Royal Bastards Page 3

  Flanking him were his two sons. I didn’t know their names. The one on his right, the older one, was the spitting image of his father, but the one on the left looked different. He was my age, and he was skinnier than the other, his frame fit but wiry. A long, thin sword in a plain black sheath hung across his back, its unadorned pommel peeking out over his shoulder. While his father and brother had their black hair up in the traditional Zitochi topknots, his hung low and messy around his shoulders.

  “Who’s that on the left?” I asked Miles.

  “Grezza’s younger son,” he whispered back. “Zin? Zayne? Zobbo?”

  “You’re just making sounds.”

  The three Zitochi walked into the hall and stopped just short of my father’s table. All around the room, I could see Lords tensing up, their backs stiffening, their fists clenching. The Zitochi lived in the frozen tundra north of our lands and they’d been our enemies for centuries. Some of the Lords still clung to old barbarian stereotypes, and used slurs like “glassie” and “snowsucker.” My father rejected that; he’d spent time out in the Zitochi lands, and come back arguing that they were a proud and complex culture, worthy of our respect. He’d brokered a truce that had lasted ten almost-peaceful years. But it was one thing to buy nightglass from traveling Zitochi merchants and keep our settlers away from their territories. It was another to invite them into our Hall.

  My father nodded toward a nearby table with three empty seats. Grezza and his sons strode toward it, but then Grezza shook his head and said something in Zitochi. The older son laughed, and the younger son started walking toward us instead.

  “What’s happening?” I whispered. “Is he…a bastard?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe? I don’t think so. Could be?” I could practically see the gears in Miles’s head whirring. “Do the Zitochi have a practice of bastardom? Do they even understand what this table is? I mean, I never thought to ask, but I suppose I assumed that—”

  “Just stay cool,” I said. I was feeling a little excited. I’d never talked to a Zitochi before, not really. And yes, I’ll admit it. He was hot. Not in that sweaty, broad-shouldered way like the blacksmith’s apprentice, but more of a cold, quiet smolder, like the kind of guy who would sit quietly next to you all night and then suddenly grab you up in a heart-pounding kiss.

  Maybe I was imagining things. Maybe I just really needed to make out with someone.

  “I’m cool,” Miles muttered, obviously on a different wavelength. “It’s just…you and I don’t get to see each other that often, so I was hoping we’d get a chance to talk and…”

  Miles trailed off because the Zitochi was already at the table. The younger bastards all scattered to the other end, terrified. The Zitochi watched them go, not betraying even a hint of emotion, and then took a seat next to Miles, grabbed a hunk of bread, and began cutting it with his dagger. I got an even better look at his face now. It was as rough-hewn as his father’s, his chin as hard, but his cheekbones were higher and his nose sharper. Up close, his eyes were mesmerizing, a deep, luscious brown.

  The three of us sat in awkward silence. I realized I was staring. “Um. Hi,” I stammered out.

  He glanced up at me, then without a word, turned back to his bread.

  That stung, just a little. The Zitochi had a reputation as being loud, boisterous people. Was this guy the one exception? Or did he really just not want to talk to me? “I said hi.”

  This time he didn’t even look up.

  “Maybe he doesn’t speak the Common Tongue,” Miles speculated. “I speak a little Zitochi. Um, vartok slavh kon tonki? Vartok slavh kon tonki?”

  The corner of the Zitochi’s mouth twitched. “I speak the Common Tongue just fine.” His voice was low and husky, tinged by a soft Zitochi accent. “And you just asked me if I wanted to rub your grandmother.”

  Miles’s cheeks flushed a bright pink. “I did? No, I…I thought I got it right….”

  I shot my hand across the table. “I’m Tilla of House Kent. And Rubby Grandmas here is Miles of House Hampstedt.”

  The Zitochi looked down at my hand as if I’d shoved him a vomiting frog. “I’m Zell,” he said. “Son of Grezza Gaul.” Then he turned right back down to his bread.

  I pulled back my hand. I might be a bastard, but he was still a guest in my father’s house, and that meant paying me the bare minimum of respect. “Hey! I’m trying to have a conversation.”

