The Prisoner's Throne (The Stolen Heir Duology, #2)(30)

Like those things, except he was angry enough to give himself a single order: win.

Like those things, except when he blinked, it was to find the point of his blade nearly at his father’s throat, held back only by the half-splintered end of the mop handle. Madoc was bleeding from a slash on his arm, one Oak didn’t recall causing.

“Good,” said Madoc, breathing hard. “Again.”





CHAPTER



9

W

hen Oak returns to the bedroom in the tower, two servants are waiting for him. One has the head of an owl and long, gangly arms. The other has skin the color of moss and small moth wings.

“We are to ready you for bed,” says one, indicating the dressing gown.

After weeks wearing the same rags, this is a lot. “Great. I can take it from here,” he says.

“It is our duty to make sure you’re properly cared for,” says the other, ignoring Oak’s objections and shoving his arms into the positions necessary for the removal of his doublet.

The prince submits, allowing them to strip him down and put him in the robe. It’s a thick blue satin, lined in gold and warm enough that he doesn’t entirely begrudge the change. It is strange to have spent weeks being treated as a prisoner, to now be treated as a prince. To be pampered and bullied just as he would be in Elfhame, not trusted to do basic tasks for himself.

He wonders if they do this to Wren. If she lets them.

He thinks of the rough silk of her hair slipping through his fingers.

All that matters is that I do want you.

As he sat for those long weeks in the prisons, he dreamed of her speaking words like those. But if she truly desired him only to be a handsome object with no will of his own, sprawled at her feet like a lazy hound, he would come to hate it. Eventually, he would hate her, too.

He goes to the mantel and takes the key. The metal is cold in the palm of his hand.

If she wants more from him, if she wants him, then she has to trust that if he leaves, he’ll return.

Taking a deep breath, he walks to the bed. The dressing gown is warm but won’t be once he hits the wind. He takes the thickest of the blankets and wraps it over his shoulders like a cloak. Then, ragwort stalk in one hand, he opens the door and peers out into the corridor.

No guard waits for him. He supposes Hyacinthe made sure of that.

As lightly as he can with his hooves, he goes to the stairs and begins to ascend. Up the spiraling structure, avoiding the landings until at last he comes to the top of the parapet. He steps out into the cold and looks out on the white landscape below.

As high up as he is, he can see beyond the trolls’ massive—and as yet unfinished—wall. He squints as he spots what appears to be a flickering flame. And then another. A sound comes to him with the wind. Metallic and rhythmic, at first it sounds like sheeting rain. Then like the early rumblings of thunder.

Below him, behind the battlements, guards shout to one another. They must have spotted whatever it is that Oak is seeing. There’s a confusion of footsteps.

But it isn’t until the prince hears the distant blare of a horn that he finally identifies what he’s been looking at. Soldiers marching toward the Citadel. The snake promised that in three days’ time, someone would rescue him. What he didn’t expect was that it would be the entire army of Elfhame.

Oak paces back and forth atop the cold parapet, panic making it impossible to focus. Tink, he tells himself. Tink.

He could use the ragwort steed and fly to them—assuming they would know it was him and not shoot him out of the sky. But once he got there, then what? They marched here for a war, and he wasn’t foolish enough to believe they would merely turn around and go home once he was safe.

No, once he was safe, they would have no reason to hold back.

He grew up in a general’s home, so he has a sense of what’s likely to happen next. Grima Mog will send ahead riders to meet with Wren. They will demand to see him and offer terms of surrender. Wren will reject that and possibly unmake the messengers.

He needs to do something, but if he goes there with the bridle cutting into his cheeks, that will end all hope of peace.

Closing his eyes, Oak thinks through his options. They’re all terrible, but the sheer mad audacity of one has a particular appeal.

Is there no situation you’re not compelled to make worse?

The prince hopes that Hyacinthe isn’t right.

He doesn’t have a lot of time. Dropping the blanket, he heads down the steps, not bothering to care how loud his hooves are on the ice. Any guard that hears him has bigger problems.

Halfway down the spiral stairs, he almost crashes into a nisse with hair the green of celery and eyes so pale they are almost colorless. The faerie is carrying a tray with strips of raw venison arranged on a plate beside a bowl of stewed seaweed. Startled, the nisse takes a step back and loses his balance. The whole tray crashes down, plate cracking, seaweed splashing onto the steps.

The terror on the nisse’s face makes it clear that the punishment for such a mishap in the old Court of Teeth would have been terrible. But when the nisse realizes who is standing in front of him, he becomes, if anything, more afraid.

“You’re not supposed to be out of your rooms,” the nisse says.

Oak notes the raw meat. “I suppose not.”

The nisse starts to move away, stepping down a stair, looking behind him in a nervous way that suggests he will run. Before he can, Oak presses his hand over the nisse’s mouth, pushing the faerie’s back to the wall, even as he struggles against the prince’s grip.