The Wayward Prince Read online

  “To do what? Remove me from power?” Leta held up her left hand. “I am marked by the gods. The Calabanesi favor me and my household. To act against me would be to act against the gods.”

  “You are mistaken to believe that the gods hold your household in high esteem.”

  “Please, enlighten me,” said Leta, rolling her eyes.

  Ferrus leaned forward and lowered his voice, although there was no one else within earshot to overhear their conversation. “Your brother was convinced that there was a gray prophet in Mayal working hard to undermine your father’s authority and enforce the will of the gods.”

  “Now you are really succumbing to paranoia,” said Leta with a laugh. Throughout history, there had been a number of self-proclaimed gray prophets, men who swore they could hear the voices of the gods in their heads. The desperate were prone to flock to such men, and the Throne of Roses was quick to round up these self-proclaimed prophets and put them on trial. Almost all proved false, madmen and religious zealots who communed with the gods no more than a fisherman communed with the fishes.

  Only on very rare occasions did one of these gray prophets actually seem capable of communicating with the gods. Ulfric Leonius, for example, eventually gained enough legitimacy to serve as high lord for a few years before he was displaced by a member of House Benisor who had a stronger claim to the throne.

  “Don’t laugh until you hear me out,” said Ferrus, still speaking in whispers. “Your brother had dozens and dozens of houses sworn to the rebel cause, but when the rebellion actually started only a tenth of those who promised support showed up with aid.”

  “They got wise.”

  “No, they got scared. Someone was working very hard to undermine every oath of fealty Meriatis received, and to poison every trusting relationship Meriatis won. Mysterious letters were delivered to the estates of sympathetic lords, declaring the men heretics long before Meriatis’s plan was common knowledge. More than a few lords sworn to our cause died suddenly. The deaths always appeared to be the result of an accident or natural cause, but a wise man knows better. Healthy men don’t drown in the bathtub or trip and fall down a flight of stairs and break their neck. A few notable lords even became afflicted with the Blackheart. This didn’t feel like the Court of Bariil trying to undermine Meriatis’s heresy. This felt like an act of the gods. Needless to say, people got scared, and a great many of our supporters backed out precisely when we needed them the most.”

  “Let’s say it’s true. Why should I care?”

  “Because if it is true, that means your father is no longer the one pulling the strings in Mayal. That makes your father little more than a figurehead. And after he dies there will be no one left to stop the wolves from coming after you.”

  Leta felt a shiver work down her spine.

  Ferrus stood and helped Leta to her feet. “Despite all of my bluster and self confidence, things are getting a bit too risky here in Mayal. It seems I have a few less friends than I supposed, and I’d prefer not to end up before your aunt’s splendid tribunal. I rather like my head on my shoulders, you see. I’ll be departing for Elyim next week. I would like you to come with me.”

  For a second all Leta could do was blink her eyes in surprise. “I... ah... have duties. There is my monastery, and those afflicted with the Blackheart...”

  “Come with me to Elyim,” repeated Ferrus, this time with more certainty. “Take my hand in marriage. We can be wed in the Court of Attia. It is a splendid temple, not quite to the measure of Bariil, but its golden dome is the envy of the world. You and I will return to Mayal husband and wife, and between us we can raise an heir. With your family’s claim to the throne and my family’s wealth we could finish what Meriatis started. Even the gods won’t be able to stop us.” The words came gushing out of his mouth in one long frantic proposition, and when he was finished he stood breathless before her, clutching at her hands with sweaty palms.

  Leta thought of how General Saterius had looked at her, like a wolf sizing up its prey. Then she considered how Ferrus regarded her now; not quite like a hungry wolf — but his eyes aren’t innocent either.

  Leta withdrew her hands from his sweaty grasp. “I will be returning to the palace, and I intend to be there tomorrow, and the day after that, and the day after.”

  Ferrus bowed. “And there you shall remain until your enemy’s plans come to fruition.”

  He led her from the ship, and at the end of the dock he bowed low and long, then laid a kiss on each of her cheeks. “Think about my offer, Leta. I know your brother would have given it his blessing.”

