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Merin?” Vars demanded.

      “Yes, your highness,” the boy said in a small, frightened voice.

      “Do you know what you’re here to do?” Vars asked.

      The boy shook his head, clearly too frightened now to talk.

      “You’re to watch over my father. You’re to bring him his meals, wash him, and wait to see if he wakes.” He didn’t ask if the boy could do it all or not; he didn’t care. “Do you understand?”

      “Y-yes, your—”

      “Good,” Vars said, cutting him off. He had no interest in what a boy like that had to say, only in making sure that his father’s humiliation was complete. Live or die, it didn’t matter. Either his father would live, and Vars would have the small revenge of having done this to him, or he would die, and Vars would know that he’d made the old fool’s last days just that little bit worse.

      He turned his attention to the other servant there, a man who shifted nervously in place. “What are you doing here?” he demanded. “I thought I told all of you to be off about your normal duties.”

      “Yes, your highness,” the man said. “I’ve come because… because your presence is required.”

      “Required?” Vars said. He reached out, grabbing the man by the shirt. It was easy enough to do when he knew the servant would not dare to strike him back. That would be treason, after all. “I am the king’s regent. People do not require things of me.”

      “Forgive me, your highness,” the man said. “That… that was the word that they used when they sent me to fetch you.”

      Fetch was almost as bad as required. Vars contemplated striking the man, holding back only because that might make him forget his place, and Vars had no wish to be struck in return, whatever his revenge might be.

      “Who sent you, and why?” Vars said. “Who thinks that they can give commands in my castle?”

      “The nobles, your highness,” the servant said. “They have called…” He looked as though he was remembering words he had been told to pass on. “…called a conference to discuss the invasion by the Southern Kingdom, and to decide on a response to it collectively. The nobles are there, and the knights. It is beginning in the great hall as we speak.”

      Vars shoved the man away from him, sudden anger burning through him. How dare they? How dare they take this moment when he had all the power in the kingdom and try to make him feel small?

      He could see what they were doing, even without being told all of it. His nobles were testing him, treating him as if he were not a true king, not a powerful ruler like his father. They were trying to make him into something they could command and control, a servant as much as a ruler. They thought they could tell him where to be and when, decide things among themselves, with Vars little more than a shape in a crown, sitting on a throne.

      Well, they would see about that. Vars would show them exactly how wrong they all were.

      CHAPTER THREE

      For so much of her life, Lenore had been perfect, meek, obedient. She had been the epitome of a princess, while around her, her sisters had done more or less as they wished. Nerra had always been quick to run into the forest, while Erin had played at soldiers. Lenore had been left to be the one doing all the things a princess should.

      Now, though, she was doing what she wanted.

      “Are you sure we should head down into the city, my lady?” Orianne asked, as they walked toward the entrance to the castle. “It may not be safe to go alone.”

      A shiver ran down Lenore’s spine at the memory of her kidnapping, but she shook her head.

      “There might be threats outside the city,” she said, “but Royalsport is safe. Besides, we’ll take a guard.” She picked one out. “You, you’ll escort us down into the city, won’t you?”

      “As you command, your highness,” the man said, falling into step with the two of them.

      “But why the city?” Orianne asked. “You were never one to go into it before.”

      That was true. Of all her family, Lenore had been the one to spend the least time outside the ordered world of the royal court. Now, though, now she couldn’t stand to be there. She couldn’t stand there with more people congratulating her on her marriage, with her father lying near death and her mother little more than a grieving shadow. She couldn’t stand to be there with Finnal, however much he might require her to stay by his side.

      There was another reason too: she thought she’d seen Devin heading down into the city from time to time, and she hoped that he might be down there. The thought of speaking with him again made Lenore’s heart lift when nothing else would. Just the thought of him, and his kindness, made her smile in ways that thoughts of her new husband couldn’t.

      “We’ll go down there and let people see that even in a time of grief, we are there for them,” Lenore said.

      She set off with Orianne and the guard in her wake, stepping past the guards on the gate, then walking down toward the body of the city. Lenore took in the houses on either side, their height and their grandeur, took in the rich scent of the city air, the feel of the cobbles beneath her feet. She could have ridden in a carriage, but that would have isolated her from the city around her. Besides, the last time she had done that was on her wedding harvest, and Lenore was trying to escape those memories, not revisit them.

      She headed down into a pleasant garden district close to the castle, the houses there clearly those of nobles, the streets clean and not too busy with people. It wasn’t enough for Lenore right then. She knew that Devin was probably from a much poorer area than this, and she wanted to see for herself what that meant in Royalsport.

      “Are you sure you want to go this way, Lenore?” Orianne asked her as they took a bridge over to an area that was clearly a little poorer, the houses more closely packed, the people more clearly at work rather than leisure. The smoke of the House of Weapons rose overhead.

      “This is exactly where I need to be,” Lenore said. “I need to see the real city, all of it.”

      And if they happened to find Devin along the way, then that would be even better. Lenore admitted to herself then that her heart skipped a beat every time she saw him. Of course, it had done the same with Finnal, but there was a difference. Devin wasn’t there for some marriage that would lead to lands, didn’t have ugly rumors running around him. All that Lenore had seen or heard of him showed him to be brave and kind… the type of man she should have married, were it not impossible.

      “Much further, and we’ll be close to the House of Sighs,” Orianne said. Lenore could see it in the distance over the rooftops, gaudy colors set there to catch the eye. An idea came to her.

      “You should go there,” she said to her maid. “Talk to… our friend there. Assure her of our good will.”

      “You’re sure?” Orianne asked. “It would be a delicate place to be associated with.”

      “I’m sure,” Lenore said. She’d seen what Finnal was now; she needed all the allies she could get, even if they came from places that had once made her blush just to think of them.

      “As you wish, my lady,” Orianne said, sweeping a curtsey and hurrying off.

      That left Lenore and the guard to wander through the streets. Lenore didn’t really have a direction in mind; the wandering was enough, the freedom to go in whatever direction she wished.

      She was still wandering when she heard footsteps behind them. Lenore frowned and looked to the guard.

      “Do you hear that?” she said.

      “Hear what, your highness?”

      Maybe it was just her fears getting the better of her, being out here in a place that should have been familiar, yet was anything but that. Even so, she was sure she could hear footsteps again, thought that she caught a glimpse of a figure somewhere over her shoulder,

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