To set a trap, one must be sure to lay out the proper bait. It is possible to snare a rabbit or perhaps a mink through common luck and timing, but if smarter prey is the object of the hunt, then some thought must be given to its catching. The trap I laid for the Maker King was exquisite. It took me decades to place each part, and in the end, I baited it with a rose.
The Maker King, despite his shortcomings, cared about his own kingdom because it was the source of his power. That I could admire, because as much as I hated the mountains where I was imprisoned, I understood their importance, and could use their rockslides and avalanches to my own needs as required. I knew that, above all else, the Maker King wanted his people to name him, as they had named his father and his father’s father, and back through the generations to the King Maker, the first of the Maker Kings. I used that to lay my trap. I reminded him that there had once been only one kingdom, and wondered what people would name the man who put the kingdoms back together. The Maker King, after all, had a son.
Prince Maram was a terrible sort. I supposed he looked well enough in the human way, and that, with his nobility, seemed to buy him a great deal of leeway. As a boy, he’d had broad shoulders even when he shirked the practice field, and the sort of features that human girls found easy to look upon. I saw further than that fine-boned face, though, into his heart and mind, and knew that he would be even better an instrument for me than his father. Unlike the Maker King, Maram did not care about his people at all. He loved only himself and longed to possess everything he touched; and that which he could not possess, he sought to ruin for anyone else.
The animals kept as pets by the castle folk learned to avoid him almost as soon as he could walk. The lapdogs would cower behind their mistresses’ feet when they saw him, while the cats simply exited as soon as he came into view. The hunting dogs he spoiled, treating them to lavish food, so that they would forget all the times he had cuffed them, and would mind him when he gave them commands. Only the horses and hawks had his respect, presumably because they were the only beasts in Qamih who might actually harm him unless he took care. Still, he did not go very often into the stables, and it was reported by the grooms that when he returned from riding, his mounts often had bloodied sides from his spurs.
Maram was a terror to his nurses, a plague to his tutors, and a horror to any of the castle children assigned to be his companions. To his father, he was the perfect son, and indeed, he played the part so well that it was easy for his father to brush aside the terrible things he had been accused of doing. After all, it was always his word, the word of a prince, against the word of someone lesser. In any case, his father needed him because it was Maram’s wedding to the Little Rose that would give the Maker King his name, the name that would finally grant him his place in his family’s legacy.
I had visited Maram infrequently since the day I had ensured his marriage would take place as I wished it. He believed he would be marrying the Little Rose, a mere girl he would always be able to control, and I wanted to be sure that he always believed that. With her disappearance, however, and with the general ineptitude of the search for her in Kharuf, I required his help.
I found him in his chambers, hovering over a selection of knives. They were made of iron, which infuriated me, but as long as I stayed on the opposite side of the room from them, it would be well enough.
“Maram,” I said, and he jumped.
“Lady,” he said, bowing floridly from the waist. He had met me only once before, though I had watched him for a long time. Clearly I had made an impression. He was profoundly odious. When he bedded the Little Rose, I decided, I would withdraw from her almost entirely, and keep only enough of her to be sure she could not regain control of her own body. “How may I serve you?”
“Your princess has been kidnapped,” I told him. “And the vagabonds have taken her into the mountains where her own people cannot track them.”
“How terrible,” he said. “My poor little rose.”
“Indeed,” I said. “I require you to seek her there and restore her to her parents.”
“Why?” he asked. His impertinence made me fume, but I kept control. I could destroy him after I destroyed the rest of his kingdom, and as many humans as I was able to find.
“She is to be your wife,” I reminded him.
“Is she?” he asked. “After being kidnapped by some sort of unsavory characters?”
“If you kill all of them, she will agree to whatever story you tell her,” I said. I didn’t much care for the Little Rose’s reputation. I only needed her alive and contained. “She needs to preserve her reputation as much as you do. It doesn’t matter if it is the truth, only that people believe it, and they already believe all sorts of lies about you. Imagine how romantic your people, and hers, will find it if you hasten to her rescue.”
“You wound me, Lady,” he said. “But at the same time, I do feel stirred to action. I will go, as you have said. Shall I take a war party with me, or will it be more romantic if I ride alone?”