  Leta smiled in response. “May the winds blow ever at your back, admiral.”

  “Yes, of course,” said Ferrus. She thought she detected a hint of genuine sadness in his voice. He turned and walked back to his ship. Dejected as he was, it only took a few steps before that cock-sure strut returned to his gait.

  Leta hurried toward the palace. The night had grown late, and the streets were barren — this was no time for a woman to be walking the streets alone. Unanswered questions raced through her mind. Were the census results accurate? Were the gods truly to blame for the Blackheart? Was Meriatis’s rebellion actually justified? And what about Admiral Ferrus’s unexpected proposal?

  A union between House Benisor and House Leair, thought Leta. The idea was foreign, something she would have never considered on her own. In truth, Ferrus would make a good and kind husband. But was he meant for her? Moreover, was Leta ready to move on, and if so, was this remotely the right reason? She had married once for love. Maybe she could marry again to save her family’s throne. Maybe she could marry again to save her people from the Blackheart.

  She wondered what her late husband would say. Thalus would probably tousle her hair and tell her she was over thinking the matter. If it felt right...

  Leta heard the soft chink of steel-toed boots padding in her wake. She spun around and gasped. At the end of road, standing between her and the dock, was a lone figure. The figure was only a black silhouette in the darkness of night, and it was impossible to discern whether the figure was facing her or the dock.

  “I will fear no one in my own city,” said Leta, mustering up her courage. She took one bold step toward the figure and then another, balling her hands into fists. “You! Who are you?”

  The figure slowly turned, for a moment casting a sidelong silhouette. His head transformed into the black outline of a fanged-snout. The wolf! A low hissing laughter broke the silence of the night, and then the figure took two long strides and disappeared from view, slipping down the wooden walkway that fronted the harbor.

  Leta stopped dead in her tracks. She was shaking. “I will fear no one in my own city,” she repeated. The words did nothing to stop the cold creeping sensation of dread from crawling over her body and pimpling her skin.

  Follow the wolf while he is on the prowl, Herald Cenna had advised. But what am I supposed to do if I’m the one being hunted?

  CHAPTER

  V

  THE BARREN TRACKS

  Malrich spent the early morning hours atop the gatehouse, staring impatiently into the slowly thinning fog in a vain hope that Baylilly somehow survived the night. There was no sign of the horse, although there was a crimson stain near the gate — Malrich couldn’t remember if the stain had been there the night before. He felt disgusted with himself for not fighting harder to bring Baylilly into the city. Given the grim demeanor of the Dunie they encountered, he doubted his efforts would have borne any fruit.

  “Still, I should have tried,” muttered Malrich to himself.

  “Out here at the edge of civilization, trying might be the best a man can do.” Emethius leaned wearily against the parapet wall, his eyes focused on the gray mountain crags that were just beginning to materialize out of the misty gloom.

  “The gods help me,” said Malrich, throwing his hands in the air. “Here I am about to take a merry stroll into the lair of the Great Enemy, and I’m standing here fretti
ng over a horse.”

  “That’s because you have a heart,” said Emethius. He jabbed Malrich in the chest with his finger. “Baylilly served us well, and she deserved a great deal better than what she got. Unfortunately, we have no time to mourn our faithful horse. The guards don’t believe the fog will clear much more until the day is long.” He gestured to the sun. It was not much more than a dim sphere of yellow a few degrees above the fog-shrouded horizon. “If we can see the sun, the Cul can too. They should have crawled back into whatever dank tunnel they call home by now. We need to go while we can.”

  Malrich hoped Emethius was right. The cackling call he heard the night before was the stuff of nightmares. Worse still, it stirred up memories that Malrich had tried desperately to forget. The cackle of the Cul was not so dissimilar from the sounds his wife made the morning she killed their son. Malrich looked at his hands, half expecting to find them slick with blood. Ali had simultaneously laughed and cried as Malrich beat her. It was as if she was of two minds — one possessed by a zealous madness, the other ripe with terror.

