The Prisoner's Throne (The Stolen Heir Duology, #2)(28)

She turns to one of the guards. “On the way to his rooms,” she tells him, “make sure you pass the Great Hall.”

One of the falcons nods, looking discomfited. The guards escort Oak out, marching him through the corridor. As they pass the throne room, they slow their steps enough for him to get a clear look inside.

Against the ice of the wall, as though a piece of decor, hangs Valen’s body. For a moment, Oak wonders if this is Bogdana’s handiwork, but the falcon is neither flayed nor displayed in the manner of the storm hag’s other victims.

His throat is cut. A gruesome necklace of blood has dried along his collarbone. His clothing is stiff with it, as though starched. Oak can see the gape of flesh, cut cleanly with a sharp knife.

The prince glances back in the direction of where he had dinner with Wren.

When she noted his reluctance to name the person responsible for his bruises, she already knew. Hyacinthe must have conveyed Oak’s words to her. She could have done this while the prince donned his clothes for their dinner.

It is not as if he hasn’t seen murders before. In Elfhame, he saw plenty. His hands aren’t clean. But looking at the dead falcon, displayed thus, he recognizes that, even without Mellith’s memories, Wren saw things that were far more terrifying and cruel than anything he witnessed. And perhaps somewhere inside her, she is coming to learn that she can be all the things that once scared her.





CHAPTER



8

O

ak was a child when Madoc was exiled to the mortal world, and yet, no matter what anyone said, he still knew it was his fault.

Without Oak, there would have been no war. No plan to steal the crown. No family at one another’s throats.

At least your father wasn’t executed for treason, Oriana told Oak when he complained about not being able to see him. Oak laughed, thinking she made a joke. When he realized that really could have happened, the idea of Madoc’s dying while he watched, powerless to stop it, haunted his nightmares. Beheadings. Drownings. Burnings. Being buried alive. His sisters, grim-faced. Oriana, weeping.

Those bad dreams made not seeing Madoc even harder.

It’s not a good idea right now, Oriana told him. We don’t want to seem as though we’re not loyal to the crown.

And so he lived with Vivi and Heather in the mortal world, went to the mortal school, and during library time, compulsively looked up new, horrible details of executions. Sometimes Jude or Taryn would visit him at the apartment. His mother came often. Occasionally, someone like Garrett or Van would show up and instruct him in bladework.

No one thought he had any real talent for it.

Oak’s problem was that he thought of sword fighting as a game and didn’t want to hurt anyone. Games were supposed to be fun. Then, after a lot of scolding, he understood sword fighting as a deadly game and still didn’t want to hurt anyone.

Not everyone needs to be good at killing things, Taryn told him with a pointed look at Jude, who was dangling a toy over baby Leander’s head as though he were a cat ready to swat at it.

Sometimes after his nightmares, Oak would sneak out and stand on the lawn of the apartment complex and look up at the stars. Missing his mother and father. Missing his old house and his old life. Then he would walk into the woods and practice with his sword, even though he didn’t know what he was practicing for.

A few months in, Oriana finally took him to see Madoc. There was no objection or interference from Jude. Either she didn’t know—which was unlikely—or she looked the other way, reluctant to forbid the visits but unable to officially allow them.

Be nice to your father, Oriana warned. As though Madoc was ill, rather than exiled and bored and angry. But if Oriana taught Oak one thing, it was how to pretend everything was fine without actually lying about it.

Oak felt shy as he stood in front of his father after all this time. Madoc had a ground-floor apartment in an old brick building by the waterfront. It wasn’t quite like Vivi’s, since it was furnished with ancient pieces from their home in Elfhame, but it was clearly a mortal space. There was a refrigerator and an electric stove. Oak wondered if his father resented him.

Madoc seemed mostly concerned about Oak becoming soft.

“Those girls were always fussing over you,” his father said. “Your mother, too.”

Because he was born poisoned and was sickly as a baby, Oriana was constantly worried that Oak would overextend himself or that one of his sisters would be too rough with him. He hated her fretting. He was forever running off and swinging from trees or riding his pony in defiance of her edicts.

After months apart from his father, though, he felt ashamed of all the times he went along with her wishes.

“I’m not very good with a sword,” he blurted out.

Madoc raised his brows. “How’s that?”

Oak shrugged. He knew that Madoc never trained him the way he trained Jude and Taryn, certainly not the way he trained Jude. If he’d come inside with bruises the way she used to, Oriana would have been furious.

“Show me,” Madoc said.

Which is how he found himself on the lawn of a cemetery, blade raised, as his father walked around him. Oak went through the exercises, one after the other. Madoc poked him with a mop handle when he was in the wrong position, but it wasn’t often.

The redcap nodded. “Good, fine. You know what you’re doing.”