LITMIR.BIZ

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that’s needed.”

      “Can you… can you find Master Grey?” she asked. “The physicker isn’t doing anything, so maybe he…”

      “I will see that he is sent for,” Vars said. “And in the meantime, I will keep everything running smoothly here.”

      “I’ll help,” Aethe said. “Whatever you need. We’ll keep the kingdom safe together. For Godwin.”

      She could feel the tears falling, feel herself almost falling with the weakness of her grief.

      “That will not be necessary,” Vars said.

      “But Vars—” Aethe began. She needed something to do that would make her feel useful, make her feel a part of things again.

      “My father’s wife is clearly distraught,” Vars said, turning to a pair of the guards there. He didn’t call her the queen, Aethe noted. “She needs to go and rest. Take her to her rooms and see that she is not disturbed.”

      “What?” Aethe said. “I don’t need to go anywhere.”

      “You do,” Vars insisted. “You’re tired, you’re distraught. Go get some sleep. It’s for your own good.”

      The problem was that the more she protested, the more she looked like nothing but the grief-stricken wife. The guards came to her, taking her by the arms. She fought clear of them, determined to walk on her own, but she couldn’t stop the tears that started to run down her face. She stared back at Vars, standing over her husband. How could this be happening?

      More importantly, what disaster did it mean for the kingdom?

      CHAPTER TWO

      Almost since her arrival when he was a boy, Vars had longed to be able to send Aethe away. His father’s wife, his replacement for Vars’s mother, had long been a focus for so many of his disappointments in life. She had been whispering in his father’s ear for as long as he could remember, telling him that Vars was weak or cowardly or unworthy; that her daughters should rule.

      She’d even insinuated as much in their conversation before. She’d asked questions about how Lenore came to be alone that obviously suggested she suspected Vars of some failing in his duties as her guard. She’d suggested that her brood could help to share the load of government, and Vars knew as well as anyone that was just a veiled way of saying that they might be able to take power from him. Now, as guards took Aethe away to her rooms, Vars risked a smile of satisfaction.

      “What are all of you doing here?” he asked, as he looked around the room at the servants and the guards. As far as he could see, they were just standing there. “Do you think my father is going to sit up and demand a glass of wine, or lead you all off into the fray?”

      Most of them looked away at his words, as if they didn’t want to listen to them. Well, Vars was the regent now, and they had to listen.

      “We stay by the king out of loyalty, your highness,” one of the servants said. “And in case he requires our aid.”

      “What aid?” Vars demanded. “I saw Physicker Jarran leaving on my way up. Was his aid enough? No. Even my father’s vaunted sorcerer has done nothing but mutter to himself in his tower. Yet all of you will offer him your aid? Get out.”

      “But your highness—”

      Vars rounded on the servant. “You spoke of loyalty before. I am the king regent. I speak with the king’s voice. If you have any loyalty, you will obey. My father does not need to be surrounded by guards, or by servants. You will leave, or I will have you removed from this room by force.”

      Vars could tell that none of them liked the idea of leaving, but the truth was that he didn’t care. He’d long found that people only did what they were made to do. The ones who talked about honor, or loyalty, or patriotism were simply liars, pretending to be so much better than Vars was.

      As they started to file out, one of the guards paused. “What if the king does wake, your highness? Shouldn’t one of us stay to tend to him, and to inform you if it happens?”

      Vars didn’t shout at the man, but only because he had no wish to be seen as a son who hated his father, or as a fool who could not control his kingdom. What people saw was far more important than the truth, after all.

      “That is not a job for any of you,” he said. “It is a task a child could do.” An idea came to him. “Who is the youngest of the pages here?”

      “That would be Merin, your highness,” one of the servants said. “He’s eleven.”

      “Eleven is old enough to watch and see if my father wakes up, and young enough that he’s no use for anything else,” Vars said. “Fetch him here, and then get off about your real duties. We’re in the middle of a war, after all!”

      Those words were enough to get them all moving, forcing them into motion when Vars’s own aura of command could not. He hated them for that. He hated more than them, of course. He went over to his father’s sickbed, staring down at the comatose form of King Godwin.

      He looked so frail and gray, the muscles of his body less slab-like now that he was on his back. He looked older than he had before to Vars, and less frightening.

      “It’s about the only time I can’t remember you towering over me, telling me how useless you think I am,” Vars said. Even though his father couldn’t hear the words, it was good to say them. He would never have had the courage to say it were his father awake, would never have been able to get the words out.

      Vars paced the room, thinking of all the things that he’d always wanted to say to his father, all the things that were there in his head, trapped behind the fear that had always kept them there. Even now, it was hard to say them, but knowing that his father couldn’t really hear them, couldn’t do anything about it, helped.

      “They say that you might live or die,” Vars said. “I’m hoping you die. It’s what you deserve after the kind of father you’ve been.” He stared down at his father with hatred. If he’d had the courage to do it, he might have lifted a pillow and held it down over his father’s face.

      “Do you know what it was like, growing up with you as a father?” he asked. “Nothing I did was good enough for you. Rodry was always the golden one. Oh, you liked him, when he wasn’t attacking ambassadors. I’m glad you heard he was dead before they stabbed you. And Nerra… what must it have felt like when she had to leave?”

      There was no answer, of course, no flicker of a response from his father’s slack features. In a way, that was even more aggravating.

      “When my mother died, you were so quick to find yourself a new wife,” Vars said. “Your sons needed you, I needed you, but you just married Aethe and had your precious daughters.”

      He found himself thinking of all the times his father had chided him while lavishing attention on Nerra, Lenore, and even Erin.

      “You gave Lenore and her stupid wedding so much attention, didn’t you? You pinned so many hopes on her. Do you know why you’re lying here? Do you know why she was taken in the first place?” Vars paused, leaning in toward his father, close enough that he could whisper. “They took her because I took my men the wrong way. I didn’t want to waste my time guarding her, when I was the one closer to the throne. I didn’t want to sit there while the perfect princess wandered around the kingdom, receiving adulation. I left her, and Ravin’s men took her, and Rodry died saving her.”

      Vars straightened up, feeling the deep satisfaction of finally getting to tell his father all the things he’d had to hold back.

      “You’ve always put me down,” Vars said. “But look at me now. I’m the one who just did what I wanted, who spent my time in the House of Sighs and the inns rather than your precious House of Weapons. Yet I’m the one in command now, and I’m going to make the most of it.”

      A knock came on the door of the chamber. A servant came in leading a young boy, sandy-haired and chubby-faced, dressed in shirt, tunic, and hose of royal

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