  “Damn the gods for doing this to me,” muttered Malrich, steeling his resolve for the coming leg of the journey.

  Without further delay, Emethius and Malrich departed from Hardthorn, this time leaving through a postern gate. They found themselves standing on a path that rose steeply up toward the mountains.

  Malrich kicked the ground. “The road seems clear despite the warfare,” he reported, in a vain effort to put a positive spin on the bleak and desolate road that stretched on before them.

  “This is the path I swore to take, but not you,” said Emethius, stopping dead in his tracks. He rubbed at the vambrace on his left arm. Malrich knew what was there — it was a tally of all the lives Emethius felt responsible for losing. “Once we enter the mountain, there will be no turning back. I don’t imagine we will find any sanctuary until we reach our final destination, and even that is not certain. If we somehow manage to survive the journey, neither of us will be the same.”

  “No one touched by the Shadow ever is,” said Malrich grimly.

  “You have gotten me this far, Mal, and I thank you. But there is no cowardice in turning back now. You should go home to Ali — it will likely save your life.” Emethius continued to rub at his vambrace.

  Malrich feigned a grin. “I get it, Emethius — the roads we have traveled thus far will not compare to the trials that lie ahead. I’m afraid — any sane man would be — but that doesn’t mean I’m willing to abandon you. I’m loyal like a dog, and perhaps a great deal more foolish, but such is my nature. We march onward for the greater good, and I have to believe that this will protect us somehow. Lead and I will follow.”

  Emethius regarded him in silence, and for a moment Malrich feared Emethius was going to bar his path and tell him to return home to Ali. There is nothing for me to go home to, Malrich wanted to say. The Ali he had loved died years ago. Cure or not, she would never be the same. Why couldn’t Emethius see that?

  Emethius’s face softened, his eyes seeming to read the torment in Malrich’s heart. He laid a gentle hand on Malrich’s back. “Let’s get moving before a watchman mistakes us for a Cul and starts lobbing arrows in our direction,” said Emethius, letting a rare smile crease his lips. “I would hate to be killed before we reach the truly dire part of this journey.” He forced a cheerful whistle and set out north along the road.

  Malrich grinned and followed close behind.

  At first the earthen road ran nearly straight, staying clear of shadowed passes and rocky outcrops — any place the Cul might lay in ambush. But a few miles in, the road began to twist and turn along switchbacks, taking on a steep grade as it progressed up the eastern face of the mountain. One side of the path was almost always a sheer drop off. The ascent was arduous, and by midday they seemed to have made little progress, save rising in elevation above the brown expanse of the Morium Vale.

  As they rose in altitude, the true magnitude of the mountains came into view. To the east the Lehan Mountains marched away for countless leagues, breaking somewhere far beyond the horizon. To the south, curving in a great white arc, were the indomitable snow-capped peaks of the Essari Range. They gleamed in the morning sun, a mixture of gray, white, and blue.

  “I thought we were supposed to cross the Culing Mountains, not travel up the front side of them,” grumbled Malrich between a mouthful of stale bread and dried meat. It was nearing noon, and his stomach felt ripe for a bit of food.

  “Patience, my friend,” said Emethius. “I expect that before the day is through you will pine for such a hospitable setting as this.”

  Emethius’s words came true soon enough. They walked around a bend and found that the path vanished over the edge of a cliff.

  “Damned be all the things we do,” cursed Malrich. He walked to the brink and spit into the void. “What now?” There was a ledge on the far side of the crevice, but the fissure was deep and sheer. Malrich examined the edge of the cliff for post holes or mooring bolts, anything to signify where a bridge may have once stood. Nothing.

  He flopped down on the ground and took out his canteen, which he had finally filled with water. The lip of the canteen still bore the faint scent of alcohol. He tried to ignore the sudden impulse stirring in the bottom of his gut, but it only grew stronger when water hit his tongue instead of alcohol. Disgusted with himself, he shoved the cork back in place and tossed the canteen against the cliff wall.

