Claiming the Prince: Book One (47 page)

“Do you require anything more?” she asked, swaying only slightly as the carriage rocked.

“No, thank you,” Magda said.

Meer bowed and vanished.

“Don’t trust that one,” Flor said, then popped a grape into her mouth.

Not that Magda trusted Meer, but since the brownie was harboring one of Magda’s most dangerous secrets, she had to ask, “Any particular reason?”

“She works for my brother,” Flor said. “Rahul is supporting us, at the moment, but he’s quite fickle, if you recall. If the campaign does not go well, he will fall to the favor of Lavana, to save his own reputation.”

“The moment we arrive, I’ll send word to the Spire, requesting an audience.”

“Of course,” Flor said.

“Have you arranged the presentation to the elders?”

“Yes. This evening.”

“Good. What about him?”

“I am sitting right here, you know,” Kaelan said.

“It will be difficult,” Flor acknowledged. “Cae was effusive and gregarious, charming. You have been too brooding.”

He set aside the basket, not eating. “People change.”

“Yes, I suppose they do,” Flor said, turning her gaze out the window.

“I’ll do my best,” he said.

“I know you will,” Flor said with a tight smile. “Just remember the story we rehearsed.”

“I remember.”

“And I’ve seeded it so that it is known Magda has gifted you with a nymph attendant,” Flor said. “I’ve discussed everything with Honey. She knows her part. She will be able to help you, with Cae speaking through her.”

“That’s quite unusual,” Magda said.

“Well, we are an unusual bunch, aren’t we?” Flor said. “The story will be that after you saved Honey from the empusa and her other Prince was killed, she offered herself in service to you. And you saw fit to gift the nymph’s service to my son. She will be as much a draw as he will, seeing as she was in love with this mysterious Prince who was killed by the King.”

“I’m not sure it was a good idea to let that story out,” Magda said.

“No, it was a brilliant one. Risky, yes. But the key to successful deception is to mix in as much of the truth as possible. Lavana was very much aware of Kaelan, and she knew that you loved a nymph, didn’t she?”

Kaelan let out a heavy breath, which seemed to be a yes.

“So it was imperative that we explained Honey’s presence in those terms. And I am correct in thinking she would also be aware that it was the King’s forces who killed Kaelan?”

“Yes,” Magda said, putting aside her own basket.

“I respect that you have your reasons for not wanting me to know how or why this was, but I had to craft a story that would make sense of Honey in those terms . . . terms Lavana would believe.”

“You’re right,” Magda said, ignoring Flor’s implication that she wished to know more. “Of course.”

“But it would be best, since you have not claimed him, that you two remain close at all times,” Flor said, not bothering to hide her disapproval. “You will be sharing a room at the house.”

Kaelan’s jaw twitched. “Is that necessary?”

“Yes,” Flor said. “I have . . . obtained a letter in the Silver Star’s handwriting confirming Cae’s false death, his safety in exile, and her wishes that you not lay claim to a Prince until after you are Radiant.”

“The last part is well known,” she said, not adding,
because it’s true
. “Although I never knew why.”

Flor sat back, her lips pursing. “For those who knew your mother well, they understood why she made such a request. Once you are Radiant, the families will be eager for you to take their Princes. You will have your pick.”

“Even though she went through all that trouble to hide Cae for me all of these years?” Magda challenged.

“The facts and the fiction will be a delicate negotiation,” Flor admitted.

“I have a better story,” she said. “Tell people that I am in love with someone else.”

Flor and Kaelan stared at her.

“Who?” Flor asked.

“Riker, Lavana’s Prince,” she said. “We were together in exile. Tell people I want him back. And I have every intention of taking him.”

“Oh?” Flor asked. “Is that why—?”

“Isn’t it compelling? More compelling than a promise I made to my mother?”

Flor arched an eyebrow. “Quite compelling. A Rae actually in love with her Prince, who has been claimed by her rival, no less . . . Oh, the court will go wild for that.”

