Royal Bastards Read online

  No. My father wanted me dead. My own father wanted me dead.

  My eyes burned. I held my head in my hands. I’d been so close, closer to his trust than I’d ever been in my life, so close to finally earning his love….

  And now he’d just ordered the entire Province to kill me.

  Zell alone seemed unfazed. “Last question,” he said to Markos, still holding him down with a knee to his chest. “Is anyone coming here soon? Are you expecting any visitors tonight?”

  “No,” Markos said.

  “Good,” Zell replied.

  Then he reached down, took Markos’s head in his hands, and snapped his neck with a loud, brittle crack.

  I clenched back a gasp between my teeth. Jax screamed and dove across the room, tackling Zell and slamming him back into the floor. “What the hell? You just killed him!”

  “He tried to kill you!” Zell shouted back. He effortlessly slid out of Jax’s grip and flipped him over, sending him sliding across the kitchen. “Or did you somehow miss that part?”

  “He was down…wounded…beaten!” Jax hissed. “You didn’t have to kill him!”

  “Are you really that much of an idiot?” Zell stood up and turned away. “He would have gotten help and told everyone what happened. Then they’d know we were still alive, that we were here! We’d lose the one advantage we have!”

  “But…but…” Jax stammered. “We could have taken him with us! As a prisoner!”

  “A useless oaf with a collapsed skull, bleating away to anyone in earshot, dying slowly, painfully, and loudly!”

  “You didn’t have to kill him!”

  They kept arguing, but I’d stopped listening. It was like the weight of the world had drowned them out. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t breathe. All I could do was stare at Markos’s face, turned sideways on the tile floor, his eyes still glistening with his last, drying tears. The eyes I’d stared into so longingly that night in the hayloft, the eyes I’d been sure I’d look into for the rest of my life. Markos wouldn’t have a rest of his life. Not anymore.

  I forced myself to look away, to Jax sprawled on the floor, sobbing, and then to Zell, his face hard and cold. Blood trickled down from the nightglass blades on his knuckles, streaming along his pale fingers, along his killing hands. I’d thought they’d be still, like the rest of him, but they were trembling, just barely, a tiny shudder he couldn’t conceal, and he was trying. That coldness, that calm, was a mask, I realized, a mask for something terrible raging inside him. And it was starting to slip.

  It’d be so easy to blame this all on him.

  So easy. And so unfair.

  “We all killed them,” I said. Jax turned to stare at me, stunned, and Zell’s eyes flitted my way. I caught a glimpse of whatever was behind that mask, something raw and aching. “We killed them the minute we showed up here, asking for their help. We killed them the minute we made them choose between their lives and ours. There was no other way this could have ended.” I stared at the floor. “All Zell did was make sure we were the ones who got to walk away.”

  “But…he…It just…” Jax ran his fingers nervously through his hair. “Shit! What do we do now?”

  “What we came here to do,” I said. “We grab food, clothes, weapons. Anything we can get our hands on. We take their horses. We go back for Miles and Lyriana. And we run like hell.”

  Zell nodded. “That’s the best plan anyone’s had all day.”

  Jax stared at us in disbelief. “Tilla, how can you be like that? How can you be so cold? I mean, this is Tannyn and Markos we’re talking about! This is—”

  “I know who we’re talking about, Jax. And I’m being like this because I have to.” Because the only other option would be to completely lose my mind. “Please, Jax. Don’t make this any worse than it is.”

  Jax let out a shaky breath and pulled himself up to his feet. “Fine. You’re right. Let’s just…let’s just go.” He walked out of the kitchen and back into the main room, where he stood for a moment over Tannyn’s limp body. It seemed like he wanted to say something, some kind of apology or good-bye, but he couldn’t manage to choke out any words. He just stood there, tears streaming down his cheeks, then took a single sharp breath and turned to go upstairs.

  Zell walked after him but stopped right as he passed me. He knelt down, rested one hand on my shoulder. “You acted fast and protected your brother,” he said softly, his lips almost touching my ear. “You did the right thing.” He squeezed my shoulder gently, warmly. “Thank you.”

