but Keris wished he could burn that sound from his memory. “Hiding behind Otis is no longer an option. So by all means, say and do what you will, brother.”
Royce went still, apparently aware of what had befallen their half brother. Beneath his rage, part of Keris recoiled at using Otis’s death as a threat. Yet another, far more pragmatic part of him whispered, Don’t pretend that you’d have allowed Otis to survive. He was a dead man from the moment he threatened her life.
straight when she said, “The Princess is unharmed, Your Grace. I’ll take you to her. We have captured
“Well?” Keris asked, feeling his men shift behind him. He glanced over his shoulder at them, then back to Royce. “Prefer to speak in private?” Not waiting for Royce to answer, he said, “Dax, take the men and go watch over my sister. I wouldn’t want anything to happen to her while my back is turned.”
“Yes, Your Grace,” Dax answered, and boots thudded against stone as they retreated.
Once they were gone, Keris said, “There, Royce. We’re alone. What would you like to say to me?”
Breaking into a run, Keris rounded the corner to find a cluster of women. They stiffened at the sight When his brother hesitated, he added, “Let’s start with just what, exactly, you intended to do with our sister.”
Royce’s throat moved as he swallowed, his body flexing as though his instincts demanded that he fight. Or flee. “Nothing. I just came to visit her, and the old bitch took issue with it.”
“To be clear, you decided to sneak into an estate dedicated to religious training, in the middle of one of the worst storms Vencia has seen in years, to visit a half sister you’ve never once spoken to. A breath. “She stabbed him back with a knitting needle, and he let meconversation”—Keris flicked the knitting needle jutting out of his brother’s side—“apparently worth killing an old woman over.”
Keris glanced down at the dead woman, recognizing her as the one he’d threatened should anything Royce didn’t cry out, only clenched his teeth. Which Keris might have given him credit for if not for the fact that the idiot persisted with the lie. “A princess shouldn’t be relegated to serving the church. She deserves better. I was going to take her away to give her the life befitting her rank.”
Despite himself, Keris flinched. Sara did deserve better. But he knew the blood running through Royce’s veins cared nothing for the well-being of little girls. “Cut the bullshit. You learned that she was favored by me and thought to capitalize upon it. Either to ransom her for gold or to use her to lure me into a situation where you might put a knife in my back.”
The storm raged outside, the women down the hallway still weeping loudly, but the silence
between them muffled it, the tension stiflingly thick.
Royce broke first, huffing out a strangled laugh. “You’re being dramatic, Keris. This is always the way it is with Veliant brothers, right? It means everything. It means nothing. We move forward until the next squabble.”
Keris laughed along with him, ignoring the part of himself that cringed at the coldness in it. “You’re right about that being the way of things. Or would be if I were still only your brother and a prince, not your king.”
Kestark mountains. He was also next in line for the throne if Keris didn’t produce an heir. Royce was Royce’s laugh faded.
“The rules are different now,” Keris continued. “Moves against me are no longer games and
brotherly … shenanigans, but treason. And all traitors face the same fate in Maridrina.”
What color remained in Royce’s cheeks drained away. “Ker—Your Grace, please. I wasn’t going to hurt her. I—”
“You already did hurt her.” Had reminded her that nowhere was safe. That everywhere she went, pain would follow, for no reason other than her name. “Why would I show you any mercy?”
Royce squared his shoulders. “Fuck you, Keris. You can have one of your lackeys cut off my head and spike it on the gate, but know that I’m only the first. Your blood is coming for you. Coming to rip the crown from your pathetic head because Maridrina deserves a warrior on its throne, not a weakling who hid in a library!”
Maridrina did deserve better than him. But Royce wasn’t the answer—none of his brothers were.
“Let them come.”