  Zell paused, his dagger halfway through the loaf, and let out a long, slow exhale, like he was just so annoyed at having to put up with this. I was getting ready to smack him with his own bread. “What would you like to converse about?”

  “Well, um, maybe you could tell us why you’re here,” Miles tried. “At the table, I mean. Tilla and I are here because we’re bastards—that is, children of Lords born outside the vows of their marriage. That’s where you’re sitting, see, at the Bastard’s Table. So I was wondering, well, if you were…”

  I was cringing so hard it hurt, but Zell didn’t seem fazed. “If I was a bastard?” he asked. “Yes. I’m a bastard. And a failure. And a disgrace.”

  Miles had no response, so he just made a weird humming noise.

  “Should I go get us some wine?” I said. “I feel like we could maybe use some wine.”

  “I don’t drink wine,” Zell said. He reached into his cloak and took out a curved ram’s horn, nearly the length of my forearm, with a tin plug at the base. He flicked the plug open, pressed the horn to his lips, and took a swig.

  “What is that?” I asked.

  “We call it stone milk,” Zell said. “You couldn’t handle it.”

  “Why? Because I’m a woman?”

  Zell blinked, genuinely surprised. “What? No. Our women drink it more than we do. You couldn’t handle it because you’re a soft, smooth-skinned, southern-born castle rat.”

  “Oh,” I said, and for some reason, that actually was better.

  But still way too insulting. I shot out my hand, grabbed the horn, and took a swig.

  Instant regret. Whatever this stuff was, it burned like a gulp of molten iron, and somehow had the alcohol content of a full bottle of wine. I lurched forward, gasping. A dozen heads at nearby tables turned to stare.

  “What have you done to her?” Miles rushed over to help me.

  “I’m fine,” I coughed out. “Really.” Already, the burning in my throat was passing, replaced by a warmth in my belly. “It’s not half bad.”

  Zell cocked an eyebrow. It seemed like, for the first time, he was actually paying attention to me. And maybe, just maybe, he was a little impressed. “I’ll take that back.”

  He reached across the table to take the horn. My hand brushed against his as it passed, and I felt something odd, not warm skin, but cold, smooth stone. At the base of each of his fingers, in place of the knuckle, was a small pointed slab of nightglass, glistening darkly in the candlelight. It wasn’t jewelry. The slabs were coming out of his skin, growing like thorns out of the bones of his hand.

  Zell pulled his hand back. “Never seen nightglass before?”

  I’d seen it, of course, on arrows and blades and axes. Nightglass was the northern tundra’s chief export, a beautiful black metal that looked as fragile as glass and was harder than steel. But I’d never seen it like this.

  Miles was equally captivated. “Fascinating. A living metal that fuses to bone.” He circled over to look more closely. “I’d always heard that nightglass could do that. But I’d never seen it in practice. Will it continue to grow? Is the density compromised at all?”

  Miles was somehow avoiding the most important question. “Why?” I asked.

  Zell folded his hands together, hiding his knuckles. “A disarmed warrior is easily dishonored. This way, I’ll never be disarmed again.”

  I jerked away and Zell saw my reaction. “Do I repulse you?”

  “No,” I replied. “You scare me.”

  “Uh, guys?” Miles had turned toward the front of the room. “Something’s happ
ening.”

  Miles was right. The room had once again fallen silent. The entire hall was staring toward the front, where Archmagus Rolan had taken to his feet. It was like every light had dimmed except the ones on him. For all I knew, they actually had.

  “Assembled guests,” he said, and I startled. It wasn’t that his voice boomed. It was that it somehow carried through the air, as if he were standing right next to me when he spoke. “It is my great honor to present to you…my niece…the daughter of our beloved King…Princess of the Kingdom of Noveris…Lyriana Ellaria Volaris!”

  The Hall’s heavy wooden doors were still shut, but Rolan hurled back one hand toward them. The air crackled with the electric pulse of magic, and a plume of purple smoke and pulsing yellow light burst from his palm, enveloping the entryway. The sound of thunder shook the walls. The room gasped as one. Zell’s brother reached for his sword.

  Then the single most beautiful girl I had ever seen emerged from the smoke.