  Then it was just me alone in the kitchen, alone with Markos’s body, alone with the silence. I knew that I should get up. That I should get moving. That I should start rummaging through the drawers, looking for food that wouldn’t go bad, for sacks to carry it in.

  But first I leaned over to Markos and ran my hand along his face, gently closing his eyes. He looked a little better. Peaceful, maybe.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered to his still, broken frame. “I’m so sorry.”

  I got up and got moving.

  “NO WAY,” MILES SAID, HIS soft hands shaking as they held the crumpled WANTED poster. “No…they wouldn’t….Mother wouldn’t….”

  “She did, Miles,” I replied. “She did.” We were all huddled together back at the beach camp, the sky overhead just starting to darken. When Zell, Jax, and I had returned, we must have been a hell of a sight: riding along the beach on horses laden down with bags bursting with supplies. Miles had lunged up, cheering, and even Lyriana had cracked a smile. Then we got closer, and they saw the grim looks on our faces.

  Zell and Jax had hung back to lay down some posts to tie up the horses. That left me to break the bad news.

  “This is an order of execution.” Miles shoved the paper back into my hands. “My mother wouldn’t….I mean, she must not have known….Because this is…This means…” But even as he stammered, I could see the truth settle in his eyes. “Titans’ breath. This means they want us dead. Mother wants me dead.”

  “I know how you feel,” I said, even as I realized I kind of didn’t. I’d always been distant with my father, so the pain I was feeling was that of a dream destroyed, the loss of something I’d never get to have. But Miles and his mother had always been inseparable. He’d always been loved, really loved, way more than any bastard I’d known. So for him this had to be so, so much worse. “I’m sorry, Miles.”

  Miles turned away. “We’re so screwed.”

  “Are we?” Lyriana asked. She was looking way better than she had this morning; I guess she’d managed to get the grief out of her system. She sat on a driftwood log, nibbling on some hard cheese from one of my bags, her golden eyes sparkling in the fire’s flickering light. She wasn’t quite as impressive as she’d been in the Great Hall, not with her hair a mess and her dress in tatters, but at least she didn’t look like a drowned kitten anymore, either. “Will the people of the West be foolish enough to believe such a flimsy tale? Would they ever mistake me for some servant girl impostor?”

  I decided to ignore her weirdly condescending tone. “For ten thousand Eagles? I think they’d believe you were a Titan.”

  “It’s brilliant, really,” Miles muttered. “They’ve turned every single person in the Province against us with one simple decree.” He didn’t say what he was thinking, and he didn’t have to: only his mother would have come up with such an elegant, calculating scheme.

  “My uncle warned me about rebels in the West, about those who would try to harm us. But he said they were cowardly, craven fools.” Lyriana shook her head. “I see now he was wrong. He hadn’t counted on your parents’ cunning, on the depth of their hatred and evil.”

  “Hey, now, my mother’s not evil,” Miles tried. “It’s more complicated than that….”

  “You defend her? Even after what she did to my uncle? Even after what she’s done to you?”

  “I said it’s complicated….”

  “I’m sure it is,” Jax said as he strolled over, and not a moment too soon.
“But right now no one gives a shit about your feelings, Boy Genius. So let’s cut the moping and focus on what actually matters.” Jax had never exactly been nice to Miles, but this was harsh, even for him. I’d never seen Jax so sad and angry. He’d barely spoken the whole ride back, much less cracked a smile or a joke. It made my heart ache.

  Jax knelt down and unfurled a long parchment over the ground: the map of the Western Province from the Dolan brothers’ wall. It showed all the major villages, castles, and landmarks, not to mention dozens of sharp lines indicating mountains and forests. The Province was roughly a square. To the north were the Borderlands to the Zitochi tundra. To the east, cutting the Province off from the rest of Noveris, were the Frostkiss Mountains, a massive sprawl of jutting, icy peaks made of jagged granite and crawling with ice apes.

  “Any ideas where we should go?”

  “Do we have to go anywhere?” I asked, looking at a big round dot on the map’s northwestern coast. Castle Waverly. “I mean, this cove seems pretty safe. Couldn’t we stay here until we figure out a way to get help?”

