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 blue and gold. He looked nervous to be in Vars’s presence, sweeping a halting bow. As he did so, Vars saw that one of his hands was small and twisted, perhaps in some long ago accident. Vars didn’t care.
“You’re 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.