“Good,” she said, though she didn’t feel particularly good. “Then that’s what we’ll tell them.”

“But that does leave Cae quite vulnerable. If the other Raes think you have no intention of claiming him, they will try all the harder to steal him from you.”

She frowned. “You’re right.”

“Then why not tell them that I am intent on winning Magda’s affection and convincing her to claim me?” Kaelan said, flipping up the lid of his basket and digging through the contents.

Flor’s hands clapped together at her breast. “Yes. Even better. You love Riker and Cae loves you. It’s like something out of one of those silly romantic stories the court troubadours are always telling. Perfect. And it will suit to explain why Magda gifted you with such a pretty little nymph. She is attempting to placate you, distract you.” She pointed her finger at Kaelan. “But you must both play the parts. Especially tonight. You must dote on her and make your affection for her visible for everyone to witness. You must convince everyone that you truly are in love with her.”

Kaelan pulled out a bag of roasted chestnuts, the sweet unctuous aroma filling the carriage. “Yes, Mother.”

Flor turned to Magda. “And you must put him off, but not too much. You need him still and you cannot allow any other Rae near him, but it must be apparent that your heart is elsewhere.”

“I don’t think that will be too difficult,” Kaelan remarked. He tore open the bag, a puff of steam swirled around his face.

She scowled at him, but he kept his attention on peeling the skin from a chestnut.

“We’ll need to explain to Honey what is going on,” she said.

“I will speak to her at our next stop,” Flor said, leaning back and crossing her legs. “This is good. This is very good.”

Magda chewed her lip, gazing out the window, keeping Kaelan in the corner of her eye. It may have been a good story for the court, but it was churning the acid in Magda’s stomach. So much deception already. It was like she had never left.

The journey to the Spire took a few hours, but it seemed much longer, trapped in the tight confines of the carriage. Kaelan hardly spoke. And Flor was constantly remembering one more thing he should know and attempting to stuff his head with every rule of etiquette and family history.

Twice they stopped to rest. Flor departed both times, Magda and Kaelan only once and only briefly. The stares Magda received at the inn were good practice. Keeping up the weight of a Rae’s façade was much more difficult than she’d remembered. The effort left every muscle in her neck tight and aching.

At the Eastern Cliff’s bridge, they were stopped again and inspected by the cool gazes of the Crown’s warriors. They peered into the carriage and combed over each of the occupants in turn.

“Step out,” Flor said to Kaelan after the guards had moved back to Damion and Honey’s carriage. “There is no better view of the Spire than from the bridges.”

Flor disembarked and Kaelan followed. Magda hesitated, enjoying the absence of Kaelan’s heavy silent presence for a few seconds, but then she, too, was drawn out.

The brisk air hit her first. The wooden gates to the district’s bridge were closed, the guard towers looming over them, obscuring the view.

Flor led Kaelan over to the narrow vista point beside the tower, where a few bodies could cluster and view the Spire in the distance.

Piercing the cobalt sky, the great peak of the Spire glistened in the late afternoon sunlight. Limned gold, the soaring, tapered white tower was thickly coated with sculpture, impossible to discern from a distance. Below the Spire Peak, more towers ringed, overflowing with cascading greenery. Down and down the Crown’s Palace tumbled, in a succession of towers and buildings, like a massive tiered cake. Separated from the city below by a steep barren slope, the Palace could only be entered underground, through the mountain.

The city was divided into seven districts. Each fell under the jurisdiction of one of the seven Radiants. Walled off from the other, each had with their own bridge by which to enter across the chasm. Often the gates between the districts stood open, but sometimes not. Gleaming stone buildings and glorious lush gardens in the upper echelons of the great cityscape rose above the outer walls, and below, the chasm.