  “If I know my father, he sent my brother and his men to hunt us.” Zell walked over to join our group, two heavy bags of supplies slung over his shoulders. “Razz is one of the best trackers Clan Gaul has ever produced. I’ve seen him hunt a wounded elk thirty miles through a snowstorm. Every minute we spend near the castle is a minute he draws closer to finding us.” Zell looked away. “You won’t like what happens if he does.”

  “Great. That’s just great,” Jax grumbled. “Then where do we run? North?”

  “We don’t flee Zitochi by running into Zitochi lands. Don’t be so stupid,” Miles replied. He was staring so intently at the map he didn’t even notice that I had to throw up a hand to keep Jax from slugging him. Miles jabbed his finger at a dot halfway down the Western Coast, a place I’d never heard of called Port Lorrent. “There. We could go there.”

  “And what’s at Port Lorrent?”

  “It’s a trading post, one with a distinctly unsavory reputation,” Miles answered, as if this were common knowledge. “My mother used to do business there, with some…importers. It’s a really rough place. Smugglers, fugitives, outlaws. The kind of people who don’t give half a damn what you’ve done or who you killed, so long as you’ve got coin.”

  Lyriana scowled. “And you’d…what? Have us join these people?”

  “No, of course not. But if we got in touch with them, I bet they could get us on a ship and smuggle us out of here. They could get us somewhere safe, somewhere far away. The K’olali Isles, maybe. Even the King’s forces wouldn’t find us there.”

  “The K’olali Isles,” I said. They were an independent island nation way out in the Endless Ocean, a tropical paradise as far as I knew. I’d heard of towering lush mountains and jungles full of strange creatures and sprawling coastal cities where laid-back sailors drank rum out of coconuts in the shade. I could think of a lot worse options.

  “I’ve always wanted to go to the K’olali Isles,” Jax said. “That’s the best thing I’ve heard all day. If you’re serious about this…I’m in.”

  “Me too,” I said, then turned to Zell, who was staring at us quizzically. “You’d like this place, Zell. Might have to get used to wearing less fur.”

  “I will wear whatever is regionally appropriate,” he replied.

  Miles let out an amused snort. “Okay, then. I’ll need some time to figure out how to do this and draft up a list of contacts. We’ll need to plan a route as well, not to mention scrounge up some money….”

  “I’m not going,” Lyriana said.

  We all turned to stare at her. “Um,” Jax said. “Maybe you missed the part where Zell said his psycho brother was going to skin us alive if he caught us here….”

  “I never said that specifically,” Zell said. “Though it’s not implausible.”

  “I don’t care,” Lyriana insisted. “I’m not fleeing. Not when the fate of the Kingdom depends on me.” She shook her head angrily. “This isn’t just about me, about us. Killing me was always just a means to an end. Your father has a plan, Tillandra.” She gestured to the WANTED poster lying in the sand. “I’m sure Whispers have already reached Lightspire with news of the so-called murders. When word of this reaches my father, he’ll lose all sense and reason. He’ll send out whole companies of mages to avenge me.”

  “They’ll blame the Zitochi,” Miles mused. “And if they’re going into the northern tundra, they’ll stop by Castle Waverly….”

  “Where my father’s men will ambush them while they rest,” I finished. “That’s got to be it.”

  Lyriana nodded. “I suspect so. Lord Kent aims to restart the Great War…and he’ll do it by slaughtering mages in cold blood.”

  The rest of us looked at one another. Jax cleared his throat awkwardly. “Well, if no one else is going to say it, I will. Who cares? Why the hell would I risk my life to save a bunch of mages?”

  Lyriana shot him a glare that could freeze molten ore. “It’s not just about the mages, you boor. Can you imagine what a second Great War would look like? Thousands of people would die, Heartlanders and Westerners alike. Villages would be razed. Men, women, and children would be slaughtered. And our hands would be stained with their blood.”

  Jax’s mouth opened and closed wordlessly. He looked to me for help, but I couldn’t meet his gaze. I thought of Markos on that floor, dead because of me, never to kiss anyone again. I thought of Zell’s nightglass barbs, dripping crimson.

