No one in the village liked Felix, and for good reason. From the stories I’d heard, he had less political acumen than a rabid goat. They clearly weren’t wrong; there must have been miles of empty space in that giant head of his if he thought riding into Mahair in a carriage worth more than the entire village was the right move.
But an idiot Heir was still an Heir, and I mapped my escape. If I cut through the vagrant road, I could circle the crowd and sprint to the keep in under twenty minutes.
Arin met Felix by his carriage. Felix bounced on his shiny shoes. “So it is true. I heard you were patronizing our lower villages. It would have been remiss of me not to welcome you myself.”
“A generosity not soon forgotten,” came Arin’s mellifluous response. “Mahair is wonderful. A true tribute to its kingdom.”
“It has been too long since last we met.” Felix extended his hand to Arin. I cringed.
How could the Heir of the largest kingdom in the land be so unstudied in Nizahl’s customs? Inviting a touch from the Nizahl Heir carried dangerous implications. A child with the faintest trace of royal blood would know better. Two things were widely known about Arin: he was never seen without his gloves, and he did not touch unless he meant to kill. Fantastical gossip, I’d thought. Just more village nonsense. Now I wondered if Felix was aware of his fellow Heir’s ability to sense magic.
My brow furrowed. How had Marek been aware of it?
Arin’s gloved hand closed around Felix’s briefly. “Indeed. Shall we move to more private quarters to continue our reacquaintance?”
Felix glanced around. “Has the waleema concluded?”
“Nearly.” The first signs of impatience leaked into the Nizahl Heir’s tone. He glanced at the kneeling crowd. “You must be weary from your journey.”
“Nothing a hearty brew cannot fix,” said the royal dunce. He instructed the rider to house the horses with Arin’s and not “leave them alone with a half-wit stable hand.”
Maneuvering a carriage in such a tight space irritated the horses. They harrumphed, hooves clomping in a wide loop. One of Nadia’s chairs stood directly in the path of the carriage’s wheels. My heart dropped. I knew what would happen as soon as the rider reined the horses back, but I was too late.
“Stop! Stop!” Fairel shouted, launching herself toward the chair. I vaulted to my feet, braced to watch her get split in two. Yuli grabbed Fairel’s frock before she could intercept the carriage’s path. The chair splintered beneath the wheels, and Fairel shrieked. Spooked, the horses reared, sending an Omalian guardsman crashing into Felix. They went down in a heap.
Dusty and red with embarrassment, Felix slapped aside the guard’s hand and clamored to his feet. He glowered at Fairel. “Come here.”
Pulse pounding, I took a step from the shadows. The crowd sobered, watching Yuli unwillingly release Fairel. Bowed in front of the Omal Heir, her braids coming loose from their upturned horns, she was as much a threat as a river gnat.
“I apologize sincerely, my lord,” Fairel hurried to say. “The chairs—they’re my responsibility, you see, my mistress tasked me with their safe return—”
Felix shoved Fairel in front of the horses.
Later, I would wonder whether I might have acted differently had it been anyone other than Fairel, who was mine since the day Raya brought her to the keep. If under alternate conditions, I might have stayed hidden and merely added this kernel of rage to the collection.
The villagers screamed as the clustered horses kicked at Fairel, and the sound of breaking bones fired across the main road. My magic seethed forward, and I gripped my dagger, Felix’s viscera bright in my mind’s eye. I was moving for Felix before the horses had finished their assault on Fairel’s still body.
Arin moved faster. I hadn’t taken more than a step, and he was already there, blocking my path. He knocked the dagger from my hand. My magic did not approve, howling as the horses trotted past Fairel, their hooves red with her blood.
The pressure on my cuffs tightened, familiar pain roaring beneath my skin, and then—the impossible.
The dagger shuddered into the air and flew. My magic hummed, keeping the dagger’s course true. I gasped, the incomprehensible sight made more confounding by the cuffs’ unchanged presence around my wrists.
Arin didn’t turn around to see the dagger embed itself into Felix’s thigh, not even when the other Heir screamed. He didn’t turn at the shouts from the guardsmen or the sobs as the village physician crouched by Fairel’s prone form.