  Princess Lyriana was fifteen, but she managed to somehow look both older and younger. She was tall for a girl, a little taller than me, with a slender, elegant frame. Her white dress clung to her body like a second skin, adorned with what had to be thousands of beautifully sparkling diamonds, a dazzling ocean of stars. Long white gloves, a style I’d never seen before, covered her hands and arms halfway to the elbow. She had the most perfectly symmetrical face I’d ever seen, like something out of a painting, with big round eyes and full lips, framed by wavy black hair. She was clearly a Volaris like her uncle: her skin was as dark as his, and her eyes burned a warm, brilliant gold.

  You could feel the air get sucked out of the room as she walked in. The servants froze in place. Every young man (and many old) perked up, mesmerized, probably playing out some impossible fantasy where she fell into their beds. Next to me, Miles’s jaw hung open. Even Zell sat alert.

  I’d never felt more frumpy in my life.

  My father was the first to rise. “Your Majesty,” he said, his head bowed low. “It is my great honor to welcome you to my home. Will you join me at my table?”

  She turned toward him, and then something strange happened. She hesitated. She stared out, at the dozens of faces staring at her, at all the hungry eyes. Her perfectly serene expression cracked with what looked like curiosity, maybe even excitement.

  Somehow, across that entire crowd, past all the Lords and knights and squires, she saw our table. She saw me. Our gazes locked across the Hall, her beautiful, blinding gold eyes staring right into mine.

  “My apologies, Lord Kent,” she said. “But actually, I would prefer to sit back there.”

  YOU KNOW THAT AWKWARD SILENCE where someone has committed a horrible social blunder, but no one knows how to react, so everyone is just staring at their feet? Imagine that, but in a hall with two hundred people.

  My father spoke at last. “Your Majesty, I’m afraid you misunderstand. The guest of honor sits with the host.”

  “The Princess has made her wishes clear,” Archmagus Rolan said, and his voice was as hard as Zell’s knuckles. “She will sit where she pleases.”

  “Ah.” I’d never seen my father look flustered before. I didn’t like it. “The thing is…in our custom, you see, that table is for b—”

  “I know who the table is for, Lord Kent,” Rolan cut in. “And I repeat that the Princess has made her wishes clear. Do you have difficulty obeying royal commands?”

  My father stepped back, biting his lip. A suffocating tension hung over the room, every eye on him. I felt my hands clench into fists. Archmagus or not, Rolan was still a guest in our home, and he had no right to challenge my father like that. But what could he do? Everyone knew how the Kingdom worked. Peasants bowed to their Lords. The Lords bowed to the High Lord. And the High Lord bowed to the King…and his enforcers.

  I hadn’t understood what my father meant earlier, when he’d called this visit a show of force. Now it was perfectly clear. On Rolan’s hands, I swear, all his Rings pulsed a bloody red.

  “This is an outrage! An outrage!” a rumbling voice bellowed from the middle of the Hall. It was Lord Collinwood, apparently roused by the commotion from his drunken slumber. The red-faced man staggered to his feet, his beard dripping soup down his ample belly, and it would’ve been absolutely hilarious if I weren’t genuinely worried about his safety. “I don’t care who the hell you are! No fancy-assed spice-licker gets to come in here and talk to us like that!” He reached down for the dagger sheathed at his hip.

  Without even glancing his way, Archmagus Rolan flicked his left hand at Lord Collinwood. The Rings flared an icy, frigid blue. All the light in the room seemed to dim for a second, and the air sizzled with the pulse of magic. Princess Lyriana jerked back, startled, and clenched a hand over her mouth. My eyes burned, and I tasted frost and dirt and rain.

  Lord Collinwood stood, frozen in place, his eyes wide with terror, his mouth opening and closing wordlessly. A thick, shimmering block of ice had formed around his pudgy hand, trapping it and the dagger he was gripping firmly in place. He yanked his shoulder a few times, uselessly, then crumpled back into his seat.

  “It’ll thaw by morning,” the Archmagus said dismissively. “Treat the hand tomorrow with a warm compress and some meyberry cream. And thank the Titans above I was feeling merciful.”

  The room was silent. The message was clear.

  Bow to the King or die by the Ring.