  “Don’t be so short of temper,” said Emethius, mistaking the cause of Malrich’s frustration. “It isn’t justified yet. Come and have a look.”

  Malrich turned and saw Emethius pulling aside a pile of dead brush that someone had stacked before a cleft in the rock face. Malrich gasped in wonder when he saw what lay beyond.

  It was a road, but it was unlike anything Malrich had ever seen. The road was cut into the mountain itself, shorn through stone and dirt alike. Narrow at its base, the opening widened as it rose toward the sky. It ran straight as an arrow, due west, and appeared to run on forever.

  “This is the actual Barren Track,” explained Emethius. “Carved from the living stone of the Essari Range, it was crafted in the time of Atimir’s reign, when the Cul were but a rumor of the past.”

  Malrich smiled as he glanced down the road. “Never north, nor south, only east and west, The Barren Tracks run with the flight of the sun,” said Malrich, recalling a lesson he had learned in school.

  Emethius nodded. “The road was built by Tremelese master masons, constructed in such a manner that a traveler can cross from dawn until dusk and never tread in shadow. Although never completed, it was originally meant to lead all the way to Bi Ache.”

  “Our destination,” said Malrich with a grunt. “If only it did.”

  “Indeed,” said Emethius, beginning down the trail. “The Barren Tracks are but one of Atimir’s many grand projects that were never completed. The road will take us as far as Interleads before the day is through, although I am not certain we will be glad to arrive there when we do.”

  “The Dunie were rather inhospitable. I can’t imagine the Cul will be any less welcoming.”

  “Hopefully that is something we will never learn,” said Emethius. “I plan to take a detour before we draw near Interleads.”

  “Then I hope we sprout wings,” said Malrich, gesturing to the sheer canyon walls that hemmed them in on either side. “We might as well be walking down a tunnel — there is nowhere to go, except forward or backward.”

  “We’ll fret about that as the day progresses,” said Emethius. The slightest twinge of uncertainty was in his voice.

  He sees it too, thought Malrich. This path is funneling us straight into the waiting arms of the Cul.

  “What do you know of Bi Ache and the fall of Cella?” asked Emethius, clearly trying to change the subject to something less worrisome.

  “Only that Cella was once the envy of the world, that is, until the Sins of Atimir brought the realm to ruin.” Atimir w
as either a prince or a king, Malrich vaguely remembered from his schooling.

  “There was a time not long after the first pilgrims settled in Eremel that the realms of Merridia and Emonia were engaged in a bloody and senseless war,” began Emethius. “Most of the bloodshed centered around the city of Etro, as it lay in a contested land, located on an island in the middle of the Osspherus River.

  “It was there that Princess Ierra, the daughter of High Lord Denison, lived. In an act of brazen cunning, Prince Ateasar, second son of the Emoni king, captured the city and took the princess captive. Blinded by grief, High Lord Denison marched on Etro, and for three years he held the city under siege. It was to no avail; the river provided the people of Etro with enough food and water to hold out against an indefinite seige.

  “Prince Ateasar was a kind and gentle man, with a heart easily stirred by compassion. Although Princess Ierra was his prisoner, he granted her free rein of the palace as long as she promised not to escape. At night she often visited the palace garden and tended to the flowers. She would sing while she worked. Her voice would drift through the halls of the palace, drawing Ateasar to his window. He watched her in secret, at first with fascination, then with pity, and later with love. But as the war dragged on, he noticed a change come over the princess. Ierra’s shoulders were not raised with such pride, and her song became barely a whisper. The war was killing her, Ateasar realized, and he could not bear being responsible for her pain.

  “Disguising himself as a beggar, Prince Ateasar slipped from Etro in the cover of night and sneaked into the pavilion of High Lord Denison. Before Denison could rouse his guards, Ateasar threw off his cloak and knelt naked before the high lord. He confessed all of his sins and begged the high lord for forgiveness. Although Denison’s heart had become cold after these many years of sorrow, he was filled with a sudden compassion. He withdrew his own cloak and laid it across Ateasar’s shoulders. It was the beginning of peace between the two realms.”