Magda leaned over the waist-high stone barrier at the edge of the vista and looked down through the plummeting shadows to the river hundreds of feet below. The seven bridges spanned the river in arches like the great Roman aqueducts she’d seen in human pictures. She always hated visiting the Spire, because of all its grand heights. This was the first time she’d ever been able to look down at the great river. In the deep shadows of the afternoon, the water was barely visible but for a few sparks of light reflecting off its back.

“Carved from the very mountain,” Flor was telling Kaelan of the Spire. “A gift from the dwarf kings, a marker of their fealty to the Crown. And there,”—she pointed towards a gray stone round tower overlooking the Cliffs’ District—“is our home in the Spire. Stonerise. Come along.”

Flor turned, leaving Kaelan and Magda alone at the vista point.

Magda gazed at the round tower, half hidden behind its own walls. The grand manor of Stonerise was more of a fortress than a manse. Numerous buildings were housed behind its granite walls. In one of them, she knew, was Lavana.

Kaelan glanced down into the chasm, his hands flat on the wall, as though he were thinking of springing over.

“It’s a long way,” he said.

Her gaze dropped over the edge into the dark depths, then up to the white peak of the Spire, then over to meet the silver eyes that should’ve been green, then to the Crown guards, in their silvery Pixie-cloth uniforms, lingering a bit too close, their gazes fixed a bit too steadily on nothing—eavesdropping.

“Then we’d better not fall,” she said, turning and heading back to the carriage.

A
CROSS THE BRIDGE,
the wheels clattered over the stonework. The gates groaned as they were heaved opened, bronze chains clunking around wooden pulleys. Into the Cliffs’ District, under the lavender banner with the red crown of the sun breaking, their carriage bounced. A miasma of clashing odors pushed through the cracks in the carriage—sun baking on stone, salty preserved fish, fragrant flowers spilling over garden walls and window boxes, the press of bodies and hot cooking oil and animals laying thick musk over all. The gates closed behind them with a resounding thud that turned every eye in their direction.

Magda fixed her gaze out the window. Her face was plain for all to see through the glass, but she didn’t meet the wondering eyes in return.

Then the bells began to ring.

If she felt the urge to grimace (and she did), she didn’t let it show. The median gates were opened. When closed, they barred the direct route up to Stonerise through the district. Most of the time, the residents were left to zigzag up the terraces or scale the narrow stairways. But today, the gates had been drawn and the main thoroughfare cleared for their reception. Soon, watchers packed the streets.

The carriage scaled the slope, up and up and up, leaving behind the shadow of the outer wall and breaking once more into the fading sunlight that poured out behind the Spire.

“I didn’t realize how crowded it would be,” Kaelan said through tight lips, as though he didn’t want to be seen speaking. “How many people live here?”

“Our district is one of the most populous,” Flor said, “because like our cliffs, our people are robust. Though many consider our province wild and dangerous, it is fecund because it is uncultivated, and thus, so are we. We are not considered as refined as other districts, but we are more feared and have always considered it better. This is why our campaign has a chance of success, you see? Because the family will find this”—she gestured to her cropped hair—“quite scandalous, but as soon as one of the other families expresses their disapproval, our kin will rally around us. Even those who support Lavana will be compelled to defend us. Once they begin, it will be harder for them to stop.”

Magda turned to Flor. “You have the mind of a minister.”

“Yes,” Flor said with a curling smile. “Why do you think your mother and I were such good friends? I do not boast when I say that she turned to me more than once for guidance.”

“Why didn’t she make you one?”

“Because I am a warrior,” Flor said. “And I have never desired to be anything else. Your mother respected the wishes of her friends and that is one of the reasons we were unfailingly loyal to her.”

“We?”

“I think you’ll find that there are more than a few of us old timers who recall your mother fondly,” she said. “Take care not to alienate anyone, Magda. Never assume that the face you see is their true face.” She gestured to Kaelan. “We are at the Spire now. Everyone wears a mask here.” She leaned towards the glass. “Ah, we approach Stonerise. We will be greeted by the elders of the family.” She looked at Kaelan. “Remember, Toryn is your father’s cousin.”