  My father broke the tension. “I do believe it’s time you retired to your chambers, Lord Collinwood. You’ve made enough fool of yourself for one night.” He turned back to Rolan, a polite smile forced on his face. “My humblest apologies, Archmagus, for my own rudeness and that of my guest.” He bowed his head before the Princess. “And you, Your Majesty. You may sit wherever you like.”

  “Thank you, Lord Kent!” Princess Lyriana’s face lit up with a radiant smile, even as Lord Collinwood’s squires shuffled him out of the room. Did she have any idea what she’d just done? Was this all a game to her? “I apologize for any trouble I may have caused, and I deeply appreciate your hospitality.”

  “I hope tonight is everything you want it to be,” my father replied. “Please. Enjoy yourself. My daughter Tillandra will keep you company.”

  My heart stopped. All the blood drained from my face. My stomach tied itself into a triple-bound bow. I’d been so focused on the slight to my father I’d somehow failed to think through the consequences. She was coming to my table. To sit with me.

  My father had just assigned me to entertain the Princess of the whole damn Kingdom.

  Lyriana gave her uncle a hug, then started walking the long walk toward us. The room was still quiet, and as she passed each table, every head turned to stare at her.

  Next to me, Miles tugged frantically at his collar. “This is happening. This is really happening. She’s coming right at us. She’s coming right at us.”

  “She’s not a wild boar, boy,” Zell said dismissively. “All I see is an even fancier castle rat.”

  “Both of you, shut up,” I hissed. I had no idea what I was going to say when she got here, but I was going to try my damned hardest to not embarrass us. At least, not instantly.

  Lyriana cleared the last gauntlet of gawking Lords and stepped up to our table, where she stood awkwardly. Miles sat frozen, Zell leaned back amused, and a servant quickly herded all the little bastards away. That left it up to me.

  “Your Majesty.” I rose to my feet and gave what I really, really hoped was a passable curtsy. “Welcome to our table. I’m Tillandra of House Kent. This gentleman is Miles of House Hampstedt. And this is Zell, of House…uh…Zell the Zitochi.”

  “It is my greatest honor to meet all of you.” Lyriana bowed her head ever so slightly. Her perfume smelled amazing, like cinnamon and roses and sweetwine all mixed together. I stepped aside, and she took a seat next to mine, folding her hands carefully across her lap. “I do hope I didn’t cause too much trouble asking to sit with you. I had no idea it would cause
such a scene!”

  “Don’t concern yourself with it too much, Your Majesty,” Miles said. “Lord Collinwood makes a drunken spectacle of himself at every feast. It was only a matter of time.”

  “That does make me feel better,” she said sincerely. “The truth is, I still can’t believe I’m really doing this. I’m sitting at an actual Bastards’ Table! With actual bastards!”

  “Yeah…that you are.” I forced a smile. If I didn’t know better, I would’ve sworn she was making fun of us, but she seemed so utterly sincere that she had to mean it. Lyriana Volaris, Princess of Noveris, was genuinely excited to sit with a bunch of bastards. I sat down next to her, next to the Princess herself, and tried to look like my mind wasn’t reeling. “I just don’t think anyone expected you to sit back here.”

  “I know it’s unconventional,” Lyriana explained, “but the entire purpose of my journey is to see the breadth of my Kingdom and its people. I have spent my whole life sitting at the front of feasts with nobles and dignitaries, with High Lords and mages. I know your father’s kind as well as I know myself. But I don’t know the smallfolk, the commoners, the…well, the bastards. I don’t know the very people I’m supposed to rule. That’s why I just had to sit back here. When else am I going to get an opportunity like this?”

  Was that what this was about? What we were to her? An opportunity to dip her feet in the commoners’ pool, to study us as if we were insects under a glass, so she could rule better from her glistening Lightspire tower?

  I shot Miles a glance, hoping for some solidarity, but he was just staring at her with wide, awestruck eyes, like…well, like a guy looking at the prettiest, richest, most powerful girl in the Kingdom, I guessed.

  “I like to sit in the back as well.” Zell barely glanced up. “We Zitochi have a saying: ‘The wise man eats with his back to the wall. The fool eats a blade through the back of his skull.’”

  Lyriana clasped a gloved hand over her mouth. “That is remarkable! May I write that down?”

  Zell blinked. “Why would you write it down?”