  “Dammit,” I said. “Fine. So we can’t just run. What do we do, then?”

  “These mages,” Miles said, still hunched over the map. “Would they recognize you if they saw you, Your Majesty?”

  “Of course,” Lyriana replied. “In my uncle’s absence, they’ll be led by my cousin Ellarion.” Her voice choked for a second. “He’s Rolan’s son.”

  “Then maybe what we need to do is meet up with them.” Miles pointed to a dot at the southeastern corner of the map, and this one I recognized: Pioneer’s Pass, a narrow passage through the Frostkiss Mountains. It was the only way to get anything wider than an oxcart into the West.

  “The mages will have to come through the Pass,” I said. “If we can get there first, we can meet up with them.”

  Jax wasn’t buying it. “So what’s the plan, then? Ride all the way to the southeastern corner of the Province and sit in the middle of the road, waiting for some mages to come by?”

  “As a matter of fact, that is not the plan.” Lyriana bristled. She sat down next to Miles and pointed to a large black castle just next to the Pass. The Nest. Home of House Reza. “My uncle and I stayed there on our journey up, as guests. Lord Reza was a very gracious host, and is a good friend of the Volaris family. I’m certain his loyalty lies with the King. He’ll give us shelter and protect us until the mages arrive.”

  “Isn’t Lord Reza up here?” Jax asked. “At the feast.”

  I shook my head. “The feast was only for Western Houses. And House Reza is…special.” After the Great War, the Volaris King had deemed Pioneer’s Pass too tactically important to be trusted to Westerners, so the lands around it had been given to a powerful House from Lightspire: House Reza. They were hated by most of the Western Houses, who saw them as parasites who got to profit off the very lucrative trade passage. I’d only heard my father swear once, and that was when he called Lord Galen Reza an arrogant brat with his lips stuck to the King’s ass.

  Hard to imagine that he was my best shot at living to see seventeen.

  “What do you think, Jax? How long would it take us to get to the Nest?”

  Jax knelt over the map, using the side of his big hand to measure out distances. “Twelve days?”

  “Riding on back roads?” Zell asked. “Traveling under the cover of night?”

  “Twenty days. Maybe twenty-five.”

  “Then it’s a plan,” Lyriana declared. “We ride south and east toward the Nest, and take shelter with Lord Reza until the mage
s arrive.”

  Jax sighed. “So that’s a definite no on the K’olali Isles, huh?”

  He was joking, but Lyriana turned to him seriously. “I know this is a grave risk I am asking you to undertake. And I promise, it will not be forgotten. The Volaris Dynasty rewards those who help it in its hour of greatest need. You will be heroes of the Kingdom.”

  Miles shot me a weak smile. “Guess we’ll get to Lightspire after all, huh?”

  I smiled back. It was stupid, but just having a plan made me feel a little better. And if we did end up stopping a war, saving lives…

  It wouldn’t bring Markos back. But maybe it would make that horrible guilt in my stomach weigh a little less.

  IT TOOK, OH, TEN MINUTES for me to start having serious doubts about us pulling this off. That was when I opened the sack of clothes we’d taken from the Dolan house and Lyriana stared incredulously at the pair of Markos’s pants I’d tossed her way.

  “I know they’re not as nice as what you’re used to wearing,” I explained. “But, well, it’s all the guys had, and you’ll be a lot better off in them than in that ripped dress….”

  “I’m not judging the quality. I appreciate the offer.” Lyriana looked down, embarrassed. “It’s just that…I don’t know how to put them on.”

  I blinked. “You don’t know how to put on pants.”

  “I’ve never had to. No woman in Lightspire would!”

  Jax snorted. “Yeah, I bet. You probably got shoved into a solid-gold dress the moment you popped out from between your mother’s thighs.”

  Lyriana shot him a withering glare. “I can tell that you’re trying to offend me with your coarse humor, and I assure you it won’t work. I’ll have you know I made it a point to speak openly with my servants, and I’ve already heard all of my coachmen’s bawdy jokes. I’m sure they’d put yours to shame.”

  “You’ve heard bawdy jokes? Really?” Jax asked. “Like what?”