Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 73154 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 366(@200wpm)___ 293(@250wpm)___ 244(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73154 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 366(@200wpm)___ 293(@250wpm)___ 244(@300wpm)
Silvius lifts my hand that lies between us and blows on the scratched tips.
His brother is the king.
Gently, he pinches my chin to stop my strange grinning.
My chest jumps on more laughter. “So that makes you . . .”
Nicostratus Aetherion.
My Prince Nicostratus. The one I met as a child, in the royal woods, down south in Hinsard.
The one who saved me.
He casts his gaze to the road carved into green hills, where he’d saved us from a fate at the border. “I got waylaid yesterday . . . it was dawn by the time I reached him. I told him about you”—Prince Nicostratus snaps his head towards me—“without divulging your identity.”
I nod and nod.
He smiles, but the brackets around his mouth are thin, tired. “I wouldn’t want to cause you any more trouble.”
Trouble.
Branded redcloaks, dead. A dying Silvius. The blood River left behind . . .
Clouds roll overhead, casting us in shadow. Again, I snicker.
“I told him you were . . .” His voice is soft, and I wonder if he’s ever suspected I’m also the boy he saved in the woods. “I don’t often ask for favours; he sensed my urgency. He didn’t ask questions, just promised he’d keep the one I cared for safe. So he defied our uncle and commanded the decree. I don’t want to know what that cost him.”
He’s Prince Nicostratus.
His brother—the person he’s gushed about in his letters, who he loves wholeheartedly, who he would do anything for—is the king.
The cause of so much pain in my world. I chuckle and chuckle until my eyes are stinging from squinting.
“Prince Nicostratus . . .”
“I like the way you say my name.”
“Nicostratus.” I’m familiar with the taste of his name on my tongue and say it again in my head. Nicostratus, Nicostratus, Nicostratus.
A smile. “You gave me a chance to live.” He pauses. “I hid my name—”
“For my safety?”
“Yes.”
“Did River—”
“He knew. I asked him, I asked all my men to . . .”
“Pretend.”
He picks up my hand. I let him squeeze my fingers, but I can’t squeeze back. I can only watch with strange fascination, not feeling any of the pressure but seeing how my fingertips turn white.
“Are you angry?” he asks.
Another abrupt laugh. “Actually we’ve met before.”
Nicostratus frowns at the canal where we first met River.
“I was nine. I was in the royal woods. Trespassing, I guess you’d say. We spent the night in the violet oak tree. It was freezing cold.”
His frown deepens.
He’s forgotten. I look away, hollering with laughter.
A hand touches my forearm. “It’s not that it wouldn’t have been memorable. I had an accident and lost a lot of childhood memories.”
“What happened?” I say, dabbing my watering eyes.
“A story for another time.” He looks away. “I like the idea we’ve met before.”
“I thought you might be a criminal. The good kind, who steals from the rich and gives to the poor.”
“I might as well be a criminal,” Nicostratus says. “I’m hunted like one.”
“You were . . . hunted last night?”
“Someone must’ve been spying on me during my mother’s last days. I was too distracted to notice.”
Has he even had the chance to cry for her?
Or is he like me?
“My beads caused all of this,” he says. “The pattern is supposed to match the palace, but they changed it after my mother died. Set a trap, expecting my return. My brother sent word, but it never reached me. I ended up fighting in the royal belt most of the night before sneaking into his quarters.”
“All that—” I blow out a bewildered breath “—and you still came for us? Did Skriniaris Evander tell you?”
“Evander?” Nicostratus frowns. “No. I had an aklo keeping me informed.”
I scan the forest behind us. “Do you have aklos with you now?”
“No. But I must return soon.”
I poke his arm. “Always coming and going.” Like Maskios. Always leaving too quickly. I push the thought with rough urgency to the back of my mind.
“Forgive me,” he says.
My brow quirks. “Withholding forgiveness from a prince . . . am I even allowed?”
Light gleams in Nicostratus’s eyes. “Finally, some good comes of this birthright.”
We share a smile, and Nicostratus points towards Frederica’s estate in the distance. “Go again to my aunt’s—”
I sit straighter. “She’s your aunt?”
“Her estate is special; a gift from her father, my grandfather, after she spent years as a hostage in Iskaldir. She has the right to govern her own hundred acres. The king cannot impose laws there. Even the high duke doesn’t dare interfere.”
“Frederica . . . is queen of her own kingdom?”
“She’d never call herself that. She uses the gift to help those in need. The displaced often come to her for protection until they can get proper documentation to live in the wider kingdom. She saves lives. My brother and I help when we can, and many others offer financial support.”